Deception

TWENTY-TWO

The terminal at Berlin’s Tegel airport was a frantic mass of meeters and greeters. Harry fought his way through the crowd and found a car-hire desk where he signed for an anonymous VW Golf. The clerk behind the desk handed him his collection slip and directed him to a kiosk where he could find detailed road maps. He picked up his overnight bag and thanked her, and walked away.

The man immediately behind Harry stepped forward to take his place, then appeared to remember something and changed his mind. Throwing a glance at Harry’s back, he hurried out to the front of the terminal.

When Harry left the airport, following the map towards the east of the city and the E74 Ring and the E28 leading north-east towards Stettin, Poland, he was being followed.

The city had changed beyond all recognition since he’d last been here, a result of reunification and EU funding, and he was forced to concentrate on the traffic around him to avoid being spun off in the wrong direction. It was this concentration which made him realize that he’d picked up a tail.

A dark-blue VW Passat had nosed out from the airport behind him, and was sticking rigidly behind him a hundred yards back. It wasn’t significant given the volume of traffic, and he wouldn’t have thought anything of it, except that two manoeuvres later, when he’d deliberately turned off the Ring and regained it, the Passat was still there. The driver was male, but holding too far back for Harry to get a clear sight of his face.

When the car was still behind him twenty minutes later, but showing no signs of doing anything other than following, Harry decided this was the first indication that his plan to get the Protectory interested was working. But he needed help. He rang Rik.

‘How’s the arm?’

‘Itching like a bugger. Why?’ Rik sounded bored and irritable.

‘Saddle up, Tonto. I’ve got a tail and I need to find out who he is without letting him know that I know.’

‘Thank God!’ Rik muttered fervently. ‘Where to?’

Harry gave him directions to Schwedt and read out the Passat’s registration number. ‘Get the details on that and grab the first flight available,’ he suggested. ‘Be ready for an overnight stay.’ He had no qualms about billing Ballatyne for the double expense; there were times when operating two-handed was the only option. And having this man on his back was the nearest yet to a definite show of interest from the Protectory. ‘You might do well to hire an automatic, with your arm.’

‘What are you, my mother?’ Rik muttered. ‘I’ll be fine, don’t worry. I’ll put the word on the car out with the community; they’ll soon get me a name.’ His fellow-hackers and IT geeks loved nothing more than nosing around in official files where they had no business, each venture a new challenge to be overcome. He paused. ‘Ballatyne’s people could get this, too, you know.’

‘Yes, they could. But he’d have to go through official channels, and it would take too long. And I’m not sure how leak-proof those channels are. Hire something inoffensive and try to be inconspicuous.’ Rik usually drove a vivid blue Audi TT, and his spiky hair and choice of garish T-shirts were hardly unmemorable.

‘Hey — I can blend,’ he protested. ‘I mostly choose not to.’

Harry thought that was rich, remembering how Rik had been canned from MI5 for nosing into restricted records and leaving a footprint, but he let it go. ‘Take my advice and blend. These people don’t mess. Remember what happened to Pike.’

‘Gotcha, boss. That all?’

‘Yes. Ring me when you get close.’

He disconnected and checked the map. Schwedt wasn’t far. Another forty minutes and he’d be there. He put his foot down and watched as the Passat gradually matched his pace. He slotted himself between two large trucks and the Passat began to overtake, then dropped back. Not a professional, he decided, or a cop. Just a man doing a job of work. But who for?