The Janus Man (24 page)

There was silence for a few minutes as Newman digested this and they climbed higher. And now he knew why the searchlight glow had been a blur — the mist was rolling in, coils of white vapour sliding in between the trees.

To his left Gerda was no more than a faint shadow, flitting noiselessly through the forest along a course parallel to their own. It was not at all what Newman had expected. More like being with a guerrilla group. He shivered as the chill of the mist penetrated his raincoat.

Falken wore a thigh-length leather jacket with large lapels which gave the garment a military cut. Corduroy trousers were tucked inside knee-length leather boots with rubber soles. The dense silence of the mist-bound forest was broken by no sound. Even their footwear made no noise on the moss-covered ground.

`Here are the cycles,' Falken said, turning off the path and reaching under a clump of bracken. 'They gave me your height. I think this one should suit you.'

Toll's thoroughness again, Newman thought as he raised the cycle upright and perched on the saddle. It felt comfortable, just the right size. Falken hauled out a larger machine and looked at Newman.

`Make sure your lights are on — including the rear light. It is the regulation.'

`What about Gerda?'

`There is a third machine under the bracken with a basket for her weapon. She will follow us at a certain interval — in case of trouble I like a surprise rearguard...'

The path had ended at a tarred road and they began cycling alongside each other uphill. Falken pedalled slowly until he was sure Newman could handle his machine competently, then he increased the pace.

Falken cycled with his head bent forward. Newman realized he was listening carefully. He suspected the German had exceptional hearing — a man who looked after bird sanctuaries would be accustomed to picking up sounds other men might miss. They had reached the top of the hill and were cycling along a level stretch of road, the beams of their lights showing only a short way ahead in the oily mist when the headlights of a car parked off the road were switched on, catching them full in the face. A voice shouted the command.

`Halt! Border Police. Stand still. We have guns pointed at you …'

Tweed was still working at Park Crescent. He was an owl and his mind moved at full power late at night. He closed the last of the four files and pushed the stack away.

`Shall I try phoning Peter Toll again?' Monica asked. 'I've tried four times so far.'

Tweed checked his watch. 'One o'clock. That makes it 2 a.m. in Munich. Leave it till the morning...'

`Did you find anything in the files?'

`Nothing. Grey, Masterson, Lindemann and Dalby. Not a thing.' He leaned back in his chair and went on talking, thinking aloud. 'How did it all start? Ian Fergusson was murdered. That was the bait to lure me into Germany. Then Ziggy Palewska is killed. A second body to hold my interest. Lübeck. I'm attacked, probably by Kurt Franck. Misfire, thanks to Newman. The central fact of the whole mystery is only my four sector chiefs knew Fergusson was going to Hamburg. Let's call the odd man out Janus..

`Why Janus?'

`Janus, the god who looks both ways — the man who looks both to East and West. Like January. Undoubtedly Wolfs — and therefore also Lysenko's — chief agent in the West...'

`But there appear to be two chief agents. Balkan also.'

`Balkan is somewhere in Germany for brief, maybe longish, periods. Probably controller of all Wolfs networks in Western Germany. Getting back to Lübeck, we have the strange figure of Dr Berlin. And Diana's shrewd comment —
maybe he wants you to see him
. Why would he want that?'

`Sounds an arrogant sod,' Monica commented.

`Lübeck still. Two horrible murders of attractive blonde girls. Three, if you add in Frankfurt six months ago.'

`You lack a connection — maybe several.'

'I have that feeling — that I am looking at different pieces of a huge jigsaw. I can't fit them together because I lack more pieces.'

`Maybe Newman has gone off to find some of your missing pieces. We know from my phone call that he checked out of the Jensen.'

'I just hope to God he hasn't crossed the border.' Tweed's gaze switched to the wall map. 'Peter Toll is brilliant but still impetuous.'

`Why use Newman? He has his own people...'

`Because he might need someone new. All four of our sector chiefs report a weird lack of activity by the opposition. Toll will have spotted that. So, he sends in someone fresh. Let's pray I'm wrong.'

`And why, may I ask,' Monica said tentatively, 'are you taking Diana Chadwick with you when you visit the famous four in their warrens?'

`Just to get a second opinion.'

`Oh, really? I don't think we're being frank any more. You have some other motive...'

Tweed stood up behind his desk, stretched his arms, suppressed a yawn. 'You go home now. Me too. I'll find you a cab. I have to visit that detective, Portman, tomorrow — no, today.'

Monica put the cover on her typewriter. 'And what about Harry Butler and that German he's interrogating at Heathrow?'

`We'll leave them there until I can get Toll. Harry can last out an incredible number of hours. Maybe the German can't.'

`I'll try Toll again in the morning.'

`Do that.' Tweed helped her on with her coat. 'I want news of what has happened to Newman.'

Newman stopped, braking his cycle, dropping his feet to the road, standing with legs splayed on either side of his machine. The crisis had come. He was ice-cold. Falken also stopped. Newman threw up one hand to shield his eyes from the glare of the car's headlights, holding the cycle with the other.

`Border Police!' the arrogant voice shouted again. 'Papers! Your papers!'

There were two of them, both clad in grey military greatcoats and rammed down over their heads were peaked caps with oblong-shaped cap badges. They had stepped forward into the lights, one of them held a carbine loosely in his right hand.

`Lay your cycles on the ground!'

Newman obeyed, stood up slowly, very erect. His left hand reached up slowly to his breast pocket. The guard with the carbine levelled his weapon, aiming it at Newman's chest.

`What are you doing?' his companion shouted.

`Getting out my papers. You asked for them. Kindly examine this folder:' Newman's tone was deceptively quiet. 'And tell that lout with you to lower his gun …'

`Lout?'

The talking man stepped forward, raised his clenched fist.

`Hit me and I'll see you spend the rest of your natural life behind bars!' Newman thundered. 'River Police. Special Security Section. Look at it, idiot!'

He thrust the opened folder under the man's nose, keeping a grip on the document. He held the folder at a slanting angle in the light from the car. The guard lowered his fist, took a step back. Newman took a step forward.

`Blundering fools!' he stormed. 'I'm a senior officer — on special assignment tracking down drug smugglers. You may have ruined the whole operation. Turn out those goddamn car lights. Give me a torch. Come on! Move, damn you!'

Psychological intimidation was not the only motive for raising his voice. Somewhere close behind Gerda was coming along the road, cycling in their rear. He was warning her.

`Go back and turn off the headlights,' the guard told the man with the carbine. 'I have a torch here,' he went on, producing the torch from the capacious pocket of his greatcoat. Newman snatched it from him, switched it on and beamed it straight into the man's eyes. He blinked and lifted his own hand. The cap badge of the Border Guards now showed clearly, the badge Toll had shown Newman at the farmhouse when he identified the different police forces in the DDR for Newman.

`Now you know what it's like,' Newman ranted on. 'To have a light shone at you point-blank. Only the mist may have stopped those headlights alerting the gang of bastards I'm after. Have you children?' he demanded. 'And what is your name?'

`Karl Schneider,' the guard said sullenly. 'And I have a boy and a girl...'

`You want the boy to grow up a drug addict? Hooked on heroin?' he shouted. 'Because that is what this anti-social gang of swine are peddling.' His voice dropped, became silky. 'Show me your identification. I may have to report this operation went wrong because of your crazy intervention...'

`We only do our duty.'

In a cowed tone, the words trailing off as Schneider gave Newman his folder. The Englishman checked it by the light of the torch, repeated the number three times as though impressing it on his memory, then shoved it back at the German.

`Your duty,' he sneered. 'Your fumbling incompetence, you mean.'

`Incompetence?' Schneider, indignant, perked up. 'And who is this man with you?'

`Josef Falken, Bird Sanctuary Conservation Service,' Newman rasped. 'Co-opted to assist me. He can move like a cat — which is more than you can do.' He raised his voice. said incompetence. Instead of waiting by your car quietly, then waving us down with this torch, calling out in a normal voice, you have to illuminate half the Harz Mountains. And had we run for it your car is parked the wrong way — it would need a three-point turn before you could have come after us. By then we'd have disappeared into the mist. Perhaps,' he continued with a heavy sarcasm, 'you'd like to waste more time checking my companion's papers? That will look good on the report I may make. Especially if we miss our rendezvous with the gang of vipers we are hunting.'

`That will not be necessary,' Schneider replied. 'Please to proceed. And if you can see your way to overlooking this unfortunate incident. I have two children and a wife...'

I will think over your request. Come, Falken, we have wasted too long already..

They cycled off together past the parked car which now showed no headlights and pedalled through the fog-bound silence without speaking for several minutes.

`What about Gerda?' Newman asked eventually.

`She will have heard your voice, she will take to the forest, go round the Border Police, pushing her bike, then return to the road and catch us up. That is why we are moving slowly. You know, my friend.. Falken paused as though seeking the right words, `... that was a truly remarkable performance you put up. You are a natural actor. You overwhelmed them by the sheer force of your personality. I kept silent for fear of spoiling the show. Welcome to Group Five.'

`I know the type,' Newman said tersely. 'I've met them before. At the bottom of the heap, they bully any even further down. And they ass-crawl to their superiors. I loathe them.' `You think that Schneider will report the incident?'

`It was a gamble,' Newman admitted. 'If Schneider thinks I will not submit a report he'll keep quiet. If he decides that I'm likely to report him, he'll try to get in first. But I'd bet money he'll sleep on it. Then he may think it is too late. We can only hope.'

`My own estimate of the situation exactly.'

`May I ask where we are going? What information you will be providing for me to take back with me?'

`Why not?' Falken smiled. 'Soon we change our form of transport. We have a long way to go and cycling is too slow — hut an excellent procedure near the border. First, however, I am intrigued how you knew we have a drug problem building up in the DDR.'

`I asked Toll what special job I might be assigned to as a member of the River Police. He told me about the heroin.'

`In some ways that man has no idea what conditions we have to work under. Which is why we take our own decisions. In other ways he often surprises me. He is only recently promoted — so naturally I wish to learn all I can about his ability. I have to think of the lives of the men and women I am responsible for. You may laugh, but they look up to me as a father-figure.'

`I'm not laughing. Talking about father-figures, what do you know about Dr Berlin?'

`My God!' Falken chuckled as he kept up his steady pedalling pace. 'You must be telepathic.'

'Why?'

`I asked Toll to send a reliable emissary so I could pass on verbally what we have learned about the august and much- venerated Dr Berlin...'

`You sound ironical...'

`I should. Your Dr Berlin is a fake.'

`You can prove that?'

`With the most solid evidence. Of course, if you were able to check the records at the Leipzig hospital where he went for treatment when he returned from Africa many years ago, you would find he was suffering from a rare tropical disease.'

`So what evidence do you have?'

`I want you to hear it for yourself. We shall transfer to a car shortly. Do you want a pee?'

`Yes. I'm all right for food — I ate well before I crossed over this evening...'

They dismounted and Falken pushed his cycle a few feet off the road, staying close enough so he would hear Gerda if she arrived. `She has a squeaky rear tyre,' Falken explained as they relieved themselves. 'I told her not to fix it. You will like her—but she is very tough. Women can be more ruthless than men..

They were remounting their cycles when Newman heard the squeaky rear wheel approaching through the mist. Falken commented on his acute hearing, took out a small torch and waved it slowly to one side and back again. A slim silhouette appeared out of the mist and braked.

Gerda would be in her late twenties as far as Newman could tell. Her hair was concealed beneath a head-scarf and she had a strong nose and a well-defined chin. She stared at Newman as she shook hands solemnly.

`I heard you dealing with the Border Police,' she commented. `You have had much experience of this kind of work?'

`Not really, no. Just regard me as the new boy.'

`Gerda,' Falken broke in, 'has an Uzi machine-pistol concealed under that folded windcheater in her cycle basket. Can you use the weapon?'

I was once trained to handle it, yes,' Newman replied, and left it at that. 'Now where are we going when we reach the car?'

`To let you interview someone about the real Dr Berlin. You are going to meet a witness...' He stopped speaking as Newman turned to look back the way they had come. 'What is it?'

`I can hear a car coming slowly. It could be Schneider and his sidekick, checking up on us...'