'Monica? Good. I'm in a rush. It isn't Antwerp. Could be Europort, Rotterdam. Could be. Got it?'
Then he – she – Monica couldn't even guess at the sex of the caller, was gone. She stood up, lifted the phone, padded over to the desk in her stockinged feet and sat down. She had to call Grand'Place, Brussels. Urgently.
Grand-Pierre stood on the bridge of the coaster with Portch and Caleb Fox. Eight of the crew were dead, bodies dumped in the engine room. He watched from the window on the port side where one of his team was operating the deck winch, swinging over the side the last load in its net down to the waiting lighter.
The other two lighters had been loaded and had left, on their way to the Dutch coast with their deadly cargo. Grand-Pierre was sweating. He'd had a busy night.
Earlier he had driven from Delft to Schiphol Airport to meet Kurt Saur, the Austrian pilot, when he landed the two Sikorsky helicopters, now safely tucked away at a remote corner of the airfield. Saur and his co-pilot, with the two-man crew of the second machine, were sleeping at a hotel near the airport.
Grand-Pierre had then driven – often exceeding the speed limit – along the magnificent highway to Rotterdam where he had boarded one of the three lighters. They had immediately put to sea. Before unloading started the huge Frenchman had descended to the coaster's hold. With the aid of a torch he had searched for a small crate marked with a minute blue cross at one corner. While Portch chatted with Fox on the bridge he had taken the small crate from the hold and made his way to the engine room.
Stepping over the huddle of corpses at the foot of the ladder, he had placed the crate in a certain position in the hold. Using a screwdriver and chisel, he had eased off one side of the crate. Inside it was packed with straw.
Locating the bomb, he had turned a switch which activated the radio waveband. The control box he carried concealed in a pocket of his windcheater was already adjusted to precisely the same waveband.
'Easy this time compared to the Lesbos,' he said to Portch on the bridge.
'Yes, indeed,' Portch replied in French. That was a… messy business…'
Again they had transferred the explosives in the middle of the night well out in the North Sea. Earlier, in Rotterdam, Portch had laced the British crew's bottles of drink with a mild dose of sedative, enough to put them all to sleep. He had diagnosed food poisoning and they had been put to bed in a seamen's hostel.
A waiting crew of Algerians collected by Grand-Pierre took over duty on the coaster for that crossing to Blakeney. In the middle of the night the rendezvous had been made with the Lesbos. The Greek crew had packed the bombs inside the empty crates supposed to contain Portch's furniture – already packed in as few crates as possible.
Grand-Pierre had opened the stop-cocks of the Lesbos after being lowered over the side to change the name of the ship. Earlier he had shot the Greek crew, bound the bodies in heavy chains and thrown them overboard where the waters of the North Sea were deep.
The only thing which had gone wrong was the Lesbos had refused to sink, had been washed ashore on a sandbank near Brancaster, driven there by one of the sudden storms which blow up in the North Sea.
Here again Klein's meticulous attention to detail had paid off. He had instructed Grand-Pierre to lower all lifeboats into the sea and then hole them. It was later presumed the missing crew had perished in the same storm which had driven the Lesbos on to the sandbank.
'What happened to those work-shy Algerians?' Fox asked. 'The authorities accepted our story that all my crew had been taken sick – especially when it was backed up by Dr Portch.'
'What do you think?' Grand-Pierre lit a small cigar. 'They went back to Marseilles.' He paused while he puffed the cigar. 'They're all twenty fathoms down off the coast of Cassis – with concrete boots to keep them there. Can't trust the bastards.'
'And now,' Portch suggested, seeing the third lighter had completed loading, 'isn't it time we left this ship? For the last time.' Behind Fox's back he exchanged a look with Grand-Pierre.
'And where will you be ending up, Doctor, when it's all over?' enquired Fox. 'Buenos Aires? Or shouldn't I…'
He broke off as he felt something hard and metallic press into his left shoulder blade. Grand-Pierre pulled the trigger of the Luger. Fox was hurled against the chart table, fell forward, lay still, hands and arms sprawled over it.
'He really thought he was coming with us,' Portch said and he giggled.
'Can't afford loose ends,' replied Grand-Pierre, who had picked up the phrase from Klein. 'Let's leave. After you, Doctor. No, on second thoughts, give me a hand to carry him to the engine room.'
'Is that necessary, seeing that…'
'Klein's orders. Leave them all in the engine room, close to the bomb. Very tidy man, Mr Klein. You look thoughtful.'
'Seeing Fox lying there like that I was remembering the night that American, Lee Foley, killed those people at Cockley Ford who wouldn't agree to our plan – no matter how much money they stood to make. Then, of course, Klein had to deal with Mr Foley. I wonder if anyone will ever discover the secret of the seventh grave in the churchyard.'
'Let's move the body,' the Frenchman said impatiently.
They carried it between them, Grand-Pierre lifting the shoulders while Portch carried the legs. The helping hands were welcome to the Frenchman, who was feeling tired after his night's exertions. Standing on the platform above the engine room, they swung the body outwards, let go. It fell on top of the others.
'I'm glad that's over,' Portch remarked. 'Amazing how heavy a corpse can be.'
'I agree,' said Grand-Pierre. To be avoided wherever possible.'
He pulled out his Luger, rammed it into Portch's chest, fired twice. Portch grunted, doubled up, fell backwards.
Grand-Pierre waited until the lighter had sailed at least two nautical miles from the drifting coaster. It was still dark but his eyes had become accustomed to the night as he took out the control box. His thumb paused over the button. Were they far enough away? Of course they were. He was fatigued. He pressed the button.
There was a muffled boom. Nothing dramatic. Like the sound of a train approaching through a tunnel. Then the world blew up. The coaster exploded into a myriad fragments. There was an ear-splitting roar. A red flame shot into the sky like a rocket. The flame was extinguished by a giant fountain which hurtled vertically, a plume of surf rising upwards. The sea boiled where the vessel had floated. A vibration struck the lighter. For a few seconds, hanging to a deck rail, Grand-Pierre thought the lighter was capsizing as a massive wave rolled it.
Silence. The crew was awestruck. They gazed at each other, thankful to have survived. And that, Grand- Pierre reminded himself, was the smallest of the bombs and sea-mines.
41
It was when Lara was sitting alongside Klein in the BMW that she realized she'd lost interest in him. All passion spent – wasn't that the phrase? Strange how suddenly all feeling was gone, leaving a vacuum. But in the case of Klein it was good to be tree of him emotionally.
The trick now was not to let him know she thought as she gazed at the flatlands in the headlight beams. They had crossed into Holland without any problems and were now beyond Roosendaal; well on the way to Rotterdam. As though reading her mind, Klein glanced at her. his complexion drained of colour.
'In Rotterdam you stay at the Hotel Central on Kruis-kade – just down the street from the Hilton. It's as central as its name implies, and not far from police headquarters.'
That's a good idea?'
'Yes. The police never expect to find suspects under their noses. And by the way, you register as Miss Eva Winter.'
Klein smiled to himself as they crossed a reclaimed polder. Miss Winter. It rather suited the grisly role he'd allocated for her to play.
The Alouette was just crossing the frontier into Holland as Benoit returned from the pilot's cabin. Tweed sat by the window with Newman alongside and Butler in front. Tweed was restless, Newman sensed, although he sat
