Baumann looked at her and put his finger to his lips, gesturing for her to be quiet. Reading his signal she nodded her head in response, wondering who this man could be, and what he wanted.
Using the pistol, the big German assassin pushed Stevenson towards his wife. ‘Please sit down, Mr Stevenson.’
Lynda watched as her husband slowly sat down on the sofa beside her. ‘What do you want?’ She asked Baumann; his huge, six foot two inch frame towering above them with the machine pistol poised in their direction.
‘I would just like some information from your husband Mrs Stevenson.’
Stevenson looked at him. ‘What information? I don’t know anything. What is this all about?’ Suddenly, he recognised the man standing in front of him. ‘Oh my god — I know who you are.’
Baumann gave him a cold stare and Stevenson began to shake with fear. ‘I mean you no harm Mr Stevenson. I just want you to tell me where I can find, Alex Swan?’
Stevenson gulped. ‘I don’t know where he lives. I only know where he works and that’s all.’
Baumann waved the pistol. ‘And where is this?’
‘In Whitehall, a little side street next to the Ministry of Defence building. The only black door in the row of houses. Number 7, I think. That’s all I can tell you. Please can you just leave us alone now? My wife is going to have a baby.’ Stevenson pleaded nervously with the gunman.
Baumann sneered at them. ‘Congratulations. Yes, I will go now. However, if you should call the police, Mr Stevenson, or contact Mr Swan about this, then I can guarantee that you will not live to see your new child.’
Baumann paused and walking forward, pushed the muzzle of the pistol into Stevenson’s forehead. A shocked Lynda covered her mouth with her hands. She let out a whimper as the intruder shouted at her husband, ‘Do I make myself clear?’
Stevenson, with tears also in his eyes, was unable to speak and just agreeably nodded.
Baumann turned to Lynda Stevenson giving her a friendly smile. ‘I am just a loyal soldier Mrs Stevenson, not a monster.’ He withdrew the pistol. Holding it at his hip, he pointed it down to the brown patterned carpet. ‘That is good. I will go now and hopefully we will not need to meet again. Unless you wish your wife to be a widow Mr Stevenson?’ It was a threat, more than a question.
Baumann placed the gun inside his jacket, turned, and then walked out of the room, leaving the couple traumatised by their ordeal. They listened in silence, as the outside door was opened, then closed by the German, followed a few seconds later by his fading footsteps as he walked quickly away from their boat. With a great sigh of relief, they hugged each other tightly, then simultaneously burst into tears.
Chapter 36
Staring coldly at the man seated before him, Dennis Martin slammed a clenched fist down on the table inside the sealed room of the old Clink Street chambers.
Situated underneath the raised viaduct of the railway line between London Bridge and Waterloo stations, the original chambers had been built to house ‘political prisoners,’ in the days of Oliver Cromwell. Later, the area had become a notorious site for one of the London prisons, closed towards the end of the 18th century, due to a fire. The chambers behind the burned-out cellblocks had been derelict for almost forty years. During the Second World War, they had been secretly re-opened for interrogating captured Nazi agents and fifth columnist sympathisers. After the war, and following the construction of a totally new secret interrogation centre set in an old abandoned London Underground station, the Clink Street chambers had been deactivated, and although the site was declared no longer in use, had been fully maintained for emergencies. This was such a time, as the half-naked Andreas Trost sat tied to a wooden chair in the centre of the room; a lamp shining down, illuminated him within a white circle of bright light.
For short periods, when left alone in the room, his ears had been subjected to a repetitive high decibel burst of Edward Elgar’s Nimrod. To anyone’s ear, this tune was a pleasant one, beginning as a quite calming piece, then becoming almost breath-taking, as it rose to its climaxing crescendo and orchestral encore.
However, Trost had found the music torturous, especially when substituted on occasions with the recent Beatles hit: Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, played at an even higher level.
A calming reprieve had only come, when Martin and his interrogation team had re-entered the room; the deafening music, switched off, to be replaced with the offer of a cigarette and a mug of tea, followed by a cosy chat, about the prisoner’s situation and pointless resistance to questioning. But, Martin was now exhausted with this. With his prisoner refusing to answer, after even being asked his name, it was time to get tougher with him. The MI5 man leant on the corner of the desk, and standing next to him, with shirt sleeves of his black shirt, rolled up to his elbows, stood his chief enforcer, Andrew Morrison.
Known more familiarly, as ‘Ammo’, Morrison had been recruited by John Stratton, when the now Head of A Section, was an intelligence officer in Malaya. Morrison had been arrested for an affray, and when apprehended by Stratton’s officers, had killed one of them and severely injured the other. Facing a death sentence, Morrison had been given a choice by Stratton. He saw the potential of having a man like Morrison in the intelligence service, and later Stratton had made him chief enforcer for his team at MI5. It was the previous Head of A Section, Alex Swan, who had given Morrison, his menacing nickname.
Ammo leered down at Trost, who half-smiled at the wall in front of him. ‘I wouldn’t smile too much matey, that will only make what is about to happen, a whole lot worse for you,’ threatened Morrison.
Later that day, Swan walked across the road of the Victoria Embankment and smiled as he approached Janet Ross, who had been leaning over the wall, watching the early evening activity on the River Thames.
He kissed her. ‘Good day?’
Ross sighed. ‘If you mean, are you still very much the conversation piece? The answer is yes.’
Swan laughed. ‘I thought we could have a bite to eat at a restaurant I know in Aldwych, then take a taxi to Little Venice and have a drink in The Warwick Castle, a lovely pub, I have not visited in a long time.’
Ross liked the sound of how her evening was going to go. During the day, she had been busy receiving updates from her Head of Section, on the interrogation of the assassin, one of which was quite harrowing to transcribe, as she typed about the methods used by Morrison, to extract information. After completion, she had trouble getting the images out of her head and could still picture them vividly, as she strolled with Swan down the pavement, next to the river wall.
As they talked about their day, Helmut Baumann, walked at an even pace, a hundred yards behind them. He had easily tracked the address given to him by Stevenson, and not knowing if Swan was alone in the building, had decided to wait for him to appear.
On seeing the SID man, exiting the building, he had given himself time for Swan to gain a distance, then to follow him. He watched as Swan, had greeted the woman, he was walking with. This new discovery, was fortunate. Swan had a weakness. As he walked, he watched the couple carefully and at the same time, looked out for an opportunity to shoot the man. But, now having acquired this knowledge of a woman in Swan’s life, he had other thoughts. It had been a long time since he had to use his skills on a female, and as he watched Swan’s companion saunter along next to him, wondered how long she could endure pain.