“What are the chances of tracing them before Monday?”
“Four days? Very little, I’m afraid.”
“Then we’d better have the money ready, hadn’t we?” Sergius nodded and Bruno turned to Wrinfield. “It would take me a year to pay you back, sir.”
Wrinfield smiled, a not very happy smile. “I’d do it for the boys themselves without any hope of return. And — I’m being purely selfish, of course — there is not and never will be another group like the Blind Eagles.”
Walking casually, aimlessly, they turned right down a street opposite the undertaker’s on West Street. Dr Harper said: “Are we being followed, do you think?”
Bruno said: “Watched, I don’t know. Shadowed, no.” Inside two or three hundred yards the street deteriorated into a winding country lane. Soon afterwards it came to a stout wooden bridge which spanned a slow- flowing and obviously very deep river, some thirty feet in width with ice already forming at both edges. Bruno examined the bridge with some deliberation, then hurried to catch up with an impatient Harper, whose circulation was clearly not geared to cope with the subfreezing temperature.
Immediately beyond the bridge the road was swallowed up by what appeared to be virgin pine forest. Less than a quarter of a mile farther on the two men came to a large semi-circular glade lying to the right of the road.
“The helicopter,” Dr Harper said, “will land here.” Dusk was falling when Bruno, clad in his best street clothes, returned to Wrinfield’s office. Only the owner and Maria were there.
Bruno said: “Okay if I take my fiancee for a coffee, sir?” Wrinfield smiled, nodded, then got back to looking worried and preoccupied again. Bruno helped the girl on with her heavy Astrakhan coat and they walked out into the thinly falling snow.
Maria said crossly: “We could have had coffee in the canteen or in your living-room. It’s very cold and damp out here.” “Nagging and not even married yet. Two hundred yards is all. You will find that Bruno Wildermann always has his reasons?”
“Such as?”
“Remember our friends of the other night, who followed us so faithfully?”
“Yes.” She looked at him, startled. “You mean —” “No. They’ve been given a rest — snow has an adverse effect upon both marcelled hair and bald heads. The lad behind us is about three inches shorter than you, with a cloth cap, torn coat, baggy trousers and scuffed shoes. Looks like a skid row graduate but he’s not.”
They turned into a cafe that had obviously abandoned hope a generation ago. In a country where the cafes seemed to specialize in smoke and minimal lighting, this one had really touched rock bottom. One’s eyes immediately started to smart: a couple of guttering candles would have provided an equal level of illumination. Bruno guided Maria to a corner seat. She looked around her in distaste.
“Is this what married life is going to be like?”
“You may look back on this as one of your happiest days.” He turned round. The Chaplinesque figure had slumped wearily into a chair close to the door, produced a ragged paper from somewhere, and sat there dispiritedly with his elbow on the table and a grimy hand to his head. Bruno turned back to Maria.
“Besides, you must admit there is a certain wild Bohemian charm to the place.” He put his finger to his lips, leaned forward and pulled up the collar of her Astrakhan coat. Nestling deep in the fold of the collar was a small shining metal device no bigger than a hazelnut. He showed it to her and she stared at him wide-eyed. “Order up for us, will you?” He rose, crossed to where their shadow was sitting, seized him unceremoniously by the right wrist, pulled it away from his head and twisted sharply, an action that gave rise to a sudden yelp of pain from the man but no reaction from the few other customers, who were presumably accustomed to such diversions to the point of boredom. Nestled in the man’s hand was a tiny metal earphone attached to a wire. Bruno followed the wire to a small metal box, hardly larger than the average cigarette lighter, which was tucked away in a breast pocket. Bruno put those items in his own pocket and said: “Tell your boss that the next person who follows me will be in no condition to report back again. Leave!”
The man left. Bruno went back to his table and showed the trophies. He said: “Let’s try it.” He lifted the tiny meshed metal oval to his ear. Maria turned her mouth towards the collar of her coat.
She murmured: “I love you. Truly. Always.” Bruno removed the earphone. “It works just fine, although it doesn’t seem to know what it’s saying.” He put the equipment away. “A persistent lot, aren’t they. But so very, very obvious.”
“Not to me. I think you should be doing my job. But did you have to let him know we were on to him?” “They know anyway. Maybe now they’ll stop shadowing me and let me move around in peace. Anyway, how could I talk to you with that character invading my privacy.” “What is there to talk about?”
“My brothers.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean — why were they taken, Bruno?” “Well, for one thing, it’s given that hypocritical, twisting, sadistic liar —” “Sergius?”
“Are there any other hypocritical, twisted, sadistic liars around? He had the perfect excuse to fingerprint every man in the circus.”
“How will that help him?”
“Apart from giving him a feeling of power and making him feel very clever, I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. They’re my hostages to fate. If I step too far out of line things will happen to them.”
“Have you talked to Dr Harper about this? You can’t risk their lives, Bruno. You just can’t. Oh, Bruno, if I lose you and they’re lost and all the others in your family gone —” “Well, really, you are the biggest crybaby I’ve ever met. Who on earth picked you for the CIA?”
“So you don’t believe this story about the kidnapping?”
“Love me?” She nodded. “Trust me?” She nodded again. “Then don’t discuss anything I discuss with you with any other person at all.”
She nodded a third time. Then she said: “Including Dr Harper?”
“Including Dr Harper. He has a brilliant mind, but he’s orthodox and doesn’t have the central European mentality. I’m not brilliant, but I’m unorthodox and I was born right here. He might not care for some improvisations I might care to make.” “What kind of improvisations?”
“There you are. The perfect wife. How come that red stain on your handkerchief? How should I know what improvisations? I don’t even know myself yet.”
“The kidnapping?”
“Rubbish. He had to have a story to explain their disappearance. You heard him say he knew who a couple of the gang were but could prove nothing? If Sergius knew them he’d have them in Lubylan in nothing flat and he’d have the entire truth out of them five minutes before they died in screaming agony. Where do you think you are — back home in New England?” She shivered. “But why the threats? Why say they’d cut off your brothers’ fingers? Why ask for that money?” “Background colour. Besides, liberally rewarded though Sergius may be for his nefarious activities, fifty thousand bucks in the hip pocket gives a man a very comfortable feeling of support.” He looked at his untouched coffee in distaste, put some money on the table and rose. “Like some real coffee?” They returned to the exhibition hall looking for transport to the train, which was almost immediately arranged. As they moved out again into the darkness and the cold they met Roebuck coming in. He was pinched-looking, bluish and shivering. He stopped and said: “Hi. Going back to the train?” Bruno nodded. “A lift for your tired and suffering friend.”
“What are you suffering from? Been swimming in the Baltic?”
“Come winter, all the cab-drivers in this town go into hibernation.”
Bruno sat silently in front on the way to the station. When they alighted at the siding opposite the passenger coaches Bruno sensed as much as felt something being slipped into his jacket pocket.
After the coffee, sweet music and sweet nothings in Bruno’s living-room, Maria left. Bruno fished out a tiny scrap of paper from his pocket. On it Roebuck had written: “4.30. West entrance. No question. My life on it.” Bruno burnt the note and washed the ashes down the hand-basin.
8
It was during the last performance on the following night — it was officially billed as the opening night,
