I asked him if he could hear a chopper.
'What? Yes. They're getting fidgety. Midnight curfew for all Polish nationals, leave cancelled for the police and the army, foreign residents prone to a slight loosening of the bowels, what shall I do with my poor Fido, they won't let him on a plane and I'm not going to leave him behind. Who are you anyway, the Ambassador?'
'Word in your ear: you never had this call.'
'Didn't I?'
'We're being bugged, didn't you hear the click?'
'I thought it was your teeth.'
He rang off smartly. There was nothing they could do: if they wanted to fake a trump they'd have to do it in front of a Western camera.
Someone was talking in Russian, then a lot of splurge came. I went into the cypher room.
'What station's that?’
'Voice of America.' Webster cut the treble and the whole range sank into the porridge.
'They often jam it?’
'They've not done it since Prague.' He changed the wavelength and there was more porridge. 'Radio Free Europe.' Then he flicked the band and got a girl in slow emphatic Polish. 'One of the Warsaw stations hidden up somewhere.'
… been to the point if Minister Podhal had explained the presence tonight of more than five hundred medium tanks and one quarter million motorised troops standing by along Motor-route E8 within twelve kilometres of the capital. If we are to conclude that these forces are -
'More?’
'No.'
'Think they'll come in?'
'No.'
Because they'd lost their licence to occupy the city: the document in the other room.
'Well I can't see who's going to stop them.'
'Do some things for me, will you?' He followed me through the doorway. 'Put those two briefcases into the dip. bag and seal it'.
'I can't do that — '
'Can Merrick?'
'Not officially, till the morning.'
I shut my eyes again because of the light, because of having to think of small important details, because of the worry about what I had to do next, the bloody little organism snivelling for what it knew we couldn't get: a quick plane home.
'Look, phone H.E., get him along here and give him the pitch.'
'The what?'
'Oh Christ, the picture. Ask Merrick. He knows. He's got to leave Warsaw by the next plane, waive all formalities, he's not safe here. And that bag's got to reach London, highest priority: tell the Queen's Messenger what's on, you've got a rough idea.'
Very far away an emergency klaxon sounded and then the buildings muted it. I bent over the briefcases to check the zips and a muscular spasm gripped my chest and I had to wait till it passed. 'Listen, I want you to stay with Merrick. Don't take him to the Residence: keep him here.'
'Okay. Fetch the Doc along shall I?'
'Can do. And don't let him go near windows, watch him for aspirins, he's depressed.’
'You okay yourself, are you?'
'Yes. Just look after him for me.'
'I savvy. Book that call, did you?'
'Call?
'The local. Rules, see, they're red hot on expenses. I'll take care of it, don't worry.' He unclipped one of his pens.
I went along the passage and past the room with the cast-iron stove and its red curling ashes, then down the stairs and into the bitter night air.
It was a clear run back to the Hotel Alzacki. The streets were deserted: the curfew was for thirty minutes from now and people didn't want to be caught out because their watch had stopped. A few taxis: they'd be journalists covering the scene.
The hotel was halfway along the street and they came in from the far end while I was switching the engine off, a dark-coloured mobile patrol slowing on sidelights, and a couple of seconds later my mirror went bright. I knew the Mercedes was all right so it was the hotel itself they were closing on. I threw the door shut and crossed the brittle snow on the pavement and went inside.
22: SRODA
The staircase. curved and I caught at the banister rail, pulling myself up. One of them was guarding the door and I told him to get inside.
A tin tray on the billiard-table, dirty bowls and spoons and the smell of czosnek, the Ludwiczak boy asleep, nothing else different.
'Alinka.'
It couldn't be said in front of Foster because there was a last chance: he might not see the vulnerable point that could finish me.
As she came quickly the slamming of metal doors sounded from below and in the half-lit passage her eyes glittered.
'Police?’
'Listen, I'm taking the Englishman and not coming back. Get control of them if you can, tell them Voskarev's no good as a hostage if they kill him, make them see sense for your own sakes.'
The door below came open and we heard their boots. She turned her head to listen, contempt on her shadowed mouth, then looked, up at me.
'Thank you for my brother.'
They watched me as I went back through the doorway and Foster was standing up and on his face I saw fear and knew it was for Voskarev.
A man tried to get past me with his rifle and I pushed him back. 'Stay here and keep quiet. Foster, I want you,'
He looked once at the Russian and may have said something to him. Then he followed me out and I shut the door. Through the banisters I could see the cap of, the man guarding the main entrance while the search spread through the ground floor.
'They'll kill him,' I said, 'you know that.'
He looked at me without enmity, his mind too disciplined for abstraction. 'I'm not sure,' he said, 'that I can do it.'
We went down the stairs together. A lieutenant was at the desk throwing questions at the patron and swung round when he saw us. Foster showed him his credentials and I heard him trying to get authority into his tone: what were they doing here?
The Commissar saloon had been reported as having been seen outside this hotel.
Yes, it had brought us here. What was the trouble?
The Comrade Colonel and the Deputy Chief Controller were said to be missing.
'Some fool,' Foster told him with a flash of impatience, 'is spreading confusion. Comrade Deputy Chief Voskarev has gone to the Najwyzsza Izba Kontroli. Now get your men out of here.'
I turned to the patron and apologised formally for the disturbance as the orders were shouted along the passage. The tramp of boots gathered at the entrance and an engine started up outside. The lieutenant's salute to Foster was perfunctory: the Polish M.O. branch was at present under control of the Co-ordinated Information Services Foreign Division and the position was one of sufferance.
Foster was standing perfectly still. I think he was waiting for the sound of a shot from the billiard-room: in hostage situations the death rate is highest when a search comes close.
The rhythm of snow-chains passed the building and then it was quiet.
'All right.' I took his arm because he was turning towards the stairs.
The street smelt of exhaust gas.
'Where are we going?'
The ignition and oil-pressure lights dimmed out and I turned by gunning up and bouncing the rear off the kerb because there wasn't room for the lock. I didn't answer him. He sat without a word until we were into Zawisza Square and it occurred to me that he knew what I was going to do with him.
Sidelights came into the mirror and I noted them. The Square was heavily patrolled and the white beam of a lamp swung from somewhere above us, a rooftop command post. A long way off I heard the chopping of rotors again. Then there was firing of some kind, nearer to us, and I checked my watch. It was midnight minus one: a minute to Sroda.
Will you be here? Don't be here Wednesday, pal.
The shape was still in the mirror. I don't know if Foster had caught a reflection or heard the chains but he looked round and then sat facing forward again. 'You're going to have a crack at getting out, then.'