The Contract

by Gerald Seymour

  'Johnny, I brought some tea for you.'

  Johnny propped on one elbow. Johnny gazing at him and seeking a reason. Johnny who slept so tidily that the parting of his hair was still intact.

  ' I brought some tea.'

  Brought some tea because that was a personal gesture, that was a bridge between pointman and planner, that was the way Carter hoped to span the chasm. Carter could not have said why he needed the relationship, nor where could be found its importance to DIPPER. He knew only that without it there would be an emptiness, that the mission would have no heart. And if there were catastrophe then Johnny would need the knowledge that he belonged and was a part of something greater that supported and upheld him. That was why Carter had gone down to Mrs Ferguson's kitchen and boiled the kettle and made the tea.

  'Playing the housemaid?'

  'I never sleep at weekends, I never just lie in. When I'm at home, when we haven't a show on, then I'd be out in the garden or walking the dog ...

  I thought you'd like a mug of tea.'

  'Thanks.'

  'I always like one myself, early on.'

  'You were right to wake me. I'm trying to marry the post- card snaps to the map. They're both ersatz, substitutes.' Johnny yawned, threw back his head, scratched at his chest. 'I was at it late last night, must have been at it a couple of hours after we went up.'

  'You'll be all right, Johnny. We all think so, we're all very pleased with the way it's gone so far.'

  'Thanks.'

  'It's a special day today, Johnny, did you know that?' He was playing the parent figure, couldn't help himself.

  'What day is it today?'

  'It's the first of the month.'

  'What happens on the first of the month?'

  'It's the first of June, come on . . . it's the day Otto Guttmann goes to Magdeburg.'

  'You brought me a cup of tea to remind me? Just for that?'

  Carter flinched. 'Not like that, no. I just thought it was a bit of a landmark for us all. I'm sorry, I should have let you sleep . ..'

  'Not to worry.' Johnny heaved himself out of bed, shook his head to achieve the effect of a bucket of cold water poured on his face.

  ' I spoke to Mawby again last night, after you'd gone up. He's off again to Germany, not coming here today. About the weapon, I worked on him a bit . . . he's not happy but he's agreed ... he took a bit of persuading . . .'

  There was a pride in Carter's voice at his achievement against the habits of the Service. 'There'll be a drop-off point organised for you in Magdeburg . . . You know we're going outside normal practice on this one, it's irregular.'

  'What are you giving me?'

  'Probably the APS, the Stechkin. Nine millimetre, twenty round magazine. They'll get one with a tubular shoulder stock which'll bump the range up to a couple of hundred metres.'

  'That would be right.'

  'I suggested to Mawby that if you were to be armed we had better make it effective. In for a penny, and that nonsense. We can also make available up to 4 fragmentation grenades, we reckoned the RGD 5s. That makes the pay load all east bloc . . . might confuse them a bit.'

  'Good for you.' Johnny had begun to dress, peeling off his striped pyjamas.

  'It wasn't easy to get Mawby to agree.'

  'I'm sure it wasn't.'

  Carter fidgeted on his feet, wondered whether he should withdraw. If he did so then he would have aborted the whole journey up the stairs with the mug that still cooled on the bedside table, untouched.

  'Not that the weaponry affects the main problem, the persuasion of old man Guttmann

  Johnny's eyes lit up. 'Of course it bloody doesn't. Why do you think I go off each night and sit in this bloody hole? Why do you think I'm always first away in the evenings? .. . Because all the crap downstairs doesn't help me with the main issue. I'm not a bloody idiot you know.'

  Carter stumbled for the door. Felt a pain, a desperate sadness and his mind was filled with the anger of Johnny's face, the anger that was the overcoat of fear.

  As he went out of the room Johnny called to him.

  'Thanks, thanks for bringing the tea. Give me five minutes and I'll be with you for breakfast.'

  A small voice, a small brave voice.

  Erica Guttmann tilted her window seat back, waved away the stewardess with the meal on the tray, and was content to sink and flow with the even motion of the aircraft. Non stop to Berlin-Schonefeld. High above the cloud layer, distanced from the turbulence. Her eyes were closed, her hands limp on the seat arms, a magazine lay unopened on her lap.

  So tired from all that had gone before.

  Otto Guttmann sat, as always, upright and serious, considering a technical journal, hissing between his teeth either in exasperation at what he read, or at the pleasure of new discovery. She wore the new skirt and blouse that she had bought for the holiday, she had made the effort to lift her morale. Her father was dressed in his perennial dark suit, scornful of concessions towards a vacation.

  He had wearied her in these last weeks. First the task of confronting the lethargy that had seeped over him after the news of Willi. And when at last there was light and his cold grief had thawed imperceptibly there had been the sledge hammer set back of the firing range at Padolsk. The experience had left him flaccid and without enthusiasm for the breakaway from his laboratory and drawing board. Erica had to sort the clothes that he would take with him, Erica had to pack his suitcase, Erica had to write the letters to the friends in Magdeburg and give their arrival and departure dates. In his depression the old man had renewed his work on the guidance circuitry of the weapon, calling for greater effort from his technical team. Driving himself, pushing forward, moving beyond the perimeters of possibility for the health of an old man. Let the bastards do it themselves, she had told herself. He had earned his retirement, was owed a rest haven far from the badgering complaints of the generals from Defence . . . But it would not be granted. Their thanks would be confined to the few scientists and military officers who were detailed to walk behind his casket and stand in patronising quiet while the speeches were made over a worn down corpse.

  Once she had pushed her hand against his and squeezed the hard, boned fingers and he had leaned towards her and his roughened lips had kissed behind her ear. The smartness of her new costume would have appealed to him. The perfume that an officer stationed at Padolsk had brought back from Romania and which she had dabbed against her skin would give him pleasure. Her long and carefully brushed fair hair would draw his pride.

  From the cockpit came the pilot's information that they had entered the air space of the German Democratic Republic at Schwedt to the north of Berlin. They had received landing permission. The weather on the ground was clear and fine.

  The drone of the aircraft engines switched in tone as the Tupolev sagged through its descent. She roused herself, straightened in her seat and looked at her father. Still trapped in his reading, still remorseless in his study. Pale cheeks. The small puff of cotton wool at his neck where he had slashed the skin while shaving in the hurry of the early morning at the flat. His hair, greying and unruly after the barest efforts of the comb before they had locked the front door of their home.

  Absently she reached across his waist and buckled his seat belt.

  'A few more minutes, then we land.'

  His eyes, huge and blurred through the lenses of his spectacles, turned to her and he nodded. She thought, perhaps, it would have been better if she had held his head against her shoulder and let him weep with the fluency of an old man.

  Better if he could have wept, better if he could have shared.

  How could Willi have allowed himself to die? How could he have been so stupid ?

  A courier from the Service brought to the house at Holmbury the buff envelope that contained the rail tickets and the voucher for the hotel.

  The Dublin travel agency had enclosed a photostat of the relevant pages of the West German train timetable.

  A second class seat had been
booked for John Dawson on the Inter City from Frankfurt to Hannover. There he must change. At two in the morning he would connect with the train that crossed the frontier.

  Obeisfeld in East Germany would be reached at 28 minutes past 3, Magdeburg at 25 minutes past 5.

  'I'll be in a great state to take on the comrades,' remarked Johnny.

  'It's better that you go at night and through a little used crossing, they won't be very bright,' said Carter soothing. 'You'll be able to sleep the rest of the day.'

  'And not much after that.'

  Time rushing past them. Time crushing and burdening the men on the DIPPER team.

  They marched towards the company headquarters' operations room. Not inside, of course, not within sight of the most confidential wall maps of the Walbeck sector. Outside on the beaten down mud, lined up and at ease until the company commander was ready to come from his den and beard them. A blackboard was brought and a large scale map hung to it and a marker cane was produced. The two sections came to attention when the company commander emerged. Beside him Ulf Becker sensed the effort of Heini Schalke to get the contours of his fat arse and fat belly into dashing line.

  Not a bad fellow, the company commander seemed at first sight. He wore the insignia of a major on his shoulder straps. An older man, one of the originals from the days far back when the National Volks Armee was formed and the Border Guard was raised as an integral part of the military forces of the state. Didn't seem flamboyant, nor pompous.

  Didn't walk with the strut of a martinet. Ulf Becker knew his officers, knew what to scout for. He'd be a Party man, he'd hold the SED

  membership card in his tunic pocket, wouldn't be an officer without that, not a major anyway . . .

  The Politoffizier stood behind. Becker watched him. The head of an owl, the body of a stoat. They were the pigs, the ones who set soldier against soldier, the ones who primed one man to offer the studied indiscretion to the other in the watchtower or the earth bunker and waited to see if the confidence were reported. They were the pigs. It was their work to ensure that no soldier trusted his colleague, their work to ensure that on the border no soldier owned a friend. Too close to the fence for that, too close to the green grass beyond the wire.

  It was a new thought for Ulf Becker, a new species of complaint for him. It had not been so before he had ridden on the S-Bahn train in Berlin with Jutte.

  The major called them forward, told them to gather round him, to be near to the map.

  'My name is Pfeffel, you are all most welcome to the Walbeck company.

  You will be with us for some days and we will endeavour to make your stay with us as happy as we can manage. The Walbeck sector of the anti-fascist defences of the DDR is not entirely similar to the area that you are accustomed to patrolling at Weferlingen. Our company frontage lies on either side of the Walbeck Strasse that before our liberation from Nazism by the Red Army linked this coalmining village with that of Emmerstedt now in the BDR.' The major stabbed with his cane at the map, identifying the village and the mauve line of the frontier. 'Walbeck is different to Weferlingen because here the terrain is less friendly to us.

  To prevent crossings of our frontier by saboteurs from the BDR we have had to clear considerable areas of forestry. The whole frontage of our sector is covered by forest and as yet the programme for the building of towers is not completed. We have to maintain the highest level of patrolling. Where the ground is difficult for us we have found that only increased vigilance and watchfulness can compensate.'

  The major had completed his speech, smiled at the young men and retreated to his command post. An NCO followed with a briefing of the duties they would face, and the rosters they would work.

  Ulf Becker listened closely, absorbed the details of the sharp curves in the frontier line, the pockets of dead ground where special care must be taken, the positioning of the bunkers, the frequency of the routine of observing the fence from the Trabant jeeps.

  If he had watched the boy the Politoffizier would have been impressed by this young soldier's apparent keenness to begin his work with the Walbeck company.

  Ulf Becker had 8 more days to serve in the National Volks Armee on the border. He would then spend 3 more days preparing for his demobilisation at Battalion at Seggerde. After that, Berlin and the status of civilian . . . Berlin, where Jutte waited for a letter.

  From the armoury he drew the standard MPiKM of the border, and two magazine clips of ammunition. He was assigned to a junior NCO

  and awarded the night watch in the 40 feet high, square based concrete tower dominating the overgrown and tree strewn Walbeck Strasse.

  There was much cover on either side of the fence there, he was told, high alertness was demanded.

  It was a short meeting at Bonn/Cologne airport.

  Adam Percy had driven up from the German capital to be told that their business could be completed inside the airport. He wondered why Mawby had bothered to come, why their conversation should not be conducted by telephone or telex. Looking for reassurance and comfort, wanting his hand held and stroked with the news that all was according to plan and schedule. Ridiculous, Mawby flying over to be told that the German aspect was advancing. But not for Adam Percy to query the motives of his masters, not for 'out station Bonn' to question and deride.

  Percy was able to confirm that Hermann Lentzer had allocated a driver to bring the car from Berlin to Helmstedt. He had also been informed that a forger had been found who would ride in the car to doctor the transit papers. A BMW 520 would be used for the run, stolen within the next 3 days in West Berlin, resprayed and with changed number plates and fraudulent documents. Better that way than using a hired car which was often subject to closer scrutiny at the border, Percy had remarked.

  "They want to know, Mr Mawby, if we'll be giving them advance knowledge of the pick-up point?'

  'No.'

  'Tell them when they start the run.'

  'When they start the run. It's a financial transaction, an unpleasant and dirty one.'

  Percy did not betray his feelings. 'I'll pass that on.'

  'Stay close to them, won't you . . .'

  'They're as good as any. How good that is remains a matter ofjudgement.'

  'It's the weakest link we have.'

  'When you play around over there all the links are weak.'

  They were sitting in the self-service cafeteria. Two coffees, two sticky cakes. Sitting with their heads close in a caricature of conspiracy.

  'What's our man like, Mr Mawby?'

  'We have no doubts that he'll cope. He has to . . . It will be the biggest show the Service mounts this year, that's what Dus says.'

  Percy circled his spoon in the murk of his coffee. 'They're always the ones that go sour.'

  'You're a damned pessimist.'

  'That's been said before, Mr Mawby. You'll forgive me for saying so but I've also been called a realist. I'm an out of London man. All the plans that I make have to be put directly into operation. You get a bit jaundiced about the infallibility of programmes that descend from Century House.'

  'Concern yourself with the autobahn run,' Mawby said acidly.

  ' I will, don't you worry, Mr Mawby.' Percy gazed back at him over his cup and his cake. Perhaps he should tell Charles Mawby that a sparrow from Wiesbaden had tele- phoned to report that he had let slip to his superior a British interest in Hermann Lentzer. Perhaps he should report to Charles Mawby that his secretary had twice fielded calls from a senior official of BND with the answer that Adam Percy was out of his office.

  Perhaps he should say to Charles Mawby that he had pleaded a cold to avoid attendance of a routine liaison meeting at which he would have sat opposite that same senior official.

  Just a bloody nuisance, wasn't it? A bloody nuisance but peripheral to their business. And Mawby was paranoid about Lentzer and the autobahn run, Mawby would be heaving into the ceiling if the indiscretion were known to him. Better left unsaid. And it would all be smoothed over, the ruffled
German feathers, when Mawby's show was curtained down.

  Percy walked with Mawby to the departure gates, shook his hand and summoned a bleak smile and confided that he was sure that all would be well.

  When he was back in his car, before starting the engine, Percy wrote in his memory pad a gutting of the instructions that he had been given about the transhipment of firearms and explosives that would be sent from London to Bonn by diplomatic bag, and which he must then arrange for delivery to East Berlin. Not a complicated task for him, the moving of a package to the British Embassy in the DDR's capital, but a wretched chore. All of those years that he had been in West Germany, a working lifetime of commitment, and still there were wet eared young men out from London like Charles Mawby who regarded him as little more than a messenger.

  He imagined Mawby back in London, and the quip in Century House,

  'Awkward old cuss, that Percy in Bonn, right for retirement time', but he'd seen them off in the past, the youthful and ambitious Assistant Secretaries, he'd survive Charles Mawby.

  When Adam Percy was angry his ulcer hurt, and he bit his lower lip as he started the car.

  Together the Member for Guildford and the Chief Constable of the county walked around the policeman's garden. Both men had heavy diaries of appointments and a Sunday afternoon provided the opportunity for them to blend their free time.

  His wife did all the work, really, the Chief Constable had remarked.

  She was the one with the fingers to bring on the flowers and shrubs. He confined himself to keeping the grass cut, and he'd be doing that later, and that was a heavy enough hint that Sir Charles Spottiswoode should explain the reason for his visit.

  'In confidence, right, that's understood . . .?'

  'I'm always cautious of confidence. I'm a policeman, not a priest in confessional.' With his pen knife the Chief Constable sliced away the sucker stem from a rose bush.