The Vault

by Mark Dawson

  “Which are?”

  Mack­in­tosh got to his feet and stared out of the win­dow over the city. “He’s a mas­ter ma­nip­u­lator. He’s the spy­mas­ter in a city full of spies. He serves no cause; he’s only in­ter­ested in power and per­sonal gain. You’re go­ing to kill him, James.”

  “Really? How am I go­ing to do that?”

  “His greed. That’s how you get close to him.”

  “You’ve lost me.”

  “Som­mer doesn’t know who you are. None of them do. You won’t ap­pear on any of their re­cords. Your le­gend is solid—it’s been care­fully worked on. Everything stacks up if they think to check. You’re go­ing to meet him and then you’re go­ing to of­fer him a lot of money.”

  “For what?”

  “For guns. You’re go­ing to tell him that you’re buy­ing arms for the Provos.”

  “Are you crazy?”

  “It’s a nice match. You’re James Walker. You’ve had an MI5 file for years, ever since you robbed banks for the Re­pub­lic­ans.”

  “That was a mis­un­der­stand­ing,” he pro­tested. “I didn’t know—”

  “It doesn’t mat­ter. Your MI5 file says that you were re­spons­ible for find­ing the money to pay for a Libyan ship­ment. The RUC re­cords back that up. We have a wo­man in Lon­don who has per­suaded the Stasi that she works for them. She doesn’t—we use her to feed them mis­in­form­a­tion from time to time. They’ll ask her to check you out. We’ll make sure that she has ac­cess to your re­cords.”

  Jimmy shook his head. “This is ri­dicu­lous.”

  “I dis­agree. That’s the beauty of it—your file already ex­ists. There’s cor­rob­or­a­tion. You’ll tell them you work with their quarter­mas­ter, and your file will back it up.”

  “Why would Som­mer even take a meet­ing with me?”

  “Be­cause he is a greedy man. He gets paid a com­mis­sion and he can tell him­self he’s ad­van­cing the cause. The Stasi have sup­plied weapons to the Ir­ish be­fore.” He turned away from the win­dow and poin­ted down at the two files. “Trust me, James, Som­mer won’t be able to res­ist. Now—read the files. You need to be pre­pared.”

  “What are you go­ing to do?”

  “I have to speak to someone about get­ting you across the bor­der.”

  36

  Mack­in­tosh got into his car and drove through the night-time streets of West Ber­lin. The nightclubs at the centre of the town had long lines of young people wait­ing to go in­side. The bars were filled. Mu­sic drif­ted to him from every street corner. Ber­lin was a city that had suffered, one that had been torn asun­der, and yet life went on.

  He pulled in by the side of the road. A pink neon sign blinked over the door of the club across the street. Fifty Ber­liners stood in line wait­ing to enter. The young wo­men in the line wore long furs and stamped their heels on the cold ground. The men huddled in their black leather jack­ets and wrapped their arms around them­selves for warmth. Mack­in­tosh got out of the car, found his scarf on the back seat and wrapped it around his neck. He joined the back of the line and waited.

  The queue shuffled for­ward and, after ten minutes of shiv­er­ing, Mack­in­tosh was able to enter the club. He went down a set of dark steps to a base­ment that rang with dance mu­sic and was drenched in neon. He went by the vodka bar, which was crammed with cus­tom­ers try­ing to get a drink, and squeezed through the crowd that had gathered around the VIP area at the back of the club. He went to a second room, this one a little quieter and a little less busy. There was a bar at the end of the room and Mack­in­tosh walked up to it.

  A wo­man was wait­ing for him. She was tall, dressed in a close-fit­ting black dress that drew at­ten­tion to her slender fig­ure. It re­vealed her shoulders, and tat­toos that were partly con­cealed by the fab­ric. Her hair was blonde, al­most white, and her lips were full, the lip­stick ac­cen­tu­at­ing them.

  “I ordered you a Scotch,” she said as Mack­in­tosh settled at the bar next to her.

  “Thank you.”

  Her name was Ok­sana Baran­ova, al­though Mack­in­tosh had only re­ferred to her in his re­ports by her cryptonym: SNOW. A tiny co­hort in MI6 knew her real name; he had made sure of that. She was a rare as­set: a work­ing KGB double agent with con­nec­tions on both sides of the Wall. The risks that she had taken on his be­half had put a tar­get on her back. Both her own agency and the Stasi would have given much to dis­cover the iden­tity of the traitor who had been feed­ing the Brit­ish secrets for the last eight­een months.

  There was a couch in the corner of the room and Ok­sana in­dic­ated that they should sit. Mack­in­tosh fol­lowed and watched as she lowered her­self onto the couch and tucked her legs be­neath her. He stared again at the deep red of her lips, at the con­trast with her bone-white skin. Her blue eyes were crowned with mas­cara.

  Mack­in­tosh sat down next to her. “You look the same as ever.”

  “You look older.”

  “A side ef­fect of be­ing shot at by the Stasi.”

  “I heard about Günter. And your agents.”

  Élodie’s face flashed across his mind; he tried to ig­nore it. “They knew we were com­ing. It was a mess from start to fin­ish.”

  “I am sorry, Harry.”

  Her ac­cent had al­ways proven dif­fi­cult for Mack­in­tosh to pin down. The Eng­lish was per­fect, but it was freighted with a mix of East­ern European ton­al­ity that he couldn’t quite define.

  “If I had known that Som­mer had found out…”

  He nod­ded. “I know. You would have warned me.”

  “I am dis­ap­poin­ted, too,” she said. “It would have been quite some­thing for Günter to have told his story. It would have caused the Stasi in­cal­cul­able dam­age.”

  “Have you heard any­thing about him?”

  “Günter? No. Noth­ing.” Ok­sana cast her gaze down to her drink and then sipped at the clear li­quid be­fore rest­ing the glass on the table that had been placed in front of the couch. “I thought he was in Ho­henschön­hausen,” she said. “I have con­tacts there. Stasi guards. Pris­on­ers, too—I would have heard.”

  “He’s not in Ho­henschön­hausen. I know where he is.”

  “Really? The Ruches­traße?”

  “Not there, either. Som­mer has him in Roedeli­us­platz. Do you know it?”

  “He has a build­ing there.” She lit a ci­gar­ette and in­haled deeply. “It was an old wreck from the war. A Pfarrhaus—a vicar­age. He said he wanted a sep­ar­ate headquar­ters for his ad­min­is­tra­tion.” Ok­sana shook her head. “He is not in good graces with the lead­er­ship. Many be­lieve he main­tains his po­s­i­tion with kom­pro­mat that he has gathered. The spider spins his web and many flies fall into it.” She stared at him through the ci­gar­ette smoke. “How did you find out where Schmidt is?”

  “I had a con­ver­sa­tion with Alex Geipel.”

  “Did you?”

  “I dangled some bait to see what might hap­pen. He scuttled out of his hole and took it. I had him picked up. He told me that Som­mer had Günter and where he was keep­ing him.”

  “And where is Geipel now?”

  “At the bot­tom of the Teltow Canal.”

  Ok­sana gave a low chuckle. “You Eng­lish. So po­lite and re­served and yet so ruth­less. You are not so dif­fer­ent from the KGB.”

  Mack­in­tosh sipped the Scotch. “What about Som­mer?”

  “He is an am­bi­tious man. If I were minded to place a bet, I would guess that he will use Herr Schmidt as lever­age for his own ad­vance­ment. His story will be doc­u­mented, evid­enced, and con­signed to Som­mer’s vault. And then? Som­mer will put him in the canal next to Geipel.”

  She drained her glass.

  “No, he won’t,” Mack­in­tosh said.

  “He won’t?”

  “I’m go­ing to get him back.”

  She smiled at
him. “Come, Harry. Don’t be fool­ish. He is lost.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “How are you go­ing to do that?”

  “I need to ar­range a meet­ing with Som­mer.”

  “You are go­ing to ask him nicely if he would re­turn him to you?”

  “I’m not meet­ing him. I have someone else in mind.”

  She nar­rowed her eyes. “Really?”

  Mack­in­tosh took an­other sip of his drink. “I have a man. I’ve ar­ranged a le­gend for him: an arms buyer for the Ir­ish Re­pub­lic­ans. He will say that he wants to buy weapons from the GDR for use on Brit­ish soil. He has his­tory with the IRA, and I’ll ar­range for his file to be leaked. The Stasi have done busi­ness with the Ir­ish be­fore, and Som­mer is a greedy man with the right con­nec­tions. He’ll take the meet­ing.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “Maybe.”

  “You know him. You can make the in­tro­duc­tion.”

  “And then? As­sum­ing Som­mer agrees to meet?”

  “I have a few ideas.”

  Ok­sana laughed. “You’re not ser­i­ous.”

  Mack­in­tosh drained his Scotch.

  “You are ser­i­ous.”

  “My man isn’t trained, but he is ef­fect­ive. And this is so un­ortho­dox—”

  “So fool­ish,” she cor­rec­ted.

  “So un­ortho­dox that Som­mer couldn’t pos­sibly ex­pect it. I think it has a chance.”

  “And if it doesn’t?”

  Mack­in­tosh shrugged. “My man is a nobody. A petty crim­inal I picked up off the street. If he dies, he dies. He wouldn’t be missed.”

  She looked at him and then laid a hand on his wrist.

  “As I said, my dear Harry—ruth­less.”

  37

  Jimmy’s sleep was fit­ful that night. He ima­gined him­self back in the ware­house with Geipel tied to the chair and Mack­in­tosh tak­ing the drill and press­ing it into his knee. He woke up sweat­ing, his pulse ra­cing. He looked at his watch: it was five in the morn­ing. He kicked off the sheets and lay na­ked in bed, the sweat dry­ing on his skin, and closed his eyes. He saw flashes of the ware­house, after-im­ages, and reached out for the pho­to­graph of Isa­bel and Sean that Mack­in­tosh had left for him. He con­cen­trated on their faces, and, quickly, the tone of his memor­ies changed. He was back with them both: play­ing foot­ball with his boy, eat­ing din­ner with Isa­bel, a happy fam­ily once again. He drif­ted back to sleep with a smile on his face.

  *

  He awoke to a knock­ing on the door. He looked at his watch: it was nine. He had slept in. He got out of bed, pulled on his clothes and pad­ded over to the door on bare feet. He opened the door an inch with the se­cur­ity chain in place, and looked out.

  “Open the door, James.”

  He closed the door, re­moved the chain, and opened it again so that Mack­in­tosh could come in­side.

  “Did you sleep well?”

  “Not par­tic­u­larly.”

  “It’ll have to do. You’ll be cross­ing the bor­der this af­ter­noon, all be­ing well. You’ll meet with Som­mer. It’ll be your op­por­tun­ity to find Schmidt.”

  “And kill Som­mer.”

  “That would be ideal.”

  There was a bas­ket of tea bags on the bur­eau. Jimmy held it up. “Want one?”

  Mack­in­tosh nod­ded.

  He switched on the kettle.

  “You’re still ready to do this?” Mack­in­tosh asked.

  “Like I have any choice?” Mack­in­tosh didn’t reply. “Whatever. The sooner I get this done, the sooner I get to go home.”

  Again, Mack­in­tosh didn’t reply. Jimmy looked at him: there was hes­it­a­tion on his face. He poured hot wa­ter into a mug, ad­ded a tea bag and handed it to Mack­in­tosh.

  “Right?” Jimmy pressed.

  Mack­in­tosh put the mug down on the bur­eau. “We have to be able to trust one an­other, James. I won’t be able to keep tabs on you once you’re over the bor­der. I’ll have to trust that you will do what you’ve been asked. And you’ll have to trust me.”

  “You want trust?” Jimmy said. “I don’t trust you as far as I could throw you. You don’t get my trust be­cause you have some­thing on me. You don’t get my trust be­cause you forced me to work with you. Trust is earned.”

  “I’m sorry you feel that way.”

  “This isn’t about trust. I don’t have to trust you. I have to weigh up the con­sequences. I know what hap­pens if I don’t do what you want. I’ll go to prison. I un­der­stand that. But there are con­sequences for you, too.”

  “Really?”

  “I’m a man of my word. I’ll do what you ask, but I need you to know that if you mess me about, the next time you see me you’ll wish you hadn’t.”

  Mack­in­tosh went to the win­dow and, for a mo­ment, they both stared out to­ward East Ber­lin. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

  “Aye,” Jimmy said. “Let’s.”

  Mack­in­tosh poin­ted at the Wall, vis­ible from up high, cut­ting its way across streets like a scar.

  “I’m ar­ran­ging a pas­sage across the bor­der for you. There’s someone who can help with that. You’re go­ing to meet her this morn­ing. Her name is Ok­sana and she works for the Rus­si­ans—at least, that’s what they think. She works for us, too. If she tells you to do some­thing, I re­com­mend that you do it. No de­vi­ation. Freel­an­cing will get you shot. It’ll get her shot, too, and I won’t for­give that.”

  “Fair enough,” Jimmy replied.

  Mack­in­tosh turned away from the win­dow. He locked his gaze on Jimmy. “You need to be very, very care­ful. If you try any­thing at the bor­der, if they think there’s any­thing about you that’s sus­pi­cious, if you do any­thing that makes them un­com­fort­able, they’ll shoot you both dead. I’ve seen it hap­pen.”

  Mack­in­tosh went to the chair where Jimmy had laid his jacket. He picked it up and tossed it over to him.

  “Ready?”

  “Now?”

  “No time like the present.”

  38

  Jimmy kept his head down, eyes on the pave­ment as they marched to­ward the café, and went over his in­struc­tions with Mack­in­tosh one more time.

  “So,” he said. “I or­der cof­fee, take a seat closest to the back of the café, and wait. A wo­man with pale skin and blonde hair will ap­proach me and ask if I had a good trip.”

  “And you say?”

  “It was fine apart from the weather and the food.”

  “Good,” said Mack­in­tosh. “Ok­sana has ar­ranged a meet­ing with Som­mer. Take your time with him. He might be greedy, but he’s shrewd. Don’t rush him, or he’ll smell a rat. His build­ing is lightly guarded. Once you’re in­side, you’ll have a chance. Find Schmidt, kill Som­mer and Ok­sana will get you out.”

  “And then we’re done.”

  “We are.”

  There was no hand­shake, and noth­ing else to say. Jimmy didn’t trust Mack­in­tosh, but he knew that he had no choice. He walked away to­ward the café without glan­cing back. He would need all the luck he could get. He’d never felt farther away from home, farther away from his fam­ily. He tried to push those thoughts from his mind, but all he could think about was hold­ing Isa­bel and little Sean in his arms. He reached back in his memory and found a mo­ment that vividly re­played. He was in a sum­mer field; Isa­bel was in a white dress, Sean was in his shorts with his foot­ball not far away.

  His throat felt tight. He began to panic.

  The noise from the café reached him. Loud voices and clink­ing glasses. He looked up at the sign above the door, swore once, then went in­side.

  *

  The café was small, with dark ma­hogany chairs clustered around tables in the middle of the floor. Green vel­vet ban­quettes lined one corner of the room and served as seat­ing for five tables. Jimmy found a back table and put his bag
down on the floor. He sat down and pre­ten­ded to look at the menu, but, in­stead, he eyed the cli­en­tele. There were a couple of Asian tour­ists fid­dling with a huge cam­era at the table be­side him. Two men in suits were eat­ing scrambled eggs while they watched the Asian couple and two wo­men in long coats at the win­dow seat. The two wo­men were check­ing out the tour­ists op­pos­ite them: blond, tanned guys with long hair and Amer­ican ac­cents. Every­one was watch­ing every­one else.

  A song by Heaven 17 played on the ra­dio. A wait­ress with short brown hair and an or­der pad ap­proached the table.

  “Cof­fee and wa­ter, please,” said Jimmy.

  She wrote down his or­der and left.

  The wait­ress had been block­ing Jimmy’s view of the front door. Now that she had left, he saw that someone had walked in­side. He looked away, blinked, then looked back, still us­ing the menu to dis­guise his eye line.

  It was a wo­man. She stood in the door­way, took off her coat and then looked around. Blonde hair, pale skin. She saw Jimmy, then glanced away from him as she scanned the rest of the room. Jimmy sat a little straighter. The wo­man walked over to the table.

  39

  She was tall and she had a pale face, light blue eyes and full red lips. She had a long black coat held over the crook of her el­bow and wore a trouser suit and heels. Her face was framed by blonde hair that fell down bey­ond her shoulders.

  Her eyes were fo­cussed on Jimmy. She crossed the room to him.

  “How was your trip?” she said. The Eng­lish was per­fect, but there was an ac­cent that lent the words an exotic rich­ness.

  “Fine,” he said. “Apart from the weather and the food.”

  “Wel­come to Ber­lin.” She leaned in close, em­bra­cing him. He froze, his arms hes­it­ant to touch her. He placed his hands gently on her shoulders. She kissed him on the cheek and then whispered into his ear, “We need to leave. My car is out­side.”