Colin Forbes - The Stockholm syndicate

"You stupid little cunning tart."

The contradictions of her insult didn't bother the Swedish girl. Coming round the bend she had found the red lights immediately ahead, the Citroen cruising very slowly like someone looking for a turning.

It wasn't that at all, and Karnell knew it. The girl had speeded up and then braked as soon as she was out of sight beyond the bend. Just far enough from the bend to ensure that the Porsche wouldn't ram her — although it might have skidded off the road.

"Bitch! Bitch! Bitch!" Karnell snarled.

The Citroen was picking up speed again. Karnell glanced at the device on the seat beside her, a device which was protected with foam-rubber inside a cardboard box bearing the name of a well-known Copenhagen florist. Much as she disliked handling explosive, Karnell was beginning to look forward to attaching some extra equipment to the car ahead.

She kept the speed of the Porsche down as the Citroen vanished round another bend at speed. Sure enough, rounding the bend herself she saw the car was only a short distance ahead. Once again the driver had jammed on the brakes as soon as the Citroen was out of sight.

"You caught me once. Twice never, you whore," Karnell said triumphantly.

It happened about two kilometres after these two incidents. It happened without warning. Karnell saw the red lights suddenly leap away and vanish round a fresh bend in the road. It was again impossible for Karnell to see beyond the bend, which was lined with trees and undergrowth. She reduced speed and approached with great caution. Crawling round the bend she gazed stupefied ahead and in her state of shock pulled into the side of the road.

The road ahead was deserted. No red lights. No traffic at all. The Citroen had vanished into thin air.

Henderson himself was in command of the dinghy crossing the calm sea under the moonlight to the remote beach where Firestorm had seen the flash of Louise Hamilton's headlights from the Citroen. Two other men were aboard and all three were armed with sub-machine guns and hand grenades.

Louise's manoeuvre for losing the Porsche seemed to have worked — for a time. That depended on the determination and ingenuity of the other driver. Everything had hinged on conditioning the Porsche's driver to approaching bends with great caution and at low speed. On the third occasion Louise had accelerated as she came up to the bend, swung round the curve, saw the road immediately ahead clear to the next bend and had rammed her foot through the floor. As she roared through the dark she counted the right-hand turnings which were little more than tracks.

Approaching the third, she checked again in her mirror, saw no sign of headlights coming up behind her, slowed and veered sharply off the highway down a tree-lined track which crunched under her wheels. She kept up the maximum possible speed until she had turned a sharp bend in the track, out of sight of the highway. Now she only hoped to God she had chosen the track which led to the remote beach and the sea where Firestorm was waiting for her. Five minutes later, standing by the Citroen and watching the incoming outboard, she knew she had chosen well.

Stealthy footsteps in the night — behind her and coming down the track. Above the mutter of the outboard Louise was sure she had heard the hard crunch of slow-moving footsteps, the steps of someone who is careful where they place their feet — but is forced by the thick undergrowth on both sides of the track to make their way along the gravel.

She looked out to sea again and saw the outboard already cutting its motor. Henderson climbed out over the side. Another man disembarked, took hold of the side of the craft and held it in the shallows ready for swift departure. Louise moved along the water's edge towards the Scot who ran to meet her, crouched low and grasping a sub-machine gun in both hands.

"Anything wrong?" were his first words. As he spoke his eyes were scanning the woods and the entrance to the track.

"I thought I heard footsteps — I must be jittery."

"Anyone follow you from Elsinore?"

"One person — in a Porsche."

"Get into the outboard. Tell Adams to start it up."

Stealthy footsteps. Henderson distinctly heard them before the outboard flared into power. The crunch of footsteps on gravel as someone came closer to the parked Citroen. He ran back, keeping a low profile, giving the order as he scrambled aboard in his half-length rubber boots.

"Masks on. Assume we're observed."

Louise looked back briefly to the hired Citroen which looked sad and abandoned on the lonely beach. But she would be returning soon: to pick up that car and drive back to Elsinore.

Sonia Karnell was irked by the crunching sound of the gravel as she moved forward with her gun held out before her. She could normally move as silently as a cat — but confined to the gravel track she made a noise.

But the fact that the track had been made up of pebbles had been of enormous help. When she had lost the girl in the Citroen, Sonia Karnell's stupefaction had been quickly overtaken by the realisation she had been tricked.

There was a series of turnings off to the right — towards the nearby sea. The problem had been to locate which track the bitch had used. Karnell was convinced she had not driven much further along the highway — since she could see too far for the Citroen to have vanished to the north. No, it had been swallowed up by one of the tracks cut through the woods to the sea. The only question: which track?

Crawling along, losing valuable time, but knowing she had to proceed in a systematic manner, the Swedish girl stopped at the entrance to each track, got out of the car and examined it with her torch. At the third track she found skid marks where a car had turned sharply off the highway. She followed her torch beam only a few yards checking the very clear indentations of a car's tyres. When she returned to the Porsche she even saw stones and dirt scattered over the highway.

She drove the Porsche down the track far enough to conceal it from the highway. The last thing she needed at this stage was a Danish patrol-car — and the discovery of the bomb, which would be rather difficult to explain. Then she crunched her way cautiously down towards the beach, her Walther at the ready.

"Oh, I should have bloody known!"

Through the gap in the trees at the end of the track she saw what was responsible for the sudden burst of engine sound — an outboard rapidly growing smaller as it headed for the tip of a headland to the north. Whipping a pair of night glasses from her shoulder-bag, she focused them with expert fingers.

"You clever Telescope bastards! Bastards!"

In the twin lenses the four people crouched in the dinghy came up clearly, but they were all wearing Balaclava helmets which concealed their features. Even with the field glasses, only the eyes showed through slits in the woollen helmets.

There was no vessel in sight they could be making for. What she did not know was that immediately after the outboard had been winched over the side in response to the flash of Louise's headlights, Captain Buckminster — on Henderson's orders — had withdrawn Firestorm out of sight behind the tip of the headland.

"Just in case Louise has been followed," Henderson had observed to the ex-naval captain, "I suggest you pull north behind the headland when we head for the shore."

Then you lack my support," Buckminster had objected.

"At this stage I think it may be more important to conceal from the Syndicate our main and most deadly weapon Firestorm."

And so Sonia Karnell was left swearing on the foreshore as the dinghy disappeared. She vented her fury by taking great care over her actions during the next few minutes.