Free Be Careful What You Wish For: The Clifton Chronicles 4 by Jeffrey Archer Page A

it was Martinez who had made it
possible for him to escape from his homeland when the Russian tanks were within firing distance of the Reichstag.
    He pushed through the peeling green-painted door that led into the bar, feeling about as inconspicuous as a nun in a betting shop. But he’d already accepted that there was no subtle way of
letting the IRA know he was in town. It wasn’t a question of who you know . . . he didn’t know anyone.
    When he ordered a Jameson’s whiskey, Karl exaggerated his German accent. He then took out his wallet, removed a crisp five-pound note, and placed it on the counter. The barman eyed the
money suspiciously, not even sure there was enough change in the till to cover it.
    Karl downed the whiskey and immediately ordered another. He had at least to try and show he had something in common with them. It always amused him how many people imagined big men must be big
drinkers. After his second whiskey he glanced around the room, but no one was willing to make eye contact. There must have been about twenty people in the bar, chatting, playing dominoes, sipping
their pints, all of them pretending they hadn’t noticed the elephant in the room.
    At 9.30 p.m. the barman rang a bell and hollered last orders, which caused several customers to rush up to the counter and order another drink. Still no one gave Karl a second look, let alone
spoke to him. He hung around for a few more minutes, but nothing changed, so he decided to return to his hotel and try again tomorrow. He knew it would take years before they would treat him like a
native, if ever, and he only had a few days to meet someone who would never have considered entering that bar, but who would have been told by midnight that Karl had been there.
    As he walked back out on to the Falls Road, he became aware of several pairs of eyes watching his every move. A moment later, two men, more drunk than sober, swayed across the road whenever he
did. He slowed down to make sure his pursuers couldn’t fail to see where he was spending the night, so they could pass the information on to a higher authority. He strolled into the hotel,
turned around and spotted them hanging about in the shadows on the far side of the road. He climbed the stairs to the third floor and let himself into his room, feeling that he probably
couldn’t have done much more on his first day in the city than make them aware of his presence.
    Karl devoured all the complimentary biscuits that had been left on the sideboard, as well as an orange, an apple and a banana from the fruit bowl; quite enough. When he’d escaped from
Berlin in April 1945, he’d survived on water from muddy rivers recently disturbed by tanks and heavy vehicles, and the luxury of an uncooked rabbit; he’d even eaten its skin by the time
he crossed the border into Switzerland. He never slept under a roof, never walked on a road, and never entered a town or village during the long, circuitous route to the Mediterranean coast, where
he was smuggled aboard a tramp steamer like a sack of coal. It would be another five months before he stepped off the boat and set foot in Buenos Aires. He immediately went in search of Don Pedro
Martinez, carrying out the last order Himmler had given him before committing suicide. Martinez was now his commanding officer.

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    K ARL ROSE LATE the following morning. He knew he couldn’t afford to be seen in a hotel breakfast room full of Protestants, so he grabbed a bacon
butty at a café on the corner of Leeson Street, before he made his way slowly back to the Falls Road, which was now packed with shoppers, mothers with prams, children with dummies in their
mouths, and black-frocked priests.
    He was back outside the Volunteer moments after the landlord had opened the front door. He recognized Karl immediately – the five-pound man – but didn’t acknowledge him. Karl
ordered a pint of lager and paid for it with the change from the bacon butty. He remained propping