Nobeca knew he was being watched by the KGB when he was in Moscow and by the Stasi in East Germany. Did they think he was stupid? From now on he would have to be much more careful. For the next three weeks he threw himself into his work, more to satisfy his growing impatience than diligence. He knew they would act soon, but he would be waiting for them.
CHAPTER FOUR
September, 1989
It was damp and miserable on the Havel, but Nobeca was snug inside the cabin of his motorboat. Few people had ventured out, except for enthusiasts who navigated the waterway in all winds and weather. He had been chugging within the confines of the Soviet Sector all day waiting for it to happen. Only one thought on his mind: permanent escape into West Berlin. He had to stay well clear of Glienicke Bridge, but get as close to the British Sector as possible.
He had discovered the plot by accident after overhearing Morozov talking on the telephone to a senior Stasi Officer.
“We must wait for the right opportunity. We can’t act until we are sure it will succeed. His every movement must be monitored.”
Positive that they were discussing him, he broke into Morozov’s desk and found the manila folder stamped ‘SECRET’ in bold red letters. It contained a veiled order to eliminate him as soon as possible. He had no idea when or where it would happen, but he would have to be on his guard twenty-four hours a day.
Systematically, he searched his quarters and his vehicle on a daily basis. It wouldn’t matter to the KGB if an innocent driver was killed with him. Life was cheap. Every search proved fruitless, but he knew without a shadow of doubt that his assassination was imminent. He would give them an opportunity they couldn’t resist. They were clever, but they would never outwit him.
“I haven’t been sailing for ages,” he told Morozov. He didn’t miss the barely perceptible flicker of interest. “Perhaps I’ll take my boat out on the weekend. Do you fancy joining me?”
“Sorry, I have a long-standing commitment.” Morozov choked back the anger tightening his chest. This could be his opportunity for revenge. “My niece’s wedding,” he lied.
Nobeca smiled inwardly, imagining the KGB officer’s excitement at the thought of finally destroying the man who had ruined his life.
He searched every inch of the boat before he took it out, confident that he would find an explosive device. After prising off a panel under one of the bunks, he discovered it buried at the bottom of a box filled with life jackets and an assortment of tools. The device was set for 4:15 p.m. when he would be on his way back to dock the boat. With a satisfied grunt he settled down to wait.
At precisely 3:30 p.m. he struggled into the wetsuit he had brought with him and checked the equipment in his waterproof rucksack. Wire cutters, clothes, shoes, false passport and identity papers, plus enough Deutschmarks to tide him over for a few days: all sealed in a plastic bag covered with oilskin.
By four o’clock the light was fading. It would be dark soon. A misty rain added to the gloom. Anybody observing him through binoculars would have difficulty monitoring his movements. He locked the steering wheel, adjusted his snorkel, pulled down his goggles and slid into the river. With only the snorkel pipe visible above the water, he swam away from the boat towards the barbed wire separating East and West Berlin.
Suddenly, a loud explosion shattered the stillness. Orange flames lit up the gloom, illuminating debris showering down onto the surface of the water. A searchlight lit up the river on the West side, another on the Soviet side. The boat had all but disappeared. All that remained was a mess of wood floating on the surface. Taking advantage of the commotion, he swam towards the barbed wire. Within seconds he had cut a gap big enough for him to squeeze through. Keeping his head as far under the water as possible, he swam towards the British Sector.
Exhausted, he climbed out onto the muddy bank and crawled into the bushes. Quickly, he peeled off the wetsuit and concealed it in the undergrowth, along with the rest of the equipment. He stared back up the river.
“You’ll never defeat me, Morozov,” he snarled. “I’ll always be one step ahead of you.”
Five minutes later, dressed in a warm sweater and corduroys, he walked through the gloom towards a clutch of restaurants.
The smell of roasted meat hit his nostrils as soon as he opened the door. He ordered a large schnapps and downed it in one gulp. After the second one he felt a lot better. He motioned to the waiter.
“Weinerschnitzel, pomme frites, apfelstrudel und einem bier; a large one.”
A good stodgy meal was what he needed now to warm him up. He smiled inwardly, visualising the chaos after the boat went up. The KGB and the Stasi would be looking for his body, but they wouldn’t find anything except bits and pieces of the man who had cleaned up his boat. Nobeca had crushed his skull with a hammer before stowing him below. He had added enough explosives to completely obliterate any remains found, except for some personal effects he deliberately dropped overboard. Enough to convince them he had been blown up with the boat.
On the Soviet bank Morozov and a Stasi officer watched an inflatable dinghy head out towards the wreckage.
“That was quite spectacular, a much bigger explosion than I expected,” he said, turning to the Stasi Officer standing beside him.
“Ja, they have done a good job. Nobody could survive that blast.”
Searchlights from the British Sector swept over the wreckage and the boat moving towards it. There was no sign of life in the water.
“Probably another escape attempt,” the British officer surmised. “Poor sod whoever it was.”
Glimpsing something floating in the water a Grepo leaned out of the dinghy, fished something out and headed back to shore. Morozov examined part of the sodden jacket. There was something solid in the inside pocket. He pulled it out. There was no doubt about what the Grepo had salvaged. It belonged to Nobeca. He never went anywhere without it. A feeling of intense satisfaction coursed through him. At last the bastard had got what he deserved.
*
With a full stomach and another schnapps on the table Nobeca looked at his options. If he was picked up he could claim he was trying to escape from East Berlin, but too many questions would be asked. British military intelligence would interrogate him and keep him under surveillance. They were far more adept at keeping track on spies infiltrating West Berlin than the KGB assumed. It often served their purpose just to track their movements and let them sneak back out.
His best option was to lie low in an expensive hotel and enjoy the rest. That would give him time to prepare for his new life as a wealthy businessman searching for opportunities in West Berlin. His little liaisons had paid off. Poor deluded women: they had given him expensive presents. Rings, gold watches and artworks that he smuggled into West Berlin and kept in a safe deposit box in his bank.
The coup de grâce was Anna Mettler, a childless widow he met in a hotel bar on one of his forays into the West. He couldn’t believe his luck when she told him she was visiting from Zurich. Ten years his senior, he wooed her with an intensity she couldn’t resist. He had finally seduced her after dinner and dancing in Haus Carow.
“Anna, my darling, I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you marry me?”
“But we know so little about each other,” she said cautiously.
“I know all I need to know,” he replied, visualising her bank account. “I have waited for you all my life.”
Anna’s heart fluttered like a schoolgirl. He was such a handsome man. How could she resist?
After that it was relatively easy to gain her trust. They were married in a civil ceremony and set up home. His prolonged absences were explained as essential business trips to West Germany. Three months later she committed suicide from an ‘overdose’ of antidepressants.
“She was on antidepressants for months,” he told the coroner. “She didn’t really settle in Berlin. She wanted to go back to Switzerland.”
Before her death he had persuaded her to transfer her enti
re fortune of fifty million Swiss francs into his name in her Zurich bank. Now all he had to do was wait until things quietened down.
As far as the KGB was concerned, Nobeca was dead. He had been planning his escape for months, long before he discovered the plot to kill him. Every time he slipped into West Berlin, he took something with him. He had already transferred substantial funds from West Berlin into accounts in the Paris and Madrid branches of Deutsche Bank; enough to comfortably start his new life. He was a patient man. It was important to keep a level head and not allow his greed to overcome his ambitions. Now all he had to do was get out of Berlin for good and implement his plans for the future.
CHAPTER FIVE
West Berlin, November 9th, 1989
Nobeca couldn’t believe his eyes. He turned up the volume on the television and stared incredulously at an excited newscaster standing amongst a throng of revellers. The Wall had been breached! The East German guards stood helplessly in the background, unsure of how to tackle the milling crowds. Since he had been in the hotel he had eaten in his room, so engrossed in his plans that he hadn’t even switched on the television.
There were always the usual idiots shouting obscenities at the Grepos on the other side, but this? How had it happened so suddenly? The footage flashed to a man squeezing through a narrow gap into East Berlin and emerging a few seconds later. Nobeca couldn’t resist the temptation to see it for himself. Hurriedly, he went down to the taxi rank outside the main entrance.
“Bornholmer Strasse,” he instructed the driver.
At the border crossing people were shouting and singing. Some were dancing a jig as though it were a big outdoor party.
“What the hell’s going on? I can’t get through the crowd,” the taxi-driver yelled over his shoulder.
Sparklers swirled in the misty air lighting up the gloomy night. People were downing champagne and passing the bottle from one to the other. The aura of euphoria sweeping through the crowd was palpable. A gang of teenagers clambered up and perched on top of the Wall. Others pounded at it with hammers and chisels, breaking off chunks of graffiti-covered concrete. This is where it had all started. He got out of the taxi and worked his way through the excited crowds. The atmosphere was intoxicating; almost like being slightly tipsy. He still couldn’t believe it was happening. Gates and security barriers were demolished. Buses poured through the border point crowded with East Berliners anxious to meet relatives in the West. They streamed past the suddenly defunct Bornholmer Strasse checkpoint into West Berlin.
He hurried back to the taxi and instructed the driver to take him to Brandenberg Gate. He couldn’t believe his eyes. Berliners from each side were walking through the checkpoint watched by bewildered East German guards on one side and British troops on the other. A sense of exhilaration surged through him. He was free!
He went back to his hotel and sent down for a bottle of whisky. Tonight he could afford to celebrate, secure in the knowledge that his passage from the city would be easier than he had planned. When he awoke next morning it was to discover that Brandenberg Gate had been closed until new orders were received, but that would not affect him. To cover his tracks he decided to take a flight to West Germany before moving on. It would be foolish to take risks when his goal was within reach. The grieving widower would access his Swiss account after a suitable period of mourning. By the time Brandenberg Gate opened for good on November 22nd, Nobeca was in Munich boarding a flight for Madrid.
PART TWO
2016–2017
CHAPTER SIX
Gloucestershire, England, March 2016
Colin Lynes had the pasty skin of someone who spent too much time indoors. His nondescript face, ill-fitting clothes and beer belly could be seen on any high street across the country. Carefully, he folded his copy of The Telegraph and slid it into a leather briefcase. Taking one last look at the computer screen, he switched it to standby and headed for the exit.
Nodding briefly to a colleague, he eased into the driver’s seat of an ancient Ford and drove away. Thirty minutes later he pulled into a side street. As usual it was jam-packed with cars. He managed to negotiate into a space in front of the small, terraced house he had occupied for over twelve years.
The middle-aged woman living in number fifteen tweaked her net curtains and waved at him. He smiled and waved back. “The interfering old bat,” he muttered, quickly closing the door behind him.
At least once a month he suffered the tedious Mrs Jepps, her odious husband and their tiresome friends. They would probably try their matchmaking tactics again. He smirked thinking of the plump, granite-breasted divorcee they had tried to palm him off with last time. Dutifully, he had taken her out for a drink to the local pub just to keep them quiet.
He had kept a low profile for years, living a normal life with normal, nondescript people. If only they knew. He hadn’t seen his children for over a decade. His son was a grown man now and his daughter was married with a child. A hard knot clenched in his stomach. He had sacrificed so much, missed so much.
At dead on seven thirty he rang the doorbell at number fifteen. Across the street a curtain moved barely perceptibly in the vacant house sporting a ‘To Let’ notice. Standing well back from the window, a sandy-haired man focussed his binoculars on the pale light shining from the Jepps’s bay window, waiting until an invisible hand drew the drapes.
Nodding at his smartly-dressed colleague they slipped out of the front door. For a few minutes they stood talking, gesturing towards parts of the house as though evaluating various aspects: an estate agent showing a house to a potential client.
They had been monitoring the street for weeks, waiting for the right opportunity. Most of the residents left for work early in the morning, but the Jepps’s were at home all day. Either her old man was messing about in the back yard or she was sitting vigilantly behind her nets, her opera glasses sweeping the street from dawn to dusk. Unknown to her she was being watched as she watched.
The two men strolled a few yards towards a black BMW and shook hands. The older man eased himself into the car, gave a perfunctory wave, and drove down the street around the corner. Quickly, the sandy-haired man walked along the street, looked around then slipped into an alley that led to a rear lane. He counted the doors until he came to the right garden.
With one agile movement he was over the low, breeze-block wall. Suddenly, a loud bark, accompanied by a metallic scuffling, penetrated the darkness. A security light flashed on.
“It’s that stray dog again,” a voice shouted. “I’ll wring its bloody neck!”
“Oh, leave it, Derek. I’m trying to watch my show!”
Pressing himself into the shadows, he waited until the light went off and moved along the wall until he reached the back door. Taking out a small bunch of miniature tools, he inserted one into the lock. It didn’t budge. Cursing under his breath he selected another. This time the lock turned immediately. He slipped into the kitchen and closed the door, freezing as something brushed against his legs.
“Bloody cat!” he muttered.
Cautiously, he made his way to the living room. Light from the solenoid street lamp outside the house lit up the room with an orange glow. An enormous flat-screen television and a shabby sofa, littered with magazines, filled most of the space.
Tapping the telephone was out of the question. It had to be something less sophisticated, something ridiculously obvious. Lynes would check for bugging devices. His eyes rested on the curtain rail above the grubby nets in the bay window. Moving aside the heavy drapes, he unscrewed the filigreed pole end and inserted a tiny bugging device. After placing one in the hallway and another in the kitchen, he slid out of the back door and raced down the alley. The black BMW was waiting for him.
“Come on, let’s get out of here!”
The car shot off and disappeared into the stream of traffic on the main road.
*
The postman gave a cheery grin as he handed over the morning mail. Lynes stepped back i
nto the hallway, put his briefcase on the floor and examined the pile of letters. He opened a large buff envelope bearing the words ‘Waldean Travel’ stamped in red. Quickly, he read the single sheet of paper, stuffed it in his pocket, and walked to his car.
Near the far corner of the street, a road sweeper idled along the pavement brushing up litter. Lynes gave him a cursory glance as he pulled away from the curb and drove off. The road sweeper took a long drag on his cigarette. He threw the butt into the gutter with the rest of the rubbish. His eyes followed the dark-blue Volvo that swept around the corner. It eased into the traffic, keeping three cars behind Lynes’s battered Mondeo.
Two miles further on, the Volvo took a sharp right turn onto a parking space outside a pub. Simultaneously, a grey van lurched into the road taking its place. A red Astra parked further along the road pulled out behind it. The van driver peered into his driving mirror and flipped open his mobile.
“Lynes is being tailed,” he said. “It’s the same driver, but a different vehicle three days running.”
He slowed down at the entrance to GCHQ while Lynes waited to turn in. The Astra was right behind him.
“Somebody else is watching him. Be extra vigilant.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Gloucestershire, England, March 2016
Foley walked slowly past the computer station. He bent down to retrieve the ballpoint pen he had dropped.
“See you tonight,” he whispered.
Lynes stared intently into the screen, seemingly oblivious to the other man’s presence. He peered at the flickering computer screen decoding Russian traffic. He was an expert cryptographer, one of the best. He had spent ten years in GCHQ gaining the respect of his peers. Heart beating wildly, he tried to concentrate on his work. Everything he had worked for was coming together.
He had deliberately set out to recruit Foley. Initially, they chatted during coffee breaks or shared a table for lunch. After a few weeks he invited him round for a game of chess. Lynes noticed the pallor on his skin. Foley was a sick man.
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