The Stockholm Syndicate (12 page)

"That's w hat it reminded me of. It could be the signature of the executioner - a German trained by the Nazis. By the way, have either of you visited Bruges recently?" Flamen enquired placidly. His pipe was smoking furiously and he was staring out of the window.

"Yes," Beaurain answered shortly. Today."

He kept his answers as brief as possible and avoided mentioning that Louise had accompanied him. Willy Flamen could be clever and devious.

"Why?"

"Because this morning a bar gee called Frans Darras and his wife, Rosa, were brutally murdered aboard their barge. The same technique was used both were shot in the back of the neck. One bullet apiece. Voisin has dived in head first, linked the three killings together because of the
modus operandi
and linked them all with you because of Florin. The fact that you were in Bruges today won't help when he hears."

Flamen broke off to answer the telephone. He listened and then asked a number of questions rapidly. The topic of the phone call was obvious. Flamen broke the connection, excused himself, and used the phone to despatch a team of investigators and forensic experts. Replacing the receiver, he gave a grunt and then looked at both of them with a grim smile.

"Where have you parked your Mercedes, Jules?"

"In a side street out of sight."

"Good." He stared at the ceiling. "There was a blood bath outside police headquarters not fifteen minutes ago. Voisin is going mad - as if that were news. Three men attacked a vehicle passing headquarters. All three are dead, and one was armed with a sub machine-gun. Some fool of a woman peering out after it was nearly over says that four men who were attacked were travelling in a Mercedes. She didn't specify a 280E." He waited for comment.

"So?" asked Beaurain.

"I'm glad to see you both looking so well." His manner became very serious as he leaned forward over the table. "More than ever I think you should leave Belgium tonight. Surely you can continue your investigation from a safer country."

" Name one," said Beaurain. "But thanks, Willy." He left it at that.

"One thing which puzzles me is how the Syndicate operates its communications - because you can bet your pension it will have a system and a good one. Is anyone working on that?"

Flamen stood up and brought a map of Belgium from a side-cabinet which he spread out over his desk. "There has been an unusual amount of illegal radio traffic during the past six months."

"In these ringed areas?" Beaurain asked, studying the map.

"Yes. A colleague of mine compiled this and I borrowed it - I thought it might interest you. I can't make head or tail of the thing."

"But you think it has some significance?" Louise enquired.

"That's what I'm not sure about," Flamen admitted. "We have a fleet of radio-detector vans scattered throughout Belgium. Some are under the control of counter-espionage."

"And these ringed areas show the areas of the most intense activity during the past six months?" Louise asked. While she and Flamen were talking Beaurain was staring at the map with a scowl of

concentration.

"That's right," Flamen agreed. "The trouble is the Syndicate's transmitters keep moving while

transmitting. That increases the difficulty of location enormously. They must have the transmitters inside tradesmen's vans - something innocent-looking which wouldn't look out of place travelling along a highway."

"How do you know these are Syndicate transmissions? Has someone broken the code?" Beaurain asked.

Flamen hesitated. "That's top secret information from another department. Frankly, until

today I wasn't sure myself, and no-one else is, so this is between the three of us. One of our men did crack one code. Two days later he was killed. Shot in the back of the neck. One bullet."

"Order Captain Buckminster to take
Firestorm
into the Kattegat and then proceed full steam ahead until he's anchored off Elsinore."

Immediately after their meeting with Chief Inspector Willy Flamen, Beaurain and Louise had driven back to Henderson's control headquarters. On arriving Beaurain had begun to issue a stream of instructions to Henderson. Within minutes the atmosphere inside the room - which had been tense before they returned - became electric. At one stage Henderson swung briefly in his swivel chair to ask a question.

"All this means, sir, that Telescope is temporarily evacuating Belgium including the Château Wardin? Is it really essential to go that far?"

"If we are to fool the Stockholm Syndicate we have to put into action what you have rehearsed time and again, Jock. We withdraw so swiftly we're gone before they suspect what's happening."

"May I know the reason?"

"I'm just coming to it. I'm gambling everything on two people being right Goldschmidt in Bruges and Ed Cottel of the CIA. They both state that a full meeting of the Stockholm Syndicate is taking place somewhere in Scandinavia in less than two weeks' time. Telescope must be there in force to confront them."

"Why should Goldschmidt and Cottel be right?" Louise objected.

"They don't have to be," Beaurain said, 'but we have to take a decision and it's bound to be a gamble. The point is they have entirely different sources - literally in different continents. But they both say the same thing. About two weeks away a meeting. Locale - Scandinavia."

"Hence you're moving
Firestorm
towards the Baltic?"

"It's so packed with men and equipment it has become a mobile version of Telescope. We now have a force at sea we can land almost anywhere in the Scandinavian zone. My huge gamble," Beaurain admitted, 'is that this will be the scene of Gold-schmidt's predicted collision between Telescope and the Stockholm Syndicate. Our next move," he told Louise, 'is to pay a brief visit to Ed Cottel who is now back at the Hilton."

"If you can reach it alive," commented Henderson.

"It's the Baltic - just as I suspected," said Captain "Bucky' Buckminster, Captain of the steam yacht
Firestorm
, to his First Mate as he read the decoded signal. "At the moment we sail through the Kattegat and wait at the entrance to the Øresund ..." His wiry hand traced the course on the chart spread out on the chart-table. "On arrival we anchor off Elsinore unless we're ordered to proceed at full speed into the Baltic, which wouldn't surprise me,"

Buckminster was a tall, restless man of fifty who had commanded a destroyer in the Royal Navy before retiring at his own request.

"We do realise the murder of your daughter in Beirut must have come as a great shock, Bucky," one of his superiors had told him. "But why don't you give your decision more time? You'll lose your pension, you love the sea, and who's going to give you another command like the one you're resigning?"

"No-one, sir," Buckminster had lied, meeting the Admiral's eyes without flinching. It would not have done to reveal that he would be taking over command of a vessel which carried at least as heavy a punch as the destroyer whose command he was relinquishing, even if it was concealed under the guise of a powerful steam-ship built and operated for the Baron de Graer.

Seen from the air, the impression of idle luxury was confirmed by the blue swimming pool. It would have taken a very keen pilot's eye to notice the size of the helipad aft, capable of landing the largest type of Sikorsky in the world, the chopper which the Americans in Vietnam had called a gunship.

The same keen pilot's eye might also have wondered about why so formidable a winch was needed aboard a Belgian millionaire's floating plaything. And had he happened to be flying over when the giant hatch had been open, something else might well have caused him to lift his eyebrows the size of the hold and the fact that it contained a small float-plane, a very large launch complete with wheelhouse and several power-boats.

Before agreeing to join Telescope, Buckminster had gone secretly to Brussels to discuss what had been presented to him as 'an interesting proposition in view of the brutal and tragic murder of your daughter'. On his arrival in Brussels he had learned to his dismay that he was meeting a Belgian. Impossible for him to imagine himself taking orders from someone who wasn't British. He received a further shock when he was introduced to Jules Beaurain, who, dressed casually in a polo-necked sweater and slacks, became the image of an Englishman when he opened his mouth. Buckminster agreed to take command of
Firestorm
even before he had seen the vessel.

Now he stuffed the signal from Henderson in his pocket. The powerful rotors of the giant helicopter could be heard in the sky.

"Dead on time, sir, as always," First Mate Adams observed, checking his watch.

"Has she brought everything we need?" demanded Buckminster.

"The earlier signal - didn't feel it was necessary to report that to you - confirmed that Anderson airlifted from the Scottish coast two bazookas, extra submachine guns, extra ammunition, a supply of hand-grenades and various small-arms. No alcohol was included in the consignment," Adams said with a grin.

Buckminster shaded his eyes as he watched the incoming chopper whose sheer size never ceased to surprise him. His reprimand was the more devastating for being delivered as he stared upwards.

"Adams, I decide what is and is not necessary. In future you will show me all - repeat all - signals reaching this vessel."

"Of course, sir. Fully understood, sir."

"Another point. I run a dry ship, therefore your presumably humorous reference to alcohol is not appreciated."

"Really am very sorry indeed, sir."

In his best quarterdeck manner Buckminster lowered his hand and glared at his First Mate.

"Just so long as it doesn't happen again. Now, I leave you to see to it that Anderson and that bloody great chopper of his land safely on the helipad."

Turning his back on Adams, he studied the chart again and taking a pencil from his pocket drew his projected course. The Sikorsky lowered its great bulk onto the helipad. The sea was calm, a sheet of rippling blue which sparkled and glittered in the reflection from the sun shining out of a clear sky. All this was lost on Buckminster as he studied the chart. Nor was he dwelling on the fact that below deck he was carrying some of the most deadly killers in the world a large nucleus of ex-Special Air Service men, and men from various nations who all had their own reasons for hating terrorism.

"Who and where is our opponent?" was the question he was asking as
Firestorm
increased speed and headed for Elsinore.

At precisely the same hour and also in the glare of a blazing sun - the 2,000-ton Soviet hydrofoil MV
Kometa
was proceeding at twenty knots off the Polish coast near Gdansk. Captain Andréi Livanov turned as Sobieski came onto the bridge and concealed his dislike of the newcomer with an effort. Livanov was a Muscovite and proud of it. Having to consort with such people as Poles did not suit his temperament.

"Is there some problem, Sobieski?" he asked.

"None whatsoever, Comrade."

"Then you had better return to your control headquarters to make sure no problem does arise."

Peter Sobieski, a well-built man of forty with a cheerful and extrovert personality, glanced at his temporary - and nomin al - captain and then lit a cigarette.

"If a problem arises you will not be able to eat. If an emergency occurs you will have a nervous breakdown," thought Sobieski, who disliked Russians as much as Livanov disliked Poles. He did not say the words out loud. Instead he blew smoke across the bridge, an action which touched off Livanov's edgy nerves. "You will not smoke on my bridge!"

Sobieski added insult to injury by grinding the cigarette under his heel. At that moment a radio signal received from the shore station was handed to Livanov. It did not improve his temper. The signal asked why
Kometa
was cruising like an ordinary vessel and not using her surface-piercing foils.

Captain Livanov concealed his anger. First the man in charge of the sonar room had been replaced by Sobieski. The Pole undoubtedly knew his job; Livanov had to admit that he was at least as good as the regular man. But Sobieski was Viktor Rashkin's creature. And Viktor Rashkin, the wond er boy of the Soviet political world, was Leonid Brezhnev's creature.

It was Rashkin, the second most powerful man in the Soviet Union, who had ordered
Kometa
to proceed along the Baltic shore on its way to Germany. And it was the brilliant Rashkin who had come aboard briefly before
Kometa
departed from Leningrad, bringing with him Peter Sobieski.

"He will take control of the sonar during this voyage of your remarkable ship," he had informed Livanov.

Livanov was on the verge of asking
Is he qualified?
before he realised the danger of the question. He hoped he was. He dared not cast doubt on Rashkin's judgement.

"He is my assistant," Rashkin had said. "He is also a Pole. Do not look surprised, Comrade Livanov. We and our European allies are one big happy family - so why should we not co-operate?"

Had there been a note of cynical irony in Rashkin's remark? The captain of
Kometa
had glanced quickly at him and a pair of shrewd eyes had met his own. Livanov did not understand this man whose expression changed with alarming suddenness. They said he had been an actor before he served his apprenticeship with the KGB.

Livanov was thinking of this conversation as he cruised off Gdansk and read the signal from shore control. Very well, he would show them. Sending Sobieski back to his sonar room, Livanov issued his instructions and the huge vessel began to pick up speed. He himself operated the lever which transformed
Kometa
from a normal vessel with her hull deep in the water to a streak of power elevated above the sea on massive steel blades like giant skis.

Onshore several pairs of eyes watched the spectacle through field-glasses. Some of the watchers had never seen a hydrofoil. There were expressions of sheer astonishment as
Kometa
flew across the vast bay. Fresh signals were despatched to the captain - this time of congratulation. Livanov chose to ignore them. He was thinking now of the passengers he would be taking on board at his next port of call. A detachment of MfS - members of the dreaded state security from East Germany.