by Adam Hall
He leaned forward, the alcohol on his breath. 'There are so many aspects you haven't considered. They make it all so dangerous for you. So impossible.’
'Just be careful. For his sake.' I opened the door and he followed me out. 'Get those bods out of here. Tell them it was a false alarm.'
He stood perfectly still.
'Was it?'
'Of course.'
He looked so relieved that I think he would have done whatever I asked just from gratitude. One of them came up to us, captain's insignia, and Foster showed him his card absolute assurance incorrectly informed, no explosives, personal responsibility, so forth. Then we passed through the cordon and went into the building and the contusions started throbbing again because the very acute fear that he might chance it and hand me over had dominated physical pain.
When, we were going up in the lift I heard the bomb-disposal team in the basement being told to pull out. Foster stood idly watching the wall sliding downwards on the other side of the gates. His breathing had become heavy, the only sign that he was disurbed. There was a city-wide search going on and he'd just passed me through a cordon and he hadn't liked that.
It was the big double-windowed room at the end of the third floor and he used his key and I told him to go in first, then I followed.
Define, infiltrate, destroy. I had defined and was now infiltrating.
I picked up the phone and told them the situation was in hand and that I'd be phoning at fifteen-minute intervals.
Foster got his keys out but I took them from him: there could be a gun in a drawer and I was going to be too busy to stop him playing about.
'We really ought to discuss the position you're in, old boy. You'd thank me, later.'
'Take that chair over there and sit on it.'
Three reasons for utmost haste: Given enough time I knew that Foster could out-think me. The sector was still bright red until I could get him to my own base. Merrick or the guard at the Hotel Cracow might telephone the Commissariat to ask if things were all right and if I answered their call they'd want to speak to Foster and I'd have to let them or they'd know things weren't all right and he'd use an alert-phrase and I wouldn't be able to stop him.
The safe came open with the two keys on the separate ring of Voskarev's bunch and I began with the top metal drawer because it was logical to file recent and current material highest.
Most of the stuff was in Russian but none of it encoded and I went for main headings and serial numbered collations and found one specific document summarising the whole of the operation under sections Preliminary Evidence — Prima Facie — Integration of Testimonies — Dossier of Accused — Summary of Charges.
The name N. K. N. Voskarev appeared throughout with the title of Chief of Enquiry and the name of Colonel A. S. Foster began appearing on the reports dated later than January 16 which was the day he'd flown in from Moscow. Two other names were featured.
My senses were atrophying to a slight degree: the sound of the traffic seemed muffled and the light in here was keyed lower. Quite normal, the effect of sudden concentration as the typed symbols jumped and the mind span, incapable of containing this scale of significance.
Movement and my eyes flicked but he was only crossing his legs. In reflex I said softly:
'Sit still.'
I was looking again at the document.
So here it was: the programme I'd sensed was running in the silence and in the dark, smooth and massive and perfectly engineered, designed to protect the East-West talks from abortive collapse in the event of insurgence by the people of Poland and subsequent control of the capital by armed force under the provisions of the Warsaw Pact.
Precis: a special tribunal to be convened in Moscow for the immediate trial of a Western agent sent into Warsaw for the express purpose of activating the interests of an international imperialist conspiracy. Indictment: inciting dissension and revolt, providing clandestine liaison with Western factions, conveying assurances of diplomatic support from capitalist powers.
The trial to be attended by international correspondents with all facilities required to make manifest the guilt of the accused and the gravity of his acts.
A show trial on the Garry Powers scale with a scapegoat dragged into the limelight and butchered on the block of political expedience. A man with two names.
P. K. Longstreet, alias Karl Dollinger.
'There's nothing,' I heard Foster saying, 'you can do about it. Because you can't leave Poland.'
I went through the rest of the drawers.
He was standing behind me.
'Get over there and sit down, damn you.'
Angry because I'd let him move without my seeing him. Postpone all thoughts about the document until the sector was green, otherwise highly dangerous.
'I'm not going to do anything, old boy.' But he couldn't get his tone right. ‘We're alone here, and there might not be another chance like this. We can talk the whole thing over and do a deal on the quiet. I'll accept your word and you can accept mine. Give me a brief confession and I can arrange that you won't get more than three years, good conduct, special remission, you know the drift. Otherwise it's for life. Now do be sensible.'
I tugged at the last drawer but it was locked and I had to open it with one of Voskarev's keys. Then they were in my hand: 35mm strip of negs and a set of prints. I'd always thought it was how they'd done it, with photographs.
The streets looked different but not because of the new snowfall: there weren't so many people about and the traffic was thinning; between Praga and the city centre there was a darkened car standing at almost every intersection. Those who didn't want to be involved were keeping indoors and those who were waiting for midnight were lying low.
No one stopped us: the car carried police-plates.
There'd been a briefcase in the office and I'd cleared it out and refilled it with the stuff I wanted and it was on the carpeted floor with Voskarev's. The main document was on my lap and I leafed through it because there might be a chance to summarise the key facts in signals before I had a go at breaking a frontier. That would be when they'd get me, if I reached that far. Voskarev was working satisfactorily as a hostage but there was a deadline on that: he and Foster weren't officially involved in the counter-insurgent operations but they were in liaison with the police divisions and they'd be reported as missing, any time now.
'After all, we only need to prove our point that the uprising was incited by the West. We've nothing against you personally.' His smile had great charm in it and his tone was patient. 'Once you've been convicted you'll be of no further use to us — sorry to put it that way but I'm sure you understand — so there'll be no point in taking it out on you afterwards We're not spiteful, you know.’
He was on the tip-up seat: he seemed to like it there. I remembered something about back-trouble, a slipped disc or something: at parties he always chose an upright chair. I said:
'You couldn't have used Merrick, didn't you know that?' On the relevant pages of the document Merrick's name had been crossed out and Longstreet written above it by hand. 'He's got diplomatic immunity… The most you could have done was kick him out of the country.’
'Generally speaking yes, but we'd have made sure he'd elect to go on trial. That's why we chose him, instead of a known agent like Browning of M.I.6 — he's piddling about at the Embassy. I expect you're aware of that.'
'I never know anything about M.I.6.'
He gave a soft laugh. 'Same old thing, the departments in London don't hit it off, do they, never have. But young Merrick was just the job, you see: we wanted to create an inexperienced man and groom him for stardom. Someone we could rely on to say the right things at the trial. Then you turned up.'
'Supposing you can ever get me inside a tribunal, you think I'll say all the right things?’
'You don't need to. You've been incriminating yourself since the day you flew in, and it's all down there in the reports sent in by Merrick. It won't really matter w
hat you say.'
Lights reflected in the glass division and I watched them and they steadied and followed for two blocks through the central area past Ogrod Saski Park and I began sweating because the minute Foster was reported missing the Moskwicz would become a trap.
'I don't think it's a police car, old boy. But it will be, sooner or later.' He leaned towards me and said with absolute sincerity: 'You'll have to accept my little offer, so you ought to do it now, because don't you see you're only adding to the charges, playing right into their hands? I'll try telling them I went with you to the Commissariat of my own free will, but old Vosky's going to bleat out the whole story. You must see you're making things difficult for me.'
Basic brainwash technique: the operator allies himself with the subject without any pretence of switching loyalties: 'their' hands. Friendly attitude: 'old Vosky', not such a bad chap if you treat him right.
'What d'you think the chances are, Foster?'
He wouldn't tell the truth unless it suited him but it'd give me an idea of what else he wanted to sell me.
The puffy lids opened wider in surprise. 'They're a hundred per cent. I give you my word that the maximum will be three years, providing you — '
'The chances of Moscow sending tanks in.'
He looked away. I hadn't done it deliberately but for a moment he'd thought I was hooked.
'It depends how far things go.'
That could be the truth. For the past three days there'd been careful announcements about tank regiments carrying out winter manoeuvres ten miles outside the city, 'to test the efficiency of mobile armoured units in snow conditions'.
'How far d'you think things'll go?'
He spread his hands in appeal. 'We've done all we can, as you know, to weed out the rowdy elements. If those remaining decide to make a nuisance of themselves then we'll just have to keep order. Surely that's reasonable? We had to do it in Prague.'
Page 9 paragraph 3: The proven guilt of the accused will not only make it clear that incitement to disturbance was wholly motivated by foreign capitalist powers, but also that similar motivation led to similar events in Czechoslovakia, a fact that hitherto other nations have shown the most obdurate reluctance to accept.
'It was different there. In Prague there weren't any talks set up. It'll make you think twice this time.'
'Actually no.' His eyes had gone sleepy again. 'In Prague we lacked evidence of foreign conspiracy. Any necessity to keep order in Warsaw tomorrow will be seen to be fully justified. As a matter of fact — unofficially of course — we'll be rather in your debt.'
The Hotel Alzacki was in a side street of the station district and a commissar-style saloon would attract attention there but we couldn't get out and walk the last hundred yards because the M.O. patrols were stopping everyone and checking papers and we could be past the deadline by now: they might be looking for Foster as well as for me.
'Take it east of the river and leave it in the dark and make your way back separately.'
I got Foster across the pavement and inside.
He recognised me, the man with the Bismarck head and the weathered face. He said they were upstairs.
It was a billiard-room on the first floor and the guns came out when they heard us and I hold them to put the bloody things away. Strain was setting in and I tended to sweat too easily and resented it because there wasn't time for the nerves to start playing up.
Voskarev was on the floor with his back to a leg of the billiard-table. A thin boy with a torn coat and a shocked face was huddled in a leather armchair and Alinka was crouched near him, rubbing his blue hands to warm them. The three Czyn people stayed near the door after we'd come in: one of them was the driver who'd brought Voskarev here. Voskarev looked numbed, his face waxy in the flat hard light from the lamps over the table. He was clutching his handkerchief in a stained ball.
'Who hit him?'
'I did.'
Medium weight, gymnastic type, the small eyes close together, the head lowered a fraction as he came across to me, typical boxer's pose for the local sports page. His hands came up much too late and he spun once and smashed into the rack of cues and sent a chair over and hit the wall and slid down it and didn't move any more.
The other two looked at him.
'I told you to leave that man alone. The same thing goes for this one. God help you if you forget again. Throw some water on him.'
A lot of noise came and the shaded lamps began swinging. Through-train.
Alinka moved across to me, stopping halfway, her feet together. her dark eyes quiet. She looked younger. From behind her Jan Ludwiczak watched me, not sure of me, not sure of anyone after the bright lights and the rubber coshes and the blind-windowed train to the east.
'Why was he brought back?' she asked me.
'He was the only one with a name I knew.'
I went over and looked at the man on the floor in case it was anything serious but there was only a scalp lesion: the cues had taken the initial impact.
'Come on, where's that water? And put Voskarev in a chair, get him a drink; ask the patron for some vodka up here.' They had to help him and I went across. 'Did they take the insulin away?'
'No.'
'Can you do it yourself?'
'Yes.'
'You'll need food afterwards.'
He stared up at me.
'I wish to speak with Colonel Foster.'
'I can't allow that.'
Typical police thinking: show them a shred of humanity and they think you're a bloody fool.
There was a tap running. I had to know the meaning of all sounds. This one was all right: a Pole had gone into the next room for water. I told the other to watch the briefcases and see that Voskarev and Foster didn't talk. Then I went downstairs to the reception desk.
He asked straight away where I was.
I listened for bugs and said: 'I'm still with Foster and Voskarev and everything's under control. Is the guard there?'
'Yes.'
His tone was bleak. This was the first time he'd spoken to me since he'd said he was sorry.
'Tell him we want you to meet us at the Praga Commissariat immediately. Is that clear?'
'Yes. But what — '
'The bomb has been located and it's all right now. Listen carefully. Tell the guard you're going to the Commissariat, but go to the British Embassy instead. To the Chancery, not the Residence. Get the cypher-room staff back on duty as soon as you arrive. Tell the Embassy guard to expect me in half an hour: my papers are in the name of Karl Dollinger and I'll speak to him in German. I shall ask to see you. Have you got that?'
For a moment he didn't answer and I knew why. He was being crucified. Then his voice came faintly: 'Yes, but I can't — '
'Listen, Merrick. Stay in the Embassy and don't contact anyone except for the signals crew. You'll be safe there.'
The silence drew out again.
'No, I won't. They'll only — ' but he couldn't finish. In those words I heard all human desolation.
'They can't do anything more to you now. I've got the photographs.'
Silence.
'Merrick. Did you hear what I said?' In a moment:
'Yes'
He began sobbing and I rang off.
21: ASHES
At 23:06 hours I crossed into British territory.
It had seemed a long way from the hotel to the Embassy though it was only a couple of miles. I'd brought the Mercedes 220, the car they'd used to switch Voskarev from the Commissariat saloon. It had seemed a long way because the co-ordinated police divisions had been searching the city for me since I'd made my break from Warsaw Central and by now the hunt would have become intensified: I hadn't asked Merrick if he'd tried to contact Foster at the Commissariat but he. would have done that when Ludwiczak was taken over at the Hotel Cracow. It would have worried him.
Dangerous not to assume that both Foster and Voskarev were now reported missing, last seen in company of Dollinger.
I left the
Mercedes in the yard, parked broadside-on to the main entrance, as a point of routine. The plates would have been noted by the police observation-post in the street outside but might not have gone on record. No one else could see them now unless they came right into the yard.
Only two of the windows showed light.
Merrick was in a small room on the first floor.
There was a change in him. He looked much the same but the tension was gone. He reminded me of a man I'd seen just pulling out of a killing trip on one of the amphetamines: physically weak, deathly pale, the hand-movements uncertain but the eyes calm, perfectly calm.
He said
'This is Webster.’
'Signals?'
'Yes.'
Small alert cheerful man, knitted tie and Rotarian badge, breast-pocket stuffed with pens. 'He's okay now.' He looked at Merrick again. 'Okay now?'
'Yes.'
I asked what had happened.
.'Eh? He saw someone run over. Turns you up.'
Merrick went and stood at the window, his back to us.
'Is that the cypher-room?' An inner door was ajar.
'That's right.' With his pert gaze he tried to see who I was, what I was, a red-eyed man with stubble and a German name and no trace of accent, something urgent to send.
'Open up transmission.’
'Okay.' He'd put a pad ready for me on the desk. 'You got a pen?'
'I'm giving it to you direct.’
'I'll have to have it written. It's rules.'
'Just open it up, d'you mind?'
I dumped the briefcases on to a chair and got one open and took out the envelope and dropped it flat on the desk so Merrick could hear it. 'They're yours.'
I pulled the door open. Webster had half closed it behind him: a cypher-room is sacred ground.
'You can't come in here.'
I heard Merrick in the other room, opening the envelope.
'Do they ever jam you?' I sat on the nearest stool. 'I mean by accident on purpose?'