Deadlock

'Hang? Hanging. Yes, that is part of the scenario you will see unfold.'

The hairs on the back of Tweed's neck crawled. The cruelty of this man was limitless. What was he talking about? Klein was talking again.

'A warning. The majority of my men are not inside this tower. They are watching those ships. Do not try to find them. They are in radio communication all the time. Do not attempt to disembark one passenger or crewman from any of the ships. Do not attempt to smuggle out naval bomb disposal scuba divers to any ship. Do not attempt to interfere with my communications with jamming equipment. Do not let anyone go near the cream command vehicle a few yards from where you stand. Do not interfere with the lighting or power of Euromast. If any of these instructions are disobeyed I press the red button.'

'Any more suggestions?'

'Tell the Dutch to search for two fishing vessels abandoned offshore west of the mouth of the Maas. The Utrecht and the Drenthe. Their crews will confirm I have done what I have told you. And no craft of any kind must move on the Maas. The go-between who will arrange for the bullion to be loaded aboard the transport aircraft at Frankfurt is Peter Brand, the Belgian banker. Banque Sambre. Understood?'

'Seems clear enough.'

'You will come back here in precisely four hours from now. At 3 a.m. You will then be told the destination of the Hercules carrying the bullion.'

'Governments have to be consulted…'

'One thing more,' the chilling voice continued. 'The British Sealink ferry was delayed docking at the Hook of Holland by the presence of so much shipping. It waited off shore. That ferry is also mined. It must not move from its present position.'

'If you say so. You could be bluffing,'

Tweed maintained the same casual, offhand tone he had kept up during the long deadly dialogue, still hoping to provoke Klein into saying the wrong thing. He appeared at long last to have irked his enemy.

'Tweed! You still do not seem to have fully grasped the enormity of what faces you. Before you go, perhaps this will help to convince you.'

Klein stepped back from the rail, nodded to two of his men who crouched below the rail. They heaved up the bodies of the two detectives shot in the restaurant and heaved them over the edge, dropping them three hundred feet.

The first body hit the steps a dozen yards from where Tweed was standing. Hit the concrete like a sack of cement with a soft thud. The second corpse sailed out a few feet further, sank like rock, head first. Tweed clearly heard the crack of the skull splitting open. He felt sick, then a cold fury.

'One final demonstration,' Klein called out.

The giant dredger, Ameland, had continued its work of scooping the bed of the Maas clear of silt late with the aid of lights. Now the eighteen-man crew were snatching a quick meal below as the massive hulk began moving from the middle of the Maas on its way to its berthing dock. It moved very slowly and a mile away two men sat in a dinghy offshore from a breakwater watching.

One man had a pair of night-glasses focused on the Ameland, the other nursed a compact powerful transceiver in his large lap. Both Luxembourgers were dressed as seamen. Beyond the breakwater onshore a Saab was parked in the wilderness of scrub and sand. The man with the transceiver checked his watch by its illuminated face and gave his companion a nudge.

'Soon now. Any moment…'

He never finished his sentence. There was a muffled thump – it was a small sea-mine. A brief flash of light which lasted seconds. The dredger shuddered as though struck by a giant's hammer, listed, tilted at a more extreme angle. The scoop at the tip of the metal arm performed a slow arc. The dredger upended, held its distorted angle for a moment, then the whole vessel split in two and sank beneath the surface. Thirty seconds had elapsed since the mine was detonated. No survivors.

'The demonstration has taken place,' Klein announced. 'Near the mouth of the Maas the dredger Ameland has just been sunk in mid-channel.' He removed his thumb from button number two, moved it above the red button.

Tweed stood very still, staring upwards. He recalled watching the dredger at work when they had driven out with Van Gorp to the North Sea.

'What about the crew?' he said into the mike.

'I imagine they are enjoying life with the fishes – twenty fathoms down.' His voice became more piercing through the amplifier. 'The Maas is now partially blocked to shipping of any size. If necessary, other mined ships inside the river will also go down. The gateway to Europe will be closed. You have until three in the morning, Tweed. Any more questions?'

Tweed walked back to the police van, handed back the microphone to the driver, then at a brisk pace made his way back to where Newman still waited, rifle aimed at the Euromast platform.

48

'It happened,' Van Gorp informed Tweed. 'The Ameland has been sunk in mid-channel. A danger to the largest ships wishing to reach Europort.'

They were sitting round a table in the HQ building. Newman, Paula, Butler, Jansen and Benoit. The room was bleak and sparsely furnished. Van Gorp had explained it was in the process of renovation. Coffee had been brought in from an improvised kitchen.

'How many crew on board the dredger?' Tweed asked.

'Eighteen. All drowned.'

'And those two bodies lying at the base of Euromast are your men?'

'Yes. The two detectives I placed in the restaurant. I asked over the phone via the police van for permission to collect them while you were on your way back up here. Permission was refused, the brutal bastard.'

'Tactics again,' Tweed said quietly. 'I know Klein now. His policy is to show no mercy.'

'And he tried to break your will,' Newman observed.

Tried very hard. My technique of baiting him with a casual attitude did make him talk too much. The unknown is the most terrifying. Now we know he has the box – that he can sink all those ships. So there must be no overt action. Yet.'

'Your SAS team is due shortly,' Van Gorp reminded him. 'What do they do?'

'Take up the quarters assigned to them. Blade will continue to act as our liaison with them. You'll never see their faces or that of the commander of the Sabre Troop,' he added, covering Blade's real role.

'You know Klein better than any of us. What do we do?' asked Van Gorp.

'We give in. Accept his demands. Let him have the bullion.' Tweed spread his hands. 'What else can we do? He may soon sink the Otranto to show he means business. My PM will support me.'

'I thought she never gave in,' Van Gorp commented.

'You heard what he said. He can close down Europe -simply by sinking more ships he must have mined inside the Maas. Look at the vast amount of supplies from abroad which come in via Europort – or sail on direct up the Rhine. Germany is very vulnerable. So is Switzerland and Austria. Holland as well. And it's two-way traffic. Think of the huge volume of exports travelling all over the world via Europort. Look at the amount of oil which comes in by this route. Antwerp can't take the extra load – it's working to full capacity already.'

'We could organize an airlift,' Jansen suggested. 'Like the famous 1948 airlift into Berlin.'

'That was to keep one city going. And they only just managed it. We are talking about half a continent. To say nothing of the lives of all those people aboard the ships waiting in the North Sea. No,' Tweed said emphatically, 'we give in. I had better tell Klein briefly now to keep him quiet. Where is this phone linked to your van outside Euromast?'

'In the next room. You just pick it up, speak to the driver and you're through to the speaker mounted on the van's roof. While you were out there talking to him I've made a number of brief phone calls. Bonn, The Hague, Berne and Paris have been alerted. They're talking already, thinking of calling a conference.'

'No time.' Tweed was abrupt as he stood up. 'Klein will not wait. And there are a lot of decisions to take when I've told him of our decision.'