Man Who Wanted Tomorrow

by Brian Freemantle

  The Russian behind Kurnov had run to the corner and was turning into the side street as the Volkswagen pulled around the corner. Fifty yards ahead, Kurnov was getting into a taxi, following his instructions, appearing almost comatose. As the car pulled away, the second cab in the rank moved out, too, awkwardly, almost blocking the road.

  “Around him,” yelled Suvlov, realizing what was happening.

  The Volkswagen lurched on to the pavement, around the taxi, into which the Rekord and the Mercedes which had involved themselves in the protest chase collided in a concertina crash. Twenty yards ahead, the first taxi was turning right, with Kurnov quite unaware of what was going on behind him.

  “We’ve still got him,” shouted Suvlov, hopefully, then immediately bit back the words. Slowly, from the left, a huge furniture pantechnicon moved into view, going in the same direction as Kurnov’s taxi. Its enormous bulk completely filled the road ahead and instinctively the Russian driver braked, which was fortunate because when it absolutely blocked the road it stopped, making an impassable barrier. Suvlov leaped from the slithering Volkswagen and hauled himself up level with the lorry-cab. It was empty, the key missing from the ignition. He threw open the door, groping beneath the dashboard, sure of what he would find. Ripped out wiring hung uselessly in his hand. He turned, shouting at his driver to reverse, then stopped at the sight of the police car coming toward him, urged on by a clutch of offended motorists whose cars were spreadeagled in a crumpled block in the street. He began looking for the driver of the second taxi, then shook his head, annoyed at his own stupidity. Of course the man wouldn’t still be there, he realized.

  Frieden invited reaction from the fifteen men seated around him in the lounge of the Ludwigsfelderstrasse apartment. No one spoke.

  They were a good unit, thought the millionaire, gratefully. But then they always had been. The Organization had sound judgment in choosing a group of S.S. men who had been through the war as a trained team. For over thirty years, he thought, the men grouped in the room with him had protected the surviving Nazis against almost every investigation. They were old men now, Frieden saw, sadly, with fat bellies and receding hairlines. They’d probably be slower than they had been thirty years ago. That was only to be expected. But tonight it wouldn’t matter, he consoled himself, happily. Tonight it was an ambush, and they were more than efficient enough for that.

  “No questions, then,” he demanded.

  “We’ve to kill them?” queried a man near the veranda window. Frieden looked towards the questioner, smiling in recognition. Schmidt, he saw. A good man. A former sergeant who’d once carved tiny notches in the handle of his machine-pistol, like an American cowboy, recording the number of Jews he’d shot.

  “All except the Bavarian,” he confirmed. He nodded towards the middle of the room, where Lugers and Mausers were piled. They would be heavily oiled, Frieden realized too late. He hoped the furniture hadn’t been marked by the weapons.

  “Everything is silenced,” he said, aware everyone must have already seen the extended barrels of the pistols. “It must be quick, though. They might be armed. It’ll be the noise of their weapons that will attract attention. I want enough time to search the room thoroughly to ensure I’ve got everything … we can’t have a repetition of the Toplitz mistake … I want the Bavarian alive in case he’s taken any precaution against being tricked …”

  He gestured vaguely, indicating the cellars far below where the guardians of Lake Toplitz had been tortured and killed.

  “… I don’t suppose it will take more than an hour or two down there to learn all we want to know and get everything back,” he said.

  Schmidt grinned, echoing Frieden’s earlier thought

  “Just like the old days,” said the ex-sergeant, enjoying the nostalgia.

  “Yes,” agreed Frieden. “Let’s ensure we’re still as good.”

  He looked at his watch, then indicated the guns.

  “It’s time to be going,” he said, eagerly.

  For at least five minutes after the Berlin report, Mavetsky sat unmoving in his office, searching for an escape. Not only had Kurnov vanished, but there was a full-scale diplomatic incident, as well. He dug his nails into the palms of his hands, as if the pain would make him think more clearly. Finally, he reached for the intercom that would connect him with the Party Secretary. He winced at Shepalin’s voice.

  “What is it?” demanded Shepalin, when Mavetsky identified himself.

  “He got away,” said Mavetsky.

  (17)

  Kurnov paid the taxi to Töpchiner Weg, walking slowly down Delmersteig to the address the Bavarian had given three hours before. He halted at the junction, feeling the nervousness pull at him. It was close now, he thought. Too close. He couldn’t recall being so frightened of anything before. He fought back the urge to turn and run, rationalizing the sensation, professionally: fear of the unknown. The most basic fear of all.

  He remembered his promise to make the man he was to meet suffer for the torment. That was stupid vindictiveness, he decided, like a schoolboy whistling in the dark to retain his courage. He was in no position to punish anyone, whatever the humiliation. He could only pay the blackmail. And hope. Did anyone ever stop, once they had begun paying a blackmailer? What if the man had taken copies, to sell elsewhere? Or offer as fresh threats, even? Kurnov groaned aloud, at the frustration, choked at his helplessness.

  He walked away from the corner, moving down Salmbacherstrasse. The twin towers were marked out blackly against the night sky fifty yards ahead, on the opposite side of the road. Almost level, he moved into a shop doorway, the determination leaking from him. He was shaking and it was a positive effort of will to force one leg before the other. He breathed deeply, trying to calm himself. It was stupid, he thought. Certainly not the way to go into negotiations with a man as confident as the Bavarian. Gradually the shaking subsided and he sighed, relieved. Only one hour. Perhaps two, he reassured himself. Then it would all be over. By midnight he’d be back in the hotel, destroying forever that last shred of evidence endangering him.

  It took fifteen minutes before he could bring himself to move again. He pushed away from the doorway, crossing the road, his footsteps echoing behind him. He looked around, expecting the few other pedestrians to be attracted by the noise. Careful, he told himself, immediately. That was a banal impression, prompted by apprehension.

  The apartment entrance lay back off a small courtyard, merely an opening in the wall, with no concierge or nightwatchman. An apartment block of anonymous people in which everyone minded their own business, ignoring their neighbors, he decided. He went inside, stopping again. The lobby was floored with concrete and dirty, littered with long-discarded cigarette butts, paper and leaves. Above, he heard the murmur of activity from the flats, like the humming of a bee-hive. Somewhere a radio blared pop music and a voice sounded loudly in an unintelligible argument. The smell of cooking permeated everywhere.

  Number three, he remembered. In the basement There were stairs leading down, at the back of the lobby. He pressed the light-switch that should have provided timed illumination. It clicked, but no bulb went on. He pressed again. Still nothing. The light had been destroyed, obviously. Which made it ridiculous to descend. What choice did he have? He started groping downwards, edging one foot exploratively ahead of the other, both hands gripping the iron railing. Halfway down there was a small landing and the stairs twisted, so that he lost even the dim light from the lobby. He scuffed on, counting the steps. Six … seven … eight. He moved his foot out, but there was no drop. He blinked, trying to adjust to the deep blackness. It was impossible to see the door, so he ran his fingers along the wall, jumping when his hand went into the depression and encountered the wooden frame. He moved back, seeking the edge for a bell, but couldn’t locate it. He stayed there, like a lost child at a school outing. Finally, abruptly, he reached out, rapping the door. The noise bounced in the tiny space and involuntarily he jumped. There was no sound from b
ehind the door. He let the silence stretch out, then knocked again, seized with the stupid comfort that if there were no one there, he could go back to the hotel. He pricked his own hope, anxious to stifle the illogical reasoning. There was no retreat now. He sighed again, the sound very near a sob. Surely the swine wasn’t conducting another experiment, like that afternoon in the park?

  He was reaching out for the third time when the light came on, brilliantly. He winced, trying to shield his eyes. The switch would have been inside the apartment, he realized. The light was unnaturally bright. In the middle of the door he could just detect a Judas hole, through which the occupant could see all callers. Under this illumination, nothing in the tiny approach area could have been concealed. He heard a noise from inside the apartment; it sounded like a laugh. The latch clicked, but the door opened only slightly.

  “Come in,” said the voice he had learned to recognize.

  There was another reason for the brightness of the light, he realized as he stumbled forward. After the darkness of the descent, its suddenness was blinding. Now the inside of the apartment was dark again, completing the disorientation. He edged forward, able only to distinguish outlines, his eyes refusing detail. He heard the door close and the burglar chains clatter into place and stood apprehensively just inside the entrance. He had no sensation of anyone near him. Then, frighteningly, he was aware of a man’s presence and pulled back, the sound of surprise bursting from him. His response was met with a jeering laugh.

  “Come further in, Heinrich,” said the man. “Come right in and see where you are. You were promised a surprise, remember?”

  Kurnov had his hands to his eyes, pressing against them. Again the thought of his hopelessness came to him, but he managed to control the shiver.

  Gradually his obscured vision cleared and he began examining the room, his face opening in growing amazement until he reached the man. Kurnov sagged, visibly, unable to comprehend what he saw. All control completely gone, he snatched out, supporting himself against the high back of a chair in the middle of the room.

  The man, who was sitting behind a carved, ornate desk too heavy for the room, sniggered in delight at the reaction.

  “Told you that you’d be surprised, Heinrich,” he said.

  The small apartment, little more than one room with tiny alcoves leading off, was a complete shrine to Nazism. Behind the man the red Nazi flag, the swastika, stridently black in the middle, dominated the whole wall, forming the backcloth for a huge picture of Adolf Hitler. Walls either side were cluttered with pictures of the Führer, showing him with every Nazi leader, and there were plaster casts of the Nazi motif. Able to see perfectly now in the subdued lighting, Kurnov recognized an S.S. dagger, the death’s-head emblem easily visible, lying on the desk, in front of which stood the high-backed chair upon which he was resting. It was heavy, as ornately carved as the desk. There was a bust of Hitler alongside the dagger. And a Luger, easily within reach of the man.

  As he looked up from the desk, the man stood up. He was wearing full S.S. uniform, Kurnov saw, his belt and boots brilliantly polished.

  Hesitantly, then with determination, Dr. Otto Grüber, with whom Kurnov had conducted human experimentation at Dachau, Bergen-Belsen and Buchen-wald throughout the Second World War, extended his right arm, turned halfway around with something approaching dog-like obedience to the huge photograph on the wall and said, “Heil Hitler.”

  Kurnov stared at the man, unable to move. His mind was frozen, like those of the men upon whom he had experimented. It was impossible to encompass the scene. Or accept what he was seeing.

  “Heil Hitler,” repeated Grüber, insistently.

  Relief suddenly flooded over Kurnov, almost painfully, like the immediate coldness of the ice water after a sauna. He was going to survive. The realization exploded in his mind. It was going to be all right. He was going to get out of everything without any difficulty: probably without paying the money, even. Staring at the old, demented man standing before him like an actor in a comedy theater, Kurnov felt the confidence burn through him. He had been tricked by a crumpled, senile old man who dressed up in a funny uniform and made obeisance to a man dead for thirty years as if he were still alive. He stifled the anger at his own stupidity. Recrimination could come later. Momentarily he allowed himself the pleasure of vindictiveness: he’d be able to keep his vow after all. God, how he would make Grüber suffer for what he had done. But he would have to be careful, he thought, looking back to the gun now held quite steadily in the man’s left hand. He was dealing with a sick mind. He would have to take things very slowly. Very slowly indeed. The wrong move, the merest thoughtless mistake, and everything would be ruined.

  He extended his arm, feeling embarrassed.

  “Heil Hitler,” he said.

  Grüber smiled happily, as if Kurnov had uttered the correct password. The man’s mind was on the switch back of insanity, guessed Kurnov. Everything Nazi was obviously the key. He reflected upon the man’s reaction to the salute. It would be important to pander to his nostalgia, he decided. For several minutes, the scientist remained looking at the old man who had been his assistant for so long. How obvious it was, he thought, in hindsight. All the clues had been there, as obvious as an umbrella on a summer’s day. It was not surprising he hadn’t decided upon Grüber, though, after all the inquiries he had had made. He’d aged, of course, but the features were unmistakably the same, those heavy bulldog jowls and puckered, sensual mouth. And the eye, that awful deformity that Grüber liked to parade for some bizarre reason of inverted vanity. Grüber’s left eye was dead, a graying, opaque pupil in horrifying contrast to the other, which was intensely black. The injury gave him a staring, demonic look. How much he had enjoyed frightening their victims, even before any operations, recalled Kurnov. An early indication, he reflected, of the mental breakdown from which the man was now so demonstrably suffering. The lopsided stare was fixed upon him now, the face twisted in a self-congratulatory smile. Grüber was very dangerous, decided Kurnov again. But manageable, certainly to a man of his training. He answered the old Nazi’s smirk. Oh, yes, definitely controllable by an expert.

  “Otto!” he exclaimed, smiling further, extending his hand and moving forward. Immediately the other man’s hand came up, the Luger aimed at Kurnov’s stomach. Grüber had moved surprisingly quickly, thought Kurnov, stopping immediately. An error. He’d moved too sharply.

  “Back,” shouted Grüber, the fear tinging his voice. “Get back.”

  Kurnov frowned, detecting the break in his voice. He’s scared, decided the adoptive Russian. That was good. He’d have to avoid any sudden movement, he realized. Everything would have to be very gradual.

  “Otto! What is it!” he protested, the pained expression sounding quite normal.

  “I’ve got no cause to receive you like a friend,” threw back Grüber. “You abandoned me. You ran away from Buchenwald, never telling me you were going. No one got out, after you. The road was closed, almost immediately afterwards, as Berlin became surrounded. The Russians were everywhere. Thank God it was some days before they got to Buchenwald. At least we had some time to hide.”

  He paused, as if trying to remember something. Suddenly he smiled. “So now you’ve got to pay,” he said.

  Everything had been rehearsed in that sick mind, Kurnov thought. Grüber jerked the gun towards the chair, which Kurnov saw had been carefully positioned a good six feet from the desk, so that no unexpected move could be launched from it. As he sat down, Kurnov realized that the wall behind him was draped with another Nazi flag and two further pictures of Hitler. There were two more busts, as well, on tiny plinths on either side of the room. It was pitiful, he thought, recognizing the mental condition of regression.

  “Otto,” started Kurnov, gently, “I tried to find you. I really did. But Berlin fell, as you say, I was trapped. There was no way I could get back to Arfurt …”

  “You abandoned me,” insisted Grüber, distantly.

  “
I didn’t” argued Kurnov. “The collapse was too quick. You know how it happened. I tried to get help through to you. But I couldn’t find you …”

  Grüber sniggered, offered the opportunity to boast.

  “I was too clever for them,” he said. “They never guessed who I was …”

  He had wanted to locate his assistant, remembered Kurnov, although not for the reasons with which he was trying to convince the other man. Like the records he had fled to Berlin to retrieve, Grüber had been a possible source of identification. Kurnov had lost count of the number of times he’d cursed himself for not killing the man before leaving the concentration camp. He had insisted Bock try every means through the clandestine Organization to discover Grüber’s fate, even while he had lain in the clinic, recovering from the operation. The Organization had been unable to find any trace of Grüber and so they presumed he had been killed by the advancing Russians. But the uncertainty had irked, certainly in the early days. After he had arrived in Moscow, Kurnov had had fresh, discreet inquiries made, but Grüber had vanished.

  “But I almost died,” whined Grüber, his voice weakened by the recollection. “It took me six months to get through the Russians and reach Berlin …”

  Kurnov sat patiently. Let him talk, he decided. For three decades the man had stored resentment. The therapy was long overdue.

  “… By then,” took up the old man, “everyone had gone underground. I tried to reach the Organization, but all the contacts had disappeared. No one wanted to know anyone as positively identified with the camps as I had been …”

  It was to be expected, thought Kurnov, in the confusion that existed immediately after the war. All the Nazis had escaped or adopted their new hidden identities within six months. Grüber would have been a dangerous embarrassment.

  Grüber jerked towards his dead eye.