“And you were right. Yates was working for Peking. Since 1958, that is. Before then, he was Moscow’s man, a Stalin admirer.”
“Don’t tell me a tough-minded man like Yates could be taken by a flutter of eyelashes from Miss Langenheim Lang,” Mathison said with a touch of bitterness. Not Yates, he was thinking; Yates wasn’t the type to let himself be deluded by sweet talk or wide-eyed sincerity.
“Eight years ago, she was in Tokyo. So was Yates, making up his mind to slide over to the Peking side. They met, worked together as Soviet agents. She must have been around twenty then, straight from the KGB finishing school, and a real dazzler. As she is even now, no doubt about that. So when the Russians decided to infiltrate Yates’s organisation in Zürich, she was the obvious choice.”
“She pretended to be converted to the true faith, too?”
“That is how it looks from here. The Russians must have supplied her with a pretty good legend to convince Yates she had come over to his side. He would check pretty carefully before he accepted her and sent her to Salzburg as his ears and eyes.”
“But why Salzburg?” Elissa had come to Salzburg before Richard Bryant had even talked with Yates.
“Rumours,” Nield said tersely. “These damned lakes were full of them.” He glanced at his watch, took out a cigarette.
“She knows about Finstersee,” Mathison said slowly.
“How did you reach that idea?” Nield forgot about his cigarette.
“She prepared me nicely.” Like an old chest of drawers being sandpapered down for the first coat of paint. “I wasn’t to be surprised if I didn’t see her around Salzburg; she has a new job that may take her into the mountain villages to arrange for skiing parties this winter. There’s a mountain village near Finstersee, isn’t there?”
“Unterwald,” Nield said very softly.
The moment could be right. Mathison tried, anyway. “What’s so important about Finstersee?” It was the same question he had asked back in New York.
“You never give up, do you?” Nield asked with a laugh. He stuffed the cigarette back in his breast pocket. “Better not show a light. Nice dark road, isn’t it?”
But Mathison wasn’t to be side-tracked again. “I just like to know what’s at stake.”
“And if you don’t think Finstersee is important, you’ll pull out?” Nield was making a joke of it, but he was watching and listening carefully.
“I’m already up to my chin. Besides, as you said, the choice won’t be mine.” Elissa and her friends would see to that. “There are Nazi documents hidden in Finstersee. That much, I can guess. What are they?”
“Names on file.”
“Names?”
“Names of men who worked secretly for the Nazis. Men who were anti-Nazi, who belonged to various European and American countries that were fighting the Nazis.”
“And yet worked for them?” asked Mathison incredulously.
“Most obediently. Against their will, of course. But they did it.”
“Blackmailed?”
“Either blackmailed because of some possible sex scandal, or intimidated because of families living in Nazi-occupied territory, or bribed with the promise of keeping their fortunes, of saving relatives from concentration camps. Totalitarians have many ways of twisting a man’s arm without laying a hand on him.”
“And the names of these men were never known?”
“Except to a few top Nazis. It’s one of the secrets they want to keep until they try to grab power again. Then they’ll apply the screws once more, and they’ll have a supply of ready-made traitors.” He looked at Mathison. “You think I’m too hard on these men? But that is what it was—treason. And if they gave in once, they can give in again. Who would want it known that he had worked for the Nazis? The blackmailing will be very simple next time.”
Mathison said nothing at all. Nazis were a long way from recapturing power, even if there had been recent stirrings in Germany of revived nationalism, but that list of names could be used in the fight towards power. And it wasn’t only the ex-Nazis or neo-Nazis that Nield had to worry about. The pressure on those poor devils whose names were secretly on file could be applied with the same ruthlessness that the Nazis would use if the list fell into Communist hands. Totalitarians, Nield had said, have many ways of twisting a man’s arm. Or of breaking his back.
Nield was reaching into the rear seat for his nondescript raincoat. “Some of them are dead, no doubt,” he said in his quiet way, “but enough of them must have stayed alive. And one thing is certain: they were not men who held ordinary jobs. They were a carefully selected bunch. They had talent and ambition and careers that gave enough promise to make them doubly dangerous today. Because they are bound to have been promoted, achieved some importance in these last twenty-odd years. Those who grew too old, have been retired, could still be used as agents of influence. But the younger ones among them—well, they could be used for more than purposes of propaganda.”
If any of them had really sensitive jobs, Mathison thought, then security itself could be breached in vital areas. “Have you any idea who these men are? Or how many of them are living in America?”
“No.” Nield was pulling on his coat, the angry movement of his hands as he wrenched it around him showing something of his well-concealed emotions.
“But do you know such a file exists?”
“Yes.”
“And that it is hidden in Finstersee?”
“That is what we hope Anna Bryant will tell us.”
“You mean it was Richard Bryant’s death—”
“Partly that, partly your report on what happened in Salzburg on the day he was killed.” Nield pulled the belt of his coat tightly into its buckle, checked his pockets again, shook out his shapeless cap. His eyes were on the street ahead. “Come on, boys, come on!” he said tensely, revealing his own impatience.
They waited in silence for a full minute. Then Mathison saw a gleam from a far patch of dark shadow, as if someone had just lit a cigarette.
“Now!” Nield had his door half open. “Got everything?”
Mathison felt the unaccustomed weight of the automatic at his belt. “Everything,” he said, trying to fight down a feeling of foolishness. Damn you, he told himself, you heard Nield’s warnings and you listened to them and yet you can’t quite believe all this is necessary. “Don’t worry. I’m not backing out.” He opened his door.
“Didn’t think you would once you heard what’s at stake.” Nield stepped on to the sidewalk. Mathison got out, too. The nearer he came to this house, the more he wondered what had prompted him to volunteer so damned readily for a job he knew little about. He was glad he was not alone, even if Nield’s company was ominous. He had said he didn’t know what to expect, but he was certainly prepared for trouble. Mathison buttoned the lapels of his coat tight to the neck against the sharp bite of cold night air.
They met in front of the car and started walking at a normal pace.
15
The street was asleep even at this early hour, and blotted with shadows. A few cars, small, widely scattered under the stretch of trees, hunched close to the kerb. There was a faint hint of roast veal from one darkened house, a snatch of a muted Mahler symphony from another, and always the protective curtains or shutters drawn against the night, with only a few cracks of light to show that people did live here. Underfoot, fallen leaves, matted into a carpet by today’s heavy rain, dulled the sound of heels on the well-paved sidewalk. A quiet street, a decorous street, a place of neat lives and good order and careful privacy. Greta Freytag and her invalid mother, thought Mathison, might well have stayed here. If Nield had not checked with Keller, or if he himself had not remembered her comment about gardens, he would be walking towards this gate right now without any suspicions. And unaccompanied. He glanced at the silent Nield, who showed no signs of leaving him. Was he going all the way?
Nield seemed to sense his perplexity. He dropped his voice to a murmur Mathison could ba
rely hear. “Sure, I’m breaking every rule, but it may be worth it.”
“We’re over ten minutes late.” And their car parked back there—what excuse for that if it had been noticed? I’m worrying too much, thought Mathison. He envied the cool Nield.
“We misjudged the street number. I’m your old Zürich pal who volunteered to get you here on time. Like most volunteered help, mine was over-optimistic.”
“And you’re hanging around so we can have dinner together after I see Freytag?” Mathison tried.
“Not bad, not bad at all,” Nield said with some amusement. His eyes searched the street for the last time. “There are two men over by that big tree opposite, and that car near the house with the big hedge wasn’t there when we drove past, but they are Keller’s people, I hope. Otherwise, it seems okay. Damned careless of your hosts. They ought to have had pointmen out. They underestimated you. Or they are under strength.” One last search with his eyes along the street and he halted at the gate. “Or I may be totally wrong. Freytag may be using a friend’s house to see you privately.” Then his voice became normal again as he began speaking in German. “Here’s the house, Bill. This is the number, I think. Yes. At last!” He swung the gate open—it had a fine warning screech—and led the way along the short brick path, his head turned from any watchful window as he looked back at Mathison. He kept talking.
Mathison’s confidence began to return. He was even smiling at Nield’s ripe Zürich accent (Hier isht das Haus...) as he pressed the bell and waited for the door to open. Nield had stepped slightly to the side and was standing where no light from the hall would fall directly on him. He was holding a cigarette, shielding his face from the brief flare of his lighter. The men waiting across the road would see that small signal quite clearly. What the hell do they all expect? Mathison wondered.
The door opened. A little old lady, leaning heavily on a walking stick, a thick dark shawl wound around her shoulders, looked at Mathison blankly. Her face was pale and thin, her hair white and frizzed into a fringe across her brow while the rest of it tried to escape from a flattened bun on top of her head. The invalid mother, thought Mathison, and resisted the impulse to glance at Nield. “I’m William Mathison,” he said. “Is your daughter at home, Mrs. Freytag? She wanted to see me.”
“Oh, yes,” she said, and looked out at Nield. She frowned uncertainly.
“I’ll wait here,” Nield said. He moved casually behind Mathison, glanced into the hall.
“I won’t be long,” Mathison assured him, taking his cue.
Her frown deepened. “Greta!” she called. That was a normal enough cry, except that there was something in the tone of her voice that sounded more of a warning than of a call to her daughter. That, and the puzzled frown, the uncertain look in her eyes, the lack of invitation to enter, switched Mathison from almost-acceptance into definite doubt. It deepened as a man appeared immediately in the narrow hall and took charge. He was small and thin, a lightweight physically but with quick and highly intelligent eyes. With a glance at Nield and a friendly nod for Mathison, he said. “Come in! Miss Freytag is upstairs. She will be down in a few minutes.” He gestured to both of them.
The woman stepped aside, pulled the door wide open to let them enter. Her frown persisted, as if she didn’t quite like this development but had no other ideas of how to handle the unexpected appearance of Nield. “Come in, come in,” she said, dropping the frown and picking up a more amiable look of welcome. “Please wait in there.” Her stick pointed to the room from which the man had appeared so quickly. “I will let Greta know you are here.” It was an unnecessary remark: Greta Freytag would have had to be inflicted with instant deafness not to have heard her name called up the narrow staircase and through the thin walls of this house.
Mathison stepped inside the hall. Nield threw his cigarette away and followed, hands deep in pockets, cap pulled down to his eyebrows looking, like some embarrassed lout who was totally disinterested and impatient to leave. “How long will this take?” he was muttering. He seemed to be paying no attention to the hall—unheated and as cold as the air on the steps outside, unfurnished except for one wooden chair—or to a rustle of movement, a creak of floorboard, that came from the room Mathison was about to enter.
But the thin-faced man stopped him, with a sharp glance at the woman, who had obviously made more than one unnecessary remark. “Wait here,” he countermanded. “I shall go and tell Greta. She may want to see you upstairs.” He transferred his sharp glance to Nield.
“We have a dinner engagement,” Mathison said, as he managed partly to block the man’s view of Nield by stepping between them. He didn’t add to the explanation; those quick eyes were clever enough to put the story together for themselves. The man’s interest faded. He nodded and ran up the staircase. Mathison moved slowly to the bottom step as the man disappeared from view. From here, he could see something of the room. It was silent in there now, as if the man inside—or two men, perhaps, for the rustle and creak had seemed to come from separate sides of the room—was holding his breath. Mathison turned to look back at Nield, standing beside the lady with the stick, and an uncertain and perplexed old lady she was. “Don’t worry,” he told Nield, “I won’t make us late. I’m glad you came along, though. Never would have found this address by myself. Have you seen anything of Gerri lately? Heard he was opening a new garage. Business must be good.” What he had seen of the room was a stretch of bare floor, a wooden table and four chairs pushed back as if people had risen hastily. There were three beer bottles on the table; no glasses, cigarettes stubbed into the lid of a can, a poor overhead light from an elaborate brass chandelier, which had been left only one bulb. An empty house, thought Mathison, and now a very silent house. Had the men left by some other door, slipped out by a back entrance?
There was silence from upstairs, too. Nield was listening. He exchanged glances with Mathison but no words, as if he was too busy with his own guesses. He could be thinking that if he had been playing it by ear tonight, these characters in this empty house had thrown away the score and were improvising desperately. The deep silence ended. There were footsteps overhead, and the thin man returned to sight. He was looking perplexed but friendly. He ran lightly downstairs. “I am sorry,” he was saying. “Greta must have gone out. We didn’t know. But if you would telephone later tonight, you can talk to her then. Or I could have her telephone you when she returns. Where are you having dinner?”
Mathison looked at Nield. “At the Schwarzer Adler, isn’t it?” Now I’m stuck, he thought. You handle this, Charlie my boy. And what the hell is going on?
Nield handled it. “What’s that?” he was asking sharply, looking up the stairs. He listened quite openly. “I heard something—”
“Nothing,” the man said quickly, and signalled for the woman to open the door. She seemed to move very spryly, without much help from the walking stick. “The Schwarzer Adler,” he agreed with a nod of his head. “I’ll give her the message.”
“There it is again!” Nield said. “Someone is in pain—perhaps has had an accident, needs help? Didn’t you hear it, Bill?”
“No!” said the woman, her voice rising. “There’s nothing!”
“Nothing,” echoed the man in a more natural tone. “Gute Nacht, Herr Mathison. Auf Wiedersehen.” He flashed a glance at the woman, telling her to keep quiet.
“I think I hear something, too,” Mathison told him, watching Nield, who had managed to get between the man and the staircase.
“Willi!” shouted the woman, closing the door again.
Willi wheeled away from Mathison and saw Nield, his hand deep in his pockets, beginning to climb the stairs, slowly, innocently, looking upwards at the floor above. “Come back here, you! I’ll get the police!”
“Do that.” Nield went on climbing.
The man lunged after him and made his first open mistake. From under the heavy sweater that covered his belt, he drew a revolver while his other hand pulled out a silencer fro
m his pocket. He was fitting them expertly together as Nield swung around to face him.
Mathison heard the shot from the staircase as he turned at the warning rush of heels on the wooden floor behind him. He caught the woman’s upraised arm with the stick ready to crash down on the back of his head. Her other hand came at him, two fingers pointed straight for his eyes, but he caught that wrist, too. For a moment, she was all strength, and then just as unexpectedly all weakness. Mathison removed the stick from her loosened grip. “For God’s sake!” he said in disgust, and dropped her on to the wooden chair as Nield picked up Willi’s revolver with a handkerchief. She was crying bitterly. At the foot of the stairs, the third man had been knocked back a good three feet. He lay there unconscious, his right shoulder smashed by Nield’s bullet.
“Look out!” came Nield’s voice, and Mathison turned sharply to see the woman dart past him, her white wig askew from the force of a quick rush that dodged Mathison and carried her through the deserted living room. A rear door smashed shut. “Let her go,” Nield called, and brought Mathison back to the hall. “Keller’s men will take care of her—like the other two.” He noticed Mathison’s slight surprise. “There were two of them? As well as the woman and this clown?” He nodded at Willi, who was moaning slightly in a strangled whisper, like a man screaming in a deep nightmare.
“That was my count,” Mathison agreed. “You have good ears.” Nield had been some distance from the living-room door. Mathison glanced at the stairs. “Did you really hear something up there?”
“No. But they didn’t want us to explore, did they?” Nield had emptied Willi’s revolver, holding it carefully with his handkerchief, and now placed it out of reach of the man’s inert arm. “Lesson one: never leave a loaded weapon beside even an unconscious man,” he told Mathison. “And if this worries you, we are simply leaving evidence of lethal attempt.” Briefly, he examined the singed hole in the pocket of his raincoat. “How do I explain this, dammit? I borrowed the coat.”