The Stockholm syndicate

Chapter Seven

"We search the whole express — but I want to find Berlin without him seeing us. So we can track him. We start at the front of the train and work our way back. You go first, I'll trail behind you. That way he's less likely to spot us."

The express was about half full. They walked rapidly to the front of the train but neither of them saw Berlin. They began working their way back towards the rear of the express checking every passenger.

"I'll check each lavatory as we go through," Beaurain told her. "If one is occupied we wait at a discreet distance and see who comes out."

They had over fifteen minutes to go when they reached the end of the train. No Berlin. Standing in the corridor Beaurain lit them both cigarettes and they looked at each other. Outside the windows the sunlit countryside flashed past — and again they saw a canal and barges with TV. masts and washing-lines.

"I can't understand it," Louise said. "You checked every lavatory. We've both seen every passenger aboard so what the devil has happened to him? He can't have just vanished into thin air."

"Except that he appears to have done just that."

The stop at Ghent gave no help in solving the mystery. People got off. More passengers boarded the express. No-one even remotely resembling Dr. Otto Berlin appeared. As the train left Ghent they made their way to the front, found an empty compartment in the coach behind the engine, sat down and stared at each other.

"Do we search all over again?" Louise suggested. "We must have missed something."

"We stay here until the train reaches Brussels," Beaurain said firmly. "At Nord we get out pretty sharp, wait by the barrier and check everyone off. No-one can board a train and disappear in a puff of smoke."

At Nord the express emptied itself. Standing a short distance away from Beaurain, Louise watched the passengers trailing past, many of them with luggage and obviously travellers from Ostend and the ferry from England. A squabbling family already tired from their journey and the heat; a crowd of locals wearing berets and chattering away in French; the inevitable priest with his suitcase.

They watched the last person off the express and then joined each other and walked towards the exit. Beaurain spoke as they came outside the station into brilliant sunshine. "We'll take a cab to Henderson's sub-base and see how the tracking of Litov is proceeding. Better than our efforts I hope."

He arranged for the cab to drop them a few minutes from the sub-base and they continued on foot. When they arrived in the first-floor room with the wall-map Beaurain only had to take one look at Henderson's face to know a disaster had occurred.

Pierre Florin, the sergeant you wanted to interview, has been found murdered at his apartment," Henderson informed them. "Commissioner Voisin is anxious to see you as soon as possible."

"How do you know about Florin?" Beaurain enquired.

"I phoned your apartment to see if you had arrived back — and Chief Inspector Willy Flamen of Homicide answered the phone."

"And what the hell was he doing inside my apartment?"

"I wondered that too," said Henderson, 'until he told me the place had been broken into. He called there to give you Voisin's message. And Flamen wants to see you — but he'll be waiting at his own apartment. I told him I was a friend and got off the line."

Beaurain had hoped for so much from his interview with Florin: above all, who had paid him to be absent from the reception desk at the vital moment. Or should the question be who had frightened him so much that he had risked his whole career? Terror, Goldschmidt had said vehemently, terror was one of the Syndicate's main weapons.

" How are you getting on with Litov?" he asked the Scot.

"He's boarded a flight for Scandinavia he bought a ticket to Helsinki. Max was right behind him and is now aboard the same flight — a Scandinavian Airlines plane flying to Stockholm via Copenhagen." Henderson nodded towards the wall-map. "It's marked there with the red line."

"So his final destination could be Copenhagen, Stockholm or Helsinki," Beaurain suggested.

"That's the way I see it," the Scot agreed. "Unless he's being clever and gets off at Kastrup or Arlanda and switches to another destination. If he does that, I have gunners at both airports to track him. And we always have Max Kellerman travelling in the same first-class cabin as him."

"Where are they now?"

Henderson checked the clock. "En route to Kastrup Airport, Copenhagen. Within half an hour of landing."

"We'd better get over and see Willy Flamen." Beaurain stood up, uneasy about something. How the devil had they let Otto Berlin slip off the Ostend Express? Henderson swung round in his chair.

"Maybe I didn't make myself clear, sir. It is Commissioner Voisin who is anxious to see you. Asked particularly would you give him some idea of your arrival time."

"You made yourself quite clear. We're still going to call on Willy Flamen first. I'll contact you later to find out what's happening to Litov. Come on, Louise." Beaurain had reached the door when he turned and gave a final order. "One more thing, put all our people inside Brussels on a red alert immediately."

Louise waited until they were sitting in the Mercedes before she asked the question. The Belgian had a brooding look and had not yet signalled to the guard to open the gate.

"Jules, what was that about a red alert? That means everyone has to expect an emergency at any moment, doesn't it?"

"The request from Commissioner Voisin to go and see him immediately…" Beaurain signalled the guard, gunned the motor and drove out of the archway into heavy traffic. Louise noticed his eyes were everywhere: checking the mirror; glancing at both sidewalks; checking the mirror again. "Plus the fact that Voisin wants me to warn him in advance when I'm going to arrive. It fits in with that Zenith signal."

"But he's a Commissioner of Police! Jules, you aren't serious. You don't think Voisin is one of the Syndicate's men?" Her tone of voice expressed her incredulity. "You may not like the fat creep but you're letting your prejudices cloud your judgement. Hey, where are we going? You've missed the turning to Flamen's place."

"We're going to take a look at police headquarters. Flamen we visit later." He eased into the kerb and parked. "And I'd like us to switch places — you drive and I'll be the passenger. Be prepared to drive like hell."

Louise walked round the car and got in behind the wheel. Beaurain had no qualms about giving her the order to drive this way: Louise Hamilton had been a crack racing driver at Brands Hatch in England. Without a word he extracted his. 38 Smith amp; Wesson from his shoulder holster and rested the weapon in his lap.

There wouldn't be much traffic at this hour around the police headquarters, which meant the 280E would be conspicuous to watchers. And Beaurain had no doubt that the Stockholm Syndicate would know the model and the number of his car. It was a crazy idea about Voisin: he hardly believed it possible himself. But he kept hearing Goldschmidt's voice. Trust no-one, Jules. There is treachery everywhere.

"If you're so suspicious," Louise said with a hint of sarcasm, 'you should have sent a team of gunners to check out police headquarters."

"You're probably right. But to tell you the truth, that didn't occur to me until we'd left Jock."

"Well, here we are. We'll soon know now."

Oh my God! Louise's exceptional self-control prevented her swerving. For a moment she couldn't speak to warn Jules — then she saw he had grasped his revolver with one hand and with the other had lowered his window.

"Jules — on both sides — two cars…"

"The one with a single man inside too?"

"Yes they called him Pietr. He was the policeman in the blue Renault. He tried to block me in when I was getting away,"

"Proceed as slowly as you're going now, as though we haven't seen anything. Be ready to accelerate like a rocket when I say "go"."

"They'll have us in a crossfire if they see us."

"They've already seen us. Hold down the speed. They're waiting for the moment when they have us sandwiched."

"That couple in the car on the right the short bulky man's called Andre and he's a killer."

She continued cruising forward, her eyes whipping from side to side. Both cars were parked facing the oncoming Mercedes. Both could drive out and create a barrier she'd never pass. Was Jules really more tired than she had realised? The Fiat stationed on the right began to move from where it was parked outside the entrance to police headquarters.

As Louise had warned, they were going to be trapped in a crossfire. The cars had been waiting for them, had known that sooner or later Beaurain would arrive to keep his appointment with Commissioner Voisin!

" Go! "

Beaurain shouted the command and her reaction was a reflex, her foot ramming down hard on the accelerator which responded with instant action and power. The Fiat containing the two men was heading on a course which would take it across her bows, forcing her to stop, while they poured a hail of gunfire into it.

On his side Beaurain had already seen the thin man beside the driver lifting a sub-machine gun. Out of the corner of his eye he saw what he had foreseen — that the Renault was still parked at the kerb. No man can drive and aim a weapon accurately at the same time, and Pietr was aiming his silenced weapon through the open window.

Beaurain fired four times at the oncoming Fiat. The 280E was surging forward like a torpedo under Louise's expert control. Three of Beaurain's bullets hit the man with the sub-machine gun. Blood splashed the shattered glass of the Fiat's windscreen. The car began to swerve wildly as Beaurain fired again and hit the driver.

"Don't move your head!"

Beaurain turned to his left, laid his arm along the back of Louise's seat and fired two more shots. One hit the target. Blood spurted from Pietr's head and he slumped over his wheel. Beaurain saw it all in a blur as the 280E screamed past police headquarters where no-one had appeared despite the cannonade and the screech of tyres.

Louise's skilful manoeuvring took them past the moving Fiat and then they had left behind the carnage and Beaurain, looking back, saw no sign of pursuit. It was as though police headquarters had been stripped of patrol cars and personnel while the Syndicate killers tried to complete their job.

"You certainly handled that," Louise commented as she changed direction again in case of pursuit. "I wouldn't have known which car to tackle first."

"The Fiat — because it carried a sub-machine gun and it was moving. Now, head for Willy Flamen's apartment."

"Get out of Brussels, Jules: better still, out of Belgium. Both of you. Preferably tonight. The cold-blooded killing of Pierre Florin should be enough warning."

Willy Flamen stared over the rim of his cup at Beaurain and Louise as they drank the coffee and ate the sandwiches provided by his wife. The policeman was a man who spoke his mind and possessed great courage. Which made his advice all the more disturbing.

"You're telling us to run? That's not like you, Willy. Anyway it was agreed at Voisin's meeting that I should investigate the Syndicate." He smiled wrily. "The brief was to confirm its existence, for God's sake."

"Well recent events should have convinced you of that," Flamen commented, pausing to light his pipe. Beaurain recalled that he used it at moments of crisis. "And there is worse to come if you can believe that's possible."

"Do cheer us up," Louise joked.

He pointed his pipe-stem at her.

"Enjoy this, then. Jules let it be known he wanted to interview Florin, the sergeant who was on desk duty just before he took sick leave. As you know, Florin was found murdered at his apartment. When I made a search there, I found a notebook belonging to you, Jules — it had your name in the front. A small black notebook — easily dropped when someone is in a hurry." He sat back in his chair and went on puffing his pipe. Louise stared at him, the muscles of her jaw tight.

"And I believe my own apartment has been broken into and ransacked," Beaurain said quietly.

"That is so," Flamen agreed. "Ransacked to cover the stealing of the notebook later left in Florin's apartment. Voisin wants me to hold you for questioning," he added casually.

"In what connection?" Beaurain asked tightly.

"In connection with the investigation of the murder of Pierre Florin — because you were going to question Florin and also on the evidence of your notebook being found there." Flamen produced a small black notebook from his pocket and pushed it across the table. "That is yours, I take it, Jules?"

"You know it is."

"By the way, Florin was shot in the back of the neck. One shot."

"The old Nazi method of execution."

"Of course!" He snapped his fingers.

"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 Chateau 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 Oresund…" 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 Andrei 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.