by Len Deighton
He slowed as he spotted a likely place and pulled the transporter into one of the wide spaces provided for emergency stops on the Autobahn. He switched off the engine. It was dark, the rain beat upon the road and ran in torrents from the tall fir trees, beating noisily on the roof of the cab like impatient fingers. ‘Stay in the dry,’ he said, and tugged his arms into a short plastic coat with a hood. He opened the door and climbed down, cursing all the while. I saw the flashlight beam and heard him making a circuit of the long vehicle, checking that his six brand-new Saabs were well secured. Eventually he climbed back into the driver’s cab, waved the flashlight and switched it off and gave a sigh of content.
I felt a draught of cold air and flicks of water as he took off his coat. Eyes half-closed, I was slumped in the corner with my head resting against the seat back as Wim leaned across me as if to check that my door was safely locked. It was the tension and sudden movement of his arm that caused me to move my head. I rolled aside and the blow that should have knocked me unconscious only tore my ear lobe off. The heavy metal flashlight he wielded spent most of its force against the upholstered head-rest, landing with a loud thump.
‘You bastard!’ shouted Wim, whose rage I had long since figured could be directed against anyone who stood between him and his immediate wishes. I lashed out to defend myself as he came at me again. He was right-handed, and from his position in the driving seat, on the left side of the cab, this proved a disadvantage. I brought my right fist round and hit him as hard as I could. Then hit him again. But in the confined space movement was difficult. The first punch hit only his shoulder and the other did little beyond grazing my knuckles on his earring. We were both aiming wildly as we thrashed around in the confines of the cabin, punching, pushing and grappling like wrestlers. Twice I tried to pin his arms, but he was strong and I could hold him for no more than a moment before he wrenched himself free. He butted at me but I was ready for that, and brought my fist up and gave him a jab full in the face which made him snort and shake his head.
As he rolled back from the punch I saw his bloodied face and eyes shiny and demented. He swung round at me, this time bringing the flashlight right across his body from his left shoulder and delivering a blow that landed. It made my head sing and paralysed me with shock. I heard a distant scream of pain without at first realizing that it came from me. Anger took over. I struck out at his silly face. My fist connected but he was a tough street kid and had reached that stage of fighting madness where such blows meant nothing to him. Wim had done all this before; that was obvious by his confident persistence.
I reached out to grab his throat. ‘English bastard!’ he said, and managed to get a grip on my jacket, holding the bunched fabric tight, so that he could give me a good decisive blow with the flashlight. Made of heavy metal it was a vicious weapon, but within the confines of the cab, and impeded by the big steering wheel, he couldn’t bring his arm back far enough to put lethal force into it. I deflected a second blow with my upraised arm and chopped at his throat with the edge of my hand. But already he had turned his head far enough for the neck muscle to shield the windpipe. For a moment we both paused, overcome by our exertions. He was breathing heavily and noisily, and there was a pattern of blood on his temple and more running from his nose. His mouth was half-open and a line of frothy spittle had formed on his lips. What wouldn’t I have given for the 9mm Makarov pistol that I had dumped into an East German ditch only twenty-four hours previously.
The first extravagant exchange of blows was over and I had survived. He was cautious now, and determined to make no more errors of judgement. He used the flashlight as a prod, lunging to jab at my face. Twice I deflected it, and as I dodged around I looked for something to use as a weapon but there was nothing in sight. As he came at me the third time I struck at the flashlight with anger and reckless disregard, and hit it hard enough to knock it from his hand. It clattered to the floor and rolled under my seat, where neither of us could get to it without becoming totally vulnerable. He wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of a hand and gave me a fleeting grin.
I slid my back away from him to get into the corner, where I curled up into a ball. My posture – knees drawn up to my chin and arms crossed on my chest – told Wim that I’d given up hope and resistance. Perhaps that’s what had happened with his other victims – they’d simply cowered away, pleading for mercy – but Wim wasn’t the sort who dealt in mercy. ‘I’m going to kill you,’ he shouted at me, and despite the anger that was boiling up inside me, it was easy to imagine the way that kind of threat had effectively removed all resistance from some wretched girl or skinny kid who were no doubt the sort of victims he looked for.
He came at me with his hands extended and fingers splayed. He intended to strangle me. There was no big spilling of blood with a strangulation. And if the body was disposed into the scrub and ferns at such a lonely section of road, who would ever guess where the victim had disappeared to, or what had happened? Only Wim would know, and in his pocket he’d have cash and any other valuables that a hitchhiker might carry.
‘Help!’ I called in a strangled voice, and with a note of terror that was easy to simulate.
Wim grinned widely. He was a sadist, and the prospect of a victim terrified and paralysed with fear was exactly what excited him. I put my elbows back and braced myself against the seat. My whimpering was enough to relax the tension that had racked his bloody face. I needed him nearer, and nearer he came. He whispered: ‘There’s no one here to help you, mister.’
He didn’t complete the sentence, for at the last word I kicked out, kicking harder than I had ever kicked before, even harder than I’d kicked for the football team my father had organized for the German kids and drafted me into. The sole of my heavy East German shoe – with its metal heels – hit Wim full in his grinning face. My timing was right and so was my judgement of distance. He went hurtling back, his spine hit the steering wheel and his head hit the glass window with a bang loud enough to make the metal cab ring with the sound.
Then I was on to him. I scrambled around to find the metal flashlight from where it had rolled under my seat, and, taking all the time I needed, I hit him across the side of the head. I suppose I went mad for a moment. The release of the fear I’d suffered made me lose all restraint. At the second blow his eyes closed as he screamed out with pain. I didn’t stop. I hit him again and again until his cries became whimpers and then silence and his body slumped down with his knees on the floor of the cab and his body skewed sideways on the seat, arms trapped in the steering wheel like a man at prayer.
I stopped myself then and sat back on my seat to collect my thoughts. What was happening to me? Everything I’d ever learned had been abandoned in that moment of rage. The last thing I needed was a murder investigation on my heels. I took the Dutchman’s arm: his pulse was weak but steadying. He would probably come round eventually; it was hard to judge how long it would take. His face was bloody, his jaw broken, he’d lost teeth and was badly cut. I touched him carefully, avoiding getting blood marks on my clothes.
I opened the driver’s door. Using my foot, I slowly pushed his unconscious body through the door until it overbalanced and crashed on to the ground. Then I went through his pockets to find his keys. I took them and made sure that all the doors of the cab were firmly locked, and the thief-alarm on, before tossing the whole bunch of keys into the undergrowth as far as I could throw them. They would not be easy to find unless the cops brought a metal detector into use.
I searched his other pockets. There was a billfold at his hip. In it I found a couple of driving licences, a few Dutch, German and Italian currency notes, a handwritten letter in Dutch, four snapshots of different undressed women – Wim’s recent conquests no doubt – and some plastic credit cards. I removed everything that might reveal his identity and buried it in the mud. The money I pocketed: motive robbery. Then I pulled off Wim’s jeans and leather jacket and silk shirt, bundled them all up and hid those too. When I ca
me back he stirred but did not recover his wits. I dragged him off the tarmac and into a cold muddy puddle.
Having done all I could to delay Wim’s return to the real world, I put the bag over my shoulder and went out on to the road and began to signal passing cars and trucks with the flashlight.
The rain soaked me to the skin, and passing trucks and cars sprayed me with muddy water without even slowing at the sight of me. I began to believe that I would stand there for ever. Fighting Wim off, and the narrow escape from death, had shaken me. The cold rain beat down upon my head and my resolve dwindled and was gone. I was bruised and battered; my head was still singing from the blows with the metal flashlight. Even worse was the near-mortal blow that had been delivered to my self-confidence. How could I have been so easily caught off-guard by a muscle-bound bird-brain like Wim? Only a year or so ago I would have recognized such a thug at first sight, and knocked him cold before he could raise a hand against me.
For perhaps the first time in my life I saw Bernard Samson as so many others had always seen him. I’m not talking about any kind of symbolism: my despair was practical, not philosophical, just as my joy had always been. But I was only in this predicament because I had gone out of my way to disobey orders from London Central about contacting Werner. I’d beaten Wim more ferociously than was necessary to escape him, and no doubt left enough evidence for an energetic police inquiry to trace me back to the ride I got out of Berlin. Worse was the fact that I had no one to turn to for help. Who at London Central would risk their career covering for me? Not even Frank would go that far. The two women in my life had nothing to thank me for, and Werner seemed to have gone to a great deal of trouble to make contacting him difficult. I was totally alone, in deep trouble and friendless. But I must get to Werner nevertheless: he was the only person who would understand my predicament. The fact that he was in no position to help me was a secondary consideration.
The nudges and winks, the hints and outright slanders I’d heard over the past few weeks, about Werner’s sudden departure from the Departmental payroll, had not fooled me. If any of those stories, about Werner embezzling money or otherwise upsetting the applecart, were true, the Department would have put out a worldwide alert, found him and punished his misdeeds. But they had not done that, they’d left him in Switzerland to wither on the vine. That suggested one thing above all others. I knew only one sin that London would temporize, compromise and negotiate about: betrayal. Werner must have let something slip when he was over there on one of his business trips. It was easy enough to do. I would hate to be called into account for all the times I had sailed close to the wind. But for the time being Werner was in no position to help my career, even if he had the inclination to do so.
Rain washed my bruised and bloody face and squelched inside my shoes. The highway was completely silent and the sour stink of diesel fumes grew fainter as it was washed away by the rain. At this time of night even long-distance drivers are tempted to find a spot on the road to shut their eyes for an hour or so. I had no alternative but to wait, but so much time was passing that I walked back past the slip road which led to Wim’s transporter. Several times I fancied I saw him walking around under the trees there, but they were no more than shadows conjured up by my troubled imagination. All the same, not wanting to take the risk of Wim spotting me at the roadside, I walked farther along the road, back the way we’d come. I was still walking when a car caught me in its main beams and slowed to pick me up.
It was a dented Audi with a middle-aged German in a damp raincoat sitting at the wheel. As he wound the window down cigarette smoke billowed into my face. ‘What are you doing out here at this time of night?’ he said in a quarrelsome tone.
‘I had a breakdown,’ I said. ‘Could you take me to the nearest town?’
‘Get in,’ he said.
I didn’t get in. It was at that very moment that my mind suddenly exploded, and the events of the last hour or so assumed a new and terrifying pattern. How could I have mistaken Wim for a psychopath who killed skinny kids and foolhardy girls for kicks, or to get his hands on their meagre cash and belongings? My narrow escape had been from an assigned hit by a KGB professional. Wim had been sent to kill me. It all fitted together. He had been waiting in the right Autobahn interchange at the right time and selected me in the driver’s canteen. He had beckoned me, and when getting me aboard had stopped at the ramp, a place where he made sure that no witnesses were around to see him picking me up. It had all been carefully planned: the offer of a swig from his gin bottle, and the heater turned fully up to make me drowsy. No firearms: bullets would leave bullet holes and too much blood.
I shuddered. It was a narrow escape. Had my luck not prevailed Wim would now have just finished burying me in a shallow grave by the roadside, where a body could lay undiscovered for years, maybe for ever. Wim was not some homicidal maniac; he was a professional killer.
The driver of the Audi was looking at my well-worn coat and the cheap bag with the skyscraper on it. ‘Do you want a lift with me, or are you waiting for a Rolls-Royce?’
I suddenly became aware that I was standing in the heavy rain and looking at him blankly. ‘Yes. Yes, thanks,’ I said.
‘Get in,’ he told me again, and I threw my bag into the car and climbed in after it.
‘I thought no one would ever stop,’ I said.
He didn’t reply. He was about forty, overweight, with slicked-back hair and a neatly trimmed moustache. ‘You’re not German,’ he said accusingly.
‘Yes, I am.’ My hands were trembling as I thought about Wim and the men who might have sent him. Had I not been thinking of something else I would not have claimed to be German. It would have been easier to be a British soldier on leave.
‘Maybe. So where did you get the accent?’ he said, examining my face carefully. Over-confident, I’d been careless. He’d heard some false note and one false note was enough. He narrowed his eyes: ‘Don’t I know you from somewhere?’
‘No, you don’t know me. I’ve been away in Canada,’ I said. If Wim had been positioned to pick me up and kill me, he would have a back-up to support him. If the site chosen for his attack was prearranged, why not have this toughie sweep up along the road to make sure that it had all gone according to plan? If it hadn’t gone according to plan, if I was still alive, the back-up could stop and offer me a ride and make sure of me.
‘Bullshit,’ said the man. ‘Canada; bullshit. And what the hell have you been doing? Fighting?’ Despite the darkness he could see my face and its bruises and marks. One of my eyes was getting so puffy that it was impeding my vision.
‘But I’ve lived in Berlin most of my life,’ I said. I was working hard on my accent now. I knew he was listening to my voice and examining every syllable with the precision of an oscilloscope.
‘What’s the real story? Why are you trembling? You didn’t have a breakdown. There was no car.’ It was the gruff voice of a heavy smoker.
‘It’s damned cold out there, that’s why I’m trembling.’
By this time I’d had a chance to look around his car interior – battered two-way radio, ashtrays brimful of ash and butts. This guy was a cop, a plain-clothes cop! One sight of this car, and the neglect it had suffered, should have been enough to identify it as an unmarked police vehicle. But that didn’t rule out him being the back-up to Wim’s attempt to kill me. ‘No, it wasn’t a breakdown,’ I admitted. ‘A driver … A long-distance driver dumped me out on the road.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s a long story.’
‘I’ve got plenty of time.’ Without taking his eyes off the road he got a cigarette packet, put one in his mouth and punched the lighter.
‘He wanted money,’ I said.
‘And you wouldn’t give it to him?’ He stole another glance at me. His red-rimmed eyes were beady, black and suspicious. The lighter popped out and he lit his cigarette.
‘I’d given him two hundred marks already.’
‘Was he a homos
exual?’ He was not the sort of man who spoke in euphemisms. ‘Is that the story?’ And then another thought struck him. ‘Are you a prostitute?’
‘Do you want a punch on the nose?’
‘No, I guess you are not.’ He looked at me and blew smoke. ‘Or I wouldn’t have stopped for you. I can spot a homosexual at one hundred metres. I hate those perverts, and they don’t cross my path twice I can tell you. You’re a Berliner you say?’
‘Originally I went there to avoid the draft,’ I said. ‘I stayed on.’ It wouldn’t endear me to him, but I would never be able to stand up to questions about compulsory service in the Bundeswehr.
‘Draft-dodger.’ He hammered a fist against the heater outlet.
‘I suppose that’s what I am,’ I agreed, flustered by the way he was punching at the car. ‘It’s a long time ago. Sometimes I wish I’d gone into the army. Were you in the army?’ I swung the questioning to him.
He didn’t answer. Like a furnace burning in the forest, a segment of dark red sun drew a line along his profile. He brought a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped condensation from the inside of the windshield glass. ‘Something’s happened to the climate,’ he said, as if trying to start a quarrel. ‘We usually have a metre of snow hereabouts by this time of year.’
‘It’s not testing those bombs that’s doing it.’
‘Very funny. One of these ban-the-bomb fanatics are you?’
‘No, I like bombs.’
‘Ummm. Why don’t you grab some sleep?’
‘I’m not tired,’ I said.
He took a drag at his cigarette, blew smoke, coughed, beat his chest and then looked at the butt as if trying to read the trade mark. ‘Have you got something on you … something to make a long journey shorter? Something to smoke, know what I mean?’
‘Yes, I know what you mean,’ I said. ‘But I don’t use dope, crack, smack or any of that kind of shit. Neither am I carrying an Uzi submachine gun or a half-kilo of Semtex. We never met before. I’m not selling my arse. I’m not anything except a hard-working son of a bitch who is trying to get a ride south. So back off! Okay?’