Le Carre, John - The Looking Glass War (v1.0)

by The Looking-Glass War [lit]

  "Are you going home tonight?" Smiley asked impatiently.

  "I thought you might give me a bed here," Control suggested. "Such a fag always traipsing home. It's the people. . . . They seem to get worse every day."

  Leiser sat at the table, the taste of the White Ladies still in his mouth. He stared at the luminous dial of his watch, the suitcase open in front of him. It was eleven eighteen; the second hand struggled jerkily toward twelve. He began tapping, JAJ, JAJ—you can remember that, Fred, my name's Jack Johnson, see?—he switched over to receive, and there was Johnson's reply, steady as a rock.

  Take your time, Johnson had said, don't rush your fences. We'll be listening all night, there are plenty more schedules. By the beam of a small flashlight he counted the encoded groups. There were thirty-eight. Putting out the flashlight he tapped a three and an eight; numerals were easy but long. His mind was very clear. He could hear Jack's gentle repetitions all the time: You're too quick on your shorts, Fred, a dot is one-third of a dash, see? That's longer than you think. Don't rush the gaps, Fred; five dots between each word, three dots between each letter. Fore-arm horizontal, in a straight line with the key lever; elbow just clear of the body. It's like knife fighting, he thought with a little smile, and began keying. Fingers loose, Fred, relax, wrist clear of the table. He tapped out the first two groups, slurring a little on the gaps, but not as much as he usually did. Now came the third group: put in the safety signal. He tapped an S, cancelled it and tapped the next ten groups, glancing now and then at the dial of his watch. After two and a half minutes he went off the air, groped for the small capsule which contained the crystal, discovered with the tips of his fingers the twin sockets of the housing, inserted it, and then stage by stage followed the tuning procedure, moving the dials, playing the flashlight on the crescent window to watch the black tongue tremble across it.

  He tapped out the second call sign, PRE, PRE, switched quickly to receive and there was Johnson again, QRK 4, your signal readable. For the second time he began transmitting, his hand moving slowly but methodically as his eye followed the meaningless letters, until with a nod of satisfaction he heard Johnson's reply: Signal received. QRU: I have nothing for you.

  When they had finished, Leiser insisted on a short walk. It was bitterly cold. They followed Walton Street as far as the main gates of Worcester, thence by way of Banbury Road once more to the respectable sanctuary of their dark North Oxford house.

  Sixteen

  Takeoff

  It was the same wind. The wind that had tugged at Taylor's frozen body and drove the rain against the blackened walls of Blackfriars Road, the wind that flailed the grass of Port Meadow, now ran headlong against the shutters of the farmhouse.

  The farmhouse smelled of cats. There were no carpets. The floors were of stone: nothing would dry them. Johnson lit the tiled oven in the hall as soon as they arrived but the damp still lay on the flagstones, collecting in the cracks like a tired army. They never saw a cat all the time they were there, but they smelled them in every room. Johnson left corned beef on the doorstep: it was gone in ten minutes.

  The house was built on one floor with a high granary roof of brick, and it lay against a small coppice beneath a vast Flemish sky, a long, rectangular building with cattle sheds on the sheltered side. It was two miles north of Lubeck. Leclerc had said they were not to enter the town.

  A ladder led to the loft, and there Johnson installed his wireless, stretching the aerial between the beams, then through a skylight to an elm tree beside the road. He wore rubber-soled shoes in the house, brown ones of military issue, and a blazer with a squadron crest. Gorton had had food delivered from the Naafi in Celle. It covered the kitchen floor in old cardboard boxes, with an invoice marked Mr. Gorton's party. There were two bottles of gin and three of whisky. They had two bedrooms; Gorton had sent army cots, two to each room, and reading lights with standard green shades. Haldane was very angry about the beds. "He must have told every damned department in the area," he complained. "Cheap whisky, Naafi food, army cots. I suppose we shall find he requisitioned the house next. God, what a way to mount an operation."

  It was late afternoon when they arrived. Johnson, having put up his set, busied himself in the kitchen. He was a domesticated man; he cooked and washed up without complaint, treading lightly over the flagstones in his neat shoes. He assembled a hash of bully beef and egg, gave them cocoa with a great deal of sugar. They ate in the hall in front of the stove. Johnson did most of the talking; Leiser, very quiet, scarcely touched his food.

  "What's the matter, Fred? Not hungry then?"

  "Sorry, Jack."

  "Too many sweets on the plane, that's your trouble." Johnson winked at Avery. "I saw you giving that air hostess a look. You shouldn't do it, Fred, you know, you'll break her heart." He frowned around the table in mock disapproval. "He really looked her over, you know. A proper tip-to-toe job."

  Avery grinned dutifully. Haldane ignored him.

  Leiser was concerned about the moon, so after supper they stood at the back door in a small shivering group, staring at the sky. It was strangely light; the clouds drifted like black smoke, so low that they seemed to mingle with the swaying branches of the coppice and half obscure the gray fields beyond.

  "It will be darker at the border, Fred," said Avery. "It's higher ground; more hills."

  Haldane said they should have an early night; they drank another whisky and at quarter past ten they went to bed, Johnson and Leiser to one room, Avery and Haldane to the other. No one dictated the arrangement. Each knew, apparently, where he belonged.

  It was after midnight when Johnson came into their room. Avery was awakened by the squeak of his rubber soles. "John, are you awake?" Haldane sat up. "It's about Fred. He's sitting alone in the hall. I told him to try and sleep, sir; gave him a couple of tablets, the kind my mother takes; he wouldn't even get into bed at first, now he's gone along to the hall."

  Haldane said, "Leave him alone. He's all right. None of us can sleep with this damned wind."

  Johnson went back to his room. An hour must have passed: there was still no sound from the hall. Haldane said, "You'd better go and see what he's up to."

  Avery put on his overcoat and went along the corridor, past tapestries of Biblical quotations and an old print of Lubeck harbor. Leiser was sitting on a chair beside the tiled oven.

  "Hello, Fred."

  He looked old and tired.

  "It's near here, isn't it, where I cross?"

  "About five kilometers. The Director will brief us in the morning. They say it's quite an easy run. He'll give you all your papers and that kind of thing. In the afternoon we'll show you the place. They've done a lot of work on it in London."

  "In London," Leiser repeated, and suddenly: "I did a job in Holland in the war. The Dutch were good people. We sent a lot of agents to Holland. Women. They were all picked up. You were too young."

  "I read about it."

  "The Germans caught a radio operator. Our people didn't know. They just went on sending more agents. They said there was nothing else to do." He was talking faster. "I was only a kid then; just a quick job they wanted, in and out. They were short operators. They said it didn't matter me not speaking Dutch, the reception party would meet me at the drop. All I had to do was work the set. There'd be a safe house ready." He was far away. "We fly in and nothing moves, not a shot or a searchlight, and I'm jumping. And when I land, there they are: two men and a woman. We say the words, and they take me to the road to get the bikes. There's no time to bury the parachute—we aren't bothering by then. We find the house and they give me food. After supper we go upstairs where the set is—no schedules, London listened all the time those days. They give the message: I'm sending a call sign—'Come in TYR, come in TYR'—then the message in front of me, twenty-one groups, four-letter."

  He stopped.

  "Well?"

  "They were following the message, you see; they wanted to know where the safety signal came. It was i
n the ninth letter; a back shift of one. They let me finish the message and then they were on me, one hitting me, men all over the house."

  "But who, Fred? Who's they!"

  "You can't talk about it like that: you never know. It's never that easy."

  "But for God's sake, whose fault was it? Who did it? Fred!"

  "Anyone. You can never tell. You'll learn that." He seemed to have given up.

  "You're alone this time. Nobody has been told. Nobody's expecting you."

  "No. That's right." His hands were clasped on his lap. He made a hunched figure, small and cold. "In the war it was easier because however bad it got, you thought one day we'd win. Even if you were picked up, you thought, They'll come and get me, they'll drop some men or make a raid. You knew they never would, see, but you could think it. You just wanted to be left alone to think it. But nobody wins this one, do they?"

  "It's not the same. But more important."

  "What do you do if I'm caught?"

  "We'll get you back. Not to worry, eh, Fred?"

  "Yes, but how?"

  "We're a big outfit, Fred. A lot goes on you don't know about. Contacts here and there. You can't see the whole picture."

  "Can you?"

  "Not all of it, Fred. Only the Director sees it all. Not even the Captain."

  "What's he like, the Director?"

  "He's been in it a long time. You'll see him tomorrow. He's a very remarkable man."

  "Does the Captain fancy him?"

  "Of course."

  "He never talks about him," Leiser said.

  "None of us talk about him."

  "There was this girl I had. She worked in the bank. I told her I was going away. If anything goes wrong I don't want anything said, see. She's just a kid."

  "What's her name?"

  A moment of mistrust. "Never mind. But if she turns up, just keep it all right with her."

  "What do you mean, Fred?"

  "Never mind."

  Leiser didn't talk after that. When the morning came, Avery returned to his room.

  "What's it all about?" Haldane asked.

  "He was in some mess in the war, in Holland. He was betrayed."

  "But he's giving us a second chance. How nice. Just what they always said." And then: "Leclerc arrives this morning."

  His taxi came at eleven. Leclerc was getting out almost before it had pulled up. He was wearing a duffle coat, heavy brown shoes for rough country and a soft cap. He looked very well.

  "Where's Mayfly?"

  "With Johnson," Haldane said.

  "Got a bed for me?"

  "You can have Mayfly's when he's gone."

  At eleven thirty Leclerc held a briefing: in the afternoon they were to make a tour of the border.

  The briefing took place in the hall. Leiser came in last. He stood in the doorway, looking at Leclerc, who smiled at him winningly, as if he liked what he saw. They were about the same height.

  Avery said, "Director, this is Mayfly."

  His eyes still on Leiser, Leclerc replied, "I think I'm allowed to call him Fred. Hello." He advanced and shook him by the hand, both formal, two weathermen coming out of a box.

  "Hello," said Leiser.

  "I hope they haven't been working you too hard."

  "I'm all right, sir."

  "We're all very impressed," Leclerc said. "You've done a grand job." He might have been talking to his constituents.

  "I haven't started yet."

  "I always feel the training is three-quarters of the battle. Don't you, Adrian?"

  "Yes."

  They sat down. Leclerc stood a little away from them. He had hung a map on the wall. By some indefinable means—it may have been his maps, it may have been the precision of his language, or it may have been his strict deportment, which so elusively combined purpose with restraint—Leclerc evoked in that hour the same nostalgic, campaigning atmosphere which had informed the briefing in Blackfriars Road a month before. He had the illusionist's gift—whether he spoke of rockets or wireless transmission, of cover or the point at which the border was to be crossed—of implying great familiarity with his subject.

  "Your target is Kalkstadt"—a little grin—"hitherto famous only for a remarkably fine fourteenth-century church."

  They laughed, Leiser too. It was so good, Leclerc knowing about old churches.

  He had brought a diagram of the crossing point, done in different inks, with the border drawn in red. It was all very simple. On the western side, he said, there was a low, wooded hill overgrown with gorse and bracken. This ran parallel to the border until the southern end curved eastward in a narrow arm stopping about two hundred and twenty yards short of the border, directly opposite an observation tower. The tower was set well back from the demarcation line: at its foot ran a fence of barbed wire. It had been observed that this wire was laid out in a single apron and only loosely fixed to its staves. East German guards had been seen to detach it in order to pass through and patrol the undefended strip of territory which lay between the demarcation line and the physical border. That afternoon Leclerc would indicate the precise staves. Mayfly, he said, should not be alarmed at having to pass so close to the tower; experience had shown that the attention of the guards was concentrated on the more distant parts of their area. The night was ideal; a high wind was forecast; there would be no moon. Leclerc had set the crossing time for 0235 hours; the guard changed at midnight, each watch lasted three hours. It was reasonable to suppose that the sentries would not be as alert after two and a half hours on duty as they would be at the start of their watches. The relief guard, which had to approach from a barrack some distance to the north, would not yet be under way.

  Much attention had been given, Leclerc continued, to the possibility of mines. They would see from the map—the little forefinger tracted the green dotted line from the end of the rise across the border—that there was an old footpath which did indeed follow the very route which Leiser would be taking. The frontier guards had been seen to avoid this path, striking a track of their own some ten yards to the south of it. The assumption was, Leclerc said, that the path was mined, while the area to the side of it had been left clear for the benefit of patrols. Leclerc proposed that Leiser should use the track made by the frontier guards.

  Wherever possible over the two hundred odd yards between the foot of the hill and the tower, Leiser should crawl, keeping his head below the level of the bracken. This eliminated the small danger that he would be sighted from the tower. He would be comforted to hear, Leclerc added with a smile, that there was no record of any patrol operating on the western side of the wire during the hours of darkness. The East German guards seemed to fear that one of their own number might slip away unseen.

  Once across the border Leiser should keep clear of any path. The country was rough, partly wooded. The going would be hard but all the safer for that; he was to head south. The reason for this was simple. To the south, the border turned westward for some ten kilometers. Thus Leiser, by moving southward, would put himself not two but fifteen kilometers from the border, and more quickly escape the zonal patrols which guarded the eastern approaches. Leclerc would advise him thus—he withdrew one hand casually from the pocket of his duffle coat and lit a cigarette, conscious all the time of their eyes upon him—march east for half an hour, then turn due south, making for Marienhorst Lake. At the eastern end of the lake was a disused boathouse. There he could lie up for an hour and give himself some food. By that time Leiser might care for a drink—relieved laughter—and he would find a little brandy in his rucksack.

  Leclerc had a habit, when making a joke, of holding himself at attention and lifting his heels from the ground as if to launch his wit upon the higher air.

  "I couldn't have something with gin, could I?" Leiser asked. "White Lady's my drink."

  There was a moment's bewildered silence.

  "That wouldn't do at all," Leclerc said shortly, Leiser's master.

  Having rested, he should walk to th
e village of Marienhorst and look around for transport to Schwerin. From then on, Leclerc added lightly, he was on his own.

  "You have all the papers necessary for a journey from Magdeburg to Rostock. When you reach Schwerin, you are on the legitimate route. I don't want to say too much about cover because you have been through that with the Captain. Your name is Fred Hartbeck, you are an unmarried mechanic from Magdeburg with an offer of employment at the State Cooperative shipbuilding works at Rostock." He smiled, undeterred. "I am sure you have all been through every detail of this already. Your love life, your pay, medical history, war service and the rest. There is just one thing that I might add about cover. Never volunteer information. People don't expect you to explain yourself. If you are cornered, play it by ear. Stick as closely to the truth as you can. Cover," he declared, stating a favorite maxim, "should never be fabricated but only an extension of the truth."

  Leiser laughed in a reserved way. It was as if he could have wished Leclerc a taller man.

  Johnson brought coffee from the kitchen, and Leclerc said briskly, "Thank you, Jack," as if everything was quite as it should be.

  Leclerc now addressed himself to the question of Leiser's target; he gave a resume of the indicators, implying somehow that they only confirmed suspicions which he himself had long harbored. He employed a tone which Avery had not heard in him before. He sought to imply, as much by omission and inference as by direct allusion, that theirs was a Department of enormous skill and knowledge, enjoying in its access to money, its intercourse with other services and in the unchallenged authority of its judgments an unearthly oracular immunity, so that Leiser might well have wondered why, if all this were so, he need bother to risk his life at all.

  "The rockets are in the area now," Leclerc said. "The Captain has told you what signs to look for. We want to know what they look like, where they are and above all who mans them."

  "I know."

  "You must try the usual tricks. Pub gossip, tracing an old soldier friend, you know the kind of thing. When you find them, come back."

  Leiser nodded.