Free Terminal by Colin Forbes Page B

something he may not be able to handle.'
    `You know him?' Mason queried.
    ' Knew him. When I was on the continent. He's on what we used to call the circuit...'
    `Not an electric circuit?' Monica pounced. 'Remember Howard asking Mason what Terminal suggested to him?'
    Tweed stared at her through his glasses. Monica didn't miss a trick: he would never have thought of that himself. He considered the idea. 'There could be a connection,' he conceded eventually. 'I'm not sure. Seidler is a collector — and seller — of unconsidered trifles. Sometimes not so trifling. Lives off his network of contacts. Just occasionally he comes up with the jackpot. I've no idea where he is now. Something for you to enquire about, Mason.'
    `I'm going to be busy. Searching for Manfred Seidler, building up a file on this Professor Grange. We've nothing on him here.'
    `The computer came up with zero,' Monica added.
    ` Computer? ' An odd expression flickered behind Tweed's glasses and was then gone. He relaxed again. 'Mason, from the moment you leave this building I want you to watch your back. Especially when you've arrived in Switzerland.'
    `Anything particular in mind?'
    `We've already had one murder — Franz Oswald. People will kill for what I've got in that locked drawer...' He looked at Monica. 'Or has the courier from the Ministry of Defence collected it?'
    `Not so far...'
    `They must be mad.' Tweed drummed his thick fingers on the desk. 'The sooner their experts examine it...'
    `Charlton is a careful type,' Monica reminded him. 'He's very conscious of security. My bet is the courier will arrive as soon as night has fallen.'
    `You're probably right. I shan't leave my office until the thing is off our hands. Now, Mason,' he resumed, 'another unknown factor is the attitude of the Swiss authorities — the Federal police and their Military Intelligence. They could prove hostile...'
    `What on earth for?' Monica protested.
    `It worries me — that Lear executive jet Mason watched leaving Schwechat. The fact that it bore a flag on its side with a white cross on a red ground, the Swiss flag. Don't accept anyone as a friend. Oh, one more thing. We've reserved a room at the Bellevue Palace in Berne.'
    Mason whistled. 'Very nice. VIP treatment. Howard will do his nut when he finds out...'
    `It's convenient,' Tweed said shortly. 'I may join you later.'
    Monica had trouble keeping her face expressionless. She knew that Tweed had his own reservation at the Bellevue Palace a few days hence: she had booked the room herself. Tweed, naturally secretive, was playing this one closer to the chest than ever before. He wasn't even letting his own operative know about his movements. For God's sake, he couldn't suspect Mason?
    `Why convenient?' enquired Mason.
    `It's central,' Tweed said shortly and left it at that. 'We're getting things moving,' he went on with that distant look in his eyes, 'placing the pieces on the board. One thing I'd dearly like to know — where is Manfred Seidler now?'

    Basle, 13 February 1984. 0 ? . Seidler still felt hunted. He had spent the whole weekend inside Erika Stahel's apartment and the walls were starting to close in on him. He heard a key being inserted in the outer door and grabbed for his 9-mm Luger, a weapon he had concealed from Erika.
    When she walked in, carrying a bag of groceries, the Luger was out of sight under a cushion. She closed the door with her foot and surveyed the newspapers spread out over the table. She had dashed out first thing to get them for him. Now she had dashed back from the office — only one hour for lunch — to prepare him some food.
    `Anything in the papers?' she called out from the tiny kitchen.
    `Nothing. Yet. You don't have to make me a meal...'
    `Won't take any time at all. We can talk while we eat...'
    He looked at the newspapers on the table. The Berner Zeitung , the main Zurich morning, the Journal de Geneve and the Basle locals. He lifted one of them and underneath lay the executive case.