Colin Forbes - By Stealth

`No need for that. I've lost my way.'

He backed away slowly, step by step. She followed him.

`How you get there?'

The barrel of the gun emerged beyond the doorway, then the thick hand holding it. Pressed against the side of the house, Marler brought down the barrel of his Armalite with savage force on her wrist. She dropped the gun and grunted like a wild boar. As she retreated back into the house her other hand produced a wicked wide-bladed knife, doubled-edged. She held it in front of her as she continued back and Newman followed.

`Where is the girl?' Newman snapped.

`Girl die if you come in…'

Newman continued to advance, followed by Marler and Butler. She reached the door to the basement. Despite Marler's ferocious blow, her right hand turned the key and she backed on to the platform inside the basement area.

She saw Paula and started to swing her huge knife round. Two things happened at the same moment. Paula plunged the hypodermic into her thick wrist, depressed the plunger. Newman's right leg shot up and kicked her in the stomach. It was like kicking a tree trunk but Ilena was rammed back against the rail. The wood refused to take the strain. With the hypodermic still in her wrist, her eyes rolling, she fell backwards ten feet to the wood floor. Her obese body lay still, her head oddly twisted to one side.

`Oh, thank God!'

Paula threw herself into Newman's arms. He hugged, kissed her as she clung to him, then straightened up. She spoke as Butler, Walther in hand, began to search the rest of the house upstairs. Marler checked the ground floor.

`Lord, I need a wash,' Paula said.

`Try the kitchen at the back,' advised Marler, who heard her as he returned from his swift scrutiny. 'There's a sink with taps.'

When she had gone Newman and Marler went down the steps into the basement. Newman checked Ilena's pulse. Nothing. He looked up at Marler.

`Dead as a doornail. Her neck's broken.'

`This thing's alive,' Marler reported, pointing to Hyde. `What do you think?'

`If he faces a trial, he'll get X number of years. Then some shrink will testify he's normal and they'll release him. I'm not in favour.'

`Join the club.'

Using his knuckles to avoid leaving fingerprints, Marler heaved over the table. Hyde screamed as it landed on his knees, pinning him down. His precious scalpels scattered all round him.

`He'll bleed to death before he's found,' Newman commented.

`Which is the object of the exercise,' Marler replied.

Paula freshened herself up under the tap of cold water. Butler had found her shoulder-bag thrown on a couch in a front room. To her surprise the contents were intact – including her. 32 Browning.

`No one and nothing else in the house,' Butler remarked. 'Except an oil lamp burning in the front room.'

Newman disappeared inside the front room. He closed the door, knocked the oil lamp on to the wooden floor, went back into the hall, again shutting the door.

Paula had walked out into the fresh sea air, took in deep gulps. Then she stiffened. The wind had dropped suddenly. As night fell the air was still. No more sandstorms. Only an uncanny silence. She had stiffened because of what she saw creeping in from the sea. A dense mist. Growing denser every minute.

`It really was a trifle disconcerting,' Dr Wand remarked to Starmberg as the Luxemburger drove him away from Esbjerg Airport. 'We were held in a holding pattern while some stupid light aircraft was permitted to land. I gather it was lost and they wanted to get it on the ground before we landed.'

The two men were inside a limousine with tinted glass windows. Wand had no idea that Inspector Nielsen had phoned the Esbjerg traffic controller.

`When a Piper Aircraft, call sign Kalundborg, comes within your orbit, could you please give it top priority over all other planes?' he had requested.

`Request granted,' the traffic controller had agreed.

Earlier, at Kastrup Airport, Nielsen had arranged for the take-off of the Lear jet to be delayed. He had guessed Tweed would want to arrive first. Nielsen was staying in his office all night if necessary – at least until he had heard from Tweed.

Starmberg wore his chauffeur's uniform and dark glasses as he bypassed Esbjerg and drove south on Route 11. He was heading for South Jutland by the direct route. Wand, completely relaxed, glanced at the Luxemburger.

`There will be two Stealth vessels coming in tonight – a powerful missile-armed vessel leading the way, with Yenan, the smaller ship, following it. All the top operatives are aboard the Yenan…'

`Why is that?' enquired Starmberg.

Wand sighed. 'Again I am asked questions, which you know I dislike

…'

`My humble apologies…'

`Just keep quiet and your question will be answered. The lead vessel, the Mao III, has as its main task the protection of the Yenan. There are also operatives aboard Mao III, but they are far less important. I am happy to say that as soon as the Yenan team has landed and occupied the bungalows waiting for them, my whole European apparatus will be established in place.'

`Most satisfactory. You have planned this so well,' Starmberg replied with grovelling enthusiasm. Wand preferred top subordinates who looked up to him. 'Everything is now ready in Jutland for their reception.'

`Kindly assure me that the escorts are in position.'

`Twenty armed men will now have hidden themselves behind the dunes.'

`And the dinghies, I trust, have been placed in a strategic situation? The Mao and the Yenan will have to stand offshore while the operatives are landed on the beach.'

`The dinghies are also concealed behind the dunes. Trucks delivered them an hour ago.'

There was silence for some time as Starmberg drove steadily south. Wand appeared to have sunk into one of his trances. They had reached the wilderness in South Jutland now. Wind blew a veritable storm of powdered sand over the windscreen. Starmberg had turned on the wipers at top speed but still a film of sand coated the screen.

`You have checked the met forecast, I trust?' Wand asked suddenly.

`Wind due to die at dusk. Then dense fog along this coast.'

`It is dusk now…'

Wand had just made the remark when the wind dropped, went away. A few minutes later, glancing to the west, Wand saw in the fading light a turgid grey mist creeping in from the sea. His mouth twisted into a smile of pleasure.

`You haven't asked me about our good friend, Tweed.' `You don't like me to ask questions,' Starmberg reminded him respectfully.

`Good. Very good indeed. You might like to know Tweed is due to receive a memento of his cherished Miss Grey. Namely her severed arm. That will break him finally.'

`A pleasure for him, I'm sure,' Starmberg replied with relish. 'We have nearly reached the bungalows. Inside the one which will be your headquarters a powerful transmitter has been installed.'

`I would hope so. That is my means of communication with the Mao

…'

Both men were so absorbed in what lay ahead of them they had never even glanced behind them. Even if they had, it was doubtful if they'd have seen the scruffy Ford Sierra which had followed them all the way from the airport. Behind the wheel Philip Cardon slowed down, driving with great skill with only his sidelights on.

While the Piper Archer was in mid-air, and soon after its take off from Kastrup, Tweed had – at Cardon's suggestion – asked the pilot to transmit a message to Nielsen over his radio.

The pilot had immediately picked up his microphone and had spoken to Nielsen on the prearranged frequency. He had asked for an anonymous car – equipped with a powerful transmitter – to be obtained in Esbjerg and kept waiting for their arrival. As usual, Inspector Nielsen had delivered.