Colin Forbes - Deadlock

'May I ask what you foresee?' Benoit enquired.

'Sooner or later Brand is going back to Findel to check the gold shipment corning in. You said so yourself. When that happens I want to reach Findel first. Butler and myself.'

'I know what I'd really like,' said Butler. He looked at a police outrider sitting with his legs straddling a Honda. 'That motor-bike.' He turned to Newman. 'With you inside the Lamborghini and me on the motor-bike it will give us more flexibility for action. And a crash helmet that fits my big head.'

'Good thinking,' Newman decided.

Within a few minutes Butler had his Honda. He tried on several helmets the inspector obtained from other outriders, found one that fitted, left it on his head with the ear flaps dangling.

'You have a plan?' asked Benoit. 'You know what is coming?'

'Just pray that I'm right.'

Aboard the Adenauer passengers were dining late, making their meal last. Anything rather than go to bed and not sleep. The liner's master, Captain Brunner, after receiving the signal from Marine Control had taken a strong decision. He would inform everyone of the exact position.

Waldo Schulzberger, US Secretary of State, was the first to be told as he sat in his stateroom with his wife and Cal Dexter, the lanky chief of security.

'I'll signal Washington now,' said Dexter, springing to his feet. 'Find some way of getting you both off this floating bomb.'

'You'll do nothing of the sort,' Schulzberger ordered him. 'I don't mind you contacting Washington, but we're staying aboard.' He turned to Captain Brunner. 'You say you're informing all the passengers of the situation?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Then my wife and I will not take dinner here in our stateroom. We'll eat in the first-class dining room…'

The rumour spread quickly – no one found out how it started – that the Secretary of State and his wife would be taken off the Adenauer secretly. It caused a sensation when Schulzberger appeared in the dining room. He stopped to chat with guests at several tables.

'It's a load of hogwash that Lucy and I are leaving the ship,' he told one industrialist who posed the question. 'We've paid our fare like the rest of you folks. We intend to enjoy the cruise soon as those people in Rotterdam have sorted this thing out. Which I know they will…'

He also declined to sit at the captain's table, joining a group of passengers at a large table. The news spread like wildfire through the ship. Soon the crew heard of his decision. Morale soared. If Schulzberger was staying the danger couldn't be all that great. One boisterous woman said as much to Brunner, who smiled and walked on.

'God help us,' he whispered to his First Officer. 'From that signal I received – reading between the lines – I'd put our chances of survival at fifty-fifty. If that…'

Tweed was talking to Blade on their own in the anteroom.

'When do you want to get your troop into position for the assault? The situation could develop very fast from now on. The bullion is being loaded at Frankfurt Airport aboard a transport aircraft bound for Findel.'

'Now. They are ready. And I don't want them cooped up any longer than is necessary. Mainly, I want every man on the ground so he can see for himself the lie of the land. Will you lead the way?'

'We move now then. Down the back staircase. Van Gorp has warned his men. One thing, I want to try and get aboard one of those police launches – to take a look at Euromast from another angle. Whatever happens, your troop doesn't attack until I fire a green Verey light. Whatever happens,' he repeated.

Five minutes later they were making their way along the side street towards the line of buildings screening them from the Euromast. It was 2.45 a.m. Fifteen minutes before Tweed was due for another confrontation with Klein.

Inside Euromast at platform level Klein watched the elevator door open. Chabot, returning from the Space Tower at the summit, stepped out holding a pair of night-glasses. Klein had sent him up there at regular intervals. He never went up himself since that would have isolated him from what was happening below.

'What is the situation now?' Klein asked.

'Same as before. All the vessels are waiting with their lights on. The Adenauer is a blaze of lights from stem to stern. No change in their position.'

'Good. Go up again in ten minutes' time.' He checked his watch. That will be just before Tweed comes to meet me again. Make a quick scan next time. No more than two minutes, then come down to report before I speak to Tweed.'

'Klein…' Chabot took several paces closer and his manner was aggressive. '… a lot of us want to know the escape route – how we're going to get away when the gold is delivered.'

'And I have told you a score of times you will hear later. I will give exact instructions. You will be surprised how easy it will be.. .'

'Surprise me now…"

He stopped talking as Marler appeared from the platform holding his rifle loosely in his right hand. The Englishman was still showing no signs of the strain which was growing among the rest of the team.

'Bit of activity out there,' Marler remarked. 'Down by those police launches at the end of the basin.'

'Show me.'

Gripping the control box in his right hand, looking like a commanding general in his leather greatcoat, a monocular glass looped round his neck, Klein followed Marler on to the platform, standing by the rail as Marler raised his rifle.

Klein lifted the glass to his eye and gazed down in the same direction. There was movement in the shadows astern of the police launches. He caught a brief glimpse of Tweed, crouched low, who disappeared behind the bulk of the wheelhouse.

'Wasn't that Tweed?' Marler called out.

'Yes. Don't shoot him. Yet. We still need him – to conduct the negotiations.' His voice rose to a high pitch. They are testing our willpower. I warned them not to move anywhere in sight of Euromast. Those policemen. Shoot them. That will demonstrate we mean what we say.'

'How many do you want?' Marler enquired.

'All police who move. Shoot them down.'

Tweed slipped aboard the police launch and ran for cover. He was met behind the wheelhouse by the river police chief of the flotilla, Spanjersberg. He gave him instructions as he stood up cautiously, his binoculars aimed at the platform.

The figure of Klein in his military-style outfit stood out in the lens clearly. A few yards further along a figure with a rifle aimed. The Monk.

'Here is the Verey pistol I was going to bring you,' Spanjersberg said. 'Loaded with a green. Now I will tell my men…'

They had been confined aboard the cramped launch for hours. Spanjersberg approached each of the four men separately where they had taken up different viewing points. He spoke to them in whispers, retreated back to the safe side of the v/heelhouse and made a gesture with his hand, a downward chopping gesture.

The four men began running towards the stern at the same moment, zigzagging as they pounded along the deck. For a second the only sound in the deep silence of the night was the thud of their boots on planking. Then came a fresh sound.

The dull crack of a rifle being fired. In rapid succession. So rapid it was almost a continuous and single sound. Marler was pressing the trigger, moving the muzzle a fraction, pressing the trigger.

Blade saw it from the shelter of the wall where he crouched. Four running men, spread out. The first fell, rolled, stopped. The second cried out, dropped like a sack of cement with a thud Blade didn't hear. The third man nearly made it to the wheelhouse, then threw up his hands and sprawled inert on the deck. The fourth man dived down the steps of a companionway which swallowed him up.

'That bastard,' said Blade, his tone mild.

'We don't move?' Eddie, crouched next to him, asked.