by Robin Duval
‘We can’t, Agnete – not just the two of us – keep this going. You know what I mean. It won’t be long before the wrong people catch up with us and everything you have hoped for will be lost. The best we can do is surrender ourselves, as early as possible, to the least dangerous.’
‘Who would be?’
‘Who would be our people. I know a man in British Intelligence called Burton.’
‘Oh, I know you know a man called Burton. I expect his telephone number is there in your jacket.’
She was a virtuoso at throwing a man off his stride: she’d obviously been through his pockets. It would have been that morning in Ealing after she discovered he had done the same with her tote-bag. How ever could he out-stubborn her?
‘The British are the least bad alternative.’
‘Alternative?’
‘To being killed by an Arab or an Israeli. Or an American. I really don’t want you killed, Agnete.’
‘Wooo… ’
‘None of these people are playing games.’
She turned back from the rail. For a fleeting moment he thought he might have persuaded her.
‘I know you mean well, Bryn. I’ve been thinking too. And you’re right that we probably don’t have much time. We should divert to the Schacht Asse pit on our way to Dresden. And get rid of it. If you won’t come, I’ll do it on my own.’
He made the best arguments he could. That there was little chance of getting access to Schacht Asse – because, like any other dangerous site, it would be patrolled and protected. As for finding someone who could be persuaded to dispose of the package down a secure waste shaft, he described the idea as half-baked and impractical. A mad fantasy. Perhaps he was a little intemperate.
‘It’s the only option,’ she said briefly. ‘And if I think of a better one, I’ll be sure to tell you.’
The conversation was clearly over.
The mess man passed by on the crew walkway. A couple of other men could be seen through the glass of the captain’s bridge. Bryn looked up to the stubby ship’s mast above, with its array of communication antennae and busy scanner, circling endlessly.
Agnete was facing the east, towards the Swedish coast. The sea-breeze had tossed her hair across her eyes, and her hands were stuffed, stubbornly, deep into her coat pockets.
She remained preoccupied through the rest of the day. The veil was only drawn to the side at dinner, when she chatted to the drivers and the mess man as if she had not a care in the world. For the rest of the time, she kept to herself. Bryn found her once in the corner of the lounge with an unread book on her lap and her eyes fixed on some unfocussed distant point. He did not disturb her.
He retired to the cabin alone and, for some contrary reason, slept exceptionally well. When he awoke shortly before dawn there was no sign of her. Her bunk was in disarray so she had obviously used it for some part of the night; but her absence was a worry, and after a period of sleeplessness, he crawled out, dressed and went off to find her.
She was in her old spot on the bench by the guard rail. She looked up as he arrived and flashed him a wan smile. There were tears in her eyes, though whether from the wind or from some other cause he could not tell. She made a space for him to tuck in alongside her.
‘That’s Arendal,’ she said.
The ship was driving along at a higher speed than before. Its wake was thicker and more turbulent and white. A coastline could now be identified to the north: a skein of fairy lights in the darkness, sometimes intermittent, sometimes in knotted clusters. Every fifteen seconds or so, within a gap in the sequence, a much brighter light switched on and off. Arendal, he supposed.
‘We’re sailing through the Skaggerak. We left the North Sea a while ago and soon we’ll be turning towards Göteborg. I holidayed on that coast as a child – every year – right where that lighthouse is. Until mor and far split up. It was my favourite place in the world.’
She drew a deep breath. His arm was around her shoulders and she leaned into him.
A yacht had appeared on the dark waters and was driving along on the wind parallel to them.
‘Do you sail?’
‘No,’ he said.
‘We sailed off this coast every summer. You have to know what you are doing. These are such difficult waters – all kinds of strange eddies, huge waves swelling up out of nowhere, even a maelstrom occasionally. It’s because of the fresh water flowing in from the Baltic. And because the sea here is so deep.’
Her tone lightened and she laughed.
‘You like poems, don’t you, Professor Bryn?’
She inclined her head to the side as if trying to retrieve a memory and then sat upright and clapped her hands together. She was as pleased as a child at a school concert.
‘Below the thunder of the upper deep;
Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea,
His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep… ’
‘… the Kraken sleepeth,’ he finished for her. ‘And how on earth would you, a Dane, know Alfred Lord Tennyson?’
‘Ah well. My father taught it me. Because this is the spot. Half a mile below the deck we’re standing on. The Kraken’s still sleeping there, according to the Norse legends. And one day he will awaken… shouldn’t you be terrified?’
She stayed at the same level of febrile intensity for the rest of the journey. Perhaps she was less confident about their reception in Gothenburg than she would have him believe. For himself, he was – to say the least – ambivalent. He welcomed Gothenburg and he dreaded it. If they were intercepted, the nightmare burden would be off their hands at last. But the great adventure that had bound Agnete to him for a such a sweet, brief period would be over.
They had entered an avenue of winking fluorescent marker buoys – green to starboard, red to port – and the ship had slowed to a crawl. He left Agnete to her thoughts and went down to the lounge.
The passports – the lorry drivers’ and their own – were scattered on the coffee table in front of the television set. His European Health Insurance Card, so authentically provided by Marcus in the Hathrill name, was still wedged into the photograph page exactly as he had left it. He doubted if his passport had even been opened. It was nothing much to go on. But he knew, as he looked at it, that Agnete was right.
They were not intercepted at Gothenburg.
No police boarded the freight ship. No dark-suited men were waiting as Agnete drove the VW off the ship and wound her way through the marshalling yards to the port control office. He lowered the nearside window to present their papers but the officer showed no interest and waved them through without a glance. They passed below a friendly banner across the exit (‘Välkomna till Göteborg’) and turned right into a highway signposted to Stockholm. He found himself, in spite of himself, caught up in her euphoria.
It was almost twilight. They skirted the city and took the motorway south towards Malmö. There was hoarfrost in the fields and banks of mist on the road.
They drove for three hours, for the most part on a fast dual carriageway with little accompaniment apart from an occasional lorry and a motor-cyclist who, like them, kept scrupulously within the one hundred and ten kilometres per hour speed limit. He found a Swedish music station on the car radio, mostly Grieg, Sibelius and Mozart. Pure music – without breaks for promotions or advertisements. Agnete was content to indulge him.
The landscape on both sides was low and flat. The rising sun had cleared the mists away and the sky had became bright and cloudless. There were long stretches when the road cut through overcrowding forest, as in California. They were smaller and lower trees though, with none of that fatiguing alternation of dense shade and brilliant sunlight. Sweden was an altogether softer country, with cool and muted colours, almost monochrome; not, he guessed, a land made for painters.
Shortly before Malmö, Agnete turned off down a slip road and followed the signs to a small industrial estate. While she went to buy supplies in the supermarket, he filled up the tank. Later, o
n the way back to the motorway, she pulled into a lay-by and leant over and gave him another of her more lingering kisses.
It was not the subtlest of preambles.
‘I have a confession, Bryn. I think you will be cross.’
‘Now why should I be cross?’
Sibelius’ doleful ‘Swan of Tuonela’ was playing on the car radio. Agnete reached out to turn it off; and thought better of it. She waited until the last cello had faded to silence.
‘I have been speaking to Burton,’ she said.
As usual, it took him a while to process the information.
‘Just now?’
‘On the boat. They let me use the ship’s telephone.’
‘How did you know his number?’
His hand went reflexively to his jacket pocket but she was already passing the folded piece of paper back to him.
‘I know Burton too, Bryn. My father knew him. I rang him because you were right. I could not tell you at the time because you were so certain of yourself. And so rude.’
‘So I was.’
‘You said I was stubborn and a few other things I should not forgive you for. But when I was by myself and able to think about it, it was obvious – even to me – that Schachte Asse would never have worked. So I’ve agreed with Burton that we’ll rendezvous with him and hand it to him personally. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?’
He was not sure any more. And there was something about Agnete’s story that did not quite make sense.
‘Why didn’t Burton meet us off the boat?’
‘I’ve no idea. Maybe he didn’t want the Swedes involved.
Maybe he needed time to make arrangements, get clearance, whatever civil servants do. After I rang him, I had to wait by the phone for half an hour until he called back. That’s when he told me to rendezvous with him in Dresden.’
‘Dresden? He knew we were going to Dresden?’
‘Apparently.’
‘How could he know that?’
‘I’m afraid I told Anna-Grete. They traced the Volkswagen back to her. Sorry.’
He felt suddenly too tired to enquire further.
‘We have to meet him in the church at the centre of the city. The Frauenkirche. Tomorrow at noon. He’ll take us both into protection. He’s promised there will be no questions and no consequences.’
‘You’ve done well.’
‘You’re not cross?’
‘You did the right thing.’
‘Maybe… ’
They drove on past Malmö to the Øresund Bridge and across it to Denmark, which they reached by midday. When they stopped to pay the crossing toll, there was – as before – no interest at all in their passports or papers.
They skirted Copenhagen and turned down the E47 highway towards Germany. It was not the obvious route. But it was the one Agnete knew from a dozen holidays and it took them south, through flat Danish pasture, woods, cornfields and wind machines, to the fast ferry service from Rødbyhavn.
A ferry was waiting to leave and they were the last to drive on. It was early afternoon now and quite warm. They went on deck and drank coffee with the smokers and the family trippers. Gulls floated beside them in the air, as stationary as balloons on strings, their metallic little eyes scanning the tables for scraps of food.
When the ferry reached the other side of the Baltic and the VW rolled off into Germany, it was still all precisely as Agnete had predicted. No checks, no police. Nor any following car, overhead helicopter, or any other evidence of interest. They drove on through Lübeck and turned south on the main A14 highway towards Jesendorf where, for the first time, she conceded weakness and surrendered the wheel to Bryn. And quickly fell asleep.
He continued through Mecklenburg and into Brandenburg and did not realise she had awoken until they were on the outskirts of western Berlin. When she spoke, it was as if her thoughts had been mingling with his.
‘Should we trust Burton?’
‘No further than we can throw him.’
Charlottenburg passed by on the right, followed shortly by the Kurfürstendamm.
‘Why do you think he chose the Frauenkirche?’
‘Somewhere easy to identify? Where our rendezvous would not be noticed amongst all the crowds?’
For five miles or more, she said nothing further. She watched him as he drove as if searching for an answer to her concerns in the expression on his face.
‘And why not till tomorrow noon?’ she said at last.
‘You think there’s something wrong.’
‘I don’t know what to think.’
‘So when exactly did you call him?’
‘From the boat? Yesterday. After you and I had had our big argument.’
‘That would make more than forty-eight hours before we’re supposed to meet him in the Frauenkirche. It is an awful long time to wait.’
‘He’s set us up, Bryn.’
‘But why? Why should he do that? What does that mean?’
‘Min elskede – he could surely have got someone out to Göteborg to meet us, or else somewhere on the road south. All that this delay achieves is to make everything riskier. How secure would my call from the boat have been?’
‘Why should Burton want to take risks?’
‘That’s my point, Bryn. Precisely.’
He knew what was in her mind. But he wanted to hear her say it first.
She spoke slowly as if working through her thoughts.
‘He has made sure someone else finds out about our meeting in Dresden. That’s why he needed the delay. That’s why he chose such an easily identifiable location. He’s not just after the isotope, he’s after the enemy. We are the bait, Bryn.’
‘I think you’ve been working too long with Marcus.’
‘No. He’s set us up like tethered goats so that Six – and, I would guess, the BND – can catch the real wolf.’
Bryn didn’t argue. As far as he was concerned, Agnete was now in charge of the package. She had kept it close by her since Tilbury and their mission had always been her commitment rather than his. He would support her and do whatever he could to protect her. Though he wished she could be, well, a little less dramatic.
Of course he had his own reservations about putting their fate in such uncertain hands. But the more he thought about it, the more he suspected that the explanation would – as it generally did – turn out to be a matter of convenience rather than connivance. Sometimes the obvious explanation was the right one. Ordinary inefficiency. Bad organisation. Cock-up rather than conspiracy. But he kept these thoughts to himself.
‘So you don’t think we should meet him in the Frauenkirche?’
She didn’t answer.
‘Maybe we shouldn’t go to Dresden at all?’
They crossed the A13 spaghetti junction with the Berliner Ring, and headed directly south into Saxony.
‘In case I’m wrong… ’ she said, ‘we’ll go to the Frauenkirche early in the morning, before anyone would expect us. Perhaps find somewhere where we can watch for a while. If there’s anything at all suspicious, we’ll leave.’
‘I’d be happy with that.’
Agnete’s godmother lived in one of the outer suburbs of the city. She was away, however, visiting relations in Leipzig. They learnt this from a neighbour, the very hospitable Frau Buchholz, who sat them down with coffee and cake while she and Agnete – whose German was as fluent as her English – shared news of family and mutual friends. Then, after an hour or so, a key was produced from a Dresden pottery vase and Agnete and Bryn crossed the road to a simple white-faced villa surrounded by pine trees and potted plants, opened the door and went inside.
Chapter 26
Like many Britons, Bryn approached Dresden with a sense of guilt. Until shortly after ten o’clock on the night of the 13th of February 1945, this was the most beautiful baroque city in Europe. For two days it was pulverised by British and American bombers. Twentyfive thousand people were killed. The old city was destroyed.
T
he centre of Dresden – the Frauenkirche and the ancient Neumarkt Square surrounding it – was still standing in ruins when the Communist regime collapsed in 1990, as a stark reminder to its citizens of who their real enemies were. After that, money poured in, some of it from Britain and America, most of it from Germans, and a new, fully restored Frauenkirche was reconsecrated in 2005.
Bryn and Agnete arrived well over an hour before their appointed time. They sat outside one of the cafés on the edge of the Neumarkt, under a canvas umbrella, watching and waiting. Tourists, most of them young people, many like Agnete with a rucksack on their back, wandered the square. A team of English morris dancers finished their idiosyncratic set and began to solicit contributions from the audience. Then, not long before noon, a large group of American pensioners rose like starlings from the tables, and Bryn and Agnete drifted with them to the entrance to the church.
It was like entering a candy store. The whole interior of the Frauenkirche was painted in the pastel colours of icing sugar, relieved by decorative features in white, silver and gold. Daylight streamed in through the windows. It was a child’s dream of Paradise.
At the centre of it all was the altar: multi-tiered and pillared like a wedding cake, encrusted with statues of Christ and the four evangelists in contorted attitudes of baroque passion. White and gold putti and angels. Silver organ pipes. Gleaming gold leaf on painted marble. Tumbling bunches of grapes draped across pillars and spilling from marble vases. Everything, of course, entirely authentic: the way it was before later generations invented good taste.
A baroque chamber orchestra had started to tune up in front of the chancel for a lunchtime concert. The young conductor, in black polo neck and jeans, was flicking through his score. A male assistant, with elastic-banded pony tail, began to adjust some microphones. Some older people who were not perhaps tourists were lighting prayer lights at a low table nearby. A sign set a tariff of a single Euro for each devotion (Friede sei mit Euch!). It seemed to Bryn he could as well have been in Catholic Bavaria as Lutheran Saxony. So much historic conflict and bloodshed, and so little difference in the end.