Authors: Gordon Ferris
I feared seeing the charred body of Gideon in the heap of twisted metal, but the car was mercifully clear of burnt remains. The front was stoved in and fire had swept through the rest, but it
was recognisably my Merc.
Vic’s
Merc. Where Gideon had hit the wall was blackened in smoke. Guards were shoving people away. I asked one of my fellow ghouls what had happened.
“A madman killed himself in protest at the rationing.”
“No, no,” another guy interrupted. “It was one of Hitler’s generals. He had been hiding but became insane and made a last assault on the Russians. A brave man,” he
whispered.
I would get no sense here and turned and walked away. A voice behind me called out, “McRae? That you, McRae?”
I walked faster, trying to put people between me and him. I broke clear of the crowds around the gate and began to trot. It was never a good idea to run in a place so brimful of guilt. But the
guy behind me wasn’t to be shaken off.
“McRae! Stop, Danny! Stop or I’ll shoot, so help me god!”
I stopped and turned round and waited for him to catch me up. He was breathless but he was also in uniform and holding his service pistol.
“Hello, Vic.”
“You stupid sod! I nearly shot you.”
“In the back? Vic, how could you?”
“Because of what you did to my car, you bastard!” He was right in my face and angry, but at least he’d lowered his gun.
We locked gazes till he laughed. “What the fuck is going on, Danny? Have you any idea the shit I’m in? This car isn’t –
wasn’t!
– exactly
inconspicuous. I got hauled out of bed at five this morning by a bunch of pissed-off Redcaps wanting to know why I’d tried to demolish the fucking Brandenburg Gate, and mow down half the
fucking Russian army in the process? Not to mention – not to
fucking
mention! – shooting District Controller Heinrich fucking Mulder himself!”
“Vic, I can understand you’re a wee bit upset…”
“A wee bit fucking upset!”
“Vic, don’t shout. You’ll draw attention to us. Let me buy you a beer and explain.” I took his arm and led him like a recalcitrant child back to the shelter of the
shattered buildings. We found a bar, and though it was barely nine o’clock they found us a beer each. I made him pay.
“I’m sorry about the car,” I started.
“
You’re
sorry!”
“You’re shouting again.”
He sat back and folded his arms. “I’m waiting.”
I checked the room. The barman was listening to the radio, a mix of news and music from Voice of America. The only other customer was three tables away and staring into his cup – reading
his tea leaves maybe. I leaned forward to Vic and told him everything that happened, more or less. In fact, rather less than more.
I didn’t tell him the Jewish resistance stuff, and I was at pains to make him believe that Eve hadn’t pulled the trigger on Mulder. But a British court might not see the difference
between doing the murder and helping at it. Come to that, I might have some serious explaining to do in the dock as well.
Vic interrupted me at the start but as I got to the last twenty-four hours he listened to me in silence with his arms folded. When I stopped, he lit another fag and shook his head.
“I have to hand it to you, Danny. You’ve been in this town less than a week and you’ve managed to cause an international incident. That takes talent. I saw old Toby this
morning. Scraped him off the bleeding ceiling I did. He was mental. Would have wrung your neck with his bare hands if you’d walked in the door.”
“That’s comforting.”
“But he’s calmed down. A bit. Now his current mission in life is to get you off his patch as fast as your little legs can pedal.”
“What about Eve?”
“Her too, I imagine. They want her back in Blighty, so I guess they’ll take the pair of you back. Then you can sort it out from there. And we can get on with turning Berlin back into
the cabaret capital of Europe. If that’s all right by you…”
I didn’t tell him where we were hiding. I agreed to meet him, same place, same time tomorrow to hear how Toby wanted to handle it. The bar could be approached from a number of angles and
though it had more board than glass in its windows, I would be able to check if there was a platoon of Redcaps waiting to pounce. On my way back I did some hard bartering in one of the open markets
and carried my treasure to the flat. It didn’t look so tasty set out on the table.
“You should have sent me,” she said prodding the blackening spuds and cabbage and the dark red sliver of fatty meat.
“If you’re going to complain about it…”
“Joking, joking. You did well, Danny. I can make a meal out of this. But we won’t bark too loudly in case the meat twitches, eh?”
She’d evidently got over the shock of yesterday. Her face had some colour in it again, and she’d managed to wash her hair in the sink. It was damp and combed flat against her head
like a Twenties flapper. While she rinsed and cut up the food I told her about my run-in with Vic.
“Are you sure you weren’t followed?” she asked.
“I’m trained in this stuff.”
“Can you trust him?” She put a pan on to boil. She threw the meat into the little frying pan and it sizzled and filled the room with saliva-inducing smells. I chose not to sniff too
deeply in case I could identify its provenance. Meat was meat.
“I don’t know. He might set me up tomorrow. Haul me off in a paddy wagon. But it’s a risk we need to take.”
“Is it? We could lie low. Stay here till it went quiet. Try to make contact with some of my other friends?”
“Irgun? Haven’t they got you in enough bother?”
She turned to me, her face red – maybe it was the heat of the stove.
“It was my decision, Danny. Nobody forced me. This time.”
I held my hands up. “Sorry. I still find it hard to see you as a double-agent.”
“Me too, Danny. Me too.”
“What about this big scoop? This propaganda event Gideon was talking about? You know what it is, don’t you? When is it?”
She was suddenly back at the cooker, meddling with the food. I let the silence grow. Finally she turned to look at me. There were beads of sweat on her brow.
“I don’t know exactly. It’s in Jerusalem.”
“A raid? A bomb? A street riot? What?”
“I can’t tell you! No one will get hurt.”
“When?
“Soon. Very soon.”
“Where are we? This is July…” I realised I had lost track of the days.
Eve clearly had her finger on the pulse. She took a deep breath. “Today’s the twentieth. It could happen any time, he said.”
“Today? Tomorrow? Next month?”
She shrugged.
I pressed her. She was finally coming clean. “What were you to do?”
“I drafted a few words.”
“Like a press release?”
She nodded. “I suppose.”
“Then what?”
“Gideon was to send it out on the wires. Telegraph a man in Reuters in New York. He was going to spread the text. I was to phone in my report to my news desk. A scoop, as you call it. Then
I was to get exclusive interviews with the heads of the Jewish Defence Agency.”
“Would the
Trumpet
print it? It’s not your normal headline.”
“This is big enough to be different. We would have the edge on everybody else. Old Hutcheson would make it happen. This would be news.”
I looked at her, wondering again if I knew anything about her. I whispered, “Christ, Eve. What is it? What’s so big that it would make such news?”
She shook her head. “Enough. I’ve said enough. Just leave it.”
“One last question. How will you know about it, now? How will you hear? You’ve lost your contacts.”
She turned and walked over to the sideboard. She reached out to the wireless and switched it on. The screen glowed faint then a steady yellow. The set began to hum. She turned the knob and began
to switch through the stations. Ghost accents and languages whistled past until we heard the distinctive voice of the BBC Overseas broadcast. I’d heard those clear, comforting tones many
times sitting in a tent in the desert in North Africa or at dead of night in France crouched over an illicit radio, listening for coded messages.
“Good old Auntie,” I said. “Leave it on a bit, there’s a girl.”
And for a while, we listened to the everyday rhythms of
Music While you Work
, then
Educating Archie
, wondering at the barminess of a ventriloquist act on the wireless. We ate our
food and felt like we were living on an island of domestic bliss. Bing Crosby crooned at us and I nearly asked her to dance. But I was scared she’d think me daft, and the moment would sour.
So we had another fag. The fried cat wasn’t bad either.
TWENTY ONE
I met Vic as arranged at nine o’clock the next morning. It was drizzling but warm. Before going inside I checked out the café as best I could through the
steamed-up windows, and saw no one I didn’t want to meet. I entered and added my own cigarette smoke to the cosy fug. I took a seat with my back to the wall and easy access to the kitchen and
the back exit, and waited. The radio warbled away in the background. Four other customers sipped at their coffees and pulled at their fags.
Vic arrived and shook off the rain from his mac. He looked a wee bit happier this morning.
“OK, the deal’s on,” he started.
“You mean we’re forgiven?” I asked.
He sat back and lit up. “Even the Pope wouldn’t forgive you for what you did to my car. But seems the Army’s prepared to draw a line under this. Toby wants you out of his hair
ASAP.”
“And Eve?”
“Bit more awkward there. She might have to travel separately. Under guard. Our MPs will escort her back. She is a Nazi spy, you know. Not to mention knocking off a senior Russian
administrator in Berlin.”
“She’s not a Nazi anything! She’s a Jew. She was forced into working for these bastards to keep her parents safe. Fat lot of good that did. And she was a double. She worked for
MI5.”
“Quiet, man,” Vic hissed. “Keep it down. So – I might have got it a bit wrong. Nobody tells me anything, you know. I’m only a bleedin’ corporal at the end of
the day. I’m telling you what Toby told me.”
“Well, you can tell Toby to stuff his offer! I’m going back
with
Eve and without a bloody escort of Redcaps, or not at all. Maybe we’ll talk to the Americans, or find
our own way home.”
“All right, all right. I get the picture. But I wouldn’t count the Yanks as pals, if I were you.”
“Oh, why not?”
“Let’s just say they’re as pissed off about the uproar as we are. You don’t understand how big this guy Mulder was… Danny? Are you listening?”
“Shut up.” I’d caught something on the radio. More details were coming over. A bomb. A big one. In Jerusalem.
“Thought you couldn’t speak the lingo, Danny?” Vic nodded at the radio where a newscaster was excitedly reporting the event in German. “Danny? Where the fuck are you
going?”
I was already out of my seat and heading for the door. “I’ll be in touch, Vic.” I shouted.
It was tipping down. The rain drummed across the pavements and settled the dust on the bomb sites. The streets were filthy rivers. I splashed my way through and arrived at the building, panting
and soaked to the skin. The door to the flat was open. Eve was sitting in the gloom listening to the BBC’s half-hourly newsflashes. Her face was strained and she’d been crying. She
looked up at me and away.
“Was this
the story
, Eve? Was this what Gideon meant?”
She didn’t reply. She just looked at me like I was on the other side of the river Hades. The living side.
“Eve! Answer me! Are we in even more shit?”
Slowly she focused on my face. Her voice was light, mocking. “We? You and me? I think not. This isn’t your fight. Whereas –
we
– me and the other Shylocks, are in
trouble again.”
By coincidence, the announcer was tolling the news. “Jerusalem is in shock – scenes of devastation – massive bomb attack – the King David Hotel has partly collapsed
– dead and missing now over fifty and expected to rise – among the dead are many British, Arab and Jewish workers – no warning…”
“No warning?!” I asked.
She snapped at me. “Of course there was a warning! That was the plan. We wanted them out of there and then the bomb was to go off. It was to show them what we could do. The French embassy
got their warning. They listened. No one got hurt.”
“Are you saying the British were warned but didn’t buy it? They ignored it? Is that what you’re saying?!”
“Stop shouting! I don’t know!”
At least she was engaged. Her face was blotched with anger. There was a growing pool of water round my feet. I went to dry myself, and came back wearing a towel. I sat at the table and drew on a
fag. We were well into my last pack. Eve was standing looking out the rain-streaked window. The radio was off. She turned to me.
“Danny, it wasn’t supposed to happen like this. Assuming it did.” She nodded at the radio.
“So now you think the BBC is lying?”
“I’m a reporter. Everybody lies. Even your saintly BBC.”
“Why that hotel?”
“It’s the headquarters of the British Protectorate. It was to send a message. Irgun wanted to let them know they weren’t impregnable. That it would cost them.”
“Seems it has.”
“We didn’t want them killed! There
was
a warning!”
I raised my hands in acquiescence. “How can you check?”
She took a deep breath. “There is a man with a transmitter. American sector. Out in Grunewald.”
I turned on an electric fire and hung my shirt and trousers in front of it over the back of a chair. We waited an hour till the rain cleared. My clothes were still steaming
when I put them on. I looked like I’d just climbed out of a washing machine and hadn’t got as far as the mangle, far less the iron. We stepped into the street. Water lay in huge pools
unable to clear from the blocked drains. Vapour swirled across the concrete and rose from the ruins like smoke as the sun poured down. The air smelled like a jungle, wet and fœtid, mixed with
the pervasive stench of drains and soaked plaster.