Алистер Маклин: Death Train

One name was missing. The name of his most trusted and valued European operative, whose identity appeared nowhere in his office documentation. The operative he had come in especially early that morning to contact. He closed the diary and swivelled round in his chair to unlock the wallsafe. From it he removed a set of keys and selected one, using it to unlock the bottom left-hand drawer of his desk. It was divided into two sections, the back section secured behind yet another lock. He opened that one too and withdrew a telephone. In a world of bugs and surveillance he considered an occasional trump card imperative to keep a winning hand.

He dialled out, and as he waited for it to be answered he knew he was using a line more private than anything set up between the Kremlin and the White House. Monitoring the telephone conversations of the Kremlin hierarchy had become one of his pet projects over the last few years. What he knew about their private lives–

The receiver was lifted at the other end.

‘Brazil,’ Benin said.

‘1967,’ came the reply.

The codewords matched. Benin continued. ‘Were there any problems loading the cargo on to the train?’

‘None at all, the cover worked perfectly.’

‘And the train?’

‘It left on schedule. The men are all in position, it’s running according to plan.’

Benin replaced the receiver and locked the telephone away, then, after securing the drawer, put the keys back in the wallsafe, closed it and spun the dial. He sat back in his chair, his hands clasped behind his head. The assassination attempt on his life had been thwarted and his master plan on the Continent was going exactly to plan. It was going to be a good week.

Karl-Heinz Tesselmann liked to think of himself as a wanderer. Words such as tramp, hobo and vagrant offended him, terms bandied about by an unsympathetic society. His parents had been killed during the Berlin blitz and after being shunted from one set of foster parents to another he had run away at the end of the war. At seventeen he joined a travelling band of gypsies who taught him the finer skills of pickpocketing until an accident to his hand six years later put end to what would have been a very lucrative career. The gypsies, having no more use for him, threw him out. He tried to go solo but was quickly apprehended and subsequently jailed. On his release all the doors seemed to close in his face. He was a jailbird. So, at the age of twenty-six, he took to the road. That was thirty-two years ago.

Winter was closing in fast over Europe and, as always at that time of year, he was travelling south to avoid the worst of the weather. It was the first time in fourteen years that he was travelling alone, his best friend having died of pneumonia only weeks before. Although not unexpected, his death had still come as a shock. Hans had never really recovered from a near fatal case of tuberculosis as a child which had subsequently left him susceptible to infection.

Now all Tesselmann had left to remind him of Hans was a faded wool-lined overcoat. A last gift from a true friend. He looked from the overcoat to the grimy, torn green flannels and the scuffed brown shoes laced with uneven lengths of string, then felt in his pocket for the cigarettes he had bummed off a group of Swedish students in Bonn a few days earlier. He had been hoping they might be filled with something a little stronger than tobacco (having heard stories about Scandinavian teenagers) but was disappointed when they turned out to be regular cigarettes. Beggars can’t be choosers. His smile faltered when he withdrew his hand. It was the last of the cigarettes. He contemplated a few drags until he realized he was down to his last three matches, and reluctantly put the cigarette back in his pocket.

He had left his hometown of Kiel in northern Germany and covered the distance to Wissembourg on the Franco-German border in the space of ten days but he was still uncertain where he was ultimately headed. It all depended on the availability of goods trains in any particular station at any particular time. Hans and he had spent the last winter in Nice and it was the only place he wanted to avoid; the memories were still too painful. Perhaps the following year. His only concern right now was to board the Berne-bound goods train within the next few minutes. It was a matter of dodging the security guards then hiding in one of the freight cars. Although he had done it countless times before there was always a risk involved, especially since the introduction of guard dogs trained to sniff out illegal stowaways like himself. He had only ever been discovered once and still bore the scars on his wrist from the Alsatian’s razor-sharp teeth. He made his way across the first set of tracks and reached the tail-end of a dozen coal-laden wagons. Pressing himself against the last wagon he peered around the side for any sign of the guards. No one. The Berne-bound goods train was standing on the next track down; all he had to do was cover the twenty yards between the two tracks and find himself an empty freight car. He had covered half the distance when a loud, commanding voice rooted him to the spot. He immediately thought of the dogs. His feet felt like lead and slowly, fearfully, he turned to look in the general direction of the voice. Again, nobody. Then he saw the signalman leaning out of the signalbox window, a pipe clenched between his teeth. The signalman removed the pipe and his loud voice boomed out again as he shared a joke with one of the engine drivers, both men totally oblivious to Tesselmann’s nervous stare. The signalman guffawed at his own punchline then disappeared from view, closing the window after him. Tesselmann sighed deeply.

The train shuddered and edged forward. It was leaving ahead of schedule! As he hurried towards the nearest freight car, he heard the dreaded sound of a dog barking furiously behind him. He glanced over his shoulder in time to see a guard, down on one knee, fumbling with the leash to release the straining animal. Tesselmann grabbed at the handle of the freight car and hauled himself off the ground, his legs swinging precariously in the air as he tried to clasp his other hand around the handle. He could see the dog bounding towards him, its fangs bared, its tail flashing from side to side. With the strength that can come only from fear he managed to draw his legs up until his heels were touching his buttocks. The dog leapt up at him, twisting in mid-air, its jaws snapping shut inches from his calves. The dog landed awkwardly on its hindlegs, losing its balance, and he looked away sharply as it tumbled under the wheels.

Allowing his legs to relax, he worked at unlatching the twin bolts and eased the door open, clambering inside where he dropped to his knees, exhausted, his chest heaving as he sucked in mouthfuls of air. Not until he had regained his composure did he crawl over to the side of the car and slump down against it, wiping the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.

They would be waiting for him at the train’s next scheduled stop, the guard would see to that.

Except he had no idea where or when the train would next be stopping. He tried to scan his surroundings but the interior was too gloomy so he kicked the door open a bit further, flooding the freight car with light. It was stacked with the usual assortment of crates and containers, impregnable behind an ingenious array of clamps and locks. Security had changed drastically over the years. He could remember the days when a simple penknife would open the majority of crates and boxes being transported across Europe. Their contents had usually turned out to be machine parts but there had been a couple of times when he had found something a little more palatable – once a case of French Burgundy, on another occasion a case of German hock.