by Greenberg
“Yes. Are you going to ask the Gehlen Bureau for help? They have a lot of pull.”
“I don’t think we need it now we have the film-location cover, and the fewer people involved the better.” Tarrant pointed to the message Berlin Control had picked up from the desk. “Study that sketch map and the figures, then go and look at the site and see how best to set the scene.”
Okubo sat in the brown van with Modesty, in a lay-by on the Dresden road fifteen miles south of Berlin. It was just after half past eight, and night had fallen.
“There is to be a full conference?” Okubo said.
“Yes. Nobody likes the idea, but I persuaded them that we’d have to set up a major operation to get you out.”
“So I have said all along. What is the plan?”
“I don’t know yet. It’s to be settled tonight.”
“It must have my approval.”
“That’s why you’re here now and out of cover,” Modesty said dryly. “It’s dangerous for you and it’s bad security for our people, but they’ve accepted the risk.”
An enormous furniture truck came rumbling along the road. It pulled into the lay-by behind them. The headlights were switched off, and Willie Garvin, dressed in overalls and a beret, climbed down from the cab of the truck and moved to the van. He nodded to Modesty. She said to Okubo, “We move into the truck now.”
The little Japanese got out of the van and followed her round to the rear of the tall truck. A tarpaulin hung down from the back of the rectangular roof to join the tailboard. Willie lowered the tailboard and Okubo mounted it. He said, “It is to be a mobile conference, then?”
“The Group Controller decided it was the safest way,” Modesty said, and followed Okubo as he ducked under the hanging tarpaulin.
There was nobody in the truck, but the vast bulk of some strange object filled it almost completely fore and aft, leaving a passageway on each side. Okubo stared in the darkness. The thing seemed to be an enormous cylinder, tapering slightly and angled up toward the rear of the truck. The cylinder was set on some kind of mounting or low carriage which seemed to be bolted to the floor.
It was a gun. A cannon. A caricature of a cannon. It was of metal and had once been brightly painted, but most of the paint had peeled off. The barrel was absurdly large. Large enough to take a man . . .
Watching, Modesty saw Okubo freeze with incredulity for a moment. Then he turned and sprang at her in the narrow gap between the side of the truck and the circus cannon. He jumped high, and one foot lashed out for her heart in a skilled karate kick. It was a reaction far quicker than she had anticipated, but instinct gave her a split-second warning of it.
She twisted, and his heel scraped her upper arm. She blocked the follow-up chop of his hand with an elbow driven paralyzingly against his forearm; and then, as he landed, she was inside his guard and the kongo in her fist rapped home sharply under his ear. He fell like an empty sack.
Behind her, Willie Garvin said, “Karate man, eh? And a lively little Professor all round. Caught on fast, but didn’t fancy the idea much.”
“It’s not a very dignified way of going over the Wall,” Modesty said, and took the hypodermic Willie handed her. “It ought to be dramatic enough for him, but there’s a certain loss of face about it. Did you test the cannon again today?”
“Three times on a set trajectory, with a sack of sand the same weight as Toller gave us for Okubo. There wasn’t more than thirty inches variation on landing. If Tarrant fixes the net on the measurements we want, Okubo ought to land pretty well dead center. And the size of net we asked for allows a margin of sixteen feet on width, and twice as much on length.”
Willie Garvin sounded very confident. The circus he had worked for long ago had boasted a Human Cannonball act, and one of Willie’s jobs had been to check and test the cannon, and to load it with the compressed air which provided the firepower.
Two days ago, undisguised and purporting to represent a Russian circus, Willie had visited the farm again and bought the cannon. He had spent a full day there, stripping down and adjusting the firing mechanism, scouring the inside of the barrel to mirror smoothness, getting the necessary compressed air cylinders, testing the cannon and hiring the furniture truck.
The farmer had been mildly surprised, but this brusque circus man was a Russian, and one did not argue with one’s allies and protectors.
There was a crash-helmet to protect Okubo’s head, a stiff leather collar for his neck and a small tarpaulin in which to wrap him up and so protect his limbs, since he would be unconscious while making the flight. The tarpaulin was oiled on the outside to give a smooth exit from the great barrel of the cannon. With the lightweight Okubo as projectile, the cannon’s range was greater than usual. It had tested out well at just under ninety yards.
Modesty completed the injection of pentothal and straightened up. She said, “All right, Willie. Let’s get him loaded.”
Willie Garvin reached for the crash helmet and tarpaulin, and as he bent to the task his body shook with silent laughter.
Fifteen miles away, and on the other side of the Wall, Tarrant stood with Joe Abrahams in a side-street near Brunenstrade. Abrahams was a lean, eager man of great energy. At first resentful of interference by Dall from above, he had become ecstatic about the project as soon as Tarrant explained what was wanted. His only regret was that there was no film in the three cameras set up to cover the scene they were pretending to shoot.
Abrahams had conjured up a net, flown in from Bonn, after an urgent call to his property man there. It was forty yards long and fifteen wide. At this moment it lay carefully folded on top of three big trucks which stood facing the open ground between the end of the side-street and the Wall.
There was the usual apparent confusion that inevitably surrounds a film unit. Lights were being set up, powered by long cables run out from a generator. People sat around in canvas-backed chairs, drinking coffee served from a canteen-van. Others called instructions or made chalk marks on the ground for the actors to take up position when shooting began.
Abrahams ran his fingers through an untidy mop of hair and said, “Your artillery friends had better be spot on ten-fifteen. When we run that net out, the guys in the watchtowers won’t see it because we’ve fixed the lighting that way. But it’ll only take maybe five minutes before the West German cops get around to making guesses and having us take it down.”
“My artillery friends are very reliable,” Tarrant said. “Run the net out at twelve minutes past ten. I’m sure you can stall for seven or eight minutes from then. Once the fish is netted we’ll whisk him away before anyone realizes what’s happened. And don’t worry about your crew. The East Germans won’t fire into the West. Into the death-strip on their side, yes. But not over the Wall.”
One edge of the net was attached to the upper windows of the empty building against which the three trucks were tightly backed. On Abrahams’ signal the drivers would move the trucks forward slowly; in line abreast, to a precisely measured line marked on the open ground just over thirty yards from the Wall, and the net would then be tautly spread.
Berlin Control looked at his watch for the twentieth time and said, “Another eight minutes. I still think they’re out of their minds.”
“I hope you double-checked the map and the measurements,” Tarrant said. “Accuracy is going to be vital.”
“It bloody well is for Okubo,” Berlin Control said with feeling. “I’ve triple-checked everything. But please don’t ever send those two to get me over the Wall.”
Abrahams grinned wolfishly. “They’re creative people,” he said. “I love ’em. Whoever they are, I love ’em.”
Modesty turned off Weinbergstrade into the network of sidestreets. She was driving a different van now, a laundry van she had stolen from a car park only twenty minutes ago. She wore a plain head-scarf, and a loose sweater covered the upper half of the clothes she wore as Jorgensen’s secretary.
Soon, in the headlights, she saw s
ome way ahead of her the barbed-wire fence, eight-feet high, which ran parallel to the Wall, leaving a thirty-yard gap in which guards and dogs patrolled – the death-strip. Behind her the lights of the lumbering furniture truck disappeared as it turned off.
She looked at her watch and drove on slowly. Okubo would be making a flight of eighty-eight yards, thirty-one on this side of the Wall and fifty-seven on the far side. According to Willie the risk to Okubo was very small, providing the net was in the right position at the right time. That part of the job was Tarrant’s, and she wasted no anxiety on it.
Turning again, she drove down the road which paralleled the Wall, the most westerly road where traffic was allowed. At each intersection the street to her right was a cul-de-sac leading only to the wire fence and the Wall beyond. The buildings in these cul-de-sacs were empty and derelict.
The next intersection was the one she wanted. Ahead and beyond it she saw the furniture truck turn into the road and come toward her. She moved into the center and stopped her engine. There was no room for the truck to pass. It halted. One or two people looked out from the window of a dingy café as Willie Garvin shouted to her in German.
She called back fluently, making her voice shrill, telling him she had stalled and her battery was flat. If he backed out of the way she could get started on the slight down-slope.
Grumbling, Willie Garvin put the big truck into reverse and backed slowly round the corner of the cul-de-sac. There was no laughter in him now. His eyes moved from side to side in total concentration as he centered the truck precisely . . . and kept backing.
Modesty let the laundry van roll forward a little. Now she could see obliquely along the side of the truck. When the back of it was within a yard of the barbed-wire fence she gave a short whistle. The truck stopped. She pushed back her sleeve and looked at the big stop-watch strapped to the inside of her forearm. It was ten-fourteen. Sixty seconds to wait. Her mouth became a little dry with tension.
The nearest observation platform was well over seventy yards away. Though the guards there could not see the truck now, they would have marked its passing along the road, and they were trained to suspicion. Their machine guns would be ready, covering the gap between wire and Wall, and they might well be calling the patrol guards by radio.
Distantly, from the far side of the Wall, a loud-hailer sounded harshly. An American voice. “Right folks, settle down. We’re all set to shoot. All set to shoot. Roll ’em. Action!”
She did not wonder what Tarrant had arranged, but thanked God for his wit in saving a dangerous minute of waiting. Her hand moved in a signal to Willie.
In the cab of the truck there were two ropes which ran through holes into the back. Willie picked up the rope with a wooden toggle on the end and pulled hard. There was some resistance for the first few feet, and then the rope went slack. The tarpaulin fell from the back of the truck, leaving the great barrel of the cannon clear for an unobstructed shot. It still could not be seen, except from directly behind the truck, and no patrolling guards had arrived in the death-strip yet. Only twenty seconds had passed since the truck started backing.
Willie picked up the second rope and jerked it. The truck vibrated slightly. In the sawdust ring of the circus there would have been a puff of smoke and a loud explosion, a fake effect. Now there was surprisingly little sound as compressed air exploded from the firing chamber, only a heavy and sonorous plop.
From the laundry van, Modesty picked up a momentary sight of the black, sausage-shaped object soaring up over the death-strip, over the Wall, still rising, then dipping down, rotating slowly, end over end. It was gone, and she doubted that any other eye on this side of the Wall had seen it.
She started the engine. Willie was out of the truck and moving toward her, not seeming to hurry but covering ground fast. She swung open the passenger door for him and let in the clutch as he settled beside her. The distant voice sounded on the loud-hailer. “Cut! OK folks – we’ll print that one!”
She turned a corner, heading away from the Wall, driving without obvious haste but keeping up a steady speed. Behind them a miniature searchlight beam stabbed along the Wall from the nearest watchtower, ranging back and forth uncertainly. An amplified voice began to call orders in German.
Five minutes later, when that section of the Wall was buzzing with activity and far behind them, they abandoned the laundry van in a poorly lit side street off Prenzlauer Allee. Willie had stripped off his overalls and was in his Jorgensen guise. Modesty had taken off the head-scarf and sweater, and was his secretary again. They walked out into Prenzlauer Allee and turned toward the cinema car park where she had left the Skoda.
When they were in the car with the doors closed, Willie leaned back luxuriously in his seat, hands resting on the wheel, utterly content, smiling dreamily. “Psalm Eighteen, Verse ten,” he murmured. “Yea, he did fly upon the wings of the wind.” He picked up her hand and touched it to his cheek for a moment. It was his salute to her, his accolade.
She gave an aggrieved sigh. “You don’t love me for myself, Mr. Jorgensen. Just for my nutty ideas.”
He shook his head. “It worked. It was a cracker . . . a genuine twenty-two-carat masterpiece.” He chuckled exuberantly and his voice changed to a hoarse, strident whisper, a muted impression of ring-master. “Ladie-ees and Gentlemen! We now present to you! For the first time anywhere in the world! That Mighty Midget, that Brilliant, Breathtaking Bacteriologist . . . Professor Okubo – the Human Cannonball!”
He choked and hunched forward. She had rarely seen him so delighted. She said, “For God’s sake forget it and think Jorgensen for the next twenty-four hours, Willie love. We’ll be out by then.”
He nodded, controlling the rich and joyous emotion that bubbled within him. “Out,” he said. “That’s what I want, Princess. I got to ’ave room to laugh.”
Three days later Tarrant sat in the Minister’s Office once again. Waverly was in excellent humor. He said, “Fraser reported that you’d got the man out safely, but he gave no details. Congratulations, Tarrant.”
“There were no important details to give at the time,” Tarrant said. “And now I’m afraid you’re going to be disappointed. The man wasn’t Okubo.”
Waverly stared. “I beg your pardon?”
“It wasn’t Okubo. The first thing I did was to check identification. That took forty-eight hours, since we had to get hold of someone who knew Okubo personally.”
Waverly looked very shaken. “And . . . it wasn’t him? I don’t understand.”
“Okubo is still in Russia, and always was. The man who purported to defect was a Japanese agent called Yoshida, working for Major-General Starov. A put-up job. Starov banked on the fact that most Japanese look more or less alike to us, as we do to them, no doubt. He set up the whole thing to tempt us, hoping that we’d activate our sleeper network and expose it to Yoshida.”
“Oh, my God,” Waverly said softly.
“Yes. We’d have been wiped out there. Fortunately I didn’t activate the network. I was able to make unofficial arrangements with two friends of mine who have some expertise in these matters.”
“Friends of yours?”
Tarrant allowed himself a small smile. “I do have friends, Minister.”
‘I didn’t mean that. I meant – ”
“I can’t tell you who they are,” Tarrant cut in crisply. “They aren’t employed by us, and they weren’t hired.”
Waverly gazed at him. “I find this very baffling. People don’t risk their necks for nothing.”
“It’s unusual,” Tarrant agreed, and left the point. “They came to suspect Okubo when their first escape-plan failed. He refused to go through with it at the last minute and kept pressing for a large-scale plan. If they had known for certain that he was an imposter, they would simply have killed him, because our liaison man who runs a safe-house there was aheady exposed. But there was no way to have Okubo identified, so they got him out.” Tarrant paused for Waverly to absorb the implicati
ons, then added, “Fortunately he killed himself with a cyanide pill soon after we’d had him identified in West Berlin.”
Waverly realized that this last part might nor might not be true. The man could not be held indefinitely, and as long as he was alive the safe-house and its agent were at risk. If Yoshida had not in fact killed himself, then Tarrant had seen to it. Waverly felt an inward chill, and for the first time realized with sharp clarity the awful and inexorable burdens of Tarrant’s job.
He said, “I must apologize to you. I made a serious error of judgment in the instructions I gave you.” Tarrant inclined his head in acknowledgment, and Waverly went on, “How the devil did these two get the man out? He certainly wouldn’t cooperate, and they could hardly do it without his cooperation.”
“They’re very resourceful. They rendered him unconscious and shot him over the wall from a cannon.” Tarrant’s face held no expression.
Waverly looked blank, then incredulous, then angry. Tarrant had been more than generous, but a Minister of the Crown could not be subjected to insolence. “I asked you a serious question, Tarrant,” he said sharply.
“They shot him out of a cannon,” Tarrant repeated. “Over the Berlin Wall. One of those Human Cannonball things they sometimes have in circuses. We caught him with a net.”
After twenty seconds Waverly said, “Good God,” and began to laugh. Tarrant warmed to him, but prepared to exact the mild retribution he had planned. “The performance wasn’t entirely free, Minister,” he said. “There are expenses. I shall want something from the Special Fund, as promised.”
Half an hour later, at a parking meter off Whitehall, Tarrant got into a Jensen and sat down beside Modesty Blaise. Once again he was intrigued by the fact that on her return from a situation of high danger she always looked younger, quite ridiculously young. He thought that perhaps this was how she had looked on the day Willie first saw her, when she was barely out of her teens.