Exit wound

1

November 1988

The twin props of the Dornier Do 28 Skyservant went into hyper-scream as we lifted from Tempelhof’s rain-lashed runway and climbed steeply through the West Berlin gloom. There was normally room for a dozen or so bodies in these things, but not in this one. The seats had been stripped out and the four of us had to sprawl on the cold steel floor.

The aircraft pitched and yawed like a dinghy in a gale. Gripping a rib of the bare fuselage, I pulled myself up to a window. Either Dex was trying to keep us below the cloud cover or failing to get above it. The West glowed and twinkled like a giant Christmas tree down there. A neon Mercedes sign seemed to throb on every other rooftop. The nightclub district was virtually a firework display. If we got back from this job in one piece, perhaps we’d go there and let off a few of our own.

The Luftwaffe had Do 28s coming out of their ears, and most of their flights out of Tempelhof, the Americans’ main military airfield here, were milk runs. They took off from the island of West Berlin several times a day and followed one of the three air corridors across the Soviet-occupied East to reach West Germany proper. Nobody gave them a first glance, let alone a second, and that was the way Dexter Khattri and his seven-month-old ponytail liked it. His aircraft was going to be making a slight detour.

I felt like I was being spirited into occupied France to help out the Resistance. Going by the creaks and rattles and the rush of cold air into the cabin from all the leaks in the airframe, SOE could have used this very plane – the noise was so loud I thought the door had slammed open. I’d noticed rain leaking round the jamb after it was closed, so it was obviously loose. Maybe it had finally blown off.

I folded another turn into the bottom of my beanie to give the back of my head some padding. Then I pulled up the zip of my black Puffa jacket the final centimetre and braced my back and feet against the floor, knees up, hands in pockets. If they’d made matching Puffa trousers, I’d have opted for three pairs.

The Dornier lurched again and my head rolled on the protective woolly band. Dex was swinging us left and right. This time I didn’t want to look out of the window in case I saw why.

It could be that we were weaving between the tower blocks. I pictured the local kids’ faces pressed against their bedroom windows, wondering what the fuck was going on. Red Ken said that was what had happened last time. Dex had stuck a torch under his chin, Hallowe’en style, and given them a wave. They were probably still having nightmares.

The Berlin Wall was intact, but only just. It still boasted mines, dogs, electric fences, machine-guns on fixed arcs, everything the Communist regime needed to stop its citizens leaking West, but nowadays even the guards wanted to jump ship. Everybody knew it would be over very soon, one way or another. Only a year ago, Ronnie Reagan had stood at the Brandenburg Gate and delivered his ‘If you seek peace, Mr Gorbachev, open this gate! Tear down this wall!’ speech. But for now they were still the bad guys – and Dex and the three of us under Red Ken’s command were about to cross into their airspace.

My headphones crackled as Dex quipped: ‘Not far now, chaps – home for tea and wads before first light, what?’

The aircraft plunged to rooftop height. He gave a little chuckle. ‘You can cross radar off your worry list – I think we bought that last week.’ The chuckle became a laugh. ‘If not, I hope you’re wearing sensible shoes. It’s a long walk home.’

As if the bone jokes weren’t bad enough, Dex treated us to the first few lines of his old school song. His cut-glass accent provided the icing on the whole SOE cake. ‘“Jo-lly boat-ing weather, /And a hay har-vest breeze, /Blade on the fea-ther,/ Shade off the trees…”’

He went up a couple of dozen decibels. ‘“Swing, swing to-ge-ther, /With your bodies be-tween your knees…”’

The Wall might still be intact, but Dexter Khattri wasn’t. The guy was as mad as a box of frogs. No wonder his girlfriends came and went as quickly as his thought patterns. Dex spoke like Prince Charles on speed, which sounded strange coming from an Indian. But then again, my arse had been stung by more vindaloos than his ever had. The closest he’d ever got to the land of his forefathers was driving past a Bollywood video shop on Southall Broadway.

Dex’s past-the-shoulder ponytail was his latest attempt at seeing how far he could push the envelope with the RAF head shed. This time he’d decided he was a Sikh. No wonder he was the only pilot I knew who’d remained a flight lieutenant for fourteen years.

Since we’d got back from helping out the mujahideen, Dex had been criss-crossing the Iron Curtain in Cessnas, Dorniers, helicopters, whatever it took. They said he’d flown more people out of the East than Aeroflot. He loved his life just the way it was, without responsibility. The only thing that pissed him off about the military was that he had a death wish and it hadn’t obliged. He was always too lucky. I hoped it stayed that way tonight.

We were crossing the Iron Curtain to the Communist prison camp that called itself the German Democratic Republic to make contact with a KGB agent. ‘Vladislav’ was going to give us the guidance system of a new generation of Soviet ballistic missiles. We were going to give him a big bag of cash.

2

We swooped between two tower blocks. I knew Dex wouldn’t be able to resist whipping out his torch again. He probably wasn’t going to get another chance.

With the Cold War in its death throes, the Warsaw Pact boys were holding the mother of all closing-down sales. Every KGB agent – like the one we were about to meet – had turned into Del Boy Trotsky. They were auctioning off apartment blocks they didn’t own in Moscow and St Petersburg. Generals were using entire infantry battalions to shift heavy plant for sale at their Western borders. Some army conscripts were even being rented out as slave labour by the high command. They still had a quarter of a million troops fighting in Afghanistan, but no matter what the Soviet PR machine claimed, they were getting their arses kicked big-time over there.

Red Ken, Tenny and I had spent most of ’86 running around the mountains with the men in beards. The Regiment dropped every bridge that came within reach so the Russian armoured convoys couldn’t move around the place. Then we built IEDs to blow them to pieces if they did. Dex was busy doing supply runs for the muj when he wasn’t ferrying us.

Even in those days, the level of Soviet corruption had been outrageous. Dex brought back shed-loads of brand-new Russian weapons and equipment that had been sold by their high command. Most of it ended up being used against their own twenty-year-old conscripts. These kids were dropping by the hundred every day.

Now the entire Soviet bloc was in meltdown, the East Germans were going for it big-time. They were flogging as many military secrets as they could get their hands on. Even the Stasi, the state secret police, were doing a roaring trade in secret documents. Anything to bring in a few dollars before the whole system went to rat shit. The West encouraged it. Once the Wall fell, a new world order would have to be fought over – and if we didn’t grab as much technology and intelligence aswe could while the going was good, there were plenty of other buyers in the queue. We had to know what kit was about to flood the market so we could build better stuff to defend against it.

Red Ken and Tenny had been seconded to Brixmis, the British Commanders-in-Chief Mission to the Soviet forces in Germany. They’d needed another body for this particular job and had given Hereford a call to see if I was available. These two were tighter with each other than with me, but we’d always liked working together.

Brixmis was set up after the Second World War to foster good working relations between the occupying forces in the British and Soviet sectors. The French and Americans reached their own agreements with the Russians. For some reason the Brits were allowed as many liaison staff in the Soviet zone as the other two missions combined. Maybe they liked the PG Tips.

Red Ken had served twenty-two years in Para Reg and the SAS, and his face told the whole story – although his roll-up habit must have contributed something to those deep crevasses. He’d spent the last three years driving about in his matt-green Opel, taking pictures of tanks and helping defectors across the wire, but was getting out of the Regiment after this tour. He claimed he had no plans beyond sitting full-time on the terraces at Barnsley FC, but I knew he was talking bollocks.

Tenny was also from D Squadron. He was taking over from Red Ken, but for how long, nobody knew: when the Wall crumbled, so would Brixmis. He was about thirty, very smart and hard. You’d have to be, growing up with a hairdo that looked like a rusty Brillo pad. ‘Tennyson’ wasn’t a name you normally heard shouted across an inner-city playground, but his drop-dead gorgeous fiancee seemed to like it, and I guess that was all that mattered.

Tenny had always been a star. After university and a spell in the OTC, he decided he wanted to hang out with squaddie lowlife rather than do what he should have done – become a doctor or lawyer or something that lined his pocket. Tenny had been going places. He had golden balls. We all knew he was destined for better things. For me, being in the Regiment was the best I was ever going to get. For him, it was just another stepping-stone to global domination.

‘“Jol-ly boat-ing weather, /And a hay har-vest breeze, /Blade on the fea-ther, /Shade-”’

‘Shut the fuck up!’ Dex was doing Red Ken’s head in.

Dex threw the aircraft into a tight right-hander. I had to throw out an arm to stop myself sliding across the cabin.

‘Now, now, Red – manners. You guys should like it. The music was written by a Rifle Brigade chap at the North-West Frontier. I think his name was-’

Red Ken had had enough. ‘Shut the fuck up, crap hat!’ To Para Reg, that meant anyone who didn’t wear a red beret.

These two had always been like a couple of fishwives. They bickered 24/7, but couldn’t do without each other to bicker with.

Dex’s tone suddenly changed. ‘Border crossed.’

Down below it looked like someone had taken an axe to the Christmas-tree cable. Even the navigation lights had been doused.

‘Over the sterile zone.’

A Bronx growl filled our headphones. ‘I can see that. Just tell me when we’re going to goddam land.’

Tenny kept his voice low and controlled before Red Ken had a chance to tell our American friend where he could shove the Special Relationship. ‘It’s OK, Spag. We’ll get you there, don’t worry. We can’t do anything right now apart from lie here and let Dex get on with it.’

I’d met Conrad Spicciati three days earlier and known straight away I didn’t like him. It wasn’t just because he was small and so overweight he looked like Humpty Dumpty – he didn’t know how to behave with us. For a low-grade CIA agent he had a Pentagon-sized swagger. We had to take the piss. Dex started calling him Spaghetti. Ten seconds later we’d shortened it to Spag.

It got him so worked up his porn-star moustache was in a permanent twitch. He kept stroking it with his thumb and forefinger, possibly to calm it down. I wondered if he’d grown it especially for the job. But I didn’t give it much thought. As far as I was concerned, we’d get this shit done and never see him again.

He sat with his arms locked around a black nylon sports bag in the dull red glow of the aircraft interior, gripping it like he thought we were going to mug him. I probably would have done if I’d thought I could have got away with it. The bag contained Vladislav’s twenty thousand US dollars. It didn’t sound like a lot for a bit of top-secret kit, but it would have been a life-changing sum to me.

Tenny needn’t have worried. Dex ignored him. ‘“Bang, bang, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang…”’

Red Ken’s and Tenny’s shoulders heaved in unison.

Spag bellowed into his headset that nobody sang on his goddam watch.

Biggles segued straight into ‘Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines’.

Odd smudges of very East German light appeared – dull and yellow, not the fairground stuff their Western mates went for a few thousand metres away. We called them nein-watt bulbs.

Red Ken cut in: ‘OK, that’s it, enough. Let’s switch on.’

3

The Dornier dropped the final couple of hundred feet. My head bounced off the steel as we hit the ground and bumped along the field.

When I sat up I could see a line of small fires through the windows. Benghazi burners – normally small pots of petrol and sand, but probably mud here. Everywhere east of the Wall was ankle-deep in the stuff. The burners would have been laid out in an L, Second-World-War SOE-style. The base of the L was the threshold; Dex needed to land as close to it as he could to ensure he had enough grass to rattle to a stop. The long stroke gave him wind direction.

Spag was already up on his knees, headphones cast aside as if he had to jump and run under fire. He struggled to keep his balance at the same time as he hugged the bag to his chest.

Red Ken waved him down. ‘The crap-hat has been watching too many war films.’

Tenny convulsed again with laughter.

Spag didn’t like it. He stayed on his knees, ready to leap out and take on all-comers.

Red Ken wasn’t finished. ‘Who does he think he is? He’s a pencil-neck CIA desk jockey, not the fucking Terminator…’

Tenny rested a hand on Red Ken’s shoulder. ‘Give him a break. This is his first time. And he’s American.’

After Spag’s thirty-odd years as a desk jockey, he wouldn’t be auditioning for the job of Arnie’s stunt double any time soon. He looked more like the new cartoon character I’d been watching on the American forces’ network back in Berlin, Homer Simpson.

The Dornier slowed. Dex taxied to the threshold, swung the nose round so he was facing into the wind again, and closed down the props. ‘Just like the old days, chaps – the four of us together in the middle of nowhere. At least we don’t have to start spouting Pashto.’

Spag headed straight for the exit and scrabbled to get out.

Red Ken caught his arm. ‘No rush, mate. If we’ve got a drama waiting for us out there, we’ll find out soon enough. We need to take everything slow and calm.’ He swung the door open.

My nostrils were hammered by the stench of shit.

Tenny saw my face screw up in the dull red light. ‘Human fertilizer. Nothing gets wasted round here.’

Red Ken set off towards a thin torch beam that suddenly pierced the darkness.

Vladislav’s contact appeared out of the gloom. His fresh boot-marks met Red Ken’s in the frosty dew. They’d done a lot of business during his tour, but this was their biggest deal yet. They hugged like old mates and jabbered away to each other in German while Tenny checked our comms with Dex.

I didn’t know the contact’s name and didn’t need to. Tenny and Red Ken were here to look after Spag, and my job was to look after them. I tightened my grip on the two-foot steel Maglite. There were rules to this game, and one of them was that Brixmis went unarmed. If you were caught with a gun, you got shot, simple as that.

Apart from my torch, the only kit we had with us was the radio in Tenny’s day-sack and whatever Red Ken had in his. A couple of sharp rectangular shapes jutted against the thin nylon. I didn’t know what they were and I didn’t ask. If I’d needed to know he would have told me.

Our biggest weapon was secrecy. No one knew where we were, apart from those who absolutely had to. The KGB and the Stasi had no reason to be out here, sliding around in the shit. And if they were waiting to round us up with dogs and AKs, we were sterile.

Dex stayed in the cockpit. He tended to stick out in this part of the world. He’d be pissed off that he’d had to close down the engines. It was good for security, but bad for us all if he couldn’t get them restarted. That was how he’d got caught last time. He’d ended up being traded for a couple of newspapermen caught spying for the East.

The RAF rule was that he should have taken off again and come back in when Tenny called for a pickup. But Dex didn’t like doing that. He never had. He said it made him feel like he was running away.

4

Apart from the gentle whispers between Red Ken and the contact, it was quiet.

Red Ken’s German was far better than mine, but that wasn’t saying much. I was still at eighteen-year-old-squaddie level. ‘Pommes frites… Bier… Taxi…’ was pretty much my limit, with the occasional ‘danke’ and ‘bitte’ thrown in. If anything else I wanted wasn’t on display – so I could point at it and shout – I had to go hungry.

Spag stormed up to them, both hands still gripping the bag. ‘Shouldn’t we get moving?’

Tenny carried on checking comms. He’d send Dex a sitrep when we were at the meet, and another as we left. If we didn’t report in, it meant a drama at our end. If he didn’t acknowledge, it meant one at his.

I moved closer to the group. The contact was in his fifties. He ignored Spag. He dug in the pockets of his leather overcoat and pulled out a pack of F6.

Red Ken waved a hand. ‘Nein, nein.’ He flipped open his day-sack and dug out one of the mysterious rectangular packages, a carton of Benson & Hedges.

The contact beamed as he ran his fingers along the cellophane. When Red Ken threw in a cheap disposable lighter, his early Christmas was complete.

It was too much for Spag. ‘Jee-sus, let’s get going here! We stopping for tea and cucumber sandwiches, or what?’

Red Ken was close to decking him. ‘We’ll go when we’re good and ready.’

Tenny stepped between them. ‘We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for this guy. If he wants to wait and smoke, that’s what we do.’

He shook the contact’s hand, triggering another stream of waffle. Tenny nodded. His German was excellent too.

‘We have to hold back a while. We have to give Vladislav time to make the RV. He wants to be there before us to check it out. And he has something he needs to discuss with Red before we move.’

Spag wasn’t having any of it. ‘Fuck him. He’ll be history when this whole pile of crap collapses.’

Red Ken offered the contact a cigarette from his own pack and they both lit up. Both drew deeply to help their creases along. The tips glowed and the smoke mingled with our breath. Red Ken glared at the American. He wasn’t playing. He showed every sign of being prepared to stand there until they’d smoked the whole carton.

Spag spun on his heel and stormed back to the aircraft.

5

I stood alongside Tenny as the other two kippered their lungs. My eyes were constantly on the move, checking for lights or other giveaways.

Tenny checked his day-sack was secure. ‘You still coming to the wedding?’

‘Wouldn’t miss it for the world.’

Even with his hair, Tenny had managed to trap the most beautiful woman on the planet. I was sure she’d been designed in a test tube. She was smart and funny too, a teacher at the girls’ prep school in Hereford. I was more than a little jealous of the great life he had ahead of him.

‘I’ve been thinking about going back to the Green Jackets after this tour. Janice and I are going for kids ASAP. I want to see them grow up, be a proper dad instead of spending years away. What do you reckon, Nick?’

I hesitated. I might have shared food, sleeping-bags and even body lice with him, but I was the last person to ask about family stuff. ‘Don’t know, mate. Big decision. They offering a commission?’

The day-sack was secure and he hauled it back over his shoulders. ‘Yep, seems like a good deal. Stay in, but still get to be a family man. Well, as much as you can, eh?’

I nodded as if I knew. ‘I’d go for it, mate. You’ll be a general by the time I get within reach of sergeant. I’ll be your driver if you want.’

The other two finished their cigarettes. Red Ken picked up the butts and put them in a pocket of his day-sack. ‘Right, let’s get on with it.’

Tenny grabbed Spag and we crunched across the field towards the contact’s vehicle.

‘Listen in.’ Red Ken walked backwards so we could hear him clearly. ‘Stasi have been sniffing around this guy. They know something’s happening. Normally they want a kickback on the cash – or they have something to sell. They didn’t offer him anything, so let’s keep switched on.’

Spag bristled. ‘You saying we got trouble? You saying we shouldn’t even get in the vehicle with this fuck?’

Tenny cut in before Red Ken exercised any more of his diplomatic skills. ‘We’re here because of you. It’s you we’re taking to Vladislav. If you don’t want to go, that’s OK. Give us the cash and go back and wait in the plane.’

The Americans were buying the guidance system. We were only there because the deal was happening in Brixmis TAOR (tactical area of responsibility).

Spag gripped the bag as if it was his child. ‘I’m not leaving this goddam money with anyone.’

‘So our task is still to connect you with Vladislav. If our assessment is that we get in the vehicle, we get in the vehicle.’

We’d arrived alongside the most knackered Gaz van left in the Eastern bloc. It was trying its hardest to be a VW Camper, but looked more like a flat-pack wardrobe I’d once tried to put together without the instructions.

Red Ken and the contact jumped in the front. I got in behind with Spag. Tenny took the back row.

The windows were steamed up and cracked. It actually felt colder inside than out. It smelt like the old boy kept chickens in it. I pulled my beanie down over my eyes, put my hands in my pockets, and curled up as best I could on the ripped vinyl.

The drive along the pot-holed road was as bumpy as the landing had been.

Spag blew into his cupped hands. ‘How long till we get there? What are we going to do when we arrive?’

Nobody answered.

‘Red?’

Silence.

‘I demand to know what’s happening, goddammit.’

Red Ken finally turned in his seat. His head and shoulders were wreathed in smoke. ‘Another twenty minutes.’

Spag glared out of the window. He was way beyond his comfort zone. I’d have preferred to be tucked up in his warm office in the US embassy, too.

The contact muttered something and he hit the brake.

It got the American flapping big-time. ‘Jee-sus, what the fuck-’

Red Ken raised his hand. ‘Shut up. Nick, Tenny – stand by. Spag, you’d better get your head in gear and keep your gob shut.’

Through the misted-up windscreen, all I could see was the strobe of blue lights.

Spag had his head in gear, but it was the wrong one. ‘Why are we still driving towards it? Why aren’t we in reverse?’

Red Ken ignored him. All his attention was fixed on the road ahead.

6

It wasn’t a marked police car but a bog-standard Wartburg with a blue light on its roof. The front was tilted off the ground like they’d driven up an inspection ramp. The two lads flagging us down were dressed for winter. Both had big furry Russian hats. One was in a three-quarter-length sheepskin, the other in a long leather trench coat. Their street shoes were up to the ankles in mud, which was probably why they looked so pissed off.

‘Stasi.’ The contact confirmed what I’d suspected.

I stayed sunk in my seat as the Gaz came to a halt. Tenny mumbled from behind: ‘What’s going on, mate?’

Red Ken didn’t have time to answer. Spag was flapping. ‘Don’t stop! They’ll kill us! I’m ordering you.’

Red Ken smiled through the windscreen. ‘Nick, Tenny – stand by. We’ll sort this once we’re out of the vehicle. I see two so far, no weapons.’

I gripped the Maglite in my right hand, with the shaft up my forearm. You’re better off out on your feet than sitting in a wagon. Once we were in the open air, I’d be ready the moment Red Ken kicked it off.

The closer the voices got, the tighter I gripped. My eyes strained at the tops of their sockets. The two Stasi seemed to be waving us out of the wagon, with the confidence that comes from no one ever fucking you about.

Red Ken’s fingers closed round the door handle.

The contact wound down the window. Cold air rushed into the wagon. His breath billowed as he spoke.

I heard the word ‘Zigarette’.

Then: ‘Ach so – Englische Zigarette?’

I pretended to come awake, and looked around dozily. Red Ken was sitting there, beaming friendship and goodwill.

Spag was close to hyperventilating. The knuckles gripping the bag gleamed white.

The contact opened his door and got out. The Stasi in the sheepskin arched an eyebrow as he studied the cigarette in his hand, but he accepted a light. Then he spotted the cheap disposable, and his hand grabbed the contact’s wrist.

He muttered something and the contact laughed. ‘Ja, ja, naturlich.’ He handed over the entire pack, and then the lighter, before gesturing to Red Ken for the carton on the front seat. They got it – as well as the one still in his day-sack.

Sheepskin stuck his head into the cab. ‘Brixmis? Brixmis, ja?’

Red Ken shrugged and gave him some waffle. He sounded very authoritative, which got Sheepskin sort of nodding. The other one walked all the way round the van, peering in through the windows.

A local. Brixmis. The pieces were coming together in Sheepskin’s head. He shouted down at the contact.

Red Ken shook his head and answered for him in English: ‘We have no money – no money.’

Sheepskin drew down his pistol. His mate Leatherman was a split second behind. He pointed the barrel at the contact and screamed into his face.

Spag shat himself as Red Ken screamed right back: ‘No fucking money, we got no money.’

Leatherman came round and joined Sheepskin. They were getting angrier and more agitated. A very bad combination. They both pointed their weapons into the van.

Red Ken was calm. ‘Just stay in the wagon. If we get out now, they’ll shoot.’

Spag sparked up. ‘I’ve got money. I’ve got money.’ He held the bag up high.

Sheepskin pushed the contact aside and lunged into the cab. He leant over the driver’s seat and grabbed the holdall. Leatherman kept one eye on us and the other on the bag. Both were very happy with what they saw inside it.

They turned and shouted at the contact. Fingers were pointed at their vehicle and then at us.

Red Ken opened his door. ‘Nick, Tenny – out. Leave everything in the wagon. Don’t piss them off. I’ll tell you when.’

7

As we walked up to their vehicle I saw what the problem was. The antlers of a huge stag stuck out from under the front bumper.

Sheepskin stood on the road with the cash while his mate took the wheel.

The four of us slipped and slid in the mud at the back as the driver hung out of the window shouting orders. The exhaust fumes caught at the back of my throat and made my eyes stream.

Red Ken was in the middle. ‘Nick – the driver. We’ll take the money. On my word…’

One final push and the front wheels rolled over the carcass and reconnected with the tarmac. The engine revved as we stamped shit off our boots.

As Sheepskin headed past us for the passenger door, Red Ken yelled, ‘Go!’ He and Tenny lunged at him. I moved to the left of the car as the contact made a run for it. Leatherman poked his head out to see what was happening. The middle three fingers of my left hand fought their way into his mouth and twisted sideways, like I’d hooked a fish. I gripped his head with my right and pulled hard, as if I was trying to land him through the window. I couldn’t see his weapon.

He screamed at me. My fingers were soaked in his saliva. His hands came up to try to grab mine and he ended up wedged in the gap. Seconds later, Tenny arrived and gave him a couple of boots to the neck. Leatherman shrieked. I kept hold of him as Tenny opened the door and grabbed a weapon from the passenger seat.

I let go. Leatherman’s head hit the top of the window frame. He fell forward onto his hands and knees, trying to cough his Adam’s apple back into place. Tenny kicked him down into the mud.

Red Ken had Sheepskin on the ground with a weapon in his neck. He shouted to the contact to retrieve the cash.

The blue light beat into the darkness.

He turned to us two. ‘Get them in the boot. If they fuck about, drop them. Tenny, cut the blues and follow.’

We did what we were told, pushing, kicking, shouting, pointing their pistols at them. Seconds later we were back in the Gaz, Tenny in the Wartburg behind us.

Red Ken was breathing hard. I knew he was angry. He tried to control himself, but it wasn’t happening. He turned and jabbed a finger at Spag. ‘All you had to do was sit tight and shut the fuck up.’

Spag took a breath but decided not to answer.

Good move.

The muddy bag was back on his lap.

We drove in silence for another quarter of an hour before turning down a farm track. A collection of barns stood off to the right, rough old things knocked up out of concrete blocks and corrugated iron. One or two bits of rusted machinery had been abandoned to the elements.

The contact followed the track round to the back, stopped and killed the lights. Tenny pulled up beside us.

Red Ken went over to him as the rest of us clambered out. ‘Hold these fuckers here. We do the deal and we leave. They’ll find their own way out of the boot.’

Tenny shook his head. ‘Better let them breathe. The exhaust is cracked and the fumes are getting everywhere. It’ll kill them.’

‘OK, give ’em air until we’re finished. Then we’ll close them in again.’

He lifted the lid. The two crushed and suffering bodies were coughing up their lungs. They tried getting out, but Tenny punched them back in.

The contact led the rest of us towards the nearest barn.

8

I kept a few paces behind the other three, as cover. My boots sank up to their laces in stinking ooze.

Spag tried to recover from looking like a dickhead. ‘It was right to hand over the cash. They could have killed us.’

Red Ken checked stride and rounded on him. Their faces were inches apart. ‘Listen in, twat – they were going to kill us because they’d got the money. Now wind your fucking neck in, let’s get the deal done and leave.’

We worked our way past a dark, mud-covered Trabant, up to its hubs in shit. I saw the prolonged glow of a cigarette tip through a gap in the barn wall. Whoever was on the other end of it was sucking hard.

The contact headed for the door. ‘Vladislav?’

A solitary nein-watt bulb dangled from the rafters. Its dim light only just reached the floor, but I could see the shit gleam on Vladislav’s boots. The KGB man was another egg-on-legs. He could have been Spag’s brother. Mrs Dumpty had been busy. His trench coat was so long it nearly touched the ground. He took a step back to reveal a battered canvas suitcase at his feet.

Spag barged past Red Ken and the contact. ‘OK, what you got? Show me.’

Vladislav caught his drift, unzipped the suitcase and threw back the top. Spag snorted from excitement or exertion. Either way, he should have stayed behind his desk.

Vladislav dug through a pile of old shirts and pulled out what looked like a long-legged metal spider. When he held it up to the light, I could see it was some kind of circuit board with wires coming off it in all directions.

He stood back and let Spag inspect the goods. ‘It’s intact. I have much more on offer if you are interested.’ His English was good.

Spag held out a hand. ‘You got a pen?’

Vladislav fished about inside his coat. Then he knelt to empty the bundles of hundred-dollar bills into his suitcase.

‘Don’t you wanna count it?’

‘I know you will be back for more, so why would you try to cheat me? If you have, I’ll go elsewhere.’

Red Ken leant over to me. ‘These Russians will do just fine, whatever happens to the Wall. There’s no ideology here, mate. It’s every man for himself.’

Spag’s eyes gleamed. He finished writing on one of the wrappers. ‘Come direct to me. We could do some serious business.’

He stood and they shook.

There were shouts from outside.

I started running.

9

I cannoned into a body at the door. My face rubbed against

sheepskin.

Red Ken yelled from behind me, ‘Leave him!’

I pushed against the coat, not even raising the Maglite, just squeezing past as Red Ken took him.

There were two bodies by the rear of the car. One was staggering to his feet. The other lay still. The upright one wore a long leather coat. He turned towards me and lifted his arm.

My vision tunnelled. All I could see was the weapon I was running towards. The barrel headed my way in slow motion. I felt nothing but the thump of my heart as I got within striking distance.

The Maglite came down on what I could see of the pistol and his hand. He buckled, but not enough. The weapon didn’t fall, and neither did he. I connected again, this time to the right side of his neck.

I kept hitting, kept hammering his head, his neck, his arm.

A round kicked off inside the barn, then a double tap.

I slammed the Maglite down again and again on the target’s head, jumping into the air to get that extra bit of momentum, until I heard the crack I wanted and felt warm blood spurt against my face.

He dropped into the shit beside Tenny.

I used the Maglite for the job it was designed to do – to find the weapon in the mud and guide me back to the barn.

‘Red! Red!’

‘Clear this end.’

I turned back, dropped to my knees beside Tenny and ran the Maglite beam over his face, searching for signs of life. ‘It’s OK, mate. You’re breathing – means you’re still winning. Got to turn you over. Take the pain.’

A gunshot wound to the gut. I grabbed his shoulder, log-rolled him and looked for an exit wound.

‘It’s fine, mate – it’s still inside you.’

The only good thing about a gut wound is that it isn’t as painful as anywhere else on the body. There aren’t any nerve endings there. If there were, it would hurt to eat. As long as no major organs were hit, Tenny could live for a day, maybe two, without treatment.

I pressed my beanie against the entry wound. ‘Keep it there, mate.’

Spag loomed out of the darkness with Vladislav. They both headed for the Trabant.

Red Ken had other ideas. ‘Get in the fucking van – now!’ He and the contact weren’t far behind, hefting Sheepskin by his arms and legs. They dropped him into the mud next to his mate. The Trabant rolled out of the farmyard and Spag pushed himself into the Gaz.

One look at Tenny, and Red Ken binned whatever plan he’d had to hide the Stasi boys. ‘Fuck ’em. Let’s go.’

We loaded Tenny into the Gaz and the contact pressed his foot to the floor. I got on the radio to Dex.

Tenny was less worried about his guts than about what had happened.

‘It was so quick. I sparked up the radio to give Dex a sitrep and they went for it. I-’

Red Ken placed his hand on Tenny’s forehead, like a father with a sick child. ‘It doesn’t matter. Getting you back is all that does. Not long now, mate.’

Spag just sat there with his bag of tricks on his lap. I didn’t blame him keeping out of it.

When we reached the field, Dex’s props were already turning.