Colin Forbes - By Stealth

`Sorry, Willie, but I can't. Not just now. I have to keep an appointment. Maybe later in the evening?'

`Jolly good! You'll find me in the Sambri. Bet I'm three glasses ahead of you. Now don't forget…'

As Willie found all the elevators were in use and headed down the stairs Newman changed his mind. He waited – to give Willie time to settle in the bar – then stepped inside an elevator a couple had just left. It was time to warn Tweed.

Berliner Tor.

Police headquarters in Hamburg. A slim twenty-storey building sheering up into the night, ablaze with lights. Tweed remembered it well: it stood in splendid isolation, the only edifice of any height almost as far as the eye could see.

`Follow me!'

Kuhlmann led them into a vast tall entrance hall, waved his pass at the duty officer, hurried on to the bank of elevators, pressed the button for the fifteenth floor. While they waited he turned to Tweed.

`They've given me a large office on the fifteenth floor and all facilities, Scrambler phones, the- lot. You want to call Nielsen now?'

`It's urgent. Yes. If he's in, but he works all hours…'

Paula and Marler were escorted to another room when they stepped out on the fifteenth floor. Kuhlmann said he was sending someone along.

`Coffee. Food. No alcohol, I'm afraid…'

He showed Tweed into a large office with a view of the moonlit Aussen Alster – the larger of the two lakes in the middle of Hamburg. Showing Tweed to a desk, he pointed to a phone, reminded him to press the red button for scrambler.

`I'm taking Marler straight along to ballistics. Back in a few minutes. You've complete privacy for your call – that instrument isn't linked to a recorder. Good luck…'

He left with Marler, who was carrying the hold-all containing the Armalite. Kuhlmann never wastes a minute, Tweed thought, as he settled himself in a chair. Taking out a notebook, he checked Nielsen's number, pressed the red button, and dialled. Using the Dane's private number, he got straight through.

`Where are you calling from, you old scoundrel?' Nielsen greeted him jovially.

`Hamburg. Police HQ. On scrambler. Are you?' `Always on this number. You usually bring trouble. Tell me the worst.'

`First, can you put someone to watch Kastrup Airport round the clock. For the arrival of a Lear jet. I have details here…' He checked what Marler had written down in his notebook, relayed them to Nielsen. 'And if it does land I think later it will go elsewhere. Vital I know where.'

`So we obtain the pilot's flight plan. Without letting him know he's under surveillance,' Nielsen promised in his precise manner. 'How do I get the data back to you?'

`Via your old friend, Chief Inspector Kuhlmann, here at Berliner Tor. In an emergency – if Otto isn't available – try and contact me at the Four Seasons Hotel, Room 311.'

`All clear so far. You wouldn't like to give me a hint as to what this is about? Even a hint?'

`Haven't finished. The danger zone is Jutland. What's the weather like?'

`In Jutland? Forecast of heavy fog along the whole of the west coat. Can you pinpoint the area?'

`Somewhere south of Esbjerg – between there and the German frontier. Probably on a lonely stretch of the coast.'

`Very dense fog there,' Nielsen warned. 'No sign of it shifting.'

`I have a big favour to ask you.'

`Here it comes. Unorthodox and illegal. Go ahead.' Tweed thanked God that the Dane was always so cooperative. But would he wear this one!

`I may want to use an SAS team in the area. Are you still there, Henrik?'

There was a pause as though Henrik Nielsen was recovering from a state of shock. He cleared his throat.

`You don't ask for much, do you? I'll have to contact a Minister.'

`Do so. Give me his name. And I'll get our PM to talk to him.'

`As high-level as that?' Nielsen sounded impressed. 'In that case leave it to me. We are both in NATO, after all.'

`Exactly. But I will see you first – in Copenhagen. And soon. Take care…'

Tweed had hardly put down the phone when it rang. A girl operator informed him a Mr Robert Newman was on the line. Tweed asked her to put him through.

`I'm calling from a public phone box,' Newman opened, talking rapidly. 'I thought you ought to know that the tribe is here in force – Messrs Fanshawe and Burgoyne, with their women. Also – wait for it – Dr Wand, staying at the Four Seasons…'

He described tersely his encounter with Wand and Jules Starmberg on the staircase. Tweed thanked him for the information, adding he was not too surprised and would be back at the Four Seasons shortly.

As he put down the phone for the second time Kuhlmann came into the room. He was carrying a tray with coffee and a selection of sandwich rolls.

`I have news for you,' the German said as he sat opposite Tweed. 'There was a patrol car at the airport. Luckily one of the men was a sergeant I know – and a friend of the airport security officer. He radioed back just two minutes ago. About that Lear jet.'

`Any positive data?'

`Yes. The machine is being kept on stand-by twenty- four hours a day – with a three-crew roster. A flight plan has been filed. For Copenhagen.'

Tweed, suddenly realizing he was ravenous, had sunk his teeth into a ham roll. He nodded, swallowed, then told the police chief about his conversation with Henrik Nielsen. He went on to relay Newman's account of his confrontation with Jules Starmberg and asked if the name rang any bells.

`Deafening cathedral bells,' Kuhlmann replied. 'So Jules Starmberg is back in Hamburg. A Luxemburger and a very ugly piece of work. His wife was battered brutally to death in an apartment at Altona two years ago. Starmberg is the only man I never broke under interrogation. That is, a man I knew was guilty of a hideous crime.'

`What went wrong?'

`An unbreakable alibi for the time of the murder. He was supposed to be drinking in a bar on the waterfront at the relevant time. Three of his pals swore he was there.' Kuhlmann looked grim. 'But my main problem was Starmberg refused to answer one single question. He remained silent during the whole interrogation. His crook of a lawyer told me about the alibi. Starmberg is a man of teak.'

`That's how he struck me when I met him briefly in Brussels. He's now staying at the Four Seasons with Dr Wand.'

`In that case Dr Wand keeps very bad company.'

`That does not surprise me,' Tweed commented, drinking some coffee, then attacking another roll.

`I have more news for you,' Kuhlmann continued. 'In the morning the river police are using a barge equipped with lifting tackle to hoist up the remains of the Holsten V. Westerndorf is calling for you at the hotel tomorrow morning at nine o'clock to take you to Blankenese. If that is convenient.'

`I'll make it convenient. I want to see the state of the vessel. You're moving very fast, Otto.'

`I was just about to say that you are-'

Kuhlmann broke off as the phone started ringing. Raising his thick eyebrows, he answered. Listening, Tweed ate another roll. Paula opened the door, said she was going back to the hotel in a police car, waved to Tweed as she left.

Kuhlmann put down the phone, put his large hand to his head in mock amazement.

`That I have never known before. Normally I wait hours – days – while a pathologist takes his time. He has just made a cursory examination of the seaman's corpse. Well, now we know where he came from – and we don't.'

`What does that mean?' Tweed enquired.

`The fillings in the teeth. No dentist in Western Europe attended to him. He comes from the East. How far east? I asked. You know what he said? Maybe from Bulgaria, maybe from Romania, maybe from one of the old Soviet republics. Very precise – even if very prompt.'