The Stockholm Syndicate Read Online Free PDF Page A

face showed character. The tools of her trade were not those of what the business world knows as a personal assistant. She carried a 9mm. pistol made at Herstal in her handbag and she faced Beaurain across the table. For the whole of the journey, while he was forced to be in one place, she would brief him on what had happened through the day and take his dictation. She began by reporting, "Alex says it's a straightforward fracture. It will hurt for several days, but it will mend as good as new if he doesn't mess about with it." Beaurain was momentarily too tired to answer her. Henderson said nothing.
    "I've read his file, Jules," Louise persisted.
    "He's got a record that makes me shudder. You think he'll break?"
    Beaurain studied her across the table before replying. They had now climbed to two thousand feet and were flying smoothly. The pilot had his instructions and would carry them out to the letter. Through the window on his right the early streaks of dawn, the start of another glorious day. He sipped his coffee.
    "Litov doesn't have to break," he said.
    "He doesn't? Then what the hell is all this about?"
    "Chief's right," Henderson said.
    "Litov doesn't have to get the thumbscrew treatment, although we may have to drop him down a few flights of stairs so he doesn't catch on. He just has to be tricked."
     
    The helicopter spent three hours in the air as far as Litov could reckon it, though he could no longer see his watch. He had no way of telling the direction the chopper was taking. All the windows had been blacked out so he hadn't even the moon or the dawn light to go by. At one point Beaurain and the man he took to be his chief of staff came to look at him and to talk briefly with the doctor and the guards.
    Fatigue was taking its toll of his powers of endurance and he was having trouble staying awake, when he felt the chopper lose altitude. Three hours. They could be in England, Italy, Spain, anywhere. The doctor left his chair and came over to Litov.
    "I'm going to blindfold you," he said.
    "Don't feel too helpless I'll take this off as soon as we have arrived."
    Litov kept his eyes closed as he felt the band of cloth tied round his head. The chopper was descending at speed, dropping vertically. The doctor inserted ear-plugs so he heard nothing except the faint roar of the rotors. With a bump the machine landed. Within minutes he was being lifted and carried and he knew he was in the open.
    They had not, however, deprived Litov of his sense of smell, and the first thing he noticed on leaving the helicopter was the acrid stench of a bonfire. An English bonfire. How could he forget it? He had once been attached to the Soviet Embassy in London. There were, of course, bonfires in other parts of Europe, but... The men carrying the stretcher paused and the doctor removed the ear-plugs. He assumed it was the doctor. The men transporting him began walking again. Complete silence for several minutes. They had switched off the engines of the helicopter. No sound of traffic anywhere. Then the silence was broken by the roar in the sky of a large jet lumbering upwards. Litov made a mental note. Only a crumb of information, but Berlin gathered in every crumb available.
    "Careful up the steps," a voice said, in German.
    Germany? Yes, or even Austria. Telescope's base could be in either of these countries. Feet scrunched on gravel, the first time he had heard their feet since leaving the chopper. The smell of the bonfire had disappeared. Litov strained every faculty to gather clues.
    The stretcher tilted; his head was lower than his feet. He thought there were six steps and then the stretcher levelled out. Footsteps on stone, another slight lift, the footsteps became a padding sound -presumably they were now inside a house moving over carpet. A door being unlocked, the stretcher set down on a hard surface, a heavy door closing, a key in a lock. His blindfold was removed.
     
    The same precise routine had continued for a week. So