there? Do you think the young people of the Soviet Union and the DDR spend their evenings talking of the grain harvest and the quotas in the building industry of workers' flats, and the composition of the Politburo, do you think that? Do you think they talk of the glories of steel production and the output of lignite? You know nothing of life there.'
'Don't be cheeky, Willi.'
'They are idiot questions.'
'I choose the questions… She was in the Pioneers?'
'Everyone is in the Pioneers. Every schoolchild has marched in Moscow on May Day. Everyone strives to better themselves.'
Carter looked across the table, carefully and slowly, weighing his words, creating pressure on the boy, loading it on his young shoulders.
'Tell me, Willi, if Erica knew that you were not drowned, but that you had defected, would she then love you or would she hate you? Would you be a hero to her or a traitor…?'
'You bastard.'
'Would she love you…'
'You have no right to ask.'
'I have every right. You have no rights. You have nothing, Willi Guttmann. Without me, without my help you have nothing. Answer me, would she love you?'
Johnny saw the boy crumple low in his chair, saw his body hunch and slide.
'She would hate me, she would despise me.'
'Why?'
'She would not have done what I did, not for the same reason.'
'Could she not have been in love with a boy, as you were with Lizzie?'
The boy spat out his bitterness. 'She loves no one. She is incapable of loving anyone but my father. She does not have the warmth or the heart to love a stranger, another man… Where is Lizzie?'
'Forget Lizzie.'
The boy was high again in his chair and his hands gripped the sides of the seat, knuckles clear and pale. The muscles gathered at the back of his neck. 'I want Lizzie to be here. I want Lizzie to be with me. You promised.'
' I said that you have to forget Lizzie Forsyth.'
The boy cried out, a wounded animal, deep wounded, the wood saw on the buried nail. 'How do I forget her when she is carrying my child..'
'She is carrying nobody's child. Not yours, not anybody else's. She's not pregnant and she's not coming to England. She's not coming because she doesn't want to.'
He was very quiet, silent but for the whimper, still but for the shaking that heralded the first tears. George was in the doorway and moving over the carpet with the disciplined stealth of the hospital orderly who must handle a troublesome patient. When George led Willi out of the room he had a strong hand at the boy's elbow. The door closed.
'Why did you do that?'Johnny asked.
'I don't really know,' said Carter.
'You scratched him hard.'
'I'm not proud of myself, Johnny,' Carter said. 'Just fractured a bit, I suppose. And what does it matter? The problem is bigger than the boy's sensibilities.'
'What problem?'
'Do us a favour, Johnny. I'm asking these questions to get crucial information for you, not for the pleasure of hearing my own bloody voice. The problem of persuasion, your problem. With the old man we stand a chance. We've evaluated that and we believe in the possibility of winning him. But how to cope with the sister, that's the new problem and Willi is the way round it.'
Chapter Seven
Charles Mawby, with the advantage of a diplomatic passport, was quickly off the plane and through Immigration. He walked at a busy pace through the Customs area and out onto the concourse and his eyes roved for the man meeting him. Adam Percy, SIS resident in the German capital, stood back from the waving greeters and welcome carriers who awaited other passengers from the London flight. Mawby saw him, strode forward, there was a brief and perfunctory handshake and they were on their way to the car park.
They looked what they were. The man on the ground who was the junior and at the airport to meet his chief from head office. The twinge of deference, had it been a good journey? The fact that the plane had not been delayed, the weather should hold up. With Percy driving they moved off for the autobahn heading south.
'What seems to be the form, Adam?'
'I held off calling you, Mr Mawby, until I'd lined a man for you to talk with.'
'Thank you for that.'
'We're going now to a village just the far side of Bonn, to see a man who deals in the matters we're concerned with.' The mole bulged on the left face of Percy's nose, his lips were flaccid and creased and bloodless.
In the Service his name was synonymous with dogged and persistent endeavour. 'I'd heard some years ago of this group. Bringing people out of the East for cash, it's their speciality. They deliver — I checked the man out with Bundesnachrich- tendienst.'
'Who do we deal with now at BND?'
'This was back door, an after hours request, as you wanted. The usual source.'
'Who are we seeing?'
'He's not the sort you'd have for cocktails, not a pleasing example of the human species, but that's not the job sheet, is it? His motivation would be categorised as political. A junior SS officer at the end of the war, but too junior to warrant retribution from the legal system. All the ideology was stored up and left to fester. He's a communist hater, and this is his way of goading them. He runs a small group that manages with a fair regularity to bring out unhappy citizens from the DDR in exchange for fat returns from their relatives and friends living on this side. Most of his scene of action is along the Berlin to Helmstedt autobahn.'
Mawby dived him a quick glance. 'That's possible, is it?'
'It's possible. Possible but hazardous.' Percy kept his eyes on the road.
'Not straightforward, not for people like this?'
'Hazardous, Mr Mawby, and that cannot be overstressed. In theory the DDR is obliged under the terms of the postwar Four Power Agreement to provide unimpeded motor access between West Germany and West Berlin. In effect over the last 2 years they have substantially raised the numbers of cars stopped and searched at the Marienborn checkpoint.
The two principal methods of evasion involve persons hidden in a vehicle, or those provided with false papers, forged documents and attempting to bluff their way through. They're not idiots on the border, they've a fair idea what they're looking for… there are some 500 West Germans serving time. The drivers, the fixers, the link-men, they'll testify to the thoroughness of the scrutiny at the border. There's a considerable intelligence effort mounted by the Staatssicherheitadienst that's aimed specifically at infiltrating the groups, giving them a length of rope and then strangling them.'
Perhaps even in the warm interior of the speeding car, Charles Mawby felt a faint and winnowing chill. Why did the wretched man start with the difficulties? Mawby had spoken in London of the feasibility of the concept, he had not lingered on the ruts and pot-holes in the road.
'How tight is our group?'
'How long is an Irish mile, Mr Mawby? The bad ones don't last, and this one has survived, that's on his side. Security is always going to be the greatest strain though. If nobody knows of them then they don't attract the trade, and they're commercial, so they need an order list. In a vague way they have to go out and tout for business. They
