Gerald Seymour - The Contract

There was always much for them to discuss. The damaging and publicised drain of defecting government secretaries to the East, the knowledge that within the Ministries existed the deep sleeper agents positioned by East Berlin, the efforts of DDR operatives to prise their way into the lives of lonely, menopausal female clerks. There were grounds for constant vigilance, the stability of the nation was threatened.

It was little more than 5 years since the worm had crawled to the very heart of the apple, since Willi Brandt had resigned after the discovery that an East German spy had nibbled his way to the Chancellor's private office.

The early talk in the office of the BND representative had concerned the vast scale of Positive Vetting procedures authorised by government.

The files were now locked back in their holding cabinets. Neither man was in a hurry to be on his way though their main business was completed. For each this had been the last appointment of the day and all that faced them was the traffic on Koblenzer Strasse, the tedium of the homeward journey. One produced a packet of cigarettes, the other his pipe. Time to ease back in their chairs, time to replace their pens in the inner pockets. The liaison worked well. They were old friends, men who had worked as young officers in Fremde Heere Ost, the section of staff officers in the former Wehrmacht that had concerned itself with Eastern front intelligence. They could confide in each other.

'Did you know that the British… SIS… had been round us, their man here, they sought a recommendation. They wanted a name of one of the organisations for bringing people from the East.' The BND officer dragged at his cigarette.

'They haven't been to us.'

'It was not a request through the usual channels, there is a procedure for the exchange of information, they did not use that.'

'And before they had been asked for what purpose they needed such information?'

'The intention must be clear… they wish to bring someone from the DDR.'

'They live in a delusion of their former times.' The BfV man coughed through the pipe smoke. 'Thirty-five years after the war, and you find those of them that believe they are still the occupying power.'

'Nothing about this was handled properly. I telephoned their man for guidance on their intentions, he was not available and he did not call back. He cancelled the usual liaison meeting for last week, so again we did not talk. Now they have said that we will meet next week

…'

'Which will be when their business is completed… they think they can walk over us.'

'It poses a difficulty, certainly, if we adhere to the policy of the Chancellery at this moment. Escape across the frontier is totally discouraged when aided by commercial organisations. If the request for the information they sought had been properly presented I doubt that it would have been granted. You have the risk of our involvement in a potential incident.'

'Whose name were the British given?' There was a glaze of hostility in the BfV man's face.

'Lentzer… Hermann Lentzer

'A Nazi, I know of him.'

'The British should not have gone about their business in this way, not in the country of an ally, a close ally. And afterwards when they have gone back to London, when they have dismantled their circus it is we who are left with the recrimination and sniping from East Berlin. And bad at this time, with the meeting of the Chancellor and Honecker coming…' The BND officer shrugged, enough time had been used. The Koblenzer Strasse traffic would be thinning.

'What are you going to do about it?'

'The Chancellor will not thank me for drawing him into the matter

…

The British would accuse us of gross interference in their plans, whatever they may be… I am going to do nothing.' The BND officer was on his feet, briefcase in hand.

'They never change, the British… they have never learned to accept their new place.'

As they parted a few minutes later in the car park a persistent drizzle sprayed them and the lights gleamed and shone and cast far shadows on the streets. His temper aroused by what he had been told, his forehead ploughed with irritation, the BfV man rattled his horn as he nudged into the traffic flow.

A black and miserable evening and a slow trek home.

Outside the door of his private office the Prime Minister accepted the congratulations of his supporters. Many crowded round him and his ears rang with the acclamation of their praise.

'A triumph, Prime Minister…'

'Absolutely marvellous stuff, sir, just what the party needed

'Quite destroyed them, kicked them where it hurts, damn good…'

The Prime Minister's face was set, furious and aggressive. His eyes ranged the corridor for the arrival of his PPS from the Chamber. The decision was taken on the course of action he would follow. Was it supposed to be one man government? Was he supposed to oversee every bloody department of Whitehall? Those buggers from the Service playing their games, living prehistoric dreams. He had been softened up and knocked down by an arrogant fool and that treatment from Spottiswoode outweighed the sycophancy gathered around him.

The PPS came smiling to the Prime Minister's side.

'Fine show…'

'What do I have tomorrow?'

'TUC economic committee at 10. Egyptian ambassador at 12 and he's lunching. Away for Chequers at 3.' The PPS marshalled the timetable effortlessly.

'Get hold of the Cabinet Secretary,' the Prime Minister said quietly.

'He's to bring the SIS man to Downing Street at 9 tomorrow… That's an instruction.'

The PPS slipped away from the gathering throng around the star of the night. He was baffled. Why on an evening such as this should the Prime Minister speak with such anger?

Friday morning. Johnny rose at six and dressed at once. The noise of the first trams and buses of the day boomed along the street below his window. Friday, and the coming of the critical hours.

He sat at the table and took a sheet of hotel notepaper. Otto Guttmann would have followed instructions, would not have reported the contact.

That was Johnny's feeling and he had backed it by sitting in the foyer the previous evening and watching. He would have seen the policemen coming to the lift… there had been none… Better to use the hotel paper, to blazon the proximity, because anything that disturbed the old man suited Johnny's purpose. He wrote the clear directions that Guttmann should follow and on the reverse side drew a map of the route to the railway bridge by way of Sandtor Strasse and Rogatzer Strasse.

Simple, bold lines for the map. He slipped the paper into an envelope and sealed it.

Johnny took the lift downstairs, walked out into the street and towards the square behind the Centrum. It was where he had seen the telephone kiosks. He rang the number of the International, spoke in natural German, and asked for the number of the room of Dr Otto Guttmann. He was a friend, he said, later he would be sending a book to the hotel and he wanted to ensure that the package was correctly addressed. The girl on the switchboard would be busy at this time of the morning with the waking calls. Over the line he heard the yawn, then the turning of paper as she searched for the information.

'Doctor Guttmann, or Miss Erica Guttmann?'

'Doctor Guttmann.'

'Room 626.'

'Thank you.'

Johnny replaced the receiver and strolled away. It had rained in the night, but the day promised well and the banking clouds were falling behind the Elbe and the sun flickered after them. He went back to the hotel and to any who watched him in the hallway he would have seemed a man who had slept badly and taken an early walk to freshen himself.

Unremarkable behaviour. Johnny had been a good pupil to Smithson.