There were two of them, both clad in grey military greatcoats and rammed down over their heads were peaked caps with oblong-shaped cap badges. They had stepped forward into the lights, one of them held a carbine loosely in his right hand.
`Lay your cycles on the ground!'
Newman obeyed, stood up slowly, very erect. His left hand reached up slowly to his breast pocket. The guard with the carbine levelled his weapon, aiming it at Newman's chest.
`What are you doing?' his companion shouted.
`Getting out my papers. You asked for them. Kindly examine this folder:' Newman's tone was deceptively quiet. 'And tell that lout with you to lower his gun…'
`Lout?'
The talking man stepped forward, raised his clenched fist.
`Hit me and I'll see you spend the rest of your natural life behind bars!' Newman thundered. 'River Police. Special Security Section. Look at it, idiot!'
He thrust the opened folder under the man's nose, keeping a grip on the document. He held the folder at a slanting angle in the light from the car. The guard lowered his fist, took a step back. Newman took a step forward.
`Blundering fools!' he stormed. 'I'm a senior officer – on special assignment tracking down drug smugglers. You may have ruined the whole operation. Turn out those goddamn car lights. Give me a torch. Come on! Move, damn you!'
Psychological intimidation was not the only motive for raising his voice. Somewhere close behind Gerda was coming along the road, cycling in their rear. He was warning her.
`Go back and turn off the headlights,' the guard told the man with the carbine. 'I have a torch here,' he went on, producing the torch from the capacious pocket of his greatcoat. Newman snatched it from him, switched it on and beamed it straight into the man's eyes. He blinked and lifted his own hand. The cap badge of the Border Guards now showed clearly, the badge Toll had shown Newman at the farmhouse when he identified the different police forces in the DDR for Newman.
`Now you know what it's like,' Newman ranted on. 'To have a light shone at you point-blank. Only the mist may have stopped those headlights alerting the gang of bastards I'm after. Have you children?' he demanded. 'And what is your name?'
`Karl Schneider,' the guard said sullenly. 'And I have a boy and a girl…'
`You want the boy to grow up a drug addict? Hooked on heroin?' he shouted. 'Because that is what this anti-social gang of swine are peddling.' His voice dropped, became silky. 'Show me your identification. I may have to report this operation went wrong because of your crazy intervention…'
`We only do our duty.'
In a cowed tone, the words trailing off as Schneider gave Newman his folder. The Englishman checked it by the light of the torch, repeated the number three times as though impressing it on his memory, then shoved it back at the German.
`Your duty,' he sneered. 'Your fumbling incompetence, you mean.'
`Incompetence?' Schneider, indignant, perked up. 'And who is this man with you?'
`Josef Falken, Bird Sanctuary Conservation Service,' Newman rasped. 'Co-opted to assist me. He can move like a cat – which is more than you can do.' He raised his voice. said incompetence. Instead of waiting by your car quietly, then waving us down with this torch, calling out in a normal voice, you have to illuminate half the Harz Mountains. And had we run for it your car is parked the wrong way – it would need a three-point turn before you could have come after us. By then we'd have disappeared into the mist. Perhaps,' he continued with a heavy sarcasm, 'you'd like to waste more time checking my companion's papers? That will look good on the report I may make. Especially if we miss our rendezvous with the gang of vipers we are hunting.'
`That will not be necessary,' Schneider replied. 'Please to proceed. And if you can see your way to overlooking this unfortunate incident. I have two children and a wife…'
I will think over your request. Come, Falken, we have wasted too long already..
They cycled off together past the parked car which now showed no headlights and pedalled through the fog- bound silence without speaking for several minutes.
`What about Gerda?' Newman asked eventually.
`She will have heard your voice, she will take to the forest, go round the Border Police, pushing her bike, then return to the road and catch us up. That is why we are moving slowly. You know, my friend.. Falken paused as though seeking the right words, `… that was a truly remarkable performance you put up. You are a natural actor. You overwhelmed them by the sheer force of your personality. I kept silent for fear of spoiling the show. Welcome to Group Five.'
`I know the type,' Newman said tersely. 'I've met them before. At the bottom of the heap, they bully any even further down. And they ass-crawl to their superiors. I loathe them.' `You think that Schneider will report the incident?'
`It was a gamble,' Newman admitted. 'If Schneider thinks I will not submit a report he'll keep quiet. If he decides that I'm likely to report him, he'll try to get in first. But I'd bet money he'll sleep on it. Then he may think it is too late. We can only hope.'
`My own estimate of the situation exactly.'
`May I ask where we are going? What information you will be providing for me to take back with me?'
`Why not?' Falken smiled. 'Soon we change our form of transport. We have a long way to go and cycling is too slow – hut an excellent procedure near the border. First, however, I am intrigued how you knew we have a drug problem building up in the DDR.'
`I asked Toll what special job I might be assigned to as a member of the River Police. He told me about the heroin.'
`In some ways that man has no idea what conditions we have to work under. Which is why we take our own decisions. In other ways he often surprises me. He is only recently promoted – so naturally I wish to learn all I can about his ability. I have to think of the lives of the men and women I am responsible for. You may laugh, but they look up to me as a father-figure.'
`I'm not laughing. Talking about father-figures, what do you know about Dr Berlin?'
`My God!' Falken chuckled as he kept up his steady pedalling pace. 'You must be telepathic.'
'Why?'
`I asked Toll to send a reliable emissary so I could pass on verbally what we have learned about the august and much- venerated Dr Berlin…'
`You sound ironical…'
`I should. Your Dr Berlin is a fake.'
`You can prove that?'
`With the most solid evidence. Of course, if you were able to check the records at the Leipzig hospital where he went for treatment when he returned from Africa many years ago, you would find he was suffering from a rare tropical disease.'
`So what evidence do you have?'
`I want you to hear it for yourself. We shall transfer to a car shortly. Do you want a pee?'
`Yes. I'm all right for food – I ate well before I crossed over this evening…'
They dismounted and Falken pushed his cycle a few feet off the road, staying close enough so he would hear Gerda if she arrived. `She has a squeaky rear tyre,' Falken explained as they relieved themselves. 'I told her not to fix it. You will like her-but she is very tough. Women can be more ruthless than men..
They were remounting their cycles when Newman heard the squeaky rear wheel approaching through the mist. Falken commented on his acute hearing, took out a small torch and waved it slowly to one side and back again. A slim silhouette appeared out of the mist and braked.
Gerda would be in her late twenties as far as Newman could tell. Her hair was concealed beneath a head- scarf and she had a strong nose and a well-defined chin. She stared at Newman as she shook hands solemnly.
`I heard you dealing with the Border Police,' she commented. `You have had much experience of this kind of work?'
`Not really, no. Just regard me as the new boy.'
