Gerald Seymour - The Contract

'Within the next two days the television service of the DDR will broadcast these allegations. Willi Guttmann will be produced to tell his story so that the peoples of freedom loving nations may appreciate the criminal behaviour of your agents.'

' I've seldom heard such rubbish. What was he going to do with this scientist, sling him on his shoulder and jump that fence of yours? I find it most distressing that your government should stoop to such smears and untruths…' The Prime Minister turned to the interpreter. 'The strongest words you've got, Rodgers, I don't want any prissiness.'

'Last night…' the Trade Minister snapped his reply to the interpreter.

'Last night a spy who came to the city of Magdeburg under the name of John Dawson intended to kidnap Doctor Otto Guttmann, a most eminent scientist, and to smuggle him illegally beyond our borders.'

'You should pass to the First Secretary my advice that he should be most careful of the weight he attaches to the gossip of this Guttmann boy

…'

'We have incontrovertible evidence.'

'When you are my guest, Trade Minister, do me the goodness of hearing me out. It would be most unfortunate if the ramblings of a jilted youth were permitted to sour British and East German co-operation. I would not welcome anything that jeopardised the good relations between our countries, certainly not a concocted story like this. Where is this British agent, this saboteur?'

' In a few hours he will have been arrested.'

'So the evidence is quite unsubstantiated?'

'To us the evidence is satisfactory.'

'To me it sounds ridiculous. I would like you to stress to the First Secretary my total commitment to the bettering of understanding between your country and ours. From the hospitality shown to you here you will have seen for yourself the value we have put on your visit. Are you forgetting that because of a youth's hysteria, I hardly think so…

You haven't touched your coffee…'

'Thank you… I must return to London.'

'You're due in the Midlands tomorrow, the Lucas and British Leyland factories.'

' If I have not been recalled to Berlin.'

'That would be a very great disappointment to the people who have tried to make you feel most welcome here.'

' I must consult with the First Secretary.'

'My advice is that he should not be precipitate in his actions. Assure him, please, that should he provide concrete evidence of the presence of a British agent in the German Democratic Republic, evidence incontrovertibly proved by his arrest, then a most far reaching enquiry will be instituted into the behaviour of our Services. The First Secretary has my word that I know nothing of this matter.'

' I have no doubts that such evidence will be produced.'

'My warmest regards to the First Secretary.'

'Thank you.'

After the withdrawal of the Trade Minister and the interpreter, the Prime Minister reached for the coffee.

He pondered to himself. He had come to the cul-de-sac after all and he was linked with the Service. All that he had feared and sought to avoid had happened, and he was hamstrung in the web that the Service wove.

The same web that had caught Anthony Eden on the affair of Commander Crabbe. The same web that had dictated the bland denials from Harold Macmillan that Harold Adrian Russell Philby was a lifelong traitor. The head of government could not dissociate himself from his Intelligence establishment. He had bought himself a little time, and had not yet counted the cost of the purchase. The Trade Minister's scarcely civil departure had indicated that the message would be relayed to the First Secretary, it was possible the advice might be accepted.

Now he must await a miracle. The freelancer that he had been told of, a man called Johnny Donoghue, must bring an elderly scientist and his daughter through this impenetrable border. A border that was sealed tight, the Deputy-Under- Secretary had told him, a border that was festooned with automatic guns and minefields. That alone could save him from the humiliation of involvement in the DIPPER failure.

He drank his coffee. All a question of faith, he supposed. And in the matter of political miracles he regarded himself as an agnostic. Beyond possibility to believe the freelancer would offer salvation.

His wife came into the room, two Prayer Books and a Bible in her hand.

'We really must hurry, darling.'

' I suppose so,' said the Prime Minister. 'I'm not feeling terribly like church.'

Carter came out of the communications wing at the Roadhaus. All despondency and gloom in London, all waiting for the Berlin team to come trooping back for the inquest of the afternoon. He was told that the name of John Dawson had been heard on the Magdeburg police radio.

He'd be sitting on his hands and hoping that the dust would have settled before he, too, received his travel orders.

He walked across the car park to the NAAFI bar. Yes, he was on duty.

No, there was no harm in a couple of beers. Sunday lunchtime, wasn't it?

'Morning, Mr Carter,' a big cheerful welcome. 'Christ, you look as. if it was a hard old night. Come for the hair of the dog, have you?'

Charlie Davies of the British Frontier Service leaned easily against the bar.

'Good morning, Mr Davies.'

'Found myself short of fags, so I popped in for some. Cheapest ones you can get here, cheaper than duty free at the airport, that's what I told the wife.'

'Yes, it was a bit of a rough night

Charlie Davies called for two beers.

'Going back soon, are you?'

' I don't know… I mean nobody's told me. They can run the shop well enough without the likes of me.' Carter smiled ruefully. ' If I was here six months they wouldn't notice back there.'

The warm grin slipped from Davies's face. 'There's a fair old flap over the other side,' he said dropping his voice. ' I was talking to a BGS fellow

… they're tearing the cars apart at the checkpoint, there's a mile's tail-back at Marienborn. Good job it's Sunday, be right chaos if the lorries were on the road as well. It's said the security on the autobahn is really fierce…'

' I know,' said Carter. As a seeming afterthought, he added, 'Would you care to take a breath of fresh air with me, Mr Davies?'

The NAAFI manager had recently laid out a rough putting course beside the drive way. An RAF sergeant and his wife and small daughter were coaxing a ball down the green. Out of earshot of Carter's low and hesitant voice.

'You'll forgive me for what's going to sound a pretty daft question, Mr Davies…' Carter stared down at the thick tufted grass. 'But what's the chances of a chap making it out right now?'

'Depends who he is, what he knows.'

'Resourceful, thirtyish, fit physically… I don't know how much he knows.'

Davies looked at his companion with a strand of sympathy. 'Your lad over there, is he? Is that what's stirring them up?'

'Could be,' said Carter.

'He's about five foot ten…?'

Carter gazed into Davies's face.

'… dark brown hair, a blood spot on the right side of his nose.'

'Something like that.'

'Calls himself Johnny, doesn't bother with the last name. Accent a bit north country.'

'He was here?'

'A week ago,' said Charlie Davies carefully. 'He had two days here

… came out with us in daylight and kept us talking half the night.'

Two missing days, Johnny wanted to brush up on his German. Clever, thoughtful Johnny. Come to the border to find the experts, the men who know. Slipped into place. Johnny buying his own insurance, Johnny taking his own precautions. Johnny disbelieving all the bromide that Mawby and Carter poured down his throat at Holmbury.

' It's Johnny that I'm waiting for,' said Carter. One turn round the course completed. The sergeant's daughter squealed with delight nearby.