The Cold War Swap (16 page)

To our right there were three sharp explosions. They were followed by bright flashes of light. “That’s the diversion on the right,” Padillo said. “Now on the left.” Two seconds later there were three more blasts followed again by the light. “They’re a hundred and fifty yards to our right and left. Molotov cocktails. They should draw the Vopos. Their
machine pistols are good for only a hundred and ten yards. Watch the blind.”

I watched the building that was 150 feet away. It could have been 150 miles. We could hear the police shouting orders to the left and right, their voices distant but penetrating. Somewhere a siren began. The blind that we had been watching began to rise slowly. It seemed to inch its way to the top of the window, it paused, and then suddenly it dropped.

“Now!” Padillo barked.

Searchlights began to play fitfully on the wall but lost their effectiveness in the dusk. I took my gun from my pocket and ran. A machine pistol chattered from my left. I kept running, scanning the top of the wall. I could hear Burchwood and Symmes panting and scrambling behind me. We pushed through the wire and were at the wall. “Where’s the goddam ladder?” I whispered to Padillo. He stared up the rough gray blocks.

Suddenly a blond head poked over the wall. “Be right with you chaps. I had to snip the wire,” the head said; “now just let me get the pallet over the glass.” A thick brown pallet made of two blankets sewn together, thickly stuffed and padded, was flopped over the top. Then the head reappeared with a reassuring grin. “Just a moment,” it said. “Have to straddle the thing to get the ladder up.”

He was young, not more than twenty. He got one leg over the wall and sat astride the stuffed pallet. “Embarrassing if any of that glass worked through,” he said calmly. “Here comes the ladder.” It started up over the wall. “My name’s Peter,” the blond kid said. “What’s yours?”

He had it balanced on the wall when the shout came. It couldn’t have been from more than forty feet away. Then the faint, not quite yellow light settled on the kid. His mouth opened to say something more, something casual perhaps, but the bullets slammed into him. He teetered for a moment on the wall as if trying to make up his mind which way to fall. But he was past caring. The ladder balanced crazily for a moment and then tilted up slowly and slid out of sight on the
other side. The kid fell forward on the pallet, rolled to his left, and followed the ladder.

Padillo turned and fired three shots at the light, which was still focused at the top of the wall. I got off three more in the same direction. The light went out and there was a yell. More shouts of command were coming from both our right and our left. There was another burst of machine-pistol fire. “Back to the car,” Padillo ordered.

“I can’t move,” Symmes said.

“Are you hit?”

“No—I just can’t move.”

Padillo slapped him sharply across the face. “You’ll move or I’ll kill you.” Symmes nodded and Padillo shoved me ahead. “You first.” I ran back to the building and down the passageway to the street. Max’s face, a white blob of pure fear, was peering out of the window. I jerked open the back door and held it for Symmes and Burchwood, who threw themselves in. Padillo paused at the entrance to the passageway and fired three shots. A machine pistol answered him. He darted around the front of the car and lunged for the door as Max raced the engine. Before he had the door closed the Wartburg was at its peak in low gear and Max was noisily wrestling it into second.

“The garage, Max,” Padillo said. “It’s only a half a mile away.”

“What happened?” Max asked.

“They got lucky or Kurt’s people got careless. The bombs went off O.K. and they gave us the signal. We got to the wall and there was this blond kid—”

“Very young?” Max asked.

“Yes.”

“That would be Peter Vetter.”

“He was on top of the wall, pulling the second ladder up and making introductions, when a spare patrol dropped by. They shot him, and the ladder went with him. On the other side. Either Mac or I shot out the light, and we ran like hell.”

“My God, my God,” Max murmured.

Symmes buried his head in his arms on his lap and started to weep uncontrollably. “I can’t do any more,” he sobbed. “I don’t care what happens—I just can’t. You’re all awful, just awful, awful!”

“Shut him up,” Padillo ordered Burchwood.

Burchwood gestured helplessly. “What do you want me to do?”

“I don’t know,” Padillo said irritably; “just shut him up. Pat him on the head or something.”

“Don’t touch me!” Symmes screamed.

Padillo reached back and grabbed a handful of the long blond hair. He jerked Symmes’s head up. “Don’t flake out on us now, Jack.” His voice crackled harshly. His eyes seemed to burn into Symmes’s face.

“Let go of my hair, please,” the blond man said with a curious kind of dignity. Padillo released him. Symmes slumped back into the seat and closed his eyes. Burchwood patted his knee tentatively.

Max made the half-mile in two minutes. He pulled down a side street and honked the horn in front of a none-too-prosperous-appearing
Autozubehbr
. He honked the horn twice more and the grimy door slid open. Max drove the car inside. The door closed behind us. Max killed the motor and rested his head wearily on the steering wheel.

“I’m like our friend in the back seat,” he said “I can’t do much more. It’s been a very long day.”

A fat man, wearing dirty white coveralls and wiping his hands on a piece of waste, walked up to Max. “You’re back, Max?”

Max nodded wearily. “I’m back.”

“What do you want?”

Padillo got out of the car and walked around to the fat man.

“Hello, Langeman.”

“Herr Padillo,” the man said. “I did not expect you back.”

“We need a place to stay tonight—four of us. We also need food, some schnapps, and the use of a telephone.”

The fat man threw the waste into a can. “The risk has increased,” he said. “So has the price. How long will you be staying?”

“Tonight—maybe most of tomorrow.”

The fat man pursed his lips. “Two thousand West German Marks.”

“Where?”

“There is a basement. Nothing fancy, but dry.”

“And the telephone?”

The man jerked his head toward the rear of the garage. “Back there.”

Padillo took out his revolver and casually transferred it to his slacks waistband. “You’re a thief, Langeman.”

The fat man shrugged. “It’s still two thousand Marks. You can call me some more names if it makes you feel any better.”

“Pay him, Max,” Padillo said. “Then take those two down to the basement. Be sure Langeman gets you the food and schnapps. For that price, he can throw in some cigarettes.”

Max, Langeman and the two Americans moved toward a door at the end of the garage. I got out of the car and walked around it slowly. I was old and tired. My joints creaked. A tooth hurt. I leaned against the front fender and lighted a cigarette.

“What now?”

“You still have Maas’s number?”

I nodded my head carefully. There was danger that it might drop off.

“Let’s call him and see if he still wants to do a little business.”

“You trust him?” I asked.

“No, but have you got any better ideas?”

“I ran out last night.”

“His price was five thousand bucks—right?”

“It was. It’s probably gone up, if I know Maas.”

“We’ll dicker. Let’s see the five thousand Cook gave you.”

I took the flat, wrapped package out of my coat pocket and handed it to Padillo. I remembered the exchange with Cooky in the hotel room. He hadn’t looked at my check; I hadn’t counted the money. Gentlemen scholars. I closed my eyes as Padillo ripped open the package. “Blank sheets of paper?”

“Not at all,” he said. “Cut-up newspaper.” I opened my eyes. Padillo
tossed the newsprint into the can where Langeman had thrown the waste.

“Cook knew you pretty well, Mac. He also didn’t seem to think you’d have the chance to spend the money.”

“There’s one consolation,” I said. “There’s no doubt about the stop payment on the check.”

Langeman’s garage was a twenty-by-forty-five-foot building with a grease pit; a
couple of chain pulleys to hoist cars up; an oil-smeared, cluttered workbench that ran most of the length of the right-hand wall; and a small partitioned-off cubicle in the left rear that served as his office. He waddled toward us from the cubicle, counting a sheaf of Deutsch Marks and wetting his thumb every third or fourth bill. His once-white coveralls seemed to have picked up some more dirt and grease in the few moments he had been gone. He had also acquired a yellow-brown smudge on his wide flat nose, which somebody had broken for him at one time and nobody had yet got around to setting. His breath whistled through it with a bubbling sound that indicated he might do well to blow it once in a while.

“I gave them some food and some schnapps, Herr Padillo.”

“How about cigarettes?”

“Cigarettes, too. Yes.” Langeman nodded his head vigorously and his three chins danced and lapped around his collar.

“How do we get down to your cellar?”

“Through my office: there is a trap in the floor and a ladder. It’s not much, but, as I said, it’s dry. There is also light. The telephone is in the office.”

“We won’t be using it until around eleven.”

Langeman bounced his chins around again in a nod. “Any time. I am leaving now and will return at eight hours tomorrow. I have two helpers who will arrive at that time. If you go out, I must send them on errands. The noise of the work here will prevent them from hearing you if you speak normally. For a toilet there’s a bucket.” He tucked the sheaf of bills into his coveralls and gave a slight shrug. “Not luxurious, but it’s clean.”

“And expensive,” Padillo said.

“There is the risk to consider.”

“We’re acquainted with the risk. Suppose we have to go out tonight. How do we manage it?”

“There is a door at the rear leading from my office. It will lock automatically as you close it. But to get back in is another problem. You can have someone—Max, perhaps—posted by the door. But you must be back before eight hours tomorrow. My two helpers will be here.” Langeman paused and then asked carefully: “Would it not be dangerous for you to go out tonight?”

Padillo let the question wander for a while in search of an answer before he said, “You weren’t paid to worry about us, Langeman.”

The fat man shrugged. “As you wish. I am leaving now. The light in my office burns all night; the rest I turn off.”

Without saying good night Padillo and I walked back to the cubicle. It contained a bill-strewn fourth- or fifth-hand oak desk, a swivel chair with a greasy-looking rubber pad, a wooden filing cabinet, and some automobile-repair catalogues. A light with a green shade hung from the ceiling. The telephone sat on the desk. The office had no window—only a door with a spring lock. A trap door that was in the corner not occupied by furniture was fastened against the wall with a hook and eye. A ladder led straight down. Padillo went first and I followed.

It was a twelve-by-twelve room with a seven-foot ceiling. A fortywatt bulb provided the illumination. Burchwood and Symmes sat on a gray blanket against one wall, chewing on some bread and meat. Max
sat on another blanket opposite them, a bottle of some kind of liquor in his hand.

“There’s a blanket and there’s the food and cigarettes,” he said. A foot or so of sausage and a part of a loaf of bread sat on a newspaper on the floor. Four packages of cigarettes, an East German brand I had never heard of, were stacked next to them.

I sat down on the blanket and accepted the bottle from Max. It was unlabeled. “What is it?”

“Cheap potato gin,” he said. “But it’s alcohol.”

I took a swallow. The liquor burned all the way down, clawed at my stomach, bounced a couple of times, and started to move around warmly. “Christ!” I said, and passed it to Padillo. He took a swallow, coughed, and handed it back to Max.

Max set the bottle down on the newspaper. “There’s food.” I looked at it without interest, trying to make up my mind whether to risk another swallow of the potato gin. I decided against it and opened one of the packages of cigarettes, lighted one, and passed the pack to Padillo, We coughed over the tobacco for a while.

“What do you brilliant people plan to do now?” Burchwood asked. “Drag us through another mess like this evening?”

“Something like that,” Padillo said.

“And I suppose we’ll be shot at again,” Symmes said, “and you’ll get mad and take it out on us.” He seemed to assume that he wouldn’t get hit.

“If it doesn’t work this time, you won’t have to worry about another try,” Padillo said. “In fact, you won’t have to Worry about much of anything. None of us will.”

He glanced at his watch. “We’ve got a couple of hours before you call, Mac. You and Max might as well get some sleep. I’ll stay up.”

Max grunted, wrapped himself in his blanket, and rested his head on his arms, which he laid across his raised knees. Padillo and I sat on the blanket and leaned against the wall and smoked. Burchwood and Symmes followed Max’s example.

It was slow time. I went through a what-in-hell-am-I-doing-here cross-examination, then shifted into a small orgy of self-pity, and finally just sat there and planned the saloon’s menus, day by day, for the next five years,

“It’s eleven,” Padillo said.

“Let’s go.”

We climbed up the ladder and I dialed the number that Maas had given me. It answered on the first ring. “Herr Maas, please,” I said.

“Ah!” the familiar voice said. “Herr McCorkle. I must say that I have been anticipating your call—especially since the accident this evening. That was you, was it not?”

“Yes.”

“No one was hurt?”

“No.”

“Very good. Herr Padillo is with you?”

“Yes.”

“Now, then, I assume that you wish to conclude the business arrangement that we discussed day before yesterday?”

“We’d like to talk about it.”

“Yes, yes, negotiations would be in order, especially since there are five now that Herr Baker has joined you. Of course, this makes my original proposal subject to review. You understand that the first cost estimate—”