For a moment the four men in Colonel Verney’s office remained stunned by the appalling conclusion they had come to about Lothar’s intentions. Then C.B. pressed the switch of his inter-com and said to his P.A. ‘Get me No. 10. I want one of the P.M’s secretaries. On my other line get me one of the Staff Officers of the Chief of Defence. Then get the United States Embassy. All calls top priority.’
In barely a minute the first call came through. C.B. recognised the voice at the other end. ‘George, I’ve got to see the Prime…’ ‘He is just going in to Cabinet.’ ‘Then you must hold him for me. Safety of the Realm. A further development of the theft of the secret rocket fuel that I reported to him last week, and a matter of the utmost urgency. I’m coming round at once.’
The second telephone was already buzzing. He picked it up. ‘Who’s that?’ ‘… Oh Stanforth, is your Master in the Office?’ ‘… Good. I’m sending a Mr. Sullivan round to see him. Whatever he is doing he must break it off to hear a verbal report concerning the Safety of the Realm. Nothing, repeat nothing, must interfere with your Master’s seeing Sullivan at once.’
The first telephone was buzzing again. C.B. gestured to Richter. ‘That’ll be your Embassy. Over to you.’ The American took the call and arranged for an immediate interview with his Ambassador.
Barney had left the room. Now he came back and said, ‘I’ve ordered your car round, Sir. It’ll be here in a minute.’
C.B. nodded. ‘We’ll go together. While I’m seeing the Prime Minister, you will put the Chief of Defence fully in the picture and warn him that the P.M. is certain to want him round at No. 10 by the time you have said your piece.’ Turning to Richter he added, ‘When we are through with reporting we had better rendezvous here to inform each other of reactions. I’ll probably be asked to attend a Cabinet. If so, it may be midday before I’m back. But none of us can do any more until we know what decision has been taken on the highest level.’
‘Do you wish me to stay here?’ Otto asked.
‘Yes, you will have this office to yourself. Try to get into touch with Lothar again, and do your damnedest to find out whereabouts in Switzerland this cave is situated.’ As Verney spoke he was already hurrying from the room, followed by Richter and Barney.
Two minutes later the American jumped into his Cadillac, and the other two set off for Storey’s Gate. There they separated, Verney going through the back way into Downing Street, and Barney into the Ministry of Defence.
Barney was first back. In the P.A.’s office he found Inspector Thompson waiting to see his Chief. Unaware of the possibility that London might be blown to smithereens before the day was out, the Inspector was in high good humour. When they had exchanged greetings he said:
‘I’ve fixed things for Tom Ruddy. He’s back in the fight again.’
‘Ruddy,’ Barney repeated vaguely; then with an effort he brought his mind back to his work of the past two months, which now seemed to have little significance.
‘Yes,’ the Inspector went on, ‘when we raided the place at Cremorne we found a score or more other photographs; different people, of course, but similar to the one they took of him. Last night I went down to Ruddy’s place and had a talk with him. I suggested that he should show the whole lot to his missus, including the one of himself and Mrs. Morden, and that I’d vouch for it to her that the whole lot were fakes – composite photographs blended together by a gang of ordinary crooks for blackmail purposes. He agreed, and the old girl swallowed it. So he’s standing again and I’ve not a doubt that he’ll be elected as the new boss of his Union.’
‘Well done,’ Barney murmured. ‘How about the bunch of Satanists you pulled in?’
The Inspector grinned. ‘Oh boy, what a haul! A strangler who’s been on the wanted list for five years, a bank-note forger whose goods we found in his wallet when we collected their clothes, a Czech secret agent that we didn’t know was in the country, and a publisher who has distributed more poisonous literature than the Communist H.Q. itself. The rest of them are just degenerates, mostly rich people and well known. Now we’ve had a chance to check up we’ve found that it was them and the people in the blackmail photographs who have been paying the fat cheques into the so-called “Workers’ Benevolent Institution”. So this is going to put an end to one of the biggest sources of the funds used to sabotage British industry.’
‘If a lot of them are important people this is going to create a first-class scandal,’ Barney remarked.
‘It certainly will,’ Thompson agreed. ‘I’ve a feeling, though, that the Home Office may decide to play down the Black Magic side of it, because there are names involved that might shake the public’s confidence in a variety of national interests. It’s probable that the bulk of them will get away with loss of reputation on conviction of simply being concerned in obscene practices.’
‘But, damn it all, some of them are Teddy Morden’s murderers.’
‘Naturally, we are going into that, and we shall move heaven and earth to get the goods on those who were concerned in it.’
‘We’ve got the goods already. I brought back from Cambridgeshire a tape recording of a conversation between Mrs. Morden and a Colonel Washington. In it he gave her the Satanic names of the actual murderers and a description of the murder. Among the documents you seized at Cremorne you will find the Lodge’s membership book. You have only to look through it to get the real names of those the Colonel mentioned by their Satanic ones.’
‘That’s splendid news.’ The Inspector rubbed his hands. ‘Like the stranger and our other beauties, they will be dealt with separately, of course. It will be necessary to take special measures, though. Much of the evidence will have to be supplied by your department, so it is certain that Colonel Verney will ask for these cases to be tried in camera.’
Barney shrugged. ‘I’m not interested in providing the public with sensations. All I care about is making certain that these fiends swing; particularly Ratnadatta, and his name was among those given to Mrs. Morden. What is more, according to her, a week ago he was wearing a pair of shoes that he must have taken off Morden’s body. They are brown, hand-made by Lobb, and the left one has a bad scratch on the toecap. It is quite on the cards that he was wearing them when I turned him in at Fulham and still has them on. You might check on that.’
‘I certainly will. If not, the odds are that we’ll find them at his digs. Either way that will put him into it up to the neck. Have you any idea when Colonel Verney will be back?’
Barney was brought back with a jerk to the desperate situation which had sent his Chief hurrying off to Downing Street. He shook his head. ‘I couldn’t say. But I do know that he is on a top-priority job. When he does come back I very much doubt whether he’ll be able to find time to see you.’
Reluctantly, the Inspector stood up. ‘Oh well, in that case there’s not much point in my waiting. I’ll look in again tomorrow morning.’
As he turned away, Barney wondered grimly if there would be a tomorrow morning. Perhaps Ratnadatta and the other Satanists would never be called upon to stand their trial. Instead they might shortly be reduced to a few ounces of ash that by some freak of chance might mingle in the wind with other ash that had once been himself and Inspector Thompson.
Knowing that in C.B.’s room Otto was again attempting to overlook Lothar, Barney remained in the outer office killing time as best he could until the others should return. It proved a long wait but when they did arrive it was within a few minutes of one another.
Otto had nothing of moment to report. He had been able to catch only occasional glimpses of his brother who, it seemed, had spent the whole morning out on the platform at the far entrance to the cave working on the rocket. Colonel Washington and the thick-set man with the black wiry hair were still helping him. Mary had not been visible.
C.B. leaned against the edge of his desk, his long legs stretched out before him, and asked Richter, ‘What had your people to say, Colonel?’
The tubby American made a grimace. ‘At first they thought I was round the bend, but they couldn’t laugh off Washington’s having flown out with the war-head. The Ambassador got on the Transatlantic blower. He couldn’t raise the President. He’s on a golfing holiday; but he spoke with the State Department and the Pentagon. I don’t have to describe the resulting flap. Everything has been alerted and some fool has now only to drop a pin for the whole lot to go off. But what was the alternative? At least we’ll lose not a second in shooting back, if it does happen.’
‘Our Service Chiefs are doing the same,’ Verney announced. ‘Did your man suggest at any stage that we ought to warn the Russians?’
‘Sure; but the Pentagon shot that down. They take the view that Moscow would never credit us with being on the level. They’d believe that this was some sort of a trick. Just one of those things, if you’ll pardon me, Colonel, that a whole lot of other nationalities think the British are so good at – putting up a rabbit that will later enable them to say that it was no fault of theirs that the party ever started.’
Verney smiled, pleased that at such a time of crisis his opposite number should have kept his sense of humour sufficiently to deliver that sly crack. He asked:
‘How about shooting first? At the Cabinet meeting I’ve just come from one Minister was very bellicose. He insisted that if we waited for Russia’s reactions to Lothar’s rocket we’d be blown off the map before we had a chance, and that our only hope of survival was to pull the trigger right away. But, thank God, the others wouldn’t hear of it.’
‘Same with our folk. First reactions of some of the Pentagon boys was to go to town right away; but the State Department overruled them.’
‘Then in the main our Governments are thinking alike.’
‘Yes; praise be. When I left, my Ambassador was on his way down to see your Prime Minister. Meantime, he’s given me carte blanche on behalf of the United States Government to take any steps I can that might stop it.’
Verney nodded. ‘It’s the same in my case. I’ve already been through to the head of Interpol, and our Foreign Secretary is sending an “Immediate” secret cipher signal to our Ambassador in Berne. Naturally the Swiss will give us every possible help, and in the hope that they may be able to locate Lothar’s cave I propose to fly out to Switzerland at once.’
‘You’ve taken the words out of my mouth, Colonel. I’ve already used my Ambassador’s name with Pan American at London Airport – quicker than our motoring down to the nearest U.S. air base. They’ve pushed some passengers off a plane and are holding it in readiness.’
‘It’s a pleasure to work with you,’ C.B. smiled. Then he turned to Barney and Otto. ‘I’d like you with me, Sullivan, and you had better come too, Mr. Khune. The nearer you are to your brother the better chance you’ll have, I take it, of locating him.’
In such circumstances there could be no question of their delaying to pack bags. As C.B. passed through the outer office he told his P.A. that any communication to him should be made through Interpol H.Q. at Geneva, then the four men hurried down to the waiting cars.
The whole morning had gone in conferences, so it was now well past lunch time and they did not arrive at London Airport until a quarter to three. There they were escorted straight through to the airliner and, shortly after it had taken off, they sat down to a meal. Verney then sent a radiogram to Interpol asking that a senior official should meet them with a car at the Geneva airport.
It was six o’clock when they got in. A thin, dark, brisk-mannered Italian Commandante, named Fratelli, met them and whisked them into the city, then along the lakeside to the fine park in which the International Conference buildings stand. Half an hour after landing they were closeted with Monsieur Martell, the grey-haired Chef de Surêté, to whom C.B. had spoken on the telephone while still at 10, Downing Street.
For security reasons Martell had been asked only to use all his resources to trace Lothar Khune, Colonel Washington and Mary Morden, with such information as might enable him to do so. Now C.B. put him fully in the picture and, as they were old friends, although Martell showed amazement and consternation, he did not question the statement that the wanted men possessed occult powers.
Having heard Verney out, he said, ‘Within minutes of your speaking to me I had these people’s descriptions circulated and a big reward offered for information concerning them. But, as you know, we are an international organisation, so our main strength lies in the airports and frontier posts. The interior is a matter for the Swiss police. Naturally, I passed the word to my Swiss colleague at once, and for some hours they have been making enquiries. I will get through and see if he has any news.’
For a few minutes he talked on one of his telephones, then he hung up and shook his head. ‘As yet, my friend, nothing. Now that May has come the cable railways are being opened up again, but many remain closed all through the winter and are not yet once more in commission. The probability is that it is one such in a sparsely populated area that this man Lothar Khune has made use of while it was deserted, and without the knowledge of the authorities.’
‘A check-up must be made on every one of them with a minimum of delay,’ said Verney quickly.
‘Agreed,’ Monsieur Martell promptly conceded. ‘But remember that so far the Swiss know only that we are seeking three people urgently. They are not yet aware that their lives, and those of millions of others, depend on the success of their efforts; so…’
Richter raised a hand. ‘Sure, but you will appreciate the necessity for keeping the awful truth from all but the people at the top. If it got out there would be nation-wide panics, thousands of suicides and a leak to the Russians which would probably lead to their opening the ball right away.’
‘That’s so,’ Verney agreed. ‘But our Foreign Secretary was going to send a code message to our Ambassador in Berne and instruct him to inform the Swiss Government.’
‘Ah!’ exclaimed Martell. ‘That is better, much better. Realising the full danger the Government will exert itself to the maximum. By now, perhaps troops may even have been called out to assist the police in their searching and questioning. But all reports will go to Berne. I shall receive them here only later. Therefore, if I may advise, you should proceed at once to the capital. I must remain here to redouble the activities of my own people: but Commandante Fratelli is at your disposal and will open all doors for you on your arrival.’
His advice was sound so they accepted it at once, and a few minutes later he was seeing them off in the car on their way north-eastward. For the first thirty-eight miles their route lay along the north shore of Lac Léman and even their anxieties could not altogether prevent their taking in the beauties of the scene. To one side lay the five to ten mile wide sheet of now placid water, with occasional tree-surrounded chateaux and chalets standing in gardens that ran down to its shore. On the other, the ground rose gently at first, then more steeply, towards the Jura range, the whole being either meadows, in which herds of a curiously mushroom-coloured breed of cows grazed, or orchards. The latter – mainly plums, pears and apricots – were a mass of blossom as, also, in brighter hues, were the chalet gardens of their owners.
Every few miles they passed through a village or small town, each neat, clean and orderly, with gay massed flowers in the beds of its central square. The sight of such peace and unforced prosperity made them more than ever conscious of the incredible evil that Lothar planned to bring upon the world, by turning all this into shambles so that even the few survivors would be forced to live like pariah dogs in the ruins of what had once been their pleasant homes.
On entering Lausanne they mounted steeply through the streets of the city to come out on much higher ground, from which they caught some panoramic views of the lovely lake before leaving it behind. The road now lay through flattish country, fringed on both sides with orchards and meadows, many of which were a sea of golden dandelions. There were, too, more beautifully kept villages, huge barns with chalet roofs, and often villas in the gardens of which fine magnolia trees were in full blossom; but the light was failing now, taking the colour out of the flowers, and by the time they reached the picturesque old city of Fribourg it was nearly dark. The last twenty miles were soon eaten up and at just on ten o’clock Fratelli brought the car to a halt in front of the Police Headquarters in Berne.
Martell had telephoned so they were shown straight up to the office of the Chief-of-Police. Actually, as Fratelli told them afterwards, the elderly square-faced stolid-looking man who received them was not the Chief-of-Police, but his Deputy by seniority, as the Chief had been involved in a car smash a few days earlier and was in hospital.
The acting Chief stood up, Bowed sharply from the waist, and introduced himself as ‘Tauber’. He had no news to give them, but said that he had that afternoon been told by the Minister of the Interior of the menace to world peace, and was doing everything possible to trace the people concerned. He added that he had not been informed upon what evidence it was believed that a madman with an H-bomb had brought it into Switzerland and proposed to launch it from a mountain cave, and that he was anxious to have particulars.
Verney at once complied, giving him an abbreviated version of the whole story. When Herr Tauber had heard it he raised his grey eyebrows until they almost met the bristling grey hair that grew like a brush above his low forehead; then he said angrily, ‘But, Colonel, this is not evidence. It is not even hearsay. There can be no more to it than the predictions of a gipsy woman who has gazed into a crystal.’
‘It’s no prediction that Colonel Henrik G. Washington stole and flew off with a nuclear war-head,’ Richter rapped out. ‘That’s a fact.’
The Police Chief grunted. ‘I do not question that. But why should he bring it to Switzerland? That he should take it to Russia would make sense or, if he could not fly so far, to Czechoslovakia or East Germany, perhaps, but…’
It was evident that the bulky, heavy-jowled man had not yet grasped the significance of what he had been told of the intentions with which his visitors credited Lothar; so C.B. interrupted him to cross the t’s and dot the i’s of the matter.
Tauber shrugged. ‘In crooks I believe; in madmen I believe; but not in fairies or magicians. Even to suggest that such people exist, in this age of science, is an absurdity. I have no wish to be rude to this Mr. Khune whom you have brought with you, but in my opinion he is the victim of delusions.’
‘We, on the contrary,’ Verney declared coldly, ‘are satisfied that he is perfectly sane, and may yet be able to locate this mountain cave in which his brother has set up a rocket.’
‘Then he will be cleverer than myself and my police. After our Minister had sent for me this afternoon, we studied the maps of the country and listed all its cable railways. On account of Switzerland’s unrivalled position as a tourist centre, in the past eighty years or so a considerable number of these railways have been constructed by our excellent engineers. Some are open, others are still shut because the snow at their upper terminals has not yet melted sufficiently for them to be workable. All those either in use or that might have been put into temporary use without the knowledge of the authorities have been inspected within the past few hours. None of them is being put to the use you suggest. The cave you speak of is a myth; a figment of the imagination.’
Otto gave him an angry look. ‘I’ve climbed quite a lot in Switzerland. I’ve several times seen old ski-lifts and cable hoists that for one reason or another have been abandoned. Have all of those also been checked up as still inoperative?’
‘Not the ones in the more remote valleys,’ Tauber admitted grudgingly. ‘Besides, most of those were constructed by private enterprise so there would be no record of them here in Berne; only at the administrative centres of the cantons in which they are situated.’
Verney sat forward quickly. ‘But that is just the sort of railway that Lothar Khune would have made use of. Even if you have to call out every policeman in the country, not one of them must be left unvisited. Just think what it may mean if we fail to lay this man by the heels before he can let off his rocket.’
The Police Chief nodded ponderously. ‘Providing you cut out all this talk of Satanism being at the bottom of it I’d be inclined to agree with you. I’m willing, though, to concede that we are up against a madman and, although you’ve given me no proof of it, accept the possibility that he is in this country. That being so, I’ll send out an emergency call for an exhaustive search in all mountain areas. But there is little point in starting it before dawn; because the patrols would not be able to see more than twenty yards, even with powerful torches.’
For a moment everyone remained silent, then Verney said, ‘A few hours may make the difference between life and death for more men, women and children than the mind is capable of grasping. Is there no way in which we could identify the probable site of this railway and cave; so that we could raid it first thing in the morning?’
Otto looked across at him. ‘In my spirit I’ve been to the entrance of the cave several times now, and on most the weather has been clear; so I have a good mental picture of the view from it. Do you think that if I drew the sky-line from memory someone might be able roughly to identify the place from which it was viewed?’
‘That’s a great idea,’ Richter enthused. ‘Go to it, Mr. Khune, and give us that picture.’
Tauber shrugged, but pushed a sheet of paper and a pencil towards Otto, then lit a cigar and offered the box, and a box of cigarettes, round to the others. They declined the cigars but accepted cigarettes and for some minutes sat smoking in silence while Otto made two false starts then drew a very good picture of a mountain range with a high peak near its centre.
Taking it from him, the Police Chief gave it a quick look, but put it down with a shake of his square, bristly head. ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘no visitor to Switzerland ever sees more than a hundredth part of the country. The great central massif of the Alps covers an enormous area. From Mount Pilatus to the Matterhorn is seventy-five miles, and from Mont Blanc to St. Moritz one hundred and fifty. Between those four points lie hundreds of peaks, innumerable ridges and perhaps a thousand valleys. How could we possibly expect anyone to pinpoint the spot from which this sketch is said to be made? You might as well draw one fir tree and ask us to identify it in a ten-acre fir forest.’
Barney, as the junior member of the party, had so far bottled himself up, but now he burst out. ‘No one expects you to, and maybe there’s no one here in Berne that could either. But there must be locals who could. I suggest you have that sky-line stencilled immediately and a copy despatched by special messenger to every village police station in the mountain area.’
‘Good for you, young man!’ boomed Richter. ‘He’s hit it, Chief. Don’t lose a moment. Have every machine you’ve got put into operation. We’ll need hundreds of copies. Then, if you’ve not men enough of your own, call out Army despatch riders to deliver them.’
‘That’s it,’ C.B. came to his feet. ‘We have got to find this place; and quickly. It may be your private belief that we have been made fools of, but there is no getting away from it that an H-bomb war-head has been flown out of England. We believe it to be here in Switzerland, and that it may at any time be used to start a world war. You cannot possibly afford to take a chance on our being wrong.’
Suddenly Tauber’s manner changed. The terrible possibilities of the situation seemed at last to have penetrated his thick skull. As he reached for one of the telephones on his desk, he said, ‘You are right. It was this talk of a Satanist with occult powers that made me sceptical. But we must spare no effort which might prevent the appalling catastrophe you fear.’ Next moment he was giving gruff instructions about mustering despatch riders, and summoning numerous members of his staff.
When he hung up, Verney said, ‘It will take several hours to circulate these things, so we had better get some sleep. But I would like to spend the night as near to the possible scene of action as I can. Where would be the most central place for a move either way into the mountains.’
‘Interlaken,’ Fratelli replied before the Police Chief had a chance to speak. ‘It is only about fifteen kilometres from the Jungfrau, and that mountain forms the centre of the main Alpine chain. We will go to the Victoria – Jungfrau. Permit, please.’ He picked up one of Tauber’s telephones, put a call through to the hotel and a few minutes later reported, ‘The manager apologises that all his best rooms are full, but I have told him that we require only rooms in which to sleep.’
Knowing that such solid types as Tauber were often the most thorough when they got down to a job, and satisfied that he now really meant business, C.B. asked that any news should at once be relayed to him at the Victoria-Jungfrau, then he and his party went down with Fratelli to the Commandante’s car.
From Berne they took the road south through a shallow valley for eighteen miles to Thun at the head of Lake Thuner, then for another eighteen miles followed the south shore of the lake as it curved gradually eastward. There was no moon and the stars gave only sufficient light for them to get, first, an impression of country similar to that through which earlier they had passed that evening and, later, stretches of dark water glimpsed between black patches formed by clumps of trees. In the villages few lights were now showing and when they reached the palatial Victoria-Jungfrau it was well after midnight.
In the hotel, blissfully unaware that this might be their last night on earth, many of the younger guests had been dancing. The band had not long stopped playing and there were still quite a number of groups in the lounge, chatting and laughing over last drinks before going up to bed. Few of them even glanced at the little cluster of new arrivals as an under-manager led them through to the restaurant and had a corner of it re-lit for them to make good their missed dinner by a late supper.
Over it, while scarcely noticing what they ate, they speculated in low voices on how long it would take Lothar to adapt the bomb war-head for use on his rocket. All of them hoped fervently that it would take several days, but to have assembled a rocket up in a mountain cave showed that Lothar had either become, or had working for him, a highly skilled engineer; and as by morning it would be forty-eight hours since he had arrived in Switzerland with it, they had to face the fact that he might already have completed the work.
With the exception of Fratelli, all of them were dog-tired and it seemed to Barney that he had only just put out his bedside light when C.B., clad in pants and an overcoat, was shaking him awake.
‘Up you get, young feller,’ he said. ‘Your idea of stencilling Otto’s sky-line sketch and circulating it has worked. The local Police Chief has just had word and brought it himself. Several bright boys in the upper Rhone valley are prepared to swear that the central peak in the sketch is the south-west aspect of the Finsteraarhorn.’
As Barney tumbled out of bed, C.B. went on. ‘A sergeant at a village called Lax has actually identified the cable railway. Apparently it was a private venture financed in the ‘thirties by a crazy Dutchman. He believed that there were valuable mineral deposits in the upper part of the mountains and had the railway constructed up to the cave, with the idea that it would be a good base from which to conduct his operations. There are rare minerals that can be worked up there but the payload was not sufficient to meet the cost of the labour; so the company went bust. The railway has been derelict until a few months ago. Then some solicitors in Zurich, acting for an Hungarian, acquired it for a song. The story was that he intended to build a small chalet restaurant up on the ledge as an attraction for tourists; but the locals say that he is throwing away his money, because it is so far from any of the main tourist resorts.’
The management had supplied Verney’s party with toothbrushes and toilet things from the hotel barber’s shop, but no time could be spared for shaving. After a quick wash the five men scrambled into their clothes and assembled down in the front hall. It was a little after six, so the staff were already busy cleaning the public rooms, and the Interlaken Chief of Police, a tall, wiry, brown-faced man of forty, whose name was Jodelweiss, had ordered coffee and brödchen for them. Quickly they gulped down the steaming brew and, still gnawing at the crisp fresh rolls stuffed with smoked ham, they followed him outside.
Two cars with police chauffeurs were already waiting there, and there were four more on the road outside filled with police. As they followed Jodelweiss out to the leading cars he was speaking over his shoulder.
‘Unfortunately, gentlemen, this place is in a valley on the far side of the great barrier. We shall cross it by the Grimsel Pass – I hope. Normally the pass is not open for another three weeks but this year spring has come unusually early so I think we shall get through. The only alternatives are a long detour to the north, by way of the Susten and Oberalp passes, which are just as likely still to be blocked, or to the south right round by way of Saanen, Aigle, Martigny-Ville, Sion and Brig, but that would mean a run of two hundred and fifty kilometres. If we can cross the Grimsel it is only a third of that distance and we should be there in about three hours; so I feel it is well worth the attempt.’
Since time was so important the others agreed with him and quickly settled themselves in the two cars. As they pulled the rugs over their knees, the klaxons shattered the morning silence and the cavalcade roared away past the still closed jewellers, patisseries, creamery, lace and woodworkers’ shops which later in the day would attract many of the temporary inhabitants of this little town that enjoyed such a picturesque setting.
For the first fifteen miles the road followed the north shore of Interlaken’s other great lake, the Brienzer See; and now in the early morning light they could appreciate the loveliness of the pale spring green of the beech trees seen against a background of dark pines across a sheet of placid water, beyond which lay range after range of snow-capped mountains.
At the lake’s end another seven miles through meadows again dotted with plum, pear and apricot trees in bloom brought them to Meiringen. Beyond the town the road rose sharply, running parallel to the valley of the Aar, through dark gorges, occasional breaks in which offered wonderful vistas of forest and mountain. Ahead on their right reared up, to disappear in clouds, the vast bulk of the Wetterhorn, and to their left those of the Sustenhorn and Dammastock.
Between Guttannen and Hendegg the narrow curving way increased in steepness. The vegetation became arctic in character, on the roadside were high banks of snow and the branches of the trees bent under the weight of it. Still higher up the road became a twisting culvert cut through great cliffs of light-coloured polished granite, and a fresh fall of snow that had not yet been cleared by the snow ploughs brought the car’s speed down to near foot pace. But to their relief they got through and gained the top of the pass. From it a marvellous vista spread before them – the sparkling blue lakes of Grimsel and Raterichboden, retained by their huge dams and the miles-wide glacier from which the Rhone rises; then, far below, the green meadows of the valley that the river watered and, away in the distance to their right, the mighty cloud-enshrouded peak of the Finsteraarhorn.
For a few miles the road corkscrewed downwards until they reached the valley with its narrow rushing river and the road and railway that ran beside it. On the valley road were halted a long line of military vehicles – jeeps, light tanks and a small type of snow cat.
As Inspector Jodelweiss’s car approached, a short, wiry, leather-faced officer waved it to a halt. When it drew up beside him he said, ‘I am Brigadier Stulich, commanding the garrison at Andermatt. I received a signal that an emergency has arisen in which troops may be needed, and orders that a mixed force should rendezvous with you here. I decided to bring them myself. Inform me, please, of the situation and your requirements.’
Jodelweiss introduced the Brigadier to Verney, who was seated behind him, and Verney said, ‘Please order your men to follow our cars, Sir, then get in with us. I will explain as we go. Every minute we can save is of importance.’
The Brigadier gave the order to an officer who was standing just behind him, then squeezed into the back of the car with Verney and Fratelli. As they drove on, the former, now refraining from any mention of Satanism, gave the soldier particulars of the threatened danger which, when he learned of it, made even this tough-looking character draw in a sharp breath.
The going was much easier now as the valley road was almost straight, and for fifteen miles they ran down a succession of gentle slopes, passing again through neat villages and between meadows where cattle grazed placidly among golden seas of dandelions. When they entered Lax it was a quarter past eight; so in spite of the long climb and their slow going through the pass they had done the fifty mile journey in just under two hours.
In Lax, outside the village police station, the Sergeant who had reported the cable-railway built by the Dutch mineral prospector in the ‘thirties was waiting for them. He was an elderly man with a grey walrus moustache, but bright-eyed and alert. Jodelweiss, the Brigadier, Verney, Fratelli, Barney, Richter and Otto all scrambled out of the two leading cars and crowded round him.
Although still ignorant of the reason for the enquiry circulated the previous night from police headquarters at Berne, he had not let the grass grow under his feet, but at dawn had set off on a reconnaisance. At a hamlet up in the valley where the cable railway was situated, but about five kilometres below it, he had learned that work had been proceeding on the railway for some weeks. During the winter the villagers seldom went so far up the valley, but a number of them had seen aircraft fly in and had assumed that these were bringing the materials with which it was rumoured a buffet to attract tourists was to be built at the top of the railway. The Sergeant had pressed on and found the hangar, but it was securely locked and he had not been able to find out if there was a plane housed in it.
Bumping and skidding on his motor cycle he had, soon after seven o’clock, reached the engine-house. Inside it five Chinese, had been squatting on the floor of a common living and bunk room eating breakfast. But none of them could answer his questions and it seemed that they could speak only their own language. By signs he had then indicated that he wanted to be taken up to the cave, but they had shaken their heads and begun to show hostility; so he had had no option but to return to Lax.
Immediately the group about him had heard his story Jodelweiss gave him a place in the leading car. The others re-distributed themselves, then the cavalcade set off again, now heading almost due north along a rough road that led up into the mountains, and on which, the Sergeant said, about twelve kilometres distant lay the cable railway.
As the cars wound in and out among the foothills of the chain C.B. wondered anxiously if the old policeman had not done more harm than good by his reconnaisance.
Up till an hour ago, unless Lothar had been keeping an occult watch on Otto, he could not have been aware that they had traced him to Switzerland; but if the Chinese labourers had reported the Sergeant’s visit that might have aroused Lothar’s suspicions. With luck he would assume that only chance or a routine round had brought a local policeman to the engine-house, but his psychic perceptions being so acute it was possible that he would deduce a warning from it. If so, he was now overlooking their approach and, awful thought, if he had his rocket ready, that might precipitate his launching of it.
When they reached the hamlet Jodelweiss spoke into the car radio. He ordered one of the police cars behind them to stop, and its crew to search the hamlet in case any of the men from the engine-house or cave should have come down there since the Sergeant’s visit, and be temporarily hiding in one of the barns. A few kilometres further on, as they came opposite the aircraft hangar, he detached another squad for a similar purpose.
All of them were now craning forward in their seats to catch the first glimpse of the cable railway up which forty-eight hours earlier the stolen war-head had been carried. At length they rounded a last bend and came in full view of it. Half a mile ahead lay the engine-house. Beyond it, in the distance, far up the valley and on its opposite side from the railway, a little group of figures were moving. They were making their way up a broad gully towards a dip in the ridge and were visible only because they had already passed the snow line.
The Brigadier spoke into the walkie-talkie he was carrying, ordering two jeeps filled with ski-troops to go after them and bring them in; but the sight of the group, which was so obviously making off, was enough to tell Verney that his fears had been well founded. The Sergeant’s visit two hours earlier must have alerted Lothar to the fact that Switzerland was being combed for him. Since then, no doubt, he would have used his psychic powers to detect and observe the advancing column of police and troops.
Two minutes later the leading cars pulled up outside the engine-house. Their occupants tumbled out. Armed police and troops dashed inside. A Lieutenant emerged again almost at once and shouted, ‘The place is empty, but the cage is down here.’
C.B. was staring after the tiny figures that stood out against the snow, and wondering now if Lothar was one of them. Barney tugged at his sleeve and cried, ‘Come on, the cabin’s here! Come on, or there won’t be room for us in it.’
‘Half-a-mo’, partner,’ C.B. replied. ‘The bird we are after may have fled the nest. Maybe he’s one of those little moving dots up there.’
‘He’d never have abandoned his rocket at this stage,’ Barney argued quickly. ‘I swear he’d die rather. And if … if Mary’s not dead, she will be with him.’
‘If the rocket was all fixed to go, he might have. He could have left it with a time fuse attached to launch it. Anyhow, the rocket is first priority. These cable-railway cages usually hold only four, and the Brigadier told me that he had been ordered to bring explosive experts with him. I’m sorry, Barney, but we must let them go ahead so that they may have the best possible chance to get at that war-head in time to dismantle it. But Lothar is our pigeon, and getting him our best hope of saving Mary. If he is one of those dots up there we must go after him.’
With a murmured apology Barney almost snatched a pair of field-glasses from an officer who was standing nearby. Swiftly he focused them on the distant figures and, after a moment, said, ‘There are seven of them. That is two in addition to the five Chinese that the Sergeant found down here in the engine-house. None of them looks like a woman; but in those clothes one can’t tell. Anyhow, Colonel Washington’s not one of them. I’m sure of that because of his height.’
At that moment there came the sudden crack and roar of an explosion. Its blast flung them both forward on their knees. As they picked themselves up they looked round to find that the engine-house was now a smoking ruin. Shouts and screams were coming from it. Troops and police were running to the assistance of their wounded comrades. For a few minutes everything was confusion.
As the smoke above the wrecked building cleared Barney suddenly shouted, ‘Look! Look! There he is. The explosion has brought the murdering swine out to see the results of his handiwork.’
Following Barney’s pointing finger, C.B. saw that a figure had emerged from the cave and was now standing on the edge of the broad ledge, looking down through a pair of glasses at the scene of havoc. He, too, had no doubt that it was Lothar.
Richter staggered up to them, his face blackened, his eyebrows singed and his uniform torn.
‘What happened?’ Verney asked him.
The American was still panting. ‘That devil had booby-trapped both the cage and the engine. I chanced to be looking towards the winding gear as a corporal pushed over the lever. Both bombs went off simultaneously. The Brigadier and Jodelweiss were both in the cage. With them and in the freight compartment they had several sappers; bomb experts. All of them are to hell and gone. So are six or eight fellers who were standing round the engine, I was lucky. I couldn’t get a place in the cage but I was standing alongside it by the opening. So I was blown clear.’
As he finished speaking Fratelli limped up to them. He had been outside the building but near it, and a flying length of wooden rafter had caught him a nasty blow on his left leg. Otto had escaped altogether, as he had been well away from the engine-house and, already certain in his own mind that Lothar was still in the cave, was staring up at it.
Within a few minutes the last of the wounded had been rescued from the smouldering debris, and a tall, thin Major came up to them. The greater part of the troops were his own men and, now that the Brigadier had been killed, he was the senior officer present. After expressing his fury that the police should have allowed them to walk into such a trap, he demanded to know the object of the operation.
In a low voice Fratelli told him, upon which he promptly declared his intention of having his tanks train their guns on the cave and shell it to blazes. The others swiftly implored him not to, as they feared that the concussion of the bursting shells might set off the H-bomb war-head that they believed to be at the far end of the tunnel. It was Verney who said, ‘There is only one thing for it now, Major. We have got to get up there by climbing; and the more of us who make the attempt the better, because he may have some means of inflicting casualties on us as we go up. I suggest that you should form your men into groups and send each group up by a different route. Some should certainly be sent round the shoulder of the mountain so as to work their way up, if they can, to the far entrance of the tunnel that can’t be seen from here.’
After a moment he added, ‘Although we are not equipped for climbing, my friends and I naturally wish to be in on this too. As a number of your men have been wounded perhaps you would be good enough to let us have the loan of their gear.’
The Major agreed, said that he would lead an attack round the shoulder of the mountain on the other entrance of the cave, and detailed a blond, pink-cheeked Lieutenant to look after them. Already most of the injured had had their wounds dressed and, wrapped in blankets, were being made as comfortable as possible in jeeps for swift removal to hospital; so the young Lieutenant was soon able to collect ski-suits, snow-shoes, woollen gloves and caps, and pistols for his charges. Two tracked vehicles came up; the Lieutenant, C.B. and Otto joined the crew of one, and Barney, Richter and Fratelli that of the other.
As they set off Barney glanced at his watch. It had been just on nine o’clock then they had driven up to the enginehouse; it was now nearly half past.
It was a beautiful May morning. By this time the sun was well above the ridge to the east, lightening the tender green of the meadows in the valley bottom, turning the flying drops of the cascading river that ran through it into sparkling diamonds and making the snow on the higher levels crumpled sheets of dazzling whiteness.
In less than ten minutes the tracked vehicles, which possessed a quite amazing capability to travel up steep slopes, had negotiated the boulder-strewn hillside of coarse grass and carried them up to the fringe of the forest belt. But it was too thick for them to find a way through it. Leaving the vehicles, the two parties and half a dozen others, on average a hundred yards apart, entered the trees and continued the upward climb on foot.
For most of the way the gradient was not less than one in five, and a carpet of pine needles made the going so slippery that it added greatly to their exertions. As they advanced they passed patches of half-melted snow, and every few moments there came a loud rustle, or a ‘plop’, as the sun’s rays caused great lumps of it on the upper branches of the trees partially to thaw and fall to the ground.
When they came out from the trees Barney was sweating profusely, but his two amateur companions were in a far worse case. Eyeing the snowfield, that now lay before them like the roof of a gargantuan house, plump, forty-year-old Colonel Richter frankly confessed that he was in no condition to face it, and declared that if he made the attempt he would only prove a drag on the others. Fratelli, too, decided to throw his hand in, although only because his injured leg was paining him so badly. The others, now reduced to a team of five, roped themselves together, with a Sergeant leading and Barney two from the end. Then they set off again.
Some distance to their left the Lieutenant’s team had also emerged from the trees, but its ‘passengers’ were in better shape. Otto had done quite a lot of climbing on his holidays in Switzerland; while Verney, although he had done no climbing for several years, was an old hand and considerably stronger than anyone might have supposed from a casual glance at his lanky, stooping figure.
Slowly the two teams wound their way upwards, while others to right and left followed other, apparently possible, ways up the mountain side. It was a little after half past ten when the walkie-talkie of the young Lieutenant who was leading C.B.’s team began to crackle. Signalling the string of men behind him to halt, he listened for a few moments, then he looked back and called down to Verney.
‘This is for you, Colonel, and for all concerned in the capture of Lothar Khune. It is relayed by our mobile radio unit down in the valley from Police Headquarters, Berne. Soon after ten o’clock Khune put out a long broadcast in Russian and followed it by one in English. He has announced that he, Lothar Khune, is taking steps today to bring a New Order into the world for the glory of his master, Prince Lucifer. That an upheaval is necessary in which many must die, but that those who survive will for ever bless the name of Satan. He intends to set the ball rolling which will lead to the establishment of the new order at twelve o’clock precisely.’ The Lieutenant paused, then added, ‘I don’t know what you think, but he sounds completely crazy to me.’
Verney did not reply. By all normal standards, of course, Lothar was crazy, but according to his own lights he was behaving with impeccable logic, and his statement had to be regarded as made by a man terrifyingly and damnably sane.
But that thought no more than flashed across C.B.’s mind. He was gazing upward at the ever steeper ascent, glinting in the sunshine with snow and ice, made perilous by jutting rocks, sheer cliffs and, in places, overhang. So far they had barely accomplished half the climb. By far the most difficult half was yet to come. Since Lothar meant to launch his rocket at midday they had barely an hour and a half left. His heart contracting with despair, C.B. forced himself to realise that they could not possibly reach the cave in time.