The Vault

by Mark Dawson

  Mack­in­tosh real­ised that there was a second per­son wait­ing in the cor­ridor. Som­mer stepped out of the way so that they could come in, too. It was a wo­man. She stepped for­ward into the light and Mack­in­tosh saw the blonde hair and the white face.

  Ok­sana stood close to Som­mer. The gen­eral could barely dis­guise his de­light.

  “Did you really think I would be­tray my coun­try?” she said.

  Mack­in­tosh spat on the floor at her feet.

  “Feisty to the end,” said Som­mer. “I’m go­ing to leave you now, but I’ll be back soon. We do need to have that talk. I won’t lie: it’s not go­ing to be pleas­ant, and I’m go­ing to pun­ish you whether you co­oper­ate or not. You are go­ing to tell me where I can find the sol­diers who killed my men. And, when I find them, I’m go­ing to bring them here and make them wish that they had never been born.”

  50

  Jimmy had din­ner and went back to his room to change. He put on a sweater and his leather jacket and went down­stairs. Ok­sana was wait­ing at the front door. She made a show of greet­ing him—there was a man sit­ting in the lounge area and Jimmy had the dis­tinct im­pres­sion that he was there to watch—and then fell into line with him as they left the hotel. There were few people on the street. Two parked cars op­pos­ite the hotel were oc­cu­pied. The men in­side watched them both, seem­ingly re­laxed about giv­ing them­selves away. Jimmy was happy to let them watch.

  Ok­sana led the way to her car and they both got in­side. He looked over at her; she hadn’t said a word since they left the hotel, and her face was pinched, per­haps even a little paler than usual.

  “What is it?” he said.

  “Just a little nervous,” she said.

  She star­ted the en­gine and pulled away from the kerb. They drove over the Spree via the Rath­aus­brücke, passing the Town Hall and then turn­ing right onto Grunes­traße. The traffic was a little heav­ier here, with a line of cheap cars chug­ging sul­lenly through the snowy night. Ok­sana said that it would take them twenty minutes to reach Som­mer’s build­ing, and Jimmy spent the time look­ing out of the fros­ted wind­screen. The city looked as if it was beaten. The West still had life, a vi­brancy that had not been oc­cluded by the con­struc­tion of the wall that en­circled it. The East, though, looked resigned to its fate: a tor­pid eco­nomy, no pro­spects, its in­hab­it­ants oc­cu­pied with a slow trudge that would end in the grave.

  Ok­sana in­dic­ated and turned off the main road, slid­ing the car against the kerb.

  Jimmy looked around. “Are we here?”

  “No,” she said. “There’s some­thing you need to know.”

  She switched off the en­gine and turned to look at him.

  “What is it?”

  “Mack­in­tosh has been ab­duc­ted by Som­mer,” she said. “They went to his flat the day you crossed the bor­der and took him.”

  Jimmy felt a shiver of panic. “I don’t un­der­stand,” he said. “How is that pos­sible? Som­mer just took him? How? I don’t—”

  She spoke over him. “I told Som­mer where to find him.”

  Jimmy gaped. “You did what?”

  “Mack­in­tosh wanted it to hap­pen. It’s his idea.” She raised her hands to fore­stall Jimmy’s ques­tions. “Som­mer killed someone who was im­port­ant to Mack­in­tosh. He in­sisted that he wanted to con­front him him­self. This whole plan—you, me, everything—it’s de­signed to put him and Som­mer into a room to­gether.”

  “You’re go­ing to have to ex­plain that a little bet­ter.”

  “Mack­in­tosh knows he wouldn’t be able to get to Som­mer any other way. He never leaves the East. And, even when he’s here, he rarely leaves his build­ing. But Mack­in­tosh knows he’s greedy. He knew there was a good chance that he would take a meet­ing with you if he thought that was some­thing he might profit from. He knew the meet­ing would be at the Pfarrhaus, and he knew that would be where Som­mer would take him. Every­one would be to­gether in the same place at the same time.”

  “But if Som­mer did some­thing to Mack­in­tosh be­fore we met?”

  “That was a risk. I as­sume he thought it was one that was worth tak­ing.”

  Jimmy cursed un­der his breath. Mack­in­tosh was in­sane. “So what does he want me to do?”

  “You meet Som­mer, just as we planned. There’ll be an op­por­tun­ity to over­power him. You take it, and then we get him to take us to Mack­in­tosh and the two of them can settle their dif­fer­ences.”

  “And Schmidt?”

  “Oh, he still wants Schmidt. And so do I—get­ting him out of East Ger­many is why I’m up to my neck in this mess. As soon as we’ve found Mack­in­tosh, that’s what you need to do. The chances are that they’re both be­ing held in the base­ment.”

  Jimmy stared at the flakes of snow that were set­tling on the icy wind­shield.

  “Why didn’t he tell me any of this?”

  “I said that he should have done, if that’s any con­sol­a­tion.”

  “So?”

  “So he de­cided that he didn’t want to give you some­thing else to worry about be­fore you met Som­mer. He wanted you to fo­cus on the story you had to sell them. I sup­pose I can see why he thought that.” She laid a hand on his shoulder. “But you need to de­cide whether it changes any­thing for you. Whether you still want to go through with it. This is the only chance you’ll get to change your mind. Once we get there, we’re com­mit­ted. There won’t be any choice then.”

  Jimmy gazed out of the win­dow as he turned the news over in his mind. The news was un­set­tling, but he knew that it made no dif­fer­ence. Mack­in­tosh was the only man who knew Jimmy was over here. If Mack­in­tosh was killed, there would be no one to vouch for Jimmy. He would be left here, stran­ded in East Ber­lin, with no friends, no con­tacts, no re­cord of en­ter­ing the coun­try and no reason to be here save for a clas­si­fied story that could only be con­firmed by one man. Mack­in­tosh was the only way Jimmy would be able to have the charges against him dropped. He was the only way he had to get back to the life he had been liv­ing be­fore Ed­die Fa­bian sold him out. There was more, too. Jimmy didn’t trust Mack­in­tosh and he wasn’t even sure that he liked him, either. But, as Jimmy looked out of the win­dow at the men and wo­men who slouched through the smog to the slums in which they were forced to live, he knew that Mack­in­tosh was, at least, on the right side of things. Jimmy had no in­terest in polit­ics, but he had al­ways lived his life by the prin­ciples that had been laid out by his uncle.

  Stick to your word.

  If you say you’ll do some­thing, do it.

  Jimmy found that he was clench­ing his fists.

  “Jimmy?” Ok­sana said. “We need to de­cide now. Do you still want to meet him?”

  “I don’t have a choice. I have to.”

  She nod­ded, took her hand from his shoulder and star­ted the en­gine.

  “There’s one thing,” he said. “He’s my way out. If some­thing’s happened to him, I can’t get home. Would you be able to help me?”

  She looked at him, think­ing. “Yes,” she said. “The plan is to go back over the bor­der at Check­point Charlie. I have dip­lo­matic status. They wouldn’t nor­mally try to stop us.”

  “What if some­thing hap­pens and we’re split up? What do I do then?”

  “Go north to Kühlungs­born. It’s on the coast, two hun­dred miles from here. The trains won’t be safe—you’ll have to steal a car and drive. There’s a café on the prom­en­ade run by a man called Bur­meister. He works for the KGB. It’s some­times ne­ces­sary to get people out of the coun­try without the Stasi know­ing. Tell him that Ok­sana sent you. He’ll ar­range a cross­ing into Den­mark.”

  “Thank you.”

  She pulled out and con­tin­ued into the ad­min­is­trat­ive dis­trict. Jimmy looked out at the mu­ni­cipal build­ings, most of which had been thrown up
after the war like so many of the build­ings that had stood between the Red Army and its prey. These build­ings, though, had not even been given the pre­tence of be­ing any­thing other than what they were: boxy, bland, re­gi­men­ted hutches to ac­com­mod­ate the ex­er­cise of power.

  Jimmy looked at them and felt newly daun­ted.

  51

  The snow was fall­ing even more heav­ily when Ok­sana drove them into the Lichten­berg area of East Ber­lin. She fol­lowed a series of ma­jor streets, pick­ing her way through them with the ex­per­i­ence of someone who had been here be­fore. They con­tin­ued to the east for a minute and then turned onto Roedeli­us­platz. There was an area of lawned gar­dens with a double-spired church in the centre. A nar­row, cobbled road sep­ar­ated the church from the build­ing that faced it. It was three storeys tall, and ac­cess was gran­ted through a tall stone arch­way that led to a sim­il­arly im­press­ive wooden door.

  “Here we are,” she said. “The Pfarrhaus.”

  The road to the vicar­age was blocked by a bar­rier that was mon­itored by sol­diers in a brick guard­house. Ok­sana pulled up in front of the bar­rier and waited for the guard to walk over to them. The man was armed with a sub­ma­chine gun and he spoke in ab­rupt Ger­man. Ok­sana replied, sim­il­arly curt, and handed over their pa­pers.

  The guard spent a long minute with their iden­ti­fic­a­tion. He re­treated to the guard­house, where Jimmy saw him speak­ing on the tele­phone.

  “How many men are in there?” Jimmy asked.

  “Hardly any. He has no reason to feel threatened here. We’re in the heart of East Ber­lin, with Min­istry build­ings on all sides. You might think Mack­in­tosh’s plan is ec­cent­ric—”

  “In­sane,” Jimmy cor­rec­ted.

  “Per­haps, but there’s no way that Som­mer could an­ti­cip­ate it. I said no when he told me, but, the more I thought about it, the more I thought it could work. It all de­pended on you per­suad­ing Som­mer to see you. Once we’re in­side… well, it’s up to us, then. Here he comes.”

  The guard re­turned and handed Ok­sana’s pa­pers back to her. He said some­thing, she thanked him, and he raised the bar­rier so that she could drive through.

  There were cars parked on both sides of the road, their angles already smoothed down by an inch of snow. Ok­sana found an empty spot and re­versed into it. Jimmy watched and as­sessed. The road was quiet, with just a single guard mak­ing his rounds. That was en­cour­aging. Jimmy was look­ing at the guard when he saw a pair of wo­men emer­ging from the front door of the build­ing. The wo­men ducked their heads against the snow as they made their way to the guard­house op­pos­ite the one that Ok­sana and Jimmy had passed, and, after they spoke to the guard, the ped­es­trian gate was opened and they con­tin­ued on their way.

  Jimmy swal­lowed down a dry knot of fear that clogged his throat. He put his hand on the door handle, pulled it down and stepped out­side.

  He thought of Isa­bel and his son. Do this and he could go home.

  *

  They climbed a short flight of stairs to the front door of the build­ing. Ok­sana knocked and then glanced up at a CCTV cam­era that was fixed be­neath the por­tico over­head. The lock buzzed and the door jerked open a frac­tion; Ok­sana pushed it back and stepped in­side. Jimmy fol­lowed.

  The room bey­ond was a large lobby. It had been dec­or­ated ex­tra­vag­antly: the floors were marble, the ceil­ings were double-height, the walls had been dec­or­ated with gold fili­gree, and marble columns were spaced around. There was a single desk set back from the door with a man in Stasi uni­form sit­ting be­hind it. He had a TV screen that, Jimmy guessed, he used to mon­itor the feed from out­side.

  The man got up and Jimmy re­cog­nised him. It was Müller.

  “Fräulein Baran­ova,” he said, his face crack­ing into the most minute of smiles. “Herr Walker.”

  “Ober­stleut­nant Müller,” Ok­sana replied.

  Müller ap­proached Jimmy. “Put your arms to the sides, please.”

  Müller frisked him quickly and ef­fi­ciently, run­ning his hands along his arms, down his trunk, around his waist, between his legs and then down to his feet. Jimmy saw the pis­tol holstered on Müller’s belt and, with his chin just an inch or two from his knee, Jimmy had to fight back the urge to strike him, re­lieve him of his weapon and then find Som­mer.

  Müller stood and straightened out his uni­form. “This way, please. The gen­eral is wait­ing for you.”

  52

  Müller led them to an­other lobby with two lifts. One of them looked as if it needed a key to op­er­ate. Müller pressed the but­ton for the other one and in­vited them to step in­side. He fol­lowed and pressed the but­ton for the fourth floor. Jimmy stood at the back of the car, his fists clench­ing and un­clench­ing, an empti­ness in his belly, ad­ren­aline buzz­ing in his veins.

  The el­ev­ator took them up, the doors opened and they stepped out into a plush cor­ridor. The car­pets were thick, there was pol­ished oak pan­el­ling on the walls and subtle lights were housed in re­cessed sconces. There were sev­eral doors along both sides of the cor­ridor, but only one of them was open.

  “Through there,” Müller said, in­dic­at­ing the open door.

  Ok­sana star­ted to­ward the open door. Jimmy fol­lowed, his boots sink­ing into the car­pet. They went in­side. The of­fice bey­ond was as op­u­lent as might have been ex­pec­ted from the cor­ridor. There were book­shelves on the walls, full of leather-bound books. There was a blood-red Chester­field, a marble fire­place that ac­com­mod­ated a roar­ing fire, and a pol­ished oak desk that was seven or eight feet across. A man was sit­ting be­hind the desk; he stood as Ok­sana and then Jimmy ap­proached.

  “Hello, Ok­sana,” he said.

  “Gen­eral.”

  The man em­braced her, kiss­ing her air­ily on both cheeks, be­fore re­leas­ing her shoulders and step­ping to the side so that he could step up to Jimmy.

  “I’m Karl-Heinz Som­mer.”

  “Jimmy Walker.”

  “It’s a pleas­ure to meet you, Herr Walker. Müller has told me all about you. Could I get you some­thing to drink?”

  “I’m fine,” Jimmy said.

  Som­mer con­tin­ued as if he didn’t hear him. “How about some vodka? I have some­thing es­pe­cially good.” He went over to an an­tique side­board, opened it and took out a bottle that had been lav­ishly dec­or­ated with gems and crys­tals. “This is Iord­anov—it’s made in one of the old­est dis­til­ler­ies in Koblenz. They use wheat grain and wa­ter from the Vo­gels­berg High­lands for the dis­tilling. I had some ex­per­i­ence with our Rus­sian friends at the end of the war. I de­veloped a taste for it then. It’s lovely. Don’t you agree, Ok­sana?”

  “I haven’t tried it, Gen­eral.”

  “Well, we must set that right.”

  Som­mer took out three glasses and set them out on the desk. He un­screwed the top from the bottle and poured out three gen­er­ous meas­ures. He handed one to Ok­sana, one to Jimmy and kept the third for him­self. He held his glass up and reached across to touch it against Jimmy’s and Ok­sana’s.

  “Zum Wohl,” he said. “To your health.”

  Jimmy put the glass to his lips and tipped the vodka back. It was smooth and drink­able, and he felt the fa­mil­iar sting at the back of his throat.

  Ok­sana fin­ished her drink in sim­ilar fash­ion and set her glass back down on the table. “Thank you for see­ing us, Gen­eral.”

  Som­mer waved it away. “I can al­ways make time for my friends from the KGB.”

  “I’m grate­ful, too,” Jimmy said.

  “And for my Ir­ish friends. We can cer­tainly help you.”

  “You know what I want?”

  “In­deed.” He nod­ded to Müller. “The lieu­ten­ant col­onel noted it all down.”

  “But he didn’t tell me the price.”

&nb
sp; “You’ve paid fifty. It will take an­other hun­dred.”

  “That’s fine,” Jimmy said.

  “No bar­ter­ing?”

  “What’s the point? It’s in your best in­terests for me to be happy. If the goods are ac­cept­able, and we feel the price was fair, we’ll come back—this is a small or­der com­pared to what we might even­tu­ally want.”

  Som­mer smiled and tapped his fin­ger against the desk. “In that case, I’ll drop the price to sev­enty-five, all in. You’re right, of course—I want you to be happy.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You want to see what you’re buy­ing, I be­lieve.”

  “I do.”

  “Is it ready, Müller?”

  “Yes, sir. I’ve laid it out down­stairs.”

  Som­mer stood. “Come, then. I will show you.”

  53

  Som­mer led them out of the of­fice, down the cor­ridor and to the el­ev­ator. Müller brought up the rear, with Jimmy very aware of the man’s pres­ence be­hind him. They rode the el­ev­ator back down to the first floor and got out. Som­mer took a key from his pocket and pulled back the metal flap on the wall next to the second el­ev­ator. He put the key into the key­hole that was re­vealed, waited for the door of the car to open and then ushered them in­side. There were two but­tons on the wall, and the gen­eral pressed the one marked KELLER, the low­est; the doors closed and the lift began to move. Jimmy noted it all: ac­cess was re­stric­ted to the base­ment. He would need that key to get around the prop­erty un­im­peded.

  The doors par­ted to re­veal a cor­ridor, al­though this one was much less im­press­ive than the one that led to Som­mer’s of­fice. It was fin­ished in bare con­crete, with na­ked bulbs hanging from the ceil­ing at reg­u­lar in­ter­vals. Jimmy looked left and right: there were a series of three severe-look­ing metal doors to the right. To the left was a more sub­stan­tial door, also made from metal but this time re­in­forced with heavy metal straps. A cir­cu­lar handle was po­si­tioned in the middle of the door. Jimmy re­cog­nised a vault door when he saw one.