The Contract

The green receiver with the scrambler distortion devices.

'Yes.'

'Fenton here.' Peter Fenton, Director of the Security Service. Rather a tiresome voice.

'What can I do for you, Peter?' The Deputy-Under-Secre- tary was guarded when in contact with his opposite number from Security.

Different men, different standards.

'Nothing that's very important… I just wondered if you felt the change of dates put out by FCO this afternoon for the DDR trade visit affected the business you were putting together.'

'You're ahead of me, Peter. I've been in one meeting after another, I haven't managed to get at my tray.'

'The visit of Oskar Frommholtz, FCO informed us because we have an escort commitment. It seems Comrade Frommholtz has asked for a change of dates. He was due here for the last week in June, that's been brought forward because he's a COMECON commitment on the original date.'

The Deputy-Under-Secretary fished in his memory. 'We trying to turn the trade imbalance, they looking for a foreign protocol… Why should it affect anything we're doing?'

'The visit will coincide with the Guttmann dates. Frommholtz will be being wined and dined on Whitehall when the good scientist is nippin over the border.'

'It's a covert operation, nothing to link it with us.'

'Quite right… if it works, but it would be a pretty mess if your nursemaid were picked up… Are you still there?'

'Yes, Peter.'

'I think the PM should know. I think the PM should sanction it. That's my advice anyway…'

'I'll not give it up.'

'Nothing went into the minutes of JIC. If he's not told, and if the thing trips, they'd have our skins.'

'I'll not lose this to a politician with a weak stomach and a short future.'

'That's your decision then…'

'Thank you for calling,' the Deputy-Under-Secretary said. 'Good night, Peter.'

He replaced the receiver. Perhaps he would say something to Downing Street. Not at this time, but later, something that would not arouse curiosity. Of course there was risk, but without risk the Service died, dried on the branch. And when he produced Otto Guttmann that would rank as a rare moment of success. A success that he would not tolerate the faint-hearted to deny him. And Fenton had no right to talk of failure, damned old woman wringing his hands. The Deputy-Under-Secretary sat at his desk and read again the message from Mawby. He had authorised the payment, he had stood by his Assistant Secretary. Mawby was a good man, young and a little green, but sound for all that. Mawby believed in the plan, that should be enough for him, shouldn't it?

Security was always parsimonious in initiative, that was the difference between them and the Service. Mean, weren't they, when a bit of dash was required? The Deputy- Under-Secretary smiled. It was going to be a damned good show. He would not be balked.

With the curtains across the French windows not drawn, the lights of the sitting room lit the outside patio. From his chair Carter watched Johnny in the towelling top they had found for him and the loose trousers, listened to the thudding beat of his boots. There was an old oak garden chair on the patio. Right foot onto the chair, left foot following. Right foot onto the concrete flags, left foot following. The steady rhythm of the boots. The pumping of Johnny's breath. The press-ups. The jogging on the lawn. Only when it was quite dark, when the night had closed on the house would Johnny come back inside, and there would be a towel round his neck, and he would tramp towards the kitchen for a pot of tea.

Awesome to Carter because he was a desk man, who had not in recent years called upon the strength in his legs, the wind in his lungs. The division between them. Carter would be at the Departures desk in the airport concourse, or on the railway platform. Johnny would be flying on, Johnny would be travelling. That was the division, and Carter could not read his book as the boots pounded from the patio to the garden chair.

No movement since the patrol jeep had passed. Nothing stirred. And the ink darkness was cut savagely by the lights that fell on the fence, clasped it in false daylight, played on the sharp mesh and the attached guns.

Relief at four. Two more boys to climb the metal rungs on the inside of the tower and come to the closed platform 40 feet above the fields. Two more boys to take the places of Ulf Becker and Heini Schalke.

Open ground in front, 300 metres of grass, scythed twice a summer by workmen who were brought close to the wire and covered by the guns of the Border Guard. Open ground all the way from the electrified fence and the trip wires on the embankment of the railway line that had once served the brick works of Weferlingen, all the way to the vehicle patrol strip and the ditch and the fence with the automatic guns. Open ground.