by Tom Gabbay
All the apartments had basic cylinder locks, easy as pie, and 5C had no extra security. I listened for a couple of seconds before getting started, just to be sure, then pulled out the two screwdrivers I’d taken from the taxi before it went up in flames. I pressed the smaller of the two, a very thin one used for electrical work, against the door frame, bending the tip to a forty-five-degree angle. I then pushed the larger tool into the lock and turned it clockwise, applying enough pressure to slightly offset the cylinder from its housing. Inserting the bent screwdriver, I got under the pins one by one and lifted until I heard the soft click as each fell into place. It took about ninety seconds—like riding a bicycle, I thought. I pushed the door open, looked around, and stepped inside.
By the time I sensed anything, it was too late—the figure flew out from behind the door like a missile, plowed into my back, and took me down with a bone-crunching tackle that would’ve made Vince Lombardi cry tears of joy. My right cheekbone broke the fall, hitting the floor with a whack and bouncing a couple of times as my attacker tried to get me in a half-nelson. My head had been the subject of so much abuse in the preceding hours that I hardly felt a thing, but I’d had just about enough of being knocked around for one day. This was the last straw.
I let out a bloodcurdling scream, grabbed the guy’s head, and flipped his body over my shoulder, landing him hard on his back. I jumped up to a kneeling position, whipped the Beretta out, and shoved the barrel up my assailant’s nostril.
“Horst!” I exclaimed.
“Jack!” he cried. “I didn’t know it was you!”
“Jesus Christ, Horst! You’re lucky I didn’t blow your goddamned head off! Are you nuts?”
“Yes, I think it must be so,” he smiled impishly. I sat there for a minute until he finally said, “May I stand up now?”
I took a deep breath and stepped away. “Sure. Get up. Get up against the the wall so I can search you.”
“I don’t carry a weapon,” he assured me as he scooped himself off the floor. I pushed him against the wall and patted him down. Once I was sure he was clean, I stowed the Beretta and he collapsed with a sigh onto the single bed that occupied one side of the tiny studio apartment. A filthy kitchenette took up the other side, with a table, chair, and television set in between. There was a box of papers in an open closet, in the process of being rifled.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I said.
“I was about to ask you the same.”
“I’m not in a very good mood, Horst, so why don’t you just tell me who sent you up here?”
“Why should anyone send me? I’m simply robbing this apartment.” He shrugged innocently. “I hope you won’t tell Hanna about it. She would be quite disappointed in me.”
“Knock it off, Horst. You’re insulting my intelligence.”
“I suppose it’s a bit far-fetched,” he admitted. “But it’s the best I can think of at the moment.”
“For Christ’s sake, is everyone in this town a spy?”
“Most have tried it at one time or another,” he smiled.
I went to the window and peeked through the blinds, wondering if he was alone. “What were you looking for anyway?”
He shrugged. I picked up one of the documents in the box, which was nothing more than an overdue electricity bill.
“This is dangerous stuff you’re mixed up in.”
“Perhaps I can take care of myself,” he grinned.
“Yeah, sure, like your friend Melik,” I said, pulling the box of papers out of the closet. I sat in the chair, grabbed a fistful, and started going through them.
“What about Melik?” he said, looking concerned. I realized that it hadn’t been much over an hour since it happened and Horst couldn’t know yet. My sense of time was a bit out of whack after the various head traumas of the morning.
“He a friend of yours?”
“My partner,” he said. “And yes, I suppose a friend, too. Where is he?”
“Dead,” I said flat out, not being in a particularly sensitive frame of mind. Horst’s face dropped, like he’d been punched in the gut, then he lowered his head and just stared at the floor. I felt bad, but it was better that he knew how things could go.
“I can’t believe it,” he said, shaking his head. “How does it happen? Was it an accident?”
“Oh no … Very deliberate. One of the bad guys killed him.”
“Killed?” he said incredulously. “Why killed?’
“Because he was pointing a Luger at the guy’s head and he let down his guard.”
“But he wouldn’t have used it….”
“Then he shouldn’t have been pointing it,” I said sharply. It was the truth and Horst had better know it. “You don’t put a gun to someone’s head unless you’re capable of pulling the trigger. Especially not when the guy is someone like this guy.”
“Melik had a wife and a young child,” Horst said softly. “Who will tell them?”
“Nobody will tell them, at least not the truth,” I said. “It wouldn’t do them any good, anyway.” I continued examining Kovinski’s papers. There was nothing useful—overdue bills and overdrawn bank statements.
“But he was a hero,” Horst said. “Perhaps even he saved your life. Shouldn’t they know it?”
“I don’t know if he was a hero or not, Horst, and to tell you the truth, it doesn’t make a goddamned bit of difference if he was or he wasn’t, because he’s dead. And whatever they tell you, a dead hero is worthless, no good to anyone. Certainly not to his wife or kid. I’m very sorry for them, but it’s done and there’s nothing we can do to make it better. That’s just how it is. If you don’t like it, you’d better walk out the door right now and tell Sam you quit.”
He looked at me, thoroughly taken aback. “Since when did you know I am working for Sam?”
“I just figured it out,” I said.
“How?”
“You phoned someone this morning to tell them about the picture of Kovinski you found in my jacket. Right?”
“Yes …” he reluctantly admitted.
“They told you to arrange for Melik to be there when I needed a taxi, didn’t they?”
“That’s right, yes,” he said, looking more impressed by the minute.
“Well, Melik didn’t come after me because I stiffed him for the fare, so someone told him to intercept the car. Since Sam arranged for my transportation, it had to be him. And you just said that Melik probably saved my life, even though I didn’t tell you what happened, which means you knew what he was doing. So you’re working for Sam.”
“Yes, it’s logical,” he said. “I think.”
“Sam told you to watch me, huh?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“He has told me that you sometimes can be a lost cannon—”
“Loose cannon,” I corrected him.
“Yes, that’s right. So I arranged to meet you at the beer hall. I was only to find out what I could and report it back to Sam. That’s all. No one was supposed to get killed. Poor Melik.”
Yeah, poor Melik, I thought. It wasn’t the smoothest move Sam had ever made. Using raw talent to watch your own people is one thing, but sending them up against trained killers like Chase and Johnson is quite another. It meant he was operating without a lot of elbow room. Unsure who he could trust in the Company, he had to use his own operatives, even if they were a bit green. Sam always had a few handpicked assets on the street, small-time criminals, like Horst, or more experienced reprobates like myself. He felt crooks already had the instincts and some of the skills necessary for the line of work, and he was more confident of their loyalties because they were new to the game. “An old whore might know all the tricks,” he explained to me once, “but that’s because she’s fucking every kid on the block. Give me a virgin with natural talent every time.”
Horst was inexperienced, all right, but I wasn’t sure about the natural talent. I thought about sending him home. I’d grown kind of fond of
him and I didn’t want him to end up like Melik. I guess I felt some sort of obligation, maybe in part because of Hanna. But I knew no matter what I said, he wouldn’t go home, so I let him stick around. At least that way I could keep an eye on him.
We gave the place a pretty thorough going-over and came up empty. The only thing I got out of his papers was that Kovinski had been in West Berlin since February, had paid none of his bills, including rent, and had seen the 732 marks in his bank account dwindle to less than zero. There’d been a couple of small cash deposits recently, but nothing significant. He seemed to be a voracious reader of newspapers and magazines of all kinds, in both German and Polish, and had a newly issued borrowing card from the public library. There was no address book in the apartment, no employment information, no diary, no photos, nothing at all to help pick up the trail. I sat down and contemplated the big fat dead end I was facing, thought I’d better locate Sam, see what he had in mind when he arranged to spring me.
“Look at this,” Horst said, pulling a dozen pamphlets out of a jacket that was lying crumpled on the closet floor. He passed one over to me. “Kovinski has been reading some propaganda.”
“Or handing it out,” I said, considering the number he had in his possession.
The handout consisted of a couple of badly printed pages on cheap paper, titled “Die Wahrheit fiber die Wand” (“The Truth About the Wall”). It was pretty standard stuff:
They panic in West Berlin! But why? It is the aggressive policy of the NATO allies that created the wall which today divides our city! The imperialist forces, led by the United States, have systematically converted West Berlin into a center of provocation, where ninety espionage organizations attempt acts of sabotage against our socialist brothers!
The protective wall serves the cause of world peace! It halts the advance of the neo-Hitlerites toward the East! The imperialist espionage centers, their Fascist soldiers’ associations, their youth poisoners, and their currency racketeers have been walled in! We have erected this wall as a safeguard against the Fascist forces who today dominate Western Europe and threaten our people tomorrow!
And so on. Typical of the ranting and raving, twisting of facts, hyperbole, embellishment, exaggeration, and downright lies put out on a daily basis by the East German state propaganda machine. Except that this particular piece of nonsense came off a Company printing press. I’d have put money on it.
Why would the KGB put its own asset on the street, passing out anti-American tripe, when he was supposed to be infiltrating the CIA? It didn’t make any sense. And Kovinski sure as hell wasn’t a committed Marxist standing on a street corner handing out truth on his own time. On the other hand, it was classic Company image building, and it fit right into the profile that was being built for him—a fanatic Communist with a violent hatred for the “forces of imperialism,” an extremist who would love nothing more than to put a bullet in the president of the United States. His makers would ensure that people noticed him on the street, too, maybe even have him cause some sort of disturbance so that passersby would remember his face. After the event, witnesses would come forward to testify about their encounter with the crazy leftist. Kovinski probably believed he was infiltrating some Communist student group when, in fact, he was dancing on strings he didn’t even know existed. And whoever was putting him together had him right where they wanted him. A crazy Commie with a gun and a grudge.
“Where’s Sam now?” I asked Horst.
“I don’t know,” he lied. I took the receiver off its cradle and put it in his hand.
“Call him,” I said. He gave me a look, but he dialed. When Sam got on the line I grabbed the phone.
“When did they put you in charge of the Junior Secret Agent Club?” I said.
“Didn’t you get your decoder ring?” he shot back without missing a beat. “You and Horst get together?”
“Sure. He tried out his flying Joe Jitzu move on me,” I said. Horst sulked in a comer, but Sam laughed.
“Anybody hurt?”
“The Turk isn’t so good.”
“Yeah, too bad about that.”
“What the hell were you thinking, sending him up against guys like Chase and Johnson?”
“I was thinking about saving your ass, Jack.”
“You’re going about it in a pretty strange way,” I said.
“I don’t have a whole hell of a lot to work with, you being public enemy number one and all.”
“Why did you go along with Powell’s bullshit?”
“Because at this point I don’t know who’s doing what to who. This thing could lead anywhere.”
I wanted to make sure I heard him right. “So you accept that there’s a conspiracy?”
There was a pause. If I hadn’t heard him breathing, I would’ve thought we’d been cut off. Finally he sighed heavily and said, “There’s some strange shit going on all right. I don’t know what’s up, but something is.”
It was a relief. I was starting to think Sam had gone soft in the head, going along with all that crap Powell was shoveling.
“What’ve you got there?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
“You sure about that?” He sounded surprised.
“Sure I’m sure.”
“Nothing?”
“The apartment’s clean, Sam. Just some unpaid bills and a library card.”
There was a pause, then he said, “Gimme a couple of hours, maybe I can get to Kovinski.”
“Where is he?”
“That’s what I need the couple of hours to find out. Hang tight and call me back on this number,” he said, then hung up.
Naturally, I was happy to learn that Sam hadn’t cut me loose after all, but something didn’t sit right. Maybe I was reading too much into it, but it threw him when I said we’d come up empty in Kovinski’s apartment, like I’d gone off script or something. And in all the years I’d worked for him, Sam had never put a shadow on me—at least not that I was aware of. I knew that he never played anything straight up the middle, but up until now I’d always known where he was coming from.
Anyway, there was nothing to do but wait, so Horst and I went back to the Alfa. He started reading Kovinski’s pamphlet out loud, translating as he went, and I pulled out the Turkish smokes, offering him one. He turned it down then went quiet, and I realized in midpuff that it was because the cigarettes had belonged to Melik.
“Did you know him long?” I asked.
“Not so long,” he said. “Just a few months. We had a business together.”
“Stealing cars,” I said, and he gave me a wary look. “Don’t worry, you’re sitting in one.” I pointed out the wired ignition cables and he looked impressed.
“Perhaps you can teach me this.”
“What the hell kind of thief can’t hot-wire a car?”
“It was a new venture,” he explained. “We took only cars which had the keys inside. You’d be surprised how many that is.” He paused a moment, then said, “Perhaps I will smoke one of Melik’s cigarettes. As a tribute.”
“Why not?” I said, and lit him up.
We smoked quietly for a moment. Horst absentmindedly stared at one of Kovinski’s pamphlets, then said, “You know, I think I will speak with Melik’s wife. If it was me, I would want my child to know for what cause I died.”
“What cause did he die for?”
“Freedom,” he said without hesitation.
There were a million cynical responses to that, but I thought I’d let it stand. What the hell, maybe he was right. Maybe that was the cause Melik had died for, even if he didn’t know it. And maybe in Berlin you couldn’t afford to be cynical about freedom because you only had to look over your back wall to see what it meant not to have it.
I wondered how much Horst knew about what was going on. Not much, I guessed, and found out I was right when I probed a bit. I decided to keep him in the dark, at least for the moment. He started reading the pamphlet again, then stopped.
“Strange
,” he said.
“What’s that?”
“This address. It’s an unusual neighborhood for a group like this.”
“Let me see that,” I said, grabbing the paper out of his hand. Sure enough, the back page of the pamphlet was stamped with an address:
Kommission für Wahrheit
Lagerweg, 455
Haselhorst, Berlin
SEVENTEEN
Horst made himself useful as a navigator, breaking us loose from midday traffic with a few choice shortcuts and finding the out-of-the-way industrial park where Lagerweg 455 was located with relative ease. The building itself was a shabby, three-story brick warehouse of late-nineteenth-century vintage, situated at the bottom of a cul-de-sac beside one of the canals that ran through the northwestern corner of Berlin. Horst was right. It wasn’t the sort of place you’d expect to find the “Commission for Truth.”
There was a fair amount of activity in the street as workers made their way back from lunch hour, but the Alfa was a bit out of place among the beat-up vans and delivery trucks, so I swung around and parked back on the main road, a couple of blocks away. I tried to get Horst to stay with the car, but he was already out the door and I could see he wasn’t going to be dissuaded.
“Two is better than one,” he said, but I wasn’t so sure about that. Maybe there was nothing to this place, just a bogus address plucked out of thin air for the brochure, but my gut said otherwise. And if there was something going on in there, I’d have enough to worry about without adding Horst to the mix.
There was a bend in the road where a small crowd was gathered around a lunch wagon. I told Horst to get a sausage and make himself inconspicuous. “Keep an eye on the building.”
“But—”
“If I run into trouble, I’ll need you out here.”
“How will I know that you’re in trouble?”
“If I’m not back in twenty minutes, I’m in trouble.”
