Read Online The Janus Man by Colin Forbes - Free Book Online Page B

He snatched up the receiver on the second ring.
    `Franck speaking...'
    `Martin here. From Hamburg. Aboard the 11.15. Copenhagen Express. Bound for Liibeck. Arrives 12.05. Accompanied by companion . Tweed is coming...'
    Munzel slammed down the phone without a word of thanks. Hotel telephones were tricky — you never knew when a bored switchboard operator was listening in.
    He had arrived in good time back in Lübeck. After paying his final call on Ziggy Palewska he had caught the 7 a.m. express from Hamburg. The train's ultimate destination was far distant Oslo — via Copenhagen and the Elsinore train ferry which transported it across the arm of the Baltic to Sweden.
    Accompanied by companion. That had been a cryptic warning — Tweed was not travelling alone. Well, that was OK. He'd be at Lübeck Hauptbahnhof to take a good look at this companion. He extracted a picture of Tweed from the inner lining of his executive brief-case, a glossy head-and-shoulders print. 'I'll know you, my friend,' Munzel said to himself, replaced the photo and stretched out on the bed. From the Movenpick it was no more than a five-minute walk down the road to the station.
    Inside the phone booth Vollmer dialled another number. While he waited for his connection he took out the ticket he had purchased for Puttgarden. He crushed the unused ticket and dropped it. He had stood behind Tweed at the ticket window to hear his destination.
    `Dr Berlin's residence,' a throaty voice said. He was through to the mansion in the Mecklenburger-strasse on Priwall Island. `Martin speaking. Tweed is coming..
    `Await further instructions.'
    The connection was broken before Vollmer could respond. Bighead , Vollmer said aloud and slammed down the phone. Back to Altona. To await further instructions. From Balkan. The man he had never seen.
    Aboard the Copenhagen Express they had a first-class compartment to themselves. They sat in corner window seats, facing each other. The express thundered north across the North German plain, through neatly cultivated fields of ripening wheat. The land stretched away under a clear blue sky. It was going to be another lovely summer's day.
    `This must be the most dangerous problem you've ever faced,' Newman remarked as he lit a cigarette. 'One of your four sector chiefs is a rotten apple.'
    `I'm afraid so, Bob. That is the only fact I have to go on so far...'
    `Any suspicions? Grey, Dalby, Lindemann, Masterson?'
    `None at all. They have all been vetted up to their eyebrows. They come out pure as driven snow. It's rather depressing.'
    `And you still think General Vasili Lysenko is behind it?'
    `I don't think. I know. I can sense his fine Russian hand. All the hallmarks of the supreme professional...'
    `How do you propose to go about it — smoking out Lysenko's tame hyena?'
    `I suggest you concentrate on finding out everything you can about Dr Berlin. The philanthropic guardian of refugees intrigues me. The fact that he lives on the border. You know the history of Priwall Island?'
    `No,' said Newman.
    `Once in Lübeck I met a British ex-tank commander who served under Monty. He told me a memorable story. At the end of the war he was at the head of his armoured unit — in the very first tank to reach Travemünde and be ferried across to Priwall Island. He was racing the Russians to seize the whole strategic island — which controls the seaward entrances to Lübeck on its east and west coasts. He was exactly half-way across that island when he saw a Soviet tank approaching from the other direction. The Red Army tank commander held up his hand to halt our chap. The British tank commander did the same thing — held up his hand to stop the Red Army in its rush to seize Lübeck itself, even take over Denmark if they could. And that was where the border was drawn. At the precise point where those two tank commanders met …'
    `So that's why Priwall Island is cut in half — with the Soviet minefield belt extending across its