by Adam Hall
In a moment Foster said: ‘If they find the explosive and defuse it we’d better have Ludwiczak brought along to talk to us.’
‘He’ll talk to me. He won’t talk to you.’
Gently: ‘The same thing, surely, since your instructions are to help me prevent disorder?’
‘I just mean don’t scare him off.’
‘We don’t want to scare anybody, old boy. The thing is that we’ll need to put some calls out as soon as we know which are the other places. Evacuate the night staffs and so on.’
‘You’re not worried about the night staffs. You don’t want one and a half million dossiers to go up in smoke because you can’t run a slave state without Big Brother.’
There was another lurch and he steadied himself on the tip-up seat. Through the clear patch he’d made on the window I could see the arc of lamps in the distance, the Slasko-Dabrowski Bridge.
Then we began a nasty wobble and I could see the wheel jerking in the driver’s hands. Foster held on to his strap. The wobble got worse and we slowed, pulling alongside the kerb.
‘What’s happening?’
‘It looks like a flat.’
The car stopped and the driver got out and tapped at the window, calling something we couldn’t hear. Voskarev opened the door, asking in Polish what the matter was.
‘I regret that we have a puncture.’
‘You must get us a taxi,’ Foster told him quickly.
The driver pulled the door wide open and chopped for Voskarev’s wrist to paralyse it in case there was a gun. Apparently there was, because the left hand went for the pocket of the coat, but the driver got there first so it was all right.
I told Foster: ‘Don’t do anything silly.’ I didn’t bother to look for a gun on him, he wasn’t the type to carry one, the only thing you could say for the bloody man.
Chapter 20
DOCUMENT
I told Voskarev I wanted his keys and his papers.
He stared around him as if looking for a street number through the clouded glass, as if lost in a place he’d thought familiar. I said
‘I’ll get them, otherwise. Don’t embarrass yourself.’ He opened his astrakhan coat, fumbling like an old man.
‘Fast,’ I said, ‘very fast indeed.’
The driver said he’d get them for me and I told him to shut up. The driver wanted to kill him, I knew that.
Six, all cylinder-type, two on a separate ring, series numbers in sequence.
‘Papers.’
The engine was still running. Exhaust gas came through the open door. Yellow light flooded the snow and went out.
‘Oh come on,’ I said.
Sweat was on his white face, glazing it like a toffee-apple.
Foster spoke to him quietly in Russian telling him not to worry, he would retrieve the situation. Such a windy phrase, that.
N. K. N. Voskarev, Deputy Chief Controller, Coordinated Information Services Foreign Division, seals and frankings U.B. liaison, all facilities requested up to ministerial privilege level.
Big fish.
I kept the passport and gave the identity card to the driver. ‘There’s a man under escort arriving at the Cracow within the next half an hour. Show this to his guards and tell them you’re taking him over, Voskarev’s orders. Get him to base.’
‘Understood.’
A red card had dropped out of the folder and I picked it up and looked at it.
‘Where’s your insulin?’
‘Here.’ Voskarev tapped his case.
‘Get it.’
The air came in, freezing against our legs. The driver stood impatiently, his breath clouding. The escort had shifted behind the wheel in case we had to take off suddenly.
‘Look, you want that insulin? Give you five seconds.’
Stuff was flashing us, no parking here, only wanted a patrol. Red, very red sector. I looked at the driver.
‘Right’
The briefcase was still open and Voskarev was trying to zip, it. He clutched the hypodermic kit in one hand.
‘The case stays here.’
He tried to take it with him and the driver did the wrist thing and papers hit the floor. Then he was pulled out.
‘Bloody well calm down will you? He can keep the insulin and use it when he wants to, he’s no good to us in a coma. You beat him up and I’ll have you kicked into the camps, I can do that, now get moving.’
I dragged the door shut.
The man at the wheel got into gear and I slapped the division and told him to wait.
‘It doesn’t,’ Foster said, ‘look too well organised.’
‘Best you can do with hired labour.’
I wound the division down. The handle was loose and took a bit more off the veneered panel.
Foster sat with his hand still in the looped strap. His eyes were almost closed, two slits glinting in the baggy flesh.
‘You’re making it worse for yourself,’ he said.
Police klaxons were piping a see-saw note somewhere on the far side of the river.
Doors slammed much closer, behind us.
‘Don’t do that.’
I had to kick upwards before he could reach the handle. He’d seen it done on the telly or somewhere: this wasn’t his type of field at all; he was political-intellectual, the big moves over a glass of bubbly.
Then a man came past from the other car and got into the front and shut the door and I said hurry but don’t crash.
Foster showed his expertise, the top off one-handed, still strap hanging.
‘Calm the nerves?’
Trick after trick down the drain: he should have smashed it into my face. Not his field. I said
‘Information: they’re Poles and proud of it and Voskarev’s been responsible for filling the trains with their own brothers and they know that. I’m going to phone them in fifteen minutes, failing which they’re going to kill him. They’re hoping I won’t be able to phone. Don’t make it easy for them, will you?’
I got the loose papers and stuffed them into the briefcase and zipped it and sat back and watched Foster. He screwed the top on and put it away.
‘If you think about it,’ he said earnestly, ‘you really haven’t the ghost of a chance, right in the middle of Warsaw. I do wish you’d try to be reasonable.’
I didn’t feel like answering: I was fed up because he was probably right.
The two in front were talking but we couldn’t hear much, something about Sroda. They sounded pleased with themselves, thought we’d captured the city between us.
‘What happened to the other chaps?’ Foster asked me.
‘What other chaps?’ I was trying to think ahead, about the photographs and things.
‘My driver and his mate.’
‘Were they Russian or Polish?’
‘Russian, I think. I didn’t really know them.’
‘Then you’re too late now.’
They were no use as hostages and I hadn’t given any specific instructions about what should be done with them afterwards, happened in the courtyard, you’ve got a flat tyre, and they’d got out to look. A night for flats but we were still running all right, making good time.
‘I can get you a reduced sentence, you know. I’ve quite a lot of influence.’
‘Oh balls.’
The bridge was clear, stuff crawling in both directions, a hole in the balustrade where the Mercedes had spun, the gravel making dirty brown streaks on the late snow. Foster said something, ought to be sure what I was doing, something like that, but I wasn’t listening because there was so much to think about and I didn’t want to make a mistake although with a set-up this sensitive a mistake was almost guaranteed and it wouldn’t have to be a big one, just a slip and she’d blow.
There were some police cars when we reached the Commissariat and the steps were cordoned off. Just before we pulled up I said:
‘Don’t forget the situation, will you?’ He didn’t answer but sat there squinting at me and I got a bit wor
ried that he’d do something awkward simply because this wasn’t his kind of terrain; for instance you can’t stop a charging bull by pointing a gun at it because it doesn’t know what the thing is. ‘You’ve got to look after Voskarev and the only way you can do it is to look after me.’
He leaned forward, the alcohol on his breath. ‘There are so many aspects you haven’t considered. They make it all so dangerous for you. So impossible.’
‘Just be careful. For his sake.’ I opened the door and he followed me out. ‘Get those bods out of here. Tell them it was a false alarm.’
He stood perfectly still.
‘Was it?’
‘Of course.’
He looked so relieved that I think he would have done whatever I asked just from gratitude. One of them came up to us, captain’s insignia, and Foster showed him his card absolute assurance incorrectly informed, no explosives, personal responsibility, so forth. Then we passed through the cordon and went into the building and the contusions started throbbing again because the very acute fear that he might chance it and hand me over had dominated physical pain.
When, we were going up in the lift I heard the bomb-disposal team in the basement being told to pull out. Foster stood idly watching the wall sliding downwards on the other side of the gates. His breathing had become heavy, the only sign that he was disturbed. There was a city-wide search going on and he’d just passed me through a cordon and he hadn’t liked that.
It was the big double-windowed room at the end of the third floor and he used his key and I told him to go in first, then I followed.
Define, infiltrate, destroy. I had defined and was now infiltrating.
I picked up the phone and told them the situation was in hand and that I’d be phoning at fifteen-minute intervals.
Foster got his keys out but I took them from him: there could be a gun in a drawer and I was going to be too busy to stop him playing about.
‘We really ought to discuss the position you’re in, old boy. You’d thank me, later.’
‘Take that chair over there and sit on it.’
Three reasons for utmost haste: Given enough time I knew that Foster could out-think me. The sector was still bright red until I could get him to my own base. Merrick or the guard at the Hotel Cracow might telephone the Commissariat to ask if things were all right and if I answered their call they’d want to speak to Foster and I’d have to let them or they’d know things weren’t all right and he’d use an alert-phrase and I wouldn’t be able to stop him.
The safe came open with the two keys on the separate ring of Voskarev’s bunch and I began with the top metal drawer because it was logical to file recent and current material highest.
Most of the stuff was in Russian but none of it encoded and I went for main headings and serial numbered collations and found one specific document summarising the whole of the operation under sections Preliminary Evidence - Prima Facie - Integration of Testimonies - Dossier of Accused - Summary of Charges.
The name N. K. N. Voskarev appeared throughout with the title of Chief of Enquiry and the name of Colonel A. S. Foster began appearing on the reports dated later than January 16 which was the day he’d flown in from Moscow. Two other names were featured.
My senses were atrophying to a slight degree: the sound of the traffic seemed muffled and the light in here was keyed lower. Quite normal, the effect of sudden concentration as the typed symbols jumped and the mind span, incapable of containing this scale of significance.
Movement and my eyes flicked but he was only crossing his legs. In reflex I said softly:
‘Sit still.’
I was looking again at the document.
So here it was: the programme I’d sensed was running in the silence and in the dark, smooth and massive and perfectly engineered, designed to protect the East-West talks from abortive collapse in the event of insurgence by the people of Poland and subsequent control of the capital by armed force under the provisions of the Warsaw Pact.
Précis: a special tribunal to be convened in Moscow for the immediate trial of a Western agent sent into Warsaw for the express purpose of activating the interests of an international imperialist conspiracy. Indictment: inciting dissension and revolt, providing clandestine liaison with Western factions, conveying assurances of diplomatic support from capitalist powers.
The trial to be attended by international correspondents with all facilities required to make manifest the guilt of the accused and the gravity of his acts.
A show trial on the Garry Powers scale with a scapegoat dragged into the limelight and butchered on the block of political expedience. A man with two names.
P. K. Longstreet, alias Karl Dollinger.
‘There’s nothing,’ I heard Foster saying, ‘you can do about it. Because you can’t leave Poland.’
I went through the rest of the drawers.
He was standing behind me.
‘Get over there and sit down, damn you.’
Angry because I’d let him move without my seeing him. Postpone all thoughts about the document until the sector was green, otherwise highly dangerous.
‘I’m not going to do anything, old boy.’ But he couldn’t get his tone right. ‘We’re alone here, and there might not be another chance like this. We can talk the whole thing over and do a deal on the quiet. I’ll accept your word and you can accept mine. Give me a brief confession and I can arrange that you won’t get more than three years, good conduct, special remission, you know the drift. Otherwise it’s for life. Now do be sensible.’
I tugged at the last drawer but it was locked and I had to open it with one of Voskarev’s keys. Then they were in my hand: 35mm strip of negs and a set of prints. I’d always thought it was how they’d done it, with photographs.
The streets looked different but not because of the new snowfall: there weren’t so many people about and the traffic was thinning; between Praga and the city centre there was a darkened car standing at almost every intersection. Those who didn’t want to be involved were keeping indoors and those who were waiting for midnight were lying low.
No one stopped us: the car carried police-plates.
There’d been a briefcase in the office and I’d cleared it out and refilled it with the stuff I wanted and it was on the carpeted floor with Voskarev’s. The main document was on my lap and I leafed through it because there might be a chance to summarise the key facts in signals before I had a go at breaking a frontier. That would be when they’d get me, if I reached that far. Voskarev was working satisfactorily as a hostage but there was a deadline on that: he and Foster weren’t officially involved in the counter-insurgent operations but they were in liaison with the police divisions and they’d be reported as missing, any time now.
‘After all, we only need to prove our point that the uprising was incited by the West. We’ve nothing against you personally.’ His smile had great charm in it and his tone was patient. ‘Once you’ve been convicted you’ll be of no further use to us - sorry to put it that way but I’m sure you understand - so there’ll be no point in taking it out on you afterwards We’re not spiteful, you know.’
He was on the tip-up seat: he seemed to like it there. I remembered something about back-trouble, a slipped disc or something: at parties he always chose an upright chair. I said:
‘You couldn’t have used Merrick, didn’t you know that?’ On the relevant pages of the document Merrick’s name had been crossed out and Longstreet written above it by hand. ‘He’s got diplomatic immunity.. The most you could have done was kick him out of the country.’
‘Generally speaking yes, but we’d have made sure he’d elect to go on trial. That’s why we chose him, instead of a known agent like Browning of M.I.6 - he’s piddling about at the Embassy. I expect you’re aware of that.’
‘I never know anything about M.I.6.’
He gave a soft laugh. ‘Same old thing, the departments in London don’t hit it off, do they, never have. But young Merrick was just the job, y
ou see: we wanted to create an inexperienced man and groom him for stardom. Someone we could rely on to say the right things at the trial. Then you turned up.’
‘Supposing you can ever get me inside a tribunal, you think I’ll say all the right things?’
‘You don’t need to. You’ve been incriminating yourself since the day you flew in, and it’s all down there in the reports sent in by Merrick. It won’t really matter what you say.’
Lights reflected in the glass division and I watched them and they steadied and followed for two blocks through the central area past Ogrod Saski Park and I began sweating because the minute Foster was reported missing the Moskwicz would become a trap.
‘I don’t think it’s a police car, old boy. But it will be, sooner or later.’ He leaned towards me and said with absolute sincerity: ‘You’ll have to accept my little offer, so you ought to do it now, because don’t you see you’re only adding to the charges, playing right into their hands? I’ll try telling them I went with you to the Commissariat of my own free will, but old Vosky’s going to bleat out the whole story. You must see you’re making things difficult for me.’
Basic brainwash technique: the operator allies himself with the subject without any pretence of switching loyalties: ‘their’ hands. Friendly attitude: ‘old Vosky’, not such a bad chap if you treat him right.
‘What d’you think the chances are, Foster?’
He wouldn’t tell the truth unless it suited him but it’d give me an idea of what else he wanted to sell me.
The puffy lids opened wider in surprise. ‘They’re a hundred per cent. I give you my word that the maximum will be three years, providing you - ‘
‘The chances of Moscow sending tanks in.’
He looked away. I hadn’t done it deliberately but for a moment he’d thought I was hooked.
‘It depends how far things go.’
That could be the truth. For the past three days there’d been careful announcements about tank regiments carrying out winter manoeuvres ten miles outside the city, ‘to test the efficiency of mobile armoured units in snow conditions’.
