Spy Line

by Len Deighton

  I went to the window and stared down at the rain-swept street. The tourists were indomitable. Buttoned tight in long brightly coloured plastic coats, their feet encased in transparent overshoes, their hoods with drawstrings tightened to reveal small circles of grim red faces, they trekked past like combat-hardened veterans resolutely moving up to the fighting line. I got a glass from the bathroom and poured myself a shot of duty-free scotch. I’d promised Gloria not to touch the hard stuff while I was away this time, but that was not taking into account the fiasco in the auction room and the way in which I would soon have to explain my failure.

  I kicked my shoes off, stretched out on the bed and dozed. All day – like an errant poodle tugging its leash – my mind had tried to explore some other time and place. And yet these fugitive memories remained fuzzy grey and unfocused. It was when I closed my eyes and relaxed that my memor ies sniffed out what had been bothering me all day.

  ‘Deuce’ Thurkettle! Jesus Christ, how could I ever have forgotten Deuce Thurkettle, even if he now preferred to be known as Ronnie? I’d never known him but his dossier was something not to be forgotten.

  ‘Deuce’ not in the sense of runner-up, quitter or coward, the way the word is sometimes used, nor a ‘pair’ in a poker game. This man was Deuce because of the barbaric double murder for which he’d gone to prison. Deuce Thurkettle came to Berlin after being released from some high-security prison in Arizona, where he was serving a life sentence for murder in the first degree.

  Perhaps it was a long dull afternoon after too much Southern-fried chicken when some bright young fellow sitting behind a desk in Langley, Virginia, had got this brilliant idea of sending a convicted murderer into Berlin on a tourist visa, to get rid of a troublesome KGB agent who had so far eluded all attempts to incriminate him.

  I remembered the Deuce Thurkettle file and the way I’d read it all the way through without pause. I suppose to some extent I read it because I was not supposed to see it. It was a CIA document buried deep in the dank dark place where the CIA buried their secrets. Or that’s where it should have been. Poor old Peter Underlet had taken it home with him. He had shown it to me one evening after the two of us had dinner – and two bottles of lovely Château Beychevelle 1957 – in his apartment. I could recollect each page of that bizarre insight into the cloistered mentality of the administrator: ‘…and Thurkettle’s knowledge of electronic timing devices, sophisticated locks, modern handguns and explosives, added to his proved physical resources, qualify him as an outstanding field agent.’

  Underlet had opened the file to that page of a long report from Langley before he slammed the whole thing on to my knees. ‘Look at that,’ said Underlet bitterly. ‘That’s what those shits in Washington think about field agents. Without any training or experience this murdering bastard becomes a field agent overnight, an outstanding field agent it says there.’

  I remember Underlet slumping back in the armchair and drinking his wine and saying nothing while I read the file through. ‘Deuce’ Thurkettle; how could I have forgotten him, the first of a trio of hit men who came unbidden and unwelcome to the CIA offices of Europe during that unhappy period?

  Afterwards – weeks afterwards – we talked about it again. By that time I had become more indignant about the morality of Washington DC than about what the episode revealed of the desk-man’s feelings about field agents.

  I was no longer stretched out, I was sitting up in bed fully aware of the racing pulse and tension that comes when the mind is on the verge of remembering some important image. What happened to those three jailbirds? All three were given the elaborate new identities that later became the reward for mafiosi who turned State’s evidence. Thurkettle: Thurkettle. There was speculation that he murdered a supermarket tycoon in Cologne: a man with whose wife Thurkettle had a love affair. I wasn’t sure that was Thurkettle. Had Thurkettle’s name been in any of those ‘most wanted – confidential’ lists? My memory just could not get hold of it.

  By now I was on my feet. I paced the room knowing beyond any doubt that it all added up to a conclusion that would seem obvious when the questions were asked. Obvious, that is to say, to the questioner.

  I decided to ask Johnson some more questions: about Thurkettle and anything else that emerged. I put on my shoes and went down the corridor to knock at the door of Johnson’s room. There was no response. I turned the knob and found the door unlocked.

  Inside, the bedroom was empty. A clean shirt, underclothes and socks were laid out on the bed, in the careful way a valet might arrange clothes for a fastidious employer. From the bathroom there came the sound of water running. The door was closed. Johnson called, ‘Put it down on the table. There’s a tip there for you.’

  ‘It’s not room service: it’s me,’ I said.

  ‘You’re early aren’t you?’ His voice was distorted like that of a man cleaning his teeth.

  ‘That guy Thurkettle. I remembered something about him.’

  ‘Give me fifteen minutes.’ There was a splutter as if the tooth cleaning was proceeding energetically.

  Okay, I thought, everything is normal. I went back to my room. I don’t know how long I sat there before the sound of the explosion made me jump out of the chair and run for the door. Afterwards the newspapers said the forensic department estimated it at 300 grams of explosive, but that amount would have taken the bathroom door off and maybe the wall and me too.

  But it was a loud bang all the same, and that unmistakable stink of explosive came rolling down the corridor to meet me. My mind went blank. Experience said hide under the bed: curiosity made me wonder what had happened.

  For better or worse, I hurried along the corridor and into Johnson’s room. I went to the bathroom and grabbed the handle as the door fell off its hinges. I don’t know what kind of explosive they’d used but the inside of the bathroom was black with soot and dirt. Maybe that had come from something else. The wash-basin was the centre of the damage: the mirror had disappeared, except for a couple of splinters dangling from the fixing screws. Below it, looking like some example of modern sculpture, the blue china pedestal remained in position supporting one elegant slice of basin.

  What remained of Johnson was on the floor face up and twisted between the water-closet bowl and the bidet. There were appalling burn marks on the torso and his clothes were scorched. There was very little blood: the heat of the explosion had cauterized the blood vessels. Around him there were hundreds of pieces of broken chinaware. I didn’t have to look twice to know what had happened. His hand was only a stump and what was left of him above the neck was wet and shiny and spread all over the marble floor.

  It was the electric razor bomb, an old trick but I’d never seen the results of one before. Find out what model of razor your victim uses, fill one with any decent plastic explosive – shaping it for something really directional – and fit a neat little detonator (made in Taiwan – please state on order form whether 110 v. or 220 v.) and he’ll obligingly hold it to his head and switch on the electricity!

  Poor Johnson. Behind me excited voices indicated that people were crowding into the bedroom now, so I slid back amongst them, vociferously asking everyone what had happened. Johnson. Had there been someone waiting for him when he went into his room? Was that remark, ‘Well, what about that?’ rhetoric, or had he been talking to a visitor, someone like Deuce Thurkettle whose ‘knowledge of electronic timing devices, sophisticated locks, modern handguns and explosives, added to his proved physical resources, qualify him as an outstanding field agent’?

  And if Thurkettle was the killer, why? Or, to turn the whole thing on its end; was Thurkettle some sort of deep-cover operator for whom a bizarre background story of a murder conviction had been fabricated? If so who killed Johnson, if Johnson was his real name? And all the time another part of my mind was telling me that London Central would not expect me to phone them now. Not even Stowe would expect me to make contact, not with this mess to extricate myself from, and the likelihood of the
Austrian police listening to phone calls. Despite everything, I was somewhat comforted by that reprieve.

  9

  My plane took off from Salzburg airport in a Wagnerian electric storm that lit up the Alps with great flashes of blue light and thunder that shook the world. Rain beating upon the metal skin was audible over the muzak and the plane slewed and yawed as it fought the gusting winds and climbed through the narrow path between the mountains.

  I still had to get the horrific vision of that torn apart body out of my mind. With nothing to read except the flight magazine I took the stamp catalogue from my bag and looked again at the cover I’d failed to get. I studied the picture closely and tried to understand what demon drove men to amass expensive collections of these pretty little artefacts. The colour photo was so realistic that it seemed almost as if I could lift it from the page. Using the scissors of my Swiss army knife I cut out the illustration and put it in my wallet.

  It was late when we descended for the landing in Vienna. The storm had passed over and the stars were shining in a moonless sky. The address that Hoffmann had provided for me was in the Inner City. I looked again at the coloured map of Vienna that I’d picked up from the airline counter. It was a brightly coloured depiction of the city – with isometric drawings of such buildings as the Imperial Palace – garlanded with adverts for such diversions as a ‘revue-bar’, a ‘kontakt club sauna’, and ‘private escort services’ all captioned in German, Arabic and Japanese. Close study of the map revealed that my destination was a sidestreet off Kärtner Strasse, a well-known thoroughfare which runs from the Opera Ring – that surrounds the inner city – to St Stephen’s Cathedral at its centre.

  It was dark when the taxi dropped me outside the huge shape of the State Opera House just after the curtain descended on the final act of Der Barbier von Sevilla. Many doors opened simultaneously so that yellow rectangles of light fell out on to the pavement. Then people emerged, not many at first, just a dozen or so, silently exploring the rain-shiny streets with an air of disoriented caution, as inter-galactic voyagers might emerge from a huge stone spaceship. From inside there came the muffled roar of applause. Moments later the ensemble’s final bow released a flood of people, and these were clamor ous and elated. A swirling press of them swept across the forecourt and the pavement and into the road with no thought of the traffic, laughing and calling to each other, like upper-class felons unexpectedly released from imprisonment.

  ‘Fussgängerzone,’ explained the cab driver, executing an illegal U-turn and positioning his cab ready for the homegoing crowds who were already raising their arms to hail him. ‘You have to walk from here.’ By now the street was filled with people dressed in the sort of amazing fur coats and evening clothes that are de rigeur when Germans or Austrians attend a cultural event. A group of such overdressed opera-goers beseiged the cab as it came to a stop and began bidding for it in loud voices that quickly became an argument between competing groups.

  I paid off the driver and pushed my way through the hordes of people who were still spewing from the Opera House doors. But as I progressed the crowds thinned, for few people were heading into the narrow streets of the city centre. Soon I was alone and my footsteps echoed as I walked past the dark shops and closed cafés. Downtown Vienna goes to sleep early.

  The address I wanted was in a narrow ill-lit Gasse, an alley of antique shops, their façades neglected and dilapi dated in the way that only the most exclusive antique shops are. Through the gloomy shop windows rich oriental rugs, polished furniture and old glassware gleamed. The door for one shop displayed a brass plate with the discreet legend ‘Karl Staiger’. I pushed the bell. It was a long time before there was any response. Even then it was an upstairs window being opened, and closed again shortly afterwards.

  I could see through the shop window as eventually a dim light came on at the back of the shop, silhouetting the furniture and the shape of the short plump man who picked his way through the display to the door. It took him some time to release the bolts and security locks on the shop door. He allowed the door to open only to the extent that the security chain permitted. Through the gap he called, ‘Yes? What is it?’

  ‘I’m looking for Baron Staiger,’ I said. ‘I have come from Salzburg.’ There was a sigh. The door was closed while the chain was taken off the hook.

  When he opened the door to look at me I saw it was Otto Hoffmann himself. I had every excuse for not recognizing him sooner, for this was a more sober fellow than the jolly little man who’d given me three thousand Austrian schillings and a lecture on philately in Salzburg. Now he was dressed up in a stiff shirt and formal bow tie, wearing over it a colourful embroidered smoking jacket. He stared at me for a moment without replying. It was almost as if he was trying to find reasons to send me away. But, grudgingly, he said, ‘Hello Samson.’ It was not a warm welcome. ‘I told you to phone.’

  ‘It wasn’t possible to phone.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I had no change,’ I said facetiously.

  ‘You’d better come in. Here in Vienna I’m von Staiger.’ His accent was the same: pure Viennese, right down to the ih instead of ich. He let me step inside the shop and I waited while he went through the rigmarole of securing the front door again.

  He switched out the light in the shop and led the way to the very back and up the narrow wooden staircase. From the basement there came those smells of bonding materials, freshly shaved wood and polish that together distinguish the workshop. The three upper floors were given over to living quarters. On the staircase there were engravings and embroidery in antique frames, and on the landing was a fine oak commode in pristine condition. It seemed that some of these rooms doubled as showrooms. As we got near the top of the house I could hear music, and a smell of cooking – or rather the legacy of some former meal preparation – replaced the more acrylic odours from the basement. ‘I have company,’ explained Staiger. ‘Put your coat on the rack and leave your bag here. We will talk later.’

  ‘Okay.’

  At the top of the house two small rooms had been made into one, and there were about a dozen people there. They were all dressed in an extravagant fashion that in London I might have mistaken for fancy costume. The women wore lots of jewellery and décolleté dresses, one of them smoke-coloured silk with tiered flounces, and another spectacular design was trimmed with antique lace. The men were in evening dress suits with vivid cummerbunds, or sashes, and some of the older men wore medals.

  This fellow Baron Staiger had none of the merriment I’d seen in Hoffmann in Salzburg. He made no attempt to introduce me to his guests, listlessly addressing those who had noticed our entrance with the words, ‘This is Mr Samson, a friend from Salzburg.’ I was damp. The heavy rain had penetrated my trenchcoat, and my baggy old suit had creases in all the wrong places. They looked at me without enthusiasm.

  In the corner a pianist was wrestling with George Gershwin, and they were both losing. After my entrance he played a few desultory bars of waltztime and then gave a smile as if he knew me. The piano stopped soon after that. I had the feeling that my entrance had spoiled the gemütlich atmosphere.

  The waiter bore down. Asked what I’d like to drink, and hearing there was no hard liquor, I took the Gspritzter and stood around waiting for everyone to go home. I could not avoid the impression that Staiger wanted to be distanced from me in every way, for after making sure I had a drink in my hand, he moved to a group on the other side of the room.

  ‘So you live in Salzburg now?’ asked someone from behind me. I turned and saw it was the piano player, who in the better light I now realized with a shock was someone I knew.

  Jesus H. Christ!! It was a malevolent reptile named Theodor Kiss, who preferred to be called Dodo. The last time I’d seen him he was threatening to tear me to pieces and was equipped with the means to do so. Now he smiled sweetly, his long white hair giving him a rather august appearance despite the unpressed dinner suit. He was a vicious old man, a Hungarian who�
�d changed sides when Germany lost the war and carved a new career with the victors. ‘No, do you?’ I replied.

  ‘Vienna actually. I have a wonderful new apartment. I decided to move…the south of France has become so…so vulgar.’

  ‘Is that so?’ I could see the new red scar tissue across Dodo’s scalp: the wound made when Jim Prettyman felled him and probably saved my life.

  ‘And how is my darling Zu?’ He was a friend of Gloria’s family.

  I mumbled something about her being well.

  He knew I didn’t want to talk with him but he enjoyed persisting. ‘I studied in Vienna of course. The city is like a home to me; so many old friends and colleagues.’

  I nodded. Yes, indeed: plenty of old colleagues here for a one-time Nazi like Dodo. The waiter offered us a tray with dabs of Liptauer cheese on small shapes of toast. I popped a couple in my mouth. I’d had no food on the plane.

  ‘Vienna is the most beautiful city in the world,’ said Dodo. ‘And so gemütlich! Do you like the opera?’

  I was eventually rescued from the conversation by a man who asked me if I was a newspaper reporter. Dodo moved away. The newcomer was thickset, with a little beard of the sort called a van Dyke, although on him it looked somewhat Mephistophelean. I answered that I wasn’t and he seemed content that I shouldn’t be. He raised an arm to indicate a large painting: a grotesque arrangement of abstract shapes in primary colours. ‘You like it?’ he asked.

  ‘What is it?’ I said.

  ‘It is modern art,’ he said with a patronizing drawl. ‘Do you know what that is?’

  ‘Yes. Modern art is what happened when painters stopped looking at girls.’

  ‘Really?’ he said coldly. ‘Is that not Kulturbolschewismus?’ It was a low blow. Cultural Bolshevism was the name the Nazis coined to condemn anything other than the state-approved social realist art.