The Stockholm Syndicate Read Free Page B

up.
    "I will leave you," Sonia said in the same cold voice.
     
    "You will get the barge moving before you actually transmit?" she
    demanded of Darras.
    "I was just waiting for you to leave."
    "Then hurry."
    Climbing the greasy steps to the deck, she felt the planks under her feet vibrate gently as Darras started up his ancient engine. Rosa was nowhere to be seen. Sonia scrambled back down the path and then up the nettle-bordered cinder track. Berlin had put out the side-lights. He was clasping the Luger which he handed to her without a word. His hand closed over hers as she reached for the ignition.
    "You were longer than usual. And what was that with the light?"
    Being careful to keep her story concise he couldn't stand long-windedness she told him what had happened. With shoulders hunched forward he listened with great concentration.
    "What do you think?" he asked eventually.
    "I'm worried. I don't like the Rosa woman, but that's not relevant but I think she has influence over Frans."
    "And Frans himself?"
    "He worried me even more. I think he's losing his grip. I'm sure he was going to operate his transmitter while the barge was stationary."
    "That was the point which struck me," Berlin said thoughtfully. Turn on the engine now."
    "You think we should cut the Darrases out of the network?" she asked as she started the car up the track towards the road.
    "It is more serious than that," Berlin decided.
    "I think we shall have to send a visitor."
     
    Chapter Three
     
    When Serge Litov was manhandled into the butcher's van and the doors slammed shut, he was already in pain from the arm Henderson had broken.
    But in his grim life one of the qualities he had been trained in was to endure pain and his mind was still clear as the van moved off.
    He had been placed on a stretcher on a flat leather couch bolted to the floor on the left side of the van which was equipped rather like a crude ambulance inside. A man wearing a doctor's face-mask loomed over Litov and by the aid of an overhead light examined the arm and then spoke in English.
    "I am going to inject you with morphine to relieve the pain. Do you understand me?"
    Litov glanced at the two other men in the van, sitting against the other side. They wore Balaclava masks, dark blue open-necked shirts and blue denim trousers. One of them held a machine-pistol across his lap. Two pairs of eyes stared coldly at Litov, who spoke English fluently, as he considered whether to reply in the same language, a decision which might influence his future vitally. It would conceal his true nationality.
    "How do I know there is morphine in that hypodermic?" he asked.
    "You are worried it is sodium pentothal to make you talk? As a professional man I would not do that -not to a man in your condition."
    The Englishman's voice was gentle and there was something in the steady eyes watching him above the mask which made Litov against all his training trust the man.
    "Also," the doctor continued, 'you have a flight ahead of you. Why not travel in comfort?"
    As soon as he had been flopped onto the stretcher Litov's undamaged left arm had been handcuffed at the wrist to one of the lifting poles.
    Both ankles were similarly manacled and a leather strap bound his chest. He was quite helpless and waves of pain were threatening to send him under.
    "I'll take the needle," Litov agreed, exaggerating the hoarseness in his voice. The doctor waited until the van paused, presumably at traffic lights, then swiftly dabbed the broken arm with antiseptic and inserted the hypodermic. When the van moved on again he waited for a smooth stretch of road and then set Litov's arm and affixed splints.
    Time went by, the van continued on its journey, speeding up now as though it had left the outskirts of the city behind. Litov was trying to estimate two factors as accurately as he could: the general direction the van was taking and its speed, which would allow him roughly to calculate the distance it covered.
    Earlier there