Estocada

  ‘It’s barely seven.’ Georg tapped his watch. ‘We’re not flying until midday.’

  Dieter told him what had happened. Keiko had been arrested, the house turned over. He was determined to find out why but he didn’t know where to start. Georg, still laying out gherkins and thin slices of cheese to go with the black bread, listened without comment. Dieter came to the end of the story. In all, he said, there’d been seven of them. And he hadn’t got a single name to put to a face.

  ‘Gestapo?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Himmler’s lot, then.’ Georg fetched eggs from a cupboard and plunged them into boiling water. ‘Any reason you can think of?’

  ‘None.’

  ‘Honestly?’ Georg turned to face Dieter. Since their earliest days together in Spain there’d been an unspoken acceptance that they’d be straight with each other. This respect for the truth, for the order of things, had always come naturally to Georg, less so to Dieter.

  ‘She’s done nothing,’ Dieter said.

  ‘Meaning you trust her.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘But you don’t actually know.’

  ‘It’s the same thing. I know her well enough to trust her.’

  ‘But you keep telling me how mysterious she can be. How she keeps bits of herself to herself. I hate to say it but Himmler’s boys just love a challenge like that. Maybe you should go to Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse and join the queue at the front desk, just like everyone else. The Gestapo never listen but if you play the boyfriend it might just make a difference.’

  Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse housed Gestapo headquarters. The interrogation cells were in the basement, poorly soundproofed. Georg’s bluntness offended Dieter. He’d come for advice and perhaps just a little sympathy.

  ‘Ever thought of the Gestapo yourself?’ he said. ‘I hear the overtime rates are more than generous.’

  The sarcasm was wasted on Georg. He was grinding beans for fresh coffee.

  ‘So what did they find?’ he asked.

  Dieter mentioned the microphone. Georg looked up from the grinder.

  ‘Where was it?’

  ‘Hidden in the bed frame.’

  ‘And you didn’t know?’

  ‘Of course not. We had better things to do. There was a transmitter, too, up in the roof space.’

  Georg nodded. He wanted to know what might have been of interest to listening ears.

  ‘Nothing. I just told you.’

  ‘She’s still seeing Ribbentrop?’

  ‘She’s still treating him.’

  ‘You think there’s a difference?’

  ‘I know there is.’

  ‘That may be true. Or it may not. But the difference will be lost on lots of other people. If you want a list you’ll need a very big sheet of paper. Ribbentrop’s only talent is for making enemies.’

  ‘You really think this is to do with Ribbentrop?’

  ‘Of course it is. There’s a war going on just now and every bullet has his name on it. Your lady’s caught in the crossfire. Anything that might hurt him. Anything.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Dieter was reeling. This was worse than this morning. He sat down at the kitchen table, closed his eyes, asked the one question that mattered. ‘How do you know all this?’

  ‘I fly these people. They’re wolves, most of them. The slightest opportunity, the slightest hint of weakness, they’re at your throat. Just now, most of them are shitting their pants about the Czech thing. They think Hitler’s gone insane and they blame Ribbentrop for feeding him what he wants to hear. I get it from Goering. From Goebbels. From the senior army generals, those that are left. They talk amongst themselves. Sometimes they even talk to me. All I have to do is listen.’

  ‘And Himmler?’

  ‘Himmler’s different. Himmler won’t jump until he’s absolutely sure where he’s going to land. That’s why he needs all those microphones, all that intelligence.’

  ‘All those cells.’

  ‘Indeed. Not a pretty thought. I’m sorry for your lady. I’m sorry for you, compadre. But maybe it’s better to understand the way things are. We live in a zoo. Beware of the animals.’

  Dieter nodded. Georg, as ever, was right.

  ‘So what do I do?’ Dieter asked.

  ‘I’m flying Ribbentrop tomorrow. You should come along, try and talk to the man. It’s either that or Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse. Ribbentrop is a fool but he’ll do you no harm. Himmler’s someone you should avoid at all costs.’

  ‘Dieter! At this hour?’

  It was Beata. She was standing in the open doorway, dressed for another day at the Institute. Dieter struggled to his feet and embraced her. She sensed at once that something was wrong but when Dieter began to explain, Georg cut him short. He’d tell Beata the full story later. In the meantime she needed a proper breakfast.

  ‘All this is for her?’ Dieter nodded at the table.

  ‘She’s eating for two,’ Georg grunted. ‘And it’s for you and me as well.’

  ‘Two?’ Dieter was staring at Beata. ‘You’re telling me you’re pregnant? Already?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’ Beata was beaming. ‘I’d blame my husband but that would be unkind. Make a note in your diary. Twentieth of April. Next year.’

  ‘That’s the Führer’s birthday.’

  ‘I know. But she’s bound to be late.’

  ‘She?’ Georg was looking horrified.

  ‘She,’ Beata confirmed. ‘I made a wish.’

  *

  Tam awoke to find the bed empty. For a moment, uncertain where he was, he lay motionless, replaying the events of last night. For years, in the hands of experts, he’d been trained in the applications of extreme violence. He knew how to shoot someone at implausible range with pinpoint accuracy. He knew how to use a grenade and a knife. He could plot ambushes, lay booby traps, and bring someone down at close quarters with his bare hands. That was what his years in the Marines had taught him. That was his trade. Yet he’d never tried to kill anyone before. Not for real.

  From next door came the fall of water into a shower tray. A minute or two later, Bella was back in the bedroom, enveloped in an enormous dressing gown. She began to dry her hair with a towel, standing beside the bed.

  ‘Tell me exactly what happened,’ she said.

  Tam gazed up at her. Last night, she’d insisted they slept together for the benefit of the hidden microphones. Now, they didn’t appear to matter. He asked her why.

  ‘The whole block has been checked,’ she said. ‘We shipped people across from London.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘They found microphones everywhere. Snip the right wires and you send the message you hope these people understand.’

  ‘So last night…?’

  ‘Was good. A girl deserves a little attention. You?’ She sat on the side of the bed and kissed him softly on the mouth. ‘I have a girlfriend back in London. She works for Oliver. She met you at the flat in Mayfair. Evidently you made quite an impact. You should be proud of yourself.’

  Tam frowned. He remembered the woman. She’d arrived with a couple of files for her boss. He thought her name might have been Jenny.

  ‘She was only there for fifteen minutes.’

  ‘Fifteen minutes can be enough.’ Bella kissed him again. ‘Though longer might be better.’ She lingered on the bed a moment, then shook her hair out and stood up.

  ‘Do you sleep with strange men a lot?’ Tam was watching her getting dressed. She was expected at the embassy in less than half an hour and the woman responsible for timekeeping was evidently merciless.

  ‘You mean with every man who comes along?’ She was wrestling with a garter belt.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then the answer’s no. But it happens maybe more than it should. That would certainly be my mother’s view, though probably not my step-dad’s. Women in this country have a very different attitude. Though I’m not sure I should be telling you that.’

  ‘Maybe I know already.’

 
‘Maybe you do. Most men I’ve met view women as the enemy. You’re different. We might even end up friends. Bit of a find really. Clever old me, eh?’

  Tam asked again about Kreisky. On balance he thought he was probably dead. Bella said she’d make some discreet enquiries. She had a reliable contact in the Kripo who owed her a favour.

  ‘Is that a confession?’ Tam gestured at the bed.

  She gazed at him a moment, then turned to the mirror and ran her fingers through her hair. She wore no make-up.

  ‘It’s a she, if you were wondering. We compare notes. It’s very liberating.’ She stepped back from the mirror for a final check, then stooped low over the bed.

  ‘So what exactly happened? Last night? Are you going to tell me?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Shame.’ She kissed him on the lips. ‘One favour? Please?’

  ‘Anything.’

  ‘Try not to kill anyone else,’ she said lightly. ‘Otherwise the game’s probably up.’

  *

  Tam left Bella’s apartment a couple of hours later. She’d phoned from the embassy and told him to expect a courier with a new shirt. Tam, trying it on, was impressed. The lightest blue stripe on white cotton and a perfect fit across the chest. With the shirt came a plain brown paper bag and a scribbled note telling him to leave the old shirt in a waste bin on the street. Remember to take the tags out just in case, she’d written. It’s got to look German, not English. Good advice, he thought. Commendable attention to detail.

  He dumped the paper bag in a half-empty bin midway between the apartment block and the hotel. As he entered the hotel the woman behind the reception desk presented him with an envelope. Tam waited until he was back in his room before opening it. It came from Schultz. It was handwritten in German and it sounded urgent. We need to meet. The entrance to the Tiergarten by Pariser Platz. Find a street phone. Call this number and just say yes or no. If yes, give me a time as close to midday as possible.

  Tam knew there was a phone on Wilhelmstrasse, a two-minute walk away. He checked his watch. It was already nearly eleven. He left the hotel and waited in a three-man queue for the phone, scanning the boulevard for signs that he was being watched. The image of Kreisky’s face wouldn’t leave him. The way he clutched his throat. The fear in his eyes. And that final moment when his neck snapped and his body went limp. When the operator at last made the connection there was no voice on the line, just a cavernous silence. Tam paused a moment. Then hung up.

  He found the church by accident. He’d walked the length of Wilhelmstrasse, stopping from time to time to check behind him. It was lunchtime by now and the pavements were crowded with office workers hurrying to join the queues outside the cheaper cafés. A handwritten placard at a street corner was advertising an organ recital in the Deutscher Dom, pieces by Handel and J. S. Bach. Tam followed the arrow. The church was barely yards away, the big oak door an inch or two ajar. Tam mounted the steps, checking behind him yet again, and then slipped inside.

  The church was dark and cool after the brightness of the street and he stopped for a moment to let his eyes adjust. A scatter of listeners had settled in the body of the church, mainly older men, most of them alone. Tam found an unoccupied pew and did his best to make himself comfortable. He needed, above all, to think.

  He didn’t regret killing Thomas Kreisky. Far from it. But he recognised that he’d crossed a line and he needed to anticipate what might lie in wait on the other side. This, after all, was a society wedded to violence. The price of a life, even an entire country, was alarmingly cheap. And so the old rules and restraints he’d so recently taken for granted no longer applied. To survive in a place like this you had to be quick and you had to be ruthless. Otherwise, in Bella’s words, the game was probably up.

  The concert over, Tam was last out of the church. He followed the organist towards the door and stood in the sunshine for a while, enjoying the warmth on his upturned face. The music had worked in ways his poor mad father had always promised. Peace was a big word but he felt quieter inside himself, more settled. He’d done what he’d done, and now he must deal with the consequences.

  Back on Wilhelmstrasse, he returned to the telephone. He gave the operator the same number and waited for her to make the connection. Across the boulevard he could see arms pointing skywards. He could hear the steady growl of an aircraft, the beat of the engine getting closer and closer, and he looked up to find the brief silhouette of one of the new fighters against the glare of the sun. It was directly overhead now, the engine howling as the pilot hauled the little plane into the beginnings of a loop, and pedestrians stopped to watch. At the top of the loop, a tiny silver fish in the blueness of the sky, the aircraft seemed to hang motionless for a moment before the pilot dipped the nose and began the long graceful dive back to earth.

  So easy, Tam thought. So graceful. So perfectly under control. Then came the operator’s voice in his ear and that same eerie silence. This time he left a message.

  ‘Half-past three,’ he said, still looking skywards. ‘That’s the best I can manage.’

  *

  Dieter powered down the engine and released the canopy, grateful for his first lungful of fresh air. The Chief Engineer at Johannistahl was already squatting on the wing beside the cockpit. He wanted to know about the oil temperature and the aircraft’s behaviour on the more extreme of the inverted turns. Next week Dieter was to display the Emil at the start of this year’s Nuremberg Rally, Goering’s chance to showcase the aircraft that had caught the imagination of the entire nation. The engineer was determined to avoid any surprises.

  ‘Was it OK going into the turn?’

  ‘Perfect.’

  ‘No negative G problems?’

  ‘None.’

  ‘And the oil?’

  ‘One hundred and two degrees. Rock steady.’

  The Chief Engineer grunted his approval. Tonight some of the boys were having a drink. Dieter was welcome to come along.

  ‘Some kind of celebration?’

  ‘A birthday.’

  ‘Whose?’

  ‘Mine. Fifty.’ The engineer pulled a face. ‘Who’d have thought it?’

  Georg was waiting for Dieter in the squadron mess. It turned out that Beata had been to a clairvoyant, something she’d never done before. She wanted to know whether her child would be a boy or a girl and the clairvoyant had no hesitation in predicting what would happen. Come April next year, God willing, Georg was to be presented with a little girl.

  ‘And you believe this?’ Dieter asked.

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘But you’re telling me a daughter would be unacceptable?’

  ‘I’m expecting a boy,’ Georg said stiffly.

  ‘Then look on the bright side. Think of a name. Heinrich. Adolf. Joachim. Buy him a little pair of lederhosen and a nice fat swastika. Tempt him out to join the Party. The music goes on. Alles gut, ja?’

  Georg shot him a look. He was uncomfortable. He wanted to change the subject. He said he’d been making some enquiries about Keiko.

  ‘Me, too,’ Dieter said.

  ‘And?’

  ‘I tried the Japanese embassy. They didn’t even know she’d been arrested but they’re going to lodge a protest. Diplomatic immunity? Have I got that right?’

  ‘She needs to be employed,’ Georg pointed out. ‘She needs to be working for them. Was she?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Think so?’

  ‘That’s what she always told me.’

  ‘And you believed her?’

  Dieter didn’t answer. Georg studied him for a moment and then changed the subject. He’d been with an aide of Goering’s this morning, going over the transport schedules for the coming week. Der Eiserne was evidently in the best of moods.

  ‘What’s that got to do with Keiko?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. Except her arrest seems to have put Ribbentrop in the shit. In this town, rumour is all you need. Nothing has to be true any more. Just as long as it
raises a laugh. Ribbentrop can’t cope with that. The man has absolutely no sense of humour and Goering knows it.’

  ‘So what’s the joke?’

  ‘Apparently Goering thinks that girl of yours is a spy. That’s why she spends so much time with Ribbentrop. All Goering had to do was whisper in Himmler’s ear and everything else follows. That’s why they arrested her. And that’s why you got the treatment.’

  ‘A spy for who?’

  ‘The Japanese.’

  ‘But we’re friends with the Japanese. We’re allies. You’re talking to someone who spent four months being nice to them. I know about the Japanese.’

  ‘You only know about the young bloods at the sharp end, the pilots, the aviators. From where I sit there are no friends, only opportunities. In politics you trust no one and with this lot it’s even worse. Loyalty’s a mark of weakness. This is a war of all against all.’

  Dieter shook his head. A war of all against all. Perfect. From the rubble, he thought, there might one day emerge a victor. And this is before the war proper, the shooting war, the war with France and England and – God help us – Russia, has even begun.

  Georg hadn’t finished. He wanted to talk about Keiko again.

  ‘Well…?’ he said. ‘You think it might be true? Her being some kind of spy?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. She said nothing to me but whoever was listening would have known that. So maybe they were listening to Ribbentrop, too.’

  ‘You’d need a lot of patience to listen. All that man ever talks about is himself.’

  Dieter nodded. For the first time he began to fathom the darker implications of what was happening.

  ‘So what do they do to spies?’ he enquired.

  ‘Most times they kill them. Someone like Keiko, maybe they just send her home.’

  ‘Deportation?’

  ‘Yes. Hopefully undamaged.’

  ‘And in the meantime?’

  ‘They’ll talk to her. They’ll be looking for a confession.’

  ‘To what?’

  ‘Spying. That’s how this story has to end. Regardless.’

  ‘But say she’s not a spy.’

  ‘That’s irrelevant. All that matters is the confession. The moment she admits it is the moment life gets easier for her. Deportation would really hurt Ribbentrop. That’s another reason they might not kill her.’