Quiller Solitaire

Chapter 15: VOLVO

Klaus went across to the door and pulled it open – 'Schwartz!'

There were guards, then, within call.

It would be difficult, difficult in the extreme, for me to leave this house during the night, if I wanted to. At the moment I didn't want to.

Klaus came back into the room, energy almost shaking him: he looked caged. But it wasn't that: I think I'd moved in on Nemesis at a time when their operation was ready to run, and had given it a sudden unexpected boost – the promise of nuclear augmentation. And Klaus was getting impatient now, wanted to press the button, see it all happen. Certain things about him seemed familiar to me, rang bells.

The man in the doorway fetched up short as if he'd run here.

'Herr Klaus?

'Schwartz, I want a secure telephone line. How long will it take you?

'Ten minutes.'

'When you've got it, call me with the number, then bring the car here.'

The man's heels came together and he ducked his crew-cut head as he swung the door shut.

'Will you drink?' Klaus asked me.

'Don't let me stop you.'

He went to the bureau and poured some schnapps, tilting the glass towards me. 'Your health.'

'Thank you. I ought to tell you, Klaus, that if you're going to drop the warhead from a plane, you can't do it from less than five thousand feet without catching the flak.'

'No problem.'

'As long as you know.' I hadn't got any idea what the actual safety distance was; I was trying to find out if he meant to drop the nuke on something from the air instead of bringing a plane down with it. 'I imagine you also know that it's not something you can put aboard a commercial aircraft in the normal way. It's bigger than a bit of Semtex.'

'What gives you the idea that I'd want to do such a thing?

I shrugged. 'ltd be trendy.'

He gave a short laugh. 'I don't follow trends, Herr Mittag.'

I got out of the wing chair and wandered about, took a look at the bar. 'In terms of weight,' I said, 'we're talking about forty-two kilos.' I found some Schweppes and poured some. 'Cheers.'

'You told me you wouldn't drink.'

'It was discourteous of me not to join you. It's fairly rugged, but the detonator's rather fragile, have to watch bumps if you're going to take it overland across rough terrain.'

'No problem.'

And not much headway. It looked as if the plans he'd already got on the board would accommodate a Miniver warhead without any changes. I suppose that was partly why he'd begun lusting after it: the project wouldn't be held up.

I gave him a few more statistics and he wanted to know about critical temperatures, contamination zones, half-life figures. It was all in the faxed specifications I'd got from London. He hadn't asked me to get on the phone yet, because he wanted a secure line. He was efficient, Klaus, had been well-trained, and the way he was talking, the way he'd handled me so far, had that familiar ring to it: I'd been handled like this before, and it had been inside Lubyanka.

The telephone rang and he went over to it.

He'd worn a uniform, once, had wielded authority, like the KGB colonel who'd put me under intensive interrogation in Moscow. Klaus had the same stamp: I put him down now as a reasonably high-ranking ex-officer of Stasi, the former East German secret police; five or six hundred of them had gone to ground after unification and counter-espionage were still looking for most of them.

'Yes,' he said at the telephone. 'Give it to me.'

Some of them, the rabid Communists, had joined terrorist groups, mostly in Europe. This one had joined the Rote Armee Faktion and then broken away and set up on his own.

'Now bring the car here,' he said and rang off, and I took in a slow breath because as soon as the stolen car reached here I would have to use the phone in it, and it was going to be an appallingly sensitive call and the whole of the mission would pivot on the outcome and could easily crash.

'So,' Klaus said. 'When can you deliver?'

I took a slow swig of the Schweppes. 'You said you want it as soon as possible?

'Yes.'

'I'll have to see what we can do.'

A wash of headlights came sweeping across the curtains while we were still talking, and Klaus nodded.

'Well go down.'

I saw three guards on the way, one on the second floor and two below. They watched us but didn't come close. Our coats were in the hall and we got into them and I told Klaus, 'My partner's an Englishman.'

'And he doesn't speak German?'

'None too well.'

In good English Klaus said, That is perfectly all right.'

It was cold outside and there were bright stars pricking the glow of the city's lights. All I could see around us were trees, some of them with the last of the autumn leaves still clinging, trees and high walls and street lamps in the distance. But a plane was settling on its approach path, lined up with Sirius, and it confirmed what I'd thought before: the house was somewhere north-west of Tegel Airport, in or near Kreis Oranienburg.

The car was a Volvo 940 and Schwartz had the door open for Klaus and he got in and I followed. There was a pale blue headscarf on the seat and I put it into the glove compartment. The theft of the car was routine security procedure and I would have expected a probable former Stasi colonel to practise it. Up to a point he trusted me, but this house was his headquarters and any calls from it could be traced. Anyone trying to trace the call I was going to make wouldn't get any farther than a stolen Volvo, whereabouts unknown.

'You don't object,' Klaus said suddenly, 'to my listening in?'

'Of course not.'

The man Schwartz hadn't gone back to the house; I could see part of him in the offside mirror, silhouetted against the street lamps. There would be other guards in the grounds. It was fifty yards, sixty, from the Volvo to the black iron gates I'd seen when we'd come out of the house, and they would possibly be locked, certainly watched. Dieter Klaus was young, thirty or thereabouts, younger than Krenz, the man who had died in the Mercedes, and he was athletic, Klaus, walked with a spring, turned quickly. But that particular strike, made with the requisite speed, is close to instantaneous in its effect, however young the target, however athletic.

'You have the number?' Klaus asked me.

'Yes.'

He switched the ignition key to arm the ancillaries, and the telephone beeped and lit up.

And it's true of course that we are obliged, we the ferrets in the field, are obliged to take life solely in the defence of our own, and not, shall we say, in order to expedite the mission by removing the kingpin of the opposition, in order to save other lives by so doing, perhaps hundreds of other lives. We are required, by the strictest conceivable edicts of those who rule us, never to play God.

But temptation sometimes comes our way, and I sensed him beside me, Klaus, the kingpin of the opposition, the dark mind of Nemesis, could hear his breathing, could smell with a certain distaste the rather cheap cologne he used, would feel, if I moved my hand an inch or so, the pulse in his wrist, could destroy, if I moved my hand with the requisite speed, the source of its pulsation, life.

But then there were the guards and the gates and those pontifical bloody priests of the temple in far Londinium and we mustn't play God, must we, but there are times, my good friend, when we stay our hand, we the dirty little ferrets in the field, only because we know we haven't got a hope in hell of getting away with it.

Klaus was waiting.

Dial the number.

He watched me doing it, and could memorise the number if he wanted to, but it would have looked suspect if I'd shielded the grid with my hand: the semblance of trust must be maintained, was vital.

I held the receiver to my left ear, the side where Klaus was sitting. I couldn't tell how much sound he could pick up from the earpiece, how accurately he could make out words. It wouldn't have to be important; we would have to pick our way through this conversation, the Englishman and I, as through a minefield.

'Hotel Sachsen.'

'Herr Foster,' I said. 'Der Englander.'

We waited. Sound came into the sky, and the strobes of a jet flashed across the driving-mirror through the rear window.

'Bitte?

I switched to English, gave it an accent.

'Is that you, Charlie?

Cone didn't hesitate.

'Yes. Who's that?'

'Hans. How's Mary?'

'She's fine.'

There are certain classic words and phrases in the Bureau's prescribed speech-code that light up the board when they come in to Signals, and I'd just used two of them. Is that you, Charlie? indicates that the caller is either being overheard or is an actual captive. How's Mary? is a warning that the caller wants the conversation to be played according to the leads he'll give, or attempt to give. I didn't need to throw in a signal for Cone to move out of his hotel as soon as he put the phone down: the Charlie bit had told him there could have been someone watching the number I'd dialled. He'd get out straight away, and my life-line to London would be cut, until he called me back.

'The client,' I said, 'is willing to deposit half the funds tomorrow into the Swiss account, and I'm to receive the other half on delivery, which is to be in Algiers. Is that all right with you, Charlie?'

'If you're willing to go there.'

'Oh, yes. Sign of good faith. The thing is, when can we deliver?'

Cone tried his first question. 'How soon do we have to do it?'

'As soon as we can.'

'I'll check with Samala.'

'Do that. Tell him we're only contracted for the nuclear warhead, not the whole NK-9 missile. Same price.'

'Warhead only.'

'Yes.'

He'd be hunched over the telephone, Cone, his back to the blizzard he lived in, had probably lived in since childhood, when he'd been abandoned or orphaned or in one of a hundred ways cast out, hunched over the telephone now in a small Berlin hotel wondering what London would do with this, wondering as I was what London would do. They could wreck Solitaire if they didn't get this thing absolutely right.

The figures on the dashboard clock flicked to 10:14. It would be a few minutes before we rang off and Cone hit the mast at Cheltenham and his voice came over the speaker at the Signals board and Carey or Matthews picked up the bit of chalk. Executive DIF 22:10 Berlin time reporting either as captive or surveilled, believed to have reached Nemesis centre, requests delivery of Miniver NK-9 warhead, see printout of DIF's briefing.

Croder would move in on a signal like this one or if he wasn't in the room then they'd page him and get him there, find him wherever he was. Croder had the soul of a piranha but he could think well, and there'd be a chance of keeping the mission alive until I could work as a free agent again and signal Cone and brief him. There'd be a chance but it was thin, terribly thin, because London might go for the obvious and decide to call in GSG- 9 in Frankfurt and the counter-espionage service in Algiers and stake out the delivery point and risk exposure and blow the whole thing.

'It could take a little time,' Cone said.

I used the chance. 'You'll have to cut corners, Charlie. I'm talking about – wait a minute, our client's here with me.' I turned to Klaus and I didn't put my hand over the mouthpiece. 'He says it can take a little time, so give me your deadline.'

He checked his watch. '19:15 hours tomorrow.'

'That's tight.'

'You offered me the missile.' His eyes were black now in the glow from the dashboard lights. 'If you can deliver it in that time, the deal is on. Not otherwise. Twenty-one hours.'

It suited me, because every minute I spent at the centre of Nemesis would be extending the risk of exposure; but I'd told him the deadline was tight because God knew how long it would take to persuade Army Ordnance to part with even an unarmed Miniver warhead casing. I was having to play the breaks as they came and make what choices I'd got: the longer I stayed with Nemesis the greater the risk, yes, but I was prepared to face that if the alternative was not to have delivery of the warhead made at all. I had to get it for Klaus if I could; I had to get closer to the deadline he'd been working on before I'd moved in; I had to know what he was planning to do before I could stop him.

'Charlie,' I said, 'the whole deal depends on the time of delivery, and that's our deadline: twenty-one fifteen hours, 19:15.'

'In Algiers.'

'In Algiers. So you'll have to cut corners, as I said. Do we want to lose a deal like this?

'No, if you put it that way.'

Cone's German was fluent and he'd heard Klaus making the deadline but he couldn't tell whether I needed delivery as fast as that for my own sake or whether I was forced to let Klaus pressure me like this because he could be sitting beside me holding a gun at my head.

In the cold night air I was beginning to sweat because all I wanted was the chance of sixty seconds on the phone with Cone in private, thirty seconds, Tell Control he's got to make the deadline with a dummy nuke and tell him that if he alerts GSG-9 or the Algerian counter-terrorist service he'll risk exposing me and blowing the mission, tell him that 2^nd for God's sake make him understand.

It was all I wanted, thirty seconds, fifteen, enough time to protect the delivery scene and make it worth my while to stay inside Nemesis and talk to these people and get it right, watching every word, every gesture, every reaction, every expression, so that they wouldn't sense a trembling on the web.

'How long,' I asked Cone, 'will it take you to make the delivery?'

'I can't say. It -'

'You've got twenty-one hours, Charlie.'

'I can only do my best.'

'Then it's got to be good enough. You want to work with me again, you'll have to meet the deadline.'

'It's very short notice -'

'Charlie, are you listening to me? Get that item delivered on time or it's the last deal we do together, are you listening?'

There was no speech-code involved but I was giving him private information. I'd started to threaten him and he'd picked up on it and started raising doubts to see what I'd do, and I'd pressured him and given him an ultimatum and the message was clear enough now: I wanted him to make the delivery for my own reasons, because if Klaus had had a gun at my head I would have started raising doubts of my own, pointing out the difficulties to him and pleading for more time.

It had been all I could do to spell things out.

'I'll get moving on it, then,' Cone said. 'Where is the point of delivery?'

I looked at Klaus. 'Where do we deliver?'

'At Dar-el-Beida.'

The airport for Algiers.

'Who will receive the goods?

'Five men will be waiting in a black Mercedes 560 SEL at the north-east corner of No. 5 Maintenance Hangar at the airport at exactly 19:15 hours tomorrow.' He checked his watch again. 'I'm giving your partner an extra two minutes, which should please him.'

'Could make all the difference,' I said.

He gave a short laugh. 'We shall get on well together. I like your sense of humour.'

'We need a name,' I told him.

'When your people approach at that time, one of I the men in the car will get out and meet them. His name is Muhammad Ibrahimi. The parole for exchange will be… would you like to suggest something?'

The parole for exchange. That was the vernacular of the intelligence field. He'd been in Stasi intelligence, then, perhaps under the control of the KGB in former East Germany.

'Mushroom,' I said.

'I like that!' The short laugh. 'Mushroom, yes. The freight will be put into the boot of the car and the cash will be handed over immediately afterwards.'

'What currency?'

'You asked for US dollars.'

'Yes.'

'Then you shall have US dollars.'

There wasn't anything else so I talked to Cone again and went over the whole thing twice and he said he'd got it. It's just a simple exchange, Charlie,' I told him. 'Nothing we haven't done a hundred times before.'

'Give it all I've got. Call you back at the same number?'

I checked with Klaus and he nodded.

'Yes,'I told Cone.

'Anything else?'

'No,' I said, 'there's nothing else,' and he rang off and I put the telephone back and Klaus snapped the driving-door open.

'So! We will go back into the house. Schwartz?'

The man's feet grated over the gravel. 'Sit in the car here and when the telephone rings call me on my pager.'

Headlights flooded the driveway as we left the Volvo, and the gates began swinging open.

'Who is that?' Klaus called out.

'His name is Khatami, mein Fuhrer. He gave the password.'

A black Porsche came into the drive and cut its lights and the gates were swung back as a man got out and came across to the house. Klaus didn't break his stride but shook the man's hand and told him to go on ahead. 'I'll be there in a moment, Bijan. The others are waiting.'

He led me into the panelled hallway and touched my arm – 'Everything looks very fine, my friend. I'm sure your associate realises that delivery has to be made on time. I could have given you a more comfortable deadline if it weren't for the fact that my operation is running to a precise schedule, and I can't afford delays.' His black eyes watched me steadily. 'The next twenty-four hours, you see, constitute a count-down.' A man was stationed near the wide carpeted staircase and Klaus called him over. 'Fogel! Show Herr Mittag to his room.' He turned away and said over his shoulder, 'You'll find everything there – toilet necessities, a choice of pyjamas, a small bar – turning round for a moment – 'Inge will entertain you if you wish – just mention it to Fogel here. We shall meet again to receive the call from your associate. I am very pleased, you know, that you have offered me this particular item at such a convenient time – I am delighted.'

His footsteps faded out along the corridor. Fogel showed me to a bedroom suite on the floor above and left me there, and I began thinking about the man who'd just arrived in the Porsche, Khatami. He hadn't been in uniform this time but I'd recognised him: he was the Iranian pilot I'd seen talking to Inge Stoph at the airport cafeteria.

Cone telephoned just after three in the morning and we went down to the Volvo.

'We can meet the deadline.'

He was in a public phone box. He'd got out of his hotel and into another one but he couldn't phone me from there and he couldn't give me his new number because he knew I wouldn't be alone. He also knew that I couldn't call him back, wouldn't know where he was, couldn't hope to reach him again.

'Good for you, Charlie,' I said, and put the phone down and watched the severed lifeline go snaking away in the dark.