Colin Forbes - The Stockholm syndicate

"Hello, Sonia. A long way from the Radmansgatan."

Louise was holding the pistol aimed point-blank, but the Swedish girl was either a suicide case or guessed these people did not want the sound of shooting yet. She leapt at the English girl like a tigress, dropping the suitcase, her hands extended like the claws of an animal. She aimed for the eyes. Louise hit her with the barrel of the pistol across the side of the temple. Karnell felt the side of her face and blood oozed between her fingers, the colour matching the tint of her nail varnish.

"Drop the shoulder-bag, Sonia," Louise ordered. "Slowly — try and grab your weapon and I'll shoot you in the stomach."

She watched while the shoulder-bag dropped on the hallway floor to join the suitcase. She was alone with the girl; Beaurain had remained invisible inside the library room and Palme had not shown himself at the top of the narrow staircase. It would be easier to scare the guts out of Karnell if the girl thought she was alone with Louise. Then Louise got it! Of course! A signal that the coast was clear, that it was safe for Horn to come inside when he arrived. Of course!

"What's the signal?" Louise asked viciously, advancing closer so that Karnell backed against the wall.

"Signal?"

" You stupid bitch! " Louise raised her pistol. "And you had good bone structure! This gun should re-arrange it so no man will look at you, let alone…"

Louise's mouth was slightly open, her teeth clenched tight; her gun arm began to move, the gunsight aimed to rake over the bridge of Karnell's nose, which like the rest of her was perfectly shaped. Karnell screamed, "The front room… a card in the window… it means everything OK. Come on in!"

" What card? "

"In the drawer…" In her terror she pushed past Louise, ran into the library and opened a drawer. Louise was close behind her but the only thing Karnell took out of the drawer was a postcard of old Copenhagen. Running to the window, she pulled aside the curtain, perched the card on the window and let the curtain fall into its original position.

Then she saw Beaurain for the first time.

"You know — don't you?" she said.

"I know," Beaurain agreed, 'so now we just wait." Louise body-searched the Swedish girl but the only weapon she was carrying was a pair of nail-scissors. Presumably she would have found a weapon in the house, given time.

Harvey Sholto came to Nyhavn unseen and took up his position unnoticed. Flying in from Copenhagen on the same flight as Sonia Karnell, he mingled with the other travellers on arrival at Kastrup, selected a cab, gave the driver careful instructions and a generous tip, then settled in the back seat with the tennis bag he had collected from a locker at Kastrup.

His large bald head was concealed beneath a black beret and he was wearing a shabby raincoat he had taken from the suitcase he had left inside the locker. Most people asked to guess his nationality would have said Dutch or French.

"I drop you here?" the cab driver checked.

"Yes. And don't forget where you pull up for a short time. I want to surprise my girlfriend as I explained."

"Understood."

The cab had stopped a few yards before Nyhavn came into view round the corner and Harvey Sholto stepped out and left the cab parked at the kerb. The drizzle suited him well; it linked up with his shabby raincoat. He paddled past the end of the basin and walked down the left-hand street, past numerous seamen's bars. He drooped his shoulders, which made him appear a shorter man.

He walked head down, like a man absorbed in his own thoughts, but his eyes were everywhere. The place had to be crawling with that bastard Beaurain's troops. Yes, he was pretty sure one of them was stationed on the fishing vessel moored to the quay outside Horn's house. The cab arrived just in time before the man looked up and saw him, crawling past Sholto as though unsure of its destination.

Aboard the fishing vessel Max Kellerman slipped one hand under the net concealing the sub-machine gun. There was something wrong about this cab. He watched it crawl past, reach the end of the basin, and then stop. No-one got out. It just stopped while the driver gazed up the basin. The driver!

Out of the corner of his eye Kellerman watched while the driver took his time over lighting a cigarette and flicked the match into the water. Kellerman revised his opinion. The man was due to pick up a fare and was early so he was enjoying a quiet puff and a few minutes' peace. The cab drove off out of sight.

It was during this charade that Harvey Sholto slipped into the doorway Palme had gone through himself before killing the watcher on the first floor. The sight of the dead body shook him, but only for a second.

He next dragged the sofa over to the window to act as a back support. From the tennis bag he took the Armalite rifle which was separated into its various components and assembled the weapon. At this range the telescopic sight he screwed on was superfluous, but Harvey Sholto was a careful man.

Checking that everything was arranged to his satisfaction he settled down to wait. They were all coming to the house on Nyhavn. As Cottel mounted the steps he would blow him away with one shot. Then he need only lower the firing angle a few degrees and he could blow away the man on the deck of the fishing vessel before he recovered from the shock. He lit a cigar and willed himself to stay still.

The Volkswagen also crawled alongside the Nyhavn basin, but this vehicle was moving down the tourist-trap side of the street. When Kellerman saw it coming he ducked out of sight. At the wheel Dr. Benny Horn drove on past the entrance to his house and then parked at the kerb. Clambering out of his ancient vehicle, he adjusted his skull-cap, screwed up his face at the drizzle and walked back to the house with the plate bearing his name. Like Sonia Karnell he had the key in his hand when he reached the top step. Inserting it, he walked inside and closed the door. Beaurain appeared from the open doorway leading to the library, holding his Luger and aiming it point-blank the new arrival.

"Welcome at last, Viktor Rashkin,"

Ed Cottel, who had followed Sonia Karnell from the airport and then lost her in a traffic jam, was further delayed by a puncture in one of the busiest sections in the city. He was then delayed by traffic police until he persuaded them to use the transceiver in his car to call headquarters. Eventually he found himself a cab.

In the first floor flat on Nyhavn, Harvey Sholto was satisfied he could do the job. He had stood well back in the shadows of the small room and zeroed in the Armalite telescopic sight on the front door of Horn's house. It was like taking candy from a baby. Then he saw the cab approaching on the other side and took a firmer grip on his weapon.

The cab blocked off his view while Cottel was paying off the driver and Sholto took one final puff on his cigar and ground it under his large foot. The cab moved off, Cottel glanced round and then mounted the steps. Sholto zeroed in on the centre of his back and between Cottel's shoulder-blades, slightly to the left. His finger took the first pressure. He spoke under his breath without realising he was doing it.

"It's been a long time, bastard, well, here it comes."

It hit Harvey Sholto in the middle of the chest, lifted him clear off his feet and jerked him ceiling wards like a manipulated marionette. In mid-air his large body jack-knifed. Gravity brought him back to the floor which he hit with a tremendous thud. He lay still, outstretched, like one of the chalk silhouettes police draw to show where the corpse was found.

It was the cigar smoke which had attracted Kellerman's attention to the open window originally. Little more than a wraith, dispelled by the drizzle as soon as it came into the open air, the movement of the smoke had been sufficient for him. Someone was waiting inside the room supposedly occupied only by a dead man. At the sight of the rifle aimed at Ed Cottel he had sprayed the window with one short burst from his sub-machine gun.