The Garden of Weapons (The Herbie Kruger Novels)

by John Gardner

  He knew the priorities were wrong, but the Tapeworm report had to be done first. Worboys was dispatched to Registry with a requisition order for the Schnitzer and Telegraph Boys’ files. Herbie lifted the IN tray from the desk, dropped it on the floor, placed his notes in neat order, slid a new cassette into the Grundig, then began to talk through his report. The truth about the worm in my soul, on magnetic tape, he thought with a wry smile. It would make grim reading, and he did not spare himself any of the minute details.

  It took almost three hours, during which he did not stop for lunch. His only pause was when Worboys returned with the files, demanding Herbie’s countersignature.

  With the unpleasant chore completed, Herbie took a brief look at the files brought down from Registry—all the Schnitzer Group material, and the red-tagged folders, denoting restriction and classification, and containing details of recruitment, handling and field reports on the Telegraph Boys since their conception.

  The files went into Herbie’s briefcase, which he stowed in the office safe. It was time to put pressure on the Director. Like a good employee, Herbie had done the rough work. Now the action must start. As though by some form of ESP the interdepartmental telephone bleeped.

  “Herr Doktor,” Tubby Fincher said into his ear. Fincher tried to sound happy, but Herbie caught the misery in his tone.

  “I need to see him,” Herbie took the initiative.

  “He needs to see you. Now.” The ’phone went dead. If the Director had been going through the voodoo rituals of their trade, the chicken entrails must have come out stinking, thought Herbie. Tubby’s voice signalled a bad omen.

  “You’re too much of a liability,” the Director said, fiddling with his letter opener: further imaginary dagger thrusts. Herbie decided this was body talk. The usually placid Director’s stabs at thin air were acts of violence. Possibly against the Minister; more probably against his wife.

  Herbie looked uncomfortable. Is this the way it ends? He thought to himself. A lifetime cut away by a paper opener? “You want my resignation?” Somebody else’s words. He could hardly recognise his own voice.

  The Director puffed. “Good God, Herbie. Nothing like that.”

  “You said I was a liability.”

  The Director’s sigh seemed to come up from the soles of his feet. “I mean you’re too much of a liability for the kind of operation you’ve put forward. It can’t be risked. I saw the Minister this morning.”

  Herbie asked if he was permitted to put his case before a Foreign Office Intelligence Committee. The Director said the Minister had declined to call a special meeting.

  Herbie laughed. “He does not want the cat let from the sack, eh?”

  “Nor does he want you to place your head on a block, so that the Whitehall mandarins can tear you to shreds.”

  “My life’s work is already in shreds. I have inherited the wind.” Herbie gave a long sweep of his arm, to show that the melodrama was intentional. He laughed again. “So the Minister prefers to keep up the myth? That I ran the best beehive in East Berlin for all those years? That Source Six is untainted?”

  When the Director replied he chose his words with the care of a connoisseur selecting wine. In spite of the latest developments, Herbie could not deny the large contribution made by the Schnitzer Group over the years—whatever the circumstances as they now knew them. Nor could he deny the proving of Source Six. “Your pride’s been hurt, Herbie; and revenge isn’t part of your nature.”

  Herbie thought differently; but did not say so aloud. How could the Director gauge his depth of personal hatred for both the Gabell woman and whoever was doubling within the six Telegraph Boys? Yes, Big Herbie Kruger wanted revenge. It went beyond that; he needed to be the man who wreaked havoc on the Gabell woman. Herbie Kruger had to be the one who would gouge out the cancer within the Telegraph Boys. It was the only way he could be certain, and retain his own confidence.

  The Director still mumbled on about the Telegraph Boys. The main thing now, he droned, was to remove the problem: put the six agents out of danger.

  “If they’re not already blown.” Herbie sounded diffident, as though the Ministerial decision had removed all responsibility.

  “Herbie,” a slightly admonishing note. “We’ll all know soon enough if they’re blown.”

  That was true. A clean-up committee from Moscow would not hang around to discuss matters, once they discovered the extent of Vascovsky’s and Mistochenkov’s duplicity. There would be arrests in the DDR’s Berlin Ministry of the Interior; in the Soviet HQ at Karlshorst; the Soviet Embassy, on the Unter den Linden; in the DDR’s Political HQ at Niederschonhausen Castle; the HQ of the NVA—the National People’s Army; and, further afield, at Zossen-Wunsdorf—the HQ of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany. These were the six firmly-established bases where the Telegraph Boys held down jobs. Some menial; others highly responsible.

  “We just sit and wait?”

  “I didn’t say that.” The Director settled over his desk, leaning on elbows, cupping the fleshy cheeks in his square palms. “You recruited each one of the Telegraph Boys, Herbie, with your usual most efficient care. I take it that each works in isolation. You would agree, therefore, that it is unlikely that any one member of the Telegraph Boys has knowledge of the other five?”

  Herbie said it was not likely. On the other hand it was not impossible.

  “Under normal working conditions, knowledge of other members of a network like this would not matter.” The Director sounded like a lecturer at the school.

  “It matters now,” Herbie snapped. “If one Telegraph Boy—the double—knows the other identities, it would be through his Russian handler: Vascovsky.”

  The Director wanted to hear the equation out.

  Okay, Herbie told him. It was the old story. Once the Schnitzer Group left the picture, those all-important Telegraph Boys had been badly—spasmodically—handled. “You know what happened.” The people who did the handling, who brought information out, and cleaned the letterboxes, were not constant. Under pressure the Service modified the system. The same dead-drops—letterboxes—were used by more than one Telegraph Boy at a time.

  Herbie said that the maggot within his Telegraph Boys only had to pass on the location of his own letterboxes, or the places where he made exchanges of information. If Vascovsky was patient enough it would only be a question of time. The faces would all eventually repeat, again and again. “It’s like looking at a person’s bank balance to see where the pressure points lie. Like we’ve all been taught, Chief. A quick glance at six months of a balance sheet tells you everything—if he drinks too much; what he does away from home; his mistress; his wife. All the figures become faces. Under Vascovsky’s surveillance the trails would eventually lead back.”

  True, Mistochenkov had said Vascovsky played it close to the chest. “He also said the Colonel-General ‘had a relationship’ with his Telegraph Boy. You know what that means in the language Moscow Centre uses? There aren’t any sexual innuendoes. It means that Vascovsky was gaining the rotten apple’s confidence: power-sharing. If it was me I would give him all the names, and probably a few more innocents for luck.”

  The Director straightened up in his chair. Far away a police klaxon sawed through the traffic sounds. “The Minister has instructed me to seal off this breach as quickly as possible …”

  “There is only one way.” Herbie thumped his chair with a balled fist. “Let me go in.”

  That had already been ruled out: unthinkable. “However,” the Director cleared his throat, “I’m putting you in charge of limiting the effects. You’ve got a meeting with one of your Quartet runners in ten days’ time?”

  Herbie nodded. He had looked it up in the Secret Diary on arrival that morning. Meeting with Schnabeln, exactly ten days from now, in West Berlin.

  “Can that be brought forward?”

  Herbie said he could try. What was in the Director’s mind?

  “That I make you what used to be called
a Director in Residence. For a limited period; and for a special operation.”

  Herbie chuckled, saying he was already virtually a Director in Residence: Director for the Quartet and the Telegraph Boys. Residence: London, Bonn, West Berlin.

  “I’m talking about a clearing operation. A unit job. Strictly on the QT as far as the military and Berlin Station are concerned. You take Worboys; technicians; equipment: anything you need. Act as a puppet master. Hose the whole thing out from the West, using the Quartet. Or, at least, one member of the Quartet.”

  Herbie pounced on the obvious flaw. “It would spread the area of knowledge.” He had been devious in training and briefing the Quartet.

  “The Quartet imagine the handling of the Telegraph Boys to be something of relatively minor importance: a chore that must be done with security; but one of routine. They do it with more than adequate zest; very efficiently. Probably because I played it down.” Herbie said that to let the Quartet know the full strength now would be inviting trouble.

  “And if you went over, Herbie? On your own? You wouldn’t attract danger? Jesus, man, you were blown in the sixties. They have long memories. You’d be tagged within twenty-four hours. I doubt we’d ever see you again.”

  There was truth in that, and Herbie knew it. Yet … Yet … Yet he still knew, deep in the core of himself, that he was at his best when exposed, in the field. He could at least give them a run for their money. He put that into words. “I’d give them a good race for their money.”

  The Director raised his voice for the first time. He would not tell Herbie again. The answer was no. Nobody could be responsible for sending Herbie over the Wall. “However …” He launched into the only possible solution. What if Herbie had been given the green light? How would he have used the Quartet?

  “As a back-up team, of course.”

  “Just to watch your arse, Herbie? Get you out of trouble? You wouldn’t have briefed them? They would have remained innocent?”

  “Naturally.”

  “Who’s your most trusted man in the Quartet? The best?”

  Without hesitation, Herbie told him Christoph Schnabeln.

  “Who you meet in ten days’ time—or sooner if it can be pulled forward?”

  Herbie agreed. He knew exactly what the Director had in mind.

  “Then you take a team into Berlin. You bypass our locals. We’ll provide cover, all the gear, and a house. Then you brief Schnabeln. Lead him through it. Put your mind into his mind; your thoughts into his thoughts; lead him by the hand; be the magician, Herbie; play the warlock and guide him through the operation. Give him your knowledge, and direct him. Let him become your zombie. Let him clean up the mess through you. Hose them down, sterilise them, but do it through him.”

  Technically Herbie would later admit that this was the most sensible suggestion. The one flaw the Director could never grasp—even if Herbie talked to him all night—was that Herbie could not put his own heart into Schnabeln’s heart. Everything else, yes—the knowledge, methods, chess moves and counter-moves. All apart from the one essential piece of the equation.

  In the days to come, Big Herbie Kruger realised that he really made up his mind at that moment. “Okay,” he said quietly.

  If the Director had not been so relieved he might have reflected on this relatively easy victory. A fast pushover where there had been steely resistance. One shrug and the barriers were down.

  “Okay,” Herbie repeated. “We’ll try it your way. What happens if that doesn’t work?”

  The mildly bright eyes went dull. “Your Quartet lifts them.” No emotion in the Director’s voice. “They lift the lot. We do a bring-’em-back-alive caper and sweat the buggers until they break.”

  “Dismantle?” Herbie did not conceal his dismay.

  “Win a few, lose a few. Yes, close down and start again, from scratch.”

  If Herbie had any doubts about the plan lurking in his mind at that moment they disappeared with that rejoinder.

  The Director called in Tubby Fincher. They talked about Herbie’s requirements. He would take Worboys, naturally. A couple of heavies would be a good idea, just in case the opposition got wind and tried a snatch.

  “Can I have Max and Charles? They were very good with Tapeworm.”

  He could have Max and Charles.

  They would need a house. High, and as near to the Wall as possible. A large apartment would do. There had to be some clear frequencies for the radio traffic. “Not the ones the Quartet use.”

  Indeed not, the Director agreed. They had to bypass West Berlin Station. For this, a most important part of the operation, Herbie had to have the two best technicians available.

  Nothing but the best, Tubby promised. He would take care of it. The briefing in London as well. They would handle that under field conditions. Herbie finally made his excuses. If he was to advance the meeting with Schnabeln it was necessary to move quickly. He would try now.

  “We can be ready in a couple of days,” the Director suggested tentatively.

  Four, Herbie thought. “Four days at least. It’s complicated. Has to look natural.” He explained that Schnabeln’s own East German employers were always under the impression they arranged his visits to the West.

  The Director looked concerned. “He’s not playing the double, is he?”

  Herbie said of course not. “It’s a question of his work, his cover,” and so departed—happy, but with a mind reeling full of personal details: as secret as the grave. As he rolled down the corridor, arms flaying, Herbie hummed the snatch of a tune. Listen to the rhythms but forget about the melody.

  Locking his office door, in the Annexe, Herbie used the sterile telephone that was his direct link with West Berlin. It was as untraceable as you could make them. He only used it to call the Quartet’s West Berlin field contact—Uncle Klaus. Herbie was the nephew, Timmy. They had spent weeks working up a progressive double-talk act. The double-talk would be difficult to penetrate if the link suddenly became unsterile: always on the cards in these advanced days of the micro-chip and printed circuit.

  Uncle Klaus would call him back that evening. No, the nephew said, he would be out. Could Timmy telephone his uncle tomorrow? Uncle Klaus decided that might be better. He would have seen Aunt Girda at the hospital by then: maybe the doctor also. They were both very worried about Aunt Girda, who had been subjected to a number of surgical operations over the past few months. Tomorrow then, Uncle Klaus agreed. Tomorrow, the dutiful nephew, Timmy, promised.

  Then Herbie called Worboys in and gave him some instructions: acting on the correct assumption that he scared the living daylights out of his young assistant. “You just watch my arse, eh? And you don’t breathe a word: no notes, no reports, no nothing, or I blind you, make sure you have no fun again with your little girl in Registry. Noel. Right?”

  “Right,” said Worboys, meaning every letter.

  Herbie was going home. He left instructions with the duty officer, checked for messages at the Information Room, took the bulging briefcase from his safe, and lumbered towards the street.

  Herbie Kruger did not go home.

  A taxi carried him as far as Oxford Circus. From there he took the Underground to Tottenham Court Road, changing to the Northern Line, and booking through to High Barnet: the end of the line. In fact, he got off at Camden Town, only five stops on.

  Herbie thought he was clean, but took the precaution of running a few back-doubles before emerging into Camden Town High Street where he finally entered a small shop. The shop sold, and repaired, watches and clocks. It had an old and tired look, as if the mechanism had run down, or the mainspring broken.

  Behind the counter a small man—a fragment from the rock of ages—peered hard through thick pebble glasses.

  “My God,” the little old man said in German. “Is it …?”

  “Yes,” Herbie said, quickly. “It is Siegfried, making a rare visit to the Nibelungen. Put your sign up. You were going to close soon anyway, huh?”

>   Yes, of course he was going to close up. The little old man hobbled out from behind the counter in a state of high excitement. “In the back,” he nodded to the door behind the counter. Herbie had to stoop to get into the small room—a cluttered, dusty mixture of workshop and living quarters.

  “Drink?” asked the little old man. In spite of the hobble he moved fast, like a scuttling crab.

  “Do seeds need rain?”

  “Schnapps? Vodka?”

  Herbie said Schnapps. Good. The old man moved some books from the only chair large enough to accommodate Herbie, flicking his fingers a few inches from the faded velvet seat, as if to discourage the dust.

  “Anyone been asking for me?” Herbie sat down, still clutching his briefcase.

  “Nobody. Not for years.”

  “You tell me the truth?” He accepted the glass of Schnapps, deciding not to worry about the film of dust which rose to the surface of the liquor.

  “Always. Not since the old days does anyone ask. I hear nothing.”

  “You get your pension on time?”

  “Regular as the clockwork. More regular. The clockwork is going out, Herbie. All electronics, digital watches these days. Stupid little batteries. No hands, no dial. Figures that pop around. Will it last, I ask myself?”

  “You still do work on the side?”

  “You asking me official?”

  “No. I do not ask. Understand?”

  The old man threw up his hands in a dramatic gesture of surprise. “You go private, like me?”

  “You went private because of a Vopo bullet.”

  “A Grepo bullet,” the old man corrected.

  “You get a Kruger bullet if you talk. Okay?”

  “Prosit,” the old man raised his glass.

  “Prosit.” Herbie drained his Schnapps and looked reflectively into the bottom of his glass. “A Kruger bullet if you talk to anyone. One thousand pounds, sterling, if you do the job.”

  “You got me for life, Herbie. What should I do with one thousand pounds sterling? Women?”

  “Once it would have been.”

  The old man gave a tired smile. “Who said, ‘I can’t do it any more, but I still have the desire’?”