The Way to Dusty Death by Alistair MacLean
MacAlpine smiled faintly. ‘Not Mr MacAlpine?’
‘I said “Thank you, James”.’
Both men smiled at each other. Dunnet left, closing the door with a quiet hand, went down in to the lobby where Harlow and Mary were seated side by side, untouched drinks before them. The aura of profound despondency that overhung their table was almost palpable. Dunnet picked up a drink from the bar, joined Harlow and Mary, smiled broadly, lifted his glass and said: ‘Cheers. Here’s to the fastest transporter driver in Europe.’
Harlow left his drink untouched. He said: ‘Alexis, I’m in one of my less humorous moods this evening.’
Dunnet said cheerfully: ‘Mr James MacAlpine has had a sudden and complete change of mind and heart. His final words were “Go and tell him he can have any blasted job he likes on the Coronado – mine, if he so cares.”’ Harlow shook his head. Dunnet went on: ‘God’s sake, Johnny, I’m not having you on.’
Harlow shook his head again. ‘I’m not doubting you, Alexis. I’m just flabbergasted. How on earth did you manage – well, perhaps it’s just as well you don’t tell me.’ He smiled faintly. ‘I don’t think I really want Mr MacAlpine’s job.’
‘Oh, Johnny!’ There were tears in her eyes but not tears of sorrow, not in that radiant face. She rose, flung her arms around his neck and kissed him on the cheek. Harlow, though slightly startled, was not noticeably embarrassed.
‘That’s my girl,’ Dunnet said approvingly. ‘A last long farewell to the fastest lorry driver in Europe.’
She stared at him. ‘What on earth do you mean?’
‘The transporter leaves for Marseilles tonight. Someone has to drive it there. This is a job usually reserved for the transporter driver.’
Harlow said: ‘My God! I’d rather overlooked that part of it. Now?’
‘As ever was. There appears to be a considerable degree of urgency. I think you’d better see James now.’
Harlow nodded, rose and left for his room where he changed into dark trousers, navy roll-neck sweater and leather jacket. He went to see MacAlpine and found him stretched out on his bed looking ill and pale and little short of positively haggard.
MacAlpine said: ‘I have to admit, Johnny, that the reason for my decision is based largely on self-interest. Tweedledum and Tweedledee, good mechanics though they are, couldn’t drive a wheelbarrow. Jacobson has already left for Marseilles to make loading arrangements for the morning. It’s asking a lot, I know, but I must have number four, the new X car and the spare engine at the Vignolles test track by noon tomorrow – we have the track for two days only. A lot of driving, I know, and you’ll have only a few hours’ sleep, if that. You’ll have to start loading in Marseilles by 6 a.m.’
‘Fine. Now what shall I do with my own car?’
‘Ah! The only transporter driver in Europe with his own Ferrari. Alexis will take my Aston while I, personally, will drive your rusty old bucket of bolts to Vignolles tomorrow. Then you’ll have to take it to our Marseilles garage and leave it there. For keeps, I’m afraid.’
‘I understand, Mr MacAlpine.’
‘Mr MacAlpine, Mr MacAlpine. Are you sure this is what you want to do, Johnny?’
‘Never surer, sir.’
Harlow went down to the lounge to find that Mary and Dunnet were no longer there. He went upstairs again, found Dunnet in his room and asked: ‘Where’s Mary?’
‘Gone for a walk.’
‘Bloody chilly evening to go for a walk.’
‘I don’t think she’s in any condition to feel the cold,’ Dunnet said drily. ‘Euphoria, I believe they call it. Seen the old boy?’
‘Yes. The old boy, as you call him, really is becoming an old boy. He’s put on five years in the last six months.’
‘More like ten years. Understandable with his wife vanishing just like that. Maybe if you’d lost someone to whom you’ve been married for twenty-five years – ’
‘He’s lost more than that.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘I don’t even know myself. His nerve, his self-confidence, his drive, his will to fight and win.’ Harlow smiled. ‘Some time this week we’ll give him those lost ten years back again.’
‘You’re the most incredibly arrogant, self-confident bastard I’ve ever known,’ Dunnet said admiringly. When Harlow made no reply, he shrugged and sighed. ‘Well, to be a world champion I suppose you have to have some little belief in yourself. And now what?’
‘Off. On my way out I’ll pick up from the hotel safe this little bauble that I’m going to deliver to our friend in the rue St Pierre – seems a damned sight safer than trying to walk to the Post Office. How about having a drink in the bar and seeing if anyone’s interested in me?’
‘Why should they be? They have the right cassette – or think they have, which amounts to the same thing.’
‘That’s as maybe. But it’s just possible that the ungodly might change their minds when they see me taking this envelope from the hotel safe, rip it open, throw the envelope away, examine the cassette and stick it in my pocket. They know they’ve been fooled once. You can bet your life that they’ll be more than prepared to believe that they’ve been fooled twice.’
For long seconds Dunnet stared at Harlow in total disbelief. When he spoke, his voice was a whisper. He said: ‘This isn’t just asking for trouble. This is ordering your own pine box.’
‘Only the best of oak for world champions. With gold-plated handles. Come on.’
They went down the stairs together. Dunnet turned off towards the bar while Harlow went to the desk. As Dunnet’s eyes roved round the lobby, Harlow asked for and received his envelope, opened it, extracted the cassette and examined it carefully before putting it in an inside pocket of his leather jacket. As he turned away from the desk, Dunnet wandered up almost casually and said in a quiet voice. ‘Tracchia. His eyes almost popped out of his head. He almost ran to the nearest phone booth.’
Harlow nodded, said nothing, passed through the swing doors, then halted as his way was barred by a leather-coated figure. He said: ‘What are you doing here, Mary? It’s bitterly cold.’
‘I just wanted to say goodbye, that’s all.’
‘You could have said goodbye inside.’
‘I’m a very private person.’
‘Besides, you’ll be seeing me again tomorrow. In Vignolles.’
‘Will I, Johnny? Will I?’
‘Tsk! Tsk! Someone else who doesn’t believe I can drive.’
‘Don’t try to be funny, Johnny, because I’m not feeling that way. I’m feeling sick. I’ve this awful feeling that something dreadful is going to happen. To you.’
Harlow said lightly: ‘It’s this half-Highland blood of yours. Fey is what they call it. Having the second sight. If it’s any consolation to you the second-sighters have an almost perfect 100 per cent record of failure.’
‘Don’t laugh at me, Johnny.’ There were tears in her voice.
He put an arm round her shoulders.
‘Laugh at you? With you, yes. At you, never.’
‘Come back to me, Johnny.’
‘I’ll always come back to you, Mary.’
‘What? What did you say, Johnny?’
‘A slip of the tongue.’ He squeezed her shoulders, pecked her briskly on the cheek and strode off into the gathering darkness.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The giant Coronado transporter, its vast silhouette outlined by at least a score of lights on the sides and back, not to mention its four powerful head-lamps, rumbled through the darkness and along the almost wholly deserted roads at a speed which would not have found very much favour with the Italian police speed patrols, had there been any such around that night which, fortunately, there weren’t.
Harlow had elected to take the autostrada across to Turin then turned south to Cuneo and was now approaching the Col de Tende, that fearsome mountain pass with the tunnel at the top which marks the boundary between Italy and France. Even in an ordinary car,
For some, it was plainly not only hazardous but harrowing to a degree. The red-haired twin mechanics, one curled up in the bucket seat beside Harlow, the other stretched out on the narrow bunk behind the front seats, though quite exhausted were clearly never more wide awake in their lives. Not to put too fine a point on it, they were frankly terrified, either staring in horror at each other or closing their eyes as they slid and swayed wildly on each successive hairpin bend. And if they did leave the road it wouldn’t be just to bump across the surrounding terrain: it would be to fall a very long way indeed and their chances of survival were non-existent. The twins were beginning to realize why old Henry had never made it as a Grand Prix driver.
If Harlow was aware of the very considerable inner turmoil he was causing, he gave no signs of it. His entire being was concentrated on his driving and on scanning the road two, even three hairpin bends ahead. Tracchia and, by now, Tracchia’s associates knew that he was carrying the cassette and that they intended to separate him from that cassette Harlow did not for a moment doubt. When and where they would make their attempt was a matter for complete conjecture. Crawling round the hairpins leading to the top of the Col de Tende made them the perfect target for an ambush. Whoever his adversaries were, Harlow was convinced they were based in Marseilles. It was unlikely that they would care to take the risk of running foul of the Italian law. He was certain that he hadn’t been trailed from Monza. The chances were that they didn’t even know what route he was taking. They might wait until he was much nearer their home base or even arrived at it. On the other hand they might be considering the possibility that he was getting rid of the cassette en route. Speculation seemed not only unrewarding but useless. He put the wide variety of possibilities out of his mind and concentrated on his driving while still keeping every sense alert for danger. As it was they made the top of the Col without incident, passed through the Italian and French Customs and started on the wickedly winding descent on the other side.
When he came to La Giandola, he hesitated briefly. He could take the road to Ventimiglia thus taking advantage of the new autoroutes westwards along the Riviera or take the shorter but more winding direct route to Nice. He took into account that the Ventimiglia route would entail encountering the Italian and French Customs not once but twice again and decided on the direct route.
He made Nice without incident, followed the autoroute past Cannes, reached Toulon and took the N8 to Marseilles. It was about twenty miles out of Cannes, near the village of Beausset, that it happened.
As they rounded a bend they could see, about a quarter of a mile ahead, four lights, two stationary, two moving. The two moving lights were red and obviously hand-held, for they swung steadily through arcs of about ninety degrees.
There was an abrupt change in the engine note as Harlow dropped a gear. The sound brought the dozing twins to something like near wakefulness just in time to identify, a bare second after Harlow, the legends on the two stationary lights, red and blue and flashing alternately: one said STOP, the other POLICE. There were at least five men behind the lights, two of them standing in the middle of the road.
Harlow was hunched far forward over the wheel, his eyes narrowed until even the pupils seemed in danger of disappearing. He made an abrupt decision, arm and leg moved in swift and perfect unison, and again the engine note changed as the big diesel dropped another gear. Ahead, the two moving red lamps stopped swinging. It must have been evident to those wielding them that the transporter was slowing to a halt.
Fifty yards distant from the road-block Harlow stamped the accelerator pedal flat to the floor. The transporter, designedly, had been in the correct gear to pick up maximum acceleration and it was in that gear that Harlow held it, the engine revolutions climbing as the distance between the transporter and the flashing lights ahead steadily and rapidly decreased. The two men with the red lights moved rapidly apart: it had dawned on them, and a very rude awakening it must have been, that the transporter had no intention of stopping.
Inside the cab the faces of Tweedledum and Tweedledee registered identical expressions of horrified and incredulous apprehension. Harlow’s face registered no expression at all as he watched the shadowy figures who had been standing so confidently in the middle of the road fling themselves to safety towards either verge. Above the still mounting roar of the diesel could be heard the sound of the splintering of glass and the screeching of buckling metal as the transporter over-ran the pedestal-mounted flashing lights in the middle of the road. Twenty yards farther on there came a series of heavy thuds from the rear of the transporter, a drumming sound that continued for another thirty or forty yards until Harlow swung the swaying transporter round a forty-five turn in the road. Harlow changed up once and then again into top gear. He appeared to be quite unconcerned which was considerably more than could be said for the twins.
Tweedledum said in a stricken voice: ‘Jesus, Johnny, are you mad? You’ll have us all in prison before the night is out. That was a police block, man!’
‘A police block without police cars, police motorcycles or police uniforms: I wonder why the good Lord gave you pair two eyes apiece?’
Tweedledee said: ‘But those police signs – ’
‘I will refrain from giving you pitying looks,’ Harlow said kindly. ‘Please do not overtax your minds. I would also point out that the French police do not wear masks, which this lot did, nor do they fix silencers to their guns.’
‘Silencers?’ The twins spoke as one.
‘You heard those thumps and bumps on the back of the transporter? What do you think they were doing – throwing stones after us?’
Tweedledum said: ‘Then what – ’
‘Hi-jackers. Members of an honoured and respected profession in these parts.’ Harlow trusted he would be forgiven for this wicked slur on the honest citizens of Provence. But it was the best he could think of on the spur of the moment and, besides, the twins, though excellent mechanics, were of a rather simple cast of mind who would readily believe anything that a person of the stature of Johnny Harlow were to tell them.
‘But how could they have known we were coming?’
‘They didn’t.’ Harlow was improvising rapidly. ‘They’re usually in radio contact with lookouts posted a kilometre or so on either side of them. We’ve probably just passed the second one. When a likely-looking prospect – such as us – comes along it takes only a few seconds to have the lights in position and working.’
‘A backward lot, those Froggies,’ Tweedledum observed.
‘Aren’t they just? They haven’t even got round to great train robberies yet.’
The twins composed themselves for slumber. Harlow, apparently tireless, was as alert and watchful as ever. After a few minutes, in his outside rear mirror, he caught sight of a pair of powerful headlights approaching at high speed. As they closed, Harlow briefly considered moving out to the middle of the road to block its passage just in case the occupant or occupants belonged to whatever opposition there might be but he dismissed the idea immediately. If they were ill-disposed, all they would have to do would be to shoot holes in his rear tyres at their leisure, as effective a way as any of bringing the transporter to a halt.
As it happened, the person or persons showed no signs of hostility, but one curious event occurred. As it overtook the transporter all the car’s lights, both front and rear, went out and remained out until it was at least a hundred yards ahead, the driver of the car seeing by courtesy of the transporter’s headlights: when its lights did come on again it was too far away for its rear numberpla
Only seconds later, Harlow saw another pair of powerful headlights closing at even higher speed. This car did not cut its lights as it overtook the transporter and it would have been most improbable had it done so for it was a police car with both siren and flashing blue light in splendid working order. Harlow permitted himself an almost beatific smile, and, just over a mile later, still had an expression of pleased anticipation on his face as he gently braked the transporter.
Ahead, the police car, blue lamp still flashing, was parked by the side of the road. Immediately ahead of it was another car, with a policeman, pad in hand, interrogating the driver through an opened window. There could be little question what the interrogation was about. Except on the autoroutes, the legal speed limit in France is 110 kph: the man being interrogated must have been doing at least 150 when he had passed the transporter. The transporter, still moving slowly, pulled out to the left to overtake both cars and Harlow had no difficulty in making out the number-plate of the front car. It read PNIIIK.
Like most major cities, Marseilles has places well worth looking at and others that do not qualify in that category. Certain sections of north-west Marseilles unmistakably belong in the latter category, seedy and rundown ex-suburban areas, now more industrial than they are residential. The rue Gerard was typical of such an area. While it might barely escape being described as an eye-sore, it was a singularly unprepossessing street almost entirely given over to small factories and large garages. The largest building in the street was a brick and corrugated iron monstrosity about half-way along on the left. Above the huge ribbed metal door was, in foot-high letters, the single word CORONADO.
As Harlow trundled the transporter down the rue Gerard he seemed unmoved by the unlovely spectacle before him. The twins were sound asleep. As Harlow approached the garage the metal door began to roll upwards and as Harlow swung out to make his approach, lights came on inside.
The garage was a cavernous place, eighty feet long and about fifty in width. It seemed ancient in construction and appearance but was about as well-kept, well-swept and clean as anyone could reasonably expect such a garage to be. Lined up against the right-hand wall were no fewer than three Coronado Formula I cars, and, pedestal-mounted beyond those, three unmistakable Ford-Cosworth V-8 engines. Nearest the door, on the same side, was a black Citroën DS21. The left-hand side of the garage was given over to rows of lavishly equipped work-benches while at the rear of the garage, stacked head-high, were dozens of crates of spares and tyres. Running both longitudinally and laterally were overhead beams for moving the engines about and for loading up the transporter.