Deadlock

47

Tweed sat beside Van Gorp who was driving with Paula and Newman in the rear seats. They were on their way to Euromast. Paula noticed Tweed kept smoothing his hair with his hand, a sure sign he was uneasy.

'Something wrong?' she asked.

'He'll have synchronized the whole operation. That's the way his mind works – and we're up against a brilliant mind – diabolical but brilliant.'

'Synchronized?' she queried.

That horrible massacre at the marines barracks. Something else will have happened. It's going to be an ordeal of pure terror.'

Van Gorp picked up the car phone as it began buzzing. Listening for a few moments, he said he understood, that he was on his way. His expression was grim in the mirror Paula saw. The Dutchman accelerated as he spoke.

'You were right all along, Tweed. He's seized control of the Euromast. Or someone has.'

'It will be Klein. How detailed was the report?'

'Garbled fragments – as so often happens warning a crisis is in the making. A large group of men – and one woman – invaded Euromast. Armed with machine-pistols, they think. Everyone in the restaurant was bundled outside…'

'You said you had two of your men in that restaurant,' Tweed recalled.

A bitter note entered Van Gorp's voice. They tried to repel the intruders. They were shot in the back…'

'Something odd there,' Newman interjected. 'Why didn't they hold the people dining as hostages – to guarantee their own safety? Normal procedure…'

'Klein isn't normal,' Tweed replied grimly. 'I suspect we'll find he already has hundreds of hostages – aboard those ships waiting offshore. We'll soon know, but I fear the worst.'

Van Gorp picked up the phone again, pressed a number and then spoke in Dutch. The conversation lasted several minutes and he reduced speed. Replacing the phone he glanced in the mirror and pulled in to the kerb alongside the Maas.

'We're close to Euromast. We walk the rest of the way. The area is cordoned off. Too dangerous to drive closer.'

The first thing Tweed noticed as they walked along the pavement by the river was the silence, the absence of any sound of traffic. They passed several couples hurrying in the opposite direction. None of them were speaking. They glanced at Tweed and his companions. One man with a woman stopped as though about to speak to Van Gorp who was on the outside. The woman tugged at his sleeve and he walked on without saying anything.

Out on the river three barges were turning in mid-stream very slowly. Tweed watched them as they headed for a large basin on the far shore. A police launch, blue light flashing, came up behind them, at speed, then cut its engine and began drifting with the current.

Soon they were quite alone as they approached the large park below Euromast. No traffic on the river, none on the road, no more pedestrians. An uncanny silence which had a sinister atmosphere descended on the area. In the distance a wide red and white tape was stretched across the road, extending over the sidewalk.

'What is happening?' Tweed asked.

Two cordons have been set up – one there in front of us and another half a mile further back. The whole area is being sealed off – including the river. Traffic helicopters have been forbidden to fly anywhere near the tower. We are moving into a zone of total isolation.'