A Time for Vengeance

by Geoffrey Osborne

  “No ice for me,” said Dingle, dropping into one of the easy chairs.

  The American grunted. “You damn Limeys don’t know how to take this medicine.” He handed the drink across and added: “Okay, now talk. Tell me how it’s going to be done. According to you, the SSD are going to dump Mueller right into our laps – and I want to know how. I don’t like being kept in the dark.”

  Dingle frowned and started to glance around the room.

  “It’s all right, there are no bugs in here. I’ve been over the place with a fine toothcomb. Now talk, for Pete’s sake, because I want a piece of the action. I don’t want to sit around on my ass for days, waiting for the SSD to deliver the goods. I know we’re supposed to be co-operating, but you’ll have to do some fast talking to convince me that your idea is possible, my old buddy, otherwise I’ll be putting my own plan into operation.”

  “I didn’t know you had a plan.”

  “Indeed I have – or at least, the G2 boys have.”

  Dingle looked interested.

  “Yeah,” the American went on, “it seems that they’re quite keen to try out a new box of tricks, the matter-energy scrambler. You heard of it?”

  Dingle sat up abruptly.

  “Christ! That’s the thing that uses a laser beam to destroy distant targets with shock waves, isn’t it?”

  “That’s right James. You’ve been doing your homework – or someone in your outfit’s been doing it for you. Anyway, we’ve perfected several new laser techniques.”

  “Yes I know. You shot down some aircraft and did some precision bombing on bridges during the Vietnam war. But I’ve also heard…” the Englishman paused and went on more slowly. “…that the scrambler could be used to trigger off miniature hydrogen bombs. It’s been hinted that you could be developing a suitcase H-bomb – light and having so little dangerous radiation that it could be carried by a tourist…” He stopped again and then carried on even more slowly. “You wouldn’t. You wouldn’t really use it?”

  “Why not?” Ritchie drained his glass, refilled it, and added: “Put one of those on the SSD’s doorstep and they’d spring Mueller so fast you’d think he’d got rockets in his socks. Only snag is, getting the case into the East undetected, and then out again – but G2 are working on it.”

  “I think we’d better stick to the Director’s scheme,” said Dingle hastily. “He’s put a lot of work into it.”

  “Well let’s have it then. I keep asking you, and you keep sidetracking me.”

  The SS(0)S agent started to speak rapidly – and the level of the bourbon bottle sank with equal speed.

  When Dingle had finished, the American was silent for a few moments, then he said: “It might work. It’s certainly worth a try. That fat boss of yours is quite a guy. His mind must have more twists in it than a crooked spiral staircase.” There was reluctant admiration in his voice. “If this parcel arrives tomorrow morning and you can get it over the Wall by…”

  He broke off as the telephone bell shrilled. He walked across the room and picked up the receiver.

  “Yes? Oh, yes. Just a minute.” He held out the phone. “It’s for you.”

  *

  It was a very dark evening and the road had seemed deserted when Jones drove past Hilde Mueller’s bungalow. There were no parked cars this time, and it was the hour when all good road sweepers should be at home with their feet up watching the telly – while all the bad ones found something better to do.

  But the Welshman was taking no chances. He drove around the corner and parked in the same place as on his previous visit.

  There was nobody about, and he walked back to the corner and entered the drive of the first house. Then he climbed several boundary fences until he found himself in Frau Mueller’s garden. The front of the bungalow was in darkness. He circled the place and found a sliver of light showing through the edge of the curtains at one of the back windows. The gap was not wide enough to see into the room, but by pressing his ear to the pane, he could hear the sound of a radio or television.

  Jones looked at his watch. The luminous dial showed that it was seven twenty-five. If he was to catch the plane from Hamburg, he would have to leave soon. But Dingle’s orders had been specific: get a good look at Erich Mueller’s wife.

  He glanced at his watch again, shrugged, walked round to the front of the bungalow and pressed the doorbell.

  Nothing happened. He rang again and almost immediately a light snapped on in the hall. Another bulb sprang into life above him, bathing the porch in a golden glow. The door opened.

  “Yes?”

  There was an underlying tremor in the woman’s voice, a hint of nervousness, which perhaps was to be expected. Any woman, alone in a house, opening the door to a stranger, was entitled to be nervous.

  Jones smiled pleasantly while mentally he photographed her; age was right, about fifty-two or -three; faded blonde; about five foot five; still slim, trim figure.

  He said: “I’ve come as promised. Shall I come in?”

  “Pardon?” She looked puzzled.

  “I’m Ernst Schmidt. We spoke on the telephone this afternoon. The insurance…”

  “I’m sorry, I think there’s some mistake.”

  “You are Frau Schreiber?”

  Understanding and relief flooded her face.

  “Oh no! That’s next door…” she pointed. “…that way.”

  Jones was apologetic. But, even while he spoke, he still studied the woman closely. If he ever saw her again, he would know her at once. He thought she was probably Mueller’s wife, but he had to be sure.

  “I’m very sorry to have troubled you Frau… er…”

  “Mueller.”

  “Frau Mueller.” He was right. Now he could catch the plane back to Berlin.

  She was laughing, standing in the doorway, watching as he walked down the path followed by the light which spilled from the porch.

  “Don’t worry, it’s an easy mistake,” she said.

  He’d have to go out through the gate now. She was still watching, so he couldn’t leave the way he had come, through the neighbors’ gardens.

  At the gate, he turned and waved. Hilde Mueller waved back and then shut the door.

  Jones smothered a gasp as he stepped on to the pavement and cannoned into someone who was just turning into the drive.

  He was aware of a yielding softness, an alluring perfume and – in the light of a street lamp – an incredibly beautiful face.

  The girl had high cheekbones, a finely chiseled nose, wide mouth and dark eyes, which contrasted with the silvery blonde hair which peeped out from the hood attached to her black coat. With a muttered apology, she backed away from his steadying grasp, turned and ran up the path.

  The Welshman stepped back into the shadows and watched as the girl pressed the doorbell. Frau Mueller opened the door and the girl went inside.

  As he walked back to the car, Jones wondered who she was. Mueller’s daughter? Possibly. The file said that Mueller had a daughter, Kristen. She’d be about twenty-seven or twenty-eight now – and this girl looked about that age.

  He was about to open the car door when two bulky figures appeared and stood one on either side of him.

  “Keys,” said one of the men pleasantly.

  Jones handed over the car keys because the man had a voice which hinted that it could turn unpleasant – and because the man’s friend had a revolver which was digging Jones in the ribs.

  *

  Dingle raised his eyebrows inquiringly, took the phone from Ritchie, and listened as Jones’s voice came on the line.

  “Is that you James?”

  “Yes.” Dingle looked at his watch. “Where the hell are you? It’s after nine-forty. Your plane should be half way to Berlin by now.”

  “I know.” The Welshman sounded aggrieved. “I’m still in Hamburg. And I’ve been bloody arrested.”

  Dingle groaned. “Oh no! How the hell did that happ
en?”

  “There were fuzz all over the place, watching the house. I spotted them earlier today, so I came back after dark. It seemed clear, but they grabbed me on the way out… James… are you still there…? James…”

  “Eh? Oh yes. I’m thinking.”

  “Well you think bloody hard boyo. You’ve got to get me out of here. I had a job to persuade them to let me phone you.”

  “All right, all right. Is anyone with you now?”

  “Yes, an inspector.”

  “Put him on to me.”

  “What are you going to tell him?”

  “I’ll tell him to give me half an hour to explain at this end, then he can ring Abteilung Eins – the people who arrested you are probably watching the house at their request anyway – and they will clear you.”

  “Just so long as I get out of here.”

  “You’ll get out all right. I’ll get them to put you on the next flight out of Hamburg… that will probably be early in the morning. Now let me talk to your inspector.”

  Chapter Eight

  Erich Mueller was tired. He was hungry, and his body ached from the beatings it had received. His nerves were bruised, and the hollow echo of his screams rang in his head at the memory of pain induced by electric shocks.

  But he was alive. He kept telling himself that. He was alive. If he talked he would stop the pain – and sign his own death warrant.

  Despite the cold, the hardness of the bunk’s bare boards on his naked body and the blinding white light, which blazed from the ceiling of his small cell, Mueller’s eyes closed. The guard, ever alert, slapped him awake.

  “Schlafen ist verboten.”

  Mueller dragged his heavy lids open.

  “Sleep is forbidden,” he muttered. “Food and warmth are forbidden. But so is death. Sooner or later you must let me sleep and you must feed me… because I shall be useless to you dead.”

  The guard raised his fist to strike again, but paused as the door opened and another guard entered.

  “It is time.” The second man nodded towards the prisoner.

  Between them, the SSD men pulled Mueller from the bunk.

  “Time,” he repeated to himself as, too weak to walk properly, he was half carried from the cell. What was time? It had ceased to have meaning. What day was it? What month?

  Kohner was waiting for him in what the fat man was amused to call his operating theater.

  A large white-walled room, sparsely furnished with a table, a chair and a bench, upon which several gleaming instruments were set out. There were restraint straps attached to the arms and legs of the chair and to each corner of the table. Sinister wires, their ends crudely bared, sprouted from the front of the seat of the chair, which was bathed in the harsh glare of a spotlight.

  The only touch of luxury in the room was the huge leather swivel chair occupied by Kohner, who swung round to greet Mueller.

  “Come in, my dear Erich, come in.” He stretched out a hand to indicate the chair. “Sit down and make yourself comfortable.”

  The fat man smiled, enjoying his cruel joke, while he waited for the guards to secure the straps around the prisoner’s wrists and ankles.

  Mueller watched him anxiously, a gleam of hope in his eyes. He knew Kohner. He knew Kohner’s methods. In the old days, his interrogation routine never varied: there was no reason why it should have changed now. First, the hard Kohner and then, if that failed, the soft. Those in the know could always tell when it was time for the soft Kohner to take over: he always offered the victim a treacle toffee.

  The fat man’s podgy fingers groped in his jacket pocket and emerged with a white paper bag. Paper rustled as a sweet was extracted, unwrapped and placed in that cruelly smiling mouth. He began to chew with obvious enjoyment and then, just as he was about to return the bag to his pocket, he paused and looked uncertainly at his prisoner.

  The gleam of hope in Mueller’s eyes sparked into a blaze – and then faded when Kohner shrugged, completed the movement and nodded to the guards.

  The time was not yet.

  Mueller tensed, but he couldn’t move to stop those bare wires touching the fleshy insides of his thighs.

  His back arched and he screamed when the current was switched on, and then he fainted.

  The current was switched off, his wrists unfastened and his head ducked between his knees. One of the guards splashed cold water over him.

  Slowly, reluctantly consciousness returned; and with it, the pain.

  “Where is the list, Erich?”

  Mueller shook his head, then raised it at the sound of rustling paper to gaze unbelievingly at the fat man’s outstretched hand. He felt a surge of triumph. Kohner was offering him a toffee.

  “All right Erich, we’ll play it your way. What is it you want?”

  “I’ve told you. All I want is to live my remaining years in peace.”

  “So you shall, if you tell us what we want to know.”

  “You told me I would see my wife.”

  “And you will.”

  “When?”

  “Here, take this. Don’t you want it?”

  Mueller took the toffee, and while he unwrapped it greedily, Kohner turned to one of the guards.

  “Go and fetch some warm clothes for our friend. We don’t want his catching cold. And have a tray sent up with food and drink.”

  Mueller watched the man go before repeating his question.

  “I said when will I see my wife?”

  “Soon. When you have…”

  “Talked? I will not talk until I have seen her – until I have spoken to her. You tell me she is in West Germany. How do I know she is there? How do I know if she is even alive?”

  “I can assure you she is.”

  “Then prove it. Take me to her… or bring her to me, here.”

  “And then you will tell us where the list is hidden?”

  A crafty smile played about Mueller’s thin lips.

  “When I am safely in the West with new papers and enough money to start a new life.”

  Kohner gave a harsh laugh.

  “And why should I trust you any more than you trust me? What guarantee do I have that you keep your part of the bargain?”

  “My wife… or my daughter,” Mueller said simply.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Bring Hilde and Kristen here to see me… to prove that they exist.”

  “It isn’t easy to bring people in from the West.”

  “I’m not stupid, Kohner. I’ve read the papers during my long exile. My wife and daughter are West Germans, not West Berliners. They will be allowed through the Wall. Only West Berliners are denied free access – and your people, of course, are not allowed out.”

  “Alright. What if we do bring your family here?”

  “I shall explain the situation to them. Then I shall leave for the West with one of them, while the other stays here with you. Later, at a mutually convenient place, we shall meet to complete the exchange: your hostage for my information.”

  Chapter Nine

  “That’s better,” Glyn Jones set the empty coffee cup back on its saucer. “You might have arranged a proper breakfast for me though, boyo; bacon and eggs, or something a bit more substantial than rolls and assorted jams.”

  “Think yourself lucky you got any breakfast,” replied Dingle sourly. “You wouldn’t have got much in that jail.”

  The Welshman laughed.

  “You should have seen that Inspector’s face when he got on to the Abteilung Eins boys. Treated me like a visiting Minister of State, he did.”

  “Never mind all that now. You got a good look at Frau Mueller, you said?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’ll recognize her if she turns up here?”

  “If I see her, yes. But why should she come here?”

  “You never know, she might try to join her husband.”

  Jones nodded absently, gazing aroun
d the table.

  “Can I have that roll if you’re not going to eat it, Son?” he asked. “I’m still hungry you see.”

  “Sure.” Jason Ritchie looked up from his newspaper and pushed the plate across. “Be my guest.”

  “Thanks.” The Welshman ripped the roll apart, spread the butter and, after careful thought, selected a miniature jar of apricot jam.

  “This girl you saw,” Dingle resumed, “do you think it was Mueller’s daughter?”

  Jones shrugged. “Could be. Age was right, I’d say.”

  “And you’d recognize her again if you saw her?”

  “Too true. And I’ll tell you this, boyo, it would be a pleasure to see her again. Beautiful she is. Her mam ain’t so bad either… if it is her mam.”

  Ritchie looked at his watch, stretched and handed the newspaper across to the Welshman.

  “Want to catch up on the news Glyn? I’m off now. I’d better get over to G2 HQ in case there are any messages for me – and I guess I’d better file my own report.”

  Jones glanced at the paper and shook his head.

  “Thanks all the same, but I can never find my way around the New York Times. Now if it was the Western Mail…”

  The American smiled as he stood up.

  “You’ve got me there Jonesey,” he said. “I’ve never heard of that one.”

  Jones looked indignant. “Never heard of it? It’s only the national newspaper of Wales, published in Cardiff, it is.”

  “Remind me to buy a copy some time. See you later fellers.”

  When the FBI agent had gone, Jones said: “I think I’ll make a move, too.”

  Dingle looked interested. “Oh? Where to?”

  “Bed, boyo, bed. It’s time Glyn bach got some shuteye.”

  Dingle grinned. “Sorry, boyo,” he mimicked, “but you can forget all about bed. You’re down for liaison duty today at the Abteilung Eins headquarters.”

  “But I haven’t been to bed since we left London – and that seems years ago.”

  “That’s your fault. You should have been here last night. You can’t blame me if you go about the place getting arrested.”