Quiller KGB q-13 Read online

  'Cross our fingers.' He turned left towards Spittelmarkt. 'Meanwhile I took a call from Renata.'

  Lena Pabst.

  'When?'

  'Just after three this afternoon. She asked for you and I said you weren't available and gave her the parole. She's been doing some work. There's some kind of operation being set up at Werneuchen Airforce Base with the code-name of Trumpeter. Three of the bomber crews are involved but she hasn't been able to identify them. The best thing she gave me was that the whole operation's on file, if we can only get to it. She — '

  'Where?'

  'It's in Room 60 in the new Airforce administration building in Bruderstrasse. She thinks the man behind Trumpeter works there as an administrator. Room 60's his office.'

  'This is very good.'

  'As far as it goes. She said she'd got some documents for us, but — '

  'Did she ask for a rendezvous?'

  'Yes, but our luck's run out, I'm afraid. She's been found shot dead.'

  16: ROCK

  'That's bullshit. I don't lay down some kind of kinky funk-jazz hybrid like Billy Kid — I blow free, see, I give it a rush, a lot of pressure along the vertical and a lot of thrust on the level, you know what I mean? And I let them solo if they want to, guitar, sax, drums, whatever they want to do, you know? Musically I'm democratic.'

  Thin, small-faced, made up like a cat with the corners of her eyes drawn out across the skin, a white leather coat thrown open, tiny hands on tiny hips, a silver sweater and skirt, the skirt a thin tube stopping short just above the knees, the knees bare, alabaster, knobbly, the feet in silver boots, a thick belt made of her own plaited hair — Cone's briefing — caught by a silver snake's-head buckle, the hair on her head exploding like a mane, the colour of ocean surf. Cat Baxter.

  The reporter was making notes but stopped when she turned away

  'Wiz, get out of here will you, you're stoned' — and turned back. 'Drummers… I work with hieroglyphs, see, and that's where the song takes me, wherever it wants me to go. It's free-wheeling, ethereal, a kind of unstructured take-off into the heights I haven't flown before, and this happens every time, it's not just sentimentality and it's got nothing to do with the Protestant Work Ethic — that really makes my boil bleed. No, change that — it really offends my sense of the political, it's so bourgeois, I mean, you can't have a message in everything, talk shout the Sound of Mucus.'

  Pollock came over. 'Well, well. Come here to get her autograph?' Quick white smile.

  'Something I've been meaning to ask you,' I said. 'Isn't it a coincidence that Gorbachev is flying in here at the same time that Miss Baxter's giving her concert?'

  'Goodness. It never struck me. But we only knew he was coming the day before yesterday. I started fixing up her concert last month.' Cone walked in and looked around the room and came across.

  'Last month,' I said, 'she did a concert in Moscow.'

  In a moment, scratching his head, Pollock said: 'That's right. That's absolutely right.' Quick smile. 'I never thought about it. I mean, any connection. After all, there's quite a lot going on in Berlin when important visitors fly in. Excuse me, I'm just making sure they're looking after her.' He went over to the phone.

  'I couldn't come earlier,' Cone said. 'I was talking to Yasolev.'

  I felt the scrotum tightening.

  'Did he get anything?'

  'We're trying to put it together in London. It's a bit disjointed.'

  'Where's Dietrich now?' I didn't really mean where.

  'It looks as if he had a weak heart.'

  'Shit.'

  Scarsdale, Lena Pabst, Dietrich. Every time we looked like getting some information it got cut off.

  'I don't try any of that street-wise visionary stuff and I don't try and get the fans screaming — that's camp. I don't use my pelvis, Christ, I haven't got one — no, change that — I don't use body language, I use my throat.'

  Pollock came away from the telephone and Cone said something to him and he shook his head. When I went closer he was saying, 'And she earns something like a million pounds a year. I can't just break it up.'

  Cone went across and spoke to Cat Baxter and in a minute the reporter put her notes into a briefcase and went out of the room and Pollock left just afterwards, giving me a wave. That left the man in the blue serge suit and dark tie.

  'Miss Baxter, we'd like a word with you,' Cone said, 'just by ourselves.'

  'It's okay for Boris to stay. He's my bodyguard.'

  'Is he KGB?'

  I'd thought so too.

  'Yes.'

  Cone went over to him. Colonel Yasolev of Department V would like you to leave us for a moment, so forth.

  'You've done well,' I said to Cat Baxter.

  She presented herself to me, and that's the only way of putting it that I can think of: she turned her diminutive body in its hair and silverware and thrust it towards me no more than half an inch, but the air seemed to vibrate. Her eyes were wide and innocent, and I could even believe she thought it was the truth when she said she didn't use body language.

  'Done well?'

  'You haven't let it all go to your head.'

  'Meaning fame?'

  'That's right.' I heard the door shut, and then Cone joined us, and Cat took a step back and looked at each of us in turn. 'My manager said you were from the Foreign Office.' 'Yes,' Cone said.

  'You look so official.'

  'I suppose that can't be avoided. Now this is Mr Ash, and I'm going to leave you to do your talking alone. Nothing goes onto the record, don't worry.'

  He nodded and went out. It had been agreed: we didn't want her to feel outnumbered.

  'He looks as if he's had a bad time,' the girl said.

  'He's in a difficult job.' She didn't ask me to sit down so I leaned against the wall alongside one of the windows. 'I'm not going to keep you long. What gave you the idea of coming out here?'

  'I thought it was about time. Phil Collins brought Genesis right up o the Berlin Wall on the west side, and so did Dave Bowie, and the East Berliners practically rioted. The police wouldn't let them get nearer than four hundred yards to the Wall. It was the most serious outbreak of public anger for years.' She turned and took three crisp steps, turned again and threw her mane of hair back. 'I don't have to tell you that — you people keep tabs.'

  'We read the papers. Of course you wouldn't have been allowed to come here before Gorbachev's time.'

  'I wouldn't have thought so. He's fantastic.'

  'When the East Germans said you could come here, was there any Soviet connection?'

  She looked down. Step, step, step, turn, the hair. 'Why?'

  'You've performed in Moscow.'

  'I don't know what you're getting at.'

  'We're just interested in the way things are changing, over here.'

  'Let's keep it straight, Mr Ash. You were talking about a Soviet connection.'

  'I was simply asking. It's interesting for instance that the KGB offered you protection.'

  'People like me get mobbed. We'd be skinned alive if — '

  'The KGB, I mean, rather than the HUA — the East German police.'

  Turn, step, step, a sudden fast turn back. 'What exactly do you want to know?'

  Getting somewhere.

  'Anything you can tell me about your relations with the Soviet government.'

  Threw her head back, force of habit, meant nothing. 'Are you really Foreign Office, or Secret Service?'

  'You catch on quickly.' Though I'd expected it earlier, because I'd been trying for it.

  'Look, I'm a rock star, okay? But I also went for a BA and got it, before I started singing.'

  'Pretty good.'

  'For a rock star.'

  'Pretty good anyway. What in?'

  'Political science.'

  'That explains a lot. The things you've said about human rights.'

  'You don't have to be political to want people to be free.' Looked away, looked back. 'Are you here to jam up the works
for me, Mr Ash? I just want to know.'

  'I didn't know there were any works to jam up.'

  She was halfway through a step and she faltered and threw out a hand and it was the first time I'd seen her make this particular gesture. 'I mean the concert.'

  She didn't.

  'Of course.'

  'I think I'd better ask you something,' she said. 'Have you got any right to question me like this?'

  'No.'

  Threw out a hand again. 'When my manager told me a couple of men from the Foreign Office wanted to talk to me, he said it was to help smooth out any problems for me over here. That's what he said.'

  'That's what we told him. D'you mind if I sit down?'

  'Feel free, but you haven't got long.'

  'Just for a minute.' I dropped into one of the chrome and velour chairs. It hadn't been a good night; the knife-wound had festered and I was on antibiotics.

  'If you've any problems,' I told her, 'we'll smooth them out for you. It was a genuine offer.'

  'That's very nice of you, but I'm doing fine.'

  'It hasn't crossed your mind that someone could be using you as a tool?' Long shot.

  Step, step, step, turn, the hair. 'You know you really have got a bloody nerve.'

  But she looked shaken, deep inside all the mascara.

  'I'll put it this way,' I said. 'Although I've no right to ask you any questions, the government feels that you'd want to avoid doing anything against your own country. Unwittingly.'

  'I do a great deal for my country, thanks. I'm quite a valuable British export, and wherever I take my group I get a lot of reaction. In Israel a month ago the fans broke through the police cordon and nearly overturned the limo. I might add that I donated twenty-five per cent of the proceeds to the survivors of the Holocaust. That's bad for Britain?'

  'I'm sure we're all very pleased.'

  'So what's the gripe, Mr Ash?'

  The phone rang but she didn't move.

  'I believe you were a cultural exchange student in Moscow about three years ago, or am I wrong?'

  'Christ, I do wish you'd stick to the point.'

  The phone went on ringing.

  'The point is that if you have any Communist leanings we don't want them to lead a very talented, charming and popular international artiste into any kind of deep water.'

  'Communist? Me? '

  'What do you think, for instance, of Mr Gorbachev?'

  'I've never met him.'

  'Don't you think it's a coincidence that you'll be performing here during his visit?'

  'Maybe he planned it like that.'

  'Let's try it the other way round,' I said, 'shall we?'

  The phone stopped ringing.

  'Look, I didn't plan anything. I was invited here.'

  'By the City of East Berlin?'

  'Not straight off.'

  'Wouldn't you like to sit down too?'

  'I'm fine like I am.'

  And angry, and beginning to be scared.

  'Where did the invitation come from, then, initially?'

  'It wasn't exactly an invitation. I got a letter from the British embassy saying that if it'd interest me to bring The Cats here, they'd ask the authorities.'

  'The authorities in East Berlin?'

  'Well, of course.'

  'I just want to be sure I understand you. And who was it at the British Embassy who wrote to you?'

  'Mr Pollock.'

  'Of course. He's the cultural attache, that's right.' I got up, and one of the stitches pulled. 'That's all I wanted to ask you, Miss Baxter.'

  'What have I said?'

  Very scared now.

  'You've been very cooperative, and you've set my mind at rest.'

  'You people are so bloody smooth, aren't you?'

  I thought if I offered my hand she might have spat in it. 'Let me wish you a very successful concert. The East Berliners are lucky to have you here.' I went to the door, and she followed, step, step, step in that tiny silver skirt, her eyes bright.

  'Okay, Mr Ash, I'm taking a risk, out here. But it's going to be worth it.'

  I'd leave that one to Cone.

  'Then look after yourself. I mean that.' I opened the door and found the KGB bodyguard outside.

  'Mr Ash.'

  I looked back at her.

  'Will you be at the concert?'

  'I hope so.'

  'Try and make it.' Eyes shining. 'It'll blow your mind.'

  'He knew very little.' Yasolev's eyes were sunk deep under the brows and he was pouring himself another shot of vodka.

  'He knew very little, or only said very little?' I wasn't on vodka but it wouldn't have needed much for me to blow up in his face. It'd taken me close to ten hours to snatch whatever I could off the streets and it had been that man Dietrich and I'd handed him over to a KGB colonel with a reputation for squeezing blood out of a stone in an interrogation cell and all he'd come up with was close to zero.

  'He said very little, but I believe he would have said more if he had known it.'

  Bloody assumption, that was all.

  'What about the other man you snatched, the one on the bridge?' Those nicotine-stained eyes of his had never looked at me with this much animosity before and I was warned. I'd come out here to run Quickstep for the KGB and Shepley would quite rightly blast me into Christendom if I provoked Yasolev into calling the whole thing off.

  'We had no better fortune.'

  A tone of icy control.

  'Interrogation,' Cone said, looking at no one, 'doesn't carry a guarantee.'

  Pouring oil, so forth, perfectly right. Bureau One would blast him into Christendom too if we lost control.

  'Point taken.'

  'Thank you,' he said.

  I liked his manners. 'All right, Viktor, give us what you got.'

  I t was the first time I'd used his Christian name, waving a flag of truce.

  'Mr Cone has sent it for analysis to London, and I have of course sent it to Moscow.' I think some of the edge had come off his voice. 'For what it's worth.' He knocked back the shot and absorbed its force. 'He obliged me to use pressure. There was no time for sophisticated procedures.' Hooding, love-hate, psychiatry.

  'The General-Secretary,' Cone said, 'arrives here in forty-eight hours, yes.'

  'Would you care for some vodka?'

  'Thanks, I'll stick to tea.'

  A tilt of his head. 'It was also clear that Dietrich didn't have the confidence of Horst Volper. He said that he had only ever spoken to his master on the telephone, and that he spoke German with an English accent. Dietrich has no English. He was no more than a minion, like the man you questioned that night in the river, with as little success.'

  Touche.

  Cone stepped in. 'How long did it take, with Dietrich?'

  'I think perhaps half an hour.'

  Mystery of dead man discovered in garage. Signs he may have been tortured.

  'The rest of what I have to tell you,' Yasolev said, 'is patched together from the scraps of information Dietrich was willing to part with. My feeling was that the little he gave me was true, that he has never met Horst Volper nor. heard of Trumpeter, and that Volper's operation is aimed at the General-Secretary — as we already knew.'

  Cone put his tea-cup back on the tray. 'You think he was talking about assassination?'

  'Whether he was talking about assassination or not, I am assuming an attempt will be made. From the information you have given me, it is Volper's speciality. But you can imagine how I feel. I have reported to my department on the inherent risk to Comrade Gorbachev, and that would normally evoke immediate and urgent concern.' A bitter shrug. 'But the visit is not to be cancelled. The General-Secretary's meeting with President Honecker is apparently considered vital. What more can I do?'

  'But they'll strengthen the guard.'

  His eyes flicked to mine. 'But of course. And we shall request the HUA to do the same. But this is Gorbachev. We must not lose him. He is… precious.'

  It was ex
traordinary how much charisma this new man of theirs possessed. People had gone crazy about him in London and Washington and here was a KGB man getting emotional. Of course he was right: no one could afford to lose this totally different breed of Soviet leader.

  'We'll have to do what we can,' I said.

  'Do you think — ' he took a step nearer '- do you think that the man Volper has any chance of succeeding?'

  Oh God what a question. The answer was even worse. 'Yes.'

  'A chance,' Cone said. 'Let's not put it at much more than that.'

  'You are not optimistic.' Yasolev looked as if we'd thrust a knife in him.

  'Look,' I said. 'We know that Horst Volper specialises in assassination and we know that he's here in Berlin and we know who the target is. He hasn't got a reputation for failing. All I'm saying is that we shouldn't rely on doubling the guard round the General-Secretary. We've got to pick up someone much closer to Volper than these minions. They've been given the job of wiping me out because he thinks I'm a risk and he's damned right — but they don't know anything. We still need information.'

  'How do we get it?'

  'Tonight,' I told him, 'I'm going to have a look round Room 60 in the Airforce Administration building.' I turned to Cone. 'You filled him in?'

  'Yes.'

  'I will give you support,' Yasolev said, and I swung on him.

  'Viktor, if I see one of your people in the field again I'm going to pack my bags — now is that clear?'

  'I gave no instructions to have you followed last night. My agents were following only the tags, in the hope of seizing one. Which we did. We — '

  'Oh for God's sake, I really don't know how to convince you.' In English: 'Cone, I'm going to leave you to work on him. I do not want the field cluttered tonight and he's got to understand that.'

  'Do what I can.'

  'All right. And listen — ' I switched back to Russian '- I'd put someone reliable on Cat Baxter, if I were you, in fact two or three people. Talk to her yourself if she'll see you.'

  'What did you get out of her?'

  I checked the time. 'I'll have to report on it later because I've got to get into the Airforce building before they close the doors at five. But in brief I think she's playing with fire and it could be some kind of demonstration she's thinking of putting on because Gorbachev's going to be here. We're sitting on dynamite and we can do without some little jumped-up Joan of Arc throwing matches around.'