Target 5

TARGE'I FIVE

COLIN FORBES

PAN BOOKS LTD

LONDON AND SYDNEY

First published 1973 by William Collins Sons &
Co Ltd

This edition published 1974 by Pan Books Ltd, Cavaye Place, London SW10 9PG

ISBN
0 330 24023 4

2nd Printing 1974
© Colin Forbes 1973

Printed in Great Britain by Cox & Wyman Ltd, London, Reading and Fakenham

For Jane

CONTENTS

Opening Gambit:

THE LOCOMOTIVE

Running Game:

THE FROZEN SEA

Checkmate:

THE KILLING GROUND

=========================

Opening Gambit

THE LOCOMOTIVE

Friday, 18 February 1972: Midnight

Even in the year 1972, a year which will hardly be noted in
the calendar of history as a year of peace, it Was not common
for an express to be stopped in the middle of the night - in
the middle of
nowhere - while a passenger was dragged off
it by armed men. Especially an American express.

And this traumatic experience was certainly something
that Keith Beaumont had no inkling of as he relaxed in bed inside a sleeping-car aboard the Florida Express; for one
thing, the thirty-two-car train was roaring through the
Carolinas at over ninety miles an hour, while outside the
February storm beat at the curtained windows; for another
thing, the next scheduled stop was over two hours away.

With the windows sealed tight against the rising storm, with the central heating turned up to God knew how many
degrees, it was hot and steamy and airless inside the sleeping-
car, so hot that the large Englishman was having trouble
sleeping as he eased himself up on one elbow and checked his watch. Close to midnight. Behind the zipped- curtain
which shut him off from the corridor, he settled down again on his pillow and wrapped his hands behind his broad neck,
dreaming with his eyes open.

By morning he'd be in Miami, thousands of miles away
from Greenland - away from guiding frightened dogs
through screaming blizzards, away from hauling bucking
sleds over tumbled ice, above all away from endless darkness
and cold that paralysed the brain. It was also wonderful to be dry again; Beaumont pressed his stockinged feet hard
against the end of the bed and revelled in the warmth.

Twenty miles ahead of the express thundering through the
storm-swept night three armed men were not so dry as they huddled in the pouring rain. Standing under the canopy of a whistle-stop station in the middle of nowhere, they waited
for the oncoming express which wasn't scheduled to stop for
another two hours. The signals were already changing
against it, the driver of the huge diesel motor hauling the
long, long train was already applying his massive brakes. The emergency was imminent.

'I hope to God he's on board,' one of the raincoated men mumbled as he clenched a sodden cigarette between his
teeth.,

'He's on board,' the forty-year-old leader of the group assured his companion. 'And we're taking him off it.'

'It could be tricky .. .'

'This says it won't be tricky.' The older man extracted a
.45 Colt revolver from his pocket, checked the cylinder, put
it away again. 'And don't forget, Jo, we have to make it look
good - real good.'

Less than twenty miles up the track the driver of the
Florida Express was staring anxiously into the night. The signal he had just passed had ordered a reduction of speed but the next stop was two hours away, so what the hell was
happening? He went on cutting the speed, applying the
great brakes slowly. Rain hammered his steel cab roof, trails
of spume whipped off the roof and vanished
in the dark.
The next signal flashed by. Red for danger, for stop.
What the devil was going on? He applied the brakes more strongly. They were close to Cedar Falls, an unscheduled
stop.

Two minutes later the train ground to a halt as a thunderclap burst and rain lashed the sides of the cars. Inside his
roomette Beaumont settled down to sleep while the train was
still, his large hands clasped outside the sheet. His eyes were
closed when the curtains were torn open and a man with a sodden hat brim looked down at him while he checked a
photograph in his left hand. 'It's him, Jo,' a quiet voice said.

Beaumont opened his eyes and stared into the muzzle of a
Colt .45 revolver.

'Move that thing,' he murmured. 'It might go off - your
hand's sticky.'

When he opened his eyes Beaumont registered several
swift impressions - the sodden raincoat the
man holding the
gun wore, the steam rising off the man's sleeves, the scared
look on the face of the passenger in the roomette across the
corridor, the second raincoated man standing in the back
ground with one hand inside his pocket. The older
American, who was feeling the heat - there were sweat beads on his forehead - replied in a flat tone.

'Get dressed - you're getting off the train ...'

'And who the hell might you be?' Beaumont demanded.

Exhausted, tired out by his long trip from Greenland to
Washington, he estimated his chances carefully. A hard chopping blow to knock the Colt out of the gunman's hand, a knee in the groin... No, it was too dangerous - with other passengers in the sleeping-car.

'Dixon, FBI,' the man with the sweaty forehead snapped.
'And hurry it up - this train can't wait all night...'

'It doesn't have to - it can get moving now as far as I'm
concerned. With me on board. And you've made a very bad
mistake - I'm British .. .' Beaumont reached towards his jacket hanging from a hook.

'Watch it...' Dixon warned.

The Englishman stared at him over the width of his very broad shoulders and Dixon felt uncomfortable. 'I'm showing you my passport, for God's sake,' Beaumont rumbled. He took it from the inner jacket pocket carefully, extracted it with his fingertips and handed it to Dixon. The American opened the passport expertly with one hand, studied it for a
moment, then showed it to the man behind him. 'It's as
phoney as hell, Jo.'

Beaumont made no comment as he pushed back the bed
clothes and showed that he was fully dressed except for tie, jacket and shoes. As the Englishman climbed out of bed and
stood up Dixon
backed away and stared. Keith Beaumont,
thirty-two years old, was six foot two tall, broad-shouldered
and weighed over fourteen stone. Not that Dixon was too
impressed as he watched the Englishman quietly getting
dressed; a big ox was slow-moving. After a minute he
checked his watch.

'Hurry it up,' Dixon repeated. He had been right: this
man was slow in the reflexes.

'Get stuffed.'

The passenger in the roomette opposite was getting over his shock. 'I'm Andrew Phillipson from Minneapolis,' he informed Dixon in a glib voice. 'This guy said he was from Greenland - Greenland where all that ice is. I thought it was funny ...'

'He'll be off the train in a minute,' Dixon broke in, 'then
you can get back to sleep.' He looked at
Beaumont who had
finished dressing. 'That your bag? Good. Now, place both
hands on the bed - close together.' There was a faint clink of
metal as Dixon's companion took his hand out of his pocket.
Beaumont shook his large head which was covered with
thick dark hair and smiled grimly.

'So your friend can slip handcuffs on me? I'm not playing, Dixon, so you'd better make up your mind - do I come as
I am or do you shoot me?'

They went down the corridor with Beaumont's hands still free, preceded by the man called Jo who carried the Englishman's suitcase while Dixon brought up the rear. Curtains screening the roomettes were pulled aside as passengers peered out at the little procession. Behind Dixon bare feet padded down the corridor as Phillipson hurried to catch him up. 'Who is the guy?' he called out excitedly. 'He talked to me so maybe I can help ...'

'Break-out from Folsom,' Dixon told him tersely.

Beaumont stumbled as he went down the steep steps at the
end of the car, his shoulders sagging. Big, sleepy and clumsy,
Dixon noted. At the bottom of the steps Beaumont paused
on the track to button up his coat and pull his hat down over
his ears. Cedar Falls was a small, single-storey building at the edge of a forest with a side exit leading out into a road
beyond. Beaumont saw this as lightning flashed, showing a
brief, stark view of wind bending trees to the south, then a
curtain of rain whooshed down the track and soaked him. A
few yards away one of the train crew was watching with a mixture of nervousness and curiosity. A second railroad official stood under the station canopy. Dixon came down
the steps behind him, nudged him with the Colt.

'Get moving - through that exit.'

They started walking with the other American still in front, carrying Beaumont's case. Then there was another flash which wasn't lightning at all: the railroad man under the canopy had just taken a picture of Beaumont with his
Polaroid camera. 'Jo,' Dixon called out, 'get that picture.'*

Jo cut away from them, heading for the station building as
Beaumont plodded towards the exit. A second flash of
lightning showed him the car beyond the exit they were
moving towards, a big, red, expensive-looking car. Rain was
bouncing off its roof. His shoulders sagged a little lower, he
was careful not to alter pace, to show any reaction. But he
was sure now - these men weren't FBI agents.

They went through the exit into the dark, away from the
blurred lights of the train, away from people, their feet tramping through pools of muddy water. Seen at close
quarters the car was very big, very expensive-looking, and behind the wheel a third man had his head twisted round to
watch them coming. Dixon opened the rear door for the
Englishman as Beaumont fumbled inside his coat pocket, a
coat Dixon had already checked before letting him put it on.
Taking out a pack of
cigarettes, Beaumont nodded towards
the interior of the car.

'It's all right, Dixon,' he said amiably. 'I've got the message - I'm coming with you.' He cupped a hand to
shield the match he had struck, still standing on the far side of the half-open door. The American hesitated, caught off
guard by the sudden change of mood. A moment later he
revised air his ideas about Beaumont's size and clumsiness, a
moment too late. The Englishman rammed his large body
hard and brutally against the car door which closed - closed
on Dixon's hand and arm.

It was a reasonable risk, Beaumont had calculated - at
the worst the gun would be fired harmlessly inside the car, at
the best the Colt would drop into the mud in the gap betw
een almost closed door and frame. He stooped so quickly
Dixon saw the movement only as a blur, then he came up with the Colt in his hand, pulled the door open and hurled
the injured man face down on the back seat. The muzzle of
the Colt pointed at the man in the front seat who had had no
time to move. 'Take it easy, sonny,' Beaumont warned.
'These things have been known to go bang.'