The Waiting Time by Gerald Seymour Read Free Book Online Page A

London — try and sort this dreadfully embarrassing business out. I want to express our most sincere apologies.’
    ‘I am Doktor Raub. We wish to go. We are being kept here. We wish to leave.’
    ‘What I heard, it was thought advisable, on medical grounds, to suggest you waited.’
    A mocking voice. ‘I am Herr Goldstein. On medical grounds, was it necessary to have a sentry at the door?’
    ‘So sorry, put it down to tangled wires, no intention to delay you. A hotel in London, yes? And you are...?’
    His voice tailed away. Perkins stood in front of Krause.
    ‘I am Doktor Dieter Krause. I wish to go.’
    A voice of silken sweetness. ‘Then go you shall. Just one point, excuse me...’
    They were standing, waiting on him. Perkins took his time and the younger minder flicked his fingers in impatience. Perkins rummaged in his briefcase and took out the photograph. He held it carefully so that his thumb was across the face of Corporal Tracy Barnes. He showed the photograph, the face of the young man.
    ‘So good of you to wait. A young man, we’ll call him Hans. Hauptman Krause, did you kill that young man? In cold blood, did you murder him, Hauptman Krause?’
    In raw fury: ‘What is your evidence?’
    And Perkins laughed lightly. ‘Please accept our apologies for what happened this evening — safe back to your hotel, Hauptman.’
    He stood aside. He allowed them past. The sentry would take them to the cars.
    ‘Where is she?’
    ‘In the cells, the guardhouse,’ Johnson said.
    ‘Take me.’
    It was easy for Albert Perkins to make an image in his mind. This was among the skills that his employers in the Service valued.
    He saw a briefing room, modern, carpeted, good chairs, a big screen behind a stage. An audience of officers and senior NCOs, civil servants bussed down from London, talking hushed over their coffee and nibbling biscuits before the Colonel’s finger rapped the live microphone.
    Probably . . ‘Whether we like it or not, whether our political masters would acknowledge it or not, the Russian Federation remains in pole position as our potential enemy. While that country, with such awesome conventional and nuclear military power, remains in a state of convulsed confusion we would be failing in our duty if we did not examine most rigorously the prime and influential power players in Moscow...’
    Photographs on a screen of Rykov, Pyotr, whoever he might be, on a wet November morning, and a background brief on previous appointments. Had to be Afghanistan, had to be a military district in Mother Russia under the patronage of a general weighted down with medals, and command of a base camp up on the Baltic coast. Photographs and voice tapes, but all adding to sweet fuck-all of nothing.
    Lights up, the Colonel on his arse, and stilted applause for the honoured guest, for the friend of Rykov, Pyotr, for the former enemy, for the old Stasi creature . . . Albert Perkins made the image, saw it and heard it.
    Krause at the podium, no scars on his face, no cuts in his head and no bruising at his balls.
    Probably . . . ‘I was Pyotr Rykov’s friend. We were close, we were as brothers are. We fished together, we camped together. There were no microphones, no surveillance. He talked to me with trust. I tell you, should the state collapse, should the Russian Army assume control, then the most powerful man in Moscow would be the minister of defence and a step behind the minister is my friend, my best friend. I wish to share my knowledge with you of this man...’
    Drooling they’d have been in the briefing room, slavering over the anecdotes, and all the stuff about former enemies and former Stasi bastards flushed down the can. The red carpet rolled out for the walk in the rain to the mess, best crystal for drinks, silver on the table for dinner afterwards. Except . . . except that some little corporal, little bit of fluff, had gatecrashed the party, fucked up the evening. Wasn’t a bad story, not the way that