Gerald Seymour - The Contract

Just a job, Johnny, just do your best. Go tell Mawby that, go tell Mr bloody Mawby in his pinstripe suit.

Room 626.

They're all behind you… Mawby, Carter, Smithson and Pierce, even old George, they're all behind you. Right behind, back over the bloody border.

Room 626.

Corridor's clear. Get on with it, lad, don't hang about.

His legs were tight and his muscles fluttering, and there was a pain in his stomach and the forward gun sight bit at his buttocks. In you go, Johnny.

He knocked at the door, knocked twice and sharply.

The girl was in front of him. The dullness of the corridor and the light of the room behind her contrived to shadow and grey her face. He saw the blotched smears at her cheeks, the trembling of her fingers at the door jamb.

Johnny spoke in German. Curt and boorish because he must dominate from the start. He had come to issue instructions, not to plead, that was the Holmbury doctrine. 'I'd like to see your father, Miss Guttmann.'

He was expected. There seemed no surprise, only a deep tiredness that he read from her eyes, and almost the trace of relief that a nightmare might be nearing its end. She gestured that he should come into the room, then as an afterthought she moved aside to permit him to pass her.

An obsessive fear of flying led to Hermann Lentzer using his car for the long journey from the outskirts of Bonn to West Berlin. After Cologne he would join the E 73 autobahn that would take him beyond Dortmund.

He would transfer then to the E 8 and from there it was straight for 280 miles via Hannover and Braunschweig and Helmstedt to Berlin. The Mercedes would swallow the distance.

His documents rested in a leather handbag on the imitation fur cover of the seat beside him. His radio was tuned to the station designed for long distance travellers, light music interrupted only by news of road works and traffic accidents that might cause delay. When he returned the following day he would be hugely richer and more importantly he would have kicked the pigs of the DDR, bruised their testicles, chalked up one more scream of pain and anger.

If the frontier crossings were not slow he would be in West Berlin by early afternoon.

Otto Guttmann was sitting in a low chair near to the window. Johnny towered over him.

'Doctor Guttmann, we have some matters to talk of.'

'We have been waiting for you…'

'Have you followed the instructions, have you spoken to anybody of the photographs and the train?'

'Only to Erica, only to my daughter.'

Otto Guttmann wore the visage of the priest, of one who has been persecuted and who has felt the slings and arrows. He was not lying, Johnny knew that. The quiet, steady, deliberate voice could not have mustered an untruth.

'Willi is alive and well, Doctor Guttmann. This evening he will be waiting fifty kilometres from here…'

'Waiting for what?' The old man's head swayed as he watched through the window the careering flight of a pigeon.

'He will be waiting for you, Doctor Guttmann. From midnight he will be waiting at Helmstedt, waiting for you both to come through the border.'

' It is a sick, cruel game that you play…'

'Not my game, Dr Guttmann. It's the facts that are sick and cruel.

You've been in mourning for a boy who's fit and strong and breathing, that's sick, and that's a fact. Your son defected, that's cruel, and that's a fact. We didn't make him, we didn't know him till he came over. If that hurts, I'm not to blame. But there's another fact… tonight Willi will be waiting and you can join him.'

There was a grim smile on Guttmann's face.

Did you leave him too long, Johnny? Too long, so that the introspection has strengthened and not broken him. Not clasping your bloody hand in gratitude, is he? Far from it. There was a calmness about the old man. A serenity, a sense that he was above and beyond anything that Johnny could do to him.

' It is not possible for us to go to the West,' he said simply.

' It is possible. It is arranged, and it will happen.'

' I am an old man. Once I had a wife and she is lost to me. Once I had a son and he too was taken. I no longer believe in promises. I trust only in Erica's love. That is enough for me.'

Harder, Johnny, go harder. Obliterate the disbelief. You have to, Johnny, you have to be bloody vile. 'Doctor Guttmann, listen carefully to me. Your son had no accident on the Lake of Geneva. His actions were intended only to deceive, they were eminently successful. Of his own volition Willi came to London. Once there he renounced the countries of his birth and of his adoption. He has put himself at our disposal

'You are British.?' The whisper, the incredulity from behind.

Damn the girl, damn her for the spoiling of the mood, damn her for bringing her father's gaze darting to the source of interruption. 'Be quiet, Miss Guttmann. He put himself at our disposal. He co-operated fully with us. He is well and happy now, you can see that from the photographs. He has told us of you, Doctor Guttmann, he talked a great deal of you… he is ashamed of the hurt that he has caused you. Six weeks ago we began to plan a way that would bring you in safety to your son's side. By this time tomorrow you will be reunited with Willi. If you follow me that will happen — I guarantee that, Doctor Guttmann — if you do not take this chance the opportunity will never be repeated. You have one chance, one chance only that you may take advantage of. A car will come down the autobahn tonight from West Berlin. It will carry the necessary documents. The car will pick you up and drive you to Helmstedt. The offer stands for this night… for this night only… there will never be another car..'

Johnny saw the old man's eyes drift away from him.

Otto Guttmann no longer listened. 'You know that I am elderly, you think, too, that I am a fool?'

Johnny was halted and the words, careful and rehearsed, deserted him.

There was a limpness in his reply, forced by the bluntness of the question. 'I know that you are no fool, you have a reputation for brilliance in your held of study.'

'You believe that at this time my grief for Willi is keenest. You believe that when I come to Magdeburg next year I will be less susceptible to your blackmail.'

'You owe these people nothing, Doctor Guttmann.'

'And what do I owe to your people?'

Johnny hesitated. He glanced back over his shoulder at Erica, wondered whether she was a source of support. She stared back at him, bland and impassive. 'We offer you freedom, Doctor Guttmann.'

The old man stared at Johnny. 'You are the representative of freedom?

You who spy on me, you who hides himself without a name. What is freedom to you?'

'You should know better than to ask, Doctor Guttmann,' Johnny snapped back. 'You have lived in Hitler's Germany. You have worked in Stalin's and Khrushchev's and Brezhnev's Russia. You should know what is freedom.'

' If I follow you what is the price that I must pay?'

'You will make your own choice on the repayment of the debt. That is the freedom that we offer you.'

'You know my work?'

'Willi told us.'

'You know that the team I direct has been working on the prototype missile to succeed Sagger?'

'Your son told us.'

'You know the prototype has been completed and tested?'

'We assumed the project was in the final stage.'

'Yesterday that prototype was fired at Padolsk, and I have received a message of congratulation from General of Ordnance Grivchenko. You cannot know that?'

'Of course not.'

'You are young and no doubt brave to have come here, you are clever and resourceful or you would not have been chosen. I ask you those questions so that you may appreciate that I am sceptical of angels who speak with the motives of mercy and freedom. You want me only as a traitor, as a turncoat.'