Colin Forbes - The Janus Man

They had dinner together at the Au Ciel restaurant with huge picture windows looking out on to the nearby Jura Mountains.

Dalby listened while Kent, in his late thirties and very bright, talked. They drank a Montrachet '83 with their meal which Dalby selected after careful study of the wine list.

`I have to go on somewhere else,' Dalby informed Kent over the coffee, checking his watch. 'Keep things humming over…'

This decision did not surprise Kent in the least. Dalby was a man who believed in visiting his agents in the field to hear direct from them what was happening. The meal over, Kent left Dalby in the restaurant. He had no idea what Dalby's destination might be, nor would he have dreamt of asking. Dalby was a lone wolf.

Erich Lindemann landed at Kastrup, the airport for Copenhagen, waited at the carousel, collected his case, walked through Passport Control and Customs, and made for the bar in the exit hall. He chose a table with its back to the wall, ordered coffee, drank it slowly.

All the time he watched the entrance to the bar, searching for a familiar face. On board the flight from Heathrow he'd made one trip to the toilet at the rear of the aircraft. He had walked slowly down the central gangway, a dreamy look on his face. He was studying every single passenger and his photographic memory recorded them all. At Cambridge he had been a brilliant student; he only had to read a page once and all the relevant data was recorded in his mind.

Now, as he sipped his coffee, he checked to see if one of the passengers followed him into the bar. None of them did. Tweed had not, as he'd suspected he might have done, sent a streetwalker to tail him.

Wearing an old pair of grey flannels and a sports jacket with leather elbow patches, he carried his case back into the entrance hall, paused to glance round like a man unsure of his bearings, checking again, then went out and climbed inside a cab.

`Hotel d'Angleterre, please,' he said in English, his precise voice carrying through the open window where several people stood with luggage, presumably waiting for the airport bus.

Half-way along the fifteen-minute drive into the city past a pleasant suburb with neat houses, trim lawns, trees and shrubs, he tapped on the partition window. The driver slid the glass panel back.

`I've just realized the time,' Lindemann said. 'Drop me instead in the Radhuspladsen.'

He paid off the driver in the bustling Radhuspladsen – the Town Hall Square – and walked the last few metres to his HQ inside an old building. The chrome plate at the entrance to the staircase read Export-Import Services North. Inside his office he placed his case against the wall and sat behind his desk as his deputy, Miss Browne (`with an "e", please') came in with an armful of files.

An ex-senior Civil Servant, Miss Browne was in her fifties, a tall severe-looking woman with grey hair and the nose of a golden eagle. There were no greetings. He sat back, steepled his hands and listened while she reported.

`Any further news from Nils Omdal about Balkan?' he asked. `Not a word.'

`Then I'll be catching the shuttle to Oslo.'

They called it the shuttle because the fifty-minute non-stop flights from Copenhagen to the Norwegian capital were so frequent. Lindemann picked up his case, glanced at his desk. It was a model of tidiness. The two phones, his slide rule, notepads and pen set neatly lined up.

`A most competent report,' he told Miss Browne, who was now standing. 'Keep the wheels turning while I'm away. Not sure how long.'

`Any means of contacting you?'

`None at all…'

He crossed the Radhuspladsen as though seeking a taxi. He gave the Radhuset, with its steep roof and old tiles, an approving glance. One of the many things he liked about Copenhagen. Only two high-rise buildings anywhere near the city centre – the Royal Hotel and the SAS place you passed on your way in from Kastrup.

He walked on past a cab rank and continued on foot until he crossed the wide Vesterbrogade and hurried inside the main railway station. He was in good time to catch the express – the train bound for Rodby. There it would be shunted aboard the huge ferry for transportation across the Baltic – to Puttgarden, Lubeck and Hamburg.

Newman was grimly aware this was the most dangerous hurdle – entering the fortified coastal zone. Stahl had stopped the truck in front of the closed wire gate. 'No!' Newman whispered. `Don't switch off the engine.'

The warning lights threw a red glow over the bonnet. The two guards walked towards him as he lowered his window. He studied them as they came towards him, trudging on leaden feet, holding their machine pistols slackly in one hand, their faces haggard with fatigue. They'd been on duty all night, probably due to be relieved shortly. That might just help.

The man closest to the cab was tall and thin, his companion was short and squat. Newman said nothing at all as the thin man stood beneath his window. He simply handed out the document he'd taken from Stahl, his expression bleak as he checked his watch.

`What's this?' the guard demanded, snatching the sheet of paper.

`Read it. You can read, I presume? And we're late. If we miss the ship at Rostock, God help you…'

`Don't talk to me like that..

`I said read it! You can recognize a movement order when you see one, can't you? And you might look at the crest at the top. Then perhaps we can get moving.'

`We've had no notification about this vehicle. I want to see inside it…'

`Absolutely forbidden! Read the bloody thing.'

The squat man had joined his comrade, was peering over his shoulder as the thin one examined it in the headlights. Newman heard the squat man mutter, 'Be careful. That's Intelligence…'

`I still want this truck opened up,' the thin man insisted.

Newman turned down the handle of his door, half-opened it, but he remained inside the cab. The two men looked up at the sound. Newman gestured towards the guard hut.

`I'm not hanging about here any longer. Is there a phone in that thing? I'm calling Markus Wolf. He'll be pleased to be woken up, I'm sure. And I'll need your names. That information he will want. Look at the signature at the bottom.'

`God,' he heard the short guard say, 'it is Wolf's signature. Like I said, be careful..

Newman pressed home his advantage, his tone terse and clipped. 'It also says,' he quoted from memory, 'that this is a sealed consignment which must be permitted free and uninterrupted passage inside the Rostock port area. You…' He paused, 'are interrupting its passage.'

`I've read it.' The thin guard handed the document back to Newman, saw the Skorpion Newman held casually across his lap, carefully pointed away from tke open door. 'What the hell is that for? Who are you?'

Again Newman said nothing. He produced his folder, handed it to the guard, checked his watch again and looked at Stahl with an expression of extreme impatience. The German had begun to sweat, beads of perspiration appearing on his forehead.

`Wipe your forehead,' he whispered. `Use the back of your hand.'

`Border Police,' the thin guard said. 'Special assignment, too. Why didn't you say so earlier?'

`Because,' Newman said with cutting emphasis, 'the movement order is explicit, should have been sufficient. And this gun is to protect the consignment. I have orders to shoot anyone who attempts to look inside this truck. Now, open the bloody gate.'

`We have to check…' the guard began, handing back the folder. 'Let them through,' he told his companion. 'Just doing our duty, Comrade,' he maundered on as the gate swung inward automatically. The three red lights moved with it, which gave a weird effect, and Newman realized for the first time they were attached to it.