The Traitor Blitz

by Johannes Mario Simmel

  But there was no interference, neither in Fuhlsbiittel nor during the flight. The men didn't speak to Bilka and his girl friend, nor to Michelsen; and the three didn't have much to say to each other, either. Nobody wanted dinner. The members of the bodyguard kept looking around and took turns walking slowly through the plane, including tourist class. The plane was three-quarters full. Couples. Young people. Various foreigners. Nobody Bertie knew. 414

  The plane landed on the runway and taxied slowly up to the airport building. Both exit doors were opened, the gangways were let down, the passengers left the plane. Bertie saw that Bilka, the girl, Michelsen, and the seven men remained seated. They evidendy wanted to be the last to leave the plane. He walked to the first-class exit and down the gangway. A strong, cold north wind was blowing. A big black car was parked next to the plane with two men in the front seats.

  What I am about to write was told to me by Bertie that night, on the plane—not in such detail, of course; that came later. And he didn't experience all of what he told personally; some of the information came from third persons. For instance, he knew when he called me, but not at the time, that the big limousine was armored and its windows were bulletproof. And it had running boards, like the cars of prominent statesmen, for the use of security officers.

  Bertie walked slowly toward the main building, looking carefully around him all the way. But Bilka and his entourage still hadn't left the plane. Several planes were standing in front of the building, also in front of hangars and farther off, on the runways that led to the various takeoff points. Bertie saw a huge cargo plane that had just been unloaded. Heavy pieces of agricultural equipment were standing around it. They had been carried in the belly of the plane and been rolled out on a wide metal ramp. Bertie noted that the cargo plane belonged to a Polish airline. A Yugoslav Boeing was just taking off on one of the runways.

  Bertie turned around again and saw Bilka, the girl, and Michelsen in the doorway of the plane, about to exit. The seven men were ahead of and behind them. Now all of them had their hands in their jackets and were looking cautiously all around them, but nothing untoward happened.

  Bertie, who was familiar with the Helsinki airport, knew that the exit for cars with permission to drive up to a plane was situated beside the cargo area. He limped to the main building, shouldered his way rudely through the passengers waiting in line, showed his passport, didn't bother to claim his duffel bag—he could do that later—ran out of the building, and hailed a taxi. It drove up, Bertie got in beside the driver. "Do you speak German?"

  "Yes," said the driver, a big fellow with blond hair and very white skin. He was wearing a leather jacket. Bertie handed him two one-hundred mark bills. "What's that for?"

  "Drive over to the cargo area. A big black car is going to drive

  .

  out of the gate any minute now. Ihave to follow it. But you Ve got to be clever about it. They're not to notice."

  "Police?" asked the driver.

  "Press," said Bertie, and showed his card.

  "I don't usually ask questions," said the driver. "If I'm paid well, I'll do anything I'm asked to do, as long as it's not illegal."

  "Nothing illegal about this," said Bertie, and wondered what the man would consider illegal and refuse to do. What luck to have found him!

  He turned out to be an excellent driver. He parked beside the gate but behind a truck, and turned off his lights. A few minutes later Bertie could hear the big gate being opened. The armored car emerged. Five men were standing on therunning boards; the other two were in the limousine with Bilka, the girl, Michelsen, and the two men who had been in the car originally. The limousine stopped.

  Two smaller cars now emerged from an open warehouse building. The men on the running boards got into them, three into the first car, two into the second, and the small convoy began to move, the limousine between the two cars.

  "Wait a minute!" said Bertie.

  "Of course. I'm not an idiot!"

  Bertie took a picture of the three cars as they drove around the rotary in front of the airport building and from there turned into a street that led to the city. "Now!" said Bertie.

  A few other taxis and private cars that had been parked in front of the main building began to move, too. There was quite a lot of traffic. But the taxi driver turned out to be a genius. He soon caught up with the small convoy, which was driving faster now on the highway to the city, always managing to keep a car or two between them and himself. And he really didn't ask any questions.

  They drove past stretches of water, with the moon reflected in them, and some woodland. The highway led to the center of Helsinki—Bertie recognized it—but the convoy evidently didn't want to enter the city, because the three cars suddenly turned right into the Elaintarhantie. To the right were woods; to the left, the sea. The night was so bright that Bertie's driver turned off his lights. "Pretty lonely out here," he said. "They might notice us."

  "Here," said Bertie, handing the driver another hundred-mark bill.

  Now they were driving along Runeberginkatu. To Bertie's

  surprise, the three-car column turned sharply onto a street that led to the Hietaranto Beach. Here very wealthy people owned bungalows or houses set far apart. "Stop here!" Bertie told the driver. "Wait for me. It's too desolate. I'll have to do the rest on foot."

  "That's all right with me," said the driver. He had been chewing gum all the time and couldn't have been calmer.

  Bertie got out. The north wind hit him full force as he limped down Etelainen Hesperiankatu, the street that led to the beach. He could see the three cars driving on a narrow lane between the dunes in the direction of a row of elegant bungalows, and he threw himself on the ground behind some thick, windblown bushes. He took out his binoculars.

  The convoy stoprjed in front of a dark-wood bungalow standing on fenced-in property. For a while nothing happened. Finally all the occupants of the cars, except Michelsen and the girl, got out. The men guarding Bilka stood in a circle around him. Bertie could see that they were holding automatics in their hands; this included the two men who had been waiting in the limousine. They took Bilka between them. Bertie decided they had to be the American colleagues of the men in Hamburg, stationed in Helsinki, where they probably knew their way around.

  A light was on over the entrance to the bungalow. The garden gate opened automatically. Bilka, the two men from the limousine and two of the men from Hamburg, walked across the sand and stone to the bungalow. The remaining men stood motionless in the moonlight. They looked around them constantly, standing back to back, and all of them held their weapons ready. Bertie took a few pictures but didn't think he'd get anything.

  The door of the bungalow opened. A man stood in the doorway. He wore his hair long, like a hippie. Everybody walked into the bungalow and the door was closed. The wind changed suddenly, and Bertie could hear the noise of the surf. He waited five minutes.

  Of course, he had no idea at the time of what was going on in the bungalow during those five minutes. However, since he found out about it just before he called me, I can record it here.

  The man with the long hair greeted Bilka. This was his friend in Helsinki—a painter. He led his visitors through a large living room with a fire burning in the fireplace, into a big studio. He

  knelt down and opened the bottom drawer of a bureau with prints, lithographs, and watercolor sketches in it. The scene was grotesque—easels everywhere, finished and unfinished paintings leaning against the walls, palettes, tubes of paint, brushes, bottles of turpentine, stretched canvases—chaos! And standing in the middle of it all, four silent men with automatic pistols, a pale Czech, and a nervous painter rummaging around in a bureau drawer. At last he found what he had hidden—two aluminum containers, the kind microfilm is stored in. They were about as long as a little finger and were three centimeters in diameter. The painter handed them to Bilka.

  Bilka gave them to one of the men from the armored car. With his colleague he walked o
ver to a strong light that was hanging from the ceiling. Together they opened the containers, took the films out of them one at a time, and held them up to the light. With a magnifying glass, they examined the films; what they saw seemed to satisfy them. The driver of the armored car, who apparently was in charge of the expedition, sat down for a moment and carefully put the films back into their containers. Then he gave them to his colleague. Bilka shook the painter's hand. The latter accompanied his visitors to the door.

  Bertie, lying in the wildly windswept bushes, saw the door of the bungalow open again and a man come out, holding his gun. A second man followed him, a third, a fourth, finally Bilka. The men surrounded him and they all walked through the garden again, to their cars. Bertie jumped to his feet and ran as fast as he could to his waiting taxi. "They'll be here any minute," he said.

  The driver nodded, started his car, backed into a dark driveway, and stopped. A few minutes later the three cars drove past them, moving fast. The driver waited a moment, then followed the convoy, his lights out.

  They drove back to the airport the way they had come. Soon they were joined by other cars and got into some heavy traffic. Bertie's driver put on his lights; when they reached the airport rotary, he put them out again. The three cars drove up to the cargo area, the gate was opened again, and the three cars passed through. The gate closed behind them.

  "Stop!" said Bertie. The driver stopped, Bertie got out and limped through the wind to the gate and stared at the airfield. What were they going to do now? Wait out there until the midnight plane left for New York? Evidently, thought Bertie, and then, alarmed suddenly: Evidently notl

  What happened next, happened fast.

  The armored car, which had been driving between the other two, suddenly broke away and sped in the direction of the takeoff runway. Bertie could see the men in the smaller cars chasing after it. Again and again Bertie could see the fire from their pistols. Not very effective, he thought, to shoot at an armored car. The limousine drove on at high speed without returning fire.

  The two chasing cars streaked across the runways. Suddenly they collided. One of the gas tanks exploded. A gigantic orange flame shot up into the sky. Bertie saw the men staggering out of their cars and running to safety.

  Immediately all the floodlights outside the airport building were turned on. Sirens howled, firetrucks roared, and all in brilliant lighting. Bertie took pictures. Meanwhile the armored car had sped on. Where was it going? Then Bertie saw where it was heading. The huge Polish cargo plane was standing on the takeoff runway, its navigation lights blinking, its engines running, ready to take off. As the car came closer, the loading ramp was lowered, the car drove up the ramp and disappeared in the belly of the plane, and the jet engines began to whine. There'll be men in there, thought Bertie, anchoring the car— Slowly, then faster and faster, the heavy plane took off. Now it was airborne and the pilot began the ascent. The jet's exhaust spewed out a black cloud as the plane rose higher and higher, until it was very small and banking to the left.

  The first fire truck had reached the burning car. They began to smother it with foam. The men who had jumped out of the cars were screaming at each other and gesticulating wildly; then they all ran over to the control tower.

  Bertie, limping badly, got out of the elevator and walked down a passage to the main office in the control tower. The area was closed to unauthorized people; but in the general panic following the explosion, Bertie managed to get through.

  The passage was empty. There were a lot of doors. He heard a noise and turned around fast. He was standing beside a toilet. He opened the door, walked into one of the booths, and locked himself in. Almost immediately he heard the voices of two men, talking excitedly in Finnish as they passed by the toilet door. And after that—Bertie always was a lucky guy, especially when he was working—he could distinctly hear voices through the toilet wall. He pressed his ear against it. A loud conversation was going on in the next room. Several men—Bertie was able to distinguish five voices—were talking in English. American English. They must be four of the Amis I followed, he decided, and one more, somebody with a deep voice—who must have stayed behind, because now he was letting the others tell him what had happened.

  "Jim... over in the control room. He's going crazy. Telephoning to everyone he can think of. Insisting that they've got to send up fighters to stop the transport!"

  The deep voice: "I know. Take it easy. I told him to do it."

  "But he needs Defense Department permission for that, Pete."

  So Pete was the one with the deep voice. Now he said, "Yes. So?"

  "And Defense isn't going to go along with us. An East bloc plane! In Finland!"

  "We've got to do everything we possibly can," said Pete. "It's only a hundred and fifty kilometers to the Russian border. Even if we got the order, it'd be much too late."

  "But what's driving me up the wall, Pete—what are the chances we have a Judas?"

  "What makes you think that?"

  "Well, look: There aren't only Bilka and Michelsen and his girl in that armored car. Four of our boys are in it, too. Two from here and two from Hamburg. All of them rats? What do you suppose they got paid for it? What do you—?"

  "Idiot!" Pete's voice, harsh now. Then friendly again: "Sorry, Wally. I forgot you weren't there when they announced it."

  "Announced what?"

  "Some Finnish motorist found two men, bound and gagged, behind a hedge alongside the road. They were your two friends from Helsinki."

  "Shit!"

  "Yes, shit! They were the original drivers of the armored car."

  "But how—?"

  "They say they suddenly saw a child lying in the road on tkeir way to the airport. They'd been sent out alone because more cars might have attracted too much attention. So... they saw the child and got out—"

  "Idiotic I"

  "Criminal negligence!"

  "Don't be unreasonable. They thought it was an accident. And of course that was just what the Russians were waiting for."

  "Naturally."

  "They say the men were Russians. Brilliantly selected to pass as Americans. Not a trace of an accent. Dressed like Americans and fully briefed. Knocked our men unconscious, took their papers, guns, ID cards. Tied them up, hid them behind the hedge, and drove to the airport in our limousine."

  "And the child?"

  "The child's fine. Had been told to he there. A car took him away."

  "Those goddamn' bastards!"

  "It's fantastic! Simply fantastic! And we never noticed a thing! Never doubted them for a moment! I spoke to both of them."

  "So did I!"

  "So did I!"

  "Well, there you are," said Pete. "You didn't know each other. That was our mistake. Somebody must have told the Russians what plane you were taking, how many of you there would be, that Bilka was going to lead you to the place—everything."

  "So those were two Russians who drove the car onto the plane!"

  "Don't tell me you've just caught on!"

  "Just a minute! Besides the two Russians and Bilka and his girl and this guy Michelsen two of our men from Hamburg were in that car, too. What about them?"

  Pete's voice: "The captain of the cargo plane radioed right after takeoff that nothing was going to happen to them. The Russians overpowered them, the crew helped. They're being taken along as hostages."

  "But then what Jim's trying to do is nonsense! To force them to land with fighter planes."

  "He has to try. You know what's at stake."

  "But they'll kill our men!"

  "The Russian captain's threatened us with just that. As soon as he sights the first fighter. Otherwise they'll send our two men

  back as soon as they've landed. On the condition that nobody tries to stop them. A shitty situation, granted. But headquarters has told us to try—"

  The noise of a door opening and a new voice, raging, "It's all over! Finished! Finished, fuck it!"

  "Calm down, Joe. What's
finished?"

  "Here. Take a look at these films. Here! And here! One of the Russians took the containers from the painter, and gave them to me. But he took them back to put the films inside again. That's when he must have switched films!"

  "Oh, God!"

  "I'll be damned!"

  "These films are from a report on the last NATO maneuvers!"

  "I can't believe it!"

  "And Bilka's films?"

  "With the Russians, of course. In the transport."

  "God Almighty! We've made asses of ourselves!"

  "Let's take this again," said Pete, "and more slowly this time. Now what exacdy took place in the bungalow? How did this exchange of films take place? Slowly, please. And in detail "

  13

  "So they told Pete the whole story all over again, in detail this time, and I listened. That's why I can tell you all about it now."

  Bertie's voice in my ear. I was seated on the couch, listening to his report. Monerov, Bilka's brother, and Irina were standing motionlessly around me, like figures from Madame Toussaud's. The man who called himself Monerov was smiling. And he was still holding his gun.

  I had taken several drinks from the bottle while Bertie was telling his story, now I drank again. "Go on," I told Bertie.

  "Well, I got away as fast as I could. And telephoned you. I still have the same driver. He'll do anything for me. Says he'll drive me to the first early-morning plane to Hamburg. By the way, this is for laughs: The driver isn't a Finn. He's Norwegian. A Norwegian communist. Your dear Fraulein Louise—"

  "Shut up!" I said. A Norwegian. A Norwegian communist in Helsinki! "Come back as fast as you can," I said. The receiver almost slipped out of my hands, they were sweating so.

  "The Russians have Jan?" Irina's voice was a whisper.

  "Yes. And his girl. And Michelsen."

  Bilka's brother groaned.

  "You see—" Monerov began, when suddenly the door was opened and Jules Cassin came tearing into the room. He was wearing a hat and coat over his uniform. He didn't look at any of us, only at Monerov. "Everything's in order, Jossif," he cried. "The plane must be over Soviet territory now. Will be landing in a few minutes. There's nothing more we can do here. Let's go!"