H2G2 Storytime III: From Prussia with Love. Part XXXVIII
Created | Updated Oct 18, 2006
Arthur stirred restlessly in his deep sleep. In his ordinary line of duty, he had seen his life flash before him so many times it had become quite a bore to him - but this time was different. Details kept recurring in the hallucinatory haze that had overwhelmed his brain. Why was he hearing that tune, insistent at the back of his brain? Why was he smelling that old familiar mixture of stale cigarette-smoke, damp concrete and car exhaust? Why was he seeing a park with bare trees and grey skies? Familiar, familiar, but from where?
Then it came to him - that recurring little jingle was 'Ever Fallen In Love' by The Buzzcocks, half-heard on a tinny car radio, the smells were those of the war where he had begun his career, and the park was one small benighted corner of...
...in that season where The Clash and The Osmonds ran high in the charts, sideburns grew to unprecedented sizes and the interests of international prestige demanded that a lot of highly-qualified, paranoid men of East and West cram themselves into the city and play terrifying and absurd mind-games with each other.
The park was the Tiergarten, an expanse of woodland paths and ornamental lakes between the zoo (and Democratic Freedom Under God) to the west and the Brandenburg Gate (and Despotic Atheistic Communism) to the east.
Marking the boundary between the world's major competing ideologies had done wonders for the park's foot-traffic - from dawn till dusk the paths and benches were full of sweating, trenchcoated men discreetly surveilling each other, exchanging significant glances and microfilm tucked into newspapers and exchanging innocuous statements such as: "The weather is unseasonably cold, is it not?", and the occasional innocent who had wandered in by mistake.
On one of the benches near the Wall, a handsome man approaching middle age was reading an English-language newspaper. He had a glossy head of swept-back brown hair, arched his eyebrows occasionally at items in the paper, and he seemed entirely oblivious of the cries and shots that carried over the wall near where he sat.
Finally, a resounding crash and the flight of a brick past his nose attracted his attention. He sighed, stood up, folded the newspaper and wandered over to see what was happening.
A large hole had been smashed in the Wall by an East German tank, which had jammed halfway through. A tiny figure had emerged from the hatch on top and was skipping across the grass towards him.
"Junior," he smiled. "What is the meaning of this mess? I can't take my eyes off you for one minute..."
A man in the uniform of a GDR captain appeared on top of the tank, having apparently clambered onto it from the Eastern side.
"Daltmooreby!" he screamed, shaking his fist. "You keep your brat out of our Bloc, understand? This is private property!"
Sean Daltmooreby chuckled, and hunkered down to his son's eye-level.
"Well, Junior? Explain yourself."
Junior waved a plastic disc. "I lost my frisbee over the Wall, sir," and added hotly, "and they wouldn't give it back!"
"Oh, the fiends. Still, you mustn't pull that kind of stunt, hmm? It worries your mother."
Junior scowled. "Yes, sir."
The GDR captain had been joined atop the tank by a group of soldiers, all out of breath and boiling with rage.
"Daltmooreby! Return the child to us, to face justice!"
Daltmooreby ruffled his son's hair, and stood up. "I don't think so, chaps. But I think Junior has got something to say to you - don't you, Junior?"
MP/>
The eight-year old, balled his fists, turned to the East Germans and yelled: "Go suck a lemon!"
General confusion and impotent rage reigned on the on the Eastern side, and the laughing retreat of the father and son. Had they stayed a little longer, they might have heard the following exchange: "'Suck a lemon'? This is surely some kind of code..."
"It may just be a Britischer slang term, Kapitan."
"Don't be simple, Heinrich. They plan something...utilising lemons..."
"Sir..."
"Kidnap the world's foremost lemon expert, Comrade-Lieutenant, and lock him in the Lubyanka. We will have the truth of this."
"With respect, Kapitan, I think you may be being a mite paranoid..."
"Oh, is that the way of it? A spy, Heinrich, after all these years!"
"No, Kapitan! No..."
The sound of a shot drifted on the gentle wind to where Daltmooreby and his son were strolling towards the zoo, across a small bridge over the lake. An unfamiliar voice called out from the bank:
"Daltmooreby!"
and a young man in a trenchcoat waved. Daltmooreby groaned, told Junior to go play on the swings for a minute, and approached the spy. He was a grave young man barely out of his teens, with slicked-back hair and a conservative suit. Daltmooreby looked him over, and saw that kind of certainty that only exists in people young enough to know that they know everything.
"I'm retired from active duty," Daltmooreby sighed. "if you're with the Agency. If you're Red, take your best shot. They stopped sending assassins after me for a reason."
"Let's sit," said the young man coldly, indicating the benches by the lake.
"Are we going to feed the ducks?" Daltmooreby arched an eyebrow. The Agent ignored him, and pulled a manila envelope from his coat.
"You should sit down."
The pictures were of dead men in a field, sprawled in awkward positions amid tangled parachute cords and canopies. Grim figures in Soviet uniform stood about the field, toting Kalashnikovs. One of them was holding up a can of film reels with 'Star Wars' plastered on it - another held a T-shirt against his chest, the multi-coloured words 'Capitalism Rocks!' splashed across it. Daltmooreby frowned.
"This is Romania? The drop last night?"
The young man nodded. "Your cushy little retirement number - arranging drops of anti-Red propaganda and materiel into Eastern Bloc countries. But we've noticed a great deal of attrition in these drops recently - too many cases of our boys dropping right onto the muzzle of an AK. HQ got curious..."
Daltmooreby stood up abruptly, and hissed furiously.
"You want to accuse me of something, or shoot me in the gut, you just come right out and..."
"Not you."
The Agent paused, lit a cigarette.
"Your wife."
Daltmooreby stared at him blankly for a moment, then laughed.
"Yelena has nothing to do with my work - has no idea what I do. If she did, she'd be right behind me. If you recall, she hates the Reds as much as I do - we met sliding across the frozen Ukrainian border on her violin case, Soviet artillery going off all around us...it was such a squeeze on that violin case that we became acquainted even quicker than usual..."
"We've all heard the story. Very neat. Superb work on the Opposition's part. Who would suspect?"
The Agent drew another sheaf of photographs from the envelope. Two people meeting in a crummy East German bar, photographed surreptitiously at an odd angle.
"The man is a rising star in the KGB - ugly, ain't he? - whose name appears to be Leicesterschniictch Kitanya-irrania-tatonya-karenska-alisov. I take it from your expression that you recognise the woman?"
Daltmooreby, eyes tight shut, nodded.
The young man allowed a respectful moment of silence to pass, looking at Daltmooreby's bowed head with a mixture of pity and contempt.
"Of course," he said, "it could happen to any of us, the honey trap. Don't feel bad. General opinion seems to be that you were past your prime by the time they got to you. Tamed you with domestic bliss."
Daltmooreby looked up at this, eyes blazing.
"Look, you little punk-"
"Punk I may be, but I'm not the one whose wife has been cheating on me with the Soviet secret service."
This earned the youthful Agent a right hook, a grass-stained coat, a knee in the sternum and a pair of hands around his throat.
"I ought to kill you," hissed Daltmooreby, eyes crazy with grief and rage.
The Agent twisted his head, and spat the cigarette out on the grass, where it sizzled.
"You're angry. That's good. You should be. But not at me."
Daltmooreby started to sob and loosened his grip.
The Agent continued relentlessly.
"And there is somebody you ought to kill. Top brass decided we should give you the chance. Personal aspect of the whole business..."
Daltmooreby had collapsed onto the bench, and was wrenching a hand through his hair, while sobbing silently. The youth rose to his feet, and brushed off his coat.
"Steady, old man. You'll go bald. Here's the plan, direct from London. She arrives back from her 'concert' in Prague this evening?"
A trembling nod.
"You tell her you're taking her out to dinner. Drive her out to the airport at Tegel - we have it open for your car. Take her out onto the tarmac, far from the terminals, and do what you have to do. Nice and quiet."
Daltmooreby raised his head at this, sniffing and twitching. "So...so soon? I have to..."
"Best way, all round." The Agent was busily tucking the photographs back into his coat, and he slapped Daltmooreby on the back. "A clean break. We'll dump the, the evidence in the Tegeler See, and that'll be an end to it."
He stood up, brushed himself down, adjusted his collar. Daltmooreby had regained a little of his composure, and said: "What's your name?"
The Agent glanced from side to side, mindful of surveillance.
"Arthur Robinson," he murmured. "I'm your liaison on this."
"How long have you been on field duty?"
"Two months."
"Two months..." Daltmooreby shook his head. "I was out there for fifteen years..."
Robinson shrugged. "It's a young man's game, eh?"
And just as he left, he turned to add: "By the way, I'll be at Tegel tonight. My orders are to ensure that the Russian agent doesn't see dawn. So if you feel you're not up to it..."
Daltmooreby glared at him hatefully. "How did you get to be so heartless in only two months?"
"Just doing my job, Agent Daltmooreby. Do you remember what that was like?"
As Arthur walked away, he glanced back at the bench. The son had run up to his hunched father, and was tugging at his sleeve. He swallowed, and scowled.
Arthur's new partner nodded and snapped his fingers as he slid back into the Gran Torino.
"What's shakin', Daddio? Did you rap with the cat?"
Arthur shook his head. "If you're asking whether I talked to him, well, I did. What's that on the radio?"
"The Buzzcocks, brother. 'Ev-ah fallen in love with someone you shouldna fallen in love with...' Can you dig it?"
"No. Turn it off. Let's get going."
"Da-amn, G-man, what's up your butt...?"
Arthur rounded on his partner, his temper gone.
"Listen, Agent...X, it was cute for a while - the medallions, the afro, the bloody slang - but it's been weeks since you infiltrated that Harlem crime syndicate. It's time you dropped the fake identity, alright?"
X reared back in surprise, his flared collar sticking out a foot on either side.
"Yeesh! You jive turkey - you're a real hater, knowumsayin'?"
"Just drive, dammit. We'll book you some time in the neural reprogrammer later...And we're getting rid of the furry dice."
"The dice stay, fool!"
"Gahh! This partnership is never going to work..."
"Damn straight. Uptight honky turkey...gettin' me a transfer..."
The tarmac of the disused runways glimmered sickly under neon light that night. The sound of the city was muffled out on this great empty expanse, with only the howling wind and distant jet engines intruding.
In the shadow cast by an empty Lufthansa hangar, a light briefly flared and went out. Arthur cupped his hands around the cigarette, hiding the glowing end, and hunched across the steering-wheel of the car. Daltmooreby was late.
A distant growling turned into the regular hum of a Rover town car, standard issue for British expatriates. Daltmooreby was here afterall. Brave man. It crawled out from between two hangars, and started across the runways, battered by the wind. Arthur reached into the shadows in the back of the car and hefted the large, rectangular radio-transmitter.
"I see the car. Is the woman in there?"
A hiss of static, and the Agent on the gate replied in the affirmative. Arthur tracked the car through binoculars, in its slow progress north across the tarmac. He frowned.
"I think they've gone too far. Shouldn't they have stopped by now?"
No reply. He tapped his fingernails together for a moment, then pushed the transmit button again.
"Request instructions, whether -
There was a distant squeal of rubber - the Rover had accelerated. Arthur dropped the radio, gunned the engine and stamped on the accelerator.With a growl of protest, the car howled out of the shadows and onto the tarmac, shaking and bucking in the gale. The Rover was a dim shape and a pair of taillights in the distance - growing closer - weaving.
Daltmooreby had seen him, and was heading for the eastern exit of the airport - for the Reinickendorf district which bordered the Wall. That settled it.
Arthur decellerated, and fished the radio from the back seat.
"Snipers, come in. Snipers, go for the wheels. Respond?"
Static, and hissing voices assuring him that they had good lines of sight.
"The wheels, do you copy? Any showboating will be frowned upon..."
On the roof of a hangar by the eastern exit, a pair of snipers rolled their eyes at each other. The young ones always needed to throw their weight around. The Rover squealed into view, and they dutifully took out the two tyres on the right-hand side, sending the car spinning into a wall of crates.
When Arthur arrived and hopped out of the Gran Torino, Daltmooreby was clambering from the twisted doorframe of the Rover rubbing his bloody head.
"What in hell...?" Arthur began, but Daltmooreby wasn't listening.
"Go!" he screamed hoarsely. "Go!" and he took a weak swing at Arthur. Dodging it, the Agent smacked him with the butt of his revolver sending him to the ground.
Arthur walked around the wreckage, and shaded his eyes at the neon glare. Perhaps twenty metres away, there was a silhouette hobbling awkwardly across the huge expanse of tarmac, towards the eastern exit. Arthur sighed miserably. The wife.
A hiss from the radio - the snipers enquiring whether they should fire. Arthur, his eyes on Daltmooreby, told them not to.
"It's my responsibility. Hold fire."
"Please..." croaked Daltmooreby, but Arthur was already striding away, flicking off the safety catch.
The shot was almost too easy - he closed his eyes before squeezing the trigger, and still hit Yelena Daltmooreby dead centre.
She went right down, like a target on the shooting range. She was the first person Arthur had ever killed.
Daltmooreby was crying again, mewling and clawing at his hair. Arthur rubbed his temples as he looked at the pathetic spectacle. His trenchcoat whipped like a flag in the gale.
"My wife..." howled Daltmooreby. "She was my wife, damn you...mother to my son...I couldn't...I couldn't..."
"Of course not," said Arthur. "Condolences."
He paused. "Nevertheless, you're out. I'm sure that they'll make it an honourable discharge. For past services rendered."
"I loved her..." Daltmooreby wailed.
"Yes. Not a good move, for people like us."
He fished a tissue from his pocket, and carefully set it on the concrete in front of Daltmooreby. The older man sniffed hugely, and looked up at Arthur with absolute loathing.
"You cocky little bastard. I hope...I hope that you understand, someday...understand how this feels...how it feels to watch someone you love die...wouldn't that be justice?"
Arthur holstered his revolver, turned to go, and over his shoulder he said flatly:
"Never happen."
Now the distant memories faded, and the present flooded back - Arthur's eyes opened, and he gasped. He was in Cairo, not Berlin - it was two decades later - he was lying on his chest in some kind of bed, his back an agonising pattern of shotgun wounds.
"Anna..." he said thickly, his mouth sticky with disuse.
X's concerned face hoved into view. A large finger obscured his vision and poked him in the left eye, and he snarled weakly.
"He's awake!" hollered X. "...come take a look..."
Now another figure appeared, and Arthur almost swallowed his tongue. The face was unmistakeable - Daltmooreby's face, minus the ravages of time and dissipation.
It was Daltmooreby Junior, last seen frolicking in a Berlin park twenty-something years ago.
"I met him in the market - he offered to help." X began, "this is..." but Arthur interrupted
"We've met."
Daltmooreby Jr. looked from X to Arthur. "We have?" he said, bemused.
Arthur gave a great rattling sigh, and winced with the pain in his back. "You should sit down."
