The Spy Who Swapped Shoes, page 1
part #1 of Stephen Fletcher Series
THE SPY WHO SWOPPED SHOES
Geoffrey Davison
To M.G. & N.
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter One
A release of steam from the powerful engine shrieked its impatient warning across the dimly-lit platforms of Istanbul Station. From a side entrance to the station, a man approached the platform where the Istanbul-Vienna train was standing. He hesitated for a moment, brushed off the rain from his dark raincoat, pulled down the brim of his hat and moved unnoticed past a small group of bystanders and entered a first-class carriage.
Inside the carriage, he was met by a white-coated Serbian attendant, who glanced at his reserved seat list and, without comment, directed the man to a window seat in one of the compartments. The man placed his suitcase and hat on the rack. Without glancing around the compartment, he took his seat and stared out of the window at the dark, dirty tiled walls of the station. Occasionally, his hand came up to his face and fingered a small scar on his neck above his collar. This unconscious movement was followed by the man touching his moustache and adjusting his spectacles, as if they were unfamiliar to him.
The carriage door opened and from the reflection in the window the man could see the large, portly figure of a Patriarch of the Greek Orthodox Church, in his long black robes, enter the compartment. The Patriarch puffed his way through the narrow entrance door, placed his case on the rack and took his seat alongside the man in the corner. His build was such that he overflowed his allotted space and almost hid the man in the corner from the view of anyone in the corridor.
The man shrank further into the corner in an effort to disengage himself from the Patriarch, but didn’t even look up at his companion. If he had, he would have seen little of the Patriarch’s face, for it was covered with a large, flowing, white beard, tinted with stains of yellow around his mouth. The Patriarch’s hat almost touched the luggage rack and he sat with eyes half closed, his large brown rough hands clasped together on his lap.
Again the carriage door opened and two further passengers entered. The first was a Turk, a small man, with stubbly grey hair and a walrus moustache. His face was leathery looking and wizened. He placed his case on the rack and sat alongside the Patriarch.
Following him into the compartment was a woman. She was small in stature and her grey hair and drab clothes gave her a matronly appearance. She had a round, demure, homely face and as she entered the compartment she smiled at her companions. Her overtures, however, got no response and she placed her own suitcase on the rack and took up the seat in the opposite corner by the window. From a large handbag she produced some knitting and proceeded to manipulate the needles as if the transportation from her previous location to her present position had been an irritating interruption in the more serious necessity of completing her task.
The man in the corner pulled his raincoat sleeve over his wrist and continued to stare out of the window. He had been aware of the other passengers entering the compartment, but he was more concerned about the foul, overpowering odour which flowed from the large figure of the Patriarch. The nauseating smell of garlic and perspiration was becoming unbearable and it was a great relief to him when the Turk lit a cigar and the evil smelling fumes eventually bypassed the Patriarch.
The passengers sat in silence and only shuffled in their seat when the guard’s whistle gave the engine driver his long awaited signal to jerk the train into motion. The train slowly left the station, impatiently puffing smoke and gradually building up speed.
From his window seat the man could see little of the town of Istanbul except for an occasional glimpse of the narrow cobbled streets and a vintage tram car. The minareted temples were all hidden by the dusk and rain. He allowed himself a quick glance around the compartment. It was a non-sleeping compartment with the normal two rows of seats. It had no refinements to indicate that it was a first-class compartment — it was purely functional. The only feature decorating the wall was a small map indicating the route the train was to take. Istanbul to Plovdiv and Sofia in Bulgaria, through the western tip of Romania to Belgrade in Hungary and on to Vienna. A journey through a tunnel in the Iron Curtain. The man recoiled further in his seat and closed his eyes.
For nearly an hour and a half they sat motionless, listening to the rhythmic sound of the wheels on the track, each to their own thoughts, but as the train started to reduce speed there was an unspoken, unconscious, tenseness in the atmosphere. They were approaching the Bulgarian border. The Turk lit another cigar, the Patriarch appeared to increase in size and the elderly lady manipulated her needles with increased speed. The only person who seemed unmoved was the man in the corner who appeared to be asleep.
The inspection by the Turkish officials was a mere formality, but when they crossed into Bulgaria they found the Communists approached the task in a more serious and sinister manner. The station was suddenly illuminated by powerful arc lamps and along both platforms stood a row of armed soldiers. A tannoy bellowed out a message in five different languages informing the passengers that the train would stop at Plovdiv and Sofia and warning them against alighting from the train unless they had a permit to enter the Republic.
From the passport inspection the man in the corner gained a certain amount of information about his other companions. The elderly lady was Frau Sleisser, an Austrian and she was returning to her home in Vienna. The Turk was also going to Vienna on what he described as ‘cigar business’. The Patriarch was Greek, but his destination remained a secret.
It was a further thirty minutes before the train was allowed to proceed. As they were pulling away from the station, the man in the corner glanced at his watch — it was 8.50 p.m. — they were running behind schedule. He sighed and closed his eyes, not that he intended to sleep, but to prevent any of his companions engaging him in conversation. He kept his pose off and on for the next two hours, until the compartment door was suddenly pulled to one side and the white-coated Serbian attendant entered the compartment.
‘We shall be in Plovdiv in two minutes,’ he said in subdued tones. He spoke in Turkish, but repeated his remark in German. ‘We are stopping to pick up a passenger. No-one must leave the train.’ Again he repeated his remark in German. There was no response from any of the passengers and he hurriedly made his exit and closed the compartment door.
The man in the corner peered out of the window to catch a glimpse of the town, but all he could see were the dark forms of the railway buildings as they approached the station. The Austrian lady had stopped knitting and was holding her needles quite still in her hands. She was looking straight ahead of her, but seeing nothing. She was deep in thought. The Patriarch remained motionless, his eyes closed, but the man noticed his big fat hands were clasped together, tightly gripping each other, with white knuckles. The Turk was beyond his vision, but by the amount of cigar smoke which was entering the atmosphere, it was apparent that he was not asleep.
Voices were heard on the platform outside their carriage and the carriage door was opened. After a pause, it was closed again with a clash and footsteps approached the compartment along the corridor. The Austrian lady carried on with her knitting and the Patriarch’s hands relaxed their grip.
As their compartment door was pulled to one side, the train continued with its interrupted journey and the man in the corner gave his full attention to the dark silhouetted buildings outside.
The Serbian attendant entered the compartment.
‘This is your seat, Comrade,’ he said, indicating one of the reserved seats. He accepted a case from someone in the corridor and placed it on the rack. He stood aside as a man entered the compartment, heavily muffled and wearing a thick, navy blue, belted gabardine raincoat and navy blue trilby hat. The man took off his hat and sat on the seat. On his knee was a briefcase, over which he placed his hat.
A Bulgarian soldier also entered the compartment and a whispered conversation took place with the passenger. The soldier withdrew from the compartment and took up a position outside in the corridor. The attendant followed the soldier out and closed the compartment door.
The man in the corner kept his eyes away from the latest passenger and returned to his feigned sleeping pose. If he had studied the man, he would have noticed they were very much alike. They were both just under six feet in height, of medium build, both had dark hair parted and waved in precisely the same position. They both had sallow faces and dark blue eyes and dark eyebrows. Even their noses were similar with a slight bump where it joined the brow and the same scar on the neck. But the moustache and glasses gave the man in the corner an older and more studious appearance.
Presently, he heard the sliding compartment doors of the carriage being opened and closed and the voice of the attendant passing on information. He waited patiently for the Serb to enter their compartment.
‘We shall be entering the Plovdiv tunnel in five minutes,’ the attendant announced in Turkish. ‘We shall be in the tunnel for approximately thirty minutes. You are advised to draw your blinds. We shall be passing the Istanbul express before we leave the tunnel.’ Again he repeated his remarks in German and for the benefit of the latest passenger, in a pidgin form of Bulgarian.
The Austrian lady thanked the attendant and pulled her blind and also the one of the centre window. The man in the corner, not understanding either Turkish, German, or Bulgarian, made no move, so the Patriarch, who had been awakened from his sleep by the opening and closing of the doors, stretched over the man without any apologies and pulled the corner blind.
The Turk pulled the blinds of the corridor window and the compartment door. He moved over to close the blind beside the man who had recently entered the compartment, but the man gave a brusque, ‘No’. The Turk shrugged and returned to his seat.
The Serbian attendant returned from his trek along the corridors and engaged the soldier standing outside the compartment in conversation. Two minutes later the train thundered into the tunnel with a deafening roar.
The train’s entry into the tunnel appeared to be a signal for a change of attitude by the four original occupants. The Austrian lady carefully replaced her knitting in her handbag, the Turk stamped out his cigar and the man in the corner turned his attention past the latest passenger to join them to the corridor and noticed that the soldier had been enticed away from his post by the attendant.
The Patriarch slowly stood up and turned to his case on the rack, allowing his cloak to overlap the Turk. The Turk quickly leant forward and extracted a small calibre pistol, with silencer, from within the Patriarch’s cloak and as the Patriarch turned to take his seat again, fired two quick shots at the man sitting opposite him. The muffled ‘Plop, Plop,’ sounded ridiculously innocent, but produced the desired effect and the man slumped forward — dead — with two small bullets embedded in his skull!
Chapter Two
The assassination, although sudden, produced no surprised screams or reactions from the other passengers, but immediately the compartment became a hive of activity.
The Turk pushed the dead man back against his seat and from his pocket produced a sharp pointed dagger. With this instrument he set about cutting the dead man’s briefcase away from a chain which was fastened to his wrist. The Patriarch had taken the Turk’s previous seat and was casting occasional glances behind the curtain at the soldier talking to the attendant. The man who had been sitting in the corner window seat had taken off his glasses and was carefully peeling off a false moustache. Without any further hesitation or modesty he started to strip off his clothes. The Austrian lady was studying the dead man’s features and casting occasional glances from him to the man stripping off his clothes.
The Turk freed the briefcase and with his dagger split it open. He handed it over to the Patriarch and lifted the dead man over to the corner window seat. Quickly, with the help of the Austrian lady, he took off the raincoat and handed it to the man, who was now naked. The man slipped it on and rushed over to the dead man’s seat. He pulled the coat about him and glanced along the corridor. The soldier was about four yards away from him, talking to the attendant.
The Turk and the Austrian lady quickly stripped the clothes off the dead body, handing each garment to the Patriarch, who passed them over to the man opposite. Silently, quickly, as a well-rehearsed drill, garment by garment exchanged bodies, starting at the feet and working upwards, all the time the dark raincoat hiding the man’s movements. It took several minutes, but eventually the man was fully clothed — not carefully or correctly, but this could be adjusted later. He was sufficiently attired to impersonate the dead man.
The two wardrobe mistresses set about dressing the dead body in the other man’s clothes. Meanwhile, the Patriarch had produced another briefcase from his personage, similar to the one taken from the dead man. He extracted the documents from the rifled briefcase, examined them, substituted alternatives where necessary and placed them in the new case. He fastened the lock and leant forward.
The man opposite took a quick glance through the corridor window, saw that the soldier was still occupied and also leant forward. From his wrist he unwrapped a length of small link chain. He handed the free end to the Patriarch, who put the special end fitting into the lock of the briefcase and, with a key, locked the chain and the briefcase together. The man sat back in his seat, the briefcase chained to his wrist and like his predecessor, sat with his trilby covering the case on his knee.
The Patriarch brought out a watch.
‘Hurry,’ he whispered in Turkish.
The Austrian lady fastened the laces of the dead man’s shoes and turned to the Patriarch.
‘The eyebrows,’ she said.
The Patriarch nodded his head and said, ‘Later.’
They completed their task and slumped the dead body, fully clothed, against the corner seat.
‘The chain on the wrist,’ the Austrian lady whispered urgently.
The Turk looked at the Patriarch, who again examined his watch. The Patriarch gave him the go ahead signal and the Turk got hold of the dead man’s wrist, wrapped it in a fold of the raincoat and with his dagger, butchered the chain and briefcase handle away from the wrist.
The Patriarch stood up, his large, portly figure filling the gangway between the two rows of seats. He glanced at the man watching the corridor, who indicated that the soldier was still occupied. The Patriarch moved forward and lifted the blind of the large centre window. The Turk cleaned his dagger as the Patriarch slowly opened the window. The sudden intake of air bellowed the Patriarch’s robes around the compartment and the train thundered along the track with an alarming and deafening clanging.
Hurriedly, the Patriarch stood back and the Turk desperately bundled the dead man out of the window. Immediately he closed the window again and pulled the blind. The contrasting dulled noise brought a sigh of relief from the Austrian lady. The Patriarch and the Turk sat down again.
The roar of an approaching train came rushing towards them and screamed past at high speed, causing their carriage to rock violently. The four passengers looked at one another, but said nothing. The Turk lit another cigar and relaxed in his seat, satisfied. The Patriarch wiped the perspiration from his brow.
Presently he spoke to the Austrian lady.
‘The eyebrows,’ he said in Turkish, this obviously being the common tongue.
‘They extend too far across his face,’ she explained in a subdued tone. ‘I will have to shorten them.’
The Patriarch looked at the man opposite him. To the laymen he looked the actual image of the man who had been assassinated. But they weren’t dealing with laymen, they had waited too long for this opportunity, it had to be as near perfect as possible.
‘Is he still being looked after?’ he said.
The man gave a glance along the corridor.
‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘The Serb has done his job well.’
The Patriarch stood up and exchanged seats with the Austrian lady. She opened her large handbag and extracted a small bottle of colourless liquid and cotton wool. The man opposite leant forward and she dabbled some of the liquid on the ends of his eyebrows.
‘It will take a minute to have effect,’ she whispered.
The man leant back and the Austrian lady unwrapped a set of small instruments, selected one and placed the remainder back in her bag. She motioned the man forward again and with slow, deft, expert strokes, shaved off the ends of his eyebrows.
She sat back and examined his face critically. The scar on the neck and the build-up of the nose had healed without any trace of surgery. The shortening of the eyebrows had been the final touch of an expert. She felt satisfied that she had done her job well. No-one would be able to detect any difference from his appearance.
‘Perfect,’ she said and returned to her window seat.
The train left the tunnel and for a period of time they travelled in silence, content that their first hurdle was successful. But the Patriarch, who appeared to be in charge of the operations, became impatient and he signalled to the man opposite that they must continue with their programme. The man understood. He stood up and opened the carriage door.
