Bitter Field

by Jack Ludlow

  Small and wiry, Miklos reckoned the little fellow to be no match for him, a thought he was still holding when he woke up about ten minutes later, having not seen the jab that hit him in the midriff, nor the fist that clouted the side of his head. All he could do was groggily stagger through to the lobby and tell McKevitt, now joined by Gibby Gibson, that their bird had flown.

  An hour later Signor Vincenzo Castellano, who knew that to stay on the streets was too dangerous, was just down the road at another big hotel called the Paris demanding a room in fluent Italian. ‘Posso avere una camera?’ That was the language with which he had grown up, as the child of immigrant parents, and his name on the passport he had fetched from the Tatra was the Italian spelling.

  Making a bit of fuss and waving his arms in a very Latin way, he had to hope that his British passport, albeit the details were recorded, would not cause anyone to be too curious. Just because he had got away from the Meran did not mean he felt completely safe; he was still a stranger in Prague without the ability to easily communicate and with no knowledge of the depth of the threat he was facing.

  Was it time to get out through Elsa Ephraim? But could he do that without first getting in touch with Cal, because if his passport was blown, then so would be the other one Cal was using, and his real documents, without which he would be left stranded, were still in the Tatra. Vince had not been a soldier for many years, but he knew the self-imposed regulation by which you always tried to abide: never leave a comrade in peril.

  Could he telephone or send a telegram to Cheb? But that would mean using the Barrowman name and there was no way of knowing what risk was attached to that, yet that had to be weighed against the risk of doing nothing.

  In the end, given the language problems he might face at the other end, he opted for telegram and once that was done it was getting late in the day. Not wanting to drive in the dark, he decided to eat, then sleep, ask for an early call and head off at dawn.

  ‘Do you have any idea how many hotels there are in Prague, Noel?’

  They were back in the embassy, Miklos was being checked out and patched up by a first-aider and Gibby Gibson was wondering if he should slip a sedative to his increasingly unstable Northern Irish boss, who might have a reputation for being a cool customer, but was showing no signs of it now.

  ‘I don’t care, I want them all checked out.’

  They had a description, taken from the reception desk at the Meran and handsomely paid for, but in terms of resources what McKevitt was asking for was out of the question.

  ‘You might be better looking for the other chap, Barrowman.’

  ‘How? The bastard could be anywhere.’

  ‘If, as we suspect, he’s travelling on false papers like his mate then he’s committing a crime.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘If he’s staying in any kind of hotel, his details will be registered as a matter of course.’

  ‘Like in France and Germany, you mean?’ McKevitt demanded.

  ‘The embassy can inform the Czech authorities that they have reasonable grounds to suspect that a British subject is in their country under an assumed name for purposes of which we have no idea. I have to tell you, Noel, if they are given information like that, right now they will smell German spy.’

  ‘Who do we tell?’ McKevitt demanded. ‘I hope you are not going to say to me “the police”. If they are anything like the lot we have at home it will take them a week to get off their arse.’

  ‘The man we want is Colonel Doležal, who runs the Czech equivalent of MI5.’

  ‘They’re not much better,’ the Irishman spat, thinking of Barney Foxton. ‘How well do you know him?’

  Gibson knew the meaning of the question: could Doležal be trusted? ‘Well enough.’

  ‘Then let’s get hold of the bugger and tell him the fella we’re after is dangerous.’

  ‘Is he, Noel?’

  ‘More than you know, Gibby,’ McKevitt replied.

  ‘If I can tell Doležal why that is, it might speed up his search.’

  But you would not see it as I see it, McKevitt thought, not see that a man who might drag our whole nation into a war was the most lethal kind of problem we could have – and how can you tell some Czech sod who would want us involved that I am trying to put the mockers on our staying out of their stupid little predicament?

  ‘Hint he’s a spy, Gibby, that will have to do, and Christ, with what’s going on it should be enough.’

  Having done as requested, Gibby Gibson waited till McKevitt was out of the way and made another visit to the Cipher Room, this time to send a cable to Quex himself. He wanted to ask if the outfit had any information on two men named Barrowman and Nolan, whom his station chief seemed intent on pursuing without saying why, though he checked first with Tommy that McKevitt had not sent anything similar.

  ‘Hasn’t been in touch with London at all, Major, since he arrived.’

  ‘Not at all?’

  That was peculiar; it was standard practice when chasing suspects to keep Broadway informed of progress – doubly so when they had only really got the names – not necessarily the top floor but certainly his own desk, to keep abreast of things whoever McKevitt had left in charge. What was the bugger playing at?

  ‘If he does, Tommy, tip me the wink will you?’

  Colonel Capec Doležal had a lot on his plate in a country prepared for war and in a city swarming with potential spies, so the request from Major Gibson only got attention because he was a good and trusted friend to his country and he sounded alarmed, as if this Barrowman might pose a substantial risk.

  The name was added to what was a daily bulletin distributed throughout the country, a combination of police notices, intelligence dilemmas and threats to guard against that went out every morning. In a nation on high alert there were a lot of warnings being issued to the various branches of government and the only way to distribute such alarms as needed to be disseminated and ensure they might be acted on was in writing.

  With the name in question, police station commanders in Prague would have their men check the hotel registration files for the past ten days. Cables were sent off to offices in other Czech cities – they would print and send out what they received locally; the one place excepted from the full effect of this was in the disputed border territories where the staff in the telegraphic office were a mix of German and Czech.

  So for places like Cheb it was added to a series sent off with the despatch riders who distributed the bulletin to the various checkpoints and army headquarters that covered the country, and even when the bulletin was received, care had to be taken about what to act on and what to ignore, given the potential for any act to stir up trouble.

  Cal was doing his exercises again when the telegram from Vince was delivered to his door and when he read it, even if it was not in code, he reckoned that it was secure, given the chances of anyone being able to read a mixture of rhyming slang, cockney and seriously colloquial English in this part of the world was zero; it took him some time to decipher the series of short sentences himself.

  Hubble bubble was trouble; flown the coop simple; could be Old Bill needed no explanation and nor did done a runner; Nolan brief gone west, yours too probably, old one best took some working out; think about being on your toes did not. Trying for a meet – twelve dart finish. Will bell. Vince.

  The hushed curse made no difference at all and it was exactly the reverse of what he had expected; Cal thought if anyone got into trouble it would be him and he could think of no rational explanation as to how it could be otherwise. Vince had got into some difficulty and had been forced to leave the Meran, his false passport the cause, and that put both false identities at risk. Added to that, despite being told not to, he was on his way and fast.

  What to do? He could not just bale out without an explanation and Corrie had her last interview with Henlein that afternoon. Added to that, something was going to go off that night, he was certain, which almost guaranteed, though
not for sure, he would be out of here within twenty-four hours anyway.

  Then it struck him: only he, Vince and Peter Lanchester had known the identities they were operating under; had Peter been obliged to tell anyone at Broadway and had their names been leaked to the Czech authorities from there? Looked at from every other angle it was the only thing that made sense, but not a lot. The only other people who knew the names were Snuffly Bower and the man he used to doctor the documents and they had no idea where he was.

  ‘Breakfast time,’ came the breezy call as he picked up his phone.

  ‘Be along soon.’

  ‘Bring that pen of yours, I’ve got a typed draft I’d like you to look over.’

  ‘I’ve been promoted from interpreter to editor?’

  ‘Guess so.’

  He was not going to rush, so he went back to his press-ups and squats, thinking, and that told him if Vince was moving he had to stay still, quite apart from the fact that he could not risk travelling on the documents he possessed. Once he had his own passport then he could make some kind of plan, until then it was best to just carry on.

  Both before he went to sleep and this morning he had been thinking about what his late-night visitor had said. Either something had occurred that meant Veseli had to make a premature move, or, more worryingly for Cal, they had got him here on a false prospectus – getting him to undertake some action immediately had always been the aim!

  The way to turn that down flat was easy – keep his car keys in his trouser pocket. But Cal possessed a curiosity to a greater degree than any cat. Before he left the room he put the canvas bag with the Mauser, folded tight, in the cupboard – it was not a thing to be carrying around discreetly – and downstairs he did as Veseli had asked and left the keys at reception with the requested instructions.

  There was little use for his pen on Corrie’s article, it was so flattering it nearly made him choke on his fruit juice; in fact, he thought it might be too much so and it would be an interesting test of how seriously these people took themselves if they fell for it – no rational mind would, only a warped one could.

  ‘We still going for that spin?’

  ‘Of course, meet you out front in twenty.’

  Standing at the desk, it suddenly occurred to him that it was here he had filled in the registration card as Barrowman. Did they give them to the Czech police? He tried to imagine one walking in to collect them and passing two Brownshirt thugs at the door. Tempted to ask he decided against it, for he could think of no way of phrasing the question that would not sound suspicious.

  The first place the name Barrowman rang a bell was at a checkpoint halfway to Cheb, crossed by two foreigners that the officer in command could recall very easily – how uncommon was it to find an American female journalist in Czechoslovakia at all, or perhaps just as unusual, a foreigner, an Englishman, travelling in his homeland, who could speak German like a native, though not with an accent he could place?

  With the gift of a field telephone, though frustrated by the way the traffic had to be routed on a busy network, he was through to the Ministry of the Interior within half an hour. So occupied was he that he instructed his men to be lenient about letting the stream of cars and lorries going in both directions through the barriers.

  Vince, who had set off from Prague at dawn, was one of the beneficiaries and in passing he made sure they would think him Italian as he shouted, ‘Mille grazie!’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  ‘Got him,’ Gibby Gibson cried when he came off the phone to Colonel Doležal, before he wondered what he was getting so excited about. ‘Your friend Barrowman crossed a checkpoint going towards Karlovy Vary two days ago in the company of an American female and I have even got the make of motor he was driving.’

  ‘Not short of a bob or two,’ McKevitt remarked when he saw what that was. ‘A bloody Maybach Zeppelin, for Christ’s sake. Any idea who the lass was?’

  ‘Journalist apparently, she had accreditation papers but the name has not come through.’

  ‘Saturday – we must have missed him by a whisker.’

  ‘Rotten luck that,’ Gibson replied insincerely.

  ‘She had to come from Prague, Gibby.’

  ‘You’d think so. Most of the journos stay at the Ambassador.’ Picking up the telephone Gibson added, ‘And there can’t be too many who are female.’

  Annoyingly, McKevitt was drumming his fingers on Gibson’s desk as he made the call but it did not take long to establish who the lady was and the fact that she was not presently in residence, but given Gibson was talking to reception, and not the concierge desk, that was all he got.

  ‘She must have left some form of contact address,’ Gibson insisted, his eyes going to the ceiling, given the time he was obliged to wait until the reply came through; they did not stay there when he was told.

  McKevitt was equally surprised and he had read the latest briefing before he left London. ‘Cheb! That’s where Henlein had his headquarters, isn’t it, and that other bugger Frank?’

  Gibson nodded and waited for the obvious follow-up – like what was their man doing going there? – but it did not come. Instead he picked up the phone again. ‘Should I tell Doležal we’ve found him?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Noel, he will have men searching hotel registration cards all over the place to no purpose. You can’t just leave him in the dark.’

  ‘We’ve let him think our man’s a spy. If we tell him, who will pick him up? Not us.’ Still drumming his fingers, McKevitt went into deep thought, the conclusion surprising the station chief. ‘I need a car, Gibby, and some cash.’

  ‘You’re going after Barrowman yourself?’

  ‘I am, but I doubt that’s the bastard’s real name. Tell me, what’s the situation with weapons?’

  ‘You mean—’

  ‘Look, this man is dangerous, Gibby, and he has to be stopped.’

  ‘From doing what, Noel?’

  ‘I can’t tell you.’

  ‘Is that because you don’t know?’

  ‘Have you told your team about closing down the station?’

  ‘Don’t change the subject.’

  ‘Who in the name of Christ do you think you’re talking to?’ The question was on Gibson’s lips: why have you not been in touch with base? But it died there, not least because McKevitt was not finished.

  ‘You should be packing your bags, Gibby. And don’t think it will go unnoticed that I had to come here to sort out a problem that you should have seen to.’

  ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

  ‘No,’ McKevitt sneered, a very necessary adjunct to his bluff, ‘you don’t, which makes me think it might be time you retired. Now get me the use of an embassy car and a pistol with some ammo.’

  ‘Sorry, Noel, that is something you will have to do yourself.’

  The sun was shining, the hood was down in the Maybach, though being autumn the air had a chill in these high elevations that required Corrie to wear a headscarf and Cal his hat. But it was pleasant driving at a relaxed pace, quite often through thick forests, even if right behind them came a car, a tiny Hanomag, with two Brownshirts crammed into it, tasked to watch where they went.

  The temptation to look in the boot when the car was brought to the front of the hotel had to be resisted and there was nothing in the passenger compartment that was in anyway untoward. He would just have to wait for an opportunity and to do that the first task was to lose the tail.

  ‘Have you got used to being on the wrong side of the car yet?’

  ‘Let’s just say I don’t think I’m going to die.’

  ‘Good.’

  Cal hit the floor with the pedal and the V12 engine responded immediately, Corrie crying ‘Jesus!’ as she was thrust back in her seat. There were no straight roads in these parts and they were not generous in width, which made the sensation of speed all that much greater, exaggerated as the tyres screeched round the bends.

  As soon as the
tail was out of sight, Cal was looking for a junction or at least where the road split, and that came at a fork, he taking the uphill line because it affected him not at all, but that near-toy car with two big blokes in it would struggle to keep up any speed at all. For all they were moving up a steep hill, the trees still hemmed them in.

  At the top of the hill there were two bored-looking sentries in grey-green Czech uniforms standing before an entry into the woods shut off by a wire gate, but the approach of the car brought them to life and their slung weapons came off the shoulder just as the trees thinned to one side to show an extensive panorama.

  Inside those trees there had to be some of the Czech defences, and on this kind of elevation and with the open ground below the hilltop, Cal assumed heavy artillery, which would be in a well-defended concrete cupola surrounded by pillboxes.

  He slowed right down and went by at a crawl; these conscripts, which is what they looked to be, were likely to be trigger-happy and he had known men killed by not paying enough attention to another soldier’s nerves. The speed also allowed him time to assess the field of fire he imagined the weapons could strike; that panoramic view looked as though it extended right into the Third Reich.

  Past that and descending he really gave the car full throttle and soon they were racing through another dense tree belt so narrow occasional branches hissed along the side of the car and one or two hit it with a crack; if it had a serious purpose, driving like this was exhilarating.

  Corrie showed no sign of fear; in fact, when a bit of straight road allowed him to look at her it seemed as if her eyes, staring straight ahead, were alight, her mouth was slightly open and her breathing seemed faster than normal – she was excited and enjoying the thrill as much as he was.

  Sighting another ungated path into the trees he pulled hard over and shot up the lane, which had her sliding across the front leather seat to his side, coming to a halt with her body jammed against his. He could sense her, and the way her breath was still heaving was too obvious to miss, so spinning sideways he threw an arm over her shoulder and pulled her close.