Deadlock

'They'll be dead by now.'

His next stop was at the hotel where Marler was staying under an assumed name. Unlike Hipper and Chabot, Marler was fully dressed.

'I had a hunch you'd turn up tonight,' he drawled.

'Why?' There was a whiplash in Klein's tone, his suspicion surfacing instantly.

'After hanging about forever in Bouillon you suddenly start moving me about like a chess piece. Obvious conclusion? We are about to start the operation. Where to now?'

'You leave at once. You've had bad news…'

'Maybe that's true…'

'I don't like jokes. Drive to Rotterdam. A room has been reserved at the Hilton. In the name Harvey Miller. I want you there by morning.'

'Piece of cake…'

Still fuming, Klein left and drove back to the district where the Plaza was located. Marler always managed to irk him. He drove round, studying the layout until he came to a one-way street – traffic to come the other way only. A straight street and deserted at that hour. He checked his map. The ideal place to shake off whoever was watching Lara.

He pulled in by a call box, got out and dialled the Plaza's number, asking for Lara by the name she'd registered under. She sounded surprisingly alert. He began talking about nothing in particular, like a boy friend calling, then his voice changed.

'Stop listening to our conversation. Get off the bloody line or I'll report you to the manager…'

There was a click. On the switchboard the bored night operator swore. How the hell had the caller guessed?

Klein then gave her specific instructions as to what to do. He rang off, went back to the car.

He reached the Plaza earlier than he'd expected, pulling in at the kerb a distance behind the cab which was still parked in the same place.

His eyes narrowed as he saw Lara, carrying her case, walking back up the street and going back inside the Plaza. Checking his watch, Klein saw he was five minutes early. Why was she wandering about?

Precisely five minutes later Lara reappeared, walking down the street in the opposite direction, again carrying her case. The cab started up, crawling after her. Klein tapped fingers on the wheel, waiting. She was almost out of sight when he started the car, drove forward at speed.

The Parrot saw the BMW pass his cab at high speed. It pulled in alongside Lara, who hauled open the passenger seat door, jumped inside, and the BMW sped off. 'Don't lose that car!' The Parrot called out to his driver.

'All right, all right. He's exceeding the limit…'

'There's a big tip to keep up,'

The cab driver increased speed. The BMW was still in sight. It braked suddenly, swung left into a side street, accelerated. Arriving at the entrance the cab driver stopped.

'Can't follow him up there. One-way street…'

'Follow him! Here…" The Parrot shoved a handful of banknotes at the driver. 'That makes it worth your while…'

'Nothing makes it worth my while to lose my licence. Meet a patrol car and…' The driver glanced down the street. 'In any case, he's gone.'

The Parrot followed his gaze. The street was empty. Yes, blast it, he'd gone.

A short while earlier at Park Crescent the call had come through to Monica. In the middle of the ruddy night. She'd hauled from a cupboard Tweed's camp bed, fixed it up with blankets and a pillow. She'd just laid her head on that pillow when the phone rang.

Switching on the table lamp she'd perched against the back of a chair, she reached for the phone. Sitting up straight she suppressed a yawn, then came awake suddenly. It was Olympus.

'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.