Mercedes. Moments later, he heard the electronic beep of a reversing warning. A large container lorry backed into the boatyard. Three men jumped out of the van. Two made their way towards the wharf, while the third, dressed in the uniform of a Romanian customs officer, headed for the back of the truck, where he was joined by the truck driver. Between them, they removed the customs seal from the container, unfastened the locks and let the doors swing open. Inside the container were stacked cases of canned cherries. Tadeusz curled his lip at the sight. Who in their right mind would contemplate eating Romanian canned cherries, never mind importing them by the truckload? As he looked on, the customs man and the driver started to unload the boxes. Meanwhile, behind him, the barge glided up to the wharf, where the two men expertly helped it moor.
Swiftly, a narrow passage between the cardboard boxes appeared. There was a moment's pause then, suddenly, bodies surged through the gap and leapt to the ground. Bewildered Chinese faces gleamed sweating in the dim lights that glowed from vehicles and the barge. The stream of humanity slowed, then stopped. Around forty Chinese men huddled tight together, bundles and backpacks clutched to their chests, their frightened eyes flickering to and fro across the alien boatyard like horses who smell the taint of blood. They were shivering in the sudden cold, their thin clothes no protection against the chill of the river air. Their uneasy silence was more unsettling than any amount of chatter could have been.
A whisper of a breeze gusted a waft of stale air from the back of the lorry towards Tadeusz. His nose wrinkled in distaste at the mingled smells of sweat, urine, and shit, all overlaid with a fault chemical tang. You'd have to be desperate to choose this way to travel It was a desperation that had made a significant contribution to his personal wealth, and he had a certain grudging respect for those with courage enough to take the path to freedom he offered.
Swiftly, the truck driver, the two men from the van and the barge crew organized their cargo. A couple of the Chinese spoke enough German to act as interpreters and the illegals were readily pressed into service. First they emptied the truck of its cherries and chemical toilets, then hosed down the interior. Once it was clean, they formed a human chain and transferred boxes of canned fruit from a container on the jarge to the lorry. Finally, the Chinese climbed aboard the ?arge and, without any apparent reluctance, made their way into the now empty container. Tadeusz's crew built a single ayer of boxes between the illegals and the container doors, then the customs official affixed seals identical to the ones ie'd removed earlier.
It was a smooth operation, Tadeusz noted with a certain amount of pride. The Chinese had come into Budapest on tourist visas. They'd been met by one of Krasic's men and taken to a warehouse where they'd been moved into the container lorry. A couple of days before, the barge had been baded under the eyes of customs officials near Bucharest with an entirely legal cargo. Here, in the middle of nowhere, < they'd rendezvoused and been swapped. The barge would take far longer than the lorry to reach Rotterdam, but it was much less likely to be searched, given its documentation and customs seals. Any nosy official with serious doubts could be referred to the local customs who had supervised the loading. And the lorry, which was far more likely to be stopped and searched, would continue to its destination with an unimpeachable cargo. If anyone had seen anything suspicious enough at the airport or the warehouse to alert the authorHies, all they would find would be a truckload of canned cherries. If officials noted the Hungarian customs seals had been interfered with, the driver could easily shrug it off as vandalism or an attempt at theft.
As the customs official crossed back to the truck, Tadeui intercepted him. 'A moment, please. Where is the parcel fd Berlin?'
Krasic frowned. He'd almost begun to think that his bos had had sensible second thoughts about the Chinese hero; the illegals had brought with them to pay part of their passag There was no reason for Tadzio to change the systems th Krasic had so punctiliously set up. No reason other than 1 foolish superstitions he'd been prey to since Katerina's deau The customs man