The Janus Man (19 page)

`Is this man among your refugee informants?' Tweed asked as he wrote a name on a sheet from his pad, folded it once and handed it to Grey. The name he had written was Ziggy Palewska.

Grey glanced at it, refolded the sheet and returned it to Tweed. 'I have never heard of the person.'

Which was astute, Tweed thought. Grey had concealed from everyone else even the gender of the informant. Tweed turned to Masterson who was twiddling a pencil between his large hands. Full of physical energy, not a committee man, Harry Masterson, unlike Grey, who revelled in long meetings.

`Harry, how goes it in the Balkans?'

`Damned frustrating. All known Soviet personnel and their hyenas have run for cover. I've sent certain men across the borders behind the penetration zones. Any day now someone will let something slip. The Curtain has dropped with a clang — but as I have just said, I have people on the other side. Something's brewing. Take my word for it. I can't wait to get back...'

`I'm afraid you'll have to,' Tweed said, seizing on the opening, 'because I'm giving all of you one week's leave. In this country. No quick trips to Monte Carlo.' He looked quickly at Masterson as he said this, then he stood up.

`Inform your deputies to take charge in your absence.'

`But we've only been in our new posts six months,' Grey protested. 'We need more time to work ourselves in. Then maybe you will get more comprehensive reports...'

`One week's leave. In this country,' Tweed repeated. 'And I shall want a word with each of you separately before you start that leave.'

Monica waited until the end of the day before she tackled Tweed. He had spent the afternoon having brief interviews with each of his sector chiefs, meetings from which Monica had been excluded. 'I want them relaxed,' he had explained. 'They may think you are recording our conversations.'

He called Newman at the Hotel Jensen at five o'clock. As he had hoped, the reporter was just back from a day with Diana at Travemünde. His call was brief. He asked Newman to go to the Hauptbahnhof, to call him back from one of the public phone booths at the station. Within ten minutes the phone on his desk rang.

`Newman here. Don't worry about Diana — I can see her from this box. I brought her with me. What's up?'

`Do you know whether Dr Berlin has returned again to his place on Priwall Island?'

`You're in luck. I met Kuhlmann who is still prowling round Travemünde, mostly interviewing people at the marina. He told me Dr Berlin is still missing. Kuhlmann has men watching that mansion night and day...'

`Thank you. That's very interesting. Call me should he come back. I don't think he will. Everything all right?'

`A weird trivia. Diana has decided to take a secretarial course. Typing and shorthand. Now, don't fuss, I take her to the school in Lübeck, leave her there. I know when she leaves and I'll be waiting for her.'

Did she say why?'

'A sudden whim. I was surprised myself...'

`Shorthand and typing? In German?'

'At the school, yes. She has dug out some old training manuals for Pitman's in English. She's teaching herself in English. She has bought a small portable. Keeps it hidden away inside a locker aboard the
Südwind
. Apart from that, nothing new...'

'I should be with you in a week or so. Watch your back. Something is stirring in that part of the world.'

'Not much sign of it so far.'

'What about Kurt Franck?'

'Vanished into thin air...'

'Watch out for cripples,' Tweed said and put down the phone.

'Now!' Monica sat erect in her chair. 'Have you got five minutes? Good. What's going on? You've left Europe wide open — no sector chief on the continent. The deputies don't have the grip of the sector chiefs — and you know it.'

'Strategy,' said Tweed. 'Europe wide open, as you say. And I would bet money Lysenko will know it within hours. It will encourage him to make a move. I'm sitting back to see what move he will make. The field will seem clear — I'm tempting him into taking advantage of that fact. When he does move I'll know what he's up to. Meantime I'm going to visit Masterson at his cottage down at Apfield near Chichester, Lindemann at his flat in town, and Dalby — presumably coping on his own at Woking now he's separated from his wife who has gone off to France.'

'You seem to put great hopes on seeing them in their homes...'

'They'll be more relaxed. Someone is going to make a mistake, give me the lead I'm seeking. And why do you think someone like Diana Chadwick would suddenly take up a secretarial course?'

'Because she expects soon to have to earn her own living.'

Tweed looked thunderstruck. He stood up and paced his office, hands clasped behind his back. Then he stood looking down at Monica.

`What would I do without you?'

`Did I say something?'

`Oh, nothing momentous. You just gave me another sign that a truly bizarre theory I've hesitated to take seriously could be the whole key to Balkan.'

Nineteen

`Diana Chadwick will be aboard Flight BA 737, departing Hamburg 18.20, arriving Heathrow 18.50, London time. Please have her met.'

Newman's voice was crisp, almost brusque. Tweed gripped the receiver tightly and took a deep breath.

`Bob, you can't do that...'

`Diana has agreed. I'll see her aboard the flight at this end myself. Today. I can't be handicapped by having to guard her...'

`What the devil do you think you're up to?' Tweed demanded. `No arguments. I have a job I must do. On my own. I repeat — Diana will be aboard that flight...'

`I don't like it...'

`I didn't ask you to like it. You'll have her met?'

`I'll go myself — if I must...'

`You must.'

The connection was broken before Tweed could respond. He sat back in his chair and stared at Monica. She raised her eyebrows, cocked her head on one side like a bird.

`Newman has gone maverick again,' Tweed rasped. 'I have to go and collect Diana Chadwick off the Hamburg flight at 18.50 this evening. He's just put her aboard like a parcel...'

`Let's hope she doesn't have to travel cargo.'

`It almost sounded like that. He's freeing himself of the responsibility of guarding her so he can do his own thing. God knows what his game is — you know what he is when he's got the bit between his teeth.'

`Highly effective.'

`He takes too many risks for my liking.' Tweed stood up and walked over to the window, hands thrust inside his jacket pockets. 'On the other hand, with Diana being in England, she might just be the key I need to unlock the mystery of Balkan's identity …'

Peter Toll, an officer in the BND, arrived in Lübeck from his Pullach HQ near Münich, the day before Newman made his phone call to Tweed.

Toll, an old friend of Newman's, walked into the Hotel Jensen, found that Newman was in his room, and sent up his card inside a sealed envelope. The reporter was chatting with Diana over a glass of wine when the porter brought up the envelope. He opened it, then looked at Diana.

`Would you excuse me for a few minutes? I want to get rid of this chap quickly. He's a nuisance.'

`Who is he?'

`An informant I've used in the past. He's become unreliable. You'll stay here till I get back? Don't open the door to anyone except me. I'll rap like this...'

He beat a tattoo on the table, left the room, waited outside the closed door until he heard her turn the key, then took the lift to the lobby. Peter Toll was tall and lean, clean-shaven, in his early thirties, a man who smiled easily and was one of the most quick-witted men Newman had met. He wore rimless spectacles and moved agilely. They shook hands.

`Care for a stroll along the river?' Toll suggested.

`Why not?' Newman waited until they were outside and walking beyond where the tables with people drinking stood on the pavement. 'How did you know I was here? Where to find me?'

Toll pushed his glasses further up his long nose, a gesture Newman remembered. 'It's my job to know when suspicious foreigners arrive in the Federal Republic,' he joked.

`Come off it, Peter, you want something. You haven't travelled all the way from Pullach just to pass the time of day.'

`What a cynical chap you are,' Toll continued in English. 'I could be here checking a situation and decided to call in on an old friend …'

`Get to the point, I don't want to be away from the hotel too long.'

`Of course not, Diana Chadwick is a fascinating woman so they tell me.'

`
How
did you know I was here?' Newman repeated. `Through Bonn...'

`Don't you mean Wiesbaden?'

`Kuhlmann would never inform me of your presence — not without pressure from the Chancellor. Kuhlmann is strictly concerned with the hideous killings of foreign girls. He's Criminal Police.'

`Now we're getting somewhere. What made Kuhlmann pick up the phone to Pullach?'

`Your continuing interest in Dr Berlin. Plus the arrival of Tweed.'

`And what is your interest in Dr Berlin?'

They had reached the point alongside the old town where an old hump-backed pedestrian bridge spanned the river. Toll led the way over the bridge and up a path between trees past a boathouse.

`Frankly, I wish I knew. Let's talk in German now.' Toll had switched to his native language.

`Vague answers don't interest me,' Newman replied in German. 'What's wrong with Dr Berlin?'

`On the surface nothing. He's got a world-wide reputation as a saint, a man dedicated to the welfare of the have-nots. But he keeps disappearing for long periods. Our best men have tried to keep track of his movements. He's a bloody conjuror — and plays the trick on himself. The vanishing trick. And he's so close to the border — it's at the end of the Mecklenburgerstrasse — the road he lives on...'

`I know. You have to have something more solid than that.'

`Leipzig. Twenty years ago he played the same vanishing trick in Africa. One morning he's in Kenya, the next he's disappeared. Reported dead in the jungle. Then he pops up in Leipzig. Treated for some obscure tropical disease. Hey presto! Eighteen months later another vanishing trick. He appears in the Federal Republic. First you see him, then you don't. People like that worry Pullach.'

`Still pretty vague. What do you want me for?'

`Your German is pretty good.'

They had emerged off the footpath on to a road and beyond that on to the highway leading to police HQ at Lübeck-Süd. Newman lit a cigarette and studied Toll who smiled back in the most innocent manner.

`Go on,' Newman snapped.

`You could still pass for a German. In the right clothes.' `So my German is reasonable. Where does that get us?' `Reports arriving at Pullach say Markus Wolf is running some major operation — from Leipzig.'

`What kind of an operation?' Newman asked.

`That's what we need to find out. The Russians are pulling the strings behind Wolf.'

Par for the course. What do you want me to do?'

`Go behind the Iron Curtain …'

For several minutes Newman remained silent, and they walked together alongside the highway through the countryside. In the distance loomed the isolated complex of Lübeck-Süd. Behind them the green spires of Lübeck's churches speared up above the trees.

`Why me?' Newman asked eventually.

`Because, you see...' Toll was talking very fast. `... as I said, you can pass, for a German. Because Wolf has arrested many of our agents in a sudden swoop. Communications across the border have been largely cut. That, I think, explains the strange lack of activity of the opposition's agents in the West. Some are lying low, some have been temporarily withdrawn.

The information about our lost men seems to come from London. I am informing Tweed of that fact when I can contact him...'

`I don't know where Tweed is,' Newman said easily, 'but when you return to Pullach call London. You know Monica? Good. She may be able to get a message to him. And now, once again, why me?'

`I have one group underground inside East Germany Wolf knows nothing about. Led by a formidable man and a girl. You are not known in The Zone. It will be dangerous, but I think you could manage it.'

'Manage what?'

`Contact this group, find out direct from them — verbally — what is happening. I dare not use one of my own men who may be identified. And we are in the middle of reorganizing our radio communications system. The old one is blown.'

`You make it sound easy. How the devil could I ever hope to cross the border?'

That I can arrange...'

`With what chance of success?'

`Guaranteed. I can only give details when you have agreed.'

`
If
I agree. I have to sleep on it.'

`Don't sleep too long...'

`And don't push it. I think we'll turn back now. I want to get back to the Jensen.'

`Of course, of course.' Toll was at his most amiable and went on speaking in the same light-hearted way, as though discussing a holiday. 'We do know that your old friend, General Lysenko, is in East Germany, peering over Wolf's shoulder...'

`You're sure Lysenko is involved?' Newman's tone sharpened.

`Quiet sure. So, he is the man you would be up against in the last analysis. Only fair to lay all the cards on the table. You know me...'

`I know you. Feed the dog the food he likes, get him in a good humour. Hold back the bits that might give him indigestion.' `Now, Bob, when have I ever done that to you?'

A hurt tone in Toll's voice. His face expressed indignant disbelief. A good actor, Peter Toll.

`Just now,' Newman said as they turned down back towards the Trave and there was the distant sound of people laughing and talking. Another gloriously sunny day with glimpses through the trees of boats proceeding up and down the river.

`I don't understand,' Toll began.

`I won't even think about your offer unless you tell me exactly how I would cross the border. Where. How.'

`That is top secret information.' Toll paused, pushed up his glasses to the top of his nose. 'You go over straight through the minefield belt past a certain watchtower further south. The guards in that tower have been bribed. I have them in my pocket.'