The aeroplane that had crashed had been an Interflug aircraft, flying from Berlin Schönefeld Airport to Barcelona. An East German aircraft! Alongside the headlines of the air disaster was the news that the U.S. Vice-President and the American Sixth Fleet were arriving in Barcelona the following day.
He purchased several newspapers, both British and German, and hurried to his hotel. The hotel foyer was cool and busy. He eyed the faces, suspiciously, as he crossed the marble paving. A man got up from a seat and walked towards the exit. He was of medium height and slim build, with flaxen hair.
Stack watched him leave. He felt certain that they had met before, but he didn’t know where. The man put on a pair of sunglasses and left the hotel.
Stack went up to the reception desk. ‘I would like to settle my account,’ he said. ‘I am leaving.’
‘Yes, señor. Room number?’
Stack gave his room number.
‘Ah, Señor Stack,’ the receptionist commented, with more enthusiasm. ‘There have been some telephone calls for you. Several from Berlin, and two from a Doctor Lorenzo.’
Berlin? That would be E.P.A., Stack thought, but he didn’t know a Doctor Lorenzo. Or did he?
The receptionist produced the account. Stack paid by cheque and walked towards the lift.
‘Señor Stack!’ the receptionist called to him.
Stack stopped in his tracks and thought that everyone in the foyer had heard his name being called out. He turned to face the desk clerk again.
‘Berlin are on the phone again,’ the receptionist said apologetically.
Stack frowned visibly. He didn’t want to speak to anyone, never mind Berlin. He dropped his head, lowered his eyes, and momentarily studied the marble mosaic on the floor. If he refused the call, he would attract attention to himself. He could feel people watching him. He had no alternative but to take it.
‘In booth number two, señor,’ the receptionist smiled.
Stack went to the booth, and picked up the receiver.
‘John?’ a man’s voice asked. It had a broad American accent. It was Max Schafer.
‘Yes, Max,’ Stack said.
‘Say, what the hell has kept you? Where have you been?’
‘In the mountains,’ Stack replied guardedly.
‘Sure, I know, but you were supposed to call me last night.’
Stack wondered what he should tell him.
‘Where’s the story?’ Schafer asked.
‘I don’t have one,’ Stack replied.
‘What the hell sort of answer is that?’
Stack breathed heavily into the telephone.
‘Say, are you okay?’ Schafer asked.
‘No,’ Stack replied.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Something has happened.’
‘Happened! What?’
‘I don’t know,’ Stack replied. ‘I’ve had an accident. My memory is a bit hazy.’
There was a momentary silence as the message sunk in.
‘Your memory!’ Schafer gasped. ‘John, you aren’t fooling me? This is Max you are speaking to.’
‘That’s okay, Max, I know you,’ Stack said impatiently.
‘Thank goodness for that,’ Schafer sighed. ‘What gives?’
‘I seem to have forgotten some of the events over the past couple of weeks or so,’ Stack said quietly. ‘Even why, or how, I came to Spain.’
There was another silence as if Schafer was studying the problem. The small booth was becoming oppressive. It was airless. Stack’s head began to throb.
‘You flew to Spain to cover the American visit,’ Schafer explained quickly, ‘but give it a miss. The Madrid office are covering it as well. You need a doctor…’
‘Sure,’ Stack intervened. ‘Look, when things sort themselves out…’
‘John!’ Schafer called to him anxiously. ‘I want you back in Berlin as soon as possible.’
‘Yeah!’
Stack rang off. Schafer was a ball of fire, but the way Stack was feeling, he cut no ice. There were more important things for Stack to attend to than Schafer’s news agency in Berlin. Such as getting his memory back for a start.
He looked at himself in the small mirror above the telephone. The bruise on his temple was becoming more colourful, he thought. He also needed a shave. His eyes caught a man watching him from across the foyer. He was small, tanned and white-suited.
Stack picked up his bag and looked in the mirror again. The man had gone — vanished. Stack shrugged. He was beginning to feel as if the whole world was against him.
He joined the queue for the lift. He missed out on the first shift, and it was a few minutes before he got to the fourth floor and room number 406. He opened the bedroom door, entered the room, and saw the white-suited man who had been in the foyer, waiting for him.
CHAPTER 3
It wasn’t a welcome home reception. There was a sardonic smile on the man’s face, and a small automatic pistol in his hand! Stack felt his inside freeze up and his face muscles go taut. In his present condition he wasn’t going to be able to tell who was friend and who was foe. He took an instant dislike to his intruder, and the smirk on his face.
‘Close the door, Señor Stack,’ the man said gruffly, in English.
Stack closed the door. ‘What do you want?’ he growled, and walked into the room. It was a large, modern room, with the usual fittings and a separate bathroom. Stack took it all in as he walked purposely into the middle of the room.
The man edged away. ‘You know what I want,’ the man replied. His eyes had narrowed. His face looked leaner and meaner. One hand went to a pocket and withdrew a fitment which he pointedly attached to his revolver, his eyes never leaving Stack.
‘If you don’t hand it over before I count five, señor, I will shoot. I am not making an idle threat.’
Stack felt his mouth dry up. The man meant business.
‘What is it you want?’ he asked hastily.
‘What you went up the mountains for,’ the man hissed.
‘The plane crash?’ Stack asked.
‘One… Two… Three…’
Stack’s brains told him to act quickly, or he would be maimed by an expert gunman.
‘Four…’
‘Wait!’ Stack called out desperately. ‘I have it in my bag.’
He threw the bag on the floor, between himself and the gunman.
‘Get it!’ the man ordered. ‘And no tricks.’
Stack bent down to the bag. The gunman was no expert, he thought, or he would have known the move. It made him feel happier. He had learned a few tricks over the years, and this was one of them. He got his feet in position, placed his two hands on the straps of the grip bag, and lunged with the bag at the gunman.
As the bag collided with the white-suited figure, Stack was conscious of something passing perilously close to his face. There was a ‘plop’, and a clinking of falling glass, as the two men fell in a heap on the hard, tiled floor.
Furiously Stack’s hand went for the gunman’s wrist, but there was little resistance in the man. The fall had weakened him. Stack knocked the revolver to one side and lashed into the man’s face. It became covered with blood. He grabbed the man’s jacket and lifted him up from the floor.
‘Who sent you?’ he demanded angrily. ‘Who sent you?’
There was no response. He slapped the bloody face.
‘Who sent you?’ he shouted.
Again there was no response. He lashed out again, and felt the man’s body go limp. He let go. The body sank to the floor. He looked down at it. It was a bloody mess. He picked up the man’s hardware and put it in his bag. It might come in useful, he thought.
The body on the floor moved. Stack dragged it into the bathroom, and dumped it in the shower. He turned on the water. The body stirred, groaned and coughed.
Stack dragged it out and left it in a heap outside the bathroom. When the man came to, he would question him again, he thought. He caught sight of his own hands. They w
ere also a bloody red, and his head began to throb again.
He went into the bathroom and turned on the taps of the washbasin. His knuckles were badly cut and bruised. There was also blood on his face. He washed it off, and wrapped the towel around his hands.
The savagery of his blows appalled him. He had been like a killer. His throbbing head became a blinding pain. He screwed up his face and sat on the toilet seat. The pain gripped him. He buried his face in his hands.
He heard a door being closed. It registered with him that either some reinforcements had come or the man had gone. He had to find out, and quick. He staggered into the bedroom. The figure on the floor had gone. The man hadn’t been so near death as he had imagined.
He opened the bedroom door and saw the gunman disappearing around the end of the corridor. He closed the door again. He felt too lousy to follow him. He stood quite still, leaning against the wall.
Gradually the pain eased and became bearable. What the devil had the man been after, he wondered? What had he wanted? Was he one of the two men who had been asking for him at the hotel in the mountains?
He slowly paced the floor. What was he supposed to have that the man wanted so badly? What? The camera hadn’t been used and there was nothing else. What was it?
He glanced at the wardrobe and cupboards. Perhaps there were some of his belongings in the bedroom that might help him to remember. He quickly examined the fittings, only to find that they were empty. He had been travelling surprisingly light.
The telephone started ringing. He looked at it hesitantly, then picked it up.
‘Señor Stack?’ the telephonist asked.
‘Yes,’ Stack growled.
A call was switched through.
‘Good morning, Señor Stack,’ a man said in English.
Stack didn’t recognise the voice, but its deep, bass tone suggested a man of large frame.
‘My name is Lorenzo,’ the man explained. ‘Doctor Lorenzo. I tried to contact you yesterday — twice.’
‘What about?’ Stack asked suspiciously.
‘I wanted to solicit your help,’ Lorenzo said. His voice had a rich, cultural ring to it that commanded attention, and got it. ‘However, I now feel we can be of mutual assistance to each other,’ Lorenzo added.
‘I don’t follow you,’ Stack said sharply.
‘I suggest you come to my surgery where we can talk,’ Lorenzo said. ‘It is situated in a rather unpleasant district near the docks, but it suits my many interests. The address is No. 167 Calle Cadalla. I would also venture to suggest that you leave the hotel immediately, and discreetly.’
‘Why?’
‘I fear the police are about to pay you a visit. Goodbye, Señor Stack.’
Lorenzo rang off.
Stack frowned and replaced the telephone on its stand. Who was this man Lorenzo, he wondered? How much notice should he take of his warning? He went to the balcony and got his answer. In the street below, he saw two uniformed policemen and a plain-clothed detective stepping out of a police car. They walked towards the hotel entrance.
That was sufficient for him. They might not be coming for him, but he decided not to wait and find out. In his condition, he was no match for a verbal battle with the police.
He grabbed his bag and newspapers and hurried down the secondary flight of stairs to the basement garage. Quickly he picked his way through the cars, up a ramp, and into the bright sunshine. He glanced about him. It was clear. He walked along the back street, checked that he wasn’t being followed, and set out in a direction that would put the greatest distance between himself and the hotel.
After about half an hour’s walking, he found himself in an area of narrow alleyways, dirty, terraced buildings, and noisy traffic. He went to a small café, ordered a coffee, and studied the newspapers.
He looked at the British newspaper first.
He found a report on the air crash on the first page. An aircraft belonging to Interflug, the East German Airline, had crashed in the mountains, north of Barcelona. It had taken off from Berlin Schönefeld Airport, on June 30th at 20.00 hours, with a party of East German journalists.
He felt the dull ache inside of him again. The British newspaper gave no names, but he suspected the worst. He found the list of passengers in the German newspaper, and his heart sank. Karl Gunter’s name was included. Karl Gunter had been on that aircraft after all!
Sadly, he put down the newspapers. Karl Gunter had been on that aircraft, and now Karl Gunter was dead. First Berak and now Gunter. He smacked his fist against his hand. Fate had played him another cruel blow. Gunter had been on his way to Barcelona, he thought. Had they arranged to meet? Had Gunter something important to pass? Was that why Stack had flown to Spain? Was that why he had gone to the scene of the crash?
His hand touched the bruise on his forehead. The man he had fought with — the two men asking for him at the hotel in the mountains, and the gunman in his bedroom in Barcelona. They were the opposition, he thought, and they were after something. Something he was supposed to have got from the crash!
Well, perhaps he had got something after all, he thought. Perhaps he had not. He didn’t know whether he had or hadn’t, and he wouldn’t know until his memory came back to him. But the opposition didn’t know that. They didn’t know that he was suffering from amnesia. They thought he had something and was hiding from them. So he would just have to play them a waiting game until his memory came back to him, and keep out of their way.
An hour later, Stack was still in the café. He had gone over what ground he could recall. There were still many blanks, but he knew most of the score. He knew that the numbness inside of him was caused through a feeling of guilt and loneliness. Guilt at his part in the death of Emil Berak, and the loneliness caused by his job.
He had become a pawn of British Intelligence, and he had become obsessed with his mission, even to the extent of losing Sue. And he was still involved. He was in Barcelona suffering from a partial loss of memory, and he knew that he was still involved. He also knew that he was on his own.
When things had gone wrong in Berlin, Stack and his Control had separated. British Intelligence had to protect their organisation, and Stack’s contacts had become suspect. But Stack had refused to lay off. Berak’s contact in the East German Foreign Office had got on to something big. Something that would make up for all their setbacks. So Stack had been allowed to carry on alone. He had been left with an emergency link through British Military Intelligence in Berlin and a post box to his Control, but there was to be no physical contact with his Control. Stack had become a security risk.
Stack had gone it alone because he was made that way. He had to see it through to the end. He had fouled up his marriage. There had to be something worthwhile come out of it. So he had pushed Berak past the point of no return, and when Berak had wanted to escape there was no one Stack could turn to for help.
Berak had got wind of an organisation that helped refugees escape to the West. Stack had made enquiries about it. He had gone looking for the organisation. Max Schafer had put him on to Hendrich Lieffer, the Berlin Director of the Ministry of Refugees. But Lieffer hadn’t been able to help. No one had. Finally Berak had made his own contact with the organisation. He had prepared his own escape, and he had been shot, dead, in the attempt.
Stack was remembering fast, but not fast enough. He didn’t remember what Gunter had passed to him from their contact, after he had taken over from Berak, or if they had arranged to meet in Barcelona, but he knew that there was an urgency, that something was imminent.
He had to get his memory back, and he had to get to Berlin. But how, he wondered? How? He couldn’t afford the time to tangle with the police, and he couldn’t take on the opposition single-handed.
He needed help to get out of Spain, but there was no one he could turn to without exposing himself to the dangers of the gunmen again. No one, he thought, except perhaps the man who had telephoned him — Doctor Lorenzo.
He thou
ght back to his telephone conversation with the doctor. The doctor’s name, or voice, meant nothing to him. The man was a stranger, but his warning about the police had been timely enough, and the man had suggested that they could be of mutual assistance to each other. It could be a trap, he thought. The man could be working for the opposition, but on the other hand, the man might be on the level. He gave it plenty of thought. He couldn’t think of an acceptable alternative suggestion, and he needed medical advice about his loss of memory.
He finally decided to pay Lorenzo a visit, and find out just what the doctor had in mind by mutual assistance.
CHAPTER 4
Stack found Doctor Lorenzo’s surgery. It was in the heart of the dock area. He also found the doctor expecting him. As he stepped on to the last tread of the creaking staircase that discouraged malingerers from the doctor’s surgery, a booming voice called out in English.
‘You’re late, Señor Stack, very late.’
Stack frowned. He didn’t like being taken for granted. It annoyed him. He passed through an open glass-panelled door into a waiting-room that smelt of perspiring bodies. The walls were a dirty grey which hinted that once they had been white. The bench seats looked functional, but uncomfortable.
‘Come in, Señor Stack,’ the voice boomed again, from an inner room.
Stack passed through the waiting-room and stood at the entrance to the surgery. Sitting at a desk facing him was a large, fat figure with a perspiring face.
The face was round, heavy-jowled, beady-eyed and red. Perched on top of the head was a white, linen, trilby hat.
The two men eyed each other. Stack saw the soiled linen suit, but also the expensive silk shirt, the gold tie pin, gold cufflinks and the gold watch.
‘You’re late,’ the man boomed, ‘and I do not normally remain in my surgery during the siesta period.’
Stack watched the doctor as he spoke. He sat, confidently overflowing from his chair, his eyes fixed on Stack, and his hand occasionally swishing a fly swat across his face.
The Berlin Spy Trap Page 2