London Match

by Len Deighton

  ‘Possibly,’ I said.

  ‘Klara answers if I don’t pick it up. It’s probably a wrong number. We get a lot of wrong numbers lately.’

  What if Posh Harry’s approach was rejected? I would be in a very difficult position. Even if Bret Rensselaer was innocent, that didn’t prove that the rest of my theory was correct. Stinnes might be genuine. It was then that I began to worry that Stinnes might not be informed about the whole structure of Moscow’s plot to discredit Bret Rensselaer. Suppose Stinnes was a kamikaze sent to blow London Central into fragments but had never been told the details of what he was doing? Stinnes was the sort of man who would sacrifice himself for something in which he truly believed. But what did he truly believe? That was the question that had to be answered.

  And what would I do in Fiona’s position? She was holding all the cards; all she had to do was sacrifice Stinnes. Would she believe that I’d tumbled to their game? Yes, probably. But would she believe that I could convince London Central of the real truth? No, probably not. Bret Rensselaer was the element that would decide the way Fiona jumped. I hoped Posh Harry got that bit of the story right. Maybe Fiona wouldn’t believe that I could persuade the fumbling bureaucrats that Stinnes was making a fool of them; but Bret and I together – she’d possibly believe that the two of us combined could do it. Bret and I combined could do anything, in Fiona’s opinion. I suppose the kind of man she really wanted was some incongruous and impossible combination of the two of us.

  ‘Drinkies?’ said Lisl in what she imagined was English. Without waiting for a reply she poured sherry for all of us. I didn’t like sherry, especially the dark sweet variety that Lisl preferred, but I’d been pretending to like it for so long that I didn’t have the courage to ask for something else.

  It was nine-thirty when the call came through. I was a hundred and fifty points behind Lisl and trying to make two hearts with a hand that wasn’t really worth a bid. Lisl answered the phone. She must have realized that I was waiting for my call. She passed it to me. It was Posh Harry.

  ‘Bernard?’ They would be monitoring the call, but there was no point in disguising who I was; they would know that already.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’ve been talking.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘They’ll come back to me in one hour.’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘She asked me if Bret will be at the meeting.’

  ‘It could be arranged.’

  ‘They might make it a condition.’ I looked at Lisl and then at Herr Koch. They were both giving very close attention to their cards in that way people study things when they’re trying to look as if they’re not eavesdropping.

  ‘Bret’s in charge; make that clear,’ I said.

  ‘I’ll tell them. They will come equipped, you realize that.’ That meant armed. There was no way we could prevent that; we had no right to search Russian cars or personnel crossing into West Berlin.

  ‘Okay,’ I said.

  ‘Guaranteed safe passage and return for the woman?’ That was Fiona, frightened that we might arrest her. But by now they’d no doubt provided her with all the paperwork that made her a Soviet citizen, a colonel in the KGB, and probably a Party member too. It would be a legal nightmare getting her arrested in West Berlin where the USSR was still a Protecting Power with legal rights that compared with the British, French and American ones. In the UK it would be a different matter.

  ‘Guaranteed for the whole party. Do they want it in writing?’ I said.

  ‘They don’t want it for the whole party – just for the woman,’ said Posh Harry. It seemed a strange thing to say, but I gave it no special thought at the time. It was only afterwards that it had any significance.

  ‘Whatever they want, Harry.’

  ‘I’ll phone you back,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll be here,’ I said.

  I rang off and returned to the bridge game. Lisl and Herr Koch made no reference to my phone call. There was a tacit understanding that I was employed by some international pharmaceutical company.

  We played another rubber of bridge before Posh Harry phoned back to tell me that everything was agreed on for the meeting in the Steigenberger Hotel. Even by the end of his negotiations Posh Harry didn’t know that they were holding Werner in custody. It was typical of the KGB; nothing was told to anyone except what he needed to know.

  I phoned Frank Harrington and told him they’d agreed but would need some kind of written guarantee that the woman would be allowed to return unhindered.

  Frank grunted his agreement. He knew the implications, but made no comment about Fiona or the Department’s interest in arresting her. ‘They are here in saturation levels,’ said Frank. ‘KGB watchers have been coming through the crossing points for the last two hours. I knew it was going to be an affirmative.’

  ‘KGB? Coming through to the West?’

  ‘Yes, they’ve been sniffing around ever since you got here. They probably saw our friend arriving.’ He meant Bret.

  ‘And their friend too?’ I said. I meant Stinnes; he’d arrived that afternoon.

  ‘I hope not,’ said Frank.

  ‘But both are secure?’

  ‘Very secure,’ said Frank. ‘I’m not letting them out.’ Frank had both men accommodated at his official mansion in Grunewald. There was a half a million pounds’ worth of security devices built into that place. Even the KGB would have trouble getting at them there. After a pause Frank said, ‘Are you equipped, Bernard?’

  I had a Smith & Wesson that I left in Lisl’s safe, together with some other personal things. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Why?’

  ‘A KGB hit team went through about thirty minutes ago. It was a reliable identification. They don’t send a hit team unless they mean business. I can’t help worrying that you might be targeted.’

  ‘Thanks, Frank. I’ll take the usual precautions.’

  ‘Stay where you are tonight. I’ll send a car for you in the morning. Be very careful, Bernard. I don’t like the look of it. Eight o’clock okay?’

  ‘Eight o’clock will be very convenient,’ I said. ‘Good night, Frank. See you in the morning.’ I’d turned the radio down while talking on the phone; now I made it louder. It was a Swedish station playing a Bruckner symphony; the opening chords filled the room.

  ‘You people in the pill business work late,’ said Lisl sarcastically when I rang off.

  Herr Koch had held his ministerial job throughout the Nazi period by not giving way to curiosity or being tempted to such impetuous remarks. He smiled and said, ‘I hope everything is in order, Bernard.’

  ‘Everything is just fine,’ I told him.

  He got up and went to the radio to switch it off.

  ‘Thank you, darling,’ said Lisl.

  ‘Bruckner,’ explained Herr Koch. ‘When they announced the disaster at Stalingrad, the radio played nothing but Beethoven and Bruckner for three whole days.’

  ‘So many fine young boys…’ said Lisl sadly. ‘Put on a record, darling. Something happy – “Bye, bye, Blackbird”.’

  But when Herr Koch put a record on, it was one of his favourites, ‘Das war in Schöneberg im Monat Mai…’

  ‘Marlene Dietrich,’ said Lisl, leaning back and closing her eyes. ‘Schön!’

  28

  ‘They’re coming through Checkpoint Charlie now.’ I recognized the voice that came through the tiny loudspeaker, although I couldn’t put a name to it. It was one of the old Berlin Field Unit hands. He was at the checkpoint watching the KGB party coming West for the meeting. ‘Three black Volvos.’

  I was using my handset radio to monitor the reports. I heard someone at this end say, ‘How many of them?’

  Standing alongside me in the VIP suite of the Steigenberger Hotel, Frank said, ‘Three Volvos! Jesus Christ! It’s a bloody invasion!’ Frank had committed himself, but now that it was actually happening he was nervous. I’d told him to have a drink, but he’d refused.

  ‘All of a sudden it
’s green,’ said Frank, still looking out of the window to the street far below us. ‘Berlin, I mean. The winters always seem as if they’ll never end. Then suddenly the sunshine comes and you notice the chestnut trees, magnolias, flowers everywhere. The grey clouds and the snow and ice are gone, and everywhere is green.’ That’s all he said, but it was enough. I realized then that Frank loved Berlin as I loved it. All his talk of wanting to get away from here, to retire in England and never think about Berlin again, was nonsense. He loved it here. I suppose it was his imminent retirement that had made him face the truth; packing up his Ellington records, separating his personal possessions from the furniture and things that belonged to the residence, had made him miserable.

  ‘Three drivers plus nine passengers,’ said the voice.

  ‘Who is that?’ I asked Frank. ‘I recognize the voice, I think.’

  ‘Old Percy Danvers,’ said Frank. It was a man who’d worked here in my father’s time. His mother was German from Silesia, father English: a sergeant in the Irish Guards.

  ‘Still working?’

  ‘He retires next year, just a few months after me. But he’s remaining here in the city,’ said Frank wistfully. ‘I don’t know how the office will manage without Percy.’

  ‘Who’s getting Berlin when you go?’ I asked. I sipped the whisky I needed to face them. Would Fiona really come?

  ‘There was talk of Bret taking over.’

  ‘That won’t happen now,’ I said.

  ‘I don’t care who comes here,’ said Frank. ‘As long as I get away.’

  I looked at him. Now both of us knew it wasn’t true. Frank smiled.

  Then Bret Rensselaer came back from the phone, and I said, ‘Nine of them; they just came through Checkpoint Charlie. They’ll be here at any time.’ Behind Bret there was a German kid – Peter – who’d been assigned to provide Bret’s personal protection. He was a nice kid, but he took it too seriously, and now he wouldn’t let Bret out of his sight.

  Bret nodded and joined us for a moment at the window before sinking into one of the soft grey suede armchairs. The VIP suite at the Steigenberger runs the whole length of the building, but the entrance to it is inconspicuous, and many of the hotel’s residents don’t even know it exists. For that reason the suite is used for top-level meetings both commercial and political and by publicity-shunning tycoons, politicians, and film stars. There’s a dining room at one end and an elegant office area at the other. In between there’s a TV lounge, sitting room, bedrooms, and even a small room where the waiters can open champagne and prepare canapés.

  Champagne and canapés were ready for the KGB party, but higher on the list of priorities were the extra locks, the security devices and doors that close off this part of the top floor, and the suite’s private elevator that would enable the KGB delegates to arrive and depart without mixing with the other hotel guests.

  ‘What is their weakest point?’ said Bret, speaking from behind us as if talking to himself. Bret had recovered some of his confidence by now. He had the American talent for bouncing back; all he’d needed was a hot shower, clean linen, and the sports pages of the Herald Tribune.

  I didn’t answer, but Frank said, ‘Fiona.’

  ‘Fiona?’ Did I hear resentment in Bret’s voice? Was there a proprietorial tone that came from some affection Bret still had for her? ‘Fiona is their weakest point? What do you mean, Frank?’

  Frank turned around and went and sat in the armchair opposite Bret. Ever since I’d brought Bret into Frank’s house in Grunewald there had been a distance, almost a coldness, between the two men. I couldn’t decide to what extent it was a latent hostility and to what extent it was embarrassment, a sign of Frank’s concern for the humiliation that Bret was suffering.

  Frank said, ‘She is a latecomer to their organization. Some of them probably still view her with suspicion; no doubt all of them have some kind of hostility towards her.’

  ‘Is that view based upon received reports?’ said Bret.

  ‘She’s a foreigner,’ said Frank. ‘Putting her in charge over there means that everyone’s promotion expectations are lessened. Compare her position with ours. We’ve all known each other many years. We know what we can expect from each other, both in terms of help and hindrance. She is isolated. She has no long-term allies. She has no experience of what actions or opinions can be expected from her colleagues. She is constantly under the microscope; everyone around her will be trying to find fault with what she does. Everything she says will be examined, syllable for syllable, by people who are not in sympathy with what she’s doing.’

  ‘She’s a Moscow appointment,’ said Bret. Again there was some indefinable note of something that might have been affection or even pride. Bret looked at me, but I looked at my drink.

  Frank said, ‘All the more reason why the staff in her Berlin office will resent her.’

  ‘So what are you proposing?’ Bret asked Frank.

  ‘We must give her the opportunity to negotiate while separated from the rest of her people. We must give her a chance to speak without being overheard.’

  ‘That won’t be easy, Frank,’ I said. ‘You know why they send such big teams. They don’t trust anyone to be alone with us.’

  ‘We must find a way,’ said Frank. ‘Bernard must move the chat onto a domestic plane. There must be something he could talk to her about.’

  ‘Talk about the kids,’ said Bret. I could cheerfully have throttled him, but I smiled instead.

  ‘She might have thought all this out for herself,’ said Frank, who also knew Fiona well. ‘She might get time alone with us by some ruse of her own.’

  ‘And what about us?’ said Bret. ‘What’s our weakest point?’ Peter, his bodyguard, watched Bret all the time and tried to follow the conversation.

  ‘That’s easy,’ said Frank. ‘Our weakest point is Werner Volkmann.’ Frank’s dislike of Werner was based upon the affair Frank had had with Werner’s wife, Zena. Guilt breeds resentment; Frank disliked Werner because he’d cuckolded him.

  ‘Werner’s name hasn’t even been mentioned,’ said Bret. ‘At least, that’s what Bernard told us.’

  ‘I’m sure Bernard told us the truth,’ said Frank. ‘But they’re holding Werner Volkmann, and Werner is Bernard’s very closest friend. They know what we want in return.’

  ‘What we are pretending to want in return, Frank,’ I said. ‘Our real benefit is revealing to London Central that Stinnes is Moscow’s man who’s trying to frame Bret and make trouble for everyone else. We have to do that without Moscow realizing what our true purpose is. Making them release Werner is a convenient smokescreen.’

  Frank smiled at what he regarded as my rationalization. He thought Werner was my real motive for setting this one up. But Frank was wrong. I wouldn’t let either of them discover my real motive. My real motive was my children.

  ‘Bernard!’ All of a sudden my wife came walking through the door. ‘What a glorious suite. Did you choose it?’ A cold smile, just in case anyone thought she was sincere.

  She stood there as if expecting the usual kiss, but I hesitated, then extended my hand. She shook it with a mocking grin. ‘Hello, Fi,’ I said. She was dressed in a grey woollen dress. It was simple but expensive. She was not living like a worker, but like the ones who told the workers what they were allowed to do.

  ‘Hello Frank; hello Bret,’ she said. Fiona smiled at them and shook hands. She was in charge of the party and she was determined to show it. This was her first official visit to the West. Looking back afterwards I realized that despite our reassurances, she was wondering if we were going to arrest her. But she carried it off with the same brisk confidence with which she did everything. Her hair was different. She’d let it grow and taken it back into a sort of bun. It was the sort of hair style that Hollywood might provide for a Communist official in the sort of movie where she takes off her glasses, lets her hair down, and becomes a capitalist in the last reel. Ninotchka. But I saw no sign of Fiona shedding t
he chrysalis of Communism. Indeed, if appearances were any guide, it seemed to suit her.

  After everyone had shaken hands with everyone, a waiter – that is to say, one of our people, armed but dressed as a waiter – served drinks. Frank offered champagne. He’d bet me five pounds that they wouldn’t accept it. He’d got some Russian white wine in the cooler anticipating that they’d ask for something like that, just to be difficult. But Fiona said champagne would be wonderful, and after that, they all said they’d have champagne. Except me; I had another scotch.

  There were not nine of them in the room. Two armed KGB men were in the lobby, another was assigned to help the drivers make sure no one tampered with the cars, and someone was supervising the use of the private elevator. There were three actual negotiators and two clerks. The only one I knew, besides Fiona, was Pavel Moskvin, whose path kept crossing mine. He shed his ankle-length black overcoat and dumped it onto the sofa. He stared at me. I smiled and he looked away.

  There was a much younger man with their party, a blond man of about twenty-five, wearing the kind of suit that KGB men wore if they couldn’t get out of Moscow. He must have been on the teaching machines, for his German and English were perfect and accentless and he even made little jokes. But he was very much in Fiona’s pocket and he watched her all the time in case she wanted something done. Alongside him was the third negotiator; a white-haired man who did nothing but frown.

  ‘I hope you agree that time is the vital factor,’ said Bret. It was his show; Frank had agreed to that right from the start. Bret had most to lose. If the meeting was going to become a fiasco, then Bret would have only himself to blame. And no doubt Frank would toss him to the wolves in a desperate attempt to save himself. Where would Frank’s explanation leave me? I wondered.

  ‘Yes,’ said Fiona. ‘May we take notes?’