It was the B.A.O.R. championships that finally told him to go over. By chance they took place on a night of the full moon. Grant, fighting for the Royal Corps, was warned for holding and hitting low and was disqualified in the third round for persistent foul fighting. The whole stadium hissed him as he left the ring – the loudest demonstration came from his own regiment – and the next morning the commanding officer sent for him and coldly said he was a disgrace to the Royal Corps and would be sent home with the next draft. His fellow drivers sent him to Coventry and, since no one would drive transport with him, he had to be transferred to the coveted motor cycle dispatch service.
The transfer could not have suited Grant better. He waited a few days and then, one evening when he had collected the day’s outgoing mail from the Military Intelligence Headquarters on the Reichskanzlerplatz, he made straight for the Russian Sector, waited with his engine running until the British control gate was opened to allow a taxi through, and then tore through the closing gate at forty and skidded to a stop beside the concrete pillbox of the Russian Frontier post.
They hauled him roughly into the guardroom. A wooden-faced officer behind a desk asked him what he wanted.
‘I want the Soviet Secret Service,’ said Grant flatly. ‘The Head of it. ’
The officer stared coldly at him. He said something in Russian. The soldiers who had brought Grant in started to drag him out again. Grant easily shook them off. One of them lifted his tommy-gun.
Grant said, speaking patiently and distinctly, ‘I have a lot of secret papers. Outside. In the leather bags on the motor cycle. ’ He had a brainwave. ‘You will get into bad trouble if they don’t get to your Secret Service. ’
The officer said something to the soldiers and they stood back. ‘We have no Secret Service,’ he said in stilted English. ‘Sit down and complete this form. ’
Grant sat down at the desk and filled in a long form which asked questions about anyone who wanted to visit the Eastern zone – name, address, nature of business and so forth. Meanwhile the officer spoke softly and briefly into a telephone.
By the time Grant had finished, two more soldiers, non-commissioned officers wearing drab green forage caps and with green badges of rank on their khaki uniforms, had come into the room. The frontier officer handed the form, without looking at it, to one of them and they took Grant out and put him and his motor cycle into the back of a closed van and locked the door on him. After a fast drive lasting a quarter of an hour the van stopped, and when Grant got out he found himself in the courtyard behind a large new building. He was taken into the building and up in a lift and left alone in a cell without windows. It contained nothing but one iron bench. After an hour, during which, he supposed, they went through the secret papers, he was led into a comfortable office in which an officer with three rows of decorations and the gold tabs of a full colonel was sitting behind a desk.
The desk was bare except for a bowl of roses.Ten years later, Grant, looking out of the window of the plane at a wide cluster of lights twenty thousand feet below, which he guessed was Kharkov, grinned mirthlessly at his reflection in the Perspex window.
Roses. From that moment his life had been nothing but roses. Roses, roses, all the way.
3 | POST - GRADUATE STUDIES
‘So you would like to work in the Soviet Union, Mister Grant?’
It was half an hour later and the M.G.B. colonel was bored with the interview. He thought that he had extracted from this rather unpleasant British soldier every military detail that could possibly be of interest. A few polite phrases to repay the man for the rich haul of secrets his dispatch bags had yielded, and then the man could go down to the cells and in due course be shipped off to Vorkuta or some other labour camp.
‘Yes, I would like to work for you. ’
‘And what work could you do, Mister Grant? We have plenty of unskilled labour. We do not need truck-drivers and,’ the colonel smiled fleetingly, ‘if there is any boxing to be done we have plenty of men who can box. Two possible Olympic champions amongst them, incidentally. ’
‘I am an expert at killing people. I do it very well. I like it. ’
The colonel saw the red flame that flickered for an instant behind the very pale blue eyes under the sandy lashes. He thought, the man means it. He’s mad as well as unpleasant. He looked coldly at Grant, wondering if it was worth while wasting food on him at Vorkuta. Better perhaps have him shot. Or throw him back into the British Sector and let his own people worry about him.
‘You don’t believe me,’ said Grant impatiently. This was the wrong man, the wrong department. ‘Who does the rough stuff for you here?’ He was certain the Russians had some sort of a murder squad. Everybody said so. ‘Let me talk to them. I’ll kill somebody for them. Anybody they like. Now. ’
The colonel looked at him sourly. Perhaps he had better report the matter. ‘Wait here. ’ He got up and went out of the room, leaving the door open. A guard came and stood in the doorway and watched Grant’s back, his hand on his pistol.
The colonel went into the next room. It was empty. There were three telephones on the desk. He picked up the receiver of the M.G.B. direct line to Moscow. When the military operator answered he said, ‘SMERSH’. When SMERSH answered he asked for the Chief of Operations.
Ten minutes later he put the receiver back. What luck! A simple, constructive solution. Whichever way it went it would turn out well. If the Englishman succeeded, it would be splendid. If he failed, it would still cause a lot of trouble in the Western Sector – trouble for the British because Grant was their man, trouble with the Germans because the attempt would frighten a lot of their spies, trouble with the Americans because they were supplying most of the funds for the Baumgarten ring and would now think Baumgarten’s security was no good. Pleased with himself, the colonel walked back into his office and sat down again opposite Grant.
‘You mean what you say?’
‘Of course I do. ’
‘Have you a good memory?’
‘Yes. ’
‘In the British Sector there is a German called Dr Baumgarten. He lives in Flat 5 at No. 22 Kurfürstendamm. Do you know where that is?’
‘Yes. ’
‘Tonight, with your motor cycle, you will be put back into the British Sector. Your number plates will be changed. Your people will be on the lookout for you. You will take an envelope to Dr Baumgarten. It will be marked to be delivered by hand. In your uniform, and with this envelope, you will have no difficulty. You will say that the message is so private that you must see Dr Baumgarten alone. Then you will kill him. ’ The colonel paused. His eyebrows lifted. ‘Yes?’
‘Yes,’ said Grant stolidly. ‘And if I do, will you give me more of this work?’
‘It is possible,’ said the colonel indifferently. ‘First you must show what you can do. When you have completed your task and returned to the Soviet Sector, you may ask for Colonel Boris. ’ He rang a bell and a man in plain clothes came in. The colonel gestured towards him. ‘This man will give you food. Later he will give you the envelope and a sharp knife of American manufacture. It is an excellent weapon. Good luck. ’
The colonel reached and picked a rose out of the bowl and sniffed it luxuriously.
Grant got to his feet. ‘Thank you, sir,’ he said warmly.