The decision to telephone the count and tell him everything brought a certain calmness to Nordberg. He came to his feet and walked a bit unsteadily to the telephone, raised the receiver, and dialed the familiar number. But before the telephone at the other end had a chance to ring more than twice there was a heavy knock on the apartment door. Nordberg frowned blackly. Who could that be? A neighbor? But Nordberg’s neighbors never bothered him. That devil Kovpak, back so soon with further demands? But what further demands could he possibly make? The heavy knock on the door was repeated. With a muttered curse for making him postpone his call, Nordberg put the receiver back on the hook and walked over to open the door.
In the basement of the apartment Kovpak stood and watched as Ulanov and another man listened patiently to their headsets. Suddenly Ulanov looked up. He winked at Gregor. “He’s dialing …” He closed his eyes as if to listen better and then opened them to scribble some numbers on a pad. He showed them to the large blond man who read them and nodded. Ulanov put his attention back to his headset and then looked up, frowning. “He hung up without waiting for his call to be answered.”
“Maybe he decided to go to the man instead of calling him,” Kovpak said. “I’d better get out to my car.” A thought came; he smiled sheepishly. “I don’t even know what he’s driving.”
“Fortunately, we thought it might be well to know,” Ulanov said dryly. “He’s driving a yellow Volvo, at least ten years old. It’s parked a block down the street, pointing north. You can’t miss it. The door on the driver’s side, the street side, is caved in and the whole thing looks as if it’s being held together with spit.” He held up his hand before Kovpak could sprint for the steps. “But there’s no need to rush. I have a man outside who’ll advise us when your professor leaves the apartment. And the professor’ll have a little trouble starting his car.” He grinned. “Not too much, just enough to hold him up until we can pick him up. A loose electrical connection even he can’t miss if he has enough brains to take a look at the motor.” He returned to listening to the telephone. “Maybe he had to go to the bathroom …”
The minutes passed with Ulanov wishing he could smoke but knowing that the odor could testify to the presence of men in the basement, and with Kovpak getting more and more restless. Suddenly Kovpak looked up with a frown. “Major, did you get the number he dialed?”
“Of course.” Ulanov pointed to the pad.
“How long would it take to find an address for that number? Or a name?”
Ulanov looked inquiringly at the large blond man with him. The man considered the question a moment and then shrugged. “Maybe half an hour.” He put aside his headset without being told, reading his orders from Ulanov’s nod, and left the basement.
The two men remaining there continued their vigil. Kovpak found a couple of empty crates and dragged them over; Ulanov nodded his thanks and sat down. Kovpak slipped on the headset abandoned by the blond man. The silence continued. After fifteen more minutes Ulanov looked over at Kovpak.
“You couldn’t have put much of a scare into the man,” he said mildly. “Maybe I’d better go up and finish the job.”
“I put enough of a scare into him,” Kovpak said with a touch of irritation. “I have no idea why he isn’t calling someone! Or isn’t rushing to that someone right now! I don’t like this …”
“Well, we’ll have an address and a name in a few more minutes,” Ulanov said commiseratingly.
“If you got the number right.”
“If you had done your simple job as well as I do my more complicated ones,” Ulanov said evenly, “we wouldn’t be sitting here like a couple of dolts waiting for a telephone call it seems he isn’t going to make.”
“Maybe he left by the back way …”
“Maybe he went up in a balloon from the roof,” Ulanov said in an unkind tone. “Or is tunneling from the third floor to the third floor of a building in the next street. Do you think you’re the only person who ever heard of a back door to an apartment building? Or of having it watched?”
Gregor bit back a retort. Arguing with Ulanov wasn’t going to help. And while he had been positive that Professor Nordberg had been frightened half out of his skin, the fact was that Nordberg was neither leaving nor telephoning. He was probably having a belated breakfast and laughing to himself at the puerile attempts to frighten him. Or possibly he was entertaining a woman visitor who had arrived in the past half hour. The way he looked at Ruth when she was coming up the stairs indicated he was a man who might even put a willing woman ahead of the treasure—although that seemed most unlikely. Kovpak checked his watch and muttered a curse under his breath. Where the devil was that blond genius of an assistant of Ulanov who could trace a telephone number to a name in half an hour? More than that had already passed. He probably could have done as well by simply running his finger down the list of all telephone subscribers in the country in that length of time. He checked his watch once again and made a decision. He put his headset aside, coming to his feet.
“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” he said quietly. “I’m going upstairs and ask our sleazy friend just why he isn’t doing what he should be doing.” His voice toughened. “He’ll tell me, too, or else—”
Ulanov shrugged. “Or else he won’t. You’re talking about a lot of money, my friend. It induces silence more than physical threats.” The stocky major watched his companion climb the basement steps and disappear through the door leading to the lobby. Gregor Kovpak, he decided with a sigh, did not have the proper temperament to be a successful intelligence agent. He lacked the patience for it. Although one would think that an archaeologist, working years and years on some excavation just to emerge triumphant with a few shards of pottery, or a few dessicated bones, would have the patience of Job. But it was a different type of patience, Ulanov decided, and recalled when he was a young agent and was assigned to continuously stare from a window at a blank wall, simply waiting for a certain person to place a poster on it. Nobody ever did, and all he got from Vashugin when he reported had been a grunt. Still, possibly a grunt was all that particular vigil had been worth.
The minutes passed with Ulanov missing tobacco; the silence at the other end of the tapped line was beginning to make him sleepy. Then his head jerked up, alert. There had been a sound at the head of the basement steps and Ulanov assumed the attitude of a faithful member of the Danish Telephone Service, only to look and see Kovpak returning. The major looked at him inquiringly. “Well?”
“He didn’t answer the door.”
Major Kovpak looked at him curiously. “It took you that long to discover he didn’t answer the door?”
“I went up and rapped on the door; nobody answered. I thought he might be in an inner room where he couldn’t hear me knock, so I went down to the street and rang his doorbell. He never answered. So then I went back upstairs and rapped on the door again—”
“And nobody answered. I heard you.” The major considered his younger friend carefully. “Or else he didn’t tell you what you wanted to know despite your ‘or else’…”
Kovpak’s face flushed. “I said he didn’t answer the door!”
“If you say so, I believe you. Maybe he thought you were selling magazine subscriptions …”
There was a shadow on the steps and the blond man appeared, panting a bit and looking apologetic for the delay.
“It took longer than I thought,” he said, “but here it is. The call was made to a place called Lindgren Castle. A Count Axel Lindgren lives there. It’s in Ringsted. Of course, the call may have been to someone else in the household,” he added, “but that is the address the call was placed to.”
“Lindgren!” Gregor stared but only for a moment, then his jaw hardened. “That accident was no accident! That murdering bastard!” He stared at Ulanov, not seeing him, speaking aloud but to himself. “It makes sense when you think about it. He’s important enough to have the necessary contacts throughout the world. He had the money needed to finance the
operation, and he has the charm”—he smiled grimly at the use of the word—“the charm! to get a little nobody like Nordberg to hand the treasure over to him. I’m surprised Nordberg stayed alive as long as he did …”
Ulanov had been listening to this stream of consciousness politely. Now he felt he ought to speed things up. “I don’t know who this Count Lindgren is, other than the fact that you don’t seem to like him,” he said, “but if you believe he’s the one with the treasure, shouldn’t we be on our way to visit him?”
“We certainly should. Let’s go!”
Ulanov slipped off his headset and started to hand it to the blond man. Then he looked at Gregor, his face inscrutable. “Is there any purpose in continuing to monitor his telephone?”
“I don’t think so.”
“I didn’t think you did,” Ulanov said enigmatically, and gave instructions to the blond man. “Pack up and go home. You can leave Boris in front in case anyone comes and rings the professor’s bell. Nikolai can go back with you. Reports go to the office.” Ulanov turned to Gregor. “Let’s go.”
They climbed the steps, Gregor seething at the thought of Count Lindgren and how close he had come, through his man Wilten, in killing both himself and Ruth. He removed the wedge in the latch and unconsciously glanced up the stairway, almost as if he could see the third-floor apartment. Then without a word he walked quickly out to the car. Ulanov started to say something and then thought better of it. Instead he climbed into the car and lit a cigarette, inhaling blissfully, while studying the other’s expressionless profile. Gregor paid him no mind, studying a map of the small country’s highways a moment, and then putting the car into motion. “We’ll check for Lindgren Castle when we get near Ringsted,” he said evenly. The white-haired major merely nodded.
They passed the ten-year-old yellow Volvo down the street and turned into the Farimagsgade, beginning to work their way south through the city toward the Vestergade and the road west into the open country. Behind them James Newkirk was pleased to see them moving at last. He had sat in his car in the hot morning sun for over an hour, and the breeze brought on as he drove was very welcome. At this point in the chase, Newkirk did not particularly care if the car ahead knew he was following them. He had no idea of what Kovpak and Ulanov had been doing in that apartment building, but there was no doubt something was up and James Newkirk meant to know what that something was. He had picked Ulanov up at the Russian Embassy in the Bredgade early that morning, knowing he would stay there. He had seen him depart with three other men in some sort of a utility truck, and had followed them to this location. Here he had observed Ruth McVeigh and Gregor Kovpak arrive and watched Ruth McVeigh depart alone, leaving the Russians inside. With all the characters of the drama assembled, there was no doubt things were coming to a conclusion, and Newkirk was not to be put off from being in on it.
Kovpak crossed the Pile Allee and entered the Roskildeveg, heading toward Roskilde and the turnoff to Ringsted, when he glanced in the rearview mirror for the fourth or fifth time. He spoke to Ulanov without turning his head.
“We’re being followed!”
“Oh?” Ulanov turned to look over his shoulder and then turned back, spewing smoke from his cigarette. “That’s just Newkirk.” He bit back a yawn. He had slept poorly the night before; he was getting too old for strange beds. And he had had to get up early to place the bug on the professor’s phone. Maybe he ought to ask for retirement—and then he thought that if he had any trouble on this case, any further trouble that is, he might not have to ask for retirement. It was a sad thought.
“Newkirk?” Gregor asked, mystified by the strange name.
“That CIA agent I told you about in London. Don’t pay any attention to him.”
Kovpak swung around, staring at Ulanov in disbelief. “You mean he’s been following us since London?”
“No, no!” The major shook his head, dislodging ash which sprinkled his jacket. “I’ve been following you. He’s been following me. Then in Germany I lost you but found him. Then when I wanted to find you I let him do it for me. Then I followed him.” He shrugged. “Now he’s following both of us. It isn’t important.”
Kovpak drew a deep breath and shook his head. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
“No,” Ulanov said in a tired tone, agreeing. “It doesn’t.” He flipped his cigarette through the car window and leaned back, closing his eyes. “Try not to use the horn too much. I’m going to take a nap before we get there …”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Count Lindgren was in a foul mood, and the staff was well aware of it. Wilten had somehow gotten himself in the count’s poor graces, and everyone suffered under those circumstances. François, cooking and serving the count’s late breakfast on the terrace of Lindgren Castle, recognized that this was no time to scamp on his skills for any reason, or to make any untoward remarks on any subject. François had outdone himself on the blueberry crêpe. The count was chewing on it as if it were a mere pancake, and the chef was waiting until the precise moment to put the finishing touches on the next dish, an omelette flambé a fine herbes Marseilles. But as he delicately slid the omelette to a warmed plate and carried it proudly toward the table, he saw with dismay that Wilten, a subdued Wilten this morning, was approaching with a telephone, trailing cord behind him. Any delay in eating the omelette, François knew, and the dish would be ruined, and le bon Dieu alone knew what the count’s mood would be then! A difficult man, Frangois thought, and then saw to his dismay that the count was putting down his knife and fork and looking up at Wilten. To the chef it was evident that whatever rift had developed between the master and Wilten had still not been mended. Lindgren was considering Wilten as if the other man were a stranger.
“There is a person at the other end of the line this time, I hope?”
Wilten swallowed. “Yes, sir. It’s—it’s that McVeigh woman …”
Lindgren stared at him a moment and then took the telephone from him, cupping the receiver while he wondered just what Ruth McVeigh might have to say. Would it be about the accident? But she had called the day before, explaining how it had not been Wilten’s fault. Not Wilten’s fault! Lindgren put down the taste of bile that had come to his throat at the thought, and tried to imagine what Ruth could be calling about, and just what he might say in return. Count Lindgren had spent a sleepless night alternately cursing Wilten and his failure and wondering if there was now any way in which to avoid disaster. Certainly two accidents in a row could be as bad as none. He was not dealing with complete idiots. There was, of course, the faint possiblity that they had not traced the treasure to Nordberg; or that if they had, the brainless professor might have had enough of a spurt of intelligence to keep his big mouth shut! Well, there was only one way to find out …
He forced a smile into his voice. “Hello, Ruth! How good to hear from you! How are you?” His voice dropped. “I’m so sorry about yesterday—!”
“No, forget that. Axel, I’m worried!”
“My dear girl, what about?”
“It’s Gregor,” Ruth said. She sounded desperate. “I don’t know where he is. We were at this man’s apartment—”
Axel Lindgren felt a sudden chill. “Whose apartment?”
Ruth might not have heard him; her mind was on her story, “—and Gregor said he wanted to talk to him alone for a few minutes and would I go back to the hotel and wait for him, so I did, but Gregor never came back. I waited almost an hour and then I went back to the apartment, only this time nobody even answered the bell, and I’m afraid Gregor might have used force, and—”
“Ruth!”
“—if he did, I wonder—”
“Ruth!”
“I’m sorry, Axel. What is it?”
“I asked, whose apartment?”
“You wouldn’t know him. His name is Arne Nordberg. He’s a professor at the university. It’s a long story—”
“Ruth, hold on a moment.” Count Lindgren cupped the receiver in one damp pal
m and thought furiously. Panic at this point could be fatal. Damn Wilten for failing to handle the two of them the day before, and double damn that fool Nordberg! First for lying about where he had gotten the treasure; secondly because he had undoubtedly done exactly what Kovpak had calculated the idiot would do when threatened, and that was to run to his protector, his savior, his friend, Axel Lindgren! And with Kovpak undoubtedly right behind him! There was no time to lose. He went back to the telephone. “Ruth—”
“Yes?”
“Stay in your room at the hotel and wait to hear from me. I’ll be back to you as soon as I can.”
“All right, Axel. But, hurry—!”
“I’ll hurry,” Lindgren said with grim sincerity, and hung up abruptly. He would have to find some excuse for having suddenly left the country without calling Ruth back, but at the moment that was the least of his worries. Escape came first. He came to his feet swiftly. “Wilten!”
“Sir?”
“Call Kastrup Airport. I want the first flight out on any line, to Rome, Amsterdam, London, Paris, Madrid—anyplace not in the eastern zone. Understand? I’ll check the lines for the one you arrange when I get there.” His tone also indicated that Wilten had better not foul up on this assignment if he knew what was good for him.
Wilten got the message. “Right away, sir.”
“If anyone calls or drops in, tell them I’ve just gone for a short drive and should be returning shortly. Tell them they can wait if they wish.” That should give him extra time.
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