Disorderly Elements

by Bob Cook

  Having finished his meal, Rawls left the hotel and went for an early evening stroll. He walked through the Anger Boulevard, Erfurt’s main shopping street, and passed by the heavy grey-brown Kaufmann church, where Luther said mass in 1522. He then turned into Hermann-Jahn Strasse and crossed over the river Gera.

  Had he bothered to look over to the right, Rawls would have seen the brightly coloured Krämerbrücke or Grocer’s Bridge, one of Erfurt’s main tourist attractions. The bridge dates back to 1325 and consists of a row of three-storey houses painted red, yellow and white stretching right across the river, held above the water by wooden rafters and brick columns. But Rawls did not bother to look to the right, and he would have ignored the bridge even if he had seen it.

  Once he was over the river, Rawls walked down to the end of Hermann-Jahn Strasse, and turned left into a maze of narrow side-streets. He consulted his pocket-map and walked around until he found a small bar called Der Satz. He entered it and saw that there were no customers.

  A plump little barman with no hair and the complexion of a dead fish was drying some beer glasses behind the bar.

  “I’m afraid we’re closed,” the barman said.

  “I’m glad to hear it,” Rawls said. “I’d like a beer, please.”

  The barman’s expression did not change. His little blue eyes gazed calmly at Rawls as he continued to dry the glasses.

  “What beer would you like?” he asked.

  “Do you serve American beers? Pabst, Michelob, anything like that?”

  “You come to Germany and ask for American beer? That’s a little strange, isn’t it?”

  “I get homesick, Herr Schlick.”

  The barman went over to the door and locked it. He then drew the blinds down over the entrance and returned to the bar, where he pulled out two bottles and opened them.

  “You can’t get American beer in this country,” he said. “Welcome to Erfurt, Mr Rawls.”

  “Thank you,” Rawls said. He took a large mouthful of the cold amber lager and sat down on a stool.

  “What can I do for you?” Herr Schlick said.

  “Didn’t they tell you?”

  “Tell me again.”

  “Still not convinced?” Rawls grinned.

  “Certain convictions can be very costly in the DDR, Mr Rawls.”

  “Okay. I want to find out about Neumann, and, if possible, to meet him. Can that be arranged?”

  “Perhaps, but it won’t be easy. Nobody knows anything about Neumann, and his present condition is anybody’s guess.”

  “You mean he could be dead?”

  “It’s possible. All we know for certain is that if he’s alive, he’s definitely in the hospital.”

  “Can I get in there?”

  “Very difficult,” said Schlick. He wiped a finger across his chin to remove a small dribble of lager. He licked the finger pensively and gazed down at his glass. “You can imagine what kind of a place it is. Heavily guarded.”

  “So what do I do?”

  Schlick smiled thinly.

  “If I were you, I’d go home,” he said. “I don’t know what you’re after, but it can’t be worth this sort of trouble.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that.”

  “Judge, jury and executioner,” Schlick observed. “Very well. We once managed to get somebody in there. His motives were no doubt less worthy than yours: he wanted to steal some drugs. But the basic difficulty was the same.”

  “What did you do?”

  “One of the doctors at the hospital is having an affair with a local girl. He usually calls round at her place for a quickie while he’s supposed to be on the early evening shift. His movements are easy to time because she doesn’t get home from work until quarter to six, and he can only be absent from work between half-five and seven. Before then the afternoon staff would notice his absence, and the night staff are all there by seven o’clock. So, allowing for driving time, we can usually count on him turning up at about six o’clock and leaving half an hour later.”

  “That’s definitely a quickie. What does this do for me?”

  “The doctor drives a clapped-out old Trabant. I’ll give you the registration number. When nobody’s looking, it’s very easy to open the boot and climb in— you know how to do such things?”

  “Yes,” Rawls said.

  “Good. The Trabant boot is easier to open than most. If you can manage that, the rest should be quite straightforward. Just wait until the good doctor has finished his lovemaking, and he will drive you right into the hospital.”

  “How about getting out of the place?”

  “The doctor finishes his shift at about eight-thirty. If you haven’t got what you want by then, you will have to hide until the morning and repeat the performance with one of the night-workers’ cars. Remember, the whole building is heavily patrolled. Don’t even contemplate breaking out of it—that would be far too dangerous.”

  Schlick pulled out a small notepad and wrote some details on it. He then tore the page out and handed it to Rawls.

  “This is the girl’s address. You have a map? Good. The number below it is the registration number of the doctor’s car. Be there between five to six and half past. If he doesn’t turn up, try again the next evening.”

  “Thanks,” Rawls said, pocketing the note. “Tell me, what exactly is this place? Is it really a hospital?”

  “Oh yes,” Schlick said. “It contains genuine, old-fashioned lunatics. They also throw in the occasional political criminal, but it’s principally a madhouse. The man you want: he’s a political offender, I suppose?”

  “Something like that,” Rawls said.

  “He must be very important to you to merit all this trouble.”

  “He is. I think he knows something vital.”

  “Really?” Schlick sounded almost impressed.

  “Listen,” Rawls said. “Has there been any police or military activity around here lately? Unusual activity, I mean?”

  “Not that I know of,” Schlick said. “In fact it’s been very quiet.”

  “What about Grünbaum? Why was he arrested?”

  “Who knows?” Schlick said, but his eyes twinkled. “I had nothing to do with Grünbaum. He was a criminal. Dangerous company.”

  “He never did any work for us?”

  “America? No. There was some talk of him working for the West, but it was probably just rumour.”

  “These rumours, where did they come from?”

  “People,” Schlick smiled. “Just people. You must understand, there were many stories told about Grünbaum. He was a gangster. People like to invent stories about such people. Myths.”

  “I see,” Rawls said, but he was not convinced. “Do you know anyone who knew him? Someone I could talk to.”

  “Let me see…” Schlick tilted back his head and thought about it for a moment. “There was someone. A man called Carnap. I have occasional dealings with him. He may be able to help.”

  “Can I see him?”

  “Perhaps. I will try to arrange it if you like. Come back and see me when you have finished your business at the hospital. If you finish it.”

  Rawls drained his glass of beer and produced a thick manila envelope from his jacket.

  “I think you’ll find it’s all here,” he said.

  “Excellent,” Schlick said. “You’d never imagine how useful Western currency is in these parts.”

  “I’ve got a pretty good imagination,” Rawls said. “It goes with the job. See you in a couple of days.”

  He left the bar and returned to the hotel.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  WYMAN SAT on Margaret’s sofa in Margaret’s flat, immersed in brandy, Margaret and Chopin’s Nocturne number 3. She lay across the sofa, dozing with her head in his lap, oblivious to the music and the worries in Wyman’s mind.

  He blew out a long stream of cigarette smoke and looked at his watch. It was 2.20 A.M.

  “It’s two-twenty,” he said.

  �
�Mmmm,” Margaret said.

  “The house is on fire.”

  “Mmmm.”

  “World War Three has just been declared.”

  “Who cares?”

  “I’m going to have a baby.”

  “That isn’t funny,” she giggled.

  “No,” he said.

  She opened her eyes and looked up at him.

  “Are you all right?” she asked.

  “I’m going to have to go away.”

  “Where?”

  “Europe again. It’s my last job.”

  She frowned.

  “What’s happening? I don’t understand.”

  He sighed and put out his cigarette.

  “I’m supposed to negotiate a transaction with someone in Germany. After that I shall leave the Firm.”

  “Do they know?”

  “They will.”

  There was a pause as the nocturne rippled to a close.

  “How long will you be?”

  “Only a few days.”

  “What about me?”

  Wyman smiled and stroked her hair gently.

  “That’s the six thousand dollar question.”

  “And what’s the six thousand dollar answer?”

  He removed his glasses and reached for his cigarettes. He pulled out two, lit them, and put one in Margaret’s mouth.

  “If I asked you to live with me in Europe, would you find the idea utterly horrendous?”

  “No, of course not,” she said. “Why do you want to go? I thought you were the great patriot.”

  “I was. I still am. But it’s going to be very difficult to get used to England without the College and the Firm. Especially the College.”

  She smiled.

  “I can never understand your feelings for that university,” she said. “All that back-stabbing and one-upmanship. And they haven’t exactly repaid your loyalty, have they?”

  He sipped his brandy and felt its warm silky vapour brush gently past his taste-buds and down his throat.

  “The College is far more than the sum of the people who run it at any one time. If the present incumbents have no use for me, that is no reflection on the College itself. That may sound corny and metaphysical, but I believe it. Besides, I can’t exactly blame the College Council for my present misfortune. They have their own difficulties, you know. Everyone’s being hit by the recession nowadays.”

  “Loyal to the last,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t understand,” she said. “The Conservatives are supposed to be the Establishment party. You’re an Establishment figure if ever there was one. You should be the last person to suffer from Government policy. It doesn’t make sense.”

  “The flaw,” Wyman said in his most scholarly tone, “lies in your major premise. The Conservatives were the Establishment party. They aren’t any longer.”

  “Major premise,” she said mockingly. “I’m not an undergraduate any more, you know.”

  “And I’m not a don any more, but you take my point. Oxbridge logicians are no longer Downing Street’s flavour of the month.”

  “Yes,” she conceded. “But why don’t you get a job teaching at another university? Just because the College doesn’t want you—”

  “You think I should work in some redbrick, do you?” Wyman snorted. “A tremendous idea. I can just picture myself sitting happily in a plastic-and-chrome lecturers’ common room in some squalid provincial city, exchanging pleasantries with sociologists with halitosis, structuralists with dyed hair and earrings, and the entire panoply of middle-class Marxists. A fitting end to a distinguished academic career, don’t you think?”

  Margaret laughed.

  “Michael, you’re a snob.”

  “Possibly,” he said. “But that doesn’t alter the fact that I would be desperately unhappy in such an environment.”

  “I suppose so,” she said. “But the redbricks aren’t the only alternative. What about universities abroad? Harvard? Heidelberg? Bologna? The Sorbonne?”

  “Yes, yes, I’ve thought about it, and it’s an interesting idea. The question is, would they take a logician with my background? That remains to be seen. It’s part of the reason why I’d like to move abroad.”

  “And I’m to come with you?”

  “If you want.”

  “I want,” she said. “Where do you have in mind?”

  “I don’t know yet. What I intend is to go to Europe for this last chore for the Firm, and I simply won’t return. I’ll find us a place, send you the address, and we’ll meet there. How does that sound?”

  “How am I supposed to meet you? I can barely afford a bus fare nowadays, let alone a plane ticket.”

  “I’ll put some money into your account.”

  Her eyes narrowed in suspicion.

  “You’ve thought it all out, haven’t you?”

  He nodded.

  “There’s one more thing,” he said.

  “Go on.”

  “I don’t want the Firm to hear about what we’re doing. My final wages will be paid on the thirtieth, and they are based upon my retiring at the end of June. In fact, I will have severed my links with the Firm by the first week of June, if not earlier. Hence, I’d rather the Firm knew nothing about my movements until after the money has been paid.”

  “Are they really that mean with money?”

  “Intolerably niggardly. Owen has become obsessed with savings; I think he’s under pressure from the Minister.”

  “It’s ridiculous,” she said. “You can’t run an intelligence department on the cheap, especially yours.”

  “I know that and you know that,” Wyman said. “And even Owen knows that, though he won’t admit it. Unfortunately, the powers that be don’t know that. Hence I am out of work.”

  He drained his glass of brandy.

  “What I propose to do is send you a postcard from wherever I’ll be, simply signed ‘Betty’. There’ll be an address on it, and when you receive it, meet me there.”

  “Yes, master,” she said. “This is all a bit cloak and dagger, isn’t it?”

  “For a month’s wages,” he said, “I am prepared to understudy Cesare Borgia.”

  Chapter Thirty-six

  “DESCRIBE HIM TO ME,” Bulgakov said.

  “Tall, well-built. Late thirties. Short dark hair. Wears steel-rimmed tinted glasses. Quietly dressed. Travels light.”

  Captain Fichte read from his notes.

  “Rawls,” Bulgakov said. “It has to be. What does his shoe say?”

  “His passport gives the name Thompson Clarke. He claims to be a flower salesman.”

  Bulgakov grinned.

  “Clearly Mr Rawls does have a sense of humour, despite all appearances.”

  “We get many such people coming to Erfurt, Herr Major. The International Flower Show—”

  “I know, I know,” Bulgakov snapped impatiently. “Did you follow him?”

  “He’s staying at the Interhotel Kosmos, Herr Major.”

  “Don’t put a tail on him,” Bulgakov said thoughtfully. “He’d spot that at once. Just keep an eye on the hotel.”

  “What are you going to do, Herr Major?”

  “For the time being, nothing. Try to get a photograph of him as he leaves the hotel, but do be discreet.”

  “Of course, Herr Major,” Fichte said, deeply shocked that the major should regard him capable of an indiscretion.

  “Is his phone tapped?”

  “All the telephones in the hotel are tapped.”

  “Yes,” Bulgakov said. “He’ll expect that, I suppose.”

  His eyes narrowed in concentration.

  “He’ll have to move about in public, especially if he’s posing as a businessman. Very well, once you have the photograph, circulate it among the police at the railway station and bus depots, as well as the car-hire centre. Emphasize that he is not to be apprehended or detained. Tell them to let us know whenever he is spotted. For the time being, I simply wish to keep an eye on h
is movements.”

  “Is he a dangerous man, Herr Major?”

  “He eats your sort for breakfast,” Bulgakov growled, noting with satisfaction the look of horror on Fichte’s face.

  “Do we know what he’s going to do?”

  “I don’t think even he knows, Hauptmann. With the Americans strategy is all and tactics are ignored.”

  “You seem to have personal knowledge of this man.”

  “I have,” Bulgakov said. “We first met in Chile about ten years ago. In those days, things were going entirely his way. I suspect the positions are now reversed.”

  “I presume he will be shot, Herr Major?”

  “Don’t presume anything, Hauptmann,” Bulgakov smiled. “After all, he might shoot you.”

  Fichte paled.

  “Will that be all, Herr Major?”

  “Yes, for now. Thank you, Hauptmann.”

  Fichte left the office.

  “Prick,” said Bulgakov, in Russian.

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  WYMAN FLEW FROM LONDON to Geneva on the morning of May 30. Once again, he travelled under the assumed name of Edmund Ryle. The Banque Internationale Descartes greeted him with its customary deference, and when he explained that he wished to deposit some cash into a numbered account, he was escorted to the office of M. Barthes.

  Barthes was a little taken aback at being presented with two million pounds sterling in used fifty-pound notes, but he was not unduly upset about it. With a couple of assistants, he counted the notes and satisfied himself that everything was in order. He then produced a form which Wyman filled in and signed, certifying that the two million had been paid into account G2H-17-493 on that date. Barthes then gave Wyman a receipt for the money, and the two men shook hands.

  Wyman then asked if it would be possible to have a quick word with M. Piaget, the manager. Barthes assured Wyman that Piaget would be delighted to see him. Under the circumstances, Wyman was not particularly surprised.