by James Quinn
The road opened up into a quiet main road shopping precinct and it was here that Gorilla decided was going to be the Alamo. He sped up until his front nearside was parallel with the Mercedes' rear wheel arch. He didn't want to smash into it – only amateurs try to ram a car like that – instead, he did what he had been taught, turning the wheel until his vehicle began to push at the rear offside of the Mercedes. It was more of a push than a smash. When he felt the resistance, he increased his speed and almost at once the inevitable happened – the Mercedes span out, spinning once, twice, before crashing into the side of a lamppost.
Gorilla stopped the Trabant and came out of the driver's door fast, crouching low, the S&W '39 already in his hand. He used the car's engine block as cover and aimed the gun.
There was movement going on inside the Mercedes; he guessed that Mike was fighting back. Gorilla fired a round at the man in the front seat, saw the glass shatter and an explosion of blood on the inside; head shot.
Gorilla moved away from the cover of the Trabant and as he did, so the rear door of the Mercedes opened up. A large man in a black overcoat was reaching for something at his waist. Gorilla didn't even blink – the man was a perceived threat – so he fired, twice, a double tap and the man slithered down the side of the car, whatever was hiding in his waistband now long forgotten about.
Gorilla dominated the space and moved forward; weapon up and ready. Mike Stern had made his way half out of the rear open door of the Mercedes. He still had the hood on and his hands were bound in front of him, but he had still managed to beat unconscious the other hood in the back seat. As for the driver… well, even from this angle Gorilla could see that he had taken the worst of the impact of the crash as his head was lolling at an unusual angle.
“Mike! It's me, Gorilla! I got you!”
There was a grunt from Stern underneath the hood. Gorilla wasn't wasting time; they were spies on a covert mission, they had three, potentially four, KGB or Stasi hoods dead in a crashed car and he had no doubt that the police would be here soon.
He grabbed Stern and dragged him back to the safety of the Trabant, threw him in the rear seat and told him to keep his head down. Moments later, the car was doing a full 180 and was heading back to the British Sector. All they had to do now was avoid the police and not get caught.
“Christ, what a night!” growled Gorilla, his eyes flicking between the road ahead and the carnage behind them.
“Hey… Gorilla,” mumbled Stern from the back seat.
“Yeah?”
“I just wanted to say thanks, buddy. You saved my life.”
Gorilla smiled in the darkness. “No problem, Mike. You'd do it for me.”
“Hell yeah, I would. Oh, just one more thing?”
“What?”
“Can I have my gun back? I told you it was my lucky charm.”
Several weeks later, after spending some time recovering from the beating during the kidnap attempt, Mike Stern flew out of Berlin for the last time. The Gutterfighters, in their usual style, held a topping out ceremony for him; which basically consisted of them playing poker and drinking several cases of strong German beer. Masterman, in his wisdom, had suspended operations for the following twenty-four hours after that. Really there was no point; his men worked hard and played hard.
The only repercussion from the failed kidnap attempt against Mike Stern was that a few days later, Little Pauli's nightclub became the victim of an arson attack that resulted in the razing to the ground of the building. The Hungarian, knowing what was good for him, decided to quickly leave Berlin for good, preferring to move to the more hospitable climate of Hamburg where he hoped to break into the vice trade. The Gutterfighters took an attack on one of their own very seriously.
The day after Stern left, Masterman called Grant into his office and pushed a parcel across the desk to him.
“What's this?” asked Grant.
Masterman shrugged. “I don't know. Open it and see. Mike made me promise that I wouldn't give it to you until he was out of the country.”
Jack Grant frowned, confused, but began to open up the parcel, ripping off the brown paper. It was a small metal box and stuck to the top of it was a note. It said:
Gorilla. Thanks for getting me out of the muck. I owe you one. This is my little way of saying thank you. Besides, it fits you well, gunslinger. Best, M.S.
Gorilla opened the box and inside was the Smith & Wesson '39.
Chapter Thirteen
Linz, Austria – 1989
“At last my arm was complete,” said Jack Grant. “I held that weapon in my hand and knew that it was where it was meant to be.”
They were sitting at the dining table now, the floor and the sofas long forgotten memories; this now was a different arena. Jack Grant felt that he was getting somewhere and Peter Vogel felt that he was now, finally, exploring new ground; his eyes had been opened to a new reality.
“Did Mike Stern ever ask for it back?” asked Peter, sipping at the glass of water in front of him.
For a moment Jack Grant was silent, and then he shook it off and answered. “No. A few weeks later, we got word that Mike had died in a helicopter crash. He had been training Special Forces guys in the jungle. No drama, nobody's fault. It was just one of those things.”
Peter sat for a moment in silence and then he got up and went to the kitchen. Jack Grant had long since put away the gun, but he held himself ready, just in case violence or, at the very least, physical coercion was needed. He need not have bothered because Peter came back with two large tumblers of whisky for them both.
“To Mike,” said Gorilla, raising the glass and taking a sip.
Peter did the same. He let the warm liquid flow down his throat, his mind calmed and then he said, “I heard that you used that weapon for years.”
“It was just a gun at the end of the day. A tool to do a job,” replied Grant blandly, although his eyes said something different.
Peter took off his glasses and cleaned them. It was a habit, a thing that he did to relax himself in times of stress. But still his mind had wandered away from old war stories and was back to thinking about what had happened to his mother all those years ago. The implicit suggestion about who his father might be, he decided to leave alone for now. That was for another time when he at least had the full story.
“So, what happened next in Berlin?” he said.
Jack Grant frowned. “In Berlin? Nothing. It was business as usual, but then by the end of January 1961 we got word.”
“Word? Word of what?”
Jack Grant looked deep into the younger man's eyes, trying to read them. “It was a photograph, taken in Cairo by an agent that SIS had in Egypt. They didn't know what they were taking – it was random. They had no idea of the ramifications of what it would do.”
“What was it?” asked Peter, his voice almost hoarse with anticipation.
Jack Grant smiled. “It was a photograph of your mother, taken at the Pyramids of Giza. And she was heavily pregnant.”
Chapter Fourteen
Cairo, Egypt – February 1961
The tall, aristocratic German navigated his way through the crowd in the marketplace. The smells of the Khan el-Khalili souk – spices, fragrant ointments, sweat and smoke – filled his nostrils. His rendezvous was at a coffeehouse on Quasaba Avenue.
Ulrich Vogel had been careful to watch his back as he moved through the narrow streets and alleyways of the old souk. His time here in Cairo had been spent mainly inside the compound of the Egyptian Security Services training grounds and while he enjoyed imparting his knowledge about espionage, he hated the country and its people. He could not wait to return to the cool civility of Berlin.
So when the chance came to meet up with his agent inside the BND he snapped at it. PATRICK was on a whistle-stop tour of the Middle East for the BND, double-checking on their counter-intelligence capabilities, but was able to slip away for a few hours to meet his SSD case officer.
PATRICK was wait
ing at a table at the rear of the coffeehouse, his back to the wall like all good spies do. Vogel sat down next to him and they began talking as if it had been days rather than months since they had last communicated. Even after months of living in Egypt, PATRICK still thought Ulrich Vogel looked like an eternal vampire; his face pale and gaunt.
“I heard about the recent operation from your old department,” he said smoothly.
“It's still my department,” snapped Vogel.
“Of course, I know that this is only a secondment. However, your deputy, Friedel, is making some rather poor decisions in his choice of operations, so I am led to believe?”
Vogel frowned. It was true. Gunther Friedel was a political appointment forced upon him thanks to nepotism at the highest level. The man was not an intelligence officer; he was also, just to make matters worse, an incompetent buffoon. When Vogel returned to Berlin, he would make sure that Friedel was pushed out. If he couldn't do it via means of internal political manoeuvring, then he would have to take more direct action in some way…
“What have you heard about the shooting?” asked Vogel.
PATRICK finished his coffee and waved his hand for a second one to be brought to him and one for his guest. “What I know is that it was a snatch against an American agent.”
“He was CIA?”
PATRICK shook his head. “Not exactly. The information is that the American was seconded to SIS. The British have some secret unit operating in Berlin; the American was a part of it.”
“A KGB officer and two of my best men died that night. That idiot Friedel gave the go-ahead for the operation, a reckless and ill-thought-out plan. The agent that survived, that was knocked unconscious, remembers a stocky, blond gunman shooting at the car. Does that help?” asked Vogel, sipping at the hot vicious liquid.
PATRICK nodded. “The BND has its own informants obviously in Berlin. As you know, sooner or later on the Island everyone gets to know each other. I will check it out.”
Vogel accepted it. His agent was a good man and could be trusted to deliver. “What about that old business? The source that the British have. Is there any further news?”
PATRICK sipped at his coffee. “The source went quiet several months ago, although up until that point SIS seemed to be happy with whatever it was they were receiving. As you know, the British, like the Americans, still treat the BND as underlings. Even if we get any intelligence product, it is either heavily disguised or so out of date that it is virtually worthless.”
“Why did this British source go quiet?” enquired Vogel.
“Ah, now that I can help with. It was a throwaway line at one of the liaison meetings. I overheard two SIS men mention that the source had left Berlin to go overseas for an extended period.”
“A soldier?”
PATRICK shrugged. “Possibly, but I think it is more likely diplomatic, or perhaps someone related to overseas trade. That seems to be what my gut instinct is telling me. What I heard was that SIS Berlin were handing the case over to DP2 at SIS London.”
“And what, my friend, is DP2? I'm afraid I'm not conversant with the internal working of SIS,” said Vogel.
“Neither am I, so I had to check with some colleagues. Apparently DP stands for Director of Production, the desk officers that rule geographical areas.”
“Go on.”
“And DP2 is responsible for the Middle East – Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Syria and so forth,” said PATRICK.
Vogel sat back in his chair, stunned. The British source from Berlin was now in the Middle East! The spy could actually be in the same country as him right now! That was interesting… but what to do with this information? Protocol dictated that it was passed to internal security, the spy-hunters, back at SSD Headquarters, and from there they would begin tracing where the leaks came from and who it was. But… no… maybe now, he decided, was the time to hang onto that little morsel.
When he did finally return to SSD Berlin, he wanted to come back with a bang and what better way than providing the details of a spy inside the GDR, possibly even inside the Stasi itself. Ulrich Vogel was nothing if not ambitious and to provide the identity of this traitor would be quite a coup for his career prospects. But first, he needed more concrete information.
“I want you to chase these leads down. Anything that relates to this spy, I want to know about it directly. If I'm still here and not back in Berlin, then you encode it using our personal code and flash it 'Eyes Only' to me, here at the Embassy.”
“Understood,” said PATRICK. He knew what Vogel was like, he was tenacious and driven, especially when he had a potential prey in his sights. He looked at his watch; he would have to be back at his hotel soon or he would be noticed missing by his BND security team. He decided to change tack. “How is your wife finding the Arab world?”
The question roused Vogel from his thoughts. “What? Oh… Yes, fine. The same as any other woman who is pregnant – it is hot, uncomfortable and strange to her. But she know her place, she knows not to make waves.”
“That is good,” agreed PATRICK.
“Besides, she will not be here for much longer,” said Vogel, standing up ready to leave. “I have decided that our child shall be born at home, in Germany. She returns to Berlin next week.”
SIS Berlin Base – February 1961
“Well, is it her?”
Jack Grant peered down at the blurred black and white photograph. The image had been taken from a distance, probably through a telephoto lens, and none of the features were clear or distinct.
In the background were the Pyramids of Giza and in the foreground was a carefully posed collection of people. On one side were a number of servants holding parasols to keep as much of the sun off the participants as possible, and next to them stood a tall European man in a light-coloured suit. He was pointing off into the distance at some unseen spectacle and seemed to be explaining to his guide some unknown piece of intelligence.
But it was the woman that Jack Grant was focusing on. She was stood by herself, a satellite to their planet, and her parasol was angled backwards so that the unnamed photographer could conveniently get a clear shot of her face. He would have recognised her anywhere, even at this distance and even with this poor camera equipment.
Lisbeth was wearing a light-coloured summer dress that ended just above her knees, the desert wind whipping it around her legs. Her hair was tied back and her face was partly in shade from the parasol. Grant's eyes scanned over her body and came to rest on the swell of her stomach. He inhaled sharply; his mind was a whirlwind of confusion and emotion.
“That's right,” said Markham. “Our agent appears to be up the duff!”
Grant ignored him and tried to focus on the photograph once more. The image blurred in front of him as his mind tried to stabilise itself and not give anything away about what he felt or thought.
“When was this taken?” he asked.
Markham held up his hands in ignorance. “We judge sometime in January. But that's just a guess. She looks about five or six months pregnant, but again that's just a guess. Not my specialist area, you see. When my wife was in the preggy club, I just used to let her get on with it, and…”
But Grant had blocked him out; Markham was just a noise in the room. Five or six months? She must have known that she was pregnant before she left Berlin! Why didn't she tell him? And then he remembered one of their last conversations and he knew why. She had reached out to him and he had been vague, distant, and cold even.
“So it appears that Ulrich Vogel is going to be a daddy?” chuckled Markham.
Jack Grant clenched his fists. He could feel the anger, the red mist, welling up inside him and he was using all his strength to hold it in check and to appear professional. “So it seems,” was all that he said.
“Question is, Jack old boy, is she a busted flush or does she still want to work for us? You know her, you were her case officer. What are your thoughts, my lad?” asked Markham.
Grant ran it throug
h in his mind. In theory, she had said good bye to him and SIS when she had left Berlin. Would she still come back to them? The only true way of knowing would be to make contact with her.
“If she could see me, or if I could get a message to her…” suggested Grant.
“Out of the question. SIS London would have my guts for garters!” cried Markham in horror.
“Look, as I see it we have two choices. We could wait until she comes back to Germany and try to make contact then, but the problem we have is that it could take a while and in the meantime we are left sitting twiddling our bloody thumbs, waiting for her plane to land,” said Grant.
“Okay and the alternative?”
“You send me to Cairo and let me see her.”
“And how do you expect to do that?” said Markham.
Jack Grant had his own agenda. Oh, he would try to make contact with Lisbeth for SIS's sake, certainly, but that was secondary to him now. Now, he wanted to see her, look into her eyes and acknowledge that she was pregnant with his child.
Grant shrugged. “Simple. It will be a recognition contact. She will see me, I will see her. Trust me, it will be enough.”
So Markham passed it upstairs to SIS London that very same day, who, very quickly, killed the more adventurous aspect of his plan.
“It's a no-go Jack, I'm afraid,” said Markham. “London's orders are to sit tight and wait for her to come back to home ground. Once there, then we can make contact with her. Besides, I think London's thoughts are that you, her case officer, turning up out of the blue might trigger some kind of bloody shock. We don't want the poor girl going into premature labour!”
So Jack Grant went about re-establishing all the old protocols, dead drops, safe houses and communication numbers ready for when EMERALD came back to Berlin.
Berlin – April 1961