Snare of the Hunter

by Helen Macinnes

  She dropped her voice. “We had to make a change in plans. Krieger is being followed.”

  He looked at her quickly.

  She went on, low-voiced, calm and business-like. “So he has pulled out of the Sacher, and I’ve been told not to contact you there, and we can’t have that little meeting in your room tonight, as he had planned. He’s still in Vienna, of course, keeping an eye on things, but he’s lying low. He even called Bohn to Vienna.”

  “Bohn here too?”

  “This morning. And delighted to be of help. He was in London last week-end, trying to persuade Uncle George and Hugh McCulloch to let him accompany them to the happy reunion of Jaromir Kusak and his daughter. Big story, and Mark Bohn is going to get it.” She laughed softly. “Can’t keep a sharp journalist down: he’ll bounce up every time.”

  “What’s Bohn going to do here? Travel with us?”

  She shook her head. “Krieger needed him to make two telephone calls for him. To the number that Irina gave Bohn in her letter to him. Remember?”

  As if I’d ever forget, he thought. “The Janocek identification routine?”

  “Why two calls?”

  “Right.”

  “Krieger is cautious. The first one is to warn Irina to get ready to leave. And also to find out just how much time her friends will need to drive her by car from the place where she has been hiding to the Opera House.”

  The Opera House was a central location, with plenty of traffic around it and busy streets leading to it. And the Sacher was close by—just at the back of it, actually. That makes things simple for me, thought David: no chance of losing myself in Vienna streets on my way to pick up Irina.

  “You see,” Jo was explaining, “we have no idea of where Irina actually is, whether outside the city or within it. So the only way—”

  “I’ve got that. Their estimated time will give us a basis for our own calculations, and we can arrive on the spot—with luck—almost simultaneously. And I suppose Bohn’s second call is to give Irina the exact time to leave for the Opera House?”

  “He’ll make the call tomorrow morning, give her five minutes to leave. But her friends won’t bring her to the Sacher. That’s too noticeable. They’ll be told to drop her at the Opera House, and it’s only a short block to—”

  “—The hotel? She’s walking there to meet us? That’s insane, absolutely insane.”

  She said coldly. “Far from it. She won’t enter the hotel. She’ll walk into the café from its street entrance. And that’s where you’ll see her.”

  “Look—it would be safer and simpler if I just parked tomorrow near the front of the Opera House, waited until I saw her being dropped from her friends’ car at the corner, cruised along, and then—”

  “Can you be sure of identifying her at a distance? She won’t be dressed the way you remember her.”

  He hesitated. “Have Bohn give exact instructions about where they are to let her out of the car. I’ll be at that very spot.” He drew a deep breath. “And I can recognise her if I’m near enough to see her face.”

  “You’ll do that in the café.”

  “Why there?” he asked angrily.

  “Because you’ve got to make sure that she is Irina, and not a substitution. Not some girl from the Czech secret police who’s a good imitation of Irina’s last photograph. I’ve seen it—Krieger has a copy—but I couldn’t really know if she was authentic. And you will know, won’t you?”

  “Yes,” he said at last. “I’ll know.” There was another pause. “And if she’s not Irina—what then?”

  “Dump her. Leave her sitting at a café table. We want no part of this escape attempt unless it’s for real.”

  “I just rise and walk out?” he asked unbelievingly. “Or I could say, ‘Hell, no, you’re a damn fake. Find your own way back across the frontier!’”

  “You don’t rise, because you won’t be sitting down. Let me explain—” She paused as she noticed the waitress coming their way. “Later. I’ve also got some other instructions for you.”

  I bet you have, he thought.

  “From Hugh McCulloch this time,” she said, and her dark-blue eyes smiled. “Let’s skip the strudel and have a gallon of coffee. Okay with you?”

  “Of course,” he said. Was there any other choice? But he did notice that she let him do the ordering. “Didn’t you say McCulloch was in London last week-end?” he asked, once the food had been cleared away. The waitress was shaking her tight blonde curls at their small appetites. He hoped she would blame that on unrequited love (Act II, Scene 3).

  “Yes. All arrangements are completed with Uncle George. Hugh is in Geneva now.”

  “Is that where we are heading once we leave Vienna?” Central, Hugh McCulloch had called it. But would Kusak have chosen Geneva for his hiding place? Too many exiles were there already.

  “I don’t know.”

  “We still don’t know?”

  “You and I don’t. Safety precaution. Uncle George is strong on security.”

  “Uncle George—you mean Sylvester? Kusak’s publisher?”

  “Yes. And he is my uncle.”

  That was a mild surprise. “So that’s how you got enlisted. I wondered.” We are all friends of Jaromir Kusak, McCulloch had said. “Do you know Kusak?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’ve actually met him?”

  “In London, when he was staying with Uncle George almost four years ago. But that’s the kind of story we can keep for later. Now, I’d better remember all Hugh’s instructions. In the right order, too.” She stirred her coffee, allowed one spoonful of whipped cream. “Now, where was I? Really, you can be disconcerting.”

  That makes two of us. He said, “We were driving to some place called Nowhere.”

  “West will be our general direction, if that’s any help.”

  “I didn’t think we’d be driving south to Yugoslavia.”

  “Hugh wants you to head for Switzerland.”

  “Because it’s so central?”

  “Well, it is! And it has a choice of good airports in various places too. We won’t be driving all the way to—well—wherever it is. It could be Paris or Rome. I imagine, and this is only my hunch, that we get to Switzerland first and then we’ll be told what airport to reach, and after that we fly out. It’s simple enough: we keep on going until we get Hugh’s final instructions from Geneva.”

  “I could suggest even a simpler plan: pick Irina up and drive straight to the Vienna airport. It’s new, and big, one of the best in Europe.”

  “And it is being watched. You can bet on that. As the railroad stations in Vienna are being watched. Perhaps even the Danube boats too. No, you see, the point is that the greatest danger for Irina is anywhere near Czechoslovakia, and Vienna is only about thirty miles away. Not much more. The further west we get, the looser the net will be. The sooner we reach Switzerland, the safer.” She took a deep breath. “That is Hugh’s judgment, and Krieger agrees.”

  “They’re possibly right,” he admitted as he thought it over. “Any special instructions on our route?”

  “Krieger is working out our first stop now. After that, you will have to choose the best roads. I think we’d better avoid the logical way through Innsbruck.”

  “Too simple?” he suggested with a smile.

  “Too clogged. At this time of year everyone is travelling in their pretty new automobiles. There were traffic jams yesterday, as long as three hours at a time, all through that valley. And if you’re thinking of detouring through southern Germany and coming down into Switzerland from the north—well, only two days ago I was in a line of cars seven miles long at the German-Austrian frontier.”

  “Sounds as though I were back on the Long Island Expressway.” Seriously, though, bumper-to-bumper traffic was always a strain, and with Irina in the car it would be worse than that. Her nerves wouldn’t be too good, these days.

  Jo had opened her bag, a nice capacious travelling pouch in the smartest black Gucci l
eather. “Which reminds me, you’ll need a map.”

  “I have several, thank you.” Not very adequate. He hadn’t had time to shop in Salzburg for the map he wanted. He’d find it in Vienna.

  “Have you this one?” She drew out a Freytag-Berndt map of Austria. “In four languages. It counts the kilometres for you too. Every road from throughway to third class.” She placed it on the bench beside his thigh. He took it without any more argument, without even the comment that he had been going to search for it this afternoon. “Have you got a red tie?” she asked next.

  “How’s that?”

  “Red.”

  “Yes, but it’s packed in my suitcase in Salzburg.”

  “Then take this.” She passed him a folded tie of a strong dark red. He began to laugh. “You’ll need it for tomorrow,” she told him, and the laugh was cut short. “What suit are you wearing?”

  “This jacket and flannels.”

  “Tweed,” she said reflectively. It was lightweight, greyish green. She memorised its colour. “Then a flower in the buttonhole is definitely out. Perhaps the tie will be enough. Have you a raincoat?”

  “Everyone travelling in Austria has a raincoat.”

  “Could you carry it slung over your shoulder?”

  “Limey fashion?”

  She smiled and nodded. “And you’ll carry a French newspaper, folded so that its title is noticeable. Also a copy of Oggi under your arm. It will be glaring enough. You can get these—”

  “Yes, I know exactly where to get these in Kärtner Street. But there’s one thing I won’t do, and that is carry a raincoat slung over my shoulder into any Viennese coffeehouse. Definitely no.”

  “Then carry it folded over your arm. I think that’s all... Have you got the idea?”

  “How I’ll look tomorrow morning when I step into the Sacher café? Yes, I’ve got the picture.” To please her, he ran over the details.

  “I know you think this is all comic, and we may as well have our laugh today. Because tomorrow I don’t think we’re going to be laughing at all.”

  “Tomorrow,” he said, “what do I actually do? Apart from the fancy-dress routine? You were going to tell me the details over our last cup of coffee.”

  “This is what Krieger has planned,” she began, and she gave him more instructions, clear and definite. “So now you know all that I know.” She finished her coffee. “I’ll telephone you tonight around eleven. Very briefly, giving you the exact time when we start moving out in the morning. Now I think I’d better get back to town. I have some shopping ahead of me. For Irina. What type was she—thin, medium, or pleasantly rounded?”

  “Medium slender,” he said curtly. “And not so tall as you. About two inches less.” He signalled to the waitress across the garden.

  That makes Irina five feet five in her bare feet, Jo thought. The height was useful: it didn’t change as much as medium slender in sixteen years. Had there been addition or subtraction? I’ll play it safe; she decided: choose something knitted that can stretch with the curves if necessary, and add a belt in case it floats around her like a tent.

  “She’s bound to have some clothes of her own,” David said impatiently.

  “Not the way Krieger is arranging it.” She glanced at her watch. “I’ll really have to hurry. Can you give me a lift? I came here by trolley car.”

  “That’s a new twist.” She had to be kidding.

  “I thought so. The last place the man expected to find me was on a trolley car.”

  “What man?”

  “The one who tried to follow me this morning.”

  “You were followed?”

  “Don’t worry,” she told him. “There’s no damage done. I lost him, way back in Vienna.”

  “You’re sure of that?”

  “Quite sure. No one followed me once I had left the second taxi.” David was staring at her with some bewilderment. “Oh, now, do you think I’d have come here if I wasn’t sure?”

  “No.” That he could believe. But had she actually been tailed? Or was she expecting something like that and imagination had done the rest? She certainly was enjoying this little triumph, real or not. “I’ll say this for you,” he said lightly, “you’re one girl who can ride in a trolley car and not even muss up her dress.”

  “But it’s noncrushable—” she began indignantly, and then saw his amusement.

  “Of course, you’re the travel expert,” he said as if he had just remembered it “Now, about this character who tried to follow you—”

  “You don’t believe it?”

  “Well, it might have been for pleasure.” He could imagine plenty of guys who would spend a happy morning following this cutie-pie around.

  “Oh, really—” she said, and shook her head. Strange, she thought, how men never took her seriously, except the older ones like McCulloch and Krieger. Perhaps the man who had tried to follow her this morning hadn’t taken her seriously either—until she had vanished. “Well,” she said, cool and detached once more, “I’ve given you a warning.”

  “And I’ll take it,” he promised, and signalled to the waitress. “I’ll walk around Vienna with my radar working.”

  At least, she thought, Krieger would find nothing comic in her story. He would be pleased with her progress: she was learning fast. She felt very good indeed as she remembered the man who had kept close on her heels, even managing to follow after she had changed taxis, and then—as she slipped out of the second cab and bolted through a crowd to disappear behind the trolley car’s closing door—had stood glaring in the wrong direction.

  She glanced at David, now waiting for the bill. He would soon learn all these little dodges, and not even laugh at himself. Here we are, she thought, without a weapon or listening device or an electronic gadget between us. Two very with-it agents, if we are to be judged by current trends in thought: no violence, no ideology, no cold-war mentality. We’re just giving a helping hand to some victims of the cold peace. Aren’t we the sweet obliging idiots?

  Still, it would be worth it, she admitted more seriously. It was a job that someone must do. Using what? Brains and common sense, Walter Krieger had said. These were what mattered in any emergencies. And he ought to know. He had spent four years right in the middle of Europe when the Nazis were all over the place. The less you depended on gadgets, he said, the more you were forced back on your own ingenuity. You’d be twice as cautious if you didn’t carry a two-way transmitter disguised as a cigarette lighter, if you hadn’t the feeling you could always call on others to help you out of a mess. The important thing was to rely on yourself, and know your limits. That way, no mess. But thank God, she thought, that old hand Krieger was in the background calling the shots.

  David added a large tip to the total, and they left the table with a small chorus of auf Wiedersehen echoing behind them. (Act III, final scene. Village women sing a farewell song. All ends happily on ascending major chords.) “I rather liked it here,” David said. Sunlight through vine leaves. “Pity we didn’t have the time after all.”

  “Time for what?” She looked at him sharply.

  “For getting to know a little about each other,” he quoted back to her.

  “Didn’t we?” she asked, and smiled.

  He changed over to safer talk. “How did you hear about this place?”

  “I came here last year with an Austrian friend. I wanted to see some local colour, tourist-packed or not: zither playing, singing, the whole Gemütlichkeit bit. He was amused by the way I liked it. But sort of pleased too.” She was thinking over that evening. “Oh,” she said, “it’s good to stop being sophisticated every single waking hour. Isn’t it?”

  He nodded. A strange mixture, this girl: she confounded first impressions. Make a note of that, he told himself, and stop stiffening your jaw every time she takes charge. If she hadn’t been passing out instructions today, where would you be? Wandering into Vienna, blind. “There’s more to Krieger than chocolate,” he said. “What’s his real business?
”

  “Chocolate.” She frowned, trying to find a reason behind his question. This man might be difficult at times, but he was not a fool. Her brow smoothed out. “Oh, he was in the OSS.”

  “That takes us way back. No intelligence work since then?”

  “No. But some of his best friends are with the CIA or MI6. Does that damn him?”

  “Not enough to matter,” he said, remembering the Reuter’s dispatch from Prague. (And there had been more reports in the Salzburg papers, backing up his theory.) Then he grinned, turned the whole thing into a joke, had her smiling too.

  The light mood was kept as they drove in his rented Mercedes, a compact four-door in unobtrusive dark green, into the centre of Vienna. It ended abruptly when she said, “You can’t park for more than ninety minutes at a stretch.”

  “Taking charge again, was she? “Then I’ll try a garage near the hotel. I’ll drop you there first.”

  “I’ll come to the garage with you. There’s a big one near the Neuer Markt.”

  “Now, is there? And you just happen to know it?”

  “Well, I had an idea—”

  “I bet you had.”

  “I just thought—for tomorrow morning—that I ought to be able to pick up the car for you. It would fit in with your plans.”

  “Nicely. But my plans?”

  “Krieger’s.” She spoke with a nervous smile in her dark-blue eyes, quickly covered by the lowering of long lashes.

  “It was well named the Office of Strategic Services.” He shook his head. But he was pleased somehow that this girl was not much of a liar.

  “You know,” she said as they approached the Neuer Markt through heavy traffic, “it might be easier if we each had a name—just to tag on to the end of a sentence or something. Mine is Jo, short for Joanna. And you are Dave, or is it David?”

  “Dave. That’s what they call me.” Except Irina...was that why he used David in his own mind? He turned the car abruptly into a quieter street, halted it by the kerb. He took out his bag and raincoat, and said, “Okay, Jo, it’s all yours. Don’t forget the keys.” He was crossing the narrow street, walking smartly in the direction of the Sacher, before she slipped over into the driver’s seat.