The Garden of Weapons (The Herbie Kruger Novels)

by John Gardner

  Eventually the trio linked arms and, keeping the noise down—making a great show of suppressing hilarity and mirth—they staggered and swayed their way up towards the Alexanderplatz: only a stone’s throw from the Town Hall, meeting place of government.

  Herbie had ensured the approach led them right up to the Apotheke, having gone through the routine with them before leaving the hotel. They were about three minutes from the place when he spoke quietly to Curry. “Almost there. If you totter across the road now, you’ll see it. Plenty of doorways where you can watch; but get yourself right opposite. Come at the gallop if things get heavy.”

  Curry let out a swooping burst of laughter, unlinked his arm, slewed into the road and fell down. They called to him—with exaggerated softness—telling him to get up, which he did, in a series of strange movements: rolling on to his hands and knees then shuffling his legs forward, lifting his backside into the air, then finally making it to his feet, doing a two-step back towards them, spinning on his heels and, bent at the waist, projecting himself across the road with uncontrolled impetus.

  Herbie swayed away from Schnabeln, almost falling into the gutter—in reality making certain of their position in relation to the shop. He spun around, then resumed his arm-linked progress with Schnabeln. The street was empty, he said. Only a few metres to go. Curry could be seen stumbling along on the far sidewalk, cannoning off walls, finally coming to rest in a shop doorway.

  Ahead of them, in the Alexanderplatz itself, three sets of headlights swept the street, completing their circle and heading away. Herbie stumbled again. They were abreast of the Apotheke. He unlinked his arm, hit the wall with his shoulder, and sat down heavily close to the wall on the far side of the door, which was—as he had told them—to the left of the chemist’s shop. Schnabeln went through the motions of helping Herbie to his feet and propping him against the wall—his back to the Alexanderplatz, facing Schnabeln, who now had his wallet of picks in his hand.

  “Quick. Like lightning, Chris,” breathed Herbie. The door, he noticed, even by the dull street lighting, had been cleaned up and painted since he was last there. A wave of nostalgia ran through him like a shiver at the onset of ’flu. So many hours of waiting, knowing one of the other members of the Schnitzer Group watched out for him—sometimes in the very doorway where Curry Shepherd now squatted. Stupidly he wanted, most strongly, to see how Vascovsky had redecorated the place. It had been a mess when they used it, in the late fifties and early sixties.

  Schnabeln gave a short grunt. He had a pencil flash on the lock, working very quickly. The click as the lock gave was like a pistol shot, magnified in the empty night, vibrating down the street.

  Herbie felt in his pocket, pulling out a pair of soft gloves, putting them on quickly as Schnabeln gingerly opened the door, using his shoulder to push it silently back. A light burned above the stairway. Herbie, conscious of an approaching car in the street, coming away from the Alexanderplatz, quickly followed Schnabeln inside and closed the door. The lock was the Russian equivalent of a Yale; easy enough to get out in a hurry.

  There had been no carpet on the stairs in Herbie’s day. Now a dark green covering filled the small hall, fitted right up to the landing. It was secured on each stair-tread by the outmoded method of polished brass rods; the short hand-rail and balusters had been painted white, and the walls—cracked and peeling, reeking from the dispensary in Herbie’s day—were covered by a heavy, ornate paper, also in a green, matching the carpet.

  Two prints hung, one above the other on the stair wall: Berlin in the late nineteenth century. One was of the Unter den Linden; the other, the Tiergarten in summer.

  Herbie nodded Schnabeln up the stairs, both men moving on the balls of their feet, heels lifted, making sure the weight was equally balanced as they took each stair.

  There was another print on the wall of the landing. Probably the same artist: certainly the same period—the Brandenburg Gate in winter, with the victory sculpture frosted white in the snow.

  Schnabeln whispered that there was someone at home. Light showed under the door. That had also been changed. It had been a rough brown affair during the Schnitzer Group’s tenure. This was a relatively new door, panelled and smooth, painted in the same dark green as before.

  Schnabeln studied the lock, whispering that it was similar to the one on the street door. Then Herbie noticed something else. The door was not quite flush: on the latch, as though someone was expected. No sound from inside. Only the light, and the door not correctly closed.

  Once more the intuition; only this time Herbie experienced genuine fright, feeling the short hairs on the back of his neck rise, like a dog’s hair will rise at something fearful. Fearful was the word that came straight into Herbie’s mind. The sixth sense seemed to be telling him that ghastly, horrible things had happened in this apartment, not long ago. He sniffed the air, catching the hint of something: fairly recent cigarette smoke hanging in the hall. Russian tobacco.

  As they had watched Curry do his drunken pirouette across the road, Herbie—distracted for a moment—had thought a shadow moved, approximately from the street door area. Just a dark patch, caught in movement, from the corner of his eye. There one minute, gone the next.

  Gently, Herbie pushed Schnabeln to one side, drew the Browning automatic, and placed his gloved hand on the door, just above the lock, using minimum pressure to swing the door inwards.

  Vascovsky had done her proud. Very modern furniture. Swedish by the look of it—plain wood, glass, metal. One wall was taken up by an ornate mirror that was out of place among the modernity—the sleek table and matching chairs; the angled lights, high in the corners of the room; the slender standard lamp, and the big bed, covered with imitation skins. The window, which Herbie had used, many times, to watch for an expected visitor, was not visible, covered by wine velvet drapes matching the heavy, brocaded wallpaper, and thick pile carpet. The colour had been well chosen, it did not show the blood. There was a lot of blood.

  Behind him Schnabeln retched. Herbie swallowed, because the blood smelled. The place reeked like an abattoir, the gore still warm. Some of it continued to run, like slime, from near the ceiling where it had jetted.

  The horror, for Herbie, was the way in which she had died. It was as though his own violent pantomime of throat-cutting, performed in the hotel bedroom at the height of rage, had almost physically triggered someone into the action.

  Luzia lay half on the bed, half off. Someone had taken a sharp knife to her throat, and with such force that the head was almost severed from her body, lolling back like a broken doll. There was no doubt that it was Luzia; a little older, but still the same perky features, even in the grotesque manner of her departing.

  The face was ash grey, drained of blood, even to the lips; eyes wide and staring, but not with any horror—just looking out, sightless, in repose. The most repellent aspect was the mouth: lips drawn back, mouth open as if to scream, the gums and teeth displayed in what was almost a wolfish snarl. It seemed set for eternity.

  Schnabeln retched again, and Herbie turned, pushing the pistol into his hand and telling him gruffly—covering his own feelings—to get out and watch the landing. The rage he had felt on hearing that Vascovsky had put Luzia Gabell into the old Schnitzer safe house now turned to something else—mainly memories of that unknowing time, when he still imagined, in his naivety, that Luzia was one of theirs—one of his—a faithful and loyal operator of the Schnitzer Group. Her betrayal had already been washed from his system. There was still anger; but it was the anger of having been thwarted.

  Herbie needed to speak to Luzia, extract details from her—the minutiae of the picture: how she had been able to double on him for all that time. He had only wanted the briefest technical terms. After that he would have killed her. There was no doubt about that. It was one of the things for which he had risked coming over the Wall. Now both the act of revenge and the questioning were taken beyond his reach. It puzzled Herbie: all he could think abou
t was Luzia Gabell alive, back in the old days. The guttersnipe face, the petite figure sashaying through the packed bodies at the Rialto. The best little ass this side of dreamland. Her old aunt who would not go west of the Brandenburg Gate. The rapes. They’re worse than the Nazis. Arschlöcher. Luzia, on Herbie’s bed, naked. Both of them young, virile and with a sense of purpose. Wasted by her; and now she in turn wasted.

  He forced the litter of images from his mind, and began a fast, methodical search. On top of a small bedside table stood a framed photograph, instantly recognisable—the slim face, neat grey hair, combed back; the nose and mouth of a Frenchman, the eyes shining out in a look of adoration, lips slightly parted, as though he was about to tell her something. I love you? It was, naturally, her lover of all those years, Jacob Vascovsky.

  He lifted the edge of the large ornate mirror to ensure it was not a two-way fitment, and went over any other likely hiding places for the mechanics of son et lumière.

  Then Herbie went through the drawers, as quickly as he knew how. There was little, except in the small desk, where he unearthed a number of letters, written on blue, thin paper. They all began, Lotte Darling, and finished, Your adoring Jacob. He stuffed them into his pocket, and went on rummaging, finding two snapshots—one of Vascovsky, taken, he thought, in the early sixties. The other was of the pair of them, close together, sitting on a settee in some unknown room, her head on his shoulder, a look of happy contentment on both their faces.

  On the back of Vascovsky’s photograph were scrawled the words—To Lotte, or whatever name she chooses, my love, ever J. Herbie added the snapshots to the letters in his pocket. Another fast look around, trying to avoid even glancing at the body, before ripping the telephone cable from its box, low on the wall. He went to the door and put the catch down. Then, just before leaving, he did something which at the time seemed unaccountable. He bleeped the Trepan team in the Mehring Platz.

  Only later did Herbie realise that the action was one of automatic subconscious technique. A psychiatrist could possibly even then prise from him the full logic of the way in which his mind led him. A long while later Herbie Kruger realised that it was in the old, transformed safe house—with Luzia Gabell’s body on the bed—that he came to the inescapable conclusions about the whole business. Yet again, as any psychiatrist would have told him, Herbie could never have admitted the truth then; certainly not to himself.

  In any case, Herbie was asking other questions. Why Luzia? Why at this moment, and in this manner? Schnabeln’s Vopo friend had talked about a number of girls, working as semi-prostitutes, being murdered. A Jack the Ripper in East Berlin? The occupational hazard of these ladies? He doubted that. Luzia had friends in high places: being the late Colonel-General’s girl she would rate as someone’s prize. No, Luzia Gabell’s end had come at this moment for one reason. The Telegraph Boys and the Quartet were blown. They must know that the news was out: maybe that Big Herbie was back in town—even that he had by now heard of Trapeze. Luzia had died because they did not want her pumped dry by any Western Service—particularly the British.

  Closing the door, pulling it to make sure the lock clicked, Herbie gently took the gun from Schnabeln, who looked almost as ashen as the corpse. Then, with a nod of the head, he signalled his partner to follow him down the stairs. “Move, once we’re outside.” Go on ahead, Herbie told him. He would see to the street door and signal Curry to follow up. Straight back to the car. He would watch out for Schnabeln, and Curry would, presumably, keep an eye on him. Any sign of trouble at the car, disappear. “Lose yourself,” Herbie hissed. “But be at the house in Weibensee in time for the first meeting. And work the dances”—by which he meant, get all their assets to the proper places at the arranged times.

  In the fresh air the stench of Luzia’s blood still stuck to his nostrils; and the pictures of her alive, happy and laughing would not go away.

  8

  THEY WERE ABOUT TO change watch as Herbie’s dip-dah bleep came through, and the map swivelled, the pin-point of light showing his location.

  Miriam Grubb and Tony Worboys were just taking their places; Tiptoes Corn and Tubby Fincher had not yet left the room, so all eyes turned to the screen.

  Fincher asked for a precise fix on the small map, though he knew already where Herbie’s signal was placed.

  Tubby’s memory went back almost to pre-Kruger days. In his head, he held more confidential material than Herbie would ever see. He knew the files and places—not just in Europe, but world wide; and his secrets added up almost to the sum total of those held by both the Director and Ambrose Hill of Registry.

  “I don’t like you even leaving England,” the Director said to him, before the dash to Berlin. “But you’re the only one qualified.” They both knew that Herbie, in reality, had little to give any confessors if he was nobbled; even though they refused him access to East Germany. There would be a few nuggets, of course, but nothing on the global scale that Fincher could provide. Herbie knew of Stentor’s existence, of course, but with no details—not even the crypto.

  Looking at the map, Fincher double-checked his memory, and came up with the right answer. That it puzzled him was an understatement. Herbie was bleeping from possibly the most insecure place in East Berlin—the old Schnitzer Group’s prime safe house. A warning? Possibly. Aloud he said that at least they knew where one of them could be found. He tried not to look worried. He was tired and wanted to think. He and Tiptoes had tossed for sleeping quarters. Tubby had lost—condemned to a bedroll and blankets on the kitchen floor.

  Lying there, trying to relax his muscles and at least get some rest, if not actual sleep, he worried at the complexities. From almost the outset Luzia Gabell had been Vascovsky’s asset within the Schnitzer Group. No action taken, and Vascovsky seducing his own aide—Mistochenkov—into an ultimate defection. He recalled the Tapeworm confession reports. Vascovsky knew every move of the Schnitzer Group through Gabell. Then, in 1965 at the latest, Vascovsky knew at least the cryptonyms of the six Telegraph Boys. He also knew their purpose—so, presumably, the targets. There was a possibility, from Mistochenkov’s own mouth and from the Psychological Stress Examination at Warminster, that Vascovsky knew about the Telegraph Boys even earlier than ’65. Stentor’s flash from Moscow indicated that every one of the Telegraph Boys was about to be blown; plus the Quartet.

  Yet Gabell, Vascovsky’s main asset, couldn’t have known either cryptos or real identities. If Vascovsky had the ear of just one of the Telegraph Boys he could not automatically know the others—either their cryptos or identities. Why? Because only a handful of people knew: and the only person in East Berlin who had identities and cryptonyms in his head was Herbie Kruger—now over the Wall, chasing around places like the old Schnitzer safe house.

  Tubby knew he had not revealed anything. Ambrose Hill was a guru who did not even speak to himself. The Director was above any suspicion. As much as he hated the idea, Tubby Fincher, putting Herbie’s actions into perspective, could come to only one conclusion. The lovable, trusted Eberhard Lukas Kruger was the only person who had complete access. Ergo: the said Eberhard Lukas Kruger, Director of Special Projects, East Germany, was a Soviet asset. Quod erat Demonstrandum.

  He could not believe it; but the logic was faultless.

  The telephone bored into Martha Adler’s sleep, like a pain drilling through her skull. Not again, she thought. Oh, please God, they’re not checking again. It was going to be difficult enough getting rid of the lively little Kashov in time to make her crash meeting without any further complications.

  Kashov had been ardent and most virile, to say the least. Martha had to admit she felt more sexually satisfied, when she finally drifted off to sleep, than she had done for years. At her age it meant a great deal. But by instinct she knew that neither the little Russian nor herself had been asleep for long. The telephone bell went on ringing. Whoever it was they were not going to give up.

  Kashov made grumbling noises as Martha Adler stretched out
and asked “Yes?” into the instrument. Her throat was dry, and the word came out as a croak.

  The voice in her ear spoke German with a thick Russian accent. At first she could not understand him. Gradually it got through to her that the man wanted Major Kashov: urgently.

  She had to pummel him awake, shouting that the call was for him. With great lack of grace, looking bleary-eyed and only partially awake, Kashov took the telephone, speaking in Russian. He listened for a few seconds, and Martha Adler saw him come more alive, his lips curling into a smile. He spoke a sentence, then listened again, putting his hand over the instrument and mouthing the word “Kaffe” at her.

  She felt dreadful, switching on the lights, almost feeling her way to the kitchen blind, hearing the low mutter of conversation continuing in the bedroom; then the ping as Kashov replaced the telephone.

  He stood naked in the kitchen doorway. “I’m sorry. There have been certain developments. I have to go and deal with things myself.” He spoke in German, asking if he could possibly have some coffee before he left, to wake himself up. “They’re sending a car for me.” He repeated that he was sorry. He was also sorry, but he had left her telephone number at his office. “In case I was needed last night. I left this number, and the restaurant. I did not expect … You understand?”

  Yes, Martha understood and told him so, wearily as she made the coffee.

  Walter Girren was also making coffee in the small hours. Like Martha Adler it was not for himself. After covering a lot of ground Girren had finally run Gemini to earth—in a dangerously unauthorised drinking club at the far end of the Karl-Marx-Allee.

  He had missed Moritz Winter twice. Once in a respectable bar, the second time in a place where they had told him Moritz had gone off with a girl called Mitzi. Mitzi he had thought was an obvious alias. When would these girls learn? Nobody knew where Mitzi lived, but she always worked this bar and would be back when she had taken care of his friend.