The Contract (19 page)

Didn't walk with the strut of a martinet. Ulf Becker knew his officers, knew what to scout for. He'd be a Party man, he'd hold the SED

membership card in his tunic pocket, wouldn't be an officer without that, not a major anyway . . .

The Politoffizier stood behind. Becker watched him. The head of an owl, the body of a stoat. They were the pigs, the ones who set soldier against soldier, the ones who primed one man to offer the studied indiscretion to the other in the watchtower or the earth bunker and waited to see if the confidence were reported. They were the pigs. It was their work to ensure that no soldier trusted his colleague, their work to ensure that on the border no soldier owned a friend. Too close to the fence for that, too close to the green grass beyond the wire.

It was a new thought for Ulf Becker, a new species of complaint for him. It had not been so before he had ridden on the S-Bahn train in Berlin with Jutte.

The major called them forward, told them to gather round him, to be near to the map.

'My name is Pfeffel, you are all most welcome to the Walbeck company.

You will be with us for some days and we will endeavour to make your stay with us as happy as we can manage. The Walbeck sector of the anti-fascist defences of the DDR is not entirely similar to the area that you are accustomed to patrolling at Weferlingen. Our company frontage lies on either side of the Walbeck Strasse that before our liberation from Nazism by the Red Army linked this coalmining village with that of Emmerstedt now in the BDR.' The major stabbed with his cane at the map, identifying the village and the mauve line of the frontier. 'Walbeck is different to Weferlingen because here the terrain is less friendly to us.

To prevent crossings of our frontier by saboteurs from the BDR we have had to clear considerable areas of forestry. The whole frontage of our sector is covered by forest and as yet the programme for the building of towers is not completed. We have to maintain the highest level of patrolling. Where the ground is difficult for us we have found that only increased vigilance and watchfulness can compensate.'

The major had completed his speech, smiled at the young men and retreated to his command post. An NCO followed with a briefing of the duties they would face, and the rosters they would work.

Ulf Becker listened closely, absorbed the details of the sharp curves in the frontier line, the pockets of dead ground where special care must be taken, the positioning of the bunkers, the frequency of the routine of observing the fence from the Trabant jeeps.

If he had watched the boy the Politoffizier would have been impressed by this young soldier's apparent keenness to begin his work with the Walbeck company.

Ulf Becker had 8 more days to serve in the National Volks Armee on the border. He would then spend 3 more days preparing for his demobilisation at Battalion at Seggerde. After that, Berlin and the status of civilian . . . Berlin, where Jutte waited for a letter.

From the armoury he drew the standard MPiKM of the border, and two magazine clips of ammunition. He was assigned to a junior NCO

and awarded the night watch in the 40 feet high, square based concrete tower dominating the overgrown and tree strewn Walbeck Strasse.

There was much cover on either side of the fence there, he was told, high alertness was demanded.

It was a short meeting at Bonn/Cologne airport.

Adam Percy had driven up from the German capital to be told that their business could be completed inside the airport. He wondered why Mawby had bothered to come, why their conversation should not be conducted by telephone or telex. Looking for reassurance and comfort, wanting his hand held and stroked with the news that all was according to plan and schedule. Ridiculous, Mawby flying over to be told that the German aspect was advancing. But not for Adam Percy to query the motives of his masters, not for 'out station Bonn' to question and deride.

Percy was able to confirm that Hermann Lentzer had allocated a driver to bring the car from Berlin to Helmstedt. He had also been informed that a forger had been found who would ride in the car to doctor the transit papers. A BMW 520 would be used for the run, stolen within the next 3 days in West Berlin, resprayed and with changed number plates and fraudulent documents. Better that way than using a hired car which was often subject to closer scrutiny at the border, Percy had remarked.

"They want to know, Mr Mawby, if we'll be giving them advance knowledge of the pick-up point?'

'No.'

'Tell them when they start the run.'

'When they start the run. It's a financial transaction, an unpleasant and dirty one.'

Percy did not betray his feelings. 'I'll pass that on.'

'Stay close to them, won't you . . .'

'They're as good as any. How good that is remains a matter ofjudgement.'

'It's the weakest link we have.'

'When you play around over there all the links are weak.'

They were sitting in the self-service cafeteria. Two coffees, two sticky cakes. Sitting with their heads close in a caricature of conspiracy.

'What's our man like, Mr Mawby?'

'We have no doubts that he'll cope. He has to . . . It will be the biggest show the Service mounts this year, that's what Dus says.'

Percy circled his spoon in the murk of his coffee. 'They're always the ones that go sour.'

'You're a damned pessimist.'

'That's been said before, Mr Mawby. You'll forgive me for saying so but I've also been called a realist. I'm an out of London man. All the plans that I make have to be put directly into operation. You get a bit jaundiced about the infallibility of programmes that descend from Century House.'

'Concern yourself with the autobahn run,' Mawby said acidly.

' I will, don't you worry, Mr Mawby.' Percy gazed back at him over his cup and his cake. Perhaps he should tell Charles Mawby that a sparrow from Wiesbaden had tele- phoned to report that he had let slip to his superior a British interest in Hermann Lentzer. Perhaps he should report to Charles Mawby that his secretary had twice fielded calls from a senior official of BND with the answer that Adam Percy was out of his office.

Perhaps he should say to Charles Mawby that he had pleaded a cold to avoid attendance of a routine liaison meeting at which he would have sat opposite that same senior official.

Just a bloody nuisance, wasn't it? A bloody nuisance but peripheral to their business. And Mawby was paranoid about Lentzer and the autobahn run, Mawby would be heaving into the ceiling if the indiscretion were known to him. Better left unsaid. And it would all be smoothed over, the ruffled German feathers, when Mawby's show was curtained down.

Percy walked with Mawby to the departure gates, shook his hand and summoned a bleak smile and confided that he was sure that all would be well.

When he was back in his car, before starting the engine, Percy wrote in his memory pad a gutting of the instructions that he had been given about the transhipment of firearms and explosives that would be sent from London to Bonn by diplomatic bag, and which he must then arrange for delivery to East Berlin. Not a complicated task for him, the moving of a package to the British Embassy in the DDR's capital, but a wretched chore. All of those years that he had been in West Germany, a working lifetime of commitment, and still there were wet eared young men out from London like Charles Mawby who regarded him as little more than a messenger.

He imagined Mawby back in London, and the quip in Century House,

'Awkward old cuss, that Percy in Bonn, right for retirement time', but he'd seen them off in the past, the youthful and ambitious Assistant Secretaries, he'd survive Charles Mawby.

When Adam Percy was angry his ulcer hurt, and he bit his lower lip as he started the car.

Together the Member for Guildford and the Chief Constable of the county walked around the policeman's garden. Both men had heavy diaries of appointments and a Sunday afternoon provided the opportunity for them to blend their free time.

His wife did all the work, really, the Chief Constable had remarked.

She was the one with the fingers to bring on the flowers and shrubs. He confined himself to keeping the grass cut, and he'd be doing that later, and that was a heavy enough hint that Sir Charles Spottiswoode should explain the reason for his visit.

'In confidence, right, that's understood . . .?'

'I'm always cautious of confidence. I'm a policeman, not a priest in confessional.' With his pen knife the Chief Constable sliced away the sucker stem from a rose bush.

' I've come to a friend for corroboration, and advice.'

'Try me. We've known each other enough years, we don't have to lay down ground rules.'

They paced the prim paths with the clear cut borders, they admired the blossom of the pear and apple trees, they bent to examine the rhododendron buds, they looked in the greenhouse at the coming tomatoes. And Sir Charles Spottiswoode talked of what Dennis Tweedle had told him at first hand, and what he had heard once removed of the experiences of Annabel Tweedle and Constable Potterton.

The Chief Constable led his guest to the centre of the handkerchief lawn.

'If it wasn't you I was talking to, if it was just your ordinary fellow from the public, then I'd say forget it. But a Member of Parliament doesn't have to forget anything. The incident at the Tweedle house took place, that I know. A young man being brought to the house in a state of distress, the local constable summoned and matching the boy with a missing person we'd been told to raise heaven and hell to find, that's all copper bottom. That end of the county was crawling with spooks and to put it most kindly they were cavalier with my people. I can neither confirm nor deny what was said to Potterton in the Tweedle house, I've made it my business not to find out. I heard separately from Special Branch that the matter was connected with a property at Holmbury. We all know about that place and we leave it to itself ... if it caught fire I doubt they'd let the Brigade in. I imagine that everything you say is true, and I don't want to know.'

'I only asked for corroboration.'

'You've had that. . . and in confidence.'

'In confidence.' The Member smiled and his hand touched the Chief Constable's arm, gripped at his shirt sleeve. 'We don't have private armies in this country. We don't tolerate people being dragged out of private homes by faceless men who aren't accountable . . .'

'You're not going to shout this lot off the rooftops?'

'It will go to the Prime Minister. All the smell, all the nastiness I'll tip on his desk. He won't love me for it, but a backbencher who does his job isn't there to be loved by Cabinet. They had no right, no authority to treat this boy in that way . . . and it'll not happen again.'

'You didn't come and see me, did you?'

'As you said, we've known each other enough years. It's a wonderful garden, it does your wife great credit.'

There were no porters to carry their two suitcases at the Hauptbahnhof at Magdeburg.

Erica lifted them down onto the platform and started the long slogging trek down the steps to the tunnel that ran underneath the tracks and that emerged in the hallway of the station. There was a warm and clammy heat, as if rain might lurk in the sun haze. She shouldered her way through the crowds that milled between the ticket windows and the information kiosk and the sweet and cigarette shop. Her father trailed behind, carrying her handbag and magazine and his briefcase. In front of them stretched the wide square of ornamental lawns and laid out flower beds and beyond that the grey facade of the International Hotel. The bags were at her feet on the pavement outside the station, and she flexed her hands and braced her muscles. A Soviet army corporal, far from home, loading freight onto a military lorry looked with a longing at the tall, slender girl and was slashed with the contempt of her glance. She wished Renate had been there to meet them, but Renate had written to say that she would be in Sangerhausen in the south because her aunt was ill, and she was sorry and would be back in Magdeburg as soon as it was possible. And her father's friends were not at the station because Otto Guttmann had dithered in posting his letters and the service between Moscow and the DDR was awful and she had not been prepared to nag him into earlier action. What an idiotic, unhappy way to arrive in a far away city, and God alone knew why they had to take rooms in that hotel, why just once they could not accept the invitation of friends. No one there to help her, and too short a distance for a taxi. Erica hurried forward, bent by the weight of the suitcases, and Otto Guttmann was panting as he tried to stay at her heels.

A pretty girl, an old man, and the start of a summer holiday.

The days at Holmbury had slipped, tumbled, fallen away.

It was as Johnny would have wished and Carter was sensitive to the needs of his man. The final days for Johnny and the moments when he might brood in solitude were denied him. Pace and camaraderie were the order of the moment.

For Carter the atmosphere stretched back his memories to the days when he had been young and a new recruit of the Service and attached to Special Operations Executive in the last years of the war, when he had worked with men to be parachuted into occupied Europe. Thirty-five years later, 35 years of continental peace and nothing changed. The same tensions, the same belly flutters and loud laughter, the same fear of failure and the willing hopes of success. That was how Carter had learned to cosset and protect an agent, that was how he had acquired the knowledge of when to pamper and when to bully. They were all frightened, the young men who would suffer the abrupt snapping of the umbilical link, they all wanted their hand gripped by Henry Carter. This lad would not be pitched out of a swaying, slow running Mosquito bomber on a clouded night. He would take the train at 2 in the morning from Hannover . . . Didn't matter a damn, didn't alter the basics of the mission. Whether by parachute, whether by second class rail ticket, Johnny was going into enemy territory. There wouldn't be many who would recognise that destination. They wouldn't know, and fewer would care, that a young man was flirting with his life because he had been chosen to journey on their behalf. You're a maudlin old bugger, Henry Carter would say to himself.