by John Gardner
In the St. John’s Wood apartment Herbie checked and rechecked Luzia Gabell’s record, trying to see what should have been clear during the Schnitzer years. He cross-checked dates and times, trying to recall any glaring worries experienced over her. Herbie’s memory was good; and long. She had done her job with zest. Her capability was without question. In black and white, here on the pages of reports and dossiers, was a record of her contribution. It was excellent, showing that a great deal of solid, raw intelligence had come directly from her.
Herbie played the Mahler Tenth right through, three times, as he worked on the puzzle. Not once had he suspected her; never had she jibbed at an assignment. The spot-checks always showed her clean. Never had there been a hint that she was in touch with people like Piotr and his boss, ‘Vasily’—the Group’s ciphers for Mistochenkov and his spy-catching chief, Vascovsky.
Had he been blinded by his fondness for her? The wry, almost laughable way in which he had sought to seduce her to the trade? As he thought about it Herbie caught a glimpse of the elfin girl, naked on his bed, body as supple as a fish. He remembered the others, also: the one-to-one meetings in the safe houses; the alleys; the fluctuating fear. It was not possible to blot out the one real act of violence they had carried out—the killing of an SSD man who was getting suspicious of Blenden and the Birkemanns.
Herbie had done it himself, with Willy Blenden driving the car. It was dark and messy: the stuff of which nightmares are made. He did not like to dwell on it. But then he did not like dwelling on Luzia Gabell’s treachery.
No, the real weakness came later, after he had found happiness with Ursula Zunder, knowing for the only time in his whole life the true feelings of a woman: and his love for her also. In the end they had proved it. He wondered how Ursula had fared over the fifteen years …
Herbie put down the Schnitzer files and took a deep breath, which turned into a sigh. Luzia Gabell had fooled him, making a mockery of a decade; yet he still could not see how she had managed it. Again, for a second, he saw himself in a small bare room, crouched over the radio, earphones in place. Luzia with him as he signalled West Berlin Station. Blenden, moving a magazine from hand to hand in the street. Gertrude Muller, approaching down countless alleys. Habicht, laughing over coffee in the Alexanderplatz house …
Ursula was there, in his mind, now. Ursula laughing; talking. The thought raised no desire. After fifteen years his impotence was total. Not that he had ever found the courage to approach a woman in that time. Neither the courage, nor the desire.
Once more the Mahler Tenth reached the drum strokes of the second scherzo. Only you know what it means, the composer had written to his wife in the score’s margin. Then, later, Farewell my lyre.
But, after one walk with the great Freud, Gustav Mahler had recovered his potency, a remission only to be overtaken by death. There could be no such walk for Herbie Kruger.
He dropped the Schnitzer Group files, taking up the hefty batch which dealt with his recruitment and operation of the Telegraph Boys. Herbie knew, before opening it, that the first file would be the one on Ursula. There it was. Ursula Zunder. Cipher: Electra. His last recruit among the Telegraph Boys. Operational, September 1961. Place of Occupation: Ministry of the Interior. East Berlin. DDR. Recruitment forced on him by circumstances. Recruitment against his judgment or will. They were lovers for over a year before it was ordered. No escape from that.
Herbie opened the folder, looking down at Ursula Zunder’s picture—Electra’s image—solemn, the oval face with strong cheek bones, large eyes, copper hair and sensual mouth. There was no colour; the photograph could not convey the woman. He remembered Ursula as she really was: the flooding enthusiasm, constant enquiring mind; the laugh, and arching of the eyebrows; the pursed lips and troubled eyes, when she was concerned or angry; the wide, overpowering look which embraced him, even at fifty paces, when things were right. The talk and stimulus; the drive. The loving? Oh yes, and the loving.
He leafed quickly through the other five dossiers. The ones chosen before the panic. The four men and one woman trained after a toothcomb selection. Little Moritz Winter, whom they called Gemini, with his jokes, constant imitations and risque stories—storeman at the Karlshorst Soviet HQ: gabbling away so that you could hardly get a word in. The tall, thin, bespectacled Otto Luntmann, who people called the Professor, and the Service knew as Horus. Otto was a civilian messenger for the Soviet Embassy.
Peter Sensel, a chubby, scruffy man, whose appearance did not match up to his intelligence. A labourer (a one-time builder); now foreman of the German maintenance staff out at Zossen-Wunsdorf, the Group of Soviet Forces HQ. Priam, to the Service.
That left Nestor and Hecuba—Nikolas Monch, a filing clerk at the National People’s Army HQ. A grey silent man who appeared to have been born that way. The only other woman Telegraph Boy, Hecuba: Martha Adler, who held a prime job at the DDR’s Political HQ. Ash blonde, long legs, sensual in a very obvious way. Herbie always suspected she was a teaser with men.
There they were, the full half-dozen: and one of them rotten, though they had all held their jobs—some even getting promotion—for twenty years or so. Until the present flap there had been talk about new recruitment. At least two of the six would be coming up to retirement soon. Now, who knew? One would be retired early.
Five Herbie had recruited personally: arranging their handling with the Schnitzer Group. He was mulling over possibilities for the sixth at the very moment the DDR began to pressure the Border Crossers. Three Party Committee members informed Herbie, in no uncertain terms, that he was a disgrace to his country. Members of the Workers-and-Peasants State should labour in the East. Kruger was forced to leave the ‘job’ in the West, taking on work at the Locomotive factory. A foreman’s job, true, but communications were not easy. Then the axe fell. The Border was closed; the barbed wire went up: then the Wall. One Telegraph Boy short. Ursula was the only answer, and Herbie thought, maybe, it could be temporary. He did not count on having to get out to save his life. But that was another story, one on which he would not dwell now. Soon, Herbie knew, it would be borne in upon him at close range in Berlin. The dreams would return; the sweats and nightmares.
For a brief second Herbie questioned what he was planning to do. Was it really to put right his errors made long ago? Or was it to give himself a last chance with Ursula? Perhaps even to bring her back—find the way that could not be found fifteen years ago? Was it really all duty and vindication? Or the need to see if his Electra still had the power to clear his mind, and his body also? To sharpen the appetite of a middle-aged, big, ungainly German?
The spasm of doubt passed quickly. He tried to bring reason to the events. The sin lay in his first error—the recruitment of the Gabell girl. Long before the Telegraph Boys were even thought about. With a start, Herbie realised that Luzia Gabell had known of his relationship with Ursula. They made no secret of it: why should they? The best secrets are kept by leaving them open to the world.
Over coffee at a regular meeting place, Luzia had touched Herbie’s hand, saying how happy he looked. She had seen them together—Ursula and Herbie. “You looked like an old married couple,” she had laughed.
“Not old, but we feel married,” Herbie said.
Christ. He remembered all the conversation now. Luzia had asked her name. Off his guard, Herbie told her—“Ursula Zunder. A fine girl.”
Luzia Gabell’s information would be an added bonus for Vascovsky. Once he had been approached by the weak link in the chain of Telegraph Boys; then had traced and identified each of them, Luzia Gabell could tell him—“That was Schnitzer’s piece. That was Big Herbie’s woman, the Zunder.”
He rose to switch off the tape. Yes, he would carry out his plan for duty, because his marriage to the Service was like that of a monk to his vows. Yet, in the far dark corner of his mind, Herbie Kruger knew that, if the Telegraph Boys were utterly blown, he would move mountains to get Electra out of East Berlin. Into the safety of the
West. Into his safety.
He returned to the files, revising the dossiers and faces of all the Telegraph Boys, like a man bent upon winning some competition—to spot the odd man out. Winter; Luntmann; Monch; Sensel; Zunder; and Martha Adler. Who, out of these six, could he have so mistaken all those years ago?
At around one o’clock in the morning, with the street noises almost quiet, Herbie knew that no amount of digging or probing into the files would track him to the rogue Telegraph Boy. It was a field job. In the silence of the night he opened a window and looked out on London.
The Six Telegraph boys would have to be put to the question. Maybe he should have one more go at Pavel Mistochenkov, to make certain the question was correct. Gorky provided the key. The correct lock could only be found in East Berlin, and there was one man, alone, who would be able to act as locksmith.
PART TWO
Trepan
1
TIMMY, THE DUTIFUL NEPHEW, telephoned his Uncle Klaus in West Berlin shortly before ten o’clock the following morning.
The news was much better, Uncle Klaus assured his relative in London. Aunt Girda would be coming out of hospital on Friday—only four days away; much earlier than they had hoped. She would have to take it very easy, but the doctors’ prognosis was good. She would eventually have to go back, into a convalescent home, but Uncle Klaus expected her to stay with him for at least two days.
Timmy said he was very pleased. If he could get off work he might even nip over and see Aunt Girda. Would she like that? Uncle Klaus sounded miserable. Timmy knew what she was like. Already, still in hospital, she was making plans: wanting to spend his hard-earned money. Still the same old spendthrift. Wanted new curtains for the apartment, even though she hadn’t seen it in weeks.
Spendthrift: Schnabeln’s crypto. The bit about curtains meant there was a lot of activity. It was a low-grade alert sign. Something was stirring in East Berlin.
So, Herbie thought, Schnabeln would now be in West Berlin on Friday and Saturday. Today was Tuesday. He would be unable to leave before paying another visit to his old friend in Camden Town, and that could not be until tomorrow night at the earliest.
He called Tubby Fincher on the internal closed line, and gave him the days. “I see Spendthrift Friday and Saturday. You can arrange it?”
“Everything’s fixed. I’ve only got to fill in the dates.” Tubby had moved. “The Director wants you at half past eleven. Can do?”
Up in the Director’s office, at eleven-thirty, Herbie saw just how quickly Fincher had activated the whole thing. Perhaps the Director wanted things under way before Herbie changed his mind. Herbie was to brief the entire team that afternoon. Already they were moving, in ones and twos, into a house maintained by the Service in the West End.
“Everything organised?” Herbie asked, surprised.
“Almost everything,” Tubby told him. “We’ve requisitioned the equipment we think they’ll ask for. Most of it’s already on the way. Anything extra, your technicians can ask me. We’ll have it over by jet within twenty-four hours.”
The Director was behind his desk. Tubby Fincher sat in the corner, a clipboard on his bony knee. Worboys stood near the door, looking puzzled.
The Director had lapsed into his senior officer mood. “Calling the show Trepan,” he chuckled. “Good, eh? Gouging out the cancer. Trepan.”
Herbie looked puzzled, and Tubby Fincher had to explain. Though the word was obsolete now, a trepan used to be a surgeon’s drill, boring into a patient’s skull before brain surgery. Yes, Herbie agreed, Trepan fitted very well.
“You’ve got Max and Charles,” the Director said—still the general briefing his troops for battle. “And I’ve laid on the best two technicians in the business. Scoffer and Tiptoes.”
Herbie asked if Scoffer and Tiptoes were cryptos.
“Scoffer Grubb and Tiptoes Corn,” Tubby again explained. “They’re particularly good at long-range stuff; know all the tricks; do an electronic homer track standing on their heads. Excellent at dodging monitors and intercepts. Best in the business.”
The Director shot a sly look towards Worboys. “You were worried about the spread of knowledge,” he began, sliding his eyes back to Herbie.
“Our young friend here does not know it all. Not by half,” Herbie replied. “But they’ll all have to be given the general picture. The whole damned lot. I still don’t like it.”
“Then I leave it to you. You decide who should know what, and how much.”
Herbie looked at Worboys; then back at the Director again. Of Fincher, he asked, “We have a house?”
“For Trepan? Yes. Top storey apartment. In the Kreuzberg district. Near the Mehring Platz.”
“Very easy for the American airfield—Tempelhof—teeming with Yanks.” Herbie did not sound happy.
“Borrowed it from them.” Tubby smiled.
“Had it swept?”
“Yes, and knowing Scoffer and Tiptoes they’ll go over it again. It’s okay. The Yanks think we need it for a skip-trace outfit. They think we’ve lost somebody.”
“It should be a dark alley job,” Herbie mumbled. It was going to be a dark alley job, only this lot were not to know that. “You arrange the tickets?”
“Everyone goes tomorrow. Different flights, of course. Max goes with you, Herbie: minds you all the way.”
“Not tomorrow he doesn’t.”
“Herbie …?” The Director sounded a warning.
“Okay.” Herbie made placating gestures. “Max can mind me, of course. I mean I don’t go to Berlin tomorrow. I go at the last moment—Thursday.”
“Thursday,” Tubby repeated, as though all his careful schedules had just been blown apart.
“Late Thursday. I got things need doing. Max minds me—okay. Tomorrow I want to see Tapeworm again. Not for long: a few minutes. At Warminster. I also got paperwork to do. Max can mind me to Berlin, Thursday night. I start with Spendthrift on Friday.” He went on to explain that he needed all Friday and Saturday with Spendthrift: the whole of his agent’s time in the West. There was a great deal to be done with Spendthrift.
The Director understood. If Herbie was to do a real Svengali on Schnabeln he would certainly need all the available time.
“At this moment he’s only handling Priam and Hecuba.” Herbie was firm. “That leaves four to cover. I also wish to play close to the chest. Schnabeln handles only two. There has to be an enlargement of his knowledge. He will have to change the handling arrangements on the other four. It will take time. Then I have to put the fluence on him. Is that what you would call it? Putting the fluence on? I read it somewhere.”
“The Black Arts,” the Director mumbled, to nobody in particular.
“Yes, Director. The Black Arts. Pity old Ramilies isn’t still around. He was the one for the Black Arts, eh?”
Ramilies was a World War Two legend in the psychological use of agents: a manipulator, held in great esteem within Service mythology.
“Okay.” Tubby ceased doing calculations on his clipboard. “I’ll book you out as late as possible on Thursday, Herbie.” He then gave Kruger the address and location of the top storey apartment in the Kreuzberg district. “I’ve got a chart,” he fished into a briefcase. “That’s for the technicians. Give them the height of buildings and all the local interference guff.”
Herbie took it, sticking the large folded sheet into an inside pocket. They would fix him for a trip to Warminster? Yes, the Director would see to all that; and the technicians could deal direct through Tubby.
“One more thing,” Herbie rose from the chair. In the confines of the Director’s office he seemed to dwarf everyone. “I use the same house as normal for Spendthrift?”
They told him, yes.
“You’d better have a good excuse for the Berlin Station people. Max can mind it. Nobody else, on Friday and Saturday; and I want assurance that the tapes won’t be running.”
“Herbie,” the Director’s face went through a slight spasm. “That�
�s a bit of routine tradecraft. For your benefit as well as ours.”
“No tapes, or no Herbie,” Kruger grinned. “I mean it; and don’t think I will not check it out.”
There was general capitulation. At three o’clock Big Herbie was to meet the Trepan team.
The house maintained by the Service in London’s West End was really only a flat. In the old days they were always houses. During the cut-back of the last few years the houses had gone. Flats were in. This one was above a smart outfitter’s in Jermyn Street.
Herbie made his usual careful approach. He seldom disregarded the rule, even on home ground. Not these days. It was partly the habit of a lifetime; partly security.
The interior lay-out suggested the era of Noël Coward and Ivor Novello, though this was not borne out by the furnishings—drab and functional. Herbie identified most of the stuff as old WD surplus: ranging from barrack-room tables to the kind of armchairs and sofas from officers’ married quarters that were in vogue during the fifties.
Max and Charles were already there—bounding to the door in stylish soft jeans, expensive sweatshirts and handmade moccasins. They reminded Herbie of two playful young tigers.
With them was a small man, dressed neatly, even fastidiously—a person, Herbie considered, who had dragged himself up the so-called class ladder to a point at which he could mentally equate with those who were considered professionals. He had that hard, nut-brown leathery look of one who spends much time on beaches, or under sunlamps, and he wore tinted spectacles in heavy black frames.
