Rashkin gave a gulp and a grimace of pain. Beau-rain had tapped his Adam's apple with the Luger. Then he smiled, a smile which was grotesque because it reflected the pain. But the will-power which had enabled him to come so far still showed. With an immense effort he spoke the words.
'You cannot touch me. I am Viktor Rashkin. I am First Secretary at the Soviet Embassy in Stockholm. I have diplomatic immunity.'
'He's carrying a French passport in the name of Louis Garnet,' Sonia Karnell screamed. 'I can testify against him. He's a mass murderer.'
'Oh, I agree,' Beaurain interrupted. He searched Rashkin carefully for weapons and extracted from an inner pocket a French passport. Karnell had been telling the truth. It was made out in the name of Louis Garnet. He returned it to the Russian's pocket.
'But I agree,' he said. 'Viktor Rashkin has diplomatic immunity and is, therefore, untouchable.' Keeping his Luger aimed at Rashkin he stared again through the window, and Louise saw he was looking across the basin to where Ed Cottel stood in front of the house where Harvey Sholto had positioned himself. Pulling back the curtain, Beaurain showed himself. Cottel gave a thumbs up gesture, which seemed to combine the signal for all's well with a gesture pointing towards the window of the room where Sholto's body lay. Rashkin watched him like a cat but he did not see the American or his gesture.
'You know where the front door is,' Beaurain told him.
Rashkin did not hesitate. He gave Sonia Karnell a glance which terrified her, then left the room. They heard him open the front door, close it and run down the steps. Beaurain beckoned Louise to join him at the window. Karnell seized her chance to run out into the hallway and up the stairs. There was a rear exit from the building, a flight of iron steps which was the fire escape leading to the cobbled yard. In the library Beaurain gripped Louise's arm.
'Let her go.'
'But she'll get away. She tried to kill me.'
'No-one is going anywhere. The whole of Nyhavn is sealed off. And from the front window of the room above this one Stig — with a pair of binoculars — got a good view of the position in the room across the way.'
Outside Viktor Rashkin had run down the steps and walked rapidly to his parked Volkswagen. He was confident his reference to diplomatic immunity had checkmated the Belgian. Slipping behind the wheel of his car he switched on the engine, started the wipers to clear drizzle from the windscreen and backed to a bridge crossing over the basin.
At the far end of Nyhavn where he had planned to turn right for the city centre he had seen a cordon of cars blocking the route. He crossed the bridge and turned down the other side of Nyhavn.
He pulled up in front of the building where Harvey Sholto had settled himself in position to take out Ed Cottel. As the Russian left the car he saw again what he had spotted in his rear view mirror on entering his car — another cordon closing off the other end of the basin. What he overlooked was Ed Cottel concealed in a nearby basement area. He was Beaurain's backup — in case the Belgian's basic plan didn't work out.
Beaurain and Louise continued watching from the library window. 'Rashkin saw that both ends of the street are blocked so now he's gone into his safe house to decide his next move,' Beaurain commented. He turned as Palme came into the room.
'There has been a tragedy,' the Swede said with a wooden face. 'The Karnell woman tried to get away via the fire escape. She was in a hurry — somehow she lost her balance on the top step and went all the way down. I am afraid she is dead. Her neck is broken. What is happening to Benny Horn?'
'I don't know.' The words were hardly out of Beaurain's mouth before he jerked his head round to stare at the house opposite.
Inside the house, Viktor Rashkin, whose whole success in life had hinged on his supreme self-confidence, his conviction that he was capable of out manoeuvring any opponent on earth, had run up the stairs with his springy step. He reached the door leading into the room, pushed it wide open and stood framed in the doorway.
Harvey Sholto was not dead, although he had taken terrible punishment from the fusillade of bullets Max Kellerman had fired up at the window. Since then, as more blood seeped onto the sofa onto which he dragged himself, he had been waiting with the Armalite rifle propped in readiness, the muzzle aimed at the door, his finger inside the trigger guard.
The door flew open, a man stood there, a blurred silhouette, the silhouette of the man on the fishing vessel who had emptied half a magazine into him. He pressed the trigger. The bullet struck Viktor Rashkin in the chest. He reeled backwards, broke through the flimsy banister rail and toppled all the way down to the hall below. He was dead before he was half-way down.
Later
The Baron de Graer, president of the Banque du Nord of Brussels, arrived in Copenhagen by plane the same afternoon as the events just described took place in Nyhavn. He met Jules Beaurain, Louise Hamilton and Ed Cottel in a suite at the Royal Hotel. At the request of Beaurain he handed to Cottel photocopies of a whole series of bank statements, many emanating from highly-respected establishments in the Bahamas, Brussels and Luxembourg City. They showed in detail the movements of millions of dollars transferred via complex routes from certain American conglomerates to the Stockholm Syndicate.
'I'll take these at once, if I may,' Cottel said, and left for another part of the hotel. The reporter he had earlier contacted from the Washington Post had just arrived and wished to fly back to Washington the same night with the photocopies.
'People are impressed with documents, Jules,' the Baron said as he drank the black coffee Louise had poured.
'Documents can be concocted to say anything you want them to say. But print them in a newspaper and they are taken for gospel.'
'It's the end result that counts,' Beaurain agreed.
Ed Cottel also returned to Washington the same evening. In addition to the incriminating bank statements, he had handed the reporter photocopies of the contents of the red file Viktor Rashkin had dropped from his brief- case when disguised as Norling he had fled in his float-plane from the devastated house outside the Swedish capital. The file named names — the company executives of American and European conglomerates who had approved the contributions to the Stockholm Syndicate. Unfortunately many were financial supporters of the President of the United States.
In Copenhagen Superintendent Marker was spared any hint of an international incident since the dead body of Viktor Rashkin was in due course buried as that of an unknown Frenchman, Louis Garnet, identified by the passport found on him. The same neat solution also was applied to the man armed with the Armalite rifle. Marker did later hint to an exceptionally inquisitive reporter that information from Paris led him to believe the deaths of the two Frenchmen were a gangland killing, something to do with the Union Corse. The reporter filed his story but it never appeared; a plane crash with a high casualty rate took over the space instead.
On 4 November in the United States the incumbent president was defeated in a landslide victory by his opponent. Much of the credit for the victory was laid at the door of the Post reporter who had, after a relentless search, come up with evidence suggesting the holier-than-thou occupant of the White House had not lived up to his image.
