Mexico Set

6

'If Zena ever left me, I don't know what I'd do,' said Werner. 'I think I'd die, I really would.' He fanned away a fly using his straw hat.

This was Werner in his lugubrious mood. I nodded, but I felt like reminding him that Zena had left him several times in the past, and he was still alive. He'd even survived the very recent time when she'd set up house with Frank Harrington – a married man more than old enough to be her father – and had looked all set to make it permanent. Only Zena was never going to make anything permanent, except perhaps eventually make Werner permanently unhappy.

'But Zena is very ambitious,' said Werner. 'I think you realize that, don't you, Bernie?'

'She's very young, Werner.'

'Too young for me, you mean?'

I worded my answer carefully. 'Too young to know what the real world is like, Werner.'

'Yes, poor Zena.'

'Yes, poor Zena,' I said. Werner looked at me to see if I was being sarcastic. I smiled.

'This is a beautiful hotel,' said Werner. We were sitting on the balcony having breakfast. It was still early in the morning, and the air was cool. The town was behind us, and we were looking across gently rolling green hills that disappeared into gauzy curtains of morning mist. It could have been England; except for the sound of the insects, the heavy scent of the tropical flowers, and the vultures that endlessly circled high in the clear blue sky.

'Dicky found it,' I said.

Zena had let Werner off his lead for the day, and he'd come to Cuernavaca – a short drive from Mexico City – to tell me about his encounter with Stinnes at the Kronprinz Club. Dicky had decided to 'make our headquarters' in this sprawling resort town where so many Americans came to spend their old age and their cheap pesos. 'Where's Dicky now?' said Werner.

'He's at a meeting,' I said.

Werner nodded. 'You're smart to stay here in Cuernavaca. This side of the mountains it's always cooler and you don't have to breathe that smog all day and all night.'

'On the other hand,' I said, 'I do have Dicky next door.'

'Dicky's all right,' said Werner. 'But you make him nervous.'

'I make him nervous?' I said incredulously.

'It must be difficult for him,' said Werner. 'You know the German Desk better than he'll ever know it.'

'But he got it,' I said.

'So did you expect him to turn a job like that down?' said Werner. 'You should give him a break, Bernie.'

'Dicky does all right,' I said. 'He doesn't need any help. Not from you, not from me. Dicky is having a lovely time.'

Dicky had lined up meetings with a retired American CIA executive named Miller and an Englishman who claimed to have great influence with the Mexican security service. In fact, of course, Dicky was just trying out some of the best local restaurants at the taxpayer's expense, while extending his wide circle of friends and acquaintances. Dicky had once shown me his card-index files of contacts throughout the world. It was quite unofficial, of course; Dicky kept them in his desk at home. He noted the names of their wives and their children and what restaurants they preferred and what sort of house they lived in. On the other side of each card Dicky wrote a short resume of what he estimated to be their wealth, power and influence. He joked about his file cards; 'he'll be a lovely card for me,' he'd say, when someone influential crossed his path. Sometimes I wondered if there was a card there with my name on it and, if so, what he'd written on it.

Dicky was a keen traveller, and his choice of bars, restaurants and hotels was the result of intensive research through guidebooks and travel magazines. The Hacienda Margarita, an old ranchhouse on the outskirts of town, was proof of the benefits that could come from such dedicated research. It was a charming old hotel, its cool stone colonnades surrounding a courtyard with palmettos and pepper trees and tall palms. The high-ceilinged bedrooms were lined with wonderful old tiles, and there were big windows and cool balconies, for this place was built long before air-conditioning was ever contemplated, built at the time of the conquistadores if you could bring yourself to believe the plaque over the cashier's desk.

Meanwhile I was enjoying the sort of breakfast that Dicky insisted was the only healthy way to start the day. There was a jug of freshly pressed orange juice, a vacuum flask of hot coffee, canned milk – Dicky didn't trust Mexican milk – freshly baked rolls and a pot of local honey. The tray was decorated with an orchid and held a copy of The News, the local English-language newspaper. Werner drank orange juice and coffee but declined the rolls and honey. 'I promised Zena that I'd lose weight.'

'Then I'll have yours,' I said.

'You're overweight too,' said Werner.

'But I didn't make any promises to Zena,' I said, digging into the honey.

'He was there last night,' said Werner.

'Did he go for it, Werner? Did Stinnes go for it?'

'How can you tell with a man like Stinnes?' said Werner. 'I told him that I'd met a man here in Mexico whom I'd known in Berlin. I said he had provided East German refugees with all the necessary papers to go and live in England. Stinnes said did I mean genuine papers or false papers. I said genuine papers, passports and identity papers, and permission to reside in London or one of the big towns.'

'The British don't have any sort of identity papers,' I said. 'And they don't have to get anyone's permission to go and live in any town they like.'

'Well, I don't know things like that,' said Werner huffily. 'I've never lived in England, have I? If the English don't need papers, what the hell are we offering him?'

'Never mind all that, Werner. What did Stinnes say?'

'He said that refugees were never happy. He'd known a lot of exiles and they'd always regretted leaving their homeland. He said they never properly mastered the language, and never integrated with the local people. Worst of all, he said, their children grew up in the new country and treated their parents like strangers. He was playing for time, of course.'

'Has he got children?'

'A grown-up son.'

'He knew what you were getting at?'

'Perhaps he wasn't sure at first, but I persisted and Zena helped. I know she said she wouldn't help, Bernie, but she did help.'

'What did she do?'

'She told him that a little money solves all kinds of problems. Zena said that friends of hers had gone to live in England and loved every minute of it. She told him that everyone likes living in England. These friends of hers had a big house in Hampshire with a huge garden. And they had a language teacher to help them with their English. She told him that these were all problems that could be solved if there was help and money available.'

'He must have been getting the message by that time,' I said.

'Yes, he became cautious,' said Werner. 'I suppose he was frightened in case I was trying to make a fool of him.'

'And?'

'I had to make it a little more specific. I said that this friend of mine could always arrange a job in England for anyone with experience of security work. He'd just come down here for a couple of weeks' holiday in Mexico after travelling through the US, recruiting security experts for a very big British corporation, a company that did work for the British government. The pay is very good, I told him, with a long contract optional both sides.'

'I wish you really did have a friend like that, Werner,' I said. 'I'd want to meet him myself. How did Stinnes react?'

'What's he going to say, Bernie? I mean, what would you or I say, in his place, faced with the same proposition?'

'He said maybe?'

'He said yes… or as near as he dared go to yes. But he's frightened it's a trap. Anyone would be frightened of its being a trap. He said he wanted more details, and a chance to think about it. He'd have to meet the man doing the recruiting. I said I was just a go-between of course…'

'And he believed you are just the go-between?'

'I suppose so,' said Werner. He picked up the orchid and examined it as if seeing one for the first time. 'You can't grow orchids in Mexico City, but here in Cuernavaca they flourish. No one knows why. Maybe it's the smog.'

'Don't just suppose so, Werner.' He made me angry when he avoided important questions by changing the subject of conversation. 'I wasn't kidding last night… what I said to Zena. I wasn't kidding about them getting rough.'

'He believed me,' said Werner in a tone that indicated that he was just trying to calm me down.

'Stinnes is no amateur,' I said. 'He's the one they assigned to me when I was arrested over there. He had me taken to the Normannenstrasse building and sat with me half the night, discussing the more subtle aspects of Sherlock Holmes and laughing and smoking and making it clear that if he was in charge of things they'd be kicking shit out of me.'

'We've both seen a lot of KGB specimens like Erich Stinnes,' said Werner. 'He's affable enough over a stein of beer but in other circumstances he could be a nasty piece of work. And not to be trusted, Bernie. I kept my distance from him. I'm no hero, you know that.'

'Was there anyone with him?'

'An older man – fifty or so – built like a tank, cropped hair, can't seem to speak any language without a strong Russian accent.'

'Sounds like the one who went with him to the Biedermann house. Pavel, he called him. I told you what they said, didn't I?'

'I guessed it was him. Luckily Pavel isn't really fluent in German, especially when Stinnes and I got going. Stinnes got rid of him as soon as he realized the drift my conversation was taking. I thought that might have been a good sign.'

'I can use all the good signs we can get, Werner.' I drank some coffee. 'It's all right telling him about language lessons in Hampshire, but he knows the real score would be him sitting in some lousy little safe house blowing KGB networks. And drinking half a bottle of Scotch every night in an effort to forget what damage he's doing to his own people, and that he's going to have to start doing it all over again next morning. Hey, don't look so worried, Werner.'

He looked at me, biting his lip. 'He knows you're here, Bernie, I'm sure he does.' There was a note of anxiety now. 'He asked if I knew an Englishman who was a friend of Paul Biedermann. I said Paul knew lots of Englishmen. He said yes, but this one knew all the Biedermann family and had done for years.'

'That description fits lots of people,' I said.

'But it doesn't fit anyone else who's in Mexico City,' said Werner. 'I think Stinnes knows you're here. And if he knows you're here, that's bad.'

'Why is it bad?' I said, although I knew what he was going to say. I'd known Werner so long that our minds ran on the same tracks.

'Because it sounds like he got it from Paul Biedermann.'

'Maybe,' I said.

'If Stinnes was worried about Biedermann, the way he sounded worried from that conversation you overheard, then he's likely to put him through the wringer. You know, and I know, that Biedermann couldn't take much punishment before he started to recount everything he knows, plus a few things he only guesses at.'

'So what could Biedermann tell them? That I sell secondhand Ferraris that keep breaking down?'

'You're smiling. But Biedermann could tell them quite a lot. He could tell them about you working for the SIS. He could tell them about Frank Harrington in Berlin and the people Frank sees.'

'Don't be ridiculous, Werner. The KGB know all about Frank Harrington. He's been "Berlin Resident" for a long time, and he was no stranger to Berlin before he took the job. As for knowing who I work for, we were discussing rates of pay that night Stinnes had me in Normannenstrasse.'

'I think he wants to talk to you, Bernie. He did everything except spell out your name.'

'Eventually he'll have to see me. And he'll recognize me. Then he'll telex Moscow and have them send a computer print-out of whatever they know about me. That's the way it is, Werner. There's nothing we can do about that.'

'I don't like it, Bernie.'

'So what am I going to do – glue on a false beard and put a stone in my shoe to make me limp?'

'Let Dicky do it.'

'Dicky? Are you joking? Dicky enrol Stinnes? Stinnes would run a mile.'

'He'll probably run a mile when you try,' said Werner. 'But Dicky has no record of work as a field agent. It's very unlikely that they'd do anything really nasty to Dicky.'

*Well, that's another reason,' I said.

'It's not something to joke about, Bernie. I know you were painting a rosy picture for Zena yesterday. And I appreciate you trying to set her mind at rest. But we both know that the best way to prevent an enrolment is to kill the enroller… and we both know that Moscow shares that feeling.'

'Did you fix a time and place?'

'I still don't like it, Bernie.'

'What can happen? I tell him how lovely it is living in Hampshire. And he tells me to get stuffed.'

Music started from the big patio below our balcony. Some of the hotel staff were erecting a stage, arranging folding chairs and decorating the columns with coloured lanterns in preparation for the concert I'd seen advertised in the lobby. Sitting under the tall, spiky palmetto trees on the far side of the patio were six men and a flashy-looking girl. One of the men was strumming a guitar and tuning it. The girl was smiling and humming the tune, but the other men sat very still and completely impassive, as the natives of very hot countries learn to do.

Werner followed the direction of my gaze and leaned over to see what was happening. The man strumming the guitar picked out a melody everyone in Mexico knows, and quietly sang:

Life is worth nothing, life is worth nothing,

It always starts with crying and with crying ends.

And that's why, in this world, life is worth nothing.

Werner said, 'Stinnes says he's frightened of this man Pavel. He says Pavel is desperate to get back to Moscow and that his only way of doing that is to get back into favour. Stinnes is frightened that Pavel will make trouble at the first opportunity.'

'It sounds like a cosy chat, Werner. He said he's frightened?' Stinnes was not the type who was easily frightened, and certainly not the type to say so.

'Not like I'm telling you,' said Werner. 'It was all wrapped up in euphemisms and double-meanings but the meaning was clear.'

'What is the end result?'

'He wants to talk to you but it's got to be somewhere completely safe. Somewhere that can't be bugged or have witnesses hidden.'

'For instance?'

'Biedermann's boat. He'll meet my contact on Biedermann's boat, he says.'

'That sounds sensible,' I said. 'You did well, Werner.'

'Sensible for him, but not so sensible for you.'

'Why?'

'Are you crazy? He's sure to have Biedermann with him. They'll cruise out into the Pacific and dump you over the side. They'll say you had cramp while swimming. The local cops are sure to be in Biedermann's pocket, and so is the local doctor who'll issue a death certificate, if that's the way they decide to play it.'

'You've got my demise all worked out, haven't you, Werner?'

'If you're too stupid to see the danger for yourself, then it's as well I spell it out for you.'

'I don't see them going to all that trouble to do something that can be more easily achieved by a hit-and-run traffic accident as I hurry across the Reforma one morning.'

'Of course, I don't know what kind of back-up you'll be arranging. For all I know you'll have a Royal Navy frigate out there, with a chopper keeping you on radar. I realize you don't tell me everything.'

There were times when Werner could drive me to the point of frenzy. 'You know as well as I do that I tell you all you need to know. And if I'm going out to meet Stinnes on this bloody boat I won't even be carrying my Swiss army knife… Royal Navy frigate… Good God, Werner, the ideas you come up with.' Below us the guitar player sang:

… Only the winner is respected.

That's why life is worth nothing in Guanajuato…

'Do whatever you want,' said Werner mournfully. 'I know you won't take my advice. You never have in the past.'

I seem to have spent half my life listening to Werner handing out advice. And engraved on my memory there was a long list of times when I heartily regretted taking it. But I didn't tell him this. I said, 'I'll be all right, Werner.'

'You think you're all right,' said Werner. 'You think you're all right because your wife defected to the Russians. But that doesn't make you any safer, Bernie.'

I didn't understand what he was getting at. 'Make me safer? What do you mean?'

'I never got along with Fiona, I'll admit that any time. But it was more because of her attitude than because of mine. When you married her I was ready to be friends. You know that, Bernie.'

'What are you trying to say, Werner?'

'Fiona works for the KGB nowadays. Well, I'm not saying she's going to send a KGB hit team after the father of her children. But don't imagine you will enjoy complete immunity for ever and ever. That's not the way the KGB work, you know that, Bernie.'

'Isn't it?'

'You're on different sides now, you and Fiona. She's working against you, Bernie. Remember that always. She'll always be working against you.'

'You're not saying that Fiona sent Stinnes to Mexico in the hope that you might come here on holiday? Instead of going to Spain, for which you'd already booked tickets when you read in Time magazine about Mexico being even cheaper. That she did that because she hoped you would spot Stinnes and report it to London Central. Then she figured that they would send me here with an offer to enrol him. I mean that would be a lot of "ifs", wouldn't it? She'd have to be a magician to work that one out in advance, wouldn't she?'

'You like to make me sound ridiculous,' said Werner. 'It makes you feel good, doesn't it?'

'Yes, it does. And since you like to feel sorry for yourself we have the perfect symbiotic relationship.' It was getting warmer in the morning sunshine, and the sweet scents of the flowers hung in the air. And yet these were not the light, fresh smells of Europe's countryside. The flowers were big and brightly coloured; the sort of blooms that eat insects in slow motion in nature films on TV. And the heavy cloying perfumes smelled like an airport duty-free shop.

'I'm simply saying what's obvious. That you mustn't think that you'll continue to have a charmed life just because Fiona is working for them.'

'Continue to have? What do you mean?'

Werner leaned forward. 'Fiona made sure nothing happened to you during all those years when she was an active agent inside London Central. That's what you said yourself. It's no good denying it; you told me that, Bernard. You told me just after they let you go.'

'I said maybe she had a deal like that.'

'But she's not going to be doing that any more. She's running Stinnes – and whatever he's doing with Biedermann – from a desk in East Berlin. Moscow is going to be watching every move she makes, and she's got to show them that she's on their side. Even if she wanted to protect you she'd not be allowed to. If you go out on Paul Biedermann's boat with the idea that nothing can happen to you, because the KGB will play it the way Fiona wants, you might not come back.'

'Well, perhaps this would be a good chance to find out what the score is,' I said. 'I'll go out on the boat with Stinnes and see what happens.'

'Well, don't say you weren't told,' said Werner.

I didn't want to argue, especially not with Werner. He was worried for my safety, even if he was clucking like a mother hen. But I was nervous about what Stinnes could have in store for me. And Werner, voicing my fears, was making me twitchy. My argument with Werner was an attempt to allay my own fears but the more we argued the less convincing I sounded. 'Put yourself in his place, Werner,' I said. 'Stinnes is doing exactly what you or I would do. He is reserving his position, asking for more information, and playing it very safe. He doesn't care whether we will find it easy or convenient to rendezvous on Biedermann's boat. If we don't overcome our reservations, our fears and our difficulties he'll know we're not serious.'

Werner pushed his lower lip forward as if in thought. And then, to consolidate this reflective pose, he pinched his nose between thumb and forefinger while closing his eyes. It was a more elaborate version of the faces he'd pulled at school when trying to remember theorems. 'I'll go with you,' he said. It was a noble concession; Werner hated boats of any shape or size.

'Would Stinnes permit that?'

'I'll just turn up there. We'll say you had trouble with the traffic cops. We'll say they wanted a notarized affidavit from the legal owner of the car you're using. That's the law here. We'll say you couldn't get one, so I had to drive you in my car.'

'Will he believe that?' I said.

'He'll think the cops were trying to wring a big bribe from you -it's common for cops to stop cars with foreigners in and demand a bribe from the driver – and he'll think you were too dumb to understand what they really wanted.'

'When is this meeting to be?'

'Tomorrow. Okay?'

'Fine.'

'Very early.'

'I said okay, Werner.'

'Because I have to phone him and confirm.'

'Codes or anything?'

'No, he just wants me to phone and say if my friend will be able to go on the fishing trip.'

'Good. A lot of mumbo-jumbo with codes would have made me uneasy. It's the way the Moscow desk men would want it done.'

Werner nodded. The guitar player was still singing the catchy melody:

… Christ on your hill, on the mountain ridge of Cubilete, Console those who suffer, you're worshipped by the people, Christ on your hill, on the mountain ridge of Cubilete.

'It's a popular song,' said Werner. 'Did you know that the Cubilete is a mountain ridge shaped like a dice-cup? But why is life worth nothing?'

'It means life is cheap,' I said. The song is about the way that people are killed for nothing in this part of the world.'

'By the way,' said Werner, 'if you could let us have the return air fares you mentioned, I'd appreciate it.'

'Sure,' I said. 'I can do that on my own authority. Two first-class air tickets Berlin to Mexico City and return. I'll give you a voucher that any big airline will cash.'

'It would be useful,' said Werner. 'The peso is cheap but we get through a lot of money one way and the other.'