“I would have come anyway.” She was impatient with his anger. “Listen, I already have most of the story. An art fraud. Two senior officials dead. A third on the run. An attempted defection. A secret Swiss bank account. At worst, alone, I’d have picked up some extra colour in Zurich. At best I might have charmed Herr Zaugg into giving me an interview.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
“Don’t look so worried, Sturmbannfuhrer- I’ll keep your name out of it.”
Zurich is only twenty kilometres south of the Rhine. They were descending quickly. March finished his Scotch and set the empty container on the stewardess’s outstretched tray.
Charlotte Maguire drained her own glass in one and placed it next to his. “We have whisky in common, Herr March, at least.” She smiled.
He turned to the window. This was her skill, he thought: to make him look stupid, a Teutonic flat-foot. First, she had failed to tell him about Stuckart’s telephone call. Then she had manoeuvred him into letting her join in his search of Stuckart’s apartment. This morning, instead of waiting for him to contact her, she had talked to the American diplomat, Nightingale, about Swiss banks. Now this. It was like having a child forever at your heels — a persistent, intelligent, embarrassing, deceitful, dangerous child. Surreptitiously he felt his pockets again, to check he still had the letter and key. She was not beyond stealing them while he was asleep.
The Junkers was coming in to land. Like a film gradually speeding up, the Swiss countryside began rushing past: a tractor in a field, a road with a few headlights in the smoky dusk, and then — one bounce, two — they were touching down.
Zurich airport was not how he had imagined it. Beyond the aircraft and hangars were wooded hillsides, with no evidence of a city. For a moment, he wondered if Globus had discovered his mission and had arranged for the plane to be diverted. Perhaps they had been set down in some remote airbase in southern Germany? But then he saw Z0RICH on the terminal building.
The instant the plane had taxied to a halt, the passengers — professional commuters, most of them — rose as one. She was on her feet, too, pulling down her case and that ridiculous blue coat. He reached past her.
“Excuse me.”
She shrugged on the coat. “Where now?”
“I am going to my hotel, Fraulein. What you do is your concern.”
He managed to squeeze in front of a fat Swiss who was cramming documents into a leather attache case. The manoeuvre left her trapped some way behind him. He did not look back as they shuffled down the aisle and off the aircraft.
He walked briskly through the arrivals hall to passport control, overtaking most of the other passengers to station himself near the head of the queue. Behind him, he heard a commotion as she tried to catch up.
The Swiss border official, a serious young man with a drooping moustache, leafed through his passport.
“Business or pleasure, Herr March?”
“Business.” Definitely business.
“One moment.”
The young man picked up the telephone, dialled three digits, turned away from March and whispered something into the receiver. He said: “Yes. Yes. Of course.” Then he hung up and returned the passport to March.
THERE were two of them waiting for him by the baggage carousel. He spotted them from fifty metres away: bulky figures with close-cropped hair, wearing stout black shoes and belted fawn raincoats. Policemen — they were the same the world over. He walked past them without a glance and sensed rather than saw them falling in behind him.
He went unchallenged through the green customs channel and out into the main concourse. Taxis. Where were taxis?
Clip-clop, clip-clop. Coming up behind him.
The air outside was several degrees colder than in Berlin. Clip-clop, clip-clop. He wheeled round. There she was, in her coat, clutching her case, balanced on her high heels.
“Go away, Fraulein. Do you understand me? Do you need it in writing? Go back to America and publish your stupid story. I have business to attend to.”
Without waiting for her reply, he opened the rear door of the waiting taxi, threw in his case, climbed in after it. “Baur au Lac,” he said to the driver.
They pulled out of the airport and on to the highway, heading south towards the city. The day had almost gone. Craning his neck to look out of the back window, March could see a taxi tucked in ten metres behind them, with an unmarked white Mercedes following it. Christ, what a comedy this was turning into. Globus was chasing Luther, he was chasing Globus, Charlie Maguire was chasing him, and now the Swiss police were on the tails of both of them. He lit a cigarette.
“Can’t you read?” said the driver. He pointed to a sign:
“Welcome to Switzerland” muttered March. He wound down the window a few centimetres, and the cloud of blue smoke was plucked into the chilly air.
