Colin Forbes: The Heights of Zervos

As they drove on through the night the fatigue grew worse, encouraged by the monotonous rumble of the truck engines, increased by the necessity to go on staring at the red light ahead, and when the German vehicle's canvas covers parted briefly his headlights picked up the silhouette of a helmet: the trucks were packed with German troops. Wiping sweat away from his forehead, Macomber began to conduct the only possible manoeuvre which might extricate him from the trap, gradually reducing speed so that the truck in front moved farther away. But there was a limit to the loss of speed the driver behind would tolerate, and Macomber was gambling on the lack of enthusiasm for his job which might be expected in the middle of the night. He drove on until there was a gap of twenty yards between the Volkswagen and the truck ahead and then held it at that distance, expecting at any moment a furious burst of hooting from his rear. He had decided to try and use a very minor road turning off to the right, a road which was a dead end, leading over the fields and across the railway to a large farm, but he wanted to conceal the fact that he had turned off up this dangerous dead end. If the driver behind reported the presence of the lone Volkswagen when he reached the railyard they mustn't know where to look for him. The next bend was the crucial point and it needed split-second timing.

A copse of trees flashed into the lights of the vehicle in front and then vanished as the truck turned the corner. Macomber glanced in the mirror, saw the headlights locked onto him, suddenly speeded up. The car raced forward over the wheel-gutted snow, left well behind the truck in his rear as he accelerated, praying he wouldn't go into another skid. As he reduced speed to go round the curve his lights shone on the trees, then he was momentarily out of sight of the truck behind. The wooden gate was set back from the road and he almost missed it, but he saw it just in time, swung his wheel, crashed through the obstacle, turned behind a stone wall and felt the Volkswagen wobble from side to side as it passed over iron-hard ruts. Leaving the engine running, he switched off the lights and waited.

He was chewing at his cigar-end when a glow of lights appeared beyond the wall, silhouetting the naked tree-trunks like a natural palisade. The truck's engine was losing speed as the driver saw the bend, and too much loss of speed enormously increased the danger of his seeing the smashed gate, the tracks left by the Volkswagen in the snow when it plunged into the field. Macomber sat motionless while the truck lost even more speed and lumbered ponderously round the bend, then it sounded as though it were stopping. He had been spotted – the smashed gate, the tyre tracks had been seen! He grabbed the door handle, ready for a futile flight into the wasteland, knowing that the truck had only to follow him once the headlights picked up the fugitive, doubtful whether his legs had the strength to carry him far, when the engine ticked over more strongly and the truck rumbled past the gateway towards the railyard.

He left the car at once, stumbled his way over the ruts in the darkness, found a buttress which he used to haul himself up to where he could see over the wall and back along the road. Between the pole-shapes of the trees he observed the headlights moving towards him, saw a gap between the fourth and fifth set of lights. There would be orders about maintaining an even distance in convoy but there was always a laggard – if only he would continue to lag behind! Macomber ran back towards the Volkswagen, sprawling headlong in the snow when his foot caught in a rut, clambering swiftly to his feet again and reaching the car as the first set of headlights lit the top of the wall. The second vehicle followed closely, then the third and the fourth. Now! The Volkswagen rocked unsteadily as he drove towards the gateway and when he arrived at the exit the road was clear. Turning out of the field, he pressed his foot down and sped after the retreating rear light of the truck in the distance.

The turning onto the farm track came sooner than he expected and he swung the wheel automatically, glancing back the way he had come. No headlights behind: the fifth truck had not yet arrived at the bend. Within a hundred yards the track dropped into a bowl and his own lights were hidden from the main road. As he drove along the track, his headlight beams showing up clumps of frosted glass on either side, he concentrated on the immediate problem – the disposal of Dietrich. In summer, with the grasses grown tall, he could have dumped him in a dozen places, but with the ground frozen to the consistency of iron, the grasses ankle-high and the fields a white sheet against which the body would show up clearly, any unlucky chance might disclose the evidence in daylight. He would have to do better than that.

Five minutes later he was driving up a slope as he approached the bridge which crossed the railway; even in the daytime it was a lonely spot but at this hour there was an atmosphere of eerie desolation about the place and spiked reeds caught in the headlights reminded him he was driving across marshland. He slowed down to take a dangerous turn beyond the bridge and heard the clanking of goods wagons moving up from the south. On the spur of the moment he pulled up, left the engine running and got out to look over the bridge. A hooded lamp a short distance away shone down on a steam engine which passed under him hauling a train of empty coal trucks bound for the eastern section of the railyard, a section unaffected by the explosions. The trucks were on their way to the coal hopper where they would be filled and sent on their long journey to Germany. Macomber felt a sudden lightening of the dreadful fatigue which was steadily wearing him out, making even thought difficult. There could be a ready-made solution to his problem twenty feet below him.

Long weeks of observation had made the Scot an expert on the workings of that railyard, and he knew the coal would be loaded into the trucks as soon as the train arrived. The first trucks were already passing under him as he gauged their speed and the moment when the centre of a truck was exactly below where he stood. Without further calculation he switched off the car lights, opened the rear door and wrestled out the blanketed bundle. Hoisting the German on his shoulders, a major effort in itself, he staggered to the parapet and waited, gauging the right moment afresh, knowing he couldn't afford to misjudge his timing by so much as a second. He waited until one truck was centred under the bridge and flopped the bundle across the wall; as the rear of the truck rolled out of sight he heaved and held his breath. The body dropped, landed in the centre of the next coal truck, vanished under the bridge. Dr Richard Dietrich, archaeologist, was on his way home to Germany.

Saturday, April 5

Dietrich.

The name on the identity card immediately caught the attention of the Turkish passport control officer. Dr Richard Dietrich, German national, born Flensburg. Profession: archaeologist. Age: thirty-two. Officer Sarajoglu buttoned up his collar against the cold and studied the card thoughtfully as though he found it suspect. Behind him in the harbour of the Golden Horn a tugboat siren shrieked non-stop, a piercing sound which the raw, early morning wind from the Black Sea carried clear across Istanbul. Sarajoglu, a man sensitive to atmospheres, was unable to define the feeling of suspense which hung over the waterfront. At half past six on a morning when winter still gripped the straits, the worst always seemed likely to happen.

'You are travelling on business?' the Turk inquired.

'I am leaving Turkey.' Dietrich took a small cigar out of his mouth and flicked ash which fell on the counter separating them. He was a very large man, dressed in a belted leather coat and a dark, soft hat. His reply had been arrogant in manner and wording, implying that since he was leaving the country his activities were of no concern to this bureaucrat. Sarajoglu concealed his annoyance but proceeded to make a gesture of independence, conveying that although German troops had recently marched into Rumania and Bulgaria, his country was still neutral territory: using a gloved finger, he poked the German's ash off the counter. It fell off the edge and landed on Dietrich's highly polished boot. Sarajoglu, who had watched the fall of the ash, looked up and stared at the German. No reaction. Dietrich had clasped his hands behind his back and was staring through a frost-coated window at the harbour.