Renner smiled up at her. “Later maybe.” They walked on.
“She didn’t even look at me,” Carver grunted.
“Yeah, the ones round here can afford to be choosy.”
Carver pushed him.
“These girls can size men up in a second, Frank. I went to a brothel in Hamburg once, had a great couple of hours. You may not believe this, but I was so good, she gave me my money back.”
“You’re absolutely right. I don’t believe you.”
They turned right into Auguststrasse and stopped in front of the war-damaged façade of a grand early 20th century building. “Clärchens Ballhaus” was one of the few remaining ballrooms of the kind that had been in vogue in Berlin during the roaring 1920s. A group of pensioners were taking a Cha-Cha-Cha lesson on the dance floor. Rough wooden tables lined the flaking walls, and long strands of golden tinsel did a poor job of covering up the cracks in the plaster. The whole place reeked of faded charm and the owners were happy to keep it that way.
They ordered beers. “Er, what are we doing here? This is like a bad wedding,” said Carver.
“Haven’t you been here before? It’s a piece of old Berlin. It’ll fill up.”
“And one, two three, one two three, show a bit of feeling, gentlemen,” barked the dance instructor in the harsh Berlin dialect, a stern, broad-shouldered, middle-aged woman in black leggings and an overtight pink top with Minny Mouse embroidered on it in golden thread.
“So what are we going to do?” said Carver. “You think this is the right time to learn the tango?”
“Why don’t you write a book?” Renner said. “You know what they say: There’s a book in every journalist.”
“Yeah, and that’s the best place for it. Prost.”
They clinked their beer glasses and took long gulps.
“What’s this business Kutuzov wants to discuss with Müller?” Renner asked.
“He’s been talking to the German government about a gas pipeline deal, it’s got to be about that. He’s not just got a media empire. He makes most of his money in energy. He wants her to stay in power. I got a call from Beedham a few weeks ago hinting that I should be a bit more negative about Gutman, just to keep the chancellor sweet. They ran an editorial last week praising Müller’s ‘bold reform drive’ and saying Gutman would put it at risk.”
“Talk about a free press! Freelancing is better, Frank. Everyone treats you like shit and you have no regular income, but at least you can choose what you cover. It gives you a bit of integrity, if you want that.”
“Or it can turn you into a rampant plagiarist,” said Carver. “But I reckon it’s my only option.”
“Let’s go to Berchtesgaden anyway,” said Renner. “While you can still claim the expenses. That may be our last chance.”
The dance class finished and some younger people were starting to trickle in. 1970s disco music replaced the Cuban rhythms. They ordered more beers.
Boney M’s “By the Rivers of Babylon” came on and the dance floor filled up. They ate greasy Schnitzels and politely fended off the advances of a group of well-built women from Bielefeld out on a hen weekend.
A couple of hours passed. Carver’s shoulder hurt. He popped another painkiller and stared at the dancers. Why did Germans dance like robots with the power turned up? His eyes glazed over and the gyrating figures started to blur. Suddenly he noticed something in the shifting mass of limbs. He focused and spotted a pair of eyes looking straight at him from the other side of the room. The man was sitting on his own. He wore a black leather jacket. Dancers kept obscuring him. He reappeared after a few seconds, still staring at Carver.
“We’re being watched.”
Renner looked over.
“You recognize him?” said Frank.
“Don’t think so.”
“He reminds me of someone.”
“Chill out Frank. He could be gay.”
“Then he wouldn’t be looking at me.” Carver sat upright. He remembered the face. It was the guy who opened the door to Schwartz’s apartment block in Dresden. “That’s our man,” he murmured.
“What? I can’t hear you!” Nena’s “99 Red Balloons” came on. More people got up to dance.
“That’s the Dresden guy!”
Renner glanced over again. “There are too many people. Let’s go over there. It’s too public for him to do anything. ”
He got to his feet. Carver followed him. One of the Bielefeld girls grabbed Carver by the waist. “Come, dance!” Stomp, stomp, stomp. He extricated himself. They got to the table but the man had gone. His beer was still there, half-drunk.
“I’m sure it was him,” said Carver.
They pushed their way outside and looked up and down the street. It was quiet, apart from a group of American tourists heading into Clärchens.
“We were safer in there,” said Carver. “Out here, if it was him, we’re in danger.”
They hurried back down to Oranienburger Strasse. It started to rain. The prostitutes were gone. They headed towards the cathedral to find a taxi. The rain got stronger and they sheltered under a railway bridge half way there. The East Germans were never very good at street lighting, and not much had changed since the Wall came down. “If I were a rapist, I’d come here on a Friday night,” muttered Carver. A train clattered overhead and drowned out Renner’s reply. Carver leant closer to listen and spotted something on the front of Renner’s jacket. A red dot oscillated around his chest. In a flash, he pushed Renner away with all his force. A spark spouted out of the stone wall with a sharp crack. He turned to see two men running down the street towards them. “What the f …” Renner shouted, rolling on the floor, holding his elbow. “Get up!” Carver yelled. “Someone’s shooting at us!” He grabbed Renner by the jacket and hauled him to his feet. The men were about 30 yards behind them. Carver felt the thud of adrenalin kicking in. “Run!” Renner sprinted down the street and out of the tunnel. Carver tripped over a curb but managed to hold his balance. He could hear nothing but his shoes pounding the pavement. He wasn’t making enough progress. There was no time to look round.
They ran across a footbridge over the Spree river and dived into the gloom of a clump of trees next to the cathedral. Carver stumbled and fell. His head stung. He felt dizzy for a second. Renner pulled him up. There was a police siren in the distance. They dashed across a street and back into the blackness of the Lustgarten square in front of the church. There was another crack behind them. Carver tasted blood in his mouth and felt it on his face. It was seeping into his eye. He could make out traffic on Unter den Linden ahead. The siren was coming nearer. They saw a green and white police van racing east. Renner ran towards it shouting “Hilfe! Polizei!” It didn’t stop. He turned to Carver. “Come on! I can’t see them.”
They made it to Unter den Linden and were back in the light of streetlamps. The rain was thick and cold. They paused for a moment to catch their breath. Renner hailed a taxi but the driver accelerated again as soon as he saw the state of Carver. Renner turned to him. “You’re covered in blood!”
“Knocked my head.”
“We can’t stop.”
They belted down Unter den Linden. Carver had never seen it so deserted. It felt like a death trap now, despite its brightly-lit imperial buildings on either side. The back of his head was bristling, expecting the hammer blow of the bullet that would end his life. The adrenalin was keeping him going but he didn’t know how long his heart could take it. His vision turned fuzzy. He could hear heavy footsteps but he didn’t know whose. Renner was ahead. The lad was fast. A survivor. Hope he makes it. Carver raised his face to let the rain wash the blood out of his eyes. The statue of Frederick the Great on horseback stared down at him. They stayed close to the trees.
He could hear the hiss of tyres on wet tarmac ahead. Renner looked back and shouted, “Can’t see them!” The blood and rain in Carver’s eyes turned everything into a red blur. He had to stop. “Wait. I need a second.”
“We’v
e got to move, we’ve got to clean your face so we can get a taxi!”
“No, let’s get to the police!” Carver panted. “British embassy! Cops outside there!”
Ahead of them, a spark hit the tarmac. “Watch out!” Renner yelled. They dashed left into a narrow street. It was even emptier. Too late to turn back. They turned right. Still no traffic. It was so quiet. What kind of fucking metropolis is this? They could hear boots behind them. The buildings were gone. A black expanse stretched out in front of them. Renner vanished into it. Carver blinked. The penny dropped. The Holocaust memorial. An area the size of two football pitches covered by thousands of grey, square, concrete pillars of varying height, erected to commemorate the murder of six million Jews. A vast black labyrinth. A hiding place. He could see Renner’s arm beckoning to him out of the blackness. “Come,” Renner hissed.
They heard a low curse behind them. Carver followed Renner down the slight slope. The darkness deepened as the steles grew taller. “This could buy us a minute,” Renner whispered. They squatted down and listened. The steles were intended to convey isolation, loneliness, despair. At the moment they just meant survival. The headlamps of a passing car pierced the maze like a sweeping searchlight.
Carver shut his eyes. As he opened them he saw the outline of a man down one of the passages, about 50 metres away. He nudged Renner. “He’s between us and the British embassy. We’ve got to head towards Tiergarten.” The park ran along the western edge of the memorial. “There’s a taxi rank there. Pray.”
They crept ahead, ducking lower as the steles grew shorter again. A lone taxi stood by the park. They sprinted across the road. Renner leapt in the front, Carver in the back, hiding his bloody face with his sleeve. The driver gave him a worried look but Renner dangled a €50 note in front of him.
“Where to?”
“Schöneberg town hall, please,” said Carver.
“What’s there?” said Renner.
“You’ll see. They won’t guess we’ve gone there.”
The taxi drove off. Carver fumbled for his mobile phone, opened the back, extracted the battery and SIM card and threw the phone out of the window.
Renner looked at him. “What the …”
“Someone’s got to be tracking us. They might be doing it via our phones. Throw yours away too.” Renner dismantled his phone and jettisoned it.
“What about SIM cards? Can they track those too?”
Carver looked at his and shrugged. They threw the cards out as well. The taxi driver eyed them.
“The guy in Clärchens was our guy. Fit-looking, brown hair, Slavic face, bit like Vladimir Putin but with more muscles,” said Carver.
“But there were two guys chasing us, right?” said Renner.
“I definitely saw two,” said Carver, scouring the street behind them. “Still no one behind us.” They reached the town hall of the district of Schöneberg and got out. The cab raced off. They moved into the shadow of a tree and waited. The rain had stopped. The street was empty. “Looks like we got away,” Carver said. “Come on, it’s another half a mile. We’re going to a colleague I know from Reuters.”
“Why the hell didn’t you get the cab to drop us at her address?”
“’Cos we’re in a war zone now, mate. Bad idea to let strangers know where you are, and that includes cabbies.”
They reached the front door of an old apartment block and rang the bell. They waited for a minute and rang again. The intercom crackled.
“Bettina? It’s Frank. Carver. I’m downstairs with a friend. We urgently need your help. Bettina?”
There was a pause. The front door buzzed open.
The smell of stale sauerkraut hit them. They couldn’t find the hall light. Renner fell over a pram. “Jesus Christ!”
Carver helped him up. “Relax, mate. Take a deep breath.” They reached the fifth floor. Bettina was waiting at the door in a red dressing gown.
“What the hell happened to you? Are you all right?” She gave him a shocked look.
“Yes, just ran into a tree,” Carver replied, dabbing blood off his face with a handkerchief.
“There’s disinfectant in the bathroom. What’s going on?”
“In a nutshell? An assassin is trying to kill us because we know that it’s neo-Nazis behind the attack on Gutman. Not Islamists.”
She stared at Carver, then Renner. “You’re drunk aren’t you? Frank, it’s half past one. I’ve got to open the office in the morning. I’d only just got off to sleep!”
“I’m really sorry, Bettina. We have evidence. But the Chronicle won’t let me print it, in fact I’m about to lose my job, and Wolfgang can’t place the story either. You have to hear me out! We can’t get anyone to believe us.”
She sat down on the sofa and lit a cigarette, scowling at Carver, dripping rain and blood onto her floor, and the bedraggled, shifty-looking weasel next to him. “You’re serious? But what about the suicide bomber and the Revengers of Allah?”
“Do you know Chhadat, Bettina? Do you really think he was an Islamic fanatic? If he hasn’t tried to get in your knickers, you’re the only woman in the press corps who’s escaped him!”
Frank was going to sit down on her white leather armchair. “Don’t even think about it! You’re not sitting in that chair! You’re wet and covered in blood. Go and get cleaned up!”
Renner and Bettina waited in silence while Frank washed the blood off his face and put a large plaster on the graze. He returned not looking much better.
She shook her head. “Frank, neo-Nazis? It doesn’t make sense! They’re too thick! You must have it wrong. And anyway, the Islamists have admitted it!”
“They’re not as stupid as you think, Bettina. Everybody’s underestimating them. They hired someone. Using a huge inheritance from an old SS man. They’ve hired a hitman to bump off Gutman. Tietjen’s behind it. Tietjen’s a lunatic. He’s behind the Revengers. They’ve already killed two people who were helping us, including a source we had in the neo-Nazis!”
Bettina started biting her nails. She had gone white. “Do you have any proof?”
“We’ve got mobile phone records saying a top Nazi was at the scene of four of the attacks. An intelligence guy gave me the list a few hours ago. He also thinks Nazis are behind all this.”
Bettina thought. “That is odd. But it’s circumstantial. And the Nuremberg grenade, that was a Muslim!”
“He could have been put up to it,” said Carver. “Impressionable teenager and all that.”
She looked doubtful. “What are you going to do?”
“We need to get to Berchtesgaden. We’ve got to check one last thing. We just need a place to stay tonight.”
“Berchtesgaden? Are you crazy? You’ve got to go to the police!”
“We have already, Bettina!” Carver insisted. “And we will again. But everyone’s gone nuts about Jihadists! We’ve got to try to get more.”
She stood up with a resigned look on her face. “OK. You can stay. Are you sure you weren’t followed?”
Both Renner and Carver nodded. “We were too quick,” said Renner.
She made them coffee.
“I’m about to be sacked by the Chronicle,” said Carver. “Had a run-in with the foreign editor a few hours ago. I doubt he would run the story even if we do get more proof. If you want to do it for Reuters, I’ll give you all I have.”
“Are you kidding?” Bettina gave a scornful laugh. “They’d never run that without official confirmation! Anyway, I’ve got no time for this. There’s an election in two days! I only filed an overnighter a couple of hours ago! Later I’ve got to do a colour sidebar, finish my factbox, prewrite the snaps and fullouts, get the trunk ready, get people lined up for quotes for a snap analysis …”
Carver gave her a despairing look. “I’ve no idea what you’re talking about. Trunk? Snap analysis? I’m talking about a story. A simple, huge story! The scoop of a lifetime!”
“Come on, Frank, get real!” said Bettina. “We’d only run
it if there was an official statement from the police or the government or the state prosecutor! Or two anonymous official sources at least! You know how it is!”
Carver sighed. “Everyone wants to believe it’s Islamists. It’s become another convenient excuse to bash immigrants. My foreign editor doesn’t want me to get the scoop because it would steal his thunder. And the paper doesn’t want to run anything that would endanger Müller’s re-election because of some bloody business deal with her! The outcome of the election could ride on this! Believe me, if it comes out that the bombing was the work of neo-Nazis and not Islamists, Gutman’s chances will soar.”
Bettina gave him a sympathetic look. “Just go to the police and have done with it, Frank. This is too big!”
Renner was looking down at the street. “You know, that KGB bastard they hired isn’t worth the money the Nazis are paying him. Gutman’s still alive and so are we.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Berlin, Friday, September 7
They spent an uncomfortable, sleepless night on Bettina’s floor, watching the door, listening for the sound of boots on the stairs and wishing they had a gun. Emboldened by daybreak, they decided to risk going to their apartments to pick up their valuables and some clothes. Renner’s flat was nearest. They thanked Bettina and took a taxi there. The owner of the Doner Palast restaurant was just taking a meat delivery.
Renner approached him. “Hi, Deniz!”
“Hi Wolfgang! You’re a bit early for a falafel, I can do you a coffee if you want.”
“It’s OK, thanks. I wanted to ask if you’ve seen anyone strange hanging around here. Neo-Nazi skinhead types, or a hard-looking man with a Slavic face.”
Deniz looked worried. He was a middle-aged, affable man. “Are you in trouble? Can I help?”
“Thanks, but I don’t want to pull you in to it. It’s because of a story we’re researching.”
Deniz shook his head. “I’ve seen nothing. But it’s so busy round here. You get all sorts, you know.”
Carver and Renner looked at each other. “Let’s risk it,” said Carver.
The Jewish Candidate Page 22