Colin Forbes - By Stealth

`I hit someone when I fired, heard his body splash into the water

…'

`Tell Kuhlmann quickly…'

Marler ran after the police chief as he mounted a flight of steps to the building. The Strandhotel. There was a brief consultation between the two men and Kuhlmann ran inside the hotel. Marler walked back down the path to join the others as Westendorf arrived.

`Paula is shivering with the cold. Let us go back to my car and wait for Kuhlmann,' the German suggested.

`I'll wait inside my own car, parked not far behind yours,' Marler decided.

He was careful not to report the incident of the man he was sure he had shot. He wasn't sure how much Tweed wanted Westendorf to know.

`That's better,' said Paula, settled in the rear of the limo and taking off her gloves to rub her hands. Already the heaters Westendorf had switched on were filling the interior with welcome warmth. And Westendorf had been tactful, attributing her shudders to the cold: she sensed he realized she was suffering from delayed reaction.

`What about your son, Franz?' Tweed enquired, seated in the front beside their host.

`He is being kept in a Bremen clinic overnight for a medical check-up. He will be back with me in the morning. I talked with him over the phone and he was quite indignant at being kept there while doctors "messed him about", as he put it. He sounded in very good shape, I'm relieved to say. Now, what happened back there at the harbour?'

Tweed explained quickly about Stealth, about the drama at Lymington when Paula had waited at the marina. He looked over his shoulder.

`All along I have trusted your eyesight. Now we've had further proof how good it is. Had you not acted so swiftly we would all be dead.'

`I did see something coming for the Holsten,' Paula responded. 'I couldn't be a hundred per cent certain at the Lymington marina, but this time I was. And the radar was blank – I glanced at it before I flew down the steps.'

`Andover and Delvaux told me about Stealth ships while I was in Liege,' Westendorf mused. 'I didn't believe them. Now I do. They add a terrifying dimension to the menace which faces Europe and – ultimately – America. We'll never even see the enemy coming. Andover told me a lot when I visited Liege.'

`Which enemy is that?' Tweed asked.

`The People's Republic of China, the citadel of Communism. He foresaw an army of twenty million sweeping across Asia, like the old Mongol hordes, but at much greater speed with modern tanks. He said he had talked with a Russian called Voronov in Hong Kong.'

`Not Viktor Voronov, the administrator of the KGB archives in Brezhnev's time?'

`The same. He was an old man when he sought out Andover to warn him.'

Westendorf stopped speaking. He was staring towards the harbour as though stunned by what had happened. `Warn Andover about what?' Tweed pressed.

`By then Voronov was disillusioned with the whole system. Had been for a long time, apparently, which is why he slipped across the border into China and then Hong Kong. He told Andover the Chinese were in close touch with the old Soviet hardliners – in Kazakhstan, Russia, and Ukraine. As soon as the Chinese hordes arrive they'll install the hardliners as puppet rulers – so they'll just sweep over the old Soviet Union with no opposition and on into Europe. What puzzles me is these weird colonies of executives you mentioned.'

`I quote Andover's historical research from memory – "Ogdai Khan swept his hosts across Asia to Russia in 1235… Poland was ravaged, and a mixed army of Poles and Germans was annihilated at the battle of Liegnitz in Lower Silesia in 1241… the Mongols embarked upon the enterprise with full knowledge of the situation of Hungary and the condition of Poland – they had taken care to inform themselves by a well-organized system of spies."' Tweed paused. 'I draw your attention to the last few words. History is repeating itself.'

`You mean-' Westendorf began.

`That these so-called executives in Britain, Belgium, Germany – and soon to arrive, I suspect, in force in Denmark – are spies trained in the East, probably in China. They may well be the advance guard, the elite who will control more to come – across the Oder-Neisse frontier with other refugees.'

`You sound convinced,' Westendorf commented. `Well, that's the way I'd organize it…'

He stopped speaking as Kuhlmann appeared, tapped on the window, and gestured for Tweed to join him. Outside the limo Tweed followed the police chief, who paused near to Marler's car.

`I have alerted everyone. Reinforcements of police will arrive shortly to search the shore. Ah, I think they are arriving already.'

Patrol cars were appearing as dim shapes, parking along the Strandweg. Uniformed men jumped out, went across a stretch of grass to the edge of the Elbe. Others ran back out of sight parallel to the river.

`Radio in patrol cars can speed things up,' Kuhlmann commented.

`Searching the shore for what?' Tweed asked.

`The body of the man Marler shot – and heard hit the water. The tide is beginning to recede. With a lot of luck the body may be washed up on one of the little sandy beaches further down the river. A long shot but-'

Kuhlmann broke off as a uniformed man ran back towards him. He stopped, panting for breath.

`Chief Inspector, we have discovered the corpse of a man lying on a beach…'

`To Berliner Tor!'

Kuhlmann gave the order to the police driver who had taken over the wheel of Marler's Mercedes 600. It was night. They had left Blankenese, had escorted Westendorf, driving his limo, to Schloss Tannenberg. A plain-clothes detective had materialized out of nowhere, had removed the dragon's teeth chain across the open entrance. Through his window Westerndorf gave Tweed a little salute, disappeared down his drive.

`What's the idea of that chain which was removed just before we left the villa?' Tweed asked Kuhlmann.

Marler sat in front beside the driver, who knew the way. In the roomy rear Tweed sat next to Kuhlmann, who had Paula on his left and Newman beyond.

`I feared the kidnappers – when they realized I was on their tails – might resort to attacking the villa, to kidnapping Westerndorf himself. There are three chains along the drive – just in case an armoured car was used to break in. Even such a vehicle would have been stopped.'

`And it will be possible for me to contact Inspector Nielsen in Copenhagen? On scrambler?'

`Why do you think we are going to Berliner Tor? A clever man, Nielsen. No wonder he is chief of police intelligence. You think the climax of all this grim business will take place in Copenhagen?'

`In Denmark,' Tweed said cryptically.

`I shouldn't have asked!'

`Mind you, I am guessing – gambling on a great scale. I am trying to out-think the swine behind all this villainy.'

`You usually guess right. You looked surprised when I asked Marler for his Armalite. I want it for ballistics at Berliner Tor – to check the bullet in the skull of the body we found on the beach. Something strange about him. No hint of his identity was found in his sodden pockets. Dressed like a seaman. I've never known a seaman with nothing in his pockets – no money, no photo of a girl friend. Just nothing. The pathologist may be able to tell me more about his origins. And I also phoned the harbour master. He'll report to me in the morning as to whether any vessel was moving on the Elbe in the fog. He doubts it.'

`You've been busy,' Tweed replied. 'Could I ask you to add one more task to your list? Check whether a Lear jet, owner Dr Wand, is waiting at Hamburg Airport? If so, has the pilot filed a flight plan? And if he has – the destination.'

`I'll send out an officer to have a word with the security chief. Discreetly. Wand carries a lot of clout.'