by John Lawton
Wilderness said, “I’m here to see Janis Bell. Just say one word, ‘Diesel.’ ”
Janis could not have been far away. Less than a minute later the door opened. And then it slammed behind him.
“Good grief, Joe, you like risk, don’t you?”
“The risk is out there, not in here.”
“I mean … coming here …”
“I’m busted, Janis. The Russians know everything. Busted and knackered. I need a bed for the night.”
“Let me see what I can do.”
She led him up to the top floor of the palace, to a room so low anyone taller than Wilderness would have to stoop. All the same, it was well furnished, clean and warm.
“This is the Foreign Secretary’s room. We’re not expecting him. In fact, he’s never been here. Tomorrow we should tell the ambassador what’s happening. I’d tell him now but he’s having dinner with Dubček.”
“I won’t be here long. I’ve no intention of becoming a refugee. I’ll get out of the country as soon … as soon as I’ve finished.”
Janis Bell stood in the window, high above the embassy garden.
“Refugee? Just look out there. It’s like Chipperfield’s Circus.”
Wilderness found himself looking at the tops of a scattering of tents.
“How many?”
“Twenty-seven. Not one of them over the age of twenty-one.”
“What can you do with them?”
“Dunno, but I imagine that’s why Troy and Dubček are meeting. Now, tired, you say. Hungry too?”
“Haven’t eaten since breakfast.”
“I’ll have something sent up.”
When she’d gone, Wilderness kicked off his shoes and lay on the bed. The exhaustion wasn’t physical. It might even be relief that this was all over—almost all over.
Janis hadn’t asked what he meant by “finished.”
Finished was Nell. He did not want to leave Prague without seeing Nell. He’d asked Kostya for time. A day to find her … and a day to escape.
§182
The eastern terrace of the embassy was not watched to the same extent as the garden. Anna concluded that after dark someone dressed in black could probably go over the wall without being seen.
She’d reconnoitred the route late that afternoon. Twelve feet or so below the wall was the sloping roof a building that stood in a courtyard just off Sněmovní. The door to the courtyard was not locked. A drainpipe ran from the lower end of the roof to ground level, and what teenage boy could not climb a drainpipe? Once in Sněmovní it was a five-hundred-yard dash to Klárov, the broad square where the trams stopped before they snaked their way up the next hill, and where Nell Burkhardt had said she would park.
At ten minutes to nine, feeling faintly ridiculous in a black balaclava, she held Jiří by one hand, leaned out as far as she dared and dropped him onto the roof below.
She heard the tiles crack beneath his weight.
He looked up.
“Goodbye, Mrs. Basdress,” he said in a stagey whisper.
“Jiří … bugger off and bon voyage.”
§183
Nell parked her Beetle in front of a dirty black BMW that looked as though it had spent its life in ploughed fields.
It was three minutes to nine.
Punctuality was not one of Jiří’s finer points. Stupidity was.
But on the dot of nine the passenger door was yanked open, and Jiří slid into the seat.
“Did anyone see you?”
“No one that matters. I didn’t run. I walked at a normal pace. I didn’t look suspicious.”
She handed him his passport.
“Learn who you are supposed to be.”
“Horst Burkhardt, born 21.9.52, Wiesbaden.”
“You’re my nephew. You understand?”
“Yes, but … I’m eighteen, not sixteen.”
“For God’s sake, Jiří, think! Who are the border patrols more likely to be interested in? A sixteen-year-old schoolboy or an eighteen-year-old student. It drops you neatly below the line of interest.”
“OK. OK.”
Nell started the car. Felt her bumper thump the BMW behind her, but drove on.
“Nell. Where are we going?”
“Berlin.”
§184
The Following Morning
Working with Lord Troy reminded Janis Bell of working with Joe Holderness. They were both … more than a bit dodgy … although, in mitigation, Lord Troy was not as dodgy as Lady Troy.
It was late in the morning when his dodgy Lordship sent for her.
“I don’t suppose you have any way of contacting Joe Holderness.”
“Actually I was waiting for a chance to tell you about Joe. He’s here.”
“Here where? In the embassy?”
“Upstairs. I put him in the room we keep for the Foreign Secretary.”
“And the reason he’s here?”
“He tells me his cover is blown. He got here last night while you were with Dubček. Didn’t want to risk a hotel. The Russians have given him forty-eight hours to leave … he’s already used up about twenty of them. If it were me, I’d have just driven to the border and got the hell out of Czechoslovakia. I honestly don’t know why he hasn’t.”
“I think I can guess why. More accurately, I think I can guess who. Would you ask him to join us? There’s been a development I think he’ll want to know about.”
§185
Janis Bell caught Wilderness just as he was preparing to leave. Overcoat on, wondering if the bulge of the gun in its shoulder holster might be a bit too obvious. He’d dug the gun out of its hidey-hole when he parked the car last night. He could not now imagine taking it off until he left the country. He thought too about ditching the farce that was “Walter Hensel”—he wasn’t Walter anymore … a tractor salesman with a Smith & Wesson?—but thought better of it.
“Joe?”
“Things I have to do. Someone I need to find.”
“Troy’s asking for you.”
“This is urgent, Janis. And that’s an understatement.”
“Troy said you’d want to know.”
“Know what?”
“How the fuck should I know? Just come with me, Joe.”
She all but shoved Wilderness through the door to Troy’s office, but as she closed the door, Troy said, “Would you mind staying, Janis? It’ll save me having to say this twice.”
There was an awkward pause as Troy seemed to clock Wilderness’s “Walter Hensel” appearance. Troy looked down at his notes then back at Wilderness. Janis Bell hovered, part of it and not part of it, sensing trouble, wanting to be there and not be there.
“Sorry we have to meet like this after such a long time, Joe.”
“Yep. It’s been a year or two.”
“But the devil drives. Ten minutes ago I received a telephone call from the German foreign minister, Willy Brandt. As you may imagine the German Foreign Office has spies and narks all over the place. Early this morning Brandt received reports that a West German citizen, resident in Prague, was arrested late last night at the border, attempting to smuggle out a wanted dissident. A student. He doesn’t know the name of the boy, but the woman has been named as Nell Burkhardt.”
“Is he sure?”
“Sure enough to make it a diplomatic matter. I act for the Bundesrepublik in this country. If it is Fräulein Burkhardt … the responsibility is mine. Of course it may be a case of mistaken identity or simply a mistake per se.”
Janis Bell knew she wasn’t hopping from one foot to the other like a nervous schoolgirl—it just felt that way.
“No!” she blurted out
“No what?”
“No, it’s not a mistake.”
Both men turned to her.
Troy said, “Spit it out, Janis.”
“We lost a refugee in the night. At teatime yesterday there were twenty-seven, and only twenty-six at breakfast. Jiří Jasny went over the wall. He’ll be the dissident the
y’ve got.”
“Which one is he?”
“The little one. The cheeky one. The one your wife’s pally with.”
Wilderness said, “And Nell? How does she fit in?”
“Ever since Jiří got here he’s been receiving letters from Nell at the Cultural Mission. Never in person. Her deputy, Clara, calls a couple of times a week. The last letter was yesterday afternoon. Clara gave it to me. I gave it to your wife. Your wife will have given it to Jiří.”
“And then Anna helped him over the wall while I was with Dubček?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t need to.”
Wilderness said, “Where is Nell? Did Brandt know?”
“No—he just said the KGB had her. Joe, I will move heaven and earth to get Nell back.”
“No,” Wilderness said. “That’s my job.”
§186
Troy and Anna met for lunch in the ambassador’s private dining room. He told the staff to leave everything—they would serve themselves.
“I suppose you don’t want them to hear the bollocking you’re about to deliver?” Anna said. “Go ahead. I did it. I helped little Jiří wotsisname over the wall. I’ve no regrets.”
This was not the time to tell her that Jiří would probably spend the next two years in prison.
“And I have no regrets. It’s my congratulations I didn’t want the staff to hear.”
“Good Lord. When I think of all the times I’ve urged restraint on you over the last twenty-five years, I didn’t think you’d miss a chance to get back at me.”
“Perhaps you’re turning into me. Y’know … Charlie and Oona Chaplin?”
“Or Nikita and Mrs. Khrushchev? Not fucking likely.”
“I wanted to ask you,” Troy said as he ladled out an indeterminate soup, worthy of any British factory canteen, to his wife, “do you have any plan for getting the others out?”
“Isn’t that what you and Dubček were discussing last night?”
“In part, yes.”
“Oh God—this soup’s disgusting. What is it, Ye Olde Czechy Sock recipe?”
Troy ignored this.
“Dubček hasn’t got much time left. He is a nominal leader at best. It won’t be long before he’s packed off back to Slovakia to supervise pig insemination or some such.”
“Well, you’re the expert on that. How long, roughly?”
“He’ll be gone by the new year.”
“Bugger—so we, or as I now realise, I, have got just a few weeks to strike a deal over these kids, is that it?”
“No. That isn’t what I’m saying. Dubček cannot put a foot out of line and would never do anything … underhand.”
“Not with you here, husband mine.”
“Dubček will be replaced by some hard-line bastard of whom the Russians approve. Someone who would never put a foot out of line.”
“Plus ça change.”
“But … someone who might be open to bribes.”
“You’re going to buy these kids their freedom?
“Well, the thought had occurred to me.”
“If you got it, spend it?”
“Something like that.”
“Ah … I begin to remember why I married you. Just a flicker.”
“One I shall cherish. But … more precisely. I’ll need photographs of each of them. Can you arrange that?”
“Yep.”
“And when you’ve done that, I shall issue visas for the United Kingdom, and then when the time is right, I’ll find out who to bribe for twenty-six safe passages to the border. May take a while, but …”
“I hate ‘but.’ It might just be my least favourite word in the English language.”
“But we have another, more immediate problem.”
“I’m listening.”
“Joe Holderness is out there now, in the city. He’s a loose cannon.”
“Hmmm … do you know how often I heard you described as a loose cannon back when you were a copper?”
Troy said nothing.
§187
Vítězná, Malá Strana
Wilderness hated killing time, but to go to the Soviet Embassy on Pod Kaštany would have gained him nothing. It was a boulevard of vast villas, with nowhere to hide, and the Russians would have spotted him in minutes. During the war the Germans had occupied the building. They’d built the torture chambers … the Russians continued to use them all the same.
He could lurk in the shadows at the far side of the Legií Bridge, looking and feeling like Harry Lime, and watch the entrance to Café Savoy until he caught sight of Kostya. Instead he asked for a table, ordered a beer, sat down to wait.
For some reason he thought of all the times he had sat in the bar at the White Nights in Persereiikkä waiting for Kostya—he’d set out the chess set and play an imaginary game, plan attack and defence, and as often as not Kostya would slice through his plans in half a dozen moves.
When Kostya came in he didn’t see Wilderness at once. The maître d’ pointed him out, and thirty seconds of whispering followed before Kostya approached him.
“I don’t believe you’re doing this. I don’t believe you’re still here.”
“Sit down, Kostya.”
As Kostya sat, a waiter stuck half a litre of beer in front of him. He ignored it, kept his eyes on Wilderness.
Wilderness said, “The last time I sat at this table I wasn’t facing a Russian. I was facing a German.”
“And your point is?”
“Who do you think that was?”
Kostya pushed back his sleeve and looked at his Red Army–issue Pobeda watch.
“Less than sixteen hours of your forty-eight left and you want to play guessing games?”
“It was Nell.”
“Ah, yes. I had heard she was here. Some sort of cultural liaison, I think.”
“Where is she, Kostya?”
“What?”
“You have Nell. The KGB have Nell. Where is she?
“I don’t know anything about this.”
“I could very easily have a gun aimed at your groin right now Kostya.”
“But you haven’t.”
“But I will if I don’t get answers. Nell was arrested at the border with the DDR late last night. You, the KGB, have her. Fuck your sixteen hours … you’ve got till midnight to set her free or I will find you and I will blow your fucking brains out.”
The shock on Kostya’s face looked far more real than Wilderness’s threat, and Wilderness had known for years what an unconvincing liar he was.
“Joe … Joe … I know nothing about this.”
And Wilderness believed him.
“Drink your beer, Kostya. You’ve gone paler than a ghost.”
They each took a gulp of beer, an armistice written in Budvar.
“If … if … if Nell were being held at Pod Kaštany, I’d know. Dammit, that’s my job.”
“Can you find out where she is?”
“Probably.”
“No Kostya, you mean definitely.”
“Joe, please!”
“Tomorrow morning.”
“That’s … that’s—”
“Yes, Kostya.”
“But … but not here. Not where we can be—”
“Seen? OK. Meet me on the hilltop at one o’ clock.”
§188
Somewhere in the České Středohoří
Wilderness parked at the bottom of the limestone trail. After walking less than a hundred yards he could see Kostya on the skyline, back to him.
At the sound of shoes on stones Kostya turned. He was dressed for the winter weather, a scarf around his neck, hands sunk deep in the pockets of his mackintosh.
It spelled gun.
Much as Wilderness’s hidden hand spelled gun.
Wilderness drew level.
“Let’s both take our hands out very slowly, Kostya. Try not to shoot yourself in the foot.”
They drew—the slow-motion shoot-out of a spaghett
i western.
They each stood with a handgun loosely on the thigh.
Kostya looked to have a German SIG … some wartime souvenir … the same model Wilderness had first learnt to shoot with. He’d never trust his life to such a gun. He had his Smith & Wesson .44, a body-slammer.
“So tell me.”
“I did not do this thing, Joe.”
“Maybe not, but you have her. Tell your people to let her go. See us safely to the Austrian border and—”
“Joe, she’s in Berlin! The Czechs didn’t arrest Nell at the border. They called the Stasi and had her and the boy picked up just short of Dresden. The KGB have her in the East Berlin compound now.”
It crossed Wilderness’s mind to shoot him now and have done. But if he spent his rage on Kostya, Nell would pay the price of that rage.
“Then get her back.”
“Joe. I can’t … this is … you would say … out of my league. I’m a small fish in a small pond. I’m powerless.”
“But your mother isn’t. This isn’t an East German thing or a Czech thing, we both know that. It’s a Russian thing. So call your mother.”
For the first time Kostya took his eyes off Joe’s, looked away, muttered something Wilderness took to be the Russian for “Jesus wept” at the mention of his mother.
“This isn’t a few dozen jars of peanut butter, Joe.”
“I know. It’s Nell. Do you think I’d consider blowing your brains out for anyone else?”
The sound of a car approaching. The guns were levelled in an instant, Kostya’s hand shaking like an autumn leaf. He’d be lucky to hit Wilderness even at this close range. Wilderness held a steady bead on Kostya’s head.
Then Kostya looked away again, down the hill.
“What on earth is that?”
Wilderness turned, lowered his gun.
“That,” he said, “is a 1935 Rolls-Royce Phantom II.”
“What’s it doing here? Did you know you were being followed?”