The Stockholm Syndicate (38 page)

"Welcome at last, Viktor Rashkin,"

Ed Cottel, who had followed Sonia Karnell from the airport and then lost her in a traffic jam, was further delayed by a puncture in one of the busiest sections in the city. He was then delayed by traffic police until he persuaded them to use the transceiver in his car to call headquarters. Eventually he found himself a cab.

In the first floor flat on Nyhavn, Harvey Sholto was satisfied he could do the job. He had stood well back in the shadows of the small room and zeroed in the Armalite telescopic sight on the front door of Horn's house. It was like taking candy from a baby. Then he saw the cab approaching on the other side and took a firmer grip on his weapon.

The cab blocked off his view while Cottel was paying off the driver and Sholto took one final puff on his cigar and ground it under his large foot. The cab moved off, Cottel glanced round and then mounted the steps. Sholto zeroed in on the centre of his back and between Cottel's shoulder-blades, slightly to the left. His finger took the first pressure. He spoke under his breath without realising he was doing it.

"It's been a long time, bastard, well, here it comes."

It hit Harvey Sholto in the middle of the chest, lifted him clear off his feet and jerked him ceiling wards like a manipulated marionette. In mid-air his large body jack-knifed. Gravity brought him back to the floor which he hit with a tremendous thud. He lay still, outstretched, like one of the chalk silhouettes police draw to show where the corpse was found.

It was the cigar smoke which had attracted Kellerman's attention to the open window originally. Little more than a wraith, dispelled by the drizzle as soon as it came into the open air, the movement of the smoke had been sufficient for him. Someone was waiting inside the room supposedly occupied only by a dead man. At the sight of the rifle

aimed at Ed Cottel he had sprayed the window with one short burst from his sub-machine gun.

Beaurain pushed the man with the skull-cap against the wall of the passageway and stuck the barrel of his Luger into his prisoner's throat. Cottel slipped into the house, and at the head of the staircase Palme appeared. Louise closed the door and Beaurain ushered Horn into his own library, followed by Ed Cottel.

"Sharpshooter opposite," Palme explained as he came down the stairs. "His target was Mr. Cottel. Max took him out."

"
Viktor Rashkin?
"

They had entered the library and it was Louise who repeated the name Beaurain had used with incredulity in her voice. Beaurain used his left hand to remove the skull-cap, to tug free the wig of false grey hair. The rimless spectacles he unhooked and threw on the floor.

"It's not as though he needs them to see. Let me introduce Dr. Benny Horn, better known as Viktor Rashkin, First Secretary at the Soviet Embassy in Stockholm. And we mustn't forget other people know him as Dr. Otto Berlin of Bruges and Dr. Theodor Norling of Stockholm. A trio of eminent and murderous dealers in rare books."

The light in the library was dim. It would always be dim behind the heavy lace curtains, but the drizzly morning made it even more difficult to see. Louise had no trouble seeing what she still found almost incredible stripped of his guise as Benny Horn, the man she was staring at was a young forty, eyes intensely observant, his prominent cheekbones Slavic, and even with Beaurain's gun at his throat he exuded an air of authority and confidence. He met her gaze boldly. Then Beaurain said something else and Louise thought she saw a flicker of fear for the first time on Rashkin's face.

"This is also Hugo, controller of the Stockholm Syndicate and the man who masterminds bloodbaths like the Elsinore Massacre,"

"Are you sure?" Louise began. "Why the elaborate deception?"

To give him three different "front" men for dealing with the members he was recruiting for the Stockholm Syndicate. No-one at the outset would be happy dealing with a Soviet Communist. But most important of all to fool the Kremlin - especially Comrade Leonid Brezhnev, his patron."

This time Louise, who was studying Rashkin closely, saw all expression leave his face; it went completely blank. Beaurain was striking very close to home.

"And why would he do that?" Louise asked.

"Because he was going to defect from Russia once the Syndicate was set up!" The accusation came viciously from Sonia Karnell who had remained silent up to this moment. "Billions of dollars you said we would have, and now look where we are!"

"Shut your trap," he told her. It was the calm, detached manner in which he uttered the words which Louise found so frightening. And Rashkin did not look frightened. She noticed Palme had left the room with Ed Cottel after a whispered remark from Beaurain. They were alone with Rashkin and his Swedish mistress, Sonia Karnell. Why did the Russian still seem so confident?

"He was going to defect," Sonia repeated. "He knew he'd never make the Politburo with all those old men standing in his way. He deceived the Politburo - and Brezhnev especially - into believing he had formed a directorate while he remained at a remote distance as Hugo. Once the Syndicate was organised we would leave for America and run it from there. Yes he's Hugo. And
yes
, he secretly worked with Harvey Sholto who used the J. Edgar Hoover files brought up-to-date to persuade key Americans to join the Syndicate. Not that they were reluctant when they realised the enormous non-taxable profits they'd make."

"But he didn't
invent
Berlin, Horn and Norling, did he?" Beaurain queried gently. "They were murdered, weren't they?"

"I had nothing to do with that!" Karnell burst out. "He looked for recluses, men who wouldn't be missed if they suddenly "moved away" - men he could disguise himself as reasonably well."

"How did you find out, Beaurain?" Rashkin asked, again calm.

"All their backgrounds were similar, too similar. When you vanished off the Brussels express from Bruges I later realised you had disguised yourself. Litov's dying words at Stockholm Central "
Heroin ... Norling ... traitor
" pointed to a Russian. Otherwise why should he, a Russian, use the final word? As Norling, you blew up the house outside Stockholm and left behind
an elevated heel
- to vary your height from your other two "creations". Also your reported movements as Rashkin always coincided with the appearance of one of your three "inventions"," The Belgian moved as Rashkin aimed a blow at Karnell.

Rashkin gave a gulp and a grimace of pain. Beau-rain had tapped his Adam's apple with the Luger. Then he smiled, a smile which was grotesque because it reflected the pain. But the will-power which had enabled him to come so far still showed. With an immense effort he spoke the words.

"You cannot touch me. I am Viktor Rashkin. I am First Secretary at the Soviet Embassy in Stockholm. I have diplomatic immunity."

"He's carrying a French passport in the name of Louis Garnet," Sonia Karnell screamed. "I can testify against him. He's a mass murderer."

"Oh, I agree," Beaurain interrupted. He searched Rashkin carefully for weapons and extracted from an inner pocket a French passport. Karnell had been telling the truth. It was made out in the name of Louis Garnet. He returned it to the Russian's pocket.

"But I agree," he said. "Viktor Rashkin has diplomatic immunity and is, therefore, untouchable." Keeping his Luger aimed at Rashkin he stared again through the window, and Louise saw he was looking across the basin to where Ed Cottel stood in front of the house where Harvey Sholto had positioned himself. Pulling back the curtain, Beaurain showed himself. Cottel gave a thumbs up gesture, which seemed to combine the signal for all's well with a gesture pointing towards the window of the room where Sholto's body lay. Rashkin watched him like a cat but he did not see the American or his gesture.

"You know where the front door is," Beaurain told him.

Rashkin did not hesitate. He gave Sonia Karnell a glance which terrified her, then left the room. They heard him open the front door, close it and run down the steps. Beaurain beckoned Louise to join him at the window. Karnell seized her chance to run out into the hallway and up the stairs. There was a rear exit from the building, a flight of iron steps which was the fire escape leading to the cobbled yard. In the library Beaurain gripped Louise's arm.

"Let her go."

"But she'll get away. She tried to kill me."

"No-one is going anywhere. The whole of Nyhavn is sealed off. And from the front window of the room above this one Stig - with a pair of binoculars - got a good view of the position in the room across the way."

Outside Viktor Rashkin had run down the steps and walked rapidly to his parked Volkswagen. He was confident his reference to diplomatic immunity had checkmated the Belgian. Slipping behind the wheel of his car he switched on the engine, started the wipers to clear drizzle from the windscreen and backed to a bridge crossing over the basin.

At the far end of Nyhavn where he had planned to turn right for the city centre he had seen a cordon of cars blocking the route. He crossed the bridge and turned down the other side of Nyhavn.

He pulled up in front of the building where Harvey Sholto had settled himself in position to take out Ed Cottel. As the Russian left the car he saw again what he had spotted in his rear view mirror on entering his car - another cordon closing off the other end of the basin. What he overlooked was Ed Cottel concealed in a nearby basement area. He was Beaurain's backup - in case the Belgian's basic plan didn't work out.

Beaurain and Louise continued watching from the library window. "Rashkin saw that both ends of the street are blocked so now he's gone into his safe house to decide his next move," Beaurain commented. He turned as Palme came into the room.

"There has been a tragedy," the Swede said with a wooden face. "The Karnell woman tried to get away via the fire escape. She was in a hurry - somehow she lost her balance on the top step and went all the way down. I am afraid she is dead. Her neck is broken. What is happening to Benny Horn?"

"I don't know." The words were hardly out of Beaurain's mouth before he jerked his head round to stare at the house opposite.

Inside the house, Viktor Rashkin, whose whole success in life had hinged on his supreme self-confidence, his conviction that he was capable of out manoeuvring any opponent on earth, had run up the stairs with his springy step. He reached the door leading into the room, pushed it wide open and stood framed in the doorway.

Harvey Sholto was not dead, although he had taken terrible punishment from the fusillade of bullets Max Kellerman had fired up at the window. Since then, as more blood seeped onto the sofa onto which he dragged himself, he had been waiting with the Armalite rifle propped in readiness, the muzzle aimed at the door, his finger inside the trigger guard.

The door flew open, a man stood there, a blurred silhouette, the silhouette of the man on the fishing vessel who had emptied half a magazine into him. He pressed the trigger. The bullet struck Viktor Rashkin in the chest. He reeled backwards, broke through the flimsy banister rail and toppled all the way down to the hall below. He was dead before he was half-way down.

Later

The Baron de Graer, president of the Banque du Nord of Brussels, arrived in Copenhagen by plane the same afternoon as the events just described took place in Nyhavn. He met Jules Beaurain, Louise Hamilton and Ed Cottel in a suite at the Royal Hotel. At the request of Beaurain he handed to Cottel photocopies of a whole series of bank statements, many emanating from highly-respected establishments in the Bahamas, Brussels and Luxembourg City. They showed in detail the movements of millions of dollars transferred via complex routes from certain American conglomerates to the Stockholm Syndicate.

"I'll take these at once, if I may," Cottel said, and left for another part of the hotel. The reporter he had earlier contacted from the
Washington Post
had just arrived and wished to fly back to Washington the same night with the photocopies.

"People are impressed with documents, Jules," the Baron said as he drank the black coffee Louise had poured.

"Documents can be concocted to say anything you want them to say. But print them in a newspaper and they are taken for gospel."

"It's the end result that counts," Beaurain agreed.

Ed Cottel also returned to Washington the same evening. In addition to the incriminating bank statements, he had handed the reporter photocopies of the contents of the red file Viktor Rashkin had dropped from his brief-case when disguised as Norling he had fled in his float-plane from the devastated house outside the Swedish capital. The file named names -the company executives of American and European conglomerates who had approved the contributions to the Stockholm Syndicate. Unfortunately many were financial supporters of the President of the United States.

In Copenhagen Superintendent Marker was spared any hint of an international incident since the dead body of Viktor Rashkin was in due course buried as that of an unknown Frenchman, Louis Garnet, identified by the passport found on him. The same neat solution also was applied to the man armed with the Armalite rifle. Marker did later hint to an exceptionally inquisitive reporter that information from Paris led him to believe the deaths of the two Frenchmen were a gangland killing, something to do with the Union Corse. The reporter filed his story but it never appeared; a plane crash with a high casualty rate took over the space instead.

On 4 November in the United States the incumbent president was defeated in a landslide victory by his opponent. Much of the credit for the victory was laid at the door of the Post reporter who had, after a relentless search, come up with evidence suggesting the holier-than-thou occupant of the White House had not lived up to his image.