by Colin Forbes
`Like your responsibility for seeing it arrives safely. This will do more to demoralize the population of that island than a dozen atom bombs. You understand the weight of your task?'
`Yes, general Secretary…'
`The English are now alert to the heroin peril. Any attempt to move this massive consignment through the normal channels would fail. They watch the airports, the seaports. So, we use the entirely novel route you have devised.'
`Balkan will not fail us…'
`He had better not fail you!' Gorbachev corrected.
As he spoke he hammered his clenched fist on the polished surface of the table, then began moving about the room, his right hand stressing his words with hard chopping movements.
Lysenko listened with a sense of fear mingled with awe. The General Secretary was an overpowering mixture of physical and mental dynamism. He exuded sense of purpose, supremely certain of the direction in which he was moving.
`While I talk peace the demoralization of the West must be accelerated. Heroin is the main weapon, England the main target.' Gorbachev swung his bulky figure through a half-circle, suddenly facing the other man. He gave a broad smile, throwing his visitor off balance. 'Of course, you have my full confidence, Lysenko.'
`Thank you..
`Of course we know at the moment the London Central Drug Squad is concentrating on Holland, the chief continental point of departure for drugs from South America bound for England.'
`That is true.'
Lysenko was again startled by Gorbachev's grasp of details. As soon as this new sun had risen over the Kremlin Lysenko had realized the way to deal with him was tell the truth. It was this realization which had kept him in his present post as a general in the GRU, Soviet Military Intelligence, when many of his old colleagues had been shoved into the waste bin of history.
`So,' Gorbachev continued, his expression now grim, 'they will not be expecting the consignment by the new route. And not a word about it to Markus Wolf.'
`Really? He would resent it if he found he was being excluded..
`Exclude him. Wolf is a monument now. Almost thirty years at his present task. He may be Deputy Minister for State Security in the DDR. Who cares? A monument,' he repeated. `I've had to shift them all over the Motherland. Men who have grown slack and comfortable, who thought they were indispensable. I dispensed with them.'
`I understand.' Lysenko still stood stiffly to attention.
`Relax, Comrade. I'm not going to eat you. Yet! One thing worries me. Tweed. I told you I read his file. He is the one man who might sniff out this immense heroin consignment.'
`He is still in London. Balkan has confirmed that. He says he is certain Tweed will return to Germany. Tweed never gives up…'
`That is why I worry. You know the tremendous effort put into transporting the consignment secretly to Leningrad. Munzel has failed once. Normally he wouldn't get a second chance. He only has this fresh chance because you say he is the best. And it must be done by an East German. No risk of egg on our face.'
`Wolf does know about the other consignment which will be moving shortly – the shipment of arms from Czechoslovakia via the DDR to Cuba for Nicaragua.'
`Doesn't matter. That is a little local affair compared with the heroin. Down to you, Lysenko. Supervising the transport of the heroin into England. That's all.'
Gorbachev stared at Lysenko from under his thick eyebrows. He had almost more hair in the brows than on the rest of his balding head. He waited until his visitor reached the door before he gave a last instruction.
`Lysenko! No communication, no reference to the heroin by the normal channels. Telephone, teleprinter or computer. The Americans have developed sophisticated equipment to penetrate our communications system. The problem has not been solved. If you have to contact me, use the phone – but refer to it as "the cargo". Just that phrase. Your plane is waiting. Get back to Leipzig…'
General Vasili Lysenko had a lot to think about on the flight to Leipzig. At Moscow he had boarded the Tupolev 134 as the first passenger, bypassing the normal formalities and security checks. They had given him his own section of the aircraft closest to the air crew's cabin, curtained off from the rest of the plane.
He was always relieved to leave Gorbachev's presence still holding his present rank. You just never knew which way the General Secretary was going to jump next. He was turning the Soviet Union upside down. No one who didn't come up to scratch was safe, regardless of position or track record.
Dawn was a bar of lurid light on the distant horizon. Lysenko was unaware of it as he thought of what he had been told. And he'd noticed Gorbachev had not even assigned a code-name to the heroin. Just 'the cargo'. An additional precaution. Code-names could leak, people speculated what they might mean.
`The cargo' was Gorbachev's pet project. And, as he had said, the effort which had gone into transporting the huge haul had indeed been prodigious. First the endless camel train carrying it out of Pakistan, starting its long journey weeks ago.
It had travelled by a dangerous route. A small section of the route had crossed the eastern 'tongue' of Afghanistan bordered by Pakistan, India, even China – at its most eastern tip – and, to the north, Soviet Russia. They had sent a young Russian general to launch an offensive in the Afghan area against the rebels.
His directive had been to destroy the rebel forces, to occupy the 'tongue'. The Soviet High Command who had sent him had known his task was impossible. It had been a diversion – to keep the Afghan rebels busy while the camel train proceeded across the Pamirs by a pass, then down into the Turanian Plain.
At Khokand the cargo had been put aboard a six-coach armoured train. Only a portion of one coach was needed to store the heroin. A further precaution. The heroin habit was growing inside Russia. The rumour had been spread that the train was transporting armaments.
It had made the long journey to Moscow. There the heroin coach had been uncoupled, attached at dead of night to an express bound for Leningrad. Gorbachev himself had supervised the details of the fabulous journey. Now it would be transshipped by sea to its ultimate destination. By a most devious route. With the aid of Balkan.
Chief Inspector Bernard Carson of the Central Drug Squad was a tall, lanky man in his late fifties and with curly brown hair. His manner was always calm, even off-handed, no matter how great the crisis which faced him. He sat in Tweed's arm chair while Tweed stood by the window. At his request, Monica had left them alone.
`What I've come to see you about doesn't really concern you at all,' Carson explained. 'But I'm a bit bothered.'
`You are?'
Tweed was surprised. He couldn't remember Carson ever admitting to even being ruffled before.
`Word is out on the street that the biggest consignment of heroin ever moved is on its way to this country.'
`May I ask what are your sources of information?'
`Oh, we have a whole underground network of dealers and pushers who – for a consideration – tell us things. They're all keyed up to distribute fast this huge consignment. That's the key to their success. Never hold on to the stuff. Offload it. Fast! Spread it over a small army of pushers. Lose it. Here in London. The Midlands. This poison is spreading through the whole country. I have no doubt the rumour is true.'
`So why come to me?' Tweed asked.
`Because you have your own networks across the whole of Europe. I'd hoped you might hear something. It's the route I want..
Carson said it with unaccustomed vehemence. He drank some of the coffee Monica had brought in earlier.
`It's Holland at the moment, isn't it?'
`That's the gospel according to St John. All my colleagues agree with it. Their eyes – and those of the Customs boys – are glued to Holland.'
`And your view?'
Carson shrugged. 'I just get a funny feeling about this one – that it's different. Never known such activity, anticipation, on the streets. The bastards are practically salivating. It could be that somehow they're b
ringing in an unprecedented amount – maybe even a hundred kilos. Gambling on getting in the big haul at one throw of the dice. If so, God knows how they hope to do it.'
`Bernard,' Tweed said abruptly, 'I can't help you.' `How come?' Carson looked bewildered.
`Because I'm convinced you know something you haven't told me. You've given me nothing concrete to go on. Forget it.'
Carson stirred uncomfortably in the chair. 'I should have realized you'd sense it. OK. But this is highly confidential… `Tell me. If you're going to.'
`We had a man on the spot in Pakistan, a very good man. He was based at Peshawar. The base the Yanks are using to ship guns and ammo to the Afghan rebels, bless their cotton socks..
`I know where Peshawar is.'
`This is the really confidential bit. Our chap had a contact inside the Soviet Embassy at Islamabad. Bought and paid for. Our chap reported rumours of a large heroin consignment bound for the West. The Soviets must have got on to our man. Pathans were used to carve him up …'
`That's rather horrible. I'm sorry.'
`Goes with the territory. Our man knew that. But some of our back-up people arrived, caught the Pathans in the act.' `What happened to them?'
Carson cocked his right hand like a pistol, made a motion of pulling a trigger. 'Sympathy, the liberal option, doesn't figure in our business. Our chap was still alive – only just. He said one word before he closed his eyes. Sounded like Hansa.'
`You're sure it was Hansa?' Tweed pressed.
`Nearest our people could get to it.' Carson stifled a yawn. `Sorry, I'm twenty-four hours without sleep. Word doesn't mean a damned thing to me.'
`Hansa,' Tweed repeated. 'The Hanseatic League. A federation of major shipping ports banded together to protect their trade interests. Formed in 1241. Founder members Hamburg and Lubeck. Para-military, too. They had armed groups to accompany caravans of goods moving in Europe against roving bandits.'
`History was my worst subject,' said Carson. 'I don't see the connection…'
`Neither do I. Yet.'
Tweed walked over to the new wall map of Western Europe Monica had put up. He took a wooden pointer from a drawer to reach the higher sections. As he spoke, the pointer located the towns.
`Tallinn in Estonia, Stralsund and Rostock in East Germany, then Lubeck, Hamburg and Bremen – to name just a few. There were ninety towns in the League at the height of its power.' He turned away from the map. 'And the funny thing is one of my people also used the same word – Hansa.'
Carson uncrossed his ankles, straightened up, suddenly alert. `So maybe your man could tell us something?'
`He's also dead. Murdered in Hamburg. By the Soviets – or their proxies, the East Germans…'
`Looks as though I came to the right place after all. That is stretching coincidence too far – literally. My man is killed in Peshawar, yours in Hamburg – and in both cases the last word they said was Hansa. It couldn't be…'
`Yes, it could.' Tweed replaced the pointer in the drawer, pushed it shut. 'Bernard, I want you to promise me something.
Not one word about this outside this room. Confidential, you said. Now I'm holding you to it. I want your solemn promise.'
`Reluctantly, yes. But I could check the records…'
`Don't! Take no action. I think I may have underestimated my man who died in Hamburg. Incidentally, if you do lay your hands on a consignment the size of one hundred kilos, what precautions do you take?'
`Every precaution possible. It doesn't always work. With the potential profit that amount could bring in you can't trust anyone. Not even inside the Drug Squad, between you and me.'
`How long ago since your chap in Peshawar was killed?'
`Eight weeks ago. To the day. About four weeks ago we began to get reports of the excitement building up in the streets…'
`So we may not have much time left. I'm up against an unknown deadline.'
Thirty-Five
'Better that the nursing sister who attended Dr Berlin thinks you are a German newspaper reporter,' Falken said as he drove along the highway towards Leipzig. 'You remember her name?'
`Karen Piper.'
`Good. You are still alert…'
`Why shouldn't I be?'
`My friend, you are not the only outsider I have escorted in the DDR. Pullach used to send other people – couriers – who had not been here before. Within twenty-four hours we realized they were suffering from battle fatigue. To put it bluntly, under the pressure of being inside enemy territory, their nerve cracked. They became a menace, a danger to Group Five.'
`How did you handle them?'
`Slipped them back across the border immediately. If possible.'
`And if not possible?'
`Our lives were at stake. We had no alternative. Let us leave it at that.'
My God, Newman thought, they had to shoot them, bury them somewhere. He could feel the tension building up inside his stomach. Tight muscles. A slight queasiness. He concentrated on the road ahead.
The modern four-lane highway extended into the distance through open countryside. To left and right there were fields and woods. The sun shone down out of an almost clear sky, but some miles ahead clouds were building up like a storm gathering. The air was humid, oppressive.
The traffic was heavier than Falken had expected. Huge six-and eight-wheel diesel trucks roared past them, belching fumes. Falken kept well under the speed limit, seemed to be in no hurry. On a main highway the limit was 100 kph. Falken was moving at 60 kph. Hence the convoys of heavy stuff thundering past.
`You're playing it safe,' Newman observed. He nodded towards the speedometer. It was the only sign of tension he showed.
`We're early for the appointment with Karen Piper. Mind you, I shall arrive early – to check out the lie of the land.'
`Who does the talking if we're stopped by a patrol car?'
`I was just coming to that. You do. Border Police. That gives you clout. You use it pretty well.'
`But we're so far from any border here…'
`You wouldn't believe the powers that document in your pocket gives you. Special Assignment Unit. In plain clothes. You can go anywhere in the DDR. And you don't have to explain what you're doing. Unless East German Intelligence stops us. One of Wolf's men. Then anything can happen.'
`I'll bluff our way through. But, just supposing I don't?'
`We shoot our way out. No messing. And this is where I turn off this highway, take a roundabout route along country roads before I head back for the highway closer to Leipzig.'
He glanced in his rear view mirror again. He was an excellent driver. Newman had noticed his eyes constantly flickering to that mirror for a fraction of a second. He signalled, swung off the highway on to a hedge-lined, winding lane.
Newman found his stomach muscles relaxing now they were away from the highway. He'd been screwed up, watching all the time in the wing mirror, through the windscreen, for the approach of a patrol car. There was a limit to the number of times you could bluff your way through a road-block, the Vopos in a patrol car. Falken went on talking in his quiet, easy manner.
`We're meeting the Piper woman in a camper parked underneath a complex of main roads. We call it the zig-zag. A smaller version of that freeway complex in Los Angeles we see on TV – Spaghetti Junction.'
`You see things like that on TV?'
`You'd be surprised how many homes have colour television – and their favourite programmes are those from the West. We're not supposed to watch them, but no one cares any more.'
`Sounds a bit public – this camper rendezvous..
`Chosen with care. It provides plenty of escape routes. Use a place out here and where do you run if the Martians arrive? Piper approved – for the same reason. You'll see.'
`And what happens after I've interviewed her?'
`You head straight for freedom. Under Gerda's control. We've been over that. I won't be coming with you. I have another 'job needing urgent attention. Also a man and a girl attra
ct less notice.' They were climbing a steep hill, the view blocked by the crest. 'If we are stopped,' Falken continued, `you'd better know Gerda is travelling on papers in the name Gerda Nowak. She is a secretary at Markus Wolf's headquarters in Leipzig. Normally he operates out of East Berlin, but he's been at his second base for some time. I think I'll leave you to make up your own story about her – should it ever come to that. A spontaneous explanation is often more convincing.'
They drove over the crest and the road dropped down a steep hill. Driving towards them from the other direction was a green car with two men in the front. The car stopped at the bottom of the hill, on the level, blocking the road.
I must be telepathic,' Falken commented with a bleak look. `Trouble ahead. I can smell it…'
`Intelligence.'
The taller of the two men in civilian clothes flashed a folder by the window Newman had lowered. Newman nodded, grasped the handle, opened the door and alighted as the tall Intelligence officer stepped back. Both men in their forties, clad in grey lightweight raincoats, hatless, poker-faced.
Newman left the door wide open, took several paces to one side, which gave Gerda a clear field of fire with her machine-pistol. He hitched up his slacks, glanced beyond the gateway leading to a field. Half a kilometre away an abandoned stone quarry reared, a rusting bulldozer standing amid the pile of rocks at its base. A good place to hide bodies. God, he was becoming as hard as Falken. A few more weeks inside the DDR and he'd become even harder. He spoke calmly as he reached for his folder, one equal talking to another.
`Border Police. And may I see your folder again? Once I was nearly mugged by a bogus Intelligence officer. Thank you…'
They had the look of hardbitten businessmen, out for the last penny. The taller man had a scar down his right eyebrow. The smaller one shuffled his feet impatiently, giving the impression he was a subordinate who left his colleague to do the talking.
`Looks OK to me,' Newman said, handing back the folder as he checked his watch, steel-plated, made in East Germany. `I am in a hurry. Special assignment. Drugs…'
`Drugs? You did say drugs?'
`Heroin.'
He saw the two men exchange a quick glance. I've said the wrong thing, he thought. He stood quite still as the folder was handed back. He pushed it a bit further.
