Gerald Seymour - The Contract

Johnny walked back a few yards towards the road then looked again at the place where the car rested. Not good, not bad, the best that he could manage.

'All on foot from here. I reckon we're eight miles from the border, and that means five miles from the Restricted Zone. We start quick and we get slower as we come close, slower and more careful. I want to get into the Restricted Zone at dusk, be near to the Hinterland fence by the time we rest…'

'What is the Hinterland fence?' asked Otto Guttmann. An out of place animal, he seemed, bristle coming to his drawn cheeks, tie slewed sideways, suit crumpled.

'Five hundred yards from the border there's an electrified fence, that's the Hinterland.'

'You can take us through an electric fence?' A spark of awe from Erica.

'… Or under it, or over it. It runs damn near the whole length of the sector. We have to cross it if we are to get to the frontier.'

'What is at the frontier?'

'When we get there, when we're near it, that's the time to talk about the frontier.'

Erica persisted. 'Have we done well so far, Johnny?'

'We've done well, and it's all still in front of us. You've seen nothing yet, just a few lamps and sirens…'

They started to walk. Johnny took his bearings from the gathering sunlight. The same procedure as before. Erica on one side, Johnny on the other, husbanding the strength of Otto Guttmann.

'Why do you do this for us?' the old man asked.

'It's my job.'

'I say again, why. 3'

'It's the job I was given…'Johnny said. 'A contract I was given…'

'By people who were not worthy of you, who did not provide the car.

Why not abandon us, make good your own escape?'

His voice was close to Johnny's ear, and his tone was gentle in age, persuasive in pitch. No witnesses, no tape recorders, nothing to recall and keep in perpetual memory what Johnny might say. No justification for a further lie.

'I have to do it, Doctor, it's a way back for me. It shakes off my past.

You know in battle, in combat, some men go far up the road towards their enemy and get medals for courage, most of them go that far so as not to be called cowards…'

'We would never accuse you of cowardice,' Otto Guttmann said quietly.

'We shouldn't talk any more,' clipped Johnny. 'The sound carries a long way. We make enough noise already.'

They had started at a brisk pace. Johnny had no complaint.

In the Long Gallery at Chequers where the previous evening he had heard of the breakdown of the DIPPER plan, the Prime Minister played host to Oskar Frommholtz, Trade Minister and Politburo member of the German Democratic Republic. The two men were alone with the Downing Street interpreter.

The Prime Minister had showered, had then taken breakfast in his room, had telephoned the Deputy-Under- Secretary for the latest reports.

He was told of the flight of Willi Guttmann. He knew that the Magdeburg police radio had broadcast descriptions of a British passport holder travelling under the name of John Dawson, and of Doctor Otto Guttmann and his daughter, Erica. He knew that checkpoint searches at Marienborn had reduced motor traffic on the Berlin road corridor to a trickle. He was given a brief outline of the East German manhunt to draw in the tatters of the mission.

So the meeting demanded of him now by the Trade Minister was the first of the crisis that would break about his shoulders. And crisis it was, he had no illusions. Much greater than the dismemberment of the adolescent relations between the United Kingdom and the German Democratic Republic. That could be coped with, managed. That was inconsequential to the wider crisis. The damnable incompetence of those people over in Germany would involve him in the recrimination of the Chancellor in Bonn. The Federal Republic was involved because DIPPER had launched from their territory, utilised their nationals, avoided the channels of co-operation. A wretched business the whole damned thing. There would be reverberations in Washington, they were always fast enough to raise questions of the efficiency of their British cousins when an intelligence mission was bungled. If the European newspapers sniffed at the scandal of a botched operation and printed, then the domestic protection of the D notice was invalidated, and the story of failure would slither into the British media. The escape of Willi Guttmann was the final straw. God, how could they have been so stupid?

Stupid and arrogant.

Questions in the House would follow that he would have to evade and sidestep, queries as to his control over the mechanics of government.

There would be a great communal titter. Eisenhower had faced it, he had been confronted with a downed spy plane and a pilot who talked freely in Lubianka gaol. The President of the United States had the name of Gary Powers scratched on his heart, he'd survived. He'd weathered the cyclone… But, God, he'd suffered in the process of the sweeping up of the pieces.

With disaster closing around him the Prime Minister reverted to his most basic talent. He was a good fighter, they said in the party, and not too clean at close quarters. He would kick and hack and scratch, and he reckoned that as his sole possibility of defence.

The Prime Minister poured coffee, added cream and milk, and beamed pleasantly at the cold, hostile face of the Trade Minister.

' I hope we can get whatever it is you wanted to say out of the way quickly. I've about 15 minutes… you'd like some coffee… I have to go to church… what can I do for you?'

' I have been instructed by my First Secretary to deliver a Note of protest… a Note of the most serious protest…'

The Prime Minister passed the cup of full coffee. 'They take it rather badly when I'm not at Morning Service, I read the second Lesson.'

'… on a matter that gravely affects the relations between our two countries…'

'You take sugar… do go on, I'm listening.'

' I have been instructed to protest most vigorously at the criminal intrusion into the sovereign territory of the DDR by British espionage agents.'

The Prime Minister waited sentence by sentence for the interpreter.

' I have been working particularly hard for the improvement of relations between our two peoples, not their deterioration.'

'We regard it as an insult that at this moment when I am here on a mission of friendship that British saboteurs should be at work inside our frontiers.'

' I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about. The fact that you are my guest here, at Chequers, should be an indication of the importance that we attach to your visit to our country. This nonsense about saboteurs… come to the point, please.'

In front of the Trade Minister the coffee cup remained untouched. One of the old iron men, this one. The advocate of the erection of the Wall dividing Berlin. The opponent of the amnesty for political prisoners at the 30th anniversary of the State. The Prime Minister found himself fascinated by the peculiarity of the East German's hair, a pale powder grey and extraordinary how it stood upright with the firmness of a garden brush.

'We have thorough proof provided by a boy named Willi Guttmann, who from his love of the socialist principle came across the Inner German Border last night, of British machinations against our people.

Evidence of a criminal plot to kidnap this boy's father from our territory.'

'Preposterous, Trade Minister… I've seen the name of that boy somewhere, I think I can recall that name,' the Prime Minister said easily. 'He defected to us in Geneva… A silly young chap, infatuated with an English secretary and wanted to build a love nest for her. Then she found she wasn't pregnant after all and threw him over. I hope that before you start bandying around these allegations you've better evidence than that.'