Try shouting and I'll slit your throat," Kellerman hissed.
"The wagon…"
"Will move any moment now," Kellerman assured him. "It will neatly slice off your head like a guillotine. Straight across the neck, leaving your head between the tracks, the rest of your body on this side," he elaborated brutally.
"You wouldn't!"
"I would and will. And if you lift your head to get it off the rail I'll stick you. Comes to the same thing, really, doesn't it? Where's the heroin?"
"What heroin?"
The words were cut off by the prick of Kellerman's knife against his throat. He lay sprawled with the pressure of the iron rail against the back of his neck, and when he looked to the left — the direction from which death would come — he saw the wheel's rim which was now assuming enormous dimensions in his mind.
"The heroin stashed for Sweden," Kellerman said wearily, "I really believe you're stupid enough not to tell me in which case any second now: crunch!"
"They'll kill me if I speak."
The Stockholm Syndicate?"
"For Jesus Christ's sake have mercy!"
"And let all that heroin flood the streets? I'd sooner behead you."
Despite the freezing of his emotions after the murder of his wife, Kellerman was impressed by the man's terror terror of the Stockholm Syndicate even caught in this dreadful position. His gaunt face had almost aged since Kellerman had threatened him; there was the stench of the man's own sweat in the air, the sweat of fear which coursed down his face in rivulets and streamed over his neck, already dirty with rust from the rail. Still he didn't speak and the German was not sure what to do next. A bell began ringing, a steady ding-dong in slow time somewhere in the direction of the ferry terminal.
"The heroin… just above you… inside the second wadge… let me up, the train is moving!"
He jerked his head up violently, staring at the rim of the wheel to his left in gibbering terror. Kellerman withdrew the knife a second before the Dane could impale himself on its point. '… the train is moving!"
Kellerman's reflex action was to grab the man's tie, swing his head to the side away from the wheel and clear of the line. Then, streaming with his own sweat, he realised what had happened.
The steady tolling of the bell continued, warning approaching traffic that a train was on the way. But this train wouldn't be moving because the engine-driver had been knocked out with chloroform, a fact which for a terrible split second Kellerman had forgotten when the bell started its racket. It was no surprise that the Dane had fainted and was lying inert by the track. He heard a rush of feet and hoped they were the feet of friends.
"Did he talk?"
Henderson's voice. Kellerman, his face showing strain, looked up. To his right the two 'hikers' who had dealt with the engine-driver were quietly slipping away to the main station. Gunners disguised as tourists blocked off the approach from the ferry terminal.
"Stop the bell the train isn't going?" he said.
"The heroin?"
Marker's voice. A mixture of eagerness and anxiety. Kellerman used his sleeve to mop the sweat dripping off his forehead. He'd been shaken and he didn't mind admitting it. For a few seconds he'd had a vision of the head rolling free between the rails.
"We've got it," he told them, 'if he told me the truth and I think he did. I would have. In this wagon just above me the second slat back "wadge" I think he called it."
He stood up and stiffened his legs to stop himself swaying. Only Louise saw him surreptitiously wipe the damp palms of his hands on his trousers. He winked at her and she smiled sympathetically. It was at the most unexpected moments that the terrible strain of their work hit them like a sledgehammer, often when they were least prepared for it.
It was being handled with typical Telescope efficiency. Henderson had gone quickly back up the track directing the gunners to form a defensive cordon.
Beaurain had climbed up into the wagon with Marker and called down for the loan of Kellerman's knife which was handed up.
"The guard is in it up to his neck." He paused as the potentially unfortunate phrasing occurred to him, then continued, looking at Louise. "The engine-driver may be in it or he could be completely innocent. At the moment he's…" He made a gesture placing his hand over his mouth indicating he was out of action. Then, in the near distance, growing louder every second they heard the one sound Beaurain did not wish to hear, the sound of a patrol-car's siren screaming.
It was a potentially dangerous situation. Jumping down from the wagon, leaving Beaurain to wrestle with the compressed paper, Marker advanced to meet three uniformed policemen running down by the side of the wagon, waving his identification card in their faces and gesturing for them to get back. The chubby-faced Dane was magnificent in the emergency, talking non-stop in Danish, ushering the three men back towards the ferry terminal like a shepherd driving sheep.
"Get back out of this area! I have the whole place infiltrated with undercover men! Coming in here with your bloody siren wailing — you may have ruined an international operation planned for months! What the hell brought you here in the first place?"
"We received a message that there was terrorist activity in the regionof this ferry terminal."
"And the caller gave you his name and address, of course?" Marker demanded with bitter sarcasm.
"Well… no, sir," the driver of the car admitted as he continued backing away with his two companions. They had almost reached the road now. "It was the inspector on duty — said we had to get here as fast as we could we were on patrol when he radioed us."
" The inspector on duty! " Sometimes a stray shot hit the bull's eye, Marker thought with a tingle of excitement. No such order would normally be transmitted by the station inspector. The Stockholm Syndicate was here in Elsinore, its corrupt fingers reaching into the local police station. Because of one thing Marker was certain: the patrol car had been sent to disperse and interfere with Telescope's search for the huge heroin haul.
"Have you ever received a direct order personally from the inspector before over the radio?" he asked, sure that he was right in his incredible long shot.
"First time it's ever happened in my experience," the man told him, 'and I've been driving a patrol car for five years. I said to my mate it was odd."
I'm now going to tell you exactly what to do," Marker told the driver, his expression grim. "You will carry out my order to the letter or forget about any further career with the police. Wait in your vehicle. If you receive any further orders or questions from this inspector, tell him your car has broken down, that you have found nothing happening at the ferry terminal after a thorough search. And then, in a few minutes, you will drive me to your station," he looked back to where Beaurain was still inside the rail wagon and saw nothing. God he was taking a gamble!
"What is the name of this inspector?" he asked.
The man gave him a name and then the trio of policemen returned to their car. It now all depended on Beaurain finding the heroin. He made his way back to the wagon where the man he knew as Foxbel stood on guard with the girl. At the foot of the wagon he stared up at the Belgian whose head was just visible above a huge sheet of packing material.