by James Quinn
“Driver, please drop me at the next corner. Thank you,” she said. Her voice was as light as a feather.
“But, we still have much to talk about…” blustered Grenham-Smythe.
Grant pulled the car over to the side of the road, just outside the train station on Kurfurstendamm. She was smart and streetwise, he thought.
“I shall be in touch soon. Thank you for the meeting,” she said and got out of the car. Moments later, she blended into the crowds at the train station.
True to her word, EMERALD, whoever she was, phoned the telephone number the next day. A pre-prepared message was relayed to her setting up another face-to-face meeting; contact was once again established.
Jack Grant picked EMERALD up at the same meeting place on the Kurfurstendamm, outside the Memorial Church, two days later. The Peugeot had been replaced this time by a well-used Trabant.
“Where am I going?” she asked.
There was a quick flick of the eyes to the rear view mirror. “Don't worry,” he said. “It's only to meet Mr West. You'll be quite safe. I'll have you back before anyone notices.”
“Your German is very good,” she said.
“Thank you. My mother was born and raised here. She made me practice.”
She nodded and turned her face to look out of the window at the same rain-drenched streets as several days before. The rest of the journey was conducted in silence. Jack Grant took the opportunity to secretly study her profile; she was pretty, with a small, round face, delicate nose and a flawless, pale complexion that offset the dazzling green of her eyes.
They were driving to a safe house, actually an apartment above a cafe that SIS had access to on Fuggerstrasse. Grenham-Smythe had had the technical surveillance boys from SIS Berlin in to 'clean' the place of bugs, before inserting his own listening devices so that he could record the conversation between himself and his future agent. Thirty minutes later, and after running the usual anti-surveillance drills, they stopped down the street from the address of the safe house.
Jack Grant turned around in his seat to look at her. It was the first time that he had seen her face to face, as over the past few days their brief conversations had been conducted through the chaperone of a rear view mirror.
“Are you ready?” he said.
She smiled at him nervously and brushed an errant strand of raven black hair away from her eyes.
“You'll be fine. I promise. It's just a conversation. I'll be right here in the car, watching and looking out for you. Anything happens, I'll come running.”
She nodded and smiled again. “Thank you.”
“The door at the side of the café. Knock twice, he's expecting you. Once you are done, I'll drop you back. Okay?”
A final nod and she exited the car. He watched her walk casually away in the mirror and realised that, for a few moments, he had been holding his breath while he had looked at her.
“Her name is Elisabeth Katerina Vogel, nee Weber. Aged twenty-seven, born in Leipzig. She currently works at a used bookstore on Wilhelmstrasse. She lives in a very nice house just outside the city in Kopenick. She seems bitter and committed and is ripe for the plucking!” said Grenham-Smythe.
It was a day after the first safe house meeting, and Grenham-Smythe was locked in the secure room with Markham, the SIS Berlin Head of Station.
“So far, so normal,” said Markham, as he looked over the briefing notes. SIS Berlin received dozens of offers from East Berliners on a regular basis, and most of them were of virtually no, or limited, use as sources. But every now and then a little bit of potential popped up – Mrs Vogel being a possible. The trick for intelligence officers was to discover if she was the genuine article.
“Here's where it gets interesting. She is married to one Ulrich Hans Vogel, and Ulrich Vogel is currently the SSD Deputy Head of Active Operations against West Germany,” said Grenham-Smythe proudly.
“Excellent! And we've verified all this, have we?” said Markham, peering over his glasses.
“Oh yes, we have quite a file on Ulrich Vogel. Born 1928 in Leipzig and then exiled to Moscow with his family during the hostilities. He's a lifelong Communist Party member, part of the Ulbricht Group after the war, working as a journalist for the Free Radio station in the Soviet zone. Vogel was one of the first officers to join the SSD in the early fifties. He married our EMERALD in 1955; no children. He has risen quite quickly up the ranks of the Stasi and has a reputation for being operationally ruthless.”
Markham nodded, impressed. “So what is Mrs Vogel offering us? What's her motivation?”
Grenham-Smythe shrugged. “Her motivation at this point is a little vague, but I'm guessing political. I've pushed and so far received nothing, so I'll continue to push some more until I get an answer about the why. She says that she can provide us with the information that her husband brings home from the office – photographs, that sort of thing. She might also act as an access agent at some point.”
“And what does she want in return?”
“Again, at the moment it's a little vague. There are hints that she wants a new life in the West, cash, papers, all the usual. We are not quite at that part of our relationship yet, but I foresee that happening very, very soon,” said Grenham-Smythe.
Markham sat down behind his desk and dropped the briefing notes onto it. “Okay, run with it, Rodney. But keep EMERALD on a tight leash.”
A smile from Grenham-Smythe; he always had his agents on a tight leash. He liked to squeeze and squeeze until he had every last drop of juice from them.
“And you have everything that you need for the moment, do you? How's that chap of Masterman's working out for you, by the way? Grant… Gorilla, they call him. A right ruffian, by all accounts,” chuckled Markham.
Grenham Smythe frowned. “I have him brought to heel. He's a rough diamond for sure, but no different than any other knuckle-dragger. Gorilla knows his place and I have him under control.”
Markham thought that Grenham-Smythe should have been a tad nicer about someone who was 'watching their back' and making sure that they weren't going to be sand-bagged by the Stasi and strung up in a cell. But then again, Grenham-Smythe was an acquired taste that not everybody was drawn to.
Chapter Four
EMERALD had been in play for almost three weeks when it was her third and final meeting with her case officer, the bombastic 'Mr West'.
It had been the usual set of rules; Grant would collect her from a meeting point and drop her at the safe house in Fuggerstrasse. EMERALD had seemed more confident as each meeting progressed and, regardless of how she appeared, Grant always gave her the final pep talk: I'll be right outside, watching your back, I'll come if you need me.
The room had an audio listening device in it that was linked to the two-way radio in the car, and while it was not clear enough for him to hear the conversation between the SIS man and EMERALD, there was enough of a narrative that he could be alerted in case of trouble.
Jack Grant sat in the car and pretended that he was deaf, while Grenham-Smythe would talk and ask the young woman questions about all things tradecraft: were you followed, can you remember the contact protocols, and have there been any developments? The meetings usually lasted anywhere between twenty minutes to half an hour and Grant would be content to watch from the street and listen to the distant voices from the audio bug as they filtered into the covert earpiece that ran up his sleeve and into his ear.
Twenty minutes into the meeting and Grant heard a commotion over the earpiece. It was faint at first and then muffled, louder and then faint again. Voices, footsteps? It was like trying to solve an auditory puzzle. He heard a scream over the radio; a woman's scream and a man's grunt, but in the distance, as if they were moving away from the 'bug' in the lounge.
Had they been attacked inside the safe flat? Had an SSD team secreted themselves inside to carry out an ambush? He looked up at the window. There were silhouettes of bodies moving, then the light seemed to flicker and went out. That w
as all the information he needed! Grant leaped from the car and ran across the street at a fast pace. When he got to the front door, he had already fumbled the spare key out of his pocket and was using it to open the lock.
Once he had it open, he bounded up the stairs, drawing the Browning from the hip holster and lifting it up, ready to engage targets. He had the key to the apartment door ready, inserted it, turned it and went in fast, the Browning leading the way. He moved left into the living room and it was then that he saw them.
The lamp in the corner of the room had been smashed and lay in pieces on the floor, its bulb shattered. The only light source now was from the streetlight outside, which gave the room a sinister air.
Grenham-Smythe had the woman, EMERALD, pinned up against the wall by the throat and with the other hand he was trying to reach up under her dress, between her thighs. He was bleeding from a cut to the head, a superficial cut, but it had done enough to soak the top half of his shirt a crimson colour. Even from this distance, Grant could smell the cheap whisky on his breath. But it was the woman that he was more concerned about. Because of the grip on her throat, she was starting to change colour. Unconsciousness wasn't far away.
Gorilla Grant could feel the fury rising in him, so he didn't think, he just acted. He took two steps into the room and smashed the Browning into the side of Grenham-Smythe's head. There was an explosion of blood just above the ear, and the SIS man went sprawling across the room, stopping in a heap at the base of the couch. With the release on her throat, EMERALD had slipped to the floor, gasping for air. Grant knelt down and checked to see if there were any other injuries.
“Are you okay? Can you breathe?” he asked quickly.
“I'm… I'm… I'm okay. I'm just okay.” Her eyes were glazed over and her voice was rasping, but at least the colour was returning to her cheeks.
“What happened?” he asked softly. He knew what had happened; you didn't have to be a Philadelphia lawyer to work that out.
“Is this how you British treat women? How you treat your people… your agents? He was drunk. He tried to put his hands on me. I fought back… the lamp… but he was too strong… he tried to choke me…” she said, tapering off her train of thought.
Gorilla Grant knew what would have come next. Grenham-Smythe knew that she would be vulnerable and that there was the chance that no one would believe her. An East Berlin resident, meeting with Western spies, here to sell information about her husband and the Stasi? It was abusive and a betrayal of the trust between a case officer and his agent – all so that Grenham-Smythe could indulge himself and get a cheap thrill. It made Gorilla sick.
“I understand. You're safe now. I'm going to take you home soon, I promise,” said Grant to EMERALD. She nodded and then burst into tears. Grant turned around to look at the groaning body of Grenham-Smythe. Then he advanced on him, the Browning pointed down at him.
“Grant… Grant… what the bloody hell? Oomph!”
Gorilla Grant kicked the SIS man in the guts, not holding back, letting the weight of his boot deliver a full-force smash. Then he leaned down and grabbed the front of his shirt and pushed the muzzle of the Browning into Grenham-Smythe's left eye.
“You are finished here. Finished in Berlin,” he growled, flicking off the safety and pressing the weight of the weapon deeper into the flesh.
“Grant… no… no… please!” There was the smell of urine as Grenham-Smythe fouled himself. He began to weep and curled himself up into the foetal position on the floor.
“Sober up and get yourself back to base. I'm taking EMERALD back home. If you try to follow us, I'll shoot you dead,” said Grant.
He dropped her back at the Memorial Church where they had first met. He pulled the car up and killed the engine. They sat in the dark for a few moments, only the noise of the traffic breaking the silence.
“Will you be all right?” he asked at last.
She nodded. “I'll be fine. I have my bicycle near here.”
The silence filled the car again. Finally he said, “Don't judge us all by his actions. 'Mr West' does not represent the people who I work with. We are better than that, better than him.”
“I believe you,” she replied.
“You do?”
“Of course. I see it in your eyes and how you act. What is your name?” she asked.
“I can't tell you my name, but my friends call me Gorilla.”
She laughed. “Why do they call you that? Is it because you are strong?”
He smiled. “It's a long story.”
“Maybe one day you can tell me it?”
He looked at her in the rear view mirror. Those green eyes entranced him. “Perhaps one day.”
She took a breath and found her strength again. “Thank you, Mr Gorilla. Thank you for everything.”
“It was the least I could do, EMERALD.”
She smiled one last time into the mirror, then the door of the car opened and she was gone into the night.
“I want that little shit court-martialled!”
“Sit down, Rodney, there's a good chap,” said Masterman calmly, sipping at his coffee. He had cleared the COG base, sent everyone out of the building when Grant had come back and told him what he had seen at the safe house. Masterman was savvy enough not to have witnesses about at a showdown.
But Grenham-Smythe was on a rollercoaster and wasn't stopping for anyone. “He seriously undermined me and my operation and he did it in front of an agent! Plus he assaulted a senior officer!”
Masterman smiled. “The way Grant tells it, Rodney, you had the agent pinned up against the wall and you were trying to put your hand up her dress. Not the first time there have been accusations about you getting too handy with a female agent, is it, Rodney? There was that little indiscretion in Cairo during the war – except you had that hushed up.”
Grenham-Smythe reeled. “That was never bloody proven…”
“He also claims that you had been drinking, too. Not very professional, especially going into an agent contact procedure.”
“THIS IS MY BLOODY OPERATION! AND I WANT THAT LITTLE SHIT FIRED!” Grenham-Smythe bellowed.
“Well now, Rodney, here's the thing,” said Masterman, carefully and slowly. “We are going to pass that decision upstairs to SIS Berlin and SIS London. But I should warn you I am going to fight tooth and nail for my boy, as you would expect.”
“I'm going to have his balls and your head, Masterman!” growled Grenham-Smythe, his face turning the same colour as his blood-soaked shirt.
Masterman smiled sweetly. “Rodney, Rodney, you are looking at this in the short-term and not seeing the bigger picture. Even if you do survive this latest little scandal, and that's a big 'if', do you think your agent is going to want to work with you after what you've just done? And even if she does, you'll have to come back here to Berlin to work with us. It's a dangerous place, Berlin, Rodney. Lots of things can happen, the rules don't apply here. Accidents happen all the time, you know that.”
“Are you… threatening me?”
“Call it a friendly warning. This is my town. You operate here only on my say-so. Oh, Markham and SIS Berlin are the big-wigs, but on an operational street level you pay duty to me and my Gutterfighters.”
The face was now ready to explode, but instead, Grenham-Smythe turned and slammed the door on his way out. With him, the faint smell of piss disappeared, too.
Masterman sat back in his chair and sighed.
Grenham-Smythe and his ilk were usually a vindictive bunch who were experts at office politics and internal back-stabbing. They wouldn't be satisfied until they had their pound of flesh. He sighed one last time; evidently his warning to the Gorilla about not thumping senior officers didn't seem to have much effect.
Oh bugger, thought Masterman. Here we go again, Jack, my boy!
Over the next week there was a flurry of cables between SIS Berlin and SIS London, with each arguing that they were in the right. London argued that Berlin took orders from them, othe
rwise it would be a case of the tail wagging the dog! Berlin argued that Grenham-Smythe had acted inappropriately and that London should respect the judgement of the people on the ground in Germany.
The battle-lines were drawn and decisions were going to be made by the senior officers in Berlin and London; not only for the fate of Jack Grant, Junior SIS (Contract) Officer, but also for the fate of the East German agent known as EMERALD.
As for Grant, he had been farmed off out of the area; Berlin was a no-go for him while SIS attempted to sort out the mess that had been created. He had been given, through the intervention of Mike Stern, a chance to sit it out at a CIA safe house in Frankfurt. Stern was with him as a babysitter and between them, they spent the week playing cards and drinking too much bourbon.
A grey-faced officer from SIS London sat and oversaw the tribunal, with each side giving their version of events. Rodney Grenham-Smythe was up first and downplayed the series of events. The agent had become aggressive, demanding too much money for what she had to offer. When he had refused, she had turned violent and he had been forced to defend himself! It was as simple as that.
And of being drunk on duty? What of that, Rodney?
Well, Berlin was an intense posting; it was normal to have a drink or two with an agent, so okay, perhaps he had made the measures rather on the large side, but it was no reason for a junior contract officer, one with a history of violence like Jack Grant, to overreact and assault a senior SIS officer, reflected Grenham-Smythe.
With Grant on suspension, it was up to Masterman, as his commanding officer, to represent the other side of the story. Masterman told the story of a capable and brave operative who had performed exceedingly well, not only throughout his military service, but also during his time in Berlin under the control of the Covert Operations Group. If Jack Grant said he saw Grenham-Smythe attempting to assault an agent, well then, you could take that to the bank as a cast-iron guarantee.