Nemesis Read Free

ridge overlooking the Lost Valley. The sweater, he realized, bought him at most another five minutes: the wind was going through it like a chainsaw through butter.
    The light cone rose and approached. It was scanning the mountain slopes. Suddenly light flooded the ground around him. An intense spotlight rose into space and approached; the roar became overwhelming; the ground vibrated. Dazzled, the man caught a glimpse of a whirling rotor passing straight overhead. A giant insect, a yellow flying monster of a thing, circled him and then sank towards a sloping patch of snow about thirty yards away. It almost vanished in the blizzard kicked up by its rotors. It tried to settle down, backed off, tried again, but its undercarriage slithered over the snow and the machine slid perilously sideways towards the edge of a precipitous drop. The pilot gave up and rose over the man’s head.
    A spider emerged in silhouette from the side of the machine, and began to sink down on a swaying thread. It settled on to the knee-deep snow within arm’s length of him, resolving itself into a young airman in a khaki-coloured flying suit. “Flt Lt A.W.L. Manley” was stencilled on his helmet. “Doctor Webb?”
    Webb stared in astonishment, and nodded.
    “You’re coming upstairs. Quickly, please.”
    St-Pierre de Montrouge, Paris. 0730 Central European Time
    Five hundred miles to the southeast, in Paris, the Atlantic storm had softened from the harsh reality of a potentially lethal blizzard to a bitter, wet, gusty wind.
    As was his custom, the professor left his apartment at 7:30 a.m. precisely. Dark clouds swirled just above the rooftops, a newspaper streaked along the road and a solitary pigeon was attempting a speed record; but he was well clad in trenchcoat and beret, and as usual he walked the two hundred yards to the Café Pigalle. There he took off his sodden trench-coat and sat at the marble bar. Without waiting to be asked, Monique served him two strong espresso coffees and a croissant with butter and strawberry jam, which he consumed while watching the early morning Parisians scurrying past.
    At eight fifty, as he always did, he set out along the Rue d’Alesia, jumping over the flowing gutters and avoiding the bow waves from passing trucks. He turned off at the church of St-Pierre de Montrouge and headed briskly towards the Sorbonne. He had no reason even to notice the man purchasing cigarettes at the kiosk. The man was squat and bulky, with grey hair close-cropped almost to the scalp. His bull neck was protected from the rain by the pulled-up collar of his sodden jerkin. A policeman stood on the edge of the pavement next to the kiosk, his back to the professor, watchingthe flow of traffic through the little waterfall pouring from the brim of his sodden cap.
    As the professor drew level with the kiosk, the squat man suddenly turned. “Professor Leclerc?”
    Startled, Leclerc looked into the man’s eyes, but they showed no expression. “Who are you?”
    From the corner of his eye the professor saw a big Citroën pull up, the rear door open and another man step out: thin, tight-lipped, with eyes set back in his head. Suddenly, and instinctively, the professor was afraid.
    “Please come with us, Professor.”
    “Why? What is this?”
    “I do not know. A matter of national security. Get into the car.”
    Thinking assassination, Leclerc turned to run; but powerful arms seized him, held him in a painful neck lock. He wriggled furiously, his beret falling to the ground, but another pair of hands twisted an arm behind his back. Half-choked, he tried to shout but he was pushed into the back seat of the car, one man on either side of him. Leclerc forced his arm free and hammered on the rear window. The policeman turned away a little more, his back squarely to the professor. The driver took off swiftly, cutting into the path of a taxi. The man at the kiosk tidied his newspapers, the Parisians scurried by, and the policeman, water streaming