Berlin Game

by Len Deighton

  ‘That’s good,’ I said, although I knew he’d only exchanged old ones for new.

  I was tired by the time I got back to Rolf Mauser’s place in Prenzlauer Berg. But I observed the customary precautions and parked Werner’s Wartburg round the corner and sat in it for a few moments scanning the area before locking up.

  The streets were empty. The only sounds came from the elevated railway trains on Schönhauserallee and the occasional passing car or bus. There was no parking problem where Rolf Mauser lived.

  A glimmer of light in the entrance to the apartment building was provided by a low-power bulb situated too high to be cleaned. It illuminated the broken floral-patterned floor tiles and, on the wall, a dozen or more dented metal boxes for mail. On the left was a wide stone staircase. To the right a long narrow corridor led to a metal-reinforced door that gave on to the courtyard at the rear of the building. At night the metal door was locked to protect the tenants’ bicycles, and to prevent anyone disturbing the peace by using the rubbish bins or the ash-cans.

  I knew there was someone standing there even before I saw the slight movement. And I recognized the sort of movement it was. It was the movement a man made when his long period of waiting is at last near an end.

  ‘Don’t do anything,’ said a whispered voice.

  I inched back into the shadow and reached in my pocket for a knife, the only weapon I would risk in a town where stop searches were so common.

  ‘Bernie?’ It was Werner, one of the few Germans who called me anything other than Bernd.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Did anyone see you come in?’

  ‘No. Why?’

  ‘Rolf’s got visitors.’

  ‘Who?’

  There came the sound of two cars arriving. When two cars arrive together at a residential block in Prenzlauer Berg, it is not likely to be a social call. I followed Werner quickly down the narrow corridor, but he could not get the door to the courtyard open. Two uniformed policemen and two men in leather overcoats came into the entrance and shone their flashlights at the names on the mailboxes.

  ‘Mauser,’ said the younger of the uniformed cops, directing the beam of the torch on one of the boxes.

  ‘Master detective,’ growled a leather-coated man in mock admiration. As he turned, the light of the torch showed him to be a man of about thirty-five with a small Lenin-style goatee beard.

  ‘You said number nineteen,’ said the young policeman defensively. ‘I took you to the address you gave me.’ He was very young, and had the sort of Saxon accent that sounds comical to most German ears.

  ‘The boss ordered me to be here fifteen minutes ago,’ growled Lenin in the hard accent of working-class Berlin. ‘I should have walked.’

  ‘You still would have ended up at the wrong address,’ said the cop, his Saxon accent stronger than before.

  The leather-coated man turned on him angrily. ‘Maybe someone told you it’s a softer touch being drafted into the police service than into the Army. I don’t care that your daddy is a Party big-shot. This is Berlin. This is my town. Shut up and do as you’re told.’ Before the young conscript could reply, the leather-coated man started up the stairs. The other three followed him, and his harangue continued. ‘Wait till this KGB Colonel arrives. You’ll jump then, boys, you’ll jump then.’

  Werner was still twisting the handle of the door to the yard when he realized that the cops were not going to shine their lights and discover us at the end of the corridor. ‘That was a close thing,’ he said.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Two of them; Stasis. Upstairs in Rolf’s apartment. They got here about three hours ago. You know what that means.’

  ‘They’re waiting for someone.’

  ‘They’re not waiting for someone,’ said Werner grimly. ‘They’re waiting for you. Did you leave anything in the apartment?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Let’s get out of here,’ said Werner.

  ‘Do you think they’ll have a guard posted outside?’

  ‘Let me go first. My papers are good ones.’

  ‘Hold it a minute.’ I could see a shadow, and then a cop came into view. He moved into a doorway as if he might have heard our voices, and then went outside again.

  We waited a few more minutes and then the four security policemen brought Rolf Mauser downstairs to the car. Rolf was making a lot of noise; his voice came echoing down the stairwell long before he came into sight.

  ‘Let me go. What’s all this about? Answer my questions. How dare you handcuff me! This could wait till morning. Let me go!’

  Rolf’s angry shouting must have been heard in every apartment in the building. But no one came to the door. No one came to see what was happening.

  The front door crashed closed and we heard Rolf’s voice in the empty street before the sound of the cars’ engines swallowed his protests.

  Only after the police had departed with their prisoner did the apartment doors upstairs open. There were whispered questions, and even quieter answers, for a few minutes before all went completely quiet.

  ‘That’s the only way to do it,’ I said. ‘A silent prisoner might just as well confess. Rolf’s shouting might make them pause to think. That might give us a chance to do something to help him.’

  ‘He didn’t shout to convince them he was innocent,’ said Werner. ‘He was shouting to warn you off.’

  ‘I know,’ I said. ‘And there’s nothing we can do to help him, either.’ Was Rolf Mauser Fiona’s first victim, I wondered. And would I be the next one?

  25

  Officially, Werner Volkmann had no accommodation in East Berlin, but his riverside warehouse in Friedrichshain, with an office on the ground floor, contained four upstairs rooms that he had converted into comfortable living quarters, complete with tiny kitchen and a sitting room. It was against government regulations for him to stay overnight there – no one could let a guest stay the night without police permission – but because Werner was earning foreign exchange nothing was ever said about his little ‘home’.

  Werner unlocked the massive warehouse door using three keys. ‘Refrigerators, colour TV sets, real – made in the USA – blue jeans, Black and Decker drills, all the most sought-after delights of the decadent West are stored here from time to time,’ he said, explaining the need for the complex locks.

  ‘Black and Decker drills?’

  ‘To improve and enlarge living accommodation. Or, better still, fix up some little weekend place that they are legally permitted to sell.’ He went up a steep staircase and unlocked another door.

  ‘Plenty of Black and Decker here,’ I said looking at the newly decorated hall hung with two well-framed watercolours: a contorted nude and a crippled clown. I bent closer to see them. German Expressionist painters, of course. There is something in their tragic quality that touches the soul of Berliners.

  ‘Nolde and Kirchner,’ said Werner, taking off his coat and hanging it on an elaborate mahogany hallstand. ‘Not your sort of thing, I know.’

  ‘But worth a packet, Werner,’ I said. I looked round and saw some fine pieces of antique furniture. Werner had always been a clever forager. At school he’d been able to get American candy bars, pieces of broken tanks, military badges, roller-skate wheels and all the other treasures that schoolboys wanted then.

  ‘Westmarks will buy anything on this side of the Wall. And there are still mountains of treasures locked away in cellars and attics.’

  I put my hat and coat alongside Werner’s and followed him into the next room. Light came in through the window. Werner went across the room and looked out. Here was the River Spree. Bright moonlight fell on a grimy stretch of riverside land. Drawn against the sky was the complex ironwork of the elevated railway, chopped off abruptly on its way to the West, and left to rust. Nearer was a roofless factory building, derelict and untouched since the fighting stopped in 1945. To the right I could see along the dark river to the glaring arc lights of the Oberbaum br
idge, one of the border crossing points, for here the river is the boundary between the East and West Sectors.

  Werner closed the curtains abruptly and switched on the table lamps. ‘We need a drink,’ he said. There being no opposition from me, he produced a bottle of German brandy and some glasses. Then he got ice and a jug of water from a refrigerator alongside his big stereo TV.

  ‘That’s a sure sign of a separated man,’ I said. ‘A man with ice available in his living room. Married men have to go to the kitchen to get ice in their booze.’

  ‘And what about a bachelor?’

  ‘Ice in the bedroom,’ I said.

  ‘You’ve always got an answer,’ said Werner. ‘That used to irritate me when we were kids.’

  ‘I know,’ I said. ‘I’m good at irritating people.’

  ‘Well, you certainly irritated Zena,’ he said.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me you knew where she was?’

  ‘And have you think she was having an affair with Frank Harrington?’

  ‘Wasn’t she having an affair with Frank Harrington?’ I said cautiously. I sipped my brandy without the water that Werner was waving in the air.

  ‘You drink too much. Do you know that?’

  ‘Yes, I know because my wife keeps telling me.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Werner. ‘I didn’t mean to criticize. But right now you can’t afford to blunt your mind.’

  ‘If that’s what it does, give me another,’ I said.

  He poured more brandy into my glass, and said, ‘No, that place in Lübars is a safe house. Zena was doing an undercover job for Frank Harrington. She’s never been unfaithful to me. She would have told me more but she knows how much I’ve always disliked Frank.’

  ‘Is that what she told you? An undercover job.’

  ‘I’ve got her back,’ said Werner. ‘She’s explained everything to me and we’ve started afresh. Sometimes there has to be a really bad disagreement before two people understand each other.’

  ‘Well, here’s to you, Werner,’ I said.

  ‘It was you who really got us back together again,’ said Werner. ‘You frightened her.’

  ‘Any time, Werner,’ I offered.

  He smiled the sort of smile that showed me he was not amused. ‘I did what you wanted. I went to London today and saw Dicky. It was a rush. I only just caught the flight back.’

  ‘All okay? No problems at the checkpoint?’

  ‘Was I followed, you mean? Listen, the East Germans don’t give a shit about my going to London and straight back here again. London is now at the centre of the forfaiting market. I’m always in and out. How the hell do you think I get these deals for them? None of the West German banks are very keen to go into a syndicate unless I’ve got some nice juicy London or New York bank in it too.’

  ‘That’s good.’

  ‘The DDR need Westmarks, Bernie. They’re desperate for hard currency. They’re squeezed between the Russians and the West. They need oil from Russia, but they also need Western technology. And all the time, the squeeze is getting tighter and tighter. I don’t know what’s going to happen over here in a decade from now. And by the way, I paid Lisl back the money I borrowed – and interest too.’

  ‘Don’t sound so worried, Werner.’

  ‘These people are Germans, Bernie. Of course I’m worried about what happens here.’

  ‘Sure,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t give me that look,’ he complained.

  ‘What look was I giving you?’

  ‘That “Why do you Jews always have to get so emotional?” look.’

  ‘Stop being so paranoid,’ I said. ‘And why are you being so bloody mean with your brandy? It’s not even French.’

  He pushed the bottle over to me this time. ‘I saw Dicky Cruyer, just as you said, and he agreed that I put you on tomorrow’s truck. Your wife had spoken with you on the phone by then, so Dicky fixed it right away. As soon as you are in the Federal Republic, we’ll bring your precious Brahms Four out.’ Werner smiled. He knew that Dicky had sent me to Berlin to keep Brahms Four active and in place.

  ‘Sounds good,’ I said.

  ‘I’ll feel much easier when you’re back in the West,’ said Werner. ‘There are too many people who could recognize your face.’

  ‘And what if they do?’

  ‘Don’t be childish,’ said Werner. He picked up the brandy, recorked the bottle, and put it back into an antique lacquer cabinet decorated with Chinese mountain scenery.

  ‘Was that cabinet something else you picked up for a pair of Levis?’ I asked, irritated by the way he closed the door of it.

  ‘If some smart little bastard from the Stasis recognizes you, they’ll take you in for interrogation. You know too much to be running round loose over here. I don’t know why London permitted it.’

  ‘Well, you don’t know everything, Werner,’ I said. ‘There are a couple of things now and again that the D-G doesn’t check out with you.’

  ‘You don’t think that was some kind of routine visit that the Stasis made to Rolf Mauser tonight? They know you’re here, Bernie. They’re looking for you – it’s obvious.’

  ‘Let me do the worrying, Werner,’ I said. ‘I’ve had more practice.’

  Werner got to his feet and said, ‘Let’s go downstairs and I’ll show you the truck you’ll be hiding in.’

  I got up and drained the dregs from my glass.

  ‘Drinking makes you bad-tempered,’ said Werner.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘It’s having the bottle taken away that does that.’

  The warehouse, which Werner leased from the Foreign Trade Ministry, was big. There were two thirty-ton trucks parked downstairs and there was still plenty of room for packing cases and workbenches and the office with two desks, three filing cases and an ancient Adler typewriter.

  ‘We bolt you in,’ said Werner, climbing into the back of the trailer. His voice echoed in the confined space. ‘The first couple of times we did it, we welded that section after the people were inside, but we burned someone’s leg doing it, so now we bolt it up and paint it with quick-drying paint. I hope you don’t suffer from claustrophobia.’ He pointed to the place at the front of the cargo compartment where two metal sheets had been opened to reveal a narrow compartment. ‘Plenty of air holes, but they are not visible because of the baffles. These two brackets hold a small wooden seat, and we’ll fix a soft cushion on it because you’ll be a long time in here.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘Those bastards at the customs don’t work a long hard day,’ said Werner. ‘Ten minutes of writing out forms and they have to sit down and recuperate for an hour or so.’

  ‘How long altogether?’

  ‘Sometimes the trucks are parked in the compounds for two days before the officials even look up and nod. Drivers have been known to go crazy in the waiting room. Maybe that’s the idea.’

  ‘Three days, maximum?’

  ‘We’re talking about a game of chance, Bernie. Relax, and take along something to read. I’ll fix a light for you. How about that? It could be they’ll wave us through.’

  ‘I won’t be the one travelling in this metal box,’ I said.

  ‘I knew that,’ said Werner in a voice that was more annoyed than self-satisfied.

  ‘What did you know?’

  ‘Right from the start, I thought, that bastard is going to pull some kind of switch. And here it is. So who is going?’

  ‘Brahms Four goes first. He wants to take his wife. You could fit two people in here, couldn’t you? It’s better they go on the first trip.’

  ‘That’s not the reason. That’s just calculated to break my heart and make me think you’re a wonderful fellow.’

  ‘I am a wonderful fellow,’ I said.

  ‘You’re a devious bastard,’ said Werner.

  ‘You told Dicky?’

  ‘I did it just the way you wanted. No one knows except Dicky Cruyer…and anyone he tells.’

  ‘And my kids?’ Finally I had
to ask the question I’d been avoiding.

  ‘You’re worrying unnecessarily, Bernie. It can’t be Fiona.’

  ‘Twenty-four-hour cover? Three men and two cars each shift?’

  ‘I did it just the way you said. Your kids are watched night and day. I was surprised that Dicky Cruyer okayed it.’

  ‘Thanks, Werner,’ I said.

  ‘Does Fiona know where this place is?’ So now even he was truly convinced.

  ‘Not from me, she doesn’t.’

  ‘She wouldn’t let you get arrested, Bernie. You’re the father of her kids.’ He spoke of Fiona apologetically. Why does the betrayed partner always get treated like a leper? It’s damned unfair. But it was no different from the way I’d treated Werner all through his sufferings with his disloyal wife.

  ‘So you’ll put two seats in here?’ I said, rapping the metal sheet of the hidden compartment.

  ‘Where do we pick them up?’

  ‘We’ll have to think carefully about that, Werner,’ I said. ‘Not a good idea to let them come here. You don’t want some little creep writing down your address in a debriefing sheet that gets circulated to NATO intelligence officers.’ Werner shuddered and said nothing. I said, ‘But we don’t want a big truck like this going off the main roads. It would stick out like a sore thumb in some back street in Pankow.’

  ‘Müggelheimer Damm,’ suggested Werner. It was a long, almost straight road through the forest that bordered the Grosser Müggelsee – a big lake just outside the city. ‘There are no houses all the way from Alstadt to Müggelheim – just the forest road. And it’s convenient from here.’

  ‘Which way will you go? Through Russian Army HQ Karlshorst? Or past the Red Army memorial at Treptow?’ Both places were always well provided with sharp-eyed traffic police and plainclothes security men.

  ‘What does it matter? We’ll be clean at that stage of the journey.’

  ‘A halted truck on that long forest road?’ I said doubtfully.

  ‘It will look as if the driver has gone behind a tree,’ said Werner.

  ‘Where on the Müggelheimer Damm?’