The Vault

by Mark Dawson

  *

  The air was much cooler out­side and a damp mist had des­cen­ded, clos­ing around them and re­du­cing the vis­ib­il­ity so that he could only just see to the end of the street. The wo­man got into the pas­sen­ger seat of a black Saab and told Jimmy to get in the driver’s seat. He did, put­ting his bag on the back seat and clos­ing the door.

  “We couldn’t talk in there?” he asked.

  “There were people listen­ing for the Stasi,” she ex­plained.

  “I didn’t see any­one. Who?”

  “They have a hun­dred thou­sand people work­ing for them,” she said. “Easier to say who isn’t work­ing for them.” She put out her hand. “I’m Ok­sana.”

  “Jimmy.”

  “How much has our mu­tual friend told you?”

  “About you?” She nod­ded. “A little.”

  “That’s for the best.”

  “I know you work for the Rus­si­ans.”

  “That’s right. The Ko­mitet gos­udarstven­noy bezo­pas­nosti.”

  “The KGB?”

  “Very good, Jimmy.”

  “And you’re go­ing to ar­range a meet­ing with Som­mer.”

  She nod­ded. “I am. And, let me say, you’re a brave man.”

  “I don’t know about that.”

  “Som­mer is a dan­ger­ous man.”

  “It might be brave if I had a choice.”

  “I see. Our friend didn’t ex­plain your re­la­tion­ship.”

  Jimmy wondered if he had said too much. “Our re­la­tion­ship doesn’t really mat­ter. He said you could ar­range it.”

  “And I have,” she said.

  “When?”

  “To­mor­row even­ing.”

  “You can get me over the bor­der?”

  “That’s the easy part. I have pa­pers for you.”

  She reached for the glove­box, opened it and took out a bundle of pa­pers. She handed the bundle over.

  “You already have your pass­port. I ar­ranged the visa. It is a Tages­visum—a day visa—good for twenty-four hours.”

  “I’ll need longer than that.”

  “You will,” she said. “A Tages­visum is the easi­est to ar­range. You will need to go to a Re­ise­büro of­fice to­mor­row and ar­range for an ex­ten­sion. It will be a form­al­ity. You must also change a min­imum of twenty-five Deutschmarks into Ost­marks for every day you are in the East. You will also need to re­gister with the Volk­spol­izei so that they can add a res­id­ence stamp in your pass­port. Again—you need to see to that to­mor­row. The hotel con­ci­erge will do that for you.”

  He flipped through the pa­pers and found a typed let­ter. It had been signed with an ex­tra­vag­ant stroke of the pen. The name be­neath the sig­na­ture was KARL-HEINZ SOM­MER. “What’s this?”

  “It’s from the gen­eral’s of­fice, not­ing your meet­ing with him. It should smooth the way, should you need it.”

  “Are you com­ing with me?”

  “Not now,” she said. “It would be dif­fi­cult to ex­plain why a KGB agent took a Brit­ish cit­izen over the bor­der. I’ll meet you at the hotel. The ad­dress is in your pa­pers. Drive straight there as soon as you have made the cross­ing.”

  There was a road at­las in the glove­box, and Ok­sana took it out. She flipped the pages un­til she found the one she wanted.

  “We are here,” she said, lay­ing a fin­ger on the map. “The cross­ing is here, on Friedrich­straße. It’s the only gate­way where the GDR al­lows west­ern­ers to pass across. Check­point Charlie.”

  Jimmy looked: they were close.

  “There are two agen­cies who guard the bor­der. Both wear the same uni­form, but they some­times have dif­fer­ent agen­das and they don’t like each other. The ones without weapons work for the Kon­trol­lein­heiten. They are part of the Stasi. The oth­ers are bor­der guards, from the Min­istry of De­fence. There can some­times be clashes of jur­is­dic­tion. You just need to be re­spect­ful and do as they tell you and everything will be fine.” She looked over at him. “Any ques­tions?”

  Jimmy shook his head. He had plenty, but he would ask them an­other time.

  Ok­sana gave Jimmy the key and he star­ted the en­gine and flicked on the head­lights. Jimmy real­ised he couldn’t take his eyes off her. She was se­duct­ive in a way that made him feel un­easy. Like he didn’t trust him­self around her.

  “I will be at the hotel when you ar­rive.”

  She opened the door and stepped out­side. Jimmy glanced at her re­flec­tion in the mir­ror as he pulled out; she had already turned and was walk­ing away.

  40

  Jimmy set off, fol­low­ing the route that Ok­sana had shown him. It wasn’t far, and as he turned a corner, he saw it. Check­point Charlie. The cross­ing was marked by a grey hut in the middle of a wide road. He couldn’t see much bey­ond that with the mist, but he saw the sign on the right-hand side of the road.

  YOU ARE LEAV­ING THE AMER­ICAN SEC­TOR.

  The cross­ing didn’t feel Amer­ican to him, even when he saw the men in US mil­it­ary uni­forms crowded around the hut. He looked out of the wind­screen at the bor­der ahead. There was a row of guards and a watchtower bey­ond them. The guards were all armed and he had no doubt that there were snipers in the tower. Get­ting across the bor­der was one thing; get­ting back again might be a chal­lenge.

  There was a line of cars at the grey shed and Jimmy pulled in at the back. There were sep­ar­ate win­dows in the shed, each marked by the flag of the coun­try that op­er­ated it. Jimmy saw the Stars and Stripes, a French tri­colore and the Union Jack. A sol­dier in­dic­ated that Jimmy should wind down the win­dow and Jimmy did as he was told.

  “Where are you from?” the man said.

  “Bel­fast.”

  “Pa­pers.”

  He held out his pass­port and visa.

  “You know you’re at risk if you go over there?”

  “I do,” Jimmy replied.

  “No sup­port if you get in trouble.”

  “I un­der­stand.”

  “Your fu­neral.”

  The sol­dier handed him back the pass­port and visa and waved him on.

  Jimmy rolled for­ward along the road un­til he reached the bor­der. A bar­rier blocked the way ahead. Jimmy waited in line as the two cars ahead of him were checked. He saw a dozen sol­diers in grey­ish brown uni­forms, some of them armed. They ex­amined the cars and spoke to the drivers, even­tu­ally al­low­ing both vehicles through.

  A sol­dier with an AK-47 beckoned Jimmy for­ward. Jimmy re­membered what Ok­sana had said: he was a bor­der guard. He trained the rifle on him and called out that he should stop.

  Jimmy pulled up at the bar­rier and waited as a second sol­dier, this one with ginger hair, stepped out of a guard hut. The red-haired man was un­armed; he made a cir­cu­lar ges­ture with his fist, in­dic­at­ing Jimmy should wind down the win­dow.

  Jimmy looked ahead. The guard was still aim­ing the rifle at him.

  The red-haired of­ficer waved for the bor­der guard to lower his weapon. The younger man did as he was told, bring­ing the weapon down. He held it ready, his fin­ger close to the trig­ger.

  Jimmy wound down the win­dow.

  “Eng­lish?”

  “Ir­ish.”

  “Pass­port and pa­pers.”

  Jimmy handed the pa­pers to the red-haired man. He took them and stepped back, ex­amin­ing each one in turn.

  The ten­sion was thick and cloy­ing. Jimmy felt a long way from home.

  The guard leaned down. “Step out of the car, please.”

  Jimmy opened the door and stepped out with great care. He turned his back to the red-haired of­ficer and put his hands on the roof. A group of armed bor­der guards ap­peared and began to in­spect the car. They opened the rear pas­sen­ger doors and got in; the boot and the bon­net were thrown up. Jimmy felt a hand on his shoulder, eas­ing him b
ack­wards. He raised his hands and went with it. More guards ap­peared and got into the front of the car.

  Jimmy felt like he was back in Bel­fast. He had been stopped by the Brit­ish at check­points be­fore. He tried to re­lax. It wasn’t easy. He sensed someone to his left, and when he looked, he saw the young bor­der guard with his rifle poin­ted at him again.

  Jimmy clenched his fists. He looked at the cobbles, bit­ing down on his lower lip.

  The search of the car and its con­tents, in­clud­ing Jimmy’s bag, went on for sev­eral minutes. One of the guards came over with a sniffer dog. The hound was led through the vehicle, its nose pok­ing into every crevice. A guard used a long tele­scopic pole with a mir­ror on the end of it to in­spect be­neath the vehicle. An­other un­screwed the fuel cap and in­ser­ted a long dip­stick into the tank, en­sur­ing that the stick went in far enough.

  They were thor­ough.

  The red-haired agent handed the pass­port and visa back to Jimmy.

  “You can go,” he said.

  Jimmy climbed back into the driver’s seat and put his hands on the wheel to stop them from trem­bling.

  He was over the bor­der. Bey­ond the Iron Cur­tain.

  He was in East Ger­many.

  41

  Mack­in­tosh went back to his small apart­ment in the streets be­hind the Brit­ish con­su­late. He had lived here for the last two years. The apart­ment had been provided to him by the gov­ern­ment and was func­tional rather than com­fort­able. He had no prob­lem with that. He had al­ways pre­ferred a Spartan life and, save a few pho­to­graphs and books that he had shipped over when he had been given the post­ing at Ber­lin Sta­tion, he had done very little to soften the bare white walls and the pol­ished floor­boards.

  There were a few con­ces­sions to sen­ti­ment­al­ity.

  He had framed the only pho­to­graph he had of him­self with Élodie and had placed it on the table. They had had it taken in Aus­tria when they went to visit Hochoster­witz Castle; the story was that it had in­spired the castle in Snow White, and Élodie had told him of her child­hood love of that film. The pic­ture was taken on the fu­nicu­lar rail­way that brought vis­it­ors up the moun­tain to the top.

  They had taken ten days’ va­ca­tion for that trip. They had star­ted in Aus­tria and then driven south to Venice, then Milan, then fi­nally north into Switzer­land. Their fi­nal day had in­cluded two hours at Lom­bard Odier, the fam­ously se­cret­ive bank on Sihl­straße in Zurich. Mack­in­tosh had opened a private ac­count and had de­pos­ited the two hun­dred thou­sand francs that the DGSE had paid him to provide what they eu­phemist­ic­ally re­ferred to as ‘up­dates’ on Brit­ish in­tel­li­gence across West­ern Europe.

  Mack­in­tosh picked up the pho­to­graph and looked at it. Élodie had been the agent who had re­cruited him. It was pro­fes­sional at first, but she had told him that it had grown into more, and he had be­lieved her. She had been so happy on that trip; he had been happy, too. She had been the one good thing in his life, the sug­ges­tion that he might be able to for­get the things that he had been asked to do in Bel­fast, the men he had broken, the lives he had ruined… and now she had been taken from him.

  He shuddered, swal­low­ing down on a throat that was sud­denly thick and blink­ing away the tears. He put the pho­to­graph face down. What was the point of tor­tur­ing him­self?

  He went into the kit­chen, took a dirty sauce­pan from the sink and washed it un­der the tap. He dried it off, opened a tin of soup, poured it into the sauce­pan and warmed it on the stove. He wondered how Walker was do­ing. Mack­in­tosh had taken a table in Café Adler, the es­tab­lish­ment near Check­point Charlie that offered a view of the cross­ing. He had seen the Saab that Ok­sana had provided, and had watched with barely con­cealed trep­id­a­tion as it had slowly made its way over the bor­der. Mack­in­tosh had been too far away to make out what had happened as the Saab had paused out­side the East, and had hoped that the delay was just an­other routine check. He had al­lowed him­self a sigh of re­lief as the car had con­tin­ued on its way. Now, though, Mack­in­tosh had no real idea what was hap­pen­ing. Ok­sana had not re­por­ted back to him, and fur­ther in­tel­li­gence would be spar­ing, if there was any at all. Walker really was on his own.

  The plan was a punt. Would it work? The odds were against it, but he had to try some­thing.

  Mack­in­tosh poured the soup into a bowl, took a hunk of stale bread and a spoon and went back into the sit­ting room. He res­ted the bowl on the man­tel­piece and took down one of the framed pho­to­graphs. It was a pic­ture of his mother and father. They had both been dead for years and he had no sib­lings. There was an uncle in Brunei, but that was it; he had been left with no fam­ily. He had no friends either, the ac­quaint­ances he had made dur­ing his uni­ver­sity and army years quickly lost in the wil­ful ob­fus­ca­tion that had fol­lowed his trans­fer into the secret ser­vices. Mack­in­tosh did not mind that. He had never been a par­tic­u­larly so­ci­able man, and had al­ways found the most sat­is­fac­tion in solitude. Liv­ing here, in the en­forced secrecy of West Ber­lin, suited his tem­pera­ment. Élodie had offered some­thing hard to find, the un­der­stand­ing that an­other spy could of­fer, and now that was gone.

  He heard noises out­side the door. The sound of foot­steps. He wondered whether it might be his neigh­bours un­til he caught the briefest snatch of whispered con­ver­sa­tion. He knew what was about to hap­pen, but, be­fore he could do any­thing, the door to the flat ex­ploded in­wards in a ca­co­phony of noise: twis­ted metal as the hinges buckled, splintered wood as the lock tore through the frame, and a vol­ley of shouted or­ders from the three men who burst in­side.

  The men were all armed. Mack­in­tosh backed away and raised his hands above his head, very aware that they would shoot him if he gave them any ex­cuse to do so.

  “Don’t shoot,” he said. “I’m not armed.”

  “On the floor!” the man in the lead bel­lowed. He spoke in Eng­lish, heav­ily ac­cen­ted with Ger­man.

  “Okay,” Mack­in­tosh said. He lowered him­self to his knees and then onto his stom­ach. The three men came all the way in­side, con­ver­ging on him and for­cing his arms be­hind his back. He felt the pinch of cuffs as they were fastened around his wrists and ankles. His right shirt cuff was torn open, the but­ton spin­ning away onto the floor boards, and the sleeve rolled up to his el­bow. He knew what was about to hap­pen, and knew that there was no sense in try­ing to fight it. One of the men pro­duced a syr­inge and pressed the needle into the vein on the in­side of his el­bow. Mack­in­tosh did not know which an­aes­thetic the Stasi were fa­vour­ing—fentanyl, car­fentanil, sufentanil—but felt it as it ran up his arm to his shoulder. His veins throbbed as though they were full of ice and his body pulsed with a dull ache un­til the light star­ted to fade and his eye­lids be­came too heavy to hold open.

  Part VI

  42

  Jimmy fol­lowed the dir­ec­tions that Ok­sana had given him. The streets were dark and grey, with build­ings dec­or­ated with So­viet pro­pa­ganda. He passed a large cinema on which had been hung a por­trait of Stalin in full mil­it­ary re­galia. Ban­ners al­tern­ately ex­tolled the be­ne­fits of so­cial­ism and de­rided the West.

  He drove to an old hotel in a dis­trict where bars and cafés were plen­ti­ful. The hotel it­self was reas­on­ably im­press­ive, at least by the stand­ards of its neigh­bour­ing build­ings. It was flanked by red stone columns with a flight of steps that led up to a grand en­trance. He parked the car on a nearby street and walked back with his bag slung across his shoulder. He climbed the steps into the lobby. The space was lit with oil lamps and fur­nished with rich green leather couches, an­tique tables and cab­in­ets. The car­pet on the marble floor was an inch thick.

  Jimmy stepped in­side and saw Ok­sana. She glanced over at him and then looked back down to
the magazine that she was read­ing. He went to the desk.

  “Hello,” he said. “Do you speak Eng­lish?”

  “Cer­tainly, sir.”

  “I’d like to check in.”

  “Of course. Could I see your pa­pers?”

  Jimmy handed over his visa and re­ser­va­tion and waited as the man filled out his in­form­a­tion on a re­gis­tra­tion form. Jimmy no­ticed the small de­tails that be­lied the hotel’s grandeur. The col­lar of the re­cep­tion­ist’s shirt was frayed and worn, and looked as if it had been sewn back on in the re­cent past. The floors were clean but un­pol­ished. The flowers in the vases were plastic and dusty. Every mem­ber of staff––from the re­cep­tion­ist to the bell­boy wait­ing to at­tend to Jimmy’s bag––looked as though their clothes were just a little too big for them.

  “Very good, Herr Walker. We have a ju­nior suite ready for you. Break­fast is in the res­taur­ant between six and ten. The res­taur­ant is open now or we’d be happy to send room ser­vice up to your room. There’s a tele­phone in the room. Please just call.”

  The bell­boy asked to take Jimmy’s bag. The man was older than Jimmy would have ex­pec­ted for the po­s­i­tion, in his late fifties and with eyes that drooped in ex­haus­tion or apathy. Jimmy de­clined and re­as­sured the man that he would be fine hold­ing his own bag. He asked for dir­ec­tions to his room and the man ob­liged, point­ing to the lifts and telling him that he would need the sixth floor.

  43

  Jimmy opened the door to his room with a large iron key. The space in­side was gen­er­ous: there was a liv­ing room, a small din­ing table, a large marble bath­room and a bed­room with a huge four-poster bed. The suite was per­fectly pleas­ant, if a little worn around the edges.