Part 33 (1/2)

It was a balmy Friday afternoon in the villa six days later. In the gardens below the windows of Membury's enormous office, the Rittmeister in his lederhosen was sh.e.l.ling peas for Wolfgang. Membury sat at his desk, his battledress unb.u.t.toned to the waist while he drafted a questionnaire for trawler captains that he proposed to send in hundreds to the major fis.h.i.+ng fleets. For weeks now he had set his heart on tracing the winter routes of sea trout, and the unit's resources had been hard pressed to accommodate him.

”I've had a rather rum approach made to me, sir,” Pym began delicately. ”Somebody claiming to represent a potential defector.”

”Oh but how interesting for you, Magnus,” Membury said politely, prising himself with difficulty from his preoccupations. ”I hope it's not another Hungarian frontier guard. I've rather had my fill of them. So has Vienna, I'm sure.” Vienna was a growing worry to Membury, as Membury was to Vienna. Pym had read the painful correspondence between them that Membury kept safely locked at all times in the top left drawer of his flimsy desk. It might be only a question of days before the captain of Fusiliers arrived in person to take charge.

”He's not Hungarian, actually, sir,” said Pym. ”He's Czech. He's attached to HQ Southern Command based outside Prague.”

Membury tilted his large head to one side as if shaking water out of his ear. ”Well that's heartening,” he remarked doubtfully. ”Div. Int. would give their eye-teeth for some good stuff about Southern Czecho. Or anywhere else in Czecho for that matter. The Americans seem to think they have a monopoly of the place. Somebody said as much to me on the telephone only the other day, I don't know who.”

The telephone line to Graz ran through the Soviet Zone. In the evenings Russian technicians could be heard on it, singing drunken Cossack music.

”According to my source he's a disgruntled clerk sergeant working in their strongroom,” Pym persisted. ”He's supposed to be coming out tomorrow night. If we're not there to receive him he'll go to the Americans.”

”You didn't hear of him through the Rittmeister, did you?” said Membury nervously.

With the skill of long habituation, Pym entered the risky ground. No, it was not the Rittmeister, he a.s.sured Membury. At least it didn't sound like the Rittmeister. The voice sounded younger and more positive.

Membury was confused. ”Could you possibly explain?” he said.

Pym did.

It was just an ordinary Thursday evening, he said. He'd been to the movies to see Liebe 47, and on his way back he thought he'd drop in at the Weisses Ross for a beer.

”I don't think I know the Weisses Ross.”

”It's just another pub, sir, really, but the Czech emigres use it a lot and everyone sits at long tables. I'd been there literally two minutes when the waiter called me to the phone.

'Herr Leutnant, fur Sie.' They know me a bit there so I wasn't too surprised.”

”Good for you,” said Membury, impressed.

”It was a man's voice, speaking High German. 'Herr Pym? Here is an important message for you. If you do exactly as I tell you, you will not be disappointed. Have you pen and paper?' I had, so he started reading to me at dictation speed. He checked it back with me and rang off before I could ask him who he was.”

From his pocket Pym produced the very sheet of paper, torn from the back of a diary.

”But if this was last night, why on earth didn't you tell me earlier?” Membury objected, taking it from him.

”You were at the Joint Intelligence Committee meeting.”

”Oh my hat, so I was. He asked for you by name,” Membury remarked with pride, still looking at the paper. ”'Only Lieutenant Pym will do.' That's rather flattering, I must say.” He pulled at a protruding ear. ”Well look here, you take jolly good care,” he warned, with the sternness of a man who could refuse Pym nothing. ”And don't go too near the border in case they try and haul you over.”

This was not by any means the first advance tip-off of a defector's arrival that had come Pym's way in recent months, not even the sixth, though it was the first that had been whispered to him by a naked Czech interpreter in a moonlit orchard. Only a week before, Pym and Membury had sat out a night in the Carinthian lowlands waiting to receive a captain of Rumanian Intelligence and his mistress who were supposedly approaching in a stolen aeroplane crammed with priceless secrets. Membury had the Austrian police close off the area, Pym fired coloured Very lights into the empty air as they had been instructed in secret messages. But when dawn came no aeroplane had arrived.

”What are we supposed to do now?” Membury had complained with pardonable irritation as they sat s.h.i.+vering in the jeep. ”Sacrifice a b.l.o.o.d.y goat? I do wish the Rittmeister were more precise. It makes one look so silly.”

A week before that, disguised in green loden coats, they had taken themselves to a remote inn on the Zonal border in search of a Heimkehrer from a Soviet uranium mine who was expected any moment. As they pushed open the door the conversation in the bar stopped dead and a score of peasants gawped at them.

”Billiards,” Membury ordered with rare decisiveness, from under his hand. ”There's a table over there. We'll get a game going. Fit in.”

Still in his green loden, Membury stooped to play his ball, only to be interrupted by the resounding clang of heavy metal striking the tiled floor close at hand. Glancing down, Pym saw his commanding officer's .38 service revolver lying at his large feet. He had recovered it for him in a moment, never quicker. But not quick enough to prevent the stampede to the door as the terrified peasants scattered in the darkness and the landlord locked himself in the cellar.

”Can I go back now, sir?” said Kaufmann. ”I'm not a soldier at all, you see. I'm a coward.”

”No you can't,” said Pym. ”Now be quiet.”

The barn stood by itself as Sabina had said it would, at the centre of a flat field lined with larches. A yellow path led to it; behind it lay a lake. Behind the lake a hill and on the hill, as the evening darkened, a single watchtower overlooked the valley.

”You will wear civilian clothes and park your car at the crossroads to Klein Brandorf,” Sabina had whispered to his thighs as she kissed and fondled and revived him. The orchard had a brick wall and was occupied by a family of large brown hares. ”You will leave sidelights burning. If you cheat and bring protection he will not appear. He will stay in the forest and be angry.”

”I love you.”

”There is a stone, painted white. This is where Kaufmann must stand. If Kaufmann pa.s.ses the white stone, he will not appear, he will stay in the forest.”

”Why can't you come too?”

”He does not wish it. He wishes only Pym. Perhaps he is homms.e.xual.”

”Thanks,” said Pym.

The white stone glinted ahead of them.

”Stay here,” Pym ordered.

”Why?” said Kaufmann.

Evening mist lay in strips across the field. The surface of the lake popped with rising fish. With the sun setting, the larches threw mile-long shadows across the golden meadow. Sawn logs lay beside the barn door, boxes of geraniums adorned the windows. Pym thought again of Sabina. Her enfolding flanks, the broad s.p.a.ces of her back. ”What I tell you I have not told to any Englishman. In Prague I have a younger brother who is called Jan. If you tell this to Membury he will already dismiss me immediately. The British do not allow us to have close family inside a Communist country. Do you understand?” Yes, Sabina, I understand. I have seen the moonlight on your b.r.e.a.s.t.s, your moisture is on my lips, it is sticking to my eyelids. I understand. ”Listen. My brother sends me this message for you. Only for Pym. He trusts you because of me and because I have told him only good things about you. He has a friend who wishes to come out. This friend is very gifted, very brilliant, top access. He will bring you many secrets about the Russians. But first you must invent a story for Membury to explain how you received this information. You are clever. You can invent many stories. Now you must invent one for my brother and his friend.” Yes, Sabina, I can invent. For you and your beloved brother I can invent a million stories. Get me my pen, Sabina. Where did you put my clothes? Now tear me a piece of paper from your diary and I will invent a story about a strange man who telephoned me at the Weisses Ross and made me an irresistible proposal.

Pym unb.u.t.toned his loden. ”Always draw across the body,” his weapons instructor had advised at the sad little depot in Suss.e.x where they had taught him how to fight Communism. ”It gives you better protection when the other laddie shoots first.” Pym was not sure this was good advice. He reached the door and it was closed. He walked round the barn, trying to find a place to peep in. ”His information will be good for you,” Sabina had said. ”It will make you very famous in Vienna, Membury also. Good intelligence from Czechoslovakia is extremely rare at Div. Int. Mostly it comes from the Americans and is therefore corrupt.”

The sun had set and the dusk was gathering fast. From across the lake Pym heard the yelping of a fox. Rows of chicken coops stood at the back of the barn and the straw in them was clean. Chickens in no-man's-land, he thought frivolously. Stateless eggs. The chickens tucked their necks at him and blew out their feathers. A grey heron lifted from the lake and set course towards the hills. He returned to the front of the barn.

”Kaufmann!”

”Sir?”

A hundred metres lay between them but their voices were as close as lovers in the evening stillness.

”Did you cough?”

”No, sir.”

”Well, don't.”

”I expect I was sobbing, sir.”

”Keep guard, but whatever you see, don't come any nearer unless I order you.”

”I'd like to desert, if I may, sir. I'd rather be a defector than this, honestly. I'm a sitting target. I'm not a human being at all.”

”Do some mental sums or something.”