`A trap. To get you to fly to Hamburg. They will try to kill you.'
There was a shocked hush round the table. Dalby never minced his words, never went all round the mulberry bush like Hugh Grey. Tweed glanced down the left-hand side of the table at Lindemann, who sat beyond Hugli Grey. He had his array of four different-coloured pencils, was scribbling away, so presumably Dalby was blue. A curious habit.
`Erich,' Tweed called out, 'your impressions, please.'
`Hard facts are what we need. I have some. Balkan has arrived in the West. Has probably set up his HQ in Grey's sector. Came in via Oslo. The action is starting in the North.'
Harry Masterson, who faced him, leaned forward, his manner bluff, full of confidence. 'And who the bloody hell is Balkan?'
`Code-name for their controller in the West,' Lindemann replied.
`You seem to know a lot – from your off-side sector…'
`Scandinavia is not off-side.' Lindemann spoke without rancour, with precision. 'It is the zone where NATO expects the first Soviet assault if they ever attack. That is why we have the big NATO nerve centre in the mountains just north of Oslo. My informants are most reliable. Balkan is very dangerous. He must be located, identified.'
`Bloody marvellous, isn't it?' Masterson rumbled in his public school accent. 'He waits till this meeting to tell us about what he calls their most dangerous agent. Christ! Are we working as a team, or are we not?'
Tweed kept quiet, watching the two men, who had never liked each other. He was trying to imagine any of the four grouped round the table wearing a beret. Lindemann was more than a match for Masterson's onslaught.
`The data about Balkan was too classified to transmit over the phone. Tweed has this information.'
`You have?' Masterson turned his aggressive personality on to his chief. 'Isn't that something we should all have been told as soon as you knew?'
`Lindemann has explained. I share his mistrust of the normal communications system. You know now. Why do you think you were brought back here so urgently?' Tweed ended tersely.
`I'd like to register a formal protest,' Grey broke in. 'And I want that registered in the minutes of this meeting. And who, I would like to know, is taking those minutes?'
`No one,' Tweed informed him.
`I would further like to register another protest. It is established procedure that minutes are taken of every meeting…'
`That procedure was just put on the shelf – for this particular meeting,' Tweed told him. 'No written reference to Balkan. Not without my express permission. Understood?'
`If you insist, I suppose so…'
`I beg your pardon?' Tweed's tone was icy.
`I withdraw that remark. Unreservedly.'
`Then perhaps you would like now to make your contribution?'
`All quiet on the western front,' Grey repeated. He was rather fond of the phrase. He beamed complacently. 'With important reservations,' he went on after a suitable pause. 'My contacts with the refugee organizations in Schleswig-Holstein lead me to expect action by the opposition imminent. The nature of that action is as yet unknown.' He glanced at Lindemann. 'Nor do I have any data on this so-called Balkan…'
`He is the top man – so difficult to detect,' Lindemann replied without looking up. He was using the red pencil to scribble notes. Red, Tweed presumed, must be Grey.
`Is this man among your refugee informants?' Tweed asked as he wrote a name on a sheet from his pad, folded it once and handed it to Grey. The name he had written was Ziggy Palewska.
Grey glanced at it, refolded the sheet and returned it to Tweed. 'I have never heard of the person.'
Which was astute, Tweed thought. Grey had concealed from everyone else even the gender of the informant. Tweed turned to Masterson who was twiddling a pencil between his large hands. Full of physical energy, not a committee man, Harry Masterson, unlike Grey, who revelled in long meetings.
`Harry, how goes it in the Balkans?'
`Damned frustrating. All known Soviet personnel and their hyenas have run for cover. I've sent certain men across the borders behind the penetration zones. Any day now someone will let something slip. The Curtain has dropped with a clang – but as I have just said, I have people on the other side. Something's brewing. Take my word for it. I can't wait to get back…'
`I'm afraid you'll have to,' Tweed said, seizing on the opening, 'because I'm giving all of you one week's leave. In this country. No quick trips to Monte Carlo.' He looked quickly at Masterson as he said this, then he stood up.
`Inform your deputies to take charge in your absence.'
`But we've only been in our new posts six months,' Grey protested. 'We need more time to work ourselves in. Then maybe you will get more comprehensive reports…'
`One week's leave. In this country,' Tweed repeated. 'And I shall want a word with each of you separately before you start that leave.'
Monica waited until the end of the day before she tackled Tweed. He had spent the afternoon having brief interviews with each of his sector chiefs, meetings from which Monica had been excluded. 'I want them relaxed,' he had explained. 'They may think you are recording our conversations.'
He called Newman at the Hotel Jensen at five o'clock. As he had hoped, the reporter was just back from a day with Diana at Travemunde. His call was brief. He asked Newman to go to the Hauptbahnhof, to call him back from one of the public phone booths at the station. Within ten minutes the phone on his desk rang.
`Newman here. Don't worry about Diana – I can see her from this box. I brought her with me. What's up?'
`Do you know whether Dr Berlin has returned again to his place on Priwall Island?'
`You're in luck. I met Kuhlmann who is still prowling round Travemunde, mostly interviewing people at the marina. He told me Dr Berlin is still missing. Kuhlmann has men watching that mansion night and day…'
`Thank you. That's very interesting. Call me should he come back. I don't think he will. Everything all right?'
`A weird trivia. Diana has decided to take a secretarial course. Typing and shorthand. Now, don't fuss, I take her to the school in Lubeck, leave her there. I know when she leaves and I'll be waiting for her.'
Did she say why?'
'A sudden whim. I was surprised myself…'
`Shorthand and typing? In German?'
'At the school, yes. She has dug out some old training manuals for Pitman's in English. She's teaching herself in English. She has bought a small portable. Keeps it hidden away inside a locker aboard the Sudwind. Apart from that, nothing new…'
'I should be with you in a week or so. Watch your back. Something is stirring in that part of the world.'
'Not much sign of it so far.'
'What about Kurt Franck?'
'Vanished into thin air…'
'Watch out for cripples,' Tweed said and put down the phone.
'Now!' Monica sat erect in her chair. 'Have you got five minutes? Good. What's going on? You've left Europe wide open – no sector chief on the continent. The deputies don't have the grip of the sector chiefs – and you know it.'
'Strategy,' said Tweed. 'Europe wide open, as you say. And I would bet money Lysenko will know it within hours. It will encourage him to make a move. I'm sitting back to see what move he will make. The field will seem clear – I'm tempting him into taking advantage of that fact. When he does move I'll know what he's up to. Meantime I'm going to visit Masterson at his cottage down at Apfield near Chichester, Lindemann at his flat in town, and Dalby – presumably coping on his own at Woking now he's separated from his wife who has gone off to France.'
'You seem to put great hopes on seeing them in their homes…'
'They'll be more relaxed. Someone is going to make a mistake, give me the lead I'm seeking. And why do you think someone like Diana Chadwick would suddenly take up a secretarial course?'
