In the darkness the van bumped over some planks of wood and then we rolled up over a high ledge and on to the Autobahn. It was very dark: no traffic in sight either way. We started westwards. We were about half a mile down the road when there was a great red ball of light behind us.
'My God!' said Fiona. 'Whatever's that?'
'Your Wartburg going up in flames, unless I miss my guess.'
'In flames?'
'Someone is destroying the evidence.'
'Evidence of what?' she said.
'Let's not go back and ask.'
The flames were fierce. We could still see them from miles away. Then as we went over the brow of a hill the light on the horizon vanished suddenly. Very little forensic evidence would be salvaged from such a blaze.
I asked Fiona if she wanted me to drive. She shook her head without answering. I tried in other ways to start a conversation but her replies were monosyllabic. Driving along the Autobahn that night gave her something to concentrate upon. She was determined not to think about what she'd done, and in no mood to talk about what we'd have to do.
My arm began to throb. I touched it and found my sleeve was sticky with blood. One of the bullets had come closer than I'd realized. It was not a real wound, just a bad extended graze and an enormous bruise, of the sort that bullets make when they brush the flesh. I wadded a handkerchief and held it pressed against my arm to stanch the dribbling blood. It was nothing that would put me in hospital, but more than enough to ruin my suit.
'Are you all right?' There was no tenderness in her voice. It was as much admonitory as concerned, the voice of a schoolteacher herding a class of kids across a busy street.
'I'm all right.' We should have been talking and embracing and laughing and loving. We were together again and she was coming home to me and the children. But it wasn't like that. We weren't the same carefree couple who'd honeymooned on a bank overdraft and got hysterically drunk in the registry office on one half bottle of champagne shared amongst four people. We sat silent in the darkness. We watched the traffic crawling to Berlin, and saw the Porsches scream past us. And I dribbled blood and the unspoken dreams that keep marriages going bled away too.
The rain stopped or perhaps we drove out of it. I switched on the car radio. There was a babble of Arabic, Radio Moscow's news in German and then that powerful German transmitter that during the night effectively overwhelms all opposition throughout Central Europe. A big schmaltzy band: Only make-believe I love you. Only make-believe that you love me. Others find peace of mind in pretending, couldn't you, couldn't I, couldn't we?
Behind us a strip of sky gradually lightened and coloured to become a contused mass of mauves and purples.
'All right, darling?' I asked. Still she didn't respond to my overtures. She just concentrated on the road, her lips pressed together and her knuckles white.
The unbearable uncertainties that gave me severe stomach pains as we got nearer and nearer to the frontier proved unfounded. When we stopped she looked in the driving mirror and wiped some spots of blood from her face with a handkerchief moistened with spittle. Her expression was unchanging.
'All all right?'
'Yes,' I replied.
She drove forward. A bored border guard, seeing the Diplomatic registration plates, gave us no more than a glance before going back to reading his newspaper.
'We made it,' I said. She didn't answer.
There was a reception committee waiting for us on the other side of the control point. It was dawn, with the uncertain light that soldiers use to start their battles. Some army vehicles were parked by the roadside: an armoured personnel carrier, a staff car and an ambulance: the complete panoply of war. From the empty roadside two soldiers suddenly materialized. One was middle-aged, the other in his twenties. Then came a cheerful young colonel of some unidentifiable unit with his khaki beret pulled tight upon his broad skull and a battle smock with no badges other than parachute wings and his rank stencilled in black.
'We have a helicopter here,' said the colonel. He affected a short swagger-stick, wielding it to give Fiona a mock salute. 'Are you fit enough to travel to Cologne?' His voice was loud, his manner almost jubilant. He was clean and freshly shaved and seemed oblivious to the hour.
'I'm all right,' said Fiona. The colonel opened the door to let her out of the driver's seat. But Fiona sat tight and didn't even look at him to explain why. She held the steering wheel very tight and, looking straight ahead, she gave a little sniff. She sniffed again, loudly, like a child with a runny nose. Then she began to laugh. At first it was the natural charming laugh that you might expect from a beautiful young woman who had just won the world championship in espionage and double-dealing. But as her laughter continued the colonel began to frown. Her face became flushed. Her laughing became shrill and she trembled and shook until her whole body was racked with her hysterical laughter, as it might be afflicted with a cough or choking fit.
The laughing still didn't stop. I became alarmed but the colonel seemed to have encountered it before. He looked at the blood spots that covered her, and then at me. 'It's the reaction. From what I can see, she's had a rough time.' Over his shoulder he said, 'You'd better help her, Doc.'
As he stood aside, the younger man behind him stepped forward. The middle-aged soldier handed him something. Then the boyish-looking doctor reached in through the window, grabbed her and with a minimum of fuss – in fact with no fuss at all – he put a hypodermic needle into her upper arm, right through her sleeve. The army is like that. He kept hold of her arm and watched her while she quietened down. Then he felt her pulse. 'That should do it,' he said. 'A sedative. No alcohol. Better if she doesn't eat for an hour or two. There will be an RAF doctor waiting for you at Cologne airport, I'll give you a message for him. He'll go with you all the way.'
'All the way to where?' I asked.
The young doctor looked at the colonel, who said, 'Didn't they tell you? It's always the same isn't it? They never tell the people at the sharp end. You're transferring to a transatlantic flight. It's a long journey but the air force will look after you.'
Fiona was relaxing. The laughter had completely stopped and she looked around her as if waking from a deep sleep. She let the colonel help her down from the car. 'Where are your shoes?' he asked her gallantly and tried to find them.
'I've lost my shoes,' she said flatly and pushed back her hair as if becoming aware of her scruffy appearance.
'That doesn't matter a bit,' said the colonel. 'They have lovely shoes in America.'
20
Summer is not the best time to be in southern California. Even ' La Buona Nova', the big hillside spread in Ventura County where Fiona was hidden away for her official debriefing, had long energy-sapping days when there was not a breeze off the Pacific. Bret Rensselaer was in charge. Some people – including me – had said he was too old ever to become a full-time Departmental employee again. But Bret was officially considered as Fiona's case officer. Bret had been a party to Fiona's long-term plan to defect to Moscow since that time when she first confided it to him. He'd monitored her progress. There was really no one else who could debrief her.
Bret Rensselaer was determined to make a big success of what would obviously be the last job he'd ever do. The prospect of a knighthood was never mentioned but you didn't have to be a mind-reader to know what Bret thought would be an appropriate thank-you from a grateful sovereign. No worries about Bret bowing the head for that one: he'd walk coast to coast on his knees for a K.
No one ever mentioned any kind of thank-you for me. When my salary cheque was paid I noticed that all the allowances and extras had been trimmed off it. I was down to the bare bones. When I mentioned this to Bret he said that I should remember that I wasn't having to pay for my food and keep. Good grief I said, what about the way I'm being deprived of contact with my children? I didn't mention Gloria for obvious reasons. It was Bret who brought Gloria into our conversation. He said that she had been told that I was on a special mission too secret for details to be revealed. The Department was making sure my children were happy and well cared for. He said it as if his words contained some not very veiled threat for me: I had the feeling that what Gloria was told would depend upon my good behaviour.