The Stockholm Syndicate Read online

  From the first-floor window of the house opposite, Fritz Dewulf had busily operated his cine-camera. The pictures of the woman would be good. The results on the man should be even better - Dewulf was confident. He had him on film full-face as he had stared up and down the street. He hoped it was the man Dr. Goldschmidt was most interested in because the doctor paid according to value - the market value.

  An d I wonder who Goldschmidt hopes to sell these pretty pictures to in due course, Dewulf mused as he settled down to wait out the rest of the night vigil. It was just possible the owner of No. 285 would return later, although Dewulf doubted it; there had been an air of finality about the way the fat man had shuffled off down the street. For the next few hours at any rate. A sudden thought crossed the photographer's mind and he grinned. Maybe Goldschmidt would sell the film to the fat man who starred on the reel! It had happened before.

  It was not a conclusion Dewulf would have drawn had he known anything about the personalities involved.

  Berlin sat silent and motionless in the passenger seat of the Peugeot as Sonia Karnell headed towards Ghent and Brussels. Sonia, who could drive almost any car with the expertise and panache of a professional racing driver just one of her many talents which Berlin appreciated was careful not to break the silence. Experience had taught her to be sensitive to her chief's moods; the slightest misjudgement could provoke a vicious outburst. When taking a decision he might not speak for an hour.

  "The darkness helps my concentration," he had once explained.

  "I am a natural creature of the night, I suppose. Most people fear it. I like it."

  They were passing open fields on both sides with no sign of human habitation visible in the dark when she turned off the main road, slowing as she negotiated a sharp downward incline and proceeded cautiously along a cinder track with her headlights full on. Berlin stirred as though emerging from a coma.

  "We are there already?" he demanded in some surprise.

  "Yes, you have been thinking." She said it in the way someone might say, You have been sleeping .

  Turn the car round so if there is an emergency ..."

  Only with a considerable effort of will was she able to stop herself bursting out in irritation. Unlike Berlin, who never seemed fatigued, she was tired and edgy and the prospect of bed seemed infinitely desirable. Of course she would have turned round. And what Berlin meant was that if she ran into trouble where she was going he must be in a position to drive away from the danger, leaving her to fend for herself. Sonia did not resent this; she understood the necessity for it. But the fact that he thought she needed reminding infuriated her.

  She dipped the headlights, switched off the engine and left the key in the ignition. Next, without a word, she reached under her seat for the Luger. She placed the weapon in his lap and turned away, opening her door.

  "Be careful to check that Frans and that bitch are alone before you go on board."

  The warning astonished her. Something momentous was imminent, or he wouldn't treat her like this. They must be close to the climax of the operation against Telescope, she decided. Gripping a torch she made her way down the little-used track. The stench of the canal was in her nostrils. Now she had to climb again, to mount the embankment to where Frans Darras' barge was moored. As she reached the top of the track her thin torch beam shone on the large bulk of the barge. Then a searchlight so it seemed to her -blazed on and glared into her eyes.

  She could see nothing at all, for Christ's sake. Was it the police?

  And inside her bag was a Walther automatic with a spare magazine. She raised one hand to fend off the fierce glare. From nearby she heard Frans' voice speak in French.

  "It is her, Rosa. You can put out the light."

  Sonia, blinded still, gave full vent to her feelings.

  "You stupid bitch! You could have called out instead of lighting up the whole world with that bloody lamp."

  It w as Frans who came out of the darkness, holding a shotgun, and with her own torch pointed the way onto the barge.

  "We've got a Zenith , Frans. That's why I'm here."

  " Zenith! "Keep your voice down, man."

  Frans took the lamp from Rosa and handed her the shotgun.

  "Keep a lookout on deck," he said. He continued in hushed tones to Sonia, gesturing to where the car was parked.

  "He is here?"

  "He is here. He won't be pleased with that idiocy with the searchlight." They went below-deck.

  "It was my fault I told her to aim the lamp while I stayed in the dark with the shotgun. We heard the car how could we be sure it was you and not the police or the other people?"

  "Wh at other people?"

  Sonia forced herself to speak casually, but could not meet his eyes for fear of revealing her shock at what he had just suggested he knew.

  "I mean Telescope, of course..." He stopped in mid-sentence.

  "I will transmit the signal," he mumbled, opening a cupboard.

  "What is the complete message? I'll write it down."

  "Yes, you had better do just that," she said coldly, watching his every movement now. Transmit over the whole network, "Jules Beaurain ex-Chief Superintendent Belgian police lives apartment off Boulevard Waterloo Brussels Zenith repeat Zenith".'

  Removing a bundle of screwed-up clothing from the lower shelf of the cupboard, Darras fiddled with a corner of the roof and the apparently solid back slid aside, exposing a high-powered transceiver. He pressed another button and a power-operated aerial emerged on deck and climbed

  into the night alongside the TV mast. Now he was ready to transmit and the signal he would send out was so strong it could reach any part of western Europe. He also set a clock-timer for three minutes, which must be the duration of the transmission. Police radio-detector vans normally n eeded five minutes to get a fix on any transmission their listening posts picked up.

  "I will leave you," Sonia said in the same cold voice.

  "You will get the barge moving before you actually transmit?" she

  demanded of Darras.

  "I was just waiting for you to leave."

  "Then hurry."

  Climbing the greasy steps to the deck, she felt the planks under her feet vibrate gently as Darras started up his ancient engine. Rosa was nowhere to be seen. Sonia scrambled back down the path and then up the nettle-bordered cinder track. Berlin had put out the side-lights. He was clasping the Luger which he handed to her without a word. His hand closed over hers as she reached for the ignition.

  "You were longer than usual. And what was that with the light?"

  Being careful to keep her story concise he couldn't stand long-windedness she told him what had happened. With shoulders hunched forward he listened with great concentration.

  "What do you think?" he asked eventually.

  "I'm worried. I don't like the Rosa woman, but that's not relevant but I think she has influence over Frans."

  "And Frans himself?"

  "He worried me even more. I think he's losing his grip. I'm sure he was going to operate his transmitter while the barge was stationary."

  "That was the point which struck me," Berlin said thoughtfully. Turn on the engine now."

  "You think we should cut the Darrases out of the network?" she asked as she started the car up the track towards the road.

  "It is more serious than that," Berlin decided.

  "I think we shall have to send a visitor."

  Chapter Three

  When Serge Litov was manhandled into the butcher's van and the doors slammed shut, he was already in pain from the arm Henderson had broken.

  But in his grim life one of the qualities he had been trained in was to endure pain and his mind was still clear as the van moved off.

  He had been placed on a stretcher on a flat leather couch bolted to the floor on the left side of the van which was equipped rather like a crude ambulance inside. A man wearing a doctor's face-mask loomed over Litov and by the aid of an overhead light examined the arm
and then spoke in English.

  "I am going to inject you with morphine to relieve the pain. Do you understand me?"

  Litov glanced at the two other men in the van, sitting against the other side. They wore Balaclava masks, dark blue open-necked shirts and blue denim trousers. One of them held a machine-pistol across his lap. Two pairs of eyes stared coldly at Litov, who spoke English fluently, as he considered whether to reply in the same language, a decision which might influence his future vitally. It would conceal his true nationality.

  "How do I know there is morphine in that hypodermic?" he asked.

  "You are worried it is sodium pentothal to make you talk? As a professional man I would not do that -not to a man in your condition."

  The Englishman's voice was gentle and there was something in the steady eyes watching him above the mask which made Litov against all his training trust the man.

  "Also," the doctor continued, 'you have a flight ahead of you. Why not travel in comfort?"

  As soon as he had been flopped onto the stretcher Litov's undamaged left arm had been handcuffed at the wrist to one of the lifting poles.

  Both ankles were similarly manacled and a leather strap bound his chest. He was quite helpless and waves of pain were threatening to send him under.

  "I'll take the needle," Litov agreed, exaggerating the hoarseness in his voice. The doctor waited until the van paused, presumably at traffic lights, then swiftly dabbed the broken arm with antiseptic and inserted the hypodermic. When the van moved on again he waited for a smooth stretch of road and then set Litov's arm and affixed splints.

  Time went by, the van continued on its journey, speeding up now as though it had left the outskirts of the city behind. Litov was trying to estimate two factors as accurately as he could: the general direction the van was taking and its speed, which would allow him roughly to calculate the distance it covered.

  Earlier there had been several stops, traffic light stops, but now they kept moving as along a major highway. He chose his moment carefully when the van paused and the trio on the opposite couch looked towards the front of the van as though there might be trouble. He glanced quickly down at his wrist-watch; something they had overlooked. Two o'clock.

  As the vehicle started up again and his three captors relaxed, Litov half-closed his eyes and calculated they had roughly travelled two hundred kilometres, allowing for the van's speed and twelve pauses.

  They had to be a long way outside Brussels. West towards the coast?

  They would have reached it long ago. South towards France? They would have crossed the border long before now which would have meant passing through a frontier control post and there had been nothing like that.

  North towards Holland? The same objection. The frontier was too close for the distance travelled. Same applied to Germany which left only one direction and one area to account for the distance covered. South-east: deep into the Ardennes.

  Following the same route, Beaurain had long since overtaken the van. He had by now passed through Namur where vertical cliffs fell to the banks of the river Meuse. At this hour there was hardly any other traffic and they seemed to glide through the darkness. Beyond Namur he drove through Marche-en-Famenne and Bastogne where the Germans and Americans had fought an epic battle during World War Two. The country they were travelling through now was remote, an area of high limestone ridges, gorges and dense forests.

  "Jock," Beaurain said as he slowed down to negotiate the winding road, 'on the surface I was lucky back there in Brussels. Had Litov been just a second or two faster it would have been me you'd have carried inside that van."

  "We had it well-organised. You were quick yourself."

  "That motor-cycle, was it difficult to locate?"

  "Not really, although we were looking for something like that. It was propped against an alley wall very close to that intersection."

  "I see." Beaurain glanced at Henderson's profile. His sandy hair was trimmed short, he was clean-shaven and his bone structure was strong. A firm mouth, a strong jaw and watchful eyes which took nothing for granted. Beaurain thought he had been lucky to recruit him when he had resigned from the SAS -although really it was the other way round since Henderson had left the Special Air Service to join Telescope. The bomb in Belfast which had killed the Scot's fiancée had decided him to change the course of his life. He was by background, by training, the perfect man to control the key section they called The Gunners.

  The radio-telephone buzzed and Beaurain picked up the receiver, driving with one hand. The telephone crackled and cleared.

  "Alex Carder here," a soft deliberate voice reported in French.

  "Any news re delivery?"

  "Benedict speaking," Beaurain replied.

  "Expect the cargo in thirty minutes. Have you the manifests ready?"

  "Yes, sir," Carder replied.

  "We can despatch the cargo immediately on arrival. Especially now we have the time schedule. Goodbye."

  Beaurain replaced the receiver.

  "The chopper's ready as soon as Litov arrives. To make it work we need a swift, continuous movement."

  "I have been thinking about what you said in the rue des Bouchers. I think you're right the Syndicate would leave someone close by."

  "Which means that by now they know we have Litov, so we have to work out how they will react to that news."

  "Something else worries me." The Scot stirred restlessly in his seat.

  "I didn't mention it to you at the time because everything was happening so fast."

  "What is it?"

  "The safety catch was still on when we took the Luger away from Litov."

  They were now well inside the Ardennes forest. The full moon oscillated like a giant torch between the palisade of pines lining the road. They hadn't met another vehicle in twenty kilometres. Ahead, at a bend, the headlights shone on stone pillars, huge wrought-iron gates were thrown open. The scrolled lettering on a metal plaque attached to the left hand pillar read Château Wardin .

  The Château Wardin this was where it had all started, Beaurain reflected, as he drove up the winding drive. The formation of Telescope. For three days after the burial of his wife he had remained inside his Brussels apartment, refusing to answer the doorbell or the phone, eating nothing, drinking only mineral water. At the end of the three days he had emerged, handed in his resignation as chief of the anti-terrorist squad and asked the owner of the Château Wardin for financial backing.

  The Baron de Graer, president of the Banque du Nord and one of the richest men in Europe, had provided Beaurain with the equivalent of one million pounds. His late wife's father, a London merchant banker, supplied the second million. But it was de Graer's gift of the Château Wardin as well, which had provided the training ground for the gunners whom Henderson trained as Europe's deadliest fighters.

  Recruitment had been carried out with far greater care than by most so-called professional secret services seeking personnel. The motive had to be there: men and women who had suffered loss in the same way as Beaurain. Wives who had lost husbands in the twentieth-century carnage laughingly known as peacetime. Henderson had brought with him several Special Air Service men taking care the motive was never money. The Scot despised mercenaries.

  Telescope had been involved in three major operations. At Rome airport it had shot four terrorists who had hijacked an Air France plane. No one had spotted Henderson's snipers who escaped dressed as hospital orderlies in an ambulance. And Dusseldorf: a bank siege involving hostages. No one ever worked out how unidentified men wearing Balaclava-type helmets reached the first floor and then descended one flight to destroy the heavily-armed robbers with shin-grenades and machine-pistols. Vienna: a hijack with Armenian terrorists unidentified snipers operating at night had killed every Armenian and then disappeared like ghosts. But in each episode and many others the local police had found the same object left as a trademark. A telescope.

  Most West European governments were hostile to this private
organisation which achieved what they were unable to. But rather than risk the general public knowing of Telescope's existence, they compromised allowing their own security forces to take responsibility for the events in Rome, Dusseldorf and Vienna.

  "It would make the politicians look so stupid, Jules," René Latour, head of French counterespionage, had explained when he was dining with his old friend Beaurain during a visit to Brussels.

  "Do you remember that remark I once made to you about three years ago," he continued.

  "That the President regards me as his telescope because I take the long view?"

  "No, I don't remember," Beaurain had lied.

  "It came back to me when all our security services were holding a meeting about Telescope and wondering who could be the boss of such an outfit," "Really," Beaurain had replied, ignoring Latour's searching glance and changing the subject.

  Information. The Belgian had foreseen from the very beginning that the transmission of swift and secret information to his organisation was essential if it was to be able to act with the necessary speed and ruthlessness And in this direction only, money was used; large fees were paid to an elaborate network of spies in all branches of the media, in many branches of government, in many countries. And always they operated through two watertight cut-outs, phoning a telephone number where someone else called another number.

  But it was the Château Wardin with its seclusion, its variety of terrain, its hidden airstrip and helipad, which was the key to Telescope. This was Beaurain's main base.

  As soon as the van drove in, the gates of Château Wardin were closed behind it. Litov was still awake. He was concentrating furiously, trying to make out what was happening, why there had been a slowing down in speed. Before the sudden almost right-angled swing at a sedate pace they had been travelling fairly fast along a road which had many bends. They had to be somewhere out in the country because he had not heard the sound of one other vehicle for a long time.