Quiller KGB

by Adam Hall

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 kept 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.’

  Chapter 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 too
k 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.

  ‘Put him there.’

  Chair, seat of a chair behind my legs and I let them buckle, sat down, very bright light as they dragged the bag off my head.

  ‘Can I have some water?’

  Simply to make them talk, do something, show some kind of reaction so that I could learn what they were like, get to know them, get to know useful things that might help me find a way out. But they didn’t take any notice.

  ‘Go and fetch him.’

  The taller one nodded and went back up the steps; the thick-bodied one stayed behind with me, standing with his legs astride and the revolver aimed at the diaphragm, not terribly good at his anatomy, the heart is where you aim a gun if you’re serious; for a professional it’s a learned habit. They weren’t professionals and that could give me an edge: one has, you see, to clutch at straws, lacking a boat.

  This place was quite well furnished, compared with the standard Interrogation cell: telephone, three or four antique chairs with the veneer chipped and the brocade worn thin, an art deco chest of drawers and a lamp with a chrome post and a red plush shade - they’d raided a junk shop and taken the first things they could lay hands on, I suppose, not that I’m fussy as a guest when I’ve got a gun aimed at my guts.

  ”This is just for your information,’ I said. ‘I’m an officer of the HUA with captain’s rank, and it will go better for you if you and your colleague agree to release me at this stage with no harm done. I’m sure you’ll see the logic of that.’

  There was no point in telling him that my department knew I was making the rendezvous and would be initiating an immediate search, because if the HUA had known about the rendezvous they would have filled the streets with patrol cars before we’d even got as far as Spandauerstrasse.

  I think he’d understood what I’d said, though he didn’t take any immediate interest; he was still looking at nothing in particular, his eyes blank, his entire presence impersonal, very like a customs officer who spends his day chewing people and spitting them out again without really enjoying the taste.

  But now he was taking an interest; he’d been turning things over in his mind.

  ‘Give me your wallet.’

  I reached for my hip pocket, both hands together, and got the wallet and held it out for him so that he could look at my papers to see if I were telling the truth, but he wasn’t a professional and his mood was perfectly calm because he’d got a gun on me and I was in handcuffs and there was nothing I could do and in this he was in error because my survival was threatened and the system was full of adrenalin and the nerves were singing with tension and the muscles taut as bowstrings and I raked the edge of my shoe down his shin with force enough to strip the flesh off the bone and bring a scream of agony as my foot impacted on the angle of his flying-boot with the whole weight of my body bearing down and the hips spinning and the hands driving against his gun-wrist and the links between the handcuffs snapping bone as the gun fired and I heard the bullet hit the wall behind me.

  I think he was already unconscious before he hit the ground; with most people the degree of pain I’d induced will be enough to cross the threshold and demand relief and the only relief available is the cessation of awareness and the brain will look after things.

  He shattered the leg of an antique chair as he went down with his face white and his neck twisting as his head rolled against the concrete floor and I left him there and crouched and picked up the gun and had it in my right hand with my left forearm across the small of my back to give me an adequate position for the aim as the door opened at the top of the steps and Pollock came down, no bright smile.

  Chapter 22

  POLLOCK

  ‘God,’ he said quietly, ‘what a mess.’

  The pilot had vomited when he’d regained consciousness and the pain had started up again, but I don’t think Pollock meant that; he meant the whole situation.

  ‘Move over there,’ I said, ‘behind him. And don’t let him get up.’

  ‘I doubt if he can. But I’ve got to get him to a hospital.’

  ‘Pollock,’ I said, ‘this isn’t a fucking cricket club. Get over there.’

  He moved now, but not because the gun worried him. That was my impression.

  ‘If the other man comes down the steps,’ I said, ‘and you give him any kind of warning, I’m going to put a bullet straight into your head. Parlez-vous English?’

  He gave a slow blink, as if keeping patience. ‘Look, if I take the handcuffs off, will you put down the gun?’

  ‘In that order, yes. But first we’ve got to wait for the other man to come back. I want his gun too.’

  ‘His name’s Schwarz,’ he said, with a formality that would have amused me if I hadn’t been so enraged. On the trip from the rendezvous I’d been certain they were going to shoot me as they’d shot Lena Pabst, and there was all that adrenalin still hanging around the blood and going sour. ‘We need to talk,’ Pollock said, and then a door opened and someone came down the steps and Pollock looked up. ‘Jurgen, put your revolver on the floor, will you?’

  The man took a look at things and began pulling his gun out of the holster and I said, ‘Do it very carefully,’ and he just used his finger and thumb on the butt as if it were something smelly, and laid it on the bottom step. Then he looked at the man on the floor.

  ‘We’ll get h
im to a doctor,’ Pollock said.

  I was still holding the gun with my left arm twisted behind my back and it was tiring. ‘Pollock, come over here and stand with your back to me.’

  The man on the floor was crooning over his broken wrist, his face still bloodless. He was the one who’d kept digging his gun into me on the way here.

  ‘Closer,’ I told Pollock, and he went on backing towards me until the muzzle of my revolver was touching his spine. Then I told the pilot in German, ‘unlock these things.’ I didn’t need to tell him what would happen to Pollock’s spine if anyone played about. Schwarz, Pollock had said his name was.

  When the handcuffs were off my wrists I told them both to move into the corner behind the man on the floor.

  ‘Schwarz, is that driver still up there in the van?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Get him down here. If you’re longer than two minutes I’m going to put your friend out of his misery.’

  ‘Look -‘ Pollock said.

  ‘Shuddup.’ I was in a rotten mood and it was their bloody fault.

  Schwarz went and got the driver, a young low-ranker in a windcheater and boots, his movements sharp and circumspect in the presence of the pilots.

  I looked at Pollock. ‘Where is this place?’

  ‘The cellar underneath the Club.’

  I told the driver, ‘Go upstairs and get a bucket of water and a cloth and come back and clear up that mess on the floor. Then you’ll take the officer to the nearest medical centre. Now move.’

  ‘Sir!’

  ‘Pollock, you can light a cigarette. Schwarz too.’

  It’d help cover the smell. I watched their hands as a matter of caution, but Pollock hadn’t got anything on him or he’d have reached for it when he’d come down the steps and seen the mess.

  I went over to the phone and dialled the hotel.

  Second ring: Cone was nursing it.

  ‘The rdv,’ I told him, ‘was set up to make a snatch. I’ve restored order and I’m now in the Trumpeter operations room, though it looks more like a junk shop: we’re not dealing with a very sophisticated cell.