The Contract

Not the problem of the Deputy-Under-Secretary. He would see all he wanted of his wife and sons and his grand- children, all he wanted of his home in the country. He wondered whether the bodyguard would be allocated to his successor.

Under the lights that hung from poles that were intended to provide the Barleber See Cafeteria with the happy image of a holiday playground, Johnny saw Otto Guttmann and his daughter. Their clothes identified them to him. The only man in a suit, the only girl with a city raincoat over her shoulders. In the shadows, hidden by the perimeter darkness of the patio, Johnny circled them. Better to be safe, better to know if they had buckled in their resolution and gone to the Schutzpolizei. He was very thorough; the lavatories, the back of the bar where the bottle crates were stacked and where a man could hide, the trees around the cafe. He watched the faces of the campers who had come to talk and drink. He saw no surveillance, no watchers.

He strolled to their table and they managed an unobtrusive welcome.

Then Johnny went and queued at the bar and came back with two small beers and an orange juice for the Doctor.

Chapter Nineteen

As the last of the campers were leaving the cafeteria for their tents and the shutters of the bar came down, Johnny rose from the table, tapped at his watch, motioned to Otto Guttmann and his daughter that it was time.

The path was dim lit and they walked close to each other and twice the old man bumped into Johnny's back.

I don't know why they're coming, thought Johnny.

The contact had been too slight, too transitory for him to make the judgement. Damned if he knew why they were coming. Too old, too settled to be purchased by the trinket attractions of the West. Too cynical to be bought by the elusive breezes of freedom across the fence. Too weary to be lifted only by the promise of a lost son at Checkpoint Alpha.

Perhaps he would one day comprehend, if at a future moment he met and talked with Otto Guttmann. He had expected more fight from the girl, more hostility.

All questions, Johnny, and questions are wasted breath.

They kept to the centre of the gravel path that widened when it left the trees. It was flanked now by low slung holiday tents and there were the lights of portable gas lamps, and the glow of cookers, and radios played the interminable orchestra music of the East's airwaves. A couple were in dispute, another kissed in the privacy of shadow. A child urinated noisily behind a flapping canvas screen. There was the dull, constant drone of the traffic on the autobahn. Johnny leading, Otto Guttmann and Erica following. Where are you taking them, Johnny, to what salvation, into which Shangri-la land? Another question…

No questions, no answers, not until the rear lights blazed away onto the autobahn, not until the train pulled out of Obeisfelde and straddled the Aller Bridge.

They turned out of the gateway of the Barleber See site, and went along the road that Johnny had walked on the first morning. Seemed a century ago. In front of them the autobahn bridge towered and the racing lights of the cars were suspended, carried on puppet strings above them.

A hundred yards from the bridge Johnny stopped and he took Otto Guttmann's hand and whispered to him that Erica and he should stay, that he would be gone for only a minute. Johnny hurried forward. The fast, trained reconnaissance. He was clear in his mind what he was looking for. On the open road that passed under the autobahn a waiting police car could not be hidden.

Johnny came back to them. He reached out in the darkness and his fingers touched the hem of Erica's coat, and she started as if in shock and her hand clutched his wrist. Poor bitch, frightened half to death.

Gently he pulled his arm clear of her and they started to walk again towards the approach road. Only the autobahn lights to guide him. He would want to see Erica again, Johnny thought, when it was over.

They came to the approach road that snaked up to the traffic lanes.

Johnny held one of Otto Guttmann's hands, Erica the other. As if at a signal they scurried forward, bent low. Their feet stampeded on the tarmac and then they were buried in the undergrowth. The branches whipped at their faces, low roots caught at their feet, the grass sank and heaved under their shoes. Johnny knelt and they followed him down.

Near to the autobahn and the cars and lorries hammered towards Helmstedt above them. The sweet and sticky smell of green leaves and green grass was around them. The damp of the evening clung to their clothes. Johnny moved and wriggled in the bushes before he found the view that he wanted, the road down from the autobahn on which the car would come. He looked at his watch. Fifteen minutes, perhaps a little more or less. He felt Erica against him and the softness of close-clinging summer clothes, and he heard the breathing of her father as if the short run to their hiding place had winded him.