Meanwhile, after another trip in an upward-moving lift and a walk along another corridor, Nada and I were ordered into a small windowless room together. We found Bassett already there, looking intensely glum and twittery. He seemed much relieved when we came in and the guards withdrew behind the self-sealing door, leaving the three of us alone together. Nevertheless, his first words to me were words of attack. “Here,” he said belligerently, and I must say it was nice to hear that northern British voice again. “Here, what’s the idea, eh? What you got me into, Mr Frazer? Why did you go and bugger off in that red-light district, eh?”
“Really, Mr Bassett,” I said primly. “Not in front of a lady, please!”
“Oh — sorry.” He glanced at Nada perfunctorily. “Still, I mean to say —”
“Well, don’t say too much of what you mean,” I told him in a low voice, going up close. I didn’t need to say this to Nada. “This room’ll be bugged for sure — it’s an old trick. We’re lucky there aren’t closed-circuit TV cameras as well, up in one of the ceiling corners.” I’d checked that on the way in and had satisfied myself there weren’t any. “Talk by all means, just to sound natural, but don’t, repeat don’t, say anything that might incriminate us. Between snatches of conversation, you can whisper your innermost thoughts to me.”
“Bloody likely,” Bassett grumbled. “All I want to do is get out. I’m shit scared, beg pardon, and don’t mind admitting it! I’ve done nowt!”
“Why did they bring you in, then?”
“Because I told that Borjorac woman I’d seen you get in a car, that’s why. The bitch went and reported it, apparently.”
“And they got suspicious about your intentions —”
“Yes, because I’d been with you when you f — when you disappeared, and they —”
“All right,” I interrupted, grinning. The sheer vulgar normality of Fred Bassett was doing me a lot of good. “Just for your information it was a night of shining innocence. I didn’t even get an eff. I just got kidnapped later on by a general. You probably know the rest. If you don’t, it’s just too bad. Believe me, the less you know the faster you’ll get out. So preserve your innocence, Mr Bassett, at all costs. You’ll be back in Bradford in no time.”
“Tisn’t Bradford —”
“Well, never mind, never mind! Now, I want to have a word with the lady. While I’m doing it, you can be a big help, if you will.”
Bassett nodded. “Course. What d’you want?”
“I want you to talk,” I said. “Quite loud, and quite normal. A bit of a monologue, you know what I mean. Talk about all Miss Borjorac has shown the party … complain all you like about being arrested, so long as you don’t insult the Reds or Marxism. Can you do that, Mr Bassett?”
“I’ll ’ave a bloody good try,” Bassett said.
“Good man!” I clapped him on the shoulder and he seemed ridiculously bucked. He didn’t lack intelligence and he must have hoisted in enough of the truth to suspect that he’d dropped into the big time; and the glamour of power politics was rubbing off on me. That friendly clap on the shoulder was an accolade, rather like a pally nudge from the President at a meeting of the Chamber of Commerce. I knew Bassett would play up and he did. He was fine. He talked a load of old rope and I tackled Nada Strecka. Bassett did better in his line than I did in mine, though; the girl didn’t open up to me. At least, she appeared to on the surface but I suspected she was holding back on a good deal of the truth. I asked her if she’d had any contact with Drakotny since her arrest and she said no, she hadn’t, although she’d asked to see him. That might be true; probably it was. Drakotny might have felt it undiplomatic to have any direct contact with her; but that didn’t have to mean he was going to wash his hands of her and leave her to the mercies of the Security Police.
I put this point to her. She said, “I just don’t know. But if Josef isn’t interested enough to help me, well … I guess I just don’t want to go on living anyway.”
“Rubbish!” I said angrily. “You’re too young to think like that. Life’s before you. There are other men beside Drakotny.”
“Not for me,” she said, and the quietly convinced tone of her voice told me she meant it.
I said, “He made it easy for you to live in Prague when you first got here. He even had you released, you said, from the immigration people. Why the sudden overnight shift? Why the arrest, Nada? I just don’t get it.”
She gave a sigh and let herself go into my arms. That room wasn’t comfortable, and we were sitting side by side on a hard wooden bench hinged to the wall. Bassett was on a similar bench opposite, his knees almost touching ours. For security reasons I had kept very close to Nada all the time we had been talking, and I had an arm around her, but she hadn’t let herself go until now. I said urgently, “Tell me all about it, Nada, for Gods sake tell me so I know how to react!”
I realized then that she was crying softly. I was sorry for her, but I was angry too. Our opportunity was passing, was ticking away with the clock, and very likely we wouldn’t get another. I gave her a shake that rattled her teeth and she gave a surprised choke and stopped crying. I said, “Give, Nada. Before it’s too late! Why has Drakotny changed, and why were you arrested? And what do you think of my medical theory — what Krajcin said?” I added that just in case our words should reach the bug.
She said, “You had that theory before.”
“Not me. You.”
She wriggled her shoulders. “We both had it. Yes. I think you’re right.”
“That being the case, I’d say Drakotny’s in the clear now. The doctors’ll go for the high jump and that’s it. I want to know where you fit, Nada.”
“Where I fit?” She turned her head and looked up at me. There was a query, and there was also fear, in her eyes.
I said, “In Drakotny’s scheme of things.”
“I don’t. You know that. He changed his mind because … because that was the wiser thing to do. There are pressures on him that you know nothing of. If he was left to himself, he would act quite differently. He wouldn’t send me away. I know that.”
“You’d be his mistress again?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“But now?”
“You see how things are,” she said. “I don’t know what’s going to happen to me now.”
“Was it Drakotny himself who ordered your arrest?”
“I don’t know for certain. No-one will tell me anything. I think he must have done though, otherwise …”
“Otherwise no-one would have dared.”
“Yes,” she said. “Or it could be that he — just withdrew his background support, I suppose. But it all comes to the same thing, doesn’t it?”
“It all comes to the same thing,” I agreed. I felt I was no farther ahead; except to the extent that I was finding difficulty in accepting all Nada Strecka had told me, and that this was leading to a certain mistrust. I would have to step very, very carefully when the bald man sent for us again. It seemed to me a trifle odd, really, that we had been given this opportunity of a close chat. Whatever else the Security Police might be, they were not fools — at least, not the sort of fools who would fail to realize that bugs could be overcome. Far from fools! Yet I couldn’t quite see the point. Back in the car on the way in from the tunnel I had thought the girl had been pumping me; but she didn’t seem to have been doing that, here in this small room behind the broad vowels of Fred Bassett. Her questions hadn’t been leading ones. Maybe she just wanted to play on my sympathies for some reason or other.
I would have to watch that, too.
We stopped talking when Bassett’s inventiveness ran out. It ran out rather suddenly and he looked sheepish and said, “I’m sorry, lad, but I reckon I’ve dried up. You know how it is.”
“Don’t worry,” I said, “you’ve done all right.” I gave him a big smile of appreciation and he looked happy again. But it was only a fleeting happiness; Bassett was dead worried about his future. That gave him a conver
sation point. He began talking again, anxiously and with a clear wish to be reassured he’d soon be home, with his wife and the greengrocery business. Once again I told him not to worry. I couldn’t see Them worrying, not about Fred Bassett. I didn’t put it quite as unkindly as that, though. He started giving me a run-down on the trade then, how you marketed cabbages and brussels sprouts and so on, and I guess the people who were listening to the bugs must have had enough pretty quickly, because after Bassett had been on this tack for around five minutes the door opened up and we were told to come out. Three Security Policemen were waiting for us and we were led away. This time, separately. Poor Bassett looked terrified. He was gasping for air as he was taken off along the corridor, his mouth opening and closing like a fish. Nada Strecka went the same way as me just as far as the lifts, but she was pushed into a different one. I don’t know where they took her, but I was led back to the bald man. He had a disgruntled look, which didn’t surprise me — he’d no doubt had a bellyfull of the greengrocery trade. At least, I assumed at first that that was what was giving him the sick look, but, as it turned out, it was something else. Something which, when it was revealed, gave me the idea the bald man was feeling he could have handled things better, and if he had, then the top brass wouldn’t have needed to step in.
He told me to sit down. Then he dropped the bombshell. He said, “You are to be interviewed by someone else.”
“Who?”
“Drakotny,” he answered.
*
This was really something. I didn’t suppose the acting Prime Minister often interviewed foreign agents personally. But, of course, this was a very personal matter to Josef Drakotny. I was highly intrigued at the thought of meeting that man face to face. I thought of all I’d heard about him — the magnetism, the dynamism, all the physical qualities, the thrust and the push and the way he had with women. Or with Nada Strecka, anyway. Then I thought of the man as the Red puppet he was, and I thought of the iron hand on Czechoslovakia and the flattening out of the liberal elements that would take place if ever he should succeed Racilek. Succeed him permanently. I thought of the people who had died already on the fringe of the attempt to blot this Drakotny out of existence. Heilersetz, Pavol Krajcin. Less directly involved, several Czech policemen and my own man down in Cornwall, Harry Foster. Vorsak, for what he was worth, and even he had been a human life. The Frumms in danger, poor loyal peasants, the very sort who were supposed to benefit from Communism but had so much preferred not to. Drakotny had loomed large in many fives. Drakotny was a despot, Drakotny was a bum; Drakotny was a bastard, ask Sergeant Frumm.
I met him in the Castle; not at the interrogation centre or whatever it was. Still dirty and scruffily unshaven, thus still at a disadvantage, I was put straight away into a lift and whizzed down to ground level, thence into a long black car of Russian manufacture. I was told to get in the back where I found two grim-faced plain-clothes men already in situ. The moment I was safely in, the car started up, taking the bald man with it as well as me. He sat in front with the driver, not speaking, just looking straight ahead, expressionless now. When we reached the Castle he went in with me, and waited with me in some sort of antechamber, still not speaking; but later, when the royal summons came, he stayed behind. He had probably just been told to come along in case Drakotny wanted to bawl him out or shoot him or something; that was the kind of look he had, anyway. The two plain-clothes men had come with us to the antechamber as well, and they were watching me very closely, though I certainly had no thought of a break-out from the Presidential abode. From that antechamber I had a bit of a view of the Castle, or parts of it, and although it didn’t strike me as especially military — in fact a damn sight less secure than the establishment on Wenceslas Square — I didn’t let appearances fool me. But I was interested in what I saw. The Castle, which was mainly of a sort of yellow colour, was intriguing. It was all bits and pieces, architecturally, having been added to through the centuries, by occupants ranging from the Bavarians to the Nazis and on to the Communists. Besides being the seat of the President of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, it was Prague’s Court of St James, the place where foreign ambassadors presented their letters of credence, it was Prague’s Tower of London where treasures and jewels were kept, it was Czechoslovakia’s Westminster Abbey where the remains of forgotten kings rested. More important to me, Drakotny was there. I looked out on the mixed buildings and the courtyards and the fountains, now under snow and a chill wind, becoming chillier as the day lengthened into afternoon, bringing to me the pangs of lunchless hunger, and only Mrs Frumm’s snacks earlier, and I thought of Christmas, and peace, and goodwill. I was on this tack when some big double doors opened and a flunkey appeared and made an announcement, and the bald-headed man and the plain-clothes cops leaped to their feet. The plain-clothes men beckoned to me and fell in behind me and marched me towards those doors, clump, clump, clump with their cheap police boots on the polished floor. They, like the bald-headed man, were left behind when the doors closed, and I was alone with Drakotny.
Drakotny was standing by one of three long windows, looking down into the grounds with his back towards me. I saw that he was short and thick, squarely powerful, with wrestler’s shoulders and almost no neck. He had small ears flat to his head, the hair of which was iron-grey and cropped short like a convict’s. We remained for a few moments in isolation, as if suspended in time. He made no movement and I marvelled that any man could remain so statuesque, so totally motionless as Drakotny. He remained quite still even when he said in a deep, carrying voice, “Sit, Commander Shaw. The chair in the middle of the room.”
There was one chair, all by itself. Gilt and brocade, very splendid, but faded, some relic from past glories. Probably many a ruler had graced it. I sat.
Then Drakotny turned and, with his hands clasped behind that thick back, came towards me. The face was heavy and pugnacious and the eyes … the eyes were the most compelling I had ever seen in any man until then. It was a coarse face, almost a brutal face, but it was redeemed by the eyes and I found that I understood Nada Strecka’s devotion to this man, really understood it. It would not be just sex, though clearly he would exert a strong sexual pull as well; men would follow that face, and indeed men did. Racilek hadn’t won all the support by any means. Intending to dislike and mistrust this man, I was impressed instead.
Drakotny stopped in front of me and looked down. There was no smile; he was very serious. That was natural. In a throaty, rather attractive voice he said, “I am told you speak Czech.”
“I do,” I said.
“Then we speak in Czech. My English is not good.”
“Just as you say,” I said.
He swung away again, walking with a heavy tread back to the window. I waited. Standing as motionless as before, and once again with his back to me, he said suddenly, “I am told there is a threat to kill me. Then you crop up, in company with Comrade Heilersetz. Do you mean to kill me?”
I laughed.
“It is not a joke. Answer.”
“All right,” I said. “No, Comrade Drakotny, I do not mean to kill you. I have come to Prague to prevent this very thing happening.”
“You are forthcoming, for an agent.”
“I’ve said it all before,” I answered. “And by the way, I’m not here in Prague as an agent, Comrade Drakotny. I’m here as a —”
“Saviour?”
“In a sense.”
“How appropriate, on Christmas Eve.” There wasn’t a flicker of humour in his voice, and certainly none in that uncompromising back. “Well, my friend, if you have ambitions to be a saviour, you must also accept the Cross, must you not? You will tell me everything now, and you will tell it honestly.”
“Will I?”
He turned then, and walked back towards my isolated chair. He looked at me searchingly, using the strange power that lay in his dark eyes. It was not hypnotism, decidedly not hypnotism; but there were all those other things, the dynamic power, the s
trong magnetic pull, the odd attraction — he was very plainly the sort of man who would have a dedicated following of disciples. He said, “Oh, yes, Commander Shaw, yes, you will. Please.”
That was what I did. Honestly? Let us say, with reservations. I didn’t do it because I’d suddenly become Drakotny’s man — nothing like that. I did it because it was inevitable. I told Drakotny almost the whole story, but I never spoke of Max, or Lattenbury of the Foreign Office, or why the West wanted me to preserve Drakotny. I expect he knew, anyway. Also, I kept on with my already stated position that Comrade General Heilersetz had been loyal to the hardliner Communists as led by Drakotny, likewise the Frumms — and I hoped to God the Frumms wouldn’t go and let me down by shouting aloud their true loyalties — and kept to myself the information that Racilek was coming back within the week. I back-pedalled a little on Pavol Krajcin, too. Krajcin had not, I said, been a party to what I believed the doctors were planning, although it had been Krajcin who had given me the clue.
“How far do you believe this theory?” Drakotny asked.
“It holds water,” I said. “It’s easy, it could be almost impossible to detect either before or after, and it’s foolproof. I mean, a gunman can miss. Do you believe it?”
Drakotny said, “No. No, I do not believe it.”
“Why not?”
“I must trust my doctors.”
This Drakotny_A Gripping Spy Thriller Page 18