The Berlin Spy Trap

by Geoffrey Davison

  He shrugged. There had been faults on both sides. He was beginning to regret it. She looked so damned appealing.

  ‘When did Ruddi decide to go to Bonn?’ he asked.

  ‘Yesterday.’

  ‘You go to the studio?’

  ‘No. Ruddi told me after the show, the other night, that he wouldn’t need me for a couple of days or so.’

  About the time Lehna had vanished from the airport, Stack thought.

  ‘Were you surprised?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, very. We hadn’t finished the Harper contract.’

  Stack grunted. It wasn’t like Ruddi to cut short the Harper contract. It was a big, juicy contract that was going to set the advertising world alight, and make Ruddi internationally known. What else had tempted him away, Stack wondered?

  ‘Does the name Fraulein Rosier mean anything to you?’ he asked.

  ‘She your friend?’

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘Ruddi told me.’

  Ruddi knows a hell of a lot, Stack thought. A hell of a lot.

  ‘See her at the studio?’

  Sue shook her head.

  ‘What about Franz Hessler?’

  ‘He was one of the men in the processing department,’ Sue replied.

  That was true enough, Stack thought.

  ‘He was accidentally killed in a car crash,’ Sue added.

  ‘Accidentally?’ Stack asked suspiciously.

  ‘So I was told,’ Sue replied.

  Perhaps Sue was still innocent, he thought. He looked at her hard and long. She was telling the truth, he thought. You don’t have to live with a person for very long without getting to know when they are telling the truth or lying.

  Sue looked at him, defiantly, as if she realised what he was thinking.

  ‘I don’t know what has got into you,’ she snapped, ‘but I don’t like your manner. I’m beginning to wish I had let them keep you in the Eastern Zone.’

  ‘Let them?’ Stack asked suspiciously. ‘There was a choice?’

  ‘So I was told.’

  Stack frowned. Schmidt had been cashing in all round, he thought.

  ‘How much did they get out of you?’ he asked.

  ‘Two thousand marks,’ Sue replied, ‘for initial expenses. The rest later.’

  ‘Forget the rest,’ Stack said.

  ‘I’m beginning to doubt whether you were even worth the down payment,’ Sue said dryly.

  Stack ignored the remark. He was thinking of Schmidt. Schmidt was a rotten, scheming mercenary, and he had been playing for time. Sue didn’t know anything. She was innocent. But not Ruddi, he thought. Ruddi was in it somewhere. Ruddi bothered him, especially after what Sue had told him about the Harper contract. He decided to go to Ruddi’s studio. It wasn’t like Ruddi to cut short a fat contract without a good reason. And there was the link with Hessler.

  ‘Where’s your car?’ he asked. ‘I would like to borrow it.’

  ‘In the garage,’ she replied. ‘Will you be back?’

  ‘I’ll return the car,’ he replied gruffly.

  ‘I wasn’t meaning that,’ she persisted.

  Stack looked up at her. ‘Perhaps,’ he said evasively.

  ‘I hope so,’ she said as he left her.

  CHAPTER 17

  Stack drove fast. Sue’s car was a Mercedes sports which responded to the delicate touch of the accelerator. Lieffer’s men had a difficult job to keep up with him. In Kaiser Friedrich Strasse Stack lost them and finished the journey solo.

  The studio was a converted warehouse on the banks of the canal. The entrance was in a side lane. So was the rear exit. Stack parked his car and made for the rear exit. There were several other cars parked about, but none that he recognised.

  The lock on the small rear door turned and the door opened. Stack, stealthily, stepped into the cool, dark atmosphere of the studio. He had a vague idea of the layout. There were a series of small cubicles surrounding a central stage. Overhead, a balcony of offices ran the full width of the building, and over the floor would be lengths of cables leading to the numerous light fittings. Stack remained quite still. The place had a feel about it of being unoccupied. He had backed a loser, he thought, but he decided to take a look in Ruddi’s office, just in case. here was a link somewhere, he thought.

  Carefully, he picked his way over the loose cables and made for the corner staircase. As he reached the central stage area, two thoughts flashed simultaneously through his mind. Firstly — if the place was deserted, why had no one locked the rear exit door? And, secondly — he should have skirted the wall and not tried to take a shortcut. But it was too late. As the thoughts entered his mind, he was suddenly held in the brilliant light from a barrage of arc lamps. The area had in a flash become transformed into an Aladdin’s cave.

  ‘Don’t move,’ a voice shouted, ‘or you will be shot!’

  A revolver spat fire, and a bullet passed perilously close to Stack’s head. He stood quite still. He recognised the voice — it was Schmidt’s!

  ‘That’s just a warning,’ Schmidt called out.

  ‘Schmidt?’ Stack called back. He got no answer.

  Frantically he looked at the floodlights. They surrounded him. He was a lonely figure on the stage.

  ‘We meet again, Herr Stack,’ Schmidt called to him, and laughed.

  The man was twisted, Stack thought desperately.

  ‘You are an actor on the stage,’ Schmidt yelled, and fired twice.

  The bullets smacked into the floor close to Stack’s feet. Stack jumped to one side, towards one of the lamps. Schmidt laughed again.

  ‘How much will you pay me now?’ Schmidt called out.

  ‘Where is Fraulein Rosier?’ Stack yelled back, and moved about the stage. It was important to keep moving, he thought. He had to present Schmidt with a difficult target. The revolver wasn’t the ideal weapon for accuracy. Unless Schmidt was an expert.

  ‘I have her here,’ Schmidt laughed.

  ‘Then why can’t we do a deal?’ Stack yelled to him.

  ‘Because I have already made a deal,’ Schmidt called out. ‘Stand still!’ He fired again. The bullet tore into the floor close to where Stack was standing. He was an expert, Stack thought grimly, and cursed. He stood still. The perspiration started to roll down his brow from the heat of the lamps.

  ‘I expected you coming here,’ Schmidt called out, ‘but I needed time to make my deal.’ He started to laugh. ‘You want to know what it is?’

  Stack had a shrewd idea, but he also needed time.

  ‘Yes,’ he shouted. ‘You tell me.’

  ‘You die!’ Schmidt laughed. ‘You die and we get paid for it. That’s what I call good business, because you had to die in any case. You tricked us, Stack.’

  Stack swallowed hard. ‘Don’t be a fool, Schmidt,’ he called back to him. ‘Do you think I have come alone? The place is surrounded. Lieutenant Keller’s men have come with me.’

  ‘You lie!’

  There was a sound of desperation in Schmidt’s voice. He wasn’t going to be held off much longer, Stack thought.

  Bang! Suddenly a lamp bulb exploded. The noise made Stack jump. His brain immediately told him to take advantage of it. Schmidt would also have been taken off guard. There was a sudden area of darkness. Stack moved like lightning. He flung himself into the darkness, crashing into the fittings. Two bullets smacked into the floor close to his body. But Schmidt had been that fraction too late.

  Stack picked himself up as an arc lamp was being turned in his direction. He brought out his revolver and fired two quick shots at the lamp. The light went out. Stack moved away before Schmidt returned the fire.

  A grey light from the rear door attracted Stack’s attention. Some reinforcements had arrived, he thought. Were they his or Schmidt’s?

  Schmidt fired at the open door. The door immediately closed. Stack fired at the flash from Schmidt’s revolver. There was a groan. Schmidt had been hit.

  Crack! Crack! Two more shots
were fired. They took Stack by surprise. They hadn’t come from Stack or Schmidt. Stack looked up at the balcony and saw Schmidt’s body delicately balanced on the guard rail. It swayed on the rail, as if uncertain which way to fall. Finally it moved forward and dropped with a thump on to the stage. Schmidt was dead.

  ‘John!’

  It was Lehna.

  ‘Lehna!’ Stack replied. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Stack turned the lamps around to illuminate the area. He saw Lehna on the balcony, as the rear door again opened and Lieutenant Keller burst into the studio with his men.

  ‘Oh, John,’ Lehna called out.

  Stack went to meet her. She came down the iron staircase and rushed into his arms. As he held her to him, he saw Hendrich Lieffer standing over Schmidt’s body. Lieutenant Keller came up to Stack.

  ‘Where do we talk?’ he asked. ‘Here, or at my office?’

  ‘Here,’ Stack replied.

  It was a room about three metres square where they took Lehna. The walls were painted to depict various seasons of the year. Lehna sat on a seat in front of a summer beach scene. Her hair was dishevelled, but she was recovering from her shock. Her timely intervention had put paid to Schmidt and helped Stack. He was grateful.

  Lieffer stood in the doorway. He made a fractional movement of his hand, indicating that he would like to speak to Stack and Lieutenant Keller. The two men joined him outside the room. Together they walked slowly around the stage.

  ‘Was Schmidt one of yours?’ Stack asked, indicating the body lying motionless on the floor with a cover over it.

  ‘He was one of my senior deputies at the Ministry,’ Lieffer replied calmly. ‘He worked in my records department. An efficient man, but obviously greedy.’

  ‘You suspected him?’

  ‘And everyone,’ Lieffer replied, and stood still. The two other men also stood quite still. Lieffer looked at Stack. ‘Including Fraulein Rosier,’ he added quietly. They exchanged glances. ‘I received this from Major Roberts a few minutes ago,’ he said, and handed Stack a decoded message.

  Stack glanced at it. It was the answers to some of the queries he had sent to his Control. They were very much as he had suspected.

  ‘How much authority have you?’ he asked.

  ‘Enough,’ Lieffer replied.

  Stack grunted. ‘Let me speak to her alone,’ he asked.

  Again the two men looked into each other’s eyes.

  ‘You’re wasting your time,’ Lieffer remarked quietly.

  ‘I would still like to try,’ Stack persisted.

  Lieffer withdrew a cigar case. ‘I like a few minutes’ smoke now and then,’ he said vaguely. ‘I’ll give you five minutes, Herr Stack.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Stack went back to the studio. Lehna looked up at him and smiled. Lieutenant Keller spoke to the other detectives in the room, and they left Stack alone with Lehna. Stack closed the door and took a seat facing Lehna.

  ‘We know that the man they tried to get out of East Germany was not Criller,’ he said convincingly. ‘We know who he was and why he was being sent to Berlin.’

  Lehna brushed her hair to one side and looked at him.

  ‘If you will co-operate,’ Stack added, ‘I can arrange for you to be quietly smuggled back East.’

  The look on Lehna’s face changed fractionally. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked.

  Stack repeated his offer.

  ‘I don’t know what you are talking about,’ Lehna persisted.

  Stack sighed. She was going to prove difficult. ‘Let me spell it out more plainly,’ he said. ‘We know that you are a Communist agent. We know that you were part of a plot to bring an assassin into Berlin. We know that you used Lorenzo to suit your own ends. That you used me.’

  ‘You are insane,’ Lehna gasped. ‘That is a pack of lies.’

  ‘No, Lehna,’ Stack said patiently. ‘We have checked up on you. We know that Lehna Rosier does not now live in Israel. We know that she is in the United States.’ He looked pleadingly into her eyes. ‘Don’t you see — we know!’

  She dropped her eyes. For several seconds nothing was said. ‘And how long have you suspected this?’ she asked quietly.

  ‘I suppose from the moment Henri Gallon was murdered,’ Stack replied. ‘It couldn’t have been because of what he would have found out about me, or Lorenzo. Lorenzo has been in Barcelona for many a year. It had to be because of you.’

  She said nothing.

  ‘And your timely disappearance here in Berlin,’ Stack went on. ‘You knew it would take a little while for our Intelligence to run the rule over you. You thought that by the time they got their answers it would be too late for them to do anything. By then I would have been taken into the East and you would be out of circulation. Oh, I know I went voluntarily into East Berlin, but if I had not, I would have been taken there forcibly. You must have paid a lot of money to Schmidt’s organisation to get such good service.’

  Lehna still remained silent.

  ‘Your sudden appearance in Barcelona was also a little too timely,’ Stack added. ‘Your people wanted someone close to me all the time. It so happens that I had lost my memory. What would you have done if I hadn’t?’

  She looked up at him. ‘It would have been the same,’ she said quietly.

  ‘And killing Schmidt was a last-ditch effort to turn things in your favour?’ Stack asked.

  ‘He was a sewer rat,’ Lehna replied. ‘He deserved no pity.’ She smiled faintly. ‘Perhaps I did it to save you,’ she added, smiling. ‘I will tell them that.’

  ‘You do,’ Stack said, but he knew that wasn’t the real reason why she had done it. ‘Who gave you your orders in Berlin?’ he asked.

  She shook her head. ‘No deal,’ she said quietly.

  ‘But you will go to prison,’ Stack persisted.

  ‘And I will eventually be released,’ she said. ‘I am quite young. They will not forget me. They also have their code of honour. They will do an exchange. They aren’t really monsters.’

  He looked into her eyes. She looked as she always had — young and helpless. He knew that she was otherwise, but he preferred to think of her like that.

  ‘It could be a long time,’ he said. ‘If you help…’

  She shook her head. ‘You are too late,’ she intervened, and looked away.

  Too late! What did she mean? ‘For what?’ he asked.

  She looked at him and he saw another side to her. The side that had made her a Communist agent. She was mocking him. He swung around on his heels and left the studio. Lieffer and Lieutenant Keller looked at him anxiously.

  ‘No dice,’ Stack said.

  ‘Then let us take a ride and talk about it,’ Lieffer said calmly. ‘Come.’

  He quickly led Stack out of the warehouse to where a convoy of large, sleek, black, official-looking cars was waiting to move off. Alongside the cars stood a row of Federal Intelligence agents. Lieffer took Stack to one of the cars. Inside was a small television screen and two-way radio equipment which kept Lieffer informed of the progress of the state visit. On the screen was a picture of the West German Chancellor and Yugoslav President, at the airport.

  ‘They’ll be at the Senate in Schöneberg in an hour,’ Lieffer said seriously.

  Stack sat back in the upholstered seat. Lieffer sat beside him, grim but calm. It reflected the atmosphere of the city. The sun was shining, but the brightness and colour was only on the surface. There was also uncertainty and anticipation in the air.

  ‘She said we were too late,’ Stack said quietly.

  The car glided silently away from its parking space.

  ‘Too late for what?’ Lieffer asked. ‘The assassination?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Stack said, frowning, ‘but that was my impression.’

  ‘Too late,’ Lieffer said quietly to himself. ‘Too late.’ He turned to Stack. ‘We have every vantage point covered. The official party will be in a bullet-proof car. How else co
uld he be assassinated?’

  ‘A bomb?’ Stack asked thoughtfully.

  Lieffer considered the problem. ‘It could be,’ he said. ‘It could be.’

  He picked up the radio microphone and crisply issued a series of orders that would send an army of men into all the rooms that were to be used by the official guest. When he had finished giving his orders, he sat back alongside Stack. But he wasn’t relieved. Stack could feel his tension.

  ‘You have had Fraulein Rosier followed since her arrival in Berlin?’ Stack asked.

  ‘Yes, but she gave us the slip at the airport when she went to ground.’

  ‘She visited Franz Hessler on Sunday evening.’

  ‘Agreed.’

  ‘Who was Hessler?’

  ‘The genuine link between the Rosier family and the Crillers in Leipzig,’ Leiffer said. ‘He used to work for a film manufacturing company. About two months ago, he joined Ruddi’s studio.’

  ‘And his death?’

  ‘More than likely engineered. He had to be got rid of before Fraulein Rosier arrived or he would have realised the whole business with Criller was a fabrication.’

  ‘And the real Criller?’

  ‘Probably under lock and key somewhere in East Germany.’

  ‘They had it all planned out very carefully,’ Stack said pensively.

  There was an impatient buzz on the radio telephone. Lieffer took the call. He acknowledged the message and replaced the receiver.

  ‘We picked up Ruddi Schoner about half an hour ago,’ he said. ‘He isn’t talking — yet.’

  ‘They are all keeping tight-lipped,’ Stack said. It made him feel even more certain that something was planned.

  ‘Ruddi was involved,’ Lieffer said grimly. ‘We’ll get him to talk eventually.’

  Eventually would be too late, Stack thought.

  They turned on to the ring road and headed towards Schöneberg. The leading car blasted its siren to give the convoy right of way. On the television screen, the Yugoslav President and the German Chancellor could be seen leaving the guard of honour.

  ‘They’ll be at the Town Hall in a few minutes,’ Lieffer said, tight-lipped.

  Stack stared blankly out of the window. It had all been carefully planned, he thought. Everything neatly worked out. They had known about Gunter just as they had known about Berak. They had wanted to find out what Gunter had got wind of. What he was going to pass on to Stack. They knew of the link.