Snare of the Hunter

by Helen Macinnes

  He shook his head, saying, “I was hoping to join a friend. A man with long dark hair and a beard.” Even as he spoke, he glimpsed the brown coat and the blue scarf in the corner just behind him. But at this moment he dared not look more closely.

  “Haven’t seen him,” the waitress said, all interest lost.

  And now he could look. Casually. The woman in the brown coat was sitting very still, her eyes looking straight ahead and unseeing. Her order had not yet been taken, and her hands rested on the table before her. They were tightly folded. It was Irina. No impostor. Definitely Irina. For a moment David was as paralysed as she was. Then he moved.

  He turned, knocked against the table next to Irina’s, let the papers fall. She glanced at him nervously, but not at his face: she was seeing the French newspaper and Italian magazine which he picked up from the tabletop. Her eyes went to his tie, to his jacket, to the folded raincoat. And he saw the surge of relief, the easing of her lips. She was gathering up her handbag, as if she were tired of waiting for her order to be taken. She still hadn’t looked at his face.

  He left at once, pace normal, heading back for the lobby. There he picked up his bag, went out into the sunshine. The back of the Opera House faced him impassively. For a split second he imagined what it must have looked like, bombed out, gutted by fire, another total ruin of war. Then he saw only the peaceful street and the massive building that looked as if it had been there forever, and the green car swinging out from its shadows to reach him. He took a few steps away from the hotel door, towards the café: that would let the car stop out of sight from the lobby, and it would be easier for Irina too. In a few seconds the Mercedes drew smoothly up beside him.

  “Hi, there!” said Jo. “All well?”

  “She’s for real.” He opened the front door, saw two small suitcases, filling the seat beside Jo. So he jammed his bag down on the floor, dropped papers and raincoat on top of it. “Move back. I’ll take the wheel.”

  “You’d better concentrate on her.”

  That was the last thing he wanted to do at this moment.

  Jo caught sight of a blue scarf. “And here she comes!” Which settled all arguments.

  David had the rear door open, his hand extended to catch Irina’s elbow and steer her into the car. She looked at his face as she stepped inside; looked again. He heard her gasp. He urged her on with a firm grip and cut short any hesitation. Still speechless, Irina slid over the seat to make room for him. He followed, closing the door as the car began to move. He glanced at the café as they passed by: no one there was paying the least attention; no one was hurrying out or rising from a table. Then he looked back over his shoulder. The hotel entrance was equally peaceful. “I think we made it,” he said.

  Jo didn’t speak. She had been watching her side mirror with a frown, and was now concentrating alternately on the rear-view mirror and oh the traffic in the square ahead. Six streets converged there, not all at once, but closely enough to bewilder a stranger. She was still frowning. David said, “There’s a quiet spot—just over there. Pull up and I’ll take over.”

  “Not now!” Her voice was sharp with anxiety. Yet she was manoeuvring the Mercedes neatly. Like most efficient drivers, David was uneasy when anyone else was at the wheel, but he began to relax a little as he marked the way she handled the car. She was good: no violent spurts, no afterthoughts that took corners wildly, no weaving in and out. So what worried her? He looked once more over his shoulder. Something in that traffic bothered her, but he couldn’t tell what it was. She made a left turn, headed south; then once she crossed the Ring—the giant boulevard that circled the inner heart of the city—she changed direction again, this time travelling to the east. Again she made a left turn, and headed back to the north; east once more, and finally—after one more foray to the north—she swung the car west. “That was quite a performance,” David told her. She flashed a smile, glanced for a split second at Irina, and concentrated on the traffic. David relaxed completely: Jo really kept her eyes on the street both ahead and behind her; no problem there.

  He settled back into his seat, let himself look at Irina. She was watching him, her blue eyes large and wondering. Her hair was the same light blonde; but it wasn’t long any more. It now fell to just below her ears, a little uneven here and there, but still soft and gleaming. She had seemed pale in the café; now there was a touch of colour back in her cheeks, a gentle flush perhaps from the excitement of these last fifteen minutes. Her face was thinner, and sad. She wasn’t the young laughing girl he remembered. But she was still Irina.

  “Well,” he said, keeping his voice light, “have you recovered from the shock?”

  She shook her head. “I didn’t look at you. I didn’t think I’d even know the man. It was only when I was getting into the car—” She looked away from him. “I ought to have recognised you!” She was upset about that.

  “But you found the tie too fascinating?”

  “And reassuring. Someone had come to meet me after all.”

  “Did you doubt that?”

  “Yes. Something could have gone wrong. And then—I saw the tie.”

  “Well, thank Jo for that. Jo Corelli.” He pointed to the driver’s seat. “She studied psychology at Vassar.”

  Jo laughed. “Don’t believe him. I studied as little as possible. The tie was Krieger’s idea.”

  “In that case I can take it off: without hurting your feelings.” He removed it with relief and opened the top button of his shirt. Besides, it was just as well to get rid of anything noticeable.

  “Ah,” said Jo, “the negligent type? I guess it’s more suitable now.” She pulled off her hat—a large-brimmed white felt with a rakish air, which had been angled smartly over her left eye—and threw it on top of his raincoat. Then, with a simple straight piece of road ahead of her, she could free one hand to fluff her hair out of its tight brushed-back effect.

  “How clever!” Irina said, watching her. “You look quite different.”

  “We’ll soon have you different too,” Jo patted the top suitcase. “This is all yours.”

  Now, isn’t this the damnedest thing? David was thinking. I’m here, sitting beside Irina, and all I do is make chitchat with Jo, and I can’t even bring myself to talk to Irina. Where do I begin, anyway?

  Probably it was better like this. It kept everything business-like; no sentiment allowed. But it wasn’t what he had expected. And what was Irina feeling? He glanced at her, and surprised a small smile on her lips as she watched him. She put out her hand and he took it. But still neither of them spoke.

  Jo broke the silence. “Now I can agree with you, Dave. I think we have made it.” She was putting on speed as they left the last of the suburban streets, taking the highway that skirted the southern bank of the Danube at this point.

  “What seemed to be the trouble back there?” He hoped he sounded nonchalant, for Irina’s sake. Let’s play everything low key, he told himself.

  “A grey Fiat.”

  David felt Irina’s hand stiffen. “How far did it follow us?”

  “Quite a way. But we lost him, I think.”

  “Where did he pick us up? At the Sacher?”

  “He was parked just opposite. Then as we moved away, he swung out and started following.”

  “Who the hell could that have been?” David’s worry exploded.

  “Who the hell could have been trying to follow Walter Krieger all this week? And me, yesterday?” That had jolted David: so he believed her now, did he? “Somebody knew we were in Vienna.”

  And somebody knows why, thought David. But how? How? He became aware that Irina, had slipped her hand out of his. She was sitting with her arms folded around her as though she were cold. “Are you all right, Irina?” She nodded, but the little worry crease between her dark eyebrows was still there. We frightened her, he thought: all this talk of being followed. Jo’s angry; I’m confounded; but Irina is scared. He looked at her, trying to establish contact again, as little as it ha
d been. A mask had slipped over her face, a protection against any mind reading. And once she had hidden nothing. He remembered now her frankness and her laughter: her spontaneity, her scorn of pretence. Changed days, he thought grimly as he blotted that memory from his mind. It was painful to recall.

  Irina was telling herself that it was too late to speak up. She had missed the chance. She could have said, perhaps should have said—when Jo spoke of a grey Fiat—that there was nothing to worry about: it was only Ludvik Meznik, being too officious. She could easily have explained that. And yet there were some things about Ludvik she couldn’t even explain to herself. Ludvik Meznik and Alois Pokorny had no more responsibility for her once the Americans took over. That had been made clear to her by Josef Pokorny before he started his journey with her to the frontier. Josef had only been repeating the instructions from the resistance committee that had arranged their part of her travels: they would take her as far as the meeting point in Vienna: no further. They were having no direct contact whatsoever with the Americans, and wanted none.

  But what really appalled her was that Ludvik had gone beyond his instructions. By attempting to follow her he could endanger his friends back in Prague. Her ex-husband would welcome any chance to link the resistance movement with American Intelligence. Jiri had said as much in his tactful references to “foreign help” in her escape: he was always so sure that Americans were behind the whole resistance. Was that the real reason why he had let her go? Not to persuade her father to return to Czechoslovakia, just as other exiles were now being coaxed back? (That was the explanation Jiri gave; that was the plea he had made so earnestly, along with a promise to let her father live and write in peace—no harassment, no retribution.) Was the true unspoken reason simply to plan to trap American Intelligence and Czech resistance into some mistake that could be used against them? And here was Ludvik Meznik—stubborn, stupidly clever, overhelpful Ludvik—playing right into Jiri’s hands. Ludvik might very well attempt to make contact with the Americans and talk his confident way into joining them—he was just the type who’d like to boast how he had helped bring Irina to meet her father.

  Irina closed her eyes and tried to sort out her jumbled ideas. She had got some things right, she felt, and some things wrong. But which was which, she didn’t know. It all came to this: how much could she believe Jiri Hrádek? Was he really fighting for his own position in the party, as he had said? If so—and how cynical it all was—she could believe him: her father’s return to Czechoslovakia would be a personal triumph for Jiri. Yes; that was the only reason that could convince her that Jiri for once had been forced to tell the truth. Dear God, she thought. She opened her eyes, looked at David, and then at Jo. Then, for the first time, she noticed the countryside through which she was travelling.

  She could see a curving river, flowing strongly; hills that rose and fell gently, with outcrops of rock on their summits, and vineyards on the lower slopes. Up on the hilltops were perched the ruins of old castles, or the rising towers of medieval abbeys still intact. For a moment, in panic, she thought she was back in Czechoslovakia. “Where are we?”

  “We’ll cross the Danube in another fifteen minutes,” Jo told her. “After that, we are only about three miles from Dürnstein. We’ll stop there, and you can change clothes.”

  David reached over for his coat, pulled out his map. Dürnstein. “Why Dürnstein?” he asked. It was only fifty miles or so from Vienna. They had long since left the big highway, but the first-class road they were following along the right bank of the Danube was smooth, if narrow. At the steady rate they had been going, Vienna’s suburbs were only an hour away.

  “Krieger booked a room in a hotel there for Irina. He hopes to join us for a short visit. Then, refreshed in spirit if not in body, we’ll take off in all directions. Have you decided on your first stop after that, Dave?”

  “I’ll decide in Dürnstein.” I don’t like the way we were followed from the Sacher, he thought; and I like even less the idea—that someone tried to put Krieger and Jo under surveillance. And least of all I like the way that Irina froze so completely at the mention of a grey Fiat. She spent most of this journey in some other world, and it wasn’t a pleasant one.

  “We’re early,” Jo said, “in spite of all the time we wasted in twists and turns through Vienna. Krieger suggested, he’d meet us around one o’clock. So why don’t I pull over at the next Aussichtspunkt, and we can get our entrance to the Dürnstein hotel neatly planned? What we do and how we do it—that kind of thing.”

  “Save time and confusion,” David agreed. “Okay, pull over. Now!” The car eased out of the light stream of traffic and on to a small parking area, with a gravelled surface and a view of the river, sheltered at the side by trees.

  Irina had been listening intently. “Krieger?” she asked as they got out of the car. “Is he also with the CIA?”

  “Also? What do you mean by also?” said David, startled. “None of us are. We’re just a bunch of civilians.”

  She stared at him blankly. He wondered for a moment if her English had been so little used recently that she had not caught his meaning. Once she had been fluent, and had read and talked with ease. “All of you?” she asked. She didn’t believe it.

  “Just a company of friends,” Jo said brightly. “There’s Walter Krieger, who knew your father in 1943—in Slovakia when they were thinking up ways to make the Nazis hopping mad. Krieger was a liaison man; your father was one of the resistance fighters. Then there’s Hugh McCulloch, who was once a diplomat in Vienna, and went into Czechoslovakia to see your father. In 1957, I think. And there’s Uncle George, who has been your father’s publisher in London since 1935. And I have known Hugh and his wife for years—in Washington, where I run something called a boutique for Maxwell’s. That’s where all the diplomats’ wives buy their clothes, and want things that remind them of Paris and Rome and London and what have you. So I had to be in Paris in July, and I came to Vienna. I travel a lot. And that’s me. As for Dave—he’s now a music critic, and he travels sometimes. Oh, and there’s Mark Bohn,” Jo added as an afterthought. “Although, of course, he’s really on the sidelines.” She paused. “Did I speak too quickly? I’m sorry. Shall I go over it more slowly?” Because, Jo decided, all these little facts were important for Irina. They could reassure her that the people around her were her friends.

  Irina shook her head, still bewildered. “I understood most of it. But so much organisation—so much—” She halted abruptly. It had been Ludvik, this morning, who had put the idea into her head that the Americans were bound to be professional agents. And before Ludvik, there had been Jiri. He too had assumed that the CIA would be with her. “Oh, no!” she said, and she began to laugh.

  David and Jo exchanged glances.

  Irina recovered. But her eyes were still smiling as she said to David, “What do you want me to do when we reach the hotel?”

  With amusement, he nodded at Jo. “Krieger’s little conveyor belt,” he said. “Ask her. Jo gets all the instructions and she passes them on.” Of that we can be sure. But a fashion buyer? Probably she ran the whole of Maxwell’s too. So she had paid a visit to the Paris showings before she came on to Vienna? Her excuse, if needed, for this trip was as question-proof as his own. To Jo he said, “And what were you buying in Vienna? Dirndls?”

  “Alpaca and petit point,” Jo said abruptly. “Now let’s get down to business. Passports, for instance.” She produced a British one from her handbag and passed it to Irina, who was standing with her back to the road. “You can examine it,” Jo said. No one in a passing car could see what Irina was holding.

  “Tesar?—Irina Tesar? But that’s using my mother’s name.”

  “She registered you as that. You were born in London, weren’t you?”

  David said, “So she was. March 1939.” That was after Kusak had smuggled his pregnant wife out of Czechoslovakia and returned to join the anti-Nazi underground.

  “It’s legal enough,” Jo went on.
“The British can claim you as their subject, you know. So go along with them: that’s really all you’re doing. But why your mother didn’t register your birth under the name of Kusak—that’s beyond me. Unless she was an advance guard for Women’s Lib.”

  “She might have wanted to keep Kusak safe,” David suggested. It was the first kindly thought he had ever had for Hedwiga Kusak, née Tesar. But it could be true: if any Nazi agent, back in 1939, had reported that Kusak’s wife and daughter were in London, they could have been used—by threats of abduction, or even by some real body snatching—to smoke Kusak out into the open.

  “Put the passport in your bag—if it can hold it,” Jo urged. “You can’t stay at any hotel in Austria without producing it when you register. The same goes for—” She bit her tongue: she had nearly let Switzerland slip out there. “For other countries in Europe. So now you’re all set.”

  Irina tried to get the passport down the side of her handbag. “I’ll take out the other one,” she decided. “David, would you carry it for me?”

  “You have a Czechoslovak passport?” Jo asked incredulously. “How on earth did you get it? Or is it an old one faked up?” It seemed real enough to David as he glanced at it, and brand new too. He hid his surprise. “I think you should hang on to this yourself. But don’t use it meanwhile. Anything else I could carry for you?”

  Irina hesitated. Then from the bottom of the handbag she drew out a small automatic.

  “Good God,” David said, seizing it—it was so neat that it could be hidden by his hand—and jamming it into his pocket. Jo had said nothing at all: she was staring at the road, perhaps hadn’t even seen the exchange. “Where did you get that Irina?” he asked quietly.

  “It was at the back of my father’s desk. I found it before—” Jo said, aghast. “It’s the same car! He followed us after all!”

  “The Fiat?” asked David. “But that’s impossible.”

  “It was the grey Fiat.”

  There are hundreds of Fiats on the road, and dozens that are grey.”