Gerald Seymour - The Contract

'She is carrying nobody's child. Not yours, not anybody else's. She's not pregnant and she's not coming to England. She's not coming because she doesn't want to.'

He was very quiet, silent but for the whimper, still but for the shaking that heralded the first tears. George was in the doorway and moving over the carpet with the disciplined stealth of the hospital orderly who must handle a troublesome patient. When George led Willi out of the room he had a strong hand at the boy's elbow. The door closed.

'Why did you do that?'Johnny asked.

'I don't really know,' said Carter.

'You scratched him hard.'

'I'm not proud of myself, Johnny,' Carter said. 'Just fractured a bit, I suppose. And what does it matter? The problem is bigger than the boy's sensibilities.'

'What problem?'

'Do us a favour, Johnny. I'm asking these questions to get crucial information for you, not for the pleasure of hearing my own bloody voice. The problem of persuasion, your problem. With the old man we stand a chance. We've evaluated that and we believe in the possibility of winning him. But how to cope with the sister, that's the new problem and Willi is the way round it.'

Charles Mawby, with the advantage of a diplomatic passport, was quickly off the plane and through Immigration. He walked at a busy pace through the Customs area and out onto the concourse and his eyes roved for the man meeting him. Adam Percy, SIS resident in the German capital, stood back from the waving greeters and welcome carriers who awaited other passengers from the London flight. Mawby saw him, strode forward, there was a brief and perfunctory handshake and they were on their way to the car park.

They looked what they were. The man on the ground who was the junior and at the airport to meet his chief from head office. The twinge of deference, had it been a good journey? The fact that the plane had not been delayed, the weather should hold up. With Percy driving they moved off for the autobahn heading south.

'What seems to be the form, Adam?'

'I held off calling you, Mr Mawby, until I'd lined a man for you to talk with.'

'Thank you for that.'

'We're going now to a village just the far side of Bonn, to see a man who deals in the matters we're concerned with.' The mole bulged on the left face of Percy's nose, his lips were flaccid and creased and bloodless.

In the Service his name was synonymous with dogged and persistent endeavour. 'I'd heard some years ago of this group. Bringing people out of the East for cash, it's their speciality. They deliver — I checked the man out with Bundesnachrich- tendienst.'

'Who do we deal with now at BND?'

'This was back door, an after hours request, as you wanted. The usual source.'

'Who are we seeing?'

'He's not the sort you'd have for cocktails, not a pleasing example of the human species, but that's not the job sheet, is it? His motivation would be categorised as political. A junior SS officer at the end of the war, but too junior to warrant retribution from the legal system. All the ideology was stored up and left to fester. He's a communist hater, and this is his way of goading them. He runs a small group that manages with a fair regularity to bring out unhappy citizens from the DDR in exchange for fat returns from their relatives and friends living on this side. Most of his scene of action is along the Berlin to Helmstedt autobahn.'

Mawby dived him a quick glance. 'That's possible, is it?'

'It's possible. Possible but hazardous.' Percy kept his eyes on the road.

'Not straightforward, not for people like this?'

'Hazardous, Mr Mawby, and that cannot be overstressed. In theory the DDR is obliged under the terms of the postwar Four Power Agreement to provide unimpeded motor access between West Germany and West Berlin. In effect over the last 2 years they have substantially raised the numbers of cars stopped and searched at the Marienborn checkpoint.

The two principal methods of evasion involve persons hidden in a vehicle, or those provided with false papers, forged documents and attempting to bluff their way through. They're not idiots on the border, they've a fair idea what they're looking for… there are some 500 West Germans serving time. The drivers, the fixers, the link-men, they'll testify to the thoroughness of the scrutiny at the border. There's a considerable intelligence effort mounted by the Staatssicherheitadienst that's aimed specifically at infiltrating the groups, giving them a length of rope and then strangling them.'

Perhaps even in the warm interior of the speeding car, Charles Mawby felt a faint and winnowing chill. Why did the wretched man start with the difficulties? Mawby had spoken in London of the feasibility of the concept, he had not lingered on the ruts and pot-holes in the road.

'How tight is our group?'

'How long is an Irish mile, Mr Mawby? The bad ones don't last, and this one has survived, that's on his side. Security is always going to be the greatest strain though. If nobody knows of them then they don't attract the trade, and they're commercial, so they need an order list. In a vague way they have to go out and tout for business. They have to be known, and the BND knows about our merchant.'

'You've called me over to meet this man, so what tells you he has the necessary security factor to be suitable for us?'

His politics. He detests them over there, detests and loathes them.

His whole life is kicking them, and around him are like-minded people. To you and me his pay-roll is made up of thugs and fascists

…

It wouldn't be simple to infiltrate that kind of group.'

'That makes sense.' Mawby sighed a bellows blast of relief. The start of the good news, but the moment was short.

'You have to understand, Mr Mawby, that if you launch with this man you can expect us to be alone with him. Even if we subsequently change stance and request it, we'll get no help from BND. The authorities aren't friendly with these people. From the Chancellor down they're condemned. They're seen as jeopardising the free flow along the autobahn, the Soviets are for ever threatening that if Bonn doesn't take a firmer hand, stamp them out, then new controls will be asserted on the autobahn. They're an embarrassment to government here, the groups stand in the way of the gradual thaw in East and West German relations, so they're just not wanted. It's not an area where we'd have active co-operation.'

Mawby turned to watch the How of growing crops and grass shudder past him, felt the trembling roar of an over- taking articulated lorry and trailer.

' I suppose we couldn't do this ourselves?' Mawby be- trayed his unhappiness.

'You could, but you take a risk.'

'Explain yourself.'

'If you have a car with a British driver and you have German passengers with German documentation then you invite inspection. You couldn't give British paperwork to Germans and just hope they weren't singled for questioning, and if it were blown…

Good grief, they'd be scuttling for cover in Outer Mongolia.'

'Quite so.'

'You have to be distant from it, Mr Mawby. Distant from the group and above everything distant from the driver, so the leads and traces back are stifled.'

Mawby looked across at Percy, but the eyes were fixed on the road. Of course he was right and he could afford to be, because it wasn't down to him, the responsibility wasn't going to find its way to Adam Percy's pudgy back.

'How long do we have, before you want the pick-up made?'

'Our man is unavailable after the fifteenth of June,' Mawby said.

'That's sharp.'

'It has to be done in that time.'

'Not much scope for rehearsal, not before the first night. You'll have to hope everybody learns their lines by the curtain lift.'