'I've one of my best men running this show from Germany. Naturally I've studied his plan, most closely. I have no hesitation in telling you that it will succeed.'
'The Service has behaved with extraordinary arrogance
'We deliver, Prime Minister,' said the Deputy-Under- Secretary evenly. 'In the early hours of Sunday morning we intend to deliver Otto Guttmann.'
'The plan has been conceived in flagrant violation of the conditions I laid down at our previous meeting.'
' In the 1980s this country will be building a thousand Main Battle Tanks of new design. We have a small army and for it to be effective we must provide excellent equipment. If Guttmann comes to Britain those tanks will benefit in performance and protection. I urge you, Prime Minister, to reconsider.'
'You can't be certain of success. You can't be certain the whole thing won't blow in our faces. I'll not have myself put in the position of Eden in the '50s, having to tell the House he wasn't told that Intelligence were putting a diver under a Russian cruiser docked in Portsmouth harbour… of Macmillan who wasn't told that his Minister of War was sharing a call girl with the Russian naval attache… of Alec Home who wasn't told that Security were offering immunity to that fellow Blunt… I'll not have myself made a fool of.'
' I can assure you, sir, you'll not be made a fool of. By the weekend I would anticipate that it will be within your power to share with our NATO and American allies what we confidently expect will be the most sensitive information available to the Western Alliance for many years.
I'm sorry if that seems a bit of a speech, but that's how we rate Otto Guttmann.'
The wheel had swung, the pendulum had swayed. The Prime Minister wiped the moisture from the palms of his hands. 'You believe that risk has been eliminated from this affair?'
The Deputy-Under-Secretary felt the flush of victory. ' I do, sir.'
They talked for a few more minutes. The Deputy-Under- Secretary explained the details of the run along the Berlin to Helmstedt autobahn, he spoke of the armoured deficit between the tank forces available to NATO and those of the Warsaw Pact. He titillated with an abbreviated biography of an unnamed agent who had travelled to Magdeburg. Ultimately he offered an apology for what he conceded to be a want of frankness on his behalf.
The Deputy-Under-Secretary and the Secretary to the Cabinet left the Prime Minister's room together.
In the corridor the Secretary to the Cabinet whispered, ' I hope to God you're right, that risk has been eliminated… because if it hasn't then there's nothing on this earth that can save you. You'll be carrion for the crows.'
On an ageing typewriter Dr Gunther Spitzer drafted his reply to the communication from KGB headquarters in Moscow.
A quite puzzling matter for him because no explanation had been offered as to why KGB's own operatives were not involved, nor any of the other Soviet organisations that might have been expected to handle the enquiry. And as he typed, and crossed out what he had set down, and typed again, he remained confused as to what in fact was required of him. He could report that he had met Dr Otto Guttmann, had dined with him, that the drowning of his only son had been spoken of. He could report that the scientist was still deeply affected by the death, to the extent that he, Spitzer, had not felt decently able to press further.
Without doubt the grief was genuinely felt, not counterfeit.
Of slight consolation to the Schutzpolizeipresident was the knowledge that his prompt response to Moscow would be noticed, his efficiency would be recorded. Moscow had much influence.
He wrestled again with the text and called through the open door of his office for more coffee.
George as the minder, Pierce as the watcher, accompanied Willi Guttmann on the British army train out of West Berlin. They'd dressed the boy in the standard tweed jacket of a British officer in mufti, given him a tie and a check shirt. Just right he seemed to them, like any young lieutenant from the Berlin garrison.
The daily routine of more than 30 years was enacted at the East German frontier. The carriage doors were locked after the guards had clambered aboard. A small, sealed cell the train had become as it wound through the East German countryside. Before taking bacon and egg in the restaurant car, Pierce had reserved a compartment, bluntly evicting a Dental Corps major. He had seen that the window opened. He had repeated again to Willi where he should stand.
Willi had said little as he toyed with his food. Pierce wondered how he felt, how he would react to seeing his father again… if indeed the old man came to the bridge… he couldn't put himself in the boy's mind and after a moment's reflection saw no particular reason why he should.
It was aggravating that he would have to stand behind the boy when they rolled through Magdeburg. He wouldn't get a decent look at the scenery, and the scenery meant Johnny. Not that he'd be standing at the old man's shoulder, but it would have been special to have seen him. The man they had moulded at Holmbury, it would have given Pierce a particular pleasure to manage a glimpse, however brief, of Johnny's face.
Past Genthin and half an hour out from Magdeburg Pierce made the move for them to return to their compartment. His own excitement consumed him. They were very close now, close enough almost to finger the success of the DIPPER mission.
Johnny distanced himself by a full hundred yards from the bridge. It was bad to have to wait in one place for long, conspicuous, and he willed that the train would be on time.
They had done everything that he had demanded of them in his note and they were standing now, the old man and the girl, in the centre of the bridge and their eyes never wavered from the track that stretched away towards the Biederitzer Busch. Frail and unsafe they seemed to Johnny, close together for comfort, Otto Guttmann holding tightly to his daughter's arm.
The train came, crawling over the tangled web of converging rail, slow and noisy and swaying. Their eyes scanned the length of it, searching into the windows of the forward carriages.
'The third carriage, Father…' Erica cried. The hoarseness grabbed at her throat. 'The third one, the second window
›
'Willi… Willi…' The faint call of the old man, his voice cudgelled and overwhelmed by the pounding wheels.
They were so near to him. A few feet only. The letter had said that they should not wave, and Otto Guttmann's hand clutched at the material of Erica's raincoat, and her own fingers were across his, stifling their movement.
For only a few seconds the hallucination lasted, a trifle of time, and the train had cleared the bridge.
They were left with the images, the sharpness of the memory. Willi at the window. Willi shaved and clean and with his hair combed. Willi with the strained face and the eyes that seemed to call mutely to them. Willi pleading that they should follow, and no path shown to them, no signpost given. There had been two men behind Willi, standing back in the compartment, their faces in shadow.
They came down the steps of the bridge.
The ribbons of tears ran on Otto Guttmann's face. 'The moment is tainted… we should be happy, Willi is alive, more than I ever prayed for
… but there is an evil. You saw the flag of the British on the train… it is not for kindness that they have shown him to us…'
'Why did they do it?' Erica, saucer eyed, her voice strident.
In front of them a man turned his gaze away. A well-built man, youngish and powerful. The man had been watching them, watching as they negotiated the steps of the bridge. He had stood out, strangely different, the clothes and the gait guaranteeing that they noticed him.
Otto Guttmann stared, entranced, captured by the diminishing silhouette of the man who walked away on Rogatzer Strasse, threading his steps between the broken paving stones.
Otto Guttmann flinched. He had seen the contact man, he had seen the man they had sent.
'They are all around us, like rats near an animal that is about to die,' he said quietly.
'What do you mean?' Mid-morning. Daylight swamping the city that Erica had known since childhood. Traffic on the roads, people in the streets, the business of the community under way on every side of her, and she was frightened.
'When they are ready they will come close and say what they want of us.'
'Who are they?'
Otto Guttmann shook his head sadly. 'It does not matter… we must go back to the hotel.'
