The Russian Passenger

by Gunter Ohnemus

  Thanks, said Sonia.

  Anyway, we’re rid of them for the moment, but they may come back. They know you’re in Italy, after all. They may try again.

  We’re going to have to distract their attention before we fly to the States, I said, or they may watch all the airports.

  So? said Luigi.

  So I’ll go to Germany and use my credit card there. We’ll make a deliberate mistake. I’ll go east and fill up somewhere using my credit card – leave a definite trail behind. This middle-aged man will go east, not west, and no one will realize he’s going east so as to go west. I may make for Chemnitz or Leipzig. Or Erfurt or Dresden.

  What car will you be driving?

  I won’t go by car. I’ll take the train.

  How are you going take on petrol if you go by train? asked Luigi. Or are you planning to drive the locomotive into a gas station and fill up with diesel?

  Leave that to me, I said. I’ll think of something. It’s a long train journey, but I’ll be back in three days at most.

  Where will you spend the night? asked Sonia.

  On the train, I told her.

  Thursday

  Next morning I went and had a really short haircut. Sonia waited for me at a bar, sitting at one of the tables outside.

  My God, you look like something on a Wanted poster.

  No, I said, like an ageing skinhead. I’m going to eastern Germany, after all.

  Yes, she said, you needn’t have imported any pit bulls from Russia, you’ve got enough of them already. But now you’re going to get some decent headgear.

  We went into a shop and she bought me a dark blue baseball cap with the Nike logo.

  When we were outside in the street she eyed me from head to foot, then removed the cap and replaced it with the peak facing backwards. I took it off and put it on the right way round. Sonia turned it round again. We did that three or four times.

  She smiled sadly. If only it were all for real, Harry. If only life were like this. I’d sit in a field and hold your head in my lap till your hair grew again. For weeks. Months. You must take good care of yourself from now on.

  And you must take good care of our Americans, I said. We’ll be needing them.

  * * *

  Luigi drove us to the station at Grosseto. He’d brought a box of ammunition for my gun. Just in case, he said. Then he handed me a Michelin guide for Germany. Hotels and restaurants. Just in case, my friend. It gives street maps of the bigger places. Three-star restaurants too, of course.

  Terrorist, I said.

  Mafia lover, he said.

  Skinhead, said Sonia.

  What a team, I said. We hugged each other. Luigi took my cap and turned it back to front. No, not like that, said Sonia, and turned it the right way round. Then I boarded the train for La Spezia. It was just before three p.m.

  * * *

  I had decided to avoid Munich and travel to Frankfurt via Basel. I would have had to change in Munich, of course, and it was quite possible that I would be seen by someone who knew me. Some fellow cabby or neighbour, or one of my regular fares. I couldn’t risk that.

  This meant that my passport would be checked in Switzerland, but that was a risk I had to take. My Italian passport would surely be good enough for that – it had cost fifteen hundred dollars, after all. As far as the Swiss and Italian customs were concerned, I was Raimondo Vinciguerra. Luigi was sure the passport would withstand routine scrutiny on the train, even by Italian eyes.

  At La Spezia I boarded the train for Milan, and by nine-fifteen I was in a couchette bound for Frankfurt. I wanted to be rested when I got to Germany. I shared the compartment with a young man from Livorno, a budding priest who was off to spend a semester studying at Heidelberg University. Excellent. I felt sure he didn’t read any part of any newspaper in which my picture might appear.

  The train pulled out of Milan station a little after half past nine. The came Como and Chiasso, Lugano and Bellinzona, but by that time we were asleep. We also slept through Basel and Karlsruhe. Then the young man woke up and got his things ready. It was around six a.m. when he left the train at Heidelberg. He gave me a bleary smile.

  We got to Frankfurt’s main-line station at seven. I breakfasted in the buffet and bought a ticket to Erfurt. A return ticket. No point in exposing myself twice to the gaze of ticket clerks who might have read some newspaper that carried a picture of me.

  At eight I was on the Intercity to Erfurt. I left the train when it stopped at Bad Hersfeld at half past nine. Then I went to a florist’s, bought a yellow rose which I put in my bag, and went in search of a petrol station. It didn’t take me long to find one. The place was pretty busy, even for the time of day.

  The weather wasn’t particularly hot, but I put my bag in the shade, sat down beside it, and watched the cars that came and went. I was waiting for a well-laden car driven by a woman. After about ten minutes an anthracite-coloured Passat estate with Hamburg licence plates pulled into bay number three. There were two children on the back seat. The woman cleaned her windscreen while the petrol was flowing into the tank. I took the yellow rose from my bag and went over to her.

  Excuse me, I said, holding out the rose, but I’d like to congratulate you. You’re our three-thousandth customer this month, and we’ve got a PR scheme going. Until the end of the year, every thousandth customer can fill up free of charge. You’re number three thousand.

  The woman took the rose, looking agreeably surprised. That’s wonderful, she said. And my tank was nearly empty.

  By now it was full. She replaced the nozzle in the holder, screwed up the petrol cap, smiled at me, and started to get back into the car. I couldn’t let her drive off before the petrol was paid for or some pump attendant might have stopped her.

  Hey, I said, kicking the near-side front tyre, maybe you’d better check the pressure in that one. It looks a bit low. Park over there. I’ll be right back and I’ll do it for you. I’d better tell them you’re our three-thousandth customer or you could be done for bilking.

  She laughed at that.

  I went to the cashier, put my credit card on the counter, and said: Number three.

  Her tyre pressure was okay. I gave the Passat a wave as it drove out on to the main road. The children looked out of the rear window and waved back.

  You’re a con artist, Sonia had told me. In the town I had lunch at a restaurant and paid by credit card. Then I went to an outfitter’s and bought some slacks for myself and a dress and some lingerie in Sonia’s size. Once again paying by credit card. They’re for my daughter, I told the sales assistant. Could I change them if necessary?

  After that I bought another travel bag and went and sat on a park bench, where I transferred everything from the old one to the new. Soon afterwards I spotted a big refuse bin in a courtyard and dumped the old bag in it. I’d left enough of a trail in Bad Hersfeld.

  At half past twelve I boarded a train to Erfurt. It was seventeen minutes late, but that gave me time to think things over. I had an idea. I wouldn’t simply tour the area dishing out yellow roses every few hundred miles. That would be wasted effort.

  At Erfurt station I called a hotel I’d chosen from Luigi’s Michelin on the journey. To judge by the number of beds, it was quite a large hotel. Maybe that was a bad idea – in fact it might be unforgivably stupid and I would end up dead, even if death took a little while to catch up with me. I had reckoned that it might be some time – maybe not until the credit card accounts went out – before the police or the Mafia picked up our trail and concluded that we had probably gone east. Luigi and Sonia hadn’t been sure how the police worked when they were reconstructing a route with the aid of credit cards. Sonia said she’d heard it could take only an hour or two if they were hot on the trail. But were they really hot on our trail? Under normal circumstances the hotel’s registration system probably functioned much faster. There was a chance that it would function too fast – that someone would recognize me or my name – but I would have to risk th
at. It might even be the right course of action.

  I walked to the big hotel where I’d booked a room. It must have had at least fifteen floors. The young woman at the reception desk in the spacious foyer double-checked my name – Harry Willemer? she repeated – and fed it into her computer, together with all my particulars. This took a while, and I thought I detected a look of consternation on her face. Then she gave me a friendly, neutral smile, handed me the plastic card that would open the door of my room on the ninth floor, and wished me a pleasant stay. I had booked a double room, telling her that my wife would be arriving tomorrow or the day after. I did that almost automatically, but it might even be a help. If the receptionist had recognized my name and informed the police, they would wait before arresting me. I enquired about a place for my car in the underground garage. They didn’t have an underground garage, just a car park behind the hotel. Typical East Germany. A hotel with fifteen or sixteen floors but no underground garage. Scared the foundations couldn’t take it.

  I still had to park my non-existent car, so I made my way back to the exit. After a few steps I turned to see the receptionist staring after me. Our eyes met. I returned to the desk and said: By the way, would you have the Telecom booklet that lists area codes? Could I borrow it for an hour?

  She handed me the book. I went to the car park and had a good look round. It was a potential escape route, after all. Then I look the lift to the ninth floor.

  The first thing I did when I reached my room was clean my teeth and wash my face. Then I sat down beside the phone and looked up the area codes for St Petersburg and Moscow. The Russian Federation had retained the country code 00 7, like the Soviet Union in the good old, safe old days of the Cold War. I dialled it, followed by the area code and any number that came into my head. I did this ten times or so. Six times the number actually existed, and I blathered something in English interspersed with the few scraps of Russian I knew, trying to spin out the call as long as I could. After ten minutes I was finished. If someone checked the telephone account for my room, he would find that I’d made six calls to Russia and two to Lithuania (00 370). Excellent.

  Then I had another idea. I called Aliosha’s mobile number. After the third ring a man’s voice answered.

  Yes?

  Who’s speaking? I asked.

  Who wants to know? The man had a slight Russian accent. So the police hadn’t confiscated the phone.

  I’m a friend of Sonia’s.

  Well?

  I want to make a deal with you.

  The sort of deal you made with Aliosha?

  Aliosha meant to kill us, I said.

  You think he was the only one?

  We’re pretty well known these days, I said. If you kill us you could find yourselves in big trouble. We ought to talk.

  When?

  In a week or two, I said.

  Where?

  Maybe in St Petersburg. Maybe Leipzig or Dresden. I’ll let you know nearer the time.

  All right, said the man. We want that money – it’s ours, after all. Then he added: Where are you now? Italy?

  Italy? I said, trying to inject a note of condescension into my voice. It seemed to imply: Who on earth would want to go to Italy? I wouldn’t have thought my voice capable of doing that. Then I said: I’ll call you again in two weeks’ time. And hung up.

  After that I called reception. I would be out for a few hours, I said, so if anyone called me would they please make a note of the name. I had a shower, changed, stowed my gun and ammunition in the small, light rucksack I had in my bag, donned my baseball cap, rode the lift down, and left the hotel by way of the car park. I waited outside until a largish tour party arrived, then mingled with them and sat down in an armchair in the foyer as far as possible from the reception desk.

  Roughly half an hour had elapsed when a man without any luggage came in. He walked straight up to the young woman who had checked me in and talked to her for a while. She fed some details into the computer. Soon afterwards she removed a sheet of paper from the printer. I felt myself smiling. If I was the person concerned, it was a printout of the phone numbers I’d called. Then she picked up the phone and dialled a short number. Having waited thirty or forty seconds, she shook her head and handed the man something. Probably a duplicate of my plastic room key. He walked off in the direction of the lifts.

  As soon as the exit was obscured by a mass of people coming and going, I slipped outside and waited. Ten minutes later the man emerged. If he’d searched my room he wouldn’t have found anything very helpful. I wondered what he’d thought when he found the lingerie for Sonia. I’d only bought the things as a way of using my credit card as often as possible, and to leave a trace of Sonia as well, but perhaps it had been an even better idea than I’d originally thought. The receptionist was bound to have told him I was waiting for my wife. If he was a policeman, they would wait until Sonia showed up – they would prefer to make a double arrest. If he was from the Mafia, on the other hand, they would act without delay. Harry Willemer could be tortured, after all. He would soon reveal Sonia’s whereabouts.

  I followed the man into the next street, where a dark green Ford was waiting for him. He got into the passenger seat. Five seconds later he had a mobile in his hand and was making notes on a pad. Shortly afterwards a patrol car drove slowly down the street, and the driver gave the Ford an almost imperceptible nod. This didn’t look like a Mafia operation.

  I returned to the hotel. My room looked untouched at first sight, but the bag containing the lingerie for Sonia had been replaced the other way round. I packed my things, left the hotel, again by way of the car park, walked to the station, and deposited my bag in a left-luggage locker. Then I went to a café, where I had a snack and a Pils with a cappuccino to follow.

  Three hours later I was back at the hotel. I went in through the main entrance, just in case someone was waiting for me in the car park. I had been in my room about twenty minutes when the phone rang. It was the woman from reception. A gentleman in the foyer, one of the hotel guests, wanted a word with me. He had accidentally scraped my car while parking. Would I join him downstairs to go and inspect the damage?

  That didn’t sound like the police.

  I said: The blue Audi 100 with the Frankfurt number plates?

  The woman said something inaudible. Then, to me: That’s right, the blue Audi 100.

  No, it wasn’t the police. Fast work! I wasn’t prepared for this.

  I was just having a shower, I said. Please ask the gentleman to come up.

  The woman consulted someone again. Then she said: He’ll be right up.

  I had thirty seconds. A minute at most. I turned on the TV, took the gun from the rucksack, hurried out into the corridor, and hid round the next corner.

  A tall, thickset man emerged from the lift. After a brief look round he went to the door of my room. He was much bigger and heavier than me – stronger too, without a doubt. He knocked and listened. When he put his ear to the door I stole out of my hiding place and tiptoed towards him. He knocked again. A TV voice could be heard issuing from the room. The third time he knocked I was right behind him. I could see he was holding a gun.

  Drop the gun and don’t turn round, I told him in a quiet, affable tone.

  He dropped the gun.

  Shove it towards me with your left foot.

  He shoved it towards me with his left foot.

  Now lie down.

  I picked up his gun and stuffed it in my waistband, took two steps forward, planted my foot on his neck. Then I unlocked the door and pushed it open.

  Now crawl inside – slowly.

  I didn’t know what to do with him. He was lying face down on the floor of my room and I didn’t know what to do. The best thing would have been to knock him out with my pistol butt. I couldn’t do it, though. I just couldn’t raise my hand. It was like a form of paralysis. What had Luigi said? You simply aren’t scared enough yet. That was the probable reason, but I couldn’t stand around there fo
r hours, waiting for this guy on the floor to become scared enough himself to counterattack.

  The guy on the floor must have sensed this. He suddenly rolled over, flexed both knees, and kicked me in the stomach with his heels. That was just what he should have done, but it was still a mistake, because it exempted me from having to think what to do. If you’ve ever done any boxing you know exactly where to hit someone. I did, at least, and when the man sprang to his feet I was quite calm. Oblivious of the pain in my stomach, I experienced a quite remarkable sensation of pleasure as I punched him in the solar plexus with all my might. He doubled up, gasping for air with his mouth wide open. The breath rattled in his throat as he tried to suck some air in, but it was like trying to pump up a tyre with a rent in it. He simply couldn’t breathe. Where his lungs were concerned, air had become a foreign body. I caught him an uppercut with my knee and, when he straightened, gave him another punch in the solar plexus.

  That was it. He was out for the count.

  I manhandled him on to the bed, wrenched the flex of one of the bedside lights out of the wall and bound his wrists with it. I tied his feet together with the flex of the other bedside light and wound a towel round his head. Finally, I took the other twin bed and deposited it on top of him. First the bedclothes, then the mattress, then the wooden bedstead. That would keep him busy for a while – when he was in a fit enough state to busy himself with anything. I turned up the TV a bit and left the room.

  I felt sure they would be waiting for me in the car park. The man had originally wanted to meet me downstairs, after all, so I made my way to the foyer. We’ve just been to the car park, I told the receptionist. Minor damage only. I’m going out for a bite.

  She stared at me in surprise. The man had probably told her he was from the police. I bade her good evening, gave her a farewell wave, and walked out. Half an hour later I was on the train to Frankfurt.

  But the fact that I was on the Frankfurt train didn’t mean I was safe. I’d only been on board a few minutes when three skinheads started to harass people. They’d torn up a copy of Playboy and were sticking pictures of naked girls on the windows next to other passengers. No one made any attempt to stop them. I was fifth on their list. I debated whether to get up and move to another carriage, but that wouldn’t have done much good. I resolved to keep a low profile. What had Sonia said outside that Italian church? No punch-ups!