Dr. Theodor Norling stared from behind the curtain of the first-floor window. There were gaps in the sea of grass alongside the drainage ditch and there he had seen the approaching men slithering along like snakes on their bellies.
He had just collected what he had come for — a sheaf of red folders which had been concealed beneath a trap-door on the ground floor. Now they were safely inside his brief-case, and he had to get away. The upper part of his body was clad in a loose-fitting hunting jacket with capacious pockets. He was holding the brief-case in his left hand; his right hand dug into one of the pockets and felt the hard metal pineapples — grenades.
Swiftly he left the room and darted down the curving staircase. The place was almost empty, barely furnished, and the heels of his shoes echoed throughout the house as he descended.
The furniture which did exist was of a curious nature. Under each window stood a large box which might have been mistaken for an old-fashioned radiator. They were nothing of the sort. Before leaving the ghostly house Norling was careful to collect a compact device with a red button and a slide. He raised the miniature aerial and moved the slide across into the 'active' position. He now had to be very careful not to depress the red button too early.
Outside he ducked behind the parked Volvo and ran under cover of some trees to cross the ditch where it turned and continued behind the house. As he had hoped the ditch was empty; the first man had not yet reached the corner. Behind him he was leaving a powder keg.
Crouched low, he was now moving directly away from the house and the highway, taking advantage of every piece of natural cover: a patch of undergrowth, a group of trees, an outcrop of granite rearing up out of the earth. When he reached the outcrop he stopped, climbing up a small ravine and peering cautiously over the rim.
Some distance behind him the blue waters of a lake rippled and glittered in the sun like mercury. This was the lake which Beaurain had thought couldn't be of any significance. From the summit of the granite crag Norling could just make out, among the reeds lining the shore, where his float-plane was hidden.
He turned his attention back to the house which he could see clearly from his position — the house, the parked estate car, and the line of men who, having encircled the house, were rising up from the ditch and staring at their objective without advancing. Norling clutched the radio-detonation device firmly in his right hand, his index finger close to the red button. One push would detonate the vast quantity of high-explosive installed inside the house.
Ed Cottel drove only a short distance beyond the drive to the house, which reminded him of the old houses still preserved in faraway San Francisco.
"Probably built about the same period," he speculated aloud — and knew immediately that the fact that he was talking to himself was a sign of tension. Wanting to use his transceiver, he drove the Renault off the highway and pulled up behind a clump of undergrowth.
He lowered the flap, exposing the dials, fiddled with them and then called his man at Kjula, the military and civil airfield fifteen kilometres from Strangnas. "Sandpiper calling… Sandpiper calling…"
"I read you, Sandpiper. I read you. Ozark has landed. Repeat Ozark has landed."
Cottel signed out and glared at the shimmering haze dancing over the fields. For Sweden it was getting pretty goddam hot. So — Viktor Rashkin had made his usual landfall at Kjula. The pattern was repeating itself.
It had been clearly established by the watchers at Bromma and at Kjula that the Russian made regular flights along this route. He left the Cessna — piloted by himself — at Kjula, climbed behind the wheel of a waiting Volvo 245 station wagon, and eventually drove along Highway E3 as though heading back to Stockholm — the place he had just flown from.
It hadn't made sense.
The trouble was Cottel had always lost the Volvo long before it reached the turn-off to the old house where Beaurain appeared to be about to start his own private war.
The Cessna left behind at Kjula was always flown back to its home base of Bromma by a hired pilot, presumably waiting for Rashkin's next outward flight.
Cottel caught a flash where there shouldn't be a flash. He flung open the door, ducked his head, rolled out bodily over the rough ground.
The first high-velocity bullet shattered the Renault's windscreen, punching a hole through the glass behind where Cottel's head had been. The second and third bullets hit their targets, destroying both front tyres. Under shelter of the Renault Cottel loosed off three shots in rapid succession as near as he could manage to where sunlight had flashed off the lens of a telescopic sight. He waited and heard the sound of a car engine starting up. By the time he reached the highway the vehicle and the would-be assassin had gone.
Harvey Sholto was furious with himself for missing the target — something almost unique in his experience. There was a traffic control chopper floating about somewhere — he'd seen it earlier and the one thing he could do without was interference from the local pigs. Covered in the rear of the Volvo lay the Armalite rifle, its barrel still warm from the three shots he had fired. As soon as he'd realised he'd missed Cottel with the first shot he had switched his aim to the tyres.
Using one hand to drive, he removed the straw hat and mopped sweat off his bald head. This was cleaning-up time — knocking off all the loose ends. It had worked well at Stockholm Central. Wearing Swedish police uniform and equipped with the powerful motor-bike, Sholto had slipped through the cordon with the suitcase of heroin strapped to the pillion and delivered the consignment to the apartment in Radmansgatan.
It was also Sholto who had used the silenced gun to kill Serge Litov after they had retrieved the heroin. Litov was an important part of the cleaning-up process. He rammed the wide-brimmed hat back on his head and pursed his thick lips. So, Cottel was still on his list. He would get a second chance.
"There's someone on that granite crag, Jules," said Louise urgently.
"Where?"
"That bloody great rock sticking up behind the house."
Beaurain had to take an instant decision. He had to assume that Louise had seen something. Instinctively he sensed there were only seconds left before something happened… a man or men on the crag over looking the house… a clear view of Henderson's men surrounding the house… a clear field of fire for automatic weapons to mow down everyone…
" Withdraw! Withdraw! Henderson withdraw for God's sake now! "
To make his voice carry Beaurain had cupped his hands into a man-made megaphone. He was risking blowing the whole operation. He was risking getting half his men killed if he had guessed wrong if Louise had imagined something. His desperate shout would have given the whole game away, wiped out Henderson's most important weapon the element of surprise.
Henderson reacted instantly, but used his own judgment.
"Take cover! Take immediate cover! Attack imminent…"
Beaurain and Louise saw the horror from their distant vantage point by the copse of trees.
The bay windows burst outwards, disintegrating into a hail of debris which cascaded over a huge area. The steps leading up to the front door took off like a rocket: a huge amount of explosive must have been placed underneath them to catch anyone trying to reach the veranda. The walls of the house were hurtling like shrapnel through the air, shards of wood with jagged ends. The roof rose up as though clawed skyward by a giant hand. And all this was accompanied by an ear-battering roar which temporarily deafened Beaurain.
Harry Fondberg, returning to the house area in the helicopter, stared in sheer stunned horror at the aerial view. The chopper shuddered briefly as the shock wave hit the machine. Fondberg recovered his wits swiftly, and gave the pilot a natural and humanitarian order.
Tut down on the highway at the entrance to the drive," he said into the mike. "And fast!"
And now the fire came. Like so many Swedish dwellings the house was built of wood. A fierce tongue of yellow flame speared its way up through the spreading black smoke, a tongue which danced and grew. The sinister crackle of flames spread fast, devouring the remnants of the house which had stood alone for so many years.
Dr. Theodor Norling had not waited at the top of the crag to see the result of pressing his red button. He had scrambled down the side of the crag furthest away from the house and by doing so had saved himself. At the back of the house had stood a large log-pile, ready for the coming winter. The explosion had taken these ready-made missiles and hurled them away from the house with the force of an artillery barrage. Norling heard the thunderous clatter of the logs bombarding the far side of the rock. Then he began moving towards his objective, half-running and half-crouching to escape detection.
*
The helicopter had been damaged on landing. It had been a chance in a thousand, possibly compounded by the pilot's shock at seeing a whole house fly into pieces but when he landed at the entrance to the drive the rear of his machine was a shade too close to Beaurain's parked Mercedes. It caught the car only a glancing blow, taking out no more than a sliver from the roof but it was the small tail rotor whose tip had struck the car. The rotor spun off the chopper and skittered across the highway.
"We can't fly again," Fondberg was informed. "I'm sorry — but without the tail rotor we've lost our rudder."
"Not to worry." The Sapo chief was preparing to leave the helicopter. "Be ready to radio for medical help — but not, repeat not — until I have checked the situation."
He met Beaurain returning down the drive while Louise remained near the wreckage, scanning the countryside with her field glasses. Beaurain was running and his expression was grim. He waved Fondberg back and the Swede stood where he was until Beaurain had reached him.
"Harry, get that chopper into the air and start looking."
"Rotor tail's gone. Pilot chipped your Mercedes when we were on the ground. What's happened up there?"
"Place was one gigantic booby trap Beaurain told Fondberg. "Suggest anything to you, Harry?"
"Should it?"
Beaurain was talking fast, filling Fondberg in on the position as swiftly as possible. "How long ago since the Elsinore Massacre? Another case of a large quantity of explosives detonated by remote control. The same hand pressed the button here to turn this house into a pile of rubble. I wanted your chopper in the air looking for the mass-killer — the maniac — who seems to be getting madder."
"Your men…" Fondberg spoke quietly and looked up the drive to where there was a scene like the smoke of battle.
"How are they? I can call a fleet of ambulances."
"Not necessary, but many thanks. Henderson reacted a split second too early for the killer, radioed everyone to take cover — so they dropped flat. Result — the blast-wave and the shrapnel-effect passed right over them. One or two have cuts and bruises, but nothing they can't fix up themselves. Otherwise you wouldn't see Louise back there doing her birdwatching act."
"I think she may have found an interesting specimen," Fondberg observed. "I'll stay here with the chopper to cover for you if a patrol-car arrives. They do creep about on the E3."
Beaurain turned and saw Louise beckoning him. He ran back up the drive and now the stench of charred wood was increasing. Black smoke billowed, the fire inside the smoke-filled nest was a searing, crackling inferno. As he came close to Louise who was standing where she could see behind the house, he saw the familiar figure of Henderson in the distance running towards a granite crag rearing up out of the ground.
"What is it, Louise?" Beaurain demanded.
"Norling," "Where?"
"I'll tell you if you'll shut up for ten seconds, for Christ's sake!"
"I'm mute," he told her.
To the right of that large crag Henderson is heading for with some of his men." She handed him her field glasses. "I thought I saw movement in the grass, then I thought I was wrong — then I saw it again. The trouble is his blond hair merges with the landscape. And Stig is puzzled."
Palme was standing a few yards away, his face smoke-blackened, his stubble of hair singed with the heat which had flared out from the house, holding his machine-pistol ready for action. Now Henderson had reached the base of the crag while Beaurain continued scanning the field of yellow rape Louise had indicated. Surely there was nowhere there a man could hide, let alone keep moving. Then Beaurain saw what she was driving at. And at almost the same moment something else happened. Palme began receiving a message on his walkie-talkie.
There was a deep gulley running across the field of rape and along it a fair-haired man was moving at a steady trot — not so fast that he could easily be picked out, but fast enough to be putting plenty of ground between himself and the house he had just annihilated.
"Why is Stig puzzled?" he asked Louise.
"Stig says the fair-haired man Oh, hell, it must be Norling is heading straight for a lake which bars his way."
"Message from Sergeant Henderson, sir," Palme put in, proffering his walkie-talkie.
"He says he can see a blond man running towards a lake which he will reach in about two minutes. He has a good view of the target from the top of the crag but the range is too great for opening fire. He proposes sending a cordon across country to surround the fugitive but would like a word with you."
"Beaurain here," the Belgian said into the instrument. "I want that man at all costs — preferably alive, but dead rather than let him escape."
"We're moving now, sir," Henderson's voice confirmed. "And at the base of this crag I found something odd — show you later."
Palme took a firmer grip on his machine-pistol and spoke with great conviction. "We can get him. He has kept to the gulley to make himself invisible, but that gulley winds it's marked on the map. An old stream-bed. We go straight across country. OK?"
"OK," Beaurain agreed. He had hardly spoken when Palme was moving at a steady trot away from the blackened ruin, his weapon held diagonally across his body ready for immediate use. Behind the sturdy Swede followed Beaurain and Louise.
They soon saw that Palme knew what he was talking about. Because of their starting point and Norling's present position they had a good head start on Henderson and his circling cordon. The trio led by Palme would reach the blond-haired man first. Arriving at the deep gulley, they went down one side, crossed it, climbed the other side, and Louise gasped when she saw the view.
Without her realising it they had been climbing gently since leaving the area of the house and now they were on a low ridge with the ground ahead falling away from them. The boomerang shape of a lake spread out below, unruffled by even a whisper of breeze, the sun blazing down on the startling blue surrounded by the yellow of the rape. Norling was only a few hundred metres ahead. They had got him!
"The plane — the float-plane — concealed in those reeds!"
It was Beaurain who first grasped Norling's plan of escape and — because of the accident to Fondberg's chopper — how close he was to succeeding. Away to their left and behind them Henderson's men were spread out, in correct military fashion, in a fan-shaped cordon. It was Beaurain who detected the terrible danger.
" Get down! Drop flat for God's sake! "
The fair-haired man had turned, seen the trio and his reaction was immediate. Standing quite still he fumbled inside one of his pockets, fiddled briefly with something between both hands, hoisted his right arm up and bowled the missile overarm. His hand returned to his pocket for a second object. The first grenade was sailing though the air heading straight for where Beaurain and his companions had been standing.
They sprawled flat among the rape, hugging the ground. There was an ear-splitting explosion. Debris rained down on their reclining figures. Norling had their range. Beaurain shouted a second warning. "Lie still, don't move, don't show him where we are." He had just finished his warning when the second grenade burst. Again debris was scattered all round them.
Beaurain did not have to shout a third warning. Both Louise and Palme remained perfectly still. Seconds later a third grenade detonated. Then a fourth… a fifth… a sixth… The grenades were landing further and further away from where they lay. Norling was running to the lake, stopping briefly to hurl another grenade, then running again. Beaurain stood up cautiously. His caution was wasted.
Norling had already reached the float-plane and was inside the cabin, and the engine burst into action. As Louise and Palme climbed to their feet, Beaurain aimed his Smith amp; Wesson and fired twice. It was quite hopeless. Out of range. "Use the machine-pistol!" he shouted to Palme.
Palme was already cuddling the stock against his shoulder, but as he did so the float-plane streaked out across the lake and he didn't even bother to press the trigger. As Henderson came running up followed by two of his men Beaurain shrugged his shoulders and lit a cigarette. He watched as the float-plane lifted off and continued its flight at a low altitude, vanishing over the fold of a hill.
Fondberg's chopper," Henderson suggested. "If we get him in the air fast…"
"Which we can't — because in landing he lost his tail rotor." Smoking his cigarette, Beaurain looked down towards the lake where the float-plane had been half hidden inside the belt of reeds. "Stig, he took off in one hell of a hurry. Go down to where that float-plane was and see if you can find anything. We'll meet you back at the drive."
When they arrived back on the highway Beaurain told Fondberg the bad news and the Sapo chief put out a call for the float-plane on his radio. "Not that you can expect much," he warned Beaurain. "The trouble is we have plenty of those machines buzzing about in this part of the world — and especially further south where the country is littered with lakes. So what have we discovered?"
"You tell me," Beaurain suggested.
"The Syndicate's explosives dump — probably stockpiled for bank robberies — and their temporary headquarters which is now a pile of smoking rubble. That's it."
"Except look who's coming down the road."
Ed Cottel had walked. Since the unknown gunman had shot out his two front tyres he had been walking back down the highway. And Cottel objected to walking, couldn't see the point of it when there were things called automobiles available. He gave Fondberg and Beaurain a terse account of his experiences while Louise listened; then he absorbed what Beau-rain told him about what had happened to them.
"You say there was a Volvo 245 parked behind the house?" he checked when Beaurain had completed his story. "None of this makes much sense. One of my watchers reported Viktor Rashkin had left in a Cessna piloting himself taking off from Bromma with a flight plan for Kjula. Then he gets in a Volvo 245 and drives in this direction. It turns out that there was a Volvo 245 parked out of sight behind this house. Now you tell me the guy who peppered you with grenades before he took off in his float-plane was Dr. Theodor Norling. Are you sure?"
"There's nothing wrong with my eyesight," Louise rapped back.
"Ed, I'm more interested," Beaurain interjected, 'in who might be the killer who tried to wipe you out when you were sitting in that hired Renault off the highway."
"No idea," Cottel said brusquely.
"And who are all these watchers you keep occupied tracking the movements of Viktor Rashkin?" Beaurain persisted. "You seem to have an obsession with the Russians."
"Just with one Russian — because I'm convinced he fits in with the Stockholm Syndicate somewhere. I'll provide you with my record of those movements and see whether you can spot any pattern. As to my watchers — it's taken me God knows how long to build up a network of people throughout Scandinavia at all the airfields and seaports, people who've no idea who is employing them but like the money they get." A dry smile wrinkled his tanned face. "I guess Harvey Sholto would blow his top if he knew how I was using the funds I get from Washington. You've no idea how adept I've become at what we call creative accountancy."
"What we call fiddling expenses," Louise remarked.
"So now perhaps you understand," the American continued, directing his remark to Beaurain with a hint of sarcasm, 'my obsession with the Russians."
"No, frankly I don't. You seem to have forgotten that one of the Syndicate's own people deliberately murdered Serge Litov at Stockholm Central after he had served his purpose. Touche — you said the Russians fitted in with the Syndicate somewhere."
To hell with you," Cottel replied amiably.
"How much power does Harvey Sholto have in Washington?" Beaurain asked out of the blue.
"You don't mention his name — even favourably — if you want to keep your job on the government payroll. Officially he doesn't even exist."
"I see," the Belgian replied, and Louise wondered what he saw.
*
Harry Fondberg suggested that the entire Telescope force started back for Stockholm before the patrol-car he had summoned arrived. He was going to be the innocent bystander who had spotted the house exploding from the air while on another mission.
On the return journey Palme waited until they were well clear of Fondberg before producing something from inside his windcheater. "You were right to ask me to check round where Norling took off in his float plane he commented to Beaurain. "He must have been climbing into the cockpit when he dropped this and there was no time to go back for it." "This' was a slim red folder.
"Norling carried a brief-case," Beaurain recalled. "It looks as though at the wrong moment the case came open and in his haste to get away he never noticed. The brief-case looked pretty heavy, probably crammed with these folders."
"Anything interesting?" Louise enquired.
"Give me time — I've only just released the security device. One surprise: the language used is English — or American. The spelling is American labor instead of labour."
"It's a good thing Ed Cottel is travelling in one of the other cars," Louise remarked. "I think if he heard that remark he'd blow his top."
"It might be a better thing than even you realise at this stage," Beaurain replied cryptically, his eyebrows furrowed as he rapidly read through the sheets contained inside the folder. "This is a little too damned convenient, isn't it? It could be a plant left behind deliberately. How come if it did drop out of his brief-case when he was climbing into a float-plane on the edge of a lake that the bloody thing isn't even wet?"
"Because," Palme informed him smugly, "I found it resting on the edge of an old bird's nest made of reeds and God knows what else — a big nest. And don't ask me what bird! I don't watch them."
"OK, Stig. We can take it that this is genuine."
"With Stig's discovery my own little contribution isn't going to rate very high in the history of Telescope discoveries," Henderson said apologetically. "I found it at the foot of the far side of the big crag behind the house from where Norling detonated all his explosive."
Henderson handed his discovery to Beaurain who had turned in his seat and was staring fixedly at the object Henderson was holding. As though mesmerised he reached out a hand, took the object and held it in the open palm of his hand.
"What's so exciting about that?" Louise asked.
"Thank you, Jock," Beaurain said slowly, balancing the object as though it were made of gold. "You have just handed me the final key and proof I needed as to what the Stockholm Syndicate is really all about."
"It's the broken-off heel of an elevated shoe," Louise objected. "That's all."
"That's all," Beaurain agreed sardonically.
*
From his room in the Hotel Reisen overlooking the Strommen and the Grand Hotel across the water Harvey Sholto had put in a call to the home of Joel Cody, the President's aide. It was an arrangement that had been made before he left Washington to fly to Stockholm. Any operator intercepting a call to the White House just had to listen in to that kind of call. This way Sholto could be phoning any ordinary individual.
"Appalachian calling," he opened cautiously.
"Rushmore here."
Joel Cody himself had answered, and he was alone, so Sholto could start talking. He kept his voice so low that twice Cody had to ask him to speak up.
"Cottel…" He said the name quickly and deliberately mispronounced it. '… is getting close. I persuaded him to keep his distance earlier today but he's breathing down our necks."
"Real close?" enquired Cody. "I mean, you're not panicking over nothing? This is a delicate situation and we wouldn't like it to blow up in our faces."
"I'm telling you Cottel is within spitting distance of what you wouldn't like your best friend to tell you about. To say nothing of the guy you work for. And that's not all! You ever bought a telescope, one of those things you look through to see the girl taking off her bra in the window across the way? Well, they're also breathing down our necks. Correction — they're breathing down your neck. And you know something? I thought you had an election coming up."
"OK, OK," Cody replied hastily. "You're the man on the spot, you decide. You have, of course, our complete backing,"
"With that I should start running. But Harvey Sholto stays in business while presidents come and go — so shove it. And I'll see what I can do."
Sholto rammed down the receiver onto the cradle before the man in Washington had time to respond. High-powered rifle or revolver, the next time he would be shooting for real. And there were a lot of people to deal with in a short space of time. Just like the old times in Vietnam. He caught sight of his bald-headed reflection in the dressing-table mirror. Still, he had once killed twenty individual men in Saigon in different parts of the city in one day. And that had been to please Washington. Correction: to save Washington.
The news which determined Beaurain's final strategy came from an old friend just arrived at the Grand Hotel. The agitation Beaurain had detected when he had visited the Baron de Graer in his office in the Banque du Nord had disappeared. This time the Baron's expression was composed as he sat in an armchair close to the bathroom where Beaurain had turned on all the taps to scramble any possible listening device hidden in the room. But despite his placidity Beaurain saw in his eyes a steely determination.
"We — you — have to destroy the Syndicate, Jules," he remarked as he trimmed off the tip of his cigar and then lit it slowly, puffing with evident pleasure. "You might say I have recovered my nerve."
"Did you ever lose it?"
"The last time I saw you in Brussels I was a trembling wreck I have had time to think since. The information you need is this. I am, as a minor member of the Syndicate, invited to what they are pleased to call their summit conference. The scum! "
"We'll deal with them,"
"Meeting place is supposed to be the liner Silvia, now lying a few miles off the coast of southern Sweden near the port of Trelleborg. That's a blind. The real conference takes place aboard the Soviet hydrofoil, Kometa. All the leading European financiers, industrialists and politicians who have become members will be taken out aboard power-boats and cruisers from Trelleborg — to meet their American counterparts. They are moving out of Stockholm at this very moment."
"By what route?"
"Mostly by air. Some aboard scheduled flights from Arlanda to Malmo and then on by car. Others will use smaller and private planes to get them to an airstrip close to their destination." He began pacing restlessly round the room. "This Hugo has to be identified and hunted down, Jules. He is the real leader and yet no-one has ever seen his face."
"But we have heard of him," Beaurain said soothingly. "When is this summit due to take place?"
"Hugo — whoever he is — has chosen a curious time. Once on board Kometa the visitors will be taken on a short voyage it will take place between 20.50 hours and 2.43 the following morning, which coincides tomorrow precisely with the few hours of darkness at this time of the year."
"And you have no idea at all even remotely who Hugo might be?" Beaurain pressed.
De Graer threw up his hands in a gesture of frustration. "Do you think I have not asked myself that question a thousand times and more?"
"How long have you known these details of the summit conference?" asked Beaurain.
"A message came through on the telephone less than an hour ago. The short notice is obviously deliberate — to give no time to react."
"Who phoned — a man or a woman?"
"I'm pretty sure it was that girl who phoned me when I was in Brussels. The one I called Madame."
"Always it is a woman, a girl, who makes these phone calls," Beaurain said reflectively. He looked at the Baron. "I cannot thank you enough for the information you have provided. Can I take it that under no circumstances will you attend this meeting on board Kometa?"
De Graer stopped pacing and grasped Beaurain's arm. "I only came here to see if I could help. I am now catching the first flight back from Arlanda to Brussels — but I am taking the precaution of booking my ticket only when I get to Arlanda. No-one except yourself will then know of my departure."
"Very wise. Take care." Beaurain shook the old warrior by the hand. "Louise and I will be leaving for Trelleborg shortly. That is all I am going to tell you."
Descending in the hotel's splendid lift with its red leather padding and gilt-framed mirrors which seemed to go so well with the world of the Baron de Graer — Beaurain pondered on what the banker had said. Who, he wondered, really was Hugo?