Текст книги "A Bitter Field"

Автор книги: Ludlow Jack

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Текущая страница: 18 (всего у книги 22 страниц)

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

In a strange city, especially one where the language was difficult to understand and few spoke English, Vince Castellano was glad of the Automat cafés; there he could eat and drink by merely looking at what was on offer in the various compartments and putting coins in the slot so that the glass-fronted door opened.

He also thought it a good idea, since he had time on his hands, to locate the Jewish Emigration Centre well before there was any need to go there in a panic, but when he got there, having got lost a couple of times, he wished he had not.

The sight depressed him too much; he had seen this sort of thing in the cinema on the Paramount and Pathé newsreels but in the flesh it was much worse, the displaced flotsam of those dislodged by war or the threat of it.

There was no queue outside the building, more a mob of people desperate to get out of the country by any means possible, all ages from ancient beings in black round hats with long ringlets to wailing babes in arms, tired-looking men and women, all Jewish, surrounded by suitcases or wrapped bundles of possessions.

The whole seemed to move in a swaying motion, much like a tide, as rumours were spread from one to another, this while volunteers moved through the crowd with buckets of water and ladles to quench the thirst of those hoping for those magic papers that would allow them to cross a border.

If it was like this before the Germans invaded, what would it be like afterwards? And then Vince realised it would be quieter – there would be a lot less Jewish emigration if they were in charge instead of the Czechs. The temptation to go inside was killed off by the people besieging the entrance so he turned round to retrace his steps, map in hand, constantly required to stop and peer at the street names which were incomprehensible.

It would have been nice to travel by bus or tram but he feared getting even more lost by taking the wrong one and occasionally, in frustration, he cursed Cal Jardine for leaving him alone in such a strange city.

Yet many of the locals, seeing his confusion, took pity on him as he sought to compare street and map names, eager to help, and everyone, even without English, knew the name and whereabouts of Wenceslas Square, so if it took time to get back to the Meran, he got there in the end.

Having been surrounded, when he overheard any conversations, by an unintelligible babble, the sound of a loud English voice, even a slightly irate and Irish one, as well as people dressed in the kind of clothes he knew from home, was welcome, and he made to approach the two men who were in heavy discussion by a double-parked car, one of whom had a very military moustache and bearing.

‘For the love of Christ, Gibby, tell Miklos to send the bugger on his way.’

He did not in the end get close, but wiping the half smile of greeting off his face, Vince spun on his heel and went to look at a poster stuck on the nearest lamp post advertising something, he knew not what.

There was a third person at the front of the car explaining something to an unsmiling policeman and he was the big benevolent-looking fellow who had come to his door and asked to see his passport the day before.

‘Copper’s only doing his job.’

‘And I am trying to get on with mine, or hadn’t you noticed?’

‘There’s no rush, Noel, he’s bound to come back here.’

‘You can’t be sure of that.’

‘Where else is he going to go? The clerk says his luggage is in his room.’

‘We should get Miklos to work him over.’

‘Miklos is not a real policeman, and anyway they don’t do that sort of thing in Czecho.’

‘Then they’re too soft and deserve to be invaded by the Hun.’

‘Has it occurred to you that your man, Nolan, might be genuine?’

‘On a lost passport?’

Vince had pulled his hat down while he listened to the argument and then that was added to by an accented voice. ‘The policeman says he doesn’t care if we have diplomatic plates, we can’t park here and must move.’

If there was a reply Vince did not hear it; he was already walking away, forcing himself not to rush, wondering what time he had, only registering after several paces the way that foreign bloke had said ‘we’. Diplomatic plates? He ducked down the first alley then doubled back to the rear of the Meran and through the door.

The lift was opposite the reception desk so it was a run up the stairs, and when he got to his room door a full kick splintered what was not a very strong lock. Inside, Vince shut the door and waited, counting to sixty; the noise of splintering wood might bring out someone from the shared hallway to see what had caused it but they would have to be standing right outside the door to see the damage.

In that minute the whole gamut of possibilities ran through his mind but the one thing that was certain was that he could not stay here and he could no longer use that false passport, which had to be the reason that bloke was calling again. Diplomatic plates meant an embassy as well, but then he had heard the military-looking one say that the bloke was not a real policeman.

Was it the law after him or someone else? Assume the worst, it’s safest. What would they do when they discovered he had flown the Meran? He had a choice, the Jewish Emigration Centre or another hotel and he did not fancy the former, yet if he went to another hotel and it was the law they would come round looking for an Englishman who had checked in that day.

That was when Vince nearly laughed; first off he set a chair against the inside door handle to keep it closed and went to the canvas bag Cal had provided, then he packed his things quickly and untidily, including the book of short stories, pocketed the key to the Tatra and was out of that door in three minutes, bounding back down the stairs.

Outside in Wenceslas Square, thanks to an insistent policeman, it had been necessary to let Gibby Gibson move the car and so Noel McKevitt had taken station in the lobby, this after he had sent Miklos to the receptionist to flash that false warrant card again and order him to alert the man with the wispy fair hair sitting over there if Mr Nolan came back and asked for his key.

But a quick recce had revealed the back entrance and Miklos, duty done, was sent to cover that, arriving seconds before Vince reached the ground floor and made for the back door. Well oiled, it opened noiselessly and there before Vince was the back of a big bloke looking up and down the street, his hands in his pockets.

Stick or twist? There was really no option and no time to consider if this man blocking his way was a proper copper. If he was here, and whatever he was, the front had to be covered too. Dropping his bag, Vince stepped forward. Miklos heard the soft plop of it hitting the ground and turned to see coming toward him, smiling, the man he had spoken to previously.

Small and wiry, Miklos reckoned the little fellow to be no match for him, a thought he was still holding when he woke up about ten minutes later, having not seen the jab that hit him in the midriff, nor the fist that clouted the side of his head. All he could do was groggily stagger through to the lobby and tell McKevitt, now joined by Gibby Gibson, that their bird had flown.

An hour later Signor Vincenzo Castellano, who knew that to stay on the streets was too dangerous, was just down the road at another big hotel called the Paris demanding a room in fluent Italian. ‘Posso avere una camera?’ That was the language with which he had grown up, as the child of immigrant parents, and his name on the passport he had fetched from the Tatra was the Italian spelling.

Making a bit of fuss and waving his arms in a very Latin way, he had to hope that his British passport, albeit the details were recorded, would not cause anyone to be too curious. Just because he had got away from the Meran did not mean he felt completely safe; he was still a stranger in Prague without the ability to easily communicate and with no knowledge of the depth of the threat he was facing.

Was it time to get out through Elsa Ephraim? But could he do that without first getting in touch with Cal, because if his passport was blown, then so would be the other one Cal was using, and his real documents, without which he would be left stranded, were still in the Tatra. Vince had not been a soldier for many years, but he knew the self-imposed regulation by which you always tried to abide: never leave a comrade in peril.

Could he telephone or send a telegram to Cheb? But that would mean using the Barrowman name and there was no way of knowing what risk was attached to that, yet that had to be weighed against the risk of doing nothing.

In the end, given the language problems he might face at the other end, he opted for telegram and once that was done it was getting late in the day. Not wanting to drive in the dark, he decided to eat, then sleep, ask for an early call and head off at dawn.

‘Do you have any idea how many hotels there are in Prague, Noel?’

They were back in the embassy, Miklos was being checked out and patched up by a first-aider and Gibby Gibson was wondering if he should slip a sedative to his increasingly unstable Northern Irish boss, who might have a reputation for being a cool customer, but was showing no signs of it now.

‘I don’t care, I want them all checked out.’

They had a description, taken from the reception desk at the Meran and handsomely paid for, but in terms of resources what McKevitt was asking for was out of the question.

‘You might be better looking for the other chap, Barrowman.’

‘How? The bastard could be anywhere.’

‘If, as we suspect, he’s travelling on false papers like his mate then he’s committing a crime.’

‘And?’

‘If he’s staying in any kind of hotel, his details will be registered as a matter of course.’

‘Like in France and Germany, you mean?’ McKevitt demanded.

‘The embassy can inform the Czech authorities that they have reasonable grounds to suspect that a British subject is in their country under an assumed name for purposes of which we have no idea. I have to tell you, Noel, if they are given information like that, right now they will smell German spy.’

‘Who do we tell?’ McKevitt demanded. ‘I hope you are not going to say to me “the police”. If they are anything like the lot we have at home it will take them a week to get off their arse.’

‘The man we want is Colonel Doležal, who runs the Czech equivalent of MI5.’

‘They’re not much better,’ the Irishman spat, thinking of Barney Foxton. ‘How well do you know him?’

Gibson knew the meaning of the question: could Doležal be trusted? ‘Well enough.’

‘Then let’s get hold of the bugger and tell him the fella we’re after is dangerous.’

‘Is he, Noel?’

‘More than you know, Gibby,’ McKevitt replied.

‘If I can tell Doležal why that is, it might speed up his search.’

But you would not see it as I see it, McKevitt thought, not see that a man who might drag our whole nation into a war was the most lethal kind of problem we could have – and how can you tell some Czech sod who would want us involved that I am trying to put the mockers on our staying out of their stupid little predicament?

‘Hint he’s a spy, Gibby, that will have to do, and Christ, with what’s going on it should be enough.’

Having done as requested, Gibby Gibson waited till McKevitt was out of the way and made another visit to the Cipher Room, this time to send a cable to Quex himself. He wanted to ask if the outfit had any information on two men named Barrowman and Nolan, whom his station chief seemed intent on pursuing without saying why, though he checked first with Tommy that McKevitt had not sent anything similar.

‘Hasn’t been in touch with London at all, Major, since he arrived.’

‘Not at all?’

That was peculiar; it was standard practice when chasing suspects to keep Broadway informed of progress – doubly so when they had only really got the names – not necessarily the top floor but certainly his own desk, to keep abreast of things whoever McKevitt had left in charge. What was the bugger playing at?

‘If he does, Tommy, tip me the wink will you?’

Colonel Capec Doležal had a lot on his plate in a country prepared for war and in a city swarming with potential spies, so the request from Major Gibson only got attention because he was a good and trusted friend to his country and he sounded alarmed, as if this Barrowman might pose a substantial risk.

The name was added to what was a daily bulletin distributed throughout the country, a combination of police notices, intelligence dilemmas and threats to guard against that went out every morning. In a nation on high alert there were a lot of warnings being issued to the various branches of government and the only way to distribute such alarms as needed to be disseminated and ensure they might be acted on was in writing.

With the name in question, police station commanders in Prague would have their men check the hotel registration files for the past ten days. Cables were sent off to offices in other Czech cities – they would print and send out what they received locally; the one place excepted from the full effect of this was in the disputed border territories where the staff in the telegraphic office were a mix of German and Czech.

So for places like Cheb it was added to a series sent off with the despatch riders who distributed the bulletin to the various checkpoints and army headquarters that covered the country, and even when the bulletin was received, care had to be taken about what to act on and what to ignore, given the potential for any act to stir up trouble.

Cal was doing his exercises again when the telegram from Vince was delivered to his door and when he read it, even if it was not in code, he reckoned that it was secure, given the chances of anyone being able to read a mixture of rhyming slang, cockney and seriously colloquial English in this part of the world was zero; it took him some time to decipher the series of short sentences himself.

Hubble bubble was trouble; flown the coop simple; could be Old Bill needed no explanation and nor did done a runner; Nolan brief gone west, yours too probably, old one best took some working out; think about being on your toes did not. Trying for a meet – twelve dart finish. Will bell. Vince.

The hushed curse made no difference at all and it was exactly the reverse of what he had expected; Cal thought if anyone got into trouble it would be him and he could think of no rational explanation as to how it could be otherwise. Vince had got into some difficulty and had been forced to leave the Meran, his false passport the cause, and that put both false identities at risk. Added to that, despite being told not to, he was on his way and fast.

What to do? He could not just bale out without an explanation and Corrie had her last interview with Henlein that afternoon. Added to that, something was going to go off that night, he was certain, which almost guaranteed, though not for sure, he would be out of here within twenty-four hours anyway.

Then it struck him: only he, Vince and Peter Lanchester had known the identities they were operating under; had Peter been obliged to tell anyone at Broadway and had their names been leaked to the Czech authorities from there? Looked at from every other angle it was the only thing that made sense, but not a lot. The only other people who knew the names were Snuffly Bower and the man he used to doctor the documents and they had no idea where he was.

‘Breakfast time,’ came the breezy call as he picked up his phone.

‘Be along soon.’

‘Bring that pen of yours, I’ve got a typed draft I’d like you to look over.’

‘I’ve been promoted from interpreter to editor?’

‘Guess so.’

He was not going to rush, so he went back to his press-ups and squats, thinking, and that told him if Vince was moving he had to stay still, quite apart from the fact that he could not risk travelling on the documents he possessed. Once he had his own passport then he could make some kind of plan, until then it was best to just carry on.

Both before he went to sleep and this morning he had been thinking about what his late-night visitor had said. Either something had occurred that meant Veseli had to make a premature move, or, more worryingly for Cal, they had got him here on a false prospectus – getting him to undertake some action immediately had always been the aim!

The way to turn that down flat was easy – keep his car keys in his trouser pocket. But Cal possessed a curiosity to a greater degree than any cat. Before he left the room he put the canvas bag with the Mauser, folded tight, in the cupboard – it was not a thing to be carrying around discreetly – and downstairs he did as Veseli had asked and left the keys at reception with the requested instructions.

There was little use for his pen on Corrie’s article, it was so flattering it nearly made him choke on his fruit juice; in fact, he thought it might be too much so and it would be an interesting test of how seriously these people took themselves if they fell for it – no rational mind would, only a warped one could.

‘We still going for that spin?’

‘Of course, meet you out front in twenty.’

Standing at the desk, it suddenly occurred to him that it was here he had filled in the registration card as Barrowman. Did they give them to the Czech police? He tried to imagine one walking in to collect them and passing two Brownshirt thugs at the door. Tempted to ask he decided against it, for he could think of no way of phrasing the question that would not sound suspicious.

The first place the name Barrowman rang a bell was at a checkpoint halfway to Cheb, crossed by two foreigners that the officer in command could recall very easily – how uncommon was it to find an American female journalist in Czechoslovakia at all, or perhaps just as unusual, a foreigner, an Englishman, travelling in his homeland, who could speak German like a native, though not with an accent he could place?

With the gift of a field telephone, though frustrated by the way the traffic had to be routed on a busy network, he was through to the Ministry of the Interior within half an hour. So occupied was he that he instructed his men to be lenient about letting the stream of cars and lorries going in both directions through the barriers.

Vince, who had set off from Prague at dawn, was one of the beneficiaries and in passing he made sure they would think him Italian as he shouted, ‘Mille grazie!’

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

‘Got him,’ Gibby Gibson cried when he came off the phone to Colonel Doležal, before he wondered what he was getting so excited about. ‘Your friend Barrowman crossed a checkpoint going towards Karlovy Vary two days ago in the company of an American female and I have even got the make of motor he was driving.’

‘Not short of a bob or two,’ McKevitt remarked when he saw what that was. ‘A bloody Maybach Zeppelin, for Christ’s sake. Any idea who the lass was?’

‘Journalist apparently, she had accreditation papers but the name has not come through.’

‘Saturday – we must have missed him by a whisker.’

‘Rotten luck that,’ Gibson replied insincerely.

‘She had to come from Prague, Gibby.’

‘You’d think so. Most of the journos stay at the Ambassador.’ Picking up the telephone Gibson added, ‘And there can’t be too many who are female.’

Annoyingly, McKevitt was drumming his fingers on Gibson’s desk as he made the call but it did not take long to establish who the lady was and the fact that she was not presently in residence, but given Gibson was talking to reception, and not the concierge desk, that was all he got.

‘She must have left some form of contact address,’ Gibson insisted, his eyes going to the ceiling, given the time he was obliged to wait until the reply came through; they did not stay there when he was told.

McKevitt was equally surprised and he had read the latest briefing before he left London. ‘Cheb! That’s where Henlein had his headquarters, isn’t it, and that other bugger Frank?’

Gibson nodded and waited for the obvious follow-up – like what was their man doing going there? – but it did not come. Instead he picked up the phone again. ‘Should I tell Doležal we’ve found him?’

‘No!’

‘Noel, he will have men searching hotel registration cards all over the place to no purpose. You can’t just leave him in the dark.’

‘We’ve let him think our man’s a spy. If we tell him, who will pick him up? Not us.’ Still drumming his fingers, McKevitt went into deep thought, the conclusion surprising the station chief. ‘I need a car, Gibby, and some cash.’

‘You’re going after Barrowman yourself?’

‘I am, but I doubt that’s the bastard’s real name. Tell me, what’s the situation with weapons?’

‘You mean—’

‘Look, this man is dangerous, Gibby, and he has to be stopped.’

‘From doing what, Noel?’

‘I can’t tell you.’

‘Is that because you don’t know?’

‘Have you told your team about closing down the station?’

‘Don’t change the subject.’

‘Who in the name of Christ do you think you’re talking to?’ The question was on Gibson’s lips: why have you not been in touch with base? But it died there, not least because McKevitt was not finished.

‘You should be packing your bags, Gibby. And don’t think it will go unnoticed that I had to come here to sort out a problem that you should have seen to.’

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘No,’ McKevitt sneered, a very necessary adjunct to his bluff, ‘you don’t, which makes me think it might be time you retired. Now get me the use of an embassy car and a pistol with some ammo.’

‘Sorry, Noel, that is something you will have to do yourself.’

The sun was shining, the hood was down in the Maybach, though being autumn the air had a chill in these high elevations that required Corrie to wear a headscarf and Cal his hat. But it was pleasant driving at a relaxed pace, quite often through thick forests, even if right behind them came a car, a tiny Hanomag, with two Brownshirts crammed into it, tasked to watch where they went.

The temptation to look in the boot when the car was brought to the front of the hotel had to be resisted and there was nothing in the passenger compartment that was in anyway untoward. He would just have to wait for an opportunity and to do that the first task was to lose the tail.

‘Have you got used to being on the wrong side of the car yet?’

‘Let’s just say I don’t think I’m going to die.’

‘Good.’

Cal hit the floor with the pedal and the V12 engine responded immediately, Corrie crying ‘Jesus!’ as she was thrust back in her seat. There were no straight roads in these parts and they were not generous in width, which made the sensation of speed all that much greater, exaggerated as the tyres screeched round the bends.

As soon as the tail was out of sight, Cal was looking for a junction or at least where the road split, and that came at a fork, he taking the uphill line because it affected him not at all, but that near-toy car with two big blokes in it would struggle to keep up any speed at all. For all they were moving up a steep hill, the trees still hemmed them in.

At the top of the hill there were two bored-looking sentries in grey-green Czech uniforms standing before an entry into the woods shut off by a wire gate, but the approach of the car brought them to life and their slung weapons came off the shoulder just as the trees thinned to one side to show an extensive panorama.

Inside those trees there had to be some of the Czech defences, and on this kind of elevation and with the open ground below the hilltop, Cal assumed heavy artillery, which would be in a well-defended concrete cupola surrounded by pillboxes.

He slowed right down and went by at a crawl; these conscripts, which is what they looked to be, were likely to be trigger-happy and he had known men killed by not paying enough attention to another soldier’s nerves. The speed also allowed him time to assess the field of fire he imagined the weapons could strike; that panoramic view looked as though it extended right into the Third Reich.

Past that and descending he really gave the car full throttle and soon they were racing through another dense tree belt so narrow occasional branches hissed along the side of the car and one or two hit it with a crack; if it had a serious purpose, driving like this was exhilarating.

Corrie showed no sign of fear; in fact, when a bit of straight road allowed him to look at her it seemed as if her eyes, staring straight ahead, were alight, her mouth was slightly open and her breathing seemed faster than normal – she was excited and enjoying the thrill as much as he was.

Sighting another ungated path into the trees he pulled hard over and shot up the lane, which had her sliding across the front leather seat to his side, coming to a halt with her body jammed against his. He could sense her, and the way her breath was still heaving was too obvious to miss, so spinning sideways he threw an arm over her shoulder and pulled her close.

She made no attempt to avoid being kissed, there was no stiffness or resistance and, as his tongue slipped between her teeth, he also knew that whatever else Corrie Littleton had done in her life, this was not the first time such an embrace had happened to her; she had been kissed before, because her tongue was also pushing forward to meet his own.

‘Is this why we came for a spin?’ she asked when they broke contact.

‘Would you be angry if it was?’ She shook her head. ‘Neither would I.’

‘That’s a helluva thing.’

‘I have work to do.’

‘You betcha,’ she said, her hand grabbing the back of his head, knocking off his hat and pulling him in till their lips were locked together again, and this time there was a trace of a moan, and whatever it is that signals from one human to another that they are willing was in Cal’s nostrils now.

‘You an outdoor girl?’ he asked.

She knew what that meant. ‘Heart and soul, Doc.’

‘There are a couple of rugs on the back seat.’

‘Is that planning?’

‘It’s a luxury car.’

‘Maybe they are in the wrong place.’

‘A walk?’

As she nodded he switched off the engine and Corrie took his hand to be pulled out of the driver’s door, which she held tight till Cal got the rugs out, there for rear seat passengers to cover their knees to keep out the cold.

‘You all right with this?’ he asked, his own voice now slightly hoarse. ‘There might be soldiers about.’

By way of a reply she led him away from the car and into the trees, holding his hand tightly – a pressure Corrie kept up until they came to a small clearing covered in fallen leaves. She looked at him and he nodded, then detached himself to spread out the rugs one on top of the other. Cal lay down and pulled her with him and immediately they were locked in an embrace.

He knew by what followed that Corrie Littleton was no firsttimer; she knew the body parts that mattered on him as well as he knew those that excited her and was uninhibited at seeking them out. The usual awkward gremlins getting out of clothing were met with the kind of intimate laughter that comes with slightly embarrassed struggles.

In these trees there was minimal sunlight and it was not really a warm day, but racing blood made up for any chill, that and activity that started slowly and rose in pace as both parties to this lovemaking extracted maximum pleasure from the act. When it was over, her bird-scattering screams had subsided and the breathing had settled a touch, she spoke into his shoulder in a small voice.

‘I hope you’ll still respect me, Doc.’

‘Don’t see why I should, I didn’t before.’

Her laugh filled the air and seemed to echo off the trees. ‘Callum Jardine, you are a piece of work.’

‘Which reminds me why I came,’ he whispered in her ear.

That set her off again, pealing laughter, which had Cal thinking this was a wholly different person to the one he thought he knew and he preferred it that way.

‘Can we just stay here for a few minutes?’

‘What makes you think I have the guts to say no?’

They lay for some fifteen minutes, not talking a lot but sharing whispered intimacies, until eventually Cal rose up and hauled her willingly to her feet. Hand in hand, once they had sorted out their clothing, they walked back to the car, each with a rug, and once they were seated in the front Cal asked her to get the maps and camera out of the glovebox.

‘It suddenly occurs to me we could have wandered into a minefield.’

‘Bang,’ she replied, as he handed her the camera.

‘What are you like as a photographer?’

‘As good as you are as a lover, Doc.’

Now it was his turn to startle the birds with his laughing.

It took a while and some map reading to get back on to the road to the town the Czechs called Aš, with many stops on the way: after tight bends, places where the road narrowed or where it was heavily enclosed by trees which, felled by blast, would block it completely – all possible points at which to spring an ambush.

At each one Cal took photographs, with Corrie insisting that he stand back to be snapped as well, and at no time did she enquire what he was up to; it was as though by making love their entire relationship had altered massively. She was happy and made no secret of it.

Asch was a pretty place nestling in rolling hills and surrounded by good rolling pasture. The houses, where they were not just grey stone, were painted in rose-pink and yellow and the style was similar to Cheb, with the tall steep-roofed buildings joining one another in long terraces.

The attempts to talk to what locals they came across were not a success: approaching anyone, even when Cal spoke to them in German, showed that they were an insular bunch not too keen to answer Corrie’s questions, some so nervous it was as though the mere act of talking to strangers would endanger them.

‘He might not have invaded,’ Cal ventured, ‘but it feels like Hitler’s here already.’

They found Henlein’s house by endless asking, as if they were tourists, Corrie’s notebook put away, and the first obvious fact was that, like the Victoria Hotel, it was guarded, in this case by two armed dolts who refused to believe Cal’s explanation and refused to allow him to use his camera. If they wanted photographs of the house they must get that from the owner.