“That you come from the hospital with injuries we know, of course. That is genuine.”
“I am genuine,” Hedge said.
“And certainly there appears to have been an accident.”
“Yes indeed,” Hedge said, feeling happier.
“But we do not know what sort of an accident. The sugar-beet lorry has been examined and is not damaged.”
“The driver would —”
“The driver left his employment on his return from Berlin. He will of course be apprehended. Until he is, we are uncertain about you, Hedge. The driver made no report of an accident. Why not?” There was a shrug. “We do not yet know. It was perhaps because the driver did not wish for involvement. Or perhaps it was because there was no accident to the sugar-beet lorry. That, we shall see.”
“When?” Hedge’s heart was beating fast now. Damn and blast the lorry driver — why couldn’t he have made matters clear upon his arrival? Hedge fumed inwardly. “When?” he asked again, beseechingly.
“In due course.” The man filled in some more of his form. “We believe it is possible you have entered the Democratic Republic clandestinely for certain reasons.”
“What reasons?”
The man shrugged again. “Espionage, perhaps?” The cold eyes scanned Hedge’s face, full of accusation. “The age of espionage is not yet past. Glasnost has not altered some aspects of our lives.”
“I am not a spy.”
“We shall see —”
“I am a gentleman. Gentlemen don’t spy. Certainly not when they’re employed by the Foreign Office —”
The man stopped him with a lift of his ballpoint. “I have said, we shall see, and that is what we shall do. This will in the meantime be referred to Moscow, with whom we still have the diplomatic links. Also, depending on what is said to us by Moscow, by the Kremlin and the KGB, it will perhaps be referred to the British Foreign Office.”
“If you —”
“That is all. You will say no more.” Hedge wanted to say, for God’s sake contact the FO immediately and they’ll put me in the clear. But he was given no chance; at a signal from the uniformed man the guards seized him and he was taken from the room back to his cell.
*
The report was made to Moscow, on one of the thin man’s forms which was at once telexed to the Kremlin. A pompous man, the report said, perhaps of little consequence but naturally no stone would be left unturned. The story of the accident was fishy. The man had insisted he was not a spy. He was, he had said — and this had been particularly noted — a gentleman. There was also a little explanation; the term ‘gentleman’ might be unfamiliar, in the sense the uniformed man understood Hedge to have used it, to the Russian mind.
In the Soviet Union there were no gentlemen. It would not be a cogent reason not to be a spy. After Moscow had spoken, Hedge would be interrogated again. And then another report would be made.
*
“They positively have Hedge, Foreign Secretary.” This was the Under-Secretary of State reporting by telephone. “They?”
“The East Germans, Foreign Secretary, in Dresden. An unfortunate series of events, I gather —”
“They’ve communicated?”
“Moscow has, Foreign Secretary.” The Under-Secretary of State listened then spoke again. “No, he’s still in Dresden. So far as we know, that is. He’s being held on a charge of illegal entry, via a sugar-beet lorry from West Berlin. Yes, Foreign Secretary, sugar-beet. In the back. Moscow is asking for clarification of his position. Asking, really, for us to claim him, I think —”
“And if we claim him — what then?”
“It’s hard to say, Foreign Secretary. They’ve not actually said he would be handed back.”
“The buggers are never very forthcoming, are they?”
This was rhetorical; the Under-Secretary waited for more. The Foreign Secretary went on, “We hold our horses, Roger. At this stage, we make no admissions. And give no information. The whole thing’s too fraught in regard to Logan and this wretched scare, the rabies.”
“And Hedge, Foreign Secretary?”
“Must be left, I’m afraid. For now, anyway.”
“Yes, Foreign Secretary. Er … what reply shall I make to Moscow?”
“Oh, I’m sure you’ll cope, Roger. Dream something up, something innocuous. You know the form.” The Foreign Secretary cut the call quickly before he could be pressured. It was Roger’s job to handle delicate situations, return some smooth and non-committal reply to keep Moscow happy. The gist of it would be, of course, that nothing was known of anybody called Hedge in the Foreign Office. This, too, had its complications, because it was the job of the KGB to know all about highly-placed persons in the British Foreign Office and they were unlikely to fall down on their job. But the Kremlin would understand; diplomats the world over had their shorthand, and what they read into it wasn’t really very important just so long as nobody made any actual admissions.
*
Once again there was a high-level discussion on rabies and the threat posed by Logan. Said to be posed by Logan; a good deal of scepticism was in the air even though Logan’s documentation had been precise. There had still been no reports of any dog compounds being found; and cats still roamed the streets and delved into dustbins in alleys. Bats still flew from barns and belfries and lofts. An elderly woman alone in a big, old-fashioned farmhouse in Wensleydale in North Yorkshire had woken during the night and had heard a sound as though there had been a break-in. A courageous Yorkshire woman, she had put a dressing-gown over her nightdress and gone downstairs with a pitchfork which she customarily kept beside her bed. She had found all doors and windows secure but had seen a shadow flit across her back yard from a barn and this she had assumed to be an intruder. She had gone outside and called out but had received no answer and a moment later the legs of a bat had entangled themselves in her hair. This had unnerved her and she had run screaming to her car and had driven, bat and all, to her doctor. She had read the scare stories in the press and she feared rabies. The doctor had calmed her but in the circumstances had felt the incident worth reporting both to the police and the local Environmental Health Officer and it was now likely to hit the press; thus it had been reported to the Minister for Health via Scotland Yard.
Mrs Heffer cast it aside. “Just one old woman.”
“But it all adds fuel to the flames, Prime Minister.”
“Well, yes, I take your point. But there’s nothing we can do about it, is there?”
There was not. Somebody remarked that it was all a storm in a teacup. No compounds found and there never would be. Logan was attempting to throw a scare.
“But why?”
“We just don’t know, Prime Minister.”
“Logan, by all accounts — the files, you know — isn’t the sort of man to make jokes, sick or otherwise. It does occur to me that the rabies business could be a blind, something to divert the nation’s attention, if you follow.”
“Divert it from what, Prime Minister?”
Mrs Heffer shrugged. “I don’t know, how should I? Let’s say … something worse?”
The members of the Cabinet considered this with varying and mixed degrees of alarm and cynicism. The Defence Secretary murmured something about mustering all their resources as fast as possible and calling out the Territorial Army by Royal Proclamation of a state of emergency. We had, he insisted when he got a hearing, to be ready. While the argument over this gathered strength the security telephone burred. It was the Foreign Secretary, Rowland Mayes, apologetic for his non-attendance. There had, he said, been word of Hedge. Making his report brief, he indicated what he had told the Under-Secretary of State.
The Prime Minister nodded into the mouthpiece. “Yes, very wise. I concur, Roly.”
*
In Rinteln, Logan’s laboratory had been ransacked for clues as to what had happened to Detective Chief Superintendent Shard. Nothing helpful had been found. Major Bruce and his paramedics had made
their promised investigation into the research carried out by Logan and his team. In this, Bruce had been assisted by a veterinary officer from the British Army depot at Minden, not far from Rinteln. There was evidence that Logan, as Bruce had already known, had been working on hydrophobia in an attempt to find a more effective vaccine for its cure. Bruce made a report to BAOR HQ which was passed on to Bonn and the Ministry of Defence. The report lent no credence to any large-scale threat by Logan, whose research had been, apparently, on a small basis only. When this report, once in the hands of Whitehall, was leaked as usual, the press had another field day. They castigated the government for scaremongering and gave it as their opinion that everybody should as of now sleep soundly in their beds. There was a hint that the scare was not, perhaps, unconnected with Party politics, what with the election in prospect. In some way, as yet, unspecified.
*
The fire in the Magdeburg house had spread very fast indeed. Shard, once his wrists were free, had grabbed a Kalashnikov rifle from one of Brosak’s men who had been overcome by fumes. There was a rush for the door. Shard, a handkerchief clamped over mouth and nose, made a dive for Logan, who looked in a very bad way by this time and was suffering burns. Moving fast, Shard got a grip and dragged the old man through the door only just before the ceiling of the room came down in a heavy shower of plaster and dust and general debris that fell into the flames and fed them. Intense heat swept through behind Shard, searing him and his burden.
Smoke began to fill the hall. From its cover, a couple of gunshots came. A bullet zipped past Shard’s head, smacked into the woodwork behind him. He brought up the Kalashnikov and squeezed the trigger, firing blind into and through the smoke. There was a scream of pain, then feet running away fast, and no more gunfire.
Shard half carried Logan through the hall, feeling his way blindly through the smoke. He found the door; he carried Logan down the stone steps into breathable air. Brosak’s car had gone, as had Brosak himself. While pushing through the smoke-filled hall, Shard had stumbled over a body. Flames were now coming out from the front door; the house was doomed. Shard had no idea how many of the men, on both sides, had died.
The first thing to do was to get away with Logan before Brosak returned: he wouldn’t be very far away and had no doubt decided to vanish for a while, just a while; soon now the police would be around, and a fire engine. The same considerations applied to Shard. With Logan, and with no pursuit currently, he went fast around the back of the house. Already people disturbed from their sleep were gathering in the front, in the roadway.
At the back of the house were fields. There was also Brosak, maybe some of his henchmen as well: from behind a hedge gunfire came. Brosak was taking the risk of being heard. Shard dragged Logan down to the ground and flattened beside him. There was no further gunfire. Then a few minutes later, as police and fire service sirens sounded in the rear, Shard saw the shadowy forms coming across from the hedge. There was no moon and the shadows were hard to pick up after the first glimpse. But Shard felt their approaching presence.
He waited, hoping that Logan wasn’t going to die on him.
10
There was another conference, this time in the Soviet Foreign Ministry. The conference was to do with the illegal entry by sugar-beet lorry of Hedge into the German Democratic Republic.
“This Hedge.”
“Yes.”
“He is of course known to us, Comrade Foreign Minister.” The speaker, a senior Party member highly placed in the Soviet Foreign Service hierarchy, frowned in thought. “It is very strange in my opinion.”
“Why is that?”
“Because of this Hedge. He is an important person in the British Foreign Office. Not a person who would normally be infiltrated. This makes me suspicious that the British have a very particular purpose in employing him —”
“As a spy, Comrade?”
There was a nod. “Just so. A spy. This, of course, he denies according to the Germans. This is natural. Also, there has been a reply to our enquiry — the British have no knowledge of Hedge.”
“What does that mean, do you think, Comrade?”
“That the British are lying.”
“Yes, of course.” The Foreign Minister drummed his fingers on his desk. “Why do you suppose they are lying, Comrade?”
The official shrugged. “A normal ploy, Comrade Foreign Minister. But this time, more behind it than meets the eye.” He paused weightily. “You will, of course, remember what has appeared in the British press. Some threat of the spread of rabies. And the re-emergence from the dead of the man Logan, or Schreuder, the Nazi, now held in East Germany.”
“In Magdeburg.”
“Yes, Comrade Foreign Minister. Logan is to be brought to Moscow today for questioning. As you know, he is being held by —”
“Yes. And this Hedge? You are suggesting that he is in some way connected with Logan?”
“It would appear very possible, Comrade Foreign Minister.”
“Perhaps, yes. What is known of Hedge, Comrade?”
The official opened up a file that he had balanced on his knee. “Hedge is next in the hierarchy to the Head of Security in the British Foreign Office. He is aged sixty-four and it will be not long before he retires —”
“Expendable?”
“Yes, that is possible. He is known to be anxious for honours from his Queen and that also is perhaps relevant. A last job, with accolades to follow. He is known also to be pompous and conceited. In appearance he is portly and short and dresses conventionally.”
“No cloak, no dagger, no bomb with attached fuse peering from the pocket?” This was a joke; both men laughed. Hedge was not like that, the official said. He referred to the report from the German Democratic Republic. “He is, he says, a gentleman and that is why he is not a spy.”
The Foreign Minister rose to his feet and went across his large and opulent office to gaze down through a tall window onto the passing Moscow scene, deep beneath hard-packed snow. Men and women stumbled across the icy wastes of the square in the Kremlin’s shadow, men and women queued for almost non-existent food and other commodities. There was not a car in sight; this was largely due to the weather but was due also to the terrible shortages that had so sadly continued even after the advent of the good Comrade Gorbachev and new freedoms. Shortages of this, that and the other, shortage of money among the lower echelons of communism. Glasnost had not in all truth made a very great deal of difference, at any rate internally — except that it had hastened the aspirations of the people in the various republics towards self-determination. The riots that there had been! It was alarming; and it was also relevant to certain things that had been said to be happening. The perfidious West was, so it was rumoured, thinking of taking advantage of the current discomfiture of Comrade Gorbachev …
The Foreign Minister turned from his contemplation of street misery — it had started to snow again now, and the persons in the square had become invisible beneath the cruel, icy shafts of the blizzard — and went back to his desk. He said, “You are aware of the rumours, Comrade. That the West is thought to be trying to find an excuse to attack the Soviets while we are subject to the distractions of civil unrest. There may be nothing in this. On the other hand … perhaps this Hedge may be persuaded to enlighten us? What do you think, Comrade?”
“I agree, Comrade Foreign Minister, but would make a suggestion regarding Hedge. Before he is brought to Moscow … suppose he were to be released with apologies for a wrongful apprehension?”
“Ah — lulled, do you suggest?”
“Exactly, Comrade Foreign Minister. And then followed.”
“To lead us to who knows what?”
“Yes. And finally arrested, and brought here to Moscow.”
So it was agreed. An excellent suggestion, the Foreign Minister said. It would be better than leaving the whole thing in the hands of the KGB. The KGB was not what once it had been; the KGB had been castrated by the good Comrade Gorbachev.
Hedge was once again brought from his cell and taken before the uniformed thin man. The atmosphere was very different this time and Hedge was overjoyed to learn the reason why.
“I’m very grateful,” he effused.
“We in the East are not as bad as we are shown in the West, Herr Hedge.”
Herr Hedge. Last time it had been just Hedge, very rude really. This man had no doubt been given his come-uppance by his superiors and a very good thing too. But it still behoved Hedge, he supposed, to show some sort of deference — he was still physically in East Germany and he had to get out in one piece, and quickly too. He was becoming out of touch with events and he still had an urgent need to contact Shard. In reference to the thin man’s last utterance about not being all that bad, Hedge said, “No, no, of course not. Of course not. I’ve never gone along with that, you know.”
“No, I did not know.”
“Oh. Well, anyway, I say again, I’m really immensely grateful. If I may have my belongings returned?”
The thin man opened a drawer in his desk and brought out a sealed package which he handed to Hedge. Hedge opened it and checked the contents. All correct: wallet, shoe-laces, tie, money and keys — braces. Hedge gave a sigh of relief: life had been extremely uncomfortable, at any rate when on the move to and from the thin man’s presence.
“Thank you very much,” Hedge said, “most kind.”
“It is glasnost. We are instructed to be — we are always — kind.”
“Oh yes, indeed.” Hedge hesitated. “Er … am I to be assisted back to Berlin?”
“No.”
“I see. But really, I do think — in the circumstances —”
“No.”
“— of my wrongful arrest,” Hedge ploughed on, “that it’s only —”
“No. That will not be possible.”
So they were not being that kind. The interview was at an end; the thin man stood up. He held out a bony hand, which Hedge took. “Good morning, Herr Hedge,” the thin man said. The guards, who were there still by the door, took Hedge to another room where he clipped his braces back onto his trousers. Then with his greatcoat also returned he was shown to the exit and stepped out into freedom.
The Logan File Page 11
