Gavin Lyall - The Conduct of Major Maxim

The Bedford's radio was a bigger affair, roughly built-in, and using the private military 30-70 megahertz band. So perhaps Sims had robbed the Secret Service stores after all.

He picked up the microphone, then hesitated. "I don't know just how to put this. It'd be a sight easier on the telephone."

"Make a date to talk on the phone, then. In the morning. He can't sail until midday anyway. "

"That's right." He pressed the transmit button on the microphone."Seesperling.'"

He had called several more times before a voice said:"Ja. Erwin, bis Du das?"It was distant, but much better than the CB walkie-talkies.

"No. I want to speak to Gustav Eismark, please."

The radio just hummed. Then Sims said: "Major Maxim, I think."

"Right. We've got the van and everything. None of your people got hurt. It's all over. Can I speak to Gustav Eismark, please?"

"Not quite all over, Major. We have a friend of yours. I do not know his name, but he had a radio and a pistol. He is being questioned."

Maxim and Agnes looked at each other. "They captured Jim. Goddamn."

"Exchange him for the two goons."

"Yes." He picked up the microphone."Seesperling."

"Go ahead, Major."

"We'll do an exchange. Your two for my one."

"Stand by. I have to ask the Colonel."

"What? What Colonel?"

Sims seemed to pause fractionally. "Colonel Manfred Eismark," he said carefully."Gustav Eismarkis not here. Standby."

Maxim let out a long breath. "Damn. I should have thought of Sims going for Manfred; I knew he knew him. Far easier for an SSD man to sneak out of East Germany than a top politician… and he'd be more used to deals like this. Sims said he wouldn't mind getting a bill of goods on his own father. A bit of a nutter."

"And now we know why. Those genetics aren't going to help him in his future career – if anybody knows about them. You realise we've got a bill of goods on both father and son? Plainsong's come off better than anybody even hoped."

"Not yet it hasn't. There's weeks of paperwork before we could prove a thing and we need itnow. To get Jim back. "

Blagg was waiting permission-to-speak. "Is that right, sir? They've got Jim?"

"Yes. I'm trying to work an exchange."

"We could just go and take him back. "

"Stay cool. It's been a quiet night so far, and there's one thing we didn't find in the van. "

"Yer…" Blagg had momentarily forgotten the silenced submachine gun. "What do we do?"

"Wait."

They waited, and Sims came on the air. "Major – we want also Mina Linnarz."

"No chance. No chance at all."

"Standby."

Agnes found she had lit a cigarette, but only from the annoyed hisses of Maxim and Blagg, worried about the dazzle of her lighter on their night vision. She dropped it and trod it out.

Sims came in: "Major. All right. Just my two men. Cometothe ship."

Maxim looked at Agnes. She said: "Somewhere public, middle of town, where he won't want to risk any shooting. "

"Theship's the place he won't want any shooting. Not with Colonel Eismark on board."

"Major?"

"Okay. The ship, twenty minutes. I don't want to see anybody but you and him. "

"Twenty minutes. Okay. Out."

Agnes said: "He's going to try something. He didn't push for us giving him Mina, and she's his ticket to ride."

"He still doesn't want any shooting."

Blagg had the Goole street map. "That bridge we come over, the last one, and Bridge Street – I mean, it's the only way back into town. They could know that. "

"But they don't know the Renault. We could be anybody."

"That's right…"

"Agnes – you take the old girl, probably in the Metro, I imagine you'd prefer that to the Bedford -"

"Harry, how are you two going to cope with that lot?"

"Look – apart from Mina and Gustav, you and me are the only two people who know about Plainsong, the truth of it…"

"I can change that the minute I get to a phone."

"Right, so do that. But what else do you suggest? – you're the little girl who skips pistol practice. "

"We could quit while we're ahead. We've done ninety-nine per cent of the job and a lot more than Scott-Scobie deserves. Now we just go. They'll almost certainly let Sergeant Caswell go, whatever we do."

"I've heard things about Colonel Eismark… and Jim's the only cardthey've got now."

But it was still one of the oldest military problems in the world. You gain your objective by high morale, troops knowing they won't be let down, wasted or abandoned. You also gain your objective by being ready to accept casualties, sending out men who won't come back, abandoning some because to save one might mean losing three or four more. It might even be a good idea to stop all wars until that paradox was worked out. But this wasn't a war. It was just Jim Caswell being persuaded to help out and…

Maxim said: "Sims could play it straight. He wants these two back; he's very loyal to his own people."

"It isn't difficult being loyal to your own people," Agnes said pointedly. "The tricky bit is being loyal to an idea. Anyway, he isn't in charge on that ship."

"Colonel Eismark's got more to lose if he's caught here and identified."

"Harry – they just want to grab you or Blagg to give themselves a second card."

"We don't grab easy."

Under her breath Agnes said so'mething thatsounded like 'fucking supermen' but, given her upbringing, obviously couldn't have been.

The two captives, 82 and 83, were in the back seat of the Renault, handcuffed together (for once a handcuff key had worked, letting them loose from the van) left hand to left hand. That way, they could only move fast by some sort of ballet routine which it seemed unlikely they had practised, although Blagg was taking no chances. He sat swivelled around in the passenger seat with Maxim's pistol – he despised the little Czech.32 automatic taken from 83 – pointed.

"How many people do you get on a boat like that?" Maxim asked.

"Could be just five or six," Blagg said. "That's what a British ship that size would have. It's all automatic, steering, the engine, you know. I don't know about East Germany, but it looked pretty modern. Mind, that doesn't tell you what theyhave got. There'd be room for more. "

"We know they've got one extra, at least."

"Major – one thing: if we have to sort of go on board, remember a ship's all made of metal. Most, anyway. I mean, you can't just blow away a door lock, not in a metal door. And all the glass, that'll be pretty thick, too."

"Thanks. Did you pick this all up around the docks?"

"We used to… look around… some of the ships. Like, Dave Tanner and me and the others."

"Why didn't you go for the Navy instead?"

"Say a lot of things about the Army, at least it don't bleeding sink." From his tone, Blagg could be recalling the flooded shelter in Rotherhithe. Maxim just nodded.

The town was bright but utterly empty of movement. At the top of Bridge Street he kept on, so as to turn back near the station and come down to the docks by a broader and less obvious road. But he wasn't really expecting trouble. Theydrove slowly in through the gate by the church, along behind a warehouse and its loading bays, then turned as the Seesperlingcame into view two hundred yards ahead and parked in among several other cars and vans left there overnight.

That part of the Aldam Dock was a small headland sticking out into the water, so that they could come up to the ship from only the one direction. She lay bows-on to them, still brightly lit by lights on the stumpy masts and the front of the wheel-house. To look at, Seesperlingwasreally nothing more than a big barge, a long metal box sharpened at one end and with all the living space and engines stacked at the other. They began walking.