by John Meaney
Leaving the college grounds, I walked fast. Halfway along St Giles, I went inside an old hotel. There were payphones just past Reception. Safe enough. I went to the farthest phone, shovelled in coins, and asked the international operator to dial Berlin.
"Hilborn Allianz," answered the duty officer, using Hochdeutsch rather than Yiddish, all part of the cover. "Guten Abend."
"David ist es," I said. "Kann ich mit Herr Malz sprechen?"
Clicks and buzzes sounded. Schröder's voice came on the line.
"David. How are you doing?"
"Did you know there's going to be a metal sculpture installed at the United Nations in Manhattan soon? A big spherical piece, built by Moskowitz in Berlin?"
"Ah. You know I'm an arts buff. I was vaguely aware of that."
"Perhaps we should take a look. It might be interesting."
"Ring me back in five minutes."
A big round object. Metallic, a spherical sculpture in Manhattan, where the Nazis intended to detonate an A- bomb. Nazis with a sense of the dramatic.
Figure it out.
When I rang him back, Schröder asked if I had anything else.
"Well, I was hoping to meet up with the Englishman in Oxford. Appleton, the physicist. The thing is, he's gone off on a sudden holiday, since meeting Moskowitz. Gave him some kind of technical advice, on the sculpture. On the materials."
"Understood. Anything more?"
"That's the gist of it."
Apart from a Saudi connection I didn't understand, not to mention Jean-Paul and Fern.
"Good work. Come on home. Let the local office deal with the details."
"You don't want me to—?"
The line buzzed.
There are physicists in Oxford who prefer the parallel universes view of quantum theory. It seems daft – there is no mathematical notation that can adequately convey just how many times cosmic history would have to branch: it's vast, ridiculously so. But if there were many realities, all I could determine was this: here, now, Black Path had to lose.
Nothing else could be allowed.
As I walked along Keble Road, feeling hot despite the soft, chill breeze, I considered that the danger level was low. Breaking in to the physics department, even if the police were still around, was nothing like a red zone. Beyond the dark University Parks, stood the building I was aiming for. Twenty-foot windows, in 1930s styling, blazed with light. In contrast, the shadows all around were black and hard: the place where I could be invisible.
And the same applied to any hidden police who were waiting. For a missing-person enquiry, that would be unlikely. But if Appleton's work had military applications, the Ministry of Defence would be involved.
So here's the thing. If this turned out to be a red zone, and the chances of my death were high, then I should tell Schröder everything right now. Since I would do anything to stop Black Path, did that include betraying Fern?
She's not a traitor. Bazargan might be nothing. Might be a Branch 7 asset.
Leaving the quiet roadway, I passed along the side of the building. In an office high up, beneath the eaves, a narrow hand scrawling on a blackboard was all I could see of someone working late to refine our understanding of the atom, which got its name from the Greek term for indivisible, because when Einstein and others nailed down the concept, they thought it was the smallest unit of matter. That's before researchers found out the amazing structure inside the atom, which breaks apart to create conditions like the heart of the sun, enough to kill a million folk in fractions of—
Yeah, that's right. So concentrate.
Something told me not to try the side door, so I circled the building until I came to the wall that separated it from the park beyond. I moved into shadow, shedding my overcoat.
Focus.
Dark elegant brickwork supported a ghostly white dome. Beyond it was a buttressed corner, where the surface felt cold and gritty, and the holds were easy. I climbed fast, working by touch – which the humanities professors would consider a primary sense, but is shorthand for seven modalities or more. Tactile feel, of brick and granular mortar against fingertips and palms; orientation and balance, as I climbed like any of our primate ancestors, scared in the night; and the proprioreceptive sense of my own position: they dominated my active brain.
It was better than thinking of Fern, and how she might—
Shut up.
And if I slipped now, and fell, how stupid if I died without telling Berlin anything about the possibility that she was really a—
For God's sake, bloody concentrate.
Then I did slip, fingers sliding free from their hold—
Reach.
—but my shoes kept their grip and my other hand hooked on—
Got it.
—to the edge of the roof, holding on, willing my fingers to become steel—
And pull.
—and then I was rolling on to the roof, and lying on my side, safe once more.
When would be a good time to pay attention?
Spreadeagled in a window embrasure, I forced a feeler-gauge through the gap and worked the catch. Soon I was able to slide the lower pane upwards – slowly, almost in silence – and roll inside. Squatting on the floor, I waited. No sounds of running feet, or even breathing. No flickering torch-beams from the darkened corridor outside. I took out my own flashlight and began to search.
The first two papers I found bore Appleton's name. This was the right office. But there were gaps on the shelves. The police had taken a lot of his papers. Good luck to them, trying to understand his research papers.
No miniature cameras or code pads were taped beneath the desk drawers. No microfilm. The floorboards were intact, no hidden cavities. From the marks on the lino, the police had already looked.
I flicked off the flashlight and knelt on the floor in the middle of the room. Allowing my breath to grow shallow and passive, I waited for the nerves to settle. If there was anything to be found, it was likely to be subtle. After a time, I switched the narrow beam back on again, and shone it behind the bookcase.
Something happened.
Flaring gold and crimson. For a second I thought it was an explosion—
I'm dead.
—but I was still thinking. It was a burst of multi-hued light, no more. An incandescent pattern, magical and brilliant.
The material was like glass, but black. Call it obsidian, but with properties that must be unique. Was this what Appleton was working on? And the reason that Moskowitz was interested? You could see why a sculptor would be interested in this material.
The police had found everything else, but they hadn't been skulking around in the dark. If they had, they'd have found the dark pseudoglass already.
A floorboard squeaked. Footsteps. Heavy shoes. Someone doing the rounds, checking the place. It took me only seconds to reach the window-sill and crouch there, ready. The black glass shard was in my rear trouser pocket.
Coming this way.
I went through and hung outside by one hand, and closed the window. Then it was time to ascend the brick wall in darkness, ignoring the glass fragment that dug into my buttock as I climbed. A prod into action that I really didn't need.
Back in my room, I slept then woke to fading images of black shadows that somehow shone, while rivers of fluorescent blood flowed in torrents, drowning everyone I loved. Then the dream slipped away and I rolled out of bed.
There was time for a dawn run around the Parks that I'd skulked beside in darkness. Afterwards breakfast, then I walked to the station and stood on the platform, Within minutes, a plume of whitish steam was growing closer. My train to Paddington.
Four hours after that, my plane was ascending from Heathrow.
It was gone 5 p.m. by the time I stood in Pinchas's office. That was OK. He didn't keep regular office hours. I handed him the shard of black glass, expecting him to ask what the hell it was. Instead he gave me news that threw me.
"Rogers has disappeared from London."
"Clive? What's—? Disappeared when?"
"Three days ago."
Shit.
I'd travelled through London twice, on the way to Oxford and then the return, without thinking of dropping in to see him.
"We're doing what we can," added Pinchas.
Rage burst through me like a firestorm, but only in my mind, because Pinchas hated these bastards even more than I did. Remember his actions on the Hamburg dock, the tears after killing, his offering to the ghosts he loved.
"We could take down Black Path," he muttered. "Arrest every known member."
Most of the bastards were on foreign soil: for arrest, read abduction.
"We still need to hold back." I forced myself to say it. "If they think we know about the bomb, they'll just go deeper into hiding."
This was the argument Schröder had used on me, when I'd wanted to warn the Americans about Crossman.
The telephone rang.
"Schröder," I said. "It has to be."
"Mind-reading now?" Pinchas picked up the receiver. "Got it. Excellent. I'll let him know."
He replaced the handset.
"And?" I asked.
"That was Schröder. News from Oxford."
"You don't hang around."
They'd activated whatever agents we had in place.
"Appleton's boarding-house has a payphone in the lobby. A neighbour overheard him booking a flight."
"Where to?"
"Washington D.C., from Munich via Paris."
"All right. So they're moving."
Black Path had an assassin, Crossman, heading for Boston – or already in place – to make a hit on JFK. Now Appleton, their pet physicist, was en route to the States. The details were still unclear, but everything pointed to the US as the flashpoint.
I stayed silent, allowing Pinchas time to think.
"Go to Schöneberg," he said after a while. "Ask for Blackstone. He's CIA, a new man."
"And we're going to tell him everything? About the threat to JFK?"
"Sure. And the moon is made of green cheese, and the cheque is in the—"
"I get the point."
Pinchas rapped the phone with one knuckle.
"You fetch the man," he said, "and Schröder will put our heads together. Work out how much we can share with the Americans."
"Deal. I'm on my way."
"And I'd be interested in your impression of Blackstone."
"Like whether we can trust him?" I asked.
"Uh-huh. Exactly like that."
TWENTY-SEVEN:
BERLIN, April 1963
My CIA contact was in a police station. After the desk sergeant checked my credentials, he said: "Mr Blackstone's with his clients. If you can call them that."
Our liaison officer at the US Embassy had told us where Blackstone would be, acting out his official role. Perhaps he was a real lawyer, in addition to his covert duties.
"So who are these clients?"
"Stoned Yankee beatniks." The sergeant ran a finger along his moustache. "Got Che Guevara badges and ban-the-bomb symbols, the whole collection. Thought that would protect 'em against Soviet bullets."
"They tried to run the border?"
"Nah, just taunted the Red guards at Checkpoint Bravo. Close enough to get them trigger-happy. Our guys threw the schmucks into the back of a wagon. Brought 'em here."
"So how long do you think—?" I broke off as two men in dark suits came through th rear doors. "Is this the lawyers?"
"That's what their papers say."
"What do you mean by that?"
"You're kidding. The one with the glasses is a pencil-pusher, right enough. But the other one, Blackstone? You wouldn't want to meet him in a dark alley."
I walked over.
Blackstone was tall, wide-shouldered and bronze-skinned. Neither White nor Anglo-Saxon, possibly no Protestant. He didn't look like an Agency man.
"How do you do." He held out his hand. "You're Wolf."
His grip was stronger than mine.
"Um..." Behind him, the bespectacled young man shifted his weight. "I have to, er, get back..."
"You do," said Blackstone.
"Right. Er... Right. See ya."
As the pencil-pusher shuffled off, I wanted to grab hold of his shoulders and force them level, make him raise his chin, and make it a new habit. It would change his life.
"Your Mr Schröder," said Blackstone, "sounded worried on the phone."
"Not especially."
A round man in a black suit was puffing past us, heading for the sergeant's desk. The man wore a black yarmulke clipped to his curly hair.
"Good afternoon, Sergeant. I've a problem."
Blackstone was watching. There was no rush, and it would be good to learn something about his character.
Fern's in Washington.
Perhaps I would get the chance to—
Concentrate.
"—be driving close to the border," the man was saying "And my rifle's at the armourer's for repair."
Everyone completed NS, meaning National Service, and continued with annual training until the age of forty. In addition, there was a legal obligation to keep the rifle at home, just like Switzerland or Singapore, and for the same reasons.
"You're going for how long?" The sergeant rubbed his face. "For what purpose?"
"My niece's wedding." And, spreading his hands: "What can you do?"
"Ah, mazel tov. Are you rated on handguns?"
"I prefer the rifle. But sure, I can fire the things."
"Right then. You fill out this form." The sergeant pushed a clipboard across the desk. "And I'll let you have a pistol. Please God that you don't have to use it.
Blackstone made a subtle gesture with his lips.
Then the sergeant reached beneath the desk, and came up with a heavy black handgun.
"Remember to bring it back."
"That's a nice gun, the Gideon .38." The heavy man touched the weapon. "I'll clean it before I return it."
"Good enough."
Blackstone nodded to me, then pitched his voice low. "Fascinating country you have here."
I waved at the sergeant, then turned towards the exit.
"Nice of you to say so, Mr Blackstone."
But as we walked towards the car, we passed a sidestreet called Sde-Or Rachov, and when Blackstone looked down it, he saw a sea of long black coats, round black hats and pale-faced men with straggly or bushy beards, depending on the owner, and dangling sidecurls. The few women wore wigs or headscarves. It was a district that I didn't belong in.
"What is he doing here?" Two young Hasidim stepped into our path. "What are you doing here?"
"Just passing through," I said.
Behind them, an older man was walking this way, a rebbe. Was he going to talk some sense into the young idiots? Or inflame their already distorted view of the situation?
"Perhaps you should remember whose country this is."
They stood close to me, violating my personal space by the standards of most cultures. They were rudely aggressive, yet it was only their way. Both those things were true.
"Any of your family," I said, "ever been to hospital on the Sabbath? Or needed a policeman?"
"What's that got to do with it?"
"Without shabbes goyim or shabbes Jews, where would you be?"
On the Sabbath, the truly Orthodox have rigorous ways of circumventing the restrictive rules of conduct. They seem to think that God is a lawyer. To obey the letter of the injunctions, the faithful have ingenious methods for allowing people to walk far from home (by redefining streets as imaginary rooms in the house, by the use of string 'boundaries' or placing food two kilometres from the home, so giving the home a two-kilometre extension) even to raise pigs (they can't be raised on Jewish soil, so try putting them on wooden platforms above the soil). But when it comes to working on the Sabbath as a nurse or doctor or policeman, then they leave that responsibility to the rest of us, the non-Jewish shabbes goyim or – because t
here aren't so many Gentiles in New Jerusalem – the 'shabbes Jews'.
If they weren't the ones encouraging illegal raids across the border into German lands – and raising a younger generation with their views – I'd consider them merely trapped by their own illogic. As it was, they were dangerous. Right now, if one of them put a hand on me, they were going to discover what danger was really all about.
Silly fuckers.
The rebbe drew close.
"Stop. Let them pass."
There was no kindness in his eyes.
"You're a wise man," I said.
I walked trembling from adrenaline, the reptile brain still ready to kick in if the idiots decided to push their luck. Beside me, Blackstone was giving off vibrations that would warn off anyone with sense.
Then we were at the car. Blackstone smiled.
"As I said, it's an interesting country."
"Yeah. And our worst enemies are right at the heart of it."
As we climbed inside the car, Blackstone said something that surprised me, coming from a CIA officer.
"Perhaps our countries aren't that different."
I followed a roundabout route to Berlin Central, checking for tags, while continuing to evaluate Blackstone. He was unperturbed.
It was evening as we drove past the Tiergarten. A spectacular blood-coloured sunset splashed across the West. Blackstone's face appeared dark bronze. I pointed the car along the former Kantstrasse. Nearing the armoured entrance to the underground garage, I slowed, then came to a halt, facing the outer metal doors.
They rattled upward, revealing a shadowed, cavernous hole.
"It looks like the entrance," I said, "to an Anasazi dwelling."
Blackstone inclined his head, but said nothing.
I drove through the abbreviated dark tunnel, then halted at the inner doors. Behind us, the outer layer came sliding down. From slit-windows in the walls, guards watched.
I gave them a small wave.
"I'm Apache," said Blackstone as the inner doors opened. "Not Navajo."
"Sorry."
"It was a good guess."
"For a European Anglo, maybe."
Putting the car into first, I headed into the grey, echoing concrete cavern system that was the underground garage, and slid the car into the slot where it belonged. From inside the chief maintenance engineer's office, a blocky man nodded. His name was Sergei: a kindhearted, foul-mouthed bastard who would come out to chat only if I were alone.