Floodgate

Floodgate
Alistair MacLean

Reissue of the tense tale of a deadly terrorist plot set Holland, from the acclaimed master of action and suspense.AMSTERDAM AIRPORT HAS DISAPPEAREDBLACKMAILThe mass of water in its place is the work of the FFF - an Irish terrorist group who want to force Britain’s hand.SUBTERFUGEThe Dutch call in Detective Lieutenant van Effen - feared interrogator and undercover intimate of the criminal Krakers gang - to sabotage the FFF’s plan.DISASTERIf van Effen fails and the FFF get control of the vital dyke, either Holland will sink beneath the sea or Britain will be awash with blood.

Alistair Maclean

Floodgate

Copyright (#ulink_70a37845-ece5-51c4-923f-479e0b74fba9)

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

HARPER

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk/)

First published in Great Britain by William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd 1983 then in paperback by Fontana 1984

Copyright © Alistair MacLean 1983

Alistair MacLean asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication

Source ISBN: 9780006169116

Ebook Edition © SEPTEMBER 2009 ISBN: 9780007289271

Version: 2016-10-11

To David and Judy

Table of Contents

Cover Page (#u41a42ee3-61e3-5d8b-9c37-2cd8169337c5)

Title Page (#u7a03012d-6fe3-5261-aa30-e2531b85264b)

Copyright (#ub535d428-f4ae-5089-b541-046595ba515a)

Dedication (#u74783445-4796-55bd-bb94-2be773f948bb)

Prologue (#u6597273f-52b6-5b9e-b1e1-69989ebc24d5)

Chapter One (#u64b655a2-70f8-50ff-90a6-7a9fe5bbd1d5)

Chapter Two (#u7c1c9268-f23d-5ea0-b32c-c33182f0da86)

Chapter Three (#u737223ac-5e83-519c-91d0-7a5c814b6654)

Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)

Keep Reading (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

By Alistair MacLean (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

PROLOGUE (#ulink_6d984d38-526b-5b04-b97f-28fdf18253a0)

The two oddly similar incidents, although both happening on the night of February 3rd, and both involving army ammunition storage installations, had no discernible connection.

The occurrence at De Doorns in Holland was mysterious, spectacular and tragic: the one at Metnitz in Germany was a good deal less mysterious, unspectacular and faintly comic.

Three soldiers were on guard at the Dutch ammunition dump, set in a concrete bunker one and a half kilometres north of the village of De Doorns, when, about one-thirty in the morning, the only two citizens who were awake in the village reported a staccato burst of machine-pistol fire—it was later established that the guards were carrying machine-pistols—followed immediately by the sound of a gigantic explosion, which was later found to have blasted in the earth a crater sixty metres wide by twelve deep.

Houses in the village suffered moderately severe damage but there was no loss of life.

It was presumed that the guards had fired at intruders and that a stray bullet had triggered the detonation. No traces of the guards or supposed intruders were found afterwards.

In Germany, a group calling themselves the Red Army Faction, a well-known and well-organized band of terrorists, claimed that they had easily overcome the two-man guard at the US Nato arms dump near Metnitz. Both men, it had been claimed, had been drinking and when the intruders had left both were covered with blankets—it had been a bitterly cold night. The US Army denied the drinking allegation but made no mention of the blankets. The intruders claimed that they had acquired a quantity of offensive weapons, some so advanced that they were still on the secret list. The US Army denied this.

The West German press heavily favoured the intruders’ account. When it came to penetrating army bases, the Red Army Faction had an impressive record: when it came to protecting them, the US Army had an unimpressive one.