Colin Forbes - The Stockholm syndicate

She was walking along the pavement within less than twenty seconds of the door closing. She reached the bottom of the short flight of steps, the smell of brine in her nostrils, saw the engraved plate to the right of the heavy door and tiptoed swiftly up the steps.

Dr. Benny Horn. The same name Max Kellerman had mentioned. This was the house which had swallowed up Serge Litov after his dash from Brussels. Was this journey's end for the Russian? She doubted it very much. Glancing down she saw a squalid-looking basement area, the glass of the windows murky with grime, the steps streaked with dirt. It was in great contrast to the freshly-painted front door and surrounding walls of the house.

She returned to the Citroen at once, climbed behind the wheel, locked all the doors from the inside, took out a peaked cloth cap and rammed it loosely over her head. With her strong jaw-line the cap gave her a masculine appearance; in the bad light — she was midway between two street lamps — she could easily be mistaken for a man. She slumped down behind the wheel as though asleep and waited, her eyes fixed on the rear-view mirror.

Beaurain felt one satisfaction which offset the considerable anxiety he felt about Louise. He sat on his bed and drank more coffee, watching Max Kellerman pace back and forth with the restlessness caused by enforced inaction. Beaurain voiced his satisfaction to try and cheer up the German.

"At least I guessed right when I sent Firestorm into the Kattegat. Serge Litov headed for Copenhagen as soon as he thought he'd shaken himself loose."

"Where will Firestorm be at this moment?"

Beaurain checked his watch. "Just after midnight. She'll be just about off Elsinore. It's the narrowest passage between Denmark and Sweden."

"And Henderson?"

"He and his men from Brussels should by now be aboard her. They caught the flight before us as soon as I heard Litov had alighted from the Stockholm flight here."

"And how did they get from here to Firestorm?"

"By courtesy of Danish State Railways. They came from Kastrup straight into Copenhagen. From the main station just across the way from this hotel they caught an express to Elsinore, which is less than an hour's journey due north of the city and straight up the coast. I'd told Buckminster by radio what to expect and when. At a remote point on the coast just north of Elsinore, Henderson's party onshore exchanged signals by lamp with Firestorm, which promptly sent a small fleet of inflatable dinghies powered with out-boards to pick them up."

"How do you manage it?" Kellerman had stopped pacing and was sitting in a chair as he poured them both more coffee.

"I'm lucky," Beaurain smiled grimly. "It helps if you have the pieces on the board in the right squares at the right time. In this case particularly Firestorm. Goldschmidt in Bruges was emphatic that a meeting of the Stockholm Syndicate is due to take place in Scandinavia. There was mention of it at Voisin's meeting, the one I had to fight my way into." He frowned. "That was the first time they tried to grab Louise. What the hell can have happened to that girl?"

"I'm sorry." Max spread his hands.

"Shut up! I've already told you it's not your fault. And you both took the right decision."

They were waiting for the van. Dr. Benny Horn, wearing a dark-coloured raincoat and a soft, wide-brimmed hat, stood once again in the hallway holding the suitcase which contained heroin to the value of forty million Swedish kronor. He had just completed making several phone calls.

"Have you fixed up anything for Beaurain and Co.?" asked Sonia Karnell, who had changed into a different trouser suit.

"Gunther Baum is now in Copenhagen. He will pay them a visit at the appropriate moment."

She shuddered as always at the mention of Baum. "I thought he was in Brussels."

"He was. Guessing that Beaurain would follow Litov to Copenhagen, I instructed him to make himself available here. I have just talked with Baum on the phone. The great thing is to have one's servants available at the right time," Horn remarked.

"Is it sensible to have our destination Helsingor — painted in large letters across the side of the van?"

"Yes, it merges into the background at Helsingor which," Horn continued in a contemptuous tone, 'is a provincial town, always feeling that cosmopolitan Copenhagen looks down on it."

He stopped speaking as the doorbell rang in a particular way, a succession of rings. Karnell had extracted the automatic from her handbag, switched off the hall light and opened the door. The van had arrived — she could see the bloody great name she objected to: Helsingor.

The driver, a short bulky man wearing a blue boiler suit and a beret, handed her the ignition keys and went inside. Out of the corner of her eye Karnell saw Dr. Horn make a brief gesture with his head in the direction of the shuttered room where Litov was still waiting for fresh instructions.

Helsingor. Shakespeare's Elsinore where Kronborg Castle was linked with Hamlet's name. No historical foundation for the myth, but it was very good for Elsinore's tourist industry. Louise saw the van out of the corner of her eye as it passed down Nyhavn, heading for the waterfront where it would turn right or left.

Back into the centre of Copenhagen? In her rear-view mirror Louise had seen the couple, the man with the suitcase and the dark-haired girl, come out of the house and climb into the front of the van delivered by the man in the boiler suit.

She had observed that the girl climbed in behind the wheel, that the man clutched the suitcase, casting a quick glance up and down the street and a final look over his shoulder before climbing into the cab as passenger. The final look over his shoulder had been in the direction of the nearest fishing vessel moored to the quay. On the deck stood a seaman looping a cable for no very obvious reason.

Was he a guard who watched the house for the occupants? Who would look twice at a seaman? Louise felt sure there had been a signal exchanged between the girl's companion and the sailor. To her relief the seaman immediately went below deck as the van was leaving. He would not be there to see her own departure.

She set off as soon as the van had disappeared round the corner. The word Helsingor was obviously a blind: wherever she tracked the van to it would not be Elsinore. There was very little traffic about at this late hour so she was able to follow the red lights of the van at a distance. Was the passenger who had clutched the case so possessively Dr. Benny Horn? She shrugged; Jules had taught her the futility of wasting energy speculating to no purpose.

After driving through a district of wealthy suburbs they came out onto the coast road. On her right the dark waters of the Oresund rippled placidly by the light of the moon. There were the coloured navigation lights of an occasional vessel passing up or down the Sound.

The van and the shadowing Citroen were travelling north. Louise knew that with the sea on her right there was only one route they could be taking — and that route took them to Elsinore! Could the name on the van be a piece of double bluff? Or was Dr. Benny Horn running an apparently legitimate business which had offices in Copenhagen and Elsinore? Jules had repeatedly said idle speculation was a waste of time.

My God! Jules — he would be doing his nut back at the Royal Hotel! She hadn't managed to inform him where she was or what she was doing. It couldn't be helped; the van ahead was almost the only link Telescope had left with the Stockholm Syndicate.

"Have it out with Jules later," she told herself. "And just hope to God following this van turns out to be worthwhile. Then he can't say one damned thing,"

It was one o'clock in the morning when the phone rang in Beaurain's bedroom. Kellerman had fallen asleep in a chair instead of returning to his own room. Beaurain had just checked the empty coffee pot with an expression of disgust. He grabbed for the receiver, almost knocking the instrument on the floor in his haste. It was Louise.