He was standing looking out of the window but I knew that nothing was familiar to him any more.
'How long have you been at Linsdorf?'
'Six months.'
'Got a transfer here did you?'
He said nothing more. But it was six months ago when the West German analysts and the A.I.B. had set up Linsdorf as the centre of their operations. The eye and the ear of Die Zelle had requested transfer.
'Who's next, Rohmhild?'
He didn't answer, perhaps didn't hear. His silence gave me time to think and suddenly I knew that I was missing something important: I didn't know what it was but the natural thing happened and my thoughts focused on the one area still unexplained. Rohmhild had been so vulnerable when I had come here and I had assumed it was due to the strain of standing by and doing nothing while they came out of the sky one after another at Gunzburg, Spalt, Laubach, Linsdorf 'Rohmhild.' Wagner gone. Rotational. The taint of kerosene in the draught from the windows. 'Who is next?' I swung him round and his face opened to the shock of the attack: he'd even forgotten I was here, and forgotten why.
'Artur Boldt.'
Geschwaderkommodore, Linsdorf. Now airborne, I dragged at the door and began running and was halfway to the control tower when I heard the shot but kept on going, the odd thought flashing to mind that Nitri was off the hook now. The pilots heard it from the crew-room and came out to see what was happening and one of them called to me but I went on running. Concrete apron, dry ice in the shallows, a flight of steps, steel banister, the door.
They were surprised to see me. Green glass filtering the light. I told them to get him down, do it now, catch him before he reached his operational ceiling (because it could be a part of the trick, normal effects of high altitude as a catalyst), said I was with A.I.B. and we'd located the fault because they weren't too quick but that one worked all right and they started calling him up.
I leaned on the edge of the console, irritated at being out of breath, a lot of steps, fair enough, but I must be getting old.
Geschwaderkommodore, Geschwaderkommodore. Antworten Sie bitte! Crackling static.
Natural selection o» Wagner's part, I supposed. The Geschwaderkommodore was a danger. We'd all been standing there just after Paul Dissen had done his bang and Boldt had said it's not the plane, it's the pilot.
Geschwaderkommodore. Horen Sie? Antworten Sie bittel And Wagner had been there when Boldt had said that. Little Wagner, their shepherd, their saviour: You have a theory, I know. And Boldt had said: Several.
Befehl — Sofortiger Ruckflug zur Staffell The sky looked empty through the green glass.
Horen Sie? Horen Sie?
Just airborne when I'd reached the gates. Fifteen twenty minutes with Rohmhild. Take less than that to reach the ceiling but then he might not be climbing the whole time, it depended on what exercise he Befell ubermittelt! Signal received.
The controller nodded to me and I went out and down the steps. There were some pilots and one or two of the ground staff in a group outside the door of Rohmhild's quarters and an ambulance Was nosing in.
I didn't recognize him at first, glasses glinting and straw-coloured hair bobbing as he walked. I hadn't expected him! 'What's come up?' I asked.
He was gazing cautiously around, typical of him, and some other people were coming past to see what was going on, so he walked me as far as the perimeter road. Of course I knew why he'd come: he'd been in signals, so forth. He said:
'I had to tell London straight away and they said I ought to make contact. What's that ambulance for?'
'Tell them what?'
He gave me his quiet nervous-breakdown look. 'You said you were home and dry when you phoned me from Rhine Army. Well are you?'
The sky was still empty. My eyes were getting tired staring up at it. I said: 'They think I was going to lose the whole thing down a drain or something at the last minute? Bloody London for you.'
'Well they're anxious, you know. They didn't expect you to crack it inside a week.' His pale head was turning like a radar. 'What's the ambulance for?'
'Bloke shot himself. The classic Prussian kaputt.'
A whisper in the air, very high, like the one over Westheim. I listened to it.
'Any immediate act-'on?' He was being very good, very offhand, but he knew the ferret was out through the far end and he was keen to see the rabbit.
'Not really.' I shielded my eyes. It hadn't been so high as it had sounded: the shape was already forming in the winter haze, drifting into the final approach. I said: 'What's the date?'
'Fifth.' He'd seen the plane now.
'There's some local stuff. The bloke over there was in it but I got what I wanted out of him. There's a man called Wagner you'll need to bring in and there's a clockmaker's in Neueburg that wants cleaning out.'
'A what?'
'A clockmaker's.' I wished he'd go away. I wanted to watch the plane come down because there'd been nothing I could do about it at Westheim. 'People need clocks, don't they? So people have to make them.'
Touch and bounce, then it tilted and slid very fast down the strip, the brakes coming on, slowing at the north end, turning.
'Not pretty, are they?' Ferris said.
'That one is.' It was coming in to the hangars and I turned away. 'But the big job is an ambush over the other side, couple of vehicles on the move between a place called Aschau and Berlin. And a political re-education centre to clean out. The vehicles go up every month on the fifteenth so you've got ten days, that's all right. Moondrop job, half a dozen assault specialists. How will Parkis do it, with internationals or what?'
'He'll probably hand it to Bonn. It's really their pigeon.'
I turned once and had a last look. Humped, ugly, bow-legged, stinking of kerosene. We walked on again.
'Because I want London to send me with them.'
'It's not your field.'
'Just for the ride, that's all.'
He was glinting at me sideways, hair all over the place, quite alarmed. A shadow executive mustn't ever go and play with the rough boys down the street, it says so in the rules.
'They wouldn't let you. Anyway you've had enough by the look of things.'
'Listen, Ferris.' I was getting fed up: I wanted a bit of sleep that was all. 'I cracked this one inside a week, didn't I? My credit's good, for once. So you're going to fix it for me, all right? I mean that.'
Behind us the jet whined away to silence.
'I'll do what I can. Someone over there, is there?'
'That's right.'
THE END