cigarette after cigarette and his button-like eyes gleamed with concentration. As he continued driving, staring through the tinted glasses at the unrolling highway, he felt under his armpit the comforting bulge of the Colt. 45 in its sprung holster. On the seat beside him an Armalite rifle was wrapped in a blanket. It was beginning to look as though his urgent mission decided on in Washington was almost completed.
For long stretches in the open country the E3 has no barrier protecting the flat farmland alongside — the road simply merges with the level grassland. Palme had hidden his Saab by driving straight off the deserted highway over the grass and parking his vehicle behind a copse of trees. When Beaurain appeared he waved to him to follow suit and waited to guide the other vehicles in the convoy off the highway.
'What's Ed doing?' Louise asked as Beaurain skilfully and slowly manoeuvred the ton-and-a-half of metal along the same route and behind the same copse.
'Doing his own thing — as usual,' Beaurain observed laconically.
The American continued along the highway and was soon out of sight beyond a curve. Overhead the traffic helicopter had appeared again, the machine carrying Harry Fondberg.
'Lose altitude,' Fondberg ordered, sitting in the seat alongside the pilot. He rested his elbows on the arms of his seat to give stability and focused his high-powered binoculars on the Renault which had earlier stopped for a brief consultation with Jules Beaurain.
'Got you.' Fondberg made a note of the registration number and then told the pilot to regain height. His next focus of interest was the convoy of vehicles leaving the road, ploughing over the grass and assembling behind a copse of trees to form a laager. It seemed to the chief of Sapo that interesting developments were about to take place.
Concerned with the movement of the convoy out of sight behind the trees, Fondberg missed the passage of a beige Volvo driven by a man wearing a straw hat. Having noted where the vehicles had left the road — and also aware of the traffic helicopter overhead — Harvey Sholto proceeded at a sedate pace along E3 until he was out of sight beyond the bend.
One of those old-fashioned houses… Gables and bulging windows like they used to build… must be at least fifty years old…
Concealed with the others behind a second copse of trees, Palme used his left hand to scratch at his crew- cut. The murdered locksmith had been incredibly accurate when he described both place and location. The house was just where he had expected to find it. It looked like the house in Psycho.
Even Palme, who was not overly sensitive to atmosphere, felt there was something distinctly wrong with the place.
'I don't like it,' he told Beaurain who stood alongside him with Jock Henderson just beyond. The Belgian was scanning the place with his own field glasses. He was inclined to agree. It looked a little too damned quiet. Curtains at all the windows, half-drawn to keep out the strong sunlight the way people do to protect rugs and carpets — or when they are away.
The steps up to the open veranda had a rickety look and the paint was peeling, but the rest of the house looked in good condition. The tarred drive ran straight up to the base of the steps and then curved round the right-hand side of the house. On the same side there was the silhouette, partially masked by the trees, of an ancient outhouse.
'Any sign of occupation?' Louise whispered.
There was something about the atmosphere of the place which encouraged whispering, something about the heavy, hot silence which hung like a cloud over the strange building.
'Can't see a damned thing,' Beaurain said as he lowered his glasses, but there was a lack of conviction in his voice. 'What do you think?' he asked.
'I don't like it,' Palme repeated and again scratched his head with his left hand; his right was holding a loaded machine-pistol.
'I suggest we surround it first, sir,' Henderson suggested crisply. 'Then move in from all sides at an agreed moment. There's a drainage ditch just behind us with grass grown up all round it — a perfect conduit if we wriggle on our bellies and head for the rear of the house and then circle round.'
'There's a lake not far away,' Palme observed. 'A lot of them in this area. This one's reasonably large.' He showed the map to Beaurain, who made a remark he was later to regret.
'Can't be of any significance. I agree, Jock, we approach with extreme caution. Surround the place and then move in from all sides. Jock, get it organised and get it moving!'
The 'traffic' helicopter with Harry Fondberg aboard had flown away some distance and when Louise shaded her eyes against the glare of the sun she saw it as little more than a speck. Fondberg was deliberately moving out of the battle area so as not to alert the opposition. Louise stood behind the trees which concealed them from the highway, staring again at the house through her field glasses.
Henderson and his team of twelve armed gunners, equipped with walkie-talkies, had already disappeared along the drainage ditch. Watching the grasses above the ditch Beaurain could not see the slightest sign of movement. He just hoped that from an upper window in the house it was not possible to see down into the ditch. He heard an exclamation from Louise, who had moved a few yards away and was still surveying the general area of the house. He joined her.
'What is it?'
'When Stig was interviewing that locksmith in his shop didn't he say he'd seen a Volvo station wagon with American diplomatic plates?'
'Yes, he tried to follow the car on its way into Stockholm and lost it. Why?' There was a note of impatience in Beaurain's tone.
'Because parked behind the house there is a Volvo station wagon the only thing is the diplomatic plates are Russian, not American.'
'Seiger must have been so terrified he tried to hold back some of the truth. And that car means someone is inside that house!'
Chapter Eighteen
Dr. Theodor Norling stared from behind the curtain of the first-floor window. There were gaps in the sea of grass alongside the drainage ditch and there he had seen the approaching men slithering along like snakes on their bellies.
He had just collected what he had come for — a sheaf of red folders which had been concealed beneath a trap-door on the ground floor. Now they were safely inside his brief-case, and he had to get away. The upper part of his body was clad in a loose-fitting hunting jacket with capacious pockets. He was holding the brief-case in his left hand; his right hand dug into one of the pockets and felt the hard metal pineapples — grenades.
Swiftly he left the room and darted down the curving staircase. The place was almost empty, barely furnished, and the heels of his shoes echoed throughout the house as he descended.
The furniture which did exist was of a curious nature. Under each window stood a large box which might have been mistaken for an old-fashioned radiator. They were nothing of the sort. Before leaving the ghostly house Norling was careful to collect a compact device with a red button and a slide. He raised the miniature aerial and moved the slide across into the 'active' position. He now had to be very careful not to depress the red button too early.
Outside he ducked behind the parked Volvo and ran under cover of some trees to cross the ditch where it turned and continued behind the house. As he had hoped the ditch was empty; the first man had not yet reached the corner. Behind him he was leaving a powder keg.
Crouched low, he was now moving directly away from the house and the highway, taking advantage of every piece of natural cover: a patch of undergrowth, a group of trees, an outcrop of granite rearing up out of the earth. When he reached the outcrop he stopped, climbing up a small ravine and peering cautiously over the rim.
Some distance behind him the blue waters of a lake rippled and glittered in the sun like mercury. This was the lake which Beaurain had thought couldn't be of any significance. From the summit of the granite crag Norling
