by Mark Dawson
“I just want a moment with the general.”
Jimmy turned away from Sommer and followed Oksana and Schmidt out to the corridor.
They reached the lift. Jimmy lifted the flap and used the key to open the door. He stayed outside, holding the door for Oksana and Schmidt.
He heard the report of a single gunshot.
Schmidt flinched. Jimmy looked at Oksana, but there was no need to say anything. They both knew what had just happened.
Mackintosh came out of the cell and made his way toward them. Jimmy stayed in the corridor, his arm blocking the door from closing while Mackintosh stepped inside.
“Everything all right?” Oksana asked.
“It’s fine,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.”
“We square now?” Jimmy said to Mackintosh. “You’ve got Schmidt and Sommer is dead. That was the deal.”
“We’re square. You did everything you said you’d do.”
“Good.”
Jimmy reached into the lift and pressed the button to send it up to the ground floor. He pulled his arm out of the way as the doors began to close.
Mackintosh looked confused. “What are you doing?”
“I’ll see you later,” Jimmy said.
Mackintosh started to protest, but the doors closed and the lift started to ascend.
Jimmy knew that he would have to be quick. He made his way back to the room with the rocket launcher and the explosives.
57
Jimmy took the crate from underneath the table, opened it and took out the Semtex that he had seen earlier. He didn’t need all of it; after all, he only wanted to open the door to the vault and not bring the ceiling down onto his head. He took the canvas bag and emptied out all of the detonators, save two. He took the bag and the Semtex and jogged back along the corridor to the large metal door that he had seen earlier. He worked quickly, taking the explosive and fashioning two squat sausages with it. He reached into his pocket and took out the roll of tape that he had purchased during his walk around the city. He unrolled it, cut off a strip and then divided that into four separate, smaller strips. He held the first sausage against the top hinge of the door and used the tape to hold it in place. He repeated the process for the lower hinge. He took the two hollow blasting caps, inserted the pyrotechnic fuses and used his teeth to crimp the open ends of the cylinders, crushing the bases of the caps around the fuses. He fitted the fuses to the Semtex, took his lighter, and lit the ends of the fuses on both caps. He started the stopwatch on his watch. The fuses were regulated for three minutes.
Jimmy ran back to the first cell and stepped inside. He had forgotten: Sommer was there. He was still secured to the chair, but his head was hanging backwards, the white of his neck exposed, blood and brains splashed over the wall behind him.
It didn’t matter.
He knelt down next to Müller’s body and stripped him, removing his uniform and then taking off his own clothes. He was a little bit taller than the dead man, but there wasn’t much in it. He pulled on the trousers and shirt, shuddering a little that the fabric was still warm with the corpse’s latent heat. He pulled on Müller’s boots, lacing them up, and then his jacket. There was a patch of something ichorous on the right-hand shoulder board; Jimmy winced as he tried to brush it off.
He checked his watch.
Ten seconds.
58
“We can’t just leave him,” she said.
“It’s his choice.”
“I don’t understand. Why would he want to stay?”
“He’s a bank robber, Oksana. That’s how I found him. A leopard doesn’t change its spots.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means he saw the vault and couldn’t help himself.”
“How’s he going to get out?”
“He’s not our problem now.”
Mackintosh was comfortable with leaving Walker behind. He would have fulfilled his end of the bargain, but not having to worry about that was one less thing to do. There was a good chance that Walker would be picked up by the Stasi.
Mackintosh led the way out of the lift and, with the pistol ready should he need to use it, he checked the lobby. There was no one there. It was empty.
“Where’s your car?” he said to Oksana.
“I parked it in the street. Through the doors, down the steps and then turn right.”
“What’s the security like?”
“There’s one way in and out. There’s a guardhouse—I saw one man there earlier.”
She nodded at him. “You don’t have a jacket?”
“No.”
“You’re going to stand out. Sommer might have clothes on the top floor—“
“We don’t have time for that. We’ll have to take our chances. You go first.” He turned to Schmidt. “Stay close to me. We’re going to get into a car and then drive you away from here.”
“And then what?” he said. “Where are we going to go? You promised you’d get me into the West.”
“That’s exactly what we’re going to do.”
“How?”
Oksana went to the doors. “Leave that to me,” she said.
She waited for Mackintosh and Schmidt to join her and opened the doors. It was snowing heavily. That, at least, was in their favour. Visibility was limited, and Mackintosh wasn’t able to see the guardhouse that she had mentioned. He hoped that meant that any guards there wouldn’t be able to see them either. They descended the steps, treading carefully, turned right and followed Oksana to her car. She opened the rear door, ushered Schmidt inside, and then got into the driver’s seat. Mackintosh made his way around the car, opened the passenger side door, and got inside next to her.
She started the engine, flicked on the lights and pulled out.
They saw the guardhouse through the glow of the lights. The gate was lowered. Oksana pulled up in front of it and tapped the horn.
“Here we go,” she said.
A guard came out of the hut, huddled over against the cold and the snow that settled on his hat and shoulders. He made his way to the driver’s side and indicated that Oksana should lower the window. She did as she was told.
“What’s your name?”
“Oksana Baranova. I’ve been to see the general.”
“And your passengers?”
“Ilya Pushkin and Mikhail Bakunin. They work with me.”
“Wait here, please,” he said.
“Is there a problem? Your colleague signed us in earlier. An hour ago.”
“He’s off shift. Wait here. I won’t be a moment.”
Mackintosh held the Makarov between the edge of the seat and the door, out of sight but easily at hand, should he need it.
“He’s not going to get very far if he calls the house,” he said.
The snow was too heavy for them to make out much of what was going on inside the guardhouse. Oksana squinted through it. “Maybe he’s just going to check the log.”
“Maybe,” Mackintosh said. “Be ready to move.”
She nodded.
Ten seconds passed, and then another ten. Still the guard did not reappear. Mackintosh found his thoughts going to Walker.
“It’s a vault, though,” he said. “It was a serious door. How does he think he’s going to get it open?”
Oksana’s face crumpled into a frown. “Oh shit,” she said.
“What?”
She was about to answer when they heard the sound of a muffled explosion. The ground beneath the car shook and the glass in the window of the guardhouse rattled against the frames. Oksana didn’t wait. She took her foot off the brake and stomped d
own on the gas, sending the car lurching ahead. It crashed through the gate, the bar breaking off its mount and sliding off the bonnet before thumping into the snow.
“What the fuck was that?” Mackintosh shouted over the sound of the engine.
“I don’t believe it,” Oksana said, unable to take the grin from her face.
“What?”
“The order that you told Jimmy to make with Sommer?”
“Yes,” Mackintosh said. “The RPGs. Why?”
“Jimmy asked for Semtex, too.”
59
The explosion was deafening. The blast wave rolled down the corridor, the noise amplified by the bare walls and punching open the door that Jimmy had left ajar. Dust and small bits of debris blew into the room, and Jimmy looked away to stop it from getting into his eyes. The noise of the blast echoed back and forth, punctuated by a crash as something heavy slammed against the concrete.
The vault door.
He waited a moment until his ears had stopped ringing and then stepped out into the corridor. There was a cloud of dust that was difficult to see through and he could smell the harsh, chemical tang of the plastique. He waited for the dust to settle so that he could check the damage. The door had been blown clean off its hinges and had collapsed forward so that it was lying flat against the floor. Jimmy hurried over and stepped over the door and into the vault.
He looked inside. The vault was not large: five paces deep and five paces wide. The walls had been fitted with metal shelving on three sides and each shelf was stacked to capacity with gold ingots. They had been neatly arranged in individual cubes and pyramids. Jimmy crossed over to the nearest shelf and ran his finger along the lowest course of one of the stacks. He counted ten bars along it, and another four courses arranged on top. Ten by five: fifty bars in just that one stack. The bars were identical: ten centimetres long and four centimetres wide. He picked one up; it was heavy. The bar was marked with the Reichsadler, the heraldic eagle atop a swastika that had come to symbolise the Nazi Party during the Third Reich. Beneath that was engraved the legend DEUTSCHE REICHSBANK and, below that, 1 KILO FEINGOLD and then a serial number.
Jimmy knew how much a gold ingot of this size would be worth. It would be £30,000 easy, maybe even £40,000 depending on the market.
He stepped back and checked the rest of the vault. The centre of the space was in some disarray. A pallet had been left there and stacks of banknotes had been arranged atop it. The explosion had scattered the notes. Some of the stacks were still partially standing, but most of them had been blown apart. Jimmy picked up a handful of notes from the floor: Deutschmarks, francs, roubles, dollars, sterling. High denominations.
On the other side of the room, in the corner between the shelving and the door, was an open cabinet. Jimmy pulled the door all the way back and looked inside. He saw a neatly arranged collection of files. They had been alphabetised and, on a whim, he drew his finger down the ordered rows until he found the one that was labelled with the letter M. He flicked through it until he found a file with a tab at the top that read MACKINTOSH. He took the file, opened it and flipped through the pages: there were written reports in German that he couldn’t read and a sheaf of photographs. He thumbed through them: Mackintosh outside the consulate, at a restaurant, in a park. A series showed him with a man Jimmy had not seen before.
He put the canvas bag on the floor, spread it open, and then arranged gold ingots in a single course inside it. The bars were heavy, and Jimmy was limited by what the bag could stand and he could comfortably carry rather than how many he could fit into the bag. He hefted the bag and decided that he couldn’t take any more. Instead, he added a layer of banknotes, each wad secured with a paper collar. Jimmy put Mackintosh’s file at the top of the bag, zipped it up, and heaved it onto his shoulder. The bars clinked until they settled. It was heavy; Jimmy knew that he would have to find transport sooner rather than later.
There was a Luger in the cabinet; Jimmy wondered whether it might be Sommer’s weapon from his SS days. He took it and backed out of the vault, giving it one last longing look even as he knew he was removing as much as was possible. He chuckled at what Smiler would have said if he had seen him here; the thought of Smiler quickly led to home, and to Isabel and Sean, and he chided himself for even the shortest delay. He had to move.
With the pistol clasped in his right hand and the bag over his shoulder, Jimmy went to the elevator. He turned the key in the lock, stepped into the car, and pressed the button for the ground floor. The doors opened and, gun ready, he stepped outside.
The lobby was empty.
He turned left, away from the front door. Geipel had added the rear exit to the plan that he had drawn for Mackintosh, and Jimmy headed for that rather than the front door. He followed a corridor into the guts of the building, passing through a dining room and then the kitchen. The door was at the other side of the kitchen and was locked when Jimmy tried it. He tried the keys, found none of them worked, stepped back, raised the pistol and fired. It took two shots to blast out the lock; Jimmy kicked it, hard, and the remains of the mechanism snapped off.
The door opened to an alleyway where the bins were lined up. Snow was falling, heavy flakes that had already drifted against the door. Jimmy stepped out, his boots sliding through the soft crust all the way to his knees, and struck out. He needed to find a car. He had to get as far away from here as he could.
60
Oksana drove them through the city, the red flag of the USSR that was attached to the hood flapping in the wind. Mackintosh was on edge, expecting to see flashing lights behind them, the Volkspolizei giving pursuit. But nothing happened. No one followed them. The roads were quiet thanks to the weather, with the main roads kept passable by snowploughs that chugged back and forth and lorries that sprayed out grit and salt. Oksana drove steadily, not too fast, dictated to by the conditions. She stared ahead, eyes squinting against the glow of the lights reflecting back from the curtain of snow. Mackintosh held the Makarov in his lap, running his fingers across the barrel, wondering whether there would be a need to use it and knowing that, if the need arose, it would probably make little difference.
They crossed the Spree and then the Spreekanal, cut west on Leipziger Straße and then south on Friedrichstraße. Checkpoint Charlie loomed up ahead. Mackintosh could see the struts of the watchtower alongside it, and saw the finger of a searchlight as it jerked through the curtain of snow and settled on them; both he and Oksana raised their hands to shield their eyes. She rolled up to the first barrier and waited for the guard to approach the window. The man was carrying a flashlight, and shone it into the cabin as he indicated that Oksana should wind down the window. She did as she was told, wafts of cold air blowing the snow inside.
“Papers,” the soldier said.
Oksana handed the man her diplomatic passport and waited for him to check it.
“Who is travelling with you?” he said.
“Two colleagues.”
“Their papers, please.”
“Never mind them,” she said.
“Papers—now.”
“Did you see who I am, soldier?” she snapped. “I’m on official business and I do not have to explain myself to you. Remember your place and open the gate.”
The man stared down at her, his eyes hard and cold, and then turned away. He took a walkie-talkie from his belt and spoke into it. Mackintosh held the Makarov down low, out of sight. It would do them no good, he reminded himself. He might be able to use it to get rid of this man, but he knew that the other gu
ards wouldn’t allow them to get much farther. There would be snipers in the watchtower and soldiers with automatic weapons in the guardhouse.
“They won’t let us through,” Schmidt said.
“Be quiet,” Mackintosh hissed.
He heard the squelch of static as the guard finished his conversation, clipped the walkie-talkie back onto his belt and made his way back to them.
He held out Oksana’s passport. “Drive through, please.”
Oksana took her passport, wound up the window and drove through the opened barrier. She turned to the right, passed through the narrow gap in the first wall, and approached the second barrier. The guardhouse was on the right and a line of parked cars was on their left. They were halfway to the next barrier when two soldiers came out of the far side of the guardhouse and blocked their way. The men were carrying AK-47s; they pressed the stocks into their shoulders and aimed at the car.
“Shit,” Mackintosh said.
He looked behind them. Four soldiers, including the one who had spoken to them at the gate, were approaching from the rear. They, too, were all armed. The man had let them carry on through so that they could block them in this secondary area. The American sector was fifty feet away, but it might as well have been fifty miles. There was nothing that they could do.
Mackintosh looked at Oksana. She was biting her lip, looking between the men in front of the car and, in the mirror, at the men who were approaching them from behind. Mackintosh turned and saw that Schmidt was petrified; his head was down, his hands clasped to his temples. Mackintosh thought of the pistols that they had taken from Sommer’s building. He squeezed the Makarov. He might be able to take out one or two of the soldiers, but the others would turn the car into Swiss cheese before they could get over to the West.
Another soldier emerged from the guardhouse. This one was clearly more senior than the others, his rank denoted by the flashes on his shoulders. He was carrying a clipboard and a flashlight. He came to the car and indicated that Oksana should wind down the window again.