The Hidden Target Read online

  “If you sense danger, then back away—drop her—continue your assignment as originally planned. But I insist you meet her—make your own assessment. Keep remembering that we consider her to be of the utmost importance to our future plans. Never forget that.” The hidden command ended. Theo’s voice lightened. “There’s one small change in your itinerary. After Bombay, fly direct to Indonesia. Omit Malaysia, Singapore. You will reach Bali by early November. You and the girl leave Bali on the seventh of that month—by the cruise ship Princess Royal. You will have space reserved for part of that world trip—not unusual—I am taking a segment of the cruise myself. We shall have a very safe opportunity to meet for your last briefing before America.” Theo’s smile became almost angelic. “I’ll join the ship one stage ahead of you—at Singapore—and leave it one stage later than you do. You and the girl disembark at Hong Kong.”

  “Why the diversion to Bali?”

  “It will be a suitable place to leave your travel companions behind.”

  “Except the girl. If she is still with us.”

  “Except the girl. And she will be with you. I’ve never known you to fail with women, Erik. This time, no personal involvement for you, remember! The girl is an assignment, more important than you can guess. Blowing up oil tanks will seem a child’s game compared to what I plan for America.”

  I plan? Not we plan? But it made a good exit line, thought Leitner as Theo pulled out a pair of heavy-rimmed glasses and walked into the nave. A good moment, too, to choose: Theo would have excellent cover all the way into the street. A straggling party of tourists was passing Leitner now, heading for the church door. Theo merged with them, wasn’t even noticed.

  Leitner waited for five minutes before he started up the aisle. Just what is planned for America? he couldn’t help wondering. He and Marco would be working with local talent there. Perhaps they were being selected right now and sent to South Yemen, or to North Korea where he had been given specialised training almost ten years ago. But would they be as efficient as Section One? Marco, of course, would still be with him. The others—where? Regrouped or assigned to Section Two in Duisburg? Perhaps scattered, sent underground? Lying low for how long? Six months? A year? How would they feel tomorrow when Theo gave them the warning signal to clear out? As I am feeling, Leitner knew: enraged to the point of blowing up all of Duisburg, not just setting off a chain reaction of explosions in an oil-storage area. Section One was not dead—after America, he’d be back to give it life again—but it was badly mangled. Last week, it had been the most effective operational unit of the People’s Revolutionary Force for Direct Action.

  ***

  He came into the busy street, the June sunlight strong after the gloom of the church. For a brief moment he paused, lighting a cigarette. Anyone loitering around, waiting to follow him? Just a normal crowd, he decided, and stepped into the stream of people. Intense anger was controlled. Now he was planning his exit from Essen.

  First, the bookstore and his pay collected. (What good German boy would disappear without the money he had earned?) Second, Frau Zimmermann, his elderly and inquisitive landlady. (What good German boy would leave by night without rent fully rendered until the end of the week?) In both cases, he would rely on the same story: a father in traction, hospitalised for months; mother ailing; Uncle Ernst needing urgent help with the family’s butcher shop in Munich. Bloch, his boss at the bookstore, would let him leave early (half a day’s pay, of course). Zimmermann would shake her head over the crisis that forced a young man back to a business he had never wanted—and would he be able to finish the book he was writing? So much work, so much reading he had done for it... He could guess the phrases, have brief replies ready, back away gracefully. But he had at least silenced the questions of eight months ago, by giving her just enough in the way of answers so that she, in turn, could answer the questions of her friends. It was a neighbourhood of small gossip. Dangerous? Not if you kept your story straight, leaving Zimmermann’s romantic imagination to supply an unhappy love affair. Besides, what police spy would think that anyone hiding something important would choose to live in the Zimmermann house?

  ***

  Everything went according to expectations—except for one surprise punch delivered by Bloch. As he busied himself with Leitner’s work papers, he looked up from his desk, cluttered with catalogues. “Have you returned all the books you took out?” Then he went on signing.

  Leitner’s face tightened. Briefly. “Yes, sir,” he said, his eyes fixed on Bloch’s bald head, as smooth and gleaming as an ostrich egg. “I brought back the last two books this morning. They were all from the secondhand shelves. I was careful with them, didn’t harm them.”

  “Interested in travel, I see. You’d have found a wider selection in the public library.”

  And have my name noted along with the subject matter? Leitner looked apologetic and said, “I did try that, but it is difficult to get there when it’s open. I’m sorry if I—”

  Bloch waved a large expressive hand. “It’s over. Forget it. No damage done to the books, but you should have asked permission. So you’ve got to go back to Munich and give up your travel plans.”

  “Plans? Oh, no. Nothing immediate. Not for some years yet. First, I read and gather background material. Next, I write. And if my book is successful—then I can start travelling.”

  “A writer, eh?” Bloch pushed his heavy glasses up over his domed head and studied this young optimist—a handsome fellow with steady blue-grey eyes, a beard and moustache and a thatch of brown hair that Bloch could envy. “Better stick to selling books. You’d eat regularly, at least.” He dismissed Leitner with “I hope your father recovers” and a clap on the shoulders.

  No bad feeling there, Leitner thought with relief as he hurried back to his room. But that was a surprise punch right to my jaw. Who’d have thought the old boy could notice so much through those thick lenses? Did he also notice the pattern of travel that, interested me? Western to Eastern Europe, Asia Minor to India, the Far East... But I was careful not to take the books out in that order, and I added several old chestnuts— early journeys of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries—just to keep my interest looking general. I underestimated Bloch: a sharp reminder to take nothing for granted, to remember that the smallest mistake might be the big one. Like Willy falling for Amalie’s shy smile. Damn them both to everlasting hell.

  ***

  There was no problem at all with Frau Zimmermann. In her best flowered print, she was preparing to leave for early supper and a game of bingo. That should hold her until nine o’clock, at least. He could pack without interruptions.

  He did not need to burn any documents; anything important was well disguised. Such as his cryptic descriptions, no definite place names, of the camping grounds outside the towns and cities he was scheduled to visit in the coming months—all part of the folder boldly headed “Notes for a novel.” There was also a page of scrawled first names, some scored out for the sake of realism, above which he had written “Suggested characters.” And on another sheet of paper he had made out a list of ages for his proposed characters, giving date and place of birth. The places were entirely a random choice, meaningless. So were the years. But the days and the months were to be remembered. On them, precisely, he would make the arranged contact with the small terrorist factions of the various countries he would visit.

  As he placed the folder carefully in his duffel bag, he reassured himself again that these dates appeared quite innocent. He needed that list. He had easily memorised the names of the localities where meetings would be held, but the dates were tricky. Theo had given him a quantity of them, and he couldn’t risk any mistiming. Could there be so many groups of would-be guerrillas? Well, he would soon judge, once he met with them, listened to them, studied their leaders, decided whether they were worth taking seriously or not. His reports would go back to Theo, harmlessly phrased about the state of the weather—good, promising, disappointing—and on them the futur
e of the local terrorists depended. Either they’d be found wanting and left to continue their hold-ups and wild shoot-outs like a lot of cheap gangsters, or they’d be accepted as potentially valuable. In which case they’d become, once their natural leaders had been given specialised training, members of the New International—Direct Action United. They would be ready and waiting for their assignments by the time Leitner was established in America.

  Once more he found himself wondering at the cost of all this, at the months of preparation. But no important project came off the drawing board in a week or went into full production within a year. Revolutionary patience, he thought, and smiled. The marriage of opposites. Yet natural complements. Like love and hate. Like destruction and creation...

  He finished clearing the room of all traces of his existence. Goodbye to Essen; and in Rotterdam, farewell to Kurt Leitner. And to Erik? No. He would always keep Erik, his one constant identity.

  2

  Erik arrived at London’s Heathrow Airport, his American passport (new to him; well used in appearance) stating he was James Kiley, born in Oakland, California, on 10 October 1952. This made him two years younger than he actually was, but he looked it with his beard and moustache shaved off, his mid-brown hair shorter and more controlled. It was, he had to admit, quite a transformation. American nationality was no problem: his accent was good, his vocabulary excellent; after all, he had spent a year in Berkeley after his return from North Korea. And one thing he could rely on: his future activities in the United States would certainly not be in the San Francisco area, where he might—a long chance, but still an added worry—be recognised.

  As for his real identity—Ramón Olivar, born in Caracas, Venezuela, in 1950—that was past history. Like his parents. Father, a Spanish lawyer from Barcelona, with intense Anarcho-Syndicalist opinions that made him a professional exile; mother, a medical student from Sweden, with Marxist-Leninist views that were in constant argument with her husband’s politics, each trying to convert the other. Ludicrous people. But they had taken him to Mexico when they escaped there. Ramón Olivar’s name had last been used at the university in Mexico City (1967-69) and in 1970 for his trip along with forty-nine other socialist-minded students to Lumumba University in Moscow. A new name and passport for the concealed journey to North Korea. For the journey back to Mexico, another passport. Yet another, Dutch this time, for the flight into California once the Mexican police had started questioning the 1970 crop of Lumumba graduates (two of them, idiots, had been caught with dynamite all set and ready to explode). And still another passport when he was ordered to proceed to West Germany.

  The only constant in all these travels had been the cover name Erik, his own invention. Chosen, unconsciously perhaps, because of his mother? Just as, like her, his hair was light, his eyes blue-grey? He certainly did not look Spanish. There his mother had won out over his dark-haired, dark-eyed father. But not in politics. (He was now far to the left of his father, much further to the left than his mother.) He hadn’t seen either of them since 1970. His father had escaped from Mexico and ended—literally—in Chile. His mother was still alive, and suitably in Cuba.

  Other times, other places... All distant, all shut away in tight mental compartments. Now he was James Kiley, a footloose American. He had his history at tongue tip: California born, moved from Oakland with his parents to Illinois; and when they were killed in an automobile crash, became a ward of his well-to-do uncle in Illinois who owned a wire and sheet company—gold and silver, in other words, necessary for jewellery manufacture. No brothers, no sisters, no other relatives, no marriages, no complications... He looked the part he was playing: a young man travelling, with some ambitions to be a roving correspondent, looking for wider horizons than his uncle’s factory in Chicago.

  He passed through Heathrow’s arrival formalities, no trouble at all, and walked briskly to the main entrance. Greta, Theo’s devoted talent scout, would be waiting for him. And she was. A red-and-white-checked suit, a red purse over her left arm, as prescribed, so that his eye could pick her out even before he saw the familiar face. She gave no hint of recognition, either. As he drew near, she left. At a leisurely pace, he followed the red-and-white-checked suit until she had stepped into her dark-red car. Then, with his one bag heaved into its small back seat, he slipped in beside her and they were on their way. For the next hour, Greta would be responsible for his safety.

  They hadn’t met since Berlin, almost five years ago, but Greta, close up, hadn’t changed much: the same slight figure, rusty-brown hair, eyes so light in colour that their blue was almost colourless, a white skin that never tanned, pale lips, a furrow between her eyebrows that made her look helpless and anxious, and a smile that was deceptively sweet. He knew neither her real name nor anything about her origins, although his guess was that she came from the Berlin area itself—the accent was there when she spoke German in her brusque voice, and she had shown an intimate knowledge of its streets and shops that one didn’t find in a guide-book. She had been well educated, obviously; a medical research scientist, registered for a course on tropical diseases at London’s University College. She had entered England almost a year ago and was now established there as Dr. Ilsa Schlott from Stockholm.

  “We are taking the quickest way into London,” she told him. “Route A4. Then the Great West Road.” Having announced that, she seemed to be concentrating on driving, but two brief side glances showed she was studying his new appearance. “If Theo hadn’t told me to look for a light-green jacket and dark-red tie. I’d have taken longer to spot you. The beard always did make you look older than you were.”

  “That was the idea.”

  “You’d pass for twenty-six or -seven now.”

  That was also the idea. He said, “How are our prospects?”

  “Fairly good. I’ve got them thinking about travelling.”

  “Them? More than one girl? How did you meet them?”

  “They live where I live—at the Women’s Residence for University College. It houses a lot of foreign students.”

  “How well do you know them?”

  “Enough. I never force the pace. I sit near them at breakfast— long tables shared with other students. I have a weekly game of tennis with Nina O’Connell. In fact, that’s how I managed to become her friend.”

  “Who wins?” Greta had been an excellent tennis player.

  A smile parted the pale tight lips. “Somehow, she always manages to beat me in the third set.”

  “Nina O’Connell. Main target?”

  Greta nodded. “The other is Madge Westerman. Two Americans meeting at college in London, bolstering each other in a strange new world. A peculiar thing about Americans: once the novelty of a different life wears off, they get homesick. Won’t admit it, of course. But you’ll find them grouping together, lusting after hamburgers.”

  “Attend the same classes?”

  “No. O’Connell persuaded her father to let her come to study at the Slade School of Fine Art. She is just completing her first year there—still as unsettled as when she arrived. In America, Vassar and then Berkeley—one term only at each. Her father remarried two years ago, and that could be the key to her behaviour. Westerman is the overseas scholarship girl, every penny budgeted. She’s in escape from a middle-class home in Scranton. Her year is almost over—English literature, the history of the English novel, that’s her field. At present, she’s in a state of gloom. But so is the poor little rich girl. She doesn’t like facing a year alone at the Women’s Residence. She only landed there, in the first place, because it was either a room in that safe location or staying with friends of her father. That was his stipulation.”

  “Then he supervises her carefully?” And that could be a major difficulty.

  “Actually, he’s lax. And indulgent. He’s like all busy and famous men. Every now and again they remember their fatherly duties and lay down a rule, and feel they’ve done a good job by insisting it be followed. Then they feel they might have
been too strict and relax the reins again. Besides, Francis O’Connell is also learning to be married once more after being widowed for so many years. He was stationed in India when his first wife fell ill—some infection that never did get cured. She was sent back to Washington with Nina, aged four; she was in and out of hospitals for three years, and then died. Nina lived with her aunt and uncle while her father was stationed in various places abroad. Eight years ago he returned permanently to Washington, and Nina joined him there. Any trips abroad, after that, were always high-level conferences in Europe, where his daughter wouldn’t catch a wasting disease like her mother in India. So from 1972 until 1977, Nina went with him, acted as hostess.”

  “Heady stuff for a teenager.”

  “She wasn’t a gawky child, always seemed older than she was. From what I could find out, she was bright and selfpossessed. Quite sophisticated, even between the ages of fourteen and nineteen. And then—” Greta was smiling again— “her father married. Nina was packed off to college; and I’ve told you the rest. Reach over into the back seat, Erik, and you’ll find an old Time with the story of Francis O’Connell. He is being groomed for something important. The new Secretary of State? Or foreign affairs adviser to the President? And pick up that day-old International Herald Tribune, too; it’s interesting. Or perhaps you’ve read it?”

  “I’ve been busy,” he said curtly. Four days in Rotterdam, holed up in a room with cassettes of American voices for company to get his ear tuned back in, with recent editions of New York and Washington papers to let him see what were America’s current problems. He had read the columns, political as well as personal, and even studied the sports pages. From his set of new clothes, with Chicago labels sewn into place, to his accent and vocabulary and grasp of current events, he could face most real Americans.

  “This,” Greta said, her annoyance showing, “has all been a very great nuisance. I have other work to do.” And she was not referring to a cram course in tropical diseases.