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“Try and sit up, Bruno.”
He helped Morenz into a sitting position, his back against the hay bales.
“We must hurry, Bruno. I’m going to try to get you out of here.”
Morenz shook his head dully. “Stay here, Sam. It’s safe here. No one could ever find me here.”
No, thought McCready, a drunken farmer never could. But five hundred soldiers could and would. He tried to get Morenz to his feet, but it was hopeless. The weight of the man was too much. His legs would not work. He clutched his hands across his chest. There was something bulging under his left arm. McCready let him slump back into the hay. Morenz curled up again. McCready knew he would never get him back to the border near Ellrich, under the wire, and across the minefield. It was over.
Through the crack, across the maize cobs bright in the sun, the green uniforms were swarming over the farms and barns of Ober Grünstedt. Marionhain would be next.
“I’ve been to see Fräulein Neumann. You remember Fräulein Neumann? She’s nice.”
“Yes, nice. She might know I’m here, but she won’t tell them.”
“Never, Bruno. Never. She said you have your homework for her. She needs to mark it.”
Morenz unbuttoned his raincoat and eased out a fat red manual. Its cover bore a gold hammer and sickle. Morenz’s tie was off and his shirt open. A key hung on a piece of twine around his neck. McCready took the manual.
“I’m thirsty, Sam.”
McCready held out a small silver hip flask that he had taken from his back pocket. Morenz drank the whiskey greedily. McCready looked through the crack. The soldiers had finished with Ober Grünstedt. Some were coming down the track, while others fanned out through the fields.
“I’m going to stay here, Sam,” said Morenz.
“Yes,” said McCready, “so you are. Good-bye, old friend. Sleep well. No one will ever hurt you again.”
“Never again,” murmured the man, and slept.
McCready was about to rise when he saw the glint of the key against Morenz’s chest. He eased the twine from around his neck, stowed the manual in his totebag, slithered down the ladder, and slipped away into the maize. The ring closed two minutes later. It was midday.
It took him twelve hours to get back to the giant pine tree on the border near Ellrich village. He changed into his smock and waited beneath the trees until half-past three. Then he flashed his pencil light three times toward the white rock across the border and crawled under the wire, through the minefield, and across the plowed strip. Siegfried was waiting for him at the fence.
On the drive back to Goslar, he flicked over the key he had taken from Bruno Morenz. It was made of steel, and engraved on the back were the words Flughafen Köln. Cologne airport. Sam bade farewell to Kurzlinger and Siegfried after a sustaining breakfast and drove southwest instead of north to Hanover.
At one o’clock on that Saturday afternoon, the soldiers made contact with Colonel Voss, who arrived in a staff car with a woman in a civilian suit. They went up the ladder and examined the body in the hay. A thorough search was made, the barn was almost torn apart, but no sign was found of any written material, least of all a thick manual. But then, they did not know what they were looking for anyway.
A soldier pried a small silver flask from the dead man’s hand and passed it to Colonel Voss. He sniffed it and muttered, “Cyanide.” Major Vanavskaya took it and turned it over. On the back was written HARRODS, LONDON. She used a very unladylike expression. Although his command of Russian was basic, Colonel Voss thought it sounded like “You Motherfucker.”
At noon on Sunday, McCready entered Cologne airport, well in time for the one o’clock flight. He changed his Hanover-to-London ticket for a Cologne-London one, checked in, and wandered toward the steel luggage lockers to one side of the concourse. He took the steel key and inserted it into locker 47. Inside was a black canvas grip. He withdrew it.
“I think I will take the bag, thank you, Herr McCready.”
He turned. The Deputy Head of the Operations Directorate of the BND was standing ten feet away. Two large gentlemen hovered farther on. One studied his fingernails, the other the ceiling, as if looking for cracks.
“Why, Dr. Herrmann. How nice to see you again. And what brings you to Cologne?”
“The bag ... if you please, Mr. McCready.”
It was handed over. Herrmann passed it to one of his team. He could afford to be genial.
“Come, Mr. McCready, we Germans are a hospitable people. Let me escort you to your plane. You would not wish to miss it.”
They walked toward passport control.
“A certain colleague of mine ...” suggested Herrmann.
“He will not be coming back, Dr. Herrmann.”