"By courtesy of Superintendent Marker of Danish police Intelligence. At the moment a fleet of police cars full of armed men is racing to Kastrup. I told him where Sholto has placed his troops it is Sholto, isn't it, Ed? I thought so. Those two pretending to repair a street lamp are in for a shock."
"There'll be shooting?" Cottel queried.
"Not a shot fired would be my guess. Viktor Rashkin is due here aboard a Danair flight from Bonne and they won't want the place swarming with police. I think I can hear police sirens now."
"You can't touch Rashkin," the American warned. The bastard can always claim diplomatic immunity."
"So we wait a few hours and I think Rashkin will solve the problem for us. Yes, you can hear the sirens. Sound to be a hell of a lot of them,"
There was no shooting. Bodel Marker had sent an overwhelming force to Kastrup and none of the men waiting for Beaurain put up resistance. The fact that they carried firearms was more than sufficient reason, for putting them behind bars. Beaurain then explained the final move in detail to Marker, one of the key men responsible for smashing the Syndicate's communications system. He obtained the Dane's full agreement to his plan, not all of which was strictly in accordance with the law. And it was Marker who provided transport in the form of unmarked police cars for Beaurain and his companions to move into the city.
"What was all that about?" Louise asked as they drove away from Kastrup.
Marker had provided them with three cars. In the lead vehicle, a Citroen, Beaurain was driving with Louise beside him while in the rear sat Palme and Anderson, the laconic Sikorsky pilot. The two cars following them, both Audis, contained Max Keller-man and five of Henderson's gunners. Henderson was driving the third car, guarding their rear.
"I will guide you to the arms depot," Palme announced.
"Here in Copenhagen?" queried Louise.
"Over this bridge and turn right," said Palme calmly. "Into the Prinsesse Gade." The three cars pulled into a drab side street and parked. Minutes later Palme had returned with his suitcase and they were on their way again, heading back to the main road.
"Where are we going now Stig has tooled up, as he would say?" Louise enquired.
"To the house on Nyhavn — which is where the whole horrendous series of events is going to end unless I've guessed wrong."
"You wouldn't care to elaborate?" They drove over the Knippels Bro into the heart of Copenhagen.
"The American connection is Harvey Sholto Ed explained about the Edgar Hoover dossiers. With those and his high-level connections Sholto organised the Syndicate membership in the States. He links up with Rashkin, who organises the European end; I suspect that Rashkin has been running a one-man band."
"With the aid of a three-man directorate?"
"Let's see what happens at the house on Nyhavn," Beaurain said.
Ed Cottel, who had stayed behind at Kastrup, watched through a pair of high-powered glasses the arrival of the DC-9 jet Danair Flight SK 262 from Bonne. As he watched passengers filing off the plane he began to worry. He couldn't identify Viktor Rash-kin. Then he had an idea. He hurried to the main exit where cabs waited for fares.
He was rewarded for his flash of inspiration or so he thought, when he saw a Mercedes with Soviet diplomatic plates pull in at the kerb. A slim man carrying a Danair flight bag appeared, the rear door was opened by the chauffeur, closed, and the limousine glided away, followed by one of Superintendent Marker's 'plain-clothes' cars when Cottel gave the driver a signal. Sweating with the anxiety he had felt, Cottel waited a little longer, watching the departing passengers before he walked rapidly along the airport building front to a parked car which was Marker's control vehicle and equipped with a transceiver. He slid in beside the man behind the wheel.
"I'd like to report to Jules Beaurain."
"Be my guest," the Dane invited, handing him the microphone. "If you can get through it will be a miracle — on a clear day like this the static is bloody murder — what with the high pressure area over Scandinavia."
Talking of high pressure…" Cottel mopped his damp forehead as he called Beaurain. The Belgian replied at once with great clarity.
"The big R.," Cottel began, referring to Viktor Rashkin, 'had a Merc with CD. plates waiting to pick him up. Our friends have followed. Funny thing, when I watched the passengers disembarking earlier I couldn't spot him through the glasses."
It was just one of those throwaway observations you make, particularly when you have been keyed up, when you are short on sleep, when you thought you had blown it and then found you hadn't. The Belgian's reaction was tense, almost explosive.
"Listen to this description, Ed. A grey-haired man of medium build. Probably a snappy dresser, could even be wearing a velvet jacket with gold buttons. Rimless glasses. May be wearing a skull-cap like Orthodox Jews go in for."
Cottel stared at the microphone open-mouthed, then got a grip on himself. "A guy just like that got into a beat-up Volkswagen as the limousine took off. I didn't take much notice of him — and he wasn't carrying a Danair bag."
"He wouldn't be," Beaurain informed him. "You wouldn't recognise him, but Dr. Benny Horn has just arrived in Copenhagen. You're waiting now for the flight bringing in Sonia Karnell from Stockholm? Good. I think we're all going to meet up at the house on Nyhavn. And good luck — no-one has yet located Harvey Sholto,"
"You think he's in the city too?" Cottel asked grimly.
"He has to be."
For the first time in weeks the weather changed as they approached Nyhavn. The sky clouded over, a faint hint of mist drifted in from the sea and, as they arrived at the familiar basin of water, the seamen's bars on the left and tourist shops on the right, it began to drizzle. A fine spray of moisture descended on the tangle of ship's masts in the basin. The stones in the street were moist. The convoy of three cars drove a short distance past the end of the basin, out of sight of Nyhavn, and then parked.
"They may have watchers observing Horn's house," Beaurain warned, 'so our first task is to locate them and take them out."
" May? " Louise queried. "The Syndicate always has watchers."
"That was before this morning."
"But they still had Kastrup airport staked out with men," she objected. "You had to get Marker to send out a whole team to pick them up."
"That was because Rashkin was coming in. He would have phoned Copenhagen from Bornholm and asked for protection — heavy protection — to be laid on after what happened to Kometa. But the Syndicate in Europe is coming to the end of its resources, its power is broken, the leaders went down with the Soviet hydrofoil."
"Then who are we expecting to see at the house on Nyhavn?"
"Hugo."
Palme opened the suitcase from the arms deposit flat in Prinsesse Gade, and handed out weapons and ammunition. All hand-guns were equipped with silencers. He conferred briefly with Max Kellerman.
"There is a man watching from the flat almost opposite — there. I'll take him. Then there is a man on the deck of a fishing vessel making too much of looping up coils of rope. He's moored outside Horn's place. You take him."
It was very quiet in the drizzle as Palme and Kellerman moved off down different sides of the basin, both of them adopting a sailor's way of walking, merging with the odd man who even at that hour came staggering up the steps from one of the basement bars. Palme went into the building and up to the first floor flat where he had spotted his watcher. He kicked the flimsy door in and let the force of his own momentum carry him straight across the sparsely furnished room. In his right hand he held a Luger with a silencer. A man who had been staring out of the open window, sprawled on a sofa, grabbed for the automatic weapon by his side. Palme shot him twice and peered out of the window.