Joseph was ushered into Simmons’ office. The older man glanced up from his desk, then returned his attention to the papers in front of him.
“Sit down, Joseph,” he said.
Joseph stared at the two large sofas and wondered if he was supposed to sit on a particular one. He had just spent months in a training environment where the candidates were never off the clock. Everything was a test. The trainers did not waste a single opportunity to fuck with their minds. Was this the same? Was Simmons testing him? If he sat on the sofa nearest to him, would that mean something? If he sat on the other, would that mean something else? Or… was he being tested for his ability to make snap decisions? But Joseph was well aware that Simmons hated the danger inherent in snap decisions. Or was this display of indecision damning him… or… was he showing himself to be careful and discerning? He flicked a glance at Simmons. His mentor had stopped working, and sat looking at him. Joseph smiled.
“Choose a sofa, old man. It’s not a fucking test.”
“I know,” said Joseph, “I just wondered if you had a preference.”
“They’re sofas…” Simmons said, walking around his desk and heading towards Joseph, “… not career choices.”
Simmons sat and Joseph took a seat opposite him.
“So, you said you have a job for me,” said Joseph.
“I do.”
“Who will be my number one?”
Simmons smiled.
“You’re going to do this alone.”
“What? That’s against protocol. I’m supposed to carry out my first operations with a senior number one.”
“You are also obliged to follow orders without question,” stated Simmons. “Why do you think you can complain about one rule being broken by breaking another?” Joseph opened his mouth to speak. “And if you are about to say any more on the subject, you’ll be breaking another rule.” Simmons smiled again. “‘Don’t argue with superiors’.” Joseph closed his mouth. “I have a reason for sending you alone. Let’s leave it at that.”
“Do I not have the right to ask why?”
“Joseph… of course you do. But not the right to demand an answer. Shall we get on, now?” Joseph nodded. “Good. I need you to go to Berlin and delete a terrorist called Aabzari Al-Ghazali.” Simmons leant forward and handed Joseph a file. “You have all you need to find him in there.”
Joseph opened the folder and studied the contents.
“Any questions?” asked Simmons.
Joseph looked up and sighed.
“Only the one I’m not allowed to ask.”
“Then, old man, I suggest strongly that you refrain from asking it.”
Joseph went back to looking at the papers and photographs in the folder.
“Anything else?” Joseph asked.
“Yes. It needs to look like a mugging gone wrong. You know, take his wallet and watch; no head shots, just frenzied body shots…”
“Consider it done, Sir,” Joseph said rising from the sofa.
Joseph stood for a while and watched Simmons go back to his desk and continue working. Joseph feigned a cough. Simmons spoke without looking up.
“You still here, Joseph? Your plane leaves in less than two hours.”
Joseph turned towards the door and took a couple of paces, then stopped and looked back.
“You’re really not going to tell me, are you?”
“Goodbye Joseph. Have a safe flight,” Simmons said, picking up the desk phone and focusing on dialling.
The hotel that had been booked for Joseph in the name of Thomas Frintern was not in a good part of Berlin, but the excitement of being a field agent, actually in the field, was ample compensation. Joseph sat on the single bed with the MI6 file open in front of him. Next to the red folder was his fake passport and his Walther PPK. However, if this was going to look like a mugging gone wrong he was not going to be able to use that to do the deed. He opened the file, and thumbed through a number of pictures of Aabzari Al-Ghazali. The man had a very Arabian look to him; dark skin, darker around the eyes, Semitic nose with wide nostrils, but even though he could have been an archetypical terrorist, something about him was appealing. It was a sort of openness that if faked does not work, so if detected, can only be sincere. Therefore, the question remained, what had Aabzari Al-Ghazali done to deserve a red file? The phone next to the bed rang. Joseph closed the folder and picked up the receiver.
“Yes?”
“Herr Frintern?” said an unfamiliar voice.
“Speaking.”
“Herr Thomas Frintern?”
“Yes, who is this?”
“I wondered if you would be interested in a scenic tour of Berlin?” the voice continued.
“I might be, but you’d have to be very convincing if you want me to say yes,” Joseph replied carefully.
“I’m sure that you would be very pleased with our offer. It can be tailored for the most discerning tastes.”
“My tastes can be quite demanding,” Joseph said.
“So can ours, especially this time of year,” the voice replied.
“I’ll need to think about it. Give me fifteen minutes.”
Joseph replaced the phone on its cradle and looked at his watch. He placed the red folder into an attaché case and set the two combination locks, then put the case into the wardrobe. The Walther clicked satisfyingly into the leather chest holster. He pulled the zip of his jacket fully up to his throat knowing that as soon as he left the building the bitter November winds would be ready to assault him.
The café was a short walk from the hotel. Joseph sat at a table, alone. Two men approached him. Joseph looked up and studied their faces. It was only supposed to be one man. Joseph squirmed slightly. He could feel the reassuring weight of the Walther under his jacket, but nevertheless he could detect sweat collecting inside his collar.
“Herr Frintern?” asked one of the men.
Joseph recognised the same German voice he had just conversed with on the phone.
“Yes,” Joseph replied tersely, but he was aching to ask who this other man was.
“I’m Herr Klaus Becker from the tour group,” said the German, “and this is my American colleague, Herr Boris Kennedy.”
“I thought I was just meeting with you, Herr Becker?”
“My American colleague insisted that he could be of assistance… in spite of my protestations.”
“You should know, Herr Becker,” said the American in a lazy, slurred, southern accent, “that Americans don’t take no for an answer easily.”
“I am aware of American tenacity. I just hoped that a little sensitivity might be forthcoming,” said Herr Becker.
Boris ignored the German and sat next to Joseph. Something touched Joseph’s thigh under the table. Boris seemed to be offering him something. Joseph took it and stowed the small package under his jacket while watching Herr Becker take a seat.
“Do you have everything you need?” asked the German. Joseph nodded. “Then we will leave you to enjoy Berlin.”
“What?” said Boris, “we’re not staying for a beer?”
“No, Herr Kennedy, we are not. We are going to leave Herr Frintern to do whatever he needs to do. If he wants our help, he will contact us.” He turned to Joseph. “Is that not right?”
“I’m afraid, Mr Kennedy, that it is. Maybe some other time,” said Joseph.
Boris got up reluctantly and was hastened away by Herr Becker. Joseph reached under the table and checked that the package he had just received was not about to fall to the ground the moment he stood up. Then he carefully stood, and started walking back to his hotel.
The package contained a small revolver. Its six chambers were loaded and the dull metal sported bright spots where the serial numbers had been filed off. Joseph lay back on the lumpy bed and repeatedly spun the revolver’s cylinder.
Aabzari Al-Ghazali worked at the Hotel Adlon Kempinski on Unter Den Linden as a maintenance man. He lived on the other side of town in a small one-bedroom fl
at. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays he worked the late shift from four o’clock in the afternoon to four AM. Early morning would be the best time to get to him. Joseph knew, from surveillance in the folder, that Al-Ghazali walked to a bus stop on Unter Den Linden passing the Brandenburg Gate. Just after four in the morning the streets would be quiet, and that’s when he would do it. It couldn’t be more perfect. In an urban environment the hours from three to five were known as the ‘kill zone’; most murders happen between those hours; nothing would seem suspicious. Today was Wednesday and Simmons had wanted this to be a quick in-and-out, so tonight was the night.
Joseph picked up the phone and dialled nine for an outside line. From memory he called Klaus Becker’s number.
“Becker, hallo?”
“Herr Becker?” Joseph asked.
“Hello, Herr Frintern. Nice to hear from you. How can I help?”
“I need a car. Tonight.”
At three AM Joseph was waiting in the shadows across the road from his hotel. A black Mini cruised to a stop a few yards away from him in the exact placed that he had arranged. The car’s lights snapped off, but the engine rumbled on quietly with the occasional cough. Water vapour puffed from the single exhaust pipe rising nonchalantly into the freezing air.
Joseph pulled his collar as high as he could and moved to the waiting car. He climbed in and closed the door. Boris grinned at him.
“Good evening Herr Bond,” he said turning the headlights back on and stealthily moving off.
“What are you doing here?”
“I thought you might like a little help on your first job,” said Boris.
“Why do you think it’s my first job?”
“I know… trust me, I know, Herr Bond.”
“And you can cut out the James Bond shit!” Joseph snapped.
“And there you have it,” joked Boris taking a corner a little too fast, “only a rookie would have such a sense of humour failure.”
“Listen… Boris, this is an MI6 operation, so I am at a loss as to what the CIA are so excited about?”
“Young man, you got it all ass backwards. This is a CIA gig. You’re just the hired help, matey.”
“You’re talking shit,” Joseph retorted.
“You think?”
“Yeah, I do. Try to get your colonial head around this. Who’s chauffeuring whom?”
“Whom?” echoed Boris, “you a college kid?”
“University.”
“Right,” said Boris. “I’d better mind my Ps and Qs around you then. Don’t want to embarrass myself, do I?”
Boris stopped the car a short distance from the Brandenburg Gate. The two men sat and watched, waiting for their mark to emerge from the hotel and start the last walk of his life.
It was four twenty-three when Al-Ghazali appeared. He walked slowly in the direction of the towering stone monument.
“You’re on, kid,” said Boris.
Joseph left the car and moved quickly to the nearest arch of the monument, just moments before the solitary figure of Al-Ghazali got there. Joseph stepped out of the shadows as the hunched man passed him.
“Excuse me,” Joseph called out.
The man stopped and looked back.
“Can you help me with something?”
The man took a step towards him.
“You’re English,” he asked.
“Yes,” said Joseph, “do you speak English?”
“Sure,” said Al-Ghazali, and retraced his steps until he was face to face with Joseph.
Joseph pulled the revolver from his pocket. Al-Ghazali let out a gasp and tried to run, but Joseph held him tightly by his arm.
“I’m sorry about this,” Joseph said, feeling a disquieting mix of sadness and excitement.
“But I did what they asked,” the terrified man shouted, “I did what they said. You can’t do this. Please, I beg you, please don’t do this. I have a family in Iraq… children.”
He pulled a wallet from his pocket, threw it open and showed Joseph the pictures within.
“Look… my children. Please… please… I did what they asked… please.”
Joseph emptied all six chambers of the revolver into the man’s torso. Al-Ghazali stumbled backwards, but Joseph held him up. He looked Joseph direct in the eyes; shocked, beseeching, then fell to the ground. Joseph bent down and removed the man’s watch. The corpse of Al-Ghazali still clung firmly to his wallet, and Joseph could only wrestle it from his grasp by standing on his arm. He removed the few Euros from the tattered leather, then let it fall. The photographs the man had moments before been trying to show him dislodged on impact with the ground and became confetti on the winter winds. The assassin ran back to the waiting Mini, climbed in, and the two men disappeared into the cold night.
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Chapter 23
After a few minutes driving, Boris broke the silence.
“So, how was that?” he said.
“All right,” Joseph said unconvincingly.
“First one’s always the toughest.”
“If you say so,” Joseph said looking out of the window through moistened eyes.
Boris reached out towards Joseph.
“I’m fine,” shouted Joseph, “I don’t need your help or your fucking sympathy!”
“I…” Boris stammered.
“Stick it up your fucking American arse.”
“I was just trying to take the gun,” said Boris. “I need to get rid of it.”
Joseph grabbed the gun from his lap and slammed it into Boris’ open hand.
“Thanks,” said Boris, “glad to know you’re not upset, then.”
The car stopped to disembark Joseph at the same place it had earlier picked him up. Without a word Joseph left the car and started towards his hotel. In the deathly silence of the early morning street he faintly heard Boris say, ‘You’re welcome’.
He climbed the stairs, unlocked the door to his room and entered. The door slammed behind him, and he spun around. Two men stood between him and the entrance. One, late middle-aged and portly, wearing a mildly stained overcoat and a tired expression. The other was young and well, but cheaply, dressed. In complete contrast to the older man, the younger looked eager, like an excited puppy that is yet to experience life’s first slap-down, and is totally unaware that it is definitely coming.
The older man flashed a police badge, then rubbed his nostrils with the back of his hand.
“Herr Frintern?” he inquired.
“Yes,” Joseph answered.
“Could you tell me where you have been tonight?”
“I went for a walk.”
“But it’s very cold.”
“I… I couldn’t sleep… I have trouble sleeping,” said Joseph.
“You have something on your mind, Herr Frintern?”
Joseph looked away momentarily and noticed that his attaché case lay unopened on the bed. He stretched his arms and yawned.
“Look, Officer, I’m a bit tired so…”
“Would you please to open the case?” the older policeman said nodding towards the bed.
“Yes, I would. It has personal things in it,” Joseph said.
“We will be very discreet.”
“With respect, I don’t care. I have done nothing wrong and this is an infringement of my civil liberties.”
“I understand,” the older policeman said calmly.
“I’m just a visitor to your country who is having trouble sleeping, that’s all. So, if you’d be so kind…” Joseph took a pace towards them with an outstretched hand towards the door.
The young man moved slightly to completely block the entrance, and the older man side-stepped Joseph and walked a few paces further into the room. Joseph was now flanked. He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.
“You say something interesting, there,” said the older man. “Why are you in Berlin?”
“I don’t have to explain myself to you.”
Th
e policeman laughed.
“I am afraid, Herr Frintern, that you do.”
“I want to call the British Consulate. This is an outrage,” Joseph said raising his voice.
“That is not going to be possible,” the policeman said moving his overcoat a little to one side and exposing a sidearm holstered at his waist. “You need to come with us.”
The young policeman moved from the doorway and reached for the attaché case on the bed. Joseph pushed him away with force. The man fell backwards and crashed into the bedside table. Joseph heard a loud click, and looked up to see the older man had drawn his gun and cocked the hammer.
For a few seconds all three men simply looked at each other as if none of them knew what to do next. A knock came at the door. It opened gently, and Boris’ head appeared between door and doorframe.
“Good evening gentlemen,” he said. “May I have a word, Inspector?”
The younger man got up from the floor and brushed himself down. The two policemen followed Boris out into the hallway. Joseph could hear the hushed conversation, but couldn’t understand a word; they were speaking in German. A few minutes later, he heard footsteps on the stairs and Boris re-entered the room alone.
“I think your visit to Berlin may be at an end,” Boris said.
“What did you say to them?”
“That I’d take you straight to the airport.”
“But my flight isn’t until eight.”
“Well,” mused Boris, “do you want to wait at the airport or the police station?”
Joseph packed up his belongings and the two men left the hotel.
The bar at Tegel international airport, to which Joseph and Boris had gravitated, could have been any bar at any airport in the western world, but it was open at six thirty in the morning, which was good enough for the two spies. They sat in the near empty establishment drinking coffee. Joseph had opted for a ham sandwich as well.
“You don’t have to worry,” said Boris, “the local police are always sniffing around. It makes them feel that they actually have a purpose. They only picked on you because you’re new. They thought they could push you around. You’ll get used to them. They’re more of a nuisance than anything else. Just tell them to fuck off and they go home screaming for their mommies.”
If The Bed Falls In Page 19
