by Adam Hall
The pattern was going to be changed on the other side of the barrier and the visual + psychological shock would produce a time gain of much more than a fraction of a second. I might never need it but that kind of reasoning is sloppy and can be fatal: preparation for any important action has got to be one hundred per cent and the instructors at Norfolk have a phrase for it ‘A bull at a gate’s never yet got out of the field.’
From here the snow looked grey, a mottled and slanting veil covering the mouth of the station, and through it came the outline, its size increasing, dark grey on light. Other people were moving towards the barrier, their voices rising, and I made a final turn and came back, noting the group’s disposition, the narrow gap between the two men on the left and the people in the middle, the wider gap towards right centre. Distance now closing, obstacles registered: big suitcase near the women on the right, unattended baggage trolley halfway between the two men and the gates, ticket collector’s stool close against barriers, all.
Train slowing, coasting to a crawl, conrods lazy, snow caked on the front of the locomotive and thick along the carriage roofs - someone moved at the edge of the vision field and I looked back at the clock and down again, porter, not one of them, not one of Foster’s men. Three more paces and I stopped, filling the gap, the wider gap towards right centre, the one I would use.
Of course they might have put someone into the platform area and it was a risk but a calculated risk so discount. Discount and wait.
And don’t muck it.
Wait for the first door, the first one, not till then. When it swung open I moved.
Chapter 16
FOXHOLE
He shouted at me but that was anticipated and there was nothing he could do because he couldn’t leave his post at the barrier and within the first ten seconds I was behind reliable cover as the passengers began filling the platform between the train and the ticket-gate area and then I heard him again but the nearest official was two carriages away on the forward end and by now I was walking, taking my time, keeping to cover but nearing the mid-section carriage where most of the passengers had got out.
‘She’ll be here. She said she would meet us.’
A woman wept, a fat woman buried in her thick coat, the tears bright on her face, no, she won’t be here, it said in the paper, you saw the paper.
‘I tell you she couldn’t telephone because the lines were down at Inowroclaw and besides they don’t arrest the students, they know there’s no harm in them.’ Snow on the wet platform where boots had dislodged it from the footboard. I climbed and turned left, away from the head of the train, edging along the corridor with my back to the windows, then a clear run for the length of half carriage, then people again, and baggage.
‘But it was in the brown one, I remember putting it in here.’
‘I haven’t got the brown one.’
‘Then you’ve left it in the compartment.’
‘We’ll have to go back.’
They were so slow, so slow, they moved slowly, they had arrived, but I was just starting. Somewhere behind me a guard was using his whistle. Assumption: there were ten of them and they’d deploy in open formation with the flank men covering Platforms 2 and 4 and the centre group concentrating on 3 and working the narrow area limited by the train’s length and the two adjacent lines. Estimation: I had another ninety seconds and there were two more carriage lengths to go. I would need to hurry now.
‘Mind what you’re -‘
‘Sorry, I’ve left something -‘
‘There’s no need -‘
Oh yes there was need.
Sweating badly, the limits so very fine, calculated but hazardously fine, the centre group through the barrier by now and working their way along. One or more would check underneath the train and that would slow them a bit but it wasn’t a bonus, it was allowed for, part of the ninety seconds, eighty, seventy.
Baggage stacked in the coupling bay, climb over it, not so many here now, one more carriage, stifling, the heat full on and the windows misted, watch for the orange-colour poster through the misted glass, get a bearing on that.
Bloody well think.
Back the way I’d come, five seconds, the top bag from the stack in the coupling bay, a big one with retaining straps, two seconds, forward again with a total loss of twelve seconds but with the advantage of an altered image-component. Orange glow on the window. Fur kepi tilted to the back of the head, coat unbuttoned and hanging open, swing the bag down first on to the platform, the breathing heavy and the gait shortened to a fat man’s waddle, look directly towards the barrier, nowhere else.
From the main hall the acute-angle perspective had given something like a ten-yard error and although I’d allowed for it I now found that the entrance to the subway was well beyond the orange poster but there was nothing I could do about it. The last of the passengers from this end of the train were giving their tickets in and going down the steps and I waddled after them, puffing a lot, stopping halfway to drop the bag and change it to the other hand, coat flapping open, picking up the bag and going on. Impression of people near, some would be passengers moving up the platform to this end of the train, destination Rzeszow, one or more would be Foster’s men but discount proximity, whole thing depended on the altered image.
It was a single gate, concertina trellis and half open but with enough room to go through at a run. I wasn’t going to run.
‘I have come from Bydgoszcz. I have no ticket.’ Heavy Berlin accent. The bag made a thump as I put it down, getting my breath.
‘Didn’t you have enough time?’
‘Please?’
‘Were you late for the train?’
‘Ah, yes.’ I found my wallet.
‘You are prepared to pay?’
‘But yes of course.’
He nodded, a stocky man with his peaked cap set conservatively straight, a man without imagination but with a sense of responsibility, too old now to be stirred by the rumours of a fight for freedom in tomorrow’s streets, a stolid man prepared to weather the strictures of a regime he’d come to accept since middle youth, a man to whom I couldn’t say the police are looking for me, let me through quickly in the cause of Sroda.
‘I must see your papers.’
‘Here they are.’
He opened my passport at the first page, his thumb misshapen by an old accident, the nail split and clogged with the grime of years, of trains.
‘How much is the fare?’
‘We shall see.’
I listened to the footsteps. They had started hurrying: the people who walk all the way to the rear of a train are people who like a compartment to themselves. They hurried past me, behind me.
‘You must pay one hundred and thirty zlotys.’ He stood over his fares schedule, reluctant to close it and put it away, a priest devoted to his bible. ‘The single fare is one hundred and twenty zlotys, and there is the obligatory supplement of ten zlotys for failing to purchase a ticket at the –‘
‘Here are one hundred and forty. Please keep the change.’
I lifted the bag.
‘I cannot do that. I am an official of the Polish State Railways.’ He turned towards his booth. ‘Besides, you will require a receipt.’
‘I do not wish for one. I am in a hurry.’
‘Just the same, I have to make out a receipt.’
If I pushed past him through the gate he probably wouldn’t shout after me because he’d be too surprised. The notes lay on his fare schedule so there was no question of failure to pay, but I’d still be committing a breach of the rules and he would try to stop me, raising his voice. It couldn’t be risked. They were behind me now, directly behind or to the right or left, concentrating on the train, searching for a man in hiding. They mustn’t be distracted. I put the bag down. He had found his receipt pad.
‘Point of departure, Bydgoszcz. That’s what you said?’
‘Yes’
They would make a thorough search, delaying the train until they
were satisfied. They could take their time because they were certain I couldn’t leave the station: a call would have gone out not later than a minute after I’d made the break and the station police would have been told to phone for M.O. assistance and a net would already be extending around the area.
‘And your reason for not purchasing a ticket was because you had no time?’
‘Yes.’
It was an oblong form with eight or nine blanks, Point of Departure, Time of Departure, Intended Destination, Particulars of Personal Identification, Amount Paid (Fare), Amount Paid (Supplement), Total Amount Paid, Remarks. I watched him write, the ball-point pen sloping at an odd angle because of his thumb.
‘I must see your passport again.’
I gave it to him.
They knew I would never get through the net. It would remain in place until the reinforcements of civil police had searched the station and questioned everyone in it. They would be ordered particularly to look for a man who might try to pass a barrier without a ticket.
‘This name here, is it “Stuttgart”?’
‘Yes.’
‘The writing isn’t very clear.’
Foster’s men wouldn’t check the barriers: they’d be deployed in the immediate area of the Bydgoszcz-Warsaw-Rzeszbw express, covering the north end of the station where I might be expected to run if I left cover. The M.O. contingents would see to the barriers and one of their men would be on his way here now. He would question the ticket collector, who would report a passenger without a ticket, and from that moment the search would focus on the subway area.
These were the limits I’d have to work in and I'd known that, but the time-factor was tightening and I began noting the aural character of the footsteps to the left side of the barrier: the patrol would approach from that direction, from the main hall. It was difficult because they’d started getting some of the baggage off the train and there was the rattling of trolley-wheels.
‘One hundred and forty.’ He counted the notes and opened his cashbox. ‘So the change will be ten zlotys.’
A sound-rhythm was coming in, gradually dominating the background. It was to the left and there were two of them, two men walking in step, their heels metal-tipped.
‘Ten zlotys.’
‘Thank you.’
I picked up the bag.
‘Wait a minute.’ He tore the form at the perforation. ‘You’ll want your receipt’
Close now, walking in step.
‘Thank you.’
I took the receipt.
‘Enjoy your stay in Warsaw.’
‘Yes I will.’
I didn’t think there was time but it had to be tried and I went through the gate and one of them called out when I was on the fourth or fifth stair down so I swung the bag forward and back and let go and heard the shout break to a grunt as the bag struck. and then I dived with my weight taking me clear across the rest of the stairs and sending me on to the subway floor in a feet-first slide that was stopped by the wall with one shoulder taking the stock and my shoes finding a grip again and pitching me forward into a very fast run.
Police whistles.
The coat was a nuisance, flapping.
From the main hall I’d seen that the subway had five double staircases giving access to the eight platforms and that the one blind spot was made by a central waiting room shared by Platforms 4 and 5 but now that I was actually working the area it didn’t seem safe to rely on the blind spot because at this stage I didn’t know the observation vectors on this side of the train: the train gave me high-wall cover from only three of the platforms so that the blind-spot value of the waiting room was nil except for a five-yard stretch of the train itself.
I would have to stay below ground.
This had been allowed for: the Toaleta signs had been visible from the hall and their arrows pointed downwards. That was why I had turned to the right. There were two smaller signs just beyond the centre staircases and the washroom had a wide entrance with no doors, the line of handbasins facing it below mirrors There was a key on the outside of the cleaner’s cupboard and I took it in with me and locked the door.
They were young or sketchily trained or too used to working in pairs because they both came into the subway instead of splitting up, one following me and the other staying on the platform to watch the subway exits. Or they thought I might be difficult. Their boots were ringing and making echoes along the glazed-ceramic walls so that it sounded as if more than two were there. Soon there would actually be more than two because of the whistles.
The cupboard was very small and I was standing on one end of a broomhead, gripping the handle to make sure it didn’t tap the wall or the door if I shifted my position. Acrid fumes of carbolic and hypochlorite and the smell of a damp rag.
They were splitting up now: both had checked the staircases I’d passed just before the Toaleta signs but one of them had been quicker and he was here now, clattering about and kicking open the cubicle doors. Then the handle within a few inches of my sleeve was rattled but he didn’t persist because he knew I couldn’t have got through a locked door.
He went away, joining his partner, and the echoes grew faint. I unlocked the door and went to the line of handbasins, drinking from my cupped hands and splashing my face. Time was 12:53, eight minutes from when I’d made the break. It wasn’t possible to know how long they’d keep up the search but the moment would come when the officer in charge would call it off, leaving a skeleton cadre manning key points while he extended the hunt city-wide.
I buttoned my coat: running would be easier and the image was no longer useful. There would be slight confusion when the reports went in because Foster’s K.G.B. men were looking for someone with normal build and no luggage and the M.O. section had gone after a fat man with a bag he’d thrown at them but they’d check and find Karl Dollinger on the carbon copy of the receipt at the ticket barrier and that was the name they’d found in the register at the Hotel Kuznia, Room 54.
I tore up the receipt and dropped it into a pan and flushed it and waited and flushed it again because one of the pieces was still floating. Principle: don’t carry items of identification even if they tally with your passport. As a mental exercise I could have worked out more than one situation involving a search of the person in circumstances where it would be acceptable to be Karl Dollinger but not to someone who’d passed through Warsaw Central between noon and one o’clock today.
The mirror showed the eyes still flickering a bit from. the reaction, otherwise fresh. The fur kepi had come off when I’d cleared the stairs and they would have found it and reported the new image. I’d have to get another one because on this day in this city there wouldn’t be a single man bareheaded.
The ballcock was shutting off and there was quiet here. The train hadn’t moved: I would have heard it rumbling. I would give them an hour, an hour and a half at the most; then I’d have to get clear because there was a lot of work to do before I called on Foster this evening.
A freight went through at 13:20 on the line directly overhead and the vibration set up noise from the handle of the metal bucket. Two other trains had come in and when the passengers had filled the subway I went into a cubicle and shut the door and waited until there was quiet again. The risk-pattern was formal: the cleaner must arrive and it could happen at any time and if he found the cupboard locked and the key gone from the outside of the door he would report it at once, knowing the police were looking for someone. Therefore I had to be in a cubicle, not the cupboard, when he came. But the second wave of the search must also arrive and similarly it could happen at any time and I would have to be in the cupboard with the door locked and the key on the inside, because they would search the cubicles.
But I couldn’t distinguish between the footsteps of the cleaner and the footsteps of a single police patrol and a decision would have to be made: cubicle or cupboard. There was nothing to be done about this until the time came. The low-risk periods were when a train arrived
and the passengers came through the subway: the police wouldn’t make a search for one man with the field confused.
I had spent a fair amount of thought on Merrick. Some of it was constructive: at a convenient moment, before the normal life of the city was disturbed, by action in the streets, I would have to deal with him. Some of it was retrospective, the hindsight clarification of points that had foxed me before I’d known what he was; but despite the attitudes I’d learned and come to recognise as valid I couldn’t think about him impersonally as just another component of the East-West Intelligence machine: his face kept coming in front of me, pale, nervy, vulnerable, his eyes incapable of hiding the misery that was breaking him down.
Double agents don’t last long: the strain is killing. The exceptions are people like Sorge, Foster, Obermann, but the strain on them is no less killing: it’s just that they’re harder to kill. For a boy like Merrick to go double was simply an elaborate attempt at suicide.
It was irrelevant that he’d tried to take me with him.
Other thoughts: intensive attempt to work out how to get the maximum amount of information into Egerton’s hands before the possibility of my non-survival. Foster wanted me alive but captive and the risk lay in the actions I’d have to take to remain free. Intensive thinking on this too. Intervals of free-ranging images, disjointed, unimportant.
