one.
TONY: Oh?
PLACEK: You see, my occupation has not always been simply what it seemed. Briefly, what your Anna told you about me was the truth.
TONY: So I always believed.
PLACEK: But you dissembled? Well, I have no right to complain of that. My academic duties were quite genuine, let that please be understood. However, I had further responsibilities. But there have been developments. With the lead that you gave us in Kiev -
TONY: What lead?
PLACEK: Your contacts who were identified in the police force. To my great surprise, I must admit, our Kiev colleagues were able to trace through them to others, and so on. Eventually -
TONY: Very interesting. But I don't believe you.
PLACEK: I beg your pardon - Why not?
TONY: The chain's still intact.
ERIC: Tony!
TONY: What's the matter?
PLACEK: Ah, Professor, there you show the difference between the amateur and the professional. You have now admitted both that a chain exists, and by inference that you are yourself involved in its operations.
TONY: Good lord!
PLACEK: Or at least aware of them, which in this situation must amount to the same thing. Luckily no harm is done, but I strongly advise that you remember for the future.
TONY: Why are you telling me this?
PLACEK: And that straight away, you look to the workings of your organisation.
TONY: What the devil are you getting at?
PLACEK: You have said that the chain is still intact, and so far as it goes that is correct - but do you know what is now at the other end?
TONY: Well - No, I think I'd better keep my mouth shut and my ears open.
ERIC: Most sensible thing you've said this evening. Except about the whisky.
TONY: Help yourself, Eric. Go on, Dr. Placek. I'm listening.
PLACEK: You are evidently unaware that the cell at the eastern end of your chain has been infiltrated. Half of the real members have already been replaced by plants, and it will be only a matter of months before it is completely subverted.
TONY: Good grief! How ..?
PLACEK: That is not a matter for our present concern. The important thing is that it will then start distributing marijuana, heroin, cocaine - whatever comes to hand - which the police, when announcing the discovery, will claim to have come from you.
TONY: But that's diabolical!
PLACEK: Yes, indeed. Which is precisely why I refuse to have anything to do with it.
TONY: Hold on. That doesn't make sense.
PLACEK: In what way?
TONY: Anna told me - and you admit - that you'd planted her over here to discredit me as a supporter of the dissidents. As it happens I wasn't involved at all at that time, you were completely wrong, but that's beside the point. Now you have a perfect opportunity to do exactly what you intended, and you won't take it. Why not?
PLACEK: Ironic, is it not? Let me please explain some of the background.
ERIC: Not too much, for goodness' sake.
PLACEK: Of course. All my life has been spent in the service of my country, as I saw it: but I begin to suspect that my vision in that direction was distorted in some way.
TONY: What do you mean?
You are probably aware that our experiences during the World War Two were very different from yours. Here, you were lucky ...
Tony seems about to protest
PLACEK: Yes, I know, you were attacked and suffered greatly; but never occupied by a ruthless enemy. Others suffered very much more. I spent my childhood under the German occupation, and it was not a situation that I should wish on anyone. Naturally I did what little I could with the Resistance, and absorbed some of their ideals - some of their necessary ruthlessness, too. When the Red Army liberated us, it seemed to place us under a debt that we could never repay. In my mind, that debt warranted many actions that otherwise would be indefensible - betrayals of friends and colleagues, betrayals of family, betrayals of our own statesmen who wished to relax our ties to the East. Everything was subject to the one greater loyalty.
TONY: So what makes you betray that now?
PLACEK (somewhat taken aback): You put it harshly - but you are right. Because it has betrayed itself!
TONY: What do you mean?
PLACEK: Before this, imprisoning people with dangerous ideas, executing agitators - and yes, I will at last call it by the proper name - murdering many whose only offence was to wish for a more human society, all these things we could justify after a fashion, or at the least we could excuse them. In any case they are like the loss of individual cells in a body; the part dies, the whole regenerates. But drug addiction is like a cancer in the nation, spreading out of control and destroying the soul as well as the body. I will do nothing to promote such an evil!
ERIC: Very pretty speech, Placek. But time's getting on. Point is, Tony, that Placek's stand promises to queer his own pitch, won't be long before he's arrested himself if he hangs around, so he wants to get out while the going's good.
TONY: You didn't come all this way just to tell me that, did you? Not to mention getting me to cancel my own arrangements - at great inconvenience, I might say.
ERIC: No, we need your help.
TONY: What for? To get him out? But he's here already. He need only neglect to go back.
ERIC: There are complications. Oh, go on, Placek, you explain it.
PLACEK: If I do not return, the authorities will consider me a traitor - with justice, as you point out. And my assistant Elena - you remember her? She at least has done you no harm - they will hold her to be guilty by association. Also, she seems to have formed an attachment to me beyond the call of duty. I must make sure that she too escapes.
ERIC: And unlike him, she has no legitimate occasion for foreign travel.
PLACEK: That is so. I bent the rules over Anna; they have been strengthened since. Travelling openly, she would never get past the frontier - if so far.
TONY: And you think I can help?
ERIC: Don't go coy on us, Tony. We know there are ways.
TONY: What's your interest in this, Eric?
ERIC: Placek's worked in Security since God knows when. Knows all the ins and outs of it. Has working contacts in most of the other Iron Curtain countries. We want that information. His price is Elena. No mention of the "few thousand" you suggested - you owe him an apology there. Though of course we shan't let him starve.
PLACEK: I flatter myself that a University post would not be too difficult to obtain. There were some interesting hints in London.
ERIC: So, returning to the point - will you help?
TONY: As it happens, we do have a method that might serve. But it can't be used too often without arousing suspicion. And, frankly, there are more deserving cases.
ERIC: Look, Tony, I don't like leaning on you, but you do remember how much you depend on our discretionary funds?
TONY: Good grief, Eric, that's a dirty one.
ERIC: Hope to goodness it doesn't come to that. But we need this man.
TONY: That badly?
ERIC: That badly.
TONY: Hmm. In other circumstances I might just possibly consider changing our priorities. But look at it from my position. You know what he did to Anna - the dirtiest trick I've ever known to be played on anyone ...
PLACEK: You do not suppose, surely, that I enjoyed doing that?
TONY: If not, you're a damn good actor!
PLACEK: I had to be! But Anna - you do not understand. She was not just any other agent in my department. She came to me, a lost and frightened child - her parents had disappeared (not through any of my doing, by all that I hold sacred!) - she had no other family - the friends she thought she could trust had deserted her - she needed to fit in somewhere, anywhere. I pitied her, and my interest became more than pity. I never had a real daughter ... In the service we should form no personal attachments, but I could not prevent it. In destroying Anna, I destroyed a part of myself.
&n
bsp; TONY: Hmph. "The devil was sick, the devil a monk would be."
PLACEK (with righteous indignation): Do not mock! I have not the slightest claim on your good will, no one knows that better than I, but never suppose that you are alone in your suffering.
TONY (bitterly): Should we applaud that performance?
ERIC: Steady on, Tony!
PLACEK (with an effort at control): If I did not need your help ... But I understand your bitterness. Only too well.
ERIC: Yes, Tony, your help. If only as a quid pro quo for the assistance you've received.
TONY: Well, I'll have to think about it. But it isn't just my decision, you know.
ERIC: It's yours that counts.
A car is heard to draw up and Tony looks out.
TONY: Hell, they're back already. (Hastily) Dr. Placek, if I've done you an injustice, I apologise. We can talk about it later. Just for the moment I can't explain, but I'll have to ask you to wait in the kitchen for a while.
PLACEK (baffled): As you wish ...
TONY: Only a few minutes, I hope.
CUT TO TONY'S ENTRANCE HALL, IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING.
TONY (ushering Placek): You'll understand soon enough. It's through there.
Clara enters by the front door with Anna, muffled and not recognisable until she removes outdoor clothing.
CLARA: Hurry up and get that door closed - it's too cold to hang about.
TONY (to Anna): How are you?
CUT TO TONY'S SITTING ROOM, IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING.
Clara, Anna and Tony enter.
CLARA: Cold and tired. Haven't you finished the decorations yet?
TONY: Not quite - Eric arrived in the middle of it. With another visitor, quite unexpected.
CLARA: Excuses, excuses. And you've cluttered up all the chairs - just like a man.
ERIC (clearing two more chairs): Allow me. No, it is my fault. Kept
Exit, pursued by a bear Page 10