by John Gardner
Deliberately he looked at his watch. Two minutes to the first meeting. Two minutes to eleven, on a bright Sunday morning in East Berlin. He pressed the watch button and bleeped the Trepan team.
Half an hour earlier Horus—Otto Luntmann—waited ready at the bus stop on the Franzosstrasse. He was there slightly early, his copy of Gibbon’s Decline and Fall under his left arm. Any book would do; that was the language to tell them he was prepared, and that it was safe.
At a minute to the half-hour he saw his handler approach from the direction of the Friedrichstrasse. He carried a newspaper. Otto Luntmann adjusted his glasses, watched and waited. He was not sure of the exact moves. They had always been vague about crash meetings, saying only that the handler would be there. The pick-up could well be done by someone else. The sign would come from the handler.
Indeed, someone else was walking towards his handler now.
Schnabeln approached Anton Mohr with a wave and cheery smile. They shook hands, engaging in friendly, chance conversation. The dialogue was, in fact, terse.
“Lead me to him,” Schnabeln smiled, as though he was really saying good morning. “Tell him to follow us, and get into the car with me.”
“Okay. That all?” Anton Mohr sounded quite cheerful, the smile dying on his lips as Schnabeln continued.
“Unhappily no. Walk. Walk past him and tell him.” They began to stroll in Luntmann’s direction. “Once I’ve taken him, you get out.”
“What?”
“Out. Use your dismantle documents—your escape route. The Quartet’s finished. Take care. See you in London—if we get back. Just, good luck, my friend. For your own sake, move when we get into the car.”
“My things …?”
“Forget it. We’re blown.”
They were abreast of Luntmann now, and Mohr had to pull himself together in order to mutter the orders.
Schnabeln knew that before the day was finally out he would have to go through this routine several times. Next to Herbie he would be the last man out. Schnabeln did not even think about the possible consequences: it was difficult enough to keep last night’s horror out of his head.
As Schnabeln’s Wartburg pulled away from the kerb—where it had been parked, in a side street near the bus stop—so Walter Girren put the old borrowed Mercedes into gear, steering into the traffic, keeping well back.
He had collected the car from his actor friend only an hour before, and knew the route. Christoph had talked it with him already—doing the footwork by mouth. Girren, driving as a tail, was as good a man as any, knowing the rules and technique down to the fine print. Like they used to tell the fighter pilots, his instructor had said, when they played these same games in London traffic, watch out for the one in the sun. By which he meant, keep looking in the mirror.
With this minimal traffic it was almost a joyride. When Schnabeln finally pulled over, a few minutes’ walk from the Weibensee house, Girren accelerated past, heading for his next destination—home to get Gemini for the noon assignment. Schnabeln would be around Weibensee for a while, seeing this client safely in.
“Hallo Otto, glad you could make it.” Herbie did not rise from the table, nor did he sound at all pleased that Otto Luntmann could make it.
The thin, scholarly figure peered, narrowing his eyes behind the thick glasses. “My God. Herbie? After all this …”
Herbie said, yes, he knew it had been a long time, but they had work to do. Would Otto—only he called him Horus—sit down? Schnabeln took up station at the door, and Herbie started an exceptionally quick-fire question-and-answer routine. Luntmann’s recent work? How had he kept going through all the years, before the new handler had taken over? What was the real strength on the latest reports? How was his personal life? Had he noticed any distinct changes in the way the DDR was being run? Had he any indication that he was being watched? Suspected? Herbie hardly smiled through this whole business, which went on for some ten minutes.
At length Herbie turned to Schnabeln. “I think you can disappear now. I’ll take care of things.”
Schnabeln gave an unsmiling nod, followed by a look of deep suspicion at Horus. Before leaving he placed the pebble—the ‘enter’ sign—on the table by Herbie’s elbow. Herbie hardly seemed to notice. Deep inside, he thought the timing was right. Schnabeln had to get back to the Lenin Allee for the Gemini pick-up.
For ten minutes more he continued the questions, gradually easing into a slightly more mellow approach—asking mainly about Luntmann’s welfare. Then he got up, went to the door and looked out. This time, when he turned, the familiar broad stupid smile creased his face. “Otto, my dear old friend. Sorry about all that, but I have to be careful with him. How are you really? It’s so good to see you.”
Luntmann, who was just regaining his poise, smiled back, shoulders slightly hunched—the ancient schoolmaster manner, worn like a favourite coat.
Herbie came over and embraced the scholarly man with great affection. The tension visibly ebbed from Otto Luntmann. Never, in his long relationship, during recruitment and training, years ago, had he known Herbie Kruger to be as brusque as this. The experience had made him fear the worst.
Herbie repeated it was good to see his old friend, who now asked what the meeting was really about.
“You don’t know, Otto?” The stupid, idiot smile as Herbie turned towards the window, looking out on to the grey stone wall. He noticed the pits and cracks in the wall, heard the clip of feet passing on the pavement above, and glimpsed ankles, trouser bottoms, shoes and women’s stockings as he glanced upwards. He allowed a carefully-timed sigh to escape his lips. Casually, he said they were safe enough now. Alone. Then he spoke the Gorky phrase, low but clear, moving his head slightly so that Luntmann would catch the whole sentence—“A man can teach another man to do good—believe me.” As he said it Herbie turned quickly. Luntmann was sitting at the table again, looking at him through the thick lenses of his spectacles.
Watch the hands, Herbie thought. Hands, fingers, feet, that is where you should look. It was a common misconception that guilt or fear shows first in the eyes. Look ’em straight in the eyes: innocent, even bewildered was one of the first things any service taught about being interrogated. Particularly with a trained operator, or a cool professional, you watched the eyes last of all.
There was no agitation, no odd movements of Luntmann’s hands or feet. Now Herbie could look at the face.
“What do you mean?” Luntmann asked.
Herbie repeated the quotation.
“I’m sorry,” Luntmann looked genuinely puzzled now. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand, Herbie.”
“Isn’t that what they told you? Perhaps you didn’t expect it to be me, Otto. A surprise, yes?”
“Herbie …” he began, his hands making a small pleading gesture: a few inches of movement. “Herbie, I’m sorry. Perhaps there’s been some mistake. What was it?”
For the third time Herbie repeated the Gorky phrase. Luntmann continued to look puzzled.
“I’m obviously in great error, Herbie …”
By this time Kruger was as sure as he would ever be. Otto Luntmann was not his man.
“It’s okay, Otto. Just a reaction test”—one big hand flapping the air—“I’m afraid I have bad news. The worst.”
It was as Otto Luntmann feared when he had the news of the crash meeting that morning. “Blown?” He could hardly get the word out.
Herbie nodded. Sky high, he told him before issuing the final instructions, making certain Horus still had his get-out papers—issued to all the Telegraph Boys after recruitment—and knew the escape route.
Luntmann said he suspected as much. He had removed his papers to a dead-drop. In a waterproof wallet, this morning, taped under a bench for old people: a good kilometre from where he lived.
Herbie thanked God for that. He did not want Otto going back to his lodgings. “You leave now. Straight away. I have money for you, to help. Swiss francs and West deutschmarks.” He turned
the briefcase away, so that Luntmann could not see inside, taking the first wad of notes, made up and secreted under the lining. In the original scenario Schnabeln was to have brought the money in.
As they finally embraced, Herbie cautioned Horus to go very fast, and with care. He wished him luck.
“I think you will need luck also, Herbie. Coming over to do this is a brave act.” Luntmann did not smile.
Foolish and stupid, Herbie thought. Not brave, though. To be brave was something quite different.
One cleared. Five to go.
The whole of the Trepan team were in what they now called the Operations Room (“Bit grand, isn’t it?” Worboys commented) when Herbie’s bleep came from the Weibensee basement. Schnabeln’s bleeps were arriving every half-hour, and seemed to have no pattern. “Buzzing around like a fly in a colander,” Tiptoes muttered.
But Tubby Fincher was following the pattern. He could read it as easily as the morning paper. In spite of Big Herbie’s blatant folly and criminal disregard of orders, Tubby Fincher had a sneaking admiration for the man—whatever side he was really playing. So strong had Fincher’s final deductions become that, at dawn, he had gone over to Berlin Station, taking Charles to mind him. There he was given access to the machines, and talked to London for over half an hour, laying out the only possible and logical answer to the problem. However difficult the Director might find the solution, Tubby was in no doubt that his chief would have already come to the same conclusion—even if only in his subconscious.
The bleep, he knew, came from one of the two Quartet safe houses. Schnabeln’s movements were those of a man doing the crash pick-ups. If Herbie was with the opposition the charade was very professional—seeing each of the Telegraph Boys in rotation, warning the double, letting the others go away satisfied but, almost certainly, with markers on them.
On the other hand, if Herbie was still their man, the actions were coolly brave—a filtering job: seeking out the culprit, then …? Then what? If—if—if Herbie were loyal, would he take the law to its final course in the field? Would he kill?
That was academic, Tubby thought. All he could do was sit back and watch developing events.
Schnabeln sat in the Wartburg, waiting at the appointed place for the Gemini meeting. The switch here was to be smooth and simple. Walter Girren, doubling as handler and watcher, would pick Gemini off the street—Schnabeln presumed, not knowing about the moves Walter had made to keep Gemini in tow. Gemini would be driven past the parked Wartburg, Girren marking his subject’s card, dropping him—perhaps around the corner—so that he would merely walk back and climb into the Wartburg. Schnabeln figured that Walter Girren was experienced enough to drop his subject at a point and distance that would just allow enough time for him to place the borrowed, battered Mercedes in position to tail the Wartburg out to Weibensee again.
It went off as smoothly as that. Quick, and very professional; even though Gemini looked as though he had fallen into a vat of alcohol.
On returning to his apartment Girren found his subject in better humour, though it had taken most of his precious store of coffee to do it. Gemini had shaved, bathed and was reasonably presentable. On the way over to the switch point Water Girren told his subject exactly what was going to happen. Presentable Gemini may be; hung-up he certainly was.
Schnabeln was away with Gemini sitting beside him before the subject even had time to close the passenger door properly. Gemini tried some bright conversation, but Schnabeln was in no mood for that: telling him to keep his mouth shut and eyes skinned. He’d have plenty of time for talking later.
Within the hour Schnabeln knew he would be seeing Girren again—for the Nestor pick-up. That one would be more difficult. The signal for need-to-talk had always been scratching his right ear with the left hand. He would have to be out of the car, praying that Girren spotted the sign in time to park nearby. At the Nestor pick-up it was essential that Schnabeln should break the news to Girren: order him out with his dismantle documents: tell him to run for cover. Though not until he had watched Schnabeln all down the line to the last drop.
That would leave only Anna Blatte to be warned—late in the day—at the three-thirty pick-up for Electra. After Nestor the next two were Schnabeln’s own subjects: the leggy ash-blonde, Hecuba; and Queen Priam. He smiled at his own weak joke.
Schnabeln drove with great care towards a slightly different drop near the Weibensee house, twice catching a glimpse of Girren tailing him in the Merc. Then his mind drifted for a few seconds, thinking of how near he had come to not starting the day on schedule because of running slap into Hoffer in the main foyer.
Hoffer looked queasy after his night with the tourists, but had the grace to be concerned about Schnabeln’s health—“Did you see the doctor as I suggested?” No, Schnabeln had just gone to bed and slept. He felt fine now, and would deal with tonight’s tour. He might even go across with the driver and bring them in from the West. (On alternate nights, by arrangement with the tour company, the driver came from the East and was passed through the Friedrichstrasse checkpoint with no problems.) Hoffer was glad to hear Christoph would work tonight, “It would have been inconvenient for me … tonight would not have been easy …” He actually blushed. Everyone in the hotel knew Hoffer was two-timing his wife with a dumpy fat brunette waitress. Frau Hoffer imagined her husband worked with the tours on at least three nights each week.
Spread across the road in front of them, hanging between the trees, a large poster proclaimed LONG LIVE THE WORKING CLASS. Schnabeln thought he would drink to that. In the West nearly all the people he knew were working class, only some of them worked harder than others—hours the Trade Unions would never allow.
He pulled himself up sharply, bringing his mind back to the business in hand, feeling his guts sink. Already, this early in the day, Schnabeln was anxious. It would get worse, he knew; but his old friend Walter Girren, riding shotgun on his back, was a comfort. He pondered on what might happen if anything went wrong at one of the safe houses: how would Curry Shepherd react? Come to think of it, Curry was very good. Schnabeln had not spotted him all day.
Curry was good. Over the years, as an old Berlin hand, he had collected cobbled documents as a schoolboy hoards stamps. Among those he had brought with him—mainly in the linings of his jacket—was a complete set of identity papers which, as long as the light was right, would pass him off as a plainclothes member of the Volkspolizei.
At nine-thirty that morning Curry Shepherd had taken what he would call a ‘look-see’ at the basement—so-called—safe house, and picked out his best vantage point. Almost directly across the road was an old, opulent building, standing a short way back from the sidewalk.
After a couple of circuits Curry decided the place had been turned into apartments—about four, he thought, deducing from two of the occupants who were departing as he passed that they were student flats. It was all rather Richmond Park; though, when he heaved at the bell pull and the door was opened by a bent elderly man claiming to be the house superintendent, Richmond Park seemed as far away as the moon.
Curry only used his fluent German, with its perfect Berlin accent, when necessary. The Service knew; but few of his friends heard him speak German with anything but an atrocious English drawl.
He also managed to assume that threatening, dour attitude recognisable in most parts of the Soviet Bloc. Flashing the documents he spun a story about keeping an eye on a building across the street—not the one Herbie was using. He needed complete quiet, and one of the windows to carry out his observations. He would be there for at least three hours, and he might need to use the telephone in order to call a patrol. The house superintendent was to allow him these rights and make sure no word got out.
The couple he had seen leaving were happily off for a day—“She has a sick mother in the Charité Hospital”—and the old man was only too willing to open up their apartment: three rooms and a nauseating smell of cabbage.
So Curry was not seen. He h
ad yet to conquer the Behrenstrasse job; but knew that would be easier, because there were cafés in the Behrenstrasse. Cafés always helped with surveillance. In his safe hide, Curry watched Schnabeln’s arrival with Gemini, and nodded to himself at the timing. “On the button, cocker,” he muttered.
The pebble was in place again on the steps, and Schnabeln took Gemini straight in, bleeping Trepan as he closed the door. Smack on time the noon meeting was under way.
Big Herbie went through his routine with Moritz Winter; using exactly the same technique as with Otto Luntmann. First, the hard, cold, brusque manner: the questions, flung like a machine gun switched to automatic, and with no sign of sympathy for the subject. By the time Schnabeln was dismissed the usually joky Moritz Winter was sweating and looking very frightened.
The fear was quickly replaced by an almost dog-like devotion once Herbie did his quick personality change act.
“Christ, you had me worried, Herbie,” Winter mopped his brow. The sweat gave off a high odour of last night’s booze.
“I have to be careful: but you know that, Moritz.” Herbie had begun to pick out faces among the cracks in the wall outside the window. He stood looking out in silence for a moment as he traced the outlines of ex-President Nixon’s face in the stone. A good place for Nixon, he thought, this safe house in Berlin.
Just before he gave Moritz Winter the Gorky signal, a young girl passed along the pavement above him, swaying near the edge, her dress billowing, giving Herbie a quick but vivid view straight up her skirt. When he turned to face Moritz—after saying the magic words—Herbie was smiling with genuine pleasure.
Moritz Winter’s hands lifted fractionally from the table, but his feet remained still, anchored and unmoving on the floor. “Sorry, Herbie?” he frowned.
“A man can teach another man to do good—believe me,” Kruger repeated.
“Yes. Yes, I suppose so.” Moritz grinned. “A woman would do it better. Is it a joke?”
Herbie said he thought Moritz would know. For good measure he added that Moritz would probably be surprised that it was him, Herbie, delivering the message.