"Cody? The President's aide? The man who thinks that finesse is a French pastry? And how did he try to trick you?"
"By officially informing me that Sholto would be coming here within the next few days, when he had already arrived in Stockholm. He didn't allow for the closeness with which we watch all incoming passengers at Arlanda. Sholto's appearance rang a bell in the mind of one of the watchers with a camera so he took his picture. The people who are checking hotel registers for Gunther Baum are also checking for Harvey Sholto, the second killer to arrive just ahead of you."
Fondberg added the final remark casually and puffed at his cigar while he gazed at the ceiling. It was the same game they had so often played in the past and was one of the many reasons Jules Beaurain liked Fondberg as much as any of the host of international colleagues he had come to know over the years.
"You're sure this is Harvey Sholto?" Beaurain queried, tapping the glossy print. "So he's a killer too."
"One of the deadliest. Our agent in Bangkok could have vouched for that. Except that he's dead now. He was very experienced and very good." Some of the toughness briefly evaporated from Fondberg's exterior. "He left a nice Swedish wife and three children. They found him floating in one of the klongs — canals. His throat had been cut from ear to ear. The Stockholm Syndicate never does a second-rate job, my friend."
It was the first time Harry Fondberg had linked the Syndicate with the Swedish capital. Smoking his cigar, Teeth clenched, he stared hard at his visitor. "Are you going to do something about it?" he asked softly.
"Yes. Kill it."
"You haven't the knowledge, resources or power. Above all you haven't the knowledge. How do they run their communications system? Tell me that. An organisation which has wrapped up a good part of Scandinavia and the Low Countries and is now rapidly penetrating Germany has to have a first-rate communications system."
"Water."
"I beg your pardon."
"Water," Beaurain repeated. "It came to me finally when I was on the terrace of the Grand Hotel looking out over the Strommen. Harry, has there been an increase in illegal radio activity in recent months?"
"Here in Stockholm? Yes." Fondberg's eyes were watchful. "I also know we have been unable to track down a single one of the transmitters which we suspect are very highpowered."
"Over how long a period?"
"I'm told it started about two years ago."
"Foundation date of the setting up of the Stockholm Syndicate," Beaurain said grimly. "Has anyone kept a record of the general areas of these illegal transmissions?"
"Yes, although I don't see how that will help." Fondberg broke off to speak in Swedish into his intercom, then switched off. "Our radio-detector vans have never been able to get a fix on a transmission. We think whoever is sending the signals uses a van and keeps on the move during the period of transmission."
The Swede stopped speaking as a girl came into the room with a rolled sheet, placed it on the Sapo chief's desk, and left them. Beaurain got up and stood behind Fondberg as the latter unrolled a large-scale map of Stockholm inscribed with red circles. He snorted his disgust.
"Doesn't tell you a bloody thing!"
"Doesn't tell you a bloody thing," Beaurain corrected him. "But for me it's the final confirmation that I'm right. Look at all the circles."
"In so many different districts? No pattern."
"You're losing your grip. The pattern is screaming at you. All the roads and districts circled include waterways." Beaurain's tone became emphatic. "Willy Flamen in Brussels showed me a similar record of heavy illegal radio traffic and he couldn't see a pattern. Neither could I at the time but all his marked districts throughout Belgium were close to canals. Same thing in Copenhagen when Marker of Intelligence showed me his records. The activity is always close to the Oresund."
"You mean…"
"The bastards have their transmitters afloat. Aboard barges in Belgium which will move down the canal while they transmit. This is why they've never been caught. In Denmark they're on board fishing vessels or power-cruisers, again on the move just offshore while sending a signal. Here they're on the Strommen, on the…" Beaurain's hand hammered the city map as Fondberg studied it afresh.
"I believe you could be right," Fondberg said slowly. "If we can crack their communications system we sever the jugular of the Syndicate."
"Let's get the timing right," Beaurain suggested. "I want one smashing Europe-wide hammer blow delivered at the same hour when the transmissions are going full-blast. Everywhere taken out at once including the barges in Belgium, where, incidentally, two Syndicate operators, a man and his wife, were recently executed. Each took a bullet in the back of the neck."
"What?" Fondberg sat very upright and his intelligent eyes gleamed. "That's an old Nazi technique. It raises a hideous new possibility that the men behind this foul organisation are the Neo-Nazis! God, have we been blind!"
Harry Norsten sat behind the controls of his Cessna, ready to land in the centre of Stockholm. He had just received clearance and in the two passenger seats the man and the girl stirred as travellers do when approaching their destination. Norsten was not coming in at Arlanda, the great international airport many miles outside the city. The Swedish pilot was dropping his tiny aircraft into Bromma Airport, a short drive from the Grand Hotel.
The male passenger glanced out of the window, hardly interested in the familiar view. Of medium height, his hair blond with side-burns and a thick mane extending down his neck, the passenger wore large horn-rimmed spectacles. Dr. Theodor Norling squeezed the hand of his companion, speaking to her in French. "You are glad to be back home? You have had a busy time."
A busy time. The girl whose jet-black hair was cropped close to her skull shuddered at the words. She was recalling what she had read in the morning paper about what was rapidly becoming known across the world as "The Elsinore Massacre'. Then she was frightened because she realised her shudder had communicated itself to Norling who was still gripping her hand.
The blond head turned slowly. Staring straight ahead at Stockholm coming up to meet them, Sonia Karnell fought to regain her composure. Whatever she did, however she reacted, she must never show alarm, fear or repulsion. He disapproved of such emotions, regarded them as irrelevant in the task they were engaged on.
"Do I wait for you at Bromma or go home?" Norsten asked as he skilfully manipulated the controls for a perfect descent. He also spoke in French. The silent Dr. Theodor Norling had once told him he liked to practise the language.
"You go home and wait for my call. I may need you again at very short notice."
That was all. A typical Norling command. Clear to the point of abruptness and not a wasted word. Who the hell was he anyway? After acting as his pilot for over a year Norsten knew as little about him as the first day he had been hired except that Norling expected him to be available at all hours for a sudden trip and paid incredibly generous fees for the service — and his silence. The fact was that Dr. Norling scared Norsten ice-cold.
"And one more thing, Mr. Norsten," the Swede had told him when they first met at Bromma and concluded their arrangement. "It would be most ill-advised of you to broadcast my activities or even to mention my existence as a client of yours."
He had paused, his blond head motionless, the eyes behind the tinted glasses equally motionless as they gazed with concentrated intent at the pilot.
"You must realise that success in my business, Mr. Norsten, often depends on my competitors being unaware of my movements unaware even of when I am present in Stockholm. Indeed, it is a cut-throat trade I ply."
Cut-throat… Norling had been staring at the pilot's throat when he used the phrase and Norsten was aware of an unpleasant prickling sensation in that region. Ridiculous! But that had been his reaction when he first agreed to do business with the book dealer. Fear.