The Striker Portfolio q-3

by Adam Hall

  But one or two pointers were presenting themselves for my inspection. When I had got into the car she'd crawled in the dark at first so by the time she'd put her lights on she'd have been some distance from where the dogs were milling about at the end of the scent-track. Then she'd backed and waited, floodlighting the field, keeping up the search like the rest of them. Then she'd driven off hard for the next search-area.

  The water was cold in my stomach. My whole body was drinking there. I said:

  'You'll be missed by now. Better shove on.'

  She was watching me attentively. 'When did you last eat?'

  She knew when I'd last eaten. Three days ago.' Maybe she didn't.

  'Nothing since then?'

  'You think I fancy salt-beef sandwiches? I'm used to caviar.'

  The bronze eyes lit and softened and suddenly she looked as she had when I'd thought about her as a change from thinking about blotting it all out. It was relief, that was all. I was a mess but it sounded as if the inside of my head was still operating and obviously there were things we had to do.

  'Drink this.'

  Plastic bottle. 'What is it?'

  'Glucose and milk.'

  I took it and she unscrewed the top. Compared with the water the milk was warm: she'd had it in the pocket of her flying-coat. While I drank slowly she left me and got behind the wheel. I climbed out and dumped myself in the front beside her partly to see if I could do it and partly so we wouldn't have to shout. But she didn't say anything until we were through Mulhausen and into the minor roads.

  'I'm taking you to the Frontier.'

  'Out on a limb, aren't you?'

  'It's my affair.'

  Shivering had set in and she noticed it: 'I couldn't bring your coat.'

  'No. The dog-handlers had it.'

  I still heard the baying and would hear it for a long time. Delayed shock was trying to start but it wouldn't have much luck because I was too interested in what was going on. After a while I said: 'We haven't got long.'

  'It wasn't just bad organization,' she said. 'My duty was to pick up Guhl. They were waiting for his report on the Benedikt situation. I couldn't do anything except hand you over. I couldn't even talk in the car because of the driver. I could only plan to get you away as soon as I could do it. That should have been much sooner but the sky was clear until tonight and they would have got you before you'd gone a yard, I'm sorry.'

  'You're taking a chance even now.'

  'But it's at least a chance.'

  She drove deftly: her nerves showed only in the way she spoke, a few brief phrases broken by short intervals of silence. I said: 'Who are you with?'

  'No one you would know. We had a cell established in Zagreb.'

  I waited but that was all. I couldn't ask anything else because it wouldn't be ethical and anyway she wasn't going to tell me anything more than we would both need to share for the sake of security. But I thought I had it: there'd been someone in Zagreb recently who'd had to do a bunk and it had stirred things up a lot. Two people had shown up in London soon afterwards and we'd vetted them in case they had any value for the Bureau. All we'd learned was that the Zagreb base was blown and that three of their regional cells were cut off. It happens a lot: it's bound to. It can't happen to the established networks: the American C.I.A. has a hundred thousand personnel and you could drop a multi-megaton buster down their chimney and no one would get cut off anywhere because their outfit is fully diversified, but there are thousands of pint-sized private-enterprise groups working the clock round from Leningrad to Lisbon and they haven't resources wide enough to cushion the crunch if it comes.

  'You did pretty well,' I said.

  'No. We — '

  'I mean it's not everyone who can fix up a secret-police cover and live too long.' I didn't want her to explain how pretty well she hadn't done. It can happen to the best of them: they've nowhere to go once their base is blown and the best of them just go on operating in the hope that somehow they can bring it off alone. But they can't do that if they come down to the broken reeds among their number. People like Benedikt.

  'We were cut off,' she said and there was a sag in her voice because she was only now recognizing the defeat that she'd refused to face before.

  'It can happen to anyone. But why send a man like him to a place like Hanover when you had at least two other people right inside London?'

  She looked at me and away again. I was knowing too much. That wasn't awkward: it was just embarrassing. She said in a moment: 'I couldn't trust them.'

  That fitted. Benedikt had broken but he hadn't sold out. He'd left them safe.

  'But you didn't drop the idea. I mean of calling on London.'

  It wasn't the first time a group had signalled for help. A lot of them were the nuclei of resistance cells and refugee organizations and even though times had changed and the hot war had gone cold they were still of the generation that once had nothing to sustain them in the twilight of the attics and the cellars and the boarded-up cupboards but the voice among the static prefaced by the four notes of the V-sign: This is London. But it was the first time my own Bureau had mounted a mission and sent out an agent within hours of a contact. We get a lot of contacts and most of them are duff but just as soon as Lovett tipped us off about an imminent Striker crash I was lying on my back on top of a chalk quarry with that very aeroplane performing overhead. And there'd been nothing to go on. Lovett himself hadn't known who the contact was.

  I suppose people loathe Parkis because he's always so bloody right She said: 'If London couldn't do anything, you'd tell me now, wouldn't you?'

  'Yes.'

  We were running through flat country: a few hedgerows and then nothing but the far horizon. The car slewed sometimes across frost' but she held it well enough.

  'It wasn't bad organization,' she said and I knew she was worried about it. 'They must have gone to have another look at you soon after you'd left. I was counting on at least one hour before that happened. We couldn't — '

  'Look, I'm here and I'm not thirsty any more. Well for God's sake.'

  'All right.'

  'Did you send Benedikt across on a specific mission or was he just meant to check on the Hanover cell?'

  'He was to take over the Striker operation.'

  Of course. So he'd known when the next one would crash. And had told Lovett. I said: 'Can you fill me in on Kohn?'

  The roads were narrower here and the tarmac was broken in places. The terrain was taking on the wasteland look of the Frontier Zone.

  'Distinguished flying record, the Iron Cross as a lieutenant, 1944. He was cut off after a crash-landing near Poznan a year later and taken prisoner by the Soviet troops in that area. He never saw his family again and he didn't know at the tune that his wife was killed in the bombing of Cologne. When they released him he began working for privileges as a pro-communist — '

  'Why didn't he go back before 1961? He could have. There was a child, wasn't there?'

  She said reflectively: 'I think it may have been his pride, or — '

  'Oh I see, yes.' At that time his face would have been still in the healing stages and frightening to a small boy.

  We began slowing and she switched to low-beam. The dark mass of pines loomed on our left and at its fringe were the trees I had memorized as markers on our way across.

  Time was so short.

  I said: 'You're going straight back?'

  'As soon as I know you're through safely.' She slowed to a crawl and drove on sidelights between hedges of thorn. 'They'll have widened the search by now and I'll join them.'

  I didn't ask what the risk was: she would have been absent for two hours. I said: 'Who are the people we have to deal with? The ones at the top with Kohn?'

  'There are others. Gross, Langmann and Schott. Langmann is based in East Berlin. The others are at Aschau.'

  'Langmann — what's his cover?'

  'Secretary of Trade Agreements in the S.E.D.' They're the all-highest? Those four
?'

  'If they were brought down,' she said, 'the whole of Die Zelle would collapse.'

  She turned off the side-lights before the thorn gave way to scrubland and we went forward at a walking-pace through the faint light from the sky. She said:

  'Kohn, Gross and Schott go by road to Berlin once every month for conference with the political re-education secretariat. They are normally escorted by one military vehicle.'

  'Oh really.'

  'I tried,' she said.

  'Of course.'

  There are only three of us and there's so little we can do. Aschau is a network of microphones and every second man is an informer.'

  'You've done well enough to survive.' Aschau was a Chinese Box: within an asylum for the criminally insane was the legitimate but undercover political re-education complex. Within that, Die Zelle. Within that, Helda's group, a potential detonator.

  'Survival isn't enough.'

  'It's kept open the way in. You know that.'

  She cut the engines and we coasted, bumping over rough ground where the track ended. Then we stopped.

  I said: 'If my people decide to have a go they'll want to look over Aschau. I mean as well as fix the convoy on the Berlin run. There might be some confusion when it all hots up so we'll have to arrange a code-intro.'

  We couldn't see much of each other now because the facia lamp was out. We spoke more quietly.

  'Might you be there?' she asked.

  'No. It's not in my field.'

  In a moment she said: 'What is your name?'

  'Quiller.'

  Slowly she said: 'Quiller. Tell them we shall use that'

  'All right.'

  'We shall use the English pronunciation.'

  'Yes.' There were a few German words that would sound similar if the 'u' were spoken as V.

  We were accommodating visually to the dim light and I could see the dark shape of her mouth and the glow of her eyes. I could feel her warmth. I said:

  'You'll have been absent for two hours. How big is the risk?'

  'It's calculated.'

  Kohn would give the orders and they would arrange it discreetly and the glow and the warmth would be gone.

  'Come across with me now. You'd be given immediate asylum.'

  She moved her head, looking through the wind-screen at the distant posts where the wire ran. 'No. It would mean letting them down. My friends. And if your people decide to go over there I shall try to have material available. Documents, rosters, everything they'll have come for.' She looked at me again. 'I tried to get your papers back, and the key-plan of the mines. It wasn't possible.'

  'I took bearings.' The chill air flowed in as I opened my door. 'Go straight back.'

  'I shall wait until I know.'

  Sharply I said: 'There's no point. If I make a mistake there'll be nothing you can do. Go straight back.'

  'Very well.'

  Looking in at her I said: 'We met late, didn't we?'

  'Yes.'

  I shut the door and began walking.

  I was more than halfway across before the tension got so bad that I had to rest. The danger was in the need to concentrate: there comes a time when the mind refuses further discipline and argues that luck will get you through. Marksmen at the range find that their aim deteriorates after a certain point and they put it down to fatigue but it isn't the whole answer.

  There was no deliberate intention to rest: suddenly I was lying on my back, face to the curdled clouds, eyes closed, my nervous reserves already plundered — I lay down without caution, not caring whether or not my head was blown off.

  Eyelids flickering. Posts and stanchions, a forest of them reaching to infinity, charred shadows against the ashen frost — 32 LG-RR/4I45/42SILCB-T/6/45/5 — Bearing 3: 2nd post Left of Guard-hut to line with Right edge of Ruin, Spaces, 45° to Bearing 4: 2nd stanchion from 1st post Left of Central Bush to line with Tree, 6 paces, 45° to Bearing 5 — the earth cold against my back, my spine a perfectly articulated thread of life lying at an unknown angle among perfectly ordered points of potential death, a man seeking on ancient principle his own survival, men seeking by remote artifact his extermination.

  Who are you?

  Quiller.

  I mean who are you?

  This bit of gristle cast up in no man's land where no man safely goes, nursing a bandage full of blood and the high ambition of crawling through a wire where the cows come to scratch their backs and where the hemispheres of the planet Earth divide. The sky flickering. Get up. Get on your bloody feet.

  53RT-LF6/45/61S2LCB to Bearing 7.

  Keep still.

  'Poor sod.'

  Still. Reference shifting: second marker seventh series had T doubled. There was no tree there before. R3-check and make four paces.

  'You'd not think it were worth it, would you?'

  Voices low. Assimilate new situation and discount alien markers and proceed. Prominence — watch it Fed it. Feel its edge. Stone.

  It had brought the sweat out.

  'He's not the only one that's tried. It must be bad over there.'

  The gleam of their guns.

  To line with Left edge of Guard hut, 4 paces.

  But I was weakening now and the second marker swayed and I couldn't get a true fix on the background reference but it was no good flaking out again because the next time I'd fall on top of one and I didn't want that, all I wanted was sleep.

  'Come on, son, you'll do it yet.'

  I suppose so. I suppose so. Bearing 10.

  The hiss of the frost underfoot, 6 paces.

  The wire. The barbs bent under with pliers. Now don't fall over. There's no need.

  'Are you — are you blokes Rhine Army?'

  'Christ — he's English!'

  One of them caught me.

  Chapter Nineteen — FINAL APPROACH

  They put me in the back of their Jeep and one of them slung his greatcoat round me. They were already calling up base as we drove off. The wind cut cold. I shouted against it.

  'I left a car here. Can I pick it up?'

  'You what?' They talked together. 'You can't drive it because we can't authorize you, see? And we can't drive it because no one can authorize us, get it? So I should just sit tight and look happy. We shan't be long.'

  They were in good spirits. It wasn't often they picked anyone off the wire.

  At the B.A.O.R. unit a captain questioned me and went into his office next door to use the phone. I could hear most of it through the pinewood partition. A very odd bod indeed. Thorough bad shape but lucid enough, h Mister Bates there?

  A corporal brought me a cup of tea.

  I dunno, frankly. He wants to talk to someone in Hanover. Yes. Thing is, do we let him?

  I burnt my lips but went on drinking just to feel the heat The corporal was passing on the news somewhere outside: He's in there now. Caught him on the Strip. Eh? No, English. Honest! Fair enough. We'll hold him for you.

  Boots in the passage. Thomson!'

  'Sir?'

  'Bring some tea for this chap, soon as you can.'

  'He's got some, sir.'

  'Fair enough.'

  The door opened. 'You can phone Hanover but we have to listen in, that do you?'

  He took me into his office and I gave him the number. We waited for the connection. Tall, clean, pink-faced, very interested, a boyish smile. The last customer we had was two months ago. I mean a live one.' That was how they must come to see the 'Strip': as a wire where birds perched, some of them falling.

  When the phone rang he used the extension, watching me the whole time as I talked.

  'Sapphire.'

  'Needle.' He listened for bugs.

  'All right' I said: 'Company.' Third party this end.

  'Understood.'

  'I'm in B.A.O.R. Bucholz. Get me out, will you?'

  This time of night?'

  He was giving himself time to think. The Rhine Army wouldn't pick anyone up unless they were right in the Zone.

  'W
ake people up,' I told him.

  'Yes. Which way are you facing?'

  'Home.' He wanted to know if I were going across or coming back.

  The young captain tapped my arm: 'It's getting a little obscure. I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to — '

  'All right,'I said.

  'Anything for me?' Ferris was asking.

  'Practically the lot.'

  'Oh yes?' He was very good at not sounding galvanized. 'Anything for London?'

  'Not yet'

  'I ought to give them at least a rough — '

  'Look, stuff London. Just get me out I want one more day.'

  'Where?'

  'Linsdorf. Do I need smoke out?'

  'No. We fixed that.'

  The captain reached across and cut us off. His smile was rather strained. 'I do apologize, but you see my position. Most of that was in verbal code and I've already stuck my neck out letting you phone at all.'

  I gave him the receiver.

  'I appreciate that.' The heat was off now and the need for sleep was urgent. 'Appreciate it a lot. Don't worry, there'll be no kickback.' Up to Ferris, the rest of the night.

  'That's fine. But the thing is, you could be Commander Crabb or someone.'

  'He's got brown eyes, didn't you know?'

  They woke me just before dawn and I let them take me along to the sick-bay to get the hand re-stitched.

  'There's not so much room left for making new holes, that's the trouble. What have you been doing?'

  'I had to go on all fours for a bit.'

  Taking pots, were they?' The M.O. laughed gustily. They all knew where the 'very odd bod' had been. It was a routine patrol unit and I was as good as the telly.

  The captain took me back to his office.

  'Well I'm not quite sure what's going on but we've had a call through and my orders are to release you and offer limited facilities.' He sounded frustrated: he wasn't averse to letting me go but he realized that he would never know who it was who had gone. 'Perhaps you'd give me some idea as to what facilities you need.'

  I didn't ask for much: some biscuits, a duffle-coat, some petrol and a ride in the Jeep as far as the ruined military depot.

  The 17M was still there, stuck in the bush, and they filled the tank while I scraped the frost off the wind-screen. The tank had been split on the blind run from Neueburg and I didn't want to go dry. I made sure the engine would start before I let them go, then while it warmed I stood looking east across the wire and the flat grey land beyond. The light seeped from a cold sky and there were crows about: it was morning, and I had a warm coat with biscuits in a pocket and I hoped the night had gone well for her, as it had gone for me.