The Contract

The crashing roar of escape away from him, and pigeons in the high branches clattered into flight. The sounds of desperate, clumsy escape, echoing into the dark distance of the woods. All the bloody world would hear it… Johnny's heart pounding, his breathing petrified. The hand that did not hold the pole was clasped on the butt of the Stechkin.

Bloody pig. The woods were packed tight with them. Not hunted here.

Too close to the frontier. Fucking game reserve… A full minute Johnny stood rock still and as the fear slipped so came a sprinkling of confidence. If the pig had been browsing in the leaf-mould for young roots and had been disturbed by him then there was no other interloper in its territory. The immediate path was clear.

Six times Johnny ventured forward, retraced his steps to Otto Guttmann and Erica, advanced with them, and then set off again on his own. He had known it would be slow, but there was no call for hurry and he must stifle the desire to rush.

An hour and a quarter after they had set out, Johnny saw in front of him the shadow of the woodman's hut and the clear ground beyond and the silvery brightness of the Hinterland fence.

Charlie Davies collected Carter from the Stettiner Hof. The lights lit the Holzberg Square, shone on the leaning and timbered facades of the houses, on the cobbles. Noise and laughter spilled from the bars and cafes, a carefree accordion wheezed at the night. A cheerful community that was soon behind them as they took the road north.

'My wife did a flask of coffee and I put a half of Scotch on the NAAFI slate, and there's some sandwiches…' said Davies as he drove. 'There's a groundsheet in the back, too, and a torch. We could be out there all night. ..'

'Signals said again this afternoon that the radio traffic over there is still lumping Johnny with Guttmann and his daughter.'

'Not my business, but they're important, are they?'

'They're what Johnny's there for.'

'And he's an old man, this Guttmann?'

'In his seventieth year.'

'Jesus… Who's this caper down to?'

'The high and the mighty, and they've had sod-all luck.'

'Luck doesn't get you far on the wire,' Davies said gently. The mood was oppressive and he sought to change the tempo. 'I can't take the car that close. We'll have to walk the last mile, and death quiet then, no lights, no talking. Right?'

The car was off the main road, coughing along a rough track between the trees. Carter was subdued. A thousand miles from home. A thousand miles from Century House. A thousand miles from the 'Green Dragon' and the snug bar. A thousand miles from everything that was real and dear to him. A thousand miles from Johnny who was across the wire and coming.

Charlie Davies parked the car, ran it off the track and under the trees.

'I think we'll have a last fag here,' he said. 'And maybe we'd better break open the bottle for a quickie.'

He stripped the cap off the small whisky bottle and passed it to Carter.

Johnny looked at his watch. For forty-five minutes they had been in the cover at the back of the woodman's hut. The pattern of the jeep patrol had developed in front of him. Ten minutes after they had come to the hut the vehicle had crawled along the makeshift track on the south to north run.

Fifteen minutes later it had returned, chugging in low gear, its headlights sharp and glinting on the fence. Another fifteen minutes and again south to north and Johnny had seen the silhouettes of the two men through the doorway space of the jeep.

All hinging on the watch face, because Johnny had sneered that he was exact, that he had a plan. All dependent on the moving minute hand.

Five more minutes and the jeep should return and with the heading away of its winking tail lights they would go for the Hinterland fence. If there was a concealed surveillance position, occupied since the previous evening, then he believed he would have seen a sign, heard a greeting from the jeep.

No moon, only a wind that drifted the clouds, curled the upper branches, shivered in the leaves.

'After the next run, we go…'

One hand in Otto Guttmann's, the other in Erica's.

Johnny felt them grasping at him, trying to borrow from him the strength for their survival.

'Just do as I said, exactly as I said. There aren't going to be any problems.'

He loosed the old man's hand, but Erica's hand he held longer, and her fingers were slipped between his. Afterwards, Johnny, afterwards is the time for thanks. Her fingers played on the palm of his hand.

The jeep was coming.

Johnny snatched his hand away, sank to a crouch, pulled them down beside him, was aware of the slow, stiff movements of Otto Guttmann.

God knows how you managed to get this far, old man.