Free Double Jeopardy by Colin Forbes Page A

you let them take her? Bastard!' She hit him across the side of the face with the flat of her hand. When she raised her hand a second time he grabbed her wrist and pushed her down on the bed, his face inches from hers as she glared up at him. Their position reminded him of when he had pinned his would-be assassin, Gisela Zobel, down on the sofa in the Centralhof apartment and she had attempted to distract him with sexual games.
    But this girl was different. Tough as whipcord, but vulnerable, a vulnerability she covered up with an outwardly controlled manner. The deep blue eyes seemed larger than ever in the light from the bedside lamp. He kissed her gently on the forehead and felt her whipcord muscles relax.
    'There were at least a dozen armed Delta soldiers in the assault,' he told her softly, still gripping her wrist. 'They piled out of two cars. I shot three men. I saw them hauling Lisbeth inside a large Mercedes which drove straight off. I blew it…'
    'A dozen armed men!' Her eyes gazed into his. 'But how could you have saved Lisbeth against such odds? And why did they do this thing-take her away?' Her body had gone limp. He relaxed his grip on her wrist.
    'They thought they were taking you…'
    `Me?- Why me?'
    'Something big is coming up.' He perched on the edge of her bed and lit a cigarette. 'So Delta is eliminating every agent who might get in their way. First Warner, then the attempt on yourself. I'm their next target. Incidentally, why didn't Warner use the train to get from Lindau to Switzerland – why that business of the boat?'
    'He was an ex-Navy man and mistrusted confined spaces – a train could be a trap he'd say. There was nowhere to run. Can't we hit back at these people?'
    'We're going to. That's why I'm in St. Gallen. There's a rare embroidery museum here, isn't there? The receptionist at the Baur au Lac said so…'
    'There is.' She was sitting up now, using a hand-mirror and a brush to tidy her dishevelled hair. 'And that's the place Charles used as a rendezvous to meet his contact inside Delta. How do you know about it?'
    'We'll come back to that. Do you know how far Warner had gone with his attempt to infiltrate Delta?'
    'He had, this contact I've just mentioned. I've no idea what he looks like. Charles went to great lengths to protect his identity, but his code-name is Stahl. Incidentally, you've seen the latest news about Delta?'
    She reached for a newspaper and handed it to him. It was dated the previous day. The headline jumped out at him and beneath it was the main article.
    New Cache of neo-Nazi Arms and Uniforms Found in Allgau.
    The text was padded out but the message was simple. Acting on information received the Bavarian police had raided an isolated farmhouse just before dawn and found. the arms dump. The farmhouse had shown traces of recent occupation but was deserted at the time of the raid…
    'That's the seventh Delta arms dump they've found in the past four weeks,' Claire remarked. 'They don't seem to be all that efficient …'
    'Odd, isn't it?'
    'What are you thinking about?' she asked. 'You've got that look again…'
    He was staring at the wall, recalling his conversation with Tweed. Fragments of that conversation kept beavering away at the back of his mind.
    The badge was found under Warner's body. The killer must have dropped it without realising… And they completed the job by carving their trademark on his naked back – the Delta symbol…
    'I think there's something we're missing – it's just too damned obvious.' He checked his watch. 0430 hours. 'But we can trap the bastards. In the Embroidery Museum here in St. Gallen. In less than eight hours from now.'

CHAPTER 8
    Thursday May 28
    'This is what we're talking about – I hope…'
    They were sitting at a secluded breakfast table in the hotel dining-room. Martel produced from his wallet an orange- coloured ticket and handed it to Claire. The ticket bore a number, several words printed in German and no indication of a town.