'Welcome to Hamburg,' said Lisa as she walked in, went over to hug Paula. 'Amazing,' she said, turning to Tweed. 'Truly amazing. You worked out my message, you clever man,' she ended cheekily.
'Interested in a glass of champagne?' Tweed suggested.
'Buckets of it,' Lisa rapped back after checking the bottle. 'Can I sit down? It's bloody hot,' she remarked, sitting down.
She wore a white blouse, khaki shorts. Her feet were clad in sandals. No jewellery – not even one ring on her fingers. Tweed gave her a glass of champagne. She drank half of it straight off.
'How did you know we were here?' Tweed asked casually.
'I make it my business to know what's going on. Thought you'd have caught on to that when I made it my business to come to London – to warn you where the imminent riots were going to take place. Wake up, Tweed,' she rapped out, again saucy.
'Why have you come to see us now – glad as we are of your restrained presence?'
'Touche! My guess is you're hunting Rhinoceros.'
'Is it?' Tweed sat down facing her so as not to miss any nuance of expression. 'And supposing that was one of the reasons we are here?'
'Then you're in the right place. Germany.'
'Rhinoceros is in Germany? Whereabouts?'
'No damned idea.' Lisa refilled her glass, knocked back half of her fresh drink. 'You really will have to do some of the work yourself.'
'I have been known to exert a little energy. What about a hint?'
'I haven't a clue.' She suddenly dropped her flippant attitude, stared at Paula. 'But I can tell you that all of you are in grave danger.'
'From who?'
'This interrogation has gone far enough.' She flared up, her face flushed with anger. She turned on Tweed. 'I do not know. Don't you bloody well think I'd tell you if I did?' Standing up, she confronted him. 'There's a quality called trust. Ever heard of it? Trust]' she shouted at him. 'As you obviously don't trust me we have no more to talk about.' She reached for the champagne glass, saw it was empty, threw it onto the table where it shattered. 'When I think of what I went through in London to help you and you treat me like this!'
'I remember that well, Lisa…' Tweed began.
'Don't "Lisa" me. The name is Trent. Got it? T-r-e-n-t. So forget about me,' she shouted, heading for the door. 'Paula, I pity you, working for this man…'
Then she was gone.
'I blew it,' said Tweed.
'She didn't have to rave at you like that.'
'I blew it,' Tweed repeated. He went on to the balcony and Paula followed. 'She is just out of the clinic and probably needed a few more days, but she's gutsy. In her place I'd have walked out of that clinic. We've lost one important key.'
'I could go and try and find her…'
'Don't. She has to simmer, then quieten down. Her sister Helga was murdered. She probably realizes the bullet was meant for herself.' He took a deep breath. 'At least we still have Dr Kefler tonight.'
'And maybe Rondel.'
'Funny idea. His inviting us to dinner and then not sitting with us. Something odd there.'
'We'll find out tomorrow night,' Paula said quietly.
'Meantime, I think we should go now to the Hotel Renaissance and contact Harry for tonight. We just don't know what may be waiting for us down in the docks area.'
As if on cue, Marler arrived, carrying a large hold-all. He grinned, refused a glass of champagne.
'Just back from the Reeperbahn. I've seen Newman, given him his favourite, a. 38 Smith amp; Wesson with holster and spare ammo. Said he felt better now.'
'Why? Was he nervous?' Tweed asked, not believing it.
'This is a nervous city. Also visited Mark. His bedtime companion is a 7.65mm Walther.'
'How did you know which rooms to go to?'
'Followed them discreetly when they arrived separately. They didn't know I was there.'
'Must be losing their grip,' Paula joked.
'You said,' Tweed recalled, 'this is a nervous city. What prompted that remark?'
'My contact off the Reeperbahn who supplied the weaponry. He said they had enough of their own thugs, but on the grapevine he'd heard more were coming from Britain -some by ferry, some flying in. I bought enough weaponry to deal with a small army. Now, Paula.'
He handed her out of the hold-all what he knew she wanted. A. 32 Browning automatic with ammo. She checked the empty weapon, checked its mechanism, pushed a magazine inside the butt, slipped the gun into the special pocket inside her shoulder bag.
'Now I feel fully dressed,' she announced.
'You're as bad as Newman,' Marler commented. 'How about a couple of grenades, two compact containers of concentrated tear gas?'
'Give,' she said, holding out her hand.
'And then there's yourself, Tweed. A Walther, if I remember rightly.'
'You know I rarely carry a weapon,' Tweed objected, staring with distaste at the automatic held out to him.
'Take it,' snapped Paula. 'I sense we are in for a very rough ride on this one. Don't you want to save my life when the time comes?'
'You are diabolically persuasive. You should be kept locked up.'
But he accepted the Walther, hip holster and ammo from Marler. Then he checked his watch.
'Paula and I were just going out to make contact with Harry and Pete, staying at the Hotel Renaissance.'
'Then, since I was going there next, I'll give you a thirty seconds start, then stroll after you to guard your rear…'
It was still daylight as Tweed and Paula walked out of the hotel, turned right and strolled like a couple of holidaymakers. The sun, which had glared in at the windows of Tweed's suite, still roasted them even though it was mid-evening.
They had reached the end of the street, crossed over. Paula paused, staring across the street at the wide pedestrian platform of Jungfernstieg. The ferries, far fewer in number than earlier, were still plying their way from the landing stage over the Alster.
'In the early morning and at the end of the day,' Tweed told her, 'commuters who live in houses or apartments near the Alster commute by ferry. Saves them worrying about parking cars.'
'It's heaven,' sighed Paula, looking at the beautiful big buildings on the opposite shore.
'We must keep moving,' Tweed decided. He glanced back the way they had come. Marler was overtaking them. He had just called Harry's mobile on his own. His lips hardly moved as he spoke when passing them.
'I've got Harry's phone number, so now I know his room. Just follow me a bit behind when we reach the Renaissance…'
They were passing department stores in tall massive buildings which looked as though they had stood there for ever. Marler turned right down Grosse Bleichen, a narrower street. Very few people about. They followed Marler, entering the Hotel Renaissance, a quiet comfortable place. Paula glanced into the entrance to the restaurant, turned away quickly.
'What's the matter?' Tweed whispered.
'In the restaurant. You're not going to believe this. Remember Pink Shirt, fat-faced with a large head – on the pavement opposite The Hangman's Noose during the riots?'
'Yes.'
'He's sitting in the restaurant we've just passed. And I think he spotted me…'
'Hurry, Marler is waiting…'
Harry Butler opened the door of his room after Marler tapped in a certain way. He hustled them inside, closed, locked the door.
'What's the rush?' Tweed asked.
'Bad news,' Harry announced. 'Pink Shirt, big man, ugly. Directing the thugs at Reefers Wharf. Staying here.'
'We saw him,' Paula said.
'The news gets worse,' Harry went on. 'Delgado is staying here. Well disguised, hair trimmed short, stoops, carries a rubber-tipped stick. I saw his eyes. Always tell a man by his eyes.'
'How on earth did they get here so quickly?' Paula wondered.
'Easy. Caught a later flight.'
'But how could they know we were coming here?' Paula persisted.
'The frisky little runt who followed us to the departure lounge at Heathrow,' Tweed reminded her. 'There was a board outside with "Hamburg" in big letters. He'd beetle off, call his boss.'
'Oh, I'd just forgotten him. They're horribly well organized.'
'So we'll be better organized,' Tweed replied.
While they were speaking Marler had taken a Walther out of his large hold-all, handed it to Harry. He gave him another one for Nield. More presents followed. Grenades, tear gas canisters, smoke bombs, an Uzi machine pistol. Marler then produced more – for Pete Nield.
'Starting a new Gulf War?' Paula asked mischievously.
'Could be like that,' Harry warned.
'Where is Nield?' Tweed asked.
'In the next room.' Harry jerked a thumb to his right. 'It was lucky. We arrived separately. He's outside somewhere – prowling round to get the feel of the place.'
'I have to tell you something…' Tweed began.
Harry listened, arms folded across his powerful chest, saying not a word. Tweed explained in detail about their visit to Dr Kefler at eleven that night, gave him the address, showed him the area down by the docks on a map of the city he'd acquired from the receptionist at the Four Seasons.
I'll be there,' Harry said, glancing at the marksman's rifle Marler had given him. 'I've bought a motorbike. Follow the taxi in that. When you get out I'll hoof it. Don't like the sound of what this Kefler said at all. Don't like where he lives. Docks. At night…'
'I feel reassured Harry is coming,' Paula said as they left the Renaissance. She squeezed Tweed's arm, whispered. 'Look who's ahead of us.'
A stooping man plodded along about twenty yards ahead of them. He carried in his right hand a rubber-tipped stick. His hair was trimmed very short. Tweed grabbed Paula's arm and swung her round so that, like himself, she was pretending to gaze into a shop window.
'That's how Harry described the new Delgado -I would never have recognized him.'
'We have things to do,' Tweed warned. 'Get back to the Four Seasons – personally I want a quick shower – have dinner, then we go see Dr Kefler.'
'The shower's for me, too. I'm not very hungry.'
'You will be if you don't eat – hungry in the middle of the night.'
'He's gone!'
She had stolen a glance up the street and it was deserted. Tweed looked, grunted, took her arm, guided her across to the pavement on the other side of the street. A whole line of vehicles, many of them large trucks, were parked for the night.
'He's gone into one of the arcades we passed on our way to see Harry,' Tweed explained. 'Walking up this side of the street we're almost invisible behind these trucks if he reappears…'
They reached the main street running past the platform and landing stage. Tweed was about to turn left when Paula tugged at his arm. She nodded to her right.
A short distance away a tall man in a straw hat was operating a video camera. Mark Wendover. As they watched, with his back to them he swivelled the camera to take pictures of the Alster, of a ferry coming in. Then he quickly swivelled it into a different direction, aiming the lens at a building – the entrance, the ground floor windows, higher up to the first floor. The imposing building was the Zurcher Kredit Bank.
'He's at it again,' Paula protested. 'Doing his own thing. Mavericking.'
'Well, if that's the way he works…'
'Something I've been meaning to tell you,' Paula said as they approached the hotel entrance. 'Kept slipping what passes for my mind. Before we left Park Crescent – you were out of the room – Monica told me that when that awful screaming started on the Internet the phone went dead.'
'It did?' replied Tweed dismissively. 'I thought she was calling various contacts to see if their systems were all right.'
'That was later,' Paula said emphatically. 'She reckons the phone was dead during the whole awful experience. Afterwards, too. For a couple of minutes.'
'A glitch…'
'Listen, do! The Internet is linked to the phone system.'
'Intriguing.'
Annoyed, Paula gave up. When she reached her room she dived into the bathroom to take the shower she would have welcomed hours earlier.
In his room Tweed postponed the shower while he called Cord Dillon at his private number in his apartment.
'What is it, Tweed?' a sleepy voice enquired. 'It's morning here – and I'm not an early riser unless I have to be.'
'Mark Wendover. What kind of a detective agency does he run in New York?'
'Corporate work. Embezzlement. Someone dipping their hand into the till. In a big way. How is Mark?'
'Thriving.'
'Is that all? Good. Thank God
Tweed took out his doodle pad, scribbled Zurcher Kredit, put a large loop round it, joined Rondel's loop to it, then Mark's. He stared at the pad for a few minutes, the non-working end of his pen in his mouth. He grunted, then went into the bathroom for his shower.
Earlier that evening, after shouting her head off at Tweed, Lisa had stormed back to her room. When she opened the door she saw an envelope had been slipped under it into the room. She took it out of the envelope, saw it was a hotel record of a phone message.
Call me urgently. Go to the main railway station to make the call. Rocco.
She left her room immediately. Leaving the hotel, she walked. Every now and again she paused, fiddled with one of her sandals as though it had picked up a stone. This gave her the chance to glance back, to check she wasn't being followed.
The station wasn't crowded when she arrived. It was Germanic, vast and with a very high roof. She went into an empty phone cubicle, called the number. A familiar voice answered.
'Lisa, would you like to make a hundred thousand marks?'
'What did you say?'
'I think you heard me. I want you to gain all the information you can from Tweed from now on. How many in his team? Where is he going? In Hamburg. Outside Hamburg? And the only person you report this information to is me…'
'Just a minute,' she said. 'Someone is trying to get in here.'
She turned round. A man she had never seen was holding a white envelope. He thrust it into her hand, said it was for her, then departed.
'You've got the envelope,' the voice on the phone commented. 'Now count the contents. I'll wait.'
She opened it. A thick sheaf of 1,000 DM banknotes. She checked. 10,000 DM. She checked again. No, 100,000 DM. In English money, roughly?30,000. She slipped the envelope inside her handbag.
'Remember, you report only to me…'
She had never had so much money in her life.