Deadlock

42

In room 904 at the Rotterdam Hilton Marler sat reading The Times when the phone rang. Reception informed him that his car was ready, his chauffeur waiting in the lobby. He said thank you, put down the phone.

His car? His chauffeur? What the hell was going on? Slipping on his Aquascutum coat, he unlocked a wardrobe, took out the sports bag containing his dismantled rifle and ammo. No point in leaving that behind.

He pressed the first floor button inside the elevator, got out and slowly descended the staircase for the last flight, his eyes scanning the lobby. A tall slim man in chauffeur's dark uniform and peaked cap stood gazing out of the entrance, gloved hands clasped behind his back.

Marler frowned, wandered over to the reception counter, asked the girl behind it about the call. She pointed to the man by the door.

'There is your chauffeur, sir.'

'Stupid of me.' Marler gave her a beaming smile. 'I missed seeing the chap. Thank you so much.'

As he strolled over the chauffeur swung round, staring at him from behind the tinted glasses so often affected by chauffeurs. Marler paused, still puzzled. The chauffeur spoke.

'Your car is ready when you are, sir,' he said in English.

Only then did Marler realize he was looking at Klein. Bloody clever, he thought. Who notices a chauffeur? Klein stood aside to let Marler walk out first, followed and led him to a BMW parked a few yards up the street.

Opening the rear door, he ushered Marler inside. Glancing up as he settled himself, Marler said, 'Thank you, my man.' He saw for a split second behind the glasses a flash of rage and then Klein got in behind the wheel and drove off, glancing at his passenger in the mirror.

'We are going for a tour of the city,' Klein informed him, 'a tour of the strategic sights.'

'So, at long last, we've reached the target?'

'Only if certain information reaches me. Otherwise we will be moving on again.'

'Oh, come off it, Klein! You used the word "strategic". I've got to know whether to take this seriously. I'm a professional – in case you've forgotten. If I know where I am I can be certain to be effective.'

The first item on our itinerary is Euromast. Remarkable nation, the Dutch. Some of their engineering feats are without precedent. You're carrying your rifle in that bag?'

'I'm not leaving it behind where some curious maid with a duplicate key can open up a wardrobe and start sniffing about.'

The conversation ended on that sharp note and Marler, taking out a street map, opened it up to follow their route. Details of layout, the first essential in any operation. Soon they were driving alongside a wide stretch of water off which stretched a complex system of endless docks. There were freighters, ships of every type, barges berthed everywhere. From his map Marler identified this as the New Waterway or New Maas (Dutch for the continuation of the Meuse into Holland) – the great lifeline of Europe joining up with the Rhine.

Ships' hooters whistled, great barges cruised across its surface, immense dockside cranes loomed in the distance. Klein slowed down as they drove alongside a large green park on the landward side. He turned a corner where the road ran by the edge of a basin. Marler leaned forward. At the far end of the basin several police launches were moored. Klein had stopped the car, parking it by the kerb.

'We have arrived. You may as well know this is the command centre for the attack.'

Marler alighted, carrying his bag, then stared upwards. It spired vertically towards the clear blue sky, an enormous and shapely circular tower of concrete, a thick column at its base, widening far above his head to a viewing platform, continuing above that – forever it seemed – as a narrower needle to a second viewing point at its distant summit.

'Euromast,' said Klein. 'We go inside. I am the chauffeur you have kindly taken with you to see the view. Check every aspect. This is where you will operate.'

The two unmarked police cars drove along the Maastunnel under the river – a stone's throw from Euromast. Van Gorp drove the first car with Tweed beside him and Newman and Bellenger in the back. The naval commander had immediately accepted the invitation to join them.

'Never seen the biggest port in the world before,' he'd commented. The trip will complete my education.'

The second car was driven by a detective who had as passengers Benoit and Butler. Benoit asked the driver a lot of questions. Butler remained silent, listening and observing.

They had left the city behind when Tweed began to take a close interest in the view to his right – towards the river they had passed under. They were now moving along the southern bank.

To their left the view was bleak and monotonous. Like a desert, an impression increased by the sandy plain scattered with scrubby grass, a plain which ran for miles towards the horizon.

Gradually Tweed became more and more appalled as he studied the string of industrial and oil complexes bordering the New Waterway. They passed Shell-Mex One, Shell-Mex Two, Esso, Mobil and Gulf.

Each was a vast sprawl of storage tanks like giant white cakes, cat-crackers, refineries festooned with a spider's web of pipes. Each was like a small colony on its own separated from the next by open barren space. By the time they reached Gulf they were, Van Gorp informed them, coming closer to the sea. They passed another Esso depot.

'What do you think, Bellenger?' Tweed asked.

'A bomber's paradise,' the naval commander replied tersely.

'Like to look at the open sea?' Van Gorp suggested.

'Yes, I would.'

The Dutchman swung left round a sharp curve across a canal, turned right off the main highway on to a side road. They were now crossing a kind of no-man's land beyond Europort where the scrub ran away to a distant breakwater. Beyond the hard line of concrete a belt of blue sparkled in the sun. No living soul was in sight and through the open window Tweed felt the whisper of a breeze, smelt more strongly the tang of salt.

'How can you hope to protect all that lot?' Newman asked. 'I haven't seen a single patrol car since we left Rotterdam,'

'Ah!' Van Gorp lifted a hand from the wheel and made an expansive gesture. 'You have just paid me a compliment. My men are there but you don't see them – neither will the bandits, if they come.'

'Bandits? Odd word.'

'I object,' the Dutchman went on, 'to the way these days the term "terrorist" has almost assumed respectability -often the men with flabby minds say they have this cause, that cause. They are ruthless and murderous bandits. Now, I think we'll stop here, Tweed. Maybe have a little walk.'

The soft breeze had faded as Van Gorp led them towards a distant lighthouse alongside the breakwater. Tweed scrambled to the top of the breakwater, stared across the North Sea as calm as the proverbial millpond. In the lee of another arm of the breakwater a man sat in a large outboard dinghy with a fishing rod. Van Gorp, who had joined him, pointed out the lone figure.

'A favourite Dutch pastime – fishing. And out there the catch can be good.'

Tweed was staring at the entrance to the New Waterway where a large dredger with a scoop was working. Taking out his binoculars, he swept the vessel slowly. It was even larger than he had realized, a vast floating platform.

'We need to clear the channel constantly,' Van Gorp remarked. 'We cannot afford to let it get silted up. Those men are always working. Have you seen all you wish to?'

'I think so, yes.'

He strolled back with Bellenger and Newman to the cars parked some distance away. Van Gorp's long legs took him ahead with great strides accompanied by Benoit and Butler who hurried to keep up.

'What do you think?' Tweed asked. 'About the protection he's had the nerve to organize.'

'Undoubtedly he's done his best – probably better than most.' Bellenger paused. 'But from what you've told me about Klein I'm not happy – not happy at all.'

On their way back to Rotterdam they passed a chauffeur-driven BMW heading out towards where they'd come from. Tweed noticed the single passenger in the back, a man slumped with his hat tipped over his eyes. Obviously fast asleep. Some oil executive.

Inside the BMW Klein drove along the highway while from under his hat Marler peered at the vast installations. Ten minutes later Klein followed the same route over the canal and along the side road towards the breakwater.

'You are getting the picture?' Klein enquired.

'It's rather large.'

Marler, observing the road ahead was traffic-free, sat up and pushed his hat back over his head. He yawned. From Klein's expression in the mirror behind the tinted glasses he gathered his comment had not been appreciated.

'It is the biggest target on the European mainland,' Klein responded. 'And we have the power to destroy the whole thing.'

'Good for you. I wouldn't mind stretching my legs when we can.'

'Which is exactly what we are going to do.'

Klein pulled off the side road and bumped over the scrub land. He stopped close to the breakwater, switched off the engine, got out and opened the rear door. 'Just in case we are watched,' he explained, 'although it is unlikely.'

Thank you, my man.'

Pushing his hands inside his coat pockets, Marler ran agilely up the slanting wall of the breakwater, standing very close to where Tweed had perched earlier. Klein joined him after collecting a pair of high-powered binoculars. He glanced to where a huddled figure sat motionless with a fishing rod in a dinghy.

'Crazy waste of time. The Dutch are a dull nation.'

He focused the binoculars on the dredger, sweeping the lenses slowly from stem to stern. He handed the glasses to Marler. 'You might care to take a look while I check the boot.'

Returning to the car, he unlocked the boot, removed a sheet of canvas and picked up a length of rope he'd purchased from a ship's chandler. Another length lay looped in the corner. The rope he was holding had been tied at one end into a noose like a hangman's. He tested the knot to make sure it slid easily. The noose was roughly of the diameter needed to place round a human neck.

Satisfied that it worked, he replaced it inside the boot. He covered both lengths with canvas, relocked the boot and waited as Marler ran down the side of the breakwater. He handed the binoculars back as he made the remark.

'Big job, that dredger.'

'It will be the first to go – blocking the channel to larger shipping.'

'How many crew aboard? They'll go, too.'

'A crew of eighteen.'

Marler shrugged. 'It's your ball game. Remarkable the way you have the whole plan inside your head. But supposing we died in a car crash on the way back to Rotterdam?'

'The operation would go ahead.' Klein smiled bleakly. 'I have one other man who knows as much as I do. A formidable Frenchman you haven't met yet. I suggest we drive back now you've seen the vast location of the operation.'

'But why do I need to see that?' Marler pressed. He lit a cigarette as Klein paused. 'Come on, I have to know what I'm doing.'

'A situation could arise when your services could be called for out here. Doubtful, but not impossible.' Klein's natural impatience showed. 'Now, let's move. We'll eat at a small place on the way back. It may not be Cordon Bleu but it will fill our stomachs.'

'And when does the operation start?'

'Soon,' Klein assured him. 'Soon…'

The 50,000-ton cruise liner Adenauer was at sea off the West Frisian Islands, sailing steadily south on course for its rendezvous off Europort. Just before leaving Hamburg there had been a few minutes of excitement for passengers lining the rails.

A stretched black Mercedes limousine – accompanied by police outriders – had pulled in to the dockside. A late middle-aged man and a woman had emerged and boarded the ship quickly. One of the Americans looking down on the gangway grabbed his wife by the arm.

'Jesus, honey! That's the US Secretary of State, Waldo Schulzberger.'

'I do believe it is,' she'd replied with a note of awe.

The Secretary of State had been ushered by the captain himself to their most luxurious stateroom. The wire services were already buzzing with the report filed by an eagle-eyed German reporter on the dockside. Schulzberger was taking a brief respite from his arduous duties.

Approaching Europort from the south the 500,000-ton tanker had received from Rotterdam Marine Control a further signal warning that there might be a delay before it could dock. The master of the Cayman Conqueror acknowledged receipt of the signal, gave the order for a slight reduction in speed.

Twenty miles astern the 350,000-ton tanker, Easter Island, also received the same warning. Its skipper issued the same instruction to lose speed. Captain Williams shrugged and gave his First Officer a wry grin. 'It's going to be Piccadilly Circus at Europort. Business as usual. Keep an eye on that freighter astern…'

Captain Salvi aboard the 10,000-ton freighter Otranto reacted to his signal with resignation. It probably meant a further addition to the penalty clause for delay in delivery of his cargo. Well, that was not his problem. Let the lawyers sort it out when the time came. That was what they were paid their fat fees for. A uniformed waiter rushed on to the bridge and paused. Salvi asked what was the trouble now?

'The Director's wife is wondering where you are. She likes to have you at the dinner table.'

'Is that fat cow in love with me? All right, I'm coming…'

Astern of the Otranto the three large container vessels from Africa were manoeuvring for position, each trying to get ahead of the others to offload at Europort first. To get the best price for their cargo of soya bean meal. The signals caused a furious reaction from all three skippers, but they stopped the race, slowing down reluctantly.