The Tightrope Men / The Enemy (16 page)

The meeting with the Finns took place that night in a house on the outskirts of Imatra. ‘There are three of them,’ said Carey, as they drove towards the rendezvous. ‘Lassi Virtanen and his son, Tarmo, and Heikki Huovinen.’

Armstrong giggled, perhaps more out of nervous tension than anything else. ‘I never thought I’d meet the Son of Lassie.’

‘If you have any more remarks like that left in your system bottle them up until this operation is over,’ said Carey grittily. ‘This particular crowd doesn’t have a strong sense of humour. Old Virtanen was a fighter pilot during the war and he still reckons it’s a bad thing the Germans lost. I still don’t know which is topmost in him - the Nazi sympathizer or the Russian-hater - probably a fifty-fifty mixture of both. He’s brought up his son in his own image. Huovinen is a shade more liberal, but still well to the right of Atilla the Hun. These are the tools we have to work with and I don’t want them turning in my hand. Remember that.’

‘I’ll remember,’ said Armstrong. He felt as though Carey had suddenly thrown a bucket of ice water over him. ‘What’s the scheme?’

‘The Finns are expert paper makers,’ said Carey. ‘And the Russians are quite willing to take advantage of their
expertise. They’re building a new paper mill in Enso; all the machinery is Finnish and the installation is done by Finns, most of whom live in Imatra. They go over the border every day.’

A great light broke on Armstrong. ‘And we go with them. How convenient.’

Carey grunted. ‘Don’t shout too soon. It won’t be as easy as all that.’ He pointed. ‘There’s the house.’

Armstrong drew the car to a halt. ‘Do these three go over to Enso?’

‘That’s it.’

Armstrong thought for a moment. ‘If the Virtanens hate the Russians so much why do they help them build paper factories?’

‘They belong to a half-baked secret society - very right wing, of course. They fondly believe they’re spying and preparing for
Der Tag.’
Carey shrugged. ‘It’s my belief they’re at the end of their rope and the government is going to hang them with it. One of the troubles with the Paasikivi Line is keeping to the middle ground between right and left. The government can’t crack down too hard on the communists because of Russian pressure, but who the hell cares what happens to a lot of neo-Nazis? They’re only left loose as a makeweight on the other end of the political see-saw, but if they get out of line they get the chop. So let’s use them while we can.’

Lassi Virtanen was a hard-faced man in his middle-fifties who walked with a limp. His son, Tarmo, was about thirty and did not look much like his father, he was fresh-faced and his eyes sparkled with excitement. Armstrong measured him carefully and thought he would be too excitable to be relied on for anything important. Heikki Huovinen was dark with a blue chin. To look respectable he would have to shave twice a day but, to Armstrong’s eye, he seemed not to have shaved for two days.

They sat around a table on which there was an array of dishes, the open sandwiches of Scandinavia. There were also a dozen bottles of beer and two bottles of a colourless spirit. They sampled the herring and then the elder Virtanen filled small glasses with the spirit, and raised his glass slightly.
‘Kippis!’
His arm went up and he threw the contents of his glass down his throat.

Armstrong took his cue from Carey and did the same. The fierce spirit bit the back of his throat and burned in his belly. Carey put down his empty glass. ‘Not bad,’ he said. ‘Not bad at all’ He spoke in Swedish for the benefit of Armstrong. Finding Finnish speakers for the Service was the very devil and it was fortunate that Swedish was the second language of Finland.

Tarmo Virtanen laughed. ‘It’s from the other side.’

‘Their vodka is the only good thing about the Russians,’ said Lassi Virtanen grudgingly. He refilled the glasses. ‘Heikki is worried.’

‘Oh!’ Carey looked at Huovinen. ‘What about?’

‘It’s not going to be easy,’ said Huovinen.

‘Of course it’ll be easy,’ said Lassi. ‘Nothing to it.’

‘It’s all right for you,’ said Huovinen. ‘You won’t be there. It’s me who has to come up with all the explanations and excuses.’ He turned to Carey. ‘It can’t be done for three days.’

‘Why not?’

‘You and your friend, here, are taking the place of the Virtanens - right? Well, the Virtanens have got work to do over there - I know, I’m their damned foreman. Tomorrow Lassi is working on the screening plates, but Tarmo hasn’t much to do and he wouldn’t be missed. The day after that Tarmo will be busy. The only time I can spare them both without too many questions being asked will be the day after, and even then I’ll have to tell a hell of a lot of lies.’

Carey thought Huovinen was getting cold feet but not by any sign did he show it. He said, ‘What about it, Lassi?’

‘It’s true enough - as far as it goes - but it doesn’t have to be that way. Heikki, you could fix things so that no one works on the screens tomorrow. A little bit of sabotage?’

‘Not with that Georgian bastard Dzotenidze, breathing down my neck,’ said Huovinen heatedly.

‘Who’s he?’ asked Carey.

‘The Chief Engineer for the Russians. He’ll be Chief Engineer of the mill when it gets working, and he wants everything right. He watches me like a hawk.’

‘No sabotage,’ said Carey flatly. ‘I want things to go right, too.’

Huovinen nodded vigorously. ‘In three days,’ he said. ‘Then I can conveniently lose the Virtanens.’

Carey said, ‘We’ll come here in the evening the day after tomorrow. We’ll spend the night here and we’ll leave in the morning just as the Virtanens would. Won’t the rest of the crew be surprised at a couple of strangers joining it?’

‘That’s taken care of. They may be surprised, but they won’t talk.’ Huovinen drew himself up. ‘They’re Finns,’ he said proudly. ‘They’re Karelians.’

‘And you’re a foreman.’

Huovinen smiled. ‘That’s got something to do with it, too.’

Carey regarded Lassi and Tarmo Virtanen. ‘And you two will stay in the house that day and you won’t go out. We don’t want anyone asking questions about how in hell can you be in Imatra and Enso at the same time.’

Young Virtanen laughed and tapped the bottle of vodka. ‘Leave us plenty of this and we won’t go out.’

Carey frowned, and Lassi said, ‘We’ll stay in the house.’

‘Very well. Did you get the clothing?’

‘It’s all here.’

Carey took two folded cards from his pocket. ‘These are our passes - will you check them?’

Huovinen picked them up and studied them. He took out his own pass for comparison, then said. ‘These are very
good; very good, indeed. But they look new - they’re too clean.’

‘We’ll dirty them,’ said Carey.

Huovinen shrugged. ‘It doesn’t really matter. The frontier guards have got tired of looking at passes. You’ll be all right.’

‘I hope so,’ said Carey drily.

Lassi Virtanen picked up his glass. ‘That’s settled. I don’t know exactly what you’re doing over there, Mr Englishman, but I know it will do
Ryssä
no good.
Kispps!’
He knocked back his vodka.

Carey and Armstrong both drank and immediately Virtanen replenished their glasses. Armstrong looked about the room and saw a photograph on the sideboard. He tipped his chair back to get a closer look and Lassi, following his gaze, laughed and got up. ‘That’s from the Continuation War,’ he said. ‘I had fire in my belly in those days.’

He passed the photograph over to Armstrong. It showed a much younger Lassi Virtanen standing next to a fighter aircraft decorated with the swastika insignia. ‘My Messerschmitt,’ said Virtanen proudly. ‘I shot down six Russian bastards in that plane.’

‘Did you?’ said Armstrong politely.

‘Those were the good days,’ said Virtanen. ‘But what an air force we had. Any aircraft that had been built anywhere in the world - we had it. American Brewsters and Curtis Hawks, British Blenheims and Gladiators, German Fokkers and Dorniers, Italian Fiats, French Morane-Saulniers - even Russian Polikarpovs. The Germans captured some of those in the Ukraine and sent them to us. Unreliable bastards they were, too. What a crazy, mixed-up air force we had - but we still held the Russians off until the end.’

He slapped his leg. ‘I got mine in ’44 - shot down near Räisälä and it took four of them to do it. That was behind the lines but I walked out with a bullet in my leg, dodging those dammed Russian patrols. Good days those were. Drink up!’

It was late before Carey and Armstrong were able to leave because they had to listen to a monologue from Virtanen about his war experiences, interspersed with glasses of vodka. But at last they got away. Armstrong got behind the wheel of the car and looked eloquently at Carey. ‘I know,’ said Carey heavily. ‘Drunken and unreliable. I’m not surprised they’re getting nowhere.’

‘That man lives in the past,’ said Armstrong.

‘There’s a lot like him in Finland - men who’ve never really lived since the war. Never mind the Virtanens - they’re staying here. It’s Huovinen we have to rely on to get to the other side.’

‘He was packing the stuff away as though he wanted to start a drought in vodka,’ said Armstrong dispiritedly.

‘I know - but they’re all we’ve got.’ Carey took out his pipe. ‘I wonder how McCready and company are doing up north. They can’t be doing worse than we are.’

‘I’m tired,’ said Harding. ‘But I don’t think I’ll sleep.’

Denison inspected the narrow patch of ground for stones before he unrolled his sleeping bag. He flicked an offender aside and said, ‘Why not?’

‘I can’t get used to broad daylight in the middle of the night.’

Denison grinned. ‘Why don’t you prescribe yourself a sleeping pill?’

‘I might do that.’ Harding picked a blade of grass and chewed it. ‘How are you sleeping these days?’

‘Not bad.’

‘Dream much?’

‘Not that I can remember. Why?’

Harding smiled. ‘I’m your resident head-watcher - appointed by that chit over there.’ He nodded towards Lyn who was peering dubiously into a camp kettle.

Denison unrolled his sleeping bag and sat on it. ‘What do you think of her?’

‘Personally or professionally?’

‘Maybe a bit of both.’

‘She seems to be a well-balanced young woman.’ There was amusement in Harding’s voice. ‘She certainly knew how to handle Carey - she caught him coming and going. And she jabbed me in a sore spot. She’s very capable, I’d say.’

‘She took her father’s death pretty coolly.’

Harding threw away the blade of grass and lit a cigarette. ‘She lived with her mother and stepfather and didn’t have much to do with Meyrick apart from quarrelling. I’d say her attitude to her father’s death was perfectly normal. She had other things to think about at the time.’

‘Yes,’ said Denison pensively.

‘I don’t think you need worry about Lyn Meyrick,’ said Harding. ‘She’s used to making up her own mind - and the minds of others, come to that.’

Diana Hansen came down the hill looking trim and efficient in the neat shirt and the drab trousers which she wore tucked into the tops of field boots - a world removed from the cool sophisticate Denison had met in Oslo. She cast a look at Lyn and walked over to the two men. ‘Time to do your bit with the theodolite, Giles.’

Denison scrambled to his feet. ‘Are they still with us?’

‘So I’m told,’ said Diana. ‘And there’s another party. We’re becoming popular. I’d go up on that ridge there - and stay in sight.’

‘All right.’ Denison took the theodolite out of its case, picked up the lightweight tripod, and walked up the hill in the direction Diana had indicated.

Harding smiled as he watched Denison’s retreating figure. He thought that Lyn Meyrick would make up Denison’s mind were she allowed to. From a psychiatric point of view it was most interesting - but he would have to have a word with the girl first. He got up and walked over to where Lyn was pumping the pressure stove.

Denison stopped on top of the ridge and set up the theodolite. He took the sheet of paper from his pocket, now much creased, and studied it before looking around at the view. This was the bit of fakery Carey had given him to make the deception look good. It had been written with a broad-nibbed pen - ‘No ballpoints in 1944,’ Carey had said -
and artificially aged. Across the top was scrawled the single word,
Luonnonpuisto
and below that was a rough sketch of three lines radiating from a single point with the angles carefully marked in degrees. At the end of each line was again a single word -
Järvi, Kukkula
and
Aukio
- going around clockwise. Lake, hill and gap.

‘Not much to go on,’ Carey had said. ‘But it explains why you’re wandering around nature preserves with a theodolite. If anyone wants to rob you of that bit of paper you can let him. Maybe we can start a trade in theodolites.’

Denison looked around. Below ran the thread of a small river, the Kevojoki, and in the distance was the blue water of a lake pent in a narrow valley. He bent his head and sighted the theodolite at the head of the lake. Every time he did this he had a curious sense of
déjà vu
as though he had been accustomed to doing this all his life. Had he been a surveyor?

He checked the reading on the bezel and sighted again on the hill across the valley and took another reading. He took a notebook from his pocket and worked out the angle between the lake and the hill, then he swept the horizon looking for a possible gap. All this nonsense had to look good because he knew he was under observation - Carey’s red herring appeared to be swimming well.

It had been at lunchtime on the first day that Diana had said casually, ‘We’re being watched.’

‘How do you know?’ asked Denison. ‘I’ve seen nobody.’

‘McCready told me.’

McCready had not been in evidence at Kevo Camp and Denison had not seen him since Helsinki. ‘Have you been talking to him? Where is he?’

Diana nodded across the lake. ‘On the other side of the valley. He says that a party of three men is trailing us.’

Denison was sceptical. ‘I suppose you have a walkie-talkie tucked away in your pack.’

She shook her head. ‘Just this.’ From the pocket of her anorak she took a small plate of stainless steel, three inches in diameter; it had a small hole in the middle. ‘Heliograph,’ she said. ‘Simpler than radio and less detectable.’

He examined the double-sided mirror - that is what it amounted to - and said, ‘How can you aim it?’

‘I know where George McCready is now,’ she said. ‘He’s just been signalling to me. If I want to answer I hold this up and sight on his position through the hole. Then I look at my own reflection and see a circle of light on my cheek where the sun comes through the hole. If I tilt the mirror so that the circle of light goes into the hole, then the mirror on the other side flashes light into George’s eyes. From then on it’s simply a matter of Morse code.’

Denison was about to experiment when she took the gadget from him. ‘I told you we’re being watched. I can get away with it by pretending to make up my face - you can’t.’

‘Has McCready any idea of who is watching us?’

She shrugged. ‘He hasn’t got near enough to find out. I think it’s about time you started your act with the theodolite.’

So he had set up the theodolite and fiddled about checking angles, and had repeated the charade several times during the past two days.

Now he found what might, by a stretch of imagination, be called a gap and took the third reading. He calculated the angle, wrote it into his notebook, and put the notebook and the fake paper back into his pocket. He was dismantling the theodolite when Lyn came up the hill. ‘Supper’s ready.’

‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘Hold this.’ He gave her the theodolite. ‘Did Diana say anything about another group following us?’

Lyn nodded. ‘They’re coming up from behind very fast, she says.’

‘Where’s the first group?’

‘Gone on ahead.’

‘We’re like the meat in a sandwich,’ Denison said gloomily. ‘Unless it’s all a product of Diana’s imagination. I haven’t seen anyone around - and I certainly haven’t seen George McCready.’

‘I saw him signalling this morning,’ said Lyn. ‘He was on the other side of the valley. I was standing next to Diana and saw the flash, too.’

Denison collapsed the tripod and they both set off down the hill. ‘You and Harding have had your heads together lately. What do you find so interesting to talk about?’

She gave him a sideways glance. ‘You,’ she said quietly. ‘I’ve been finding out about you; since I can’t ask you I’ve been asking him.’

‘Nothing bad, I hope.’

She smiled at him. ‘Nothing bad.’

‘That’s a relief,’ he said. ‘What’s for supper?’

‘Bully beef stew.’

He sighed. ‘I can’t wait.’