Hostage Tower by John Denis Page B

gun, to give them somesort of chance. Mike Graham spoke not a single word. Neither did any other person in the room.
    â€˜Again,’ Smith said, ‘excellent. We all trust each other. We may even like each other. That helps, I find. No close attachments of course –’ his gaze wandered to Pei and Tote. ‘But friendships, yes.’
    The tension drained from the room, and Sabrina wondered whether her face had registered the panic which had come so near to erupting when Graham’s eyes had pierced her like accusing daggers. Smith spoke again.
    â€˜Incidentally, is anyone afraid of heights?’ They looked at each other, and shook their heads like marionettes. ‘Good,’ Smith went on. ‘And – C.W. would you have any trouble impersonating a French chef to a French chef? There are black chefs here – I’ve checked.’
    C.W. grinned and shook his head afresh. ‘Un morceau de gâteau,’ he replied. Smith laughed, and said to Sabrina, ‘There’s one more pairing which requires specialized skills, that you and Tote possess. It’s welding. You’ll work together.’ Sabrina nodded at Tote, who blinked twice.
    â€˜I think that takes care of the preliminaries, then,’ Smith announced, rapping his gloved hand sharply with the riding crop. ‘More details later, of course. Target, dates, and so on. But for the moment, there’s one important piece of information you should have. Indeed, I need it, too. Mr Graham? Perhaps you would care to tell us what a Lap-Laser is.’
    Mike sat up and said, ‘Of course. The Lap-Laser is a tactical self-searching field weapon, laser-armed, auto-recharging – stop me if I’m getting too technical … No? OK. It’s lethal to a thousand metres, and it uses a guidance system known as BAT.
    â€˜Russia and America have been racing to perfect the gun for years,’ Mike went on, ‘but neither had any success until the Americans tried a new element in the guidance system. They discarded the original radar, and substituted lasers to control the gun as well as power it. Now, it really works. It’s still a little unstable and – shall we say – indiscriminate. But, my God, it works.
    â€˜A month ago, the General Electric Corporation of Buffalo, New York State, shipped twelve prototype Lap-Lasers to selected US Army test sites, including one in Europe. The four which were being tested at a secret range near the base at Stuttgart were, unfortunately, stolen. The Army have kept the lid on the theft, and their investigation has been highly confidential, you could say.
    â€˜Luckily for us, they were stolen by me. I would imagine they are now here.’ He looked questioningly at Smith, who nodded. ‘Great,’ said Mike. ‘In that case, whatever our target, however difficult the going is made for us, we have a fantastic edge on anyone trying to stop us. These guns are really something else. They draw enough power to run a small city, and they are so phenomenally destructive that they make the average rocket gunseem like a pea-shooter. With four of them, we could take on an army.’
    Smith chuckled. ‘Funny you should say that,’ he mused. ‘Because we may have to.’
    Sabrina and C.W. looked startled. The ponderous Tote cracked his knuckles and beamed.
    Despite his promise, Smith decided not to reveal the details of his operation until they had finished what he termed ‘a short period of training and relocation’. Sabrina and C.W. were not too downhearted; there was no possibility, in any case, of getting the information out to Philpott. It troubled them that he almost certainly didn’t know where they were, but there was nothing they could do about that, either.
    In fact, they were wrong. Philpott knew exactly where they were. Using an Air Force ‘Blackbird’ Mach III spy plane, he had tracked the chopper to the château. Now he was