Spy Story

Chapter Twenty-one

Several times I had almost awakened into a hazy snow-white world of ether and antiseptic. Through the window bright sun shone on a world of dark-green pine forests, the trees sagging under layers of snow.

Someone lowered the blinds so that the room filled with soft shadowless light. There was a table with fruit, flowers and newspapers on it. The newspapers were in some unreadable script. At the end of the bed sat a man I recognized. He wore a dark suit and his face was elderly and slightly blurred.

'He's waking up again.'

'Pat!'

I groaned. And now another figure came into view, looming over the end of the bed like a sun rising over the Arctic wastes. 'Wake up, sweetheart, we've got other appointments.'

'I'll pour him some tea,' said Dawlish. There's nothing so reviving as a nice cup of tea. Probably hasn't had a proper one since coming in here.'

'Where am I?' I said, I didn't want to say it but I wanted to know where I was.

Schlegel smiled. 'Kirkenes, Norway. A Norwegian chopper brought you off the submarine a few days ago.'

'Is that right?' I asked Dawlish.

Dawlish said, 'We were worried.'

'I can imagine you were,' I said. 'I catty about ten thousand pounds in government insurance.'

'He's getting better,' said Schlegel.

'If you'd rather we wait…' Dawlish offered.

I shook my head very gently in case it rolled under the bedside cabinet and we had to prod it with sticks to get it out. 'Where's Ferdy?'

'You know where Ferdy is,' said Schlegel. 'You did your best for him — but Ferdy's dead.'

'What for,' I said, 'what the hell for?'

Dawlish smoothed out Ids English newspaper. The headline said: german talks end when red katya walks out.

Dawlish said, 'Stok's people arrested Remoziva's sister yesterday morning. Only thing they could do really.'

I looked from Schlegel to Dawlish and back again. 'So that's what it was all about — the German reunification.'

'They're cagey blighters,' said Dawlish. 'They weren't convinced that the Admiral was coming over to us until they saw that corpse you took out there. They're cynics I suppose, like you, Pat.'

'Poor Ferdy.'

'It was only thanks to Colonel Schlegel that you were saved,' said Dawlish. 'He thought of using the radar, and bullied the Captain into using it so close to their monitors.'

'Bad security, Colonel,' I said.

'We brought some fruit for you,' said Schlegel. 'You want a grape?'

'No, thanks,' I said.

'I told you he wouldn't want it,' said Schlegel.

'He'll eat it,' said Dawlish. 'In fact, I wouldn't mind a grape myself.' He helped himself to two, in rapid succession.

'You encouraged them to snatch Ferdy,' I accused Schlegel.

'These grapes are good,' said Dawlish. 'Must be hot-house at this time of year but they're awfully sweet.'

'You bastard,' I said.

Schlegel said, 'Ferdy was deep into Toliver's set-up. He needn't have gone on the trip at all, but he insisted.'

'So you two have been conniving all down the line?'

'Conniving?' said Dawlish. 'Sure you won't try a grape. No? Well, I mustn't eat them all.' But he helped himself to another. 'Conniving isn't at all the word I'd choose. Colonel Schlegel was sent to help us sort out the Toliver complication — we appreciated his help.'

'… got it,' I said. 'Use Colonel Schegel to beat Toliver over the head. Then if Toliver complains to the Home Secretary you say its the C.I.A. doing it. Neat, but not gaudy.'

'Toliver came near to knocking you off,' said Schlegel. 'Don't shed any tears for that bastard.'

'Well, I'm sure he'll be taken care of, now.'

'He's discredited,' said Dawlish. 'That's all we wanted.'

'And all the hard work is being done by Russian security,' I said. I picked up the newspaper.

I pushed the paper aside. The stop press said the D Mark had already begun falling against the dollar and sterling. So that was it. A united Germany would have upset the status quo. Its agricultural East would make French agriculture suffer, with a resulting gain for the French communists. Meanwhile Germany got a share in the Common Market's agricultural share-out. Germany's contribution to NATO — something like a third of all nato forces-would certainly have to be dismantled tinder the treaty's terms. U.S. forces in Germany would not be able to withdraw to France, which wasn't a member of NATO. And this was timed for a period when the U.S.A. would be changing to an all-volunteer force. It would inevitably mean U.S. withdrawal from Europe. Just as Russia had completed its big five year military build-up. Yes, worth a couple of operatives.

They both watched me as I finished reading. 'And the Russians arrested all the Remoziva;s just on the basis of us meeting that chopper?'

'Sippenhaft. Isn't that what the Germans call it? said Dawlish. 'Collective family responsibility for the actions of one person.'

'Don't you care that you've helped to frame completely innocent people?'

'You've got it wrong, haven't you? It wasn't British policemen who went out arresting everyone named Remoziva the other morning, it was Russian communist policemen. And the people they arrested were working very energetically to strengthen, improve and expand this system that arrests people in the middle of the night on the grounds that they might be an enemy of the state. I don't intend to lose any sleep over it.'

'Just to foul up the reunification, eh?' I said.

'They've got an analogue computer at the Foreign Office you know,' said Dawlish.

'What's that supposed to mean?'

'It's not supposed to mean anything. It's a fact. They put the German reunification on it and didn't like the scenario one little bit.'

I helped myself to one of my fast disappearing grapes. Dawlish said, 'You are bound to feel a bit depressed for a while: it's the drugs. You were in. a bad way, you know.'

'Does Marjorie know I'm here?'

'I've been trying to get hold of her, Pat. She's left the hospital.'

It was a softer voice he used. 'She seems to have cancelled the bread and the milk deliveries.'

'Did she go to Los Angeles?'

'We're not sure,' said Dawlish, trying to break it to me, gently. 'We've only just got her family's address in Wales. Quite a tongue-twister, it is. She might be there.'

'No,' I said. 'Forget it.'

I turned away from my two visitors. For a moment I saw the wallpaper that I never did replace and heard Marjorie greet me as I returned from a trip. The bookshelves would now be cleared of those damned anaemia books but I'd go on finding hairpins down the back of the sofa.

Self-pity reached in and grabbed my breakfast. It hurt, and if you want to say it was nothing but a self-inflicted wound, I can only reply that it hurt none the less because of that. Ferdy had gone and Marjorie too: the comfortable little world I'd built up since leaving the department had disappeared as if it had never been.

'Are they treating you well in here?' said Dawlish.

'Pickled fish for breakfast,' I said.

'The reason I ask', said Dawlish, 'is that we have a bit of a problem… It's a security job…'

I suppose I might have guessed that a man like that doesn't fly to Norway to bring anyone grapes.