Man Who Wanted Tomorrow by Brian Freemantle

Author:Brian Freemantle
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Media

(14)

There were many related telephone calls in Berlin that day.

The first, by carefully rehearsed design, was to the apprehensive Bock. He feared the call, of course, staring at the strident telephone like a small animal gazing hypnotized at the snake whose bite it knows will kill. And with that same inevitability, facing danger instead of running from it, he reached out, picking up the instrument.

Immediately he heard the accent, the fear cut through his drug-induced shield and, dry-mouthed, he mumbled single-word responses to the instructions, twitching at the other man’s harshness. The man had Nazi training, he decided. All the intonations were there, so similar to Buchenwald.

Like water bursting a blocked stream, his anxiety flooded over immediately he telephoned Kurnov, who had arrived back at the hotel thirty minutes earlier to find his explanation of getting lost easily accepted by the other Russians.

Kurnov sighed at the babble, closing his eyes. Bock was becoming an encumbrance, he thought. And a danger. He could never leave Berlin with the man alive. He paused, considering the decision. He’d killed before, countless times. But it was always quite automatic, dispatching people with the lack of feeling of a scientist killing animals upon which he had experimented and written opinions, and for which he had no further use. With Bock he would be for the first time killing someone he knew, albeit distantly. He wondered if it would make any difference. He smiled into the chatter coming through the receiver, personally embarrassed at the reservation. A ridiculous thought, he decided. Of course it would make no difference, no difference at all.

The Bavarian had been curt, Bock reported. The surgeon was speaking in spurts, as the recollections came to him, with the anxiousness of a pupil wishing to recount verbatim the lessons from a teacher he wished to impress. The Bavarian had appeared even more confident than before, laughing almost as if he had expected the suggestion when the surgeon had put forward the idea of purchasing only two folders, leaving the rest to be sold to the highest bidder.

“Did he agree?” snapped Kurnov, urgently.

For several seconds there was no reply, as if Bock were unsure of the answer.

“Did he?” demanded the Russian, shouting.

“Yes,” replied Bock, simply, at last. Then he added, He said, “What else could you do?”

Kurnov considered the reply, the familiar feeling of helplessness coming again. A leaf blown in any direction, he decided again. The Bavarian knew the value of what he held, and was aware they would do anything to recover it.

“He said ‘us’?” queried Kurnov.

“Yes,” reported Bock. “The moment I identified the files, he started laughing.”

“What did he say?”

“He said, “‘So Heinrich had to come running’,” replied the surgeon.

Kurnov stared down at the telephone number the Bavarian had given and which he had written, under Bock’s dictation, upon the bedside pad. He checked his watch. Three minutes before he had to make the call.

“So he mentioned my name?” said Kurnov.

Again Bock hesitated before replying. Then he said, “Of course. Once

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