by Colin Forbes
He moved away before she could protest. He had a strong urge to stay close to the circular tower, away from the rail. He compelled himself to put one foot in front of another, staring out at the panoramic view.
Blade had disappeared. Continuing his slow walk, Tweed found him leaning out over the rail, far out, gazing down as though estimating the possibility of scaling the tower. God, if he slips… Tweed walked on. The platform was deserted. He changed direction, crossed to the rail to see what was below.
A large green park with toy trees. No one inside it at that hour. The pulling sensation began again. He walked on. It seemed a hell of a long way round. Then he saw the others. Butler, Newman, Benoit and Van Gorp with Paula who stared in his direction, gave him a warm smile but stood her ground.
'Fantastic tower this,' Van Gorp began again.
'How high are we?' Tweed asked.
'A hundred and four metres – three hundred and forty feet. The restaurant is just below us. Then there's the crow's nest up there. That's closed in with glass…'
Then why the hell didn't you take us there? Paula thought. This is agony for Tweed, but he won't let on. And I can't do a damn thing.
'Look up,' Van Gorp urged. 'See the tower going on higher above the crow's nest? Spectacular is the only word.'
'Great. Just great.'
Tweed looked up and the vertigo seemed worse. The immense height of the needle made him feel dizzy again. He looked up for what would seem a normal length of time, then dropped his gaze. The Dutchman was pointing now, one long arm raised, index finger extended.
'Like to take a look at the Space Tower, Tweed? This down here is nothing compared with up there. Right at the very top. Take you to the lift. Come on. Your ticket covers the trip…'
'Have we the time?' Paula asked.
'Only take a few minutes. See half Holland from up there. Almost. The North Sea, too. Not to be missed.'
'I'm getting rather thirsty,' Paula persisted.
'We can go to the restaurant while Tweed makes the trip on his own. It's a much smaller lift. See the diameter up there? Very narrow. This way, Tweed.'
The round trip, as the Americans say,' joked Tweed.
He followed Van Gorp who led him to another lift at a higher level, pressing the button. Paula was nearly going spare. Tweed saw her expression, shook his head.
'Go get a drink. Be back soon. No time at all…'
Newman came alongside her as Tweed entered the lift. They watched the doors close on him. 'Why didn't you go up with him, you thoughtless idiot?' she hissed. 'It will be a terrible ordeal – suffering as he does from vertigo.'
'Oh, my God! I'd forgotten – absorbed by the view. You're right. ..'
'I doubt if you've any idea what vertigo's like,' she went on.
'Paula,' he whispered, 'vertigo takes different forms. Once I went up by lift to the top of the Duomo in Milan -the Cathedral. Only a hundred feet up. I came out into the open, walked down a flight of steps at the front, then noticed I could see between the stone balustrade pillars down into the street. I was paralysed. Luckily no one was about – I crawled back up those steps.' He raised his voice, called out to Van Gorp waiting to lead them down to the restaurant.
'How high up is that Space Tower?'
'One hundred and eighty-five metres-six hundred feet.'
'Charming,' Newman muttered.
'Oh, one point I forgot to mention,' Van Gorp said. That Space Tower is a small glass cabin which revolves.'
'Jesus!' Newman muttered again. 'Now he tells us. Maybe I'd better go up…'
'Not now,' Paula snapped. Too late – it will be noticed. He'll cope. Somehow.'
Penned up inside the much smaller elevator Tweed was tempted to press the button for the crow's nest. Briefly. He pressed his thumb firmly against the top button and stood motionless.
The elevator shot up much faster than he'd expected, climbing like a rocket. He felt he'd left his stomach behind on the platform. The ascent – up nearly another three hundred feet – took only a few seconds. It will be better at this height, Tweed thought. Like looking down from a plane which never bothered me. The doors slid open, he stepped out.
It wasn't better, it was worse. The elevator doors closed behind him. He was alone inside a small circular cage with glass walls. The light was a glare. He took out a pouch, attached his clip-on tinted glasses over his spectacles, moved close to the glass window.
The sun was setting behind the distant horizon of the sea, a blood-red disc sliding out of sight. Blood. Lots of blood. Why did he think of that now? The sun sank from view. He removed the tinted lenses. He looked down and shuddered. He was gazing down the sheer side of the precipice-like column with a bird's-eye view of the platform so far below. He blinked, feeling disorientated. It felt as though the floor was moving. An illusion… God, no! He looked up again and saw the view had changed. The floor was revolving.
He felt giddy. The world began spinning slowly. He was going to faint. Never! Extracting a tube of mints from his pocket, he popped one in his mouth. The bitter taste revived him. Must get on with the job.
Tweed took the binoculars from another pocket, adjusted the focus, aiming them at the mouth of the Maas. The giant dredger was still working, the scoop bringing up muck from the bottom of the river entrance. He raised a little the angle of the glasses, slowly scanned the sea.
Some distance offshore a large liner was approaching from the north, moving very slowly, speckled with lights. He swung the glass further south. Much further away another vessel coming in, a ship which had to be very big – from its silhouette he guessed it was a supertanker. Directly opposite the mouth of the Maas his glass picked up a tiny speck. The Sealink ferry sailing in from Harwich? Some idea twitched at the back of his mind, then it was gone.
He stood very stiffly, sweat forming on his brow, his legs like jelly. If only the damned thing would keep still. He forced his body to turn round, to look in another direction. Two large helicopters were flying in from the north, about to land at Zestienhoven – Rotterdam Airport. A couple of Sikorskys. He watched them drop out of sight.
From that height he could see the spires and towers of The Hague, the home of that stupid Minister of the Interior. Still, he thought, we have enough of those back home.
He popped another mint in his mouth, took one last look down at the layout below. Rotterdam was studded with lights – more coming on every second. What the devil was that idea he'd had at the back of his mind? He pursed his lips, pressed the button for the elevator.
'Are you all right?' Paula strolled forward as he stepped out on to the platform level. She had been waiting for him, pretending to be taking another look at the view. No one was about as she took his arm.
'I'm OK. How high was I?'
'Six hundred feet!'
'Felt a bit like it. Oh, and they move the floor around to give more excitement. You get used to it…'
'You've lost colour. The others are in the restaurant. A drop of fresh air – just at the entrance to the platform -would work wonders.'
They stood for a minute or two and Tweed took in deep breaths. He suddenly felt better, almost normal. He lifted one leg, then another. The strength was coming back into them. Thanking her, he said he was ready for a cup of coffee.
The restaurant had tables at two levels – those perched up further away from the windows. Van Gorp, sitting next to a window with Butler alongside him, waved. No one else occupied a table near them.
Tweed saw the huge windows which slanted outwards. Again he experienced the being-pulled-over-the-edge sensation. Paula sensed his disquiet. 'Let's take one of the tables higher up,' she said brightly.
'No, we'll join them.'
Paula went ahead, sat down in the window seat and Tweed took the chair beside her. He ordered coffee for both of them and stared out of the window. The congestion of shipping inside the basins, moving up and down the Maas, was enormous.
'Enjoy yourself on top?' Van Gorp enquired breez
ily.
'A unique experience. Quite unique.' He leaned forward. 'Why do I feel this place should be watched?'
'Just asked the very same question myself,' said Butler.
'It is,' the Dutchman replied, lowering his voice. 'You see those two men sitting at a table by themselves? My men. Armed. I could only spare a couple – I'm stretched to the limit checking the river and the docks.'
'Where are the others?' Tweed asked.
'Touring round the place. Especially Blade and Newman. That colleague of yours, Blade, wants to see everything. Even had a look at the toilets. Some kind of specialist?'
'He does my leg work.' Tweed kept his voice low. 'Sea-mines. Thirty of them, as I mentioned. What do they suggest to you?'
'A plan to block the Maas. I have men swarming among those docks and basins – looking for the unusual. And we're watching the oil installations you saw. Nothing so far. I'd know.' He picked up his heavy raincoat, pulled something a short way out of the pocket. A walkie-talkie.
'So still we wait,' Tweed ruminated.
'When the others get back we'll take a drive along the Maas – see if anything's stirring. Ah, here they come.'
Tweed swallowed his second large cup of coffee. The experience of his recent battle with vertigo had dehydrated him. He felt parched as the Sahara, refilled the cup as Blade and Newman arrived, followed by Benoit.
'They had coffee before you came down,' Van Gorp explained. He seemed restless, anxious to move on. 'All except Mr Blade.' he continued. 'Care for some coffee before we go?'
'Not for me, thank you.'
Tweed glanced at Blade sharply. The SAS leader's mind seemed far away; instead of sitting down he stood by the window, staring down.
They descended in the elevator, walked to the parked cars and got inside. Tweed sat alongside Butler in the rear seat of the vehicle driven by Van Gorp. An orange-coloured helicopter was flying downriver, a hundred feet or so above the Maas.
'We ought to be able to work out how Klein will launch an assault,' Tweed said, worrying away at the problem. 'How would we launch it? Remembering he has a team of scuba divers.'
'As I said earlier,' Van Gorp replied, 'by using the mines in the Maas – blocking the entry to all shipping. See that chopper which just flew over? No police markings – but it has my men aboard. We are watching from the land, from the air.'
'But not underwater?' queried Paula who sat beside Van Corp.
'We can hardly have skin-divers permanently swimming around under the Maas,' he told her gently.
'But what I don't understand,' she persisted, 'is they will have to change into wet suits before they plant the mines. Where on earth can they do that – without risk of being seen?'
'No idea.' He started the engine. 'Let's cruise around -this time, Tweed, along the north bank towards the Hook of Holland.' He glanced in the mirror. 'You look thoughtful.'
It was something Paula had said. Tweed suddenly realized the police chief had spoken to him. 'Nothing,' he replied. 'The Hook of Holland, you said. While I was in the Space Tower I saw a dot on the horizon, could have been the Sealink ferry.'
Van Gorp checked his watch, switched on his headlights. 'It would be. She's due to dock soon. Always on time.'
As he pulled away from the kerb Butler turned in his seat to look at Euromast through the rear window. The car containing Newman and the others was following. Tweed also turned in his seat, gazing up at the immense structure.
'Something about that place that worries me,' Butler remarked. 'What it is I can't pin down.'
'It worries me, too,' said Tweed.
44
The Dutch fishing vessel, Utrecht, which should have reached its home port, was stationary. A quarter of a mile astern of the stately floating glow-worm which was the Adenauer.
The huge liner was almost stationary on the dark sheen of the smooth sea, waiting for the lighters to come out with passengers. Two large dinghies with outboard motors slid across the water, midway between the Utrecht and the Adenauer. Painted black, they were invisible.
One dinghy was directly astern of the liner – less than four hundred yards away. The second dinghy, launched from the Utrecht earlier, was approximately a quarter-mile ahead of the liner, its motor turned off, drifting gently with the current.
Four scuba divers slipped over the side of the first dinghy, paddled water as two specially-constructed nets were handed down to them. Each net was grasped by two men who then went under the surface, hauling a net between them.
Each net contained two sea-mines with the switches tuned to a specific radio band. They swam on under water with ease – the contents of the nets were light in weight, shaped like large eggs, painted a dull metallic non-reflecting grey colour, with squat clamps like suckers protruding.
The first team reached the liner, swam deeper under the vast hull, and paddled on until they were just beyond amidships. Here they stopped paddling, bobbing up and down beneath the dark shape above them. With practised hands they opened the net, released the mines which floated upwards, attracted by the fumes inside the engine room.
The swimmers followed their cargo upwards, each man attending to one mine, swivelling it until the suckers contacted the hull. He pressed a switch. Metal legs shot out, thudded into the hull. The mines were attached. Immovable.
The second team swam in under the enormous twin propellers, performed the same actions at a point half way between the propellers and the location where the other mines had been attached.
Their mission completed, the two scuba divers swam on under the hull of the Adenauer. Clad in wet suits, face masks and feet flippers with oxygen cylinders strapped to their backs, they glided through the water, their deft movements almost balletic in their grace.
Emerging beyond the massive bow, the lead man checked the compass attached to his wrist, changing direction by a few degrees. Like his comrades ahead of him he was making for the second dinghy.
He surfaced briefly, looked swiftly round in the night. A pinpoint green light – visible only at sea-level – located the waiting dinghy. He dived under and swam on. Ten minutes later both teams had been hauled aboard the dinghy. They had left behind four sea-mines – armed with enough explosive power to destroy the 50,000-ton liner.
Once Klein pressed a certain button on his control box the four mines would detonate simultaneously. Most of the fifteen hundred souls aboard would die in the first tremendous blast wave – a thousand passengers and five hundred crew. The blast would rip open the hull, surge upwards through the engine room, the explosive wave continuing through the five decks above. Those who survived the blast would be immolated in a sheet of flame with a temperature of over one thousand degrees.
**
On the curving bridge of the Adenauer Captain Brunner stood at the port side, surveying the drifting fishing vessel in his high-powered glasses. His First Officer was – as per his instructions – using a signalling lamp to convey Brunner's message to the Utrecht.
'What is wrong? You are too close to my ship. Please make way'. Reply immediately.'
Aboard the Utrecht its skipper, Captain Sailer, stood immobile on his own bridge. Behind him stood Grand-Pierre, a Uzi machine pistol aimed at the skipper's back. On the deck of the small bridge Sailer's wife, Ansje, a small slim woman with long dark hair, lay with her ankles and wrists trussed with rope. A man wearing a Balaclava helmet knelt beside her, holding a knife at her throat.
They had come aboard from the dinghies just after the nets had been hauled in, the catch stored. Grand-Pierre had shouted up in English that their engines had broken down. Wearing dark glasses and a polo-necked sweater pulled up over his chin, he had climbed up the dropped ladder, produced the Uzi.
When Sailer saw a second man come aboard, carrying his wife, he had almost grabbed for the Uzi in his fury. Then he had seen the knife held close to her throat. From then on he obeyed them.
The dinghies, containing four men in each, had been hauled up over the side. Grand-P
ierre had then ordered Sailer to make for the Adenauer. Now he stood watching the flashing light of the signalling lamp.
'What do they say?' he asked a third man wearing a Balaclava helmet?
'They're asking what's wrong, saying we're too close to them, ordering us to move off.'
'Now listen to me, Sailer,' Grand-Pierre said, ramming the muzzle of his weapon hard into the skipper's back. This man is an ex-seaman, knows about signalling. Tell them you have broken down, engine trouble. That it's nearly repaired but you have a man overboard, that you're searching for him. Get on with it.'
The bit about man overboard covered the faint possibility that the two dinghies might be spotted. Sailer took the lamp from his First Mate and began signalling his reply.
Aboard the Adenauer Captain Brunner was annoyed. An intruder had just invaded his bridge. Cal Dexter, the chief of the American security team which had boarded at Hamburg to protect the Secretary of State. A tall, lanky, energetic man, Dexter was understandably worried.
'Captain, what is that Goddamn boat doing out there? It's too close.'
'That, Mr Dexter,' Brunner replied, switching to English, 'is what I am now finding out. Please to let me concentrate.'
'It's fishy.'
'Yes, Mr Dexter,' the captain replied with unexpected humour, 'it is a fishing boat. Ah, here we are. Boiler overheated. Repair work will be completed shortly. Also a man overboard. We hope to sail shortly. End of message.'
He lowered his glasses, walked to the front of the bridge as the American followed him. Dexter's tone was terse.
'And where is the Dutch cutter which was supposed to patrol us while we took the rest of the passengers aboard?'
' A technical hitch. It is unable to leave port at the moment. And now, Mr Dexter, please stay on the bridge but again allow me to concentrate. I want to watch that fishing vessel.'
A technical hitch. The cutter was indeed still in port. When it had started up its engines the propeller had turned several slow painful revolutions, making a terrible grinding sound. It had then stopped, refused to move again. Divers were now investigating the cause of the trouble.