by John Meaney
And how Panzers destroyed the rest of Manny's small home-town (including his father's psychiatric clinic) as he ran, lungs wheezing, heart punching inside his chest, half-blinded with tears, into the cold snow-shrouded forest to survive like an animal until winter's end, when Jewish partisans would find him and take him in, and teach him how to kill.
All of that ran through the backroom projector in my mind, while in the Katowice bar I talked with Dyenisovitch about trivia: next year's Olympics in Tokyo, and how the East would surely thrash the West. Neither of us thought that France would win significant medals.
Then it was time to lead the conversation in a useful direction.
"Last week" – my tone was casual – "I was working in the Iran Mining Corporation's offices. A kind of technical inspection, before an agreement is signed."
In Russian, the word for uranium is uran, and there was a flicker in Dyenisovitch's eyes as his subconscious heard my words as uranium mining, reacting again at the word inspection. Bingo. So he was here to visit the uranium reprocessing plant.
Go on.
If I infiltrated the mines under my new identity – using the ID my contact, Lenin Beard, was going to provide – and if Dyenisovitch saw me there, then I was cooked, unless... unless I did something that I'd never used in the field, though Manny Silverberg was a master of the technique, and I'd watched him several times.
Yes. Do it.
This would be a fantastic stroke. The bartender was occupied, getting another round for the Uzbeki engineers, and this was my chance. Background noise faded out.
"Well, I'm feeling tired..." I yawned now, sliding into my own shallow trance. "...So I'll go and relax really... deeply and... later, I'm afraid you... will be unable to see me... as I'm working..."
I continued like this for a while, then led him back to the surface quickly, to ordinary consciousness. Dyenisovitch yawned once more. The Uzbeki engineers and the barman were ignoring us. Good.
Finally I stood up, moving away, and as I did so my hip caught the edge of the table and Dyenisovitch jumped and I couldn't believe it: the command was working already.
But of course... Both the KGB and GRU have been experimenting with language tapes while the students sleep, and the reason that he'd been so easy to hypnotize was that he was used to going into trance.
No one – especially Dyenisovitch – looked in my direction as I slipped out of the bar, then headed quickly up the stairs three at a time: too noticeable, but my heart was pounding very fast. My God, had I really got away with it?
In my room, adrenaline seeping out of my system, I lay back, closing my eyes. Images swirled, orange predominating. Then it seemed perfectly natural to see Fern and Moshe using red fire buckets painted with a black Star of David to quell a rising column of heat that swelled and transformed into a blazing nuclear fireball.
First Moshe's flesh melted wax-like from his face, revealing bulbous eyes and long teeth; then Fern's beautiful features sloughed off, leaving a laughing skeleton that bowed its head and began weeping blood as a million innocent adults and children turned to look at me and screamed, harsh and shrill and clawing every nerve.
Welcome to the healing power of sleep.
The next morning, feeling washed out, it was time to work as Thierry Foucault. This was an entirely legitimate business trip, with me as an engineer – as a French consultant engineer – staying in character. It would be a whole day at the State-owned mining corporation. The meeting was purely for cover, not for the mission itself, but if there were any contacts to be cultivated then I would. Especially since I didn't yet have the false papers that would get me into the uranium mines, my real objective.
The corporation here claimed only to work with coal and oil. Moscow likes to keep a tight, direct rein on strategic military assets.
Their HQ was a soot-blackened building in the centre of town. Two assistants led me to the director's office, where Stanisław Słowacki came out to shake my hand.
"Marc and Jean-Yves," he said in guttural French, "have told me good things about you, M'sieur Foucault."
"They're very kind. Not to mention being my best clients."
The two men, Marc Theriault and Jean-Yves Lebrun, were directors of a Paris-based combine. They had spent the last year of the war imprisoned in Drancy, on the outskirts of Paris, awaiting deportation to Auschwitz. They were still waiting when the Allies punched through from Normandy and broke the Wehrmacht's collective back.
Three Jewish soldiers from Baltimore had helped the men out from their reeking cells. Later, one of those soldiers joined Branch 7. He became a mabuah procurer, recruiting Gentiles as well as Jewish sympathisers. Theriault and Lebrun were his first recruits, and their business was genuine.
So my cover was rock solid, unless I did something stupid, like forget the French for drill-bit, or pronounce Je ne suis pas as four syllables, the way they teach in school.
Concentrate.
"And this is Petra." Słowacki gestured forward a slight, pale-skinned woman with black hair. "She will help with the, ah, technical terms."
I shook Petra's hand.
"Pleased to meet you." Her French was flawless. She gestured towards a young woman at the rear of the room, who looked more Spanish than Polish. "Lucynda has worked on the project all year. She knows it well."
"I'm very honoured." They were treating me with a lot of respect. "I've got the Prohibited List with me, if you want to get down to details."
"The two ladies" – Słowacki gestured – "will run through the component list with you, and then we shall talk terms, OK?"
"Of course. That would be perfect."
Słowacki was putting a lot of trust in Petra, who was obviously the senior. Yet Petra's gaze was downcast, almost demure, as she led me to a nearby meeting-room while Słowacki disappeared back inside his office. Lucynda unfolded a sheaf of concertinaed printout: a list of components they wanted to import across the Curtain. The Poles needed compressor parts and drill components; the Parisians had to make sure everything was above board. Trade across the Curtain is legal but restricted.
"We've presented the requirements as an ordinary list" – young Lucynda beamed – "and also as a, um, Bill of Materials."
"You're looking for us to pre-assemble some of the components?" I asked. "Is that why you're presenting a recursive parts structure?"
"Um..." Lucynda looked towards Petra.
"Absolutely." Petra had deciphered my rapid burst of technical French with no problems. "Is that a problem?"
"Not for the most part." I worked my way down the list, then looked up at her. "Any chance of a cup of coffee?"
"Oh, I'm sorry." Petra covered her mouth. "Of course."
"Only if it's not a problem," I said.
In the tiny staff kitchen, Lucynda poured filtered water into the kettle. I didn't mention that at home (either Foucault's home or my own) you can drink water straight from the tap. While we waited for the kettle to boil, some young engineering planners came in, taking a break. When Petra introduced me, they became formal; but several of them spoke reasonable French and we began a conversation. The subject of languages brought us onto books, and when they heard I'd read Stanisław Lem in translation, we became the best of friends.
Afterwards, as I made my way back to the meeting-room with Petra and Lucynda, one of the engineers passed us carrying a box full of punched cards. It was impossible to tell whether the computer was IBM (theoretically unavailable here) or Soviet.
My friend Lars Petersen once remarked that in Holland, after the Nazis took over, the Gestapo always knew on which door to knock, when it was time to round up Jewish families and send them to their deaths. That was the advantage of a card-based census system, and an enthusiastic collaborator who was also a world-ranked statistician. (In southern France, the corresponding effort had been pitiful, rife with confusion, because of the French 'collaborator' who faked compliance while sabotaging the round-up effort.)
We spent the next hour going over the
contract details. Finally, I told Petra and Lucynda that everything was in order.
"And you've done a great job," I said.
Lucynda grinned. Petra's smile was wide, and her eyes sparkled. "Doctor Słowacki will be pleased."
We went to the boardroom, to walk through the commercial terms of the contract with Słowacki. He was pleasant enough as we went through the contract, but by three p.m. we had clearly finished, and there was no hint in his voice or manner that the day's work should extend into an evening's socialising. That suited me. The purpose of this role-play had been to get me here in place, nothing more. There was no reason to see anyone here again.
So we shook hands, business over. A sharp-faced older man led me through the office, and out of the building. Then I was in the middle of town, wondering what to do next: one of those moments of freedom that occur when you don't work nine-to-five.
Time to go shopping.
There was a UB watcher, beer in hand, sitting in a café window, who tracked my progress across the cobbled square and into the Centrum. But he was blatant, and made no move to follow me. I was a Westerner, and therefore out of place.
In New Jerusalem, some people deride the new-fangled supermarkets as one American innovation we can do without. But the stores here in Katowice contained half-empty shelves, and only a single State-produced brand for most of the items they had. There was a long queue outside the bakery. Still, I was able to buy some bars of chocolate and a carton of juice first, and then some dark-green clothesline in a hardware shop. Then I walked to the railway station, to double check the train times to Warsaw.
Near the entrance, a slight figure stood: Petra, from the mining company.
Let her go.
There was no point. Sure, it would be nice to get a local on my side as a casual asset, but not here. If UB watchers spotted her talking to me, she might have to explain herself in an interrogation room. But Petra was turning, heading back this way. A railway employee was chalking information on a blackboard detailing tonight's delays. Other travellers, not just Petra, were looking for someplace to sit down and wait.
"Hello, M'sieur Foucault!"
"Call me Thierry, please."
"All right... Are you travelling somewhere?"
"Just checking the timetable. I'm going to Gdansk in two days."
This wasn't exactly true. Someone was going to fly to Paris from Gdansk after an entirely fake business meeting there, but that person was in Gdansk already. His passport would read Thierry Foucault, but the photograph inside would be his, not mine. If everything went well, that's how our sleeper agent would finally get to the West, his reward for years of fearful work. I would be en route to Moscow, after handing over the data from Kowary Podgórze, and I would be travelling as a Russian.
That was what strategists call the blue-sky scenario, a nice theory, but this was winter darkness in Poland, where it was hard to focus on the bright side.
"I have an aunt who lives there. In Gdansk." Petra looked sad. "It's been so long."
"Um... Listen, do you want a coffee or something?"
"I can't—Well." Petra looked back at the blackboard. "If you really want to."
Soon we were comfortable in a plain but warm café, nursing glasses of black tea.
"Do you have family, Petra?"
"Just a daughter. She's eight, and very bright."
"Given who her mother is, I'm not surprised."
"Oh." Petra blushed.
Her face was triangular, fragile-looking yet with a sense of hidden strength. Petra didn't look old enough to have an eight-year-old daughter. I wondered what had happened to her husband; and what it had taken to work her way through the degrees in mineralogy and modern languages that she eventually told me about.
"Tell me what it's like," I said after a while. "Living here."
So we shifted the talk to everyday life: Petra's long commute and the small apartment, the bathroom shared between all the families on that floor. None of Petra's friends owned a car, and a telephone was unthinkable. This wasn't information that a foreigner should hear.
Then the station Tannoy squawked an announcement.
"That's my train..."
I stood up. "I'll see you to the platform."
But my real thoughts went deeper.
I could take you away from this.
Things happen quickly on a mission, and our few exchanged sentences had been minimal, but so much happens at the unconscious, the pheromonal level, where thought is irrelevant. We were more than compatible, Petra and I – and Fern was a world apart, where she wanted to be (since I could only judge her by her actions) – and the real conversation here had been a dance of speculation and approval far beyond words.
But I had a job to do.
"No, unless..."
I breathed out. "Take care, Petra."
"Yes."
We air-kissed like old friends, left-right-left in the Polish manner. Then she walked back to the platform where steam hissed upward from the strong black engine, swirling across the boarding passengers, swallowing her. Petra was gone.
And I thought of Fern...
What a mess.
... before turning away and heading for the tram-stops with dozens of other blank-faced workers heading for home. Darkness had fallen, and they wanted to get into the warm interiors of their flats, which might be small and crowded, but contained their families and the real riches of this world, the true warmth that holds back the night.
While I would be going out into the darkness, scared as always, heading for a rendezvous with a contact who might have already screamed out everything he knew. All I can say is, it's better than working in an office or a lab, back and forth every day to the same place, because that routine is my personal definition of hell, and alone in the night is where I belong.
But I needed deeper darkness and emptier streets, so I lay on my back in my hotel room with the light off, allowing the night to seep in. In my vision were no dark shadows, just a sequence of memories: moments spent with Fern, intercut with images of Petra, who was more vulnerable, but strong in her own way, and without attachments. We'd only just met, but then I'd fallen for Fern during my first few minutes in her presence, on a scorching day in Southeastern Iraq when—
Get a grip.
And then it was midnight. Time to work.
I'd rehearsed the sequence earlier, needing no light as I tugged at the clothesline fastened around the radiator. It didn't budge or make a sound. There was a squeak from the window as it opened, but the was soft in comparison to the building's natural creaks.
The night air was cold.
I let the clothesline snake down into darkness. Then I pulled on my overcoat – a towel was already stuffed into one pocket – took hold of the line, and swung myself over the sill.
Fern. I love you.
How bloody silly to think of that now. I leaned back, confirming the line's strength, then held on one-handed, tugging the window almost shut, leaving a gap.
Get going.
Silence was more important than speed. I walked myself down the wall, toe-to-heel on every descending pace – slowly, slowly, slowly – until suddenly there was snow and frozen clay beneath my heel. I sniffed at the chill air, allowing the reptilian core of my brain – we've all got one, remember – to check for danger. That's what it excels at, our primitive inheritance.
Nothing.
Get going now.
The cold was biting but I ignored it, walking backwards across thick snow, brushing away my tracks with the towel. Reaching a stand of crooked trees, I moved faster, any sound covered by the viscous trickle of the polluted stream that ran alongside. Something astringent prickled my nostrils, some chemical vapour from the stream. Then I was in a huge, park-sized space between buildings.
Snowflakes drifted down as I moved parallel to the main road, passing the darkened sports stadium. A hiss of tyres preceded a militia patrol car swinging into the street, and I moved into a deep pool of black s
hadow, willing myself to merge with the environment, presenting a Gestalt, a pattern, that had nothing to do with a human interloper breaking curfew. By the time I reached the town centre, snow was descending in a grey rush, blurring the station's outlines. Trudging on, passing the main buildings, I reached a low stone wall. Curtains of falling snow surrounded me, hiding me. I vaulted over the wall and crouched down.
Caked with snow, freight trains stood unmoving like rows of mausoleums in a cemetery. Then a figure moved among them, slipping between shadows, and I hoped to God it was my contact, not an ambusher.
He didn't move like a soldier.
Fern...
She'd be tucked up in bed with Jean-Paul.
Damn it.
I moved down toward the trains.
There was always a chance to bug out if there were soldiers lying in wait. (And remember the Spetsnasz troopers. If anyone knew how to lie still in freezing conditions, it was them.) Then I would have to trek alone across the countryside into Eastern Germany – currently the scene of intensive military manoeuvres – and finally the border. Outside of the city proper, the Berlin Wall, die Mauer, transforms into a tall, electrified wire fence marching across the countryside. The Communists don't have the manpower to keep the whole thing under never-ending surveillance. Instead, they've mounted funnel-shaped weapons that are actually electromagnetic guns, waiting to be tripped.
I once watched a would-be defector try to get through. Guns banged, and polished flakes glistened in the air as five hundred razor-sharp steel cubes ripped the man's body apart. What was left was mincemeat, staining the snow bright crimson.
Someone shifted inside shadow.
"Shalom."
This was it. I asked for his name: "Te'udat zehut?"
"No need for specifics." It was Lenin Beard, the man from the train. He looked around at the deserted freight carriages. "You've seen the extra patrols?"
"I saw the Russians. Have uranium shipments increased lately?"
"No, but security has."
Shit. The KGB might not know exactly what had happened in Přībram, but a car blowing up close to a uranium mine would have caught their attention.