The Stockholm Syndicate (36 page)

Chapter Twenty-Two

"Slow down to five knots," Rashkin ordered as he ran back onto the bridge. He had come up from below via a small stairwell which led to his cabin and the main dining-room.

"Slow down?" Livanov was confused.

"For Christ's sake give the order - we are under attack."

He broke off as he heard a loud explosion beyond the rear of the bridge. He did not know that this had killed Baum but he immediately grasped that the opposition had won - they had reached bridge level. Without issuing further orders he disappeared down the small stairwell, paused cautiously at the bottom, a Walther automatic in his hand, saw that the passageway was deserted and ran to his cabin.

He had already warned all his guests to remain in the dining-room, assuring them that they were in the safest place, that the intruders would be dealt with speedily. Rashkin had sensed that Baum's defences were being overwhelmed, that this would be followed by the destruction of
Kometa
and all aboard her. Someone was taking violent vengeance for the killing of Jules Beaurain. Telescope were in action.

The speed of
Kometa
had been considerably reduced by the time he reached the cabin. A man of great agility, it took him hardly any time to strip off his outer clothes and wriggle himself into the skin-diver's suit he had brought aboard secretly in a hold-all bag. Rashkin had only survived in his present position by always preparing for every contingency - and he never neglected his escape route.

As he unscrewed the porthole cover he was armed with two weapons - a sheath knife and the waterproof watch attached to his wrist. It was most fortunate that his cabin was on the starboard side. As he swung back the cover he could see clearly the warning flashes of the lighthouse above The Hammer on Bornholm. And he calculated the hydrofoil was no more than a couple of miles from the Danish island.

Climbing backwards through the porthole, he lowered himself until his body was hanging against the hull, supported only by his hands. He let go without hesitation or trepidation, knowing that at this position there was no risk of his hitting the submerged foil - the speed had dropped to five knots and the vessel was moving like an ordinary ship. There
was
a risk, however, in getting caught in the stern undertow, hurled into the wake and chopped to pieces by the propeller.

He felt his feet catch the slow-moving hull and kicked out with all his strength, lunging himself backwards and away from the hull which was gracefully sliding past him. Then, still lying on his back, he began to swim with strong purposeful strokes. Behind him the hull went on gliding past. Above he saw the lights of the dining-saloon. The ship seemed oddly deserted.

The interior of the bridge resembled a slaughterhouse. A few of Baum's surviving security guards had retreated there to join Livanov just before Henderson ordered the final attack to begin. He used one word.

"
Grenades!
"

Three minutes later, followed by Palme and several of his gunners, he entered the deathtrap. He first checked the steering gear. Someone - doubtless Livanov - had at the last moment turned the vessel onto automatic pilot. Like a robot - or a ghost ship - the huge hydrofoil
Kometa
was cruising slowly across the Baltic. He began organising the evacuation of his own men: three were dead, seventeen had survived due to the element of surprise and the co-operation of Peter Sobieski. Palme had personally found the Pole and brought him to the bridge. Henderson was talking to Max Kellerman who had just arrived on the bridge.

"What is the position with that international scum waiting in the dining saloon? The élite of the Stockholm Syndicate?"

Trapped inside the saloon. The special section fought its way down, wiped out the guards and then welded up the doors with the equipment they brought. The passengers might get out if they try smashing the windows, but I don't think they will try it in time. The shooting rather discouraged exploration."

"Fix the bombs to the doors, then leave - all of you - by the smashed windows," said Henderson. "I stay until I get this damned ship moving."

"You'll have trouble leaving her," Palme interjected. "I mean when she's travelling at top speed. And the rescue boats are coming in."

"I said fix those bombs," Henderson repeated.

It was the green Verey light Henderson had fired into the night sky which had summoned the rescue boats. Coming up fast behind
Kometa
, the British motor vessel with Beaurain and Louise aboard and commanded by Captain Buckminster had paused after the green flare exploded like a firework.

"My God! Jock's done it!"

Louise was so relieved that she hugged Beaurain publicly as they stood on
Firestorm
's bridge. Already power-boats lowered over the side were plunging through the night towards the slow-moving
Kometa
, their searchlights turned on full power to locate Telescope's gunners who would be diving into the sea.

Behind the wake of
Kometa
, which was still moving at five knots, a series of tiny lights were beginning to appear, all bobbing on the water. Power-boats despatched from
Firestorm
were already slowing down, each heading for a light.

The 'coast guard' vessel
Regula
had returned to its mother ship and was being winched aboard prior to being lowered, dripping with sea water, into the cavernous hold of
Firestorm
. And by now Henderson was alone on the bridge, leaning out of a smashed window as he watched the last gunners leaving. He was enclosed inside the bridge with the bodies of the dead East German security guards and attached to all entrances to the bridge were the special bombs -bombs which exploded outwards on detonation away from the interior of the bridge. The objective was to ensure that anyone who might escape from the dining-room could never reach the controls on the bridge alive.

It had been Viktor Rashkin's plan to swim the two miles to Bornholm's shoreline, taking his time, but as he saw a power-boat with one man aboard heading in his direction he took a swift decision. The power-boat was heading on a course which would take it past him by about twenty yards. He waited for the right moment, hoisted himself briefly out of the water and waved.

The crewman from
Firestorm
saw him and changed course, reducing speed. His orders were to pick up as many men as he could in the shortest possible time. The fact that the man swimming in the sea carried no flashing light did not strike him as strange, nor did he notice that the colour of the frogman's suit was wrong. He hauled his first rescue aboard.

"How did it go?" he asked before he started up the engine to continue the night's work. He was gazing at the man he had picked up who was removing his face-mask with his left hand while his right hand tugged at some equipment behind his back. Both men were now seated and facing each other.

"It went well. All according to plan," Rashkin replied.

"Beaurain will be pleased... "

The rescuer broke off in mid-sentence. He had seen Rashkin's face - which briefly expressed alarm at the reference to Beaurain - and knew that this was not one of Henderson's gunners. And then Rashkin's right hand swung round from behind his back and plunged the knife it held up to the hilt in the chest of his rescuer.

The man gurgled, his eyes stared, he slumped forward. Rashkin used both hands to heave him over the side and then gave all his attention to what was happening around him. Switching off the searchlight at the bow of his own power-boat, he turned on the throttle. Then he guided the power-boat towards the west coast of Bornholm. He had earlier taken the trouble to read about the island and he was heading for a quiet stretch of the Danish shore. It always paid to take every contingency into account. He was now trying to recall the flight times of the local aircraft which flew from Bonne airfield to Copenhagen.

Inside the huge dining-room of
Kometa
the members of the Stockholm Syndicate seemed to be gripped by paralytic fear, an emotion which froze all power of decision. At the head of the table Leo Gehn, one of the most powerful men in the western world, sat like a Buddha, apparently working out the potential profits from the region of the north European sector allocated to him earlier in the meeting. When Count d'Arlezzo, a slim Italian who, conversely, could not keep still, peered over the American's shoulder he saw to his horror that Gehn was repeating on his pad the same figures over and over again.

Most of the rest of the thirty people present stayed well away from the doors and pressed their faces against the windows. They were staring at the flashing lamp of the lighthouse above The Hammer of Bornholm. Ironically, the arbiters of blackmail, murder and wholesale intimidation were stricken with indecision.

On the bridge Henderson left the ship following the route the others had taken, but under rather different circumstances. The
Kometa
was now reared up on its giant foils. The vessel was moving at its top speed of thirty knots. The hydrofoil was on a fixed course plotted by the Scot and was working on automatic pilot. He climbed out of one of the smashed windows and made for the rail as the wind hit him. Holding on to an upright, he flexed both legs, waiting for the ship to ride on an even keel if only for a few seconds.
Now!

He dived outwards and downwards, passing well clear of the foil and plunging vertically into the Baltic - far enough away, he hoped, and deep enough down to clear the lethal clawing suction from the propeller. As he surfaced he was amazed to see how far
Kometa
had travelled, a receding cluster of lights. He pressed down the switch which turned on the red light attached to his head-gear. Recovering from the impact of the deep dive he saw close by the power-boat despatched from
Firestorm
with the sole purpose of rescuing Henderson.

The vertical cliffs of The Hammer are protected by isolated pinnacles of rock which rise up out of the sea like immense rocky daggers. Round the base of these leviathans of nature the sea swirled gently, hardly moving, so still was the Baltic on that night and at that hour.
Kometa
hurtled on like a projectile, reared up on its foils, approaching The Hammer at right angles. The last moments must have been a terrifying experience for the men who had planned to weld all the evil in the West into one huge crime syndicate. Then
Kometa
struck.

The collision between flying metal hull and immovable rocky bastion was shattering and thunderous. But fractions of a second later it was followed by the detonation of the explosives Henderson had attached to the foil - explosives which were timed to go off within fifteen minutes, but which also detonated on any major impact. The meeting between
Kometa
and The Hammer was a major impact. The ship fragmented instantly. The explosion hurled one of the foils high in the air before it crashed back into the sea. The hull actually
telescoped
, squashing like a concertina before the bow sank, so, for a few moments, the stern hung in the air.

A plume of black smoke rose from the base of The Hammer, dispersed by a gentle breeze which was now blowing. Then there was nothing. No trace that Kometa had ever existed. And only the sound of the power-boat's engine as it sped back towards
Firestorm
.

Sitting motionless in the stern Beaurain was unusually silent. He pointed out to no-one what he had also seen the cotton-thin wake of a power-boat proceeding south of them at a measured pace towards the west coast of Bornholm. When he later heard that one power-boat had mysteriously not returned he knew that Viktor Rashkin had escaped.

Chapter Twenty-Three

The signals went out from
Firestorm
at midnight. Beaurain sent them in prearranged codes to Fondberg waiting in Stockholm, to Marker waiting at the strangely-shaped police headquarters in Copenhagen, and also to Chief Inspector Willy Flamen in Brussels.

By ten minutes after midnight the biggest dragnet ever launched on the continent was under way as detector vans and fleets of patrol cars waited for a spate of Syndicate transmissions. They started at exactly three in the morning. Fondberg phoned Beaurain over the ship's radio-telephone shortly afterwards.

"What was the significance of your timing?" the Swede asked.

"Because someone must have reached Bornholm about midnight. His first task would be to send a message warning what is left of the Syndicate of the catastrophe."

"What catastrophe?"

"Wait for news from Bornholm tomorrow morning."

"Anyway you were right! It's working!"

Fondberg sounded excited. All over Europe the detector vans were homing in on the sources of the mysterious transmissions - because for the first time they were not looking on the roads. They were concentrating on the
waterways
. And due to the emergency the transmissions were prolonged.

In Belgium, France and Holland, barges were being boarded as the Syndicate's radio operators were caught in the middle of transmitting. In Denmark, ships in the Øresund were being boarded. In Sweden, launches and cruisers on the waterways inside Stockholm were being raided. In Germany the barges were on the Rhine. And by launching synchronised attacks at precisely the same moment there was no opportunity for one section of the Syndicate to warn another. At one sweeping blow the entire communications system - without which the Syndicate could not operate - was wiped out.

"A fair-haired girl left the apartment at Rådmansgatan 490 and took the airline bus to Arlanda. She is expected to arrive in Copenhagen at..."

Fondberg called Beaurain again on
Firestorm
as the vessel raced westward away from Bornholm, heading for the Øresund and Copenhagen. As arranged with Beaurain earlier, Fondberg had mounted a round-the-clock surveillance on the Rådmansgatan apartment. Two of his men had followed her and, on arrival at Arlanda, they had watched her check in at the Scandinavian Airlines counter for the next flight to Copenhagen.

'... 08.30," Fondberg continued. "And the first Danair flight out of Bnne on Bornholm is Flight SK 262 departing Bonne at 08.10 and arriving Copenhagen at 08.40. Who do you expect to be aboard that aircraft?"

"Better you don't know, Harry," Beaurain had replied. "And thanks for the information on the blonde girl. Be in touch."

He broke the connection on the radio-telephone and looked at Louise who had been listening in. She was frowning with perplexity.

"Blonde?" Louise queried. "Can that be Sonia Karnell?"

"It can be - and it is," Beaurain assured her as he rubbed his bloodshot eyes. When had he last slept? He couldn't be sure. "A blonde wig," he explained.

"Of course. God, I must be losing my grip. But I'm completely shattered. What did you mean by saying we must break the American connection before Harry Fondberg phoned? And who is flying into Copenhagen from Bornholm?"

"Answer both your questions when I'm sure." Beau-rain took one of his sudden decisions.

"I think we'll get to Kastrup Airport ahead of everyone - we'll get Anderson to fly us there in the Sikorsky. And we'll take some back-up, including Stig."

He checked his watch. Four o'clock in the morning. It had been daylight for over an hour and the sky had all the appearance of yet another glorious, cloudless day of mounting heat. They should be at Kastrup by five o'clock; there would be very little activity at that hour and - with a little luck - no-one to observe their arrival in the Danish capital.

They had passed perfunctorily through Customs and Immigration and were moving into the main reception hall when Louise stopped and gripped Beaurain's arm. Gently she pulled him back behind a pillar, then gestured with her head towards a closed bookstall. Beaurain peered cautiously round the pillar while Palme and the other three men froze behind them. Beaurain studied a man standing in profile by the bookstall, holding a magazine which he appeared to be reading.

"Ed Cottel," he murmured.

The American connection," Louise said.

They retreated out of the reception hall and deeper inside the airport buildings. Palme conducted his reconnaissance and returned with the news.

"They have troops all round the airport," he reported. "All possible exits are covered and we're heavily outnumbered. Men in cars apparently waiting for passengers. Men in taxis. There are two men out on the highway pretending to deal with a defective street lamp."

"Where did you get the boiler suit from, Stig?" Louise asked.

Palme looked apologetic. "I found a cleaner in the toilets,"

"You knocked him out cold and hid him in a closet," Louise told him.

"Yes. But in this I was able to wander everywhere - especially when I was carrying the pail. No-one
ever
notices a man in a boiler suit carrying a pail," Only Beaurain appeared unperturbed. Palme looked round to make sure they were unobserved, then produced from his jacket underneath the boiler suit three guns a Colt .45, a Luger and a small 9-mm. pistol which Louise promptly grabbed as Beaurain took the Luger.

"The mechanic who handled the chopper when we landed here," Palme explained, 'is a friend of mine and keeps weaponry for me so he can slip it to me after we've passed through what are pompously known as official channels," "Ed Cottel is going to take us out through his own troops," said Louise. She took a firm grip on the pistol with her right hand and covered the weapon with her folded coat. "Any objection?" she asked Beaurain.

"Go ahead,"

She walked briskly back into the main reception hall and Beaurain followed more casually. She made no attempt to conceal her presence and marched straight towards where Ed Cottel was still standing pretending to read his magazine. Not for the first time Beaurain admired her sheer nerve, her audacious tactics. She reached Cottel who looked up and spoke.

"Don't any of you leave the airport, Louise, for God's sake. It is surrounded by extremely professional killers."

"Under this coat I have a gun aimed at you point-blank. Now, as a matter of academic interest, who are these killers?"

"They're the American connection," said Cottel matter-of-factly. "But that's not me. I guess I still have some explaining to do."

Beaurain was behind her. He took Louise's arm and squeezed it.

"I'm going to use that payphone over there for a minute," he said. "While I'm doing it, why don't you two exchange experiences - and maybe it would be safer to walk back further inside the building complex and join Sag and the rest of them."

They sat on a seat by themselves while Cottel explained it to Louise. A short distance away Palme kept watch. It had all started when Washington had asked Ed Cottel to come out of retirement and do one last job for them - track down the Telescope organisation. He had agreed and then at the last minute, when it was too late to substitute anyone else, had informed his superiors he was combining the Telescope mission with a personal investigation into the Stockholm Syndicate.

"When Harvey Sholto said "What's that?" in front of certain top aides who are next to our President -and they all tried to look as though they didn't know what the hell I was talking about - I knew something was wrong. From that time on I was a marked target on a limited schedule,"

"What does that mean?" Louise asked.

"That I would be allowed to proceed to Europe in the hope that I'd expose Telescope." He gave a lopsided grin.

"Whatever that might be. Once I'd done that, I'd be liquidated - probably by Harvey Sholto himself. Luckily the Säpo chief's men in Sweden spotted the early arrival of Sholto so I took extra precautions to keep underground. Once they realised I was devoting all my energies - using all the network of informants and helpers I built up over twenty years - to crack the Stockholm Syndicate, my limited schedule, as they so nicely phrase it, ran out. They sent out a
Nadir
signal on me. To be terminated with extreme prejudice."

"Why is Washington so worried?"

"Because most of the President's electoral campaign funds come from precisely those American industrial corporations who are members of the Syndicate." Cottel's voice became briefly vehement. "You know how our President avoids issues likely to embarrass him - he looks the other way, pretends they don't exist."

"I still don't understand it fully, Ed. This Harvey Sholto - how much power has he? What is his official position?"

"No official position at all any longer. More power than anyone else in Washington below the rank of president because of what he knows. Christ, Louise, I've as good as told you - that's the guy who photocopied all Edgar J. Hoover's files! Those files had all the dirt on every influential figure in the country. He's built up dossiers so dangerous, no-one in Washington dare touch him. But what was the use of just scaring people? And then he thought up the idea of the Stockholm Syndicate. He contacted Viktor Rashkin in Stockholm - I suspect they must have met secretly in the Far East earlier."

He broke off as Beaurain reappeared, his former fatigue no longer apparent, and he checked his watch as he came up to the seat. "We'll be out of here in five minutes, maybe less."

"How?" Cottel asked sceptic ally

"By courtesy of Superintendent Marker of Danish police Intelligence. At the moment a fleet of police cars full of armed men is racing to Kastrup. I told him where Sholto has placed his troops it is Sholto, isn't it, Ed? I thought so. Those two pretending to repair a street lamp are in for a shock."

"There'll be shooting?" Cottel queried.

"Not a shot fired would be my guess. Viktor Rashkin is due here aboard a Danair flight from Bonne and they won't want the place swarming with police. I think I can hear police sirens now."

"You can't touch Rashkin," the American warned. The bastard can always claim diplomatic immunity."

"So we wait a few hours and I think Rashkin will solve the problem for us. Yes, you can hear the sirens. Sound to be a hell of a lot of them,"

There was no shooting. Bodel Marker had sent an overwhelming force to Kastrup and none of the men waiting for Beaurain put up resistance. The fact that they carried firearms was more than sufficient reason , for putting them behind bars. Beaurain then explained the final move in detail to Marker, one of the key men responsible for smashing the Syndicate's communications system. He obtained the Dane's full agreement to his plan, not all of which was strictly in accordance with the law. And it was Marker who provided transport in the form of unmarked police cars for Beaurain and his companions to move into the city.

"What was all that about?" Louise asked as they drove away from Kastrup.

Marker had provided them with three cars. In the lead vehicle, a Citroën, Beaurain was driving with Louise beside him while in the rear sat Palme and Anderson, the laconic Sikorsky pilot. The two cars following them, both Audis, contained Max Keller-man and five of Henderson's gunners. Henderson was driving the third car, guarding their rear.

"I will guide you to the arms depot," Palme announced.

"Here in Copenhagen?" queried Louise.

"Over this bridge and turn right," said Palme calmly. "Into the Prinsesse Gade." The three cars pulled into a drab side street and parked. Minutes later Palme had returned with his suitcase and they were on their way again, heading back to the main road.

"Where are we going now Stig has tooled up, as he would say?" Louise enquired.

"To the house on Nyhavn - which is where the whole horrendous series of events is going to end unless I've guessed wrong."

"You wouldn't care to elaborate?" They drove over the Knippels Bro into the heart of Copenhagen.

"The American connection is Harvey Sholto Ed explained about the Edgar Hoover dossiers. With those and his high-level connections Sholto organised the Syndicate membership in the States. He links up with Rashkin, who organises the European end; I suspect that Rashkin has been running a one-man band."

"With the aid of a three-man directorate?"

"Let's see what happens at the house on Nyhavn," Beaurain said.

Ed Cottel, who had stayed behind at Kastrup, watched through a pair of high-powered glasses the arrival of the DC-9 jet Danair Flight SK 262 from Bonne. As he watched passengers filing off the plane he began to worry. He couldn't identify Viktor Rash-kin. Then he had an idea. He hurried to the main exit where cabs waited for fares.

He was rewarded for his flash of inspiration or so he thought, when he saw a Mercedes with Soviet diplomatic plates pull in at the kerb. A slim man carrying a Danair flight bag appeared, the rear door was opened by the chauffeur, closed, and the limousine glided away, followed by one of Superintendent Marker's 'plain-clothes' cars when Cottel gave the driver a signal. Sweating with the anxiety he had felt, Cottel waited a little longer, watching the departing passengers before he walked rapidly along the airport building front to a parked car which was Marker's control vehicle and equipped with a transceiver. He slid in beside the man behind the wheel.