LITMIR.BIZ

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without leaving a conspicuous trail.

      In this part of the world, to go outdoors was enough to excite suspicion. There was nowhere to visit after dark, the local residents were simple people, peasants in fact. They didn’t eat the sort of elaborate evening meal that provides an excuse for dinner parties and they had no money for restaurants. As to hotels, who would want to spend even one night here when they had the means to move on?

      The sound of the helicopter was abruptly muted as it passed behind the forested hills, and for the time being the night was silent.

      ‘Let’s get out of here,’ said Max. Such a sudden departure would be going against everything they had planned but Max, even more than Bernard, was a creature of impulse. He had his ‘hunches’. He wrapped folded newspaper round his arm in case the blood came through the towel. Then he put string round the arm of the overcoat and Bernard tied it very tight.

      ‘Okay.’ Bernard had long ago decided that Max – notwithstanding his inability to find domestic happiness or turn his professional skills into anything resembling a success story – had an uncanny instinct for the approach of danger. Without hesitation and without getting up from his chair, Bernard leaned forward and picked up the big kettle. Opening the stove ring with the metal lifting tool, he poured water into the fire. He did it very carefully and gently, but even so there was a lot of steam.

      Max was about to stop him but the kid was right. Better to do it now. At least that lousy chopper was out of sight of the chimney. When the fire was out Bernard put some dead ashes into the stove. It wouldn’t help much if they got here. They’d see the blood on the floorboards, and it would require many gallons of water to cool the stove, but it might make it seem as if they’d left earlier and save them if they had to hide nearby.

      ‘Let’s go.’ Max took out his pistol. It was a Sauer Model 38, a small automatic dating from the Nazi period, when they were used by high-ranking army officers. It was a lovely gun, obtained by Bernard from some underworld acquaintance in London, where Bernard’s array of shady friends rivalled those he knew in Berlin.

      Bernard watched Max as he tried to move the slide back to inject a round into the chamber. He had to change hands to do it and his face was contorted with pain. It was distressing to watch him but Bernard said nothing. Once done, Max pressed on the exposed cocking lever to lower the hammer so the gun was ready for instant use but with little risk of accident. Max pushed the gun into his inside breast pocket. ‘Have you got a gun?’ he asked.

      ‘We left it at the house. You said Siggi might need it.’ Bernard swung the rucksack over his shoulder. It was heavy, containing the contents of both packs. There was a grappling hook and nylon rope as well as a small digging implement and a formidable bolt-cutter.

      ‘So I did. Damn. Well, you take the glasses.’ Bernard took them from round Max’s neck, careful not to jar his arm. ‘Stare them to death, Bernard. You can do it!’ A grim little laugh. Silently Bernard took the field-glasses – rubber-clad Zeiss 7 × 40s, like the ones the Grenzpolizei used – and put his head and arm through the strap. It made them uncomfortably tight, but if they had to run for it he didn’t want the glasses floating around and banging him in the face.

      Max tapped the snuffer that extinguished the flame of the oil-lamp. Everything was pitch black until he opened the door and let in a trace of blue starlight and the bitterly cold night air. ‘Attaboy!’

      Max was expecting trouble and Bernard did not find the prospect cheering. Bernard had never learned to face the occasional violent episodes that his job provided in the way that the old-timers like Max accepted them even when injured. Was it, he wondered, something to do with the army or the war, or both?

      The timber cabin was isolated. If only it would snow again, that would help to cover their tracks, but there was no sign of snow. Once outside Max sniffed the air, anxious to know if the smoke from the stove would carry far enough to alert a search party. Well at least choosing this remote shelter had proved right. It was a hut for the cowherds when in summer the cattle moved to the higher grazing. From this elevated position they could see the valley along which they had come. Here and there, lights indicated a cluster of houses in this dark and lonely landscape. It was good country for moving at night but when daylight came it would work against them: they’d be too damned conspicuous. Max cursed the bad luck that had dogged the whole movement. By this time they should have all been across the border, skin intact and sound asleep after warm baths and a big meal and lots to drink.

      Max looked up. A few stars were sprinkled to the east but most of the sky was dark. If the thick overcast remained there, blotting out the sun, it would help, but it wasn’t low enough to inconvenience the helicopters. The chopper would be back.

      ‘We’ll keep to the high ground,’ said Max. ‘These paths usually make good going. They keep them marked and maintained for summertime walkers.’ He set off at a good pace to show Bernard that he was fit and strong, but after a little while he slowed.

      For several kilometres the beech forest blocked off their view of the valley. It was dark walking under the trees, like being in a long tunnel. The undergrowth was dead and crisp brown fern crunched under their feet. As the trail climbed the snow was harder. Trees shielded the footpath and upon the hard going they made reasonably good speed. They had walked for about an hour and a half, and were into the evergreens, when Max called a halt. They were higher now, and through a firebreak in the regimented plantations they could see the twist of the next valley ahead of them. Beyond that, through a dip in the hills, a lake shone faintly in the starlight, its water heady with foam, like good German beer. It was difficult to guess how far away it was. There were no houses in sight, no roads, no power lines, nothing to give the landscape a scale. Trees were no help: these fir trees came in all shapes and sizes.

      ‘Five minutes,’ said Max. He sank down in a way that revealed his true condition and wedged his backside into the roots of a tree. Alongside him there was a bin for feeding the deer: the herds were cosseted for the benefit of the hunters. Resting against the bin, Max’s head slumped to one side. His face was shiny with exertion and he looked all in. Blood had seeped through the paper and there was a patch of it on the sleeve of the thick overcoat. Better to press on than to try to fix it here.

      Bernard took out the field-glasses, snapped the protective covers from the lenses, and looked more carefully at the lake. It was the haze upon the water that produced the boiling effect and softened its outline.

      ‘How are your feet?’ said Max.

      ‘Okay, Max.’

      ‘I have spare socks.’

      ‘Don’t mother me, Max.’

      ‘Do you know where we are?’

      ‘Yes, we’re in Germany,’ he said, still staring through the glasses.

      ‘Are you sure?’

      ‘But that’s our lake, Max,’ Bernard affirmed. ‘Mouse Lake.’

      ‘Or Moulting Lake,’ suggested Max.

      ‘Or even Turncoat Lake,’ said Bernard, suggesting a third possible translation.

      Max regretted his attempt at levity. ‘Something like that,’ he said. He resolved to stop treating Bernard like a child. It was not so easy: He’d known him so long it was difficult to remember that he was a grown man with a wife and children. And what a wife! Fiona Samson was one of the rising stars of the Department. Some of the more excitable employees were saying that she was likely to wind up as the first woman to hold the Director-General’s post. Max found it an unlikely prospect. The higher echelons of the Department were reserved for a certain sort of Englishman, all of whom seemed to have been at school together.

      Max Busby often wondered why Fiona had married Bernard. He was no great prize. If he got the German Desk in London it would be largely due to his father’s influence, and he’d go no further. Whoever got the German Desk would come under Bret Rensselaer’s direction, and Bret wanted a stooge there. Max wondered if Bernard would adapt to a yes-man role.

      Max took the offered field-glasses to have a closer look

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