He sensed that a direct question at this point might lead to a rebuff. Instead, he said, “Who are these people who are hunting Bartz?”
“Scum,” said Mulbach. “Professional criminals. Out-of-work bullies. In the days of Hitler they wore brown shirts and drew their pay for assaulting Jews and Communists. The state no longer pays for services of this nature. Therefore they are at the disposal of the Eastern network, who will pay them to hunt down anti-Communists.”
“Mercenaries?”
“The trade of the mercenary was an honorable one,” said Mulbach. “They insult it. They’d sell one employer to another for a few extra pfennigs. They mix private vendettas with business. They—they make me sick.”
But they frighten you, too, thought Mr. Calder.
There was nothing more to be gained. As they rose to go, Mulbach said, in the manner of someone picking his words very carefully, “If Josef had come to me for advice, I think I should have told him that his best chance of safety was in the red-light district. The women there are rapacious, but they are an independent breed and not dishonourable.”
As they drove back to police headquarters, Mr. Calder said to Corrie, “I think Josef did come to our friend for asylum. And I think he turned him away. Rather surprising, for someone with his record.”
“Mulbach is getting old,” said Corrie. “Too old to be troubled by hooligans. He doesn’t want a bomb in the boot of his car next time he drives to the Bundeshaus.”
The telephone rang in the penthouse flat of one of the leading dental surgeons in Bonn and a voice said, “I am afraid that the subject will not now return to his flat. It has been watched continuously since two o’clock this afternoon.”
“Keep one man there. Just in case.”
‘Very well. You heard, perhaps, that we had a little trouble earlier, in the evening.”
“I heard about it.”
“It was unfortunate. We got hold of the wrong man.”
“He is none the worse for it, I hope?”
“Not a bit. I’m afraid we hurt the policeman. He should not have got in the way. I think it will mean trouble.”
“If they want trouble,” said the dentist, “we can give them trouble. Plenty of it. Call out all our reserves. Their first job will be to comb through the brothel area. Understood?”
“Bed by bed,” said the voice at the other end of the telephone happily.
Since the war, a new Bonn has arisen from the ashes of the old. It lies to the south of the river and contains the parliament house, the government buildings and the respectable homes of the functionaries who work in them. But north of the river, the remains of the old town still cluster round the Electoral Palace and the shell of the Minster. This is a place of small cobbled streets ending in flights of steps, of dark courts and blind alleys.
The least respectable part of this disreputable quarter lies between the Stefanienstrasse and the Lichtentalerstrasse. The Hotel Wagram stands exactly halfway along the road joining these thoroughfares.
Red Maria was so called on account of her hair, not her politics. She dispensed her favours from a room on the first floor at the back of this hotel and was a woman of undoubted attractions but uncertain temper. When she heard the knocking, she climbed out of bed, padded across the floor in bare feet, opened the door six inches and said, “Go to hell, stinking little monkey. I am busy.”
It was the proprietor of the hotel who had knocked. He said apologetically, “There are men downstairs, Maria. They insist on coming up.”
Maria slammed the door and bolted it.
Five minutes later came a renewed knocking, this time heavier and more urgent. Maria ignored it. A body crashed into the door. This was too much. Maria got up, seized a bottle from the top of the chest of drawers and unbolted the door. As she did so the man outside charged again. This time the door gave way and he came in with it. Maria hit him with her bottle.
There was a scream from somewhere above them of “Police!” followed by a crash of broken china and a series of bumps as though a heavy body was being thrown down the stairs.
The man on the bedroom floor groaned and got up onto his knees. Maria, her flaming hair a red aureole above her bare shoulders, raised her bottle again. The man fumbled in his pocket, jerked out a gun and pulled the trigger.
The shot missed Maria and hit a looking-glass over the mantelpiece. Maria threw her bottle at the man and bolted out onto the landing.
Outside in the street the shot had been heard. Two men jumped from a waiting car and ran into the hotel. At that moment a police tender turned the corner of the Stefanienstrasse and came rocketing down the street, its spotlight playing on the front of the hotel. Three of the Feldengendarmerie tumbled out. A fusillade of bullets from the first story stopped them in their tracks. One man was hit and rolled back behind the car. The other two dived for shelter.
This was the beginning of the battle of the Hotel Wagram, which ultimately involved five carloads of the special patrols and more than forty policemen.
Mr. Calder, back at Headquarters, listened to the reports coming in. Colonel Lammerman, who was directing the police side of the battle by telephone from his desk, seemed unperturbed at the damage and casualties.
“Tonight,” he said, “they show their hand. Good. They are forced out into the open. Better still.”
He spoke to the commandant of military police, to direct further reinforcements to the scene.
At one o’clock, when the shooting had died down, the casualties were being counted and the first batch of prisoners was being brought in, the door opened and Mr. Behrens walked through it. Considering that he had been lifted from the ninth tee on the Leamington Spa golf course by military helicopter, transported to London Airport, put on the night flight to Germany and driven by fast car into Bonn, he looked remarkably cheerful and unruffled.
Mr. Calder greeted him with relief. Mr. Behrens’ knowledge of Germany and things German was a great deal more extensive than his own.
“You seem to be having quite a party,” said Behrens.
“More like Walpurgis Night than Christmas Eve,” agreed Mr. Calder. He sketched an outline of the proceedings so far.
At the end of it, Mr. Behrens said, “Do I understand that when you visited Franz Mulbach, you got the impression that Bartz had asked him for asylum and been refused?”
“He didn’t actually say so, but that was the implication.”
“And you thought he had turned him away because he was afraid of retaliation.”
“That’s the general idea,” said Mr. Calder, looking curiously at his old friend. “Could I have been wrong?”
“I’ve heard a lot of odd stories tonight, but that tops the lot. Franz Mulbach, afraid! He hasn’t a nerve in his fat body. He’s been a fighter all his life. Do you remember what Schiller made old Wallenstein say? ‘
Ein ruheloser Marsch war unser Leben
’ – ‘our life was a restless march.’ People like that don’t change, you know.”
“If he wasn’t afraid, he was acting.”
“Very likely,” said Mr. Behrens. “But I wonder why. Do you think we could venture out into the streets without getting shot?”
“The police could lend us a car.”
“I’d rather walk,” said Mr. Behrens. “I’ve spent the last twelve hours being driven by other people. I’d like to stretch my legs.”
The snow underfoot had frozen and it squeaked as they walked on it. They avoided the main roads and went by quiet residential streets. There were still lights in a few of the windows, and the sound of singing and music as families sat together to welcome once again the dawn of the Christ child’s birthday. In the half mile between the police station and Franz Mulbach’s house they met no one.
There were lights in the Mulbach house, too, and it was Franz himself who opened the door. He had changed out of his lederhosen, and looked a great deal more businesslike in roll-necked sweater, dark trousers and short leather coat. He had one hand under the flap of the coat and Mr. Calder noticed that he only half opened the heavy front door, in such a manner that it shielded him but left him a free field of fire. He peered at them for a moment, then swung the door wide open, jumped out and started pump-handling Mr. Behrens’ right arm.
“All right, Franz, all right,” said Mr. Behrens. “I’m glad to see you, too, but there’s no need to break my arm off.”
“What a Christmas present,” said Mulbach. “My old friend. Your colleague said that you were coming to Germany. What a surprise!”
“It surprised me, too,” said Mr. Behrens.
“Come in, come in.” Mulbach led the way to the first-floor living room, and switched on the lights. Mr. Calder saw that the windows were shuttered. “The occasion demands brandy.”
Whilst their host was pouring out the drinks, Mr. Behrens peered curiously around the room, as if weighing up its possibilities. Then he accepted the bulbous glass from Franz Mulbach, sniffed the contents with appreciation, and said, “Where have you put poor Josef Bartz?”
Mulbach did not even blink. He sniffed at his own brandy, said, “This came from Strohe at Klagenfurt. I should be good. Poor Josef. Yes, he was very upset.”
“I can understand that.”
“I wonder if you can? He was frightened for his own skin. That was natural. He was also bewildered. When the emissaries of a country that has a reputation for keeping its word say to a man, ‘Steal this for us. Come straight to our embassy and we will guarantee your safety. . .’ When they say this, and then turn him away from the doors of the embassy—”
“It was partly our fault,” said Mr. Calder. “And partly our misfortune. If Captain Massey had not been killed—”
“Killed! I heard nothing of that.”
“An accident, we think.”
Mr. Calder told him. When he had finished, Mulbach swiveled round to look directly at Mr. Behrens.
“Is this true?” he said. “When I heard Josef’s story, I concluded that there had been a change of plan. That it now suited your book, for some deep reason, that he should be caught.”
“It’s one of the occupational hazards of Intelligence work,” said Mr. Behrens, “that when you do something simple and straightforward, everyone suspects a double motive and a treble bluff. It happened just as Calder said.”
“So. But there is one thing I do not yet see. Why should you suppose that I would have Josef here?”
“‘
Ein ruheloser Marsch
—’” began Mr. Behrens.
“You remember that,” said Mulbach, delighted. “Schiller is a great poet, yes?”
He repeated the words under his breath, savouring them. Then he said, “I will give you back another quotation. From Goethe, this time. You know what he said was the greatest ordeal? ‘
Sich zu beschranken und zu isolieren
’ – ‘to be small, and alone.’ Allow me to present you—”
As he spoke, he must have pressed some sort of spring, for the side wall of the old fireplace pivoted back on itself, revealing a narrow opening. Just large enough to accommodate a man. Out of it stepped a still apprehensive Josef Bartz.
At six o’clock that morning, Colonel Lammerman said to Mr. Calder, “A highly satisfactory night’s work. I do not think that the sturm-gruppen of our Eastern friends will function properly again for many months. We have lost one man – the first, the one who was run down by the car. He died an hour ago. And we have six wounded, two quite severely, They have three dead and sixteen wounded. And we have thirty-three prisoners in our hands.”
“Will this enable you to break them?” said Mr. Calder. “For good, I mean.”
“That would be too much to hope. The central organisation – the men at the very top – are still out of our reach. I doubt if any of the hired bullies who took part in tonight’s manoeuvres even know their names.”
Mr. Behrens scribbled something on a piece of paper and passed it to the colonel. “Does this mean anything to you?” he said.
The colonel looked at what was written, then said sharply, “Where did you get that information?”
“From a very old friend,” said Mr. Behrens. “But I don’t think he’d like to be quoted.”
“I imagine not,” said the colonel. He tore the paper into small pieces and dropped the pieces into the fire. “You will appreciate that in his legitimate business this man has many powerful friends and allies. If I myself suggested anything against him and could not prove it to the hilt, I should stand in more danger than he would.”
Mr. Behrens walked over to the window. The first grey light of morning was beginning to steal back into the sky. There had been no more snow.
He said, “I imagine it should be quite possible for a light plane to take off from the airport?”
“I would think so,” said the colonel. “Why?”
“A thought had occurred to me. There will be no regular service. But suppose we asked the airline – suppose, in fact, we appealed personally to the chairman, as a favour to the State – to arrange for a transport craft to be available to fly, shall we say,
a valuable cargo
back to London?”
The colonel stared at Mr. Behrens for a long moment in complete silence. Then, for the first time that night, a smile creased his face, broke and dissolved into a harsh bellow of laughter. He rose to his feet and stamped across the floor, slapping his side as he did so.
“Wunderbar!” he said. “Kolossal.”
Then he stopped laughing, swung round and said, “But dangerous.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” said Behrens. “There’s a little risk, certainly. They mightn’t rise to the bait at all. But give them plenty of time. We shan’t want the plane before nine o’clock at the earliest. If you’re in any real difficulty, you can always get the Army to help you.”
The favour to the State was an Army Transport Command medium-sized personnel carrier with removable seats, one of a number which had been sold to the airline in the late fifties, when it was replaced in service by the DC all-purpose model. The airline used them for transporting staff and spares.
Mr. Calder, as he climbed on board at ten o’clock that morning, noticed that four seats had been installed on either side of the gangway. He surmised that they were to have an escort.