by Mark Dawson
The doorman shook his head; Jimmy doubted that he understood him.
“Müller,” Jimmy said. “I’m here to see Müller.”
The man registered the name and stood aside. Jimmy went inside. The smell of sweat hit him like a five-pound hammer as soon as he crossed the threshold. The place was packed. It was lit with red bulbs that lent it a crazed, hellish air. The customers were all men. Most of them were drunk. A dozen crowded the bar, leering menacingly at the barmaid with money proffered in their fists. In the other half of the room, on the left and closest to the windows, were ten round tables that were big enough to accommodate three or four chairs around them.
Jimmy looked around at the faces of the men until he saw a man at one of the tables. He was short and squat and obviously powerfully built. His hair was cropped short, right up against the scalp. He was wearing a black leather coat and a dark turtleneck sweater. He was clean shaven. He looked like a soldier. Jimmy thought back to the SAS men in Ulster, shorter than you would expect, less physically imposing, but they held themselves with a certain bearing that was impossible to miss once you had recognised it. This man looked just like that: confident, competent, in control.
And staring right at Jimmy.
He squeezed through to the back of the room and reached the table: the man stared up at him, hard-faced and with a dull hostility in his eyes.
“Müller?” Jimmy asked.
“Yes,” he said.
“I’m Jimmy Walker.”
Müller nodded. “I know.”
“Good to meet you. Mind if I sit?”
Müller shrugged and flicked his fingers at the empty seat.
Jimmy sat down.
When Müller finally spoke, his voice was quiet, his English heavily accented. “How are you enjoying Berlin?”
Jimmy smiled at him. “There’s nothing in the shops, what little food there is doesn’t agree with me, the people are miserable, the propaganda murals are well drawn, and the weather’s shite. It’s just like home.”
Müller stared at him and, for a moment, Jimmy wondered whether he had taken his comment as an insult.
“You are a funny man,” he said at last, without the slightest hint of a smile.
“I aim to please.”
“I know a little about you, of course.”
“All good, I hope?”
“You are from County Louth.”
“Belfast,” Jimmy corrected. “You trying to catch me out?”
Müller didn’t acknowledge Jimmy’s grin. “Born in 1960. Joined the IRA, responsible for oversight of the organisation’s arms caches.”
“All spot on, so far.”
“Now you live in London with your girlfriend and son.” Müller stared at him. “Isabel and Sean.”
Jimmy managed to suppress the involuntary flinch of panic. He had no idea how Mackintosh had constructed his cover story. He had assumed that most of it would be original but now, with the names of his girlfriend and son still hanging in the air, he realised that that was not the case. They had woven strands of his real life into the façade that they had constructed for him. He knew why: the more of it that was legitimate, verifiable, the better the deception. It still caught him cold, though, and he felt a buzz of anger that Mackintosh would do that without telling him.
“What is it?” Müller asked him.
“Why would you mention my family?”
“To demonstrate that we conduct careful research into the men and women that we meet.”
“It sounded like a threat to me.”
“It’s not a threat—”
Jimmy spoke over him. “If you mention the name of my girlfriend or child again, we’re going to have a problem. Do you understand?”
Müller eyed him. “Calm down, Herr Walker. I’m not threatening you or your family. You checked out. You wouldn’t have been allowed to meet me otherwise. Now—can I get you a drink?”
Jimmy nodded to the empty steins on the next table across. “One of those,” he said.
Müller called out something in German, pointed to the steins and held up two fingers. Jimmy turned around to see a man who had been standing at the bar, presumably watching in the event that he was needed. The man glared back at him, then turned to the bar and whistled to summon the barmaid.
“You like German beer, Herr Walker?”
“I prefer stout.”
“Ah, yes. Guinness.”
“You can get that here?”
“Of course not. But I have worked abroad before. London.”
The man from the bar returned to break the silence, depositing two steins of lager on the table.
“This is Kirchers Pils from the brewery in Drebkau. It is the best in the DDR.”
Müller took his stein and held it up. Jimmy did the same, and the two touched glasses and drank. Müller watched him as he drank; the beer was decent, if a little warm, and Jimmy finished half.
“You like it?”
“Not bad.” Jimmy put the glass to his lips and sank the rest, replacing the stein on the table and wiping his lips with the back of his hand. “You want another?”
Müller finished his stein and put it down next to Jimmy’s. He held up two fingers again, and the other man went back to the bar.
“So what is it you want?” Müller asked.
“I’m here to buy some goods. You know who I represent. We share a common enemy with you. And my enemy’s enemy is my friend—understand?”
“I do understand, Herr Walker, but we are not friends.”
“Really? Colonel Gaddafi was our friend, and he made a lot of money with us, but he can’t supply us any longer. Transport routes from Libya have been closed. We are looking to replace him as our supplier.”
“What kind of goods do you have in mind?”
“I have a long list. For now, I need RPG-7s. Soviet-made, not cheap Southeast Asian knock-offs. Anti-armour and anti-personnel grenades, maybe PG-7VLs. A hundred and fifty grenades and let’s say fifty launchers.”
“That’s a lot of ordnance.”
“That’s just to start. If all goes well, we’ll reorder. Two hundred and fifty RPGs and five hundred grenades, plus automatic weapons and ammunition.”
“Anything else?”
“Semtex and blasting caps.” He looked at Müller. “Are you going to remember all this?”
“I’m sure I’ll manage. But tell me—why should we sell to you?”
“Herr Sommer will be well paid for his troubles. I’m not a fool—the weapons won’t cost him anything. They’ll come out of central supplies and he’ll pocket all of the purchase price. And good for him. I don’t give a shit.”
“And you think he is motivated by money?”
“There are other benefits, too. How about a much smaller British intelligence staff in Berlin? Would that be helpful?”
“Go on.”
“Do you remember the attack on the government in 1984? In Brighton.”
“Of course. The hotel bombing.”
Jimmy smiled. “British intelligence was gutted for a year. Agents were called back. Every MI5 and MI6 agent who could be spared went home to find the culprits. Imagine what it would be like if we went after London, Manchester and Birmingham with RPGs. A dozen mobile units, all trained and highly mobile, hitting and running, hitting and running, again and again. Those units are all over the country right now, waiting for those weapons. Tell me that’s not in your interest.”
“But only if they could not be traced back to us.”
“I’m sure the general’s deals are all off book. You can file the mark�
�ings off the weapons if you like. How could they be traced? We can be as careful as you like.”
Müller sucked his cheek as he considered the offer.
“So?” Jimmy said. “Yes or no?”
“The general will want a deposit. Something to show you can meet your side of the deal.”
Jimmy took the bag from the floor and put it on the table. He unzipped it and opened it up so that Müller could look inside.
“There’s fifty thousand in there,” he said.
“Ostmarks?”
“Deutschmarks.”
Müller looked into the bag and then stared at Jimmy, sizing him up.
“Well?” Jimmy said. “It’s a simple yes or no. If you don’t think your boss would want to sell to me, that’s fine. Just tell me now and I’ll get on a plane to Moscow. The KGB will be tripping over their fur coats to work with us.”
Müller zipped up the bag and lifted it from the table. “I will be in touch.”
“And?”
“If the general wants to meet, I’ll let you know.”
“Fine. One thing, though. I’ll want to see the goods before I do a deal. If he wants to meet, tell him to have samples for me to inspect. Launchers, grenades, explosives and detonators.”
“Go back to your hotel, Herr Walker.”
48
Jimmy got up early. Snow had fallen all night and the streets were choked, some of them impassable. Workmen in bright red overalls were spraying chemicals on the road, and ancient snowploughs, some of them barely running, cleared the drifts and cut channels between parked cars that had been entirely submerged beneath the blankets of white.
Jimmy stomped through the snow, his boots quickly overtopped and the cold icing his feet. He thought back to last night and the meeting with Müller. Oksana had driven him back to the hotel and had debriefed him in the car. Jimmy said that he felt the meeting had gone well, but that he had found it difficult to get a read on Müller. She said that she would contact him to find out whether the general would pursue the deal.
Jimmy was on his own again until that happened. He went to the restaurant for breakfast, noting that the same people that had been there yesterday were there today, eyeing the weather with baleful expressions, grumbling about the latest inconvenience that they would have to face. Jimmy ordered sausages and tea, the same as the day before, and sat down to eat. He looked up to see the man who had been following him yesterday in the doorway. The man—Jimmy guessed that he must have worked for the Stasi agency deputed to deal with the monitoring of foreigners—stomped the snow from his boots and came inside. The proprietor looked at him warily, most likely very much aware of whom he represented, and prepared a mug of coffee. The man sat down at a table on the other side of the room, seating himself so that he could watch Jimmy.
Jimmy had had enough. He picked up his plate and his mug of tea and crossed the room. The man watched him as he approached, his eyes widening as he realised that he was headed straight for him.
“Morning,” Jimmy said. He nodded down at an empty chair. “You mind?”
The man didn’t speak, and it wouldn’t have mattered if he had; Jimmy put his plate on the table and sat down.
“Jimmy Walker,” he said, holding out his hand. “Who the fuck are you?”
The man replied in German.
“Don’t know what you’re saying, mate,” he said. “But I bet you understand me. I know you people are following me around. I don’t suppose there’s much I can say to get you to piss off, so I’ll just say this. You’re so bloody obvious I almost find it insulting. You might try and make a bloody effort, that’s all. It’s embarrassing. You’re giving the Stasi a bad name.”
Jimmy stabbed the last piece of sausage with his fork, put it into his mouth, and washed it down with the rest of the tea. He got up, went to the counter and paid for both his meal and the man’s coffee, leaving a generous tip.
“See you tomorrow,” he said.
The proprietor looked away, unwilling to endorse a customer who had just confronted a secret policeman like that.
Jimmy turned to the man who had been following him.
“Coming?”
He went back outside and looked through the window. The man was on his feet, hurriedly pulling on his overcoat. Jimmy paused on the threshold until the man had buttoned it all the way up, gave him a cheery wave, and then set off back to the hotel. He knew that he ought not to have done that, but he couldn’t resist it. And, he admitted to himself, while it might have been childish and ill-advised, it was still enjoyable.
*
Jimmy went back to bed and slept for another three hours. He would have slept longer, but the ringing of the telephone roused him.
“Hello?”
“It’s me. How are you?”
Jimmy remembered what Oksana had told him last night. The room would be bugged. The telephone would be bugged. He had an audience and now he had to perform for them.
“I’m getting impatient,” he said. “Have you heard from them?”
“Yes,” Oksana said. “The general wants to see you this evening.”
“About bloody time. I was beginning to wonder if my money wasn’t good enough for him.”
“It’s good enough.”
“What about the shopping list?”
“He says it can be done.”
“Good. When and where?”
“I’ll pick you up tonight at eight,” she said. “The meeting will be at the general’s premises.”
49
Mackintosh woke up and struggled to open his eyes. He was in a dark room. There was almost no light, save a thin sliver that leaked in beneath a door a few feet ahead of him. Everything else was pitch black. He was sitting on a chair that had been bolted to the floor. His arms were behind his back, secured by cuffs around each wrist. His legs were similarly restrained, with the cuffs shackled in turn to the legs of the chair. He was unable to move his limbs more than a few degrees. The ache in his muscles suggested that he had been left in this position for some time. His neck, in particular, was stiff. His head had been lolling to one side, and he grimaced with pain as he tried to lift it back into its normal position.
It took him a moment to remember what had happened to him: the three men who had burst into his flat, how they had restrained him and then drugged him. He found that his mouth was dry, and tried to summon a little saliva so that he might moisten it. It was fruitless; he badly needed a drink.
“Hey!” He yelled out. “Hey!”
There was no response. He tried to free his wrists, but the shackles were securely in place and all he managed to do was chafe the skin.
“I’m a British diplomat! You have no right to hold me.”
He heard the sound of footsteps approaching from the other side of the door. A spy hole slid open and let in a shaft of artificial light. The light was extinguished as someone put their face to the spy hole, and then closed the slide once more.
“Open the door,” Mackintosh yelled out.
He heard the sound of a key turning in the lock, and then of bolts being slid back. The door opened on rusty hinges and light poured in from the corridor outside. Mackintosh blinked and then looked away until his eyes had adjusted to the sudden change. He saw the silhouette of a man in the doorway.
“I’m sorry to have had to bring you here like this,” the man said. He spoke in English, heavily accented. “Still, we needed to have a conversation and I doubt that would have been possible unless it was here. There are some things that we need to talk about that might be a little unpleasant.”
> Mackintosh recognised the voice, and knew who it was even before the man came forward so that the light fell on his face. Karl-Heinz Sommer was in uniform, the dark green fabric almost black in the gloom.
“You have no right to do this.”
“You can’t really complain, Herr Mackintosh. You brought it upon yourself. Some might have described your attack on my safe house as an act of aggression. It was very reckless. It could have precipitated a crisis.”
“You’re not really in a position to criticise me. Men in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.”
Sommer chuckled. “Who was responsible for what happened? I hear it was the SAS. Very impressive. I’d like to meet them.”
“I’d like that too. Maybe I could make an introduction.”
Sommer leaned against the door frame, his face half in shadow. “Thank you for bringing Günter to my attention. He really does have an interesting story to tell, doesn’t he? I wondered whether it could be true, but he’s very convincing. I might have you tell him what happened to his family. He thinks they’re outside the city. They’re not. I have them. He hasn’t told me where to find the photographs yet. I was going to bring them in and have them shot in front of him, one by one. What do you think? You are responsible for what happens to them, after all. If you had kept your hands off him, none of this would have happened. I think you should tell him what’s going to happen to them.”
Mackintosh ground his teeth.
“And it’s awful what happened to your French friend. What was her name?”
“Élodie,” Mackintosh said, his voice low.
“Élodie. I took one look at her and I knew the best thing was to put her out of her misery. It was merciful, in the circumstances. You can thank me later.”
Mackintosh wanted nothing more than to launch himself at Sommer; to get his hands around the man’s throat and squeeze.
“There’s someone who’d like to see you. Come in, my dear. Herr Mackintosh is here. You really should say hello.”
