Len Deighton - XPD

Kleiber drew a map using his stubby finger on the plastic table top.

‘Would you go in the gate with the road party, Max?’

‘Yes,’ said Max almost as if he had been waiting for the question.

Kleiber was caught off balance for a moment; he had been preparing all kinds of arrangements to persuade Breslow. ‘That’s excellent. I need someone who knows the true situation on that side. I will be with the boats, of course. If something went badly wrong I want someone who can talk himself out of trouble and extricate the truck and the road party. For us in the boats it will be easier to disappear.’

‘Are you arming the road party?’

‘I can’t decide. There’s every reason to hope we’ll go right into the house and need nothing more lethal than a finger in a coat pocket. But we have to remember that the Amis are ex-soldiers, just as we are. They might be the sort of men who conduct their affairs in a proper military style. They might have sentries posted. They might be armed to the teeth, Max.’

‘I doubt it,’ said Max Breslow. He couldn’t think of anyone less military than Charles Stein.

‘And so do I. I doubt it very much. Let’s go upstairs. I want to take a shower and change my clothes.’

‘When we get the documents, what then, Willi? Do we take them to Dr Böttger?’

‘I will handle it,’ said Kleiber. ‘It is all arranged.’

‘Suppose you are hurt, Willi, or even killed?’

Kleiber stopped suddenly and turned to face his friend. Like all brave soldiers, he had never truly faced that prospect. What a catastrophe it would be if Max gave the Minutes to Böttger. Kleiber had no doubt that in such a case Moscow would keep to the threat of sending all Kleiber’s war crimes evidence to the West. That would kill his mother with shame, and certainly mean the end of his father.

‘No, Max,’ said Kleiber. ‘If anything happens to me, you must telephone Chicago, a man named Edward Parker.’ Kleiber scribbled the phone number on a page of his notebook and passed it to Max Breslow.

‘Does he know about Charles Stein?’

‘He knows about everything, Max. He knows about everything.’

‘I feel sorry for Stein,’ Max confided. ‘He’s not so bad as I once thought him.’

‘You’ve changed your attitude,’ Kleiber chuckled. ‘I remember you telling me you couldn’t abide him.’ They went upstairs, Kleiber leading and taking the steps two at a time to demonstrate how fit he was. ‘What sort of man is he, this Stein?’ Kleiber was not even short of breath. ‘We’ve more or less finished his bank. They’ll lose a hundred million dollars… Böttger’s plan was faultless.’

‘Or they will run,’ said Breslow.

‘But why didn’t he offer you the papers for whatever he could get for them? Do you think he understood the offer?’

‘He understood all right,’ said Breslow. ‘I told him I’d arrange to sell the documents to a big corporation which would give him cash up front and a percentage too.’

‘So why does he turn down the chance to salvage his business affairs? Doesn’t he realize his life is in danger?’

‘The other way round,’ said Breslow. ‘I told you not to underestimate him. He knows that nothing will happen to him until we get our hands on the Hitler Minutes. After that, as you’ve already told me, his life will be forfeit. He’s no fool, Willi. He’s frightened, but he’s not so frightened that he will hand over those damned papers.’

‘Well, now we do know where the papers are,’ said Kleiber. ‘He’s missed his chance.’

‘Poor Stein,’ said Max Breslow, but if Kleiber heard him, he gave no sign of it.

On that same Saturday of August the director general arrived in his office at 9.25 a.m. He sent for Stuart. He had done that for the previous three mornings, so Stuart was ready for the call. The DG was seated at his desk reading the Daily Telegraph’s account of the PM’s speech to the conference in Lusaka. He put down the newspaper when Stuart entered and got to his feet.

‘Nothing fresh, Stuart?’ The DG was not wearing his usual black jacket and pinstripe trousers but a hound’s-tooth check suit. It was a startling transformation which made the director look like a prosperous bookie, Stuart thought.

‘ Geneva just made contact,’ said Stuart.

‘Is he a good man?’

‘Yes, sir. Excellent.’

‘Koch, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, sir.’ The old man never lost the capacity to supervise.

‘I spent a lot of time in Switzerland,’ said the DG. ‘As you probably know from Jennifer, my wife and I go there every year… although nowadays I’m a little too old for climbing. I had a fall when half a dozen of us tried our luck on the Zmutt ridge of the Matterhorn. That was ten years ago. I said, Ryden old chap, you’re too old for this sort of thing. Never mind all these modern contraptions-pitons, snap links and stirrups-the fact is that sleeping one night at that sort of altitude could kill an old man.’

‘You fell, sir?’

‘Damn near fifty feet, Stuart. Into soft snow, thank God. But it was a lesson. A man ignores such signs at his peril.’ The DG moved across the room with a restlessness that Stuart found distracting.

‘Yes, sir,’ said Stuart wondering if the DG was trying to tell him something. The director was rather fond of imparting suggestions by means of such parables.

‘I go there regularly and smell the air, Stuart. Know what I mean?’ The DG didn’t wait to hear if Stuart knew. ‘Good people, the Swiss. God-fearing, industrious and logical. I like them, and they have helped the department a lot from time to time. Yet what do you ever hear about the Swiss intelligence service-nothing! That’s what I like about them, Stuart.’

Stuart noted it. He inferred that fear of God, industry and logic were probably the virtues the DG would have claimed for himself, had he not been saddled with that old-world reticence of which he made so much. ‘They seem to have taken your bait, sir,’ said Stuart. ‘ Geneva reports a lot of activity at the lakeside house, opposite the one owned by the American colonel. One neighbour says that security company cars arrived with boxes of guns… ’

‘Boxes of guns?’ The DG was amused. ‘You mean boxes with the word “guns” stencilled on the outside?’

Stuart did not rise to this provocation. ‘It’s one unconfirmed report, sir. From a neighbour… and we know how unreliable neighbours can be.’

‘Guns, you say?’ The DG smacked some invisible speck of dust from his fine new trousers.

‘Security company cars-armoured cars by the sound of it, wire netting on the windows and so on. It’s not the sort of van that delivers groceries, sir. It was driven to the back of the house to unload… heavy crates… ’

‘Very well, Stuart. You make your point. No need to labour it. Yes, it sounds like guns. And Stein knows about his son? We’ll have to release him soon. I’m coming under considerable pressure from the Home Office.’

‘The Los Angeles controller put it all to Stein senior yesterday morning-they are eight hours behind us, of course.’

‘Yes, eight hours behind us, Stuart. I’m not quite senile.’

‘No, sir. Well, Stein drove down to Sunset Boulevard and bought an airline ticket, we don’t know where to yet.’

‘Why don’t we?’

Stuart suppressed a sigh. ‘We’ll have to get it off the airline computer, and that means several different airlines. A direct approach to the travel agency is very likely to get back to Stein.’

‘And do we care if it gets back to him?’

‘The field agents have to live in that town,’ said Stuart. ‘It’s all very well to sit in London critical of everything the field men do, and impatient to close the dossier, but our man who goes to the travel agent might be storing up trouble for himself, dangerous trouble.’