near the port of Trelleborg. That's a blind. The real conference takes place aboard the Soviet hydrofoil, Kometa. All the leading European financiers, industrialists and politicians who have become members will be taken out aboard power-boats and cruisers from Trelleborg — to meet their American counterparts. They are moving out of Stockholm at this very moment.'
'By what route?'
'Mostly by air. Some aboard scheduled flights from Arlanda to Malmo and then on by car. Others will use smaller and private planes to get them to an airstrip close to their destination.' He began pacing restlessly round the room. 'This Hugo has to be identified and hunted down, Jules. He is the real leader and yet no-one has ever seen his face.'
'But we have heard of him,' Beaurain said soothingly. 'When is this summit due to take place?'
'Hugo — whoever he is — has chosen a curious time. Once on board Kometa the visitors will be taken on a short voyage it will take place between 20.50 hours and 2.43 the following morning, which coincides tomorrow precisely with the few hours of darkness at this time of the year.'
'And you have no idea at all even remotely who Hugo might be?' Beaurain pressed.
De Graer threw up his hands in a gesture of frustration. 'Do you think I have not asked myself that question a thousand times and more?'
'How long have you known these details of the summit conference?' asked Beaurain.
'A message came through on the telephone less than an hour ago. The short notice is obviously deliberate — to give no time to react.'
'Who phoned — a man or a woman?'
'I'm pretty sure it was that girl who phoned me when I was in Brussels. The one I called Madame.'
'Always it is a woman, a girl, who makes these phone calls,' Beaurain said reflectively. He looked at the Baron. 'I cannot thank you enough for the information you have provided. Can I take it that under no circumstances will you attend this meeting on board Kometa?'
De Graer stopped pacing and grasped Beaurain's arm. 'I only came here to see if I could help. I am now catching the first flight back from Arlanda to Brussels — but I am taking the precaution of booking my ticket only when I get to Arlanda. No-one except yourself will then know of my departure.'
'Very wise. Take care.' Beaurain shook the old warrior by the hand. 'Louise and I will be leaving for Trelleborg shortly. That is all I am going to tell you.'
Descending in the hotel's splendid lift with its red leather padding and gilt-framed mirrors which seemed to go so well with the world of the Baron de Graer — Beaurain pondered on what the banker had said. Who, he wondered, really was Hugo?
Chapter Nineteen
The short time before Beaurain's departure for Trelleborg was packed with activity. Beaurain was preparing very carefully for the final clash between Telescope and the Stockholm Syndicate.
His temporary headquarters was the interior of a laundry van, a mobile headquarters Palme kept in reserve in a garage in Stockholm. Similar mobile headquarters inside a variety of vehicles were available in every country in Western Europe. The interior of the laundry van was fully equipped with a high-powered transceiver, a telescopic aerial, maps of every major province in Sweden, charts of the seas offshore, and long-life rations. The van was parked in a side street close to the Grand Hotel.
As Beaurain, sitting on a flap seat at the rear of the van, read signals which had come in from Firestorm at sea, Louise stood by his shoulder. Some time earlier, Palme had driven off in his Saab to Radmansgatan 490. Beaurain's instructions had been simple and direct.
'If the place is empty, rip it apart. I don't know what we're looking for — something unusual, something you feel doesn't fit in with a normal middle class Swedish girl's way of life, something Norling keeps in that apartment.'
' Firestorm is lying off Trelleborg,' Louise remarked.
'Bucky Buckminster is doing exactly what I told him to keeping below the horizon and using his chopper to mount a series of recces.'
'Well, they've found both the liner Silvia and the Soviet hydrofoil Kometa.'
'Yes, and the significant thing is that Kometa is situated a few miles further out to sea and due south of Silvia. So any power-cruiser ferrying VIPs from Trelleborg to Kometa can make it appear from shore that it is Silvia they are heading for.'
'Will it be a savage encounter?' Louise asked quietly.
'I expect a most brutal and bloody clash with no quarter given on either side. This is an organisation with billions behind it, with men of enormous influence involved. They live in a world all their own where the only thing that counts is the maximum profit. Look at the horror of the Elsinore Massacre — and that was just to make sure one man — one man! — didn't reach us with information. I'm not too happy about any of it.'
'Why?' asked Louise. She watched him while he lit a cigarette and took only a few puffs before stubbing it out. One of the disadvantages of holding a meeting inside a stationary laundry van.
'I think Hugo may have gone over the edge,' Beaurain told her.
'You mean…'
'Hugo still, I'm convinced, has his first-class brain functioning perfectly. It's just that he no longer takes human life into account at all.'
'What's going to happen?'
As if on cue, there was a rapping on one of the rear doors, Palme's signal that he had returned from the apartment on Radmansgatan. Checking through the one-way glass window in the door, Louise released the latch and the Swede scrambled inside. He was holding a blue cloth bag.
'Something very peculiar,' were his first words.
'Which is?' Beaurain prompted him.
'This bag — hidden where women always think no-one will ever look,' Palme said laconically. 'In a recess on top of a wardrobe well above eye level. Contents are interesting.'
Beaurain took the bag and burrowed inside. Two items were neatly stored inside plastic envelopes. They were American passports and when Beaurain showed them to Louise they saw that the photographs and details of the holders were still to be added. 'Final proof and the mystery deepens,' was his tantalising observation.
'Very illuminating…' Louise began.
'We have to make one more visit to Harry Fondberg, another to Ed Cottel, then we all make our way to Trelleborg by different routes and modes of transport. Scheduled air flights, cars — this laundry van must go as our mobile headquarters — and some can go direct to Firestorm by boat. Inform Jock to organise the move south fast,' he told Palme.
From Harry Fondberg's office at police headquarters, Beaurain used the phone to call both Willy Flamen and Bodel Marker. Fondberg and Louise sat listening to his conversations and Fondberg smoked another of his cigars as he listened and nodded his approval. Eventually Beaurain put down the phone after making his last call.
'You'll all have to collaborate very closely and get the timing synchronised right across Western Europe,' he warned Harry Fondberg. 'You heard me arrange with Willy to co-ordinate with Wieshaden for Germany and with Paris — and Bodel Marker links up with Amsterdam. God knows they have enough water in Holland.'
'It will be the biggest mass-arrest Europe has ever seen,' Fondberg promised Beaurain. 'And it will happen everywhere at the same time, as soon as the next set of signals start transmitting — you predict tomorrow about midnight.'
Beaurain stood up. 'And now Louise and I must get moving.' He hesitated before he continued.
'We have an appointment which concerns the American connection.'
'The American connection?' Fondberg was puzzled.
'Yes. It's the key to the whole evil system.'
*
The rendezvous with Ed Cottel took place late in the evening at a remote spot off Highway E3 which leads
