Alan Furst: Mission to Paris

What did they know? They didn’t know much, in fact they’d better not. Because Herbert had a certain vocation, supposedly secret to all but those who made use of his services. Exceptional services: silent, and efficient. For example, surveillance on Prideaux was in place within hours of Herbert’s meeting with his contact at the Foreign Ministry, and Prideaux was not entirely alone as he climbed aboard the first of the trains that would take him to Varna. Where Herbert, informed of Prideaux’s booking on the Olympios, awaited him. Herbert and his second-in-command, one Lothar, had hired a plane and pilot and flown to an airfield near Varna a night earlier and, on the evening of the fourteenth, they called off their associates and sent them back to wherever they came from. The Greek freighter was not expected at the dock until the sixteenth and would likely be late, so Prideaux wasn’t going anywhere.

He really wasn’t.

Which meant Herbert and Lothar could relax. For a while, at least, as only one final task lay ahead of them and they had a spare hour or two. Why not have fun in the interim? They had a contact scheduled at a local nightclub and so went looking for it, working their way through a maze of dockside streets; dark, twisting lanes decorated with broken glass and scented with urine, where in time they came upon an iron door beneath a board that said UNCLE BORIS. Inside, Herbert handed the maitre d’ a fistful of leva notes and the one-eyed monster showed them to a table in the corner, said something amusing in Bulgarian, laughed, made as though to slap Herbert on the back, then didn’t. The two Germans settled in to drink mastika and enjoy the show, keeping an eye on the door as they awaited the appearance of their ‘brute’, as they playfully referred to him. Their brute for this operation; Herbert rarely used them more than once.

Lothar was fiftyish, fat and jolly, with tufts of dark red hair and a red face. Like Herbert, he’d been a junior officer during the Great War, the 1914 war, but they never met in the trenches — with five million men under arms an unlikely possibility — but found each other later, in one of the many veterans’ organizations that formed in Germany after the defeat of 1918. They fought a little more in the 1920s, after joining a militia, killing off the communists who were trying to take over the country. By the early 1930s Herbert had discovered his true vocation and enlisted Lothar as his second-in-command. A wise choice — Lothar was all business when it mattered but he was also good company. As the nightclub show unfolded, he nudged Herbert with an elbow and rumbled with baritone laughter.

In a space cleared of chairs and tables, a novelty act from somewhere in the Balkans: a two-man canvas horse that danced and capered, the front and rear halves in perfect harmony. Done well, this was by itself entertaining, but what made it memorable was a girl, in scanty, spangled costume, who played the accordion as she stood centre stage on a pair of very sexy legs. The men in the club found them enticing, bare and shapely, as did the canvas horse, which danced nearer and nearer to the girl, the head lunging and feinting as though to nuzzle her thighs, then turning to the audience: Shall I?

Oh yes! The shouts were in Bulgarian but there was no question of what they meant. ‘Will it have her?’ Herbert said.

‘I should think so,’ Lothar said. ‘Otherwise people will throw things.’

The one-eyed monster brought fresh mastika, the shouts grew louder, the accordion played on. At last, the horse found its courage and, having galloped around the girl a few times, stood behind her on its hind legs with its hooves on her shoulders. The girl never missed a beat but then, when the horse covered her breasts with its hooves, and to the absolute delight of the audience, she blushed, her face turning pink, her eyes closing. As the horse began to move in a rhythmic manner familiar to all.

A little after ten o’clock, a white-haired man with a skull for a face entered the nightclub and peered around the room. When Herbert beckoned to him he approached the table and stood there a moment while the attentive one-eyed monster brought a chair and an extra glass. ‘You would be Aleksey?’ Herbert said. ‘The Russian?’

‘That’s right.’ German was the second language of eastern Europe and Aleksey seemed comfortable speaking it.

‘General Aleksey?’

‘So I’m called — there are many other Alekseys. How did you recognize me?’

‘My associate in Belgrade sent me a photograph.’

‘I don’t remember him taking a photograph.’

Herbert’s shrug was eloquent, they did what they wanted to do. ‘In security work,’ he said, ‘it’s important to take precautions.’

‘Yes, of course it is,’ Aleksey said, letting them know he wasn’t intimidated.

‘Your contract with us calls for payment in Swiss francs, once you’ve done your job, is that right?’

‘Yes. Two thousand Swiss francs.’

‘If I may ask,’ Herbert said, ‘of what army a general?’

‘The Russian army, the Czar’s army. Not the Bolsheviks.’

‘So, after 1917, you emigrated to Belgrade.’

‘“Emigrated” is barely the word. But, yes, I went to Belgrade, to the emigre community there. Fellow Slavs, the Serbians, all that.’

‘Do you have with you… what you’ll need?’

‘Yes. Small but dependable.’

‘With silencer?’

‘As you ordered.’

‘Good. My colleague and I are going out for a while, when we return it will be time for you to do your work. You’ve done it before, we’re told.’

‘I’ve done many things, as I don’t care to sweep floors, and Belgrade has more than enough emigre taxi drivers.’ He paused a moment, then said, ‘So…’

From Herbert, a nod of approval. To the question he’d asked, an oblique answer was apparently the preferred answer. As General Aleksey poured himself some mastika, Herbert met Lothar’s eyes and gestured towards the door. To Aleksey he said, ‘We have an errand to run, when we return we’ll tell you where to go. Meanwhile, the floor show should start up again any time now, you may find it amusing.’

‘How long will you be gone?’

‘Not too long,’ Herbert said, rising to leave.

Prideaux had packed in a hurry, forgetting his pyjama bottoms, and now wore the top and his underdrawers. Alone in a foreign city, he was terribly bored, by ten in the evening had read, for the third time, his last French newspaper. He was also hungry — the desk clerk had brought him a plate of something that couldn’t be eaten — so smoked the last of his Gitanes followed by the first of a packet he’d bought at the Varna railway station. Surely he couldn’t go anywhere; a night-time tour of the Varna waterfront with a million francs in a valise was an invitation to disaster. Stretching out on the bed, he stared at the ceiling, tried not to recall his former life, and fantasized about his new one. Rich and mysterious, he drew the attention of women…

A reverie interrupted by two hesitant taps on the door. Now what? Somebody from the hotel; if he remained quiet, perhaps they would go away. They didn’t. Thirty seconds later, more taps. He rose from the bed and considered putting on his trousers but thought, who cares what servants see? and stayed as he was. Standing at the door, he said, ‘Who is it?’

‘The desk clerk, sir.’

‘What do you want?’

No answer. Out in the harbour, a ship sounded its horn. From the room above, the floorboards creaked as somebody moved about. Finally, whoever was in the hall again tapped on the door. Prideaux opened it. The man in the hallway was slim and well dressed and not a desk clerk. Gently but firmly, the man pushed the door open, then closed it behind him as he entered the room. ‘Monsieur Prideaux?’ he said. ‘May we speak for a moment?’ His French was correct, his accent barbaric. He looked around for a chair but there was no such thing to be found, not in this room, so he settled at the foot of the bed while Prideaux sat by the headboard.