By Stealth tac-9

by Colin Forbes

  `A job right up your street. Drive down to April Lodge, Brockenhurst. It's somewhere on the outskirts. Owned by a Mrs Goshawk. I think she had a lodger, a Dr Carberry- Hyde. Try and find out if she knows where he is now. If necessary, put on the pressure.'

  `I'm on my way…'

  `A man of few words but plenty of action,' Tweed commented to Monica when they were alone. 'And I have a job for you. Come over and look at this photo taken in Mexico City.' As she leant over his shoulder he pointed to the figure Rabin had identified.

  `Dr Carberry-Hyde. I want the Engine Room wizards to blow up his picture to a size about five inches wide by five deep. Glossy prints. One hundred copies. If they kick up tell them I'm expecting another miracle…'

  Monica paused at the door, the framed photo under her arm. Tweed looked up and waited.

  `I was just wondering whether they really do exist – invisible ships. We know Stealth planes do – the Americans built the Stealth B2 bombers. But ships? I ask you.'

  `I'm relying on Paula's eyesight that night when Boyd died in Lymington.' Tweed paused. 'But you're right – it does stretch the imagination.'

  PART TWO

  Fog of Death

  27

  Latitude 39.55S. Longitude 18.22E. Several hundred miles south of the Cape of Good Hope, the ferocious gale had died as swiftly as it had blown up. The sea was now an oily calm and a dense fog was forming.

  It was the strangest vessel ever built. The Mao III was proceeding on a north-westerly course, well clear of all traditional shipping lanes. A 20,000-ton ship, it resembled a huge submarine travelling on the surface – but minus the give-away conning tower.

  It moved with a sinister silence, the low-noise-level propellers at the stern emitting little more than a whisper. The entire hull had a rounded profile which reduced its radar and infra-red signature almost to zero. No satellite would detect its steady forward movement.

  The Mao's cooled exhaust funnel was nearly level with the rounded superstructure. The command and weapons control quarters were not located inside a normal bridge – which would have destroyed its non-image. Instead, they were buried below decks.

  Captain Welensky stood in front of a battery of highly sophisticated Stealth laser-radar screens. A six-foot-two giant, the ex-hardline East European Communist dwarfed the neatly uniformed slim man beside him. Welensky, unable to pronounce his Oriental name, called him Kim. The common language they conversed in was English.

  The neat little man of forty had a European-type face. The high cheekbones and narrow eyes of his original face had been 'attended to' by one of America's foremost plastic surgeons in Shanghai. The same surgeon had `attended to' a large number of Oriental patients.

  When he had completed his work the American had suffered a fatal 'accident'. After drinking a cup of poisoned tea his body had been buried in an unmarked grave. The large fortune in dollars paid to him had been `confiscated' and transferred to the Treasury of the People's Republic of China.

  `There is a vessel sailing straight towards us in the fog,' Welensky reported. 'If I alter course I should be able to avoid it. But I need a decision now.'

  `Sink it. Put it below the waves,' Kim ordered in his smooth voice.

  `I promise you I could evade it,' Welensky persisted.

  `Is there something wrong with your hearing?' Kim asked. 'We have a smaller vessel travelling in convoy with us at our stern. Sink the intruder. Put it below the waves.'

  Welensky shivered inwardly. He had made a bad mistake questioning Kim's first order. He knew it was a mistake he must not repeat.

  The Stealth vessel, Mao III, its missile launchers housed for'ard, aft of the knife-like prow, maintained its course. The fog was growing denser.

  `Do not forget to use the laser gun to wipe out their radio room,' Kim reminded the captain.

  The Dutch freighter, Texel, 8,000 tons, had been forced badly off course rounding the southern tip of Africa by a ferocious gale. She was now well south of the course planned by her skipper, Captain Schenk. He was worried.

  First, bound for Indonesia with his cargo, he was well behind schedule. Second, there was something wrong with his engines and he could only move at half normal speed. Third, when the storm had abated, it had been replaced by freezing fog. Ice was forming on the superstructure.

  `Jan,' he ordered the first mate, 'keep your eyes glued to the radar screen.'

  `I'm watching it non-stop,' Jan protested. 'Nothing to report. And there won't be any other ships as far south as this.'

  `So why,' Schenk rejoined, staring through the window as he held the wheel, 'why am I certain I saw something in the fog – sailing towards us?'

  Jan, as short and stocky as the ship's master, began to worry. Schenk's eyesight was legendary back in Amsterdam. Throughout Dutch shipping circles he was nicknamed Mr Radar. Jan stared fixedly at his radar screen and blinked to clear his vision.

  Technically there couldn't be another ship within miles. The empty radar screen told him that. The trouble was Jan couldn't forget one famous occasion when Schenk had saved another ship from collision with an iceberg – despite the fact that the radar hadn't even shown a blip.

  `I am sure there's something close to us,' Schenk repeated.

  `Nothing on the-'

  Jan never completed his sentence.

  A huge shape loomed through the freezing fog on the port side. The Texel shuddered horribly under the impact of a frightful collision. The murderous tragedy happened in seconds.

  The sharp, immensely powerful bow of the Mao sliced the Texel amidships. It cut clean through like a monster shark's teeth severing the body of a man at the waist. In his wireless room the Dutch radio op. sat in front of his high-powered transmitter. His fingers started to repeat Mayday…! At the same moment the beam from the Mao's laser gun – adjusted to target radio equipment – struck.

  The radio op. reacted like a man in the electric chair when the switch is pulled. His body jerked rigid, his hair stood on end. A stench of burnt hair filled the cabin, his transmitter burst into flames, the radio op. sagged to the floor. Dead.

  The freighter split in two, was sinking rapidly. Jan was outside on deck. He stared in stunned horror for a second as the stern floated away, amazed at the clean-cut break. He saw crewmen, wearing lifebelts, jumping overboard. Poor bloody fools – the sea was ice cold. They wouldn't last five minutes.

  Captain Schenk was shouting: 'Lower lifeboats…'

  Jan knew there was no time for that. He manoeuvred a large inflated dinghy with an outboard motor over the side, looped a rope over the handrail, shinned down it into the dinghy. He might be able to pick up some of his comrades. He started the engine, steered the dinghy away from the bow section, now submerging rapidly.

  Jan lit the signal light so any survivors could find him. The hull of something enormous loomed over him. A rope ladder was thrown over the side of the mysterious vessel. Jan attached the end to his large dinghy, began to climb the ladder to safety, his body and hands frozen by the penetrating fog.

  He reached the top, grabbed the rail with one hand. Above him a heavily swathed figure held in his gloved hands a large block of ice brought from the freezer. The fatal act was timed well. As Jan's head appeared over the rail the huge figure brought down the block of ice, cracking Jan's skull open. He let the block leave his hands, following Jan's corpse into the icy sea.

  As Kim, clad in a sheepskin, watched, the large seaman descended the ladder, holding a boat-hook. Three swift thrusts with the business end of the boat-hook punctured the dinghy. A slash with a knife cut the rope, releasing the dinghy as it swiftly filled with water. The sea closed over it.

  As the Mao prepared to get under way a desperate cry was heard. Kim peered over the rail as the large seaman dropped back on the deck. A life raft was floating close to the hull with three survivors from the Texel, wearing lifebelts, aboard. One called out, a pathetic cry in English.

  `Save us! Save us…'

  `I'll fetch a rif
le,' the seaman said.

  `No!' Kim grabbed his arm. 'Stay where you are.' Kim spoke to Captain Welensky on the bridge through the walkie-talkie he always carried. 'Life raft close to port side. Turn your wheel a few degrees to port. Sink it. Now!'

  He watched as the Mao turned slowly. Its hull smashed into the side of the raft, overturning it, breaking up the raft into separate pieces. Kim continued to watch as the three men in the sea drifted away, two waving their hands futilely. He turned away.

  `A few minutes more in that ice-cold water and they'll be meat for the fishes.'

  Kim knew it was a million-to-one chance that the corpses would be picked up in these latitudes. But he never took even such chances: corpses found with bullets embedded in them could cause serious questions to be asked.

  Both sections of the Texel had now sunk countless fathoms deep. Thirty seamen and ten passengers – four of them women – died when the Texel sank to its watery grave. Kim then went below to a section furnished as spacious and comfortable living quarters.

  Twenty Scandinavians, all between the ages of twenty- five and thirty, smartly dressed and looking like executives, had been playing cards or reading books. They had spent time at the special training camp in the interior of China. There they had been mentally and physically instructed intensively. All had been selected for their Communist leanings – and more especially for their liking for large sums of money. They looked up as Kim entered.

  `Nothing to worry about, gentlemen,' Kim assured them. 'A minor collision with floating wreckage. The Mao is in perfect shape…'

  Purring no louder than a cat, the Mao's engines carried the Stealth vessel on its north-westerly course, which would take it well clear of the west coast of Africa. It was now heading for its rendezvous at sea with a refuelling tanker.

  A short distance behind its stern the smaller Stealth ship maintained the same course. Even in the fog its skipper had no trouble following the Mao – which at frequent intervals emitted a brief signal only capable of being registered by the sonar equipment aboard the second ship.

  From the refuelling rendezvous the Mao would continue on its northward course to its ultimate destination. Denmark.

  28

  In London Tweed was hyperactive, dealing with half a dozen different problems before flying back to Brussels. Arriving at the Ministry of Defence, he showed his SIS card and was immediately ushered by a guard up a flight of stairs and down endless corridors. Colonel Fieldway, his contact and confidant at the MOD, rose behind his desk to greet him as the guard closed the door.

  `I have checked the data we have on Brigadier Burgoyne, as he likes to call himself. Do sit down. That cup of tea has just been poured. Can't recommend it but if you want to wet your whistle..

  Fieldway was a man in his mid-forties, tall and thin and sporting a trim brown moustache the same colour as his carefully brushed thatch of hair. He had a long face, alert blue eyes, and, Tweed thought, looked in the pink of physical condition.

  `As he likes to call himself,' Tweed repeated. 'What does that mean?'

  Fieldway settled himself in his chair behind his desk. Before replying he shuffled papers on top of a file. Tweed recognized the trait: John Fieldway did that when he was unsure of what line to take. He spoke briskly.

  `He was Acting Brigadier, but his substantive rank is Colonel. Likes to overawe people by pulling rank – one he's not entitled to.'

  `His history?' Tweed asked.

  `Burgoyne was a brilliant young officer in the Korean War back in 1950. He gained rapid promotion – the sort that only happens in wartime. He was the only commander who out-manoeuvred the Chinese army when it crossed the Yalu river to support the North Korean lot. He got an MC. Brave as a lion. And a shrewd strategist. The two don't often go together.'

  `So far so good,' Tweed commented, sensing a reservation.

  `That's about it. In a nutshell.'

  `What went wrong?' Tweed probed.

  `Oh, you know about that? Very few do. It was kept a bit hush-hush. For the sake of the Army's name and all that.'

  `Refresh my memory,' Tweed urged him.

  He hadn't a clue what Fieldway was referring to. There was a pause before Fieldway resumed his crisp summary.

  `Let's go back to that war. At one stage Burgoyne vanished off the face of the earth. He appeared four months later at his HQ. He'd been trapped behind enemy lines as the UN forces under General MacArthur retreated. He lay low, lived off the country, avoided being spotted. One of your natural guerrillas. Promoted again, he took over command of another unit and the situation stabilized.'

  `John, I don't think that was what you had in mind when I asked you to refresh my memory. And, talking about nutshells, that's a pretty big one you've got in front of you. His file, I mean.'

  `This is all rather delicate. Must you hear me go over it again?'

  `Commander Noble of Naval Intelligence is interested in every aspect of the investigation I'm carrying out. And several people have already been murdered.'

  `Good Lord! You do live an exciting life.' He paused again. 'All right, here goes. But this is confidential. Burgoyne resigned from the Army when the Korean business was over. I say "resigned" advisedly.'

  `Go on. No point in leaving it there now you've started,' Tweed pressed.

  `For one thing there were rumours – no more – that he'd embezzled Army funds on a large scale.'

  `And for another?'

  Fieldway, now looking unhappy, shuffled some more papers.

  `Well, there were stories that he had contacts with the Chinese High Command after he'd left the Army.' Field- way was consulting his file for the first time. 'No proof. Just more rumours.'

  `What would be his purpose in doing that – if the rumours were true?'

  `He had formed several trading companies in Hong Kong and quickly became a well-known businessman. Mixed at the highest level with the so-called taipans in the colony.'

  `So, how does that link up with the Chinese High Command?'

  Fieldway looked up. 'I did say all this was highly confidential?'

  `You did.'

  Tweed was the soul of relaxation. Settled in his chair he sipped a little more of his tea. It tasted awful.

  `The official version,' Fieldway explained, 'is that he was buying timber from Peking – Beijing – I do wish that these new countries, regimes, would stop mucking about with familiar names.'

  `You were saying,' Tweed reminded him.

  `Buying timber from the Chinese at prices way below the world market price. That put him in a position to make huge profits when he sold the timber to other countries.'

  `And the unofficial version?'

  `That the timber deals were a cover for smuggling banned high-tech equipment to Peking. And that,' Field- way emphasized, 'was a very vague rumour.'

  `So what eventually brought Burgoyne home from the Far East?'

  `He sold out his companies to locals at a high price before leaving Hong Kong at short notice. He was on a plane flying home before the buyers of his companies found out the catch.'

  `Which was?'

  `The Chinese overnight raised the price of the timber they were selling to world market prices. No more easy profits for the new owners of Burgoyne's companies.'

  `So Burgoyne out-manoeuvred some of the shrewdest businessmen in the world.'

  `Looks like that.' Fieldway closed his file with a snap. `That's all I have.'

  `I'm very grateful.' Tweed rose, shook hands with Fieldway, who leaned across his desk, stood up. 'No, don't bother to show me the way out. I know the drill.'

  Tweed turned round suddenly as he was opening the door. Fieldway was still standing up and looked uncomfortable, even embarrassed. Why?

  As Tweed travelled back from Whitehall to Park Crescent in a taxi he totted up in his mind the data assembled so far. In a taxi no one could get at him.

  On the flight to Brussels Burgoyne, Willie, and Helen Claybourne had been aboard the same plane. 'A coincidence? Tw
eed didn't believe in them. He remembered Paula and Marler telling him about the trip to the new village outside Ghent.

  From their description it sounded like a Belgian replica of Moor's Landing on the Beaulieu River. Tweed's mind recalled a certain passage in Andover's file about the Mongol invasion of the West.

  Then there was the macabre murder of Hilary Vane when she arrived at London Airport with Cord Dillon. The murder carried out by another woman, with a wide-brimmed hat. He played back in his mind Vane's report he had heard on the tape. Three top Stealth scientists vanishing to the Far East, according to Dillon. Always the road led to the Far East.

  Dr Wand owned Moonglow Trading amp; Mercantile International – based in Hong Hong. No one knew what he traded in. Mercantile? That suggested shipping to Tweed. Then there was his verbal duel with Wand at the luxurious Waterloo villa. A more sinister man Tweed had never met.

  First he had been glimpsed by Butler in London inside his mansion in The Boltons. Then he turned up in Brussels at a deluxe hotel, followed from the airport to the Bellevue Palace by Marler. A very mobile man, the mysterious Dr Wand.

  And also the director of Moonglow Refugee Aid Trust International. Refugees? Hugo Westendorf, the Iron Man of German politics – before his sudden retirement – had had a tough programme worked out to stop Europe being swamped by refugees. According to Gaston Delvaux.

  Andover. Delvaux. Westendorf. All outstanding among the brains of Western Europe. All now men broken by a hideous conspiracy of kidnapping – involving the maximum of psychological pressure to break them. A pattern was forming in Tweed's mind. But he still needed more data.

  Prior to his visit to the MOD, Tweed had met Cord Dillon, American Deputy Director of the CIA – more important, he had been sent over as special emissary of the American President. During his brief meeting with Dillon he had reassured the American.

  `I've been sitting on my ass waiting for you, Tweed,' Dillon had begun in typically abrasive fashion.