The Hidden Target Read Free

Theo’s smile became almost angelic. “I’ll join the ship one stage ahead of you—at Singapore—and leave it one stage later than you do. You and the girl disembark at Hong Kong.”
    “Why the diversion to Bali?”
    “It will be a suitable place to leave your travel companions behind.”
    “Except the girl. If she is still with us.”
    “Except the girl. And she will be with you. I’ve never known you to fail with women, Erik. This time, no personal involvement for you, remember! The girl is an assignment, more important than you can guess. Blowing up oil tanks will seem a child’s game compared to what I plan for America.”
    I plan? Not we plan? But it made a good exit line, thought Leitner as Theo pulled out a pair of heavy-rimmed glasses and walked into the nave. A good moment, too, to choose: Theo would have excellent cover all the way into the street. A straggling party of tourists was passing Leitner now, heading for the church door. Theo merged with them, wasn’t even noticed.
    Leitner waited for five minutes before he started up the aisle. Just what is planned for America? he couldn’t help wondering. He and Marco would be working with local talent there. Perhaps they were being selected right now and sent to South Yemen, or to North Korea where he had been given specialised training almost ten years ago. But would they be as efficient as Section One? Marco, of course, would still be with him. The others—where? Regrouped or assigned to Section Two in Duisburg? Perhaps scattered, sent underground? Lying low for how long? Six months? A year? How would they feel tomorrow when Theo gave them the warning signal to clear out? As I am feeling, Leitner knew: enraged to the point of blowing up all of Duisburg, not just setting off a chain reaction of explosions in an oil-storage area. Section One was not dead—after America, he’d be back to give it life again—but it was badly mangled. Last week, it had been the most effective operational unit of the People’s Revolutionary Force for Direct Action.
    ***
    He came into the busy street, the June sunlight strong after the gloom of the church. For a brief moment he paused, lighting a cigarette. Anyone loitering around, waiting to follow him? Just a normal crowd, he decided, and stepped into the stream of people. Intense anger was controlled. Now he was planning his exit from Essen.
    First, the bookstore and his pay collected. (What good German boy would disappear without the money he had earned?) Second, Frau Zimmermann, his elderly and inquisitive landlady. (What good German boy would leave by night without rent fully rendered until the end of the week?) In both cases, he would rely on the same story: a father in traction, hospitalised for months; mother ailing; Uncle Ernst needing urgent help with the family’s butcher shop in Munich. Bloch, his boss at the bookstore, would let him leave early (half a day’s pay, of course). Zimmermann would shake her head over the crisis that forced a young man back to a business he had never wanted—and would he be able to finish the book he was writing? So much work, so much reading he had done for it... He could guess the phrases, have brief replies ready, back away gracefully. But he had at least silenced the questions of eight months ago, by giving her just enough in the way of answers so that she, in turn, could answer the questions of her friends. It was a neighbourhood of small gossip. Dangerous? Not if you kept your story straight, leaving Zimmermann’s romantic imagination to supply an unhappy love affair. Besides, what police spy would think that anyone hiding something important would choose to live in the Zimmermann house?
    ***
    Everything went according to expectations—except for one surprise punch delivered by Bloch. As he busied himself with Leitner’s work papers, he looked up from his desk, cluttered with catalogues. “Have you returned all the books you took out?” Then he went on