‘Daddy,’ she’d said. ‘Tell Daddy to come home.’
*
In the end, it was Inge’s suggestion to make the phone call.
Wulf had a number of addresses. The family home was in Berlin, a handsome eighteenth-century house in its own grounds near the Tegeler See, but he had three other properties dotted around the Republic. Weekdays normally found him in Dusseldorf, where he’d recently established a major presence, and Inge had the number of the penthouse flat on top of the new offices where he spent most evenings. If Telemann was serious, if he needed to meet Otto Wulf, then she would telephone and arrange it. Doing it himself, phoning direct, would be a waste of time. Wulf led a tightly organized life, protected by secretaries and a punishing schedule. Personal introductions were absolut notwendig.
Telemann agreed to the arrangement with two stipulations. She wasn’t to use his name, and she wasn’t to go into any kind of detail. He was to be a visting American, the friend of a friend, a man with a business proposition about which she knew nothing. Inge, listening, shook her head. Wulf never mixed business with pleasure. People with propositions took their turn through the normal channels. No favours. No short-cuts. It was an iron rule and he never broke it. If Telemann was to use the relationship, to take advantage of it, then the pitch had to be a great deal more intimate than that.
Telemann shrugged. ‘So what do you suggest?’ he said. ‘I date the guy?’
Inge knelt beside him, pouring a beer. Outside it was raining, early evening, a hard, steel-grey sky. Inge emptied the last of the beer and stood up. Excitement suited her.
‘You’re in love with me,’ she announced. ‘You’re crazy about me. You want me. You need to talk to him about it. Man to man. Face to face. Ja?’
‘You’re nuts.’
‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘I’ll tell him we’ve talked about it, you and me. You know everything because I’ve told you everything. You know about him. You know he comes here. You know the things we do together, how close we are. You know everything. And so now it’s time for you both to talk.’
‘And what about you? What do you say?’
‘Me?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I tell him the same. I confirm it all. I tell him it’s very difficult. I tell him something’s got to be done.’
‘And he’ll see me? Because of that?’
‘No.’ She laughed. ‘He’ll want to see you because I’ll tell him you’re great in bed. He won’t believe it. No one’s better in bed than he is. So—’ she shrugged ‘—he’ll have to see you. Then you’re on your own.’
‘Thanks.’
‘My pleasure.’ She looked pointedly at the phone and Telemann nodded, as helpless as ever, hoping his German could cope with the next few minutes. He needed to follow the conversation, be at least half-convinced that he wasn’t, once again, being set up. The plan had the sole merit of getting him close to Wulf. After that, as she rightly said, he was on his own.
She dialled a number from memory, reaching for a cigarette from a pack in her bag. After a while, the number answered. Telemann heard a deep voice on the other end, sonorous, beautifully modulated. Inge smiled, murmuring a minor obscenity, provoking a rich bark of laughter. They talked for a while about nothing of any consequence, easy chatter, the tip of a real relationship, and Telemann found himself wondering about the rest of the iceberg, just how possible it might be to share that much time in bed and not establish at least the beginnings of something deeper.
At length, behind a cloud of smoke, Inge said she had a problem. She explained it briefly, matter-of-fact, this other guy, good-looking, funny, hot in bed, a chance encounter turning rapidly into something else. The way she put it, her language, her tone of voice, she might have been talking about the plumbing. She stopped, listening intently, watching Telemann across the room. Then she nodded, frowning, her voice a little higher, a shrillness Telemann hadn’t heard before.
‘Warum?’ she said. ‘Why?’
She bent to the phone again, listening to his answer, visibly annoyed. ‘You think I’m lying? Is that it? You …’
She broke off, shrugging, not bothering to complete the sentence, the point made. Telemann heard Wulf at the other end, his voice low, that same rich laugh, and he watched her face soften again, pacified. She reached down for her bag, opening it, sorting quickly through it. Then she bent to the phone again. ‘The perfume,’ she said. ‘L’Orphée. OK?’
Telemann heard Wulf grunt assent, then Inge was blowing wet kisses down the phone, bringing the conversation to an end. The phone back on the floor, she looked up. ‘Tomorrow night,’ she said. ‘He’ll see you at eight o’clock.’
‘Where?’
‘Dusseldorf.’
Telemann nodded. ‘And the Orphée?’ he said, looking at the bag. ‘The perfume?’
Inge’s face clouded for a moment, then she shrugged. ‘He’s a very careful man,’ she said. ‘You have to take something from me. Something that proves it’s you. I said the perfume.’ She shrugged again. ‘And he said yes.’
12
The old man, Abu Yussuf, looked at his watch again, knowing that he musn’t leave it too late. Nine hours, he thought. Ramallah is nine hours ahead. He checked the watch a second time, half-past five in the evening, the traffic pouring out of New York City, a breaking wave of automobiles all round him, flooding up the Connecticut Turnpike towards Rhode Island.
Beside him, in a bag on the seat, was the money he’d taken from the cache in the boy’s room. He’d counted it between stop-lights, inching across Manhattan Island. In all, he had 16,000 dollars. For the last hour, he’d been looking at the big billboards along the turnpike, checking the room rates in the motels. His needs were modest: a bed, a lock on the door, a telephone. Sixty dollars would buy him all three, with change for a meal. If he had to, if there was no other way, he could live like that for months.
He saw another sign up ahead, half a mile before the next exit. Ramada Inns. Sixty-eight dollars. He checked the mirror, signalling right, knowing that the last thing he could afford was a traffic accident. If he was shunted from behind, even a minor blow, the tank could unseat, rupturing the pipework, spilling the liquid inside, releasing the deadly vapour. He shuddered, imagining the consequences, somewhere busy, women and children on the sidewalk, his mind’s eye returning again and again to the horses belly-up in the paddock, and the body of the boy sprawled amongst the leaves. If the stuff in the tank could do that, he thought, then an accidental spill could kill hundreds. Thousands. His hand reached across to the bag, feeling inside, finding the two aerosols. These too, he thought. These too I must guard.
The motel, when he found it, was brand-new, the contractors still tidying a corner of the car park. The old man checked in, ticking ‘Cash’ on the registration form, leaving a 100-dollar deposit with the clerk behind the desk. When he asked her about the phones, whether he could call abroad, she nodded and gave him a small booklet with the international codes and asked him to double the deposit. He did so gladly, peeling off the notes, returning the booklet, telling her he knew the number already. No problem, she agreed, eyeing the white plastic bag as the old man shuffled away down the corridor.
The room was huge, over-chilled, curtained from the sun by a thick blue drape. The old man sat on the bed, the white plastic bag between his feet, punching out the numbers on the phone. The number began to ring. The old man peered at the bedside clock in the gloom, trying to calculate the time in Ramallah, coming up with several different answers, all of them way past midnight. Finally, the number answered. It was a woman’s voice. Hala’s sister. Amer’s wife. She sounded half-asleep.
‘It’s me,’ he said. ‘Abu Yussuf. I want to talk to Amer. It’s urgent. Hurry.’
‘He’s not here.’
‘No?’
‘No. He’s away in Bethlehem.’
‘Oh.’
The old man blinked, suddenly close to panic. He’d begun to rely on these calls, being abl
e to find Amer at the end of a phone. It was a real comfort. It was like having him in the next room, a conversation he could stop and start at will, sixteen thousand dollars in his pocket, America full of telephones. The old man shook his head, hearing Amer’s wife again, asking what he wanted, where he was, how she could help. Amer would be back, she said, back very soon. The old man nodded, muttering his thanks.
‘Tell him I called,’ he said. ‘Tell him I’ve done what he said.’
*
Peter Emery sat in a corner of the bar at the Hotel Dreisen, half-past ten at night, listening to Stauckel spell it out. The German had been back from Bonn for nearly an hour, ample time to clarify the worst of the news from the Ministry of the Interior. He’d been pushing all day to get the Assali investigation transferred to the BfV, but after a series of shouting matches and a meeting with the Deputy Minister, the answer – emphatically – had been no.
Emery sat back in his chair, his head against the wood panelling. ‘Why?’ he said again. ‘Just tell me why.’
Stauckel eyed the glass of schnapps Emery had ordered for him from the waiter. So far, he hadn’t touched it.
‘I don’t know,’ he said finally. ‘I guess it’s political.’
‘We know it’s political. These things are always political. That’s why it was a reasonable request. What do the Schupo know about the Middle East? The Palestinians? Peace talks? Mossad?’
‘Nothing. But that’s not the point.’
‘No?’
‘No. There’s bad blood just now. Bonn and Washington. Baker’s been round with the begging-bowl. He came last week. He’s due again soon. He wants serious money. He thinks we owe him.’
Emery smiled, fingering the glass of lager at his elbow. US Secretary of State James Baker was criss-crossing the world, raising funds for the Gulf War. It was an interesting proposition, hatched in the White House. You pay. We fight. Emery raised the glass to his lips.
‘Maybe you do,’ he said quietly. ‘Maybe you do owe him.’
‘Yeah.’ Stauckel nodded. ‘And maybe we don’t.’ He paused. ‘You know how much the East has cost us? To date?’
‘Millions.’
‘Double it.’
‘Billions.’
‘Closer.’
Emery lifted an eyebrow. ‘Really?’
‘Yes. And that’s just the hors d’oeuvre. The main course is real money. Trillions of Deutschmarks. The way I see it, we end up paying everyone. Even the Russians. So—’ he shrugged ‘—why should we sign up for the Gulf? Pay for your wars as well?’
Emery looked at him. ‘Are you serious?’
Stauckel nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘And so is Bonn. Since you ask.’ He paused. ‘The Schupo want your friend. They think he has some questions to answer. They believe they have a right to find him.’
Stauckel shrugged again and looked away, his face quite expressionless. There was a function in the ballroom next door, a big formal party to celebrate a wedding, and couples kept drifting in and out of the bar. Emery had been watching them for most of the evening, handsome women, exquisitely dressed, good-looking young men, self-confident, monied, already successful. This was the Germany Emery read about weekly in the heavier Washington magazines. It was Otto Wulf’s Germany, the Germany of the nineties, and watching the couples at the bar, listening to the music spilling in from the ballroom, it was impossible not to wonder where it all might end, this energy, this rude vigour. He looked across at Stauckel again, knowing in his heart that the man had tried his best, old debts, old favours.
‘So what happens now?’ he said. ‘With our uniformed friends?’
‘They’ve given it to the Kripo. The Kripo have issued a warrant.’
‘What for?’
‘Telemmann’s arrest.’
Emery frowned, leaning forward. The Kripo were the plainclothes version of the Schupo. They had an uncomfortable reputation for not giving up.
‘Already?’ he said.
Stauckel nodded. ‘He’s all they’ve got. Apart from the forensic on the Palestinian guy.’
‘No witnesses?’
‘No.’
‘Just Ron?’
‘Yes.’
Emery nodded, closing his eyes, running a tired hand over his face. The band next door were playing a march he vaguely recognized, the tempo adjusted for a vigorous quickstep. The bar had emptied in seconds.
‘You know who he’s after next?’ he said quietly. ‘Ron?’
Stauckel frowned. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Who?’
‘Wulf.’
‘Otto Wulf?’
‘Yes.’
Stauckel stared at him. The music was louder now, the band pushing the tempo even faster. ‘Why?’ he said. ‘Why Wulf?’
‘He think he’s doing stuff with chemicals.’
‘Who for?’
‘The rag-heads.’
Stauckel nodded. ‘Wulf does stuff with everybody,’ he said. ‘That’s what he trades for power. That’s why he’s Otto Wulf.’ He paused. ‘What kind of chemicals?’
Emery looked at him, toying with the remains of his lager. So far, he’d told Stauckel very little about the Washington operation.
‘Off the record?’
‘Sure.’
‘Nerve gas.’
Stauckel gazed at him. Then he shook his head, a quick, emphatic gesture. ‘No,’ he said flatly. ‘Not nerve gas. Not Wulf. The man’s got plans for himself. Why wreck them?’
Emery shrugged. ‘You might be right,’ he said. ‘But it hardly matters. The point is Ron. Ron thinks Wulf’s involved. And he might just go ask him.’
‘He’d never get near him.’
Emery shrugged again. ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘Then Wulf has no problems.’ He paused, listening to the band driving hard for the finale. He could feel the floor shaking beneath him. ‘What’s that music?’ he said at last.
Stauckel stared at him, still thinking about Otto Wulf. ‘Sorry?’
‘The music. The tune they’re playing. What is it? Where does it come from?’
Stauckel listened for a moment, saving Wulf for later, reaching for his glass at last, his feet beginning to tap in time with the rhythm. Next door, the music came to an abrupt end, drowned in wild applause.
Emery looked at Stauckel. ‘Well?’ he said.
The German lifted his glass, a toast. He was smiling again.
‘To Marshal Radetsky,’ he said, ‘our second favourite Austrian.’
*
Moshe saw the Army check-point first, 200 metres ahead, a shallow dip in the road, shadows with guns crouching in the ditch on either side. He began to brake at once, dropping down through the gear-box. Unladen, the big truck had been travelling at speed. At three in the morning, the roads were empty.
McVeigh, sitting by the door, glanced down at Cela. He could feel the tension in her body. She’d stiffened the moment she’d seen the road-block, the moment Moshe had gestured ahead into the darkness, cursing their luck.
The truck squealed to a halt. There was a metal contraption across the road, a metre wide, hinged, with spikes protruding upwards. Soldiers emerged from the roadside, their faces daubed with camouflage cream. They moved slowly, with great care, circling the truck, prodding recesses in the bodywork, making a note of registration, and McVeigh watched them, taking a professional interest, peering into the darkness, wondering exactly where they’d cited the support teams, the guys in the gunpits with the big M-60s. They were good, he could sense it, the way they covered each other, the state of their weapons immaculately clean. Northern Ireland, he thought again. A quiet night in bandit country, down in South Armagh.
‘What do they want?’ he said.
Cela shook her head. ‘It’s routine,’ she said. ‘It happens all the time. Especially at night.’ She shrugged. ‘It’s nothing.’
One of the soldiers approached the driving cab, signalling Moshe to get out. There was nothing to distinguish him from the rest, no badges of rank, but McVeigh guessed he was in c
harge. Moshe opened the door and jumped out. In the lights of the truck he cast a huge shadow. The soldier peered at him, making a gesture with his hand. Moshe fumbled in the breastpocket of his shirt, giving him his identity card. The soldier studied it, saying something in Hebrew, glancing up at Cela and McVeigh still sitting in the cab. Moshe nodded, walking back to the cab.
‘He wants to see our ID,’ Cela said quietly. ‘Show him your passport.’ McVeigh produced his passport from the bag at his feet. Cela hadn’t moved.
‘What about you?’ he said. ‘Your ID?’
‘I haven’t got any. I left it at the kibbutz.’
McVeigh looked at her. She was lying. He knew it. He’d seen her ID card in the restaurant. She’d opened her bag to pay for the meal. It was in there, beside her purse. The soldier was still looking up at them, gesturing for them to join Moshe. They did so, climbing down from the driving cab, standing in the warm darkness. The soldier said something in Hebrew, nodding at Cela, the whites of his eyes visible beneath the rim of his helmet. Cela began to talk to him in rapid Hebrew, using her hands a lot, shrugging. The soldier frowned, saying something sharp to Moshe when the big man stepped forward. Moshe glowered at him, not the least intimidated, then gestured at McVeigh. The soldier stared at McVeigh. McVeigh stared back.
‘He’s English,’ Cela said. ‘A friend from the kibbutz.’
The soldier nodded, asking McVeigh his name in broken English. McVeigh told him, offering his passport, spelling the name out, letter by letter, watching while he wrote it down. The soldier looked up at the truck a moment, then turned to another man behind him. The other man began to mutter into a radio. There was silence. The soldier was looking at Cela.
‘What’s your name?’ he said.
‘Cela.’
‘Cela what?’
‘Cela Eilath.’
He nodded, and fell silent again, waiting for some message or other. McVeigh looked at him, wondering why Cela had abandoned her married name, and ID card, and why something as routine as a road-block should have made her so anxious. There was a crackle from the darkness and the sound of a voice on the radio. The soldier listened, staring at the ground, then nodded, handing Moshe his ID card, gesturing mutely to a soldier beside him. The soldier bent to the metal spikes, folding them up, dragging them to one side, and Moshe glanced at McVeigh, jerking his head towards the truck.
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