Gerald Seymour - The Waiting Time

‘Thought you people did your own typing, these days, or are some too idle to learn how to use a keyboard?’

‘There’s no call..

The man smiled, without humour. ‘There were a few old contemptibles in my place who tried to hang on to their typists so they wouldn’t have to learn the new skills. They were booted out. Where’s Krause?’

‘I didn’t catch your name.’

‘Hadn’t given it you. Take me to Krause. I gather you found a photograph, please. I’ll have it. I’m Albert Perkins.’

Johnson took the picture from his tunic pocket, offered it. They were under a light. It was examined. Perkins took a buff file from his briefcase and opened it. He read from the file and looked again at the photograph, put both back into the briefcase, and walked on. Johnson felt the fear a prison governor would have experienced when meeting for the first time a hangman coming in the emptiness of the night. He led. The rainclouds had gone.

He babbled, ‘I’m wondering if our tracks haven’t crossed. Face seems to register from way back. There was a Perkins, a Six man, working out of the Naafihaus, Helmstedt, would have been midseventies. Up and down to Berlin on our military train, debriefing autobahn people. Was it…?’

‘I find that really boring – “Weren’t you? By Jove, so was I. God, small world. Remember?” Tedious.’

They reached Sick Bay and went into the dim light of the waiting area.

Perkins said, ‘My advice, Major, don’t go playing all uptight because I’ve been sent here, because your people are whining that they’re out of their depth, don’t. I’ll tell you why I’m here, words of one syllable. They’re the power and the glory. We bend the knee to them. We grovel rather than offend “greater” Germany. We slobber at the ankles of their Chancellor, their Central Bank, their foreign ministry, their industrialists. They are premier and we are division three. They deign, kind of them, to throw us crumbs, to send us a prime intelligence asset, who gets the warmest of welcomes. She called him a murderer, correct? They’re hardly going to enthuse when we name that prime asset as a killer who should be before their judges. Not on a junket, not bathing in the limelight, but in handcuffs and in court. They won’t be happy people. So, we’re all smiles and apologies. Got me?’

There was a sentry on the inner door. Perkins went past him, didn’t acknowledge him. The bright light of the room lit the paleness of his face.

Krause sat on a hard chair. The wounds were cleaner than when Johnson had last seen him, but the scratches were deep. As if drilled, the minders each took a step forward from the wall to stand either side of their man.

The smile beamed on Perkins’s face. ‘The name is Perkins, I’ve come from London – try and sort this dreadfully embarrassing business out. I want to express our most sincere apologies.’

‘I am Doktor Raub. We wish to go. We are being kept here. We wish to leave.’

‘What I heard, it was thought advisable, on medical grounds, to suggest you waited.’

A mocking voice. ‘I am Herr Goldstein. On medical grounds, was it necessary to have a sentry at the door?’

‘So sorry, put it down to tangled wires, no intention to delay you. A hotel in London, yes? And you are…?’

His voice tailed away. Perkins stood in front of Krause.

‘I am Doktor Dieter Krause. I wish to go.’

A voice of silken sweetness. ‘Then go you shall. Just one point, excuse me…’

They were standing, waiting on him. Perkins took his time and the younger minder flicked his fingers in impatience. Perkins rummaged in his briefcase and took out the photograph. He held it carefully so that his thumb was across the face of Corporal Tracy Barnes. He showed the photograph, the face of the young man.

‘So good of you to wait. A young man, we’ll call him Hans. Hauptman Krause, did you kill that young man? In cold blood, did you murder him, Hauptman Krause?’

In raw fury: ‘What is your evidence?’

And Perkins laughed lightly. ‘Please accept our apologies for what happened this evening – safe back to your hotel, Hauptman.’

He stood aside. He allowed them past. The sentry would take them to the cars.

‘Where is she?’

‘In the cells, the guardhouse,’ Johnson said.

‘Take me.’

It was easy for Albert Perkins to make an image in his mind. This was among the skills that his employers in the Service valued.

He saw a briefing room, modern, carpeted, good chairs, a big screen behind a stage. An audience of officers and senior NCOs, civil servants bussed down from London, talking hushed over their coffee and nibbling biscuits before the Colonel’s finger rapped the live microphone.

Probably.. ‘Whether we like it or not, whether our political masters would acknowledge it or not, the Russian Federation remains in pole position as our potential enemy. While that country, with such awesome conventional and nuclear military power, remains in a state of convulsed confusion we would be failing in our duty if we did not examine most rigorously the prime and influential power players in Moscow…’

Photographs on a screen of Rykov, Pyotr, whoever he might be, on a wet November morning, and a background brief on previous appointments. Had to be Afghanistan, had to be a military district in Mother Russia under the patronage of a general weighted down with medals, and command of a base camp up on the Baltic coast. Photographs and voice tapes, but all adding to sweet fuck-all of nothing.

Lights up, the Colonel on his arse, and stilted applause for the honoured guest, for the friend of Rykov, Pyotr, for the former enemy, for the old Stasi creature… Albert Perkins made the image, saw it and heard it.

Krause at the podium, no scars on his face, no cuts in his head and no bruising at his balls.

Probably… ‘I was Pyotr Rykov’s friend. We were close, we were as brothers are. We fished together, we camped together. There were no microphones, no surveillance. He talked to me with trust. I tell you, should the state collapse, should the Russian Army assume control, then the most powerful man in Moscow would be the minister of defence and a step behind the minister is my friend, my best friend. I wish to share my knowledge with you of this man…’

Drooling they’d have been in the briefing room, slavering over the anecdotes, and all the stuff about former enemies and former Stasi bastards flushed down the can. The red carpet rolled out for the walk in the rain to the mess, best crystal for drinks, silver on the table for dinner afterwards. Except… except that some little corporal, little bit of fluff, had gatecrashed the party, fucked up the evening. Wasn’t a bad story, not the way that Albert Perkins saw it and heard it. Must have been like a satchel of Semtex detonating in the hallowed territory of the mess.

The manufacturing of images had always been among the talents of Albert Perkins.

They walked on the main road through the camp, towards the gate and the guardhouse. When the headlights came, powering behind them, Johnson hopped awkwardly off the tarmacadam for the grass but Perkins did not. Perkins made them swerve. The two cars flashed their lights at the gate sentry and the bar lifted for them. It was a rare cocktail that the man, the hangman, had served them, Johnson reflected. Apologies and insults, sweetness and rudeness. In three hours it would be dawn. Then the barracks would stir to life, and the gossip and innuendo would begin again. The target would be himself. By mid-morning coffee break, the barracks would know that Perry Johnson had been a messenger boy through the night for a civilian from London. They went into the guardhouse. The corridor was unlocked for them. He frowned, confused, because the cell door was ajar. They went in.