The Stockholm syndicate

Chapter Six

Gunther Baum sat perfectly still in the passenger seat of the Renault, which had been driven by the lean-faced man beside him. On his companion's lap lay the brief-case containing the loaded Luger. Baum had not yet requested the weapon.

As during his visit to Pierre Florin he was proceeding with caution. Again he wore a straw hat and tinted glasses. In his left hand he held a photo of Frans Darras and his wife, Rosa. It was best to proceed in a methodical manner.

"I trust they are both on board," Baum said. "And at least we have found the barge where it was supposed to be you can see the aerial."

He held out his gloved hand. His companion had not replied, knowing Baum often thought aloud to make sure there was nothing he had overlooked before he completed a job. When it involved two people at once it always required a little more finesse.

Baum took the gun, made sure the silencer was screwed on tight and opened the door with his other gloved hand. "You follow with your tool-kit in three minutes counting from now." His companion checked his own watch quickly. In Baum's world seconds counted.

Baum climbed deliberately and slowly. Reaching the towpath he held the Luger behind his back and looked around. The barge was moored and its deck was deserted but he heard voices from the cabin below. There was no-one on the tow-path. The one feature Baum missed was a small boy perched in the branches of an apple tree. Baum stepped aboard and pocketed the photo.

Frans and Rosa Darras were arguing so loudly they did not hear Baum descend the steps into the cabin. They would not have heard him anyway. Coming out of the daylight it was difficult to see clearly in the cabin and behind his tinted glasses Baum blinked.

"I have a message and some money for Frans and Rosa Darras," he said.

Startled, the bargee turned quic kly. "That's us. Who are you?"

"Both of you will turn and face the wall."

Baum had produced the Luger from behind his back and aimed it at a position between them. I have come to remove your transceiver," he continued in his sing-song French. "Face the wall until we have completed the work. Behave yourselves in an orderly manner and you can rest assured no harm…"

They had both turned together to face the wall. Instinctively Frans grasped Rosa's hand to reassure her. Baum was still talking when he pressed the muzzle against the base of Frans Darras' neck and fired once. Darras was falling when the muzzle pressed into the neck of Rosa who, frozen with terror, was unable to move. Baum pressed the trigger a second time.

His companion appeared with his brief-case and tool-kit. Baum handed the Luger to him at once and the weapon w as returned to the brief-case. He stood quite still while his companion swiftly removed the transceiver and its power-operated aerial. On the canal bank above them the little boy in the apple tree had remained in its branches. He was sucking an orange as Baum reappeared at the top of the steps, and it slipped from his fingers, hitting the tow-path with a clunk. Baum turned and scanned the area.

Hidden amid the branches no more than twenty feet away, the boy watched the sunlight flashing off the tinted lenses as Baum continued searching while his companion also reappeared on deck, the brief-case in one hand, the transceiver and aerial awkwardly held under his arm. He was sweating with the effort.

"You heard something?" he asked.

Time to get back to the car," said Baum.

They were driving along the main highway, heading for Brussels, when a train passed in the opposite direction. Inside a first-class compartment Beaurain and Louise sat facing each other, gazing out of the window. They had a glimpse of a canal, of several barges moored close to a lock, barges with clotheslines hung along the decks, TV masts and radio aerials projecting into the sunlight.

"Those people must lead a life of their own they even have TV," Louise remarked.

Beaurain was staring out without seeing anything, his mind on Goldschmidt. He nodded automatically, but registered what she had said to him.

"Shot in the back of the neck? Pierre Florin?"

Chief Inspector Flamen of Homicide sighed inwardly. Voisin had a habit of repeating statements you made.

"Chief Superintendent Beaurain had requested to see him as soon as he returned from sick leave," Flamen continued and then waited for the expected reaction.

"Ex-Chief Superintendent Beaurain, you mean. Is it not peculiar that the policeman Beaurain wished to see should be murdered before he saw him?" demanded Voisin.

"It could have significance," Flamen agreed.

"Had I better see Beaurain?"

"As you wish, sir — but it might be better if I saw him first. That way you won't find yourself in any embarrassing situation, if I may so phrase it."

"You may indeed, Flamen." Voisin smirked. Clearly Willy Flamen understood the delicacy of his position, the political importance of never having to take a decision that might backfire.

"Found in his apartment," Flamen continued. "No sign of a break-in."

"So he knew his murderer," Voisin jumped in.

"It would seem so," Flamen agreed tactfully, although he knew it didn't necessarily follow. "Shot in the back of the neck," he repeated. "Reminds me of something nasty but I just can't recall what it is."

"You ha d better leave for Brussels now, before Bruges is flooded with police," Dr. Berlin told Sonia Karnell inside the tiny house in the Hoogste van Brugge.

"Something is going to happen?"

"A couple of loose ends are being tidied up by Gunther Baum — Frans and Rosa Darras aboard the barge. They were getting slack it was you who warned me when you delivered the Zenith signal about Beaurain."

Karnell had stood up to leave. Her brow was crinkled with apprehension.

"What have I been responsible for? I thought you were only going to warn them."

"It is a warning!" Berlin raised his voice and used the fingers of one hand to stroke the curved ends of his moustache. "A warning to the other people running our communications. But that's why there may be police activity round this area soon. Also because I have decided to teach Dr. Goldschmidt a lesson for spying on me with that photographer in the house opposite."

"Not Baum again?" she asked quietly.

"You are too soft-hearted."

"You are getting more brutal and I don't really like it."

He relented and decided to tell her. "Dirk is going to deliver one of his toys. He is a gentle soul. Now run along and I'll meet you later at the Brussels apartment before we go to the airport together."

She nodded and left to find a cab for the station. Dirk Mondy ran the Bruges office when Berlin was not there. What toy could he be presenting to Goldschmidt?

As she left the house and headed down the narrow cobbled street she was relieved that it was not Baum who was calling. Even the mention of Baum, whom she had never met, terrified her. I wouldn't know him if he came up my own stairs in Stockholm, she thought.

At Bruges station Louise and Beaurain had to wait several minutes until a cab arrived, bringing a passenger to the station. The door opened, a girl wearing a windcheater stepped out, reached into her handbag for her purse and caught sight of Beaurain. For a fraction of a second she froze, then recovered, paid the fare and hurried into the station.

"Holiday Inn," Beaurain told the driver. It was easier than explaining how to get to Dr. Goldschmidt's address in a nearby side street. "This is one of the most beautiful towns in Europe," Beaurain remarked as the cab moved off. "There's an area with canals and ancient bridges with willows dripping branches in the water. It is just the sort of place I'd hide up in if I were running some shady outfit."

"You noticed that girl who got out of this cab at the station?" Louise asked in a low voice.

"Vaguely. Quite a looker." Beaurain lit a cigarette.

"She was staring at you as though you scared her stiff. Have you ever seen her before?"

"Never in my life. Ah, here we are. I'm looking forward to seeing my old friend."

The Holiday Inn was on the corner of an ancient square the T'Zand. Down the side street where Dr. Goldschmidt lived were old houses, steep-roofed and white. The atmosphere was so peaceful Louise felt ridiculous carrying a pistol.

"Here we are."

Beaurain stopped outside one of the houses which carried an engraved plate on the wall by the door. Avocat. Lawyer. No name. He pressed the bell and glanced down the street. Forty yards away a Volkswagen was parked. A man sat behind the wheel. Impossible to see his face at that distance. The door opened on a chain.

"Your card, please."

"Here, Henri. It is Jules."

"Cautious, isn' t he?" Louise whispered.

A slim-fingered hand took the card, the chain was removed and they stepped into a hallway. The door closed and Dr. Goldschmidt regarded them both, a tall, stooped man with a silver mane of hair and a hawk-like nose. He wore a business suit which could only have been cut in Savile Row and peered at them through a pair of gold-rimmed glasses.

He said mildly: "You are both carrying guns. Correct, Miss Hamilton? No, don't look at Jules for your cue. Am I right?"

"Yes-but how…?"

"Because he's a good bluffer," Beaurain put in. "When we entered the doorway we passed through a metal detector set into the door-frame and the bulb down here in the wall lights up faintly when metal is detected on a visitor. The bluff is he had no way of knowing the metal was a gun so he challenged you with an accusation which threw you off balance. He used to be one of Belgium's most e minent lawyers before he took up… the collection of rare coins."

"Any more of my secrets you wish to reveal?" Goldschmidt asked with mock waspishness.

"Not at the moment but please don't play games with my best girl."

"Mamsele, a thousand apologies. And such a beautiful assistant."

He ushered them through a doorway into a small but comfortably furnished room overlooking the street. The walls were lined with bookcases, a blue deep-pile carpet covered the floor. Goldschmidt pulled forward a leather armchair for Louise and fussed about her courteously. She looked straight at his penetrating grey eyes and decided she must establish herself or be dismissed as second-rate.

"You are afraid someone is coming to kill you, Dr. Goldschmidt?"

"All the time in my b usiness." He turned to Beaurain who was staring through the window at the parked Volkswagen. "You said on the phone I could speak to Miss Hamilton as though I were talking to you."

"That's true." Beaurain sat down in a second armchair and Goldschmidt took a high-backed chair behind a large antique desk which meant he was looking down at them. He used the technique of intimidation with so many people he even continued it with his friends.

"First things first," said Beaurain in a business-like manner, and took out a long, fat envelope containing 20,000 in Deutschmarks of high-denomination notes. He dropped it on the desk. "My contribution towards your favourite charity."

Goldschmidt picked up the envelope, locked it in a desk drawer without opening it and inclined his head. "Thank you. How can I help you?"

"I want to know who is running the Syndicate, some idea of the size of its operations, and where its headquarters are."

Terror." Goldschmidt plunged straight into his subject. Terror is the weapon this Syndicate is using on a scale never before seen in Europe — or in the States, not that Washington will admit its existence. I have never in all my experience," he continued, 'known such a situation." He stared hard at Beaurain. "The Syndicate controls men and women at the summit of power in this country. If you become its target you cannot save yourself."

"I've never heard you talk like this before," Beaurain said grimly. "How have they managed this in such a short time?" He was thinking of the fear on the face of the Baron de Graer.

"They vary their method to suit the victim. Sometimes money is employed very large sums, some of which originate in the United States. In other cases they employ terroristic blackmail. You remember the killing of the Baron de Graer's wife and daughter during the so-called kidnap attempt at the Chateau Wardin?"

" So-called? "

"Yes. It was planned from the outset that the wife and daughter would be killed. You look very grim, Jules."

"I happen to know the Baron de Graer. Also I was in charge of the anti-terrorist squad at the time.

Brussels stopped me using my normal method of going in with heavy fire-power. Brussels insisted on negotiations." There was an undertone of bitterness in the Belgian's voice.

"It would have been too late anyway, Jules, had you done so," Goldschmidt said gently.

"What the hell does that mean?"

"De Graer's wife and daughter were brutally murdered as soon as the kidnap took place. The rest was window-dressing."

" Window-dressing? " There was an ominous note in Beaurain's quiet voice.

"I only learned several months later." Their host turned in his chair to look out of the open windows. "The killings at the Chateau Wardin were a demonstration of the Syndicate's power. A number of prominent citizens up to Cabinet level were phoned and told what was going to happen, that the same thing could happen to their own loved ones if they refused to co-operate. You see, the conspiracy started early." He turned and looked at Beaurain's frozen expression. "As I said, it is the uninhibited use of terror, intimidation and bribery. I suspect that soon whole countries will be practically run by this evil organisation. You are powerless to do anything about it, Jules. Or are you? By the way, I wondered whether your visit was to ask me about Telescope?"

"What do you know about it?" Beaurain asked.

"Very little. It is organised like the wartime escape routes for Allied fliers from Brussels to the Spanish border."

"And its leadership?"

Goldschmidt did not reply at once. He took off his gold-rimmed spectacles and studied Beaurain as he polished them with a blue silk handkerchief. He glanced at Louise whose expression was deliberately blank; she hoped not too blank. He replaced his glasses.

"I know nothing of its leadership,"

"Getting back to the Syndicate…"

"It is controlled by three rarely-seen men. One of them is a dealer in rare books who, when he comes to Bruges, has a house in the Hoogste van Brugge only five minutes' walk from where we are now. I find that a trifle insulting. Let me show you on the street map."

Beaurain and Louise studied the map briefly. The address was, as Goldschmidt had said, surprisingly close. "These three men have names?" Beaurain asked.

"The one in Bruges is a Dr. Otto Berlin." Goldschmidt extracted a card from a drawer and wrote on it. "The second is a Dr. Benny Horn, a Dane who operates a rare bookshop in the Nyhavn waterfront area in Copenhagen."

"I know the area," Louise said.

"Good, good. Do not go there alone, my dear, I beg of you. The third is a Swede, a Dr. Theodor Norling, and he too is in the rare book trade. He has an address in Gamla Stan, the Old City district of Stockholm. You know that, I believe, Jules?"

"Yes." Beaurain took the card and glanced at the address. "I don't follow why they are all in the rare book trade. It's some kind of cover?"

"They can travel about officially purchasing some rare volume for a valued customer. Rare books! They are cold-blooded killers."

Goldschmidt spoke with abnormal vehemence. "Trust no-one, Jules. There is treachery everywhere. Unless the Stockholm Syndicate is destroyed quickly it will have the whole western world in its grip."

"Surely that's rather an overstatement," Louise suggested gently.

"You think so?" The rare coin dealer gazed hard at the English girl. "It operates like some international protection racket. Clearly you have no idea who they already have."

"Wher e does the money come from?" asked Beaurain.

"That's the trouble," Goldschmidt said. "We know that billions of dollars have been transferred to Europe by certain American multi-nationals to support the Syndicate. In secrecy, of course, but the funds have been so huge they have moved the value of currencies and that you cannot hide. So, again, it seems like the Americans…"

"But you think not?" Beaurain asked. "Who then?"

"If only I knew which of Berlin, Horn or Norling was the chief executive. The top controller goes under the code-name Hugo. That is a name you whisper. Find Hugo and you have the Syndicate by the throat."

"Why do you call it the Stockholm Syndicate? Why Stockholm?"

Beaurain had deliberately returned to his old role of Chief Superintendent grilling a suspect, hurling question after question with such speed that the recipient answered without thinking.

"Because that is how it is known. My enquiries have traced funds through many channels and always the end of the line is Stockholm."

"How do the men who run this Syndicate extract billions of dollars from the States? By the same methods — intimidation?"

"Sometimes — many successful men leave skeletons behind as they climb. There is an American who has built up what he calls "a blackmail bank". That could be used by the Syndicate. That, plus the lure of huge, invisible and so non-taxable profits when the money is invested in European crime the drug traffic and so on."

"Are the Soviets involved?" Beaurain demanded.

"Viktor Rashkin, the protege of Brezhnev, is at the Russian Embassy in Stockholm," Goldschmidt observed. Unlocking the drawer which contained the envelope of money Beaurain had handed him, the dealer handed it back. "Keep this. Use the funds for your investigation. As you know, my dear Jules, I am a supplier of information. May I just for once enter the prediction business?"

"Go ahead." Beaurain pocketed the envelope. "And thank you."

"I have heard there is to be a meeting of all key members and "shareholders" in the Stockholm Syndicate within the next two weeks. The Americans are flying to Europe — the conference will take place somewhere in Scandinavia. I predict that within the next fourteen days there will be a frightful collision between Telescope and the Stockholm Syndicate. Only one organisation will survive."

At that moment the grenade came through the window and landed on Goldschmidt's desk.

Beaurain reacted with great speed. If he lobbed it back into the street he might cause hideous casualties to passers-by. His hand grasped the obscene object, he rushed to the door, hauled it open and hurled the grenade as far as he could down the narrow hallway. Slamming the heavy door shut he waited for the explosion.

"Superb reflexes, my friend as always," Gold-schmidt commented drily. The emergency had drained the tension out of his system.

"I think it's a dud."

Beaurain was looking at the second-hand of his watch. He waited a little longer. Louise, white-faced but controlled, nodded towards the window.

"Just before it happened I heard a car start up and approach. There was a Volkswagen parked further up the road when we arrived. It had one man behind the wheel."

"I noticed it. I'm going to check."

"Be careful."

Beaurain returned tossing the grenade in the air like a tennis ball. "It's a fake," he assured them. "No primer.

Who wants to scare the living daylights out of Dr. Goldschmidt? There's a note on this spill of paper. It says, "Get out of Belgium by nightfall."

"Undoubtedly a message from Dr. Otto Berlin. He objects to my compiling a dossier on his activities."

"That address," Beaurain said quickly. "In Hoogste van Brugge. I think we'll go there immediately. What does Berlin look like?"

Goldschmidt was unlocking a drawer in his desk. "My photographer who took these pictures — I was going to get them when the grenade interrupted us — says Berlin is about five feet ten tall, very fat, hair black and greasy, with a moustache curling down the sides of his mouth. Walks with a waddle like a duck. Short-sighted — wears horn-rimmed pebble glasses, sounds repulsive."

"That's a very precise description."

"Sounds most conspicuous for someone who wants to avoid the limelight," added Louise.

"Here are the photos — you can keep them. They're very good, considering they were taken under poor conditions. Berlin has a girl assistant. Very distinctive hair-style as you'll see — very dark, cut close to the head like a helmet."

Beaurain and Louise looked quickly at the prints but neither of them said anything. Berlin's assistant was the girl whose taxi they had taken. Beaurain shoved the prints in his pocket with the envelope containing the Deutschmarks.

"Thank you, Henri. You have been more helpful than you may ever realise. From now on, be very careful."

At the far side of the T'Zand Square they entered the Zuidzandstraat, a narrow street which was almost deserted. "Prepare for trouble," Beaurain said as they arrived at the entrance to the gloomy Hoogste van Brugge. It was empty, little more than a cobbled alley hemmed in between two walls of old terrace houses. Beaurain paused, checking house numbers on both sides of the corridor of stone. At the far end was parked a Volkswagen taking up most of the width of the alley.

"I reckon No. 285 is by that car," Beaurain said.

"Which could be the car from which the dummy grenade came?"

"Just might be. Again, be ready for trouble."

They started walking down the alley side by side, their rubber-soled shoes making no sound on the ancient cobbles. The walls of the lifeless houses s eemed to be closing in on them. Although only a minute's walk from the bustling T'Zand Square they were in a different world.

They were half-way to the Volkswagen when Beau-rain made a swift gesture. He pressed himself in the recess of a doorway on the left and Louise chose a doorway in the right-hand wall. Beaurain's acute hearing had caught the sound of a door being unbolted. They waited.

A man came out of a house on the right-hand side, glanced down the alley, then turned away and hurried to the Volkswagen. A tall, thin man with a springy step, he bore no resemblance to the description of Otto Berlin. They waited until he got inside the car and drove round the corner. Beaurain nodded and they started up the street again.

Another man, carrying a suitcase, emerged from the same house. A fat man with greasy black hair and a moustache whose ends curved down round the corners of his mouth. A man who waddled like a duck. He saw them, stopped, took something from his pocket, made a quick pulling movement and hoisted his right hand like a bowler throwing a cricket ball.

"My God! That's Otto Berlin!" Louise called out.

" Drop flat! "

Louise reacted instantly, sprawling on the cobbles. Beaurain fell on top of her, protecting her body. The missile Berlin had hurled fell on the cobbles about forty feet from where they lay. The silence lasted four seconds. It was followed by an ear-splitting blast as the grenade exploded. Chips of stone flew all over the place. As Beaurain and Louise remained prone the shock wave passed over their heads. Beaurain felt a stone sliver whipping through his hair, but Berlin had miscalculated the distance and dropped the grenade too far away to hurt them. Provided they had luck on their side. They had.

"Are you all right?"

Beaurain was on his feet, tugging the Smith amp; Wesson from its holster. He was too late. Otto Berlin had sprinted round the corner. Beaurain turned to Louise who was brushing dirt off her clothes. Her voice was shaky.

"I'm OK."

"The station…"

Beaurain shoved the revolver out of sight. Not a soul had appeared so far. The Hoogste van Brugge seemed accustomed to grenades. Or perhaps the unseen inhabitants had found it paid to mind their own business.

"Why the station?" Louise asked as Beaurain grabbed her arm and hustled her back the way they had come.

"Because I think he could be heading there to get the hell out of Bruges. And I saw a cab rank in the T'Zand Square."

"Why didn't the Volkswagen driver take him?"

"How the devil do I know? Maybe Berlin wanted him out of town fast in case the car had been recognised." They entered the T'Zand Square. "We'll take this cab," Beaurain said.

He only relaxed when the cab was moving. "If only we could get hold of one of the three men Goldschmidt gave us we could crack this thing. Otto Berlin would be perfect. You're sure you're all right?"

"I seem to be in one piece." She said nothing more until they arrived at the station. Beaurain was taking money out of his wallet when she grabbed his sleeve. "Look! There's Berlin just going into the station. He's still carrying his case,"

Running from the cab, they were able to pass straight through the barrier with their return tickets. An express to Brussels was just about to depart. Among the last-minute passengers scrambling aboard they saw the fat figure of Otto Berlin entering a compartment near the front of the train. They just managed to get aboard as the express started moving. Beaurain peered out of the window to make sure Berlin had not jumped off again. The platform was empty. He looked at Louise as they stood in the deserted corridor.

"This is an express. One stop before Brussels — Ghent, which is half an hour away. We've got him — he can't leave a train moving at seventy miles an hour."