When Helen passed through customs in Geneva late that afternoon, she spotted Rummy standing at the barrier with a large young man. She went to Rummy and, with a quick look at his companion, gave him a hug. Rummy returned the hug, and looked at her when she giggled.
“Well, you´re wearing one, too,” he said, a little sheepishly.
She looked at him with an absolutely straight face. “You´re damn right. Until I leave. It may be a waste of time – and comfort – but it´s worth it… Who´s our friend?”
Rummy turned to the tall young man beside him. “Mme Wallace, this is Inspector Semmel. Johannes sent him to deliver us safely to our hotel.”
The Inspector offered his hand and the usual pleasantries. “My car is in the parking garage,” he said, turning to lead the way.
Rummy grabbed Helen´s carry-on. “Doesn´t look like he´s expected to help with the baggage.”
“I hope he doesn´t need both hands free,” Helen said, and shivered, not for the first time that day.
They went through a tunnel to the parking structure and up a flight of stairs. Semmel opened the door to the parking level and stepped through. He looked around for a moment, then motioned for them to follow.
As they started across the floor, a darkened black van began to roll toward them, its speed increasing rapidly as it came. Semmel noticed it immediately and motioned them ahead. “Get between those cars and get down,” he said in a self-possessed but commanding voice. Helen dove between a Golf and an Audi, hitting the gritty floor with her knees and the palms of her hands. Looking to the right underneath the car, she saw Rummy crouched between the next two cars, with Semmel on his knees between him and the on-coming van.
The van, still without lights, came on quickly, moving close to the line of parked cars in which they hid. Belatedly, the headlights flashed on and the car swerved outward into the center of the passage. It slowed sharply, turned into the exit ramp and disappeared. Semmel stood up, jammed his service automatic into a pocket and was busily taking down the van´s license number.
Helen pushed herself up off the floor, trying to dust the oily grit from her hands. She looked across the Audi at Rummy, now standing, and back at Semmel. “Was that a close call or just bad luck?”
From somewhere, Semmel had pulled a police radio and was muttering into it. Rummy moved around the back of the car and pulled Helen to him. “I have an idea we´ll know in a big hurry. You all right?”
Helen looked at him. “Not even the shakes. I´d hate to think I´m getting used to this.” She hugged him quickly and moved toward Semmel, who was now returning his radio and his gun to their normal hiding places. “Where´s your car?” she asked.
“Sorry,” he replied. “I can´t imagine what that was about, but we´ll know soon. My car is just over here, the blue Benz.” He led the way and opened the doors for them.
They rolled quickly down the ramps to the exit, where two policemen were already questioning the occupant of the van that had nearly hit them. Semmel pulled up ahead of the stopped van and walked back to speak to the officers briefly, returning after only a moment and heading the car to the airport exit. “The officers said the guy is drunk. They´ll make damn sure about that, but he´s in trouble any way you look at it.” He grinned at Rummy in the passenger´s seat. “I don´t take kindly to getting my good trousers in the dirt.”
Helen thought, ‘He should see my knees,´ and brushed them again, picking bits of grit out of the skin with hands that weren´t all that clean either.
Johannes met them at the entrance to the hotel, where Semmel pulled up his car and helped them out.
Johannes hugged Helen hurriedly and shook Rummy´s hand, urging them inside. “Go ahead; I´ll be right with you.” They hurried into the hotel, sinking onto an overstuffed couch not far from the entrance. In moments, Johannes came through and over to speak with them.
“I just wanted to tell Semmel he´d done a good job. They called me at the office and I came right over. Tell me the details while we go up to your rooms. You´re already registered.”
Johannes led the way into the lift, and brought them to their rooms while absorbing their slightly differing accounts of the incident.
“The men on the scene confirm the driver appeared drunk, but we´re doing a blood test; we´re checking the ownership of the vehicle and we´re also asking the driver why he had a machine pistol under the seat.” He looked closely at Helen. “I´m glad you took my advice about the vest.”
“Glad I didn´t really need it,” Helen answered, “…yet. I´d better not have to wear this to bed.”
“Not here,” Johannes said, turning to Rummy, “She asked me on the phone if I had a cop in every room. I don´t, but this is a secure facility we maintain. I´m afraid I´ll have to ask you to eat in the restaurant or in your rooms while you´re here. The food isn´t bad, though, for Switzerland.” He turned to go down the hall, paused. “Can we meet for drinks and dinner in about an hour?”
They each went into their rooms, which were next to each other. Helen tried the door between the two, opening it to find Rummy doing likewise. She grinned.
“These rooms are probably bugged,” Rummy said.
“So what?” Helen asked. “You okay?”
“Fine. But you´d better do something about your knees and hands.”
“I´ll take a shower.” She began undressing. “Why don´t you call Doris?”
“We´ve got some more news from the team that´s working the van at the airport,” Johannes said over drinks. They were seated in a pleasant, though somewhat old-fashioned bar just off the dining room of the hotel. Accepting Johannes´s assurances, Helen had left her Kevlar vest in her room, but considering Johannes´s medical issues and her affection for him, she was dressed conservatively. Rummy had on an open-neck dress shirt with his jacket and slacks, and even Johannes had shed his three-piece suit for a similar outfit.
“Well, let´s have it, then,” Rummy said, going on to observe to Helen, “I admit I´d rather be on your porch than here, but Johannes has really taken pretty good care of us.”
Helen nodded, waiting to hear what Johannes had to say.
Johannes grinned. “I´ll certainly go along with that, Rummy. Anyway, it does appear the guy was drunk, and the machine pistol he had with him is on our list of suspect weapons. He´s not being very forthcoming about who he is and why he was there, nor about what he had in mind. On the other hand, we do have an important break here.” He paused to drink from his glass.
Helen took a guess. “Five will get you ten, the van was rented.”
“Right. Using Theo´s card again.” Johannes lifted his glass to her.
“What I don´t understand …,” Rummy said, pausing to wipe his mouth after a draught of Guinness, “what I don´t understand is why there was just one of them. Pretty hard to drive the damn thing and shoot out the opposite window.”
“We´re pretty sure there was another man involved. We´ll know tomorrow when we check the rental company.”
“He was probably off to get more booze or something,” Helen suggested.
“Well, either that or he´d gone to piss in a corner,” Rummy speculated.
“We were able to check the identities of two men who came out of the structure shortly after the van was stopped,” Johannes said, “but there´s every chance whoever it was left by another exit. I don´t expect to find that one right away.
“Let´s go on in, I´m hungry.”
Dinner in the hotel dining room was well prepared, if not gourmet cooking. They all ate with appetite, and Helen found that the excitement – or something – had piqued hers. Dinner table talk was confined to nothing special, though the men carried on a dialog about the pleasures of Heliopolis and their recent visit.
“You´re both welcome there, you know, anytime.” Helen told them. “And then, you´ll get a chance to meet Astrid.”
Both men wanted the details of that remark, but Helen refused any information, saying, “She´s Sandy´s assistant. You have to see for yourself.”
Following desert, they took coffee into the bar, which was conveniently vacant. “Did you reserve this for us, Johannes?” Helen asked.
“No, but since it´s empty, we might as well use it. I want to talk about what´s going to happen tomorrow.”
“I guess you´re stage managing it, aren´t you?” Rummy asked.
“Well, yes. But first, let me fill you in on where we are.
“Dumont has been very cooperative. He told us that Sauter had offered him – verbally – an incentive. Dumont says he was to get 5% of the proceeds from any deal he could make with your contractors. He says Sauter told him there would be no trouble with IG Bau.”
“And Dumont agreed?” Helen asked.
“Yes, he admits that. However, he also says that, after the re-bar incident, he told Sauter he wanted nothing further to do with the deal. In addition, he says he asked Schellen for a transfer. Of course, with no paper trail, we can´t do more than take him at his word until we have other evidence.”
“Was the re-bar an accident?” Helen wanted to know.
“Dumont says he thinks it was, but that the ladder was intended as a warning. But, we have more on that.”
“More?” Rummy´s eyebrows rose.
“The two guys who drove the car that attacked us in Freiburg.”
“Ah,” Helen breathed. “I wondered if you´d gotten them.”
“Yes, we picked them up at a border crossing near Basel, thanks to Rummy´s partial plate number. To make the story short, they said they had paid a crane operator to dump the re-bar close to you. They said you were supposed to be hurt, but they also say you weren´t to be killed.”
Johannes looked blandly at Helen. “I´m not sure how you calibrate that.
“Any idea if they were involved in the Bagger business?”
“Not at this time, anyway. I´m beginning to think those were specialists. Not too many people know how to handle a machine like that. In any case, these guys are not anxious to be charged for another attempted murder; they´ll tell us a lot to get a reduced charge. We haven´t located the guy who was operating the crane; it looks like he may have been an illegal who slipped into the machine while the regular operator was on break. He´s probably gone home with a good pay-off.”
Helen shuddered. She got up and went to sit next to Rummy, who had chosen to sit on a sofa. Rummy put his arm around her. “Go on, Johannes. Let´s have the whole thing.”
“You were right about the car, it was you they were after, Helen,” Johannes went on. “They were the same two guys who´d set up the re-bar incident. They also wired up Dumont´s car. If nothing else, we´ll get them for attempted murder on that one. However, it appears they did, as we thought, Rummy, screw it up. They didn´t get the wiring right, and the car blew too soon. However, if he´d used his key in the door, not the remote, it would have been the end of him.
“And, when they saw the car Helen had been driving when we got there, they assumed she was in it. Clearly, they made no attempt to check that, though I got a feeling, questioning them, they saw me driving and were surprised. But it didn´t stop them from hitting us.”
“It´s clear, Johannes, they´re after Helen,” Rummy began, “do you have any idea why?”
“No, and I don´t think we´ll find out from them. You don´t tell mechanics like that what the reasons are. You give them instructions, and they do it.
“That said, I do think we´ll get an answer to that shortly.”
Helen sat up. “What do you mean?”
Johannes smiled. “We got lucky in this whole thing, Helen. That credit card with Theo´s name on it was a corporate card, as you know. The company name doesn´t matter, because it was just a shell. We´ve spent some time going through the company records, and there is a paper trail there.”
Rummy asked, “Schellen… or Sauter?”
Johannes nodded. “Right. Sauter. There are about five cut-outs…”
“What´s a cut-out?” Helen wanted to know.
“The card was owned by Company A, which is about 20% owned by Company B, which is part owned by Company C, and so on. The trail ends with Constructeurs Sauter, and nothing along the way has any real substance. The card is Sauter´s and anyone who uses it is Sauter´s agent.”
Helen put her head on Rummy´s shoulder for a moment, then sat up again.
“What are you doing about Sauter?”
“We have him in investigative custody. He´s not happy. Sweating a lot, you might say.”
“Where´s Schellen in this?” Rummy asked.
Johannes tented his fingers beneath his chin. “That´s what we´ll find out tomorrow,” he said reflectively. “We do know that Sauter has a 15% interest in Compagnie Schellen S.A. We´re going to be asking Schellen about that. Other than that and the fact that Dumont was working for Schellen, we don´t have anything on him. My feeling is that Sauter was using his business connection with Schellen to get into Schellen´s projects by suborning people like Dumont. Sauter´s company is pretty much an empty shell, and I suspect he´s doing anything he can to keep afloat.”
Johannes looked at his watch. “I´m going to leave you now. I still have work to do, and you should get some sleep before tomorrow. You can sleep in a little; we aren´t going to see him until 1000 tomorrow.”
The little group stood up and Helen walked to Johannes, and put her arms around him, holding him close, her head on his chest.
After a moment she said, “Johannes, thank you. You´re making this whole awful thing so much easier for me. Thank you.” She pulled back slightly and kissed his cheek, then turned and grabbed Rummy´s arm.
“Bed time,” she said, and they headed for the lifts.