“That I can believe,” Douzenski said unpleasantly. “It is quite possible for us to get this formula without your help, but it would be as useless to us as it is to the American Government. Do I have to remind you that the formula is in code and this has proved to be unbreakable? For two years the American Government has tried to break the code. Now, they admit defeat.”
“I propose to break the code,” Radnitz said quietly. “Nothing is impossible if you have brains and money. I have both. I am offering your people the formula decoded. In exchange for a financial consideration, you get the formula. If you are not satisfied, I don’t get the money.” Radnitz regarded the glowing tip of his cigar. “It is as simple as that. What is less simple is how much do you bid?” He glanced out of the car’s window. They were driving down Karl Marx Alle with its lighted shops — the best, but still unimpressive, shopping district of East Berlin.
“You are serious?” Douzenski asked, his voice startled. “You really mean you can break this code that has defeated all the American experts?”
“I wouldn’t be wasting my time here if I wasn’t serious,” Radnitz said in a bored tone. “You don’t imagine I enjoy going through your ridiculous formalities just to meet you and to see this,” and he waved to the dismal shops and the deserted streets.
“I ask again: what do you bid?”
Douzenski drew in a long breath.
“I have been instructed to tell you that we agree to pay in cash two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.” He paused, then went on, his voice rising: “A fortune!”
Radnitz regarded the end of his cigar. He had expected such an offer. He had to restrain the white hot rage that surged through him to have to deal with such a shabby creature.
“Are you serious?” he said, repeating Douzenski’s words mockingly.
Douzenski looked in his direction. He couldn’t see Radnitz clearly in the dark car.
“Of course, but we will have to be satisfied it is the formula under discussion.”
“To be of any real value, the formula can only be owned by one country,” Radnitz said quietly. “I am prepared to let your people examine the decoded formula for two days, then if you fail to pay me, I would sell a copy of the formula to another country. You understand that?”
“How do we know you wouldn’t try to sell the copy after we have bought the original?” Douzenski demanded, delighted with his shrewdness.
“Because I deal with Nations,” Radnitz returned. When I make a bargain, I keep it.”
This Douzenski had heard and he nodded.
“So we are agreed?”
“Agreed? Did I say so? I understand you are making an offer of a quarter of a million dollars. That I can understand. Everyone makes an offer, but everyone does not make a ridiculous offer,” Radnitz said, an edge to his voice. “Now let me tell you something, my friend. One of my agents has hinted — no more than that — to the Chinese Government that the Formula ZCX, decoded, of course, could be for sale.” Radnitz paused. His hooded eyes regarded Douzenski’s face, caught from time to time by the passing street lights. The Chinese Government know the value of the formula. Without hesitation, they have offered three million dollars. Did you hear what I said . . . three million dollars!”
Douzenski sat bolt upright.
“Three million dollars!” he gasped. “That is absurd!”
“You think so?” Radnitz’s cold contempt was now apparent both in his voice and his attitude. “The Chinese Government don’t think so.” He paused to draw on his cigar. “Very well, then let us consider the deal is off.” Picking up the microphone, he switched it on and said to Ko-Yu. “The Russian Embassy.”
Douzenski took a grubby handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his sweating hands.
“My Government would never pay such a sum,” he said hoarsely.
“No? Are they so poor?” Radnitz touched off the long ash from his cigar into the silver ashtray at his elbow. “How sad. However, I don’t take such a remark made by a lower civil servant — is that how you describe yourself? — seriously. Because I like the Chinese less than I like the Russians I would be prepared to make a quick deal — three and a half million dollars in cash. The formula, decoded, could be in your people’s hand in three months. It would be understood that I do not get paid if I cannot supply the formula, decoded.”
“I haven’t the authority,” Douzenski began feebly, but Radnitz cut him short.
“I am quite aware of that. We are now returning to your Embassy. I will leave you to make the necessary arrangements. I will be returning to the Bristol Hotel. Send me a telegram there if your people decide they wish to buy the formula at my price.”
“I must ask you to stay the night at an hotel here,” Douzenski said, trying to regain his lost authority. “Then I could come and see you. I am unable to come to see you at the Bristol.”
“I have no intention of staying at any of your miserable hotels,” Radnitz said as the car slowed to a stop outside the Russian Embassy. “Send me a telegram,” and he opened the car door.
Douzenski regarded him, the brim of his shabby hat hiding the hate in his eyes, then he got out and slammed the door shut. Radnitz lowered the glass partition between himself and Ko-Yu.
“The frontier at once!”
They arrived at Checkpoint Charlie in five minutes, but that was time enough for Douzenski to have telephoned. Two fur capped guards were waiting.
The barrier was raised and the Rolls moved into the no-man’s land. There was considerable delay in checking Radnitz’s passport. The official seemed to be in no hurry. Radnitz waited with a number of Americans who had crossed from the West to the East to attend the opening night of the Komische Oper. He watched the Americans leave; still he waited. Finally, after a further twenty minute wait, the official stamped his papers and returned his passport. The man had a smirking grin on his fat face as he waved Radnitz away.
Radnitz, his eyes glittering with rage, returned to the Rolls. The two fur capped guards were waiting. They began to search the car while Radnitz walked up and down, trying to keep warm.
Ko-Yu came up to him, his small yellow face expressionless.
“Excuse, sir. They ask about the heater,” he said.
Radnitz walked over to the car.
“What is it?” he asked in German.
One of the guards threw the beam of his flashlight on to the big heater under the car’s dashboard.
“What is this?”
“A heater.”
“We wish to see it. Have it taken down.”
“Taken down?” Radnitz’s hooded eyes turned bleak. “What do you mean? It is a heater. There is nothing concealed in it.”
“Have it taken down,” the guard repeated woodenly. “We wish to examine it.”
Radnitz looked at Ko-Yu.
“Can you take it down?”
“Yes, sir, but it will take time.”
“Then do it,” Radnitz said and got into the car. He lit a cigar, controlling his fury, knowing he was in no-man’s land and these stupid animals in their fur caps had more power than he had. Turning on the pilot light, he began to read the papers he took from his brief-case.
The two guards stood over Ko-Yu as he began to strip out the heater. Twenty minutes later, as Ko-Yu pulled off the cover of the heater, a car came through the barrier and Douzenski jumped out and came quickly to the Rolls. He waved his hand at the guards, then opening the door of the Rolls, he slid into the seat beside Radnitz.
The guards told Ko-Yu to replace the heater cover and then walked away.
“I am sorry,” Douzenski said. The smell of his sweat made Radnitz draw more deeply on his cigar. “This was too important. I had to delay you. We agree. We will pay three and a half million dollars for the decoded formula on the terms you have suggested.”
Radnitz continued to make notes, continued to consult the papers in his hand. For some two minutes, he worked, then he put down the papers and stared at Douzenski, his slate grey eyes burning with rage.
“I have been kept waiting in the cold for an hour,” he said. “My time is valuable. I will not be treated in this fashion by a Communist Government. My price is now four million dollars. Telephone them! Explain that my price has risen because a stupid member of their party has dared to keep me waiting! Do you hear? Four million dollars!”
Appalled by the glittering fury in Radnitz’s eyes, Douzenski backed out of the car. He ran into one of the wooden huts. Radnitz went back to reading his papers. Ko-Yu finally fixed the heater. There was a delay of fifteen minutes, then Douzenski returned. He leaned into the car. His face was the colour of tallow and sweat beads glistened on his skin.
“Yes . . . it is agreed,” he said in a flat, hopeless voice. “Four million dollars.”
Radnitz pressed the button that raised the electrically controlled window, shutting Douzenski out. Then he said to KoYu, The Bristol.”
There was no delay when the Rolls stopped at the second barrier. The heavy, steel pole was immediately lifted and the car swept through, back into West Berlin.
Reaching the Bristol Hotel, Radnitz walked to the Telephone and Telex Bureau. He asked for a telegram form, then writing in his thin, neat script, he composed the following:
Jonathan Lindsey.
George V Hotel. Paris 8.
Arrange meeting with C for Charlie. 13.00 hrs. Hotel 16th.Radnitz.
He handed the telegram to the girl operator with a DM.10 bill, then he walked across the hotel lobby to the elevator.
As the automatic doors closed and as the elevator took him swiftly to the third floor, he allowed his fat grim face to relax into a smile of triumph.
After so much thinking and planning, the prize seemed to be within his grasp.
Alan Craig cautiously opened the door of his apartment, looked down the long corridor, listened, then stepped back. “On your way, Jerry,” he said. “Hurry!”
The slim, blond youth, wearing skin-tight jeans and a black wind cheater slid around Craig, gave him a sneering little grin and started down the corridor.
Craig shut the front door and walked back to the sitting-room. That had been a mistake, he told himself. He shrugged uneasily. Well, you can’t always be right. This time tomorrow he would be on the Pan-Am flight to New York. Paris would be behind him. It was time. The two months he had spent in Paris had been a little too hectic. He stood in the middle of the room, rubbing his jaw while he thought of Jerry Smith whom he had picked up in the Drug Store’s arcade. During the week they had seen a lot of each other. Jerry had been amusing, willing and―Craig paused to consider it and then admitted it―exciting. But this night something had gone wrong. That sneering little grin that kept coming. Every so often Craig had caught Jerry looking at him. Could it have been contempt in those close set eyes?
Well, he was gone. He wouldn’t see him again. He didn’t want to see him again. Still frowning, Craig walked into the bedroom. He had better begin packing. He glanced at his gold Omega. The time was a little after eleven. He took a suitcase from the top of the wardrobe and put it on the bed.
Alan Craig was thirty-three years of age. Tall, dark with a sensitive, handsome face, good eyes and an obvious Etonian background, he had been Personal Assistant to Mervin Warren, Head of Rocket Research for the past five years. Since leaving England, and settling in the United States, Craig had had a successful career. He had gone to Washington as a junior official attached to a Rocket Research group sent over by the British Government on a fact-finding exchange of views. He had been spotted by Mervin Warren who was always on the look-out for keen, young talent. Warren had decided this brilliant young man could be more useful to him than to the London group. An offer was made and accepted, and Warren had had no regrets. He quickly satisfied himself that he had found the best and most intelligent Personal Assistant he could wish to find.
Warren had been in Paris now for two months conferring with French scientists in yet another exchange of views and ideas. Their final meeting had taken place the previous day. Tomorrow, he and Craig would be returning to Washington.
As Craig opened the suitcase, the telephone bell rang. He walked into the sitting-room and picked up the receiver, “Yes?”
“Is that you, Alan?”
He recognized the soft voice with its strong American accent and he became alert.
“Hello there, Jon. I’m just packing. How are you?”
“Fine . . . fine. Look, Alan, could you come down to my hotel? Say in a couple of hours? I’ve something that will interest you. It’s important.”
“Why, yes, of course. At one o’clock? What is it?”
“See you at one then,” and the line went dead.
Craig was puzzled. Something that will interest you. Was Jonathan Lindsey going to make him an offer? he wondered. Craig was ambitious. He had no intention of remaining much longer as Warren’s general factotum. He had met Lindsey at an Embassy cocktail party and had immediately liked him; a man around sixty years of age, tall, white haired, ruddy complexion with steady pale blue eyes who said he was in oil. Craig knew power and money when he met the combination. He knew instinctively that Lindsey was important, and Craig was always drawn to and interested in people of importance. They had met again. Lindsey usually dined at
La Tour d’Argent
, and Craig was more than willing to eat at such a luxury restaurant at Lindsey’s expense. They were quickly on first name terms. Now suddenly . . . something that will interest you.
He packed the suitcase, then changed into a grey lounge suit and slid into black, highly polished casual shoes. He surveyed himself in the full mirror, deciding he looked pale and there were dark shadows under his eyes. He grimaced. That Jerry, he thought. Paris had been too hectic . . . too many temptations. He would be glad to get back to Washington. He slapped his cheeks sharply, bringing slight colour to them. That was better, he thought. He went into the sitting-room. Should he have a drink? He felt pretty low. A shot of Vodka might set him up. He mixed a Vodka and lime juice, then sat down, nursing the drink, his mind on Lindsey.
Suppose Lindsey offered him a job? That meant Texas. Would he want to bury himself in Texas? It would depend on the money. He would play hard to get. He knew Lindsey was impressed by his record. He had seen him talking to Mervin Warren, and later. Lindsey had said they had discussed him. Lindsey had looked thoughtfully at him, those pale blue eyes probing. “Warren tells me you are the best P.A. he has ever had,” he had said finally “Coming from Warren that means something.”