around here while@' Natterman jabbed the shotgun into the fat man's
belly.
'Sit down, swine!'
Hermann sat.
5.00 A.Al. U.S. Army Headquarters. West Berlin Colonel Rose stared
into the expectant faces of Sergeant Clary and Detective Schneider.
Clary nodded once, indicating that the tape reels were turning. Rose
spoke into the telephone.
'This is Colonel Rose. Go ahead.'
'Colonel, this is Blueblood calling. Repeat, Blueblood.'
Rose gasped. 'It's Harry! Where the hell are you?'
'Don't say anything, sir. Nothing. This call will terminate in fifty
seconds. In our office,computer you'll find a file coded 'East'-that's
Echo-Alpha-Sierra-Tango. In that file is a list of safe locations in
the DDR. I am now at location four, repeat, four. I don't think I can
get out on my own, Colonel, it's too tight. I suggest you threaten your
opposite number here, and if that doesn't work, roll up network seven,
repeat, seven, and make a trade. I was dead wrong about Hess. This
does have something to do with him. Also with someone or something
called Phoenix. But the key name is Zinoviev, repeat,
Zulu-India-November-OscarVictor-India-Echo-Victor.
Find him and we'll be on track.'
Harry took a deep breath. 'You've got to get me out, Colonel.
This is big. If I don't hear from you in twenty-four hours, I'm going
to try it on my own. That's all.'
'Wait!' Rose shouted.
'He's disconnected, sir,' Clary said in a monotone, his eyes on a
voltage-measuring device.
Rose stood and pounded his fist on the desk. 'Clary!'
'Sir!'
'You get a squad of uniformed MPs down here now!
Make sure every one has a rifle!'
'What are you going to do?' Schneider asked, alarmed by the American's
hair-trigger temper.
'You heard the man, Detective! I'm rolling up network seven!'
'But he suggested that you threaten the KGB first@ Rose's face reddened.
'Schneider, I don't make threats unless I can back 'em up.
It's a ftiggin' waste of time. When I tell Ivan Kosov that I'll arrest
one of his precious networks if he doesn't let my boy out, those slimy
bastards will be in a holding cell in my stockade! Clary!'
'MPs on the way, sir!'
'Damn straight!' Rose bellowed, reaching into the bottom drawer for his
bottle of Wild Turkey. 'Damn straight.'
He filled his Lenox shot glass and poured the whiskey down his throat,
feeling his eyes water when it hit bottom.
'Friggin' Rudolf Hess,' he muttered. 'And Zinoviev. Who the hell is
Zinoviev?'
'I beg your pardon, Colonel?' Schneider asked. 'Who are you talking
about?'
'Nobody,' Rose mumbled. 'Some commie sonofabitch.'
He could not have been further from the truth.
5. 19 A. m. mI-5 Headquarters Charles Street, London, England The door
to Sir Neville Shaw's office shook with the force of Wilson's knock.
'One moment, your lordship,' Shaw said into the telephone. 'What is it,
Wilson?'
The deputy director stuck his head into the office. 'It's that woman,'
he sniffed, meaning Swallow. 'She said she'd wait one more minute and
then she's leavin
I 9
'Tell her I won't be a moment.'
Wilson sighed with exasperation and withdrew.
I'm sorry, your lordship,' Shaw apologized. 'Where were we?9?
'Your career,' replied a deep voice with a vintage Oxbridge accent. Shaw
was briefly reminded of Alec Guinness'It is felt, Neville, in some
quarters, that you have bungled this whole affair from the beginning. It
was nearly a year ago that some of us suggested that you act to prevent
just this sort of mess.'
Sir Neville bridled. 'If they'd torn the bloody prison down last year,
the very same thing would have happened. I couldn't control what the
man wrote, for God's sake.'
This riposte was met with ri-osty silence. 'Yes,' the voice said
finally. 'Well. What about the African end of the problemT' 'It's
being taken care of. TWO or @ days at the most.'
'A lot could happen in thine days, Neville. We want every loose end
snipped, every @ erased.'.
'It's being done,' Shaw insisted.
'Are there any complications we should know aboutt' Shaw thought of
Jonas Stern, and of Swallow waiting just outside his door. 'No,' he
lied.
'Keep us posted, then.' The caller rang off.
Shaw exhaled a great blast of air and began to massage his temples with
his fingertips. He badly needed sleep. He had spent five of the past
six hours on the telephone. Across London, in places like the India
Club, the House of Lords, and the All-England Lawn Tennis and Croquet
Clu@d across Britain in the ramshackle palaces and crumbling stone
castle outposts of the aristocracy-privileged men and women both young
and old were gathering in quiet councils.
Like ripples spreading outward from the epicenter of Buckingham Palace,
waves of apprehension rolled through this most rarefied level of
society; and all, Shaw reflected, because one little stone had dropped
far away in the atrophied heart of Berlin. Slowly but surely, those
frightened men and women were bringing a great deal of pressure to bear
on Sir Neville Shaw. For Shaw, like his predecessors before him, was
not only the possessor but also the protector of their dark secret. Most
of the calls had been like the previous one-a bit of carrot, bags of
stick. Shaw was about to rise and go to his liquor cabinet for a
medicinal Glenfiddich when his office door opened and Wilson ushered in
the woman code-named Swallow.
Sir Neville was stunned. The woman standing before him looked nothing
