London Match

29

I'd allowed for a lot of varied possibilities arising from my meeting with Fiona, but her demand that I kill Pavel Moskvin, one of her senior staff, caught me unawares. And yet there could be no doubt that she was serious. As Bret and Frank had already agreed just a few minutes before the meeting, my friendship with Werner was damned important to me. If killing a hood like Pavel Moskvin could rescue Werner from a prospect of twenty years in a gulag, I wouldn't hesitate. And Fiona knew that.

But there were a lot of unanswered questions. I found it difficult to accept Fiona's explanation at face value. Would she really ask me to kill Moskvin just so she could keep to her side of the bargain? It seemed far more likely that Moskvin was an obstacle to her ambitions. But it was difficult to believe that Fiona would go that far. I preferred to think that her desire to have him dead came from somewhere higher up in the echelons of the KGB – Moscow Centre, in all probability.

But why didn't they try him, sentence him, and execute him for whatever he'd done? The obvious answer to that was blat, the Russian all-purpose word for influence, corruption and unofficial power. Was Moskvin the friend or relative of someone that even the KGB would rather not confront? Was getting rid of him in the West – and so attributing his death to the imperialists – a clever scheme whereby Moscow kept their hands clean? Probably.

Werner Volkmann was still in the roadway on the wrong side of Checkpoint Charlie – our man could see him clearly from the observation post on Kochstrasse. According to what was being said on the radiophone, Werner was wearing his grey raincoat and pacing up and down, accompanied by a guard in civilian clothes.

As arranged with Fiona, I was in the last of the three KGB Volvos when they pulled away from the front of the Steigenberger. There were plenty of policemen there, some in civilian clothes, but not so many that the KGB party attracted any more attention than would the departure from the hotel of any minor celebrity. At the front of the line of three black Volvos there was a white VW bus, an unmarked police vehicle, and a motorcycle cop. Behind us there was another white VW bus containing Frank Harrington, Bret Rensselaer, and three members of the Berlin Field Unit. It was our communications van, two whiplash antennas and an FM rod on the roof.

The convoy of cars moved out into the traffic and past the famous black, broken spire of the Memorial Church, incongruously placed amid the flashy shops, outdoor cafés, and swanky restaurants of the Kurfürstendamm. There were no flashing lights or police sirens to clear our way. The cars and their two escorting buses eased into the lanes of slowly moving traffic and halted at the traffic signals.

I turned my head to see the white van behind us. Frank was in the front seat, next to the driver. I couldn't see Bret. The cars followed the motorcycle cop, keeping a distance between them so that it didn't look as if we were all together. We attracted less attention that way.

Along Tauentzienstrasse the traffic thinned, but we were stopped by red lights at the big KaDeWe department store. The lights turned green and we began rolling forward again. Then someone stepping into the road threw a plastic bag of white paint at the car I was in. Whether this was part of Fiona's plan or the action of some demonstrator who'd seen the Volvos – with their DDR registration plates – parked outside the Steigenberger, I never discovered. Neither did I ever find out if Pavel Moskvin had been prepared by stories of danger and possible attempts on his life. But as the bag of white paint hit our car and splashed across the windscreen, the driver hit the brakes. It was then, without any warning, that Pavel Moskvin opened the door and jumped out into the road. I slid across the seat and scrambled out after him as the traffic raced past. A red Merc hooted and almost ran over me; a kid on a motorbike swerved round Moskvin and almost hit me instead.

Moskvin ran for the old U-Bahn station that stands in the middle of the traffic there at Wittenbergplatz. I was a long way behind him. There were cops everywhere. I heard whistles and I noticed that one of the other black Volvos had stopped on the far side of the traffic circus.

Obviously Moskvin didn't know the city well. He ducked into the entrance to the U-Bahn expecting some escape route, but then, realizing he would be trapped, he dashed out again and raced into the fast-moving traffic, jumping between the cars with amazing agility. He ran along the pavement pushing and striking out with his fists to punch people out of his way. He was a violent man whose violence provided a spur for his energy, and, despite his bulk and his middle age, he ran like an athlete. It was a long run. My lungs were bursting and my head spun as I pounded after him.

He turned to see me. He raised an arm. There was a crack and a scream. A woman in front of me doubled up and fell to the ground. I ducked to one side and ran on. Moskvin kept running too. He raced towards Nollendorfplatz. In Kleiststrasse the tracks of the railway emerge from under the roadway and occupy the centre median of the street. He climbed the railings, ran across the tracks, and jumped down the other side. I did the same. I stood on the railings trying to see where he was, thankfully gulping air as my heart pounded with exertion. Bang! There was another shot. I felt the wind of it and jumped down out of sight. Was he, I wondered, heading for the Wall? It wasn't far away; the vast arena of floodlights, barbed wire, mines and machine guns at Potsdamerplatz was close. But how would he try to get across? Were there some secret crossing places which the KGB used and we didn't know about? We'd suspected it for ages but never found one.

I got my second wind and kept pounding after him. He had to go to Nollendorfplatz unless he had a safe house in this street. Then I saw him. And on the other side of the street – the wrong side of the street – one of the VW vans was grinding its way through the oncoming cars. Now there was a blue light flashing on its roof. No siren though. I wondered if Moskvin could see the light. Frank and his BFU detachment were trying to get to the other side of the Platz and cut him off. I saw old Percy Danvers jump out of the white VW bus and start running. But Percy was too old.

Nollendorfplatz was a big traffic intersection, a circus where fast-moving traffic circulates. The centre of the intersection is filled by the ancient iron structure of the station, raised on stilts above the street. The rusty old railway tracks emerge from under Kleiststrasse and slope gently up to it.

I saw Moskvin again. A car flashed its headlights and another one hooted loudly, and then I glimpsed him leaping through the traffic to the middle of the road and the entrance to the station. There were two stations here: the modern underground and the old elevated one it replaced. Had he changed his mind? Was he going to duck down into the U-Bahn, the underground railway, and hope to get aboard a train and leave us behind? A slim hope. But then he raced up the rattling iron steps of the elevated railway station. The bloody fool thought he'd get a train up there. Or perhaps he thought he'd jump down and run along the elevated tracks and cross the Wall the way the elevated trains did from Lehrter Bahnhof to Friedrichstrasse.

I got a clear view of him now. He was halfway up the iron staircase and there was no one in the way. I fired twice. He jumped, but my pistol hand was shaking after the exertions of the chase and I didn't hit him. Across the road Percy Danvers was trying to get ahead of him. Good old Percy. I had to find out what kind of pills he'd been taking.

Then I heard two more shots from the street and I could see the white VW. It bumped as it came riding up onto the pavement. Its doors opened and men jumped out. Frank Harrington was among them, a pistol in his hand. And so was Bret, gung ho and full of fight.

What's Frank doing with a gun? I thought – he doesn't know one end of a gun from the other. Had Frank worried that the Steigenberger meeting might have ended with us all being marched off by the KGB at gunpoint? Frank had always been a bit of a romantic.

I ran into the old elevated station. It was darker in here. I got to the foot of the next staircase and kept close to the wall as I climbed up to the platform. Now there was a volley of shots. They came from across the street. Police perhaps, or people from the other VW bus, but I couldn't see it and I couldn't see any of the three black Volvos either.

Moskvin's feet clattered on the steps. There was a shout as he elbowed someone out of his way. A man carrying a cast-iron bust of the Great Elector fell, the bust hit the stairs with a loud clang, bounced, and broke. I was close behind Moskvin now. At the top of the stairs he stopped, He had realized that the elevated station wasn't a station at all; it had long since been in use as an antique and junk market. This bright yellow train never went anywhere; its doors opened onto little shops and the platform was a line of stalls displaying old clothes, toys, and slightly damaged valuables. The destination boards said berliner flohmarkt.

He turned and fired at random. I could see the consternation on his face. I fired too. Both of us were being jostled by a terrified crowd. There was a thud and a crash of breaking glass and the bullets zinged off into nowhere.

Moskvin was still hoping that the elevated train tracks would provide him with an escape route. He fought his way through the crowds. There was panic now, screams and shouts. A woman fell and was trampled underfoot. Moskvin turned and fired two shots blindly into the crowd to cause maximum crush that would impede his capture. There was blood spurting. Antique furniture was knocked over, a cut-glass light fell to the floor, a case full of old coins tipped up and the contents went everywhere. A bearded man tried to retrieve the coins and was knocked over.

Through the 'trains' of the Flohmarkt I caught a glimpse of the other platform. Frank and his party were there. They were making better progress on that side since they weren't moving in the ferocious and terrible wake of Moskvin. 'Stay back, Bernard!' It was Bret's voice calling from the other platform. 'We'll take him.'

They had marksmen with proper weapons. It made sense to let them move forward rather than my heading into Moskvin's gun sights.

There was the noise of breaking glass and then I saw that Bret was trying to climb up onto the roof of the train. From there he would see the end of the platform, and Moskvin. But Moskvin saw him first. He fired and Bret lost his balance, slid, toppled, and went to his knees before falling to the ground with a loud scream of pain.

I edged forward, more slowly now. Outside in the street below there was a racket of police sirens and some confused shouting. I saw Moskvin again and again, but he was dodging behind the stalls; there was no way of getting a clear shot at him. His hat had fallen off and his close-cropped hair was little more than stubble. He looked older now, a fierce old man whose eyes gleamed with hatred as he turned once and stared directly at me, daring me to step into the open and do battle with him.

When he got to the end of the platform he was alone. The frightened shoppers had scrambled past him and fled down the steps to shout in the street. He saw the tracks that led to the next elevated station. Did he know that one was a market too? Perhaps he no longer cared. As he turned to face me, he saw Frank and the party that had edged their way down the other side. There was a confusion of shooting, the sound echoing like a drum roll in the confined space.

There was only one way Moskvin could go. He climbed onto a bench and pushed aside old Nazi uniforms and some military helmets adorned with eagles. Then he kicked at the dirty windows using the immense strength that comes to those with nothing to lose. The glass and wooden frames smashed into fragments under the kicks from his heavy boots, and he jumped through the shower of broken glass.

He landed down on the train tracks with a force that made his knees bend, and one hand was stretched out to recover his balance. But in an instant he was upright again and running eastwards. His ankle-length black overcoat was flapping out like the wings of some wounded crow and his pistol was held high in the air, proudly, like the flaming torch of an Olympic runner.

'Hold your fire!' It was Frank Harrington's voice. 'He can't get away, the bloody fool.'

But there was the sound of two shots and the black crow stumbled. Yet he had within him the energy and determination of a dozen ordinary men. He ran: one, two, three, four paces. But when he went down again the wings had flapped for the last time. His gun fell from his hand. His face was screwed up into an expression of rage. He clawed desperately at the rails trying to get up again, but, failing, he rolled over and, face upward, bled.

From the station at the other end of the tracks there came the sound of Oriental music. It was the Türkischer Basar, and today it was crowded.

Everyone kept under cover as training rules demand. But I heard someone shout, 'Where's that bloody doctor!' It was an English voice calling from the other platform. 'Mr Rensselaer is hurt bad.'

Then Frank's voice: 'Everyone stay exactly where they are; everyone!' Then he said it again in German.

I kept under cover too, as Frank commanded. It was his show now: Berlin was Frank's town. I was half inside the entrance to one of the little shops. I put my head out enough to see round the sliding door. I could see Moskvin. He hadn't moved. Frank Harrington went out there alone. He was the first person to get to him. I saw him bend over the body for a moment, take his pulse, and then drag an old fur coat right over him. Pavel Moskvin was dead, just as Fiona wanted him. Everything was quiet now except for the Turkish music and Bret's soft cries of pain.