"What the hell…!"
Fondberg was sliding his hand inside his jacket and under his shoulder when he felt Beaurain's hand grip his arm: "I said, Harry, this is where you look the other way, God damn it!"
"Sorry. Instinctive reaction. I hope your man moves fast."
He called out a brief command to his men, who froze, and then turned back to watch the white cruiser. Palme was already behind the wheel of his car. The weapon had vanished. Without haste he backed the Saab and drove quietly away. A flock of birds, disturbed by the fusillade, had risen with a beating of wings and headed out over the water. In the sudden silence the noise of their ascent could be heard clearly. Then it was drowned by a distant, muted rumble as the white cruiser began to move.
"He must be mad as hell, wouldn't you say?" Beaurain observed.
Aboard the Ramso Norling had given the order to move! Again he looked at the hand which had been holding the suitcase, still unable to believe he was completely unscathed. When the bullets started coming he had felt a hard tug, the case had been wrenched from his grasp as though by supernatural forces, then came the cascade of fragments, a cloud of precious powder. All gone! As the cruiser started moving he could actually see a white scum on the water. He hastily went below decks into his cabin and sank into a chair. He was shaking with uncontrollable rage. Alone in his luxuriously-furnished cabin he sat with both hands gripping the arms of his chair.
"Beaurain! First in Brussels, then Copenhagen and Elsinore now here in Stockholm itself!"
He was talking to himself, a habit of which he was fully aware and of which he occasionally made use as a safety valve. It had started long ago with another life, so far away from Sweden. Behind the lenses of his gold-rimmed spectacles his eyes were remote and cruel. He looked up as a man descended the steps and came into the cabin, Olof Konvall, the wireless operator.
I'm sorry, sir." Konvall, a small, highly-strung man with a grizzled face, took a step back when he met Norling's gaze. The venom in the stare was scaring. "I didn't intend to intrude — but normally when you come on board you have a signal you wish to send."
"Stay where you are, for God's sake!" Norling's show of rage was most unusual; his normal manner was an icy calm. Tell the captain I wish to switch to another vessel at the earliest possible moment."
"I will tell him at once."
"Don't go! I haven't finished yet." Norling paused, forced himself to loosen his clenched grip on the wooden arms of the chair, to let his fury dissipate itself. Now he had himself under perfect control. His voice became remote, detached, like a chess-player who has decided on the next move.
"You are to send out immediate Nadir signals on Jules Beaurain. The other recipient is his mistress, Louise Hamilton. Let the word go forth. And first Hamilton alone is to be subjected to a demonstration at grade three level. Now you may go."
" Oh my God, how horrible! "
Louise froze with shock and revulsion, the key to her bedroom door still in her hand. Like most people in a hotel she had walked in and closed the door behind her under the odd delusion that this was — temporarily at least — a safe refuge.
" Christ! I think I'm going to be sick! "
She leant back against the door and forced herself to recover. Her stomach obeyed her and then she caught sight of herself in the mirror and was shocked by her appearance: her lips were drawn back over her teeth in an expression of murderous fury — and she knew in that second that if the person responsible for the outrage had still been in the room she would have killed them. Someone rapped on the self-locking door.
She stood to one side and turned the door handle. Palme walked into the room and stared at the gun aimed point-blank, then his gaze swivelled. He closed the door.
"Isn't it sickening," she said as lightly as she could, but she didn't fool the Swede as she slipped the gun back inside her shoulder-bag. He said the one thing which could have lightened the atmosphere.
"I think the management will agree to changing your room."
There was a second knocking on the door. Stig Palme motioned her to slip into the bathroom, which was a mistake because it was even more hideous there than in the bedroom. She gritted her Teeth, then thankfully heard Beaurain's voice, a sharp tone. "Where's Louise? Has she seen…?"
"She's in the bathroom. I sent her in there when…"
He found her sitting on the bathroom stool with her legs crossed, one arm supporting the other as she gazed directly at him and calmly smoked the cigarette she had just lit, her only concession to the experience she had just undergone.
"Only a sick mind…" she began.
It was — if possible — even worse in the bathroom. An aerosol paint spray had been the weapon used — used with such diabolical skill that Beaurain suspected the perpetrator must be a trained artist. Sprayed over every surface in the bathroom were obscene pictures involving a woman indulging in every type of perversion imaginable. And in every instance the face depicted was a caricature — but immediately recognisable — of Louise Hamilton.
The bedroom walls and every other available surface had been similarly treated. Beaurain watched her smoking her cigarette and then reacted in just the right way.
"We must at once reserve another bedroom on a different floor and with an entirely different layout. In actual fact, as long as we stay at this place I suggest you spend each night in my room. God knows the bed is big enough."
"Thank you," she said gratefully.
"Can I have a word with you in a minute?" Palme asked Beaurain.
"After we've got the room business sorted out."
"What are you going to tell the manager?" Louise enquired.
Beaurain knew instantly what was worrying her that the manager was bound to wonder what sort of people she knew who could act in this way. She felt besmirched by such vile obscenity. Again he knew exactly the right reply. "That my ex-wife is insanely jealous and has already in another country been charged with the same type of offence. Also," he paused to smile, 'that she will by now have left Sweden to escape the attention of the police."
Fifteen minutes later they had ensconced Louise in an entirely different room, this time on the second floor. It overlooked the street up which marched the mounted horse troops after the changing of the guard at the Royal Palace, explained an assistant manager who was obviously going out of his way to make her forget her recent experience. At the door he paused before leaving.
"May I take it that Madame had not propped her door open for a short time while she left the room?"
Louise smiled, her face still bloodless: "No, I certainly had not propped the door open in any way."
"Of course! Madame does not, I trust, mind my asking? Thank you. Ah, here is a bottle of champagne. Please accept it as a small present from the management."
Stig Palme was conferring with Beaurain as they sat in the Swede's Saab parked outside the hotel. The choice of locale for their conversation had been Palme's.
"This way we know we are not being recorded. You have seen how the bedroom doors lock, how from the outside you must turn the key before you can enter the room? I think," Palme continued, 'it is possible the Stockholm Syndicate have committed their first major blunder — opening up a trail I can follow which just might blast their organisation wide open."
"It's going to be a race against time," Beaurain warned. "I have the strongest feeling Hugo is going to launch an all-out offensive to wipe us out."
"Because we've just lost him his major heroin delivery?"
"Partly — but maybe even more because of this." Beaurain nodded towards a large Mercedes which had just glided to a halt outside the Grand Hotel. Out of the rear door a short stout man holding a brief-case had emerged while two other men, who had left the car seconds earlier, took up positions near the foot of the steps and were staring in all directions.