Wernigerode.
Nothing more for him to do in this town. The dart had been thrust into the mind of Otto Guttmann. Its poison should be given time to run.
He would catch the early afternoon train to Magdeburg.
A pleasant sunshine in West Berlin. Crowds out on the Kaiser-Damm and the Bismarck Strasse. The people of this frenetic, isolated city around which 11 Divisions of the Red Army were stationed bobbed in and out of the department stores, crowded the pavements, jostled for seats in the cafes.
With the Brigadier's wife as his guide, Charles Mawby was shopping.
He had bought a cut glass vase for Joyce, now looked for something for the children. And he was frittering time, eating at the hours that stood before the launch- ing of DIPPER's run. He was poor company for the Briga- dier's wife, little that was amusing in his conversation, and the shopping expedition did nothing but aggravate the cutting edge of his impatience. The obsession that he could not share trampled on him. He carried full responsibility yet he would not be in Magdeburg when Johnny Donoghue met Otto Guttmann. He would not be on the autobahn for the pick-up. He would not be at Marienborn when the documents and passports were produced. He had taken responsibility but when the Dipper bird soared he could not influence its flight.
In three days the mission would be done with, finished. Either way, success or failure, it would be completed. In his working life he thought that he had never felt such choking awareness of the stakes for which he played.
On a scheduled Interflug flight the Trade Minister of the German Democratic Republic and his advisory team arrived at Heathrow.
The group was taken by car from the apron to the Queen's Building suite where was waiting for them a welcoming party formed of a junior minister, two senior civil servants from the Department of Trade and Industry and the East German ambassador to London. There was much smiling as the interpreters grappled with the introductions, many firmly clasped handshakes, an impression of lasting friendship. The Trade Minister was an important figure in the regime and the Party, a member of the Politburo, one of the 'old guard', a colleague of the founders of the
'other' Germany, a friend of Ulbricht and Stoph and Grotewohl and Pieck. A hardline man whose political career had been at its peak when Stalin sat in the Kremlin, an advocate of the march of the Red Army into Czechoslovakia.
The pleasure shown by Dr Oskar Frommholtz at his reception was a patchy mask, as if the guard over his face sometimes slipped to allow suspicion to flourish, the glimmer of caution to cloud his warm words.
There were short speeches, polite applause and then the Trade Minister was led to a News Conference.
It was not an auspicious start to the visit.
When a senior functionary of another country, whether from the socialist or capitalist camp, came to the German Democratic Republic a room full of journalists was guaranteed. All the trappings of serious scribblers hanging on the words of the visitor, and arc lights and microphones and turning cameras.
To hear Dr Frommholtz there had gathered only the Press Association, the airport news agency of Brenards, the BBC world service, and the representative of the communist Morning Star. Interest had been muted, the questions sparse until the proceedings were brought to a sharp close.
The request by the PA reporter for information on the release date of a young East German writer named by Amnesty International as a Prisoner of Conscience and charged with espionage ended the conference. The chairs had been snappily vacated, while the visitors sulked and the hosts twitched in embarrassment.
Facing the first Censure motion that the Opposition had tabled since he had assumed office, the Prime Minister had reacted with annoyance to the charges of incompetence and maladministration thrown across the Despatch Box of the House of Commons. In the morning he had been tetchy with his colleagues in Cabinet and Overseas Planning and Defence. In the afternoon he had given no quarter when fielding his twice weekly Questions. Uneasily his supporters on the benches behind him had cheered as he steam-rollered his opponents on the far side of the Chamber.
He had sat on in the front row of government when the Censure debate had commenced aware that he could expect only a difficult and acrimonious passage when his own time came to wind up the government case before the 10 o'clock voting division. He had heard out the opening exchanges, then with a walk of theatrical indifference left the Chamber.
Now in his private office the Prime Minister was weighing the paragraph cards of his speech when his PPS introduced the Member for Guildford, Sir Charles Spottiswoode.
'Nice to see you again, Charles.'
'Good of you to see me, Prime Minister.'
'You'll take a drink?'
'A small gin, thank you.'
The PPS poured the drinks at the walnut cabinet, and excused himself.
He had no doubt that with the third party gone the pleasantries would be short lived. Within 15 minutes he would have concocted a reason to return and break up the session.
The two men watched the door close.
'What can I do for you, Charles?'
'You can clear up a rather unpleasant and unacceptable bit of government action in my constituency.' Spottiswoode watched with a fleeting smile the flicker of discomfiture on the Prime Minister's face.
'Go on… let's have the complaint, and the reason why it was necessary to bring it to me.'
Spottiswoode dramatised a moment of silence, pondered his tie, brushed his nose with a handkerchief. 'In the hills between Guildford and Dorking, at Holmbury, is a country house that many years ago was taken over by the Secret Intelligence Service, or one of their agencies, a hush-hush place. A bit over a fortnight back, I have the exact date in my briefcase, if you want it…'
'That can wait, go on.'
'… a bit over a fortnight back, a young man with a German name but some sort of Soviet connection escaped from that place and was discovered half frightened to death — and I emphasise that, scared out of his wits — in a field between Ewhurst and the village of Forest Green. One of my constituents found him. Nothing appeared in the papers, of course, because government slapped on a D notice. You presumably were aware of that, Prime Minister?'
' I was aware of the use of a D notice which applied to the presence in this country of a Soviet defector. That notice is still in force, Sir Charles…' The admonition was sharply put.
Spottiswoode stiffened. 'You call him a defector, Prime Minister, which to me implies someone who has chosen and quite voluntarily to come to our country. This young man was in a state of abject terror when found, which I suggest is hardly the characteristic of a willing participant in whatever matter the Intelligence people were hatching
… I will continue. He was taken to the home of my constituent, soaked and chilled, and while he was there he specifically requested protection from the people holding him at Holmbury. He made a most serious allegation there in the presence of the householder and the local constable who had been summoned by telephone. He claimed that he was being forced to provide information which was to be used to facilitate the murder of his elderly father. I understand that his father is a citizen of the Soviet Union, but of East German extraction and that he takes his holiday in the country of his birth each summer, where the killing will take place. This young man alleged that the plan was far advanced, that the actual assassin was present at Holmbury.'
'It sounds a complete tale of fabrication.' A flush was in the Prime Minister's cheeks, the testiness in his words.
' I haven't finished. I'm sure you'll want to hear me out…'
Spottiswoode said. 'As a result of the information being passed through police channels that the boy had been taken to the house of my constituent, these freebooters from Holmbury were told of his presence.
They arrived, abused the police there, were vilely rude to a most pleasant lady, and dragged this young man from the premises half naked. There was no question of returning him into the hands of his former captors of his own free will.'
Anger was settling on the Prime Minister's face. He should have been sitting quietly, brooding with his speech, left to himself and his closest cronies. 'I'll look into it, you can be sure of that.'
'It's my hope that you will look into it, and most thoroughly at that.'
