by Len Deighton
He turned to see me. He raised an arm. There was a crack and a scream. A woman in front of me doubled up and fell to the ground. I ducked to one side and ran on. Moskvin kept running too. He raced towards Nollendorfplatz. In Kleiststrasse the tracks of the railway emerge from under the roadway and occupy the centre median of the street. He climbed the railings, ran across the tracks, and jumped down the other side. I did the same. I stood on the railings trying to see where he was, thankfully gulping air as my heart pounded with exertion. Bang! There was another shot. I felt the wind of it and jumped down out of sight. Was he, I wondered, heading for the Wall? It wasn’t far away; the vast arena of floodlights, barbed wire, mines and machine guns at Potsdamerplatz was close. But how would he try to get across? Were there some secret crossing places which the KGB used and we didn’t know about? We’d suspected it for ages but never found one.
I got my second wind and kept pounding after him. He had to go to Nollendorfplatz unless he had a safe house in this street. Then I saw him. And on the other side of the street – the wrong side of the street – one of the VW vans was grinding its way through the oncoming cars. Now there was a blue light flashing on its roof. No siren though. I wondered if Moskvin could see the light. Frank and his BFU detachment were trying to get to the other side of the Platz and cut him off. I saw old Percy Danvers jump out of the white VW bus and start running. But Percy was too old.
Nollendorfplatz was a big traffic intersection, a circus where fast-moving traffic circulates. The centre of the intersection is filled by the ancient iron structure of the station, raised on stilts above the street. The rusty old railway tracks emerge from under Kleiststrasse and slope gently up to it.
I saw Moskvin again. A car flashed its headlights and another one hooted loudly, and then I glimpsed him leaping through the traffic to the middle of the road and the entrance to the station. There were two stations here: the modern underground and the old elevated one it replaced. Had he changed his mind? Was he going to duck down into the U-Bahn, the underground railway, and hope to get aboard a train and leave us behind? A slim hope. But then he raced up the rattling iron steps of the elevated railway station. The bloody fool thought he’d get a train up there. Or perhaps he thought he’d jump down and run along the elevated tracks and cross the Wall the way the elevated trains did from Lehrter Bahnhof to Friedrichstrasse.
I got a clear view of him now. He was halfway up the iron staircase and there was no one in the way. I fired twice. He jumped, but my pistol hand was shaking after the exertions of the chase and I didn’t hit him. Across the road Percy Danvers was trying to get ahead of him. Good old Percy. I had to find out what kind of pills he’d been taking.
Then I heard two more shots from the street and I could see the white VW. It bumped as it came riding up onto the pavement. Its doors opened and men jumped out. Frank Harrington was among them, a pistol in his hand. And so was Bret, gung ho and full of fight.
What’s Frank doing with a gun? I thought – he doesn’t know one end of a gun from the other. Had Frank worried that the Steigenberger meeting might have ended with us all being marched off by the KGB at gunpoint? Frank had always been a bit of a romantic.
I ran into the old elevated station. It was darker in here. I got to the foot of the next staircase and kept close to the wall as I climbed up to the platform. Now there was a volley of shots. They came from across the street. Police perhaps, or people from the other VW bus, but I couldn’t see it and I couldn’t see any of the three black Volvos either.
Moskvin’s feet clattered on the steps. There was a shout as he elbowed someone out of his way. A man carrying a cast-iron bust of the Great Elector fell, the bust hit the stairs with a loud clang, bounced, and broke. I was close behind Moskvin now. At the top of the stairs he stopped. He had realized that the elevated station wasn’t a station at all; it had long since been in use as an antique and junk market. This bright yellow train never went anywhere; its doors opened onto little shops and the platform was a line of stalls displaying old clothes, toys, and slightly damaged valuables. The destination boards said BERLINER FLOHMARKT.
He turned and fired at random. I could see the consternation on his face. I fired too. Both of us were being jostled by a terrified crowd. There was a thud and a crash of breaking glass and the bullets zinged off into nowhere.
Moskvin was still hoping that the elevated train tracks would provide him with an escape route. He fought his way through the crowds. There was panic now, screams and shouts. A woman fell and was trampled underfoot. Moskvin turned and fired two shots blindly into the crowd to cause maximum crush that would impede his capture. There was blood spurting. Antique furniture was knocked over, a cutglass light fell to the floor, a case full of old coins tipped up and the contents went everywhere. A bearded man tried to retrieve the coins and was knocked over.
Through the ‘trains’ of the Flohmarkt I caught a glimpse of the other platform. Frank and his party were there. They were making better progress on that side since they weren’t moving in the ferocious and terrible wake of Moskvin. ‘Stay back, Bernard!’ It was Bret’s voice calling from the other platform. ‘We’ll take him.’
They had marksmen with proper weapons. It made sense to let them move forward rather than my heading into Moskvin’s gun sights.
There was the noise of breaking glass and then I saw that Bret was trying to climb up onto the roof of the train. From there he would see the end of the platform, and Moskvin. But Moskvin saw him first. He fired and Bret lost his balance, slid, toppled, and went to his knees before falling to the ground with a loud scream of pain.
I edged forward, more slowly now. Outside in the street below there was a racket of police sirens and some confused shouting. I saw Moskvin again and again, but he was dodging behind the stalls; there was no way of getting a clear shot at him. His hat had fallen off and his close-cropped hair was little more than stubble. He looked older now, a fierce old man whose eyes gleamed with hatred as he turned once and stared directly at me, daring me to step into the open and do battle with him.
When he got to the end of the platform he was alone. The frightened shoppers had scrambled past him and fled down the steps to shout in the street. He saw the tracks that led to the next elevated station. Did he know that one was a market too? Perhaps he no longer cared. As he turned to face me, he saw Frank and the party that had edged their way down the other side. There was a confusion of shooting, the sound echoing like a drum roll in the confined space.
There was only one way Moskvin could go. He climbed onto a bench and pushed aside old Nazi uniforms and some military helmets adorned with eagles. Then he kicked at the dirty windows using the immense strength that comes to those with nothing to lose. The glass and wooden frames smashed into fragments under the kicks from his heavy boots, and he jumped through the shower of broken glass.
He landed down on the train tracks with a force that made his knees bend, and one hand was stretched out to recover his balance. But in an instant he was upright again and running eastwards. His ankle-length black overcoat was flapping out like the wings of some wounded crow and his pistol was held high in the air, proudly, like the flaming torch of an Olympic runner.
‘Hold your fire!’ It was Frank Harrington’s voice. ‘He can’t get away, the bloody fool.’
But there was the sound of two shots and the black crow stumbled. Yet he had within him the energy and determination of a dozen ordinary men. He ran: one, two, three, four paces. But when he went down again the wings had flapped for the last time. His gun fell from his hand. His face was screwed up into an expression of rage. He clawed desperately at the rails trying to get up again, but, failing, he rolled over and, face upward, bled.
From the station at the other end of the tracks there came the sound of Oriental music. It was the Türkischer Basar, and today it was crowded.
Everyone kept under cover as training rules demand. But I heard someone shout, ‘Where’s that bloody doctor!’ It was an E
nglish voice calling from the other platform. ‘Mr Rensselaer is hurt bad.’
Then Frank’s voice: ‘Everyone stay exactly where they are; everyone!’ Then he said it again in German.
I kept under cover too, as Frank commanded. It was his show now: Berlin was Frank’s town. I was half inside the entrance to one of the little shops. I put my head out enough to see round the sliding door. I could see Moskvin. He hadn’t moved. Frank Harrington went out there alone. He was the first person to get to him. I saw him bend over the body for a moment, take his pulse, and then drag an old fur coat right over him. Pavel Moskvin was dead, just as Fiona wanted him. Everything was quiet now except for the Turkish music and Bret’s soft cries of pain.
30
It was night. There was a loud, regular, clicking noise, but it was too dark to see where it was coming from. I could only just see Frank. He was sitting on a hard wooden bench.
‘We have to be thankful for small mercies,’ said Frank Harrington. ‘At least they released Werner Volkmann. They might have kicked up an unholy row when one of their senior staff got killed.’
‘Yes, they released Werner.’ I’d just come up from the morgue where Pavel Moskvin was in a drawer in a chilled room with a label tied to his toe. I sat down on the bench.
‘Even though we didn’t guarantee the safety of that party, I was expecting all hell to break loose. I thought there might have been an official protest.’
‘Then I’ve got news for you, Frank,’ I said. ‘The ballistics report says that Pavel Moskvin was not killed by one of our rounds.’ I tossed the mangled piece of metal into the air and caught it.
‘What?’
‘They said they’d put the report on your desk.’
‘I haven’t been back to the office.’
‘Three of our bullets hit him, but the one that killed him came from a Soviet-calibre gun.’ I offered him the round, but he wouldn’t take it. Frank was curiously squeamish about firearms.
‘What the hell?’ said Frank. ‘And why use one of their own guns?’
‘Someone over there wanted him dead, Frank. And they wanted us to know that.’ It was, of course, Fiona’s little touch – a way of turning attention away from me, and thus away from her too.
‘That’s why there’s been no protest?’
‘And why Werner was released as promised,’ I said. I hadn’t told Frank about my conversation with Fiona and her request that Pavel Moskvin be ‘taken out’. Now it had become evident that the KGB hadn’t relied upon us; they’d had their own marksman chasing Moskvin. I suppose they would have had too much to lose had we taken him alive.
‘Good grief,’ said Frank. ‘There’s never a clean ending, is there?’
‘That’s why we have files, Frank.’
‘So Moskvin was intended to die,’ mused Frank. ‘That explains the KGB hit team we identified. I thought they might be after you.’
I said, ‘Stinnes will return in triumph. Moskvin represented a threat to him. I overheard a conversation between them once. Moskvin was out to get Stinnes.’
Our voices were hushed. It was night and we were in the Steglitz Clinic, a part of the hospital of the Free University, the same place from which the Miller woman had been rescued after her pretended attempt at suicide. It had been a terrible night and Frank Harrington’s lined face showed how badly he was taking it. Old Percy Danvers, one of Frank’s best people and his close friend, was dead. Pavel Moskvin had shot him through the head. That happened in Kleiststrasse before they even got to the flea market and the gun battle in the station. Young Peter – Bret’s bodyguard – was badly hurt.
We were waiting for Sheldon Rensselaer to arrive. Bret was in the intensive care ward and not expected to live beyond the weekend. His brother Sheldon was flying in from Washington on a US Air Force flight. Sheldon Rensselaer had a lot of influence in Washington.
‘And his wife?’ I asked. Ex-wife, I meant. Bret’s wife had started spending her alimony years ago.
‘Yes, they finally found her. Apparently she winters in Monte Carlo.’
‘She’s coming?’
‘She sent three dozen roses.’
‘Perhaps she doesn’t realize how bad Bret is.’
‘Perhaps,’ said Frank in a voice that meant she knew.
‘Poor Bret,’ I said.
‘He didn’t recognize me,’ said Frank. He was waiting to see Bret again and still wearing the white medical gown they’d given him to go into the ward.
‘He wasn’t really conscious,’ I said.
‘I should have stopped him getting up on that train. He saw the kid hit and felt he had to do something.’
‘I know,’ I said. Frank was reproaching himself unnecessarily for what had happened to Bret. ‘Did you talk to London?’ I asked him, in order to change the subject.
‘The old man was not in the best of moods,’ said Frank.
‘We got him off the hook,’ I said. ‘We got them all off the hook. Without what you did, those stupid bastards would still be believing all that crap Stinnes was feeding them.’
‘But they’re not admitting that,’ said Frank.
‘How can they deny it? Last night the monitoring service picked up an item about Stinnes being honoured in Moscow.’
‘We both know we stopped London making complete idiots of themselves, but they’re closing ranks and pretending they knew about Stinnes all the time. Even the old man said that there’s valuable information to be obtained even from non-genuine defectors.’
‘And what about what they did to Bret?’
‘They say he wasn’t really under house arrest. They say the man who spoke with him was acting without official instructions.’
‘Balls,’ I said.
‘And now the man in question is on duty somewhere and can’t be reached.’
‘I bet,’ I said.
‘I spoke to all of them. They’re bastards, Bernard. I’ve often choked you off for saying so, but I take it all back.’ Everywhere was dark. A nurse came through the swing doors wheeling a trolley that was clanking with glass and stainless steel. She walked away slowly and eventually disappeared into the darkness that was at the end of a long corridor.
‘And what about you, Frank?’
‘I was in line for a K.’
‘So I heard.’ Frank had set his heart on that knighthood. Even though he pretended not to care, it meant a lot to him.
‘The old man says it would be inappropriate to recommend that now, after I’ve so flagrantly disobeyed orders.’
‘But you saved them.’
‘You keep saying that,’ said Frank peevishly. ‘And I keep telling you that they don’t see it that way.’
‘We couldn’t have done it without you, Frank. You risked everything and we were proved right.’
‘There was talk of giving the K. to Bret instead,’ said Frank. ‘I don’t know what will happen now.’
‘The surgeon said Bret won’t live.’
‘The surgeon says no one can predict what a bullet wound like that will do. They’ve wrapped him in some kind of tinfoil trying to preserve his body heat. They’re doing everything that can be done.’
‘You’ll retire anyway?’ I said.
‘The old man has asked me to stay on here. There is the prospect of a K. in two years’ time.’
‘What did you say?’
‘I said you should have Berlin,’ said Frank. ‘But the old man said that you were lucky not to be facing grave charges.’
Now that my eyes had become used to the gloom I could see the big electric clock over the door that led to the wards. It was the clock that gave that loud click every second. It was the only sound to be heard. ‘What time did they say his brother’s plane would arrive?’
‘I don’t think he can possibly get here before four,’ said Frank.
‘Sheldon was his father’s favourite. Bret resented that. Did he ever tell you?’
‘Bret didn’t reveal much about his private affairs.’
&n
bsp; ‘Yes. I was surprised he confided in me.’
‘He knew he could trust you, Bernard, and he was right. He came to you at a time when there was no one else he could trust.’
‘I didn’t know him very well,’ I said. ‘I’d always suspected that he’d had an affair with Fiona.’
‘He knew you didn’t like him, but he came to you all the same. Bret was grateful for what you did. He told me that. I hope he told you.’
‘Neither of us did anything for Bret,’ I said. ‘It wasn’t personal. It wasn’t like you doing something for me or me doing something for you…’
‘Or you doing something for Werner,’ said Frank artfully.
‘It was for the good of the Department,’ I said, ignoring Frank’s aside. ‘Bret was being framed, and those idiots in London were letting it happen. Something had to be done.’
‘There will be a big shake-up,’ said Frank. ‘Dicky is hoping to get the Europe desk, but there’s not much chance of that, thank God. Bret might have got Europe if this hadn’t happened. Morgan, the D-G’s hatchet man, is getting some sort of promotion too.’
‘Is Bret in the clear now?’
‘Yes, Bret without this damned bullet in his guts might have ended up as the golden boy all over again. Funny how things happen, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, very funny.’
‘I told the D-G that you should have a recommendation, Bernard. But it was no use. He’s against it and I’m not in a position to do much for you at present, I’m afraid.’
‘Thanks anyway, Frank.’
‘Don’t be disappointed, Bernard. This is a disaster averted, a Dunkirk for the Department. There are decorations galore and ennoblements and promotions for victories like Trafalgar and Waterloo; but there are no rewards for Dunkirks, no matter how brave or clever the survivors might be. London Central don’t give gold medals to staff who prove they are wrong, and prove it with senior staff from Five looking on. They don’t give promotions after finales like the last act of Hamlet with blood and gore on every side and the unexplained death of a senior KGB official, even if he wasn’t given a safe conduct.’