The Contract

Heini Schalke was there. Straight-backed, belly protruding, unable to disguise his triumph. Schalke who had aimed the MPiKM and who would get a cash reward and extra leave, and who had won the chance of another stripe on his arm, of another favourable entry in his file at Battalion.

The boy who had carried the letter from Weferlingen to Berlin was there. Nervous and hanging back because he did not know the extent of his implication, only that the boy who had befriended him and asked the favour was in the custody of those who would extract a confession on all matters that interested thern. It was the first day of his secondment to Walbeck. He did not meet Ulf s eyes, looked away.

Willi Guttmann heard the key turn in the door.

A mug of coffee was brought to him.

'Has my father been found, and my sister…?'

They had not been found. He would be told when they had been found.

The door was locked again. Behind the thin window curtains he could see the trellis of bars.

They had been most careful with Willi Guttmann. They had removed his shoe laces, his trouser belt and his tie, and had locked him in an upper room at Halberstadter Strasse.

He was past weeping, had cried himself to sleep the previous evening after the first detailed interrogation by the man from Berlin. There were no more tears as he lay on his back and stared at the ceiling light behind the protective wire.

Carter was shown into Charlie Davies's office.

Handshakes and Nescafe. Wally Smith was there and another man that Carter had not met before.

He wouldn't mind waiting, would he? A few things to be settled, then they'd be off.

Carter looked at the walls and their huge mosaic of black and white photographs. Photographs of the fences, of the National Volks Armee at work, of the Border Guards, of patrol boats on the distant side of the Elbe river, of the SM 70 automatic gun, of the PMK 40 and

PMP 71

mines, of watchtowers and earth bunkers, of jeeps and transport lorries, of the RPK drum magazine machine gun… photographs that covered three of the four walls. On the fourth wall, from ceiling to floor, was a map, 1 inch to the mile, with its covering and Chinagraph symbols, showing the border.

When they were alone Charlie Davies lit a cigarette and came and sat beside Carter.

'Taken an eyeful of the pictures, have you? Well, you should, because that's what's out there. Two million sterling a mile we reckon it's costing them, and that's big money for those bankrupt buggers

' It sort of clears the mind,' said Carter faintly.

'But they keep coming, God knows why, and about a dozen a year make it that we know of, a dozen a year along 411 miles, they're the ones we hear about. I don't know about the American sector, shouldn't be different. A dozen a year, and we're told there's 2,500 in the gaols that didn't make the run… and there's the ones that buy it. ..'

'The ones the bastards shoot

'Or the minefields, or the SM 70s… one last night, not on the fence itself but on the Hinterland. The alarms went off and there was a shot reported. I had to think of Johnny, didn't I? The BGS monitoring set the record straight. A girl was killed and a boy captured…'

'Johnny…?' mouthed Carter.

'They were both East German nationals. We reckon it's on the Hinterland that most of them fail though it's difficult to be exact. Last night there was a fair bit of radio chatter, that's because they're all keyed up for your lad and his customers.'

'They shot the girl dead?'

'They don't piss about.' Davies stabbed out his cigarette. 'Time we were off. There are some military doing a border recce north of Helmstedt, one of the other lads was taking them but I've put them under my wing. The East Germans are used to seeing me with troops, so if we go out in a big jolly party it's less conspicuous.'

'However you like it.'

They didn't talk in the car because Charlie Davies's German civilian driver was at the wheel. They drove north and met the troops in the village of Brome. Two Land- Rovers, a party of junior officers and senior NCOs. A pleasant group interested in what they had seen on the Elbe the previous day, and anticipating what they would find on the second half of their formal patrol. Men from a cavalry regiment, wearing their camouflage scarves jauntily, carrying their unloaded weapons easily and happy enough that for a few hours they had escaped the demands of their Chieftain tanks. The stops were frequent, as Charlie Davies with the skill of an expert guide handled their tour.

They gathered at a border marker to look through the close mesh wire and watch a work party of Pioneers erecting a new watchtower.

'The last one blew down,' said Davies. 'With them in it and all. Fair old night it was, hell of a wind and rain too. Down south in the Hartz there was a stretch of mines 2 kilometres long, which means 6,000 mines laid, and 2,000 of them went up when the rain cleared the earth off their pressure plates. Like bloody Guy Fawkes night…'