‘Unnecessary or not, you’ve taken a great load off my mind. Who are those two rather portly and harmless-looking civilians?’
‘Portly they may be. Harmless they are not. Senior police officers from Amsterdam. Very much specialists in a very specialist anti-terrorist squad. They’ll be wanting to look for any weak spots in your defences. Pure formality but they insist. We shall leave two soldiers by the missiles to keep watch. Inspector Danilov—that’s the less portly one—also insists that my men accompany us. He wants, understandably, that they should familiarize themselves with the general layout of the interior of the dam.’
Twenty minutes it was and a very surprising twenty minutes it turned out to be for Mr Borodin, not least when four blue-overalled mechanics produced Kalashnikov machine guns which had been assembled from their toolbags. It was a completely painless—phsyically, that is, but not mentally for many of those concerned—and bloodless operation. Borodin, his staff and his guards had simply no chance. They all finished up in one of the many giant cellars in which the dam abounded. Agnelli was about to turn the key in the lock when van Effen stopped him.
‘No. Rope. Tie them. Come, come, Mr Agnelli, you’re the man who never overlooks anything.’
‘I’ve overlooked something?’
‘You’ve overlooked the fact that O’Brien may not be the only man in the world who can pick any lock in the world.’
Agnelli nodded. ‘Of course. Rope.’ Rope was fetched, enough to secure a hundred men. When Borodin and his men had been bound hand and foot, Samuelson, looking every inch the successful Roman general back from Gaul and making his ritual entry of triumph into the city of Rome, led them all up to the control room. Van Effen and his two friends lingered some way behind while van Effen opened a small tin and brought out six sodden balls of cotton-wool. These they stuffed into their nostrils. Vasco winced.
‘What the hell is this? Sulphuric acid?’
‘You’ll get used to it,’ van Effen said.
‘And what was this rigmarole about people being able to pick locks? It’s a million to one against there being another O’Brien down there.’
‘We’re going to need rope. Lots of it. There’s a couple of hundred yards of it down there.’
Vasco looked at George. ‘The man thinks of everything.’ He shook his head. ‘Agnelli is not the only one who overlooks things.’
They entered the control room. It was wide and very spacious with serried ranks of control panels lining the right-hand wall and paralleling tables. O’Brien was in the vicinity of them but not examining them: van Effen knew he didn’t have to.
‘Ah!’ Samuelson said. ‘The very man, Lieutenant. I want to talk to Wieringa, the Minister of Defence.’
Vasco showed no surprise, merely thought for a few seconds.
‘The Defence Minister will be out at Volkendam, I imagine. Doesn’t matter where he is. No problem. Wherever he is, office, car or plane, he’s never more than an arm’s length from a telephone. I’ll call the War Office and they’ll patch him in.’
‘How long will it take?’
‘A minute. Less.’
‘A minute!’
‘In the Netherlands,’ Vasco said with a trace of loftiness, ‘the Army has over-riding priority.’ In less than the specified time he handed the phone to Samuelson, who took it, his eyes the eyes of a man whose dreams have come true. Or a madman whose dreams have come true.
‘Mr Wieringa? This is the leader of the FFF, the Fighters For Freedom. I trust you appreciated our little demonstration in the Markerwaard this afternoon. I have some more rather unwelcome news for you. We have taken over the Haringvliet dam. I repeat, we are in complete control of the Haringvliet.’ There ensued quite a lengthy pause, at least on Samuelson’s part before he continued: ‘I am glad, Mr Wieringa that you appreciate the significance of this. Any attempt to retake the Haringvliet, by force or by stealth, will have disastrous effects on Holland. I might also add that we have mined the dykes at Hollandsch Diep and the Volkeral. We have observers there. Any attempts to send divers to investigate will compel us to radio-detonate those mines.
‘At 4 p.m. we will be giving a slight demonstration of what awaits your country if our demands are not met immediately by opening a few sluice gates for a few minutes. You might find it instructive to have a helicopter around to take a few pictures so that the people of the Netherlands may understand what lies in store for them.
‘I do hope you speed up negotiations with the British government.’
‘That was quite a performance, Mr Samuelson,’ van Effen said. ‘You really do have those two dykes mined?’
Samuelson laughed. ‘Of course not. Why should I. That pusillanimous lot now take our everyword for gospel.’
Van Effen and his two friends drifted unobtrustively into the space between the table and wall controls and opened their satchels while Samuelson and his men talked excitedly and congratulated themselves. In the space of just over two seconds ten gas grenades, fairly evenly spaced around the room, exploded. The effects were spectacular. Within a few seconds everyone was staggering about and most were unconscious before they crumpled to the floor. Van Effen snatched a key from Agnelli’s pocket and the three men hastily left the room, closing the door behind them. Their noses were protected but they could hold their breath for only so long.
‘Five minutes and we’ll be able to go back in there,’ van Effen said. ‘They’ll be asleep for half an hour at least.’ He handed Vasco the key. ‘The ropes. Cut Borodin free and tell him to do the same for the others. Explain.’
Vasco entered the cellar and cut an astonished Borodin free, then handed him the knife.
‘Cut the others free. We’re police officers—genuine ones. The one with the scarred face is Lieutenant van Effen of the Amsterdam police.’
‘Van Effen?’ Borodin was, understandably dazed. ‘I’ve seen his picture. That’s not him. I know his face.’
‘Use your head. So does nearly every criminal in Holland.’
‘But the FFF—’
‘Are having a short nap.’ Vasco gathered up the spare ropes and left at a run.
Van Effen approached the man on the seaside missile site. ‘Mr Samuelson wants you. Quickly. Control room. I’ll keep watch.’ The man was just disappearing from sight when van Effen crossed to the other man on the river missile site, his hand round the burgundy Yves Saint-Laurent aerosol with the special fragrance. He lowered the man to the roadway and headed for the helicopter.
The man from the first missile site that van Effen had visited stopped when he saw George, who waved him on encouragingly. As the man passed, George chopped him on the back of the neck. For George, it was just a little chop, but the man, had he retained consciousness would probably have regarded it in a different light. George lowered him gently to the floor.
Van Effen pulled back the curtain and said: ‘Ah, there you are, Joop. Keeping a good watch, I see.’ Joop’s good watch lasted for all of another two seconds before he slumped to the floor. Van Effen produced his Smith and Wesson, waved it in the general direction of Kathleen and Maria and sliced Annemarie’s and Julie’s bonds free. He raised both girls to their feet, helped them free their gags, and, gun still in hand, put his arms round their shoulders. ‘My beloved sister. And my dear dear Annemarie.’ The eyes of Kathleen and Maria were as round as the proverbial saucers.
‘You took your time about it, didn’t you,’ Julie said. There were tears in her eyes.
‘Gratitude was ever thus,’ van Effen sighed. ‘There were problems.’
‘It’s over?’ Annemarie whispered. ‘It’s all over?’
‘All over.’
‘I love you.’
‘I’ll have you repeat that when you are in a more normal state of mind.’
The two seated girls were still staring at them. Kathleen said: ‘Your brother?’ Her voice was husky, her voice disbelieving.
‘My brother,’ Julie said. ‘Peter van Effen. Senior detective-lieutenant o
f the Amsterdam police force.’
‘It’s a nasty shock, I will admit,’ van Effen said. ‘There may be an even nastier one awaiting you. There are those whom you might like to see or who might like to see you. When they wake up, that is.’
All of the FFF were still sound asleep, bound hand and foot, or in the process of being so bound.
‘Not bad, not bad,’ van Effen said. ‘And what else have you been doing with your time?’
‘Would you listen to him,’ Vasco said. He tightened, with unmistakable enthusiasm, the last knot on the rope binding Samuelson’s legs. ‘To start with, half the police cars and vans in Rotterdam and Dordrecht should be on the dam inside fifteen minutes. I thought that up all by myself.’
‘A promising officer, as I said.’ Van Effen turned to Kathleen, who was staring at her father, her face ashen with shock and fear. ‘Why, Kathleen?’
Instead of replying, she reached inside her handbag and brought out a small pearl-handed gun. ‘You’re not going to take Mr Samuelson. You didn’t know he was my father.’
‘Yes, Kathleen, I did.’
‘You did?’ Her voice faltered. ‘How did you know?’
‘Julie told me.’
Julie stepped between the gun and van Effen. ‘You’ll have to shoot me first, won’t you, Kathleen. I’m not being brave because I know you could never do it.’
Vasco moved quietly forward, removed the gun from the suddenly nerveless hand and replaced it in her handbag.
Van Effen said again: ‘Why, Kathleen?’
‘I suppose it will all come out, won’t it?’ She was crying openly now. Vasco put an arm around her trembling shoulders and instead of resisting she seemed to lean against him. ‘My father is English. He was a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Guards, not under that name. His father was an Earl, who left him a fortune. His sons, my brothers, went to Sandhurst. Both were killed in Northern Ireland, one a lieutenant, the other a second lieutenant. My mother was killed by a renegade off-shoot of the IRA. He’s never been the same man since.’
‘I guessed as much. He may be tried in this country or be extradited by the British.’ Van Effen sounded as tired as he undoubtedly felt. ‘In either case, diminished responsibility will apply.’
‘You mean he’s mad?’ she whispered.
‘I’m no doctor. Some kind of temporary derangement, I should imagine. Tell me, Maria, had either Romero or Leonardo anything to do with the murder of my wife and children?’
‘No, no, no! I swear it. They wouldn’t hurt a fly. My two other brothers in prison. I know they arranged it. They are hateful, evil men. I will testify to that in court. I promise.’
‘That could mean another five or ten years to their sentence.’
‘I hope they remain there till they die.’
‘No charges will be brought against you and Kathleen. Accessories are one thing, accessories under duress another. Vasco, be so kind as to release that young lady and put a call through to Uncle Arthur. Tell him all. George, take those four ladies out for a restorative. There’s bound to be a suitable supply in their mess or canteen or whatever. If not, the helicopter is not exactly bereft. Beware of suicide attempts.’
Julie said: ‘I don’t think that anyone is going to commit suicide.’
‘Your feminine intuition, I suppose. Well, I agree. And, George, you could bring something back here. I feel very weak.’
George smiled and ushered the four girls from the control room.
Vasco was two minutes on the telephone then turned to van Effen, his hand over the mouthpiece. ‘I believe Uncle Arthur would like a word with you. May I—ah—join the ladies?’
‘By all means.’ Van Effen picked up the phone as he heard the first sound of screaming police sirens. Colonel de Graaf’s congratulations were fulsome in the extreme. So were those of Wieringa, who eventually handed him back to de Graaf.
Van Effen said: ‘I am, Colonel de Graaf, becoming tired of being the handmaiden who does all the dirty washing for you. I want a new job, increased salary, or both.’
‘You shall have both, my boy. An increased salary is inevitably what goes with my job.’ He coughed. ‘Six months, say? A year?’
About the Author
Alistair MacLean, the son of a Scots minister, was born in 1922 and brought up in the Scottish Highlands. In 1941 at the age of eighteen he joined the Royal Navy; two-and-a-half years spent aboard a cruiser was later to give him the background for HMS Ulysses, his first novel, the outstanding documentary novel on the war at sea. After the war, he gained an English Honours degree at Glasgow University, and became a school master. In 1983 he was awarded a D.Litt from the same university.
He is now recognized as one of the outstanding popular writers of the 20th century. By the early 1970s he was one of the top 10 bestselling authors in the world, and the biggest-selling Briton. He wrote twenty-nine worldwide bestsellers that have sold more than 30 million copies, and many of which have been filmed, including The Guns of Navarone, Where Eagles Dare, Fear is the Key and Ice Station Zebra. Alistair MacLean died in 1987 at his home in Switzerland.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.
By Alistair MacLean
HMS Ulysses
The Guns of Navarone
South by Java Head
The Last Frontier
Night Without End
Fear is the Key
The Dark Crusader
The Satan Bug
The Golden Rendezvous
Ice Station Zebra
When Eight Bells Toll
Where Eagles Dare
Force 10 from Navarone
Puppet on a Chain
Caravan to Vaccarès
Bear Island
The Way to Dusty Death
Breakheart Pass
Circus
The Golden Gate
Seawitch
Goodbye California
Athabasca
River of Death
Partisans
Floodgate
San Andreas
The Lonely Sea (stories)
Santorini
Copyright
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
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FIRST EDITION
First published in Great Britain by William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd 1983 then in paperback by Fontana 1984
Copyright © Alistair MacLean 1983
Alistair MacLean asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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EPub Edition © AUGUST 2009 ISBN: 978-0-007-28927-1
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