cinder track between the fields on either side. The track was overgrown with weeds, had been superseded by a metalled road further along the highway.
He switched off the engine, pushing the machine the last few metres to the water's edge. Here reeds grew high and there was no sign of human life. He still paused to listen. No sound except for the occasional cry of a sea- bird, the distant moan of a ship's siren arriving – or leaving – Skandinaviankai. Pushing the machine to the edge of the baked mud bank, he grasped the handles firmly and shoved with all his strength. The motor-cycle sailed forward, hit the water with a splash and sank out of sight. He waited until bubbles rising from the submerged machine had ceased to ripple the water's surface and set off to walk along the river's edge, carrying the case he had unstrapped from the rear of the motor-cycle when he had switched off the engine.
Franck had survived in the West by following his training and never taking a chance. In an emergency, always assume the worst. It had been a favourite maxim of his Russian instructor. Franck was now in the process of changing his image before he re-entered a built-up area.
He reached the Small power cruiser moored to the isolated landing stage, boarded the vessel. Once inside the tiny cabin, he opened his case, transferred the contents to a backpack he hauled out of a locker. The case was easily disposed of. He dropped a heavy length of chain inside it, snapped the catches shut and threw it overboard. Then he started the engine.
Half an hour later he moored the vessel to another quiet landing stage, hoisted the backpack on to his broad shoulders and started to hoof it along the nearby highway. Within ten minutes he was hiking into the outskirts of Travemunde near the ferry crossing to Priwall Island. He was looking for a public phone booth. He stopped suddenly, mingling with the evening crowd of holidaymakers.
Two uniformed policemen on foot had stopped a man with blond hair and were obviously asking for his papers. That shook him. The man was at least fifteen years older than Franck – but he had blond hair.
A patrol car cruised slowly along the front, the two policemen inside scanning the faces of the crowd. Franck forced himself to walk slowly away towards the waterfront. A phone booth stood empty on the far side of the road. He'd call Vollmer from there.
He was standing on the edge of the kerb, waiting for a gap in the traffic so he could cross, when he saw the uniformed policeman who had taken up a position a few metres from the booth. A dark-haired youth in jeans and a T-shirt entered the booth. The policeman's head turned, studied the youth, then looked away.
Franck swore to himself. Travemunde was crawling with police. And for some reason it looked as though they knew he might try to use a public phone. That worried him a lot. Had the police, even the BND, found out Wolf's system of communication via the contact in West Berlin?
Franck himself had no idea how the system worked beyond an agent eventually calling West Berlin. Markus Wolf had survived all this time by being ultra careful. Franck turned away and almost bumped into a tall handsome middle-aged brunette. He muttered an apology and walked on.
Behind him Ann Grayle frowned and stared at his back. Despite the humid warmth of the evening she was immaculately dressed in a white classic pleated skirt, a pale blue blouse with a high neck and a cameo at her throat.
As an ex-diplomat's wife she had an eye like the lens of a camera. She only had to see a face once and it was recorded for ever in that encyclopaedia she called her memory. Where had she seen that unpleasant-looking blond- haired giant? Then she remembered. Several weeks earlier he had boarded the Sudwind when the Chadwick woman was entertaining Robert Newman, the good-looking foreign correspondent. She resumed her evening stroll.
As he plodded along the front Franck found he was sweating – and not from the heat. He had the feeling he had walked into a trap. That woman had seemed familiar. And he was known here. He had to get out of Travemunde fast – but first precautions must be taken.
He purchased the straw hat at a shop on the opposite side of the road; the pipe, tobacco and matches from another shop nearby. He stayed under cover of the second shop while he filled the pipe with tobacco and lit it. Franck never smoked a pipe – he was a 'wet' smoker.
Wearing the straw hat, the pipe clenched between his teeth, he emerged from the shop and made his way by the back streets to Travemunde Hafen station. Sitting on the platform, waiting for the next train to Lubeck, he felt hunted.
He struck a few more matches to light the dead pipe. He had noticed pipe-smokers spent most of their time relighting pipes – he wondered why they bothered. Aboard the train, he decided he'd try to phone from Lubeck Hauptbahnhof. At least he had covered his tracks.
At Lubeck Hauptbahnhof he approached the phone booth warily and was glad he'd done so. Another bloody uniformed policeman stood close by. That decided him. He bought a ticket for the next train due in which went to Copenhagen. He'd get off at Puttgarden before it moved aboard the ferry prior to crossing the Baltic.
At Puttgarden he'd buy a return ticket to Hamburg. Always double back on your tracks. Another maxim hammered into him by his Russian instructor. God knew when he'd reach Hamburg where he'd find a safe phone to report to Vollmer in Altona. It could easily be midnight. But he felt a little better after getting some food and coffee at the restaurant at Lubeck Hauptbahnhof. As the train sped across the open flatlands towards Fehmarn Island he dropped off to sleep.
Inside the fifth floor office in the anonymous building in the centre of Leipzig another man from the East was thinking about food. Lysenko announced he was going out to get dinner.
`I'll stay at my desk,' Wolf replied. He had no desire for more of the Russian's company than was necessary. 'I can have something sent in. There could be a report from Munzel.'
`A lot of good Munzel is,' Lysenko growled. 'And now we know from our contact at Hamburg Airport that both Tweed and Newman have flown back to London. So Munzel has missed his opportunity to kill Tweed. All highly satisfactory. You're doing well,' he added with heavy sarcasm.
Wolf, a heavily-built man, his expression his normal graven image, jerked upright behind his desk. He stood quite still as Lysenko paused by the door.
`General, I would remind you I am not without friends in high places in Moscow. I have been at this game a long time. I have studied Tweed. He will be back. He never gives up. When he returns that will be his final encounter with me. Now, take as long as you like over your meal. I am in no hurry to see you again.'
He sat down, opened a file and began studying it as though he were alone. Lysenko fumed. No one talked to him like that. He opened his mouth to deliver a shattering reply, then closed it without speaking. What Wolf said was only too bloody true – he carried enormous clout in Moscow. Lysenko closed the door very quietly as he left, so quietly it made no sound. Wolf compressed his lips. He found Lysenko's reaction disturbing.
`Josef Falken is the name of the head of Group Five,' Peter Toll said as he drove the BMW south through the gathering dusk with Newman alongside him. 'He is the man who will meet you once you've crossed the border tonight.'
`Tonight? It's 10.30. That's pushing it a bit, isn't it?'
`I pulled forward the crossing date. Your seeing Erwin Munzel – if it was him – in the Movenpick lobby, calls for quick action.'
`In the hope that he won't get through to Leipzig before I make the crossing?'
`Not entirely.' Toll's tone was a trifle too assured. 'Josef shouldn't hang around near the border too long. I've succeeded so far by moving faster than Wolf..
`So far? I find that reservation most encouraging. What does this Josef Falken look like?'
`Six feet tall, thin-faced with a great hooked nose, powerful jaw, blue eyes that look right through you. Forty-two years old. Official job, chief of bird preservation. That enables him to go almost where he likes, visiting bird sanctuaries. But not inside the border zones along the frontier and the Baltic. Married once. Didn't last. Away from home too much. Party member. That's all you need to know. Do you want to go over the mechanics of the crossing again?'
`Christ, no. Three times is enough…'
`So let's run through your identity once more. We're close to Goslar now…'
`The way you drive I'm not surprised.'
`Your identity,' Toll repeated.
`Albert Thorn. Senior plain-clothes officer in the River Police. Special security section. Main operational area the Elbe river. Born 1945 in Karlmarxstadt, still known then by its old name Chemnitz. At the moment on special assignment tracking drug ring suspected of dealing in heroin. I've got the rest. Do I have to go on?'
