Bomb Grade

chapter 37

T he hostile resentment was general, although focused through Walter Roh, and Charlie thought it time-wasting because they had to use him whether they liked it or not – which they made abundantly clear they didn’t – and he refused to be shat on, privately or publicly like Roh was attempting to shit on him. He threw back Roh’s attack with the same argument with which he’d rejected Schumann, who seemed to have accepted it. The piratical Schumann was the only one remaining even half-friendly. Charlie impatiently ended the argument by insisting there were more important things than a pointless inquest, which made the resentment even worse. Charlie felt a nudge of support from Hillary, beside him. Throughout the squabble Kestler sat quietly, head following each speaker tennis-fashion. Although the connecting double doors of Schumann’s suite had been opened to the next apartment it was still overcrowded, despite which the places for Popov and Gusev were slightly apart from the rest, like his and Kestler’s had always been at all the Moscow meetings, which Charlie thought appropriate. The two Russians said nothing either, going from speaker to speaker as intently as Kestler, latecomers anxious to catch up on everything.

Denied any apology by Charlie, the disgruntled Walter Roh had no alternative but to do as Charlie said and go through the agreed planning for the benefit of Kestler and the Russians. He did so never once looking at Charlie, which Charlie dismissed as childish. Instead he began by formally welcoming Kestler, Popov and Gusev and announced Bonn’s agreement to all three being present at the arrests.

Roh went on that both Tegel and Schonefeld airports were already totally under the control of civilian and military intelligence, in advance of the arrival of Sobelov and the Iraqi. He identified Turkel from surveillance pictures and said the man had already boarded an incoming flight from Cologne, accompanied by at least ten others, all men. The moment Sobelov and Turkel left their respective arrival terminals an inescapable net would be sealed behind them: both airports would be closed and all major roads and possible waterways out of the city blocked by one centralized telephone call if either man was lost from surveillance for longer than five minutes. At all times at least three out of the total of twenty commando-carrying helicopters would be airborne, at instant readiness for any eventuality, and as soon as Sobelov and Turkel were wherever they expected the plutonium handover to take place, every road in a square half-kilometre area around it would be cut against both vehicles and pedestrians entering or leaving. No cars or pedestrians would be allowed back into the area, to clear it as much as possible because of the content of the cylinders, despite their belief there was no danger of leakage. At that Hillary nodded and said, ‘There’s always the possibility of damage, during transit.’

At last Roh looked at Charlie. Equally as important – more important, in fact – as arresting the traffickers was the total recovery of the nuclear components. To minimize to the utmost any risk to innocent people, no seizure would be attempted until the Russians and the Iraqis were with the cylinders. The assault teams would be led to the exchange location in two ways. The BMW cars, still as of 8 a.m. that morning at Frankfurt am der Oder, would be followed by road and air when they moved. Roh made an elaborate gesture towards Charlie: also under intense surveillance would be the intermediary who had to bring Sobelov and Turkel together to complete the deal. Roh added, dismissively, that Charlie would be unprotected, exposed with two separate criminal groups and the nuclear consignment, in the first minutes of the attack: the German assault teams would be warned of his presence but there would inevitably be indiscriminate shooting.

Abruptly all attention was upon Charlie. Popov went sideways to Gusev and muttered something. Kestler said, ‘Surely there’s got to be some back-up?’

‘There’s never been a bigger or more comprehensive back-up in a criminal investigation in this city,’ assured Roh. ‘But nothing can be done before, only after.’

‘So what protection does he have?’ persisted the American.

‘None,’ intruded Charlie, disliking being talked about as if he wasn’t there. ‘I’m totally reliant on the quickness and efficiency of the antiterrorist units.’ He’d intended it to be sarcastic but it sounded admiring and he wished it hadn’t.

‘What about a wire? A weapon at least!’ said Kestler.

‘The Iraqis are too cautious,’ said Charlie. ‘I can’t risk being searched. They’ve always searched me so far.’

‘These guys will post lookouts!’ protested Kestler. ‘We won’t be able to hit them without warning!’

‘It’s a risk Mr Muffin has taken upon himself,’ said Roh. ‘Of course we are prepared for lookouts. They’ll be neutralized as quickly as possible. We will still have some element of surprise: and hopefully the advantage of confusion. The exposure shouldn’t be more than minutes.’

‘I’ll be the one prepared for it. They won’t,’ said Charlie. ‘There’s no cause – and there won’t be any time – for them to realize I’ve led them into a trap.’

‘What if they do make the connection?’ said Kestler.

‘It’s too late to change everything now,’ said Charlie.

There was a moment of silence in the room, everyone thinking there should be more to say but no one knowing what it was. The squawk of an army telephone broke the impasse. The operator whispered to Roh who said, ‘Turkel has just landed at Schonefeld. At least three men who disembarked from the Moscow flight at Tegel matched the physical description of Sobelov but we’re not sure. And the cars left Frankfurt am der Oder fifteen minutes ago.’

‘I’d better get ready to meet them,’ said Charlie.

Popov intercepted him at the door. ‘There’s a lot we should have been told. But haven’t.’

‘You’ll know everything by the end of the day,’ promised Charlie.

‘I think it is something we should discuss later with our government representatives,’ said Popov, stiffly formal.

‘I think you’re right,’ agreed Charlie, at once. To the hovering Gusev he said, ‘You’ll both be present at the arrests: Russian presence – your presence – will be publicly made known.’

Popov’s frown went at Hillary’s approach. He smiled and said he hoped to see more of her during their time in Berlin and Hillary said she’d like that. She walked with Charlie to the elevators. While they waited she said, ‘I do understand. No one’s being harmed, so it’s all right. It just took me a while. I’m sorry.’

‘Thanks,’ said Charlie, hating himself.

‘Suddenly it doesn’t seem as straightforward as it did at Kalisz, though.’

‘It’ll go like clockwork,’ said Charlie, sounding more confident than he was. He looked directly at her. ‘Stay out of things. Wait here until I get back, when it’s all over.’

‘Make that soon, Charlie, OK?’

There were three other men Charlie didn’t recognize with Sergei Sobelov’s two regular protectors when the Dolgoprudnaya boss flounced self-importantly into the Kempinski. Charlie moved at once to intercept them because the identification was necessary for the room allocation: two of the supposed reception clerks, both women, were Bundeskriminaiamt officers. Sobelov offered an effusive handshake, gesturing the others to complete the registration and demanded the bar. Charlie chose a table in the centre of the room, for further identification. The net was sealed, he thought: with him inside it. Sobelov’s escorts came in and settled themselves at adjacent tables, virtually encircling them: tight inside it, Charlie added to the reflection.

Sobelov nodded agreement to the money exchange and said he was being as careful with his part of the bargain. The nuclear couriers using the hotel as a liaison point as Charlie had suggested would only follow the delivery instructions he gave when he used a phrase understood just to himself and them, to prove he wasn’t under any duress or arrest.

‘No evidence, no crime,’ he smiled.

‘Very wise,’ agreed Charlie.

Sobelov examined the large bar. ‘Where are your people?’

‘Time off. I don’t need protection here. Only in Moscow.’

Sobelov shook his head. ‘You shouldn’t take chances.’

‘I’ll share yours.’

Sobelov laughed, looked around him again, apparently searching. ‘What about your clever and gorgeous girlfriend?’

‘Shopping, like they always are. She’ll be around later.’

‘If we’re going to work together we’ll be seeing a lot of each other.’

‘That’s what I’m hoping,’ played along Charlie.

Sobelov leered. ‘You mind sharing your toys?’

‘Not at all.’ He was going to get a lot of pleasure putting this bastard away for life.

‘She fuck well? Looks as if she does.’

‘Wonderful,’ said Charlie, with no alternative. The Russian was working hard at the tough-guy role, enjoying the smiling approval of those around him, and Charlie abruptly guessed it was Sobelov’s first time out of Russia and away from his own territory and that the act covered an uncertainty. Charlie hoped he was right: it would be in his favour in the first few moments of the assault.

Turkel wasn’t uncertain. He was already at the Ermeler Haus when they arrived, occupying one of the private upstairs rooms, and Charlie supposed the four men in the adjoining salon were from the ten-strong escort. Charlie thought he’d spotted three in a car outside on Markisch Ufer – where Sobelov’s group had remained – and wondered where the other three were. He’d warned Sobelov during the drive to the restaurant but there was still the briefest blink of surprise at Turkel’s smallness, even more noticeable against Sobelov’s towering bulk when they came close to shake hands. The comparison was only slightly less when they sat at separate sides of the round table, with Charlie between them.

The encounter became a series of acts, each performing their chosen parts. Sobelov increased the macho charade, dismissing the importance of the previous smuggling group’s arrest (‘they were going to be replaced anyway’) and of grandiose intentions for the future of the Dolgoprudnaya (‘international links, with Latin America and with Italy’). Turkel played the see-all, hear-all, say-nothing entrepreneur diplomat (‘my function is a special one, defying description’) with access to limitless resources for required items (‘there’s always a need and always the money’). Charlie adopted the mantle of the fawning broker eager to impress important new clients, encouraging further promises and exaggerations from both. Charlie wondered how it all sounded on the recordings that were being made.

Because Turkel’s appointment at the Dresdener Bank was for two-thirty it was a hurried although excellent meal and they managed two bottles of Moselle. Their cavalcade – Charlie, Turkel and Sobelov together in a car escorted in front by five of the Iraqi group and behind by five Russians – arrived exactly on time. Sobelov completed the deposit vault documentation, which Charlie savoured witnessing, after which they were taken to the basement security area where, after explaining the shared key locking system – Sobelov retaining one key, the bank official the second – the official left them alone with the three suitcases carried by Turkel’s driver and the glowering giant who’d been present at every encounter. There was nowhere to sit and it took Sobelov two hours to satisfy himself the money was right and at the end Charlie’s feet burned.

In the Mercedes on their way back the Russian handed his bank vault key to Turkel, for return when the plutonium cylinders were declared genuine, a change to the arrangements Turkel had insisted upon during lunch. The Iraqi also insisted on accompanying Sobelov – for whom four contact attempts were already logged – to his room, and upon Charlie being with them, before identifying the delivery location.

Which was an Iraqi diplomatic warehouse in the freight storage section of Schonefeld airport.

That officially made it Iraqi territory’, inviolate from German intrusion, Charlie supposed. Certainly it would be impossible to clear and seal a square half-kilometre around it because quite apart from the volume of people affected, flights couldn’t be suspended without it being obvious, from the simple absence of sound. So there was virtually nothing left of the carefully constructed seizure plan which made Charlie very grateful indeed that he had made one of his own. For his further satisfaction he tried to pick out Sobelov’s protective phrase when the contact call came, half an hour later: it was something about both their journeys being uneventful. How uneventful would it continue to be?

There were uncertainties, although Charlie thought they were manageable. There was no way he could be personally suspected of tampering with the cylinders, although there would be an accusation of sorts because he had taken Hillary to authenticate them. But he could rebut that easily enough by arguing they had been damaged in transit. One doubt was who was going to carry out the examination for Turkel. If it was a qualified physicist the man would know the two-hour fatality danger. But if it was a layman – Turkel himself maybe – told only what the meters should show or how heavy the containers should be if they were full, he’d have to intercede. Which shouldn’t be a problem. Sobelov knew his relationship with Hillary: knew she was an expert and would accept he’d learned enough from her to warn of the danger created by the misreading meters. So all he had to do was yell fire – or whatever the atomic equivalent was – and lead them out to handcuffs and a lifetime in jail. It wouldn’t achieve the arrest the Germans wanted but that wasn’t possible now anyway if they respected the protocol of diplomatic territory. Which was not Charlie’s problem: Charlie’s problem was staying alive and he felt very strongly about that.

Perhaps the biggest unknown now was what the Germans would do. They’d surround the warehouse, even if they couldn’t clear the area. And in minutes. But could he get everyone outside before the Germans tried to take out the guards? If he didn’t and the shooting started, he was buggered. No one was going to believe they would die from something they couldn’t see or feel by following him out into a gun battle they knew damned well could kill them.

Charlie saw the airport indicators first and then the buildings themselves and watched as one plane landed and another took off, so synchronized they could have been at either end of a pendulum.

‘We’ll be first,’ predicted Turkel. ‘They’ll have to find the place once they get to the airport itself.’

They were. There was no sign of the BMWs when their driver pulled up outside a white-painted, unmarked building after negotiating a criss-cross of storage hangers, outbuildings and warehouses, most of which were identified with company names. There was no sign, either, of any special attention around a building the Bundeskri-minalamt had known about for more than two hours, which Charlie found both unsettling and reassuring and told himself he was a bloody fool who couldn’t have it both ways. All around there was the rumbling of arriving and departing planes at a still-operating airport.

Turkel’s driver and the customary bodyguard entered the building through the small pedestrian door but in minutes swung open just one of the two main doors sufficient for their three vehicles to drive in. Apart from their cars the warehouse was totally empty. It also, strangely, appeared to have no separate side or back entrances. They were driven to the far end and each car turned to face the only exit. Everyone got out. Charlie walked the length of the building, as if anxious for the first sight of the Russian arrival. The doors were reinforced with an inner lining of what looked like steel. Running from top to bottom of the divided halves like the trunk of a straight tree was a central metal pole attached to which at intervals, tree-like again, were cross-branches. With one door open the cross-branches lay straight down and parallel with the trunk. When they were closed, he realized, they could be swivelled by handles from the bottom to knit into a series of rigid cross-bars. There was a single cross-bar already in place across the small pedestrian entry. He turned to see something resembling a marching platoon, four Iraqis and four Russians, approaching the open door to form an outer guard. Sobelov and Turkel remained standing at the far end. The rest lolled around the cars. Two Iraqis had remained inside the middle car. Charlie had still counted only seven in Turkel’s party: perhaps the other three in the German count were the examining experts. Something Sobelov called was lost beneath a louder shout from outside and from outside the huge door was pushed open just enough for the BMWs to drive in. They swept past him but stopped short of the other vehicles, roughly in the middle. Sobelov and Turkel got there before Charlie, who wasn’t hurrying. He checked the time, stopping as far away as he felt he sensibly could to watch the newly arrived Russians get out. Only one man looked unwell, grey-faced and sweating. He said something to Sobelov who shrugged, disinterested. Turkel was on his mobile telephone, gesturing with his free hand for the door to remain open. Almost at once the missing three entered, one behind the other. The one leading was bespectacled and elderly. The following man carried a satchel larger than Hillary had taken to Kalisz. Charlie decided he wouldn’t have to play amateur physicist. He took a step towards the more easily opened pedestrian door, letting the technicians get between him and the BMWs. In the language Charlie recognized from the Wannsee visit the elderly man spoke to Turkel, who replied in the same tongue. No one was paying the slightest attention to Charlie, who edged a little further from the now surrounded cars. It put him ten metres away, maybe a little further. It had been six minutes since the cars came in. The elderly man was accepting from the satchel carrier a hand-held counter similar to the one Hillary used. Any minute now, thought Charlie.

And then there was a shot.

There was a lot of noise from overhead aircraft and no one noticed it but then there was shouting and several more shots and a thump against the door from the outside, as if someone was banging to get in. Inside there was brief but absolute panic. All the Russians except Sobelov had guns, mostly Markarovs, and began to move towards the door but then stopped, looking back to be told what to do. The elderly man, still holding the Geiger counter but no longer bent over the cars, said something shrilly to Turkel who babbled back, just as hysterically. Sobelov looked at Charlie and said, confused, ‘What is it?’ not accusingly but as a question to be answered.

‘I don’t know,’ said Charlie but the words were lost beneath a sound much louder than any aircraft, even far away but it didn’t stay far away but grew ever louder, the whining, low-geared roar of a huge engine and then there was an echoing, ear-pounding crash against the door, which shivered and dented inwards but held. The roar went on, the tone fluctuating between gears and there was a second and a third and then a fourth crash against the door. It began to buckle, not from its central tree but from the side hinges, to the left. One of the Russians fired at it and the bullet ricocheted bee-like off the steel lining.

Sobelov had recovered but Charlie couldn’t hear what he was shouting and doubted anyone else could, either. The Russian had a gun now and gestured with it for one of his men to bring a car from the back. The rest were actually crouched around the rear of one of the BMWs. Charlie didn’t know if it was the one in which he’d unscrewed the cylinder tops. Turkel was going back towards the cars, too, herding the cowering nuclear experts ahead of him.

Charlie couldn’t decide what to do. He wanted to be down by the door when it collapsed, quickly to get out, but that would put him literally in the crossfire when the shooting began. And if he fled back to the neatly parked cars he’d set himself up like a funfair target in a shooting gallery to the people who’d within minutes be pouring through the now sagging door. Still safer at the back, he determined, remembering his thought as he’d come into the warehouse: not in a car but behind it. To hide until the shooting stopped. As he got to the rear of the building, two of the cars surged forward, isolating him with the remaining vehicle. Turkel was driving one and Charlie wondered how his feet reached the pedals.

With a groaning crash the doors finally gave way, lopsidedly, under the battering from what looked like a tank equipped not with a gun and turret but with a bulldozer scoop. Black-suited commandos surged in. They all wore helmets and Charlie realized why when the first stun grenade reverberated. It made his ears sing, deafening him, but it didn’t knock anyone unconscious and neither did the second because to be effective the space had to be enclosed and the building was too large. To think of escaping by car had been panicked and stupid. Both Mercedes had slewed to form a barrier with the BMWs and the windscreens and windows of every vehicle shattered under the concentrated automatic fire. Glass burst all over Charlie from the car he was sheltering behind. Four commandos dropped, despite their protectively metal-padded suits, and four men – Charlie couldn’t tell if they were Russian or Iraqi – went down as well, one screaming. He saw the tiny Turkel crawl from his bullet-pocked car and, still on his hands and knees, scurry to the back. There he sat on the floor with his back to the vehicle and the invading soldiers with his eyes closed, as if everything would stop and go away if he didn’t look at it. A man Charlie did recognize to be Russian suddenly threw his hands up and tried to run towards the assault group and Sobelov shot him, twice, in the back and then brought down a commando who’d stopped firing to accept the surrender. But then Sobelov was hit, in the shoulder but not badly, spinning him also to the back of a car where he slumped, shocked, in a sitting position close to Turkel. There seemed to be a lot of bodies around the cars and without either Sobelov or Turkel the resistance became sporadic. Although his ears were still blocked by the grenades, Charlie heard the amplified loud-hailer demands in Russian that they give up and guessed it was the same message in Arabic. The firing did stop, although the men remained crouched behind the cars and Sobelov began scrabbling, crab-like, to get up.

And then others came in, too quickly, behind the assault group. Charlie saw Roh and Schumann first, then Popov ahead of Gusev. And then Kestler. They all had guns – Roh a machine pistol – but only the Germans had flak jackets. Sobelov was on his knees now, levering himself up, hidden from them like three other Russians to whom Sobelov spoke were hidden.

Charlie came from behind the car, waving his arms high for identification and yelling for them to stop, pointing to the hidden Russians, too deaf properly to hear his own voice. The warned Roh saw one of the ambushing Russians as the man rose to shoot and the burst from the German’s machine pistol sprawled the man, chest blown open, over a BMW bonnet. Sobelov turned at Charlie’s warning and levelled his gun and Charlie realized he was going to be shot and there was nowhere to hide and that he was too close for Sobelov to miss. There was an explosion but no pain and Sobelov’s head disintegrated. Charlie saw Schumann on the far side of the car, hunched in a marksman’s crouch, gun still outstretched after the shot.

And he saw Popov behind Schumann. The Russian was edging along the car, but snatching looks inside, and appeared to see the slumped Turkel and Charlie at the same time. For a moment the gun wavered and then he brought it back to the Iraqi and Charlie screamed ‘No!’ and heard himself well enough that time. Kestler reacted first, seeing what was happening and yelling ‘No!’ as well and throwing himself forward, so that he was directly between Popov and the tiny man when Popov fired, at point-blank range, directly into the American’s chest.

It was one of the concealed Russians who killed Popov. That was also virtually at point-blank range, from the other side of the car. The shot hit Popov full in the face, hurling him into Gusev, who stumbled backwards but still managed to hit Popov’s killer, high in the shoulder to knock him sideways and down. And Gusev’s gun kept moving, less undecided than Popov, but as it swung towards the cowering Turkel, Schumann put his pistol directly against the side of the Russian’s head and said, ‘Don’t,’ and Gusev didn’t.

To Charlie, Schumann said, ‘I had to stop Sobelov killing you. I was too slow here.’

‘You were quick enough,’ said Charlie, gratefully.

‘We lost Popov, so it wasn’t a good idea.’

‘One’s enough,’ said Charlie.