Quiller KGB q-13

by Adam Hall

  He didn't say anything for a bit. 'You could be pushing your luck. And mine. But I wish you well.'

  I liked his manners. We were moving very fast now into the end-phase of the mission because Gorbachev's scheduled arrival was tomorrow morning and I'd have to do a lot of work and take a lot of calculated risks and if I went down with a shot in the spine or ran foul of East German Intelligence and had to pop the capsule or got washed up on a rubbish tip for the want of a better grave he was leaving me with a last signal I could take comfort in as the dark came down; I wish you well.

  'I'll remember that.'

  'When you're not there to answer the phone, will anyone else?'

  'Yes. Gunter Blum.'

  'Is he a professional?'

  'No, but he's totally reliable and he'll do anything to get that pass.'

  'For his wife?'

  'That's right. Use German; he hasn't any English.'

  'More?'

  'Just one thing — I had to abandon the BMW. It's red hot and the police will be keeping a long-distance watch on it for a while and then they'll impound it and inform the rental company. I assume they can't trace, it back to you.'

  'I used a sleeper with false papers. How soon do you want another car?'

  'Not yet, but have one standing by and I'll tell you where to leave it for me.'

  'Any specific model?'

  'Something fast.'

  'Anything else?'

  'No. I'll keep in contact, don't worry.'

  Over and out.

  Gunter put the tray on the kitchen table for me and I told him to sit down while I was eating. 'Listen to me. Today and perhaps tonight I'm going to ask you to drive me wherever I want to go. I shan't ask you to follow anyone or break the speed limit or the law in any way, but I might want to take over the cab and leave you behind in the street.'

  He sat scratching the blister on his huge hand, watching me with his head lowered and his eyes lifted. 'I don't know that I — '

  'If you'll let me do that, you can tell the police later, if necessary, that I took your cab at gunpoint and threw you out. That will leave you in the clear. Is that frying-pan still hot?'

  He took a second to switch his thoughts.

  'Yes.'

  'Drop this one back for a minute, will you?'

  I can't stand them runny.

  He lumbered away and I did some thinking and when he came back with the egg I told him, 'I've made arrangements for you to pick up the cost of a replacement cab in case I do in fact take over and write it off. The funds will be in your name at the Ost-Deutschebanke in Dmitroffstrasse and all you need to do is show them your ID card. If I don't damage the cab, then take enough from the funds to cover my bill, and be generous. The balance can stay there and it'll be picked up.'

  'I don't like it.' Scratching his blister. 'You can lose your licence easy in this city. They get you for the slightest — '

  'I will look after that too, but you'll have to trust me. If you can't, then forget it.' I wanted to use the cab because I was going to try making a switch in the streets and it's a terribly difficult thing to pull off, but quite a bit easier if you can sit in the back of a taxi and check the environment the whole time without having to drive; you can also get out and do some work on foot and have it follow you around as a mobile base.

  'Whether you decide to trust me or not,' I told him, 'there'll be an envelope at the bank for you with an official Emigration Office pass for your wife in it, sealed by the KGB.'

  In a moment, 'By the KGB?'

  'I'm not a member of their organisation, but I've got useful connections.' With emphasis, 'The pass will not be a forgery.'

  He took time again before he answered. 'I'll do whatever you say.'

  Cone made contact soon after four in the afternoon when the early-winter gloom was settling over the city. I'd spent the day working on the mechanics of the switch I'd have to do and testing them out. It would need darkness, and Cone caught me within an hour of leaving the safe-house.

  'I've just had a call,' he said. 'It was for you, but when I said you were unavailable he agreed to give me the message.'

  'Did he use a parole?'

  'No. He said his name was Geissler, and that he's got something for you from Lena.'

  'He just said Lena? Not Lena Pabst?'

  'That's right.'

  'Anything else?'

  'He left a number for you to call.'

  I wrote it down.

  'This was minutes ago?'

  'I phoned you right away. Does the name mean anything?'

  'Geissler? No.'

  'When she phoned yesterday,' Cone said, 'she said she'd got some documents for you, remember?'

  'Yes.'

  A shrug in his tone. 'It could be that.'

  'Or it could be someone in Trumpeter.'

  After a bit he said, 'Yes, in which case you'll have to step gingerly.'

  'I'll work on it and report back.'

  I rang off and gave it some thought. Lena Pabst could have had someone with her when she'd started infiltrating Trumpeter, and he could be Geissler. Or someone in Trumpeter itself could have gone through her papers after she'd been shot dead, and found my number at the hotel and decided it was worth trying. They would have been desperate to know how much she'd found out and what she'd passed on.

  Pick up the phone.

  'Speaking.'

  He had a quiet voice, though not passive; quiet in the same way as Shepley's.

  'I'm told you've got something for me.'

  I was listening very hard, particularly for the sound of aircraft in the background, or an office PA system. I was probably speaking to Werneuchen Airforce Base.

  'Yes,' he said.

  I hadn't turned the light on in the room, and the distant glow from the Wall was coming through the window.

  'How do I obtain it?'

  The brief, circumspect language of caution. I might even be speaking to the chief of the Trumpeter operation.

  'We would agree on a rendezvous.'

  She hadn't mentioned anyone. She hadn't said, I know someone who can help me.

  'I'm willing to do that.'

  'You would have to be alone.'

  'I agree.'

  I might even be speaking to Volper.

  'Then we shall rendezvous at six o'clock this evening, in Karl Liebknechtstrasse. Is that convenient for you?'

  'It is.'

  'What car will you be driving?'

  I was trying hard to detect an accent. In a blind rdv it can help if you can establish the other party's voice in the memory. This man's accent was educated and, I thought, Jewish.

  'I'll take a taxi,', I said.

  'Very well. Tell the driver to go east along Karl Liebknechtstrasse and pass the church and cross Liebknecht Bridge. Tell him to put you down between there and Spandauerstrasse. Do you understand?'

  Said I did.

  'When you get out of the taxi, forget to tip the driver. Walk a short distance and go back and give him the tip.'

  I liked his style.

  'Understood.'

  'Then walk towards Spandauerstrasse. You will be met.'

  'What do I look for?'

  'Just keep walking. I will meet you.'

  Captain Friebourg… Will Captain Friebourg report immediately to Wing Command…

  Faint, but clear, metallic, a woman's voice.

  Werneuchen.

  'All right,' I said.

  'I repeat. You will come alone. If I see anyone who might be with you, I shall not meet you, and of course you will receive nothing.'

  'Understood.'

  The line went dead.

  A slight tingling along the nerves, but this was normal. Russian roulette is like that; it worries the primitive brain; and this was Russian roulette, though the odds were shorter: they were even. Either the man had been a friend of Lena Pabst's and had been working for me alongside her, or he was in the Trumpeter cell, and it might be fun to put it a little differently: tonight, if I k
ept the rendezvous, I could obtain valuable, even vital information on their operation that might advance Quickstep like a slingshot and send me straight to the objective. Or I could walk into a trap.

  Ask for support.

  You're not -

  Ask Cone. Call him now.

  You're not thinking. He could put six people into the field — he said he'd got six standing by — or Yasolev could put fifty into the field and I wouldn't be taking any risk, but this man Geissler sounded professional and he would put his own people into the field to make sure I went to the rendezvous alone, and they would report to him and he wouldn't even show up.

  If I were going to the rendezvous it wouldn't be to waste time.

  They could finish you off, don't you -

  Of course I see.

  Call Cone and get support. You can't -

  Oh for Christ's sake shuddup.

  All right then, there wouldn't be a chance of seeing the trap in time and doing anything about it, if this were a move by Trumpeter. But the rdv was set up in a lighted street at a busy time in the evening and there'd be people around and police patrols on routine duty in the area and this made a difference, gave me an edge.

  Bullshit.

  Well yes, if you want to put it that way, I agree. I'd go to this rendezvous even if it were at midnight in a deserted wharf on the riverside with not a soul in sight, because I wanted to reach the objective for Quickstep and that might be the only way to do it.

  So I told Gunter I wanted the cab at 5:30 this evening and he said he'd stand by.

  'What time do you eat?'

  His eyes in the mirror. 'Any time I can make it.'

  North on Friedrichstrasse towards Unter den Linden.

  5:42.

  'Take a loop or two. We're a bit early.'

  He used Behrenstrasse.

  At thirteen minutes to six we were back on Friedrichstrasse and turned east along Unter den Linden. There was rush-hour traffic, but less heavy than it would have been on the other side of the Wall, where there were more private cars.

  At five minutes to six we crossed Marx Engels Bridge and I saw the church coming up on the left.

  'Gunter. I want you to drop me in Karl Liebknechtstrasse, halfway between the church and Spandauerstrasse. When I get out, make a circuit of the block and cruise past the place where you left me.'

  'Very good.'

  'Cruise past there twice. If you don't see me, park at the church and wait for one hour. If I don't show up, go and find a cafe and have your meal. After that you're free.'

  'Very good.'

  Not really, but he didn't know that.

  The adrenalin was already starting to flow: I was feeling high. The organism was going through the process of trying to survive, stopping digestion, diverting blood to the muscles, tightening the nerves. Fight or flight, so forth, but there might not be a chance to do either.

  We don't like a blind rendezvous, even with support in the field, even with an overkill response mapped out, because the timing can be critical and the other party can make his strike and get clear before we can do a single thing about it. Some bright spark at Norfolk did a survey of the past ten years' history of intelligence and terrorist operations and came out with the figures: in the total number of a hundred and seven blind rendezvous actions, nineteen were carried out safely and in sixty-three cases the agent was kidnapped and in twenty-five cases he was killed, in fourteen cases by a long-distance shot.

  Three minutes to six, the blood singing.

  Two minutes, the mouth dry.

  One minute, and the thought quick as a bullet — you shouldn't have come.

  'All right, drop me just here.'

  21: STEPS

  I walked six paces, turned and walked back.

  'Supper's on me.'

  Be generous; 250 marks. Placate the gods. Thanked me, surprised.

  I started walking again. A woman with two little girls, one of them swinging on her arm; three businessmen, visitors from the West, look at their suits — one of them waved at Gunter but he didn't stop. Walking steadily. A priest of some sort, holding a woman by the shoulders, offering his handkerchief; a man eating bread from a paper bag, hopeless with age; four or five girls half-running, laughing towards the bus stop; chimes from the church, six o'clock, in fourteen cases by a long-distance shot.

  Squeal of brakes and the sound of an engine quite close and I turned round.

  'Good evening.'

  He was out of the van and gesturing for me to get in, a man with a thick body in a black padded ski-jacket, no expression on his compact face, the eyes nowhere, the whole attitude totally impersonal.

  I got in and sat down on the bench-type seat and he came in after me so that I was between the two of them and the driver botched the gears in and got moving as the two men prodded me in the sides with standard service revolvers and I didn't work out any kind of action because the finger has to move less than two centimetres on the trigger to produce the effect and a double elbow strike would have to move across a much greater distance than that and it'd never make impact in time.

  Handcuffs, the old-fashioned kind, steel, possibly military police issue at Werneuchen; a black bag over the head, smelling of oil, perhaps gun oil.

  No one spoke.

  What would anyone have said — One move and we'll blow you away? They weren't the kind of people to state the obvious. Don't worry, I'm not going to try anything, and nor was I.

  We took a left off Karl Liebknechtstrasse into Spandauer — it must have been Spandauer because we'd turned within half a minute; then a right and two lefts and I stopped trying to work out the track we were leaving because I didn't know the topography too well on this side of the Wall. I'd have to rely on the time, if I could get a look at my watch or theirs or a clock when we arrived: given an approximate estimate of the speed of the van, including stops, I could use a map and more or less establish the destination as being one of a dozen points according to which streets we'd used, and a dozen would be better than none.

  I'd only seen the side of the van when I'd got in but it had the look of a small military transport with five bench seats and a rack for cases or kit bags along each side. None of these men were in uniform but that didn't mean anything. I didn't think the man who'd ushered me in was the one I'd spoken to on the phone, but he could be; he'd only said two words just now, good evening. He could have been the man who'd shot Lena Pabst.

  I had to raise both hands when I tried to ease the neck of the cloth bag they'd pulled down over my head, but I didn't get far before the man on my right dug the muzzle of his gun into my side, bruising a rib.

  'Keep still. Keep your hands on your knees.'

  'I can't breathe.'

  He just dug the gun in again and said nothing.

  I could in fact breathe adequately but I wanted very much to take in more oxygen for the muscles. I didn't think there'd be a chance of doing anything until they got me out of the van but I didn't know what they were going to do after that and I wanted to be ready to make a break if I could, because this was a strictly shut-ended situation and if I left it too late they'd do the Lena Pabst thing, finis.

  Executive reported to be in opposition hands awaiting probable terminal incident.

  Shepley wouldn't be pleased. I chose him because to date he's proved himself capable of dealing with very unfavourable conditions in the field, and if he survives I shall expect an explanation as to why he allowed himself to be compromised, together with the entire mission.

  The explanation, sir, is that I took a calculated risk, and there's an odd misconception going around that a calculated risk isn't in fact a risk at all, but you of all people, your eminence, should know better than that. You should also know that the executive must sometimes stick his neck out and invite flak because there's simply no other way to get close to the opposition, and if you think I was overdoing it in this particular instance it just means, with respect, that you're not thinking straight.

 
Very nervous indeed and getting worse. He'd understand, Shepley, he'd been there himself and he'd taken the same kind of risk plenty of times, if he'd been in the SAS.

  Hot under the bag, very little oxygen, they could asphyxiate me like this. But then they wouldn't be terribly concerned because when they finally put the bullet in the brain it wouldn't make any difference whether there was a condition of oxygen deprivation at the time: the skull would be blown open like a coconut just the same.

  Flying-boots.

  We turned left again and then right, waiting at the lights and botching the gears in; either the driver wasn't all that conversant with the box or there was wear on the shafts, it was getting on my nerves, I tell you, it was getting on my nerves.

  Fur-lined flying-boots: it was about all I could see below the neck of the bag. Pilot. Pilot or bombardier, air-crew. They probably both were.

  Slowing.

  'Close as you can get.'

  'Sir.'

  Slowing and turning, bumping over rough ground, turning tightly now, the vehicle heeling on the springs, then pulling up, the sound of the engine louder, confined on one side by a wall.

  'Raus! Raus!'

  One of them hit the door open and dropped to the ground and the other one pushed his gun into my back and I clambered down, the handcuffs a real handicap because we were in the open and if I couldn't do anything now the last chance would be gone; but I couldn't see anything except the split tarmac under my feet and a cigarette end. One of them had a grip on my arm and pushed me forward and I heard a door opening.

  Steps, down, and I lost my footing because I didn't know they were there, hit my shoulder on a wall or a doorpost and someone caught me and pulled me straight, smell of cooking from somewhere and a car starting up outside, not the van we'd come in, dampness, a smell of dampness now, still going down with a gun bruising my spine, I suppose they thought I wasn't getting the message; I would have liked, I would very much have liked to swing round fast and make at least one strike and use the handcuffs as a weapon, but it was just a feeling of spite, I didn't like these bastards, they weren't professionals, all this bloody prodding, I knew they had guns out, for Christ's sake.