The Lucy Ghosts

Ch. 51

Sorge had never been to Langley before. It was not something a Russian expected to do.

It was after nine a.m. when Nowak drove him through the gates, past the guards, and into the vast underground car park.

'Why Langley?' Sorge had asked him on the way out of Washington.

'They want to show you that they trust you.'

'I don't expect I'll see much.'

Nowak laughed. 'Damn right. We park in the underground car park, catch a special lift to the fifth floor and walk across the corridor into a special conference room.'

'That's trust?'

'That's trust.'

The Executive Director was already in the meeting room. 'Welcome to Langley'. He held his hand out in welcome.

When the introductions were complete, the Exec Director, the DDA, the DDI, Sorge and Nowak settled themselves round the small conference table.

'We have a new problem,' kicked off the Exec Director. 'The English operative who was guarding Trimmler has taken off. He's also taken an agent of ours with him. We believe as a possible hostage. A woman. We think they're still in New Orleans.'

'Why?' asked a concerned Sorge.

'I don't know yet. What about Goodenache?'

'He caught a flight to Frankfurt. Then he hired a car, but the car was found abandoned on the outskirts of Frankfurt. We are trying to find our missing scientist now.'

'Are the German authorities involved?'

'No. We have our own means.' Sorge saw the Exec Director look up, his eyebrows raised suddenly. 'We both have our methods. Even in an independent Germany. After all, it was the death of our people in these situations that has brought us together.'

The Exec Director shrugged. Bastard Russians still up to their old tricks. He ignored the pointed look the DDI was giving him. 'I thought it best if the Director of our operations in New Orleans gave you a run down of what has taken place up to now.'

He sat back and let the DDA give a full report, including the trip to the voodoo ceremony and all that followed. Sorge didn't stir, even when they mentioned the gruesome spectacle of Trimmler's arms folded in the sign of a swastika. 'We still aren't convinced that Trimmler's death has anything to do with the death of our agents. There's no definite link.'

'The situation might be clearer when I've finished.' Sorge looked round the table, saw their undisguised curiosity. 'In 1942, in Germany, we had a GRU network named the Rote Kapelle…'

'What's that?' asked the Exec Director.

'Red Orchestra. The Nazis called it that because we had radio operators we codenamed musicians. Their leader, the Chef, we called him, was Leopold Trepper. It was this group that radioed the warning of Operation Blue, the attack on Stalingrad.'

'Who was feeding you all this information in Germany?' asked the Exec Director.

'High ranking officials. Both in the military and in the government. They saw the damage Hitler was doing. They didn't disagree with his aims, only his methods. When they saw that the War could not be won, even as early as 1941, some of them opened up lines of communication with us and the British.'

'We didn't get that sort of stuff till late into 1944,' said the DDA.

'You weren't Europeans. We had centuries of contacts to fall back on. For all their bravery and resourcefulness, their information was often wasted, because Stalin didn't believe them. But then, he found it difficult to believe anyone. The Germans, with more sophisticated radio tracking equipment, started to track down the musicians. Even Trepper was captured and the Rote Kapelle was wound up at the end of 1942. Our information continued for a while, but it was of doubtful origin. Trepper was interrogated by the Gestapo and we believed he became a double agent, a lot of misinformation was received in Moscow.' Sorge leant across and finished his coffee before continuing. 'But we still needed information. The overall network with sources inside Germany was the Rote Drei.'

'The Red what?' said the Exec Director, pleased that he had deciphered the first word of the new codename.

'Three. The Red Three. Based in Switzerland and named after the three transmitters that they used. The most important source of information, from agents inside Germany, was from a group under Rudolf Roessler. His codename was Lucy and his network the Lucy ring. Roessler, or Lucy, was a Swiss intelligence officer of German extraction. He had many contacts in Germany. Lucy's four main contacts were Major General Oster who was the head of the Abwehr, Admiral Canaris who was later hanged for his part in the 1944 bomb plot, Carl Goehdeler who was leader of the official opposition to Hitler and Colonel Boetzel, the commanding officer of intelligence evaluation. There were others, but Lucy never disclosed any of them to us.'

'Even after the War?' asked the DDI.

'The Lucy ring was disbanded in 1943, after being responsible for some invaluable work. I won't go through all their successes, but it was substantial. The British were involved with them through us and it was their advanced work on breaking cyphers that enabled the ring to establish such a great record. But, the ring disbanded, once more because of Stalin's penchant for secrecy, after Moscow tried to bypass Roessler and go direct to his number two.'

'So where's the link?' interrupted the DDA, impatient as ever.

'It's important you understand the background,' said Sorge, not allowing the American to get under his skin. 'Nothing further came from the ring until the last few weeks of the War. With the Allies advancing on the eastern and western fronts, many high-ranking Germans were out to save their own necks. The Lucy ring was reactivated, this time without the knowledge of the British.'

'Or the Americans,' commented the Exec Director.

'I suggest you take that up with Comrade Stalin,' replied Sorge drily. 'It was an impressive list. They didn't just have knowledge. They also had wealth. In all forms. Art, cash, in every form possible. They used the ring because of their line into Switzerland. They wanted the security of the Swiss banks and the Russian Bear. One was dependent on the other.'

'So they bought immunity. While our boys were still getting killed,' snapped the DDI.

'As were ours,' snapped back Sorge. 'But your hands weren't that clean. You were bringing scientists and others into America just as we were. Scientists with Nazi records, scientists with a history of brutality, war criminals.'

'Gentleman, please,' said Nowak, ever the diplomat. 'Can we just stick to what we're here to discuss. Go on, Dimitri.'

Sorge was annoyed with himself, irritated that he had allowed the intelligence man to get under his skin. 'Of course,' he smiled back. 'We used the Lucy ring to carry out the deed. Many Germans, with their prizes, crossed safely into Switzerland. They came in cars, army lorries, even an aeroplane. Their riches were stored in the banks under private accounts and then they were brought through Czechoslovakia and East Germany into the Soviet Union.'

'All of them?' asked the DDA.

'Those who broke their word were hunted down.'

'And disposed of?'

'Some needed reminding that we expected them to honour their word.' It was a cold reminder of their world, of the business they traded in daily. 'We had a large colony of Nazis living in the Soviet Union. They weren't all scientists, in fact we had little use for most of them. They had their own estates and farms to the west of Moscow. They kept their secret identities and paid for it through their Swiss bank accounts. But they remained Germans, always dreaming of going back to the Fatherland one day.

'How many Nazis did you take to Russia after the War?'

'The Narodnyi Kommissariat Vnutrennikh Del, our People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs, was responsible for…'

'I never heard of them,' the DDA stopped him.

'NKVD,' explained the DDI patronisingly. 'Wiped out twenty million Russians for Stalin. That right?' he challenged Sorge.

'More. Thirty million. According to official sources,' Sorge riposted. 'A most efficient organisation.' That should shut them up. He felt the look of disbelief pass between the Exec Director and the DDA. The other just watched him, the mocking smile still on his lips. He would be the one Rostov had warned him to be wary of. He decided to wipe the smile off his face. 'Thirty thousand. That's how many East Germans we deported into the Soviet Union after the War.'

The DDI's smile disappeared. 'Thirty thousand Nazis? Jesus.'

'Yes. And we kept another hundred and twenty thousand between 1945 and 1954 in Hitler's old concentration camps. Many were Nazis, but businessmen and professionals were also our targets. A third of those died. The others were eventually released and absorbed into the Democratic Republic.'

'Including Nazi sympathisers?'

'Of course.'

'Doesn't that concern you?'

Sorge shrugged. 'Not really. I was eight years old at the time.' It wasn't the answer that the DDI expected and Sorge regretted his words. He wasn't here to make jokes. 'The thirty thousand in the Soviet Union, as I said, became a community in their own right. Without our knowledge, over the years, with the use of their money and supportive people in the Swiss banks, they forged contacts with those left behind in East Germany. They all had one dream. To regain what they had lost. They had a codename amongst themselves. Something that linked them, was a reminder of how they had got there. It had to be a safe name, innocuous, nothing that would draw attention to the past. They remembered the Lucy network, their gateway out of Germany. They called themselves Die Lucie Geists.'

'The Lucy Ghosts.'

'Yes.'

'Did the organisation extend to America?' The Exec Director was alarmed.

'Goodenache. I guess he was one of them?' asked the DDI.

'We weren't sure, but in view of his sudden departure, I would say yes.'

'Which ties Trimmler in. And God knows who else. The name Grob Mitzer mean anything?'

'He was one of their leaders. It was the Lucy Ghosts who supplied him with the cash that helped him build his empire.'

'Why didn't you stop it? Dammit, you knew about it for long enough,' snapped the Exec Director.

'We didn't realise how important it was. We thought they were like any other war time group, nothing more than reminiscences and marching songs. Old men remembering their youth. The importance of it didn't surface until Germany was reunified. And it was only the Englishman overhearing the conversation between Goodenache and Trimmler that finally bridged the gap.'

'So why should the English guy take off with the girl?' The DDI changed the subject.

'He's not one of us. I suggest you ask your allies about that. Maybe he's just an adventurer. No more. You must have cleared him.'

'Of course.' The Exec Director didn't want his dirty washing wrung out in front of this Russian. 'Was there anything else?'

'Only that the GDR, East Germany, as it was, is different to the West. There are still many there who haven't forgotten the War. Their attitude is different to us. Some are still waiting for the War to end. They're a traditional people. Many ex-Nazis, even Gestapo, working and living normal every day lives.'

'Working for the Stasi.' The DDI reminded them all of the secret police who had run East Germany with an iron fist.

'Some, yes. Others returned to the jobs they had before the War. Within the new Germany, many of them have become frightened. Their secrets are no longer safe. Most of all they fear the Israelis.'

'Is Frick one of these guys?' asked the DDA, remembering the name had been picked up by Adam in New Orleans.

'No,' lied Sorge. His orders were quite specific. Don't ratify any names. They didn't want the Yanks stumbling in and screwing up in an attempt to force the issue.

'So what's all this got to do with the deaths of our agents?' continued the DDA.

'We're not sure. Except that a lot of the information we have both lost was about the Lucy Ghosts. Link that with Trimmler's death, Goodenache's sudden departure for Germany, and the mention of the Lucy Ghosts during their conversation, and I think you will agree that is the strongest lead we have to follow.'

Nobody spoke for a while, then the Exec Director re-opened the discussion: 'Has Moscow any suggestions as to how we should proceed?'

'No,' replied Sorge. Which was what he'd been told to say. 'We hoped you would come up with something.'

'I'm sure we will.'

'Can you tell us the names of some of these Lucy Ghosts?' cut in the DDI. 'The ones in Russia. How high up the ladder did they go?'

Sorge enjoyed his reply. 'In time, yes. But I can tell you you're wasting your efforts looking for Martin Bormann in South America. He died twenty years ago.'

He watched their stunned faces across the room. Well and truly shafted.

They said little after that and Sorge was soon being escorted, with Nowak, down to the underground garage. Five minutes later they were on their way back to Washington.

'Bormann. Fucking Bormann. They had him all the time,' said an astonished DDI. 'Would'ya believe it? They probably got Hitler stashed away too.'

'Well, it's been a real eye opener,' said the Exec Director. 'But let's not forget we've still got a crisis on. Find the Englishman. Find him and see what the son of a bitch is up to.'

Ch. 52

The son of a bitch was relaxed as he hurtled across the land that is America.

The train had pulled out of Atlanta Station at seven thirty nine p.m., four minutes behind schedule.

They had slept well, eaten well, slept again and eventually got bored with the passing countryside. Adam had insisted they stay in the room and she hadn't found a good enough reason to change his mind.

He was thumbing through USA TODAY for the umpteenth time, looking for something he might have missed, when he heard her giggling. She was in the swivel chair, reflected in the window with the dark night as a backdrop, her head angled towards him.

'What's so funny?' he asked pleasantly, putting the paper down.

'You sure know how to give a girl a good time.'

'Don't I?' he grinned back.

'According to all the books, a secret agent's life's meant to be glamorous. We've spent twenty four hours together and in that time I've been bitten by bugs in a hooker's bed, tied up a guy with no legs and stolen his wheelchair, stayed cooped up in a train for twelve hours with an attractive man and behaved like a virgin. Don't take that the wrong way. But James Bond would've handled it differently.'

'He was Scottish. I'm English. They’re the ram 'em and bang' em type. We're more sophisticated.'

'What happens next?'

'In which department?'

'In the where're we going department.'

'To Nordhausen. That's where Trimmler said he would meet Goodenache.'

'Trimmler's dead.'

'And Goodenache's running from the Russians. He can't go back there. From what I heard, Germany was still their home. And Nordhausen was where they shared something special. They wanted to go there. If Goodenache's frightened, and he wants to hide, that's as good a place as any.'

'Nordhausen. Where is that?'

'Central Germany. South of Berlin, near what was the old east-west border. It was where the Nazis built most of their rockets, the V1's and V2's, during the Second World War. From what I remember, they moved most of the rocket manufacture down there so that our bombers couldn't get to them. Built the factory right in the heart of the mountains. Used slave labour. I think a lot of people died in the making of those weapons, even before they got launched and blew up half of London.'

'Why go back there?'

‘That’s what we hope to find out.'

‘He won’t go there. Not when he finds out that Mitzer and Trimmler are dead.'

‘Maybe other people are also going there. Maybe he’ll go there because it’s where he feels safe.'

'Maybe. Now that he’ll know he’s a fugitive.'

She shrugged and looked thoughtful.

'Penny for them,' he said after a while.

'I was thinking of Peter.'

'Ah! The venerable ex.'

'I know. Here's us, heading for trouble and God knows what else, and in the middle of you talking about Nordhausen, I start wondering what Peter’s up to.'

'Stop knocking yourself.'

'Makes a change. I usually leave that to you.

He burst out laughing.

'Okay tough guy. What's got you so tickled?'

'Here we are, crammed in a small compartment in a train, hurtling across America being chased by the CIA, the FBI and god knows who else, and you're worried about your ex husband's sex life. Christ, he must've been good.'

'He was a shit.'

'So why…?' Adam stopped and shook his head.

'Because some of us like shits. Don't ask me why.' She laughed with him. 'He's cheap, too. He once bought me a Louis Vuitton handbag. Your travel case reminded me of it when we left the hotel. It was for our second anniversary. I broke the lock and took it back to the shop in La Jolla. They told me it was a fake. A fucking Hong Kong fake. Can you believe that?'

'What did he say?'

'That he'd bought it in New York when he was there on a visit. And if he could remember where the shop was, he'd go back and sue the bastards. That's Peter for you. A cheapskate liar and womaniser. And I can't let him go. That's really pathetic, isn’t it?'

'No. Just human.'

'Very understanding. What would you know?'

'Maybe not women, but…my parents. And my twin brother.'

'You're a twin?'

'Was. They all died when I was nine.'

'Was he an identical twin?'

'Yes.'

'That means you came from the same egg. That right?'

'Something like that.' He didn't add that he had studiously learnt everything about twins and their relationships.

'My first boyfriend at High School, he was a twin and his brother played on the football team. If he got hurt, my guy used to suffer, too. We used to watch the game together and I'd suddenly see him wince in pain. Just like that. And I'd look on the field and it was his brother who'd been tackled.'

'Yes. Something like that.' He laughed. 'I remember once getting a tap round the head from my dad. I'd done something wrong. I remember him saying it was a shame that he had to punish us both when only one of us was being naughty. That tap sorted us both out.'

'Do you still feel he's with you?'

'He is.'

'Then you're lucky. You're not alone. Is that so bad?'

'I don't know why I'm alive and he's dead.'

'What's his name?'

'Marcus.'

'Nice name. It’s good you've got someone. It's important.

Ch. 53

They came out into the corridor together, Rostov holding back as he allowed the older and more senior man to go before him.

'Your head's on the block,' said the Director as Rostov caught him up. 'You know that, don't you?'

The younger man shrugged. It came with the stripes he wore on his shoulder.

They walked along, slowly, at the old man's pace. This was not the place to talk, here in the corridors of power where every wall had ears.

'Not a job I would want,' said the Director, 'being President at this time. With all the problems. But then, there are always problems. It is not a job I would ever want.'

They had spent half an hour with the President, the Director sitting back and letting Rostov take him through all the details of the last few weeks.

'A confused sequence of events,' the President had said when Rostov finished. 'No doubt there is a logic to it. There always is. My main concern, after the safety of our people, is to ensure that the Americans and ourselves keep the faith. It's always difficult to trust old enemies. When I meet with the American President in Berlin, I want him to believe he can trust me.'

He said little more, only asked to be kept informed. He respected the American President. He didn't want this to come between them.

'He doesn't totally trust them either,' the Director said to Rostov as they came out into the open. It was a bright day and the official Zil lurched forward toward them. The Director waved the driver to stop where he was. There were still things to be said out of earshot. 'But he has to try. Just like we do. And, I suppose, the Americans. It was easier in the old days. We knew where we were. Now, in this time of peace, it's a fragile trust. I hope it went well for Dimitri Dimitrovitch.'

'His report should be ready when I get back.'

'Was it wise to tell them about Bormann?'

'It was only a titbit. To excite them.'

'I suppose they'll think we have Hitler as well.'

'Our sources always reported that they believed Bormann had come here. He was seen by that General's daughter.'

'He was seen everywhere. Excellent misinformation. Now that they know about the money, there is always a possibility that they'll tell the Germans. They could ask for its return.'

'That's between them and the Swiss Banks. What's left of it.'

The Director laughed. 'Not much. It all helped fund Stalin's five year plan.' He paused, then turned to the younger man. 'The Lucy Ghosts. It's important they don't leave Russia. Not until this matter is settled.'

'We deported over thirty thousand Germans after the War. It's not going to be easy. Not in this time of perestroika.'

'I know. I know. But Germany has been peaceful because the East Prussians were under our control. You know…as I do…that the Prussians have always been the warmongers. We cannot allow them…the neo Nazis…to stir up trouble. Not at a time when the rest of Germany is in turmoil, when the economy is struggling.'

'Fascist extremism…it's in the Prussian's nature. That won't change, however rich they become.'

'Are you sure you are taking the right course of action?' The Director couldn't ask what it was, not without implicating himself if it went wrong.

'Yes.'

'And if it fails?'

'That will be my mistake.'

'It's a sad moment when a man realises he is expendable.'

'I won't be the first.'

'No. We've all been through it. When you have to stand by your own actions. You appreciate why, don't you?'

'Yes. Nothing must damage the relationship between us and the West.'

'If it works, nothing will ever be known. If it doesn't, then…' he shrugged. They both knew that was the end for Rostov. The Director waved his car over.' Are you coming back with me?'

'No, sir. I want to walk. It's a nice day.'

'To church?'

'To church.'

'Well, I hope He can help where the rest of the KGB can't.'

Rostov walked out of the Kremlin, past the KGB guards with their blue-ribboned caps, and along the river. He mixed with the tourists and other passers-by, enjoyed being nobody in a bustling city.

He thought of the action he had instigated. He knew it was dangerous, knew that his only hope was to flush them out.

All they could do was watch and wait, trigger off several fuses and watch them burn until one of them, hopefully, ran its full course. His instinct told him the Englishman's disappearance was their best chance. He wasn't in hiding. He wasn't the type. He was after something. He could be their salvation.

He would pray for the Englishman's safety.

He needed all the help he could get.

Ch. 54

The AmTrak Crescent was stopping at Culpeper, Virginia, when Peter Frick called the Council meeting to order.

The twelve were there, in the big room that had once served as a dining room in this grand old house. Frick sat at the head of the long table, in his rightful place as their leader. Helmut Kragan sat on his right, his seat away from the table, as befitted the recorder of minutes who wasn't a council member.

'We are…' Frick said, after a long pause, well over half a minute, until he was certain he had everyone's fullest attention. '…at the beginning of history. All we have waited for is now possible. Germany is divided. Reunification has resurrected the class structure, not based on background, but on wealth. The haves and have-nots. That is the clay we work with. It is our duty, as National Socialists, to unite Germany. To give those who have, the security to keep what they have earned. And to give those less fortunate, the ability to lift themselves into the prosperity that is the right of all Germans.'

He looked round the room slowly at the other eleven council members. Karl Schiller sat on his immediate left. He was the newest member of the Council, hurriedly elected to replace Mitzer in a series of anxious and hushed telephone calls. He was an investment banker and financier, in his early fifties, with contacts and influence into all reaches of industry and government. A new German, with a formidable international reputation in the United States and Japan, having developed, through his investments, a wide array of associates in the upper echelons of those countries.

Frick knew that Schiller was also greedy. His family had owned considerable estates in the east, lost after the First World War when raging inflation destroyed his grandfather's estate. Lost to a rich Jewish family who were eventually to die in the concentration camps after Hitler had promised to return the estate to his father for duties performed. But the end of World War Two and the separation of Germany brought that agreement to an abrupt end. As soon as reunification came about, Schiller applied for the return of his family's estates. He was horrified to find that a British grocery family, close relatives of the Jews who had taken over his lands, had title to the property. The will that gave them title had been written on a torn out page of a 1938 diary, the only paper available when the family learnt of their imminent fate in the gas chamber. The estate had been willed to another prisoner, a distant cousin, on the clear understanding that should it ever be returned to Jewish hands, the monies and profits taken from it would be devoted to the creation of a Zionist state. The estate itself was to be used for the well being of those Jews who had also suffered at the hands of the Nazis and other oppressors of the faith.

Schiller now found himself fighting those who his father had always taught him were responsible for the break up of Germany and all she had stood for. They were thieves, and once again they would be stealing the land that was not theirs, the land and estates that were Karl Schiller's by right of inheritance.

He had been a keen and willing convert to the cause, his hatred fuelled by Grob Mitzer whom he knew and trusted as a friend and corporate colleague. Mitzer's death had stunned him, but not for too long. Within half an hour he had contacted those on the Council he trusted and given a good account as to why he should fill the vacant seat. His last call had been to Frick, the man he knew he must convince.

'I hadn't considered you ready for the council yet,' said Frick, when Schiller had finished. He lied, for the financier was the obvious choice. He knew Schiller's history, knew his greed for what he felt was rightfully his, knew of his birthright hatred of the Jews. They had known each other for some considerable time and Frick trusted Schiller as much as he could trust any man.

Schiller had pleaded, once again going through the many reasons why it was right for him to gain a seat on the Council. Then he pledged loyalty to Frick and to his leadership. When he had begged enough, when there was nothing else to repeat, Frick had agreed to surrender to Schiller's inheritance request.

'When we come to power, my dear Schiller,' Frick had concluded, 'we shall return what is rightfully theirs to those who have supported us. That is the least we can do.'

From that moment on Schiller was his man.

'But,' Frick went on, 'if we are to take our rightful place in history, then it's time we came out of the woodwork.' He paused, sensed their uneasiness. They were used to working in the dark; they had become a secret society. They had sat with their friends and heard the vilification of Hitler and the Third Reich at dinner parties, in the cinemas, on television and in books and newspapers. Nazi hating had become big business. And they had kept their counsel, never spoken out about their own beliefs.

And now they were being asked to come out in the open.

He felt them shudder; they were in the tunnel and the thunder of the oncoming express train was rattling the rails.

'We have nothing to be ashamed of,' he stated clearly. 'We can't always apologise for the past.'

He stood up, aware of them all watching him. They were frightened men, even Schiller was ram rod straight in his seat. What the hell had they expected, after all these years?

'It's easy to be frightened,' Frick said as he walked round the table, behind them, their eyes following him. 'I, also, am frightened. But we mustn't let our fear overcome our purpose, our duty. There have been far greater forces of darkness in our land than the Third Reich. The Americans, the British, the French. Even the poodle French. They told us how to live our lives, occupied us until we lived our life their way. Whatever nice things they said to our face, they always had their troops in the background, on our soil, waiting to beat us if we suddenly changed our minds. And we had the Russians. They hid their dark deeds behind the Wall. But they still raped our country, disgraced us, pissed all over us for the crimes of fifty years ago. And however bad their crimes against us were, they always justified them by saying ours were worse. We became two countries. Two countries, until the will of the people decided we'd had enough and they went out in their hundred of thousands and pulled the wall down. With their hands. Like I did. On that great night, I stood with them and chipped away with my bare hands, until my fingers were bleeding, to bring down that iniquitous wall. But, like Nietsche said, no herdsman and one herd. They have earned their freedom and don't know what to do next. Our people need direction. And while they're looking for that direction, they are vulnerable. Vulnerable to the rabble-rousers, to the communists, to the fascists, even to the Zionists. You've seen the riots in Berlin, the destruction of the synagogues, even the bomb that killed Grob Mitzer. Surely his death must show you that we can't stay hidden any longer. That it is time for us to take our rightful place. Time for us to be the herdsman. We have the means. We even have our own secret police. The Stasi, Hoenicker's secret police, have been good Stermabeitalung for us. An army of men with nowhere to go.'

As he looked round, he saw that his words were starting to have some effect. One or two of the older members were nodding in agreement. They had waited for so long that some of them had forgotten what they were waiting for.

'Do you know how many Stasi members there were?' he asked suddenly. 'Do you?'

'More than twenty thousand, mein Fuhrer,' said Buhle, the newspaper proprietor.

'More than that, my dear Klaus. That's how many full time staff there were. There were another ninety thousand part timers. Members of the reserves, the army, informers and part time officials. Imagine. We have an army of more than one hundred thousand trained soldiers to choose from. That is bigger than the whole British Army. Not all will come with us. But even if only one in four follows us, we will have nearly thirty thousand people under our command.'

'A unique position,' commented Buhle.

'Unique indeed. To have that and also face a Germany which is being torn apart. It must have been the same in the early days of the Reich.' He appealed to their greed for power. 'Imagine. The day he came to power.' They all knew who 'he' was. 'Imagine. After all the turmoil, after the years of shame, to be in a position where power is absolute, where the future of Germany is in your hands. Can't you see him? Standing there, in Berlin, being sworn in as Chancellor in 1933. What a momentous time, what a magnificent occasion. Surrounded by his lieutenants, his architects of government. Believe, and it can happen again.' He urged them into his vision. 'Believe. Believe. All this can be ours. But it won't jump into our laps. It's a prize we have to take. And to take it, we have to show ourselves. Otherwise, all we've believed in, all that we and those before us have suffered for, will be wasted. Our time will not come again.'

He went back to his seat at the head of the table.

'Reunification…cannot be wasted.' It was the newest member of the Council, Schiller, who spoke. The others looked up in surprise. They had not expected the newcomer to speak so soon. 'Grob Mitzer, our friend, my closest friend, gave his life for this chance. So have countless others, thousands upon thousands who have waited, and many have died, in South America and Africa and other hideous, secret parts of the world. They have, throughout their exiles, sent us money and resources to help us fuel our movement. Our Fuhrer is right. Delay means termination. I, like many of you, have so much to lose if this goes wrong. I don't want them to brand me a bully-boy because I'm a National Socialist, to discredit me through their media. But the prize is worth the risk.'

'Well spoken,' applauded Frick. 'Bravo. Well spoken. We are all respected. We all have positions of influence. But as anarchy increases, so we will be expected to use that influence. Klaus Buhle, through his papers and television interests, can sow the seed for us. He can defend us, can separate us from the past, from the concentration camps and lost wars. He can compare Germany with what it was in the 30's. The National Socialists led us out of depression then, and the National Socialists can do it again. We're not warmongers, but liberationists. Fighting for the values of our heritage. The media will make us respectable.' He already knew that Mitzer's record was under scrutiny, but that could wait. Buhle was bringing that situation under control. 'Against the anarchists, and the communists, that is the only way they can portray us. And with your names leading the party, how can we be taken as warmongers and murderers?'

'That's if the riots and bombings continue,' said Swingler, one of the old crowd. 'The police say they have everything under control.'

'They always say that,' replied Frick. 'They have no idea what's going on.' He didn't add that he was responsible for much of the terrorist acts, and that he would ensure they continued. 'These things always run on longer than people imagine.'

'Even so,' Swingler persisted, 'it's the Lucy Ghosts who'll haunt us. It's their money that made this possible. When they return, their records will brand them as war criminals. Associate with them and we'll be attacked as Nazis.'

'We leave them where they are. Until we're in power.'

'But they want to come back now.'

'They must wait their turn.'

'They've waited a long time. In their swamps and forests, hidden from the world.'

'Then they'll have to wait longer.'

'But we spent millions on destroying their records. We…'

'Willi Kushmann spent millions. Wasted money. I had the highest regard for him, but he was a dreamer. Now's the time to be practical. Realists. The only way to bring back the Lucy Ghosts is to prepare a Germany that wants them back. Help win this fight and we'll have them back sooner than you expect.'

Ch. 55

They never completed the train journey to Penn Station.

Adam insisted they leave the AmTrak Crescent at its penultimate stop in New Jersey. They ate an early lunch, packed their bags and stepped off the train at 1.19 p.m. Adam was impressed; the train, after nearly thirty hours and one thousand miles, was only two minutes late.

They heard the final 'All aboard' as they left the station and took a cab to Teterborough Airport. It was some distance and they refrained from talking throughout the one hour trip.

Teterborough serves private aircraft with the same intensity that Le Guardia and Kennedy serve the commercial routes in and out of New York. As executive jets and smaller piston engined aircraft fly the final approach to Teterborough's runways, the twin towers of the World Trade Center in Manhattan are only five miles away.

'Almost touch them with my hand,' thought Jenny Dale as she looked out on the skyscrapers, then turned her attention to flying the small, six seater, twin engined Piper Seneca onto the final approach. She had maintained two thousand feet for the last five miles.

'Cleared to land,' crackled the tower operator over her headset.

'Roger.' She eased back on the twin power throttles and pushed the mixture and prop levers fully forward.

She looked to her right once again, savoured Manhattan outlined against the afternoon sky. She pushed the yoke forward and the plane's nose dipped as it started downward towards the runway.

Jenny Dale, dark haired, tall with a buxom figure, and twenty-nine years old, was a ferry pilot from Dagenham in Essex. She had been flying for twelve years, had studied with her father who flew Concorde as a senior British Airways captain, and soloed on her seventeenth birthday. Flying was in her blood; she was the son her parents never had. After she gained her private pilot's licence, she was an instructor at a flying school at Biggin Hill before sitting for her commercial ticket at the age of twenty-one. By then she had accumulated over two thousand hours.

But commercial flying in bloody great buses in the sky never appealed to her. She was an adventuress and she soon turned to ferrying. The easiest way to deliver a plane someone has purchased is to fly it there. As most light aircraft are either made in the United States, or sold on the second hand market there, she learnt to fly the Atlantic in small planes. The northern route from Canada to Europe often included landing in Greenland and Iceland. It was a difficult journey, especially in the winter months when the vagaries of intemperate and often violent weather meant that remote airports could be closed down within minutes.

It was an exciting, yet dangerous life, but one that suited her nature.

She greased the Seneca onto the runway and cleared left, towards the small, but busy terminal and the parking ramps in front of it.

'To the top,' she told the refueller, 'and that includes the ferry tanks inside.' She opened the double rear doors and pointed out the two 45 gallon tanks which were her emergency supply if an airport closed down on her. They were lashed together, upright and side by side, between the rear four seats. A series of switches and fuel locks allowed the pilot to change tanks in mid flight.

She left the refueller and walked into the terminal.

'Hello,' said the Englishman as she helped herself to a mug of courtesy coffee at the desk.

'Hi,' she smiled back.

'You going across the pond?' he asked.

'Yes.'

'Where?'

'Manchester.'

'Could do with a lift.'

'Not insured for it.'

'Worth a thousand pounds to you.'

'Why?'

'Just fancy it. Never done it before and we fancy the trip.'

'We?'

'My friend,' he pointed to where the woman sat, 'and me.'

'People try and get drugs through this way. We're told not to do it.'

'I'm a soldier.' He showed her his passport and warrant card. 'Not a drug dealer.'

'Can't you manage more than a grand? I'm just a simple working girl, you know.'

'Fifteen hundred?'

She nodded. 'Okay. Be ready to go in half an hour. She'll have to sit in the back. Bit cramped, but I need the heavier weight up front. Weight and balance of the plane.'

Adam knew she was lying. She just wanted male company to talk to.

'No problem,' he said and went back to Billie. 'We've got a lift.'

'Why this way?' she asked.

'Because your customs and immigration never check on people leaving the country. Only on those coming in. This way we won't be on any ticket manifesto, not until we get across to Europe.'

'Smart.'

He introduced Billie to Jenny and saw her disappointment when the pilot explained she'd have to sit in the back with the ferry tanks. She would be even more disillusioned when she saw how limited the space actually was.

Forty minutes later the small plane, now over its weight limit, clawed its way into the sky, its two turbocharged 220 horsepower engines screaming at full power, and headed northwards at eleven thousand feet towards Canada and its overnight destination of Goose Bay, Labrador.

It was an eight hundred mile trip, flown in murky conditions with moderate turbulence. They rarely saw the ground, only snatches of lakes or wooded countryside appearing through the rare break in the stratus cloud.

The twenty knot tailwind helped, and their airspeed of two hundred knots reduced the journey to just over four hours.

That was four hours too long for Billie wedged in behind the ferry tanks. The bumpiness had churned her stomach and given her a headache, but she kept her complaints to herself. She started to regret her impulsiveness in joining a wild goose obstacle chase.

Up front, Adam watched the girl handle the plane with an ease that comes only with experience. She had left the plane on auto pilot as they flew north over Massachusetts, Maine and crossed the border into Canada at Presque Isle.

They came in to land in a snowscape, the lights along the thin ribbon of recently cleared runway coming into view and stretching out in front of them as the Seneca descended on its final approach to Runway 27 at Goose Bay.

She then took control and taxied off the runway as three Canadian Air Force F11's blasted into the sky on a training mission farther to the north. As she taxied in to the small civilian terminal, Adam watched the three fighter planes ease their pointed noses skyward and climb at over thirty thousand feet a minute. Now that was power. His F40 was a Dinky toy compared to them.

Billie couldn't believe the cold and she rushed towards the warmth of the terminal. Adam and Jenny followed after, carrying the bags.

'Are you crew?' asked the customs man.

'Yes.' Adam indicated Billie who was now stretching her legs in the terminal. 'She's my girl. She's along for the ride.'

'We're off at the crack of dawn,' added Jenny.

Customs nodded. He was doubling for Immigration who had gone home to babysit while his wife went to the movies with her sister. He waved them through. No record of any passengers was made of their arrival. But then ferry flights were the order of the day at Goose.

Both the Aurora Hotel and Labrador Inn were fully booked and the cab driver finally deposited them at the Royal Inn. They were lucky, there were two rooms and the women decided to share.

Adam was in Room 17, little knowing that this was where the Russian agent Hans Putiloff had been killed in the early days of this affair. He locked the door, showered and freshened up for supper. When he left his room, he knocked on the women's door; he would wait for them in the small restaurant at the front of the hotel.

They joined him ten minutes later. He was at the bar, audaciously flirting with the shapeless young waitress in the even more shapeless sweater. She was enjoying every minute of it; men of this calibre were not something you came across every day, especially in Happy Valley, Goose Bay.

'I'm having mooseburger,' he said, directing them to the table by the window. 'Mooseburger! What about that?'

The waitress took their orders. Her dream of an exciting evening had abruptly disappeared.

The discussion was general; Jenny talked about her flying experiences whilst Billie reminisced about the warmth of her native Southern California. It was easy to do, as she shivered and looked out of the window at the thick snow that reflected the street lights upwards. She had come totally unprepared for the northern climes and at Adam's insistence had bought some clothes in Newark on their way to Teterborough Airport. Her new coat was now firmly wrapped round her as she waited for her meal.

'You two spend time together?' she heard Jenny say as they sipped their coffees.

'No. We're good friends,' replied Adam, knowing what she meant.

'That's wrong,' interjected Billie. 'It's, we're just good friends.'

'What are you doing travelling together?' Jenny pressed them.

'Seeing the world.'

'There's got to be easier ways than this.'

'A sense of adventure!' exclaimed Adam.

'Rubbish.' Jenny turned to Billie. 'This is the last place you want to be. You don't like the cold. You hate it. All you have to do is hire a plane out of here and go back south. You could have both gone direct to England from New York. But you wanted to come up this way. If you think this is cold, you wait till we hit Greenland. With the chill factor it's nearly minus forty. It's only minus ten here. Are you two on the run or something?'

Later, when the women let themselves into their own room, Billie sensed she was being watched.

'Something the matter?' she asked Jenny.

'You sure there's nothing between the two of you?'

'I'm sure.'

'Then why're you along with him? He's the sort who travels alone.'

'How do you know?'

'You recognise your own.'

'I just wanted to. It seemed a good idea at the time.'

'Doesn't seem enough reason. Why don't you go next door?'

Billie was taken aback by the girl's directness. 'I'm not here for that.' She hated her own prim words. Shit, she was too old for this.

'Of course I'm sure.'

'Then do you mind if I go?'

The directness shocked her. The girl was doing what she wanted to do. If it hadn't been so fucking cold 'No,' she heard herself reply. Yes. Yes. I do mind.

'Okay. I'll see you later,' said Jenny. 'Mind you, he could toss me out. You never know with some people.'

Billie heard Jenny knock on Adam's door, heard it open and close again. She waited for a while, then she undressed and climbed into bed, the coat thrown over the top to add extra warmth. Her head lay next to the wall, next to the thin wall that separated her from the two of them.

She didn't want to hear, but she held her breath and listened for any sound.

The bed creaked, and she lay even stiller, listening intently, conjuring up the pictures the sounds made in her own mind.

'Don't do anything. I'm in charge,' she heard Jenny say. It was all so terribly clear. She hated it and listened harder.

He laughed. The bastard laughed. He was enjoying it. You stupid dame, what did you expect?

'You always like being in charge?' she heard him ask.

'Always. You bastards don't have the automatic right to do it your way. Keep still,' warned Jenny. 'Don't fucking move, you bastard.'

The sounds built, the creaks got louder, her mind was absorbed with the two of them together. She turned on her back and slipped her fingers between her legs. She felt the wetness spread, down over her fingers and her thighs. She was drowning in her own juices as they soaked the sheet. The sound from next door had risen to a mechanical drumbeat, like a pneumatic drill hammering away, it was him, banging and banging away at Jenny, she could almost hear the girl's screams. Shit, shit, shit. Why did she always have to fuck herself… Why?

'You all right?' said Jenny, shaking her.

'What?' Billie came awake, wondered where she was, saw the girl looking at her with concern. She quickly sat up in the bed, the blanket wrapped round her.

'Are you all right?' repeated Jenny.

Billie nodded. Maybe she’d been dreaming. But the wetness was still there, all over her.

'You're too hot,' continued Jenny, lifting the coat Billie had placed for extra warmth on her bed. 'You don't need this. It may be cold outside, but these people know how to keep warm inside.'

'What's the time?' Billie was fanning herself with the blanket to cool the sweat that was running down her body. She'd damn well been dreaming.

'Just gone eleven.'

'You're back soon.'

Jenny laughed. 'He wanted to talk about flying. I offered him my body and he just wanted to talk about flying. Funny bloke. Nice, but weird. You all right now?'

Billie smiled. 'I'm fine.’ She wondered again if it had been a dream or if they had fucked each other. ‘Come on, you'd better get to bed if you're going to take us to England tomorrow. You need your beauty sleep.'

'What for? It's bloody wasted here, isn't it?'

Ch. 56

The riot had started from nothing; nobody had expected any trouble.

It had been a march for the jobless, organised by the socialist opposition parties. The police, notified about the demonstration, sent fifteen uniformed men and two vans to marshal the crowd. It was to be a small rally, starting at the Olympic Stadium and ending outside the rebuilt Reichstag building at the Platz de Republik in the Tiergarten. There was to be an estimated crowd of one thousand.

The organisers, loudhailers in hand, were corralling the crowd into marching formation when the first crowd of skinheads appeared. There were some forty of them, moving in from all directions, in groups of no more than three or four.

The police, still clustered by their vans, weren't watching out for trouble. Some of them sat on the grass, smoked cigarettes and watched the organisers' bumbling attempts to set the rally in progress. The buses and coaches which had brought the marchers were parked opposite the entrance in a long line down the road. Behind the police stood the vast, ninety thousand seater, Olympic Stadium. Built in 1934 for the infamous 1936 Hitler Olympics, when the black hero of America, Jesse Owens, smashed the formidable sprint opposition of Germany, the Stadium had withstood the Allied bombings during the War and became a symbol of a new Germany when Berlin was split in half by the Wall.

The skinheads and punk rockers, sensing easy meat, mixed with the crowd, their red communist-starred sweatshirts hidden under their coats. There were five pack leaders, whose responsibility was to incite violence from those who were always prepared to join in. The others, the storm troopers or Stermabeitalung, would spread through the crowds, wielding clubs, baseball bats and sometimes knives. It was to be an ugly demonstration; damage limitation was not on the agenda. Do what you want, boys, but make sure the television cameras get great pictures.

When the leader, a young man in his early twenties, saw that his Stermabeitalung were in place, he walked towards the steps that lead up to the grand entrance. He stood there, red shirted, on the steps, his coat wrapped around his waist. He would need it when he made his escape.

'Workers unite,' he shouted through the loudhailer he had hidden under his coat. 'Communists, friends of the people, unite with us to drive out those who are profiting from your hard toil, those who steal the food from your tables and live off the sweat of ordinary people. Workers unite. Don't let these people, these pawns of the capitalists…'

As he shrieked through his loudspeaker, the Stermabeitalung started to stream through the crowd, their red shirts now on view, hitting out at all who stood before them.

The police were slow to realise that there was trouble, but now they moved into the crowd, attempting to find the troublemakers. But the crush of those fleeing was too much and the officers were swamped.

On the steps of the Stadium someone had erected a red hammer and sickle flag and was waving it towards the crowd and the few media people present.

A woman with a child fell and the child was trampled in the rush and killed. A few feet away, a baseball bat crushed a school-teacher's head, smashed his skull into a pulpy mess. It was carnage.

Two policemen, near the coach line, saw the waving flag and decided to try to arrest the two men on the steps. But as they approached, the men broke and ran into the stadium, vaulting the entrance turnstiles as they did.

A pack leader saw the police in hot pursuit, he called six Stermabeitalung to him and led them into the stadium. The two policemen hadn't expected to be followed; they were concentrating on their efforts to find the men who were now hiding in the covered area amongst the seats that were tilted upright in their stored position.

The pack leader grabbed the first policeman from behind and wrestled him to the ground, knocking his revolver from his grip.

The second policeman managed to get a shot off in panic, but before he could take aim, one of the skinheads smashed his shoulder with a baseball bat and knocked him down the aisle steps. Before he could rise to defend himself, four of them were on him with their clubs, battering his life from his body. He was dead within ten seconds. A coroner would later record that his body was hit over sixty times. Only his card allowed him to be identified.

The other policeman struggled uselessly. Then he saw one of the men pull out a machete from his deep lined overcoat pocket. He was grabbed by the shoulders and forced to his knees. He screamed, fought back, but it was futile. Their grip was too strong.

The Stermabeitalung with the machete sliced the top of his skull off. The blood gushed out and he was thrown to the ground. The man with the machete continued to hack at the body right down to the bone and intestines.

They threw the red communist flag over the policeman, draped it over his cut and bleeding body, then they left the stadium by a side entrance.

The riot had now spread. More police were called, and the troublemakers of Berlin, always looking for new violence, joined in the fray. It was to last for nine hours, spreading from the Olympic Stadium into the streets, houses and offices of Charlottenburg, to shops which were looted and their windows smashed, to fires started with petrol bombs, to cars burnt to bare metal twisted shells, before the riot police, with their armoured vehicles and water canons, brought the whole thing under control.

Fourteen people were killed in the demonstration for the unemployed.

Three of them were policemen.

There were over six hundred arrests, most of them youths who had joined in the riots but were not Stermabeitalung.

The white Mercedes bus that had waited at the end of the line for the red shirted storm troopers left an hour after the attacks started. The young man with the curly hair and the scar on his left cheek was nowhere to be seen.

By the time the riot was brought under control, the white bus was already back in Dresden.

Ch. 57

She let him fly.

Adam's natural ability impressed Jenny. He instinctively held the aircraft on course without being intimidated by its power or his lack of experience. He was a natural in a world where most pilots are made, not born.

After Goose Bay, where she had controlled the plane as it climbed through thick ice laden cloud to eleven thousand feet, they had flown direct to Narssarssuaq on the southern tip of Greenland. Once clear of the cloud, she had handed the controls over to him and taught him how to use the power and propeller pitch levers, how to bank the plane sharply, how to descend and climb with power and nose attitude. She enjoyed it. It took away the normal drudgery of long flights with little radio contact and constant headings.

Billie, having now accepted Jenny as someone who could be trusted, settled herself down in the rear, albeit cramped, and spent most of the flight asleep. The dream about Adam had distressed her, and she had spent most of the night awake thinking about him, about her own life and where she was going. Wherever she turned, there were few answers to her frustration. Her life had simply come to a full stop.

Narssarssuaq, a small settlement of scientists and Eskimos, is a seven thousand foot runway cut out of the glacier. It is approached along a forty mile long fjord and the approach instructions are that the pilot should turn left at the entrance by the sunken freighter that sticks up in the fjord, or else run out of airspace and crash into the sheer mountains that rise to seven thousand feet at the end.

Jenny let Adam descend from altitude into the fjord, down to two hundred feet above the frozen water. He enjoyed that most of all; the plane seemed like a toy, suspended between the high rising mountains on each side in the vast frozen landscape.

They found the sunken ship with its bow pointing upwards and he turned left towards the runway four miles down the fjord.

'Can I land it?' he asked.

'All yours,' she replied, but she kept her hands near the controls. He was good, but not that good.

The landing was bumpy and they skipped over a small iceberg at the end of the runway where it sloped down to meet the fjord. That annoyed Adam for he was a perfectionist and Jenny smiled. It was time he came down to earth with a bump, she thought. Literally.

'Any landing you walk away from is a good one,' she exclaimed as they taxied in to the small terminal. His grunt of annoyance made her chuckle even more.

Billie stretched her legs while Jenny refueled and Adam bought some food for the next leg in the cafeteria at the rear of the terminal.

Nobody asked to see their passports and they were airborne half an hour later, on their way to Keflavik on the eastern side of Iceland, where they landed seven hours later.

It was a quick turnaround; the last leg to Manchester, nearly five hours flying time, would be exhausting.

They took off in the dark. Adam climbed out of Icelandic airspace and steered westwards towards Scotland, intending to cross the coast at Stornoway. Jenny dozed off and he switched on the auto pilot. He had promised her that if anything happened out of the ordinary, any unnecessary flicker on a dial, he would wake her. Billie was fast asleep; it had been a long and boring trip for someone crammed in the back. He had offered her the front seat for the last leg, but she turned it down. He sensed it was because she could see he enjoyed the flying and there was little she could do. She was a fine person and he knew they related to each other, shared the same sense of humour. But she might still be a hindrance when it came to the rough stuff.

He was pleased nobody had asked for his passport.

He started to work out the next stage. It was time to clear his mind.

Nordhausen and Albert Goodenache were coming into view over the horizon.

Ch. 58

The Jardin des Tuileries is Paris' garden; sixty four acres housing a glorious Orangerie, exotic blooms and a mini Arc de Triomphe which was built to celebrate Napoleon's many triumphs. There is also a fairground that houses what must be some of the worst rides in Europe. Modern, brash and cheap. It is an annual event, running from December into January. For all its shoddiness, people flock there, day and night, to spend their francs being whisked around on ghost trains and dodgem cars.

Helmut Kragan left Dresden immediately after the Council meeting and flew to Paris. He booked in to the InterContinental Hotel, only a few minutes' walk from the fairground. The desk clerk saw nothing unusual about Kragan; he was just another businessman in a dark suit with a Liberty's all wool overcoat draped over his shoulders.

The same desk clerk was on duty when Kragan left the hotel two hours later, at nine in the evening. He recognised him and acknowledged Kragan's wave. The German wore his coat buttoned up against the cold of the night.

Kragan turned right outside the hotel entrance and walked towards the Rue de Rivoli. Once he had turned the corner, he took the coat off and slipped it over his arm.

This was no businessman. He wore motorcyclist's leathers underneath, black and shiny, with calf length boots to match. He crossed the Rue de Rivoli and entered the fairground.

It was lively as usual, the mish mash of pop music blaring through loudspeakers as he walked among the crowd, mostly young people on the lookout for instant fun and excitement. Kragan fitted in, a motorbike boy out for the night. Here and there a fight broke out, girls screeched as someone goosed them, lovers clung together and ignored all that went on around them, pickpockets worked their art furiously and everyone set out to enjoy themselves.

He stayed in the shadows as he passed the House of Mirrors, slid past the Dodgem Cars and approached the Dancing Fly. It was in motion, a carousel of two seater chairs that spun unbelievably fast whilst it bobbed up and down on its rollers. The girls screamed; some gritted their teeth, others stayed cool as if nothing worried them. Kragan grinned. He never understood the fools who paid to frighten themselves to death.

He saw the curly haired man with the red scar on his left cheek talking to two short skirted, high-heeled girls no more than fifteen years old. The over-mascara'd make up and glossy lips couldn't camouflage their age. Young and slim, dressed in blue jeans and denim jacket, the man worked the Dancing Fly. His position in life, although not a great revenue earner, was obviously supplemented by an endless supply of young girls who found his lifestyle exciting.

Kragan retraced his steps and left the crowds to walk behind the House of Mirrors. When he was sue he hadn't been spotted, he moved in the darkness back towards the Dancing Fly. The sounds from the rides and the carnival continued, nothing seemed out of place. He felt the gun in his shoulder holster.

The girls were still there, standing where he had seen them earlier. There was no sign of the curly haired man. The alarm bells started ringing in his mind. Kragan moved his hand over the butt of his revolver and loosened it in its holster.

'This is a Colt hand-gun, with real lead bullets,' he heard the voice say from behind him. 'It's not a fairground toy. It will kill you when I pull the trigger.'

Kragan felt the hardness of the muzzle in his back, just behind the heart.

'Piss off. I hope that's not your prick you're sticking in my back,' he said, his annoyance obvious. He spun round.

'Not in this weather, Major,' said the curly haired man. He held a large metal spanner against Kragan's body. 'Fall off in the cold.'

'How the hell…?'

'Did I see you? Eyes in the back of my head, sir.'

Kragan nodded in admiration. 'I thought your desire to fuck those two tarts would have kept your attention off me.' He knew Kaas' reputation and sexual capacity well. He knew everything about all his men. 'Anyone else been around?'

'No, sir. Nobody suspicious.'

Kragan believed him. 'We need to talk. Can you get away?'

'Yes, sir.'

'There's a cafeteria restaurant on the Rue de Rivoli. The Atlantic. Be there in five minutes.'

Walther Kaas had been his best man in the Stasi, had fulfilled everything Kragan had ever asked of him. He had found him as a young officer in the Prenzlauer Berg division no more than seventeen, but he already had a considerable appetite for the harsh and cruel police work that the Stasi required. Prenzlauer Berg was one of the most deprived and crime ridden areas of East Berlin and an ideal proving ground for the young officer. It was a haven for the criminals who lived off the poor. Kaas' reputation grew as he relentlessly tracked them down. His brand of police work soon became feared, especially his ruthless ability to torture confessions out of even the most innocent.

Kragan had taken Kaas under his wing and transferred him to the Stasi pre-trial detention establishment at Berlin-Hohenschonhausen. There, under the protective umbrella of the Hoeneker regime, Kaas had excelled at the intimidation and torture that was the mainstay of the Stasi method. Pain was something he enjoyed dishing out. He seemed to have no sense of fear, but that had been easy in the days when the Party ruled supreme and there was no opposition. By the end of the Eighties he was the youngest captain in the crack Guards Regiment Feliks Dzierzynski. Then the Wall came down and everything changed. With no prospects and a troubled future, Kaas turned to Kragan once again. The older man, himself an outsider in the new world, had already joined the National Socialists at the request of Peter Frick. He admired Kaas' lack of fear, saw it as a formidable weapon in such a cool thinking operative. Working for the National Socialists had suited Kaas. It was his home, his passport to the world of pain and violence he enjoyed so much. The discipline of a police state was what he had grown up with, what suited his talents best.

Kragan had the coffees waiting for Kaas when he arrived. Both men were dressed in styles that were suitable for the Atlantic. A spacious, cheap self service place, it was packed with young people on their way home from the fairground.

'Lined them up for later on?' he asked.

'No, sir. I didn't know what you wanted to do.'

'No pleasure this trip, Walther. Unfortunately.'

Kaas shrugged. He knew Kragan's hunger for young girls, usually those under the age of fourteen. It didn't mean anything to Kaas, everyone had their own secrets. And Kaas had soon learnt that part of his duties in the criminal division of the Stasi had been to supply the hierarchy with whatever was needed by way of eroticism and perversion. There was always something for someone in the criminal world. 'I read there was a riot in Berlin. At the Olympistadion,' he said.

'Not good. These riots.'

'It said it was a big riot.'

'Bigger than expected.'

'I'm glad to see they can work on their own.' Kaas meant the other storm troopers.

'It wasn't difficult. Everyone was pleased with your leadership in Hamburg and Neu-Isenburg.'

'Is the main project ready?'

'The plans are in place. We need you back in Dresden. It's time to train your people.'

'How many?'

'Four. Including you.'

'Tight.' He shrugged. 'But enough. I choose the other three?'

'Of course.' Kragan already knew who were Kaas' favourites, whom he would choose. It was important that an operation of this magnitude had continuity. Kaas' team would give it that. 'This whole thing will be strictly on a need to know basis. That includes your team.'

'When can I tell them?'

'At the last moment. The training will ensure their readiness.'

'How long?'

'A week. Ample time.'

'Do we go back together?'

'No. Fly to Berlin. There's a plane from Charles de Gaulle Airport at nine tomorrow morning. A driver will meet you at Tegel Airport and take you to Dresden. Finish your work tonight. Avoid suspicious movements. I shall probably be back before you.' Kragan took a newspaper out of his overcoat and openly passed it across to Kaas, as friends would when discussing points of interest. 'There's a good article on Berlin in there. Read it. I want you to understand exactly what is expected by the time I see you tomorrow.'

The two men left soon after. Kaas returned to his final night at the fairground and Kragan to the InterContinental.

The desk clerk had gone off duty, but had he seen Kragan, he would only have seen another businessman in an expensive coat returning to his hotel after a night out.

Ch. 59

As the British Airways Boeing 757 twin engined jet touched down on Runway 27 Left at Heathrow at 8.33 a.m., Adam concluded that there would probably be someone watching for him at the shuttle terminal. He decided then to brazen it out. The last thing they would expect was the obvious, it was a certain way to catch them flat footed.

The immigration officer at Manchester hadn't made anything of it, but Adam knew he recognised the names from his priority list. As soon as he saw Adam's passport he had flicked his eyes down at the register under the counter.

He reached over and took Billie's American passport, flicked through it.

'You two travelling together?' he asked in a thick northern accent, too nonchalantly for Adam not to notice.

Jenny had already gone through the crew customs, signed her general declaration and disappeared into a back room to sort out all the customs formalities on the imported aircraft. Their farewells had been short. They all had other things on their mind.

'Yes,' said Adam.

The immigration man nodded and passed Adam's passport back. 'Where will you be staying in England, miss?'

'Where will we be staying, darling?' Billie turned to Adam.

'We're going to hire a car and do some touring,' he declared. 'My friend's never been here before. We'll drive until we find somewhere to stop for the night.'

'Why did you come across on a ferry flight?' asked the immigration man.

'Cheaper than a scheduled flight.'

The immigration man was loath to let them go, but the instructions on the register were clear. 'Do not detain. Do not cause suspicion. Identify their probable destination. Proceed with caution. Report immediately. Contact customs to clear without search.' He was tired and there was little else he could do without alarming them. He handed Billie back her passport.

'Can't you stamp it?' she asked. 'I get that done everywhere I go.'

'We don't stamp passports,' said the immigration man huffily as he turned away from the desk and went into the little room behind that served as his office.

Customs had waved them through the green section. Adam was relieved; his brown bag with the weapons had been his only concern. He didn't know that Customs had already been put on notice to clear them through.

Now as they left the shuttle lounge at Heathrow, mixed in with the commuters and shoppers who had come down for the day, Adam saw the tail. Military type in a camel coat hiding behind a newspaper. Adam chuckled and took Billie's arm and led her straight up to him.

'Looking for us?' he asked cheekily.

'Sorry?' queried the Military. He was out of breath, had obviously been dispatched to Heathrow in a hurry in case Adam turned up there. He had run down the long corridors to the lounge and arrived just as the shuttle passengers were disembarking.

'We're going home. You can pass that on to Control.'

They left the shuttle lounge with the Military confused and still pretending to ignore them. As soon as they had turned the corner, however, he put his paper down and headed for the row of pay phones that lined the wall.

'How did you know he was waiting for us?' asked Billie as they caught a taxi into the centre of London.

Adam chuckled. 'They're desk jockeys, not field men. We probably have the best field operatives in the world. But they're in Northern Ireland, places like that. These guys are jokers.'

'We're still a long way from Herr Goodenache.'

'We'll be there soon. Trust me.'

'You keep saying that.'

'And you keep following.'

'Hmm,' she grumbled, then sat back and looked out at the rush hour traffic crawling into London on the M4.

'Sorry you came?'

'No. Just that…not a lot seems to happen. I'm tired, worn to a frazzle, dirty. My body's cramped from spending all that time in the back of the plane. I've probably lost my job, probably a hunted fugitive in my own country. Hell, this is rapidly turning into shit. So much for looking for excitement. Nothing's happened since we left New Orleans.'

'And you think this could be a wild goose chase?'

'What do you think?' she snapped at him.

'It could be. But I live in a world of half chances. I probably shouldn't have left New Orleans as I did. But then I've always done what I probably shouldn't. And, in view of what you've told me about the computer and knocking off all those agents, this whole thing is a lot bigger than just guarding Trimmler. At the end of the day we're working for our own people. We've not turned against them, just creating space to work in. If we fuck up, then we go back, hold our hands out and let them smack us. If we're right, then we've served Queen and Country. Sorry, President and Republic.'

'Still a helluva long shot.'

'Maybe. But it could end up as the only game in town.'

She had loved the flat and it had cheered her up unexpectedly. She had assumed it would be functional and simple. Now she saw the love that had gone into it, saw it for the home it was, sensed it as only a woman can.

He had shown her to the guest bedroom. 'Get some sleep,' he told her. 'I've one or two things to do. If you do get up later and find an old lady around the house, then…'

'Lily. You told me.'

'You'll like her. Don't forget, you're probably jet lagged on top of everything else.'

'Prop lagged, you mean.'

He laughed. 'Whatever. It's still only four thirty in the morning in New Orleans. See you later.'

He left her to settle down and went into his study.

He made three calls, the first of which was to Lily.

The second was to a number in Manchester. When a girl's sleepy voice answered, he said 'As arranged. Shouldn't be late.' Then he put down the phone before the number could be traced. He knew the line was probably bugged by now.

The third call was to Coy, his briefing officer in London.

'We really are in the shit, aren't we?' came the sarcastic reply.

'Are we?' replied Adam. It was game time.

'You were ordered to stay and help our friends.'

'Things changed. I decided to take the initiative.'

'You always do. Is the woman with you?'

So the Americans were keeping Coy informed. 'Yes.'

'Why?

'She wanted a holiday. Never seen England before.'

'Did she come of her own volition?'

'Do me a favour. Of course she did. How much do you know about our friends' difficulties?' He heard the sharp intake of breath.

'Wait,' commanded Coy, then Adam heard him speak to someone else in the room, his voice muffled by the hand over the receiver. 'You need to come in here,' he said at last.

'No. I’m too tired. Hell of a journey. '

'No. We need to talk now. All right. I'll ring you back in five minutes.'

Adam grinned and put down the phone. They'd be frantically disconnecting the wire tap. The last thing they wanted was for the Americans to know they were about to learn their secrets.

The phone rang nine minutes later. It was Coy. 'This is a free line,' he said. 'Tell me about their difficulties.'

As briefly as possible, Adam told Coy about the computer virus, about the death of the American agents and about Trimmler's conversation with Goodenache. He even told him about Fruit Juice and the manner of Trimmler's death. He never mentioned Nordhausen or the involvement of the Russians, but knew that if he could commit the British Secret Service, it would keep the CIA off his back and give him the time he needed. These security agencies all loved gossip, especially about their allies.

'In the shape of a swastika?' exclaimed Coy when he had finished. When Adam didn't answer, he continued. 'Gruesome, even for the Yanks. Did the woman tell you this?'

'No,' Adam lied. 'I overheard various conversations between her and other CIA people,' he lied.

'Why did she come with you?'

'She knew I was leaving. I forced her,' Adam lied.

'All the way across the Atlantic?' came the disbelieving reply.

'By then I think she'd decided she might as well continue. After all, she's one of their people. Maybe she just wants to find out what's going on.'

'Possible.' Coy paused and Adam waited for him to continue. 'An intriguing tale,' he said at last.

Adam chuckled to himself. Coy had bitten. 'I need some sleep,' he said, hoping he could get the time he wanted.

'Yes. It would be better if you didn't mention our conversation to the woman. Say we haven't contacted you yet.'

'I understand.' You're damn right, I understand. Now the tongues would start wagging round MI5, MI6 and the other, smaller intelligence agencies. They'd love to see the Yanks dig themselves out of this hole. Keeping the girl out of touch, of her own volition, would add spice to the game. 'By the way, your chap at the shuttle was rather obvious.'

'Did she see him?'

'Yes.'

'Pity. But if you keep your head down, say the flat's being watched, she should accept that. Just play along with her.'

Very bright, thought Adam. She'd really believe that, after your goons have already shown themselves. 'A splendid idea,' he said.

'Good. We'll contact you tonight.'

'Tomorrow might be easier. I'm going to get some sleep, then I need to keep her amused for the rest of the day. A call in the evening might warn her something's up.'

'First thing in the morning, then.'

'And could you keep someone watching the front door. I don't want her sneaking out while I'm in bed.'

'Good idea.' They both knew the place was under surveillance already. 'Talk to you tomorrow with your instructions.'

Adam put the phone down and went to the front door. He switched all the door and window alarms on before going to bed and crashing out. But before he did, he made sure the brown holdall was ready for use under his bed.

Lily let herself in with her alarm key at six and found Adam in the shower. She left a cup of tea for him on his bedside table and went into the kitchen to prepare the evening meal.

'Is our guest still asleep?' he asked as he walked through into the kitchen in his toweling robe, the cup of tea in his hand.

'Out to the world,' replied Lily. 'What time do you want me to wake her?'

'Give her another hour. She's had no sleep for nearly two days.'

'Coffee or tea?'

'She's American.'

'Coffee, then.

'Decaffinated.'

'We haven't any.' She smiled as Adam looked up quizically. 'You always told me, no unleaded in this house. What do you think she'd like to eat tonight?'

'Steak and kidney?' he asked.

'Not much time. But all right. I'll manage.'

'Thanks,' he grinned, then leant over and kissed her on the cheek. 'It's good to be home.'

'Your mail's in the study. Mostly bills, from what I can see.'

'Some things never change.'

He put on a cool cotton grey shirt and loose cotton slacks. The leather slip-ons were an old pair, comfortable and cool. When he was satisfied with his appearance, his hair now well gelled back in its customary style, he went to the study and examined his mail. There were the usual circulars, a few invitations to nothing very exciting, and a batch of bills. When he had finished, signed a few cheques for Lily to post for the gas and electricity and other essentials, he wandered into the kitchen.

Billie had joined Lily and they had obviously hit it off. Lily was proudly going through her steak and kidney pie recipe and they were both working together and preparing the meal.

'Sleep all right?' he said.

'Didn't I just? Hey, do you eat like this all the time?' replied a fully refreshed Billie.

'Yes.'

'You wouldn't want to move to California, would you?' she asked Lily.

The old lady smiled and shook her head.

'You couldn't afford her,' remarked Adam.

The meal, one hour later, was as good as they expected.

'Penny for them,' said Adam, when they were half way through the meal and she had said nothing for a while.

'Despair,' she said softly.

'Don't tell Lily. She'll think it's the food.'

She smiled and shook her head. 'Lily's beautiful. And so's her food. No, I was just thinking about…being alone. I mean, I've been alone ever since I left Peter. I've lived with guys…Gary was just the latest. But, I could've done without them. I just didn't want to be on my own. When you don't have a purpose, you know, it's easy to keep looking for something…I don't know. ' She paused. 'Something other people can't give you.' She suddenly stopped, her eyes watering.

'Go in. Get it out.'

'For all his faults, for all our shouting and yelling, for all the bad, we reached heights I never knew I could. And I miss him desperately. Old 'screwing around, don't let me get old' Peter. Nothing replaces truth and…real love. Substitutes never work. However hard you try and make them fit. Maybe we only fall in love once. And everything else is just…second best. Guess we can't always face our own failures. Or don't want to.'

'When I first met you, I took you for a pleasure anorexic.'

She looked up. 'A what?'

'Pleasure anorexic. A none person. No smoking, no alcohol, only eating food that was good for you.'

'Thanks for nothing.'

'Don't get snappy. As I said, that's what I thought when I first met you.'

'And now?'

'You're okay.'

'Do I get a medal for that, or something?'

'Or something.'

She laughed. 'You know,' she said after a while, 'I enjoy…I feel the past doesn't matter as much, somehow.'

'What's brought this on?'

'You. And this place.'

'I don't understand.'

'You've learnt to live with loneliness. No. No, that's not true. Not loneliness. You've just learnt to live alone. Most of us can't do that.'

'Learnt that at a young age. Loneliness becomes an obsession. A demon in your brain. Sort of takes over your imagination. I learnt young to ignore it, build my own values. It's the only way you can cope.'

Afterwards, when Billie had helped clear up and Adam had finished the list of instructions for Lily, they settled down in the living room with a large jug of coffee.

'We haven't any decaf, I'm afraid,' said Adam when Lilly brought it through.

'No sweat. Be good to taste real coffee again.' Billie noticed the quick look between Adam and Lily. She smiled. 'I haven't always been a pleasure anorexic. Whatever you think.'

'Want a cigarette?' he responded quickly.

'No. Not that ready to jump over the edge yet.'

'Will you be seeing Mr. Marcus before you go?' Billie heard the housekeeper ask Adam in the kitchen as he followed her through for a new packet of cigarettes.

She didn't hear his answer.

At ten Lily left and Adam escorted her to the door. Billie could see their closeness when Adam let her out, saw that they cared deeply for each other. She wished she had a Lily. Maybe that's what she would look for when she returned to La Jolla. That's if the lawyers left her anything after they'd picked over the bones.

For more than half an hour Adam took Billie through his plan for the next stage of their self initiated assignment. She listened without interrupting and was impressed with the way he had thought it through, his plans being laid before they'd even landed at Manchester.

'You can get out now if you want to,' he said, after he had told her about the phone call to Coy. 'My people think you were taken away from New Orleans under threat and that you're now stringing along just to see what I'm up to. That's what they'll tell the CIA.'

'That's not nice. They'll think I blurted everything out. About the computer and the asset base?'

'I said I overheard you and Tucker and also picked things up as I went along. They'll believe that. It's what they'd expect.'

'What the hell? I'm probably unemployed anyway. You think I should drop out?'

'Your decision. It all started out as an adventure. Now it's real. If you want to…'

'I won't. Unless you want me to.'

'You're going to be in the way.'

'You don't have to worry about me,' she replied, irritated with him. 'I'll look after myself. Don't smirk, I mean that.'

He laughed. 'I wasn't smirking. But you need some protection.'

'A gun.'

'We'll sort that out later.'

'You're not going to sneak out on me, are you?'

'It had crossed my mind.' He grinned at her.

'You would as well. I'm going to have to sleep across the front door so you can't.'

'You're safe. If I did, you'd only tell them where I'd gone.'

'I wouldn't. And please don't go without me.'

'Time to rest up. We start early.'

'I've only just got out of bed.'

'Us secret agents have got to ride above things like jet lag, you know.'

'I'll never get back to sleep.' She looked at him earnestly. 'Are you really tired?'

'No. But I know what's good for me.'

'Meaning?'

The attraction was growing between them. It was something they had both known since New Orleans. Adam realized this was not the time to bring it out in the open. He couldn't afford anything that could blunt his instincts. He stood up. 'Meaning that I'll need all my strength in the next few days. I need the rest.' He wasn't rude, just matter of fact. 'If you can't sleep, watch TV.' He grinned, tried to take the sting out of his words. 'You'll feel at home. Most of our programmes are American.'

He reached out and touched her shoulder, squeezed it and bade her good night. He saw her lift her chin, trying to once again stretch and hide the wrinkles. He said nothing, she was beautiful as she was. Then he left her and went to bed.

He was restless and knew it would be difficult to sleep. The smell of her was still in his nostrils, the scent of sex and all that that brings. Damn, he needed a clear mind. He listened for the sound of the television from the lounge. Maybe she'd decided to try and go back to sleep.

She came in five minutes later, just as he had brought himself under control, and quietly slipped into his bed.

He lay still, his back to her, curled up, pretending to be asleep.

'I know you're awake,' she said, snuggling up to him, putting her arm round him, pushing gently against him until she fitted in with his body, becoming one person in the big bed. 'Companionship or sex. It doesn't matter, tough guy. I just wanted to be with you.'

He said nothing, just squeezed her arm to let her know it was all right, that he wanted her to be there as well.

After that it was easy. What they felt was out in the open and they both knew it could go no further until whatever lay ahead was over.

She nuzzled his ear. 'Beats sleeping across the door.' They slept until four a.m. Then the alarm buzzed and they knew it was time to restart their deadly game.

Ch. 60

The DDA put down the phone and wiped his hands on his pyjamas. The phone call had made him sweat.

'How the hell did they get to England?' the Exec Director had asked him on the phone. It was the first the DDA knew about it. 'Fuck it, you said they were still in New Orleans.'

'We presumed…'

'Weren't we watching all the airports and ports?'

'Yes, sir. The DDI had his men there, too.' He quickly tried to shift some of the blame. 'We even had the roads covered. I don't see how…'

'Well, they did. Get on to our embassy there. Get them to ring this number.' The Exec Director gave the DDA a number that he had just received from his bureau chief in London. 'That's British Intelligence. Guy called Coy. You just get on with it and come back to me in the morning.'

The DDA went downstairs to his study and dialed the number in England. It was engaged. While he waited he switched on the television, flicked it onto CNN. There was an item on a big drugs haul in Seattle and then the President's face came up on the screen.

'The President left last night for a series of visits to Europe…' the picture cut to the President boarding Air Force One at Charles De Gaulle Airport, '…which will culminate in a private meeting with the Russian President in Germany. His first port of call will be London where he is to meet with the British Prime Minister. After that, he flies to Paris to see the French President, then on to Germany for the first historic conference with the Heads of all the NATO, European Community and Warsaw Pact countries. This meeting, seen by many as the first step towards a united Europe spanning east and west, is…'

The DDA had left the phone on automatic redial and now it was ringing back from London. He picked up the receiver, listened, then introduced himself.

'My name's Coy,' came the answer. 'Our man's done a runner.' He wasn't about to tell the Yank that he'd also been duped, that he'd sat on the information for nearly twenty-four hours.

'Runner?' queried the DDA.

'Yes. Bolted. He got back to his flat and our people spotted him. I spoke to him, on the phone, and he said he would come in this morning. Next thing I know, he'd driven out of there, hell for leather, in a bright red sports car, and headed south. We're trying to trace him now.'

'Was the woman with him?'

'Yes.'

'Did he say why?'

'No.' Coy lied back. 'I would've found that out this morning. I think the best we can do is wait until we find them.'

'I can't understand how you…'

'Listen. This was your show. We were there to help. You lost them in the first place. I'll contact your embassy when something turns up. Goodbye.'

The phone went dead in the DDA's hand. He slammed the receiver down.

On the television he saw the President waving at the cameras before the doors on Air Force One closed.

He also saw behind the President the smiling face of the DDI.

The bastard had gone with him.

He suddenly felt very alone.

Shit to the British. Shit to them all. They'd destroyed his career and he didn't even know if he'd ever find out why.

It was time to start digging. Go back into the files. He'd salvage it somehow. Dig into everything. Something always turned up.

Ch. 61

Their feet crunched on the brittle undergrowth, leaving sharp footprints where the early morning frost had taken hold. Kragan and another senior Stermabeitalung officer, in the standard mustard brown shirts, dark brown riding breeches and black leather boots, led their leader through the woods. It was an important time for them, they had to prove that they were on target and ready to execute their task successfully.

Frick was proud as he walked between them, his long black leather coat reaching to the ground. Their military insignia excited him. He imagined it as it would be, centred in red and gold on a black flag, high on a standard, waving in the wind over the stadiums where they would hold their rallies, a symbol of a proud and new Germany, the Fatherland in its true glory.

The wood cabin with its chalet style sloping roof, some forty metres long and twenty wide, was in the middle of a clearing. It was sheltered from prying eyes by trees, in the very heart of that section of the Dresden Heidi that Mitzer had purchased for the Party. It was far enough from anywhere to be unnoticed, far enough for the loudest of to be muffled and lost to passers-by.

As they approached, storm troopers stepped out from cover of the trees. All were armed; two of them had machine guns. It was not a place that unexpected prowlers would ever escape from. Round here, security was tight.

When they saw Frick, whom they had been told to expect, the Stermabeitalung snapped to attention, their arms held out in the traditional Nazi salute.

'Heil, heil.' The salute was repeated, different from the old Nazi one that had been discredited when Germany lost the last war. In their wisdom, the Council had decided that to repeat all the slogans, wear the same swastika insignia and copy all the other mannerisms of the old Nazi party would simply create a credibility gap. So things were changed, honed down, made to appear not quite so militaristic. Frick said nothing. He could live with it. Until it was time to change and emerge as the Party it really was.

He returned the salute as he passed the guards. They had a common cause. It was imperative that they looked up to him, feared him, respected him, loved him.

A Stermabeitalung opened the door that led into the cabin and Frick walked through, the others following. It was dark inside. A long narrow corridor ran down the middle of the building with doors leading off it. Each door had a single glass pane in it. This was ostensibly a centre for the teaching of self defence and disciplined order; in truth it was a training ground for killing and subversive terrorism. Its sole purpose was the development of the Stermabeitalung.

Frick idled his way along the corridor, looking in this window, then that. He saw the storm troopers practising karate, crowd control, baton practice, skills with the knife and their knuckle duster.

Near the end of the corridor was a fully equipped modern shooting range with ten bays. They didn't keep the weapons or ammunition here, however. They were hidden elsewhere in the Dresden Heidi, in a safe place. All the equipment here could be explained away; this was no more than a training ground for those interested in self defence, martial arts and war games, It was, to the outsider, a complete survival centre.

The door of the last room, beyond the range, had no window in it. Kragan excused himself as he pushed past Frick and opened it. His leader and the other officer entered and Kragan closed the door solidly behind them. You could tell it was a heavier than normal, probably wooden clad on a solid steel frame surrounded by high ratio sound proofing. The rest of the room was similarly protected. A single electric bulb dangled from the ceiling. In the middle there was a Formica covered kitchen table on spindly metal legs. Three chairs were pulled up at it. One was empty, the other two occupied by men in civilian clothes. Their hands were tied behind their backs and they were gagged. Behind one of them was a shop window dummy dressed in a military uniform. Another dummy was placed by the window on one of the walls. Beyond the window there was another wall. In all, there were three other windows in the room, and one further door. It was a room within a room, with windows looking out onto the cabin walls beyond. A third dummy was in a seated position on the fourth chair that was set away from the table.

'Please don't cross the white line,' Kragan warned Frick as he handed him a set of noise excluders. The white line, painted on the floor, ran across the room, no more than three feet from the door and parallel with it. 'We shall be another two or three minutes,' Kragan added nervously; he knew Frick hated being kept waiting.

Frick nodded. It should have all been ready for him.

'The white line…' said the second officer, '…is drawn across to protect you. If you cross it, then you will come into the line of…'

The look of contempt on Frick's face stopped him. 'I know what it's for,' stated Frick coldly.

'Of course, sir.'

Kragan waved the officer to step back, then moved closer to Frick. 'We've had calls from Council members about the Charlottenburg riots.'

'What did they say?' asked Frick, now partly deflected from the irritation he felt.

'That the reports on television and in the papers support your view. The public is becoming sickened by these pictures of violence and death. It seems you are right — it may well be time for the Party to come out into the open.'

Frick smiled. 'They said that?'

'That was the gist of it.' He didn't add that he had argued Frick's case vigorously, had hammered the points home until they could do little but agree with him.

'And Albert Goodenache?'

'Nothing yet. We know he flew to Frankfurt from New York. He's somewhere in Germany.'

'Find him. He's dangerous, with all that knowledge. Trimmler's death will have terrified him.'

'He could be coming here.'

'Let's hope so.'

The door opened behind them and a junior officer came in. He nodded to Kragan, who turned to Frick. 'We're ready now. If you would put on your sound protector.'

Frick and the others slipped the protectors over their heads and turned towards the table. The single light dimmed to half strength.

They waited for nearly a minute for something to happen.

Frick was getting restless once again when the place simply exploded into action. A stun grenade was hurled through the window on the left and landed in the middle of the room. It exploded, sound and brilliant light smashing through the room and dulling the senses, smoke gushing out and fogging the scene. The door on the left was blown off its hinges by strategically placed charges that slammed flat onto the floor.

At the same time a balaclava masked soldier rolled in through the window where the stun grenade had come from, his Kalishnikov automatic aimed at the dummy that stood by the opposite window. The bullets sliced the dummy in half. A second soldier burst through the door which had been blown open and fired his automatic rifle at the kitchen table, its powerful round of bullets knocking the head off the dummy planted in the chair.

Another stun grenade was thrown in and a third soldier hurled himself through the window after it, before it had exploded. As the grenade went off, he opened fire with his semi automatic hand-gun and shot the dummy in the chair away from the table.

The first two soldiers had now crossed the room and dragged off the men who were tied up to the floor. They cut their bonds. The third soldier covered them, his weapon at the ready for any surprise intruders.

Then the floodlights that were hidden in the roof came on. The soldiers relaxed, laughing, whilst the hostages stood up and joined in the celebrations. The whole thing had taken no more than five seconds.

Frick took off his sound protectors and walked across to the young man he knew to be the leader. 'Well done,' he congratulated Kaas. 'You have trained your men well.'

Kaas snapped to attention and gave the salute, and the others all followed his example.

'Using your men as hostages,' questioned Frick, 'is that a good thing? You might lose one. We need all our young men, you know.'

'It's the only way…to understand the reality of death,' replied Kaas. 'They've got to face it if they're to inflict it'.

'And you move the positions of the dummies and hostages every time?'

'Yes, mein Fuhrer. The whole action must take no more than five seconds. My people have to identify the enemy and act instantly.'

'Good. Excellent. Is this the full complement of men you'll need for our next operation?'

'Yes. Plus Krische, the officer who came in to tell you we were ready.'

Frick turned to Kragan. 'When will this room be ready to represent our next objective.'

'This afternoon,' answered Kragan.

'The most important mission of all,' Frick said to Kaas. 'Your men will not be told the location until they arrive there. This time, security must be absolute. We cannot afford failure. Now, let me meet your men.'

As Kaas introduced his leader to his band of warriors, Kragan finally relaxed. Things had gone well. Charlottenburg had been a glorious success. But it was only a springboard for what was to come. If the public had been sickened by the carnage at the Olympiastdion, the next spectacle to fill their television screens would be in such spectacular technicolor and DestructaVision that it would make Rambo look like a Disney movie.

Normally a cautious man, Kragan felt the glimmer of satisfaction spread within him. He sensed success.

Nothing could stop them now.

Ch. 62

Adam chuckled to himself as the small Piper Arrow flew at two thousand feet across German airspace.

'What's so funny?' asked Jenny Dale, sitting to his left and piloting the single-engined, low-winged plane in her usual deft manner across the turbulent, cumulus covered sky.

'Nothing. Just something I was thinking about,' he replied.

'How long?' shouted Billy from the rear, loud enough to be heard over the roar of the two hundred horsepower engine.

'Twenty minutes,' answered Jenny. 'We're nearly there.'

Adam went back to his private world as the plane bucked across the sky, the unseen hands of the veering winds twisting and turning it as it flew on towards Hannover.

That morning he had watched the surveillance team from the living-room window. They were parked across the road, outside the chemists, with a layer of frost covering their Rover Sterling. The team inside the car, three of them, would occasionally turn on the engine and try to warm themselves, but he knew they'd feel the cold after such a freezing night.

'I'm ready,' Billie said as she came out of the bathroom.

'Let's go,' he replied. He didn't feel like saying much, the blackness had been within him when he woke up. The lonely pain had tightened across his chest, reminding him of the danger he was about to enter, of his depression at the futility of it all. Then Billie had moved against him, still in her sleep, and he relaxed momentarily. Somehow it eased the pain, knowing that she was ready to depend on him. He had woken her ten minutes later.

He drew the curtain shut. Then he opened the front door, so that they could see where they were going, and flicked the bathroom light off. He picked up his brown holdall. Apart from the weapons, he had packed two sweat shirts, thermal underwear and socks and his toiletries. This time he really was travelling light.

She followed him out into the hallway, toting her small suitcase.

The red F40 was parked and ready in the underground car park.

'Wow!' he heard Billie exclaim. 'They yours?'

He nodded. Emma and Steed, side by side. He'd be glad when this was over and he could settle down to enjoy himself again. He knew his service days were finished. After the New Orleans episode and this latest scrape he was about to embark on, Coy and his sort would never have him back.

He stroked the Gullwing as he passed it and then unlocked the Ferrari's passenger door to let Billie in. He slid the holdall between her legs, on the floor pan, then walked round and climbed in the driver's side.

He started the engine as gently and quietly as possible. It was till as loudas an old World War II tank in the confines of the small garage.

He backed her out of the parking space and turned towards the automatic garage doors. The remote control was clipped to the sun visor and he pressed the button.

It was the last thing the surveillance team had expected. The driver saw the garage door spring upwards. He hurriedly tried to wind the window down as he couldn't see clearly through the thin layer of frost and condensation, but by the time he'd done so, the red Ferrari had spurted to the top of the ramp, its full-beam lights blinding him, swung to the right and roared down the street.

'It's him!' he shrieked to the others as he started the engine. 'It's him! He's doing a fucking runner!'

The engine turned, was slow to fire before it came to life. The driver gunned the accelerator too hard in his anxiety and the car slid sideways, its rear wheels spinning as it tried to grip the tarmac, but only contacted the thin layer of overnight frost. It slid helplessly into the next parked car, slammed into its side.

'Shit!' screamed the driver as he tried to extricate himself from the situation.

'Come on!' yelled the man in the rear seat.

The car eventually pulled away from the kerb and drove after the F40. But it had disappeared at high speed into the early morning darkness.

'They'll radio all the police cars,' said Adam. 'Not to stop us, but to keep an eye on us.'

'Why not stop us?'

'We've done nothing wrong. And they'll want to know where we're going.'

'Then don't speed. Unless you want to be caught.'

He grinned. 'It's all right. I'm taking all the back roads.'

They drove for nearly forty minutes through the empty suburb streets. Past Chiswick and Heathrow Airport, under the M25 and through the villages of Wentworth and Sunningdale, out towards Woking.

They parked where he always did, hidden deep in the shadows.

'Will you be all right here?' he asked.

'I'd rather come.' As she answered, she sensed his nervousness. 'If a cop comes and finds the car, with me in it, I wouldn't know what to do.' They both knew she was lying.

Suddenly he didn't care. There was nothing to hide. He wanted to tell her, had never shared the secret with anyone before, only Lily, and that was a long time ago.

'Come on,' he said and they both left Steed parked there and made their way to the twisted and bent railing that was his door to the family. She shivered as they crossed to the west hill.

She stood back and watched him approach the three headstones, saw him touch them as gently as she had known he would. She heard his low voice as he spoke to them, greeted them after his long absence. When he'd finished, he turned and called out to her, beckoned her over.

Billie picked her way between the graves, stumbled just before she reached him, but he leant forward and easily caught her. She was always surprised by the strength in such a compact body.

'Morbid? Eh?' he chided her.

'Don't be stupid,' she snapped back. 'You should know better.'

'Sorry. Not used to letting my defences down, I suppose.'

She touched his cheek. 'Talk to me, tough guy. Like you talk to yourself'

'Just like that?'

'Just like that.'

'I've already told you about Marcus. And my parents. About how they died.'

'What do you talk about when you come here. I know they're real. In there…' she stroked his forehead.'…they're alive.'

'Yes.'

'Can you feel him now?'

'He never leaves me.'

'What's he saying?'

'Nothing. He is me.'

'How?'

'I don't know. I…there's feelings inside me that I can't explain. Evil with depression. It comes from nowhere. For no reason.'

'Is it there now?'

'Was. Before we left home. It consumes me. When I'm in danger, when it's all going against me, that's when it's at its strongest. I kill without thinking, so cool I think I must enjoy it. Pain becomes bearable through pleasure. I have no soul in those moments.'

'And you think that's how you really are?'

He nodded. 'I was the best field agent we ever had. That's true, because you always know your own worth. It wasn't because I enjoy killing, not just going out and doing it. Or danger. That's how they saw it. The boys behind the desks. No, it was because I didn't care. Didn't give a shit whether I lived or died.'

'Why?'

'No-one to care for. They were dead, since I was that small.' Adam held his hand down, palm outstretched. 'I just had a go at everything. If I lost, then I got the final reward. I went over to the other side.' He smiled as he said it.

'To join them.'

'Something like that.'

'The death wish. They saw it in New Orleans.'

'Spooky, that.'

'I've seen you with Lily. With me. Here, with your family. You do care'

'So what is the blackness that I feel inside? The evil?'

It suddenly hit her. 'You think it's Marcus. Him, pushing inside you.'

'No. Not him. Me.'

'Oh no. Not you, tough guy. Not you.' She put her arms round him and held him. 'Not you. Not even Marcus. Just the hurt. Of a little boy. Don't you see? Not any of you.'

'But Marcus is there. I know he's inside me.'

'He is. He always was. But he loves you. Like you love him. But you were still a little boy left on your own. Don't you see? It's just what you were. Lost and hurt and full of pain. Don't you see?'

And he started to cry, there, alone with her in the cemetery, next to those he had loved the most and missed the most.

The police had picked up the red sports car nine miles south of Ashford in Kent. It was doing seventy down a country lane, in a fifty mile an hour zone.

The police car was speeding up to give chase when the co-driver warned his partner to ease off. 'That's the car they were looking for. Report but don't apprehend.'

'But he's over the limit.'

'Stay well behind while I report in.'

By the time they had received instructions to follow and observe, they had lost it in a swirl of speed at one hundred and forty miles an hour.

'They're really going to come after us now,' said Billie pinned to the seat as it accelerated through the corners.

'By the time they get search teams out we'll be there. You okay?'

'Yes. In a numbed sort of way.' She'd never been driven that fast before, never experienced the sheer exhilaration and heart stopping fear that merged into one as the F40 powered on the knife edge of its optimum limits. But she trusted him, saw the way he handled it through the bends, fed the power in as it was required, was part of the hurtling machine that he controlled so gently. 'Like making love,' she thought. And then shuddered when she remembered his death wish.

Just north of Dungeness atomic power station, he slowed through the village of Lydd and followed the road out to the small airport. The F40 swung into the entrance and pulled up outside the terminal. Adam parked the car behind a large yellow Ford Transit van and switched off the engine.

'Let's get going,' he said, turning to Billie.

'I can't!' she gasped. 'Not yet.'

He suddenly realised how much the speed had affected her. He leant over and put his arm round her shoulders. 'Legs shaky?'

'Don't laugh, you bastard.'

'I'm not.' He grinned cheekily back. 'But we've got to go.'

'In a minute, in a minute.'

He kissed her on the forehead, then climbed out of the car and walked round to the other side. He opened her door and held his hand out. 'Come on. We've got to get moving.'

'Shit to you, tough guy,' she answered, then took his hand and scrambled out.

'They really are shaky!' he exclaimed as she wobbled towards him. 'Sorry about that.'

Then he picked up the two bags and led her into the terminal.

Five minutes later they walked through the departure lounge for national and European community destinations to the Piper Arrow that was parked on the ramp.

Nine minutes later the plane was airborne from the pitted runway. It was a visual flight plan route, with no destination recorded.

'Where the fuck's he gone now?' Coy's superior asked him later. It had taken them over an hour to find the F40.

'No idea. We've got air traffic onto it. The plane came in from Manchester. The pilot was hired to fly them in a chartered plane.'

'To where?'

'Nobody knows. It's a visual flight. They don't need flight plans if it's out of controlled airspace.'

'Who's the pilot?'

'The same one, a girl, who flew them across the Atlantic.'

'Dear God. It gets deeper by the minute. Anything else?'

'Not yet.'

'We'll keep this away from the Yanks for now. Come back when you've got something.'

Coy put down the phone. There was nothing he could do anyway. Not until the plane surfaced. And that would take time. It was impossible to contact every air traffic control unit in Europe, every airfield, every charter company.

Blast, it had been a long night. He put his feet up on the desk, tilted back the swivel executive chair and went to sleep.

'Thanks,' said Jenny, taking the traveller's cheques from Adam and putting them into her flying jacket. 'Nice to do business with you.'

'Take care when you get back.'

'No problem. As you said, you're not running drugs, or anything like that. It was just another charter.'

'Even so, the intelligence arm will want to grill you.'

'Tsk, Tsk,' she clucked. 'They're not going to torture me, are they? Pull my nails out one by one.'

Adam laughed. 'I doubt it. But they will question you. And remember, when they ask about Billie, say she was edgy, always nervous. Seemed scared of me.'

'Aye, aye, captain.'

'And thanks. Safe journey back.'

Adam went to get the hire car as Billie and Jenny said their goodbyes. Twenty minutes later they were on the Salzgitter autobahn, heading for Nordhausen, some one hundred and ten kilometres to the south.

Ch. 63

'Yes, Dimitri Dimitrovitch,' said Rostov into the phone.

'The Americans are growing more concerned by the minute,' reported Sorge over the receiver. 'They now think the British know more than they're admitting.'

'The British know nothing.'

'They are frightened that we are all working against them.'

'Poppycock.'

'That's what I told them.'

'You must take the heat out of the situation. Just because some of them don't know their arse from their elbow doesn't mean that we’ve lost control.'

'You want me to repeat that?'

Rostov laughed. 'No. But diffuse it. Calm them down.'

'I will do my best.'

There was a considerable pause before Rostov continued. 'We've found Albert Goodenache.'

'Can I inform them?'

'Yes.'

'And tell them where?'

'No. Just that we think we've traced him. That we're following it up.' He didn't tell Sorge about the sleepers who still operated throughout Europe, agents that were never authorised or listed on any budget seen outside the most secret areas of the KGB. He'd identified various locations where Goodenache was likely to turn up. He'd even questioned some of the older members of the Lucy Ghosts in private to help trace the fugitive. Nordhausen had been one of them. And his people there had soon found the scientist.

'I'll pass that on.'

'Good. We will resolve this situation, Dimitri Dimitrovitch. Just keep the Americans calm. This thing is bigger than they realise. I now have some idea of what it's about. But I don't have all the answers. Time is short, but I need all I can get.'

'I will, as they say here, keep them off your back.'

'I know you will. These people have crawled out of the sewers. And that's where we've got to go, if we want to end it.'

Ch. 64

The road from Hannover to Nordhausen passed through all that was best in West Germany and all that was worst in the East. The first section is a mixture of three laned autobahns and twin laned primary roads. The traffic moves at a fast pace and averaging a speed of over one hundred kilometres an hour is not difficult. The surrounding countryside is fertile, a mixture of productive fields and bulbous forests that spread over the horizon. The towns and villages are prosperous, clean and bustling with enterprise. The people look affluent and busy.

When the four wheel drive saloon they had hired, an Audi Quattro, reached the old border that split the villages of Tenterborn and Mackenrode, everything changed. The transformation was sudden. The old wall still stood, stretched across the countryside like a giant twenty-foot picket fence, disappearing over the horizon on both sides. The road, where the border post had once split it, became narrow, just wide enough for two cars to pass each other. The tall metal and concrete watch towers to the left and right, now unmanned and unarmed, still dominated the skyline on their high steel footings.

They parked the Audi where the guardhouse had once stood. They walked across the field to where the wall stopped, sliced in its eternal stride by some giant wire cutters.

'I always thought it was solid,' said Billie, coming up to it, reaching out and touching it in awe.

There were two walls, running parallel with each other. The one they stood at was made of heavy chain link, stretched between towering concrete posts that were spaced fifteen metres apart. The second row, the inner wall, was of the same design. The gap between them, that area which had been mined and guarded by machine guns from the watch towers, was about forty metres wide. There was little growth there, just patchy, overgrown grass, a desolate, don't-come-here-or-you’ll-regret-it sort of place.

They stayed there for about twenty minutes, walked where there once had been fear and intimidation, tried to imagine it as it had been, wondered who'd died there, whose dreams had been shattered.

'I guess they'll get round to dragging it off to the junk yard,' said Billie, her arm linked through his as they made their way back towards the car. ‘Some waste dealer’s going to make a fortune.’

'That’s capitalism. They should leave it. To remind us about the dark side of life.'

It was different now, the countryside more desolate, less machinery in the fields. The roads were potholed and had received little maintenance since 1944. The villages and towns they passed through were shabby where buildings had long since been left to decay. Sleek Mercedes Benz and BMWs intermingled with smoke belching, rattling Trabants, Wartburgs and Ladas, but it was still an environment that lacked the hurly burly of enterprise.

Then there was Nordhausen.

An industrial centre that was an ecological disaster. An old town, its wealth based on brewing before the second world war came along and transformed it into a steel and munitions centre. Since then, under the communists, Nordhausen remained a metal town, spewing its untreated black smelter smoke into the atmosphere and polluting the beautiful countryside that surrounded it. In time, the forest trees in the magnificent Harz Mountains started to thin out as they were poisoned. In time the untreated smoke and grime turned Nordhausen into a dirty city, with dirty people, all with little to do except work and drink and then go back to work. The town had suffered from the worst of industrial enterprise. It would take many years before Nordhausen became a green town, many years before it could even start to ease back on the pollution it coughed onto its inhabitants and the surrounds in which they existed.

They drove in from the west, on the 243 through Gunzerode, and along the cracked road that led past the IFA Motorenwerk where they once made bicycles and now were being upgraded to motorbikes. It was nearly five in the evening when they finally reached the centre of Nordhausen.

The car rattled along, crossing the myriad narrow gauge loco tracks that ran between the factories lining the route. Three sets of lights later, they came into the town centre, a wide boulevard that sloped up a hill with the shops and offices set back from the pavement. There was the usual panoply of McDonald's and other American fast food imports mixed with the traditional shops.

'Can we get a hamburger or a pizza?' asked a famished Billie.

'At the hotel. We'll be there soon.' It was a decision he was later to regret.

Adam pulled up and climbed out of the Audi Quattro to ask the way. Unlike their counterparts, East Germans had little opportunity to speak English and showed even less interest in remedying the situation. It took Adam nearly five minutes to find someone who could direct him to the Kurhotel in Yorckstrasse.

He drove back the way he had come and turned right just before the IFA Motorenwerk. Nine blocks down there, in the middle of the mass of square slabbed, drab yellow-and-green workers' apartments, he turned into Yorckstrasse. The Kurhotel was on the next block, a 1950's five-storey tower of glass and unpainted concrete that had once been the pride of East German architecture.

The receptionist, fat, well fed and dismissive of all before her, followed in the tradition of her countrymen and spoke little English. It suited Adam not to reply in German and he gesticulated wildly as he tried to make her understand. Eventually, after she had been joined by two others whose grasp of the English language was as poor as hers, they booked in to two rooms.

'Why two rooms?' asked Billie as they waited for the slow moving lift to ascend to the third floor.

'It's safer.'

'Who for?'

'For both of us. If somebody comes after us, then we've always got cover.'

'Bullshit,' she remarked and punched him in the arm as he grinned.

Their rooms were next to each other and identical. Shabby exercises in spartan comfort, designed to keep you out of the room and in the hotel lounge.

'I don't believe these beds,' groaned Billie, throwing her case on hers and seeing a cloud of dust rising from it. It was a single, narrow affair with a wafer thin mattress that sagged in the middle and was covered by a brown woolen blanket that had probably been there since the hotel was built. She looked round the room, furnished only with a small table, a steel chair with a plastic seat and a chest of drawers with a Formica top. The wardrobe was a hole in the wall with no door and a metal bar stretched across it.

She went next door to Adam who was hanging up his few belongings in his hole in the wall.

'Is this what they call European hospitality?' she asked.

'No. European culture.'

'I can't stay here. It's worse than that place in New Orleans.'

'It's all we've got.'

'Shit!' she swore, sitting on the chair. 'You really know how to treat a girl, tough guy.'

'Listen, this is luxury to some of the places I've dossed down in.'

'Dossed?'

'It means just as it sounds. You can't live much rougher.'

'I don't suppose they have room service?'

'Another filthy capitalist habit.'

'I'm hungry.'

'Then let's eat.'

The food was as bad as they expected. Sausages and sauerkraut with brown bread. It was the traditional fare and they had agreed it might be something worth trying.

'We could've had a pizza in town,' she reminded him. 'I've decided I'm not always going to follow you from now on.'

When they returned to reception there was no one on duty. Adam quickly crossed to the desk, leant behind it and pulled up the register. He flicked it open and searched through it.

'Look out!' warned Billie, seeing a movement from the room behind.

Adam put the book back and stepped away from the counter as the fat receptionist came out to the counter.

'Bitte?'

Adam smiled, shook his head to signify he wanted nothing, took Billie's arm and pushed her towards the lift.

'Well?' she asked once the door had closed on them.

'Floor above us. 416.'

'So you were right.' She felt the tingle of excitement. 'You were right. You were fucking right.' She punched his arm in a show of victory. 'You found him, tough guy. Let's go get him.'

'Not yet. He's out.'

'How'd you know?'

'Key was hanging up in reception.'

'You don't miss much, do you?'

It was eight p.m. when Adam saw Goodenache coming up Yorckstrasse. He was wearing an overcoat and leant forward to protect himself against the biting wind. He limped just as Adam remembered. He was also weaving and Adam realised he’d been drinking. Goodenache entered the hotel, but Adam didn't leave his post, waited for almost five minutes to make sure no-one was following. Then he and Billie climbed to the next floor and walked down the corridor to Room 416.

When he was sure that they were alone, Adam knocked on the door.

'Bitte?' he heard the scientist ask from inside.

'Police,' he answered.

There was silence for a moment, then he heard the safety chain being withdrawn and the door opened slightly. Goodenache reacted quickly as he recognised Adam, and tried to close the door again. But Adam had his foot against the frame. He pushed hard, too hard for the scientist to resist.

'What do you want?' shouted a frightened Goodenache as the two of them came into the room. 'You have no jurisdiction here.'

'We're here to help, Mr Goodenache,' said Adam, closing the door behind him. 'Nothing else. You could be in danger.' He could smell the drink; it had obviously been a heavy session.

Goodenache watched them, not knowing in his befuddled state what to do.

'Just relax, Mr Goodenache,' Billie said from behind Adam. Maybe a woman wouldn't present such a threat, wouldn't panic the man. Her training in Dissemination would be of help now. 'I'm an American. Adam here is British. We were assigned to protect your friend, Mr Trimmler. We simply want to find out what happened. And to help. If you need it.

As she spoke she crossed past Adam and put her arm on Goodenache's. 'We really are here to help,' she comforted him

'Who else knows I am here?'

'Nobody. As far as I can be sure.'

'Your people. They will know.'

'Not yet.'

He pulled away from her and sat on the edge of the bed. 'How did you find me?'

'The authorities traced you to Frankfurt, sir,' interjected Adam.

'So where are they?'

'Still looking for you.'

'I don't understand. Why are you both here? How did you know…?'

Billy held her hand up to interrupt him. ‘Adam overheard the conversation between you and Mr Trimmler.'

'Which conversation?'

'In your hotel bedroom,' interjected Adam, then continued, lying as he did so. 'My room was next door. It was pure chance, nothing else.'

'You were spying on us?'

'No.'

'Don't insult my intelligence. People don't just hear conversations in hotel rooms.'

'Okay. I wanted to hear you. Not spying. Just curiosity. Hell, I was meant to be looking after him and then you both start talking in the room next to mine. So, I listened. I heard you talk about this hotel. About Nordhausen. When Mr Trimmler was murdered, and you vanished, I thought this was where you might head for.'

'So you just followed me? The two of you.'

'The answer to Mr Trimmler's death had to be with you?'

'Why?'

'Because of the Lucy Ghosts.'

Stunned silence. Goodenache was frantically sobering up.

'By now, both the Americans and the Russians will be trying to discover who the Lucy Ghosts are,' Billie took over. 'We've been out of touch for a few days now. They could already have the answers.'

'So why you? I don't understand why you should come alone?'

'Because someone was trying to set me up. As Trimmler's killer,' said Adam.

'Why?'

'I have no idea. I just know I was being set up.'

'You're British?'

'Yes. On special assignment. To guard Trimmler.'

'Why not an American?'

'Because they had a problem with their computer. They wanted somebody who wasn't listed on it.'

'Ah!' Goodenache suddenly smiled, and Adam understood why.

'You knew all about the computer, didn't you?'

'You knew about the virus,' Billie backed him up.

'I know of your problems. Yes,' Goodenache replied.

'Why?' she asked.

'I don't know,' he said, suddenly shutting them out.

'Look, I need to find out what's going on.' Adam changed the subject.'

'IYou’re not my problem.'

'Trimmler wasn't mine. But I'm in a hole because I tried to protect him. And he was your friend. You owe me that.'

'I owe nothing.'

'Do you know why he was killed?'

'No.'

'Do you know who by?'

'I've said, I don't know.'

'Okay. Then let me tell you.' Adam took out a cigarette and offered one to Goodenache, who took it. When they had both lit up he told the scientist about the harrowing experience with Fruit Juice, about the deadly games that were played in New Orleans and culminated with Trimmler's death.

'None of it makes sense,' Goodenache said finally. 'It's unreal.'

'It's real. It happened. You know what they did with his arms. It's real, alright.'

'Why is she, an American, with you?'

'Because we're lovers,' stated Billie. 'And I don't want him to take the rap for something he didn't do.'

Goodenache put his head in his hands, exasperated. 'I don't understand. I don't understand.' When he looked up there were tears in his eyes. 'It's awful. That they should kill Heinrich? Like that? With his arms like a… What kind of people are they?'

'We were hoping you would tell us.'

'I don't know. Why do you think I came here?'

'In case you were next?'

Goodenache nodded.

'If we're to help, we need to know who,' asserted Adam.

'The Israelis. Who else?'

'I don't get it.'

'Because of the Lucy Ghosts. Because it's all coming out. Because they have waited for this moment.'

'Tell us,' said Billie. 'About them.'

'It's a society. From the War. Some of them with…things to hide.'

'War criminals,' said Adam.

'No!' snapped Goodenache. 'Some, maybe some. But not all. It was war. We did as we were told.'

'Where are these Germans?' asked Billie, quiet of tone to soothe Goodenache. She looked at Adam angrily. He shrugged and moved away, left it to her.

'Everywhere. In Russia. In America. Africa. Even in Germany. We have been waiting for nearly fifty years.'

'For what?'

'To come back. Why else would we wait? I thought you were smart.' He tapped his forehead as he spoke, 'Now Germany is one, it's finally time to come home. Don't you understand? But we can't. Because the bloody Jews are waiting to take their revenge on us. I was a scientist. There are doctors and nurses and clerks and all types. Many have long since died. Not war criminals. Yes, some of us belonged to the Party. But only so we could do our work. The Lucy Ghost ring is there to bring us back to Germany.'

'Who runs it?'

'Not one person. Many. Many, since the War ended.'

'Including Grob Mitzer?'

'Yes,' he said sadly. 'Grob was the most important. He kept it together all these years, when others lost faith.'

'But he had the knowledge?'

'More. Much more. There's knowledge and there's wisdom. Grob had the wisdom. The rest of us just had knowledge. Who do you think introduced the virus into your computer? His people. That's how brilliant he was.'

'But why?'

'To wipe out our past. Can you imagine what would have happened if Heinrich and the others had wanted to leave America and come home? How long before they would have been branded as Nazis, with all their war records published in the newspapers? Can you not see the dangers for us? People have no idea of what was really hidden from the public after the War. There were few records kept, and those were transferred on to tape by the Americans years ago. All the sensitive OSS archive was on the computer.'

'And you wiped everything out just to camouflage the truth?'

'It went wrong. The virus could only be triggered off when someone wanted classified information on our files. Not mine, but on those involved in the Paperclip Conspiracy.'

'The what?' asked Adam.

'Paperclip Conspiracy,' Billy answered him. 'That's what the operation became known as. The one bringing the German rocket people out covertly after the War.'

'Not just rocket scientists,' added Goodenache. 'All types of research people. Even medical people from the concentration camps. There are more in those records than just Von Braun and his few. We had the same problem in Russia. Only it wasn't on a computer. Grob organised that as well. For our safety.'

'What about the deaths of the American and Russian agents?' Billie asked.

'What deaths? What agents?'

Billie realised his answer was genuine. She didn't tell him it was what had triggered off the virus. 'Why come back here? If you're running from the Israelis. Why not Russia? You would've been safe…'

'Russians. Philistines. I'm not a Russian. I'm a German. This is my home.' Goodenache rose from the bed and went to the window. 'Do you know why Heinrich and I wanted to come back here?'

Billie shook her head.

'Up there, in the mountains, there are big caves. We built factories in those caves. Factories for rockets. V1's and V2's. How do you think the Russians and Americans got into rocketry? By taking V2's from here, from the mountains, shipping them back and using them for their own experiments. They used all our rockets. We couldn't fire them in 1945 because we ran out of fuel. Because the idiots in Berlin cut off our supply. We could have changed the course of the war. Another six months and we could have changed everything. This is where we worked, with no resources, just our ideas and our hands.' He turned away from the window, came back to the bed and sat down once again. 'We built rockets from nothing. I was twenty years old. It is where we were happiest. Then we were sent back to Peenemünde. To tidy up. Burn the documents that could have won the war for us. Only it went wrong and I got caught by the Russians. To save my life, I became a Russian. For forty-five years I was something I was not. It's not a crime to want to come back, is it?'

'But why here?'

'Because if I'm going to die, then let me die where I was happiest.' He suddenly yawned. The drink was having its effect.

'Where is the society run from?' asked Billie quietly, wanting to move the discussion on, but not wanting to alarm Goodenache. 'Maybe that's where you should have gone.'

'They let us down.'

'Who?'

'The Party.'

'The National Socialists?'

'Of course. In Dresden. They let us down. They spend millions trying to get us out, to wipe our records clean, then they go and change their minds. New objectives, they say. And we, the ones who kept the dream alive all these years, made their beloved Party possible, are told to find our own way home.'

'Let's take you back to Dresden. They'll want to know where you are.'

'They couldn't give a damn.'

'Then let's tell them.'

'No.'

'How do I get hold of them?'

'They're in the Heidi. That was Grob's idea. They'll fail without him'

'Where's…?'

'Forget them. If they had stuck to the plan instead of…ah! forget them.' He yawned again. 'I am tired.'

'The organisation. How big…?'

'No more. Not now. Let me sleep. Tomorrow, we'll talk then.'

He lay down on the bed. Adam saw how tired he was; his eyelids were already half closed as he fought off sleep.

'Come on,' Adam said to Billie. 'We can finish tomorrow. At least we know what's going on.'

Adam didn't think there was any danger to Goodenache, his instincts would have warned him.

They returned to his room. He didn't say much, was simply prepared to listen. He had left the interview to Billie. He knew that Goodenache would respond better to a woman.

'Nazis,' she said, once the door was shut and she couldn't be overheard. 'A bunch of Nazis, all waiting to come back. All waiting for the dust to settle.'

'Could be.'

'Got to be.'

'He's a Russian. They play tricky games.'

'But they're in this with us.'

'They say.'

'Okay. So we don't jump in with both feet. But we're still talking about Nazis. War criminals. Christ, there could be hundreds out there. Maybe more. Have you thought of who could be there? Even if they're dead, to know what happened to them. Wow!'

'You won't find Hitler, you know,' he mocked her.

'How do you know? How does anybody know what happened. Except some of these guys. And do you have to?' she snarled at him as he took out a cigarette.

'It's my room.' Damn, he sounded too shirty, but he didn't like the way she could get under his skin. 'I need one, if you don't mind.' He lit his cigarette whilst she watched him.

'How can you do that to your lungs? In your profession?' she said, as he inhaled deeply.

He decided to ignore her comments. 'So let's say they are Nazis. Why kill Trimmler? Why the swastika mark?'

'Israelis.'

'Could be. But why take out all those American and Russian sleepers?'

'Discount operation. Two for the price of one.'

'Very funny.'

'Maybe it really is simpler.'

‘He watched her closely. ‘Go on.’

She shook her head while she thought. He stayed silent, leaving her alone to resolve what had entered her thoughts.

‘It wasn’t Israelis. The sleepers were just decoys.’

‘Go on.’ Adam had a small smile on his face, but she didn’t notice.

‘It was someone who knew about the computer virus. It was one of The Lucy Ghosts. Or a group of them. Someone with a lot of power. They needed to wipe out the files. And the only way they could do that was by triggering off the computers. They knew about the other stuff on the database. So they went after the sleepers. Russians thought it was us, and we thought it was them. Only we didn’t fall out. Glasnost, and all that. The plan didn’t work exactly like they wanted.’ She looked at Adam. ‘Why’re you smiling?’ she said.

‘You’re right. The sleepers were all decoys. The main target to be wiped out on the data base were the Lucy Ghosts. That’s also why they arranged a fire in Moscow. To destroy the files on them.’

‘You knew, didn’t you?’

‘Only when we were talking to Goodenache. It suddenly made sense. But I wanted to see if you came up with the same conclusion.’

‘He said Mitzer was the power. Mitzer had the organization. He had full entry into all those files. He knew everything that was in them. He didn’t need to wipe them out. All he had to do was introduce the virus. It wouldn’t be activated until someone else opened those specific files.’

‘Someone who was prepared to use that information to turn the Russians against you Yanks. Someone with an organization with people who were prepared to kill.’

‘That doesn’t fit Mitzer’s profile. He was an organiser, not a cold-blooded murderer.’

‘Someone who had no link with the Lucy Ghosts. Someone who just used their money and their contacts.’

‘Goodenache knows who that is. That’s why he’s gone into hiding.’

She said nothing for a while. Then, 'There're still a lot of Nazis out there waiting to come back.'

'I agree. And it has to be stopped.'

'We can find out, but we can't stop it.'

'That's the difference between us. You're trained to get information. I'm trained to use it. No point in the information otherwise. Look, Billie, this whole thing is changing shape. We're getting close to something. I can smell it.'

'So can I. But what's that got to do with us?'

'You won't be able to cope with it. It's not in you. Power and violence go together. It's called the law. Where power is backed by violence. By people like me. Fighting for the good guys. Then you come across this. Where the violent have the power. No fucking scruples. And they chop someone's hands off because they think it's okay. That's when I go down to their level. Not pretty. And definitely not for you, Billie.'

'Time for me to get off, eh?'

He nodded.

'I can't just go back. Not without a good reason.'

'You found Goodenache. Just say that's what you set out to do, to stick with me in case I knew something, and that when the mission was accomplished, you brought him home. You can also tell them the real reason for all this.'

‘What about Goodenache?’

‘Nobody knows he’s here. He’ll keep till tomorrow. He needs to sleep off all that alcohol.’

She came towards him; in her eyes he could see the dread of what was to be. Trouble was, he didn't want to lose her either. But duty had to be the priority.

She reached up and stroked his chin. Then she leant forward — they were almost the same height — and caressed his cheek with her lips. He stood still, not daring to move, unable to break away. Damn it, they'd become too close.

'Not tonight, tough guy,' she whispered. 'No more alone.'

She put her arms round him, held the back of his neck and stroked his hair. Then she leant forward and kissed him on the mouth, brushed his lips, stroked them with hers, watched his eyes looking back at her. She knew he was hers and it thrilled her. She kissed him harder.

Moments of pleasure. Moments of joy.

Incomprehensible, the enormity of it all. Why the two of us? Of all the atoms of the world. In this tacky room. No diamonds, no chandeliers, no party frocks and silk stockings, no glitz, no strains of smooching Sinatra. Just us and a dusty bed.

He put his arms on her waist and pushed her away, held her firm.

'What's wrong?' she asked.

'I'm not used to this.'

'What do you mean?'

'I can fuck. This I've never done before. This is more.'

'Ooh, tough guy. Just let it go. No performance. Just you.'

And she took his hand and led him to the bed.

She tugged at his sweater and he helped her take it off. She smiled. 'It's easier if we just undress ourselves.' Then she went and turned off the light.

'Why?' he asked.

'It's better. Too harsh.' She lied. She didn't tell him she was embarrassed by her forty two year old body, didn't tell him that his youth made her feel old. Breasts squashed with time, overloaded in their fullness, stomach too relaxed with middle age.

He didn't push it. He understood the real reason. He grinned in the darkness. In time, she'd learn to trust him. Then they slipped under the blanket, wrapped into each other, their eyes locked locked in wonder and anticipation. They moved little, just pressed against each other, felt the excitement of unknown flesh. He loved her skin, the smoothness of her. He'd never felt skin like that, velvet skin, warm and slippery skin that absorbed him into her.

For a moment she felt fat, hated her skin, dreaded him feeling the wrinkles. To her, his body had a firmness she had never felt before. It was a smooth body, not bumpy and muscular like Gary's, or soft like Peter's, just rounded with muscle and firm. Later in the night she would discover the scars, the knife wound across his shoulder blades where he'd been slashed in a Belfast bar, and the bullet wound above his right knee that had never healed properly, a legacy from when he was on border patrol and one of his own men had panicked and opened fire on him. All she felt now was his firmness as he pressed against her, probed gently into the dandelion fluff of her mound.

It was a desperate moment, full of emotion, urgent.

They were side by side, and she rolled onto her back, arched herself to receive him as she stretched her legs outwards and clasped them round him.

He kept still, wanting them both to crave each other beyond emotion. It was a full two minutes before he pushed firmly into her and felt her warmth envelope him, felt her bury her face in his shoulder, heard her gasp, a little pain, unused to him being there, then the gush of warmth and love and pleasure.

He felt her tears on his shoulder and looked at her, but she was showing pleasure. They groaned, their love expressed in their sounds. Suddenly she'd forgotten the darkness, suddenly she was only twenty one. They held each other tight, so tight that it took their breath away. Somehow they didn't notice and kept breathing anyway, zipped together into one being.

'I see stars,' she whispered into his ear, clutching him tightly, her eyes still half open and half shut, all seeing in the darkness, understanding earth and time and life and what it is in the moment's joy. 'I see flashes of light. God, I love you.'

It surprised him. No-one had ever said that before. He'd never allowed anyone the opportunity. 'I love you.' Strange words, but suddenly they seemed natural. He had never felt this power of emotion before.

And he pushed harder, moved himself in small circular motions to taste her wetness inside, to feel every part of her that she offered him and shared with him in her vulnerability.

They were like that for a long time. Sometimes moving, sometimes still, the hardness of him and the warmth and softness of her blended into one. It had to go on forever. Then, when he could take it no more, when he was on the edge of the precipice, but knew he was ready before her, he left her warmth sharply, not wanting to, desperate to continue, but knowing their love must be shared, must be, as it always was, one of union and togetherness.

He saw the sudden disappointment in her face, the flash of a scowl across her eyes. He smiled. 'It's okay,' he said. And then he kissed the rose petals, wiped the dew from her lips. He felt her soften.

He bent between her legs now. He wanted to taste her, to taste the heat that was her love, to taste the wetness. He watched her face before he entered her. He was surprised by her, there was little expectancy, just blankness. She'd turned her head away. He moved his tongue slowly inside her, felt her arch her back again, as if in some form of eager surprise. He had never done that before to anyone, had always found it beyond him. But with her it was natural. With her the body was a vessel of love and tenderness and belonging.

Her taste was new to him, and as he ran his tongue along her, curled it deep into her, it excited him. He washed his face in the perfume that was her love for him. Then he searched out the little hard protruding button that was the energy of her sex, he stabbed at it with his tongue, felt her respond quickly, then urgently.

There was no awkwardness now, no face turned away. Just the joy and exhilaration of love and flying where she hadn't been before.

He wondered if she'd still seen the stars.

'Did you come?', he asked, moving up to her once again, facing her, desperate to see her beauty and share the joy that she had just been through.

'I think so,' she said. 'I'm never sure.'

He smiled. She smiled. They both knew that she had. Different, a rare feeling as no other, but deep down they both knew something good had happened.

He kissed her once again, their tongues combining behind the dew of her lips.

He felt her lift up to him as they started the final phase of their journey. No violence, no rapid motion, just feeling and tenderness and a pressure that was beyond sex, somewhere on another plane.

When he was once again close to his own explosion, holding back for her to join him, she said 'Stay.'

He stopped moving, just pushed harder into her, held her with his love and waited for her.

'Stay,' she said again, this time more urgently.

Their bodies were joined, in the burning heat there was no heat, only the warmth of the love that wrapped them together.

She pulled harder at him, squeezed the very breath from his body.

'Stay.' Once again. The word thrilled him.

'I love you, Billie,' he said, regretted it, didn't want to break her own private intensity, but wanted to say her name.

'I love you,' she replied.

Then he heard that fluttering little gasp, the breath caught in them both, and the gasp was overtaken by a louder excitement in her voice, in her sounds of love. It was joined by another voice; he realised it was his own. The intensity was more than he had ever felt before. All that he had to give her with his mind and body was sucked out of him into her. He lay still, not wanting to break the spell, attempting to work out what was different. Before this, sex had been a temporary relief in a world of melancholy and crisis. It had been forgotten as quickly as it had begun. But this was a homecoming. Only Billie had ever done this for him.

He wrapped his arms round her, in the security of their warmth and smell and taste and foreverness, and they started to fall asleep.

'Goodnight, Princess.'

'Night, tough guy,' she replied, softly in her half sleep.

'I love you.'

'I love you, too.'

The homecoming was complete.

'Did you hear that?' he asked her.

'What?' she answered in her half sleep.

'I'll be back,' he said and climbed out of the bed. He slipped on his trousers, sweatshirt and shoes. There were no more sounds of men running, but his warning bells were ringing.

What, Marcus, what's going on?

'Where're you going?' she asked, suddenly awake and watching him take the Browning from his holdall.

'Just checking everything's okay. Be back in a minute,'

He slipped out of the door and checked the corridor. It was empty.

He climbed the emergency stairs to the next floor and crossed to Goodenache's door. It was all quiet. He could see the light under the door. They'd switched it off earlier, when they'd left Goodenache. He put his hand on the door handle and tested it. The door was unlocked and he opened it carefully, the Browning cocked and ready in his right hand.

It was a carbon copy deed, just as terrible as the first time.

A naked Goodenache was sprawled across the bed. The slash of blood across his throat and down his cheek revealed the knife wound he had died of. The blanket was thrown back and the sheet was swamped in blood, thick and red like liver. It was thickest at each side of the chest, where his arms had been.

Adam closed the door. He already knew what had happened to the arms. They were on the other side of the bed, crossed over, shaped like a swastika.

He searched the room, went through Goodenache's suit pockets, his suitcase and briefcase. There was nothing of interest or value, nothing that gave any clue as to why the scientist had been killed.

Five minutes later he returned to his own room. He shook Billie awake.

'What's the matter?' she asked, seeing him fully dressed.

'We've got to get out of here.'

'Why?' Still sleepy.

'Goodenache's dead.'

'What?' she exclaimed, waking instantly and sitting up. The blanket fell away from her, revealed her nakedness.

'You're beautiful!' Adam leaned down and kissed her left breast.

'Adam!' She covered herself in her forty two year old embarrassment. 'For God's sake!'

He laughed and stood up. He'd forgotten death wasn't part of her every day vocabulary. 'I'm sorry. Come on. Get dressed.'

'You serious?'

He nodded.

'How?'

'Same way as Trimmler.'

'Oh no!' She looked shattered. Then she swung her legs out of the bed and hurriedly got dressed. Adam packed his few belongings, then went next door and did the same for Billie. When he returned with her case, she was ready and he led her down the hall, through the emergency exit, past the sleeping night porter in his little room and into the car park.

It had started to snow and the thin white covering reflected the lights of the two police cars as they swept down Yorckstrasse towards the hotel. They didn't need their sirens at this time of the night.

Adam grabbed Billie and hid her behind the Audi, glad that he'd chosen a four wheel drive Quattro. He unlocked the car, clicked off the interior light and pushed her across to the passenger seat. He threw the two bags in the back and climbed in, pulling the door shut behind him.

'Down!' he commanded as the first police car pulled up outside the Kurhotel entrance, its lights illuminating the car park. Two policeman climbed out as the second car arrived, and when the four officers had gathered, they entered the hotel.

'Why don't we just brave it out?' asked Billie.

'They'd never believe us. What with Trimmler in New Orleans and Goodenache here. Would you?' He saw it made her think for a moment, about him. 'Don't be stupid. I was with you.'

She didn't reply and Adam saw she was desperately trying to believe him.

'I didn't. And if I had, I wouldn't have called the police. Come on, love. It's called a frame up.'

'Means you're stuck with me.'

'I've worked that one out already.'

He switched the engine on and swung the Audi out of the car park, down Yorckstrasse towards the outskirts of the city. He stayed on the wrong side of the road, followed the tracks recently made by the police cars as they drove through the snow. The last thing he wanted to do was leave a trail for them.

It was two in the morning.

It was a long drive to Dresden.

The snow continued to fall as the Quattro clawed its way eastward towards whatever it was that they were seeking, whatever terrible things were waiting at journey's end.

Ch. 65

You could tell nobody was welcome just by looking at the building. The metal shutters on the windows and behind the doors of the four storey grey structure were designed to keep out unnecessary callers. There was no-one in reception, but if a stranger entered, he would soon find himself in the company of a gentleman in a blue suit with a friendly smile on his face and a bulge under his coat.

The roof bristled with antennae, of all shapes and sizes, tuned to a variety of radio signals and wavebands. This was a building of secrets, a part of British Military intelligence, but not linked to Cheltenham's GCHQ, and a place for only the most covert communications.

There had been some concern in the early Eighties, when one of the national dailies, Today, moved its headquarters into the next door building. After the initial flurry that prompted an internal memo warning staff not to fraternise with their neighbours, things soon returned to normal. The newspaper eventually followed others into the Docklands print centres that were fashionable at the time, and 66 Vauxhall Bridge Road returned to its position of anonymity.

As the black chauffeur driven Jaguar pulled up outside, Coy came into the reception area to wait for his guest. The DDI climbed out of the car and walked into the building, past the smiling man in the blue suit who held the door open for him.

Coy took the American up to a meeting room on the third floor. There was a folder on the large mahogany table in the room with the red wax seal of the United States Government.

'Would you like me to leave you for a while?' Coy asked.

'No need,' replied the DDI as he took a seat and waved Coy to the opposite side of the table. The DDI pulled the folder to him, snapped the seal and opened it. It had been delivered from the American Embassy for his attention twenty minutes earlier. He wasn't worried about security, the seal ensured that.

Inside the folder were two sheets of faxed paper. He flicked through them, then threw them down on the table. 'Nothing. Not a fucking thing,' he cursed.

'A communication from America?' Coy murmured

'An admission of failure. That's what you get when you stick the administrators in charge. No offence, Charlie.'

He knew that Coy was an administrator who he had never been in the field either as a soldier or as an agent. But then Coy was there because he was a high ranking nobody. The British had obviously decided to wash their hands of the whole affair. Coy was there to assuage the American's ego, to help without being too helpful. What his masters didn't know was that when Coy had worked in Washington for six years as a junior military attache in the British Embassy, the DDI was one of the young Americans he had befriended. They had both been nobody's then.

'None taken, Norman.' As he spoke he remembered his nickname from the wild days. Stormin' Norman. In those days it reflected his ability in bed. Coy saw the attitude still applied to his old friend.

'Yeah. We got nothing over there. What about you?'

'They confirmed that his arms were cut off. And placed in the shape of a swastika.'

'Jesus. These arseholes are perverted.'

'Or they're trying to tell us something.'

'Come on, Charlie. You've been sitting behind a desk for too long. 'Course they're trying to tell us something.' He leant forward confidingly. 'Have you spoken to our friend?'

'This morning. Before I came in.'

'From home?'

'Yes.'

'Where was he?'

'In the office.'

'Fucking amazing. That you can just ring right through to his office. What did he say?'

'He sends his regards.'

'Come on.'

'He's aware of everything. And is following it up.'

'Good.' He leant back in the chair. 'Nothing further from Germany?'

'No.'

'Take me through what you have. Just in case we got conflicting stories.' He picked up the papers he had discarded and laid them out so that he could check his own reports while Coy spoke to him.

'The police got a phone call saying somebody'd been murdered in the Kurhotel.' Coy pulled a report from his pocket and put it down so that he could use it as a reference. 'They arrived ten minutes later. They had no idea who'd been killed. After arguing with the night porter for another ten minutes, they worked their way up floor by floor. Just knocked on doors and waited for people to answer. The night porter used a passkey for those rooms that were empty or where no-one answered. They found Albert Goodenache on the fourth floor. Time was recorded as two twenty-five a.m.'

'Anything unusual in the room?'

'No. Well, apart from our man with his arms cut off and placed in the shape of a swastika. They found that rather unusual.'

'You're in a god-damned humorous mood today, Charlie.'

'I'm sorry. This whole affair's got to me. Nothing fits.'

'Everything fits. In the end. Go on.'

'No, there was nothing else unusual. He was naked and his throat had also been cut. I suppose that's because they had to kill him first. You don't chop off a man's arms while he's sitting there watching you.'

'Cut the jokes, Charlie.'

'They called their chief in. He arrived at three a.m. In that time they'd sealed off the room and the hotel. Then they checked the belongings. That's when they found out who he was. When their chief of police saw Goodenache's passport, he called the Russian embassy in Berlin. Some of these people still feel loyal to the Russkies. By then the local press had arrived. We think the night porter called them out, probably to make a few quid. Pounds to you.'

'I know what a few quid means.'

'The local journalist rang Frankfurt. His paper is part of a national chain. They carried it in the late morning edition. That's how we picked it up.'

'That's how we got it.'

'They questioned all the residents. Nothing suspicious. Apart from one couple who weren't there. Registered as English. Two separate rooms. But only one was used, only one bed slept in.'

The DDI raised his eyebrows. 'We didn't get that.'

'The address they registered doesn't exist. We presumed the names were also false.'

'What about their passports?'

'Its all part of the European Community now. No frontiers, no passports.'

'How'd they settle the bill?'

'Didn't. Just left. Police think it could've been just a dirty night out. That's why we knew about the bed.'

'Then why two rooms?'

'Exactly.'

'No car number? No credit card imprint?'

'This is East Germany. They're not as sophisticated as us. Yet.'

'It was snowing. Car tracks.'

'Nothing. The police reckon they left bedore the snow fell. Which rules them out.'

'Was it them? What's your gut say, Charlie?'

'I think it was.'

'So do I.'

'I also know about your computer.'

'What do you know?' The DDI was alarmed. There were some things you didn't tell even your friends.

'That it's been infiltrated. I also know what happened in New Orleans. Probably more than you do.' Coy then took the DDI through the report Adam had made to him on the phone. When he finished, the DDI sat back and said nothing for a while, just digested it. Coy watched him; it wasn't a time to interrupt.

'I wondered why they'd taken off together,' the DDI said eventually. 'That's if you believe them.'

'I do. Adam Nicholson is headstrong, but he's no traitor. And I don't believe he killed Goodenache.'

'No motive. Whoever killed Trimmler also did this one. And we…' the DDI stopped. 'Hell, we still don't know who killed Trimmler. Maybe it was these two.'

'Lay off, Bill.'

'Okay, okay. It wasn't them. So who was it? And where the hell have they gone now?'

'Short of putting out an all person's alert, which would include the police and the press, there's little else we can do.'

The DDI pursed his lips and pursued his own thoughts. Coy waited for him to finish his deliberations.

'I don't think that's a bad idea,' the DDI said at last.

'My people wouldn't like it. They want it kept low profile.'

'Listen, Charlie, just give me a photo of our boy. I'll do the rest.'

'They won't allow it.'

'They won't know about it. We've got to spark this thing up. They just could be up on what's going on. We have to find them. And pronto. Give me the picture and we'll get it splashed across every paper and TV station in Germany. Once they're picked up, I can get someone in there and find out what's happening.'

'Are you going to release the girl's picture?'

'Damn right.'

'I'll think about it.'

'Charlie, you've got…'

'I said, I'll think about it. This thing, about involving our chap in the first place. Not your style, at all.'

'Didn't know about it. The whole thing was dreamt up by our Head of Administration.'

'No, it definitely didn't have your imprint.'

'Even so, you sure sent us a lulu.'

'Best man.'

'Crazy man.'

'Unorthodox. With a splendid pedigree. A loner. But the best.'

'One of your Northern Ireland boys?'

'Yes. And experience in the Gulf. Nearly knocked out half the Iraqi command force one time. Missed them by about two hours. But he still went on, left his unit, and took out a couple of Generals before getting back to our lines. Very successful for us, there and in the province. Trouble was, he never would listen to orders, rubbed everyone up the wrong way. But he always got the job done. In his own way.'

'What're you getting at, Charlie?'

'That he won't like being beaten. Trimmler's death was a sign of failure for him. He'll have picked up something. And he'll see it through to the end.'

'You got that much faith in him?'

'Yes. Can't stand the little shit, personally. But, given half a chance, he'll sort it.

'I hope you're right. Was there anything else?'

'No.'

'That's it then,' said the DDI, starting to return the papers to the folder. 'I've got to get back.'

'Everything on schedule?'

'Yeah. Presidential trips always are.'

Coy rose and walked round the table. 'When do you leave?'

'Air Force One's at Heathrow. We leave at two.'

'What's it like?'

'What?'

'The Presidential crapper. Don't you use it?'

'Shit, Charlie. You English have a real predilection for toilets. You know that? You're all crap happy.'

They both laughed.

'I'd better get going.' The DDI jumped to his feet. 'Hell, this thing's a mess. I got to stick with the President and all I can think about is those two and what they're up to. One bed slept in, huh? Who the hell do the sonovabitches think they are. Bonnie and fucking Clyde?'

Air Force One lifted off from London Heathrow on schedule at 2.02 p.m., climbed out from Runway 27 Left and turned south on track for Paris.

Once the President had retired to his quarters for the short flight, the DDI opened the envelope he'd been handed when he arrived at the airport.

The picture he took out was of Adam Nicholson.

He smiled, mentally thanked Charlie, and slipped it back into the envelope.

Time to flush them out.

We're coming to get you, Bonnie and fucking Clyde.

Ch. 66

There was no need to register in separate rooms this time.

Once Adam had flashed his passport as a European Community resident, the reception clerk at the Belleview had simply pushed the register card over the desk and asked the Englishman how he was going to settle the account.

'American Express.' Adam signed the register 'Mr. and Mrs. Nicholson'. The address he gave was a false one in Market Harborough, in the Midlands.

At three that afternoon the four-wheel-drive Audi had disregarded the thickening blizzard and raced away from the threat of Nordhausen towards Leipzig. But the westbound Route 80 continued in the tradition of the best East German roads and was difficult to follow in the snowy landscape without the hedgerows and markers that western drivers take for granted. It had slowed them down. At least it was the same for all traffic and Adam was satisfied that no-one was following. Throughout the night, the seven hours it took to cover the one hundred and twenty kilometres to Leipzig, they never passed another vehicle until they joined the rush hour traffic into the city. They breakfasted, then picked up the autobahn at Leipzig and followed it all the way to Dresden. By now the snow had stopped, and what little had settled, quickly thawed. Characteristically, Adam decided to stay at the best hotel in Dresden. There was little point in going underground in a country where he didn't speak the language. He had felt a hint of satisfaction as he walked through the lobby. It was crowded with businessmen, half of them English speaking.

Their suite, on the fourth floor, overlooked the Elbe, a similar view to that enjoyed by Grob Mitzer when he had last met Frick on New Year's Day.

'Welcome to civilisation,' Adam said as Billie unpacked. 'They've actually got room service here. Want something?'

'Anything. I'm starved.'

He ordered eggs Benedict and a steak sandwich for both of them, then went to the mini bar and poured an Evian water for himself and a diet Coke for Billie.

The room service waiter appeared with their order twenty minutes later and prepared the table in the sitting room.

'You speak English?' asked Adam from the settee as he watched the waiter. He decided to continue the charade of not speaking German.

'Little,' replied the waiter, laying the table out.

'You live in Dresden?'

'Ja. Here. Me, in Dresden.'

'Is nice,' said Adam, lapsing into broken English like foreigners tend to do in a strange land. He found himself talking in the same broken English as the man he was trying to communicate with. 'You know the Heidi?'

'Vas is?'

'Heidi. Place. Dresden.'

'Ja. Zis Dresden.'

'The Heidi. You know… the Heidi'

The waiter shrugged and concentrated on his task.

'Dresden,' continued Adam.

'Ja. Zis Dresden. You…' the German pointed at Adam. '…Dresden. Here.'

'I know where I am.'

'Pliz.'

'I know…Where is the Heidi?' He accentuated the last word heavily.

The waiter shrugged, smiled. 'Food. Is goot.' He finished his task, then held out his hand. Adam slipped him a five mark coin and he left, full of smiles and goodwill.

'Impressed,' said Billie. 'You're very good.'

'Shut up and eat,' he replied, a big grin spreading on his face.

Meanwhile, the waiter went straight to the staff rest area and, using a coin phone, dialed his contact. He was meant to pass on any unusual information. By the time Adam and Billie were drinking their coffees, the contact had interrupted Kragan at a training meeting and told him of the two foreigners in the Belleview hotel who were inquiring about the Dresden Heidi.

'I'm tired.' Billie yawned and stretched. 'We've had no sleep, you know?'

'I know.'

'You're eyes are red.'

'I've been driving a lot.'

'No way you're going to be fresh…unless you get some rest.'

'Billie. Will you stop it?'

'No.' She came over and put her arms round him, knelt in front of him and buried her head in his shoulder. He returned the embrace and they relaxed for a while in the comfort and safety of each other.

'This is why I didn't want to bring you,' he said finally.

She leant back and looked up at him. 'You don't mean that.'

'I do. I need to…to be myself. Out of touch with people. No emotions. Can't afford them.'

'Too late now, tough guy.'

'I know.' He knew she didn't understand his dilemma. She made him vulnerable. Danger, and the possibility of death, had never worried him before. That's why he had always won. Because he went further than most into that unimaginable world of extreme pain and violence. But now she made him like others. Now he could be hurt, because he didn't want to lose her. He suddenly thought of Marcus. Would he be there when he needed him, out there in the unknown? Then he pushed everything from his mind as she touched him between his legs.

'Can't help myself,' she whispered. 'Never felt like this before. Never this alive.'

He knew what she meant.

They hung the 'Do not disturb' sign on the door.

Billie went into the small shop next to reception while Adam, the brown holdall over his shoulder, asked the concierge for a map of the city and surrounding areas.

'Ah so! A Falkplan you need,' said the concierge, reaching behind and taking a map out of the rack behind him with a 5 DM price tag pin on it. 'Bill it to your room, sir?'

'Please,' answered Adam, taking the map with one hand and showing his room number on the key tag with the other. As the concierge filled the bill out on the computer, Adam opened the brightly coloured map and spread it on the counter,

'You are looking for something?' asked the concierge.

'We wanted to visit some sights while we're here.'

'The main tourist visiting is over the river. The Zwinger and the Cathedral.'

'I saw them from my window. We'll go across there later.'

'Is very good.'

'A friend of mine was here last year. He said something about the Heidi. You know that?'

'Dresdener Heidi. Yes, of course.'

'Where is it?'

'To the north. But it's no good.'

'Show me,' said Adam, pushing the Falkplan forward. 'I would like to see it.'

The concierge shrugged, opened the map and pointed at a large open space to the north of the city. 'This is the Heidi.'

'A park?' queried a bewildered Adam.

'Ja. Also where the Russian camp was.'

'Russian…Their military base?'

'Ja. For the soldiers.'

'All of it?'

'Much. Ja.'

'Thank you.'

'Is not good. Just buildings. For soldiers.'

'Are the Russians still there?'

'No. Gone back to Russia. Now it is empty. To knock down and build something new.'

Adam joined Billie in the small shop in the lobby where she was browsing through some silk scarves.

'Like this?' she asked, holding up a bright yellow and black creation.

'Nice. I've found the Heidi.'

'Good. Where?' She walked towards the counter to purchase the scarf. Adam followed her.

'North part of the city. It's a park. It was a Russian military camp when they were here.'

'Russians?' she stopped as she spoke.

'That's right,' said Adam, taking the scarf from her and handing it to the girl behind the counter. 'On my room, please. Four two six.' He showed the girl his registration card. 'Do you want it wrapped?' he asked Billie.

Behind them a bellboy walked in, a pile of newspapers under his arm. The girl tapped Adam's room number into the computer and waited for it to print out the bill.

Billie shook her head and he took the scarf and handed it to her. 'It's empty now; the Russians aren't there any more.'

'Are we going…?'

'How did you guess?'

The bellboy dumped the papers on the counter, gave the counter girl a big flirtatious smile, winked and left the shop. The computer started to print out the bill as Adam looked at the picture on the front page of the newspaper. It was a three column shot of Albert Goodenache.

He picked up the folded over paper, flicked it so he could scan the lower half of the broadsheet. His own face and Billie's stared back at him. He turned the paper over and put it back on the top of the pile.

The girl held out the bill for him. Billie had started to look through the English speaking magazines on the rack.

'Time to go,' he said as she pulled out Newsweek from the others.

'I want this.'

'Now.' She sensed his urgency and looked towards him. He nodded. She put the magazine back and followed him out of the shop. He didn't wait for her. The Audi Quattro was parked at the far end of the small, packed car park.

'What's happened?' she asked as she caught him up.

'Our pictures are in the papers.'

'Oh no!'

'Our people will have released them. It's the only way the press could've got them.'

'So everybody's after us.'

'Looks like it.' He unlocked the car and they climbed in, Adam throwing his bag into the back.

'Why not contact them? Tell them what we know.'

'What do we know? That's not going to change anything. We have to keep going, Billie. Just keep going and hope something turns up. Unless…' Adam paused.

'Unless I contact them and leave you to go on. Alone.'

He didn't answer, just switched the engine on and backed out of the car space.

'No,' she continued. 'Not now.'

They joined the evening traffic.

'You must promise me…that if anything goes wrong, you'll run for cover.'

'Not if you need help.'

'Especially if I need help. If I worry about you, if we're in real danger, I won't be able to protect either of us. I want your promise.'

'Okay.'

'Don't lie to me, Billie.'

'I said…' she replied tetchily.'…I said I promised.'

'Good.'

He followed the signs out to the airport to the north. It was a simple route, left onto the Einheit Strasse, up to the Platz Einheit, across the vast square and straight up the 97.

But Adam didn't cross the Platz Einheit, turning left instead into Frederich Engels Strasse. He followed it for two blocks, in the inside lane, then suddenly cut across the traffic to the centre, executed a left U-turn and returned to the Platz Einheit. The traffic he had cut into blared behind him for his boorish driving.

'I've seen this in the movies,' she joked.

He didn't answer right away but kept his eyes on the rear-view mirror. The headlights of another car swung across the central reservation and followed him down the Frederich Engels Strasse.

'Bet it doesn't work as well as in real life,' he replied.

She swung round, but only saw the myriad jostling headlights behind them. 'Is somebody following?'

'I think so.'

'They don't let up, do they?'

'Never do.'

'What next, tough guy?'

'Let's tickle them.' As he turned left at the Platz Einheit and north onto Otto Buchwitz Strasse he explained what he wanted her to do.

'One hour thirty,' she said, when he finished.

'One hour thirty. To the minute.'

'Okay. And if you're not there?'

'Give me no more than five minutes. Then get out of here and go to Berlin. Straight to your people.'

'Five minutes isn't long.'

'It's enough.'

'I love you, Adam.'

He reached over with his free hand, wrapped his fingers round hers and squeezed them. She squeezed back.

Twenty five minutes later they saw the high blue concreted wall on the right, the barrier that had kept the secrets of the Red Army from the citizens of Dresden. The traffic slowed to a halt once again. 'Come on,' he said. 'Now.'

He put the handbrake on and waited for her to slip her legs across the centre console, then lifted himself so that she could slide under him. He fell into the passenger seat and heard her squeal.

'Sorry,' he said. You all right?'

'I'm fine.'

A car honked from behind, the traffic was moving again.

'Where's the handbrake?' she shouted.

'Here.' He released it for her from between the seats.

She put the car into gear and edged forward.

'Remember the route. Stay with the traffic,' he reiterated, opening the Falkplan for her and putting it above the glove compartment.

'Damn it, Adam. Stop treating me like a kid.'

He laughed. 'You take care. And no more than five minutes.'

'You take ca…'

It was too late. As the traffic slowed, he had thrust the door open and rolled onto the tarmac between the lines of cars.

'Adam,' she shouted after him, but the door had already been pushed shut. 'Damn you, tough guy,' she whispered to herself. She glanced in the rear view mirror and saw the headlights of the traffic behind her. Which of those lights were following them? She looked into the back. Which was when she realised the brown holdall was gone.

A car honked from behind, the traffic was beginning to move again.

Adam kept low and dodged between the slow moving cars as he ran to the pavement. Once there, he kept close to the wall and walked northwards. There were few pedestrians about and the dimly lit pavement afforded him the cover he needed. He could see the Quattro's tail lights drawing slowly away from him in stop-start jerky movements. He didn't turn his head to identify the car that was tailing it in case he was recognised. He hoped she'd be all right. Then he switched her out of his mind. He needed Marcus. He needed all the strength he had.

Three hundred yards farther on he neared the double steel gates and the Stermabeitalung who guarded it. He hadn't spotted them standing deep in the shadows.

There were two on duty, both in dark brown, ankle length, leather coats. To the outsider they would be mistaken for smartly uniformed security guards rather than the trained storm troopers they were. They leant against the gate, not expecting trouble as they joked amongst themselves.

He kept walking; there was little point in making them suspicious by turning round and retracing his steps. He knew they were watching him, but he ignored them, was just a worker on his way home. As he drew level with the double gates, they swung open. He heard the whine of electric motors. He slowed to look inside the complex as a black BMW 5 Series swept out and joined the traffic jam going north. Before the gates closed again, Adam had seen the gatehouse and guards on the other side, and the tarmac road that led into the woods behind. He continued up the road until he was well clear of the gate and its watchers.

The wall was topped with rolls of barbed wire and jagged glass stuck into the eight foot concrete slabs. Every fifty metres there was a television camera scanning the road. It didn't take a great mind to work out that this was some security conscious area.

He looked down the road and decided on his course of action. It was unusual, but worth a shot. The traffic had started to move more freely now and he walked to the bus shelter at the road side, and waited

It was five minutes before he saw what he wanted.

A single decker yellow-and-black bus was travelling fast in the inside lane, its headlights dipped and no traffic immediately in front of it.

When it was some ten metres away and was obviously not going to stop at the shelter, Adam stepped right into its path. As he did so he frantically waved it into the side.

The driver, travelling at some eighty kilometres per hour, had little alternative but to stand on the brakes and swing the bus hard right. It swerved wildly towards the wall, bounced over the pavement and came to a stop four feet from the concrete wall.

The driver, swearing loudly as his passengers picked themselves up from the floor and out of each other's laps, opened the front door and jumped down to see what had happened to Adam. There was no sign of him. The driver walked round the bus, then checked the road once again. Satisfied that there had been no accident, he cursed loudly to himself and went back inside.

Adam watched him from the top of the bus. He had scoured up the ladder at the back and now lay flat on the roof. He heard the hiss of the door closing and knew the driver was checking his passengers, making sure that there was no damage. After some time, he finally started the engine and crunched into reverse gear.

Adam came up into a kneeling position and waited for the bus to start moving. As soon as it lurched backwards, he stood up, ran the length of the coach as fast as he could and jumped over the wall. The coach stopped sharply as the driver heard the footsteps above him and listened. There was no more sound, so he slowly reversed back into the road as the Stermabeitalung from the gate came up to investigate. But there was nothing to see and they soon returned to their posts as the bus continued on its way.

Adam had landed in the clearing between the tree line and the wall. He rolled as soon as he hit the soft earth and crashed into the base of a tree. The impact winded him and he lay still, breathing deeply. When he was satisfied that he was all right and that no-one had heard him, he picked up the brown bag and moved into the safety of the trees.

Within a hundred metres he came across the first tank paths, ghost-like trails that appeared to be already overgrown now, ever since the Russians had pulled out and taken their exhaust belching tanks home on the low loader trains. He'd seen similar paths near Farnborough, But when he knelt down and tested the earth with his hands, some of the tracks seemed fresh. There were fourtrack and wide wheel indentations. He wondered what sort of vehicles had made them.

He followed the widest of the paths northwards and eventually came to a deserted airfield. There were three hangars on the far side, buildings with curved roofs that extended down to the ground so as to camouflage against cameras in the sky. The runway, running east to west, had individual taxiways leading off it from all sides, taxiways to the circular parking bays where Russian helicopters had once parked. He recognised the pattern. He reckoned the guards were in the small building at the easterly end of the runway. There were bright lights inside, and smoke bellowed from the chimney.

He found the two armoured personnel carriers that had made the fourtrack trails, four Jeeps, five cross country motorbikes and two army trucks in the first hangar.

The second, lit by a single row of fluorescent lights, was stacked with large wooden crates from end to end. He crossed over to the side wall where he could watch the entrance while he opened one of the crates. He prized the sealed top open and found Army uniforms, with no insignia marks on them.

A job lot, Marcus. A fucking job lot.

He checked three other boxes before he left. They were the same, full of khaki shirts, khaki socks and khaki singlets.

Someone was buying army surplus, enough surplus to dress an army.

He went into the third hangar. Two Jet Ranger helicopters, two twin engined Piper light planes, one single engine Cessna fourseater and a six seater CitationJet. They all had civilian markings and were German registered. He mentally clocked in all the registration letters; it would make tracing the owners easy when he got back to his own people.

He left the hangars and worked his way towards the centre of the Heidi. He kept to the edge of the tree line and saw nothing until he reached the blocks of apartments that stood in an incongruous group in the forest area. They had obviously been the Russian barracks, with officers and men quartered there. In the centre of the buildings was a square parade ground with a forlorn flagpole. He surveyed it all from the safety of the trees.

Some of the flats housed families, but most seemed occupied by single men. They were identical, skinhead clones with square faces and frightening brutish expressions. Millwall and England football supporters, Marcus. Hard men. Looking for violence. Many of them wore uniforms, even at this time of night. Mustard brown shirts, dark brown breeches, black leather boots. The insignia, a cross with the ends linked up and an eagle's head at the centre, wasn't far from the old Nazi swastika.

Keeping under cover, Adam followed a group who were setting off from their barracks.

Two hundred metres down the road they came to a big old house standing in its own grounds. Though it was brightly lit, it had a forbidding aspect. Next to it was a modern block that the men headed for. Adam approached as closely as he could. It was a large, tiled canteen and was obviously the main social gathering place for the troops. For that's how Adam saw them now. Troops. Men of war.

Storm troopers, Marcus. Brown shirts. Fucking Nazis.

Then he thought of Billie and hoped she was safe. Neither of them had expected this. Nothing on this scale. This was an organisation of trained killers. Hundreds, maybe even thousands of them. And he knew the effectiveness of small forces. The SAS was one. He knew how every SAS trooper counted as twenty or more ordinary squaddies.

Be safe, Billie. Stay with the traffic. Don't disappear into the darkness where they might come after you. Stay with the traffic. He felt the blackness return, felt its clamminess across his brow as he started to sweat. Only this time it wasn't for him, but for Billie.

Stay with it, Adam. He suddenly felt Marcus very close, felt him taking over. Stay with it, Adam. For both of you.

For all three of us, Marcus. For all three.

He checked his watch. He still had forty minutes to run before he met Billie. He was less than five minutes from the road, and he needed another five to get over the wall. He'd seen enough trees close to the boundary to know he could use them to scale over, and his coat would protect him against the barbed wire. Traversing walls like that was part of his standard training. It gave him ample time to check the house.

He watched the canteen building for a while. The men inside, whom Adam had already christened storm troopers, had a close camaraderie. He watched them joking with each other, sharing in the songs. They'd be a tough bunch to deal with, these skinheads.

Then he circled the building and crossed over to the big house. It was lit up like a Christmas tree. Like the other built up areas, the sections immediately surrounding it were floodlit. Even here, this far from the road and behind the protection of the barbed wire wall, security was of the utmost. The entrance to the house was guarded by three storm troopers, all with pistols strapped to their waistbelts. One of them was cradling a sub machine gun in the crook of his arm.

Heavy duty skinheads, Marcus. This is where it's at.

He skirted the house to the rear, but there were guards there also. Two of them this time, both carrying holstered pistols.

Not now, Marcus. Not the time to show our hand. Get out and report back. Tell them this is where Trimmler's road ends. In a boy's camp for Nazis.

There's got to be arms here, Marcus. Dig deeper. You've still got twenty minutes.

Three men came out of the rear of the house. Two seemed ordinary storm troopers, the third was different. He wore a black uniform, black breeches and a flared jacket. The new National Socialist emblem was emblazoned on his armlets and on the badge on the peaked hat he carried. His blond hair wasn't short cropped like the others', but was curly and fell over his collar. At that distance Adam couldn't see the scar that ran down Kaas' cheek.

They moved away from the house complex down one of the narrower paths. Adam followed them from the security of the trees, watched the senior officer talking as the others listened and followed him. There was about them a closeness borne of familiarity.

This is a team, Marcus. These bozos are different.

There were warning signs now to deter people from going farther. The path led to a log cabin with a chalet-style sloping roof in the middle of a clearing. There was no floodlighting here, only a small fluorescent light over the entrance. It was a most secret place.

The three men entered the chalet, the others standing back to let Curly Top in first. Adam circled. There were no windows he could look in; whatever horrors went on within those wooden walls were kept well secluded from prying eyes.

He decided to investigate further, to see if he could gain entry and crossed the clearing towards the front door. There was sand on the ground, about four inches deep, completely surrounding the building.

No-one challenged him.

Carefully he peeked through the glass window in the door. A long corridor ran down the length of the building with doors leading off on both sides.

Go or stay? Follow my logic or my nose. Shit, why can't I keep out of trouble, Marcus?

As he turned the door handle to enter the building he saw a storm trooper come out of one of the side rooms. He stepped back quickly and slipped into the darkness. He traversed along the long wall, keeping in the shadows.

He wasn't sure whether the klaxon blared first or the perimeter floodlights snapped on, saturating the clearing with harsh blinding light. He must have triggered off one of the alarm beams that ran along the side of the chalet. No wonder they didn't need lights, the alarm system was warning enough. As he ran into the trees, he heard the chalet door open and the shouts of those coming out to investigate. He kept going, didn't stop to see what his hunters were up to.

'Over here,' shouted one of the Stermabeitalung and the others, six to start with, but soon joined by more from inside the building, ran to where he had found the tripped alarm.

'That way. Look,' said one, pointing at Adam's deep footprints in the mixed sand and snow.

The men started to follow when Kaas shouted after them. 'Wait. Get some weapons.' His own revolver was already in his hand. 'And spread out. Oberlieutenants, take charge of your groups. Spread out and find him.' The footprints told him it was only one person. 'And I want him alive. Get going.'

As his men fanned out, Kaas went back into the building and called the east and west gatehouses on the internal phone. Once he had warned them, he contacted Kragan in the main house.

Two minutes later, as Kaas joined his men in the forest, the klaxon alarm sounded at the barracks and canteen buildings. At the same time, the forest path and road lights were switched on and lit up vast tracts of the Heidi.

Adam was under one of the lamps as it burst to life. He moved deeper into the trees. The distant klaxons told him the whole camp was being mobilised. He knew they'd be armed. He dropped the brown bag and took out the Heckler and Koch MP5K sub-machine gun. He pushed a clip into it and rammed four more into his jacket pockets. The Browning was already holstered under his shoulder. He took out the remaining hand grenade that Frankie had given him in New Orleans and slipped that into his inside pocket.

Okay, Marcus. Let's give as good as we get. Time to take the initiative.

He changed direction and started to move north. He could hear vehicles moving along the road, dropping storm troopers off at regular intervals as they started to search the forest. There was a lot of shouting, helping him pinpoint where the search parties were. They had too many people out; there was a good chance they would trip over each other.

He worked his way northwards, back the way he had come. They wouldn't be expecting that. Very soon he had retraced his steps and was back at the wooden chalet.

He kept clear of the sanded clearing and the alarm beams and by-passed all the inhabited areas. He could hear people shouting in the distance and knew that they had gone chasing in the opposite direction.

The helicopter coughed, sneezed and wound up when he was only two hundred metres from the airfield. He had reached the open area of the tank trails when the helicopter's lights blazed on and it started to lift into the sky. Adam was trapped in the open and he sprinted towards a deep tank track as the aircraft swung towards him, nose low as it gathered speed. He threw himself, face down, into the two-foot-deep trench and lay still. Within seconds the whole trench was lit up. He tightened his grip on the sub machine gun, waited for the helicopter to slow and swing towards him. But it passed by, the crew too involved with the early flight of their craft and not expecting to find any intruders this close to the runway. It gathered speed and raced towards the built-up complexes.

When he was certain it was out of range, Adam rose from the trench and made his way towards the hangars, taking care in case there were any further helicopters being readied. There was nothing to alarm him, no activity in the building at the end or near the hangars. He presumed those who had been on duty there had all gone in the helicopter to help the others.

The hangar doors on the first building had been opened to bring out the helicopter. Checking all was clear, he went in. There was little point in going further. The two twin engined aeroplanes were trapped behind the Citation Jet. It had been a fanciful idea, flying out of there, and he laughed at his own foolishness. Jenny Dale's lessons would have to be used another day.

He quickly ran over to the next hangar. The big door was still shut. He eased himself in through the side door. No-one there. He surveyed the Jeeps. The keys were in them.

He went to the side door and checked outside, still no obvious movement.

He re-entered the hangar and searched for the switch to slide the double doors open electrically. He found it on the far side, punched the red button and watched the big metal doors start to open.

He climbed into the Jeep and turned the key. The vehicle was slow to start, coughing with a metallic grind as the fuel refused to fire. He cursed, pumped the accelerator, hoping not to flood the engine, and turned her over again. The Jeep fired up and he slipped it into gear, released the clutch and edged it forward. The doors had opened wide as he reached them.

'Achtung! Wie gehts?' shouted a voice from the darkness. Adam looked up and saw a storm trooper running towards him, waving his hand. When the German realised that Adam was not one of his colleagues, he stopped and reached for the revolver in his belted holster.

At fifteen metres distance, he was no match for the Browning. The 9mm slug cut through his neck before he had unholstered his pistol.

Shit, Marcus. Now it starts. Now it fucking starts.

Adam felt the blackness race through him as he saw the storm trooper fall. He switched on the lights and drove down the tank paths towards the front gate. They wouldn't expect him to be in a vehicle.

The blackness was still with him, the depression of a life taken. Why the fuck am I here, Marcus? Why's it always me in the shit?

Hope you're okay, Billie. Five minutes. No more. Please do as I told you.

He saw the first group of storm troopers in the forest to his left. They were moving towards the perimeter wall. One of the men waved in his direction and he waved back, kept his head down and hurtled on down the track.

The helicopter was now working an area to the left, near the chalet, its strong searchlight playing through the trees. A group broke cover in front of him, but his headlights were on full beam and blinded them, protected him as he drove past. One of the men tried to jump on board, but couldn't make it as the Jeep was travelling too fast. Adam heard him curse and the others laugh at his misfortune.

The track he had chosen turned into the forest. He would rather have stayed in the open, where they weren't searching for him, but he had to return to the gatehouse. It was his best way out.

He had to slow down, there were too many men crossing the road in the forest in front of him. They had torches, heavy weapons slung over their shoulders. But somehow he got through. Nobody shone a torch at him, nobody recognised the stranger in their midst.

His headlights picked out Curly Top in the black uniform. He stood in the middle of the road, his arm outstretched in a signal for the Jeep to stop.

Bastard's tired of walking, Marcus. Can't stop now.

Adam slowed to a crawl, as if stopping for him. The bright headlights confused Curly Top, who now held his hands up to shield his eyes. He waved to Adam to turn off the lights.

Adam grinned, his blackness gone as danger touched him.

He gunned the engine when he only had a few metres to go, felt the Jeep claw at the hard ground and hurtle forward.

Curly Top dived out of the way, grabbing at his revolver as Adam drove past.

Go, Marcus. Go. Go.

He was clear before the storm troopers could react. They may have been well trained, but they weren't match fit. Before the first shots rang out, Adam had turned the shallow bend and was shielded by the safety of the trees.

He drove for his life, knew that Curly Top would be screaming into that radio he carried over his shoulder, screaming for his storm troopers to find and stop the Jeep. He decided not to abandon it, not to go on foot. He'd be at the gatehouse within two minutes. Maybe he could just crash his way through.

He saw the searchlight before he heard the helicopter. The roar of the Jeep's high revving engine had drowned the turbine's sound.

He swung left to right, back again, careered across the road, in and out of the trees. In front and to each side, people were shooting at him, but they all missed. He unswung the machine gun and sprayed the bullets into the trees, sending his hunters scattering for cover. He heard the machine gun fire from the helicopter, but it was difficult for the pilot to manoeuvre in such a tight space, even more difficult for the machine gunner to take aim. The bullets from the helicopter were wild and causing more trouble to its own troops than to Adam.

As he raced and bumped down the track, the helicopter suddenly lifted and flew forward, leaving him on his own.

He's heading for the gatehouse, Marcus. He's going to wait for me.

He pushed the accelerator to the floor and went flat out down the track, more off the ground than on it. When he rounded the final bend, he saw the helicopter hovering in the middle of the road, no more than five feet off the ground and some twenty metres from the gates.

The gates were closed.

There were a few guards scattered to the side of the road, all armed, no more than six or seven as far as Adam could make out. Curly Top hadn't had enough time to get more people to the gatehouse.

Adam saw the machine gunner hanging out of the open door of the Jet Ranger, he didn't wait, just aimed his Heckler and Koch MP5K at the helicopter, one handed, and opened fire. He saw the machine gunner panic, and open fire blindly at the Jeep. He smashed the windscreen with one bullet and Adam felt a sliver of glass cut into his cheek, but he did little other damage.

Adam kept firing in short bursts and drove straight at the helicopter.

The pilot, realising that the Jeep was going to ram him, applied the cyclic and tried to lift clear. But the front of the vehicle caught the undercarriage and sent the helicopter shuddering sideways. The pilot, frantically trying to lift clear, felt his craft tilt and knew the big rotors were going to hit the gatehouse before they actually did.

The rotors slashed through the roof of the building, as if through a doll's house. The Jet Ranger arced upwards, a big prehistoric teradactyl lurching blindly in its death throes. Then it crashed to the ground, just crashed and died, no explosions, no flames reaching to the sky. It just flipped over and died in nothingness.

Adam had slammed the Jeep to a stop before the helicopter was on its back. He took the grenade from his pocket, unleashed the pin and threw it at the base of the double gates.

Nobody was shooting, they were all watching the helicopter in its death throes.

He swung round and drove away from the gate. He saw some of the storm troopers turn their attention to him and he sprayed them with his MP5K.

German bullets for German flesh, Marcus.

Then the grenade exploded, tore the doors apart some two metres, enough for a man to get through, but not the Jeep. He wrenched the wheel round and rammed the gate, the bullets now ripping into the air around him. The jeep slammed into the gates some more, but still not enough to drive through.

Adam was thrown forward, up and over the shattered windscreen and onto the bonnet. He kept rolling, still hanging onto his weapons, and fell over the front of the Jeep and onto the pavement outside. Somebody was yelling and the bullets suddenly stopped. As Adam looked back through the split in the gates, he saw Curly Top, saw the evil hatred in his eyes.

Keep going. Just 'cos they've stopped shooting doesn't mean they're not going to come after you.

He turned and started to run down the road, southwards, into Dresden.

The Audi Quattro honked from across the road. 'Here. Over here!' she shouted through the open window.

Shit, Marcus. She shouldn't be here.

There was little traffic on the road and he ran across to her, ran round to the passenger side and jumped in.

'I said no more than five minutes,' he shouted.

The words hurt her. 'But you needed me. Look at your face.'

He'd forgotten the glass that cut his cheek. 'It's okay. I said five minutes.'

'But you needed…'

'Five means five. If it was more, then I was in trouble. Shit, I didn't want you back. Let's go. Where's your tail?'

'I lost him,' she said proudly.

'Come on, get going.'

'Where?'

'Just go. Come on.'

She pulled away. As she moved away from the pavement, a black BMW slowed down and drew abreast of them. Adam remembered the BMW that had pulled out of the complex when he walked past earlier. She hadn't lost her tail, they'd had two following her.

Before Adam could react with his weapons, the passenger in the BMW, a young blond skinhead, set light to a glass bottle half filled with petrol with a piece of rag stuffed in the top, and hurled the Molotov cocktail into the Quattro through Billie's open window.

The bottle shattered in the back of the car, the petrol saturating and sticking to the upholstery. As the fumes spread, they were ignited by the flaming rag and exploded. Some of the petrol stuck to the back of Billie's hair and caught fire.

She was already screaming, desperately trying to steer the car away from the BMW, where the passenger was attempting to light another Molotov cocktail. Adam leant over and wrapped his arm round the back of her head, protected her from the flames and blocked out any further damage to her. With his other arm he wrenched the wheel to the right, forced the Audi up onto the pavement and against the wall. The car jerked to a sharp stop. The engine was still screaming.

'Take your foot off the accelerator!' Adam shouted. 'Come on, come on. Get out.'

He leant over and pushed the door open, shoved her out as the engine died. The BMW had come to a stop and the passenger was climbing out, his Molotov cocktail now lit and ready.

With the flames engulfing the roof of the Audi, Adam lay across the two front seats, aimed the machine gun and shot the bomber dead. The skinhead fell backwards into the BMW and the bomb exploded in the car, spewing its liquid of flaming death.

Adam crawled out of the Audi, grabbed Billie and ran with her before the petrol tanks exploded.

The BMW went first, its roof torn open by the flames and blast as if by a giant unseen can opener.

The Audi Quattro blew its doors and windows out twelve seconds later.

As Adam dragged Billie to her feet, he saw Curly Top in front of him. He wasn't alone. They were surrounded by storm troopers.

He went for the machine gun, but someone kicked him hard in the back of the head. He resisted the pain, tried to bring the weapon to bear.

Another sharp blow hit him between his shoulder blades.

No pain, Marcus. Kill the pain.

He willed himself forward and upwards.

Another blow on the side of the head. Then another.

The bastards were kicking him.

Like a fucking dog.

He twisted to shield himself, tried to pull himself round and use that big machine gun he had carried for so long.

But they didn't let up, kept at him. In the stomach, the shoulders, more kicks to the head.

He managed to keep the pain at bay, but only because, unconscious, he was forced to let himself go.

Just before he passed out he heard Billie screaming his name.

Adam. Adam

Help her, Marcus. Help her till I come back.

Ch. 67

'You're absolutely certain about this?'

'Yes, sir.'

The DDA sat back and waited for the Exec Director to continue. The news he had just imparted had had the effect he expected. His superior was baffled, unsure of the validity and import of what he had just been told.

'How the hell did you find out?' the Exec Director asked suspiciously. There was bad blood between the two men, something he had himself nurtured. Divide and rule had always been his style.

'I decided to run a check on all personnel involved in this matter.'

'All personnel?' questioned the Exec Director.

'Up to the level of Deputy Directors.' There was no way the DDA was going to run a check on his superior.

'Why?'

'This thing's taken so many damn twists and turns…that I just believe we should question every angle. I also ran a check on my own records, I should add. There could've been something there, someone I'd met in the past that might open another door.'

'Wasn't your door you opened,' cut back the Exec Director sharply.

'I can only report what we found. We just threw all the names into a big data base and sat back to see what the computer threw up.'

The Exec Director rose from his desk and crossed to the window, stared out on the cold, snow filled landscape that filtered down to Langley. He didn't speak for nearly a minute; the DDA sat quietly, knowing this was not the time to interrupt his thoughts.

'Was a time when we played these games and enjoyed it. We knew who our fucking enemies were,' reminisced the Exec Director. 'Now we're all on the same side. Trouble is…' he went on, coming back to his desk, '…you don't know whose side you're on, including your own. I tell you, pork and sardines just don't mix on the same plate.' He sat down. 'How close were they?'

'The Englishman or the Russian?'

'All three.'

'They just all happened to be in Washington at the same time. Guess they mixed in the same diplomatic circles, got to know each other. That's not unusual. Even in the cloak and dagger community. A good source of information.'

'They ever communicate now?'

The DDA shrugged. 'A few letters, cards. Nothing unusual. The DDI's met Coy a couple of times. As would be expected. They worked closely during Desert Storm. This visit to Coy in London was logged as gathering information on Nicholson.'

'Did he discover anything?'

'We've had no report, sir.'

'I can live with Coy. But the Russian worries me. Shit, Rostov's the number two in the KGB. They say he's going to be the next Director.'

'They were friends a long time ago. Rostov was only a military attache…'

'Fuck the title. He was a spy. They all were.'

'Our people knew that. They still had friendships. There's nothing to suggest any different.'

'I hope not.' The Exec Director paused for a good twenty seconds before continuing. 'Did they share any women, anything like that?'

'No. Nothing like that.'

'Happened in England. That scandal in the Sixties. War Minister, John Profumo. He was porking this hooker who was also in bed with a Russian spy.'

'Ivanov.'

'That's the guy. Brought the whole damn government down. These things happen.'

'I don't think that's the case here. They just went out for dinner, that sort of thing.'

'Chase it, anyway. I'd hate for it to rebound from another direction.'

The DDA knew he meant from above. The Exec Director was no different from the rest of them. They all spent time covering their asses. 'I'll keep an eye on it, sir.'

'The German police come up with anything on Bonnie and Clyde?'

'Not a smell.'

'I guess we got Nicholson's picture from the Brits?'

'If we did, then no-one's admitting to it. They've been on to us. Want to know if we released it.'

'How the hell would we…? Coy. Is that where it came from?'

'You'll have to ask the DDI.'

'That'll have to wait. His first responsibility's looking after this Berlin trip. Let's just hope the German cops get hold of Bonny and Clyde before they cause any more trouble. Shit, I'd like to know what the hell they're up to. I really would.'

So would the rest of us, reflected the DDA. So would the rest of us.

Ch. 68

The pain brought him out of his unconsciousness. It was a sharp pain, on his left side and below his ribs.

It wasn't long before that pain merged with the others that covered his body.

Adam lay still, his eyes closed, not wanting to alert whoever was in the room. He listened intently, heard nothing immediate, only the muffled sound of a radio or television from another room.

He opened his eyes slightly.

Curly Top sat watching him from a chair, a mischievous grin on his face.

'Welcome to Dresden,' he said in English, the accent heavy but clear. When Adam didn't respond, he scraped the chair back and stood up. 'I know you can hear me. I can either kick you hard or you can open your eyes and save the hurt. It's up to you.' As he spoke he moved menacingly forward.

No point, Marcus. I need the strength for later. Adam opened his eyes and looked up at Curly Top.

'Good. We understand each other. We're both professionals,' stated Kaas.

Adam didn't reply, was more concerned about working out where he was being held. His hands were behind his back and he felt the sharp metallic bite of the handcuffs on his wrists. His feet were unshackled; he still had his shoes on.

The room was of medium size, a bare room, probably an attic. The snowclad tops of the trees outside the window confirmed that. Where the hell was Billie? He suddenly realised she could've died, that something awful could have taken place before he passed out.

Kaas turned and walked to the door, pulled it open and shouted in German. 'Get Kragan.'

Adam lay still as Kaas came back and sat in the chair once again. Where was Billie?

Kaas stretched his right foot out and prodded Adam's thigh with it, grinning as he did so. Adam jerked his leg back as the pain seared up his muscled. They must've kicked him very hard for it to be so tender.

'So, Englishman. Mister Nicholson. Adam Nicholson. You are a famous person now.' As he spoke, Kaas pulled a newspaper from his jacket pocket and held up its front page for Adam to see. He looked at his own face staring back, with Billie's face next to it. The headline in German screamed 'SEARCH FOR MURDER SUSPECTS'.

'Where is she?' Adam asked Curly Top.

'Your girlfriend? In good hands.' The German grinned as he put the paper back in his pocket. 'You like being famous, Mr Adam Nicholson. Your photograph is also on television. All this…such a famous person, and no-one to ask for your autograph.'

As Curly Top laughed, Adam saw the door open and Kragan enter. Curly Top stood up as his superior came into the room.

'Has he said anything?' asked Kragan in German.

'Only wanted to know where the girl was.'

'Good.' Kragan knelt down in front of Adam and looked at him as a butcher would appraise a cut of meat. 'We know you speak German, Mr Nicholson,' he said, still in German.

Adam didn't respond, just stared warily at Kragan.

‘The girl is in good hands. Our young men's hands. She will be enjoyed by them. No doubt she will also enjoy herself with the best of our manhood.' Kragan continued in German, but saw no change in the Englishman, no sign of recognition, no flicker of anxiety. He stood up and turned to Kaas. 'I don't know. Maybe he understands, maybe he doesn't. But it'll take more than a few bruises to soften him up. I want five storm troopers to give that girl the time of her life. And I mean all together. When he sees her, I want him to know they've fucked her in every hole she's got. Everywhere. His bruises aren't going to hurt him, make sure the ones on her will.'

'Okay.' Kaas left the room.

Adam kept his silence and cursed his helplessness. If he allowed them to know he understood German, it would've made little difference. They just wanted to break him and would use any means available. Get the hands free, Marcus. Sit it out until I've got my hands free. Oh, Billie. I must've been crazy to let you come with me.

'Where is she?' Adam heard himself ask Kragan.

'Miss Knutsford. That's no matter.' Kragan answered in English. 'Who else knows you are here?'

'What're you talking about? Why should…?' He stopped and gritted his teeth as Kragan lashed out at him, punching him sharply in the ribs.

'You know what I'm talking about,' Kragan shouted. Who else knows?'

'I said, I…'

Kragan smacked him again, this time open palmed across his cheek. Then he jabbed him in the ribs again. Three more times, harder and more furious with each blow. Then Kragan kicked him in the stomach and as Adam doubled forward, he kneed him in the cheek, sending him sprawling backwards, banging his head against the wall. Before he could recover, Kragan punched him sharply, twice, in the ribs again. The pain seared through Adam, almost sending him into unconsciousness once again.

'Who else knows?' repeated Kragan coolly.

'I don't…shit, I don't know…'

'The pain you feel now is nothing to what the others will do. Why are you here? We know you were in America together. That the Americans called you in to protect our friend Heinrich Trimmler. Do you know who killed him. Hey?'

'I don't know.'

'Did you kill him? Is that why you ran away? With the girl.' He waited for Adam to answer, but nothing was forthcoming. He jabbed the Englishman twice in the ribs again, watched him fight to control the pain, watched his victim's eyes drift back into focus. 'Why come after Albert Goodenache? Why did he die?'

'I don't know.'

'The newspaper says you are a British soldier. That the girl is an American agent. That you were in Nordhausen when poor Albert was killed. Why?'

Come on, Marcus. If it's not these chaps, then who? Who's fucking responsible for all that's been going on.

'Where's the girl?' he asked again.

'Who else knows?' Once again, then the repeated jabs to Adam's ribs. Then the question once again as the pain subsided. 'Who else knows?'

Behind Kragan, Adam saw Kaas come back into the room. He realised he hadn't been anywhere, that it had been a trick they played on him to see if he spoke German. So she was all right. He had to believe that. He couldn't afford to believe otherwise.

'Where's the girl?'

Kragan swung round in disgust. 'I didn't tell you to come back,' he barked at Kaas in German.

'You won't get anywhere like that,' replied Kaas. 'This boy's been in the wars. He's no soft…'

'Then you find out what's going on. I don't care how. Just get it done.'

Kragan stormed out of the small room as Kaas crossed over to Adam.

'He doesn't understand, Mr Nicholson.' He chuckled. 'It it takes more than a few bruises, and a few kicks, to make people like us talk. eh?'

Adam didn't respond. He saw the psychotic in Curly Top, saw the arrogance of the bully paraded before him. We're in for a rough time, Marcus. This guy doesn't do it for anything but fun.

Kaas leant forward and dragged Adam to his feet as he yelled for the guards to come in and help him. Adam didn't struggle; no point in wasting energy when all he'd get for his efforts would be a clip round the ear. He had to wait, keep patient until a time for action presented itself. There was always such an instance. The key was in recognising it, not letting the moment pass.

'Our men will soon get the truth out of him,' reported Kragan.

'You've had long enough,' Frick retorted sharply, the anxiety in his voice obvious. 'We have to find out what these people are up to. I don't want any more time being wasted on this shit. There is no more time. We need to prepare ourselves. Our moment is here.'

They were in the big room on the second floor that served as Frick's office. It had once been the master bedroom and looked out on the woods to the east. Frick stared at the winter scene, the snow now falling heavily.

'Their pictures were spread all over the news bulletins. Pictures that could only have come from the Americans or British.' Kragan answered warily. Frick hated being contradicted and often flew into a rage when put in such a position.

This time Frick was thoughtful. 'Or the Russians. To embarrass the Americans. And to force us out into the open.'

'It's very possible, Fuhrer.'

'Are there any changes in Berlin?' asked Frick.

'Buhle says not.'

'I hope he keeps his mouth shut.'

'He's a newspaper man. He's used to secrets.' Kragan didn't add that he had never trusted the newspaper proprietor who sat on the Council. Not that he wasn't loyal to the cause, but because he enjoyed his own sense of importance too much.

'He's also used to leaks,' stated Frick. 'But he's all we've got at the moment.'

'If there are any changes, I'm sure we'll find out in time. I think it's unlikely. These things are planned and rehearsed well ahead of schedule.'

'As long as no-one suspects. Just find out what the Englishman and his woman know. They could hold the key that saves us.'

Her fear had turned to anxiety, then to boredom and now to anger.

Billie had been roughly bundled by a group of storm troopers away from the burning car and into the Dresden Heidi. She remembered screaming, remembered one of the storm troopers punching her in the face to stop her. As they dragged her away from the flaming Audi, she had turned and seen Adam lying on the road, shielding himself. She had shouted out to them, 'Don't hurt him! Don't hurt him!' but it was lost in the general mêlée and then she was punched once again, this time harder and more painfully. She felt her top lip swell up as she tasted blood, and she said nothing more. She could only think of Adam and pray he would be all right.

They'd thrown her into a jeep and driven into the Heidi, through the woods, to a large wooden building hidden in the trees. They manhandled her out of the vehicle and through the front doors, down the corridor and into the small, windowless and empty room that had become her home for the last nine hours.

Nobody had visited her. Her only companion was the bright light that was set high in the wall and shielded behind a thick opaque glass cover with bars.

When the fear eased, she had banged on the locked wooden door, but there had been no response, apart from the laughter of the guards who were stationed on the other side.

There was no furniture in the room, just wooden slatted walls and a wooden blocked floor. It was uncomfortable, but the wood kept it from being cold.

She sat in a corner facing the door, her lip now hurting badly. She tried to imagine what Adam would have her do, how he would want her to handle herself. She worked hard at it, at bringing herself under control, at pushing the fear back.

Nine hours after she'd been bundled into the room, they unceremoniously dumped Adam in with her. The door was quickly opened and shut, and suddenly he was there with her.

His hair was matted to his scalp. His shirt had been ripped from his body and there were deep cuts across his back and under his arms. There were minute burn marks on his hands and on his shoulders. His trousers were still on, but the zip had been torn open, and there were few parts of his body that were not covered in bruises.

'Hi, Princess,' he said softly, his eyes warm through the puffiness of his swollen lids.

'Hi, tough guy.' She didn't know what else to say, she was horrified by what they had done to him.

He smiled. Then he passed out.

She rushed over to him, gathered him in her arms and held him to her. After some time, she lay him down on his back and checked his body. She found nothing broken and his breathing was regular. Then she licked his face, washed away some of the dirt and blood that spread across it, cooled the swelling round his eyes and cheeks. It seemed the natural thing to do.

With her tongue she tried to wash off the blood that covered him. It seemed to work; her saliva and dampness helped his body fight the damage.

She did that for half an hour and he only came round for a short time. She didn't catch what he said — his words too soft and indistinct — but his half grin told her it had smutty connotations. God knows what he thought in his dream world as he watched her licking his body.

The second time he came round, he suddenly pulled himself up into a sitting position. She could see him trying to concentrate, trying to control his mind and body, trying to focus. She moved away, left him in the corner of the room and stayed where he could see her clearly.

'No danger,' she said.

'Where are we?' He spoke painfully and slowly.

'Somewhere in their camp.' She cursed herself for stating the obvious, wished she had taken more note of where they had brought her. 'I'm sorry. I don't…' She stopped, her inadequacy confused with her compassion for him. He looked so vulnerable, so damaged.

'I'm all right.' He understood her feelings and tried to reassure her. 'Have you been here all the time?'

'Yes.'

'And nothing happened?'

'Nothing. They just stuck me in here. I've seen no-one.'

He nodded, relieved that they had left her alone although he knew this thing had only just started.

'What sort of building is this?'

'How do you mean?'

'Is it in a big complex?'

'No. It's in the trees.'

'Brick or wooden?'

'Wooden.'

'Like a big Swiss chalet?'

'Yes.'

'I know it.' He didn't tell her that they had brought him here unconscious after torturing him in the main building. He didn't tell her how they had beaten him with plastic tubes filled with sand so that he would hurt and bruise without breaking his bones. Or how they had inflicted cuts with a small sharp knife, then sprinkled salt into the wounds and kicked him round the room so he had to twist sharply and feel the pain of the salt crystals in the raw open flesh. They had hosed him down after that, then poured urine over him. The next time he awoke, they blistered the back of his hands with cigarette burns, but this time, mercifully, he had had passed out within ten minutes and didn't regain his senses for nearly two hours. Then they beat him with the pipes once again, but when they realised that he had managed to keep his secrets from them, that this small Englishman was not for talking, they turned on him in their fury and kicked and beat him until they feared they had killed him. Finally Kaas ordered his torturers to stop and they dragged Adam down to the wooden chalet and threw him in with Billie. Maybe that would soften the Englishman up, or give Kaas the opportunity to break the woman. It had been Frick's order that the girl should not be tortured. But now things were bound to change, once he found out that the Englishman hadn't been broken.

'They need to know why we are here,' Adam said. 'They seem as confused as we are. They don't seem to have any idea about who's behind these killings.'

'Do you believe them?'

'Got to. Why go through all this if they already have the answers. No, they need to keep us alive. Until they get their answers, anyway.'

'I won't be able to stand up to them like you, Adam.' She couldn't hide the fear that engulfed her.

'Take it easy, Billie. All we've got to think about is how to get out of here.'

'Adam! How do you think…?'

'It's not my intention to stay cooped up in here, waiting for them to go on with their little games.'

She started to laugh.

'What's so funny?' he asked, hoping that her mood didn't suddenly break into hysteria.

But she continued, her laughter growing until her body started to shake with the force of it. He didn't react, just watched her with deep concern. After a while she brought herself under control.

'You're priceless,' she said.

'Why?'

'Because you're sitting there, all beat up, in a real mess, can't even stand up, let alone walk, and all you can talk about is getting out of here. You're some tough guy, my love.'

'We'll be out of here.' There was a certainty in his tone that surprised her. She felt his strength reach out to her. Damn it, if he believed it, then why shouldn't she?

He moved forward towards her and cupped her face in his hands. Then he kissed her softly; and they took the warmth of living from each other.

'They singed your hair,' he said.

'I thought you'd like it short.'

'Why's your lip cut?'

'Because I shouted at them. One of them slugged me to shut me up.'

'Big mouth.'

'Always was my problem.'

He held her for a while and they said nothing. Time was short and they needed each other's strength.

'Was Marcus with you?' she asked suddenly.

'You both were.' He didn't tell her how difficult it had been to withstand the pain they inflicted on him. He didn't tell her that he had been so worried about her that it had been hard to concentrate on sharing the hurt with Marcus, on blocking out the punishment they put him through.

Half an hour later the door clanged open and Kaas entered. He laughed when he saw them huddled together. But he was angry, having just been hauled over the coals by Kragan and Frick for not getting the Englishman to talk. He'd asked if he could work on the girl, but Frick had refused. If that ever got out, Frick was concerned about his public image. That was the difference between Kragan and Frick. Kragan would simply have done what was necessary. He would've found out what these two were up to by now.

'Pretty little lovebirds.' Kaas signalled two of the Stermabeitalung into the room. They moved past Kaas and grabbed Adam, wrenching him away from Billie. She screamed, but it had little effect, just added to the confusion that reigned in the room. Adam struggled, but he was too weak and the storm troopers tore his trousers off, leaving him stark naked. Then they held him down, flat on his back, as another Stermabeitalung poured a bucket of salt over the Englishman. It stuck to Adam's body, burnt into the jigsaw of cuts that had been carved into his body. Adam screamed, loud and violent, in his attempt to absorb the pain. The two storm troopers who pinned him down now rubbed the salt all over his body, massaging it into his skin, tearing the cuts wider as they did so.

Billie hurled herself at them, tried to push them away from Adam, but the storm-trooper with the bucket hit her across the head with it, sent her sprawling backwards across the room. He then knelt down, took out his small, sharp penknife and cut into the fleshy area between Adam's toes. He picked up what salt was left in the bucket and rubbed it between them.

Then the guards were gone.

Billie crawled over to Adam, who was still yelling loudly, and knelt next to him, waiting for him to bring himself under control. It was five minutes before he stopped yelling, before he started to absorb the terrible pain that burnt through his flesh.

Then she started to lick him again, slowly and deliberately, trying to absorb the salt from his wounds. She stemmed the flow of tears that came, knowing they would sting his body. With considerable difficulty, she tore a piece of cloth from her blouse and wetted it with her spittle. Slowly she worked on Adam's body. It would be a long task.

Ch. 69

The Director watched the President's Illyuishin Yakovlev Yak-4- tri-jet lift into the clear winter sky and turn westward for its flight to Berlin.

The arrangements had gone well. As Moscow's VIP airport, Vnukovo-2 was easy to police, security was not difficult here, but the Director was always nervous where his leader's safety was involved.

'I never like it when he's out of our jurisdiction,' he said, turning to Rostov.

'We've taken all the precautions we can.'

'Even so. There are too many hotheads running round these days. Too many people with old scores to settle. I never like it when any of our people go back into the old territories.'

'When I get back to the office, I'll double check all the arrangements.'

'It won't do any harm.'

They walked together down the corridor towards the exit, joining the small army of officials and apparatchiks who had come to see the President off and gain brownie points for so doing.

'Why do you think the Americans and British released the pictures of their agents to the media?'

'I don't know.'

The Director laughed. 'And you wouldn't tell me if you did.'

'I don't think they mean us any harm.'

'Who? The Americans or the two fugitives?'

'Any of them.'

'I hope you're right. These are historic times. Also nervous times. It wouldn't take much to shake everything up again.'

Rostov didn't answer. He already knew how delicate the balance of peace was, how slender the thread of hope. One bullet, one bomb in the right place, and the world could easily plunge back into its gloomy shadows of mistrust and attrition.

Ch. 70

She'd cradled him to sleep in her lap. Her mouth was dry with the salt.

He'd stirred once as she licked him, came erect within seconds. She'd looked up at him and he'd grinned. So she'd quietly squeezed the love out of him with her hands and her mouth, wanting to help him take his mind off the hurt, wanting to be close to him. After that he'd slept and she'd continued her ministrations until her mouth was too dry, her saliva spent.

She watched him as he slept, so vulnerable as he tossed and turned. It was impossible to believe that this powerless and battered body could stand so much pain. Finally she'd dozed off.

He woke her nearly two hours later, softly so as not to alarm her.

'Okay?' he asked.

She came awake quickly, trying to work out where she was. She was pleased to see him, but her expression turned to dismay when she recalled their predicament. She sat up suddenly, her mouth foul tasting and dry.

'It's okay. Take it easy,' he comforted her.

She saw he had put his trousers back on and remembered why her mouth was so dry. She pulled herself upright, her tiredness rapidly evaporating.

'I'm fine,' she said. 'What're you up to?'

He grinned. 'Getting us out of here. But you're going to be miserable.'

'Why?'

'Because I needed your bracelet.'

She looked down at her hand and realised her gold Cartier Double C bracelet was missing. She looked up and saw that Adam was holding it out to her. But it wasn't curved for her wrist any longer, but straight. The big C on the end had bent so it now formed a sharp arrowhead. She regretted its loss for a moment; it had been her favourite piece, a gift from Peter and happier days.

'That won't get us very far,' she said.

'This might.' He pulled a sliver of wood from inside his trouser leg, sharp and pointed and over eight inches long.

She was amazed; from nowhere he had produced two weapons. 'Where'd you get that from?' she asked.

He pointed at the wall next to the door, and she saw that he had prised it loose from one of the wooden slats, carved it out from the wall. 'With the help of your bracelet.'

'Mr. Cartier will be most impressed. What next?'

'Wait for them.'

'Just like that?'

'Of course. There are other ways of waiting.'

'Like what?'

'I had a funny dream last night,' he grinned as he spoke.'That you were doing more than just licking the salt off my body.'

She shook her head, then started to laugh. He was incorrigible.

'Why've they left us alone so long?' she asked.

'To soften us up. It's an old trick.'

'But they haven't got time with us. Not if they really don't know why we're here.'

'I realize that. They'll come at us harder this time.'

'I doubt if I can take it. I mean, the things they did to you. I don't know…' She lapsed into quiet.

He squeezed her reassuringly. She hadn't been trained for this; it wasn't part of her brief. He remembered the Gulf, the nightmares that the Iraqi soldiers had inflicted on the Kuwaiti women. He'd been sent in undercover before the American and coalition troops had taken Kuwait City. He remembered one woman, hiding herself in shame in her own home, raped, her nipples bitten off, branded with a red hot poker with the initial S across her thigh. She'd begged him to kill her, but he'd covered her with a blanket and stayed in the house with her while he waited for the Allied troops to take the city. Two of the soldiers had returned, no doubt for more pleasure at her expense. He'd killed them, slowly, with a knife. They lay, bleeding to death with gags in their mouths, with him and the women watching. It had taken three hours for them to die. Three painful and tortuous hours. Then, when they were dead, she'd suddenly grabbed his knife and plunged it into herself. She'd looked up at him as she lay dying. And smiled. Damn woman, after days of not speaking, she had said thank you before she passed away. The Coalition troops had taken the city the next day.

'We'll be out of here before they touch you,' he said. 'Just remember, when I say run, or jump, or whatever, you just do it. Don't question. Just do it.'

The Stermabeitalung came for them an hour later.

They were both taken this time, bundled out of the small room into a larger one that led into the corridor that Adam remembered. The corridor was bare, wooden walled with only light switches and Halon gas fire extinguisher levers. There was nothing he could use as a weapon, nothing to turn on his escort. He tried to keep between the five storm troopers and Billie, tried to protect her from the roughness, but the salt between his toes rubbed into the flesh and made walking difficult and painful. One of the Stermabeitalung, frustrated at the slow pace, stamped his heavy boot on Adam's bare feet, forcing him to cry out as he tried to hobble along faster.

The door at the end of the corridor was open. From it came the sound of a machine gun firing, followed by the single pops of a silenced revolver.

Adam and Billie were led into the room, a firing range that spread some forty metres. Kaas cradled the machine gun, another storm-trooper was firing at a target with the revolver. He stopped as the couple came in.

Kaas walked across the range and signalled the Stermabeitalung to follow him with the prisoners. They entered the room at the far end, the room with no windows and reinforced walls. Two guards stood by it, fully armed.

The room had been changed since Frick and Kragan had watched the last exercise. There were now rows of seats, banked upwards in four levels, that ran in a semicircle around the left half of the room. In the middle there were two lecterns, a long table and six chairs. The banked rows had tailor's dummies seated in them, all dressed in suits, all blankly staring forward as if waiting to be conjured alive. Other tailor's dummies stood, in police uniform, at the free standing doors that had been placed at the top of the banked sections. It was like a stage set, with actors frozen forever, waiting to burst forth and speak their lines.

'Put them in their places,' ordered Kaas.

He watched as Adam and Billie were manhandled towards the lecterns and placed behind them. They found themselves facing the room, as if they were the speakers and the dummies the audience.

'Enjoy the game,' said Kaas, and signalled his men to leave the room.

Fuck you, Curly Top. Adam knew what was coming next. After all, this whole thing had started with the SAS. 'Keep still,' he hissed at Billie.

The lights went down, the whole scene was in semi-darkness.

'Whatever happens, keep absolutely still.'

'What's going to happen?' she asked as Kaas closed the door behind him.

'Nothing. As long as you keep absolutely still.'

'But…'

'Think about something. Anything that takes your mind off where we are.'

'What…'

'Think thirsty, Billie. Think about how much you want a drink. And don't think about anything else.' He hoped she'd do as he told her. He also hoped they weren't going to go further than he expected, that one of them wasn't a real target. If they were, then he didn't want Billie to see the danger that could end her life.

Nothing happened, there was just silence and her nervous breathing.

'Why sh…?' She broke the silence.

'Think thirsty. Nothing else.'

Listen out, Marcus. Listen out for the bastards.

It was nearly another full minute before he heard the shuffling from behind the seats on the right.

They're not that good, Marcus. Bloody amateurs. Which is what makes this thing so dangerous.

'Think thirsty. Shut your eyes and ignore everything,' he whispered urgently to Billie. 'For Christ sake, don't move. Whatever happens.'

The shuffling continued. Spread out now, from behind the centre and left hand seats.

I hope they know what they're doing, Marcus. I hope they know that they're only trying to scare us.

The stun grenade exploded from the left, ripping brilliant light and deafening sound into the chamber.

'Do as I said,' Adam shouted across to Billie. In the brightness he saw the shock on her face, but was relieved to see that she had her eyes tightly closed, her head angled downwards.

There was a second grenade from the right, and as it exploded, four men burst through the doors at the top of the stands, their Heckler and Koch HK54 submachine guns aimed and blazing at their intended targets. This time the targets were three dummies on the right hand seats and two on the left. The third targets were the two dummies at the table immediately behind the lecterns.

One of the attackers rushed at the lecterns and opened fire at short range at the two targets, the blast of repeating gunfire deafening. Adam, accepting finally that they were not the targets, looked back at Billie. Her eyes were still clamped shut, her lips moving fast as if in silent prayer. Bless you, darling. We'll be all right. Think ahead, Marcus, think about how we're going to get out of here. This little performance is for show. Nothing else.

He watched the gunman turn his HK 54 onto the dummies and blast them to smithereens. Then the gunman threw something at Adam, something sharp that stuck into his flesh just above his heart. Before Adam could react, a final stun grenade went off, blinding him with its nearness.

When Adam opened his eyes, the gunmen had gone, the stage was empty except for the wafts of drifting smoke and the disinterest of the lifeless dummies in this terrible rehearsal for death.

'Okay,' he said to Billie. 'It's all right now. It's all right.'

She opened her eyes and looked around. That's when she screamed. 'You're bleeding.'

He looked down at his chest. The gunman had thrown a dart at him, with some sort of plastic sac attached to it, which had been filled with red liquid. It had spread across his chest. 'I'm all right. It's only red ink.' He pulled the small dart from his chest as he replied and held it up to her, showed her it was harmless.

'Why? What's going on?'

'Softening tactics. To scare you.'

'They did that.'

'Take it for what it was. Just to scare you.'

'I love you.'

'I love you, too.' He heard the main door open and the overhead lights snapped on. 'Believe it, we're going to get out. When I say jump, jump.'

Before she could answer, Kaas had entered with three of his men, weapons pointed at Adam and Billie.

'Cool, eh, Englishman?' sneered Kaas as he reached the couple. 'Our tricks don't impress you.'

'Like your toys, do yo…'

Kaas lashed out hitting Adam on the chest and sending him sprawling backwards against the table. 'I talk. Not you,' he shrieked. He signaled his men to grab Adam and pull him to his feet. Then he stood before Adam, his gun at his victim's throat, his voice shaking with rage. 'You've only lasted this long because of them. They won't let me go further. But even they will get impatient. All this here…', he waved his revolver round the room, '…is only a rehearsal. They'll get impatient because they need the answers before this game becomes real. Then I'll do things my way. But…' he shrugged, 'we have to leave today. So we must learn to speak faster. Eh. The Tiergarten won't wait forever?' He jabbed the gun barrel into Adam's stomach, forcing him to double forward in pain. 'Bring him next door. Both of them. Let's beat the crap out of them.'

Kaas swung round and went up the banking, followed by the others who dragged Adam and Billie along.

When they got to the door, Adam stumbled and fell. As his two manhandlers tripped and tried to grab him again, Adam pulled the sliver of long wood from his trouser leg and drove it up into the heart of the first storm trooper and killing him instantly. The wood snapped and the trooper staggered backwards and fell against Kaas, forcing him to the ground. Before any of the other storm troopers could react, Adam had chopped Billie's escort to the ground and kicked a third with his outstep, breaking his shin bone as he did. Then he grabbed her and pushed her through the door. As the others were reaching for their weapons, slow to react in their confusion, and Kaas was trying to lift himself out from under the dead storm trooper Adam pulled the lever of the Halon fire extinguisher.

The Halon gas, a bromotrifluoromethane, superpressurised to 360 PSI at 70 degrees F with dry nitrogen gas, exploded out of the canisters that were fitted in the ceiling and instantly sucked out all the oxygen from the air. It was what they were designed to do in case of fire; simply suck out all the oxygen from the area. As Adam raced through the door and closed it behind him, he saw those left in the room gasping for breath. As he shut the door, he flicked the latch on it and locked them into the airlessness he had created. It wouldn't kill them, but it would certainly slow them down.

The firing range was empty; Kaas had cleared the area while he went about his awful business. Adam couldn't see any weapons lying around, so he took Billie's arm and pulled her towards the exit door. He opened it carefully, but there were two armed Stermabeitalung there. They swung round, surprised at seeing him, and drew their sub machine guns level. He slammed the door before they could fire and bolted it. Then he led Billie back into the room. There was a small basin on the side-wall, and Billie broke from him, rushed over to it and frantically started to drink from the tap.

'Don't drink too much, or you'll be sick,' he shouted at her, and pulled her away from the tap.

'I never thought water could be so…,' she gasped.

'Come on,' he interrupted. 'Let's get out of here.'

From his left, someone opened fire with a sub machine gun in an attempt to blast through the thick wooden door. So Curly Top, or one of his men, was still alive. From the right, as if in stereo, another gun chattered as the two guards at the entrance to the range also tried to smash their way through.

'What the hell did you do in there?' she asked as she followed him down to the sandbagged area.

'Put their fires out.'

'What?'

'Save it for later.'

He led her to the end of the range where the targets were lined up. There were no windows behind them, no obvious means of escape.

'Up there,' she said, pointing at the ceiling.

It was a trap door, a workman's entry into the roof.

Adam turned and ran to the other end of the range, grabbed one of the wooden chairs lined up there, and placed it under the trap doo. He stood on it, and looked into the darkness of the roof tresses. Then he stepped down, signalled Billie onto the chair and helped her climb into the roof.

The door on the left burst open as he pulled himself up into the dark void. He heard the bullets thud into the woodwork of the ceiling as he closed the trap door and bolted it shut. The men underneath were firing into the ceiling, but the wood was too thick. Adam looked down the roof area. It was wide, an enormous football field of sloping roof and supporting tresses. He moved away, running on the boards towards a light at the far end. Billie followed him.

The light came from a skylight with a ledge below it. Adam opened it and looked out. It was a murky day, foggy and cold. Below him, standing at the side of the building, was a Stermabeitalung, who had crept off duty from the front door to have a quiet smoke. The gunshots hadn't concerned him; it wasn't unusual from the area of the firing range.

As Adam came out onto the ledge, the alarm bells shrilled, warning all storm troopers that something had gone wrong. The Stermabeitalung quickly ground his cigarette in the sand, slipped his HK54 submachine gun off his shoulder and turned quickly to take up his position at the front door. It was too late. Adam had dropped onto him from the ledge. As the trooper staggered to get up, Adam drove the Cartier bracelet into his neck, through his voice box, severing the artery.

'Jump!' Adam shouted. More nervous about the automatic fire behind her than the height before her, Billie jumped without question. He caught her, softened her fall.

Then he took the HK54 from the dead guard, untied the laces on his boots and slipped them off, grabbed his topcoat and led Billie into the trees. This time he triggered off the alarm that surrounded the chalet, but he wasn't worried. It would be lost in the sound of the main klaxon that was already blaring through the camp.

'What's that?' asked Frick.

'I'll find out,' replied Kragan, picking up the phone on Frick's desk.

Frick turned back to Karl Schiller, the newest member of the Council who had replaced Mitzer. The banker was stunned with what Frick had just told him. He knew they were on a dangerous course, but had never expected anything so drastic.

'Only you and Klaus Buhle know of our plans. And a small team, specially trained by Kragan. Six in all. Nobody else will ever know.'

'What part do you wish me to play?' asked Schiller nervously.

'When it is over, there will be chaos. Everyone will blame everyone else. The business community will be nervous, will not know which way to turn. They all think highly of you. You must divert attention away from us. Spread the blame. Spread the fear. And then point towards a new order, towards our party, towards the past that will help make Germany great again. Convince them that we are the unity of the future. That will be your part.'

Schiller was relieved. 'Did you know I was invited to the ceremony?' he asked.

'Yes. I hope you accepted.'

'Yes.'

'Good. That will help. To have been there. To describe it to your colleagues. It is a moment you will never forget, Karl. Even when your estates are returned to you from the hands of the Jews.' Frick never let the pressure off. He knew greed was the banker's greatest motive. 'Even then, you will remember that you were there when the course of history was changed in our favour.'

'Do you think they will listen to me?'

'Of course. They are good patriotic Germans. Germany always comes first. Didn't Thyssen build arms factories for Saddam Hussein even though they had already signed an agreement not to do business with Israel? But they still did. And how many others helped in the manufacture and supply of chemical warfare plants? At the end of the day we must look after our own interests. We have always done that. That's why we have such greatness as a nation.'

Kragan slammed the phone down, his fury obvious.

'What's wrong?' asked Frick.

'They've escaped.' It was the last thing Kragan wanted to say, here, in front of Frick.

'The Englishman?'

'Yes. But they're in the compound. We'll find them quickly enough.'

He steeled himself for the torrent of abuse and vilification that followed, the usual harangue that Frick let loose when things went wrong. It lasted a full five minutes. Schiller was shocked, never having seen Frick in this manner. When it eventually died down, when Frick had expended himself, Kragan spoke.

'We'll find them. They can't be far.'

'They must not affect our plans.'

'They won't, Fuhrer. They have no idea of what we're doing. And it's too late now. Our men leave today.'

'Kill them!' shrieked Frick. 'Kill them and then we won't have to worry about them. Give that order now.'

Ch. 71

The Presidential Boeing 747, Air Force One, had settled into its cruise when the DDI was told there was a call for him on the High Frequency set.

He went forward into the cockpit and the engineer vacated his seat so that the DDI could take the call.

'It's London, sir,' said the engineer handing over his headset.

The DDI nodded and put the headset on.

'Yes,' he said into the microphone.

'It's Charlie,' came Coy's scratchy voice over the HF receiver.

'Hi,' the DDI replied. He wasn't worried about the conversation being overheard; he knew the HF system wasn't being recorded. But they would be overheard by the operator who had connected them through the international SELCAL network.

'Just wanted to confirm that everything's all right.'

'Great.' He knew that Coy had been speaking to their friend. Arrangements were obviously going ahead as planned.

'Anne…' that was Coy's wife's name. '…wanted me to thank you for the family pictures. But she thought some were missing from the folder.' So they still hadn't found the two agents.

'Sorry. I thought they were all there.'

'She gave me a real earful for not checking them with you.' Coy was letting the DDI know that he was under fire for releasing the picture of Adam. 'We made up, anyway. I said it won't happen again.'

The DDI laughed at Coy's pretend joke. 'Women, they're the same the world over,' he cracked back. 'Any idea where your kids are going on holiday?'

'Not yet.' Coy's answer told him that they had no idea where Adam and Billie had got to, or what their reason for running was.

'Used the crapper yet?' added Coy.'

'No comment.'

'Have a good trip.'

'So long.'

The DDI took off the headset and passed it over to the engineer, then went back to his seat, past the rows of media hounds.

What the hell were the two of them up to? Why had they run? Were they going to turn out to be the jokers in the pack, the wild cards that changed the game?

As he stared out of the window, Air Force One crossed into German airspace on its flight from Paris to the new capital of Germany, Berlin.

Ch. 72

'Shoes are too big.'

'So find a cobbler.'

'Got no change to pay him with.' Adam riposted back as he led her through the trees. He was heading towards the main complex; it wasn't where they would expect him to go.

He stopped suddenly and pulled her down into the undergrowth.

'Kind'a sudden, isn't it?' she whispered in his ear.

He shook his head in mock amusement as a group of storm troopers went past, at double march, towards the chalet. When Adam was satisfied they were clear, he rose and, with Billie following, moved towards the complex.

The fog helped; the visibility was down to twenty metres. The sun wasn't going to burn it off; it was too cold and there was too much cloud cover overhead. The damp from the bushes and moisture in the air helped cleanse the rest of the salt from his wounds. It was a cooling sensation and it was a welcome relief from the pain he had endured through the night. When they reached the complex, they found it was packed with storm troopers being marshalled into search parties. There was no way out in that direcvtion.

'Come on,' he said, taking her hand. 'Change of plan.'

He worked his way round the complex and to the north, towards the hangars.

It took twenty minutes, twenty minutes of ducking and diving through the undergrowth before he reached the building he had targetted.

It was the second of the hangars and they went in through a small side door.

'What's this?' asked Billie, looking round the building that was stacked with large wooden crates.

'Our safe house.' He walked deep into the hangar until he found a crate that was big enough for them both. With his gun butt, he levered the top off to reveal army jackets.

'Come the revolution,' she said behind him.

Adam then opened a second crate; this one was also packed with jackets. He swung round and emptied most of the contents from the first crate into the second, packed them down tight and then sealed it up again. He repeated the deed twice more until he had created enough space in the first crate for the two of them. In the third crate he had uncovered army trousers and he picked a pair that were his size. He tried a few more of the smaller cases until he found some khaki shirts, and he chose one of those also.

There was a commotion outside and he slammed the smaller box shut, then signalled Billie to climb into the first of the crates he had opened.

'In there?'

'In!' he snapped.

She climbed in and he followed, slipping the top over them as the door at the end opened and a group of Stermabeitalung entered to search the hangar.

It took five minutes; the searchers were not as diligent as they should have been. In time Adam and Billie were left on their own. After another ten minutes, when Adam had checked that they hadn't left a guard, he settled back into the crate.

'I like this,' she said, snuggling up to him in the cramped area. 'What a way to spend our honeymoon.'

'I know. I really take you to the best places.' He winced in some pain as she squeezed against him, but he said nothing. He wanted her to relax, knew that she was frightened and was trying to lift herself out of her fear. 'You really are incorrigible.'

'How long do we stay here?'

'Until it's dark.'

'That's the rest of the day.'

'Till four. Unless we get a chance before then.'

'Any ideas on how we pass the time?'

'I'm sure we'll think of something.'

She heard him chuckle in the darkness.

'Shouldn't we be thinking about how we get out of here?' he said.

'You know us older women. Once we find something we want…' she trailed off seductively as she spoke. 'Especially if we're going to spend the next eight or nine hours stuck in a small, confined space like this. How's the pain?'

'It'll hold out. You?'

'God knows. Terrified. At least we’re together, even if it's in a shoebox. Wondering what's next.'

All that mattered was that they were together.

And they lay like that, hardly moving, sensing everything, until they allowed their exhaustion to send them into a shallow sleep.

She woke suddenly, her left arm wrapped round his shoulder. She shuddered as she moved it, the pain shooting through it as she tried to slide her arm from under him.

'Pins and needles,' he said.

'Ow,' she complained as the pain refused to go away.

'Keep moving it around. It's the only way.'

'I know, I know.' She did as he told her, but the pain took nearly a full minute before it started to subside. 'What now?' she asked, still pumping her arm up and down.

'How long to go?' she asked eventually.

'Six hours.'

'You didn't sleep, did you, tough guy?'

'No.'

'We can't sit here for six hours.'

'Sat in worst places for longer.' He sensed her brooding and knew that the tension of doing nothing was getting to her. She was beginning to appreciate what funfair duck in a shooting gallery felt like. 'Whatever they're up to, Curly Top said they were leaving today.' It was time to get her grey matter working, switch her thinking away from the trepidation that was churning her stomach.

'Curly Top?'

'Blondie. The chap who enjoyed his work so much.'

'Kaas.'

'That's his name?'

'That's what one of them called him.'

'I missed it.'

'At least I'm good for something. Don't you think they're going to get here and search this place?'

'Probably.'

'So why we staying here till dark?'

'Because they'd find us quicker somewhere else.'

'Whatever it is they're planning, it's obviously very important.'

'Curly Top said the Tiergarten wouldn't wait forever.'

'When?'

'Just before we got away.'

'That's in Berlin.'

'I've heard the name. What is it?'

'A park. Like Central Park. In the middle of Berlin. It doesn't take much to work out that's where they're going.'

They got no further than that, even though Adam made Billie run over what she knew about the Tiergarten. It wasn't much, just that it was a big park and that it had been bombed heavily during the War. She remembered a story that all the trees had been cut down by the Berliners for fuel after the War and that it ran up to where the Wall had cut across the city. She recalled that a vast Japanese Embassy had stood there and that Hitler had held his biggest rallies in the park. There was also a Victory column in the middle that was partly built with canon barrels used during the Franco Prussian War. '1873, if I remember correctly,' she recalled. Then she laughed. 'That's really interesting stuff, isn't it? Some way of getting us out of here.'

The muffled banging in the distance alerted them.

He pulled her to him, then reached down and moved the HK54 into a position where he could use it quickly.

The banging continued, still at a distance. Occasionally, someone would shout, but the words were lost through the thickness of the crate.

'What if they…?' she asked, alarmed as the sounds got closer.

'It's random. They won't have time to search every box. We'll be okay' he comforted her. But the HK54 next to him was armed and ready.

The searchers missed them, left them safe in their bolt-hole. Then the sounds were gone. The hangar returned to silence.

Twenty minutes later, Adam eased himself out of their tight shelter. There was no one in the hangar and he worked his way carefully across towards the door through which they had entered, dodging behind the crates for cover in case anyone suddenly entered the building. When he reached the door, he listened for any movement outside before turning the handle and opening it slightly.

It was a busy scene.

The runway area was guarded by armed Stermabeitalung. The two Jet Ranger helicopters had been pulled out of the far hangar and sat parked next to the Citation Jet, one of the twin engined Pipers and the single engined Cessna. A fuel bowser had just finished refuelling the second helicopter and was now backing away from the row of aircraft as two jeeps and a black Mercedes came up the road from the main complex and stopped at the ramp, next to the parked aircraft.

Curly Top sat in the first Jeep and he swung out and walked back to the black Mercedes. His colleagues in the Jeeps, five of them, followed and lined up next to him, as a guard of honour for the passengers in the car. Adam noted that they were all out of the uniforms; that they wore civilian suits and overcoats.

Curly Top leant forward and opened the rear door of the Mercedes.

Adam recognised the first man who came out. It was Curly Top's superior, the bastard who'd kicked him round the room before they'd taken him off to be tortured. He saw the men salute him, then turn and wait for the next passenger.

Adam didn't know this one, but sensed he was important, that he was the man. The storm troopers round the perimeter area snapped to attention, the guard of honour saluted in the old Nazi style. The Fuhrer, as Adam dubbed him, returned the salute and walked towards the helicopters. The others fell in step behind him. When they reached the aircraft, the Fuhrer turned to his men as they formed a semicircle round him.

They were over sixty metres from where Adam watched through the small gap in the door, too far to be overheard. But he could tell it was important, that the listeners hung on the Fuhrer's every word. When the speech was over, he stepped forward and shook the hand of each member of the guard of honour, six of them including Curly Top.

The Jet Rangers started to turn their rotors as the final words were spoken. Then Curly Top and two of the men climbed into one helicopter, the other three into the second.

As the helicopters wound up their rotors and lifted into the air, tilted to their left and swept away towards the north, the Fuhrer and his deputy crossed over to the CitationJet and clambered in.

Four minutes later the small jet lifted off the runway and also banked to the north.

'No point hanging round here,' Adam said to Billie when he had returned to their hideaway. ‘Game’s over. Time to move on.'

'What about, wait until it's dark?'

'Somebody changed the rules.'

'How do we get out of here?'

He grinned. 'With the birds.'

The runway perimeter was deserted when they got to the entrance. He led her out of the hangar and towards the line of planes, keeping under the protection of the hangar walls. They could hear the roar of motor engines in the distance and the occasional shout, but no one approached as they made their way to the ramp.

'You're putting me on,' she said, holding back as he took her arm and led her towards the aircraft.

'I've had lessons.'

'Lesson.'

'That was with two engines. This bird's only got one. Piece of cake.'

‘You’re crazy, Adam,' she said, digging her heels in and stopping him. 'But I'd like us to have a chance at living our lives. I don't think this is a good idea.'

'It's the only idea'

'Damn you, tough guy. This isn't a game.' She instantly regretted her words. 'You really take this 'til death us do part' stuff seriously.'

'Come on,' he reassured her, knowing the fear had returned now she was out in the open. 'It's the easiest way out of here.'

He opened the door of the single-engined Cessna, a Skyhawk 172. He searched the panel and saw the key inserted in the starter switch. It looked similar to the Seneca he had flown with Jenny. Only this time there was only one throttle and one mixture control instead of the two that had confronted him on the twin. 'Come on,' he urged her, stepping back and helping her into the right hand seat. Then he climbed in the left hand one and pulled the door shut.

He knew time was against him. If the engine didn't start immediately, the sound would alert any storm troopers in the vicinity. He tried to remember what Jenny Dale had taught him.

Battery. He hit the master switch and saw the instruments come to life. The fuel gauge read low, but enough to fly them out of here.

Magnetoes. He found the switch and turned them on.

Starter. Turn the key and bring the engine to life. He looked out of the window to check there were no storm troopers nearby. Satisfied that they were safe for the moment, he leant forward and turned on the key.

Grunch, grunch. Metal on metal. The engine turned but nothing happened. He looked across at Billie, but she was busily scanning the area for any intruders. Grunch, grunch, grunch. He turned it again, but the engine still refused to start.

Shit, Marcus. It's got to start. What have I forgotten?

'There's someone coming,' warned Billie, pointing to the south.

He looked up and saw two Stermabeitalung about two hundred metres away. They were walking slowly towards the hangars, unaware of what was happening in the small plane.

Grunch, grunch.

'They're coming…'. The alarm was building in her voice.

Grunch, grunch.

What is it, Marcus? What…?

'They're looking over this way,' she shouted.

The fuel. There's no bloody fuel. Of course the thing wouldn't start. He leant forward and pushed the mixture lever forward, then pushed the throttle to its idle position. Just as he remembered Jenny doing.

It fired as soon as he turned the key, burst into life as it caught the precious vapour and sparked the first explosion that moved the first cylinder.

'They've seen us,' she warned him again.

'We're on our way,' he shouted back at her over the roar of the engine. He pushed the throttle forward, but the plane shuddered where it stood, refusing to move.

The brake. Kick it off. He looked down, found the small lever to his left, and twisted it free. The plane finally rolled forward.

He looked up and saw the two Stermabeitalung frantically signalling to unseen colleagues. One of them was shouting into a hand held radio transceiver.

He pulled the power back and pushed on the brakes. He was taxiing too fast. Then he steered the small aircraft as he had Jenny's Seneca, by the pedals that were linked to the front wheel.

He looked up as he reached the runway and saw that many more Stermabeitalung had arrived. They were in general confusion, but some of them were running towards aircraft.

He lined the Skyhawk up with the centreline and pushed the throttle towards the firewall. The engine surged to full power and the plane started to roll forward. In the distance he heard the rat-a-tat-tat of an automatic being fired. He heard Billie cursing and yelling at him, but he ignored it, concentrated on the task in hand.

He looked at the airspeed indicator and saw they were thundering along at over sixty knots. He wasn't sure what speed the small aircraft would fly at, so he waited while the speed increased and the runway threshold got nearer.

Rat-a-tat-tat. The firing was closer, only this time it was more than one gun.

Time to go, Marcus.

He pulled the yolk back and the nose lifted, held itself for a moment, stuttered, then started to climb as the plane staggered into the air.

He heard something crash into the side of the plane, heard Billie scream.

Attitude. He had to concentrate. That's what Jenny had said. Hold your attitude otherwise you'll flip her onto her back. He eased the yolk forward and held it as the Skyhawk climbed out over the trees, over the blue concrete wall that the Russians had built and now surrounded the Heidi.

He looked for the altimeter.

Five hundred feet. Then a thousand. He was over the city now, over the houses and squat buildings of Dresden. The engine was starting to scream. He sensed there was too much throttle and he eased it back until it sounded right. Then he found the compass. He was heading south.

He started a gentle turn, remembering what she had taught him, remembering to watch the horizon and hold his attitude to it.

The small Skyhawk settled into its level cruise. The compass told him they were heading north.

Billie said nothing. She left him alone to concentrate on his flight. She searched the cabin compartments until she found a map. She opened it, saw it was a topographic map showing the roads and rivers and towns as you would see them from the air. She found Dresden, flattened the map on her knees and tried to identify the countryside below them.

Berlin lay to the north and she knew there was more to come. She felt a pride in him. He'd said to trust him.

She heard him laugh.

'What's so funny?' she asked.

'I once told someone that if I had a wife, I'd get her to travel in planes with two children.'

'What?'

As he concentrated on his task, he told her of the young mother who'd flown with him on the jumbo from London to San Diego, to the place where he'd first met Billie.

'Sounds good.' she smiled when he'd finished. 'Get this thing down in one piece and we'll make it come true.' She suddenly hoped he wouldn't be disappointed if they found she was too old to have children.

'We'll make it,' he said. 'Piece of cake, this flying.'

Well done, tough guy. You done well. If only Peter could see her now. If only…? She sighed. Nothing mattered any more.

All that was an eternity ago.