The Vault

by Mark Dawson

  Mack­in­tosh looked back to Geipel. The Stasi of­ficer was wear­ing a white shirt with ex­ag­ger­ated lapels, a red car­digan and beige slacks. Cameron frisked him, re­mov­ing a Makarov from a clip-on hol­ster. He hauled him up and pushed the col­onel back so that he was up against the wall.

  “All yours,” Cameron said.

  Mack­in­tosh fol­lowed in, press­ing the muzzle of his Ber­etta between the man’s eyes.

  “Speak Eng­lish?”

  Geipel couldn’t nod with the muzzle pin­ning his head against the wall. “Yes,” he said. “I speak it.”

  “We’re go­ing back down­stairs,” he said. “If you do any­thing stu­pid, we’ll kill you. I’m not bluff­ing. Say that you un­der­stand.”

  “I un­der­stand,” he said. His eyes flickered between pain and fury.

  “Good.”

  Cameron put his hand on Mack­in­tosh’s shoulder. “You go down first. Make sure it’s clear. Get Walker, go to your car and bring it to the front. Where do you want to take him?”

  “I’ve ren­ted a space in Mari­en­felde,” he said. “We need to get him there.”

  Cameron grabbed a fist­ful of Geipel’s car­digan. “Let’s get him out.”

  Mack­in­tosh nod­ded and star­ted for the door. Cameron took a mo­ment, yanked Geipel away from the wall and pro­pelled him to the door, fol­low­ing close be­hind.

  32

  Mack­in­tosh found Walker where he had left him. The un­con­scious guard was still on the floor; he hadn’t moved.

  “Let’s go,” Mack­in­tosh said. “We’re get­ting out of here.”

  Walker fol­lowed him out of the build­ing. “What happened?”

  “Mor­gan is dead. They’re bring­ing Geipel down. I need to get my car.”

  “Then what?”

  “We’re go­ing to take him some­where quiet.”

  They made their way to the side road. Mack­in­tosh told Walker to fol­low him, got into his staff car and drove back to the front of the build­ing. He waited, fumes rising from the ex­haust. He saw Fisher, Cameron and Geipel in the lobby and reached back to open the kerb­side door; Cameron shoved Geipel, ur­ging him out­side and across the pave­ment. He pushed him into the car and slid along­side him, the gun pressed against his rib­cage. Fisher hur­ried around the car and got in through the op­pos­ite door so that Geipel was pinned between the two SAS men.

  “Go,” Cameron said.

  Mack­in­tosh set off, the wheels slip­ping on the ice and the rear end slid­ing out un­til the rub­ber found trac­tion.

  “This is a bad idea,” Geipel said.

  Mack­in­tosh replied without look­ing back. “Shoot­ing my agents was a bad idea.”

  “I’m a serving of­ficer in the State Se­cur­ity Ser­vice,” he said.

  “I don’t give a shit what you are. You must have known there would be con­sequences.”

  Mack­in­tosh drove them south through Schillerkiez with Walker fol­low­ing be­hind. He saw the usual evid­ence of frantic build­ing work, with con­struc­tion sites still re­pla­cing build­ings that had been dam­aged dur­ing the war. The sky­line bristled with cranes, and heavy vehicles lumbered across patches of open ground, the snow melt­ing into slush and mud. Mack­in­tosh took a left and, even­tu­ally, they reached Mari­en­felde. Mack­in­tosh drove into a street that al­lowed ac­cess to a row of ware­houses and in­dus­trial units. The build­ings nestled tightly to­gether, with nar­row streets cut­ting between them.

  He pulled up against a wire fence that pre­ven­ted ac­cess to a small ware­house. Walker drew up be­hind him. Mack­in­tosh stepped out­side, shiv­er­ing in the sud­den cold, un­locked the pad­lock and slid the gate to the side. Walker drove in first, and Mack­in­tosh fol­lowed. The two cars pulled up out­side the ware­house.

  “What are we do­ing here?” Geipel said.

  “I need to spend a little quiet time with you, Col­onel,” he said. “We have a lot to talk about.”

  Mack­in­tosh opened the door and stepped down to the icy pave­ment. The snow had fallen heav­ily and he hadn’t been here to clear it away for sev­eral days. He crunched through it, crack­ing the icy crust, the snow reach­ing up to his calves as he stomped over to the ware­house. He took the keys from his pocket and found the one to open the door. He pushed it back, turned to sig­nal that the two sol­diers should bring Geipel, and then went in­side.

  Mack­in­tosh had done this be­fore. He had served in North­ern Ire­land dur­ing the height of the Troubles, and had broken Provos who would rather have sold out their moth­ers than con­fess to a Brit. They had their own meth­ods—base­ball bats, hur­ley sticks, or cudgels spiked with nails; he had had to be in­vent­ive, to find new meth­ods that would frighten even them. It had taken prac­tice but, even­tu­ally, he had be­come very good at it. He hadn’t had to re­visit those days for a long time, but he found that he wasn’t daun­ted by the pro­spect of what might come next. He fo­cussed on Geipel and the role that he had played in Élodie’s murder. He thought about what Geipel could tell him, the things that he needed to know. They were worth a few hours of un­pleas­ant­ness and much more be­sides.

  33

  Mack­in­tosh had been rent­ing the ware­house for six months. He had de­cided that it wasn’t safe to run this par­tic­u­lar op­er­a­tion from the con­su­late, or from any of the other premises that were avail­able to him. He was acutely aware that there was a mole prob­lem in MI6, and he needed to be sure that his work here re­mained secret, now more than ever. The ware­house com­prised two rooms: the first was an of­fice, fur­nished with a table and three chairs. He had fastened cork boards onto three walls and had pinned a map of Ber­lin to one of the boards. The rest of the space was taken up with pages of writ­ten notes, news­pa­per clip­pings and in­dex cards on which he had re­cor­ded his con­tact notes with PI­CASSO and, more re­cently, the de­tails of the men he sus­pec­ted of be­ing in­volved in the am­bush. Alex Geipel had his own card. There was a large pho­to­graph next to the map. It showed four men, each dressed in the black formal uni­form of a Stasi of­ficer. The pho­to­graph had been taken by an agent in East Ber­lin a year pre­vi­ously. It was a formal oc­ca­sion, every­one done up to the nines. Geipel was one of the group. Karl-Heinz Som­mer was stand­ing next to him.

  The second room was ad­ja­cent to the first. Mack­in­tosh un­pinned the pho­to­graph, put it in his pocket and went through. There was a na­ked light­bulb hanging from the ceil­ing in the middle of the room. It cast its light down on Geipel. The col­onel had been trussed up, his wrists tied to the arms of the chair and his ankles tied to the legs. Jimmy Walker was stand­ing in the shad­ows, the gloom ob­scur­ing his face. Cameron and Fisher had gone.

  Mack­in­tosh went over so that he was stand­ing in front of Geipel. “How are you feel­ing?”

  Geipel didn’t reply.

  “We need to talk, Col­onel.”

  “Do we?” His Eng­lish was ac­cen­ted and the words dripped with sar­casm.

  “You know who I am, don’t you?”

  “I do,” Geipel said. “You should have stayed in Lon­don. Com­ing back here was un­wise.”

  “We’ll have to dis­agree about that. I need you to help me with some in­form­a­tion.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Really? I was hop­ing this could be civil.”

  Mack­in­tosh stepped back and made his way to the edge of the room. There was a table there, and laid out across it was a se­lec­tion of in­dus­trial tools. Mack­in­tosh had thought about how he might like to con­duct the in­ter­rog­a­tion. There were sev­eral ways he could go about it. He could be pa­tient and try to ex­plain to Geipel why he would, even­tu­ally, have to co­oper­ate. But he didn’t have the time to go that way; he had no way of know­ing where Günter was, and the longer he waited, the harder it would be to find him. But ex­pedi­ency was not the only mo­tiv­a­ti
on that Mack­in­tosh was con­sid­er­ing. He knew him­self well enough to ac­know­ledge that re­venge was part of it. It was an itch that he had felt all week, a sen­sa­tion that he couldn’t re­move, one that he dearly wanted to scratch. Élodie was dead. Geipel had played a part in that.

  And why just the one mo­tiv­a­tion? He would get the in­tel­li­gence he needed, and he would get a meas­ure of ven­geance, too. Not enough, but a start.

  He ran his fin­gers across the tools: a drill, a ham­mer, a chisel. He con­sidered them all, but, in the end, de­cided that he would work up to the more un­pleas­ant tech­niques at his dis­posal. He picked up a pair of small bladed pli­ers and clicked them open and closed, so that Geipel could hear them.

  “I’ll be hon­est, Col­onel,” he said. “I’m go­ing to en­joy this. You’re go­ing to tell me what I want to know and I’m go­ing to pun­ish you for what you did. I’m go­ing to hurt you and, by the end of it, I’ll have what I want and you will wish you had been some­where else at Christ­mas.”

  He walked for­ward again un­til he was next to the chair.

  “James,” he said. “Could you hold the col­onel’s arm for me, please?”

  Walker stepped out of the shad­ows. Mack­in­tosh knew that Walker was a hard man—his file made that plain—but he fan­cied he saw a little un­cer­tainty in his face as he ap­proached the chair. He made his way be­hind Geipel and reached down so that he could se­cure his fore­arm.

  Geipel struggled, but it did him no good; the bind­ings were tight, re­strict­ing his move­ment, and Walker was strong and had the be­ne­fit of lever­age. Mack­in­tosh took the col­onel’s hand and isol­ated his in­dex fin­ger. He looked down at the nail; it was chewed, with a half-moon of dirt un­der­neath it. Mack­in­tosh took the pli­ers and fastened the teeth around the nail. He gave a hard yank and loosened the nail from the bed. Geipel screamed, but it didn’t mat­ter; no one would hear him. Mack­in­tosh gripped the fin­ger more tightly, and yanked again. The nail was torn out of the bed and blood im­me­di­ately bubbled up in the space where it had been.

  Mack­in­tosh waited for Geipel to stop scream­ing.

  “I have some ques­tions,” he said. “You’re go­ing to an­swer them.”

  “Fuck you,” Geipel said.

  Mack­in­tosh ig­nored that. He se­lec­ted Geipel’s middle fin­ger and closed the pli­ers around the nail.

  “Where’s Günter Schmidt?”

  “Fuck you,” Geipel re­peated. “Eng­lish dog—you were lucky to get away be­fore. You won’t be so lucky—”

  Mack­in­tosh yanked again, tear­ing the nail out with just the one stroke. Geipel couldn’t staunch the scream. His face was pale, the blood drained away. He panted, gulp­ing in air, and stared down at the blood­ied ends of his fin­gers.

  “It doesn’t mat­ter what you do to me,” Geipel said, his voice thin and reedy. “There are hun­dreds of men who will take my place. You’ll be driven out of Ber­lin. You, and every­one else like you. You’ll go home and wish you’d never been here.”

  “Where’s Schmidt?”

  Geipel hawked up a mouth­ful of phlegm and spat it at Mack­in­tosh’s feet.

  “Fair enough,” Mack­in­tosh said. “Some­thing else, per­haps.”

  He went to the tools and picked up the drill. He plugged it into the socket and brought it over to the chair. He looked Geipel up and down: wrist, el­bow, knee, hip. He de­cided on his knee, and pressed the bit against the bone. He pulled the trig­ger and the drill whined, chew­ing through the fab­ric of Geipel’s trousers and into the thin layer of skin.

  “All right!” Geipel yelled. “Stop!”

  Mack­in­tosh pulled the drill back and let go of the trig­ger. “Where is Schmidt?”

  “Roedeli­us­platz.”

  “Som­mer’s place?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “He lives there—it’s an old build­ing; he had it re­built. He has rooms on the top floor, of­fice space be­neath, then the base­ment.”

  “What’s in the base­ment?”

  “The cells, in­ter­rog­a­tion rooms, and his vault.”

  “You’ll draw me a plan?”

  “Yes,” Geipel said.

  “What else? Has he ques­tioned him yet?”

  “Yes.”

  “He knows about Schmidt and Pabst?”

  “Of course.”

  “What about Schmidt’s pho­to­graphs?”

  “He wouldn’t tell him where they were. He says he wants Som­mer to get him over the bor­der first.” He laughed, the sound dis­tor­ted by his pain. “That will never hap­pen—he’s de­luded if he thinks he’ll ever be let out again. Som­mer doesn’t like be­ing told no. He’ll in­ter­rog­ate him him­self and he’ll take his time over it. Schmidt will tell him after the first minute and then Som­mer will keep go­ing to pun­ish him for his in­solence.”

  “When will he do that?”

  “Som­mer wants those pic­tures. He won’t wait long.”

  34

  “Ready?”

  Jimmy nod­ded.

  “On three.”

  He held onto Geipel’s ankles while Mack­in­tosh held his wrists.

  “One.”

  They star­ted to swing the body, back and forth. They had weighted it with a chain that Mack­in­tosh had found in the ware­house, wrap­ping it around the man’s waist and then pad­lock­ing it in place. They had put the body into the boot of the car and driven to the Teltow Canal.

  “Two.”

  The body was heavy now and Jimmy was care­ful to make sure his feet were anchored on the icy plat­form that jut­ted out into the canal. It was dark, with no one to be seen. There was a cemetery on the other side of the wa­ter, its tomb­stones sil­hou­et­ted by the oc­ca­sional sweep of lights from the cars that passed bey­ond it.

  “Three.”

  Geipel’s body reached the apo­gee of the swing and they let go, watch­ing as the dead man arced up and then plunged down, splash­ing into the glossy black wa­ter and van­ish­ing be­neath the sur­face. They both stood there for a mo­ment, re­gain­ing their breath, watch­ing it steam in front of their faces. There was a bridge fifty yards to their left and a night train rumbled across it, the lights in its car­riages glow­ing through the struts and stan­chions un­til it reached the other side and dis­ap­peared.

  “Done,” Mack­in­tosh said. “Let’s go.”

  The even­ing had taken an un­ex­pec­ted turn. Geipel had de­cided that the pain—and the pro­spect of more of it—was not worth his si­lence. He had answered Mack­in­tosh’s ques­tions and had agreed to draw him a plan of the build­ing where Günter Schmidt was be­ing held. Mack­in­tosh brought him a piece of fools­cap pa­per and Jimmy watched as Geipel scrawled out a rough dia­gram of each floor. His co­oper­a­tion had not bought him his life. Mack­in­tosh had taken out his pis­tol and shot him at point blank range.

  “The build­ing,” Jimmy said as they trudged back to the car. “The one where Schmidt is be­ing held.”

  “What about it?”

  “He said there was a vault.”

  “And?”

  “Is it true?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve heard ru­mours be­fore.”

  “What’s in­side it?”

  Mack­in­tosh looked back at him, shak­ing his head in wry amuse­ment. “What’s this, James? Pro­fes­sional curi­os­ity?”

  “I just wondered why he would need a vault.”

  “A man like him hoards secrets. You don’t last as long as he has without lever­age.”

  “A vault, though? Why not a safe?”

  “I don’t know. Per­haps he has a lot of secrets.”

  They as­cen­ded a treach­er­ous bank to the road where they had parked the car. Jimmy de­cided to let the mat­ter of the vault rest for now. He looked back at the trail in the snow that they had carved out as they dragged Geipel’s body to
the canal.

  “What now?” Jimmy said.

  “I have some ar­range­ments to make. I’ll drop you back at the hotel.”

  35

  Mack­in­tosh parked the car and fol­lowed Jimmy up to the room. He had brought a briefcase from the ware­house and he put it on the bed and opened it.

  “What’s that?” Jimmy asked him

  “There are a few things you need to know.”

  Mack­in­tosh hef­ted two thick files from his briefcase and gave them to Jimmy. A name was writ­ten on the side of each file. The first one was Günter Schmidt. The second was Karl-Heinz Som­mer. Each bore le­gends on their cov­ers that marked them as Top Secret.

  Jimmy opened the file for Schmidt and flicked through it. There were re­ports, some typed and some in neat script. As well as the re­ports, there were a num­ber of pho­to­graphs, each of them fea­tur­ing the same man. He was young, in his late teens, and had blond hair, pale skin and blue eyes. He wore a troubled ex­pres­sion in each pho­to­graph, as if the world were about to come crash­ing down around him.

  “Re­mem­ber him. Mem­or­ise his face. You’re go­ing to be help­ing me to get him out.”

  “This is the man with the pho­to­graphs?”

  “That’s right.”

  Jimmy put the file aside and took up the one marked Som­mer. He opened it.

  “And this guy?”

  “Gen­er­al­leut­nant Karl-Heinz Som­mer. In charge of counter-in­tel­li­gence for the Stasi. They call him die Spinne.”

  “Mean­ing?”

  “The Spider. Much of his his­tory is dis­puted. Some say he was in the Hitler Youth. Some say he was in the SS.”

  “I thought the Nazis were all roun­ded up after the war.”

  “Don’t be naïve. Most of them? Of course. But not the in­tel­li­gent ones. They went to Amer­ica and Bri­tain, at our in­vit­a­tion, to build our rock­ets and nuc­lear power plants. Amer­ica wouldn’t have set foot on the moon without the Nazis. Som­mer found a good home for his skills.”