The Contract (23 page)

Pompous old beggar. Sweetness and light when he'd won his petty victory. He dived for the shower, and his dress suit was laid out on the bed and he was late for dinner and the Prime Minister hated tardiness.

It was close to midnight when the transport dropped Ulf Becker at Company in Weferlingen.

His last duty of service with the unit on the frontier and they had seemed none too happy to let him go from Walbeck. The epidemic of measles was spreading and the two sections were staying on in their reinforcement role. At least he was spared Heini Schalke's company on the road back, just himself and a morose Feldwebel who drove the Trabant jeep in silence. It had to be a senior NCO to justify the paperwork required to set aside the strictures of the ten o'clock curfew inside the Restricted Zone. There had been a few goodbyes at Walbeck, some of the seconded Weferlingen boys had wished him well and spoken without enthusiasm of a reunion; Schalke hadn't joined them, had stayed with his book.

They had taken their last pint of blood from soldier Ulf Becker, had him out all day from dawn with sandwiches for lunch and soup from a flask in the early evening. Not that he cared. Not that hunger and tiredness would worry the boy, and the damp from the rain that had caught them without their capes. Ulf Becker had tramped and driven for more than ten hours behind the Hinterland fence, he had patrolled both sides of the Schwanefeld to Eschenrode road, with his eyes wide and his hopes soaring. A good briefing they had given him . . . trip wires on this track, acoustic alarms on that path, dogs running on fixed wires on this sector, the road block round that curve and hidden by that bank ... a good, sweet, kind and conscientious officer had been with them and had been at pains to make certain that the new boys from Weferlingen knew the scene at Walbeck in the most minute detail.

The Feldwebel set him down at the gates of the barracks, didn't acknowledge his thanks and sped away into the night. He'd have a woman or a beer waiting for him, otherwise there would have been no lift. Becker went in search of an officer to report his return and then roved through the kitchens that were darkened and cold; nothing to eat.

He went into the communal room. There was another boy there, a lonely one that he barely knew beyond that he was short of friends and likely to pester anyone within his range for company and gossip. Becker slumped into a chair. Too excited for bed, too exhilarated for sleep. His mind was alive with the memories of woodland tracks, alert with the width of the cleared ground straddling the Hinterland fence, brimming with the fall and rise of the land, the density of the woodland.

'Hello.'

'Hello,' said Becker. He must have smiled, his face must have thrown some warmth.

'I'm on leave tomorrow.'

'Wonderful.'

'I'm going home, the first time that I've been home since I've been here.'

'Good.'

'Back to Berlin, that's where my home is.'

'That's good.'

'Don't misunderstand me . . . it's not that I'm not enjoying the work here. I mean, it's a privilege to be posted to the Border Guard . . . it's an elite force, it's an honour to be entrusted with such work ... I don't complain about it, we're in the force to work, but I think that I've earned my leave.'

That's right lad, trust nobody, not in this pit of snakes.

Perhaps you hate it, perhaps you cry yourself to sleep each night, perhaps the homesickness chokes you. But don't tell. Trust no bastard . .

. Make out it's a holiday camp.

'You are going to Berlin tomorrow?'

'My home is in Berlin. My father is a building worker. He is an old Berliner, from the Tiergarten district. I will have a fine welcome when I get home, they will all want to know of the work that I am doing . . .'

'How long are you going for?'

' I have three days there. There will be a party at home. It is only a 72

hour pass and then I am back here. I am looking forward to being here for the summer.'

'Would you take a letter for me?' There was a hoarseness in Becker's voice.

The boy recognised the change, was cautioned by it. 'A letter?'

Becker raced his explanation. 'It's Monday, right? I'm going to Berlin on Friday. I have a girl in Berlin. I want her to know that I am coming back for the weekend. You know how it is, you know,- don't you?'

'You want me to deliver a letter tomorrow to your girl?'

'She lives on Karl-Marx Allee. Near to the cinema and the Moskva Restaurant. If you are taking the train from Schone- weide you must go through Alexander Platz, it's 5 minutes' walk from there.'

' I suppose that I could

'I'd really be most grateful.' As if Ulf Becker's gratitude mattered. Gone in the morning for Seggerde and demobilisation. On the way out of Weferlingen and uniform. The gratitude would never be recompensed, and the idiot hadn't the brain to see it.

' I will do that for you.'

' Give me 5 minutes to write something.'

He loped down the corridor to the Operations Room, was given two sheets of scrap paper and an envelope, came back to the communal room and settled at a table.

'Just give me a few minutes, right?'

'Fine,' the boy said. He would tell his father that he had many friends in the company.

Ulf Becker wrote fast in his spider crawl.
'Darling
Jutte,

I have found someone who mill deliver this. I am coming to Berlin on
Friday night or early on Saturday morning.

You must make some excuse to be away on Saturday night, perhaps
an FDJ camp. You must bring waterproof clothing and something
warm. Buy two rail tickets - returns - for Suplingen which is a camping
place west of Haldensleben.

We should meet on Saturday morning at 10.
30
in front of the Stadt
Berlin, Alexander Platz.

I have found that place.

I love you, Ulf.

Weferlingen Monday June 9th.'
He folded the two sheets of paper, put them into the envelope, licked that and stuck it tight, and wrote on it the address to which it should be delivered. 'I'm really very grateful to you.' 'It's nothing.'

Of course it was nothing .. . because if this bastard were at Walbeck next week and Ulf Becker and his girl were in the rifle sights then he would shoot. He would shoot, and there would be no crying over it, not from him and not from any of them in the company.

Would he have written that letter in the morning? After he had slept, when the light had come again, when he'd queued for breakfast, when he had made his bed, when the barracks throbbed in activity, would he have written it then? But it was written and it was in the boy's blouse pocket, and Jutte would have it when she came home in the afternoon of the next day.

'Good night,' said Ulf and walked from the room to his bed.

Over the years it had become the habit for Carter to buy a gift for presentation to Mrs Ferguson on the last morning of the occupancy of the house. Sometimes some flowers, sometimes a piece of imitation jewellery, sometimes a box of dark chocolates.

That would be his final duty before leaving for Heathrow and his flight to Hannover, and George and Willi would go from neighbouring Northolt by regular Air Force transport to West Berlin. He had checked the house to ensure that the traces of DIPPER had been stripped, and the maps were down from the walls, the photographs removed, the bags packed, the mood sombre. They would leave a barren, sterile house.

In the kitchen Carter gave Mrs Ferguson a packet of embroidered handkerchiefs, and she thanked him reservedly as if mistrusting her ability to hide her feelings.

'But we'll be back soon, we're not offering you much peace, Mrs Ferguson. You'll barely have time to get the duster round and change the beds. Back in six days, you'll have the house full on Sunday night.

George and I, Mr Smithson and Mr Pierce, and there'll be another gentle- man and a girl coming . . . perhaps you could manage something nice for the girl's room, make a bit of a home for her.'

'I'll see to it, Mr Carter.'

'It's a bit quiet, I suppose, when we've all gone.'

'Quiet enough, but I'll have enough work to keep myself busy . . . will Johnny be using his room on Saturday night?'

'There's no call for him to be back. Bit of a freelance, Mrs Ferguson, he won't be involved after the current bit of nonsense.'

'The girl who you're bringing, she can have his room,' Mrs Ferguson said briskly.

When they were all in the car and the luggage stowed in the boot she waved to them, and stood a long time on the steps after they had gone before returning to the kitchen.

Adam Percy came into the office, hooked his coat to the back of the door, and was followed inside by his secretary and her memory pad.

'There was another call from that fellow in BND, the one who's been trying to reach you, he said he should see you . . . that it was imperative.'

She was a tall woman, attractive in late middle age, wearing well the widowhood inflicted by the death of her husband on a dirty, snow scattered Korean hill. She had worked for Adam Percy for 14 years.

'Call him back in the morning, tell him I'm on a week's leave to England and fix an appointment for the week after.'

She would lie well for Adam Percy. She was accustomed to that task.

Standing on the viewing gallery on the roof at Hannover Airport, Johnny watched the passengers emerge from the forward door of the Trident.

Henry Carter was one of the first down the steps.

A taxi took them to the railway station in Hannover. At the 'Left Luggage' they lodged Carter's case. That was where he had left his own bag, Johnny said.

They had hardly spoken in the taxi, nothing of substance, not until they had walked out of the station with the evening falling and found the cafe Augusten and taken a table far from the bar and the loudspeaker that played undemanding piano music. Many hours to be absorbed before Johnny's train. Carter ordered a Scotch with soda water, Johnny a beer, and the drinks were brought to them by a tall girl with flowing dark hair, and a tight shirt and a wraparound skirt. It would all have to be accounted for, that was the way of the Service, every last beer and sandwich and newspaper would have to be down on the printed form.

They wouldn't ask Johnny for receipts, not from Magdeburg.

A pleasant enough little bar. Later it would fill up but this was early and the alcove with the large round table was their own and offered them freedom of talk.

'How's it been, Johnny?'

'Fine, just fine, what I wanted ... I talked some German. That was what I wanted . . . that was important to me.'

'Where did you stay?'

'In Frankfurt . . . well, it was only two nights. I found a place ... I was hardly there. I just walked about ... I went where there were people.

That's the important thing, to hear voices, to hear inflections.'

'It was really important, was it, Johnny?'

'Of course it was, or I wouldn't have gone . . .' Johnny stamped on the question. 'I said what I wanted to do and I've done it.'

'I just wanted to know,' Carter said evenly. 'It wasn't the way that we would normally have done things.'

' It was the way I wanted it.'

'We were very fair with you, Johnny, nobody tried to block it.7

' I go over tonight a fair amount happier for those two days. Is that good enough?'

'Good enough, Johnny.' Carter looked across at him, tried for the meeting of eyes and wondered why his man lied, and knew that the time before the train was no occasion for interrogation. Unhappy, and he must let it slide. 'We've felt all along on this that what's right for you is right for the operation. That's governed everything,'

Johnny smiled, the cheeks cracked, the teeth shone.

The light was too pale for Carter to judge and assess the sincerity.

'You've done everything that I could have asked for. I've no complaints, Mr Carter.'

But then Johnny had never really had any complaints, Carter thought.

Only the gun and the two days in Germany, otherwise he had never objected, had never argued for a different course of action, a different tack of approach. As if he never quite believed that the work and preparation at Holmbury would ultimately be translated to actuality, to a train journey towards Magdeburg. He'd find out soon enough, wouldn't he? Carter slipped a glance at his watch. He'd find out in the small hours on a station platform where the uniforms were strange and the manners cold. At Obeisfelde as this night was running its course for John Dawson, alias Johnny Donoghue, short contract operative of the Secret Intelligence Service. It was difficult for Carter to know how expertly they had prepared Johnny. Gone through the book, hadn't they? All the military science, all the political science, all the psychological science.

All of that to burst out of the poor bastard's brain. So that it was dripping out of him, so everything was second nature, old and familiar. That was standard procedure, that was easy. But harder to come across to the man and breathe the reassurance into his lungs.

More than a month they'd had Johnny; and Carter, sitting in a cafe near the central station of Hannover, did not know whether a rope bound the two of them together. He should have known that, shouldn't he, should have been certain of that? Did it matter? . . . Perhaps n o t . . . Of course it didn't matter. Not going on a joy trip to see the London sights. Going on a survival run, wasn't he?

Nasty that Johnny had lied to him, out of character. Carter saw the girl hovering near their table.