The Contract

by Gerald Seymour

  ' I've come to a friend for corroboration, and advice.'

  'Try me. We've known each other enough years, we don't have to lay down ground rules.'

  They paced the prim paths with the clear cut borders, they admired the blossom of the pear and apple trees, they bent to examine the rhododendron buds, they looked in the greenhouse at the coming tomatoes. And Sir Charles Spottiswoode talked of what Dennis Tweedle had told him at first hand, and what he had heard once removed of the experiences of Annabel Tweedle and Constable Potterton.

  The Chief Constable led his guest to the centre of the handkerchief lawn.

  'If it wasn't you I was talking to, if it was just your ordinary fellow from the public, then I'd say forget it. But a Member of Parliament doesn't have to forget anything. The incident at the Tweedle house took place, that I know. A young man being brought to the house in a state of distress, the local constable summoned and matching the boy with a missing person we'd been told to raise heaven and hell to find, that's all copper bottom. That end of the county was crawling with spooks and to put it most kindly they were cavalier with my people. I can neither confirm nor deny what was said to Potterton in the Tweedle house, I've made it my business not to find out. I heard separately from Special Branch that the matter was connected with a property at Holmbury. We all know about that place and we leave it to itself ... if it caught fire I doubt they'd let the Brigade in. I imagine that everything you say is true, and I don't want to know.'

  'I only asked for corroboration.'

  'You've had that. . . and in confidence.'

  'In confidence.' The Member smiled and his hand touched the Chief Constable's arm, gripped at his shirt sleeve. 'We don't have private armies in this country. We don't tolerate people being dragged out of private homes by faceless men who aren't accountable . . .'

  'You're not going to shout this lot off the rooftops?'

  'It will go to the Prime Minister. All the smell, all the nastiness I'll tip on his desk. He won't love me for it, but a backbencher who does his job isn't there to be loved by Cabinet. They had no right, no authority to treat this boy in that way . . . and it'll not happen again.'

  'You didn't come and see me, did you?'

  'As you said, we've known each other enough years. It's a wonderful garden, it does your wife great credit.'

  There were no porters to carry their two suitcases at the Hauptbahnhof at Magdeburg.

  Erica lifted them down onto the platform and started the long slogging trek down the steps to the tunnel that ran underneath the tracks and that emerged in the hallway of the station. There was a warm and clammy heat, as if rain might lurk in the sun haze. She shouldered her way through the crowds that milled between the ticket windows and the information kiosk and the sweet and cigarette shop. Her father trailed behind, carrying her handbag and magazine and his briefcase. In front of them stretched the wide square of ornamental lawns and laid out flower beds and beyond that the grey facade of the International Hotel. The bags were at her feet on the pavement outside the station, and she flexed her hands and braced her muscles. A Soviet army corporal, far from home, loading freight onto a military lorry looked with a longing at the tall, slender girl and was slashed with the contempt of her glance. She wished Renate had been there to meet them, but Renate had written to say that she would be in Sangerhausen in the south because her aunt was ill, and she was sorry and would be back in Magdeburg as soon as it was possible. And her father's friends were not at the station because Otto Guttmann had dithered in posting his letters and the service between Moscow and the DDR was awful and she had not been prepared to nag him into earlier action. What an idiotic, unhappy way to arrive in a far away city, and God alone knew why they had to take rooms in that hotel, why just once they could not accept the invitation of friends. No one there to help her, and too short a distance for a taxi. Erica hurried forward, bent by the weight of the suitcases, and Otto Guttmann was panting as he tried to stay at her heels.

  A pretty girl, an old man, and the start of a summer holiday.

  Chapter Twelve

  The days at Holmbury had slipped, tumbled, fallen away.

  It was as Johnny would have wished and Carter was sensitive to the needs of his man. The final days for Johnny and the moments when he might brood in solitude were denied him. Pace and camaraderie were the order of the moment.

  For Carter the atmosphere stretched back his memories to the days when he had been young and a new recruit of the Service and attached to Special Operations Executive in the last years of the war, when he had worked with men to be parachuted into occupied Europe. Thirty-five years later, 35 years of continental peace and nothing changed. The same tensions, the same belly flutters and loud laughter, the same fear of failure and the willing hopes of success. That was how Carter had learned to cosset and protect an agent, that was how he had acquired the knowledge of when to pamper and when to bully. They were all frightened, the young men who would suffer the abrupt snapping of the umbilical link, they all wanted their hand gripped by Henry Carter. This lad would not be pitched out of a swaying, slow running Mosquito bomber on a clouded night. He would take the train at 2 in the morning from Hannover . . . Didn't matter a damn, didn't alter the basics of the mission. Whether by parachute, whether by second class rail ticket, Johnny was going into enemy territory. There wouldn't be many who would recognise that destination. They wouldn't know, and fewer would care, that a young man was flirting with his life because he had been chosen to journey on their behalf. You're a maudlin old bugger, Henry Carter would say to himself.

  It was going to be a hell of a show, one of the best.

  Well, it had to be, didn't it?

  They had all worked so bloody hard for this one, all of them.

  Early in that week Carter drove Johnny to Aldershot. They went in the late afternoon, skirted the garrison town and presented themselves at the Guard House of the Parachute Regiment depot. Carter had parked in front of the lowered barricade across the camp entrance and slipped into the building to present his letter of introduction and to have his credentials inspected. A lance corporal in para smock and with the distinctive maroon beret jauntily worn had come with him to sit in the back of the car and act as guide to the range.

  Carter and Johnny walked from the car towards the warrant officer who waited for them. They were led to a brick built hut, the formal army rectangle and on a chair was a smock and a pair of denim trousers, and on the floor was the weaponry. Johnny changed quickly. A long time since he had worn khaki and camouflage. Something stabbed at him, something from the far past, and the sweat ran a little on his forehead.

  Carter noticed and battered Johnny on the shoulder, won a slow and distant smile.

  The warrant officer held a dark, paint chipped handgun, the outline frame of a metal shoulder stock, and in his other hand there dangled a cloth bag tied fast at the neck. Carter and Johnny followed him out onto the open ground and towards the firing zone. A red flag whipped high on a shaved larch post. Not a smart and neat and tidy place. Divoted ground, the wheel ruts of turning Land-Rovers, few trees, rough and worn grass.

  To the front there loomed a sloping wall of sand, fenced with long cut logs, and rising proudly before the wall was the blackened cardboard cutout in the shape of a human torso.

  They stopped 50 yards from the target.

  'Were you ever on a range before, sir?'

  'Yes,' said Johnny, little more than a whisper.

  'Military or civilian?'

  'Military.'

  'General or individual firing?'

  'Both.'

  'You are familiar with the procedures ?'

  ' I know the procedures.'

  The warrant officer lifted the gun for display and speedily screwed on the shoulder stock, then reached down to the bag and pulled clear three loaded stick magazines. He talked with a calm competence, a man familiar with his trade. 'They asked us to provide a Stechkin, had to get one out of the museum and re-arm it. We had one f
rom the NLF in Sheik Othman back in the Aden days when One Para snaffled it. I've fired it myself and it works, won't blow your head off. The Soviet military don't use it now but it's available to the security police throughout the Warsaw Pact. Automatic, fires as long as the ammo lasts while the trigger's depressed. It's a blow back mechanism with the option of selective firing

  . . .'

  'I've read about it.' Johnny wanted to feel a weapon in his hand again.

  'There are some RGD 5s as well, we'll come to them later. Do you want wool for your ears ?'

  'No,' said Johnny.

  Carter drew back, separated himself from the pair as they closed and Johnny bent to watch the loading of the pistol. Half a lifetime since Carter had handled a gun. Something vulgar about them, something crude that was abrasive to the modes of the Service.

  Over 15 minutes Johnny emptied the three magazines into the target.

  Standing aimed shots, crouched on one knee and with both fists clamped on the weapon for steadied marksmanship, diving and rolling and firing in a whirl of movement, running on the spot for 15 seconds and then at the shout of the warrant officer the pivot to blast at the torso. All the drills, all the routine. Single and automatic. Planned and spontaneous.

  And then the grenades and Carter was waved by the warrant officer into the observation tower with its shrapnel pocked walls and it didn't interest him to watch through the viewing slit as Johnny threw and dived to the ground.

  When it was quiet Carter came down the steps and saw the warrant officer examining the firing target and from that distance he could read the cheerfulness on Johnny's face. The man who had eclipsed some personal barrier, won back some trifle of respect, and Johnny was talking, animated and fast . . . But it was against all the rules to take a gun. The team would have to live with that because Johnny was the one who was travelling, Johnny was going to Magdeburg.

  Johnny loped away and headed for the hut. Carter and the warrant officer walked after him.

  'What's he like?' Carter asked with diffidence.

  'If it's one to one then he'd survive, perhaps with a bit to spare. I'm taking it that this isn't just a refresher, I'm reckoning that the next time would be for broke. Well, he'd be all right. It would be an unlucky bastard that faced him.'

  'Thank you.'

  'But don't forget that I said one to one.' The warrant officer's stare beaded into Carter's face. 'Not one to three, not one to four. The best men don't win then.'

  'It won't come to that.' The doubt swam at Carter's mouth.

  The warrant officer made no reply. Carter was anxious to be gone, to get clear of this place and back to the house at Holmbury. He waited at the door of the hut for Johnny to come out dressed again in his civilian clothes, and then they were in the car and away towards the main road.

  Carter drove fast, hammering the accelerator more than was usual for him.

  Johnny turned in his seat towards Carter. 'I want to go a couple of days early, spend a couple of days in West Germany on my own.'

  'Why?'

  ' I want to talk German again, just for a couple of days.'

  'We can get people down to Holmbury for that.'

  'That's how I want it. I think it's important. Just a couple of days, just for listening. I wouldn't ask if I didn't think it was necessary.'

  'It's a bit bloody late to be mucking things — why didn't you speak earlier?'

  'Before, I didn't think it necessary, now I do.'

  'It's ridiculous, you swanning about over there just for language -

  bloody daft.'

  'It's my neck in Magdeburg, Mr Carter, not yours.'

  'I'll talk to Mawby.' Bloody contract man, thought Carter, not the same as if it had been a staffer.

  They were back at the house in time for dinner. Johnny was in good form that evening, even chatty, even making jokes. And he asked for a whisky before he went to bed.

  '. . . What happened when you were called to the Tweedle household, Potterton, and the things that you subsequently heard do not fall, in my judgment, under the heading of police business,' the Chief Constable intoned. 'I've not asked you for a written report because in these matters it's better that paperwork doesn't exist. When you deal with security and intelligence people the only safe course is to believe that they know best, otherwise you're in a can of worms. I am formally instructing you not to discuss this episode with any person without my express permission. If a slanging match is going to start I won't have my force as the punchbag in the middle. Is that clear?'

  'Perfectly, sir. I'll be away back to the village then, sir.'

  The Chief Constable watched his man leave. Perhaps he had overplayed the heavy hand, but it would be for the best.

  The Chief Constable had available to him lines of communication through to the Director of the Security Services. The channels existed, protocol would not be breached if he were to utilise them. It was possible for him to warn Peter Fenton of the information gathered by Sir Charles Spottiswoode. Possible, but not desirable. What applied to his subordinates was also relevant to himself.

  The Trabant jeep bumped and whined along the concrete patrol strip.

  Three kilometres west of Walbeck, where the frontier split the Roteriede woods. The jeeps were always noisy, victims of the petrol that was mixed for the sake of economy.

  To the left of the driver was the 'Sperrgraben', the deep vehicle ditch.

  Beyond that the 'Kontrollstreifen', the ploughed strip that was harrowed and virgin and waiting to betray footmarks and human disturbance.

  The driver's eyes ranged from the road to the smoothed earth and on towards the 'Metallgitterzaun', the metal mesh fence, dark from weather, lightened only by the cement poles and the close set 'Automatische Schubanlagen'. All of this section was covered by the automatic guns.

  The driver would be the same age as Ulf Becker, but a smaller, slighter boy. Short in conversation, high in a patronising parade of his sense of duty. Boring little pig, Becker thought.

  But Ulf Becker also followed the orders of their NCO and studied closely the cover and terrain that slipped past them. Becker looked right.

  Past the occasional signs that warned of mine fields. Past the watchtowers and earth bunkers. Past the communications poles where a portable telephone could be plugged in if there were radio failure. Past the scrub bushes that grew on the ground that had been cleared. Past the high tree line of pines that lay a full 100 metres back from the patrol road. The border here followed inevitably on the rolling contours and gentle hills of the woods. The engine would strain to the minor summits before the coast down into the next valley. Not like Weferlingen, not flat and easily observed. Dead ground, covered ground, hidden and secure.

  A good place this, two kilometres on from the watch- tower on the Walbeck Strasse where he had spent a night on duty. But the earth bunkers were manned at dusk and the men there carried the infra-red binoculars . . . they could be skirted. The jeep patrols were frequent after darkness .. . their lights and their engines removed the possibility of surprise. But there were the Grenzaufklarer, the specialist troops whose duty patterns were not posted, whose patrol programmes were not divulged .. . that was a chance.

  Becker's hands gripped the stock and barrel of the MPiKM that rested against his legs.

  The whole matter was a chance.

  In the pocket of his blouse was Jutte's photograph, encased in cellophane protection. He would have liked to have looked at it, drawn it out, and gazed at the grey shades of her face in the picture. Not in front of this bloody pig.

  The whole matter was a chance.

  But the greatest barriers were away in the seclusion of the woods. Not here in the final metres but back and beyond the Hinterland fence, back and beyond in the Restricted Zone. Not one obstacle there, but a dozen.

  Did Ulf Becker have the guts for the challenge?

  Not until he had seen the Hinterland fence . . . but that was evasion of the principle.

  He must see the Hin
terland fence. What if that, too, offered the possibility? . . . Then he must see the Restricted Zone.

  And if that, too, offered the possibility? Then . . . they would shoot them here. Shoot them if they were found near the wire. The high velocity bullets in the magazine of the MPiKM, capable of killing at a range of a kilometre. What would they do at 25 metres to the body of Jutte? A sweet, clean and perfect shape. How would she seem to him when the clip of shells had dropped her.

  They would butcher the two of them, the guns on the wire, the guns of the patrols. Arc lights flashing, illumination flares falling, attack dogs barking. Jutte, bloody in death and thrown into a jeep such as this one.

  Ulf Becker, bones fractured, bowels ripped by gunfire, slung beside her.

  No mercy inside the Hinterland fence, no pity within the Restricted Zone. He could not make the commitment until he had seen more. And he remembered her, on the platform at Schoneweide, heard her voice that was ringing and sharp, saw her eyes that were bright and bold in the dimness of the station lights.

  Ulf Becker spat down onto the roadway.

  There were many who had entertained the possibility, and where were they now ? Shuttered in the flats and factories of the Deutsche Demokratische Republik, bound to women and babies, trapped in stinking apathy. The opportunity would only come once, it would go with the sureness of night, it would-never be repeated. If he did not tind the place at Walbeck then he must stand amongst the ranks of those who had harboured a dream and who had failed to discover the determination for the final assault at the fence.

  Even to contemplate it was idiocy . .. Then Ulf Becker was a creature of the herd.

  Better alive and a machine tool worker, than dead . . . Then he had deceived the girl.

  The driver brought the jeep to a halt. Becker waved to the earth bunker and was rewarded with a white hand acknowledging his gesture and protruding through the firing slit. The driver swung on his wheel and drove back the way that they had come.