The Janus Man

by Forbes, Colin

  Taking a firmer grip on the case in his right hand, he used his other hand to turn the handle slowly, keeping close to the wall of the corridor. He threw the door open, swinging his case backwards, ready to hurl it forward into the room. Behind her desk Monica looked up, startled.

  `Sorry.' Tweed let out his breath. 'George didn't say you were here. And why are you still here?'

  `I knew I wouldn't sleep if I did go home. So I had a bath upstairs. And I thought Toll might call from Pullach with news about Bob Newman. I switched the phone through to the bathroom extension while I wallowed.'

  Which is the real reason why you stayed, Tweed thought. Monica had a soft spot for Bob Newman. He took off his coat and settled himself behind his own desk.

  `A pretty short nap,' Monica observed.

  `An hour. It was enough. I'll get in a good night's rest at the Four Seasons tonight. The flight leaves at 10.35. I can get breakfast round the corner.'

  'Flight LH 041,' Monica confirmed from memory. 'Arrives at Hamburg 12.55. Local time.' She played with her pencil. `I've been wondering about Diana Chadwick. You're sticking pretty close to her.'

  `I've told you. She could be the vital witness.'

  `Witness to what?'

  `Not yet. I'm not sure I'm right.'

  `I've been wondering about something else. I like the office when no one else is here — gives me a chance to ruminate. And don't say all cows do that.

  `Did I say a word?' Tweed threw up his hands in mock horror.

  `Dr Berlin. Why did you throw that into the pot when you had the sector chiefs at that meeting? You said you were flying back to Hamburg — knowing one of them is Janus. Then near the end of the meeting you mention Dr Berlin. I know you. If you've something you want to stick in people's minds, you hold it back until the end of a meeting or conversation.'

  `To put even more pressure on Janus.'

  `You've lost me again.'

  `Because, as before, I'm not sure yet.' Tweed sat up erect in his chair. 'Monica, all the threads are coming together. I can vaguely discern a pattern forming. Isolated facts which I didn't connect up are slipping into place. The trigger which will detonate the climax — which may be very close — is my return to Germany.'

  'Why?'

  `I'm convinced now some very big Russian operation is planned, will soon be activated. That's why everything went all quiet — not only on the western front but right across Europe. Janus is up to his neck in whatever the operation might be.'

  `So it could be very dangerous. Thank God you're taking the heavy mob with you.'

  `I agree.' There was a look of eager anticipation in Tweed's expression. 'And when that climax comes I intend to be there.'

  At the wheel of his black Porsche Harry Masterson was driving through the night as though all the fiends of hell were at his heels. Vienna was already far behind. He had crossed the border into West Germany at Salzburg — and there he had joined the autobahn.

  Salzburg... Munich... Bypass Augsburg... Bypass Ulm... Bypass Stuttgart... Karlsruhe... Mannheim... Frankfurt... then due north via Hanover to his ultimate destination. Hamburg.

  He was already approaching Mannheim. Driving non-stop all night he'd be in Hamburg by morning. In the high-speed lane he overtook great eight-wheel trucks lumbering through the night, belching great exhausts of diesel fumes.

  In the glow from the dashboard his black hair gleamed. His chin was unshaven, a thick dark stubble which was the beginnings of a beard. A Mercedes drew alongside him. He glanced to his left. The driver, a blonde-haired girl, gave him a superior look as she flashed ahead. He signalled that he was turning back into the fast lane.

  His foot pressed down hard on the accelerator, way over the speed limit. He moved like the wind, overtaking the Merc at the moment it was also about to pull out to pass a truck. As he passed her he glanced at the girl. She looked furious. He grinned, then her headlights were fading into the distance as he kept up the pace. Macho Masterson. No one overtook him. Certainly not some blonde tart who undoubtedly put it about if the mood took her.

  It had started the moment he had arrived at headquarters in Vienna. Pat Lancing, his deputy, had the message. Strictly for Masterson only. A phone number. And one word. Candlestick.

  He'd closed the door of his private office, dialled the number. His top agent working under cover behind The Curtain. The Candlestick Man. They called him that because he was thin as a celery stalk, very stiff and erect. Based in East Germany.

  Which was poaching on Hugh Grey's territory. The DDR was his penetration zone. Harry didn't give a toss. Just get the info. The phone conversation had been brief. Urgent — would Harry meet him outside the Opera House in thirty minutes? Harry had said yes, slammed down the phone, left the building, climbed inside the Audi held for his use.

  He'd driven slowly along the Opern Ring, spotted Candlestick, pulled into the kerb and Candle had dived into the front passenger seat almost before Harry opened the door. While he listened, Harry drove round the whole Ring system at a sedate pace.

  I've just come out of the DDR,' Candle had said. 'I think I'm being followed..

  `Great. That's all I need.'

  Candle had hardly heard him as he rabbited on in German. `I came from Leipzig through Czecho, crossed the border at Gmünd. I thought you should know quickly...'

  `Know what?'

  Candle was wearing a rumpled brown raincoat and a cap. He'd never looked anything much, which was part of the secret of his success. He didn't look clever enough to worry about. His face looked more bony than ever, his thin nose longer, his spaniel eyes more mournful.

  `That Dr Berlin has just returned to the Federal Republic — from London.'

  `How the hell do you know that?'

  Harry's technique was always the same dealing with agents who worked for money. Aggressive manner, short bursts of invective. Put them on the defensive. Make them feel important and they'd ask for more money.

  `I got it from a contact in Markus Wolf's headquarters in Leipzig...'

  `Wolf works out of East Berlin. Every schoolboy knows that.' `He has a secret HQ in Leipzig. My contact is on his staff.

  He listened in on a conversation from someone in East Berlin.' `And who was this person in East Berlin talking to?'

  `Markus Wolf himself. They use the code-name Balkan for Dr Berlin...'

  `Balkan? Dr Berlin? What is this goulash you call information?'

  `My informant knows about the code-name. He is high up in Wolf's organization. An Intelligence officer, if you must know.' `I need to know everything if I'm to believe anything.'

  `It took all the money you gave me to obtain this — the fact that Dr Berlin is someone in London...'

  `All the money?' Masterson sounded incredulous. 'That should have lasted you for months. It was a small fortune.'

  `What I've given you is worth a small fortune,' Candle insisted. 'Someone in London,' he repeated.

  'Sounds like a bloody fairytale to me,' Masterson snapped. `Check it with London. But be careful — Dr Berlin could be someone high up. My informant said he was...'

  `So, give me a name.'

  `Oh, he didn't know that..

  `Sweet Jesus! You throw my money around like confetti. You don't expect more, I hope?'

  `If I'm to go back there, find out more, I need funds.'

  `Take this.'

  Masterson opened the glove compartment, handed Candle an envelope stuffed with deutschmarks. He drove on while Candle carefully counted the amount. He slipped it inside his pocket, looking more mournful than ever.

  `It's not what I expected..

  `It's all you're getting. Anything else? No. Right. Where do I drop you?'

  `In front of the Opera House. I'm staying at the Astoria — it's only a short walk from there. I don't want to he on the streets a moment longer than I can help. I was followed.'

  `You said that before. Shake them, for God's sake. I'll be seeing you.'

  He'd dropped Candle back in front of t
he Opera House, driven on to his office, told Lancing to take control until he got back. His Porsche was parked in a secret garage some distance from headquarters — no one on his staff knew it existed.

  Masterson recalled all these recent events as he sped along the autobahn through the night. He had to reach Hamburg by morning. The information Candle had given was disturbing — to him personally. He could have flown, but he needed mobility.

  Hugh Grey flew direct to Frankfurt International, took a cab from the airport to his headquarters — housed in a concrete slab of a building near the Intercontinental Hotel where he frequently entertained visiting members of the Bundestag from Bonn.

  `Keeping my finger on the pulse,' was one of his favourite phrases.

  He spent the rest of the day reading carefully typed reports prepared by what he called his 2-ic. If it was down in writing no one could later say he'd misunderstood them. Grey was notorious for his use of files.

  It was late evening when he called in his deputy, Norman Powell, told him to take charge again. 'I have to check on something which has just cropped up,' he explained. 'And — taken by and large — you've done quite well. Keep up the good work...'

  Grey had chosen Powell for the job for two reasons. First, he was good at admin. Second, a plodding man, Powell posed no threat to his own job. Grey had a leisurely dinner by himself at the Intercontinental's Rotisserie, ordering only a half-bottle of Chablis.

  After the meal he collected the office Volvo from a nearby underground garage and drove north out of Frankfurt, moving quickly on to the autobahn. He didn't realize it, but Masterson was coming up behind him, still driving like a maniac between Mannheim and Frankfurt. Grey drove carefully, keeping within the speed limit. His destination — Hamburg.

  Guy Dalby, characteristically, moved faster than any of his colleagues. He could have flown from Gatwick direct to Belp, the small airport outside Bern. Instead he flew to Geneva. He'd phoned his deputy before leaving London and Joel Kent was waiting for him at Cointrin Airport.

  They had dinner together at the Au Ciel restaurant with huge picture windows looking out on to the nearby Jura Mountains.

  Dalby listened while Kent, in his late thirties and very bright, talked. They drank a Montrachet '83 with their meal which Dalby selected after careful study of the wine list.

  `I have to go on somewhere else,' Dalby informed Kent over the coffee, checking his watch. 'Keep things humming over...'

  This decision did not surprise Kent in the least. Dalby was a man who believed in visiting his agents in the field to hear direct from them what was happening. The meal over, Kent left Dalby in the restaurant. He had no idea what Dalby's destination might be, nor would he have dreamt of asking. Dalby was a lone wolf.

  Erich Lindemann landed at Kastrup, the airport for Copenhagen, waited at the carousel, collected his case, walked through Passport Control and Customs, and made for the bar in the exit hall. He chose a table with its back to the wall, ordered coffee, drank it slowly.

  All the time he watched the entrance to the bar, searching for a familiar face. On board the flight from Heathrow he'd made one trip to the toilet at the rear of the aircraft. He had walked slowly down the central gangway, a dreamy look on his face. He was studying every single passenger and his photographic memory recorded them all. At Cambridge he had been a brilliant student; he only had to read a page once and all the relevant data was recorded in his mind.

  Now, as he sipped his coffee, he checked to see if one of the passengers followed him into the bar. None of them did. Tweed had not, as he'd suspected he might have done, sent a streetwalker to tail him.

  Wearing an old pair of grey flannels and a sports jacket with leather elbow patches, he carried his case back into the entrance hall, paused to glance round like a man unsure of his bearings, checking again, then went out and climbed inside a cab.

  `Hotel d'Angleterre, please,' he said in English, his precise voice carrying through the open window where several people stood with luggage, presumably waiting for the airport bus.

  Half-way along the fifteen-minute drive into the city past a pleasant suburb with neat houses, trim lawns, trees and shrubs, he tapped on the partition window. The driver slid the glass panel back.

  `I've just realized the time,' Lindemann said. 'Drop me instead in the Râdhuspladsen.'

  He paid off the driver in the bustling Râdhuspladsen — the Town Hall Square — and walked the last few metres to his HQ inside an old building. The chrome plate at the entrance to the staircase read Export-Import Services North. Inside his office he placed his case against the wall and sat behind his desk as his deputy, Miss Browne (`with an "e", please') came in with an armful of files.

  An ex-senior Civil Servant, Miss Browne was in her fifties, a tall severe-looking woman with grey hair and the nose of a golden eagle. There were no greetings. He sat back, steepled his hands and listened while she reported.

  `Any further news from Nils Omdal about Balkan?' he asked. `Not a word.'

  `Then I'll be catching the shuttle to Oslo.'

  They called it the shuttle because the fifty-minute non-stop flights from Copenhagen to the Norwegian capital were so frequent. Lindemann picked up his case, glanced at his desk. It was a model of tidiness. The two phones, his slide rule, notepads and pen set neatly lined up.

  `A most competent report,' he told Miss Browne, who was now standing. 'Keep the wheels turning while I'm away. Not sure how long.'

  `Any means of contacting you?'

  `None at all...'

  He crossed the Râdhuspladsen as though seeking a taxi. He gave the Râdhuset, with its steep roof and old tiles, an approving glance. One of the many things he liked about Copenhagen. Only two high-rise buildings anywhere near the city centre — the Royal Hotel and the SAS place you passed on your way in from Kastrup.

  He walked on past a cab rank and continued on foot until he crossed the wide Vesterbrogade and hurried inside the main railway station. He was in good time to catch the express — the train bound for Rødby. There it would be shunted aboard the huge ferry for transportation across the Baltic — to Puttgarden, Lübeck and Hamburg.

  Forty-Four

  Newman was grimly aware this was the most dangerous hurdle — entering the fortified coastal zone. Stahl had stopped the truck in front of the closed wire gate. 'No!' Newman whispered. `Don't switch off the engine.'

  The warning lights threw a red glow over the bonnet. The two guards walked towards him as he lowered his window. He studied them as they came towards him, trudging on leaden feet, holding their machine pistols slackly in one hand, their faces haggard with fatigue. They'd been on duty all night, probably due to be relieved shortly. That might just help.

  The man closest to the cab was tall and thin, his companion was short and squat. Newman said nothing at all as the thin man stood beneath his window. He simply handed out the document he'd taken from Stahl, his expression bleak as he checked his watch.

  `What's this?' the guard demanded, snatching the sheet of paper.

  `Read it. You can read, I presume? And we're late. If we miss the ship at Rostock, God help you...'

  `Don't talk to me like that..

  `I said read it! You can recognize a movement order when you see one, can't you? And you might look at the crest at the top. Then perhaps we can get moving.'

  `We've had no notification about this vehicle. I want to see inside it...'

  `Absolutely forbidden! Read the bloody thing.'

  The squat man had joined his comrade, was peering over his shoulder as the thin one examined it in the headlights. Newman heard the squat man mutter, 'Be careful. That's Intelligence...'

  `I still want this truck opened up,' the thin man insisted.

  Newman turned down the handle of his door, half-opened it, but he remained inside the cab. The two men looked up at the sound. Newman gestured towards the guard hut.

  `I'm not hanging about here any longer. Is there a phone in that thing? I'm calling Markus Wol
f. He'll be pleased to be woken up, I'm sure. And I'll need your names. That information he will want. Look at the signature at the bottom.'

  `God,' he heard the short guard say, 'it is Wolf's signature. Like I said, be careful..

  Newman pressed home his advantage, his tone terse and clipped. 'It also says,' he quoted from memory, 'that this is a sealed consignment which must be permitted free and uninterrupted passage inside the Rostock port area. You...' He paused, 'are interrupting its passage.'

  `I've read it.' The thin guard handed the document back to Newman, saw the Skorpion Newman held casually across his lap, carefully pointed away from tke open door. 'What the hell is that for? Who are you?'

  Again Newman said nothing. He produced his folder, handed it to the guard, checked his watch again and looked at Stahl with an expression of extreme impatience. The German had begun to sweat, beads of perspiration appearing on his forehead.

  `Wipe your forehead,' he whispered. `Use the back of your hand.'

  `Border Police,' the thin guard said. 'Special assignment, too. Why didn't you say so earlier?'

  `Because,' Newman said with cutting emphasis, 'the movement order is explicit, should have been sufficient. And this gun is to protect the consignment. I have orders to shoot anyone who attempts to look inside this truck. Now, open the bloody gate.'

  `We have to check...' the guard began, handing back the folder. 'Let them through,' he told his companion. 'Just doing our duty, Comrade,' he maundered on as the gate swung inward automatically. The three red lights moved with it, which gave a weird effect, and Newman realized for the first time they were attached to it.

  `Drive on, for God's sake,' he snapped at Stahl.

  The vehicle lumbered forward, picked up speed. In his wing mirror Newman saw the gate closing behind them. They were inside the fortified zone.

  *

  About three kilometres beyond the guard post they were pass-a ing through a wooded area as the dawn light grew stronger. Newman told Stahl to pull over as they came up to a lay-by.