Really, it was quite a thought. If he, Hedge, could bowl out some nastiness of that sort, it would be a fine feather in his cap. Naturally, he wouldn’t be going into action on his own, unsupported; that wasn’t his job. But if he could, as it were, lead the way to a capture … well, that was just as good. Once he knew where Logan was living, once he could establish the man’s identity beyond a doubt, then he would see to it that Shard was brought back posthaste to where the action was. And that would be when he would have his heart-to-heart talk with Shard, make him see that it was in the national interest for Logan to be — well — silenced, somehow. Hedge shivered again when he thought about his London kidnappers. But now it simply had to be a case of first things first.
7
Shard’s interrogation was not to take place in Brosak’s laboratory, which Shard believed was probably the source, or one of the sources maybe, of the rabies vaccine production, the filth that was to be let loose, on Logan’s word, against the West.
He was held in a small room in the laboratory building until after nightfall, his ankles and wrists tied and the door heavily bolted. There was a small window, uncurtained and set high in the wall; through this Shard could watch the fading daylight and make some assessment of the time, though his reckoning was thrown out to a large extent by the snowfall and the resulting overcast. But by his guess it was after 4.00 p.m. when two men came for him, two men armed with Kalashnikov automatic rifles, and his ankles though not his wrists were untied.
He was taken along a passage that opened into the back part of the premises, a fair-sized yard with sheds and store-houses and three lock-up garages. By now the fall of snow had stopped, but there was a depth of some three feet piled around the cleared yard and when a car, a big Citroën, was backed out from one of the garages Shard saw that the tyres had been fitted with chains.
The rear near-side door was pulled open. “In,” one of the men ordered, prodding his Kalashnikov into Shard’s back. He got in. The other man got in beside him. In front, the driver sat alone. The Citroën was driven away at once. Shard, with his hands tied behind his back, was uncomfortable. The drive was a long one. After what seemed like a couple of hours the car was stopped near what was perhaps an all night café, anyway a place of refreshment. The driver got out and came back with four paper mugs of coffee and some sandwiches. All this time, none of the men spoke. When Shard asked questions he was told to save his breath. But, as the drive continued and he picked up more road signs he believed he was being taken into East Germany.
And that could mean Logan, if the Magdeburg sighting had been genuine. It began to look like a rival cutting-out operation. Why else should convinced Nazis be entering East Germany?
*
To Hedge’s chagrin, his taxi driver had lost Father Christmas. Lost him utterly in some very unsalubrious area of West Berlin.
The taxi stopped. The driver said, “I am sorry. But it is of no use continuing.”
“So I see,” Hedge said, furious. “I don’t consider you at all competent. A London taxi would —”
“London, yes. Oh, they are so brilliant in London. Like all things that are British.”
“I don’t like your tone,” Hedge said angrily. “There’s no need for sarcasm, and I’d be —”
“If you do not like, you get out pronto,” the taxi man said, angry himself now. The Englishman’s manner was highly patronising and haughty. “But first, the fare.” He named a sum; in Hedge’s view this was extortionate and he began to demur. For the second time that day he was threatened with the attentions of the police and he paid up. No tip. The taxi was driven away at a high and obviously contemptuous speed, the action of a maniac, Hedge considered. He wished he was back in London. London might be filthy, litter everywhere and acres of chewing-gum trodden into the once pure pavements of Piccadilly, and foreigners all over the place, but at least it was still British and he knew his way around.
Here, he didn’t. He was utterly lost.
He stared about him, suddenly very afraid. There were mean streets all around — he was near a cross-roads and he could see four ways at once. None of them beckoned. There were not many people about and such as there were appeared to be foreigners. Germans, of course. And the Germans, forgetting what had happened to them during the war, had become extraordinarily cocky. But of course so had the common people in London …
Not a subway in sight. Not a bus. But there was, as Hedge now saw, another taxi. This was stopped by the kerb fifty or so yards back along one of the four streets. From it, a girl was emerging; Hedge started towards the taxi, lifting his umbrella and waving it. Halfway along, he met the girl. A polite man, he lifted his bowler hat.
“Your taxi,” he said in semi-German. “May I … you have finished with it, Fräulein?” Gerda Schmidt was a pretty girl; Hedge ogled her. For this evening, at all events, Logan was gone. And Hedge was suddenly lonely.
Gerda Schmidt smiled at him, looking demure. She said, “I saw the argument.” She spoke in English, not very well, but Hedge appreciated the gesture for it meant she had immediately recognised him as an Englishman, a compliment of course. “I think you are, what do you say, abandoned?”
“Lost certainly, Fräulein. These damned taxi drivers — so rude and unhelpful.”
“It is a habit of theirs, yes. Perhaps I can help?”
There was something in the girl’s eyes, a sort of come-on look. Hedge was to realise later that he should have been warned. The girl was in her early twenties, he estimated; he was quite sadly over sixty. And she didn’t look like a prostitute, such as would easily enough disregard age in favour of hard cash. She wasn’t that sort at all. But she was undoubtedly seductive.
He said, “Well — perhaps you can. It’s really very kind of you. As I said, I’m utterly lost. If I might make use of your taxi? But perhaps you’ve told the driver to wait?” She might have some business down here, for all Hedge knew.
“I told you, I saw the argument and that is why I stopped. You may come with me in my taxi and I will drop you wherever it is you wish to be dropped.”
“That’s extremely kind of you, young — Fräulein.”
Again she smiled, right into his eyes. “It is no trouble. Come.” She turned away towards the taxi. Hedge followed, scarcely able to believe his good fortune. He walked by her side, all friendly. She wore a seductive perfume, an expensive one, he guessed. She wore a fur coat, possibly only nylon or something like that but it added to the atmosphere. Something sinful — yet still not a prostitute. Hedge began to preen; he knew that a large number of young women preferred older men, men of stature and attainment, men of experience and mature charm. So many of today’s supposedly educated young men were effete, dirty, yuppy, dressed hideously and had no manners. They treated women like chattels, Hedge was sure … as they approached the taxi Gerda Schmidt asked what address she should give the driver.
Hedge risked it. He gave her a winning smile; the result was oily. “Wherever you suggest, Fräulein,” he said, his voice somewhat hoarse now — hoarse and urgent. Having spoken, he feared, just for a moment, that he might have gone too far, been too forthcoming and obvious. But no; the girl returned the smile, took his arm, gave some address to the driver, one that Hedge didn’t catch, and they got into the taxi. The driver turned his vehicle back the way it had come and inside the cab hands intertwined very satisfactorily. Hedge felt a devil.
*
Gerda Schmidt was on the telephone from her flat. She was calling a number in Magdeburg. She was very shaken up; there was blood on her face from a head wound, her clothing was torn and dishevelled, and there was a gash on her leg. She said, “The big, fat codfish … he is gone. I am sorry. It was not my fault. I had him hooked, and then there was this accident. It happened not far from the checkpoint, in a side road. There was this lorry … such a very big smash, though except perhaps for Hedge no-one was very badly hurt, which is so surprising —”
“Then Hedge —”
“H
edge was following a Father Christmas — this I saw, but I do not know why he was interested in a Father Christmas. Now he is gone.”
The voice rattled angrily along the wire, demanding further details of Hedge, where he had gone and why?
“Listen, please,” Gerda Schmidt said wearily. “At the accident scene was passing another lorry that did not stop for more than a moment. In the force of the impact, this Hedge was propelled through the door of the taxi that had flown open. Something caused him to lift … and he went over the tail board of the lorry as it drove slowly past. I could not —”
“Where now is this lorry, please, Gerda?”
“I do not know, how can I, I was hurt and upset. But on the side of the lorry was inscribed the name of a firm, which I do not remember, and this firm was in Dresden. I think that your Hedge is now somewhere in East Germany, perhaps making willy-nilly for Dresden.”
*
Shard’s enforced drive had continued into the German Democratic Republic. There was no trouble at the frontier posts; glasnost ruled now, in any case. Neither, however, was there any opportunity for Shard to turn any tables. As a precaution, he was told, the barrel of a revolver was brought down hard on his head, twice. He dropped into unconsciousness. He didn’t hear his captors explaining that he was a victim of paralysis going to his home in the Democratic Republic to see for the last time his old mother, who was dying. Faked-up papers were virtually brushed aside; glasnost again. The frontiers were free for all now, both ways.
The drive went on inside East Germany. When Shard came round his head ached abominably and he felt thirsty and sick. They drove through towns and he saw the vast difference that still lay between the two Germanys even after the greater freedoms had been permitted, even after the fall of communism. Here was poverty, sad-looking women queueing outside shops that needed paint, shops that appeared to have little to sell. There were placards and posters demanding the reunification of East and West Germany, a concept for which, as Shard knew, there was a strong desire among the non-communist population in East Germany, and among a strong neo-Nazi resurgence. Mangy dogs roamed past the placards, lifting their legs, cats were chased across mean streets. The free economy, the capitalist economy, took time to develop. It was vastly depressing. It was not Shard’s problem, however. He had others currently. The Citroën went on, taking it fast, through different kinds of terrain, mountains, rivers, flat agricultural country, industrial sites all smoke and grime where the factories were working at all, gloom and stagnation where they were not in production.
But even in those places there had been an attempt, probably a municipal one, to bring some sort of cheer by way of decorations. The flags and bunting, the holly, the tinsel, hung damply over the drifted snow. Father Christmas drove his sleigh, just like in London, over the portico of what looked like a Town Hall.
It was Christmas Eve now.
Sitting between his guards in the back of the car Shard thought about his home. He would be missed, and Beth would be worrying because he hadn’t been in touch. She always did; it was a failing he couldn’t cure her of. And Christmas was a rotten time to be missed, a trying time for a worrying wife. Mrs Micklem wouldn’t be helping; she always sounded disapproving of Simon Shard and because of this contrived, possibly — just possibly — without intent, to make his absences sound suspicious. As though, without ever saying so precisely, Simon had some ulterior purpose. For instance, another woman. She had often reflected aloud that policemen could always find easy excuses; she reflected lightly and with a laugh but Shard knew that it hurt Beth badly. Once he’d had it out with her, telling her off good and proper, but, just like her, she’d managed to wrong-foot him by saying, archly, that if he had nothing to hide, then what was there to worry about?
With Mrs Micklem you couldn’t win.
*
In the Foreign Office the reports were coming in, largely from Number Ten and the Home Office and Scotland Yard, the Yard co-ordinating the nationwide police searches for the rabies-infected compounds. If they existed. The one in Scotland had been cordoned off distantly but not yet investigated. Discussions were taking place between the Home Office, the Department of Health, the local police authority and persons representing the animal rights organisations. No-one appeared able to reach a decision. And something worse had happened: the press had got hold of the story. Without the full facts, such as they were known, to go on, they were busy writing fiction. At any moment rabies was to be let loose on the population. Various reasons were given as gospel truth: the government was being pressured to release a number of IRA prisoners in Northern Ireland and on the mainland; CND was using threats in order to have the nuclear submarines recalled from their patrols and immobilised and de-missiled; the disbandment of NATO was being demanded by Colonel Gaddafi from his Libyan stronghold. The ayatollahs and mullahs in Iran were demanding increased rights for Muslims in the British Isles. The Dublin government was responsible and the cats and dogs and bats and so on would be released on the word from the Irish President unless Northern Ireland was handed back lock, stock and barrel to the Republic.
All that and more.
The result had been panic. Everyone was demanding action. Downing Street had been cordoned off but the mobs were out in Whitehall and Parliament Square. The political parties were in a dither. This had the makings of a national emergency, of course, and they should all be pulling together and they knew it; but the leaders had been for so long conditioned to making party political points that they didn’t. The Conservatives wanted to intensify the search and destroy all possible animal life by any means practical, including flame-throwers. Labour, needing the support of the Greens and the animal rights protesters, blamed the Tories for years of Hefferite policies leading to a total lack of moral standards and no concern for the ordinary people (or the ordinary animal). The Greens, who hoped to net the animal rights vote at the next election, not so far off as it happened, wanted the affair handled with kid gloves and no cruelty. It was not the fault of the animals, after all. That should be recognised. At the same time, naturally, the people (also blameless) had to be protected. They advanced a weird theory that the threat was being backed by a consortium of wood barons in South America who had been infuriated by British attempts to stop them cutting down the rain forests. Non-politically, an influential group of scientists of Cambridge University said that the government had a duty to keep an eye on the ozone layer and the greenhouse effect if any kind of chemical action was considered against the rabid animals. If they were rabid.
In Downing Street this was greeted with anxious hilarity. But the Prime Minister, Christmas Eve or not, broadcast to the nation. There was absolutely no cause for alarm, Mrs Heffer said; the government had the situation under very firm control. Any hard news would be made public immediately it was advisable so to do, by way of BBC announcements on TV and radio, and in the press. The threat was being taken very seriously but the Prime Minister did not for one moment believe it would ever come about. Everyone was heartily wished a happy Christmas and adjured not to let any anxieties spoil the festive fun. Notwithstanding all this, the TUC decided to convene a special meeting as soon as possible after Christmas so that NUPE in connection with the AEU could demand that a strike be called, a general strike on matters of principle, the principle not at this stage being spelled out in full but hinted to be directed against the government for its negative handling of what might become a life-and-death matter for all trade unionists.
Next morning, while the faithful were at early Communion in churches throughout the land, a Scottish policeman was bitten by a dog with foam at its mouth, a dog that had somehow escaped from the remote compound in the Sutherland glen. During the following night the policeman began to show early signs of hydrophobia. The speed of advance seemed to indicate the Logan strain.
*
“That’s done it,” the Foreign Office Under-Secretary of State said. He was on the telephone to Scotland Yard. “What the devil do we do n
ow?”
“That’s the Home Secretary’s problem,” the Commissioner of Metropolitan Police answered, not having the faintest idea of what could possibly be done until all departments concerned had made up their minds and agreement had been reached. “Is there any word yet from Shard?”
“Not a thing. I’d hardly expect it yet. When an operator’s in the field, you don’t —”
“Yes, quite. Just an enquiry —”
“I’ve got Hedge out there too, now. In West Berlin.”
“Oh, my God.”
The Under-Secretary was defensive. “We’re very pushed, you know. And some back-up was needed. A co-ordinator on the spot.”
The Logan File Page 8