`My friend, you are not the only outsider I have escorted in the DDR. Pullach used to send other people – couriers – who had not been here before. Within twenty-four hours we realized they were suffering from battle fatigue. To put it bluntly, under the pressure of being inside enemy territory, their nerve cracked. They became a menace, a danger to Group Five.'
`How did you handle them?'
`Slipped them back across the border immediately. If possible.'
`And if not possible?'
`Our lives were at stake. We had no alternative. Let us leave it at that.'
My God, Newman thought, they had to shoot them, bury them somewhere. He could feel the tension building up inside his stomach. Tight muscles. A slight queasiness. He concentrated on the road ahead.
The modern four-lane highway extended into the distance through open countryside. To left and right there were fields and woods. The sun shone down out of an almost clear sky, but some miles ahead clouds were building up like a storm gathering. The air was humid, oppressive.
The traffic was heavier than Falken had expected. Huge six-and eight-wheel diesel trucks roared past them, belching fumes. Falken kept well under the speed limit, seemed to be in no hurry. On a main highway the limit was 100 kph. Falken was moving at 60 kph. Hence the convoys of heavy stuff thundering past.
`You're playing it safe,' Newman observed. He nodded towards the speedometer. It was the only sign of tension he showed.
`We're early for the appointment with Karen Piper. Mind you, I shall arrive early – to check out the lie of the land.'
`Who does the talking if we're stopped by a patrol car?'
`I was just coming to that. You do. Border Police. That gives you clout. You use it pretty well.'
`But we're so far from any border here…'
`You wouldn't believe the powers that document in your pocket gives you. Special Assignment Unit. In plain clothes. You can go anywhere in the DDR. And you don't have to explain what you're doing. Unless East German Intelligence stops us. One of Wolf's men. Then anything can happen.'
`I'll bluff our way through. But, just supposing I don't?'
`We shoot our way out. No messing. And this is where I turn off this highway, take a roundabout route along country roads before I head back for the highway closer to Leipzig.'
He glanced in his rear view mirror again. He was an excellent driver. Newman had noticed his eyes constantly flickering to that mirror for a fraction of a second. He signalled, swung off the highway on to a hedge-lined, winding lane.
Newman found his stomach muscles relaxing now they were away from the highway. He'd been screwed up, watching all the time in the wing mirror, through the windscreen, for the approach of a patrol car. There was a limit to the number of times you could bluff your way through a road-block, the Vopos in a patrol car. Falken went on talking in his quiet, easy manner.
`We're meeting the Piper woman in a camper parked underneath a complex of main roads. We call it the zig-zag. A smaller version of that freeway complex in Los Angeles we see on TV – Spaghetti Junction.'
`You see things like that on TV?'
`You'd be surprised how many homes have colour television – and their favourite programmes are those from the West. We're not supposed to watch them, but no one cares any more.'
`Sounds a bit public – this camper rendezvous..
`Chosen with care. It provides plenty of escape routes. Use a place out here and where do you run if the Martians arrive? Piper approved – for the same reason. You'll see.'
`And what happens after I've interviewed her?'
`You head straight for freedom. Under Gerda's control. We've been over that. I won't be coming with you. I have another 'job needing urgent attention. Also a man and a girl attract less notice.' They were climbing a steep hill, the view blocked by the crest. 'If we are stopped,' Falken continued, `you'd better know Gerda is travelling on papers in the name Gerda Nowak. She is a secretary at Markus Wolf's headquarters in Leipzig. Normally he operates out of East Berlin, but he's been at his second base for some time. I think I'll leave you to make up your own story about her – should it ever come to that. A spontaneous explanation is often more convincing.'
They drove over the crest and the road dropped down a steep hill. Driving towards them from the other direction was a green car with two men in the front. The car stopped at the bottom of the hill, on the level, blocking the road.
I must be telepathic,' Falken commented with a bleak look. `Trouble ahead. I can smell it…'
`Intelligence.'
The taller of the two men in civilian clothes flashed a folder by the window Newman had lowered. Newman nodded, grasped the handle, opened the door and alighted as the tall Intelligence officer stepped back. Both men in their forties, clad in grey lightweight raincoats, hatless, poker-faced.
Newman left the door wide open, took several paces to one side, which gave Gerda a clear field of fire with her machine-pistol. He hitched up his slacks, glanced beyond the gateway leading to a field. Half a kilometre away an abandoned stone quarry reared, a rusting bulldozer standing amid the pile of rocks at its base. A good place to hide bodies. God, he was becoming as hard as Falken. A few more weeks inside the DDR and he'd become even harder. He spoke calmly as he reached for his folder, one equal talking to another.
`Border Police. And may I see your folder again? Once I was nearly mugged by a bogus Intelligence officer. Thank you…'
They had the look of hardbitten businessmen, out for the last penny. The taller man had a scar down his right eyebrow. The smaller one shuffled his feet impatiently, giving the impression he was a subordinate who left his colleague to do the talking.
`Looks OK to me,' Newman said, handing back the folder as he checked his watch, steel-plated, made in East Germany. `I am in a hurry. Special assignment. Drugs…'
`Drugs? You did say drugs?'
`Heroin.'
He saw the two men exchange a quick glance. I've said the wrong thing, he thought. He stood quite still as the folder was handed back. He pushed it a bit further.
`I have a rendezvous to keep. My informant won't wait.' `Who is the girl?' the tall one asked, his expression giving nothing away.
`Gerda. That's enough identification. She's the go-between. She knows the informant. I don't. The man behind the wheel is the fastest driver in the Democratic Republic. That I need. I also need to make up for lost time.'
`Martin, move the car for Mr Clasen,' the tall man ordered.
`One more thing,' Newman called out after he'd got back into the Chaika, closed the door. 'If you see a blue Lada driven by a man wearing a Russian fur hat, don't stop him.'
`A fur hat? In this weather?'
`Status symbol, I suppose.'
`Stupid, strutting Russkies,' the tall man sneered.
Falken drove on. Newman neither waved to nor glanced at the two Intelligence men as they left. He still maintained the same placid confident pose he'd assumed while talking to them. They rounded a bend and Falken spoke with a hint of amusement.
`A very different performance from that you put on for the late unlamented Schneider.'
`You don't shout at East German Intelligence. Something funny about that conversation. I seemed to say exactly the right thing. Drugs seems to be a kind of password.'
`Just so long as they're not mulling it over back there and deciding there was something funny about us.'
`You see, Martin,' the Intelligence officer was saying to his driver as they approached the highway, 'there is substance to the rumour about the movement of heroin on a large scale. That Border Police chap is involved in it, I'm sure.'
`Maybe it's better for us if we forget we ever met him.' `Met who?'
The rumours were rife at Intelligence headquarters in Leipzig among senior officers. Discussed in whispers
