Len Deighton - XPD

‘Polish name,’ explained Delaney, ‘so that no one will expect you to speak Portuguese.’ There was a birth certificate dated October 19, 1926-a copy issued by the Polish Ministry of the Interior in Warsaw in 1938. There was a driving licence issued in France. ‘The French licences have no expiry date,’ explained Delaney. There was an American Express card too. ‘It’s a forgery. For Christ’s sake don’t buy anything with it. He’s taken the number from a block of unused ones, so that it can’t come up on their computer. Just use it as ID, you understand?’

‘This guy knows his way around,’ said Stein admiringly.

‘The best,’ said Delaney. ‘Now you’re all set up.’

‘No, Jerry. This stuff is to help a man who’s running. But the moment he stops running, he’s going to need a whole lot more than this.’

‘For instance?’

‘He needs a history, Jerry. References, bank accounts backed up by bank managers who’ll play ball… social security records, and all that stuff. He needs someone who can put him on the computers, Jerry.’

Delaney pulled a face.

‘I could pay,’ said Stein. There was a silence. Stein said, ‘I told you a lie just now. I told you I wasn’t frightened. I am frightened. Jerry.’

Jerry Delaney looked at his friend in surprise. I’ll give you the kind of help you need, Chuck. But Jesus… ’ Delaney went to the window and stared at the busy street below.

‘They blew away that guy MacIver.’

‘That will save you a few bucks,’ said Delaney.

‘I felt sorry for the guy,’ said Stein. ‘And that shooting in the bar on Western Avenue wasn’t just some kid on angel dust. MacIver was doing business with a guy named Lustig, and the next thing I know Lustig is taken suddenly dead. Lustig’s little movie company is taken over by a Kraut named Breslow, and he gets clobbered by a truck on the freeway. And what is the connecting link, Jerry? The connecting link is the stuff we brought out of the number two shaft of the Kaiseroda salt mine, Jerry.’

The neon lights were on everywhere. In the street there were a few men aimlessly peering at the girly pictures outside the peep shows, and peeking into the dark, topless bars. And cars cruised past continually, their lone occupants scanning the streets and doorways. Delaney saw none of that, neither did he see the big Caprice Classic parked near the marquee of the porno cinema across the street, or Boyd Stuart’s case officer or his West Coast section head who sat well back in the shadows watching the club. The British agents had been waiting there since Stein first entered the Gnu Club.

In Delaney’s office neither man spoke or moved. Delaney had never seen his friend look frightened before, let alone admit it. Finally Stein said, ‘And my kid, Billy. I’ll have to have papers for him too.’ Stein drank his wine. ‘Whether he’ll come with me, I don’t know. He says I’m an ignoramus; he says I’m klutzy, and tells me I’ve got no manners… He don’t like the way I eat or the way I talk.’

‘These uppity kids are all the same,’ said Delaney, in that automatic way that people talk when their minds are concentrating upon something else. ‘I paid for my Joey to go to college, and he comes home with all kinds of big ideas about how we should sell the club and go into real estate… goddamned kids.’ He went to the window and pulled down the blind and then closed the heavy curtains. ‘You’re talking about the mob, Chuck. There are no other people organized enough to give you a new identity.’ Delaney fiddled with the curtain cord. ‘They swore me to silence. I promised I’d never tell a living soul.’ He looked at Stein. ‘Petrucci,’ he said suddenly, like a man plunging into cold water. He turned away and fiddled with the photo of his wife and family sitting beside the pool at their holiday home at Lake Tahoe. ‘Bud Petrucci. Remember him? He’s the one who got those things for you. He remembers you well. He sends his best wishes; he likes you.’ Delaney nodded towards the forged passport.

‘Petrucci?’

‘Sergeant Petrucci. Twitchy little guy, a survivor from the trucks that went up the valley ahead of us. Remember we saw the smoke and wondered what it was? Then we saw three bodies-one of them black-all stark naked, and you said they must be GIs because the bodies were so clean.’

Stein felt suddenly cold, as cold as he had felt in that long-ago Tunisian winter. ‘As cold as a bookmaker’s heart,’ his brother Aram said, and they had laughed. It was a long, slow haul for the column up the scrubby slopes of those rock-strewn hills. They were exposed to the wind here at the crest of this low ridge. Below them there was vegetation and, at the bottom of the gully where the earth was red, a glint of water. There would be cover there; cover against air attack and the eyes of enemy reconnaissance units, and against the elements too. But there would also be mud.

Stein wiped the dust from his face, as he did every minute, and resolved to obtain some goggles at any price. Everyone had them, even the desert Arabs, everyone had them except the soldiers of the army which had paid for them. Behind him he heard the movement of the machine-gun mounting as his brother Aram scoured the skies for aircraft. At least Stein had been able to get goggles for his young brother; for that at least he was thankful.

Up ahead, a smudge of smoke was marking the hill over which the supply column had gone just before radioing their calls for assistance. Delaney was driving, Stein was by his side. They were ‘point’, and that meant the first vehicle to encounter anything that was coming. It was Stein who noticed the truck, axle-deep in soft sand, down the drift amongst the scrub. But Delaney saw the bodies.

There were three of them, sprawled at the side of the narrow track. One was black, the other two paler than any native skin. ‘GIs,’ said Stein. ‘Stripped by the Arabs in as many minutes as it’s taken us to come up the valley. Even their dog tags are gone.’

‘GIs?’ said Delaney. ‘How can you tell?’ The engine stalled; it was overheating. He pressed the starter but the engine did not catch. Suddenly it was very quiet.

‘Because they are so clean,’ said Stein. The three bodies were all youngsters, little more than children really. These were the first dead men they had ever seen.

‘Maybe we should bury them,’ said Delaney. No sooner had he said it than Lieutenant Pitman came striding forward to see what was causing the delay. Now he too looked at the bodies, and waited to hear what Stein said.

‘Let’s go,’ said Stein. ‘You guys are going to see plenty more dead bodies before the day is over-leave them for the burial detail.’

‘Goddamn Arabs!’ said Delaney. ‘Stripped the poor bastards bare ass.’

There was a sudden noise of distant explosions-muffled like funeral drums so that the sound came more like a continuous rumble than as separate bangs. Along the crest of the ridge ahead of them patches of grey smoke appeared, moving along the horizon like a family of elephants walking trunk to tail. Then came a great ball of flame and black smoke, and a crackle of exploding small-arms ammunition.

‘The Krauts have ranged in on the supply column,’ said Delaney in alarm. He hit the starter again; this time the engine fired and shuddered into life.

‘Prepare to move out,’ shouted Pitman, and behind them Stein could hear shouting and arguing and the scream of the engines as the men tried to manoeuvre the half-tracks on the narrow pathway. Pitman, his tie tucked into his neatly pressed, starched shirt, was holding his new binoculars to his eyes. ‘There’s a soldier coming up the track… one of the guys from the column maybe-a sergeant. He’s hurt… someone go and give him a hand.’ Delaney went.