CHAPTER 2
Tuesday May 26
Tweed sat behind his desk in the first floor office of a house which overlooks Regents Park in the distance. Through thick-lensed spectacles he gazed at the pile of relics taken by the Lindau Water Police off the dead body of Charles Warner.
The hub of Britain's Secret Service is not – as has been reported – in a concrete building close to Waterloo Station. It is situated inside one of many Georgian buildings in a – crescent, most of which are occupied by professional institutions.
The location has a number of advantages. On leaving the building there are different directions one can take. To check whether anyone is following you the simplest route is to walk straight into Regents Park. In the open parkland it is impossible for a shadow to conceal his presence.
Only a few paces away is the entrance to Regents Park Underground. Unlike most other stations you descend in a lift to reach the platforms. Again, anyone following has to show himself by stepping into the same lift.
`Pathetic what a man carries about with him,' Tweed remarked.
Keith Martel, the only other occupant in the room, lit a cigarette and wondered whether Tweed was criticising the relics because they offended his sense of order or commenting on the poverty of what a man left behind. He decided it was the latter.
There was about twenty years' difference in the ages of the two men. Martel, tall, well-built, dark-haired and with an air of supreme self-confidence, was twenty-nine. His most prominent feature was his Roman nose. His most outstanding characteristic was insubordination.
He chain-smoked, using a black holder. He spoke German, French and Spanish fluently. He was a first-rate pilot of light aircraft and helicopters. He swam like a fish and hated team sports.
No one knew Tweed's age. Five feet eight inches tall, wiry and with a ramrod back, he had the appearance of an ex-Army major – which he was – and his grey moustache matching his thatch of hair was neatly trimmed. Behind the spectacles his eyes bulged and held a haunted look as though expecting the worst.
'It usually happens – the worst. Count on it,' was his favourite maxim.
Events had an uncanny habit of proving him correct. It was this fact – his reputation for solving problems – and his caustic manner which had persuaded the new head of the department to sidetrack him into the post of Chief of Central Registry. Also the new supremo, Frederick Anthony Howard, had taken an instant dislike to Tweed when they first met in some mysterious past.
`What do you make of it all, Keith?'
Tweed gestured to the possessions of Warner spread in a gap on his desk he had cleared amid tidy piles of dossiers. Martel picked up several slips of paper and tickets extracted from the dead man's wallet.
Warner had been a squirrel, stuffing his wallet with odd items, other agents would have thrown away. But Martel knew it was not carelessness: Warner had worked on the basis that if ever anything happened to him while on an assignment he should leave his successor clues.
'What was he doing in Germany?' Martel asked as he examined the collection.
'On loan from me to Erich Stoller of the Bundesnachrichtendienst. I owe Erich and he needed an outsider who could pass for a German to infiltrate this Delta outfit in Bavaria – neo-Nazis, as you well know. They cleverly keep just inside the law so they can't be banned.'
The Bundesnachrichtendienst – the BND – was the German Federal Secret Service with discreet headquarters near Munich. There was a dull clink as Tweed-took something from his pocket and dropped it on the desk. A triangular-shaped silver badge like the Greek letter delta.
'That's their latest version of the swastika,' Tweed remarked. 'The badge was found under Warner's body. The killer must have dropped it without realising he'd lost it…'
'How was he killed?'
'Brutally.' Tweed took off his glasses and leaned back in his swivel chair, settling himself on his favourite cushion. 'The BND pathologist reports that Warner was struck with some kind of knife twenty-five times. Twenty-five! And they completed the job by carving their trademark on his naked back- the Delta symbol.'
'We're relying on that to identify it as a Delta killing?'
'We're relying on an impartial eye-witness – whose name Stoller won't reveal even to me. Some German tourist was sitting on an elevated terrace above the harbour at Lindau…'
'Sounds like the Romerschanze,' Martel interjected.
'Of course, I'd forgotten. You know Lindau. Rum-looking sort of place – I checked it up on the map. From the air it must look like a raft linked by a couple of planks to the mainland. As you know, it's an island linked to Bavaria by two bridges…'
'One road bridge and a separate rail embankment with a cycle and pedestrian track running alongside the railway.'
'Nice to have an eye for detail,' Tweed commented with a hint of sarcasm. Martel appeared not to notice: the reaction showed Tweed was concealing considerable anxiety.
'As I was saying,' Tweed continued, 'this German tourist using his binoculars watched Warner take his powerboat out on to the lake. He saw a crowd of windsurfers – six to be precise – get in Warner's way so he had to stop his boat. When they pushed off he saw Warner's boat was drifting – with Warner slumped over the wheel. He thought he must have been taken ill so he immediately contacted the Water Police who berth their launch just below that Romer-what-not terrace…' He consulted Stoller's report. 'Chap called Horner went out to have a look-see…'
`And the rest is history – past history, unfortunately.'
'Except that I want you to go out and replace Warner for me.' Tweed said quietly.
Frederick Anthony Howard came into the office without knocking. It would be more accurate to say he breezed in. It was the essence of Howard's personality that you dominated a room the moment you entered it.
He was accompanied by Mason, a new recruit. Mason had restless eyes and a lean and hungry look. He said nothing and stood behind his chief like a commissionaire.
'Tweed, I suppose you know we need all active personnel mustered for the protection of the PM during her trip to the summit conference in Vienna?'
He invested the word 'active' with a significance which included Martel and specifically excluded Tweed. Florid-faced and with a choleric temper, Howard was a well-built man of fifty who had an unruly shock of grey hair and a brisk manner. He had a reputation for being a devil with the women, a reputation he relished.
The fact that his wife, Cynthia, lived at their `small manor' in the country and he rented `a pied-a-terre' in Knightsbridge could not have been more convenient. Tweed's privately expressed comment had been rather devastating.
Tied-a-terre? I've been there once. When he has a girl with him it must be standing room only…'
`What's all this bumf?' Howard demanded, picking up the wallet from the desk. Martel had palmed the slips of paper he was perusing and slipped them into his pocket as Howard entered the room.
`That bumf,' Tweed said grimly, `happens to be the personal effects of the late Charles Warner. The BND kindly flew them straight to London from Munich so we can begin our investigation at the earliest moment.'
Having delivered his statement in a calm, cold voice Tweed put on his spectacles. Without them he felt naked, especially in the presence of people like Howard. And he was well aware that wearing the glasses made it impossible to judge his expression.
`Getting touchy in our old age, are we?' Howard enquired lightly, trying to bluff his way through what he now realised had been the height of bad taste.
`The man is dead,' Tweed replied, giving no quarter.
`I don't like it any more than you do.' Howard strolled over to the heavily net-curtained window and gazed through the armoured glass. He clasped both hands in a theatrical pose before making his pronouncement.
`I simply must insist that all active personnel are available to travel aboard the Summit Express from Paris to Vienna one week from today. Tuesday June 2
`I do have a calendar,' Tweed commented.
Howard looked pointedly away from Tweed and at Martel who said nothing, his cigarette holder in his mouth – which to Howard was insubordination. He had made it very clear he preferred no one to practise the filthy habit in his presence.
`Well?' he pressed.
Mattel stared back at Howard, puffing away, his expression hard and hostile. 'I'm otherwise engaged,' he said eventually, still clenching the holder. Howard turned to Tweed and erupted.
'This is too damned much. I'm taking Martel and attaching him to my protection group. He speaks good German…'
'Which is why he's going to Bavaria,' Tweed told him. 'We were suspicious something strange is going on in that part of the world. It looks as though we were right. Otherwise why was Warner killed?'
Howard glanced at Mason who still stood by the door like a commissionaire. Time to assert his authority. 'We?' he repeated in a supercilious tone. 'May I enquire the identity of "we"?'
'Erich Stoller of the BND and myself,' Tweed said tersely. Time to get rid of Howard. 'I have a minute from the Minister authorising me to investigate the Bavarian enigma and full powers to use my staff in any way I see fit. May I also point out that the route of the Summit Express carrying the four top western leaders to Vienna to meet the Soviet First Secretary passes through Bavaria?'
They were alone again. Howard had stormed out of the office on hearing of the existence of the special ministerial minute. Mason had followed, closing the door carefully behind him.
'He was memorising my appearance,' Martel said.
`Do let's get on. Oh, all right, who was?'
`The new boy, Mason. Who brought him in off the street?'
'Ex-Special Branch, I gather,' Tweed replied. 'And it was Howard who recruited him – interviewed him personally, I heard. I think he'd been angling to join us for a while…'
'We don't take people who apply,' Martel snapped.
'We do now, apparently. How are you going to pick up Warner's trail? And since you've had your breakfast your – stomach should be strong enough to study these pictures taken by Stoller's man – two show clearly the triangular symbol of the Delta Party carved out of Warner's back…'
'Delta being the neo-Nazis,' Martel ruminated as he studied the glossy blow-ups. 'Delta is run by that millionaire electronics industrialist, Reinhard Dietrich. He's also running for office in the Bavarian state elections which take place…'
'On Thursday June 4 – the day after the Summit Express crosses Bavaria,' Tweed interjected. 'Which is something else Howard may have overlooked. You know, Keith, I have the oddest feeling the whole thing interlocks – the Bavarian crossing by the express, the state elections, and the murder of Warner before he could reach us.'
Martel dropped the glossy prints back on the desk and extracted from his pocket the pieces of paper he had secreted while Howard was in the room. He showed Tweed one particular piece of paper.
'I'll start in Zurich to try and find out what got Warner killed.'
'Why Zurich? I did notice a first-class ticket from Munich by train to Zurich -and another from Lindau to Munich, but…'
'This little scrap of paper. Go on, have a really good look at it.'
Tweed examined it under a magnifying glass. It was some kind of ticket which carried the printed legend VBZ Zuri Linie. The words RENNWEGIAUGUST had been punched in purple on the ticket together with the price 0.80.
'From the last time I was in Zurich I'm sure you're holding a tram ticket,' Martel explained. 'A tram whose route takes it along Bahnhofstrasse – Rennweg is a side street running off Bahnhofstrasse. Warner travelled about inside the city. Why? Where to? He never wasted time.'
Tweed nodded agreement, unlocked a drawer and brought out a file. From inside he produced a tiny black notebook and thumbed through the pages. Then he waved the key he had used.
'I suppose you know Howard waits until everyone has gone home in the evening and then prowls – hoping to find something he hasn't been told about? He spends more time spying on his own staff than on the opposition. Still, it will help to keep his hand in…'
'You're just about to play your strongest card,' Martel observed. 'You're enjoying the anticipation. Could I now see what you hold in the way of aces?'
'It came with Warner's possessions Stoller flew to me with such commendable speed.' Tweed riffled the pages of the tiny notebook. 'Only I know Warner carried two notebooks -a large one inside his breast pocket, which is missing. Presumably filched by the swine who mutilated him. That was full of meaningless rubbish. This little fellow he kept in a secret pocket Stoller himself found when he flew to Lindau – or the nearest airstrip – when he heard from Dorner of the Water Police.'
'Am I to be allowed to see it?'
'You have a viper's tongue, Mr Martel.' Tweed handed o'er the notebook. The trouble is the jottings in it don't make sense.'
Martel went through the pages. The references seemed disjointed. Hauptbahnhof; Munich… Hauptbahnhof, Zurich… Delta. Centralhof Bregenz. Washington, DC, Clint Loomis… Pullach, BND… Operation Crocodile.
'Charles
They had always called him Charles. Warner was the kind of man they would never dream of calling Charlie; he would have resented it.
'Charles,' Martel repeated, 'seems to have been fixated on the main stations – the Hauptbahnhofs in Munich and Zurich. Why? And if the note sequence means anything Delta is somehow linked with Zurich, which is odd, wouldn't you say?'
'Delta is the official neo-Nazi party with candidates standing in the coming Bavarian state elections,' Tweed remarked. 'But it also works underground. Rumour has it Delta cells are operating in north-east Switzerland between St. Gallen and the Austrian border. Ferdy Arnold of Swiss counter-espionage is worried…'