Colin Forbes - The Stockholm syndicate

'I'm playing on Ed's nerves," Beaurain told her, 'screwing them up to the maximum pressure point, hoping he'll blow."

"I thought he was your friend," Louise observed.

"And who is in the best position to fool you? Read history — it always turns out to be the one closest to you. Julius Caesar could have told you — Brutus."

"But you've known him for decades."

"Don't forget that house that damned near blew up in our faces — and Ed Cottel kept well clear of it. Another thing, he keeps pointing me at Rashkin and away from Washington. It could even be that Harvey Sholto is in Stockholm to find out who Ed really is. I'm just not Sure — I hope to be after this meeting."

On this cryptic note Beaurain fell silent, turning off the main highway onto a forest-lined road which had no traffic at all, a road which Louise found creepy in the gathering dusk. "Sorry about that mistake I made in the lobby of the Grand Hotel," Palme called out from the rear seat.

Beaurain shook his head dismissively. In a rush when delivering the rendezvous message to Cottel, Palme had used a hotel pad to scribble brief written instructions on the route to reinforce the marked map. On his way back from Cottel's room he had hurried down to the lobby to rescue the pad in case the impression of his writing was imprinted on it. The pad had disappeared.

The Mercedes was moving at no more than thirty miles an hour, its headlight beams lancing across the enclosing palisade of tree trunks. Palme leaned over frequently to check the odometer, checking the distance from where they had turned onto the road leading to Skottvangs Gruva. Beaurain was still cruising, watching the dashboard clock which registered 9.50 p.m. "We're ten minutes early deliberately," he remarked. Louise didn't like the atmosphere: Beaurain had not told her what was going to happen. And now there were only three of them left in Stockholm.

The main movement south towards the port of Trelleborg had started and was well under way. Commanded by Jock Henderson, all the gunners were being withdrawn from the Swedish capital and sent by various routes and differing forms of transport to reinforce the heavy contingent of troops already aboard the fast and heavily-armed steam yacht, Firestorm.

"Drop me off here, Jules."

It was Palme who had spoken after leaning forward again and checking the odometer for the last time. Beaurain dipped his lights, cruised a few more yards, hardly moving, then switched off all the lights and stopped the car.

"Don't worry, Jules, I'll be close enough," Palme whispered as he opened the door.

"Happy to rely on you. But watch it, Stig. We can't be sure."

Can't be sure of what? Louise bit her knuckles to stop herself asking questions. Sitting rigidly in the dark with only the illumination from the dashboard she noticed something else. As Palme left the car he did not close the heavy door with his normal clunk! He went to considerable trouble to close it as silently as he could.

Then they were moving again, Beaurain switched on all the lights and they were turning a bend and the headlight beams illuminated another stretch of highway hemmed in by dense forest. Here and there tracks led away through the wall of trees, tracks for timber wagons by the look of the deep ruts bored into the ground. They had moved only a very short distance beyond the bend when two headlights came on and glared at them, stayed on for three seconds — Beaurain was checking by his wrist-watch — and went out.

Beaurain stopped the car and Louise sensed the tension although there was no physical contact between them. The twin headlights repeated the process twice switching on for three seconds and then going out again. So far as Louise could gauge, the car beaming its lights at them was parked at an angle just off the road on one of the tracks. It was ridiculous and yet eerie. In her nervousness she giggled.

"It's like Checkpoint Charlie you know, an exchange between East and West,"

"Except that this time it's an exchange between West and West."

"What does that mean, for Christ's sake?"

"An exchange of views. That should be Ed Cottel in his new car."

"Then it's all right — if it's Ed?"

"If you say so."

Louise felt a tremble of fury. "Why the hell do we have to meet him in this godforsaken spot?"

"I told you earlier."

To put pressure on Ed? That's crazy."

"His idea," Beaurain told her. "We're here at his request a meeting between me and him well outside

Stockholm."

"I don't like being out here. I feel something is desperately wrong."

"Something is desperately wrong. We have to try and find out what it is, who Hugo is, who really is running the Stockholm Syndicate before we move down to Trelleborg."

"These signals — car lights flashing on and off," "Were agreed when we arranged this rendezvous. They're supposed to identify us to each other,"

"Supposed to?"

"And now the exchange of signals has taken place we head straight for Cottel's car, then stop. So, we will do just that," Beaurain, who had kept the engine idling during the exchange of signals, released the brake and drove forward at very slow speed. The Mercedes was hardly moving as he swung off from the road onto the springy grass at the edge of the forest. And as he approached the stationary Renault the vehicle remained dark and without any sign of life.

Beaurain turned the wheel slightly, swinging Louise's side of the Mercedes away from the Renault. He stopped and whispered in her ear before switching off the engine. "Open your door, slip out and back onto the road. Don't close the door just push it to. If you hear shots take cover and wait for me to call out to you,"

She hated obeying the order, leaving Beaurain on his own, but her training at the Chateau Wardin asserted itself. Without a word she did as she had been told, using the Mercedes to hide her from the Renault as she slipped back through the forest to the road.

Left alone, Beaurain took his Smith amp; Wesson from its shoulder holster, held it by his side and quietly slid out of the car.

"I have a machine-pistol trained on you! Drop the gun, Hugo!"

Hugo!

Two things jolted Beaurain — the use of the name Hugo and the fact that the voice was definitely the gravelly tones of Ed Cottel. Also the American had switched on a powerful torch which almost blinded Beaurain — but let him see the barrel of the machine-pistol. Beaurain estimated the muzzle was just about aimed at his gut. At that range and with that weapon the worst shot in the world couldn't miss. And Cottel had taken medals on the firing ranges at Langley. Beaurain dropped his revolver.

"That's better, Hugo. Now let's place our hands on the top of our head, shall we? That's better." The torch light was doused, which again affected Beaurain's vision. But the American didn't need it not with a blaster of a gun at such close range.

Beaurain's excellent night vision was now reasserting itself. He could make out clearly the American's silhouette — and the silhouette of the machine-pistol which never wavered as it remained aimed point-blank at its target. He asked another question, enunciating his words with great clarity so they echoed among the dusk descending on the forest. There was a strong smell of pine in Beaurain's nostrils.

"Who fooled you, Ed? Who took you for a ride in a big way? I have a feeling you've been manipulated like a puppet."

The gravelly voice sank to a monotone as Ed Cottel began reciting a list of events like a litany, his tone remote and cold. "You were in Bruges at the same time as Dr. Otto Berlin, director of the Syndicate's southern sector. Department of Coincidence? You were in Copenhagen when Dr. Benny Horn, director of the Syndicate's central sector, was in the city on one of his rare visits. Department of Coincidence? To say nothing of your presence in Elsinore when God knows how many innocent souls were massacred aboard that ferry to shut the mouth of one man."