The Doomsday Conspiracy. Sidney Sheldon

the passenger seat, then got behind the wheel of the car and drove back down the dirt road onto the highway. At the edge of the steep mountain road, she waited until the road was clear, then opened the door, stepped on the gas pedal, and as the car started to move, she jumped. She stood there watching the car tumble down the steep cliff. Five minutes later, a black limousine pulled up beside her.

      “Irgendwelche Problem?”

      “Keins.”

      Fritz Mandel was in his office ready to close the garage when two men approached.

      “I'm sorry,” he said, “I'm closing. I can't—”

      One of the men interrupted. “Our car is stuck down the highway. Kaputt! We need a tow.”

      “My wife is waiting for me. We are having company tonight. I can give you the name of another—”

      “It's worth two hundred dollars to us. We're in a hurry.”

      “Two hundred dollars?”

      “Yes. And our car is in pretty bad shape. We'd like you to do some work on it. That would probably come to another two, three hundred.”

      Mandel was becoming interested. “Ja?”

      “It's a Rolls,” one of the men said. “Let's see the kind of equipment you have here.” They walked into the service area and stood at the edge of the pit. “That's pretty good equipment.”

      “Yes, sir,” Mandel said proudly. “The very best.”

      The stranger took out a wallet. “Here. I can give you some money in advance.” He removed some bills and handed them to Mandel. As he did so, the wallet slipped out of his hands and fell down into the pit. “Verflucht!”

      “Don't worry,” Mandel said. “I'll get it.”

      He climbed down into the pit. As he did so, one of the men walked over to the control button that operated the raised hydraulic lift and pressed it. The lift started to descend.

      Mandel looked up. “Be careful! What are you doing?”

      He started to scramble up the side. As his fingers touched the ledge, the second man slammed his foot down on Mandel's hand, smashing it, and Mandel dropped back down into the pit, shrieking. The heavy hydraulic lift was inexorably descending on him.

      “Let me out of here!” he cried. “Hilfe!”

      The lift caught him on his shoulder and began pressing him down into the cement floor. A few minutes later, when the terrible screams had stopped, one of the men pressed the button that raised the lift. His companion went down into the pit and retrieved his wallet, careful not to get blood on his clothes. The two men returned to their car and drove off into the quiet night.

      

       FLASH MESSAGE

      TOP SECRET ULTRA

      ESPIONAGE ABTEILUNG TO

      DEPUTY DIRECTOR NSA

      EYES ONLY

      COPY ONE OF (ONE) COPIES

      SUBJECT:

      OPERATION DOOMSDAY

      1. HANS BECKERMAN—

      TERMINATED

      2. FRITZ MANDEL—

      TERMINATED

       END OF MESSAGE

       Ottawa, Canada

       2400 Hours

      Janus was addressing the group of twelve.

      “Satisfactory progress is being made. Two of the witnesses have already been silenced. Commander Bellamy is on the trail of a third.”

      “Has there been a breakthrough yet on SDI?” The Italian. Impetuous. Volatile.

      “Not yet, but we're confident that the Star Wars technology will be up and functioning very soon.”

      “We must do everything possible to hurry it. If it is a question of money—” The Saudi. Enigmatic. Withdrawn.

      “No. There's just a bit more testing to do.”

      “When is the next test taking place?” The Australian. Hearty. Clever.

      “In one week. We will meet here again in forty-eight hours.”

       Chapter Fifteen

      DAY FOUR

       London, Thursday, October 18

      Leslie Mothershed's role model was Robin Leach. An avid viewer of “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous,” Mothershed carefully studied the way Robin Leach's guests walked and talked and dressed because he knew that one day he would appear on that program. From the time he was a small boy, he had felt that he was destined to be somebody, to be rich and famous.

      “You're very special,” his mother would tell him. “My baby is going to be known all over the world.”

      The young boy would go to sleep with that sentence ringing in his ears until he truly believed it. As Mothershed grew older, he became aware that he had a problem: He had no idea exactly how he was going to become rich and famous. For a period of time, he toyed with the notion of being a movie star, but he was inordinately shy. He briefly contemplated becoming a soccer star, but he was not athletic. He thought about being a famous scientist, or a great lawyer, commanding tremendous fees. His school grades, unfortunately, were mediocre, and he dropped out of school without being any closer to fame. Life was simply not fair. He was physically unprepossessing, thin, with a pale, sickly complexion, and he was short, exactly five feet five and a half inches. Mothershed always stressed the extra half inch. He consoled himself with the fact that many famous men were short: Dudley Moore, Dustin Hoffman, Peter Falk …

      The only profession that really interested Leslie Mothershed was photography. Taking photographs was so ridiculously simple. Anyone could do it. One simply pressed a button. His mother had bought him a camera for his sixth birthday and had been wildly extravagant in her praise of the pictures he had taken. By the time he was in his teens, Mothershed had become convinced that he was a brilliant photographer. He told himself that he was every bit as good as Ansel Adams, Richard Avedon, or Margaret Bourke-White. With a loan from his mother, Leslie Mothershed set up his own photography business in his Whitechapel flat.

      “Start small,” his mother told him, “but think big,” and that is exactly what Leslie Mothershed did. He started very small and thought very big, but unfortunately, he had no talent for photography. He photographed parades and animals and flowers, and confidently sent his pictures off to newspapers and magazines, and they were always returned. Mothershed consoled himself with the thought of all the geniuses who had been rejected before their ability was recognized. He considered himself a martyr to philistinism.

      And then, out of the blue, his big opportunity had come. His mother's cousin, who worked for the British publishing firm of HarperCollins, had confided to Mothershed that they were planning to commission a coffee-table book on Switzerland.

      “They haven't selected the photographer yet, Leslie, so if you get yourself over to Switzerland right away and bring back some great pictures, the book could be yours.”

      Leslie Mothershed hurriedly packed up his cameras and headed for Switzerland. He knew—he really knew—that this was the break he had been looking for. At last the idiots were going to recognize his talents. He rented a car in Geneva and traveled around the country taking pictures of Swiss chalets, waterfalls, and snow-capped peaks. He photographed sunrises and sunsets and farmers working in the fields. And then, in the middle of all that, fate had stepped in and changed