quick exploration.
Below the window the manually-operated lock-gates stood closed. The dark water was fresh, no sign of scum on its surface. There was an old-fashioned kitchen leading off the sitting-room, equipped with an ancient iron range for a cooker. All mod cons were conspicuous by their absence.
Through this window, partially obscured by condensation, he had a clear view across fields of some crop to the elevated highway in the distance. Another door led to a bedroom with a large double bed and a dark oak headboard. The place was depressing, but he noticed signs of recent habitation – the crushed stub of a cigar in an ash-smeared bowl.
He walked back into the sitting-room and Gerda was removing her head-scarf while Falken fiddled with the fire. Her hair was reddish-brown and soft, her blue eyes stared back at him with a hint of challenge. She wore no makeup but was more attractive than he had realized. They both moved very silently – he hadn't heard them return.
`Want to see how we've hidden the car, Mr Thorn? Come to the door…'
At the end of a track a few hundred metres from the cottage a great hump stood, a hump covered with an enormous sheet of canvas. Open at the end facing the highway, the front of a tractor was exposed.
`The Chaika is behind the tractor,' Gerda explained. 'Anyone spotting it from the highway will assume it is a large farm tractor.'
`Clever.'
`Mr Thorn, we have to be careful of everything – from the moment we wake until we sleep. And then only one sleeps – the other stays awake on guard. We can never relax. For this work you have to be strong. Up here.'
She tapped her well-shaped forehead and led the way back into the cottage. She was carrying the windcheater tucked under her arm. Newman gestured towards it.
`You have the Uzi with you.'
`Yes, see.'
She whipped the folded windcheater open and took hold of the automatic weapon, pointing the muzzle at the wall. He reached for the gun and she hesitated.
`You are familiar with the Uzi? It fires at a tremendous rate per second. You have to exert the most sensitive control.' `I've trained with it.'
He balanced the weapon in his hands and she produced three metallic objects he recognized from the pockets of the windcheater. Spare magazines. He emptied the weapon he was holding, then rammed the magazine back into place, held the gun and aimed it at the wall.
`Yes,' she decided, 'you know it. That is good. You might have to use it. But only when there is no other option. We rely on secrecy, on moving about without the Vopos realizing we exist..
`Come here, my friend,' called out Falken who was sitting at the table. 'We have much to do.'
`I will make coffee and some food,' Gerda said, laying the Uzi wrapped inside the windcheater on the floor. She took an ancient cushion from the single arm chair and put it beside the windcheater.
'Isn't that dangerous – leaving the gun on the floor?' Newman asked.
`In an emergency,' she told him, 'it is the last place that intruders would expect to find a weapon.' She produced several packages from the capacious pockets of her green corduroy hunting jacket. 'Coffee,' she repeated, 'but we will have to make do with powdered milk. Liquids are tricky -they can leak.'
`Take the binoculars,' Falken said, handing her the pair he had unlooped from round his neck. 'Watch that road while you see to our stomachs.'
`Aren't field-glasses suspicious things to have if you're stopped?' Newman enquired as he joined Falken, sitting down at the table.
`Why! I am a member of the Bird Sanctuary Conservation Service. What is my job's first requirement? Binoculars – to observe birds and fowl from a distance.'
`Of course.'
`As I said earlier, we must assume the worst. Have you the extra photos of yourself Toll said he would supply?'
`In the sole of my right shoe…'
`Let me have it.'
`What is the worst we are assuming?' Newman asked as he handed him the shoe.
`That Schneider has reported encountering us in the forest last night. He may not have, but we cannot take the risk. If he has, they will be looking for Albert Thorn of the River Police. So! I am a magician.' He grinned engagingly. 'You now become Emil Clasen. Of the Border Police.'
`Border Police?' Newman's tone was incredulous.
`A double bluff. Whatever they expect you to be, it will not be a member of the Border Police. Also there is another reason which I will explain later.'
Falken had a chamois pouch he had unrolled, exposing its contents, a collection of delicate metal instruments. He held in one hand a pair of tweezers, in the other the shoe which he held up to the light. think I see them. Very expertly concealed.'
He inserted the tweezers gently inside a slit in the thick sole of Newman's shoe, withdrew them holding the edges of three small photographs of Newman. He studied the photos.
`What are the tweezers for?' Newman asked.
`Part of my job. Essential equipment – like the field-glasses. I use them for extracting a thorn – any impediment – which may have lodged in the foot, say, of one of my sanctuary birds or fowl. I last used this on a rare goose.'
`And who does this cottage belong to?'
`The lock-keeper. Let us call him Norbert. An old man who is nearly seventy. He was anti-Nazi during the war. Afterwards he was anti-Communist. He says there is no difference. Both have their secret police. Both brain- wash the young, continue the process with youth movements. Both have concentration camps for non-believers. The Russians call it the Gulag. For some men the world is never right. Such a man is Norbert who looks after the lock.'
`Where is he now?'
`Probably in his flat in one of those monstrous blocks. This canal is still used occasionally for transporting coal aboard small barges. He has a schedule. He is here to open the lock-gates two days a week. We have forty- eight hours here and then we must leave – before Norbert returns. I have an arrangement with him…'
`This Norbert, he smokes cigars?'
`You have a keen eye. Yes, he does. Now, these photos. Taken I suspect before your appearance was altered?'
`Yes…'
`Do not tell me how your appearance was altered. In case. I am caught and interrogated after you have left us and before you reach freedom.' He glanced at Newman, then back at the photos. 'It does not matter. These prints are blurred – deliberately, I suspect. They will pass for you. Too good a likeness is always something which draws attention to you under inspection.'
`What are they for?'
`This.' Falken produced a folder from his pocket. 'Border Police pass. And I have the correct glue ready – the glue used by those who prepare these passes.' He held up a small bottle on the table.
`How the devil did you get that? And the pass?' let us say I have friends of friends inside a certain documentation centre.'
He had placed one of the photos over a ruled box in the folder, checking it for size. He marked the photo on the back with a pencil and used a small pair of very sharp scissors – again extracted from the chamois folder – to trim the print.
`I'm asking too many questions,' Newman suggested.
Falken smiled again without stopping work. 'And you may have observed I am not answering too many of them. But one thing I will tell you. The day after tomorrow we drive in to Leipzig. Prepare yourself.'
`We persist,' Wolf said to Lysenko, who sat opposite him on the other side of his desk. 'Now I need that chair. You can sit in my secretary's chair over there, behind her typewriter.'
