Ultimate Issue (39 page)

“Croxford. Brigadier General Croxford.”

“That proves not hing,” said Kingston, “Fokin knows that too. But if you re from Laconbury, you tell me what

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the general does in his free time. Every minute of his free time.”

“How the hell do I know?”

“I knew it,” said Kingston. “You’re a stoolie. Fokin doesn’t know that either, so you don’t “

“Wait a second,” interrupted Verago. “Golf. He plays golf. He’s crazy about golf.”

Kingston scratched himself. Then he frowned. “Well, maybe you’re … maybe you’re what you say. Just don’t ask me too many questions, that’s all.”

“Like how come you’re here?”

“Oh, that’s no secret. They shot me down. In the Baltic. On a ferret run. I’m dead, you see. Missing presumed dead. And you?”

“I’m just missing, 1 guess,” replied Verago. “Not presumed dead. Not yet, I hope.” He looked around the cell. “What happens here anyway?”

“You’ll find out,” said Kingston.

They heard the sound of the door being unlocked from outside, and a guard entered carrying two battered tin plates covered with a brown mixture looking like thin glutinous mud and two tin mugs containing watered-down coffee made from acorns.

Verago regarded his food with distaste and tried hard to ignore the obnoxious aroma.

Kingston laughed. “It won’t kill you,” he said, hungrily shoveling the muck into his mouth with a plastic spoon. “You’ll get to appreciate it.”

“What is it?” asked Verago, fighting back the nausea.

“If it’s got lumps in it it’s called goulash. If it’s only liquid it’s just plain slime.”

For the first time Verago noticed the state of Kingston’s hands. They had blood-encrusted cuts and slits all over them.

“Matt, what’s happened to your hands?”

“Occupational therapy. The socialist democratic kind.”

“What do you mean?”

“Spanish Riders,” said Kingston bitterly. “You’ll get to know.”

“I don’t understand.”

“They’re working overtime in here on a special project. Getting the Spanish Riders ready.”

“I still don’t get it.”

Kingston had already finished his plate. He put it dowry

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Verago understood why he appeared so undernourished. If this was the main meal …

“Spanish Riders,” Kingston explained patiently, “are sawhorse street barriers. Like the kind of things they put up in New York streets on St. Patrick’s Day. To cordon off an area. Get it?”

“No. Not really.”

“They got all the inmates in here working overtime preparing them “

“How do you mean, preparing “

“Wrapping barbed wire around them. Spikes and garlands. So you get cut to ribbons if you try to climb over them. That’s how …”

He held up his scarred hands.

“I started bleeding too much, so they’ve given me a break. I’ll be back at it soon. They need everybody, they’re in such a rush. Truckloads of barriers come in every hour and huge rolls of barbed wire. We do the rest.” He grinned “Our contribution to the workers’ paradise. Building barbed-wire barricades.”

He looked at Verago’s hands.

“Don’t worry if the spikes stick into you. They draw blood, but they don’t come through the other side. Guess it’ll make a change from reading law books, eh?”

The door was flung open, and Verago thought they had come for the plates and mugs. He wondered what they’d do to him, because he hadn’t touched any of the stuff.

But instead a guard appeared.

“You,” he said to Verago. “Come with me. Interrogation.”

Kingston, on his bunk, grimaced. It made his skull look like a grisly death mask.

“Good luck, buddy. Keep your cool. Fokin can get real mean.”

But it wasn’t Fokin who faced Verago in the interrogation room.

Hohenschoenhausen

Helmut Pech’s East German Volksarmee uniform was custom made and fitted him to perfection. His shoulder tabs were those of a major, and he had a medal ribbon on his chest that Verago didn’t recognize.

Pech started laughing. “You should see your expression, you really should.”

“You… here.”

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“Of course. Where I belong.” He took Verago’s elbow and guided him to a chair, like a host. “Sit down and get used to it.”

“You’re SSD?” It wasn’t so much a question as an awful recognition.

“Correct. Or as you so neatly put it once, the East German Gestapo. That was very unkind.”

“My God!” murmured Verago. “You of all people … B-One. Bonn’s counterintelligence. Working for them.”

“Not working for them,” Pech corrected with amusement. “One of them. All along. There’s a big difference.”

He sat down and regarded Verago silently. Then he said, “Oh, please, don’t look so baffled. It’s quite simple. Haven’t you got used to the fact that nothing is what it seems these days? Old enemies are new friends. Friends turn into foes. Traitors become patriots. One man’s cowardice is another man’s bravery. It just depends on where you’re standing.”

“And you? What are you?”

“The same package I’ve always been, but in new wrapping.” Pech liked that. “Quite clever that, don’t you agree, Tony? You don’t mind me calling you Tony?”

“No, Major, I don’t mind.” Verago’s tone was icy.

Pech picked up a letter opener and started playing with it. It was a long, thin dagger with a vicious pointed blade. An inscription was engraved along the blade, but Verago couldn’t read it from where he sat.

“It’s a pity it had to end like this,” remarked Pech. “I was doing a very useful job, even if I say so myself. I kept my nose very clean.” He frowned. “Maybe I made a mistake shooting Martin Schneider, but “

“You killed him?”

“Of course. He betrayed us. He passed Helga over to your people, to your agent or should I say your client?” He gave a thin smile. “Anyway, one can’t let that sort of thing go unpunished, can one? Unfortunately, my late boss … you have heard of Herr Unruh?”

Verago shook his head.

“Well, Herr Unrnh was a better spy catcher than I gave him credit for He began to put two and two together.” Pech sighed. “So … it gets like a gambling debt. You incur one to pay another. Of course, I tried to make it look like suicide, but Stamm “

“Stamm?”

“My new boss. He started digging a little too deeply. It

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was time for me to depart. So here I am. You see how simple it is?”

The man fascinated Verago. He was like a creature in the reptile house whose single bite meant death.

There was a knock on the door.

“Herein,” called out Pech, and a Grepo entered carrying a tray with a bottle in an ice bucket and two glasses on it.

Pech indicated a place on his desk, and the man put the tray down, clicked his heels, and left.

“It’s not the greatest,” apologized Pech, pouring some wine and pushing a glass over to Verago. Then he filled his own glass. “This place doesn’t have a good cellar.” He grinned. “At least, not that kind of cellar. But Piesporter is always quite acceptable, don’t you think? Prosit.”

Deep inside, Verago wanted to make some gesture, like throwing the wine in his face. But he had a craving for it suddenly, a great desire to taste alcohol, to feel it warming his body. He took the glass and drank, all the while hating himself for drinking with a traitor. That’s something to be proud of, there’s real defiance for you, he thought.

“Oh, don’t look so disapproving,” chided Pech. “It’s not that bad a vintage.”

“It’s not the wine that’s bad,” growled Verago.

“You should look on this as a little celebration,” said Pech. “I know you’re no spy. These idiots over here, they’re like Pavlov’s dogs. They’ve got spying mania. Any foreigner is suspicious. If he’s American, and an army man in civilian clothes, he must be a spy. It’s lucky you weren’t wearing dark glasses. A dummkopf like Schultz would have had you shot right away.”

“And that’s exactly what you set up, isn’t it?” Verago broke in.

“If you want to tilt at windmills, don’t blame me for setting up a few for you.” Pech smiled. He poured some more wine. “Tell me, what did you hope to achieve anyway? If poor Helga was still around, and you managed to get hold of her, what good would that have done you?”

Verago looked away. “I don’t know,” he said slowly. “I’m not sure. I wanted to bring her back to England. To produce her in court. To have her testify …”

“What exactly?”

Now Verago faced him. “To say on oath the thing she

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told my client that’s so explosive he has to be gagged. By his OWII people.”

Pech scraped back his chair. He went to the window and looked out. Even here the window was barred. But there was no wire mesh.

“You don’t understand, do you?” he said, his back to Verago. “You don’t understand that you’re up against us all. That hasn’t sunk in yet, has it? It’s us, and the Americans, and the Russians, and the French, and the British, all agreed on one thing, which nobody’s going to prevent… August thirteenth.”

“Is that when it happens? August thirteenth?” Verago asked quietly.

Pech came back to his desk and sat down once more.

“Now then,” he said, as if they hadn’t had any conversation so far, “I’m sure you want to get out of here. Frankly, you should never have been brought to this place. As I told you, they overreact. Right now they’re like dogs in heat.”

Charming, thought Verago A delightful way of describing your colleagues. But August 13 kept on hammering at the back of his mind.

“You haven’t actually been ill treated, have you?” Pech went on anxiously. “Nobody’s touched you, have they?”

“If you mean, have I been made to cut up my hands winding barbed wire around hundreds of street barricades … no.”

“Good.” Pech seemed relieved. “I have given orders that you’re not to be put in the workshops.”

“These wooden barriers, they have to be ready for August thirteenth, haven’t they?”

Pech stared at him. He clutched his letter opener and the knuckles showed white. Then he relaxed.

“I’m going to order your release, Tony. I want you out of Berlin, out of the DDR, out of Germany. Understand?”

Something worried Verago. Like a caution light that was blinking. But he replied, “Thank God for that. I have to be back in the UK on Tuesday. I’ve only got a couple of days. Just let me out of here and I’ll catch the next train to the West sector.”

Pech tried to pour some more wine, but the bottle was empty.

“Damn, a dead mom, as you say. What a pity.” He slammed the empty bottle back in the ice bucket. “Tony,

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I’m afraid it’s not as simple as that. It’s got to be done, as you say in the American services, through channels.”

“Like the way I was tricked and knocked out and kidnapped, through channels? Is that it?”

“Properly. It’s got to be neat and tidy. I have, as we put it, a *temper mentality. I like the right rubber stamp on the correct document. You have to be handed back formally and officially. I can’t just let you wander back by yourself. Supposing questions are asked? Supposing you make allegations? Tricked, did you say, kidnapped? It could be very awkward….”

Verago swallowed. “I’ll keep quiet about it.”

”I’m sure,” purred Pech. “Nevertheless, your handover has to be done correctly.”

“When?”

“You leave that to me.” He bent down and from a drawer in his desk, he pulled out some magazines. “Here, Look, Lif e, Time. To keep you amused. ” He laughed suddenly. “Very appropriate, wouldn’t you say? Look. Life. Time.”

“I find the German sense of humor very unfunny, East or West,” remarked Verago stonily. “I just want out, as quickly as possible.”

“Of course, of course,” Pech agreed genially. He took Verago to the door and slapped him on the back. “One day soon you and I will crack a bottle, and we’ll laugh about this, believe me.”

He opened the door and nodded to the Grepo who Stood at attention, cradling a machine pistol.

“One eighty-three,” said Pech. “See you soon, Tony.”

It was as he marched along the corridors, the guard at his side, that a terrible realization dawned on Verago.

Pech had told him too much. Far too much for a man who was going to be handed back.

Laconbury

Tower sat in the interview room in the headquarters building, wondering why the APs had brought him there.

He soon knew when Colonel Kincaid came in, followed by Jensen.

“Relax, Captain,” said Kincaid. “I’m Third Air Force judge advocate, but this is sort of unofficial.”

“We’ve had some bad news, John,” interjected Jensen, but he didn’t seem unduly depressed.

“You’ve lost your lawyer,” announced Kincaid.

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Tower raised his head, and his tired eyes stared at the colonel with his boyish movie-star looks.

“Captain Verago went to Berlin, and I’m sorry to say he strayed into the East zone. He’s missing.”

“Missing?”

“Yes, Captain. We’ve no idea what’s happened to him or where he is. I guess you could say he’s missing.”

“I see,” Tower said slowly.

Jensen leaned forward. “The point is, John, he can’t be here for the resumed trial. I doubt if we’ll get him back for months. They’re holding him.”

Tower stared at him. “How do you know that?” he asked quietly.

It was Kincaid who replied. “It’s an educated guess, Captain. We’ve been in touch with the army in Berlin. CIC’s found out he boarded a train into East Berlin, and after that he disappeared. He didn’t go officially, he wasn’t in uniform, so if they’re holding him, it complicates things. He’s got no status.”

“You know why he went to Berlin, John?” Jensen inquired silkily.

Tower resisted the temptation to laugh. “Oh, come on, you know and I know,” he began, but Kincaid interrupted.

“No, Captain, I know nothing officially. And I don’t want to. As far as I’m concerned, Captain Verago’s unfortunate absence has nothing to do with your case.”

“And anything in Berlin is immaterial and irrelevant to the court,” added Jensen. “You sent him on a wild goose chase, John.”

Tower started to say something and then shut his mouth. After a while he asked, “What about the trial?”

“That’s why we’re here, John,” said Kincaid. “I suggest we carry on, with Lieutenant Jensen handling your defence. You could request a delay, even fresh counsel, drag out the whole thing, but I really don’t think that’s in your interest.”