Colin Forbes - The Stockholm syndicate

Arne, reliable as usual, was walking towards him. Norling was trying to sense anything unusual in the scene before committing himself to water. A whole fleet of craft of varying sizes and types bobbed at anchor, a galaxy of vibrating colour in the intensity of the sun. Already Norling could feel its heat on the back of his neck. There were expensive cruisers equipped with all the latest electronic devices, small power-boats, larger launches, a whole diversity of yachts, some with coloured sails.

"The power-boat is ready to take you out to the Ramso," Arne informed his employer.

"I'm in a hurry," Norling replied curtly.

Behind him, beyond a screen of shrubs and trees and across the unseen road rose the buildings of the American Embassy with a flight of steps leading up to them. From a flagpole the Stars and Stripes fluttered in the breeze. Before getting into the power-boat Arne held waiting for him, Norling turned and gave the flag a brief salute. An onlooker would have found it impossible to decide whether the gesture was ironic or serious.

"God, that's him and he's getting away!"

Three cars had arrived alongside the marina. It was Louise, jumping from the third car and running up to where Beaurain and Fondberg stood, who confirmed the worst. Before leaving Stig Palme, who had pulled up a cautious distance from the police vehicles, she had snatched a pair of field glasses from the glove compartment, nearly dislocating herself leaning over the seat. Focused on the receding powerboat, the lenses brought up the two figures on board only too clearly.

She had not recognised the man steering the craft towards the powerful cruiser riding at anchor. The second man, nursing a suitcase, was only too horribly familiar. The encounter outside the shop on Radmansgatan when he had stared at her through his gold-rimmed glasses. In the lenses the sun — for a brief second — flashed a hint of gold off those same glasses.

"It's him," she told Palme, and ran to Beaurain to repeat the warning.

"Are you quite sure?" asked Beaurain, glancing uncertainly towards Palme.

"Bloody hell, do you think I'm blind!" she screamed at him. "I was as close to him as I am to you!"

"Harry, can you have that cruiser intercepted if that's what he is headed for?"

Fondberg shook his head dubiously and there was a grim look on his face. "Point One, I have no authority or reason to intervene. I could always argue I didn't know it was Norling, but… Point Two, that vessel can really move — and the river police are never where you want them."

"Then this, Harry, is where you look the other way."

The power-boat carrying Dr. Norling had now arrived alongside the cruiser. Through her binoculars Louise watched the Swede move nimbly aboard, holding the suitcase in his left hand. Crewmen had appeared on the bridge of the vessel which was clearly about to depart.

"Forty million kronors' worth of heroin in that suitcase," the Belgian hammered home. "Soon it will be flooding the streets of Stockholm, creating more untold misery."

" For Christ's sake! " protested the exasperated Swede. "Don't you think I feel helpless enough?"

Louise studied the so-called dealer in rare books through her field glasses. Beaurain was standing next to her and behind Fondberg's back. She lowered the glasses and saw him make a brief gesture describing the outline of a suitcase. Suddenly she looked behind her and over to the right where Stig Palme had parked the Saab.

Palme was leaning against the car to steady himself. He was holding at shoulder level the machine-pistol. The muzzle was aimed out across the water towards the cruiser which was still motionless. Then the silence of the peaceful morning was splintered.

It lasted six seconds — the time it took for Stig to empty thirty-six 9-mm. bullets. And Palme was a crack shot. Louise had the lenses of her field glasses screwed into her eyes. Norling was still clutching the suitcase when the hail of bullets ripped into it, shredding the casing and the contents. The suitcase was literally blasted over the side of the cruiser and into the water, scattered in a multitude of fragments which littered the surface of the water and began drifting away. And so accurate was the Swede's fire that — so far as Louise could see — not one bullet had touched Norling.

"What the hell…!"

Fondberg was sliding his hand inside his jacket and under his shoulder when he felt Beaurain's hand grip his arm: "I said, Harry, this is where you look the other way, God damn it!"

"Sorry. Instinctive reaction. I hope your man moves fast."

He called out a brief command to his men, who froze, and then turned back to watch the white cruiser. Palme was already behind the wheel of his car. The weapon had vanished. Without haste he backed the Saab and drove quietly away. A flock of birds, disturbed by the fusillade, had risen with a beating of wings and headed out over the water. In the sudden silence the noise of their ascent could be heard clearly. Then it was drowned by a distant, muted rumble as the white cruiser began to move.

"He must be mad as hell, wouldn't you say?" Beaurain observed.

Aboard the Ramso Norling had given the order to move! Again he looked at the hand which had been holding the suitcase, still unable to believe he was completely unscathed. When the bullets started coming he had felt a hard tug, the case had been wrenched from his grasp as though by supernatural forces, then came the cascade of fragments, a cloud of precious powder. All gone! As the cruiser started moving he could actually see a white scum on the water. He hastily went below decks into his cabin and sank into a chair. He was shaking with uncontrollable rage. Alone in his luxuriously-furnished cabin he sat with both hands gripping the arms of his chair.

"Beaurain! First in Brussels, then Copenhagen and Elsinore now here in Stockholm itself!"

He was talking to himself, a habit of which he was fully aware and of which he occasionally made use as a safety valve. It had started long ago with another life, so far away from Sweden. Behind the lenses of his gold-rimmed spectacles his eyes were remote and cruel. He looked up as a man descended the steps and came into the cabin, Olof Konvall, the wireless operator.

I'm sorry, sir." Konvall, a small, highly-strung man with a grizzled face, took a step back when he met Norling's gaze. The venom in the stare was scaring. "I didn't intend to intrude — but normally when you come on board you have a signal you wish to send."

"Stay where you are, for God's sake!" Norling's show of rage was most unusual; his normal manner was an icy calm. Tell the captain I wish to switch to another vessel at the earliest possible moment."

"I will tell him at once."

"Don't go! I haven't finished yet." Norling paused, forced himself to loosen his clenched grip on the wooden arms of the chair, to let his fury dissipate itself. Now he had himself under perfect control. His voice became remote, detached, like a chess-player who has decided on the next move.

"You are to send out immediate Nadir signals on Jules Beaurain. The other recipient is his mistress, Louise Hamilton. Let the word go forth. And first Hamilton alone is to be subjected to a demonstration at grade three level. Now you may go."

" Oh my God, how horrible! "

Louise froze with shock and revulsion, the key to her bedroom door still in her hand. Like most people in a hotel she had walked in and closed the door behind her under the odd delusion that this was — temporarily at least — a safe refuge.

" Christ! I think I'm going to be sick! "

She leant back against the door and forced herself to recover. Her stomach obeyed her and then she caught sight of herself in the mirror and was shocked by her appearance: her lips were drawn back over her teeth in an expression of murderous fury — and she knew in that second that if the person responsible for the outrage had still been in the room she would have killed them. Someone rapped on the self-locking door.