`It's permitted,' Falken said. 'Camping is one of the main ways of taking a holiday in the DDR. And this is the right time of the year. Now, some instructions for you. So listen carefully. At some stage I leave you with Gerda, as I have said. Until you are safely in the West, do not touch alcohol. The laws against drinking and driving are most strict. You are seen leaving a bar, you have had nothing to drink, the Vopos see you. You may be arrested. At best, they will fine you on the spot. Never have a bottle in any vehicle you travel in. You have not touched it. The bottle is sealed. But if they find it, again — you may be arrested. Above all, obey Gerda...'
`For God's sake,' Gerda called from the back, 'stop lecturing him. He's saved us twice. First, Schneider in the fog when he'd just crossed the border. Then the Intelligence men. He knows what he is doing...'
`You are right,' Falken conceded. He smiled at Newman. `I've wondered at times who is the boss of this outfit. I don't like the waiting. I admit it.'
`How much longer?'
`Piper should be here at noon. We give her eight minutes to be late, then we go...'
`Without my talking to her? After I have come all this way!' `There are security rules we never break.'
`And we wait here?'
`For a short while longer, yes.'
Newman tightened his mouth, decided to argue no more. Falken was obviously feeling the strain. Little wonder. He looked at the camper again. It had been freshly painted, the net curtains were clean, the chrome gleaming. It was the location which was so depressing.
Rank weeds surrounded it, clumps of something which could be sorrel. In the distance, beyond it, a track pitted with clumps of grass ran ruler-straight along a deep gulch below the fields on either side. He asked Falken what it was.
`One of our escape routes. An old railway track, disused for years. They took away the rails. The sleepers are now no more than powder. Driving along that in the camper you cannot be seen from the fields alongside it. Now, we will go and inspect. I go first, you wait here. Get behind the wheel. Just in case.'
`In case of what?'
`In case someone is waiting for us inside the camper. When I wave my arm, you come.'
He opened the door and the thunder of heavy traffic invaded the car again, beating against Newman's ear-drums. How the hell he was going to hear a word Karen Piper said he had no idea. He slid behind the wheel. Without looking round he sensed Gerda's tension as they watched Falken wander casually across to the camper.
He walked all round the vehicle, rapped on the window of the driver's cab, waited, hands on his hips. Inside the Chaika the temperature was rising rapidly. It was going to be a record day for heat. Newman took out his handkerchief, wiped the back of his neck, his forehead, the palms of his hands. Thank God they had all had a pee before they left the country road.
`It's all right!' Gerda said.
Falken had unlocked the door, climbed inside the camper. Now he was back at the door, waving to them. Newman glanced at his watch. Five minutes to noon. He climbed out and Gerda called to him.
`Take this for me, please, Emil.'
It was the cloth-covered basket of food and coffee and mineral water Hildegarde Radom had prepared for them. He realized Gerda needed both hands to carry the Uzi concealed inside the windcheater. He locked the Chaika after she had jumped down and started running to the camper. The traffic roar seemed worse as he followed her; over the fields a heat haze shimmered and made him feel hotter, more tired. He'd have to get himself into an alert mental state for questioning the Piper woman. He foresaw it would be no easy interview.
The interior of the camper was more spacious than he'd expected. Two couches which could be used as beds ran down each wall. Falken was erecting a fold-out table between them while Gerda stood on guard by the window facing the Chaika. Newman stood by Gerda, wondering why he felt he had walked into a trap.
`You sit here when you interview Piper,' Falken said, patting the end of one of the couches. 'Then you can see the clock up there on the wall which will be behind her. Watch that clock.'
`There's a time limit?'
`Eight minutes from the moment you start talking...'
`That's bloody ridiculous. Obviously you've never interviewed anyone. You need time to get them to relax, to gain their trust, to get them to confide in you.'
`Eight minutes.'
`Stuff you! I've come all this way for this one interview.' `Eight minutes. There are...'
`I know! Security rules you never break! Well, you listen to me for once. If I can do it in eight minutes I will. But it takes as long as it takes.'
`This place is not safe...'
`Why choose it then?' blazed Newman.
`No place is safe...'
`You should have chosen somewhere which would have given me more time. We stayed long enough at the lock-keeper's cottage. Norbert, wasn't it?'
`We have to sleep somewhere...'
`We didn't bloody sleep there. We slept at Radom's. You have two bosses now, Falken. Gerda. And me. What is it?' he asked Gerda, who had left the window and was walking to the rear doors. It was surprisingly quiet inside the camper. When Newman asked Falken why, the German explained the windows were double-glazed, the vehicle was well-insulated. 'The winters here are grim,' the German remarked. 'And this is the most up-to-date camper you can buy.'
The quiet was shattered as Gerda opened the right-hand rear door. A pounding roar filled the interior. Gerda stood listening, then closed the door. When she turned round she held the Uzi ready for action.
`I can hear a police siren, a patrol car approaching at speed.'
Thirty-Six
`What was it you wanted to see me about, Hecht?' Wolf asked the tall Intelligence officer. He was alone in his office for an hour or so, thank God. Lysenko had gone to lunch.
`We met and stopped these three people in a Chaika on a side road off the highway. The man in charge was an Emil Clasen of the Border Police...' Hecht hesitated.
`Continue. You have my full attention.'
Wolf never bullied his subordinates. He demanded efficiency but treated them with courtesy. And it was well known that if an agent was caught in the West he would do everything in his power to arrange an exchange — to save his own man.
`I haven't told Martin I was coming to see you. I understand there are rumours about the movement of a large consignment of heroin.'
`Go on,' encouraged Wolf, careful not to comment.
`This member of the Border Police was on special assignment. I checked his identity. He mentioned drugs. I thought you should know.'
`Thank you.' Wolf stared at the officer through his square- shaped glasses with thin horn-rims. 'But so far you have given me nothing unusual. There are a number of Border Police who are on special assignment — searching for drugs rings.'
`It was just as they were driving away that Clasen made his remark. I can quote his exact words. "If you see a blue Lada driven by a man wearing a Russian fur hat, don't stop him." '
Wolf pulled a notepad in front of him, produced a pen. 'You said three people. Who were the other two?'
`A girl he called Gerda, late twenties, attractive, wearing a. head scarf. The driver was about forty, tall, lean. I can remember the registration number …'
Wolf scribbled down the details. He put down his pen, folded his arms and looked at the officer.
`Thank you for reporting this, Hecht. Not a word to anyone else. All right? You have shown initiative. I shall not forget.'
He waited until Hecht had gone. Nothing in his expression betrayed the anger he felt. Were the Russians — Lysenko — using one of his own units in some secret operation without informing him? That he would not put up with. It was the reference to the man with the Russian fur hat which had alerted him. He lifted the phone, dialled an internal number.
`Organize a dragnet. Target a Chaika. Here are the details...'
When he'd finished he called back Hecht, recalling a detail he'd overlooked. He took Hecht over to the wall map, asked him to show him exactly where they had stopped the Chaika. Thanking him, he waited until he was alone again, then pressed another pin on to the map.
Falken had opened a window. The three of them stood close to it like frozen statues, listening to the siren growing louder, nearer and nearer. Newman found the tension almost unbearable. It's the heat, he told himself as he felt sweat dribbling under his armpits. Despite the roominess of the camper he felt hemmed in, claustrophobic, was aware of the bridge just above them pressing down. Beyond the window two massive concrete supports reared up, increasing the trapped feeling. Falken looked at his watch.
`We can't wait for her much longer...'
`We'll wait till she comes,' Newman rapped back.
`I decide when we leave...'
`Not on this occasion. This is my ball game — interviewing Piper.'
`When I say we go, we go...'
`Shut up, both of you,' Gerda snapped. 'You're like two squabbling schoolboys. Listen.'
The siren was overhead, passing along the road above them. It faded into the distance. Falken used his handkerchief to wipe beads of sweat off his forehead. He again looked at his watch and Newman could have hit him.
`Here she is!' Gerda called out.
Newman peered through the curtains, scarcely able to credit what he saw. A motor-cyclist, features concealed under a crash helmet, had pulled up close to the Chaika. The rider swung a leg off the machine, kicked the support strut into position, left it standing erect and took off the helmet.
A woman in her late sixties, dark hair tied in an old-fashioned bun at the back, clad in a leather jacket, trousers tucked into leather boots. Falken opened the rear door and she hurried forward, climbing nimbly inside. The German slammed the door shut, ushered her forward. As he had been instructed earlier, Newman was wearing dark glasses. Gerda also wore a pair of tinted spectacles and her head scarf. `No point in her being able to identify you,' Falken had said. 'Then if she should be picked up by the police, questioned, she won't be able to describe you accurately. She knows me anyway...'
Newman sat on the couch, facing the clock on the wall behind where Falken had sat Karen Piper, studying her. A hawk-like nose, sharp eyes, a thin mouth, a firm jaw. Just the type to rise to become a matron. He was aware she, in her turn, was studying him. He opened the conversation.
`You are Karen Piper?'
`Er, yes...'
Newman noted the brief hesitation. Falken's security was total. He had not even given him her real name. Probably at the woman's request. She kept fluffing up her hair where the helmet had pressed it down. Underneath the leather jacket he could see a lace-edged blouse, high at the neck, an enamel brooch with the painting of a lady dressed in clothes of the nineteenth century. Karen Piper had questions of her own, her eyes never leaving his.
`Where are you from? I must know before I speak.'
A throaty voice, harsh and commanding in earlier days. `West Germany...'
`Which part?'
`That I am not telling you...'
`Your profession?'
`Newspaper reporter...'
`Which paper?'
'Der Spiegel.
'
`Oh, I see.' For the first time she was impressed. Newman was watching the clock, as was Falken. He jumped in before she could continue her interrogation.
`I'm short of time. So are you. The longer you stay here, the greater the danger. Let's get on with it. What have you to tell me about Dr Berlin?'
`He's dead.'
`No, he isn't. He's living in the Federal Republic. Near the border. On Priwall Island, Travemünde.'
`He died over twenty years ago. Your Dr Berlin is a fake. I can prove it.'
`Please do so,' Newman requested.
`In 1963 I was a sister employed at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases in Leipzig. The date was December 15. I was working on the private wards — reserved for Government bigwigs and the Party members. They brought in their so-called Dr Berlin on a stretcher. His face was completely bandaged...'
You saw this yourself?'
`I was there when they carried him out of the ambulance. I accompanied him to the ward. The doctor in charge wouldn't let me take his temperature. That was what first aroused my suspicions. He was supposed to be suffering from a high fever. Later I saw the temperature chart. It registered four degrees above normal. I was told to keep away from that ward. Another sister was put in charge. The daughter of a Party member.'
Her lips curled at the recollection. She continued staring at Newman as she went on with her story.
`The matron at that time was a fool. She was supposed to organize a roster of three sisters. On duty round the clock. There was a muddle. I was put on duty two days after the patient had arrived. I looked through the watch window. I could hardly believe my eyes. The patient was walking round the ward, smoking a cigarette. He had stubble on his chin, but no beard.'
`That was significant?'
`Ever since I had known him as a youth he had a black beard.'
Newman leaned forward. 'You mean you knew him earlier?'
`Before he left to set up his mission station in Africa. My family was friendly with his. The man I saw through the watch window was not Dr Berlin...'
`Without his beard,' Newman began.
`I knew him before he first grew his beard. When he was clean shaven. The man I saw was not Dr Berlin,' she repeated. `Like him, yes. And he was smoking English cigarettes...'
`How do you know that?'
`When one of the favoured sisters...' Again her lips curled in a sneer. `... brought out the waste bin I offered to empty it. I found English cigarette stubs. And when I saw him walking round the ward I thought he looked English. Anglo-Saxon, certainly. Maybe Scandinavian.'
`Could you please describe him?'
`After all these years? God in heaven, I was frightened — the security was so tight. No, I can't remember what he looked like. It was only a glimpse I got. But enough to know he was not Dr Berlin,' she repeated firmly.