The Striker Portfolio

by Adam Hall

  My chances were those of any candidate in an exam: they could ask the right questions (the ones I could answer) or the wrong ones (the ones I couldn’t).

  Light was spreading again. Someone else was closing on us from along the autobahn. I hardly noticed. I hardly noticed because the whole situation was presenting itself logically in my mind, perhaps as an antidote to fright. It went like this: Ferris would already be in signals with London and as long as the Bureau thought I was still of use they would move all available mountains to help get the Kriminalpolizei off my back. They had set me running and they wanted me to go on running in case by luck or acumen I found my way finally into what Parkis called the storm-centre. (There’s an appalling amount of luck in the conduct of any mission however much acumen you try to bring it to: witness the collapse of Benedikt at a critical phase.) Of course the Bureau could do nothing officially: it didn’t exist. But no network on a world scale is ever isolated: there’s always a fringe overlap especially when something big is on the programme and any given agency will bump elbows with most organizations from the national civil police authorities up through the C.I.D. Special Branch, M.I.5., M.I.6. and the various select departments whose chiefs are known only to the P.M. and the Home Secretary. On an overseas mission you won’t get far before you cross lines with the S.I.D., the C.I.A. or the Deuxieme Bureau according to the area being worked. Interpol will often come into the picture because it has ninety-eight member-countries and that doesn’t leave many places where they don’t operate. (Interpol would at this moment see the name Martin coming up on their alert-programme because he was a British national in a foreign country and their main concern is with people crossing frontiers.) Unofficially the Bureau would tap the odd grapevine here and there until they got a response from some organization they happened to have assisted at some time or other and if they could ease the right word through to Kriminalpolizei, Bundesrepublik Deutschland, a few telephones would ring and the heat would come off Martin even if he were being grilled in a cell on a murder charge.

  But there was a limit to what action the Bureau could take and that limit was the line beyond which the Bureau would risk self-exposure. Of the sacred and unwritten laws that governed its constitution the most holy was that no one, however high, must in any circumstances, however grave, ever by word or deed or implication jeopardize the prime virtue by grace of which the Bureau was enabled to operate in areas and with resources outside the reach of other factions: the virtue of non-existence. Among the lower echelons where the ferrets ran we called it the Rule of D.T.M.: otherwise Don’t Tell Mum.

  So the Bureau had a limit and so had I and it was the same one, the same precisely defined invisible line: because if these people asked to see the car papers or asked me to get out and open j the luggage-boot and it led to a cell and a charge and a trial I ! would have to deal with it alone. From the moment of an official charge the Bureau would drop me like a dead rat. That was all right: it was in the contract. But my defence would already be spiked. To prove I hadn’t killed Benedikt I would have to answer every question put by the prosecution and there’d be some I couldn’t answer because it would mean crossing the line, exposing the Bureau.

  When did you join the Accidents Investigation Branch of the Air Ministry, Herr Martin? What were you doing before then? Where did you train as an aviation psychologist? You can’t answer? But surely you can tell us about your past? Your background? You’ll be telling us next, Herr Martin, that you don’t exist?

  Correct.

  They’d have it made. Acquaintance with the deceased - absence of alibi - fingerprints on the deceased’s watch, lighter, pens -hasty departure from the motel - failure to complete accident report at hospital - acquisition of false papers - attempt to pass through police block under assumed identity. And finally the .refusal to answer questions in court.

  They don’t hang you in West Germany these days. It would be a life sentence. But that wasn’t the worst. Appeal. Tell them to look for the two men: the ones the manager saw with the deceased. If that was no use then I could stick it out till a chance came and I had a hacksaw blade and if the chance didn’t come I could try to make a break from a working-party and if I couldn’t make a break I could use a dinner-knife on the wrists and cut the rest of the sentence away. But all the time I was waiting for chances in there like a tethered goat I’d have to live with the thought that the Bureau was still running and the missions were still going out and there was one I hadn’t finished. This one. That was the worst.

  The flood of light grew brighter from behind and the shadow of the man with the signal-lamp moved sharply across the road. I tucked my papers away and looked up at the officer to see if that was all.

  He said: ‘Please open your luggage compartment.’ He stood away from the door to give me room to get out.

  Chapter Twelve

  TO GROUND

  The body of Homo is provided with various compensatory mechanisms. One is the carotid sinus, located in the neck.

  ‘Zu gross.’

  ‘Sind Sie sicher?’

  When a man becomes angry the released adrenalin raises his blood-pressure throughout the system, putting incidental pressure on the carotid sinus. This triggers off a flow of nerve impulses to the brain which produce a calming effect in compensation. That is why the most heated anger cools the most quickly.

  ‘Probieren Sie diese an’

  I put them on and walked round. They were unpolished stag-skin, high at the sides. The serration on the soles was only half-worn and they were dead quiet on the floor: that was important.

  ‘Ja, die passen?

  The place was stuffed to the rafters with masculine accessories: shot-guns, fishing-rods, field-glasses, skis, windbreakers, boots and shoes. High in the gloom there was a diver’s helmet. On his desk was a quarryman’s detonator. It was a pity that I needed only shoes. You can do a lot with a quarryman’s detonator.

  ‘Tragen Sie die gleich?’

  ‘Ja.’

  They had buckles instead of laces and I took them up a notch. I was pleased with them, certainly not angry, but the carotid sinus works also in reverse. Low barometric pressure outside has the same effect as high blood-pressure inside. Since it can’t tell the difference it sends the same nerve impulses to the brain, calming it down. Some people say: ‘I’m sleepy, it must be the weather.’

  He looked at my split shoe with a shrug.

  ‘Fertig.’

  ‘Fertig.’ I nodded.

  He dropped them both into an upturned fencing-mask and I gave him 60 DM, 20 for the shoes and 40 for the pair of x6 Zeiss I had found on a shelf. He counted the deutschmarks in the light from the doorway. Over the Harz range the sky was a purple bruise. It was going to be a spectacular storm when it came, and this was why I felt sleepy.

  Or it was the after-effects of the crash or the inadequate sleep at Nitri’s or the nervous tension of the police trap. Or I was getting old.

  ‘Auf Wiedersehen.’

  I went back to the car, walking normally for the first time since I’d left the motel. The left shoe felt too tight but it had two notches on each buckle the same as the other one: the foot had already tried to adapt itself to a split upper and now it would have to relearn.

  ‘Certainly,’ I had said, but it had been a nasty five minutes. The air was cold so I made a show of feeling the contrast, blowing out my cheeks as I left the car, one hand in my pocket for warmth, the other finding the right key as though it didn’t have to think about it but it had to think about it bloody hard because it wasn’t far from the driving-door to the boot and I was doing it one-handed and they were watching me and I knew that.

  The latest arrival had doused his lights but it was still awkward having to keep one foot arched so that it sounded normal: it was trying to drag like a slipper. They both came with me, the young one holding the torch and aiming the beam at the boot-lock for me. It was the right key because there were three on the ring and the ignition and the door were the
same pattern: one was a spare. But it didn’t turn easily because the boot-lid was spring-tensioned by the rubber moulding and you normally had to press down a fraction with the left hand so the choice was to do it with the elbow and show I was injured or go on forcing the key till it snapped. If either happened it would finish me because they were looking for an injured man and if the key snapped they’d think I’d done it on purpose so that they couldn’t look in the boot and see Walter Martin curled up there.

  But there’s a law of averages and my run of bad luck was stretching the odds a bit and the key turned and I raised the lid and they looked inside and that was that.

  ‘Did you give anyone a lift at any time during the night?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you see anyone thumbing you for a lift?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Very well. You can proceed.’

  Still very careful though, testing the lid to make sure it was properly locked, taking my time, there was no hurry. Because that’s when they, go on watching you in case you fall prone and give thanks to Allah for getting you off the hook. It still wasn’t easy even then: the other group didn’t like the way the truck-driver kept on saying ‘Nein - nein!’ with so much emphasis and now they were helping him open the big double doors and the pig was laughing on both sides of its face. This meant I had to do a series of shunts between the two trucks before I could turn out and I had to do it one-handed, keeping the wheel locked over with my knee while I shifted the gears.

  The young one swung his torch to guide me away and the officer saluted. The nerves began their reaction-phase and for the next kilometre I felt as if I’d drunk too much coffee.

  None of the other shops were open yet: Munden is a small town and it was nearly full winter. I’d seen the old man swinging back his shutters and stopped on the off chance. It was probably his only life in there among the skis and divers’ helmets: they were his toys.

  The shoes were excellent and the left-foot clutchwork was normal again and I drove five kilometres without stopping while I worked out the situation and when I’d worked it out I turned into a minor road and found the right kind of spot and ran the 17M as deep as I could into a copse where raindrops still fell from the trees.

  Situation: there might be just the two traps, one on each side of the Hanover-Kassel autobahn, or there might be a dozen, a quickly thrown net around Linsdorf. One of them was certain to be farther south towards Neueburg and I would hit in full daylight. No go. It would be safer to reach Neueburg by dark in any case: the guide book gave the population as under 5,000 so it was a place where a stranger would be suspect.

  I set each window to an inch gap at the top and tilted the seat back and let sleep come.

  Ferris had done a full coverage but there was nothing that he or Philpott or Dr. Wagner or Nitri hadn’t either told me or led me to consider.

  List of witnesses. NB: These were sifted from several hundred and are believed to be the most reliable.

  There were sixty-two names and full addresses. Farmers, postmen, bird-watchers, coastguard observers. Mostly farmers, like the one with the red tractor at Westheim. My own name wasn’t among them: Ferris never joked on duty.

  I just heard a whining noise, and looked up.

  There weren’t any flames as far as I could see, but the sun was partly in my eyes and shining on the wings, so I won’t commit myself on that.

  It was almost vertical and so close that I began to run. I remember thinking: ‘Poor devil.’ (I meant the pilot.)

  The most common factor was the attitude.

  Straight down. Vertical, or nearly vertical, I would say. He came down like a stone.

  Chronologically there was no pattern. Thirty-six Strikers had crashed within three hundred and forty-two days. Average: one per 9.5 days. Longest interval between two crashes: 13 days. Shortest: 7.

  Geographically there was no pattern. Out of ten main Striker bases each had experienced a crash: i.e., no squadron had been immune. Lowest incidence: 1. Highest: 5. (There was a slight tendency for high-incidence bases to appear in the north and Ferris hadn’t missed it. Frequency of accidents at Bederkesa, Quakenbruck, Oldenburg and Hankensbuttel is considered possibly due to weather conditions aggravating unknown effects. NB: Striker is sensitive to severe temperature change.)

  In the Background of Dead Pilots section there were several common factors but none were unexpected: each had a history with indications of what Dr. Wagner called ‘Striker psychosis’ with attendant periods of anxiety states and hypertension. All had been sent once or more than once to Garmisch-Partenkirchen for two weeks’ mud-baths and psychiatrical sessions. Confidential information on their private lives - so far as it could be obtained -showing nothing significant. Marital disturbance slight. Financial worries normal. Professional qualities well above average for front-line tactical squadrons - NB: These pilots were picked from among all operational branches of the Luftwaffe in view of the technical sophistication and high cost of the Striker SK-6. They thus represent the elite of the German Air Arm.

  I went through the folder twice and used a pencil in the margins and filled the back cover with averages, common factors, consistencies, anomalies. Blank.

  Sometime during the afternoon I heard movement and kept perfectly still. I had slept from early morning till one o’clock and was ninety-eight per cent alert and two per cent under the continuing influence of the barometric pressure: the storm still sagged across the mountains, slow to break. The movement went on and sometimes the low leaves trembled within yards of the car. I saw him only once, crossing a clear patch: a wild boar, black, compact, full in tusk and high at the shoulder. He swung his head and then stood rock-still, catching the unfamiliar smell of rubber and petrol, then vanished as if the leaves had drawn over him. He would have slept through the height of the day as I had, and would soon move through the night as I would, and I wished him well.

  L-201 - J-136 - S-19. The identification figures were prefaced with a letter for each air base: Linsdorf - Mich - Spalt. I went through the whole picture again and came up with nothing and put the folder away and took it out again on the spur of frustration.

  Bederkesa - Quakenbruck - Jolich - Bruchsal … North, Northwest, West, South-west. It was consistent but this thing was full of consistencies and I was looking for anomalies, trying to see if the pattern broke anywhere. That might be a mistake.

  Laubach - Linsdorf - Hankensbuttel - Oldenburg … East, North-east, North-east, North. It, was consistent again and the pencil had made a ring on the map from North round the clock to North. I must have been over-concentrating because it was a minute before I got it. The names of the Striker bases made a geographical ring but I’d begun with a time-factor, not a space-factor. Ferris had called them pattern-crashes but he couldn’t have known about this. In terms of sequence the Strikers had been crashing in a geographical ring round the map, North-West-South-East-North.

  It practically spelled a name but I couldn’t go back to Linsdorf: I was cut off from there and all I could do was file it.

  I put the folder away.

  Chapter Thirteen

  THE FRONTIER

  Neueburg was gnome-Gothic, a frontispiece for Grimm. The population must have been mostly pastoral because there weren’t more than a hundred or so houses to the village. Pointed roofs, latticed windows, the glint of cats’ eyes in doorways: even the weathervane over the pharmacy was a witch on a broomstick. Perhaps it was to mark her birthplace.

  The early hunger of the day had passed off during the afternoon. It would return before midnight and I was tempted to pick up something to conserve but I didn’t want to show my face anywhere. It would have to wait: in any case a light stomach would be an advantage if things got rough at the clockmaker’s.

  I didn’t know. Benedikt hadn’t told me whether the place were a safe-house for Die Zelle, a contact point of his own or a Zelle address where he was still accepted as loyal.

  It was near the end of the main street. I a
ssumed there was only one clockmaker’s in Neueburg, otherwise Benedikt would have been more precise.

  It backed on to a chapel so there wouldn’t be a door at the rear. It made a corner of a T-section and if there were a second entrance it would be the door at the side, the first one along. I took the 17M past at normal speed and turned at the end of the village and came back, coasting to a stop just within observation-view of the front entrance and the door at the side. It was only ten minutes to five but the winter dark had already come down. The street-lamps were all right and I spent some time with the x6 Zeiss after wiping the grime off the lenses.

  In the next half an hour two people went in and came out. There was nothing about them to suggest they weren’t fetching their alarm-clocks. I was in no hurry.

  There are a few simple rules about visiting an indicated address and they add up to the one general idea of vetting the place carefully before going in. That was why I’d thought the Zeiss would be useful. After the first half an hour I had some data collected, mostly about the best way of getting out of the building if I found myself on the second or third floors and didn’t want to use the front entrance. There were at least two people there because a light had gone on upstairs about fifteen seconds after someone had entered: there wasn’t a lot of time to reach the third floor and the clockmaker would probably be talking to him in the shop itself.

  Apart from general rules there were specific considerations. I might be recognised the instant I went in, either because they were in close touch with the Zelle unit in Hanover or because my face was probably now in the papers. There could be a dozen people in there - contacts, couriers, operators, radio-signallers -and I could walk straight into a spring-trap especially if Benedikt had talked before he died: if they knew he’d given me this address they’d expect me here.

  General rules, specific considerations, instinct. The precise formula for doing the right thing in a given situation. But mostly instinct. The antennae weaving sensitively around and touching on hair-fine contacts, correcting and re-correcting the plan of approach, the conscious and subconscious gathering and relating of random data, computing, presenting, counselling telling me whether to cross over there and walk in now or wait another ten minutes or another sixty, whether to give the clockmaker Benedikt’s name and assess his reaction or try one of a dozen other gambits that would leave us both with a way out if there were people there and it was dangerous.