Deadlock

'I'll attend to it now,' Van Gorp replied.

He stood up and went up the staircase on to the roof. He was back very quickly. 'All clear. Warn them to crouch low – it is probable Klein has men with glasses scanning all the surrounding buildings.'

They'd do that anyway, but thanks. I've been asked to stay in their quarters while they're away – to guard certain special equipment.'

He glanced at Tweed and disappeared into the anteroom. 'Do we stay?' asked Jansen. 'I've heard no one ever sees their faces.'

'I don't think you will,' observed Tweed, 'so I'd have some more coffee and stay where you are.'

There was a delay of only a few minutes. Only Tweed realized Blade was changing into his SAS gear before he led the troop to the rooftop. The anteroom door opened without warning and Paula gave a gasp, her hand flying to her throat.

A file of men padded into the room, moving past the table at either end. To Paula they seemed incredibly sinister. They moved so silently. Each man was wearing a Balaclava helmet shrouded with a camouflage net so only the eyes showed. They were clad in complete battle gear and most wore a series of canvas pouches attached round their waists. Most carried an ugly-looking squat sub-machine gun but three were armed with rifles. They slithered through the room like ghosts and were gone as Tweed led them upstairs.

'Oh, my God,' Paula said, 'I wouldn't like to have them after me. What was that funny gun most of them carried?'

'A 9 mm Ingram MAC 11. Has a range of a hundred and fifty feet, equipped with a collapsible stock. Fires at the rate of six hundred rounds a minute. The magazine takes forty rounds,' Van Gorp explained.

'Sounds deadly.'

'It is. And some of them had the type of Browning automatic we gave Butler before he left for Findel. That has an effective range of two hundred feet. Those boys are really tooled up for action…'

'I counted fifteen men.'

'A formidable force…'

Out on the roof Tweed crouched low and ran for the wall with an agility which surprised Blade, close behind in his battle gear. They squatted on their haunches behind the wall as the rest of the troop spread out on either side. Blade had Tweed on his right, his deputy to his left.

'Get the picture, Eddie?' he asked. 'And if anything happens to me you take your orders from Tweed. No move to be made without his sanction. Well, there's the target. How does it look to you?'

Eddie peered through the mounted telescope, adjusted the focus, swivelled the instrument very slowly, stopping, moving on. He lowered the angle to study the entrance at the top of ihe steps.

'We've tackled worse,' he replied eventually. 'Main problem is it's isolated – no buildings close enough to operate from – and we won't be scaling that tower.'

'How would you go about it then?'

'You've explained the interior. Divide the troop into a couple of sections. One storms the entrance, clears the ground floor. Two heads straight for the elevator, makes for the platform level, cleans out platform and restaurant. Any idea how big that elevator is?'

'Eight feet wide, six feet deep. I paced it out when we were going up, when I walked out of it.'

'Six men, I suggest. Three pressed against one wall of the elevator, three against the other. Stun grenades at the ready, of course.'

'Just like that?' Blade snapped.

'Main problem as you told it is this Klein and his little toy, the control box with the red button.'

'You're right,' Tweed whispered. 'No assault can be attempted so long as he's holding that gadget. We have to hope for a lucky break.'

'One more idea,' Eddie said, his eye pressed to the telescope which he'd raised to its original position aimed at the lighted windows of the restaurant. 'We place a man with the bazooka on this roof, a man linked with a walkie-talkie to one of the team inside the elevator. How fast does it go up?'

'Seconds,' said Tweed.

'Fair enough. Chap in the elevator gives the word the moment he presses the button for the elevator to go up. Our man up here instantly fires a bazooka shot inside the restaurant – that distracts the attention of any Klein men in the lobby at restaurant level. Only for seconds as the elevator shoots up. Seconds are all we need. Stun grenades, of course, to paralyse any men in the lobby. That's just first thoughts. And an important query. Any hostages?'

'They have a girl with them, Lara Seagrave,' Tweed said.

' With them?' rapped out Blade. 'What does that mean? One of them?'

'I don't think she knew any of this was going to happen. She is the step-daughter of Lady Windermere, the queen of bitches. I met Lady W in London. She drove her step-daughter out of the family home. So Lara goes out to prove she can make it on her own, looking for adventure. I think she's a pawn in Klein's deadly game.'

'Which is it?' Blade demanded. 'We treat her as a hostage?'

'Yes.'

'But if you're wrong,' Eddie whispered, 'if she has a gun in her hand, we shoot. It's the only way we operate. And would you excuse me a second? I want to check with the lads – see if they've any questions. Be back shortly…'

'Blade, I have one special instruction to give you for when you go in. You pass it on to everyone in the troop just before the assault. ..'

He whispered for less than a minute and in that time Eddie was back, crouching beside Blade.

'It's OK,' he reported. 'Everyone is happy.'

Happy? Tweed thought only Newman, who had trained with this troop, would understand the use of that word in these circumstances. He led the way back across the roof and down the staircase.

50

Tweed sensed the tension inside the windowless room as soon as the last SAS man closed the anteroom door behind him. The waiting was getting to them. Van Gorp sat very stiffly. Jansen was doodling meaningless shapes on his notepad and he threw down the pen as Tweed entered. Paula gave him a watery smile.

'The fishing boats – Utrecht and Drenthe – have been found,' Van Gorp announced. 'Their crews were tied up. They confirm what Klein told you. Scuba divers went overboard from them carrying the mines inside nets. So now we know definitely.'

'I never doubted it for a moment. Thank you,' he said when Paula poured him a fresh cup of coffee, shoved a plate of ham sandwiches in front of him.

'Eat,' she commanded.

'And,' Van Gorp went on, 'the news is leaking to the outside world. Reuters have sent out a report there is some sort of emergency at Europort. It was inevitable, of course. Some of those people thrown out of the Euromast restaurant have been released. We kept them for questioning as long as we could but there was a limit. They were told not to talk – that lives were at stake. But still some have obviously not resisted the temptation to open their mouths.'

'What about Commander Bellenger?'

'Arrived while you were on the roof. He's now in the anteroom, using the scrambler to have a bomb disposal squad sent here at once.' He tapped his pencil irritably on the table. 'And I have tried to counter the Reuter report by spreading a rumour we've spotted an old sea-mine from World War Two floating near the entrance to the Maas. Might work. For a short while.'

'Clever,' Tweed commented. 'Very clever, that…'

He waited as the phone rang and the Dutchman took another call. 'Klein,' he said, putting down the phone. 'He wants to talk to you again.'

'It's only two o'clock. He's an hour early.' Tweed shrugged as he stood up. 'Of course it's deliberate – to keep us off balance.'

'You can tell him the German Chancellor is holding a cabinet meeting at this moment. And the cabinet at The Hague is in all night session.'

'I'll keep that up my sleeve. He's up to something. Let me find out what first.'

'You've hardly eaten anything,' Paula protested. 'Let the bastard wait. Van Gorp can tell him you're on the phone to London.'