Mexico Set

17

Zena Volkmann could be captivating when she was in the mood to play the gracious hostess. This evening she greeted us wearing tight-fitting grey pants with a matching shirt. And over this severe garb she'd put a loose silk sleeveless jacket that was striped with every colour in the rainbow. Her hair was up and coiled round her head in a style that required a long time at the hairdresser. She had used some eyeshadow and enough make-up to accentuate her cheekbones. She looked very pretty, but not like the average housewife welcoming her husband home for dinner, more like a girlfriend expecting to be taken out to an expensive night-spot. I delivered Werner to the apartment in Berlin-Dahlem ready to forget his invitation. But Zena said she'd prepared a meal for the three of us and insisted earnestly enough to convince me to stay, loudly enough for Werner to be proud of her warm hospitality.

She held his upper arms and kissed him carefully enough to preserve her lipstick and make-up and then straightened his tie and nicked dust from his jacket. Zena knew exactly how to handle him. She was an expert on how to handle men. I think she might even have been able to handle me if she'd put her mind to it but luckily I was not a part of her planned future.

She asked Werner's advice about everything she didn't care about, and she enlisted his aid whenever there was a chance for her to play the helpless woman. He was called to the kitchen to open a tin and to get hot pans from the oven. Werner was the only one who could open a bottle of wine and decant it. Werner was asked to peer at the quiche and sniff at the roast chicken and pronounce it cooked. But since virtually all the food had come prepared by the Paul Bocuse counter of the Ka De We food department, probably the greatest array of food on sale anywhere in the world, Zena's precautions seemed somewhat overwrought. Yet Werner obviously revelled in them.

Had I read all the psychology books that Werner had on his shelf I might have started thinking that Zena was a manifestation of his desire for a daughter, or a reflection of childhood suspicions of his mother's chastity. As it was I just figured that Werner liked the dependent type and Zena was happy to play that role for him. After all, I was pretty sure that Zena hadn't read any of those books either.

But you don't have to read books to get smart, and Zena was as smart as a street urchin climbing under the flap of a circus tent. Certainly Zena could teach me a thing or two, as she did that evening. The apartment itself was an interesting indication of their relationship. Werner, despite his constant declarations of imminent bankruptcy, had always been something of a spender. But before he met Zena this apartment was like a student's pad. It was entirely masculine: an old piano, upon which Werner liked to play 'Smoke Gets in Your Eyes', and big lumpy chairs with broken springs, their ancient floral covers perforated by carelessly held cigarettes. There was even a motheaten tiger's skin which – like so much of Werner's furnishings – had come from the fleamarket in the abandoned S-Bahn station on Tauentzienstrasse. In those days the kitchen was equipped with little more than a can-opener and a frying pan. And glasses outnumbered cups by five to one. Now it was different. It wasn't like a real apartment any more; it was like one of those bare-looking sets that are photographed for glossy magazines. The lights all shone on the ceiling and walls, and the sofa had a scrape draped over it. Green plants, little rugs, cut flowers and a couple of books were strategically positioned, and the chairs were very modern and uncomfortable.

We were sitting round the dining table, finishing the main course of chicken stuffed with truffles and exotic herbs. Zena had told Werner what wonderful wine he'd chosen, and he asked her what she'd been doing while he was away.

Zena said, The only outing worth mentioning is the evening I went to the opera.' She turned to me and said, 'Werner doesn't like opera. Taking Werner to the opera is like trying to teach a bear to dance.'

'You didn't go alone?' asked Werner.

'That's just what I was going to tell you. Erich Stinnes phoned. I didn't tell him you were not here, Werner. I didn't want him to know you were away. I don't like anyone to know you're away.'

'Erich Stinnes?' said Werner.

'He phoned. You know what he's like. He had two tickets for the opera. One for you, Werner, and one for me. I thought it was very nice of him. He said it was in return for all the dinners he'd eaten with us.'

'Not so many,' said Werner glumly.

'He was just being polite, darling. So I said that you would be late back but that I would love to go.'

I looked at Werner and he looked at me. In some other situation, such looks exchanged between two men in some other line of work might have been comment on a wife's fidelity. But Werner and I were thinking other thoughts. The alarm on Werner's face was registering the fear that Stinnes knew Zena was alone because he had had him followed over there in the East Sector of the city. Zena looked from one to the other of us. 'What is it?' she said.

'The opera,' said Werner vaguely, as his mind retraced his movements from Berlin and across the dark countryside to the frontier and tried to remember any persisting headlights on the road behind, a shadow in a doorway, a figure in the street or any one of a thousand slips that even the best of agents is prey to.

'He sent a car,' said Zena. 'I started worrying when it was due to arrive. I thought it might drive up to the front door with a Russian army driver in uniform, or with a hammer-and-sickle flag on the front of it.' She giggled.

'You went to the East?'

'We saw Mozart's Magic Flute, darling. At the Comic Opera. It's a lovely little theatre; have you never been? Lots of people from the West go over for the evening. There were British officers in gorgeous uniforms and lots of women in long dresses. I felt under-dressed if anything. We must go together, Werner. It was lovely.'

'Stinnes is married,' said Werner.

'Don't be such a prude, Werner, I know he's married. We've both heard Erich talking about his failed marriage at length enough to remember that.'

'It was a strange thing for him to do, wasn't it?' Werner said.

'Oh, Werner, darling. How can you say that? You heard me saying how much I liked the opera. And Erich asked you if you liked opera and you said yes you did.

'I probably wasn't listening,' said Werner.

'I know you weren't listening. You almost went to sleep. I had to kick you under the table.'

'You must be very careful with Erich Stinnes,' said Werner. He smiled as if determined not to become angry with her. 'He's not the polite gentleman that he likes to pretend to be. He's KGB, Zena, and all those Chekists are dangerous.'

'I've got apple strudel, and after that I've got chocolates from the Lenotre counter at Ka De We, the ones you like. Praline. Do you want to skip the strudel? What about you, Bernard?'

'I'll have everything,' I said.

'Whipped cream with the strudel? Coffee at the same time?' said Zena.

'You took the words right out of my mouth,' I said.

'Stinnes is playing a dangerous game,' Werner told her. 'No one knows what he's really got in mind. Suppose he held you hostage over there in the East?'

Zena hugged herself, grimaced, and said, 'Promises, promises.'

'It's not funny,' said Werner. 'It could happen.'

'I can handle Erich Stinnes,' said Zena. 'I understand Erich Stinnes better than you men will ever understand him. You should ask a woman to help if you really want to understand a man like that.'

'I understand him all right,' Werner called after her as she disappeared into the kitchen to get the apple strudel and switch on the coffee-machine. To me in a quieter voice he added, 'Perhaps I understand him too bloody well.'

The phone rang. Werner answered it. He grunted into the mouthpiece in a way that was unusual for the amiable Werner. 'Yes, he's here, Frank,' he said.

Frank Harrington. Of the whole population of Berlin I knew of only one that Werner really disliked, and that was the head of the Berlin Field Unit. It did not portend well for Werner's future in the department. For Werner's sake I hoped that Frank retired from the service soon.

I took the phone. 'Hello, Frank. Bernard here.'

'I've tried everywhere, Bernard. Why the hell don't you phone my office when you get into town and give me a contact number.'

'I'm at List's,' I said. 'I'm always at Lisl's.'

'You're not always at Lisl's,' said Frank. He sounded angry. 'You're not at Lisl's now, and you haven't been at bloody Lisl's for the last two nights.'

'I haven't been in Berlin for two nights,' I said. 'You don't want me to phone you every night wherever I am, anywhere in the world, do you? Even my mother doesn't expect that, Frank.'

'Dicky says you left London without even notifying him you were going anywhere.'

'Dicky said that?'

'Yes,' shouted Frank. 'Dicky said that.'

'Dicky's got a terrible memory, Frank. Last year he took one of those mail-order memory courses you see advertised in the newspapers. But it didn't seem to make much difference.'

'I'm not in the mood for your merry quips,' said Frank. 'I want you in my office, tomorrow morning at ten o'clock, without fail.'

'I was going to contact you anyway, Frank.'

'Tomorrow morning, my office, ten o'clock, without fail,' said Frank again. 'And I don't want you drinking all night in Lisl's bar. Understand?'

'Yes, I understand, Frank,' I said. 'Give my best regards to your wife.' I rang off.

Werner looked at me.

'Frank reading the Riot Act,' I explained. 'Don't get drunk in Lisl's bar, he said. It sounds as if he's been talking to that fellow Henry Tiptree.'

'He's spying on you,' said Werner, in a voice of feigned weariness. 'How long is it going to take before you start believing me?'

Zena reappeared with a tray upon which stood my slice of apple strudel, whipped cream, the coffee and a small plate of assorted chocolates. 'Who was on the phone?' she asked.

'Frank Harrington,' said Werner. 'He wanted Bernie.'

She nodded to show she'd heard and she arranged the things from the tray on the table. Then, when she'd finished her little task, she looked up and said, 'They're offering Erich a quarter of a million dollars to defect.'

'What?' said Werner, thunderstruck.

'You heard me, darling. London Central are offering Erich Stinnes a quarter of a million dollars to defect.' She was aware of what a bombshell she'd thrown at us. I had the impression that her main motive in persuading me to stay to dinner was to have me present when she announced this news.

'Ridiculous,' said Werner. 'Do you know anything about that, Bernie?'

Zena gave me no chance to steal her thunder. She said, 'That is a gross sum that would include his car and miscellaneous expenses. But it wouldn't be subject to tax and it wouldn't include the two-bedroom house they'll provide for him. He'll be on his own anyway. He's decided not to ask his wife to go with him. He's not even going to tell her about the offer. He's frightened she'll report him. They don't get along together; they quarrel.'

'A quarter of a million dollars,' said Werner. That's… nearly seven hundred thousand marks. I don't believe it.'

Zena put the strudel in front of me and placed the whipped cream to hand. 'Do you want whipped cream in your coffee, Werner?' She poured a cup of coffee and passed it to her husband. 'Well, it's true, whether you believe it or not. That's what they've offered him.'

'I haven't heard anything about it, Zena,' I said. 'I'm supposed to be handling the whole business but I've heard nothing yet about a big lump sum. If they were going to offer him a quarter of a million dollars I think they'd tell me, don't you?'

It was intended as a rhetorical question but Zena answered it. 'No, my dear Bernard,' she said. 'I'm quite sure they wouldn't tell you.'

'Why not?' I said.

'Use your imagination,' said Zena. 'You're senior staff at London Central, maybe more important than a man such as Stinnes…'

'Much more important,' I said between mouthfuls of strudel.

'Exactly,' said Zena. 'So if Erich is worth a quarter of a million dollars to London Central you'd be worth the same to Moscow.'

It took me a moment or two to understand what she meant. I grinned at the thought of it. 'You mean London Central are frightened in case I discover what I'm worth and then defect to Moscow and price myself at the same fee?'

'Of course,' said Zena. She was twenty-two years old. To her it had the elegant simplicity that the world had for me when I was her age.

'I'd need more than a quarter of a million dollars to soften the prospect of having to spend the rest of my days in Moscow,' I said.

'Don't be evasive,' said Zena. 'Do you really think that Erich will spend the rest of his days in London?'

'You tell me,' I said. I finished my strudel and sipped at my coffee. It was very strong. Zena liked strong black coffee but I floated cream on mine. So did Werner.

Werner rubbed his face and took his coffee over to the armchair to sit down. He looked very tired. 'You can see what Zena means, Bernie.' He looked from me to Zena and back again, hoping to find a way of keeping the peace.

'No,' I said.

'Extending this idea just for the sake of argument,' he said apologetically, 'Moscow would simply want to debrief you in depth. What are we talking about: six months? Twelve months at the outside.'

'And after that?' I said. 'Continuing to extend this for the sake of argument, what would happen to me after that?'

'A new identity. Now that the KGB have that new forgery factory near the airport at Schönefeld they can provide papers that pass damned near any sort of scrutiny. German workmanship, you see.' He smiled a tiny smile; just enough to make it all a bit of a joke.

'German workmanship,' I said. The Russians had been at it since 1945. They'd gathered together the scattered remnants of SS unit Amt VI F, which from Berlin's Delbruckstrasse – and using the nearby Spechthausen bei Eberswalde paper factory, and forgers housed in the equally nearby Oranienburg concentration camp – had supervised the manufacture of superb forgeries of everything from Swedish passports to British five-pound notes. 'Perfect papers and a new identity. Plus an unlimited amount of forged paper money. That would be lovely, Werner.'

Werner looked up from under his heavy eyelids and said, 'Defectors to Moscow wind up in weird places, Bernie. You and I both know certain residents of Cape Town, Rome and… where was that last one: some place in Bolivia?… who have changed their names and occupations suddenly and successfully since the last time we saw them.'

'For a quarter of a million dollars?' I said. 'And spend the rest of your life in Cape Town, Rome or Bolivia?'

'Zena didn't mean that you'd do that for a quarter of a million dollars, Bernie.'

'Didn't she? What did you mean, Zena?' I said.

Zena said, 'No need to get touchy. You heard what I said, and you know it's true. I said that London Central were afraid of what you might do. I didn't say that I felt the same way. London Central trust no one. They don't trust Werner, they don't trust you, they don't trust me.'

'Trust you how?' I said.

Zena touched her necklace and smoothed the collar of her silk jacket, preening herself while looking away across the room as if half occupied with other, more important matters. 'They don't trust me to be their contact for Stinnes. I asked Dicky Cruyer. He ignored the question. Earlier this evening I put the same idea to you. You changed the subject.'

'Do you know for certain that Erich Stinnes has only the one child?' I said.

'Not a child exactly,' said Zena. 'He has just the one son who is eighteen years old. Perhaps nineteen by now. He failed to get into Berlin University last year in spite of having very high marks. They have a system over there that gives priority to the children of manual workers. Erich was furious.'

I got up from the table and went to look out of the window. It was dusk. Werner's apartment in the fashionable Berlin suburb of Dahlem looked out on to other expensive apartment blocks. But between them could be seen the dark treetops of the Grunewald, parkland that stretched some six kilometres to the wide water of the Havel. On a sunny day – with the windows open wide – the sweet warm air would endorse every claim made for that famous Berliner Luft. But now it was almost dark and the rain was spattering against the glass.

Zena's provocative remarks made me jumpy. Why had London not told me what they'd offered to Stinnes. I wasn't just the 'file officer' on a run-of-the-mill operation. This was an enrolment – the trickiest game in the book. The usual procedure was to keep 'the enroller' informed about everything that happened. I wondered if Dicky knew about the quarter of a million dollars. It took no more than a moment to decide that Dicky must know; as German Stations Controller he'd have to sign the chits for the payment. The quarter of a million dollars would have to be debited against his departmental outgoings, until the cashier adjusted the figures by means of a payment from central funding.

Street gutters overflowing with rain-water reflected the street lamps and made a line of moons that were continually shattered by passing traffic. Any one of the parked cars might have contained a surveillance team. Any of the windows of the apartment block across the street might have concealed cameras with long-focal-length lenses, and microphones with parabolic reflectors. At what point does sensible caution become clinical paranoia. At what point does a trusted employee become 'a considered risk', and then finally a 'non-critical employment only' category. I closed the curtains and turned round to face Zena. 'How furious?' I said. 'Is Stinnes furious enough to send his son to university in the West?'

'It's nothing to do with me,' said Zena. 'Ask him for yourself.'

'We need all the help we can get,' Werner told her gently.

'The son has gone to live with Stinnes's first wife. He's gone to live in Russia.'

'You're way ahead of us there, Zena,' I admitted. 'There was nothing about a first wife on the computer.'

She showed obvious pleasure at this. 'He's had only one child. The first wife was Russian. The marriage was dissolved a long time ago. For the last year or so the son has been living with Stinnes and his second wife. He wanted to learn German. Now he's gone back to live with his mother in Moscow. She has a relative who thinks he can get the boy a place at Moscow University, so the boy rushed off to Moscow immediately. He's obviously frantic to go to university.'

'If you were him you'd be frantic too,' I said. 'Secondary-school graduates who fail to get a place in a university are sent to do manual or clerical work in any farm or factory where workers are needed. Furthermore he'd become liable for military service; but university students are exempted.'

'The mother has contacts in Moscow. She'll get her son a place.'

'Is Stinnes attached to the boy?' I said. I was amazed at how much she'd been able to wheedle out of the taciturn Erich Stinnes. 'They quarrel a lot,' said Zena. 'He is at the age when sons quarrel with their fathers. It is nature's way of making the fledglings fly from the nest.'

'So you think Stinnes will come?' said Werner. His attitude to the Stinnes enrolment was still ambivalent.

'I don't know,' said Zena. I could see she resented the way in which Werner had pressed her to reveal these things about Stinnes. She felt perhaps that it was all information that London Central should pay for. 'He's still thinking about it. But if he doesn't come it won't be because of his wife or his son.'

'What will be the deciding factor, then?' I said. I picked up the coffee-pot. 'Anyone else for more coffee?'

Werner shook his head. Zena pushed her cup towards me but my casual attitude didn't make her any happier about providing me with free information. 'He's forty years old,' said Zena. 'Isn't that the age when men are supposed to suffer some mid-term life crisis?'

'Is it?' I said.

'Isn't it the age at which men ask themselves what they have achieved, and wonder if they chose the right job?' said Zena.

'And the right wife? And the right son?' I said.

Zena gave a sour smile of assent.

'And don't women have the same sort of mid-term life crisis?' asked Werner.

'They have it at twenty-nine,' said Zena and smiled.

'I think he'll do it,' said Werner. 'I've been telling Bernie that. I've changed my mind about him. I think he'll come over to us.' Werner still didn't sound too happy at the prospect.

'You should offer him a proper job,' said Zena. 'For a man like Stinnes a quarter-million-dollar retirement plan is not much better than offering him a burial plot. You should make him feel he's coming over to do something important. You must make him feel needed.'

'Yes,' I said. Such psychology had obviously worked well for her with Werner. And I remembered the way in which my wife had been enrolled with the promise of colonel's rank and a real job behind a desk with people like Stinnes to do her bidding. 'But what could we offer him? He's not spent the last ten years as a capitalist mole. If he comes to the West it will be because he is apolitical. He likes being a policeman.'

'Policeman?' said Zena with a hoot of derision. 'Is that what you all call yourselves? You think you're just a lot of fat old cops helping old ladies across the road and telling the tourists how to get back to the bus station.'

'That will do,' said Werner in one of his rare admonitions.

'You're all the same,' said Zena. 'You, Bernie, Stinnes, Frank Harrington, Dicky Cruyer… all the ones I've ever met. All little boys playing cowboys.'

'I said cut it out,' said Werner. I suspected he was angry more because I was present to witness her outburst than because she hadn't said it all before many times.

'Bang, bang,' said Zena, playing cowboys.

'A quarter of a million dollars,' said Werner. 'London must want him awfully badly.'

'I found something in Stinnes's car,' said Zena.

'What did you find?' said Werner.

'I'll show you,' said Zena. She went across to the glass-fronted cabinet in which Werner used to keep his scale model of the Dornier Do X flying boat. Now, like all his aircraft models, it was relegated to the storeroom in the basement, and Zena had a display of china animals there. From behind them she got a large brown envelope. 'Take a look at that,' she said, pulling some typed sheets from the envelope and sliding them across the table. I took one and passed another to Werner, who was sitting on the sofa.

There were five sheets of grey pulp paper. Both sides were covered with single-spaced typing. The copies were produced on a stencil duplicator of a type seldom seen nowadays in Western countries but still commonly used in the East. I studied the sheets under the light, for some of the lettering was broken and on the grey paper I found it difficult to read, but such Russian security documents were predictable enough for me to guess at the parts I could not read or couldn't understand.

'What is it about?' said Zena. 'I can't read Russian. Does that mean secret?'

'Where exactly did you get this?' I asked her.

'From Stinnes's car. I was sitting in the back and so I felt inside all those pockets those old-fashioned cars have. I found old pencils and some hairpins and these papers.'

'And you took it?'

Werner looked up expectantly.

'I put it in my handbag. No one saw me, if that's what's worrying you. Does that mean secret?' she asked again. She pointed to a large, red-inked, rubber-stamp mark that had been applied to the copies.

'Yes, secret,' I said. 'But there is nothing here that makes it worth phoning the White House and getting the President out of bed.'

'What is it?'

'The top heading says "Group of Soviet Forces in Germany", which is the official name for all the Russian army units there, and the reference number. The second line is the title of the document: 'Supplementary Instructions Concerning Counter-intelligence Duties of State Security Organs'. Then there comes this long preamble which is standard for this sort of document. It says, "The Communist Party of the Soviet Union traces the Soviet people's way in the struggle for the victory of communism. The Party guides and directs the forces of the nation and the organs of state security. " '

'What's it about?' said Zena impatiently.

'It's half-way down the page before it gets down to business. These numbered paragraphs are headed 'Instructions for KGB unit commanders in their relationship with commanders of army units to which they are attached'. It says be firm and polite and cooperate… that sort of crap that all government clerks everywhere churn out by the ream. Then the next lot of paragraphs is headed "Duties of Special Departments" and it instructs KGB officers about likely means that imperialist intelligence forces are currently using to obtain Russian secrets.'

'What sort of methods?' said Zena.

'Two of the paragraphs give details of people discovered spying. One was in a factory and the other near a missile site. Neither example is what would normally be called espionage. One is a man who seems to have run into a forbidden zone after his dog, and the other case is a man taking photos without a permit.'

'You're trying to say that this paper I've brought you is just rubbish. I don't believe you.'

'Then ask Werner. Your husband knows more Russian than I do.'

'Bernie has translated it perfectly,' said Werner.

'So you think it's rubbish too,' said Zena. Her disappointment had made her angry.

Werner looked at me, wondering how much he was permitted to say. Knowing that he'd tell her anyway, I said, 'This is a regular publication; it is published every month. Copies go to the commanders of certain KGB units throughout the German Democratic Republic. You see that number at the top; this is number fifteen of what is probably a total of not more than one hundred. It's secret. London like to have copies of them if they can get them. I doubt if we've got a complete collection of them on our files, although perhaps the CIA have. The Americans like to have everything complete – the complete works of Shakespeare, a complete dinner service of Meissen, a complete set of lenses for the Olympus camera, and garages crammed with copies of the National Geographic going back for twenty-five years.'

'And?' said Zena.

I shrugged. 'It's secret, but it's not interesting.'

'To you. It's not interesting to you, that's what you mean.'

'It's not interesting to anyone except archive librarians.'

I watched Werner getting out of the sofa. It was a very low sofa and getting out of it was no easy thing to do, I noticed that Zena never sat in it; she kneeled on it so that she could swing her legs down to the floor and get to her feet with comparative ease.

'I found it in the car,' said Zena. 'I guessed the stamp meant secret.'

'You should have left it where it was,' said Werner. 'Think what might have happened if they'd searched the car as you went through the crossing point.'

'Nothing would have happened,' said Zena. 'It wasn't my car. It was an official car, wasn't it?'

'They're not interested in such subtle distinctions over there,' said Werner. 'If the border guards had found that document in the car they would have arrested you and the driver.'

'You worry too much,' said Zena.

Werner tossed the document pages on to the table. 'It was a mad thing to do, Zena. Leave that sort of risk to the people who get paid for it.'

'People like you and Bernie, you mean?'

'Bernie would never carry a paper like that through a checkpoint,' said Werner. 'Neither would I. Neither would anyone who knew what the consequences might be.'

She had been expecting unstinting praise. Now, like a small child, she bit her red lips and sulked.

I said, 'Even if the Vopos had done nothing to you, do you realize what would happen to Stinnes if they knew he'd been careless enough to leave papers in his car when it came into West Berlin? Even a KGB officer couldn't talk his way out of that one.'

She looked at me evenly. There was no expression on her face, but I had the feeling that her reply was calculated. 'I wouldn't cry for him,' she said.

Was this callous rejection of Stinnes just something she said to please Werner, I wondered. I watched Werner's reaction. But he smiled sadly. 'Do you want this stuff, Bernie?' he asked, picking up the papers.

'I don't want it,' I said. It was an understatement. I didn't want to hear about Zena's crazy capers. She didn't understand what kind of dangers she was playing with, and she didn't want to know.

It was only when Werner had gone into his study that Zena realized what he intended. But by that time we could hear the whine of the shredder as Werner destroyed the pages.

'Why?' said Zena angrily. 'Those papers were valuable. They were mine.'

'The papers weren't yours,' I said. 'You stole them.'

Werner returned and said, 'It's better that they disappear. Whatever we did with them could lead to trouble for someone. If Stinnes suspects you've taken them he'll think we put you up to it. It might be enough to make him back out of the deal.'

'We could have sold them to London,' said Zena.

'London wouldn't be keen to have papers that were so casually come by,' I explained. 'They'd wonder if they were genuine, or planted to fool them. Then they'd start asking questions about you and Stinnes and so on. We don't want a lot of London desk men prying into what we're doing. It's difficult enough to do the job as it is.'

'We could have sold them to Frank Harrington,' said Zena. Her voice had lost some of its assertion now.

'I'm trying to keep Frank Harrington at arm's length,' I said. 'If Stinnes is serious we'll do the enrolment from Mexico. If we do it from here, Frank will want to mastermind it.'

'Frank's too idle,' said Zena.

'Not for this one,' I said. 'I think Frank has already begun to see the extent of London's interest. I think Frank will want to get into the act. This would be a feather in his cap – something good for him to retire on.'

'And Mexico City is a long way from London,' said Werner. 'Less chance of having London Central breathing down your neck if you are in Mexico. I know how your mind works, Bernie.'

I smiled but said nothing. He was right, I wanted to keep London Central as far away as possible. I still felt like a mouse in a maze; every turn brought me to another blank wall. It was difficult enough to deal with the KGB but now I was fighting London Central too and Fiona was thrown into the puzzle to make things even more bewildering. And what was going to be waiting at the end of the maze – a nasty trap like the one that I'd sent MacKenzie to walk into?

'I still say we should have sold the papers to Frank,' said Zena.

Werner said, 'It might have proved dangerous. And the truth is, Zena darling, that we can't be absolutely sure that Stinnes didn't leave it there for you to find. If it all turned out that way, I wouldn't want you to be the person who took them to Frank.'

She smiled. She didn't believe that Stinnes had left the papers in the car to trick her. Zena had difficulty in believing that any man could trick her. Perhaps her time with Werner had lulled her into a false sense of security.