had escaped.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The signals went out from Firestorm at midnight. Beaurain sent them in prearranged codes to Fondberg waiting in Stockholm, to Marker waiting at the strangely-shaped police headquarters in Copenhagen, and also to Chief Inspector Willy Flamen in Brussels.
By ten minutes after midnight the biggest dragnet ever launched on the continent was under way as detector vans and fleets of patrol cars waited for a spate of Syndicate transmissions. They started at exactly three in the morning. Fondberg phoned Beaurain over the ship's radio-telephone shortly afterwards.
'What was the significance of your timing?' the Swede asked.
'Because someone must have reached Bornholm about midnight. His first task would be to send a message warning what is left of the Syndicate of the catastrophe.'
'What catastrophe?'
'Wait for news from Bornholm tomorrow morning.'
'Anyway you were right! It's working!'
Fondberg sounded excited. All over Europe the detector vans were homing in on the sources of the mysterious transmissions — because for the first time they were not looking on the roads. They were concentrating on the waterways. And due to the emergency the transmissions were prolonged.
In Belgium, France and Holland, barges were being boarded as the Syndicate's radio operators were caught in the middle of transmitting. In Denmark, ships in the Oresund were being boarded. In Sweden, launches and cruisers on the waterways inside Stockholm were being raided. In Germany the barges were on the Rhine. And by launching synchronised attacks at precisely the same moment there was no opportunity for one section of the Syndicate to warn another. At one sweeping blow the entire communications system — without which the Syndicate could not operate — was wiped out.
'A fair-haired girl left the apartment at Radmansgatan 490 and took the airline bus to Arlanda. She is expected to arrive in Copenhagen at…'
Fondberg called Beaurain again on Firestorm as the vessel raced westward away from Bornholm, heading for the Oresund and Copenhagen. As arranged with Beaurain earlier, Fondberg had mounted a round-the-clock surveillance on the Radmansgatan apartment. Two of his men had followed her and, on arrival at Arlanda, they had watched her check in at the Scandinavian Airlines counter for the next flight to Copenhagen.
'… 08.30,' Fondberg continued. 'And the first Danair flight out of Bnne on Bornholm is Flight SK 262 departing Bonne at 08.10 and arriving Copenhagen at 08.40. Who do you expect to be aboard that aircraft?'
'Better you don't know, Harry,' Beaurain had replied. 'And thanks for the information on the blonde girl. Be in touch.'
He broke the connection on the radio-telephone and looked at Louise who had been listening in. She was frowning with perplexity.
'Blonde?' Louise queried. 'Can that be Sonia Karnell?'
'It can be — and it is,' Beaurain assured her as he rubbed his bloodshot eyes. When had he last slept? He couldn't be sure. 'A blonde wig,' he explained.
'Of course. God, I must be losing my grip. But I'm completely shattered. What did you mean by saying we must break the American connection before Harry Fondberg phoned? And who is flying into Copenhagen from Bornholm?'
'Answer both your questions when I'm sure.' Beau-rain took one of his sudden decisions.
'I think we'll get to Kastrup Airport ahead of everyone — we'll get Anderson to fly us there in the Sikorsky. And we'll take some back-up, including Stig.'
He checked his watch. Four o'clock in the morning. It had been daylight for over an hour and the sky had all the appearance of yet another glorious, cloudless day of mounting heat. They should be at Kastrup by five o'clock; there would be very little activity at that hour and — with a little luck — no-one to observe their arrival in the Danish capital.
They had passed perfunctorily through Customs and Immigration and were moving into the main reception hall when Louise stopped and gripped Beaurain's arm. Gently she pulled him back behind a pillar, then gestured with her head towards a closed bookstall. Beaurain peered cautiously round the pillar while Palme and the other three men froze behind them. Beaurain studied a man standing in profile by the bookstall, holding a magazine which he appeared to be reading.
'Ed Cottel,' he murmured.
The American connection,' Louise said.
They retreated out of the reception hall and deeper inside the airport buildings. Palme conducted his reconnaissance and returned with the news.
'They have troops all round the airport,' he reported. 'All possible exits are covered and we're heavily outnumbered. Men in cars apparently waiting for passengers. Men in taxis. There are two men out on the highway pretending to deal with a defective street lamp.'
'Where did you get the boiler suit from, Stig?' Louise asked.
Palme looked apologetic. 'I found a cleaner in the toilets,'
'You knocked him out cold and hid him in a closet,' Louise told him.
'Yes. But in this I was able to wander everywhere — especially when I was carrying the pail. No-one ever notices a man in a boiler suit carrying a pail,' Only Beaurain appeared unperturbed. Palme looked round to make sure they were unobserved, then produced from his jacket underneath the boiler suit three guns a Colt. 45, a Luger and a small 9-mm. pistol which Louise promptly grabbed as Beaurain took the Luger.
'The mechanic who handled the chopper when we landed here,' Palme explained, 'is a friend of mine and keeps weaponry for me so he can slip it to me after we've passed through what are pompously known as official channels,' 'Ed Cottel is going to take us out through his own troops,' said Louise. She took a firm grip on the pistol with her right hand and covered the weapon with her folded coat. 'Any objection?' she asked Beaurain.
'Go ahead,'
She walked briskly back into the main reception hall and Beaurain followed more casually. She made no attempt to conceal her presence and marched straight towards where Ed Cottel was still standing pretending to read his magazine. Not for the first time Beaurain admired her sheer nerve, her audacious tactics. She reached Cottel who looked up and spoke.
'Don't any of you leave the airport, Louise, for God's sake. It is surrounded by extremely professional killers.'
'Under this coat I have a gun aimed at you point-blank. Now, as a matter of academic interest, who are these killers?'
'They're the American connection,' said Cottel matter-of-factly. 'But that's not me. I guess I still have some explaining to do.'
Beaurain was behind her. He took Louise's arm and squeezed it.
'I'm going to use that payphone over there for a minute,' he said. 'While I'm doing it, why don't you two exchange experiences — and maybe it would be safer to walk back further inside the building complex and join Sag and the rest of them.'
They sat on a seat by themselves while Cottel explained it to Louise. A short distance away Palme kept watch. It had all started when Washington had asked Ed Cottel to come out of retirement and do one last job for them — track down the Telescope organisation. He had agreed and then at the last minute, when it was too late to substitute anyone else, had informed his superiors he was combining the Telescope mission with a personal investigation into the Stockholm Syndicate.
'When Harvey Sholto said 'What's that?' in front of certain top aides who are next to our President — and they all tried to look as though they didn't know what the hell I was talking about — I knew something was wrong. From that time on I was a marked target on a limited schedule,'
'What does that mean?' Louise asked.
