Several hours passed before Gaddis allowed himself to think that he was perhaps overreacting. There was, after all, every possibility that Charlotte had died of natural causes. As for Somers, people were knifed in London all the time. Who was to say that Calvin hadn’t just been the wrong man in the wrong place at the wrong time? True, the coincidence of their sudden deaths, so recent and so close together, was unsettling, but Gaddis had no proof of foul play beyond a hunch that the Russian government was bumping off anybody associated with ATTILA.
What happened next restored his faith still further. While booking a flight to Berlin at an Internet cafe on Uxbridge Road, Gaddis saw, to his consternation, that Ludmilla Tretiak had made contact on the email address which he had given to her in Moscow.
The message had gone into his Spam folder, perhaps because it was written in Russian.
Dear Dr Gaddis
I am sending you this message from a friend’s computer using her email address so I hope that it will not be discovered. I enjoyed talking to you when we met. I feel that I must thank you for bringing to my attention new information concerning my husband’s death.
I am in a position now to be able to help you further. You may already know that the MI6 Head of Station in Berlin while my husband was working in East Germany was Robert Wilkinson. Fyodor also knew him by the alias Dominic Ulvert. I do not know what use you will be able to make of this information, if any. But you asked me who else in Berlin might have known Mr Edward Crane and it seems likely to me that this man would have been in contact with the most senior officer from British Intelligence working in Berlin at that time.
This is all that I can think of at present which may be of assistance to you. But I could see in Moscow how dedicated you were to solving this mystery and your enthusiasm touched me.
It could have been a trap, of course, an attempt by the FSB to lure him into a meeting with a non-existent former SIS officer. Yet the slightly breathless, dreamy tone of the email sounded like Tretiak, and offered hope that she remained unharmed.
He looked again at the screen. Finding a loose scrap of paper in his trouser pocket, Gaddis scribbled down the names ‘Robert Wilkinson’ and ‘Dominic Ulvert’ and tried to remember if he had seen them before, either in Charlotte’s files or in the boxes which Holly had given to him. He couldn’t recall. He knew that there was a risk in trusting Tretiak and that his natural optimism was both a strength and a weakness at times like this, but there was no way he could ignore what she had told him. The information was crying out to be investigated. At the very least, he could ask Josephine Warner to run the names through the Foreign Office archives. Where was the harm in that?
Gaddis rang her an hour later from a payphone on Uxbridge Road.
‘Josephine?’
‘Sam! I was just thinking about you.’
‘Good thoughts, I hope,’ he said. ‘How are things down at Kew?’
They briefly exchanged pleasantries but Gaddis wasn’t in the mood for small talk. He was keen to secure Josephine’s help in tracking down the information.
‘Do you think you could do me a favour?’
‘Of course.’
‘Next time you’re at work, could you see if there’s anything in the records about a Foreign Office diplomat named Robert Wilkinson? If that doesn’t work, try Dominic Ulvert. Anything you can get on them at all. Letters, minutes from meetings in which they were involved, conferences they may have attended. Anything.’
It was only the second time that they had spoken since their dinner in Brackenbury Village and Gaddis was aware that his manner was direct and businesslike. It surprised him when Josephine suggested getting together a second time.
‘I can have a look,’ she replied. ‘In fact, why don’t we have another supper? This one on me. I can bring copies of any documents I find.’
‘That would be incredibly kind.’
And suddenly Gaddis’s memories were no longer of Josephine’s strange, withdrawn behaviour on the Goldhawk Road, but of her face across the candlelit table at dinner, promising something with her eyes.
‘I’m afraid I’m busy this weekend,’ she said. ‘Next week would be easier if you’re around.’
‘Why? What are you doing this weekend?’
‘Well, thanks to you, I finally got my act together.’
‘Thanks to me?’
‘You made me feel so guilty about not visiting my sister, I invited myself to stay. I’m leaving for Berlin tomorrow.’
He reflected on the serendipity of the coincidence. ‘That’s extraordinary. I just booked a flight to Berlin this afternoon. We’ll be there at the same time.’
‘You’re kidding?’ Josephine sounded genuinely excited at the prospect; perhaps her ‘complicated’ boyfriend had not been invited along for the trip. ‘Then let’s meet up. Let’s do something at the weekend.’
‘I’d love that.’
Gaddis told her where he would be staying - ‘a Novotel near the Tiergarten’ - and they made a tentative plan to have dinner on Saturday evening.
He couldn’t believe his luck.
Chapter 26
Forty minutes earlier, Tanya Acocella had been passed a note informing her that Dr Sam Gaddis - now known by the cryptonym POLARBEAR because, as Brennan had observed, ‘he’ll soon be extinct’ - had visited an Internet cafe on the Uxbridge Road and purchased an easyJet flight to Berlin. He was due to leave London Luton at 8.35 on Friday morning, returning two days later. The fare had been charged to Gaddis’s Mastercard and he had booked two nights at a Novotel at Tiergarten as part of a package deal with the airline. Tanya had wondered why Gaddis was using a public computer, rather than the PC at his house in Shepherd’s Bush, and concluded that he was at last becoming aware of the surveillance threats posed by his interest in ATTILA.
As the sun was coming down on what had been a crystal-clear day in London, she called Sir John Brennan.
‘Do the names Robert Wilkinson and Dominic Ulvert mean anything to you in the context of ATTILA?’
Brennan had just come off the Vauxhall Cross squash court and was boiling with sweat. He asked Tanya to repeat the names and, when she did, swore so loudly that his voice could be heard by a cleaning lady in the women’s changing rooms.
‘Where the fuck is Gaddis getting his information?’ he snapped. ‘Meet me in the courtyard. Half an hour.’
While Brennan showered and changed back into a grey suit, Tanya ran a trace on Wilkinson and Ulvert, encountering the same wall of obstruction and restricted access which had characterized her earlier searches for Crane and Neame. Somebody, somewhere, was trying to prevent her from doing her job. It was the first thing that she mentioned to Brennan in the courtyard. He had closed the access door back into the building so that they were alone in an area normally populated by smokers. Nobody would disturb the Chief in such a situation.
‘Forgive me for saying this, sir, but I believe there are some things you haven’t told me about ATTILA.’
Brennan peered down at Tanya’s legs. He had pulled a muscle in his arm playing squash.
‘Perhaps there are things you aren’t telling me,’ he replied, turning around. He didn’t feel that it was appropriate for Acocella to be criticizing his methods. ‘Last time we spoke, you told me that Gaddis was investigating Harold-bloody-Wilson. Now, for some reason, he’s stumbled on Robert Wilkinson.’
‘As you said, sir, AGINCOURT was a wild-goose chase.’
‘Fair enough, fair enough.’ Brennan’s mood now changed abruptly. He had known, as he put on his suit, that he would have to come clean about certain aspects of the ATTILA cover-up. Tanya could hardly be expected to perform effectively with one hand tied behind her back. ‘I should perhaps have been more candid from the start.’
Tanya was surprised that Brennan should capitulate so readily.
‘Bob Wilkinson was Head of Station in Berlin when the Wall came down. He’d been operating in East Germany for the best part of a decade. Ulvert was one of his
pseudonyms. In 1992, the FSB tried to assassinate him in London. The attempt failed, but he consequently emigrated to New Zealand, to get as far away from his old life as possible.’
‘Why did the FSB want him dead?’
‘Because of his relationship with ATTILA.’ Tanya searched Brennan’s face as she listened, still sensing that he was holding something back. ‘The Russians were embarrassed that they had been duped for so long, so they set about bumping off anybody who had been associated with Crane.’
‘Anybody? Doesn’t that constitute quite a large number of people? Crane was operational for almost fifty years.’
Brennan took her point but could not, for reasons which he hoped she would never be aware, express himself more candidly.
‘The victims tended to be senior figures who had been directly involved with Crane in the 1980s,’ he said, fudging it. ‘A KGB officer named Fyodor Tretiak, for example, had been ATTILA’s handler in East Germany from ‘84 onwards. Tretiak was assassinated while walking back to his apartment in St Petersburg in 1992. Bob Wilkinson had a bomb attached to his car in Fulham and only survived because he checked his vehicles religiously as a hangover from Northern Ireland. Left shortly afterwards for Auckland, under rather a cloud, if I’m honest. Hasn’t spoken to anybody in the Service for over ten years and not likely to.’
‘What sort of cloud?’
Brennan mumbled his answer, to the extent that it was almost carried off on the wind. Tanya had to take a step towards him and wondered why he was still being so obtuse. She looked down and saw that one of his immaculate brogues was scuffed, as if somebody had scrubbed the toe with a wire brush.
‘Bob felt that we hadn’t done enough to protect him.’ Brennan seemed genuinely contrite as he recalled the incident. ‘He felt that the measures extended to ensure the safety of Edward Crane might also have been extended to him.’
‘What kind of measures?’
A smile briefly flickered on Brennan’s face as he recalled the heyday of Douglas Henderson. ‘I arranged for Eddie to die of natural causes.’
It had always been Tanya’s deepest fear that she had signed up for a organization which would stoop to murder as easily as it stooped to deceit. But she had misinterpreted what Brennan was telling her. He allayed her fears with a gesture of apology.
‘No, no. There’s no need to be alarmed.’ Tanya nodded, but she had seldom felt more uncomfortable in the five years that she had been working for SIS. ‘Eddie was already in his mid seventies. As you say, he’d given decades of loyal service. He deserved a peaceful retirement, so I had him brought into a hospital in Paddington, crossed a few palms with enough silver and, lo and behold, he died of pancreatic cancer in February 1992.’
‘Did one of the palms you crossed go by the name of Meisner?’
Brennan hesitated for a fraction of a second.
‘Meisner, yes.’ Tanya was studying him intently. What was he holding back? ‘He was the senior doctor on duty the night Crane was brought into the hospital. How did you find out about him?’
‘Gaddis mentioned his name on one of the surveillance tapes.’ It was strange, but at this moment she felt a greater loyalty towards Gaddis than she did towards her own side. Tanya knew that she was being lied to, and it irritated her intensely. ‘He’s obviously going to Berlin to meet him.’
‘You might try to keep an eye on him there,’ Brennan suggested.
‘It’s already organized.’ Tanya enjoyed the look of surprise on Brennan’s face. ‘I’m flying out tomorrow. There’ll be a surveillance team in place.’
It was a coup, no question. Brennan nodded approvingly. Tanya saw this and seized the opportunity to push for more information.
‘So what about Crane?’ she asked.
‘What about him?’
‘Where is he now? Where did he go to? What happened to him after the hospital?’
Brennan looked back towards the door. It was the question to which everybody wanted an answer.
‘Eddie lives near Winchester,’ he replied, knowing that it was only a matter of time before Tanya discovered the truth for herself. ‘I’m sorry that I wasn’t able to tell you before. After Paddington, we gave him a new identity. You’ll find him at the Meredith Nursing Home in Headbourne Worthy. He now goes by the name of Thomas Neame.’
Chapter 27
Gaddis had realized that there was no point in door-stepping Benedict Meisner. He recalled the email Meisner had written to Charlotte threatening legal action if she continued to allege that he had been involved in faking the death of Edward Crane. If Gaddis showed up in Berlin making the same accusation, Meisner would most likely slam the door in his face or, worse, call the police.
So he needed a more subtle plan of attack. He found a listing for Meisner’s surgery online and called the number from a public phone at UCL. The receptionist spoke perfect English and Gaddis asked if it would be possible to make an appointment for Friday afternoon.
‘Of course, sir. But we have only the limited opportunities tomorrow. I can offer you a consultation with the doctor at four o’clock. Is this suiting you?’
Gaddis took the appointment, gave the number of his hotel in Berlin, and wondered what he was going to use as a cover story. I’m having trouble sleeping, Doc. Do you have a cure for paranoia? The next morning, he set his alarm for five, drove up the M1, parked his Volkswagen in an offsite car park three miles from Luton Airport and caught the 8.35 easyJet to Berlin Schonefeld. A two-euro ticket on the 171 bus from the airport took him, at snail’s pace, through a grid of bright, well-tended suburbs peopled by German geriatrics. The bus, which stopped perhaps thirty or forty times en route, eventually came to a halt in Hermannplatz, where Gaddis caught the U-Bahn to Tiergarten. The Novotel was just across the street from the underground station, an upmarket executive hotel with a polished-stone lobby, tri-lingual receptionists and businessmen killing time between meetings in a low-lit bar. Ordinarily, Gaddis would have searched out a more idiosyncratic place to stay - a twelve-room, family-run hotel, a place with some character and charm - but on this occasion he was grateful for the soullessness of the Novotel, for his starched third-floor room and his flat-screen plasma TV showing films-on-demand and CNN. It made him feel reassuringly anonymous.
He had a couple of hours to kill until his appointment with Meisner and decided to go for a walk, winding along the quiet, narrow paths of the Tiergarten, then alongside the traffic on the Strasse des 17 Juni, past the Siegessaule and the memorial to Bismarck, then east in a plumb line to the Brandenburg Gate. Though he knew that there was no possibility he would ever be able to shake off whatever surveil-lance was thrown at him by the British or the Russians, Gaddis had made an effort to ascertain if he had been followed from London. At Luton, for example, he had made a mental note of his fellow passengers as they waited in the departure lounge, then scanned the 171 bus for matching faces, trying to work out if someone was tracking him into Berlin. At the Novotel, before embarking on his walk, he had left through the main entrance, loitered in the car park for ten seconds, then turned on his heels and returned to the lobby, in an effort to flush out a tail. Though he realized that these were amateur tricks, culled from movies and thrillers, at no point did he sense that he was being followed. Increasingly, in fact, as the hours and days went by, Gaddis began to believe that his interest in ATTILA had gone completely unnoticed.
All of which was a credit to the SIS watcher who had sat five rows behind him on the Easyjet, then followed the 171 bus to Hermannplatz in a hired Audi A4 which had been waiting for him at the airport. ‘Ralph’, who was in his mid-thirties and usually operated for MI5 in London, had also taken a room at the Novotel and now tailed POLARBEAR on foot as Gaddis made his way towards the Brandenburg Gate. Two hundred metres behind him, on a rented bicycle, Ralph was being backed up by a second pavement artist, known as ‘Katie’, who had flown out to Berlin with Tanya Acocella twenty-four hours earlier. The third member of the surveil-lance team, known as ‘Des�
��, was holding back in the Audi on Hofjagerallee, awaiting further instructions from Tanya. Tanya herself was installed in an SIS-rented apartment half a mile from the British Embassy on Wilhelmstrasse. She knew that POLARBEAR planned to meet Meisner, but did not yet know where the encounter would take place, nor for what time it had been scheduled.
Gaddis hadn’t been to Berlin since 1983, when he had been a student on a school trip peering over the Berlin Wall at East German border guards who stared back through war-issue binoculars, trying to put a gloss on their boredom. The span of time put Gaddis in a contemplative mood and for five long minutes he stood directly beneath the Brandenburg Gate, reflecting on how the city had changed in the past quarter of a century and pressing the palms of his hands against the stonework in a moment of sentimental contemplation which sent Ralph into paroxysms.
‘He’s doing something weird underneath the Gate,’ he told Tanya, speaking into a mobile phone. ‘Looks like he’s stretching his back. It might be a signal.’
‘Hold your position,’ Tanya replied. ‘Let’s see who shows up.’
But nobody showed up. POLARBEAR eventually walked towards the Reichstag, seemed to be put off by the length of the queue taking tourists inside to gape at Norman Foster’s dome, then retraced his steps and spent fifteen minutes on the south side of the Brandenburg Gate, strolling around the Holocaust Memorial.
‘Don’t lose him in there,’ Tanya warned Ralph, because she knew that the Memorial was a five-acre maze of granite blocks, some as high as fifteen feet, into which Gaddis could quickly disappear. She was now sure that he was using amateur trade-craft - hence his little platform jig at Waterloo Station - and it was certainly not beyond his capabilities to have arranged to meet Meisner in the centre of the Memorial, where they could not possibly be overheard.
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