Colin Forbes - The Stockholm syndicate

"It would have been too late anyway, Jules, had you done so," Goldschmidt said gently.

"What the hell does that mean?"

"De Graer's wife and daughter were brutally murdered as soon as the kidnap took place. The rest was window-dressing."

" Window-dressing? " There was an ominous note in Beaurain's quiet voice.

"I only learned several months later." Their host turned in his chair to look out of the open windows. "The killings at the Chateau Wardin were a demonstration of the Syndicate's power. A number of prominent citizens up to Cabinet level were phoned and told what was going to happen, that the same thing could happen to their own loved ones if they refused to co-operate. You see, the conspiracy started early." He turned and looked at Beaurain's frozen expression. "As I said, it is the uninhibited use of terror, intimidation and bribery. I suspect that soon whole countries will be practically run by this evil organisation. You are powerless to do anything about it, Jules. Or are you? By the way, I wondered whether your visit was to ask me about Telescope?"

"What do you know about it?" Beaurain asked.

"Very little. It is organised like the wartime escape routes for Allied fliers from Brussels to the Spanish border."

"And its leadership?"

Goldschmidt did not reply at once. He took off his gold-rimmed spectacles and studied Beaurain as he polished them with a blue silk handkerchief. He glanced at Louise whose expression was deliberately blank; she hoped not too blank. He replaced his glasses.

"I know nothing of its leadership,"

"Getting back to the Syndicate…"

"It is controlled by three rarely-seen men. One of them is a dealer in rare books who, when he comes to Bruges, has a house in the Hoogste van Brugge only five minutes' walk from where we are now. I find that a trifle insulting. Let me show you on the street map."

Beaurain and Louise studied the map briefly. The address was, as Goldschmidt had said, surprisingly close. "These three men have names?" Beaurain asked.

"The one in Bruges is a Dr. Otto Berlin." Goldschmidt extracted a card from a drawer and wrote on it. "The second is a Dr. Benny Horn, a Dane who operates a rare bookshop in the Nyhavn waterfront area in Copenhagen."

"I know the area," Louise said.

"Good, good. Do not go there alone, my dear, I beg of you. The third is a Swede, a Dr. Theodor Norling, and he too is in the rare book trade. He has an address in Gamla Stan, the Old City district of Stockholm. You know that, I believe, Jules?"

"Yes." Beaurain took the card and glanced at the address. "I don't follow why they are all in the rare book trade. It's some kind of cover?"

"They can travel about officially purchasing some rare volume for a valued customer. Rare books! They are cold-blooded killers."

Goldschmidt spoke with abnormal vehemence. "Trust no-one, Jules. There is treachery everywhere. Unless the Stockholm Syndicate is destroyed quickly it will have the whole western world in its grip."

"Surely that's rather an overstatement," Louise suggested gently.

"You think so?" The rare coin dealer gazed hard at the English girl. "It operates like some international protection racket. Clearly you have no idea who they already have."

"Wher e does the money come from?" asked Beaurain.

"That's the trouble," Goldschmidt said. "We know that billions of dollars have been transferred to Europe by certain American multi-nationals to support the Syndicate. In secrecy, of course, but the funds have been so huge they have moved the value of currencies and that you cannot hide. So, again, it seems like the Americans…"

"But you think not?" Beaurain asked. "Who then?"

"If only I knew which of Berlin, Horn or Norling was the chief executive. The top controller goes under the code-name Hugo. That is a name you whisper. Find Hugo and you have the Syndicate by the throat."

"Why do you call it the Stockholm Syndicate? Why Stockholm?"

Beaurain had deliberately returned to his old role of Chief Superintendent grilling a suspect, hurling question after question with such speed that the recipient answered without thinking.

"Because that is how it is known. My enquiries have traced funds through many channels and always the end of the line is Stockholm."

"How do the men who run this Syndicate extract billions of dollars from the States? By the same methods — intimidation?"

"Sometimes — many successful men leave skeletons behind as they climb. There is an American who has built up what he calls "a blackmail bank". That could be used by the Syndicate. That, plus the lure of huge, invisible and so non-taxable profits when the money is invested in European crime the drug traffic and so on."

"Are the Soviets involved?" Beaurain demanded.

"Viktor Rashkin, the protege of Brezhnev, is at the Russian Embassy in Stockholm," Goldschmidt observed. Unlocking the drawer which contained the envelope of money Beaurain had handed him, the dealer handed it back. "Keep this. Use the funds for your investigation. As you know, my dear Jules, I am a supplier of information. May I just for once enter the prediction business?"

"Go ahead." Beaurain pocketed the envelope. "And thank you."

"I have heard there is to be a meeting of all key members and "shareholders" in the Stockholm Syndicate within the next two weeks. The Americans are flying to Europe — the conference will take place somewhere in Scandinavia. I predict that within the next fourteen days there will be a frightful collision between Telescope and the Stockholm Syndicate. Only one organisation will survive."

At that moment the grenade came through the window and landed on Goldschmidt's desk.

Beaurain reacted with great speed. If he lobbed it back into the street he might cause hideous casualties to passers-by. His hand grasped the obscene object, he rushed to the door, hauled it open and hurled the grenade as far as he could down the narrow hallway. Slamming the heavy door shut he waited for the explosion.

"Superb reflexes, my friend as always," Gold-schmidt commented drily. The emergency had drained the tension out of his system.

"I think it's a dud."

Beaurain was looking at the second-hand of his watch. He waited a little longer. Louise, white-faced but controlled, nodded towards the window.

"Just before it happened I heard a car start up and approach. There was a Volkswagen parked further up the road when we arrived. It had one man behind the wheel."

"I noticed it. I'm going to check."

"Be careful."

Beaurain returned tossing the grenade in the air like a tennis ball. "It's a fake," he assured them. "No primer.

Who wants to scare the living daylights out of Dr. Goldschmidt? There's a note on this spill of paper. It says, "Get out of Belgium by nightfall."

"Undoubtedly a message from Dr. Otto Berlin. He objects to my compiling a dossier on his activities."

"That address," Beaurain said quickly. "In Hoogste van Brugge. I think we'll go there immediately. What does Berlin look like?"

Goldschmidt was unlocking a drawer in his desk. "My photographer who took these pictures — I was going to get them when the grenade interrupted us — says Berlin is about five feet ten tall, very fat, hair black and greasy, with a moustache curling down the sides of his mouth. Walks with a waddle like a duck. Short-sighted — wears horn-rimmed pebble glasses, sounds repulsive."

"That's a very precise description."

"Sounds most conspicuous for someone who wants to avoid the limelight," added Louise.

"Here are the photos — you can keep them. They're very good, considering they were taken under poor conditions. Berlin has a girl assistant. Very distinctive hair-style as you'll see — very dark, cut close to the head like a helmet."

Beaurain and Louise looked quickly at the prints but neither of them said anything. Berlin's assistant was the girl whose taxi they had taken. Beaurain shoved the prints in his pocket with the envelope containing the Deutschmarks.