The Heart of Nowhere

By Dirk E. Swart

'Part fact, part fiction’. Swart’s tense, tightly-plotted and daring novel has all the elements of a masterful political thriller: suspense, murder, intrigue and sex. Ed Stevens is a man on his final mission. Disarming, charming and highly trained, he must track down and investigate a group of merciless and sadistic killers in the maze of Eastern Europe. Stevens’ investigation soon implicates a number of high-profile officials, all of whom are out to stop him before he can prove their involvement in a risky, and illegal, worldwide trade game.
A pacy and exciting novel that is guaranteed to be compelling reading.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Martin Leeuwis
• Release date: Oct 16, 2012
• ISBN: 9789490008116

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The Heart of Nowhere

The Heart of Nowhere

Dirk E. Swart

Vlijmen, the Netherlands, Leeuwis Publications

July 2012

Printed book: ISBN 978-94-90008-09-3

eBook: ISBN 978-94-90008-11-6

© Dirk E. Swart 1997/2012

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First published 1997 by Minerva Press - London

Revised edition 2012 by Leeuwis Publications - the Netherlands

eBook edition 2012 at Smashwords for Leeuwis Publications

Martin Leeuwis Publications

Postbus 192

5250 AD Vlijmen

the Netherlands

www.humor.aero

www.heartofnowhere.org

Dedication

For

Douwe K. Kloosterboer

Olav Hoheisel

Menno Nanninga

Chris en Cock van Megchelen

and my sister Marjolijn Swart

In memory of

Chang Fa Ching

Foreword

The thriller The Heart of Nowhere is based partly on fact and partly on fiction. It is a story, sometimes told at first hand, about people, organisations and countries who all, for their part, lived with the unshakeable assumption that their contribution was of great significance to national, or sometimes international events. At any rate, this was the message which daily got through to the (common!) citizen, intelligent or otherwise, via the ‘independent‘ media both in the East as well as in the West. This book gives an intriguing inside view of some illegal STASI activities before the fall of the ‘Wall‘ and the investigation by a man called Ed Stevens This soon implicates a number of high-profile officials, all of whom are out to stop him before he can prove their involvement in a risky, and illegal worldwide trade game. His mission in the maze of Eastern Europe, known as ‘Riviera‘, led to the discovery of highly sensitive documents in a bank vault in Vienna, later known as The Rosewood File - disclosing the names of STASI agents and their illegal activities abroad.

In the United States, the former Head of the CIA Counter-espionage Section (!), ‘Rick‘ Aldrich Hazen Ames and his wife Rosario (Casas Dupuy) were arrested in 1994 and indicted for high treason, when it became evident that the pair collaborated since 1985 with Russian Intelligence services and those of some former satellite states.

Starting with the unsolved murder of Olof Palme, the Swedish Statsminister (Minister of State) in 1986, it covers the period until some years after the collapse of the USSR, when many aspects of a ‘dirty‘ secret war, the confrontation between East and West, became common knowledge. Suddenly the citizens of the ‘free‘ world started to realise, that the activities and covert operations of intelligence organizations like e.g. the KGB and STASI were more than ‘compensated‘ by the practices and modus operandi of Western intelligence services like the CIA, MI6, Mossad, BND and others. This book also describes the smuggling from the Baltic countries of such strategic items as caesium and beryllium to ‘clients‘ in the Middle East.

Could the sinking of the 15.000 ton ms Estonia on that dark night of the 28th of September 1994, causing the death of 852 people, also fit in this often paranoid, provincial and erratic behaviour of the, at times, rather unintelligent dark forces of ‘intelligence‘...?

Many questions remain! Documents that are used in this book are translations based on the German originals; several names of companies and people have been changed. In some cases, initials only have been used. Should these initials bring to mind persons with a particular name, then this is purely coincidental!

In the Europe of today, now that the European Union and Russia are linked by a Common European Space treaty, the events and facts as described in this book look like strange happenings in a distant past. Maybe the dream of former French President Charles de Gaulle, of a peaceful Europe ranging from the Atlantic Ocean to the Ural Mountains, could slowly become a reality.

Falköping - Sweden, autumn 2011.

About the author

Dirk Ewoud Swart was born in Almelo, near the German border in the Netherlands. While still at college, he developed an early interest in foreign countries and their cultures and financed his own first trips abroad to (communist) Yugoslavia at the age of 17, while he visited the United States of America (East Coast) the following year.

After one year as a trainee-pilot in the Royal Dutch Air Force, he spent the next ten years working for a major Dutch company, initially as a marketing assistant for Southern Europe and North Africa, later as a market specialist on a world-wide scope in the consumer article sector. He gave up this career to pursue the ‘freedom‘ of an independent activity as an international marketing and information consultant, while simultaneously enjoying the ‘fresh‘ air and beautiful nature of his second ‘fatherland‘ Sweden, where he now lives for almost 30 years.

Extensive travelling, living and working in countries as different as e.g. Luxembourg, Greece, Spain and Chile, contributed to his cynicism in evaluating the relationship between, sometimes, doubtful institutional behaviour and international ‘politics‘ as practised by a new ‘nobility‘ of full-time (career) politicians, not seldom steered by invisible financial, corporate and personal interests...

Part One

Prologue

1986

Transorient zero four six, you are cleared to land, runway two seven.

The Transorient Airlines Boeing 747 began its approach to Arlanda, Stockholm‘s international airport. Some more passengers had boarded at the last stop, Amsterdam, but the enormous aeroplane was only a third full.

The man in the observer seat in the cockpit held the rank of captain and, according to the official crew manifest, he was an instructor on this type of aircraft, who would board a flight from time to time in order to check a crew. The only strange thing in this situation, which could be considered to be a normal procedure, was that he had taken this very flight recently five times - at the request of those people who considered him to be the right man to do this delicate job and directly selected by the Old Man...

One of his assignments was to get to know Stockholm thoroughly: the old, beautiful city centre, Gamla Stan, the streets which led to the Rosenbad Government Building and the underground, called Tunnelbanan, in that cold country this time of the year.

###

It was pleasantly busy in the piano bar of the Sheraton Hotel in Stockholm, close to the Central Station; the flames dancing in the artificial log fire cast whimsical shadows over the faces of the people who were talking animatedly, having put the day out of their minds. It was the evening of the 28th of February, 1986 and the flight instructor, who had used the name of Ali Benuti in recent months, was sitting amongst the Transorient crew. He drank no alcohol that evening, he felt tense. So far, the phone call had not come through to let him know he could put his knowledge into practise. He didn‘t know much about flying...

He felt mentally tense, physically he was calm.

The plump stewardess called Nemuri, the only one on board who knew he was on a special mission, had expertly pampered him twice in his hotel room - a faint smell of whisky still hung about his trousers. She had also enjoyed it herself, and thought about the future, perhaps a future together with a wonderful man...

Benuti was a professional; he had personally assisted in the liquidation of seven ‘undesirable‘ people. If this cold job in Stockholm was successful, he had just one assignment left, and then he could return to his country as one of its most prized people and go and live in the rugged mountains of his native region.

He also felt disappointed, each visit had been pointless up to the present, and the final signal had never come. Could they trust the people to whom one million US dollars had been promised? They were vital people, however, people who understood the difficult Swedish language. They didn‘t have the organization themselves and the men who could do their job, the employees at the Embassy, could as a rule not be involved, were never to be fully trusted - even the local Resident of their unit had not been informed... Being dependent on others, it made him nervous. The voluptuous Nemuri, her legs tightly crossed so that her nylon-clad thighs visibly shone in the gaslight, sat staring greedily at him. She was starting to irritate him...

He looked at his watch, a gold Brequet, present from a dear Swiss friend, it was already a quarter to seven and if the visit to this city was going to be a fiasco again, he would have to abandon his mission. His face was becoming too familiar in the hotel and with the border police at Arlanda airport.

Through the large glazed walls of the piano bar, he saw the blonde receptionist coming across the lobby. In the bar, she looked around and came hurriedly over to Benuti‘s crew,

Telephone call for Captain Benuti, if you‘d just go to booth three, I‘ll put through the call.

Benuti got up from the low armchair with some difficulty; the old gunshot wound in his left thigh felt stiff after sitting for a long time. He followed the young woman with the name badge ‘Barbro‘ pinned on her queen-size left breast, his heart was pounding. In the booth, he took the receiver off the hook and heard a voice - English with a strong Finnish accent - as clearly as if the man were standing next to him,

Meeting in fifteen minutes, in your room...

Benuti looked at his watch and calculated he had to be in his room at five past seven.

There was a knock at the door, three short taps. Benuti opened it and, for the first time, saw his collaborators in front of him, carefully selected by reliable colleagues in his department. Both wore dark, lined leather jackets with fur collars. One of the men was short and thick set, his head as bald as a billiard ball, the other was tall, slim and muscular with strange, hard light-blue eyes which did not fit his otherwise handsome face. These were the people who were to help and accompany him up to the point where he would have to carry out the assignment by himself. He shook hands with them in silence.

Come to the underground car park in five minutes; enter through the small glass door next to the reception in the lobby. We‘ll wait for you there in a dark grey Saab, then we can talk...

It was the blond-haired man who did the talking and the man who called himself Benuti recognised the Finnish accent from the telephone conversation. The man remained staring at him with his pale eyes; a strange and fixed look as though he wanted to test him out.

Without saying another word, they both turned and disappeared into the hotel corridor. The blond-haired man went off to the left, in the direction of the lift; the short, bald man, who had put a fur hat on, walked in the direction of the stairs. Benuti closed the door, walked to the wardrobe and took a padded, mid-length uniform coat out of it, the golden epaulettes on its shoulders clearly visible. He was calm again; adrenaline filled his veins - the result of a hard, merciless training.

He looked in the mirror, put on the uniform hat and heard himself say quietly to his reflection, Take care, son... Then he left the room, pulled the door closed and walked to the lift, he still had two minutes time left. The blonde girl at reception and the manager greeted him in a friendly manner and wished him a nice evening. He answered calmly, saying that he needed some more fresh Swedish air before the flight that night, You can understand that at my age...

The young girl looked as though she found his age no obstacle and winked at him, ‘who knows, a captain might be able to take care of a free trip if she was nice to him...‘

Benuti walked slowly towards the small, glass side door, checked the time - twenty seconds to go - opened the door and disappeared unnoticed into a dim concrete tunnel, twenty-five or so metres from the entrance to the underground car park. He quickly took his coat off and turned it inside out; the colour changed from black to dark blue, without epaulettes. He folded the pilot‘s hat in two, pushed it into the big pocket on the underside of the coat, took the black knitted cap out and put it on his head. Just out of the tunnel, a grey Saab drove up, a door was opened and he got in. It had all happened within thirty seconds, nobody had seen anything...

In the car it was warm and stuffy, and strong cigarette smoke made him feel nauseous. Without any introduction, the thick set man, sitting next to him on the backseat, began, We gather that your intervention is possible this evening... At half past six, we intercepted a telephone conversation - it doesn‘t matter how - between your, shall we say, your patient and his son. He‘s is visiting a cinema privately - no security. The show finishes around eleven o‘clock. You wait here... The man unfolded a map of the city and pointed to a piece of waste ground, about a hundred metres from the cinema called the ‘Grand‘...

He got something lying next to him on the back seat and gave it to Benuti. It was a small walkie-talkie, a device which was on sale anywhere and was often used during elk-hunting.

You wait there - nobody will think anything of it - from a quarter to eleven, to make sure we‘re on time. We‘ll follow your, er, patient until we know which route home he‘s going to take. If he uses the underground, then, unfortunately, everything will have to happen before he gets on the train. You know the city now; here are the possibilities... and he pointed again with a plump finger to the various directions that the victim could go.

Then we‘ll call you and tell you where you can start following us. Pass me at a suitable point and do the rest yourself... If all goes well, you‘d better not forget to have the envelope with the key delivered at the reception, as arranged.

It was the key to a luggage locker at Central Station. In the locker the metal case with one million dollars would be put, payment for the help of these barbarians in this critical operation. Initially, they had asked for three million US dollars...

Whichever way he goes, the man continued, you mustn‘t forget these escape routes, and he indicated various back streets and alleys on which he had put a red cross.

You know the city here, it‘ll be better for you and us... he coughed, it‘ll be better for everybody if we can disappear unseen. We‘d be sorry to have to pay a visit to innocent people at your Embassy...

Benuti sneered inwardly - these spineless curs who were betraying their own country, selling their own people for US dollars, he would be able to find them, even the members of their families if need be, if they didn‘t keep their side of the agreement. And if he didn‘t succeed himself, others would take care of it...

The blond-haired man who was skilfully driving the car through the still busy traffic, reached backwards with his right hand and gave Benuti a small leather case.

Your weapon, tested and thoroughly checked -not perhaps a weapon for a professional like you, but powerful enough to knock out a bull. One shot in the right place is enough, Magnum 357, the cylinder‘s full, six shots.

Benuti did not answer, a vague unease came over him - in four hours‘ time, he would have to use the weapon...

The long, wide shopping street was deserted. It was icy cold and here and there were melted remains of snow which had frozen over and sometimes made it treacherous underfoot. Benuti squeezed his eyes half-shut and saw the three people fifty metres or so in front of him. The short, fat man, who was following a couple, looked like a fungus with his big fur hat on his bald head. There was something wrong; this wasn‘t possible... The fat traitor was following the wrong people, he was being lured into a trap: there was no bodyguard anywhere visible. A minister of state without security - the man was making a terrible mistake...

Benuti looked down both sides of the street, behind him, on the other side, a young couple were walking arm in arm. They were laughing and in the light of a shop window, he saw their breath in big white plumes on this icy night. His heartbeat was irregular, should he run away? This was madness, he forced himself to calm down, his training triumphed and he reached into his right-hand pocket, gripping the cold weapon firmly. In the toilet of the Italian restaurant where he had spent nearly three hours, he had checked the Magnum once again, taken the cartridges out and reloaded it. He lifted the safety-catch and increased his pace.

Sveavägen - this was one of the streets he had walked along a few times in recent months. He would have to hurry up, there were only two escape routes which he wanted to use and they were just now going past the first one, a sort of alley on the other side of the street.

He still had a hundred metres to go before he could leap into the darkness - the red cross on the map glowed like a bulb in front of his eyes - into the Tunnelgatan, Tunnelstreet, and disappear up the steps... The time was good, quarter past eleven, in this cold the Swedes were sitting indoors or else in restaurants, quenching their healthy thirst during this wintry night.

Benuti started to walk faster without especially drawing attention to him. When he passed the man with the fur hat, he heard him whisper in English, By the brightly-lit shop-window on the corner - no security - success... and the thick man with no neck crossed the street and disappeared. Benuti still had ten metres to go before he reached the man and the woman, who were walking arm in arm. It was still forty metres to the shop-window on the corner and he stopped a few seconds to look around and check the road behind and ahead of him. The couple on the other side were standing in front of the big, illuminated window of a fashion shop.

Now... flashed into his mind and he began to walk, at first at the same speed as his victims, then faster. His heart was still beating irregularly. Was he getting too old? Was he becoming unsuitable for this honourable work? Previously he had done it coolly, without emotion; now he was behaving like an old woman...

He had once killed one of his victims with a blow to the throat and had then disappeared into the crowd of people as calmly as if he had been to a theatre production.

The damned shop-window lit up the corner of the street where it had to happen. Benuti quickly took four large steps and whispered clearly, audibly, the Magnum in his hand, Good evening...

The moment that the man, who was wearing a small fur hat, looked round, he shot his enemy‘s spinal column in two at a range of ten centimetres, level with the heart. He pointed the weapon at the woman, but, on impulse he turned it away at the moment the second shot was fired - not a woman... A vast, overpowering calm overcame him. He looked around and checked his escape route, the Tunnelgatan, which was deserted on this dark winter night. Don‘t run, walk calmly, but go, go, now! - disappear towards the darkness of the Humlegården, a small park. When he was bounding up the steps, he caught himself counting them. Stop! Nothing stupid now: darkness, walk calmly, don‘t attract attention...

He looked behind him at the top of the steps, nobody was following him, he was alone. To his right, a taxi was passing, in front of him, an old woman was walking cautiously across the patches of ice. He went into the dark park, felt the darkness like a cool embrace and stepped behind a clump of bushes. Quickly, he took off his coat , turned the inside out again - the damned sleeves were a problem - and put the black uniform coat back on. Then he put the Captain‘s hat on again and the Captain of the Transorient 747 entered the street and walked via a section of the Kungsgatan back to the Central Station and his hotel, diagonally across it.

It was a quarter to twelve when he entered