by Colin Forbes
'We're going out on to the roof. Crouch low, move slowly. We don't want those people inside Euromast to spot us - someone may be scanning the whole area with binoculars . . .'
The roof was a flat concrete surface surrounded by waist-high walls. Stooping low, Tweed followed Jansen. The silhouettes of a large number of men were scattered in different positions. The majority close to the wall nearest Parkhaven.
Jansen led him to where a tripod had been erected. A telescope was mounted on the tripod. Further along the wall stood a second tripod supporting a cine-camera with a zoom lens. A man crouched behind the camera.
'This observation point is the nearest we can get,' Jansen explained. 'The telescope gives us a clear view of the platform.'
'But hasn't there been any communication from them?' Tweed asked, squatting on his haunches. 'And how would you respond?'
'No communication at all.' Jansen sounded depressed. 'Except when a couple of my men approached the tower and they reacted with a machine-gun burst. As a warning to keep away. Since then an awful silence.'
'Klein tactics,' Tweed repeated, turning to Van Gorp who was crouched beside him. 'It's the prelude - to unnerve us.'
'Answering your second question,' Jansen went on, 'we have brought in a police van with an amplified speaker. Parked behind an empty truck to shield it from the tower. No reaction to that - except for a call to speak to someone in high authority.'
Tweed looked at Van Gorp who flexed his hands before he spoke. 'I'd better go out there and try to get Klein talking - if he is up there.'
'Oh, he's up there, all right.' Tweed's tone was brisk. 'But I think I'm the one to attempt it. I'm beginning to know how his mind works. I've had secret reports on his background and character. Before I go I'd like to call my colleague, Blade, at the airport, arrange for the SAS team to be brought near here. They'll need quarters on their own - with no contacts with the police.'
'We may have just what you need,' said Jansen. Til show you . . .'
He waited while Tweed took a quick look through the telescope. The platform appeared deserted. He swung the lens a few degrees and the restaurant came into view. All the lights were still on but over a number of windows there were hangings obscuring the interior. Either curtains had been drawn or they'd used table cloths. Figures moved beyond the clear windows and vanished.
'Don't go,' said Paula. 'It's too dangerous, Klein is crazy.'
'Maybe a little, but I'm going.'
'And I'm coming with you,' Newman said, still holding the rifle. He gave Paula a wink of reassurance.
The quarters Jansen suggested for use by the SAS team were one floor down, at the back of the building. Four rooms - with a bathroom - separated from the rest of the building. Over the windows blinds were drawn down. Tweed agreed they were suitable, Jansen produced a street plan, marked the route the team should follow, said he would send a motor-cycle outrider to escort them and then left Tweed alone to use the phone perched on a rough wooden table.
'Blade,' he said when he got through, 'situation here at Euromast serious. An armed group has taken possession. No, they didn't take hostages - just threw everyone out. A motor-cycle outrider is coming to guide you here with your team. I'll give him a note signed by me. It will include the word Olympus.'
'I'll get the lads geared up ready now. Somewhere we can wait? Discreetly?'
'Attended to.'
'Be with you shortly . . .'
Tweed sat motionless at the table for a few moments, thinking of his approach when he reached the tower. Then he dismissed the idea. Always best not to rehearse m advance. Play it off the cuff. He went outside where Newman was waiting tor him.
Tweed walked with a steady tread beyond the barrier cordoning off Parkhaven. He couldn't remember when he'd last slept but now the moment of crisis had arrived fresh adrenalin was pumping through his veins.
Hatless, he wore an overcoat, both hands in view, arms swinging gently. He was damned if he was going out there with his hands in the air. As he headed towards the police radio car parked behind the truck he slowed his pace, studying everything in sight at ground level.
Below Euromast the four rows of barges berthed alongside each other were still there, the barges he'd noticed looking down from the platform. The atmosphere was weirdly silent and deserted. No traffic movement on the Maas. He glanced at the three police launches moored at the end of the basin. From inside motionless figures watched him as he kept up his pace. He reached the police van.
Through the open window he saw a man behind the wheel on the side furthest from the tower. He leant his forearms on the edge of the window.
'Let me have the mike. I'm here with the authority of Inspector Jansen . . .'
'I know. You're Tweed. He's called through over the radio.' He handed over the microphone and Tweed saw it had a long cord. That was helpful. He gripped the mike, turned, walked to the foot of the steps and looked up. Two figures peered at him over the rail from the platform, one aiming a rifle, both masked.
Newman braced himself against the wall of the building where he had stayed when Tweed went into the open. His rifle was aimed at the waiting figures three hundred feet above.
Klein stood by the rail alongside Marler who held his rifle aimed at the figure below. Klein had a pair of night-glasses trained on the tiny figure at the base of the tower. The face was clear in the lenses and Klein sucked in his breath.
'God! What's he doing down there? How could he have got here so fast?'
'Who is it?' Marler enquired in a languid tone.
Tweed. The last man on God's earth I expected to confront.'
'Who is Tweed?'
'Deputy Director of the British Secret Service. One of the most wily and dangerous men in Europe. Time to scare the guts out of the bastard.' Klein switched on the throat microphone linked to Legaud's command vehicle and its amplifiers.
'Who are you?' Klein demanded in English.
His voice blasted out of the amplifiers on the roof of Legaud's van. Distorted, it had the weird echo of a ghost as it carried to Newman, to the watching police on top of the HQ building.
'My name is Tweed. I have the full authority of the Dutch police to talk to you. We want you to evacuate Euromast at once. And if your gunman pulls the trigger you are both dead within seconds.'
His own voice, broadcast by the speaker on top of the radio van, sounded normal, calm, as though this was a normal situation.
'Do not threaten me. You hold the lives of thousands of people in your hands.'
The voice was confident, chilling. Almost as though Napoleon were issuing orders for the battle of Austerlitz. Klein raised his other hand, holding a black box.
'Do you know what I am holding? The radio control to liquidate all those people aboard the ships waiting outside the Maas. If you shot me my thumb would depress a button - sending out a signal which would detonate the sea-mines.'
'What are you chattering on about?' Tweed asked, attempting to throw Klein off balance - to reveal too much.
'A large team of scuba divers has attached sea-mines to many ships. The Cayman Conqueror and Easter Island supertankers. The freighter from Genoa, the Otranto. Three container ships.' A pause. Tweed heard Klein suck in his breath before he went on. 'And above all, the Adenauer.'
'So you say . . .'
'Tweed!' Klein's voice was ice-cold. 'Let me explain what I can do. This control box was designed by the Swiss. They are very good with sophisticated mechanisms. You have heard of the Swiss?' The tone was mocking.
'I believe so. Yes.'
It was a duel of nerves. Newman grasped that immediately as he watched the erect figure on the platform through his telescopic sight. Hatless, thick dark hair, wearing a leather military-type coat with broad lapels, Klein was determined to dominate the tiny figure at the foot of the tower. And Newman could hear every word of the exchanges. Could Tweed hold his own? A man almost dropping with fatigue.
'The box I am holding - which will be in my hand
s at all times - has a number of buttons. Each attuned to a different waveband, each linked in this way with the sea-mines under a particular vessel. Take your hand out of your pocket.'
Tweed, gripping the microphone at the end of the cable leading to the police van in his right hand, had thrust the other hand inside his coat pocket.
'I'm not here to pander to your whims,' he replied. 'Get on with what you have to say.'
'So, by pressing, say number one button, I can sink the Otranto by itself. The freighter will vapourize. The other vessels remain afloat. There is another button for the Cayman Conqueror, and so on. You understand what I am saying?'
'Highly ingenious.'
'Tweed, you had better take me seriously . . .'
'Oh, I'm doing just that. The reverse applies. You are surrounded, isolated, and Euromast can be stormed at one word of command.'
'I stiil do not think you have grasped the situation. On the control box ! hold there is a red button. The one my thumb is poised over now. That is tuned to a different waveband - a waveband with a signal common to every vessel which has been mined. I press the red button and all the mines detonate, all the ships go down, including the Adenauer.'
'Highly ingenious . . .'
'Two hundred million pounds in gold bullion is the price. My researches tell me that gold is now held at the Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt for a South American loan. Have it loaded aboard the chartered Hercules transport waiting at Frankfurt Airport. I will later give you its destination. The crew for the plane is also waiting. Understood, Tweed?'
'Government sanction will have to be . . .'
'I haven't finished.'
Above the distortion of the amplifiers Klein's voice came like a whiplash.
'I can't hang about here all night,' Tweed informed him.
'Hang? Hanging. Yes, that is part of the scenario you will see unfold.'
The hairs on the back of Tweed's neck crawled. The cruelty of this man was limitless. What was he talking about? Klein was talking again.
'A warning. The majority of my men are not inside this tower. They are watching those ships. Do not try to find them. They are in radio communication all the time. Do not attempt to disembark one passenger or crewman from any of the ships. Do not attempt to smuggle out naval bomb disposal scuba divers to any ship. Do not attempt to interfere with my communications with jamming equipment. Do not let anyone go near the cream command vehicle a few yards from where you stand. Do not interfere with the lighting or power of Euromast. If any of these instructions are disobeyed I press the red button.'
'Any more suggestions?'
'Tell the Dutch to search for two fishing vessels abandoned offshore west of the mouth of the Maas. The Utrecht and the Drenthe. Their crews will confirm I have done what I have told you. And no craft of any kind must move on the Maas. The go-between who will arrange for the bullion to be loaded aboard the transport aircraft at Frankfurt is Peter Brand, the Belgian banker. Banque Sambre. Understood?'
'Seems clear enough.'
'You will come back here in precisely four hours from now. At 3 a.m. You will then be told the destination of the Hercules carrying the bullion.'
'Governments have to be consulted . . .'
'One thing more,' the chilling voice continued. 'The British Sealink ferry was delayed docking at the Hook of Holland by the presence of so much shipping. It waited off shore. That ferry is also mined. It must not move from its present position.'
'If you say so. You could be bluffing,'
Tweed maintained the same casual, offhand tone he had kept up during the long deadly dialogue, still hoping to provoke Klein into saying the wrong thing. He appeared at long last to have irked his enemy.
'Tweed! You still do not seem to have fully grasped the enormity of what faces you. Before you go, perhaps this will help to convince you.'
Klein stepped back from the rail, nodded to two of his men who crouched below the rail. They heaved up the bodies of the two detectives shot in the restaurant and heaved them over the edge, dropping them three hundred feet.
The first body hit the steps a dozen yards from where Tweed was standing. Hit the concrete like a sack of cement with a soft thud. The second corpse sailed out a few feet further, sank like rock, head first. Tweed clearly heard the crack of the skull splitting open. He felt sick, then a cold fury.
'One final demonstration,' Klein called out.
The giant dredger, Ameland, had continued its work of scooping the bed of the Maas clear of silt late with the aid of lights. Now the eighteen-man crew were snatching a quick meal below as the massive hulk began moving from the middle of the Maas on its way to its berthing dock. It moved very slowly and a mile away two men sat in a dinghy offshore from a breakwater watching.
One man had a pair of night-glasses focused on the Ameland, the other nursed a compact powerful transceiver in his large lap. Both Luxembourgers were dressed as seamen. Beyond the breakwater onshore a Saab was parked in the wilderness of scrub and sand. The man with the transceiver checked his watch by its illuminated face and gave his companion a nudge.
'Soon now. Any moment . . .'
He never finished his sentence. There was a muffled thump - it was a small sea-mine. A brief flash of light which lasted seconds. The dredger shuddered as though struck by a giant's hammer, listed, tilted at a more extreme angle. The scoop at the tip of the metal arm performed a slow arc. The dredger upended, held its distorted angle for a moment, then the whole vessel split in two and sank beneath the surface. Thirty seconds had elapsed since the mine was detonated. No survivors.
'The demonstration has taken place,' Klein announced. 'Near the mouth of the Maas the dredger Ameland has just been sunk in mid-channel.' He removed his thumb from button number two, moved it above the red button.
Tweed stood very still, staring upwards. He recalled watching the dredger at work when they had driven out with Van Gorp to the North Sea.
'What about the crew?' he said into the mike.
'I imagine they are enjoying life with the fishes - twenty fathoms down.' His voice became more piercing through the amplifier. 'The Maas is now partially blocked to shipping of any size. If necessary, other mined ships inside the river will also go down. The gateway to Europe will be closed. You have until three in the morning, Tweed. Any more questions?'
Tweed walked back to the police van, handed back the microphone to the driver, then at a brisk pace made his way back to where Newman still waited, rifle aimed at the Euromast platform.
48
'It happened,' Van Gorp informed Tweed. 'The Ameland has been sunk in mid-channel. A danger to the largest ships wishing to reach Europort.'
They were sitting round a table in the HQ building. Newman, Paula, Butler, Jansen and Benoit. The room was bleak and sparsely furnished. Van Gorp had explained it was in the process of renovation. Coffee had been brought in from an improvised kitchen.
'How many crew on board the dredger?' Tweed asked.
'Eighteen. All drowned.'
'And those two bodies lying at the base of Euromast are your men?'
'Yes. The two detectives I placed in the restaurant. I asked over the phone via the police van for permission to collect them while you were on your way back up here. Permission was refused, the brutal bastard.'
'Tactics again,' Tweed said quietly. 'I know Klein now. His policy is to show no mercy.'
'And he tried to break your will,' Newman observed.
Tried very hard. My technique of baiting him with a casual attitude did make him talk too much. The unknown is the most terrifying. Now we know he has the box - that he can sink all those ships. So there must be no overt action. Yet.'
'Your SAS team is due shortly,' Van Gorp reminded him. 'What do they do?'
'Take up the quarters assigned to them. Blade will continue to act as our liaison with them. You'll never see their faces or that of the commander of the Sabre Troop,' he added, covering Blade's real role.
'You know Klein better than
any of us. What do we do?' asked Van Gorp.
'We give in. Accept his demands. Let him have the bullion.' Tweed spread his hands. 'What else can we do? He may soon sink the Otranto to show he means business. My PM will support me.'
'I thought she never gave in,' Van Gorp commented.
'You heard what he said. He can close down Europe -simply by sinking more ships he must have mined inside the Maas. Look at the vast amount of supplies from abroad which come in via Europort - or sail on direct up the Rhine. Germany is very vulnerable. So is Switzerland and Austria. Holland as well. And it's two-way traffic. Think of the huge volume of exports travelling all over the world via Europort. Look at the amount of oil which comes in by this route. Antwerp can't take the extra load - it's working to full capacity already.'
'We could organize an airlift,' Jansen suggested. 'Like the famous 1948 airlift into Berlin.'
'That was to keep one city going. And they only just managed it. We are talking about half a continent. To say nothing of the lives of all those people aboard the ships waiting in the North Sea. No,' Tweed said emphatically, 'we give in. I had better tell Klein briefly now to keep him quiet. Where is this phone linked to your van outside Euromast?'
'In the next room. You just pick it up, speak to the driver and you're through to the speaker mounted on the van's roof. While you were out there talking to him I've made a number of brief phone calls. Bonn, The Hague, Berne and Paris have been alerted. They're talking already, thinking of calling a conference.'
'No time.' Tweed was abrupt as he stood up. 'Klein will not wait. And there are a lot of decisions to take when I've told him of our decision.'
He left them, went into the next room to use the phone. Newman lit a cigarette. Van Gorp 'borrowed' one from him. It was Paula who made the comment.
Tweed is now at his most dangerous. He said he's giving in. Don't believe it. He's waiting his opportunity. No one is going to manipulate him.' She looked at Van Gorp. 'Didn't you notice when he said "no overt action" he added "yet"?'