He was going over a report from the officer in charge of the mess hall when his telephone rang. Colonel Malín, his aide announced. Reinke ordered the call to be put through.
“Coronel Reinke, good day to you,” Malín said smoothly.
“And to you, Coronel Malín. I see we are both working today. How can I help you?”
“I am calling as a professional courtesy, Coronel. You will recall our conversation yesterday about Mayor Gasparini?”
A chill ran down Reinke’s spine. “Of course.” Reinke checked his watch. “He is due back here in just under eight hours.”
“I must inform you that less than an hour ago, Mayor Gasparini was observed leaving Iglesias Catedral with his family, in the company of an Irish national named Duncan MacPherson. Does that name ring any bells, Coronel?”
“No, it does not.” An Irishman? In Bariloche? Reinke had never met anyone from Ireland, but he knew it was close to England. He also knew that the Irish and English generally did not get along.
“After our conversation yesterday, I took the liberty of placing Mayor Gasparini under surveillance. His name had come up in connection with a security investigation.”
Reinke began to sweat. “And this Irishman, do you know him?”
“In these rather turbulent times, we must keep tabs on Europeans who visit our country,” Malín answered smoothly. “Especially those from the British Isles. So it was that I found it interesting that Mayor Gasparini should know this gentleman. Coronel, my office has obtained a photograph of this man MacPherson. One of my men will be bringing it to your main gate within the hour. He will want to show it to your people. I would appreciate it if you would extend him your full cooperation.”
Reinke forced his hand to hold the telephone steady. “Of course, Coronel. When I see Mayor Gasparini I will question him with regard to this Irishman.”
“Let us hope you have the opportunity to do so, Coronel Reinke. I will be in touch.”
***
Jamison was watching Theresa Gasparini herd her children from the cab to the decrepit-looking station wagon when Oscar motioned the agent aside. “Señor, I believe we were being followed in Bariloche.”
“I picked up your signal, Oscar. Were you able to lose them?”
The Chilean looked back past the farmhouse toward the city, ten kilometers to the east. “I think so, señor. But one never knows for sure. If they were BIS, they can quickly summon help if they truly wish to find us.”
Jamison nodded. “How much further to the border?”
Oscar looked to the west. “About fifty kilometers. The road is a good one, although not as well-traveled as Route 231. We should make good time. When we get to within a few kilometers of Puerto Frias, I will use a side road I am familiar with.” He unfolded a map and held it out so both men could see the route. The longer but more popular trip would’ve been to head east out of Bariloche and curve north along the eastern end of Lago Nahuel Huapi, then take 231 to the northwest through the national park to the border. Popular with the tourists for its magnificent scenery, it was also much longer. Oscar had suggested the shorter route along the south shore of the lake, toward the small town of Puerto Frias at the border.
“The checkpoint there will be hard to pass through if BIS has alerted it,” Jamison pointed out.
“True, señor, which is why we will be taking an alternate route.” He took a pencil from his shirt pocket and touched a point on the map just south of the village. “There is a mountain road here that goes near the border. There is no checkpoint.”
“A fence?”
“Yes, but I doubt if it has not been fortified since my last visit.”
“Let’s hope you’re right.”
***
Traffic was moderate on the road to Puerto Frias. Despite the political tensions between Argentina and Chile, commercial and private traffic between the two nations remained brisk. Oscar mentioned that this was normal. The politicians might be angry at each other, he explained, but life went on. Many people living on one side of the border had relatives on the other.
“Ten kilometers to the turnoff,” Oscar finally announced after what seemed an interminably long drive. The Gasparinis had been quiet in the back seat of the station wagon. The children were asleep, and Señora Gasparini gazed out the window. Jamison had seen the look before. She was looking at her country for the last time. The British agent knew something about that. Every time he left England, it hit him that this might be his last glimpse of home.
The major, on the other hand, stared straight ahead, with an occasional glance over his shoulder. Jamison admired the man’s discipline. Defectors had been known to crack at the last minute, to insist on being let loose, willing to risk discovery and punishment in order to go home. Not this man, though. His hatred of the regime that so casually brutalized his wife had to be great indeed. Well, that was all right. Hatred was a good motivator, as long as one kept it in perspective.
“Any sign of pursuit?” Jamison asked the driver.
“I don’t think so, unless they are using multiple vehicles.”
“Is BIS that sophisticated?”
The Chilean shrugged. “Sometimes. They are not to be underestimated, señor.”
A few minutes later Oscar turned left, cutting across the eastbound lane. The new road was paved, but just barely. The old wagon bounced over potholes. The dry weather meant that a cloud of dust was kicked up behind the car, adding to Jamison’s unease. He reached inside his jacket to grip the handle of his Walther PPK. Still there. “How long?”
“Thirty minutes, señor, perhaps less, if the road stays good.”
Ten minutes later, without having encountered another vehicle, the mountains began to close in around them. The old wagon’s engine strained as they gained altitude. Just before rounding a curve, Jamison looked back and saw the glint of sunlight off glass. “There’s a car back there,” he said to Oscar, forcing calm into his voice. “Two, maybe three kilometers.”
“Just one?”
“I don’t know,” Jamison said. Gasparini turned around to look, but the wagon had gone around the curve. “How much—“
“Two minutes. Be ready to move.”
Gasparini didn’t need to be told again. He roused the children, who’d been half-awakened by the bumpy ride. “Listen to me,” he said to them. “We are going to stop very soon and you must do exactly as I say. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Papa,” Arturo said. “Where are we?”
“We are going on a little adventure,” the major said, smiling. “We might have to run for a bit.”
“Okay.” The boy looked at his father and smiled. His sister grasped her mother closely. Theresa looked close to tears. Her husband touched her arm, but she didn’t look at him.
The road was curving to the left up ahead, and beyond it Jamison saw a thin stand of pines, with a tall wire fence running through it, about a hundred meters from the edge of the road. Oscar was looking closely at the trees. “Can we drive right up to the fence?” Jamison asked.
The Chilean shook his head. “The trees are too close together.” He took the curve, drove another thirty meters and then swung the wheel to the right. The car thumped off into the grass, plowing over small bushes, before Oscar braked to a stop. “On foot from here,” he said.
“Let’s go, then,” Jamison said. He was out the door quickly, looking back down the road. He could hear an engine. “They’re coming!” He drew the Walther. Oscar had a gun out also, and the MI6 agent saw that Gasparini was armed as well. “Oscar, lead the way,” Jamison said. “I’ll cover the rear.” He longed for the feel of a submachine gun, but it had been deemed too risky to bring any over the border.
The little girl began to cry. “I wanna go home!” Her mother shushed her, to no avail. Theresa was crying now. Gasparini supported her as they made their way through the brush behind the Chilean.
They were still thirty meters from the fence when Jamison saw the vehicles, a white sedan
with a flashing blue light on the top, followed by two large pickup trucks. The three vehicles pulled to a stop next to the abandoned station wagon. An officer emerged from the sedan, pistol in hand, and started shouting orders. Soldiers leaped from the pickups, rifles at the ready. “Run for it!” Jamison shouted.
Oscar sprinted to the fence, just ahead of the major, who was carrying the little girl and pulling his son by the arm. Theresa was struggling behind him. Fifteen meters from the fence she tripped and fell awkwardly, crying out in pain. The Chilean used his gun to push aside strands of razor wire, finally finding the ones he’d carefully cut and then put back in place on his previous visit. “Here! Quickly, mi Mayor!”
Jamison ducked behind a tree and faced the oncoming Argentines. “Antonio! Save the children!” Theresa screamed through her sobs. The soldiers were fifty meters away now, and Jamison saw the officer aim his pistol. The shot was wild, ripping through the branches over the agent’s head. Jamison looked back, saw Gasparini handing the children one by one through the fence to Oscar, then turned back to the soldiers.
Take down the officers first. See how disciplined they are. He aimed carefully and squeezed the Walther’s trigger. The round caught the Argentine commander in the stomach. He grunted and fell to his knees. The soldiers hesitated. One raised his rifle and fired a burst in the direction of Jamison’s tree, just as the agent pulled himself out of the line of fire. Rounds slapped heavily into the trunk just over his head, but a few zipped past. Jamison saw Gasparini take a hit to his left arm, spinning him around and to the ground as his wife screamed in terror. Jamison came around the other side of the tree and squeezed off four quick shots. Men yelled in pain, and more guns opened fire.
Gasparini struggled to his feet and staggered to his wife, managing to pull her up with his good arm, but he had to transfer his gun to his wounded left and wasn’t able to return fire. Jamison quickly ejected the spent clip from his Walther and inserted a fresh one. They’d never make it, he saw. Oscar was beyond the fence, in Chile, hustling the children behind covering trees a few meters away. By the time he could come back and bring his gun to bear, it would be too late.
Jamison made a decision. He made it without hesitation, for if he’d had time to think about it, he might have made a different one. “Run! I’ll cover you!” he shouted to Gasparini, in English. The major knew some English, didn’t he? Gasparini looked back over his shoulder as he half-dragged his wife to the fence, now only a few meters away. Did his eyes convey his thanks? Perhaps they did.
The MI6 agent spun around the tree and ran straight at the startled Argentine troops. The Walther was up and blazing, and his aim was off a bit, but three more of the soldiers fell before the remaining troops overcame their surprise and took aim at the onrushing, screaming European in the tan suit. Jamison saw the flashes from the muzzles but didn’t hear the roar. There was something else in his ears now. Was it music? Yes, music it was, and as six of the bullets thudded into him, the pain blazed through his nervous system and so he couldn’t identify the song. A pity, it was so beautiful. He fell to his knees, the gun dropping to the ground, and as the blackness started to dim his vision he took one last glance backward. Were they through the fence? Yes.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Budapest, Hungary
Thursday, April 15th, 1982
The windows of her hotel suite gave Jo Ann a spectacular view of the hills of the western half of Budapest. She knew from her guidebook that the Hungarian capital had been created in 1873 with the unification of hilly, western Buda and flat, eastern Pest. The winding ribbon of the Danube wasn’t too far away, just two blocks to the south with Castle Hill looming on the far side. She’d never been to the Continent, and on another occasion, and accompanied by a certain Royal Marine, she would’ve considered the city to be incredibly romantic. Even a third of a century under the heels of the Russians had not stopped the Hungarians from keeping their identity, with their capital’s unique atmosphere holding at bay the stocky blandness of socialist architecture. Keeping the soldiers at bay was something else again; it seemed to Jo that the Hungarian Army was maintaining a high profile, with Kalashnikov-armed troops on every block. The people ignored the soldiers as they went about their business.
She’d been able to use her German from the airport to the hotel, grateful that she’d not had to learn Magyar, the native language that was renowned for its difficulty. It was proving difficult enough for her to shape her mouth around the sounds of German and Russian, so different and guttural after the ease of English and the sing-song of her Oriental tongues. Hopefully, things would go as well in Buenos Aires.
There was a knock on the door of the bedroom. “Come in,” she said in German.
The door opened and Walter Schröder said, “Would you like to take a walk, my dear?” He looked a bit older than his photograph, grayer at the temples, his eyes weary but alert. He cupped a hand to his ear, the signal to Jo that they had to assume the room was bugged. Jo nodded her understanding.
“An excellent idea,” she said. “Let me get my jacket.” A few minutes later and they were on the sidewalk, her hand inside the crook of his elbow. “The exchange went well, I thought.”
“Yes,” Schröder said. Just as London had arranged, Jo swapped identities with Larisa Kocharian Schröder in a rest room at the airport. Her flight from London arrived a half-hour before the Schröders’ from East Berlin, and she spotted the couple at the baggage carousel next to hers. Taking her small suitcase with her, Jo went to the restroom and locked herself inside a stall. Surprised to find her hands shaking, she waited patiently until the stall next to her was entered. Jo dropped a lipstick tube onto the floor near the wall between the stalls, near enough to be seen by the next-door occupant. At the last second she had remembered to open the tube and extend the lipstick halfway out, the signal that she had not been followed. A similar lipstick dropped to the floor on the other side, also opened halfway. Within sixty seconds, the women exchanged coats, hats, purses and shoes. Leaving her suitcase, Jo left the stall and risked a glance in the mirror to make sure her hair, which had been around her shoulders, was now properly pinned up underneath the hat. The two other women in the restroom ignored her. Heart thumping, she left without ever taking a look back at the real Larisa, who would soon be on her way to freedom, courtesy of MI6.
“The resemblance is truly remarkable,” Schröder said. He patted her hand. “Your German is good. Not excellent, but good.”
“Thank you,” Jo said. “It’s an interesting language.”
“We are an interesting people.” They walked in silence for a while, taking in the sights. They stopped soon at a large café. “The Ruszwurm confectionary,” Schröder said. “Founded in 1827.”
“You’ve been here before?”
“Twice,” he said. “Tonight, we shall have a quiet dinner in a nice restaurant I know. Tomorrow night, the symphony at the Zeneakademia. Are you familiar with the work of Bartok?”
“I’m afraid not,” she said.
“Bela Bartok, one of Hungary’s most famous composers,” Schröder said. “Died some years ago, but still revered here. They celebrated his centennial last year. Tomorrow night we will hear his “Hungarian Sketches, for orchestra”. The conductor is Ervin Lukacs. Truly one of the best in Europe.” He glanced at her. “You do not know classical music?”
“Not as well as I should,” she admitted.
Schröder shook his head. “We have much work to do. The people we meet in Buenos Aires are liable to ask you about it, especially if they hear we attended the symphony in Budapest.” He sighed. “All right, let us begin over lunch.” He led the way into the café.
She hoped the two days until they left for Argentina would pass quickly.
***
Buenos Aires, Argentina
“It took some doing, but I believe my father has finally calmed down,” Heinz Nagel said.
“As has mine,” Willy Baumann said. The files on his desk were starti
ng to blur. He desperately needed a good night’s sleep. No, what he really needed was for this whole business to be over. Once again he longed for the peace of the estancia; he imagined himself out riding with Giselle, a very pleasant image indeed.
The defection of Major Gasparini had thrown the Bund into an uproar. Willy heard the news hours after the family’s escape into Chile, conveyed by a smug BIS colonel named Malín, whose not-too-hidden pleasure at discovering a traitor in the middle of the Bund’s most important project quickly turned to concern when Willy reminded him that the BIS had, after all, allowed an English spy to wander around unmolested and then failed to prevent the defection. A very nervous Lothar Reinke was on the line next, offering his resignation. Willy declined it, and instead ordered the Pilcaniyeu security chief to lock down the facility. The scientists and all other civilians would stay on the premises until further notice.
“My father said the Reichsleiter inquired about an early deployment,” Heinz said. The strain was beginning to show on him as well. “X-1 is scheduled to leave the facility in nine days.”
“We must adhere to the schedule,” Willy said. “There is no other place we can move the weapon without risking it falling into Galtieri’s hands. Pilcaniyeu is the only facility where we can maintain control.”
“There is talk we have lost control there,” Heinz said.
Willy exploded. A file went flying into the wall, papers everywhere. “Damn it, Heinz! You were there with me, you met Gasparini, and you didn’t read the man’s mind any more than I did!”
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