The Terrorists (24 page)

The apartment on Kapellgatan in Solna was a trifle too small for two people, especially with their two color televisions, three radios and all the Frenchman’s technical equipment. They arranged it so that the larger room was used as an operations center, while they slept in the smaller.

Levallois was quite young, no more than twenty-two at the most, and his appearance did not betray his origins. He had a pinkish complexion and fair curly hair. Despite his delicate build, he was, like all those who had been through ULAG’s training camps, very experienced in the arts of defending himself and of killing, with his bare hands as well as with a wide variety of weapons.

He had one handicap in Sweden, and that was the language, which was why on Monday the eighteenth Heydt had to get in the car and go into town for the last time before the operation. Levallois was a cautious type, and he had requested the components for a small generator just in case there happened to be a power failure in the middle of the ceremony.

Heydt put on his roomiest jacket, and those who saw him thought he looked unusually pleasant, strikingly tall and broad-shouldered—a Nordic type, blue-eyed and attractively suntanned—never dreaming that under his jacket he was carrying one of the deadliest weapons there is, a Colt revolver of the MK 111 Trooper 357 magnum type, and that he had three hand grenades hooked into his belt. Two of them were American, filled with plastic-covered barbed shafts with wide diffusion. The third grenade had been manufactured in ULAG’s own arms
workshops. It had a thread coupling with a drag ignition and was intended for his own use in a situation where all hope was gone.

But nothing disquieting happened. He bought four large car batteries and a number of incomprehensible technical items that were on Levallois’s list, then returned to the apartment.

The Frenchman appeared satisfied and rapidly constructed the generator. Then he assembled a shortwave receiver and tuned it to the police wave band. They listened to routine messages, most of which Heydt managed to interpret with the aid of police codes he had also bought from the agent in Östermalm. Levallois understood nothing, but seemed satisfied all the same. He busied himself all evening and most of the following day making final adjustments and checking the detonating apparatus until at last he seemed content and announced that nothing could possibly go wrong.

Heydt meanwhile was wondering how they would be able to leave the country. His appearance and build were to some extent a disadvantage, as every form of disguise would be easily seen through.

On the evening of the nineteenth, he lay thinking for a long time in the bath. It would work out somehow; either he could smuggle himself out the same way Levallois had come in, or else he could stay and lie low in the apartment until police activity died down. Some border post could undoubtedly be forced, if he waited long enough. Perhaps there would be some violence, but violence was his specialty and he was firmly convinced that he was far superior to any Swedish policeman he might come up against.

He washed very thoroughly, cleaned his teeth, shaved, sprayed himself in appropriate places and groomed his blond sideburns with great care. Reinhard Heydt was particular about hygiene, so particular that it was almost a neurosis. Finally he massaged skin cream all over his body, spread a clean bathmat on the floor and went into the operations center, where Levallois was deep in an extremely technical book, all the while listening to the police radio, which he did not understand. Then he went to bed.

*       *       *

Heydt slept well and awoke full of confidence. He showered, then cooked a large English breakfast and ate it wearing his elegant bathrobe.

The Frenchman had risen earlier and had neglected to make his bed, which Heydt found slightly slovenly and interpreted as a sign of a none-too-high-class upbringing. Heydt found him in the operations room, the police radio still on and no fewer than three technical books open in front of him.

Levallois did not say good morning. With some reluctance, Heydt placed his hand on the Frenchman’s shoulder. For some reason he disliked physical contact, except in certain obvious cases.

Levallois looked up.

“Everything okay?” Heydt asked him.

“Absolutely. Provided that Kaiten and Kamikaze adjust everything properly.”

“You can rest easy. They know their job as well as you and I do, and they know the plans inside out. We’ve decided to do it in the early morning.”

“And the risk of someone defusing the bombs? I suppose the police here have a bomb squad?”

“No, strangely enough, they don’t. But don’t forget that the police in that last place didn’t find the reserve charges for several months. And they had bomb squads from both the army and the police, and they also knew where to look.”

“Have we any reserve charges?”

“Two. They cover the two other possible routes the motorcade could take into town, if the security boys suddenly have a last-minute flash of intuition.”

“The risk seems minimal,” said Levallois. “The police never think that far ahead.”

“I’m sure you’re right. Besides, the other routes are fairly illogical and create a lot of new security problems.”

“Well, then, nothing can really happen.” The Frenchman yawned. “Everything’s hunky-dory here,” he said. “And the Japs won’t mess up the final assembling, will they?”

“Out of the question. They can move underground the whole way if they want to. And they’ve reconnoitered very thoroughly.
They placed the mountings ten days ago and no one’s found them.”

“Sounds okay.”

Levallois stretched and glanced around the room. “The reserve source of power makes me feel much better,” he said. “Supposing we were suddenly without current tomorrow. Just dandy.”

“There’ve been no power failures since I’ve been here.”

“That doesn’t mean a thing,” said the radio expert. “You only need one imbecile with a bulldozer to rip the cable apart somewhere and we’ve had it.”

They listened for a while to the police radio.

“How are we going to get away?” said the Frenchman.

“What do you suggest?”

“Individually, as usual. I’ll go direct, the same way I came.”

“Mmm,” said Heydt. “I’ll probably have to wait a while.”

Levallois looked relieved. He had no particular wish to die, and knew his chances of getting caught would be vastly increased if the South African suggested accompanying him in the fishing boat.

“How about a game of chess?” said the radioman after awhile.

“Okay.”

Heydt played the Marshall variant in Sicilian, a brilliant game invented a long time ago by an American sea captain, who then transformed many a grand master of the time into a loser, gaping with astonishment. Bold moves, ruthless stakes, almost like war.

The only thing wrong with it was that you could catch out a good opponent only once. After that he’d look in an analysis book and learn the right moves, which on the board appeared quite incomprehensible.

They had no chess clock, and the Frenchman pondered longer and longer over his moves, watching his position being torn to shreds despite an early superiority in number of pieces. Finally Levallois sat thinking for an hour and a half over one move, although Heydt knew his opponent’s situation was hopeless and had been so for a long time. Heydt went out to the
kitchen, made some tea and then washed his arms, hands and face thoroughly. When he went back, the Frenchman was still sitting with his head in his hands, staring at the board.

Two moves later he had to give up.

His expression was offended, as he was a bad loser by nature and also had been taught never to lose. The only loss ULAG approved of was loss of life. In impossible situations, that was to be self-inflicted.

Levallois then sat without saying a word all afternoon, studying his technical books in sulky silence while the police radio continued to pour out messages.

Heydt had by now decided that this country wasn’t much of a place to live in. But since he would evidently have to stay for quite a long time to come, he might just as well try to get used to it.

While the Japanese were placing the bombs that night, the one that mattered and the two less important ones, Reinhard Heydt was sleeping soundly and dreamlessly.

Levallois lay awake for some time, thinking about the chess game. When he got back to Copenhagen he would buy a good theory book, he decided.

The two Japanese were back in the apartment in Södermalm by about five in the morning. They were not planning to go out again for quite a while, and they had laid in a store of cans which ought to last them several weeks.

On the bed where Heydt had previously slept lay their machine pistols, loaded and ready to fire, with cleaned barrels and thoroughly inspected mechanisms. Lying next to them was a heap of loaded magazines. And beside the bed was a wooden box filled with adapted hand grenades.

The charges designed for their own final demise they carried on them, even when they slept.

For Martin Beck it was a Wednesday he would remember for a long time. He was not used to this kind of job, with its endless telephone calls and constant arguments with people on different levels of the bureaucracy. He was the first to arrive at Kungsholmsgatan that morning and apparently the last to leave that night. Benny Skacke stuck it out as long as he could, but despite his relative youth, he was so pale and tired that Martin Beck chased him home.

“That’s it for the day, Benny,” he said.

But Skacke replied, “I’ll stay as long as you do, as long as there’s something left to be done.”

He was as stubborn as a mule, and in the end Martin Beck had to do something he usually avoided, issue an authoritative and incontrovertible order in his capacity as superior officer.

“When I say you’re to go home, then I mean that you’re to obey a direct order. Do you understand? Go home. Now.”

Skacke understood, and with a sulky expression hauled on his overcoat and left.

It had been a god-awful day. The Commissioner had finished his meditative labors and was back again in top form. Via messengers he dispatched approximately forty-two documents of varying length and content. Most of them dealt with utterly obvious matters that had been arranged and dealt with long ago. In each paper, even if only two lines long, there was an undertone of reproach. He felt he was being insufficiently informed.

More direct comments were left to Stig Malm, who appeared tired and irritable, more or less crippled by his double role of watchdog at work and lapdog at home.

“Beck?”

“Yes.”

“The Commissioner wonders why we’re going to have only
two helicopters in the air when we’ve got twelve of our own and can borrow more from the navy.”

“We think two is enough.”

“The Commissioner doesn’t. He wants you to reconsider the helicopter question and preferably to consult naval staff on the matter.”

“At the start, we’d thought of not using helicopters at all.”

“That’s absolutely insane. With our own and the navy’s machines, we could have complete control of the airspace.”

“Why should we have control of the airspace?”

“And if the air force had their way, we could have a squadron of fighter planes and an equal number of assault planes over the area.”

“I’ve told the air force we can’t stop them from flying.”

“Of course we can’t. But instead of establishing a decent relationship with the armed forces, you’ve deeply offended one of them. Now, will you reconsider the helicopter question?”

“We’ve already considered it.”

“That’s not an answer that’ll please the Commissioner.”

“It’s not my assignment to please the Commissioner, at least not the way I see it.”

Malm sighed heavily. “It’s not easy being coordinator here,” he said.

“So go out to your country place and think it all over.”

“You … you really are the limit. Anyhow, I haven’t got a country place.”

“But your wife has one, doesn’t she?”

Malm had married a fairly large fortune, but those who had met his wife said that she was not only bad-tempered and irritable, but also plain. Plainness was in the eye of the beholder, of course, but Martin Beck had had enough of bad temper and irritability in his eighteen years of married life. Now he felt almost sorry for Malm.

Martin Beck hardly had time to think this thought before the telephone shrilled again. It was the navy this time. Commander someone-or-other.

“I was just wondering whether you want the big Vertol helicopters or our smaller Alouettes. Perhaps a combined group of both? They each have their advantages.”

“We don’t want any airplanes at all.”

“My dear Chief Inspector,” the man said stiffly, “a helicopter is not an airplane, it’s an aircraft.”

“Thank you for the information. I’m sorry if I used the wrong terminology.”

“Oh,” said the naval man, “there are so many people who get it wrong. So you don’t want any naval helicopters.”

“No.”

“I got a different impression when I was speaking to the National Police Commissioner.”

“There must have been some misunderstanding.”

“I see. Goodbye, then, Inspector.”

“Goodbye, Commander,” said Martin Beck politely.

And it had been like that all day. Decisions had repeatedly been made over his head, then argued over and abandoned, usually by persuasion, sometimes with more brutal wording and tone of voice.

But now the whole plan was complete. Of all those who had been working at Kungsholmsgatan, Melander especially had worked tremendously hard, though quietly, as usual. The others hadn’t been exactly idle, either. Rönn, for instance, had been detailed to an assignment that took a great deal of time. Only once during the day had he appeared at headquarters, noticeably red-nosed and with heavy bags under his eyes. Gunvald Larsson had at once said, “How’s it going, Einar?”

“Oh, okay, I think. But it’s taking longer than I thought it would. And tomorrow I won’t have much time. At the most fifteen minutes.”

“More like twelve or thirteen,” said Gunvald Larsson.