by Len Deighton
We passed slowly along a wall of billboards around a building site. At least two dozen huge posters affirmed with typographic bombast the DDR’s loyalty, obligation and friendship to the mighty USSR and the even mightier socialist brotherhood. We passed the cathedral for a second time. ‘One side is the Westring, I remember that,’ I said, as we came to the billboards again. ‘It’s a long time since I was here.’ Traffic signals brought us to a halt, and then he made a turn and said he knew where he was.
The kid had the car window down and was staring out into the shadowy moonlit streets. ‘Our man lives off to the left.’ He slowed and having spotted Klausenerstrasse – onetime Westendstrasse – signalled a turn and we were in a quiet street, paved with neatly arranged cobblestones and darkened by mature trees. These large comfortable houses had miraculously survived the RAF night bombers, the American day bombers and all the artillery fire that came afterwards.
It is a curious paradox that Hitler’s Third Reich and subsequent communist governments had preserved East Germany as the last remaining European country with domestic servants. Only in the DDR were such grand old households functioning in the old-fashioned way. Senior officials of the Stasi, and lucky detachments of KGB liaison officers like VERDI, had readily settled into this sort of bourgeois comfort, and now this unassailable elite occupied choice tree-lined streets of German towns complete with gardens, garages and quarters at the rear for attentive maid-servants, chauffeurs, cooks and gardeners. Only recently had chipped paintwork, untrimmed hedges and cracks in the glass signalled some tightening of the economy.
‘This is the house where VERDI lives,’ said the kid, reducing his voice almost to a whisper. ‘He shares it with two other officials and their families.’ The wrought-iron gates were closed. He parked at the kerbside and we got out. It was a big house: two storeys, with some of the upper rooms granted access to a long decorative balcony by means of french windows. There were no lights to be seen anywhere, but that might have been a tribute to the heavy curtains.
The front garden of the old house was protected by a more recently installed six-feet-high chain-link fence. It was anchored to stone gateposts and a pair of ancient and elaborate gates. The kid shone his flashlight on the brass plate which bore the house number. Above it a more recent white plastic sign indicated which of two bellpushes should be used by visitors and which by delivery men. It was that kind of house.
He unlatched the gate and we went inside without pressing either bell. In the air there was the smell of burned garden rubbish. ‘We’re only half an hour late,’ said the kid. ‘He’ll wait.’ It was very quiet in Magdeburg. There was not even the sound of traffic, just the hum of a distant plane droning steadily like a trapped wasp. In the silence every movement seemed to cause unnaturally loud noises, our footsteps crunching in the gravel like a company of soldiers marching through a bowl of cornflakes.
Three stone steps led up to a wide entry porch where a panelled front door with a fanlight was flanked by two small wired-glass windows that provided the residents with a chance to make sure that the delivery man was not using the wrong entrance.
‘Are you all right?’ said the kid, looking at me strangely.
‘You’ve been here before?’
‘They always leave the front door unlocked. It’s all right.’ As if to demonstrate this familiarity he pushed the heavy door open and stepped inside. I followed him. The house was in darkness, and only silky moonlight through the fanlight enabled us to see. A wide staircase with a carved wooden rail descended to a grand hall tiled with large black and white squares. Against one wall a longcase clock stood still and silent, its lifeless hands clasping the number twelve. Occupying the greater part of the opposite wall hung a towering oil-painting: a life-size depiction of a Prussian general stared serenely at the artist, while smoking cannon roared and a bloody mayhem of men and mounts provided a colourful background. The overall effect – of the family home of some nineteenth-century nobleman – was marred only slightly by a pungent smell of carbolic and scented polish that intruded an institutional dimension.
I heard the sound of the kid clicking the light switches, but no light came. ‘Power failure,’ he pronounced after several tries. ‘Or maybe it’s switched off at the main supply.’
For a moment I thought he was just going to stand there until something else happened, but he gathered himself together and went to the door of one of the front rooms and opened it slowly, as if half-expecting a shouted objection from inside.
I followed him. The moonlight coming through the tall windows revealed a big room with over-stuffed armchairs and sofas, and some antique furniture that had seen better days. There was an ornate stove and a large mirror that made the room seem double its size.
‘Look!’ said the kid.
But I’d already seen him: a man sitting on the sofa and toppled slightly to one side, canted at an impossible angle like some discarded doll. The kid directed his torch at the figure.
‘Douse the light. It might be seen through the windows.’ I went to the sofa. The man was dead. It was obvious just from the awkward posture. The moonlight made everything colourless, but the big dark patch on his chest was blood and there was more of it on the sofa and on the carpet too. His head was thrown back and his face was a horrific mess: his skull cracked open like the shell of an egg. ‘Keep still a minute,’ I said.
‘Where did you get the Makarov?’
‘Keep still. It’s just a toy,’ I explained, but the long silencer made the damn thing as conspicuous as a frontier Colt.
I quickly went through the dead man’s pockets. The body was still warm. The blood was wet and becoming tacky. I sniffed the air but there were none of the smells of oil and burned powder that gunfire leaves. Still it was obvious that the shooting had taken place just before we arrived. I was no expert, but it would be foolhardy to think the killer must have left the vicinity.
‘From the guy at the bar,’ said the kid, as the explanation of where I got the gun occurred to him. ‘I should have guessed you didn’t want cigarettes … He gave it …’
‘Shut up,’ I said. It was the sort of stupid carelessness that got good men into trouble. ‘Pull yourself together. Check the windows and the hallway.’
He must have realized what he’d blurted out, for he looked around as if he might spot a microphone or wires. It was his nervousness about being overheard that caused him to spot the broken window. ‘The shot came from outside,’ he said. He was holding the window curtain aside and pointing at a large round hole in the glass pane. It was at about the right level for a prowler to shoot a man sitting on the sofa.
‘Get away from the window – pull the curtain closed. Can the power be switched off from outside?’
‘Yes. The fuses are on the cellar steps.’
‘Close the curtain.’ The kid was still at the window looking at the garden. Then without warning I heard him retch deeply, and then came long and splashy vomiting. Oh boy, that’s all I needed. ‘Let’s go, Kinkypoo,’ I said bitterly as he coughed, spat, and wiped his face with a handkerchief. I could hear him follow me as I went to the hallway and opened the front door. I looked around the garden. There was no sign of movement, but enough big dark shadows for a battalion to be concealed.
‘Run for the car. I’ll cover you as best I can. Get into the back seat: I’ll drive.’ I suppose it was my way of ensuring he didn’t depart without me, but by now I had the nasty feeling that a reception party would be waiting by the car.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. I didn’t reply.
‘Go,’ I said.
He ran across the grass, dragged open the wrought-iron gate and dashed out into the dark street. I followed him, flattening myself against the wall as I got outside. The trees were being shaken by the wind and making shadows on the cobbles. There was no one to be seen in any direction: just silent parked cars. Reassured, I climbed into the driver’s seat, closed my door and started the engine. The kid slammed his door with all the
force he could muster, making a noise that could be heard for two or three blocks.
‘What’s the matter?’ he asked anxiously.
I was covering my face with both hands, seeking a moment of darkness to gather my wits. I understood the anxiety I heard in his voice. When I was young I’d seen some of the old wartime field agents resorting to that sort of gesture, and I’d written them off as burned out and useless. ‘I’m okay,’ I said.
Gently I revved up and pulled away. I swung my head to get a look at him in the back. The kid had stains and marks down the front of his coat. He looked at me and wiped his mouth self-consciously. He smelled strongly of sour vomit.
‘What a foul-up. Poor VERDI. Are we going to be all right?’ he asked.
‘You stay there in the back seat and watch the road behind us. They’ll probably tail us and arrest us at the Checkpoint. It’s the way they like to work. They’ll want to see what we do.’
‘What’s the score?’ he said. ‘Who killed him?’
‘How do you know VERDI lives there?’
‘As opposed to meeting me there? I don’t know. I just assumed it.’
‘Always in that same room?’
‘Yes, always in that room. I guess they were on to him. They let him go to the rendezvous and then killed him.’
‘Maybe.’
‘Maybe they spotted me last time,’ said the kid. Then in a sharper voice: ‘There is a car …’
‘I can see it.’
‘A big dark Mercedes. He turned when we did at the signal.’
‘Keep an eye on him.’
I didn’t want to make a mistake. It’s easy to think you’re being followed. What percentage of the cars driving through the middle of the city were heading towards the Autobahn ramp? A lot of them I would say.
‘Go around the block,’ suggested the kid.
‘That will tip them off that we’ve spotted them, and it makes it look as if we are running away.’
‘Slow down and stop.’
‘I don’t think so. Let’s see what they do.’
‘Slow down to walking pace.’
‘So that they can overtake us and block the road in front?’
‘You’re right,’ said the kid. ‘What are you going to do then?’
‘I want them to think they have the wrong car. I want to be very innocent … very law-abiding.’ Even as I said it I realized that it sounded like a plan based upon despair; and it was.
‘They’re still behind us. Still at about the same distance.’
We were out of town now, driving through moonlit countryside. It was a lousy situation. It was after midnight. Out here among the turnips was not the place to be. You could lay down an artillery barrage and bring in a couple of bulldozers to bury the bodies without the danger of attracting any witnesses.
‘I’m going to choose a suitable stretch of road and have a showdown,’ I told the kid. ‘When I stop the car and get out, I want you to scramble over the seat and get behind the wheel in the driver’s seat. Keep the engine ticking over but don’t rev it. Keep your head well down. When I shout go: burn rubber … Would you be able to do that for me?’
‘You bet I would.’
‘I’ll stop. Then I’m going to walk back towards them, shining a flashlight into their eyes and behaving like a lost tourist. Slightly drunk. If they are the kind of people I think they might be, they will get out of their car.’
‘Why?’
‘You can’t shoot accurately through windscreen glass. And leaning out of a car window and shooting a gun is something that only Humphrey Bogart learned how to do.’
‘You’re going to stop and go back and talk your way out of it?’
‘Watch me and don’t wait too long.’
‘Okay.’
‘And don’t take the Autobahn route. See that hill on the skyline in front? I’ll come to a stop near the bridge at the bottom. When I shout go, you be in a low gear … and swing and swerve as you pull away – got it?’
‘I’ll be all right,’ he said.
The road was narrow. When we reached a stone bridge over a stream, I slowed down and stopped there, positioning the car so that there was no room to pass it. They stopped too. I hid the pistol in my raincoat pocket and then with as much noise and fuss as I could manage I swung open the car door and stood up and squinted into their headlights, and waved an arm like an innocent traveller who had strayed off the Autobahn and wanted to ask the way to Helmstedt, the crossing point to the West. There was ice underfoot, but the water in the stream was still trickling: I could hear it even over the sound of the car engines.
The driver of the other car jumped out of his seat immediately. I could see that there was someone in the back seat but the rear doors remained closed.
Walking back towards them, illuminated in the full headlight beam, I called out: ‘How many kilometres to Helmstedt?’ in a shrill Austrian accent that would not have fooled many people sitting under the trees in the Wiener Wald but here amongst the ‘Prussians’ would probably be convincing enough.
My question was framed to cause momentary confusion, and it obviously did, for the driver bent down to say something to the passenger in the back seat.
Close enough now to see what I was doing, I dropped flat on my belly and fired at the nearest front tyre, aiming so that the round’s entrance and exit would rip out a big enough chunk of tread to deflate even the most fancy of puncture-resistant tyres. Like all Russian pistols, what the East Germans call the Pistole M is a crudely designed piece of machinery with a simple blowback system and a butt angle like a letter L, but its Soviet designers gave it a legendary reliability which in tight corners makes up for all other shortcomings. Bang! The noise was deafening, the ancient silencer providing no sound reduction at all. Too late to remove it now. I squeezed the trigger and there was that stiffening that precedes a jam. I cursed and pulled harder on the trigger – it must have just been lack of oil, for the gun fired, and I saw a piece chopped from the second tyre.
The sound of escaping air seemed to go on for ever. I jumped up and ran back to my car. The kid revved the motor. The shots had brought the back-seat passenger out of the car, and now he was bending down, trying to see the tyres. The driver was still in the same position: standing, feet apart, watching me as if petrified by the sudden events. I stood up and, to make them keep their heads down, I aimed a final shot to go over the driver’s head. But my hand was not steady and what was intended to be a frightener dropped him. The poor sod spun round and fell, clutching at his chest, then he rolled around on the ground groaning and kicking and rocking face-down, pressing himself to the icy road as if that might ease the pain.
‘Shit!’ I said. ‘Go, go, go.’ I threw myself into the front passenger seat. The car leaped away before I’d closed the door and as I slammed it my head banged against the window glass with a sharp crack. The kid heard the sound and glanced round to see if I was still conscious. But I had a thick skull; it is one of the few qualifications needed for the work I do. ‘Floor it!’ I told him. The engine screamed in pain as he jammed his foot on the pedal and we went roaring up the hill in low gear.
‘The passenger is climbing into the driving seat. He’s following us,’ called the kid.
‘Keep your eyes on the road,’ I told him.
The second man was making a plucky attempt at chasing us, despite the sparks that came off the road surface as the tyres flapped around the wheel rims.
As the Volvo breasted the hill the kid changed gear. I looked back to see the Mercedes slewing across the road out of control with black snakes of rubber following it as the tyres were ripped to pieces. Despite the driver’s desperate efforts the Merc slowed, hesitated and then slowly rolled backwards until it hit a ditch. The car tilted up so that the main beams shone into the sky. Beyond it, at the bottom of the hill, I could see the other man still writhing on the ground clutching his chest. But even as I watched his movements slowed. Then the hilltop closed off my view of the horrible li
ttle cameo.
‘You were fantastic!’ said the kid in high excitement. ‘Un-bloody-believable! You got him.’
‘Yes, clever me. It was exactly what I was trying to avoid.’
‘Trying to avoid? What?’
‘They’ll not forgive us for that one,’ I said grimly. ‘And there’s a witness still alive. These are sure to be Moscow men, not Germans. You don’t know the lengths they’ll go to get even with us.’
‘You want to go back and kill him?’
I wet my lips. For a moment I was going to say yes. It was the logical, sensible thing to do, even if it was the kind of solution they glossed over at the training school. But at that moment I wasn’t sure I was up to killing him in cold blood. I was drained, and experience told me the kid wouldn’t be able to do it. ‘Keep going,’ I said.
We sped through the night like drunken bank-robbers, the kid taking the bends in narrow country roads at dangerous speeds. He was flushed and excited and driving beyond his abilities. Suddenly he said: ‘What say we give the Autobahn a try?’
It was tempting of course. We were close to the major route that ran from Berlin to the bright lights of freedom. On the Autobahn there would be lots of ‘Westies’, commercials and trucks trundling through what we used to call ‘the Soviet Zone’ on their normal route between the West Sector of Berlin and West Germany. But such a short cut was too tempting, too logical, too convenient to be safe. ‘No. That’s the first place they’ll block off.’
‘I have extra papers,’ said the kid. ‘In a little box welded to the underside of the car.’ He was Mr Ultra-efficient.
‘No,’ I said. ‘And slow down. That flea-bitten moggie of yours will be all right for a day without food. Forget the Autobahn. It’s not worth taking a chance. Even the traffic computer on the western end picks up drivers for five-year-old unpaid parking tickets in their home town.’
‘You’re right.’ He sobered a little.
‘Stick to the plan,’ I told him.
‘The plan is shot. VERDI is dead: one of the opposition is dead … maybe two of them. We don’t have any escaper needing false papers and transportation.’