A Most Wanted Man

by John le Carré

  “And remember, please, that we are illegal. How illegal, not being a fine lawyer like so many of our august colleagues, I don’t truthfully know. But from all they tell me, we can’t so much as wipe our arses without prior consent in writing from a board of high judges, the Holy See, Joint Steering in Berlin and our beloved Federal Police, who don’t know spying from shit, but have all the powers that the intelligence services are rightly deprived of so that we don’t become the Gestapo by mistake. Now let’s do some real work. I need a drink.”

  The all-night bar was called Hampelmanns and it was situated in a cobbled side street close by the station concourse. A wrought-iron dancing man in a pointed hat dangled over the ill-lit porch, and tonight, as on most other nights apparently, it was host to the gentleman known initially to Günther Bachmann’s team as the elderly fat bastard.

  The gentleman’s unspectacular surname, as they now knew, was Müller but to his fellow habitués at Hampelmanns he was known exclusively as the Admiral. He was a returnee from ten years of Soviet captivity as a reward for his career as a submariner in Hitler’s Northern Fleet. Karl the reformed street kid from Dresden had tracked him down and, having phoned through his name and whereabouts, kept a silent watch on him from an adjoining table. Maximilian the stammering computer genius had magicked up his date of birth, personal history and police record, all within a matter of minutes. And now Bachmann himself was negotiating the smoky brick staircase that descended to the cellar bar. As he did so, Karl the street kid slipped past him into the night. The time was 3 A.M.

  At first, Bachmann could see only the people sitting closest to the shafts of light from the stairwell. Then he made out an electric candle on each table and gradually the faces round them. Two gaunt men in black ties and suits were playing chess. At the bar, a lone woman invited him to buy her a drink. “Another time, thank you, dear,” Bachmann replied. In an alcove four boys, naked to the waist, were enjoying a game of billiards, watched by two dead-eyed girls. A second alcove was given over to stuffed foxes, silver shields and faded miniature flags with crossed rifles. And in a third, surrounded by model warships in dusty glass cases, ships’ knots, tattered hatbands and mottled photographs of submariners in their prime, sat three very old men at a round table that would have seated twelve. Two were thin and frail, which should have given authority to the third, whose glossy bald pate, barrel chest and belly made him the equal of his two companions put together. But authority, at first glance, was not what the Admiral was about. His huge motionless hands, cupped before him on the table, seemed unable to grasp the memories that haunted him. The small eyes, which had long retreated into his creaseless head, appeared to be turned inward.

  With a nod to encompass all three men, Bachmann quietly sat himself at the Admiral’s side and from his back pocket drew a black wallet displaying his photograph and the address of a quasi-official missing persons agency based in Kiel that did not exist. It was one of several workaday identities that he liked to carry with him for contingencies.

  “We’re looking for that poor young Russian kid you bumped into at the railway station the other night,” he explained. “Young and tall and hungry. Dignified fellow. Wore a skullcap. Remember him?”

  The Admiral woke sufficiently from his reveries to turn his huge head and examine Bachmann while the rest of his body remained rock-still.

  “Who’s we?” he inquired at last, after he had taken in Bachmann’s humble leather jacket, shirt and tie, and his air of decent concern that—almost legitimately—was his stock-in-trade.

  “The boy’s not well,” Bachmann explained. “We’re afraid he’s going to harm himself. Or other people. The health workers in my office are really worried about him. They want to get to him before anything bad happens. He’s young but he’s had a hard life. Like you,” he added.

  The Admiral appeared not to hear him.

  “You a pimp?” he asked.

  Bachmann shook his head.

  “Cop?”

  “If I can get to him before the cops do, I’ll be doing him a favor,” he said, while the Admiral continued to stare at him. “I’ll do you a favor too,” he continued. “One hundred euros cash for everything you remember about him. No comebacks, I guarantee.”

  The Admiral lifted a large hand and, having wiped it speculatively across his mouth, rose to his full height and, without a glance for his silent companions, moved to the next alcove, which was empty and in near darkness.

  The Admiral ate decorously, using a lot of paper napkins to preserve the cleanliness of his fingers, and adding liberal doses of Tabasco that he kept in his jacket pocket. Bachmann had ordered a bottle of vodka. The Admiral had added bread, gherkins, sausage, salt herrings and a plate of Tilsit cheese to the order.

  “They came to me,” he said at last.

  “Who did?”

  “The mission people. They all know the Admiral.”

  “Where were you?”

  “In the mission house. Where else?”

  “Sleeping?”

  The Admiral pulled a wry smile as if sleep was something other people did. “I’m a Russian speaker. A harbor rat from Hamburg docks, but I speak better Russian than German. How did that happen?”

  “Siberia,” Bachmann suggested, and the vast head rocked in silent agreement.

  “The mission doesn’t speak Russian. But the Admiral does.” He gave himself a huge pull of vodka. “Wants to become a doctor.”

  “The boy?”

  “Here in Hamburg. Wants to save mankind. Who from? Mankind, of course. A Tartar. So he said. A Mussulman. Been commanded by Allah to come to Hamburg and study so that he can save mankind.”

  “Any reason why Allah picked him out?”

  “Make up for all the poor devils his father slaughtered.”

  “Did he say who the poor devils were?”

  “Russians kill everybody, my friend. Priests, children, women, the whole fucking universe.”

  “Were they fellow Muslims that his father killed?”

  “He did not specify the victims.”

  “Did he say what his father’s profession was? How he managed to kill so many poor devils in the first place?”

  The Admiral took another swallow of vodka. Then another. Then replenished his glass. “He was curious to know where the rich bankers of Hamburg have their offices.”

  To Bachmann the practiced interrogator, no piece of information, however outrageous, must ever appear surprising. “What did you tell him?”

  “I laughed. I can do that. ‘What do you want a banker for? Do you need to cash a check? Maybe I can help you.’”

  Bachmann shared the joke. “So how did he take that one?”

  “‘Check? What is check?’ Then he asked me whether they lived in their offices or had private houses as well.”

  “And you said?”

  “‘Look,’ I told him. ‘You’re a polite fellow, and Allah has told you to become a doctor. So stop asking a lot of stupid questions about bankers. Come and relax in our fleabitten hostel, sleep on a real bed and meet some of the other fine gentlemen who want to save mankind.’”

  “And did he?”

  “Shoved fifty dollars into my hand. A crazy starving Tartar kid gives an old campnik a brand-new fifty-dollar bill for a beaker of lousy soup.”

  Having taken Bachmann’s money also, and stuffed his pockets with whatever was left on the table, ending with the vodka bottle, the Admiral returned to his seamates in the adjoining wardroom.

  For several days after this encounter Bachmann lapsed into one of his cherished silences from which Erna Frey made no attempt to retrieve him. Even the news that the Danes had arrested the driver of the lorry on charges of people-smuggling failed at first hearing to spark him.

  “His chauffeur?” he repeated. “The lorry driver who dropped him at Hamburg railway station? That chauffeur?”

  “Yes, that chauffeur,” Erna Frey retorted. “As of two hours ago. I sent it through to you, but you were too busy. Copenh
agen to Joint in Berlin, Joint to us. It’s rather informative.”

  “A Danish national?”

  “Correct.”

  “Of Danish origin?”

  “Correct.”

  “But a Muslim convert?”

  “Nothing of the kind. Look at your e-mails for once. He’s a Lutheran and the son of one. His only sin is to have a brother in organized crime.”

  Now she had him.

  “The bad brother telephoned the good brother two weeks ago and told him there was a rich young man who’d lost his passport and was about to arrive in Copenhagen as a passenger in a certain cargo ship from Istanbul.”

  “Rich?” Bachmann leapt in. “Rich how?”

  “The fee would be five thousand dollars up front for getting him out of the docks, and another five on safe delivery to Hamburg.”

  “Payable who by?”

  “The young man.”

  “Himself, on safe delivery? Out of his own pocket? Five thousand?”

  “It would seem so. The good brother was broke so he was a fool and took the job. He never knew his passenger’s name and he doesn’t speak Russian.”

  “Where’s the bad brother?”

  “In jail too. Naturally. They’re keeping them apart.”

  “What does he say?”

  “He’s frightened stiff and he’d rather stay in prison than have the Russian mafia take a week to kill him.”

  “This mafia boss: Is he a plain Russian or a Muslim Russian?”

  “The bad brother’s Moscow connect—according to the bad brother—is a respectable, thoroughbred, high-rolling Russian gangster, engaged in the best class of organized crime. He has no time for Muslims of any sort, and would prefer to see the whole lot of them drowned in the Volga. His contract with our driver’s brother was a favor for a friend. Who the said friend is, or was, is not for a humble Danish crook to inquire.”

  She sat back and with lowered eyelids waited for Bachmann to come to heel.

  “What does Joint say about it?” he asked.

  “Joint burbles. Joint is fixated on a high-stepping imam, currently living in Moscow, who filters money to dubious Islamic charities. The Russians know he does it. He knows they know he does it. Why they let him do it is beyond the wit of man. Joint is determined to believe that the imam is the mafia boss’s missing friend. This despite the fact that, so far as anyone knows, he has no record of funding escape lines for runaway Russian-Chechen vagrants on their way to study medicine in Hamburg. Oh, and he gave him his coat.”

  “Who did?”

  “The good brother who drove our boy to Hamburg took pity on him and feared he would catch his death of cold in the chilly north. So he gave him his overcoat to keep him warm. A long black one. I have another gem for you.”

  “Which is?”

  “Herr Igor across the courtyard has an ultrasecret source buried inside the Russian Orthodox community in Cologne.”

  “And?”

  “According to Igor’s intrepid source, reclusive Orthodox nuns in a town not far from Hamburg recently gave shelter to a young Russian Muslim male who was starving and a little crazy.”

  “Rich?”

  “His wealth has not been established.”

  “But polite?”

  “Very. Igor is meeting his source tonight under conditions of extreme secrecy to discuss payment for the rest of the story.”

  “Igor’s an arsehole and his stories are a load of shit,” Bachmann pronounced, bundling together the papers on his desk and stuffing them into an old, scuffed briefcase that nobody would want to steal.

  “Where are you going?” Erna Frey demanded.

  “Across the courtyard.”

  “Whatever for?”

  “To tell the gallant protectors that he’s our case. To tell them to keep the police off our backs. To make sure that, if by any unlikely chance the police do find him, they will kindly not send in Armed Response and start a small war, but stay out of sight and inform us immediately. I need this boy to do what he came to do for as long as he can do it.”

  “You’ve forgotten your keys,” Erna Frey said.

  4

  If you’re not taking the S-Bahn, please do not arrive at the café by taxi.

  Annabel Richter had been equally uncompromising about Brue’s clothes. For my client, men in suits are secret policemen. Kindly wear something informal. The best he had been able to manage was gray flannels and the sports coat by Randall’s of Glasgow that he wore for the golf club, and an Aquascutum raincoat in case there was another deluge. As a gesture, he had dispensed with a tie.

  Darkness of a sort had fallen over the city. The earlier downpour had left the night sky clear. A cool breeze was washing off the lake as he climbed into the cab and recited her directions to the driver. Standing alone on a strange pavement in a humble part of town, he felt momentarily deprived, but rallied when he saw her promised street sign. The fruit stalls of the halal grocer’s shop were a blaze of red and green. The white lights of the kebab house next door shone all across the street. Inside it, at a corner table of bright purple, sat Annabel Richter with a bottle of still water before her and a discarded bowl of what looked to Brue like school tapioca with brown sugar sprinkled over the top.

  At a table next to her, four old men were playing dominoes. At another, a young couple in their best suit and frock were nervously courting. Her anorak hung over her chair. She wore a shapeless pullover and the same high-necked blouse. A cell phone lay on the table, the rucksack at her feet. Sitting down opposite her, he caught a scent of something warm in her hair.

  “Do I pass?” he asked.

  She ran an eye over his sports coat and flannels. “What did you find in your archives?”

  “That there’s a prima facie case for further inquiry.”

  “That’s all you’re going to tell me?”

  “At this stage, yes, I’m afraid.”

  “Then let me tell you a couple of things you don’t know.”

  “I’m sure there are many.”

  “He’s a Muslim. That’s number one. Devout. So it’s tough for him when he’s got to deal with a woman lawyer.”

  “But tougher for you, surely?”

  “He asks me to wear a headscarf. I wear one. He asks me to respect his traditions. I respect them. He uses his Muslim name: Issa. As I told you, he speaks Russian; otherwise bad Turkish with his hosts.”

  “And who are his hosts, if I may ask?”

  “A Turkish widow and her son. Her husband was a client of Sanctuary North. We nearly got him citizenship but he died. Now the son is trying on behalf of the family, which means starting all over again, and taking each member of the family separately, which is why he’s running scared and why he called us. They love Issa but they want him off their hands. They think they’re going to be thrown out of the country for harboring an illegal immigrant. Nothing will persuade them otherwise, and these days they may be right. They’ve also got air tickets to Turkey for her daughter’s wedding and there’s no way they’re going to leave him in the house alone. They don’t know your name. Issa knows it but hasn’t repeated it, and won’t. You’re somebody who’s in a position to help Issa, that’s all you are. Are you comfortable with that description?”

  “I believe so.”

  “Only believe?”

  “I’m comfortable with it.”

  “I’ve also told them, because I had to, that you won’t reveal any of their names to the authorities.”

  “Why on earth should I do that?”

  Ignoring his offers of assistance, she clambered into her anorak and slung her rucksack over one shoulder. Heading for the door, Brue noticed an oversized young man prowling the pavement. Following him at a respectful distance, they entered a side street. The boy seemed to grow bigger the farther he got away from them. At a pharmacy the boy took a swift look up and down the road at the cars, at the windows of the houses and at two middle-aged women studying the window of a jeweler’s. To one side of the win
dow stood a brides’ shop with a dream wedding couple clutching wax flowers, and to the other a thickly varnished front door with an illuminated bell button.

  About to cross the road, Annabel stopped, half unslung her rucksack, extracted her headscarf, put it over her head, then carefully pulled down two corners and tied them at her throat. Under the streetlight, her face looked strained and older than her age.

  The oversized boy unlocked the door, shooed them in and held out an immense hand. Brue shook it but didn’t say his name. The woman Leyla was small and sturdy and dressed to receive, in a headscarf and high heels and a black suit with a ruff. She stared at Brue, then uneasily took his hand, her eyes all the time on her son. Following Leyla into the living room, Brue knew he had entered a house of fear.

  The wallpaper was puce, the upholstery gold. Lace antimacassars were draped over the chair arms. In the glass base of a table lamp, globules of plasma rotated, parted and rejoined. Leyla had awarded Brue the presidential throne. My late husband’s, she had explained, pulling nervously at her headscarf. For thirty years, my husband wouldn’t sit on any other chair, she had said. It was ornate, hideous and exquisitely uncomfortable. Brue dutifully admired it. He had one not unlike it in his office: inherited from his grandfather, and hell on earth to sit on. He thought of saying something to that effect, but elected not to. I’m somebody in a position to help. That’s all I am, he told me himself. On dishes of best china Leyla had laid out triangles of baklava in syrup, and a lemon cream cake cut into slices. Brue accepted a piece of cake and a glass of apple tea.

  “Marvelous,” he declared, when he had tasted the cake, but nobody seemed to hear him.

  The two women, the one beautiful, the other dumpy, both grim, sat on a velveteen sofa. Melik stood with his back against the door. “Issa will be down in a minute,” he said, looking upward at the ceiling, listening. “Issa’s preparing himself. Issa’s nervous. He may be praying. He’ll come.”

  “Those policemen could hardly wait till Frau Richter had left the house,” Leyla burst out to Brue, venting a grouse that had evidently been gnawing at her. “I closed the front door behind her, I took the dishes to the kitchen, and five minutes later, there they were, ringing my bell. They showed me their identity cards and I wrote down their names, just the way my husband used to. Plainclothes. Didn’t I, Melik?”