by Greenberg
Willie Garvin whistled softly. This was bad. He saw that Modesty was angry. Like him, she was thinking of the agents, the men and women who for years had lived the bleak, comfortless and restricted life of East Berliners, and who with luck might go on doing so for years more, simply so that they could be activated if ever a crisis got out of hand and the chips went down.
At very best the job was a sentence to long barren years of deprivation. At worst, a bad break would mean torture and death. God alone knew why they did it. But they did. And the very least acknowledgment they could be given was not to sell them down the river by needless exposure.
“If Tarrant resigns,” Fraser said brusquely, “we lose the best man ever to hold the job. That’s one thing. It’s bad, but we seem to specialize in self-inflicted wounds, so it’s nothing new. The second thing is this. If he resigns, they’ll put in somebody who will agree to do what Tarrant won’t. The new boy will activate the network to get this bloody Japanese measles expert out, and it’s an odds-on chance that Starov will have the lot.” He looked into his glass and said broodingly, “I’ve been where they’re sitting now. It’s not funny.”
Modesty said, “You’re asking us to do something?”
Fraser gave her a lopsided, humorless smile. He looked suddenly tired. “Not asking,” he said. “I don’t see what the hell you or anybody can do. I’m just telling you and hoping. Hoping you might think of some way to save those poor trusting buggers in East Berlin.”
Nobody spoke for a while. Fraser looked up and saw that Willie Garvin was leaning against the wall by the fireplace, looking at Modesty with an almost comically inquiring air, as if they were sharing some faintly amusing joke.
She got up and moved to the telephone, saying, “Do you know where Sir Gerald is now?”
“At the office,” Fraser said, hardly daring to acknowledge the flare of hope that leapt within him. “Composing his resignation, I imagine.”
She dialed the direct number, waited a few seconds, then said, “It’s Modesty. Do you think you could call here very soon, Sir Gerald? Something urgent has come up.” A pause. “Thank you. In about twenty minutes, then.”
She put down the phone. Willie had moved and stood looking down at Fraser with a wicked grin. He said, “Tarrant swore he’d never get the Princess tangled up in another caper. He’s going to ’ave your guts for this, Fraser, my old mate.”
When Tarrant arrived, Willie Garvin was absent. The sight of Fraser, and his simple statement, “I’ve told her,” left no need for further explanation. Even Tarrant’s immense control was barely sufficient to contain his fury.
Fraser went into his humble and pathetic act, was blasted out of it, and sat in dour silence, his face a little pale, as Tarrant lashed him with a cold but blistering tongue.
Modesty allowed time for the first shock to be absorbed, then broke in briskly. “He came to me because he’s concerned about your sleeper network, Sir Gerald. Let’s talk about that now.”
“No, my dear.” He turned to her. “I wouldn’t send one of my salaried agents into East Berlin for this job, much less you. Don’t think me ungrateful. I even recognize Fraser’s good intentions. But I won’t allow you to attempt an impossible mission.”
“A few people who trust you are going to die if we don’t do something.”
“I know.” There was a gray tinge to Tarrant’s face. “If I thought you stood a chance of getting Okubo out . . .” He shrugged. “Perhaps I’d forget the promise I’ve made to myself, and ask your help. But there isn’t a chance. The Berlin Wall is virtually impenetrable now. Oh, I know there have been plenty of escapes, but not recently. People used to escape over it, under it and through it. But not anymore.”
Absently he took the glass she handed him and muttered his thanks. “It’s different now,” he said. “And it was never easy. You’d need three figures to count the tunnels dug during the years since the Wall was built, but only a dozen succeeded. Now there are detection devices to locate tunnels. People have crossed the Wall in every possible way. By breeches buoy on a high cable. By battering through it with a steamroller. They’ve used locomotives on the railway and steamers on the canal. They’ve swum and they’ve run and they’ve climbed. Over two hundred have died. With each new idea, the East Germans have taken measures to prevent it being used again. And the West Berlin people have stopped being cooperative now. They don’t like messy incidents at the Wall.”
He gave her a tired smile. “I can’t send you into that. There’s not only the Wall itself. There are guards by the hundred, highly trained guard dogs, and antipersonnel mines. There’s a wired off thirty-yard death strip even before you can reach the Wall from the east. That’s where most people die. There are infrared cameras and trip wires and waterway patrols. And nobody gets smuggled through a checkpoint anymore, certainly not Okubo.”
He emptied his glass and put it down. “I know your ability and resources. Perhaps you could find a way out, given time. But you can’t even get inside safely at short notice. You could never enter East Berlin as yourself, and a sound cover-identity would take months to establish.”
Modesty smiled at him. “Don’t be such an old misery. I have a friend with special facilities for entering East Berlin.”
Before Tarrant could answer there came the faint hum of the ascending lift. The doors in the foyer opened and a man stepped out. He was tall and wore a well-cut dark suit. His hair had once been fair but was now almost entirely gray, prematurely gray to judge by his face, which was rather round and bore a healthy tan. He wore horn-rimmed spectacles, and was beginning to thicken around the waist.
“Ah, there you are,” Modesty said as he moved forward and down the three steps which pierced the wrought-iron balustrade separating the foyer from the sitting-room. “It’s good of you to drop everything and come so quickly. Sir Gerald, I’d like you to meet Sven Jorgensen.”
The man shook hands and said in good English with a slight accent, “A pleasure to meet you, Sir Gerald.”
Tarrant said, “How do you do.” He was puzzled and a little distressed. Why the hell had Modesty brought in a foreign stranger, right in the middle of a top-secret discussion? He trusted her judgement completely, but –
Why on earth was Jorgensen prolonging the handshake, gazing at him in that odd way?
Jorgensen said in Willie Garvin’s voice, “You’re not concentrating, Sir G.”
Tarrant heard Fraser rip off a delighted oath, and struggled hard not to show his own surprise. Yes, he could see it now, as if suddenly seeing the hidden face in a child’s puzzle-picture. The disguise was not heavy. There was the superb and undetectable wig, and the pads which altered the shape of the face, but the rest of the transformation lay mainly in manner, posture and movement.
Tarrant said, “Hallo, Willie. You’re right. I wasn’t concentrating.”
“We go in from Sweden by air,” Modesty said. “Willie is Herr Jorgensen, who runs a small antique and rare-book business in Gothenberg. I’m his secretary. I can’t show you what I’ll look like just now because I have to dye my hair, but I’ll be equally convincing.”
“I’m sure you will.” Tarrant shook his head slowly. “But it still won’t do, Modesty. Foreign businessmen or visitors are automatically suspect in East Germany, you know that. You’ll be watched. Your rooms may be bugged, your passports intensely checked. You simply won’t get away with it.”
“We have got away with it for the last five years,” Willie said in his rather stilted Jorgensen voice, and took out a packet of Swedish cigarettes. Tarrant looked at Modesty. She said, “We’ve made a ten- or twelve-day trip to East Berlin from Sweden every year for the last five. The antique business in Gothenberg is quite genuine and belongs to us.”
Fraser said, “But for Christ’s sake, why do you do it?”
She gave a little shrug. “We began it a year or two before we retired from crime. It seemed a useful provision, to see what went on behind the Curtain and to establish credible id
entities there. We kept it up because it seemed a pity to let the thing lapse. The East Berlin police have Herr Jorgensen and Fröken Osslund on record. We’ve been tailed and bugged and checked and politely questioned. They’ve given up tailing us now. We know that, because we always know if we’re being tailed. They may still bug our rooms. We never bother to check, because even if the rooms were clean there might be three bugs in each when we got back from a trip. So when we talk in our rooms, we talk in character.”
“You make trips?” Tarrant said. “Outside East Berlin?”
“Yes. We advertise in a few newspapers, and people with likely stuff to sell, telephone us at the hotel. We go and see what they’ve got, and buy any reasonable antiques or books. Not just in Berlin, but in Potsdam, Dresden, Frankfurt and any number of small towns. We’ve kept our noses clean, we’ve done straight business and we make immediate payment in kroner or dollars, then ship the stuff to Gothenberg. Nobody can suspect that we’re anything other than what we seem.”
Fraser said in an awed voice. “You actually go there once a year? You go and spend ten days or so in that God-awful country, just to maintain these identities?”
“It’s a chore,” Modesty said, “but it always seemed potentially useful. And now it’s going to be. The only thing the security people there might suspect is that I’m Willie’s bird and that he takes me on business trips so he can have a little fun at a safe distance from his own doorstep.” She grinned. “They won’t have heard any confirmation of that over the bugs.”
Willie lit a cigarette and moved to pour a drink. His walk and his mannerisms were still Jorgensen’s. “We can be there in thirty-six hours,” he said.
Tarrant rubbed his eyes with fingers and thumb, trying to collect his thoughts. “You’d still have to find a way of getting Okubo out,” he said slowly.
A hand was laid on his arm and he heard Modesty’s voice, warm and understanding. She would know that his part – the safe, waiting part – was always the most agonizing. “Come on now,” she said. “Don’t worry so much. You know we’ve always come back before.”
“Just,” said Tarrant. “Only just.” He opened his eyes to look at her. He was a widower and lost his sons in the war. With sudden and painful perception he realized that this dark-haired girl, smiling at him now, had in some measure filled the long emptiness in him. For a moment he hated his job with weary passion, and hated himself for letting sentiment lay its soft fingers upon him. It was as if he were throwing his own flesh and blood to wolves when he said, “Try to make coming back a little less marginal this time.”
She slipped her arm through his and moved toward the foyer. “We’ll be very careful. Come and see the tallboy I picked up at the Rothley Manor auction.”
It was a beautiful piece, with inlaid intarsia panels and in almost perfect condition. For a moment the sight and touch of it lifted Tarrant’s depression by a degree. He saw that Modesty was completely absorbed and that her face was lit with pleasure.
She said, almost apologetically, “Fifteen pounds.”
He could not believe it. “My dear, you could get close to a thousand for it at Christie’s any day. The dealers must have been blind.”
“There weren’t any. If you go far enough out of London for a sale, you often find the dealers haven’t bothered. But I didn’t buy it to sell. I just want to enjoy it.”
The moment passed, and Tarrant felt aching anxiety descend on him again.
“For God’s sake make sure you’re able to,” he said.
The printing shop lay in a narrow street not far from Alexanderplatz. Toller was a fair, thickset man in his late forties. He said, “Ah, yes. I don’t know if the books have any great value, Herr Jorgensen, but when I read your advertisement I thought it worthwhile to telephone you. Come this way, please.”
Willie Garvin and Modesty Blaise followed him through the printing shop, where half a dozen men were working. Her hair was dark chestnut now, and body padding made her look thirty pounds heavier. Contact lenses gave her eyes a different color, and a molded hoop of plastic round the gumline of her lower jaw had altered the shape of her face.
A small flat-bed machine was churning out propaganda pamphlets for the West. Bundles of these would be stuffed into papier-mâché containers, loaded into modified mortars, and fired across at different points along the 85-mile frontier of minefields, watchtowers and barbed wire. The pamphlets bore pin-up pictures and enthusiastic accounts of the happy life led by one and all in the Democratic Republic.
In return, and because the prevailing wind was favorable, pamphlets from West Germany would come drifting across the frontier suspended from balloons with clockwork scatter-mechanism. It was all a heavy-handed exercise in pinprick irritation.
Toller closed the door of the print shop and opened another across the passage. They entered a small room, sparsely furnished, and when Toller closed the door all sound of machinery was muffled to a whisper.
“This room is safe,” Toller said softly. His manner was steady, but looking beneath the surface Modesty saw the underlying tension.
“You have him here?” she asked. They spoke in German.
Toller jerked his head back slightly, lifting his eyes toward the ceiling. “Upstairs. It is three days since the courier brought instructions to me for making contact with you. Two days since I telephoned.”
“We had to maintain our routine,” Modesty said. “Is communication with West Berlin difficult?”
“There is always some risk. Couriers must be foreign nationals and can operate only for a limited time. But as foreigners you can pass freely yourselves.”
“We won’t do that. We’ve never gone to and fro before, and it would look suspicious if we started now. Zarov must be very much on his toes.”
Toller said, “Very much. We use no radio. We have them, but for emergency only. The big emergency. Apart from that, communication with London Control must go through Local Control in West Berlin, by courier.”
London Control had moved to West Berlin. Tarrant himself was there now. But Modesty did not tell Toller that. A spy dislikes holding more information than is necessary for what he has to do. She said, “I’ve arranged a new system of communication for this mission. I’ll tell you about it after we’ve seen Okubo. We’ll be taking him off your hands tonight.”
Toller said fervently, “Thank God for that. He is very difficult. I have been more afraid in the last ten days than in the last ten years.”
Okubo was in a small upper room with a single shuttered window overlooking an enclosed yard. There was a bed, a chair set at a plain deal table and a battered chest of drawers. A big china jug of water stood in a bowl on top of the chest. Okubo lay on the bed, smoking. He wore a rumpled dark gray suit and was very short but well proportioned. His thick black hair was sleek, and he had a vestigial mustache of which the hairs could almost be counted. His eyes were unfriendly and arrogant.
He sat up and spoke in rather high-pitched, liquid English, with a marked American accent. “Are these the people, Toller? I was beginning to wonder if they existed.”
“The situation is not easy for them,” Toller said. He sounded like a man who had said the same thing many times.
Okubo looked through Modesty, then stared at Willie without warmth. “You will explain your plan.”
Modesty said, “It’s a simple one – ”
“I did not address you,” Okubo broke in without looking at her.
Willie Garvin put his hands in his pockets, and Modesty saw his eyes behind the plain-glass spectacles go blank for a moment as he killed the instinctive flare of anger within him. Toller had not exaggerated in saying that Okubo was difficult. He was the best virus-man in the world, much sought after, and he knew it. Allied to his professional arrogance was the traditional male Japanese attitude toward the female. Okubo was not going to accept the idea of a woman running this operation.
She caught Willie’s eye. He came over and said, speaking without his usual Cockne
y accent, “We’re using an opportunity that happens to be available. De Souta is in Berlin this week – ”
“De Souta?”
“Special United Nations Representative for U Thant. He’s having talks on both sides of the Wall at local level, trying to reduce tension.”
Okubo’s mouth twisted in contempt. His reaction was justified. De Souta’s efforts were futile. He no doubt knew this himself, but he was a dedicated man and had patiently suffered rebuffs in various parts of the world in the course of his peacemaking attempts.
Willie said, “He’s staying at his own Embassy here, and there’s a set pattern to the talks. West Berlin in the morning, East Berlin in the afternoon. Every day at nine a.m. he goes through the checkpoint in his car, with his own chauffeur. The guards know the car. They just make sure he’s in it, then wave it through. It’s the only car that isn’t checked. Tomorrow, you’ll be in the boot. It’s a Daimler, so there’ll be plenty of room.’
Okubo threw his cigarette on the floor. It was Toller who trod it out.
“You must be a fool,” Okubo said. “A United Nations representative would never involve himself.”
“He won’t know,” Willie said. “The car’s kept in a lock-up garage near the Embassy, and we’ve hired a lock-up in the same block. We’ve made a dry run on this, and it works. We’ll get you into the garage and into the boot by eight o’clock, so you’ll only have an hour to wait. I drilled some air-holes last night in the floor. The car stops at the Hilton. That’s where De Souta talks to Mayor Klaus Schutz, to keep things informal. Wait five minutes after the car stops, then get out. I’ve fixed the lock so you can open the boot from inside. One of our men will be on the spot, waiting for you.”
