Алистер Маклин - Floodgate

‘A few wet feet, no more,’ he said. ‘And not a life lost. An impressive performance, wouldn’t you say, Mr Danilov?’

‘Most impressive.’ True, probably not a life had been lost. Not that day. But the years to come might well record a different story: the radioactive fall-out would have fallen or would be falling over the already flood-beleaguered Flevolands. But it hardly seemed an appropriate moment to point this out to Samuelson.

Samuelson said: ‘Romero, radio the message to the Haringvliet dam. Emphasize the need for absolute radio silence. Where the devil are those two who went in search of Ylvisaker and his friends?’ Nobody knew where the devil they were. ‘Five good men lost to me. Five!’

‘It’s annoying, Mr Samuelson,’ Vasco said. ‘And worrisome. But it can have no effect on the outcome. We have seventeen men. With the element of total surprise in our favour I could guarantee to take the Haringvliet with only four men.’

Samuelson smiled. ‘That’s a comfort. We leave in twenty minutes.’

They left in twenty minutes. All the soldiers were armed, all carried either rucksacks or satchels. Neither van Effen nor George were armed, at least not visibly, but they, too, carried satchels, both crammed with gas grenades. In addition, van Effen had taken the precaution of taking his Yves Saint-Laurent aerosol.

As they climbed aboard the gunship, van Effen said to Samuelson: ‘Gas, not guns?’

‘Gas, not guns.’

The gunship touched down on the Haringvliet dam roadway at 2.38 p.m.

Romero Agnelli, dressed as a major and in nominal command of the party, was the first down the steps. A fair-haired, youngish man with horn-rims detached himself from a small group of observers, hurried forward to greet Agnelli and shook him warmly by the hand.

‘Damned glad to see you, Major, damned glad. Have you seen what those devils have just done in the Markerwaard?’

‘That we have,’ Agnelli said sombrely. ‘That we have.’

‘How seriously do you take this threat to the Haringvliet?’

‘Well,’ Agnelli said reasonably, ‘there’s no threat now. Quite frankly, I don’t take it seriously at all, but, as soldiers, ours is not to reason why. Quite frankly again, the country is in a state of near panic and ninety-nine per cent of all intelligence reports and agitated phone calls we receive turn out to be groundless. This, I say, may be the hundredth, although, as I say, I don’t believe it.’ He took the man’s arm and led him a few steps from the helicopter as soldiers followed down the steps and others opened the loading doors. ‘May I have your name, sir?’

‘Borodin. Max Borodin. Manager. What on earth are those things they are unloading?’

‘Missiles and their launching platforms. We’ll have one facing the North Sea, the other the river. Ground-to-ground missiles and ground-to-air missiles. Heat-seeking. Lethal.’ Agnelli did not add that they could be swivelled on their platforms to cover both road approaches to the Haringvliet dam. ‘Totally superfluous precaution. The FFF are a mad lot but not mad enough to launch a frontal attack on the Haringvliet dam. We expect a destroyer and patrol boats to be standing by shortly. Again, quite unnecessary.’

‘Unnecessary or not, you’ve taken a great load off my mind. Who are those two rather portly and harmless-looking civilians?’

‘Portly they may be. Harmless they are not. Senior police officers from Amsterdam. Very much specialists in a very specialist anti-terrorist squad. They’ll be wanting to look for any weak spots in your defences. Pure formality but they insist. We shall leave two soldiers by the missiles to keep watch. Inspector Danilov – that’s the less portly one – also insists that my men accompany us. He wants, understandably, that they should familiarize themselves with the general layout of the interior of the dam.’

Twenty minutes it was and a very surprising twenty minutes it turned out to be for Mr Borodin, not least when four blue-overalled mechanics produced Kalashnikov machine guns which had been assembled from their toolbags. It was a completely painless – phsyically, that is, but not mentally for many of those concerned – and bloodless operation. Borodin, his staff and his guards had simply no chance. They all finished up in one of the many giant cellars in which the dam abounded. Agnelli was about to turn the key in the lock when van Effen stopped him.

‘No. Rope. Tie them. Come, come, Mr Agnelli, you’re the man who never overlooks anything.’

‘I’ve overlooked something?’

‘You’ve overlooked the fact that O’Brien may not be the only man in the world who can pick any lock in the world.’

Agnelli nodded. ‘Of course. Rope.’ Rope was fetched, enough to secure a hundred men. When Borodin and his men had been bound hand and foot, Samuelson, looking every inch the successful Roman general back from Gaul and making his ritual entry of triumph into the city of Rome, led them all up to the control room. Van Effen and his two friends lingered some way behind while van Effen opened a small tin and brought out six sodden balls of cotton-wool. These they stuffed into their nostrils. Vasco winced.

‘What the hell is this? Sulphuric acid?’

‘You’ll get used to it,’ van Effen said.

‘And what was this rigmarole about people being able to pick locks? It’s a million to one against there being another O’Brien down there.’

‘We’re going to need rope. Lots of it. There’s a couple of hundred yards of it down there.’

Vasco looked at George. ‘The man thinks of everything.’ He shook his head. ‘Agnelli is not the only one who overlooks things.’

They entered the control room. It was wide and very spacious with serried ranks of control panels lining the right-hand wall and paralleling tables. O’Brien was in the vicinity of them but not examining them: van Effen knew he didn’t have to.

‘Ah!’ Samuelson said. ‘The very man, Lieutenant. I want to talk to Wieringa, the Minister of Defence.’

Vasco showed no surprise, merely thought for a few seconds.

‘The Defence Minister will be out at Volkendam, I imagine. Doesn’t matter where he is. No problem. Wherever he is, office, car or plane, he’s never more than an arm’s length from a telephone. I’ll call the War Office and they’ll patch him in.’

‘How long will it take?’

‘A minute. Less.’

‘A minute!’

‘In the Netherlands,’ Vasco said with a trace of loftiness, ‘the Army has over-riding priority.’ In less than the specified time he handed the phone to Samuelson, who took it, his eyes the eyes of a man whose dreams have come true. Or a madman whose dreams have come true.

‘Mr Wieringa? This is the leader of the FFF, the Fighters For Freedom. I trust you appreciated our little demonstration in the Markerwaard this afternoon. I have some more rather unwelcome news for you. We have taken over the Haringvliet dam. I repeat, we are in complete control of the Haringvliet.’ There ensued quite a lengthy pause, at least on Samuelson’s part before he continued: ‘I am glad, Mr Wieringa that you appreciate the significance of this. Any attempt to retake the Haringvliet, by force or by stealth, will have disastrous effects on Holland. I might also add that we have mined the dykes at Hollandsch Diep and the Volkeral. We have observers there. Any attempts to send divers to investigate will compel us to radio-detonate those mines.

‘At 4 p.m. we will be giving a slight demonstration of what awaits your country if our demands are not met immediately by opening a few sluice gates for a few minutes. You might find it instructive to have a helicopter around to take a few pictures so that the people of the Netherlands may understand what lies in store for them.