Алистер Маклин - Prime Target

‘We’re probably no further than a mile or two from where they are at this minute,’ Mike said. ‘We’ll go after them, but reinforcements at some stage would be a comfort.’

‘The German authorities already got a rough fix on the radio signal,’ Whitlock said. ‘We can pass on something more precise. Hold down the hash mark and the star buttons simultaneously for a count of ten. I’ll take a fix on your position.’

Mike did as he said. At the end of ten seconds he heard the phone beep.

‘That’s recorded and on its way to the proper authorities,’ Whitlock said. ‘Now, while your skin and Sabrina’s are precious to us, you understand it’s Wolff we’re most concerned about at present.’

Mike said, ‘When the shooting started back at the hotel, I saw him grab some optical disks and stick them down his pants.’

‘The ICON protocols,’ Whitlock groaned.

‘It might have been better for ICON if he’d left them,’ Mike said. ‘If Ahlin realizes what he has in his hands, it could be worse than catastrophic.’

‘I don’t even want to visualize that,’ Whitlock said.

‘We’d better get moving, C.W.’

‘Keep in touch.’

Mike pocketed the phone and told Sabrina what Erika had said.

‘Her voice,’ she said, ‘but Einar’s words, I’ll bet.’

Mike started the bike. ‘I have to admit, I have the worst kind of gut feeling about Ahlin.’

‘Me too.’ Sabrina waited until he righted the bike then she climbed on. ‘The way I feel about him,’ she said, ‘is like the sensation you get when you see a terrorist turn and look at you, and you realize your gun is back at the hotel.’

‘I know that sensation,’ Mike said. ‘There’s a technical term for it.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Blind terror.’

The sky turned steadily darker as they drew near the shoreline. Mike eased the bike along rutted tracks and over increasingly stony hillocks, watching all the time for a sign of the Volkswagen. The rain was starting up again when Sabrina slapped his shoulder.

‘There,’ she said, pointing out to sea.

Ten metres beyond the end of a jetty the boot and part of the rear end of the car’s roof were visible above the water.

‘I hope he didn’t leave anybody in there,’ Mike said.

He drove on for another five minutes, picking up speed as the shingled road became smoother. A number of small boats lay at anchor along the way, covered with tarpaulins, abandoned until the city sailors arrived at the weekend.

Sabrina slapped Mike again. ‘That boat along there. The big green one. There are lights on board.’

The launch was moored against the side of a flimsy one-lane jetty. Down in the state room Andreas Wolff was propped in the curve of a padded couch facing aft. At the dining table Einar Ahlin sat opposite Erika Stramm. He explained their position as if it had been ordained long ago.

‘They will know where we are, or roughly where, because they will have taken a lock on the broadcast signal. Police radios permit that kind of trace, which was the only reason we used it. Delay, when it comes time for the exchange, will be minimal.’ He took a cellular telephone from his pocket. ‘When you talk to them again, you will use this.’

‘So you want them to come here,’ Erika said.

‘I want them to see Wolff,’ Ahlin sat back and clasped his hands behind his head. ‘We will be some way out by then, but they will be able to satisfy themselves it is him. They will then float out the money in the small boat they will find by the jetty, and when it reaches us, we release Herr Wolff. They will rejoice and give great sighs of relief as they help him out of the boat in which he will be returned to the shore. He will still have his hands bound, of course, and his mouth will be taped.’

‘Why?’

‘So he cannot warn them he is sitting on a bomb.’

Ahlin pointed to a grey metal box on a shelf by the door. It was a 15-centimetre cube; a stemmed handle stuck up from the top. The handle was broad and flat-topped.

‘Pushing down the plunger does nothing. Releasing it again does. Boom!’ Ahlin threw his arms in the air and laughed. ‘I built that myself. Originally I intended to use it to despatch Mr Gibson, the American. But I decided it would be better if something so potent and – I confess it, so unstable – did not travel too far before it was used.’

He leaned across and patted the side of the bomb casing. Erika stared at Andreas Wolff. His eyes looked sunken with despair.

‘What about the threat to blow up the naval yard?’

‘Sheer nonsense,’ Ahlin said. ‘But they must take a threat like that seriously.’ He nodded at Wolff. ‘People are valued, of course, especially clever ones like him, but property and investment and secrets – oh, they must be protected above and beyond all else. The threat to blow up the yard guarantees delivery of the million dollars. A side benefit will be that a pleasing number of police and security forces will be deployed at the naval yard to no good end.’

Ahlin reached out and touched the bomb again, stroking it this time. ‘It is a big charge,’ he said, ‘a huge one really, so when Herr Wolff stands up, there will be a lot of damage, many casualties, and an overriding confusion, during which we will speed away.’

Erika looked ill. ‘I don’t want to go anywhere. I just want to see Gregor. I want to be with him more than anything.’

‘First you must come with me.’

‘Where? Norway?’

‘I’m sure that is what the authorities will think. But no. We will just go round the corner, geographically speaking. Remember, we have a job to finish in Germany. So we will creep back while the forces of law and order are looking for us everywhere but Germany, and we will complete the grand mission. After that…’ Ahlin shrugged. ‘After that I don’t know. Maybe by then I will have devised another mission.’

Erika looked at Wolff again. He was very pale. He sat staring at the floor.

‘I’m scared,’ Erika said. ‘You’ll get us killed.’

Outside, Mike and Sabrina had inched their way on deck, leaning along the rail, setting up a minimum of movement. Mike tiptoed to the forward state-room porthole and put his eye to the edge. He turned to Sabrina and nodded. He eased the rifle off his shoulder and readied it. Sabrina pulled out her pistol and thumbed off the safety. They went down the six steps to the stateroom door on their toes.

Mike looked at Sabrina. He gently grasped the handle of the door and began to mouth a countdown from five. Sabrina nodded on each count. On two Mike eased the door open a fraction. On one he kicked it hard.

The door burst open with a crash.

Ahlin jumped back, nearly falling. Erika screamed and Andreas Wolff jumped to his feet. Mike leaped into the room holding the rifle at waist height. Sabrina was two paces behind him, standing on the bottom step, her pistol aimed at Ahlin’s head.

‘Freeze!’ Mike yelled. ‘Don’t move! Not a muscle!’

Ahlin’s eyes rolled. He swayed, looking as if he might faint. He sank slowly to his knees. Mike was three paces away as Ahlin went down. When his shoulder hit the floor his hand snaked into his jacket pocket and pulled out a shiny silver pistol.

‘Watch it!’ Sabrina yelled.

Ahlin fired at Andreas Wolff before Mike got to him. The bullet hit Wolff in the middle with a splintering sound and he fell back across the couch.

Mike’s rifle butt clipped Ahlin on the chin. He landed unconscious in the corner. Mike snatched the pistol and pocketed it.

‘Let’s go!’ he yelled, pushing Erika towards the door. ‘Move!’

He took Wolff by the arms and pulled him to a sitting position. Wolff’s eyes opened and he winced.