He nodded, watching her closely.
“No tails, Müller. The last time you tried that, you sent Reimer. I lost him. He would not be any luckier this time round. Nor anyone else you sent.”
“I didn’t know you then.”
“That remark can mean anything.”
“It can. But I assure you…no tail.”
“And if you try to find out where Toby is…Toby Adams, as you know, is not his real name.”
“I know. But I do have a positively identified photograph…”
“Old photograph,” she corrected. “He does not look quite like that anymore.”
“Certain things about a person don’t change, no matter how long ago a photograph was taken…unless – barring accidents, or illness - that person has undergone deliberate, radical surgery.”
“No surgery. That’s for sure. So, Müller…do I go clean?”
“You have my word.”
“Okay. Give me an hour.”
“You’ve got it.”
“I’ll need my coat. I guess it’s still pouring out there like it’s the last day on Earth.”
“Quite possibly.”
The innocuous building near the Jannowitz Bridge, overlooked the Spree.
Carey Bloomfield did not go there directly, despite Müller’s assurance. She had found a parked taxi in the teeming rain, not far from Müller’s glass palace, and instructed the driver to take her northwards, in the direction of Berlin-Wedding. She got out at the Amrumer Strasse underground station, near the University Clinic. She did not take the train. Instead, She walked for a while, despite the rain, turning into many side streets along the way.
Her seemingly erratic route had a purpose. After many such turns, she was at last satisfied that she had not been followed. She ended up at the Pekinger Platz, on the edge of the Spandau Canal. There, she picked up another taxi which took her to the Jannowitzbrücke. She was back in Berlin-Mitte and just two kilometres in a straight line, from Müller’s office.
She went up to the unobtrusive building, and pushed open the unlocked, solid wooden door. There was no lift. She made her up a wide, classical winding staircase to the top floor of the three-storey building. Another solid wooden door, plain, with no legend to describe the business being practiced within, was at the end of a wide landing. The inlaid floor gleamed from regular polishing.
She knocked.
“It’s open!” came an American-accented voice, in English.
Carey Bloomfield entered.
The place was a travel bureau for people with lots of money to spend. No budget prices here. Glossy travel posters to all the expensive watering holes of the globe, it seemed, adorned every spare wall space. Racks of brochures were strategically dotted about the large, plant-decorated reception area. Comfortable chairs were placed at low tables. A coffee machine burbled in subdued politeness.
At the wide, curving desk, was a dyed blonde who had worked seriously at being thin. Her face was a paean to the art of make-up, so perfectly had it been applied.
She looked at Carey Bloomfield with a raking gaze that immediately decided this visitor could not afford any of the holidays that were being advertised. She did not turn up her nose at Carey Bloomfield’s attire, but it was all there in the look.
Despite this, her welcoming smile was a searchlight of perfect teeth. “Hi,” she said. “And what can we do for you, Madam?”
“Hi, yourself,” Carey Bloomfield said. She hated being addressed by people who used the royal “we”. It always gave the impression, she felt, of being spoken to by a schizophrenic. “Toby in?”
The perfect blond blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Toby,” Carey Bloomfield repeated. “Toby Adams,” she added for good measure.
The blonde blinked twice this time. “I’m sorry. I think you’ve come to the wrong place. We are…”
Carey Bloomfield marched up to the desk and leaned over. “Listen to me, you diet freak. If you give me any more bullshit, I’ll squeeze that scrawny neck of yours so hard you’ll want to spit out your larynx! And while you’re at it, do something about those zits.”
The blonde went a bright pink, and instinctively put a hand to a cheek, hiding what she thought was a pimple that had dared invade her perfect face.
Carey Bloomfield did not tell her there was nothing there. “Well?” she demanded. “Do you do your job and get me Toby?”
The blonde, one hand still hiding the non-existent pimple, pressed a button on her intercom with a delicate finger.
She cleared her throat. “Mr. Adams…there’s…there’s a Miss…” She looked warily at Carey Bloomfield, a question in her eyes.
“Bloomfield. Colonel Bloomfield.”
The blonde’s eyes widened so much, they were in serious danger of popping out. “C…Colonel? Bloomfield?”
“Which question do you want answered first?” Carey Bloomfield asked.
But the blonde was spared. Jacket missing from his summer-weight three-piece suit, a shirt-sleeved Toby Adams rushed out from the recesses of the office, beaming. He carried an expensive putter in one hand.
“Carey!” he greeted. “This is a pleasant surprise.” He gave her a quick one-handed embrace, ignoring the dampness of her coat, then indicated the putter with a sheepish grin. “Practising.” He looked at her clothes. “Terrible weather, huh? Mary-Ann,” he went on to the blonde who was now staring at Carey Bloomsfield, transfixed. “Two coffees, please? Milk and sugar both.”
“Ye-yes, sir.”
“Come on, Carey. My inner sanctum.” He put his free arm about her shoulders, and guided her back to his office.
The blonde gaped after them, then got up to prepare the coffee.
Toby Adams did not look like a man in his late fifties. But for the slight greying of his neck-length, naturally wavy hair, he seemed a good twenty years younger. Fit, with a flat stomach, he was a six-footer with greyish eyes that looked at Carey Bloomfield with the fondness of a father. He seemed for all the world like a genuine business executive.
They walked along a carpeted corridor full of closed doors.
“Eavesdropping going well?” Carey Bloomfield asked, studiedly casual as she glanced at the doors. Her coat dripped intermittently onto the carpet.
Adams smiled. “You are a tease.”
“And where in God’s name did you get that blonde?”
“Window dressing. She’s what people expect to see when they wander in here.”
“She’s well cast...or is she faking it?”
“The genuine stuff; but she thinks she’s working for a VIP travel company. That’s why everything’s so…secret.”
“She believes that? She’s dumber than she looks.”
“The pay’s very good, and she gets to see Europe. She asks no questions. The best kind of front person to get. And here we are.”
Adams’ office looked exactly like that of a CEO of any company. On the floor beneath his pedestal desk, was a waste basket lying on its side. Within it were four golf balls. A lonely hat stand was in a corner. .
“As you can see,” Adams explained as he shut the door behind them, “practising my putt. Doing a few rounds tomorrow with some people…”
“This rain won’t let up today and anyway, the course will be soaked.”
“We’ve got wet weather arrangements. Indoor.”
“I see. All nicely planned, then.”
“Yes.”
Adams did not seem to spot anything ironic in the remark. He slid the putter back into his high-tech golfing bag, and was about to lean on his desk, when there was a diffident knock on the door.
“That will be Mary-Ann,” he said, going to the door.
“That was quick.”
“She can be quick at some things, despite appearances.”
“I’ll bet,” Carey Bloomfield remarked, looking about her. “Somewhere I can hang my coat so it doesn’t drip on something precious? On her, I wouldn’t mind.”
He smiled at her. “Same old Carey. Hang i
t on that hat stand. It hardly gets any use.” Adams opened the door. “Thanks, Mary-Ann.”
Carey Bloomfield hung up her coat as a simpering “You’re welcome” came from outside.
Adams backed into the room carrying a small, black tray with two porcelain cups on saucers. The coffee in them was steaming. He swung the door shut with a heel, then came up to Carey Bloomfield, offering the tray.
“I have to admit it smells good,” she said, taking one. “Thanks.”
“She’s quite a coffee maker,” Adams said as he took the tray to his desk and set it down. He picked up his own, and leaned against the desk. He raised the cup in a brief salute. “Didn’t know you were in town, Carey. No one warned me.”
“No one was supposed to. This is private. I got in yesterday.”
“Private?”
“I’m on vacation, Toby.”
“So you’d thought you come to Berlin.”
“Why not?” Carey Bloomfield took a sip of her coffee. “Mmm. Good. I’m surprised. I thought she would be afraid of damaging her fingernails.”
“As I’ve said, Mary-Ann’s good at some things.”
“Making coffee…”
“Among other things.”
“I won’t ask.”
Adams smiled, and let it pass. “So you’re in Berlin. No guesses about whom you’ve come to see.”
“Why?”
“Come on, Carey. You’re not here to see me. Your favourite policeman is the likely candidate. You’re soft on the guy.”
“I could take offence…”
“But you won’t. I’m not wrong. In fact, that might be helpful to us.”
“Oh? I thought you didn’t approve.”
“Times change. Things change.”
“Well here’s a change. Some people also seem to think they know why I’m here. They tried to shoot me today.”
Adams’ eyes widened in astonishment. “What?” He slowly put down his cup. “Are you kidding me here, Carey?”
“About this, I would not kid. Some guy in a fake cop uniform - or maybe a fake cop in a real uniform, or even a real cop – tried to splash me.”
“Jesus! What happened?”
“Pappi happened.”
“’Pappi’?”
“My ‘favourite’ policeman’s buddy…”
“So you were seeing Müller.”
“What can I say? I cannot tell a lie.”
“That was a little sharp, Carey.”
“That’s what it does to you when some fake cop tries to wipe you in broad, rainy daylight, in the middle of Berlin.”
“And you come to me for the answers?”
“I’ve come to you, Toby, because we go back years, and maybe you can tell with if there’s something running concerning me, that I don’t know about.”
Adams shook his head. “If there is, this is the first I know about it; just as this is the first I know about your being in Berlin.”
“Whoever it is, must have known I’d be here. Find out what you can, Toby.”
“You’ve got it. As you’re here, anyway…” Adams went on.
“I knew it.”
“Well… you are on site, so to speak...”
Carey Bloomfield took a deliberate swallow of the blonde’s coffee. “You want me to keep an eye on Müller. Why?”
“Müller…has connections with the past which might be of use to us. Remember Dahlberg?”
“How could I forget?”
“We needed him alive…”
“I’m not the only one who killed him. Müller shot him too, to save his aunt.”
Adams nodded. “I know. But there are those – and I’m not one of them - who think that this thing with your brother might have swayed your judgement a little.”
“As I said at the time, they were not there, Toby. And he would still have died, even if I hadn’t been there. No way Müller was going to let him get away.”
“I understand that.”
“But you want me to shadow Müller.”
“As you’re here…”
“I’ll do a deal, Toby. I’ll keep an eye on Müller…”
“And keep me informed…”
“And keep you informed. But you find out which asshole sanctioned a hit on me.”
“Deal.”
“I think I did that very well,” Carey Bloomfield said to herself as she walked away from the building. “And I did not lose my temper. Not once. That thing with the blonde bimbo was a bagatelle. Why are you betraying me, Toby?” she went on, hunching herself against the rain as she looked for a taxi. “Damned weather.”
A taxi came, and she gave the address of a big hotel on Friedrichstrasse.
Four
“This Toby Adams,” Pappenheim said, “he’s her controller?”
“According to her,” Müller replied.
They were in the Rogues Gallery. Müller had called him there, sometime after Carey Bloomfield had gone.
Müller had spent the intervening time poring over the documents his father had left, in the hope of seeing something else about Adams; but there had been no further mention, nor more photographs.
“Turn up for the books, if he’s now betraying her.”
“Seems like it. We must be getting too close, if we’re beginning to touch deeply buried people like Adams.”
“I’d amend that to dangerously close. And it’s a big web they’re spinning. I’m not complaining, you understand. Feeling that chill at the back of your neck as yet?”
“I’ve been feeling it for some time,” Müller said.
“That’s alright, then. Just checking. If Miss Bloomfield admitted about Adams to you,” Pappenheim went on, “it must have been quite a shock for her. By identifying him to you, she has blown the cover of friendly agent, operating here under the deepest secrecy.”
“No so friendly, if what little we know turns out to be true. She had little choice in the matter. Seeing that picture was a traumatic experience for her. Even I, am still shaken by what this could mean; so God only knows what it’s done to her. She trusted him with her life. They go back to the days when she went to the Middle East to try and rescue her brother – against orders - and found a living corpse having its skin peeled.”
“Despite knowing what happened,” Pappenheim said with a frisson of horror, “it still gives me the shivers to think about it.”
“Adams backed her up then,” Müller said. “So finding out he is with The Semper, must be very tough for her. But it also tells us plenty about the kind of people who employed diseases like Dahlberg,” Müller went on. “The kind who had my parents killed.” His voice grew cold as he said this.
Pappenheim looked at him with some anxiety. “You okay?”
“I’m fine. I’ll get them; Pappi. One by one. I’ll get them.”
“As long as they don’t get you first. Or Miss Bloomfield…”
“Or you.”
“Or me,” Pappenheim agreed. He touched the back of his neck. “The chill wind is doing a little dance there too.”
“I don’t want you to take any chances.”
“You worry about your neck, and I’ll worry about yours.” Pappenheim grinned. “See? I’m smiling when I say that. And if Adams is also involved?”
“If this Adams is involved…” Müller let his words fade.
Pappenheim understood, without needing to hear more. The iciness in Müller’s eyes told him everything.
Adams was on the phone to someone.
“I’ve just had a visitor,” he said.
“Should that be of interest to me?”
“Oh it should. It should.”
“And who is this person who should interest me?”
“Carey Bloomfield.”
“Ah. The lovely colonel.”
“She was quite upset. Understandably so. It would seem that someone tried, misguidedly – or was misguidedly instructed – to take her out. You would not know anything about that, would you?”
There was a pa
use.
“Are you questioning me?”
“I am asking a simple question, about a stupid decision.”
“Now listen…”
“No! You listen! If this was your doing it was crass, stupid, and counterproductive. She is now aware that she is a target. She is forewarned, and will be extremely alert – as would be expected of someone of her calibre. I have told you on several occasions to leave her to me. I will attend to her when the time is right. Not before. You could have compromised us.”
There was more silence at the other end, as the person he was speaking to considered this. Adams was also well aware that he had offended the other’s sensibilities; but he did not care.
“Does she suspect anything about you?” came the voice at long last.
“Of course not! There’s not a chance in hell she’d know about me. I never act prematurely.” It was a deliberate barb. “I want your assurance you’ll reign in your dogs. This must not happen again.”
An even longer silence followed.
Adams waited.
“Very well,” came at last, reluctantly so.
The man Adams had been speaking to put down his phone, and looked at his companion.
“These Americans. They think they own the world.”
“They do,” the companion remarked with cheerful candour.
“That’s surprising, coming from you, Vladimir.”
“Pragmatism,” the man called Vladimir said. “But even the biggest of houses are vulnerable to burglars.” He smiled. “The right kind of burglars.” .
The other man smiled too. “What I like about you, Vladimir, is your sense of humour.
“What you like about me, is my ability to get things done.”
“That too.”
“Adams was right, though. It was not a good idea to try it on the colonel. At least, not so soon.”
“You heard?”
“How could I not? He was shouting.”
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