by John Gardner
“We need a surgeon,” the voice said.
“Who is that?”
“A friend has had an accident. I’m speaking from near the church of the Good Shepherd in Pankow.”
Curry Shepherd, doing his best to double-talk his way out of something terrible, Herbie realised. Sanity slowly returned. “Curry?” Herbie asked, because the double-talk seemed pointless now.
“Okay. They snatched her. Two uniforms and two plain-clothes. Took her off in a car. One of them was from the Centre. Name of Kashov.”
Herbie told him to get out now; speed. Use his normal papers. Go. It was over. “I got him, Curry. Got the bastard. If I don’t make it back, tell them: Priam.”
“Priam,” Curry repeated from the telephone booth in Pankow. “Well done, old cocker. Good luck.”
Herbie stood for a moment, looking at his blood-stained hands. Yes, he was probably well over the hill, but what do you do in the field? All his life, in the dark secret places of Europe, probing other people’s secrets, Herbie Kruger had been taught you should use your common sense and initiative. He had done just that by coming over the Wall.
Wearily he walked over to the huddle that had been Peter Sensel. Then he unlocked the door to the passage leading to the rest of the apartment. Like a huge child towing a toy, Herbie dragged Sensel’s body through to one of the other rooms, then set about cleaning—both himself and the room.
Whatever they might say about his insubordination Herbie Kruger had dealt with the cancer. Information came from human beings; human beings had to be in the field. Days, weeks of playing Sherlock Holmes with the files and reports would not have put right the errors of his past. Luzia Gabell and Peter Sensel had either posed or sold themselves. Between them, the pair rendered all Big Herbie Kruger’s past efforts—his credo, his loyalty—to nothing but a blotch on the Service’s history.
So now, in an almost sacramental action, he bathed his hands in the bathroom, washing away the blood, looking at the broken and hanging skin. Herbie Kruger had righted his own wrongs. The record was straight—or as straight as it could ever be. He recalled a fragment of childhood, when he had scalded his fingers accidentally plunging them into hot water. They said you could not recall pain, but that hurt was just like this—the throbbing and sting.
As he started to tidy the main room of the apartment, Herbie thought, with rising anger, that it was now all blown away. Finished. Gabell had been Trapeze. Trapeze must have talked—to somebody in the secret hierarchy—before her death: hence the message from Curry Shepherd.
Walter Girren probably gone. He wondered about the others. Martha Adler gone. With the place now tidy, the window open to signal Schnabeln in with Ursula, he sat down, wondering how long they had to go. And what a fool he was to have put Martha Adler at such risk; to have been obsessive with uncertainty about her.
He was as guilty as the rest of them; and, if they had picked up the Adler woman so quickly, the opposition must be well and truly around them. They were all boxed in. Surrounded.
Probably they would get him. Herbie had to be a realist about that prospect; but he still had a few tricks. There were ways out, over the Wall, that did not entail using the checkpoints. He looked at his watch, and used the button, giving the Trepan team a long burst, letting it continue for a couple of minutes as he worked.
It was almost four o’clock and the tape had to be completed. He reached for the briefcase and took out the hollow book, removed the machine, set it, added the one word—Priam—to the tape, before rewinding and switching to send. Schnabeln could get out and screech the message to the Trepan team. That would take only a short while. The correct place for sending was near the Brandenburg Gate. Ten minutes, fifteen at the most. It was a waste of time now for them to go back and get Ursula’s luggage, but they should do it, if only to keep her calm. Maybe—much later that night—they would go over by the normal route, through Charlie; though Herbie thought it unlikely. His face and build would be in every Vopo’s head, every KGB man’s mind. Every member of the SSD would have it burned into their brains.
12
ANNA BLATTE HAD BEEN feeding the birds at the western corner of Treptow Park when Schnabeln arrived, a minute early. Electra had not shown yet, she told him. Electra was prompt. She would be there dead on three-thirty.
It gave Schnabeln time to break the news. Anna Blatte took it well. Then she laughed. She would have to hole up somewhere overnight. She laughed again. “I thought I had been so clever with my dismantle documents. They’re cached in the Town Hall—the Alexanderplatz. I can’t get in until tomorrow.” On Sunday the Town Hall was closed. “Never on Sundays,” she laughed again. Wasn’t that the name of a film? Schnabeln said it was, looked up and saw Electra, sitting on the bench as though she had materialised there by some act of magic.
He told Anna Blatte, good luck, instructing her in what she should say to Electra. Just whisper for her to follow him. The car was five minutes away.
Schnabeln surprised himself at his own calm. The last visit to the house on the Behrenstrasse had been unnerving. Again, he dreaded to think what might be waiting for him when he got there.
She followed like a docile child, observing all the procedures: dallying at one point, stopping at an intersection, as though making up her mind which way to go. A woman with time on her hands, on a sunny Sunday afternoon, taking a stroll.
She wore a light raincoat, open, with a blue skirt and blouse underneath, her head covered by a matching scarf. Her shoes, he noticed, were sensible—lace-ups: comfortable probably.
In the car she quietly placed her handbag on her lap, and said good day to him; asking no questions.
He heard the outer door: Ursula—his woman. Herbie rose from the table as Schnabeln ushered her in. There was none of the brusque treatment for Electra. He smiled, at ease, even looking happy, taking her in his arms and kissing her. She clung to him as if he was a log of wood in a river and she could not swim.
For Schnabeln the embrace seemed to be endless. Then Herbie, still holding Electra, pulled back. “Got him,” he grinned.
“Priam?” Scowling, realising the insecurity of his remark, Schnabeln cursed.
Herbie said it was okay. Christoph Schnabeln asked, almost in a whisper, where the man was. Herbie tilted his head towards the passage. Schnabeln mouthed a final question, and Herbie shook his head—like a doctor in some TV melodrama signifying they had lost the patient.
There was no hint of alarm in Herbie Kruger’s voice when he said they were possibly all under surveillance. Schnabeln would now go and do the final act of the Trepan operation. Herbie handed him the book.
They spoke for a few moments, Schnabeln insisting that he come back—that they all go in the Wartburg. Herbie said at least he would be sure, then, that the screech had been transmitted. He supposed they had better go to Ursula’s place: pick up her case.
“Please, darling. I need it, don’t I?”
Herbie was not certain. They might go out another way. He would have to run it ad lib. See what the opposition were up to. Yes, they would go and get her case.
After Schnabeln had left the house Herbie kissed her again, and she asked if they were really going—like a child, excited, not quite able to believe, he thought.
“We’ll get out. Don’t worry. I haven’t waited—and allowed you to wait—all these years for nothing. There’ll be comfort of a kind, peace of a kind, in the West. For a few years more, anyway.”
Again they embraced, Ursula kissing him with that same abandon as the night before. He wanted to have her, make love to her, there—now, here in this place where he had beaten out the germ with his fists. To love her here would be a cleansing action.
But there was no time, for Schnabeln would not take long, and there were still a few questions. He asked her gently; things about the way she had made contact with the new handler; who had handled her material during the period of what he called the long silence? Had she ever suspected that she was being watched
? Had anyone made another approach: even obliquely? The standard questions, in case he made it and she did not—though he asked them automatically, without thought for the reason, carefully stowing away her answers against the day of his return. Lord, they would sweat him at Warminster. The full declaration.
“All done.” Schnabeln smiled on his return, handing the book back to Herbie who took out the tape, crushed it, destroying the thing, by fire, in a metal waste basket. They would take the machine with them.
It was just after four-thirty when they left the Behrenstrasse safe house, walking the seven minutes to Schnabeln’s parked Wartburg. Herbie’s mind was clear, and he stayed silent, going through every possibility: knowing that he would wait until the last minute to make up his mind about the route out.
“Spendthrift’s in Treptow Park,” Miriam announced as the long bleeps came up.
Tubby Fincher glanced at his watch. Exactly three-thirty. Wait, he thought. It cannot be long now.
Miriam reached over to adjust the homing monitor.
“What are you playing at?” Tiptoes had become more edgy, hunched forward, occasionally drumming the fingers of his right hand.
“That last picture was fuzzy before the lens settled.”
“Warm day, isn’t it? Considering all the static, you expect some blurring. Settled down, though.”
Miriam gave a tutting reply. “Temper, temper.”
“Oh, shut up and concentrate.”
Worboys leaned over to squeeze Miriam’s hand. “Soon be over.”
She smiled, blinking slowly, and helped herself to another of his cigarettes. Worboys raised his eyes to the ceiling. “As soon as we get out, I’m going to march you into the duty free at Tegel and make you buy them all back for me.”
They laughed.
At three forty-two exactly Herbie’s long signal came bleeping loudly out of the speakers.
“Still in the Behrenstrasse,” Miriam said quietly, expecting the regular ten to fifteen seconds. When the bleeping went on—a minute, two minutes—Worboys asked if Tubby thought Herbie was trying to tell them something.
Fincher said it was possible. “I’d stand by, son, if I were you. Maybe we’re going to get the screech.”
Worboys put on the earphones, adjusting the receiver and tape controls. He did not look at Miriam or Tiptoes, concentrating on the hiss in his ears and any fluctuation on the lighted VUs in front of him.
At twelve minutes past four he heard it, the fractional zip, in his head. Less than a second. “Screech,” he shouted, pulling off the ’phones.
“You’re sure?” Fincher asked. Very quietly. Controlled.
Worboys already had the tape running back. “Absolutely certain.”
Schnabeln’s bleep came up at the expected sending point, just east of the Brandenburg Gate. “That’s it,” Fincher sighed.
Miriam leaned forward to make a fine adjustment to the map picture on the screen, her right hand steadying the consol.
Worboys, earphones draped around his neck, concentrated on transferring the screech to the cassette machine, and going through the slowing process.
The bang came from within the scanner: a series of pops, followed by a small flash and a lot of smoke.
“Shit,” said Miriam.
Tiptoes shouted, demented. “You stupid cow. She did that on purpose. Silly bitch altered the voltage selector switch.” Tiptoes had already reached down to throw the wall switches and pull out the plugs. Worboys’ machines worked from another set of power points.
“You did that on purpose. She’s blown the valves, fuses, transistors, the lot. Buggered, Mr. Fincher. We’ll get no more homer signals. We’ve lost them.”
“Sorry,” Miriam shook her head. “I’m sorry, Tiptoes, it was an accident.”
“You don’t make accidents like that. Can’t be done. You soddin’ did it on purpose.”
“Don’t be stupid, Tiptoes. Christ, I’m sorry—but why would I want to screw up the tracking?”
“Indeed why, Miss Grubb?” Tubby Fincher’s voice was so startlingly cutting that they all turned from the machines. He held a small automatic pistol pointing directly at Miriam Grubb, and had already gestured for Max and Charles, who were closing in on the girl.
“Hang about—” Worboys began.
“Get on with sorting out that screech,” snapped Fincher. “She did it on purpose. I watched the whole thing. Blatant. Nicely timed, Miss Grubb, but deliberate.”
Fincher told Max and Charles to pull her away from the machines. “Gently,” he said. “Go over her. Mouth, ears, the lot. Take away the armament.”
Worboys had found the screech and set the open-reel tape deck in motion, transferring the noise to the cassette in the unraveller. He was appalled at what was happening. “What in the name of—”
“Get on with your work and leave this to the experts,” Tubby cut him off with a warning glance.
Miriam Grubb, eased from her chair by Max and Charles, had been taken to the far end of the room, while Tubby Fincher went through her handbag.
Miriam still protested. “Why would I want to do it on purpose?” A harsh note added to her voice.
“You tell me?” Tubby Fincher was perfectly at ease: speaking softly. “Because we are not to know, at this point, what happens to Spendthrift or Herbie Kruger? Is that why? Or don’t they tell you the details?”
“Oh, come on.”
“What was the enticement, Miriam? Your husband? They tell you we sent him to a certain death? Revenge? Hatred of the Service?”
“What?”
“The Director argued for you. For this operation. I tried to keep you out, Miriam. Even warned Herbie. Just straws in the wind, my dear, but that was a deliberate act of sabotage They dangled the truth about your husband in front of you, did they? Said we did it?”
“This is nonsense.”
“No, Miriam, it’s a fair cop. A professional piece of work—from you, and from the opposition. Felt it in these old bones; I’d put down my pension they’ve spun you, girl.”
“I’m not hearing you straight, Tubby.” She had gone a grey-white: trembling slightly, anger pinching the corners of her eyes.
“They’ll get it all at Warminster, love. A lot of pressure, I should think; and excellent moves when they suborned you, as I’m dead certain they did. Gave you proof, I should think? Proof that we set your husband up.” His manner altered, hardness in the tone. “Nearly disallowed the wedding, Miriam. That’s why they put a block on you knowing you’d married into the Service. The danglers were right: we did set him up.”
“Yes,” she gave a lopsided smile. “If you know it all, there’s nothing more to be said.”
“Unless you want to come clean on why you blew the tracker. Was I right? We’re not supposed to follow what happens next, over there?” His head nodded in the general direction of East Berlin. “Big Herbie enticed, was he? They going to chop him, Miriam? Or don’t they tell all the subtleties to temporaries, out for revenge? Big Herbie in it, is he? Spun? Are we not to follow him because he’s being briefed for the return journey?”
She stood, glowering at Fincher; mouth tightly closed. Then—“Don’t be bloody stupid, Mr. Fincher.”
As Charles and Max took her away, into the other room, a dazed Worboys was reaching the final stages of unzipping the screech, tapping out the groups, so that they came up en clair on the print-out. He stopped for a moment, eyes oddly damp; an unusual storm he did not recognise brewing in his emotions. “Tell me, will you, Tubby?”
“Later, lad, when we know it all. She claw your heart a bit, did she?”
Silently, Worboys nodded.
“Known for it. In the Service.” Fincher did not seem surprised. “Hard life, young Worboys, especially with politics the way they are these days. Old loyalties dying. Every man for himself. She took her husband’s death very hard, and he wasn’t worth it. Headstrong; rose-tinted glasses—Miriam, I mean. Behaved oddly after it happened. Went on that way. She was excellent
material for a temporary spin by the opposition. Technician, of course, so no real secrets hidden up her knickers. Kind of inmate one spins on a temporary basis, and they’ve made good use of her: poor bitch.”
He gave a short sniff. It was not really Service style, what they had done to Miriam’s husband, Fincher drawled. “No option, though. We had to take him out. She saw nothing wrong with him, but he drank a lot. Bit of a blowpipe,” by which Worboys understood that Miriam’s husband had become gabby. “Got himself caught between the juggernauts. Came a purler. Could’ve put him into solitude for the rest of his natural, but there would have been questions. So we chopped him. Only way. KGB spin squad probably had some solid evidence. Easy as pulling a tooth, spinning Miss Grubb.”
After a short silence, Fincher said, “Think of Herbie.” The words sounded like a death knell.
Tiptoes coughed, his eyes not leaving the now useless machines.
Worboys, troubled and confused, completed the decipher, tearing off the print-out, passing it silently to the senior man.
It read:
TRAPEZE POSSIBLY LUZIA GABELL NOW DEAD SOURCE UNKNOWN. AM TRYING TO GET FVERYONE OUT EXCEPT JUDAS. NAME WILL BE ADDED CLEAR TO THIS MESSAGE. IF SO JUDAS WILL BE DEAD. HOPE TO COME HOME THEN. SURGEON.
Then the one word, unciphered—PRIAM.
“Got him then,” Worboys smiled: weakly, still shaken by events he did not fully understand.
“I wonder …” Tubby Fincher looked like a corpse—not just the body of skin and bones. His face appeared to have altered, becoming drawn, haggard, a terrible parchment, as though the blood had been pumped from him. He was thinking. Miriam blowing the tracking system. Herbie making contact with the man sent in by Berlin Station, and knowing about Trapeze. Spendthrift’s final message coming from the right place. Priam exposed and dead. His previous logic had to be wrong. Herbie was still alive, well and on their team. But Priam discovered and Miriam under orders—presumably—to put the tracker out of action after the final message was delivered. Tubby Fincher’s logic read that as meaning Priam’s death did not end it all. There had to be someone else—another Trapeze? Or the real Trapeze? Who in Hell?
