Quiller Solitaire Read online

  'I'll call you back on that. How soon do you want it done?'

  'As soon as you can make it, because now that I've got access to Nemesis I'm going right in to the centre and it's going to be very tricky and if I'm not fully briefed I could blow my cover.'

  'Priority,' Matthews said.

  'Yes.' I thought I could hear Croder's voice in the background. Yes, there was some kind of panic going on, or Croder wouldn't be in the Signals room at this hour.

  'How's Stingray?' 1 asked Matthews. I wasn't on the tape any more: I'd finished the actual debriefing a few minutes ago. They'd been having a problem with that one when I'd looked in at Signals this morning; the shadow had got himself holed up in a trap in Thailand.

  'Not all that good,' Matthews said. 'He shut down on us.'

  The trap must have closed, and I felt a chill along the nerves.

  'Mr Croder's looking after things?'

  'Yes.'

  In a moment I said, 'All right, that's all from here. Just -'

  'Control,' someone said, and I recognised Shatner's voice. 'Look, I was listening to your signal, and what I'm going to do is get the RAF to fly your director into the German Airforce base at Werneuchen as soon as I can get the right people out of bed, because no one can go into Tempelhof until morning, because of night-flying regulations. Then we'll ask them to send him into Tempelhof by helicopter, and with any luck hell be on the ground by something like 04:00 hours, which is going to be much sooner than if we waited to use an airline. Will that suit your purposes?'

  'Very well.'

  'There shouldn't be any problem because well do it through Bonn at Foreign Secretary level. I haven't heard the whole tape but it sounds rather encouraging: you've got access, I believe.'

  'Yes.'

  'Well done. Anything else I can do for you?'

  I told him there was nothing else and he gave the mike back to Matthews and we wound up the signal and I pressed the contact and dialled the first number on the list of local support people they'd given me this morning before I left. There were five on the night shift, ten on the day. The name of this one was Home.

  There were only two rings, and I liked that.

  'Wer spricht, bitte?'

  'Solitaire.'

  'Blackjack.'

  'Executive,' I said. 'I need a car. What have you got?'

  'I've got an Audi GT, couple of Mercs. You need something fast?'

  'No.' By fast he meant a Lamborghini. 'Black, low profile.'

  'Need a phone?'

  'Yes.'

  'You'd better take the Audi, then.'

  'All right.' I had one of the maps on the bed, and the wallet I'd taken from the man in the Cafe Brahms. 'Make it 04:00 today, at the T-section of Einstein-ufer and Abbe-strasse, by the canal. Can you do that?'

  'Oh yes.'

  'I'll be in a taxi. Have you seen me before?'

  'No, sir.'

  'One glove on, one off.'

  'Got it. But why don't I bring the car to you, if -'

  'Because I don't want you to.' He wasn't too seasoned, and it worried me. If I'd wanted him to bring the car here I would have asked him, and he should have known that. 'What's the number of the Audi?' He gave it to me and I said, 'You can take over the taxi, all right? Now listen, who's your senior man?'

  'Kleiber.'

  'Is he there?'

  'I'll get him. I just meant – you know – that if you wanted the car there, I would have -'

  'I appreciate it.'

  Sat on the bed while I waited. It was going to be good to get some sleep: I'd only had three hours in the last forty. After that I'd need food, find an all-night hamburger stand. There might be-

  'Kleiber.'

  I switched to German. 'You know the city?'

  'I was born here.'

  'There's a man named Willi Hartman. Here's his address.'

  'Got that.'

  'There'll be some surveillance on the building, possibly more than one man. Hartman will phone your number at 10:00 today. I want you to take care of the surveillance while Hartman goes into his apartment and fetches some things. Tell him he's got thirty minutes. How many people can you use for this?'

  'Six, seven.'

  'It shouldn't take more than three. When Hartman leaves the building I want him tracked, to make sure he gets absolutely clear. I also want to know where he goes and what he does: put him under surveillance for the next twenty-four hours. I've guaranteed him total protection, so make sure no one slips up.'

  'I understand.'

  Her scent was on me, Helen's; I kept catching a hint of it when I moved. 'I want you to keep a complete record of anyone he meets – get their names. Watch especially for a woman named Inge, described as very attractive.'

  'I understand.'

  'Report to the DIF if you feel it's important. I'm taking the Audi and you know the phone number. As soon as I know which room the DIF will be in at the Hotel Steglitz I'll call you. He should arrive in Berlin early this morning. Questions?'

  'You want me to report to you too?'

  'No. Only the DIF.' He'd screen information for me; that was what he was for; I didn't want to use the phone in the Audi more than I had to: there could be some tricky driving to do. 'Anything else?'

  'Nothing.'

  'Use discreet force if you have to, but I don't want any drama.'

  'I understand.'

  It was 12:32 by the TV clock when I rang off, and while I got ready for bed I went over the whole set-up and couldn't find anything else that needed doing, but it was a little while before I could sleep. The Stingray thing was on my mind, even though it was someone else's mission and nothing to do with me, but then it's like that: no man is an island, so forth, and when the bell tolls for some poor bastard out there with his karma running hot it tolls for all of us. Other thoughts drifted into my head, some things she'd said, Helen, because her scent was still on my coat, things she'd said in the taxi, Those girls, in the club… do you think they were attractive? Touch anorexic, I think I'd said. And Matthews, at the board for Solitaire, it'd been two or three seconds before he'd switched the tape on, was he always going to be slow?

  Do you think I'm attractive? I suppose that's the very last thing a woman should ask a man, isn't it… As a matter of fact, I used to be anorexic, once, like those girls in the club, but I got over it.

  That man Home, and the thing about bringing the car here… if the shadow executive makes a precise rendezvous ten kilometres away it surely means he does not want to be met at his hotel… I'd better report it to the DIF, because I wanted totally seasoned people in the field for this one, there were lives in hazard, too many lives…

  'I expect you think I'm just fishing for compliments, but then I am, I suppose… it's this awful self-image I'm saddled with… it's why I let George do the things he did with me…

  How's Stingray?

  Not all that good… He shut down on us…

  For whom the bell… the bell tolling as the dark came down and her scent followed me through the delta waves.

  04:00 and the streets still wet, with fog drifting from the canal and the diesel knocking as the taxi pulled up and I gave the driver twice the fare and told him to wait.

  Home met me on foot – at least he knew that much – and took me round the corner into Abbe-strasse and gave me the keys.

  'Recent service, fall tank, phone's already switched on, is that all right?'

  'Tyres?

  'Forty all round.' He was a short man in a duffle coat and a woollen hat, his breath clouding on the air. 'Normal's thirty-five, I thought you'd like -'

  'Yes. Spare keys?'

  We'd had a case where the shadow had been tracked back to his car and it was locked and he'd lost the keys and had to smash the window to get in and it had taken him too long and they'd found him reaching inside to unlock the door and taken every vertebra out of his spine with a 9 mm Uzi carbine and it went straight into the book at Norfolk: The importance of providing spare keys.
r />   'They're under the front bumper, nearside.'

  I shouldn't have had to ask: he should have told me right away.

  'How long have you been working in the field?'

  He almost flinched. 'Two days, sir.'

  'When did you graduate?'

  'Three days ago.'

  Oh Jesus, those bloody people were out of their minds.

  'Then you're doing well,' I told him, and got into the Audi and started up and took it as far as the next T-section and turned away from the canal and doubled back and found a bit of wasteground with a few cars and a rubbish dump on it and pulled in between a van and a broken-down pickup truck with a smashed window and the front bumper hanging off. The house was five or six hundred yards distant, the house where Sorgenicht lived: that was the name on the papers in the wallet I'd taken from him, August Sorgenicht.

  I'd swung wide at the T-section to let the headlights play across the entrance and pick up the number. The house was at the end of a row, and I could sight it from here between the buildings at the end of the short deserted street. At this angle I could see two of its walls, five of its windows. The windows were dark.

  The inside of the Audi smelled of stale smoke and I ran the driving-window down and pulled out the ashtray and emptied it. The air was cold and very still. Traffic was moving on the far side of the canal but the wall deadened its sound: for the next three hours I'd be able to hear things clearly in the environment.

  I picked up the phone and got the Signals board in London direct and gave Matthews my exact.position and asked him to inform Kleiber, chief of support here in Berlin. 'I'll be in the car for the next few hours,' I told him, 'and this is the number.' I waited until he'd repeated it. This would have been going through my director in the field if I'd had one, and we were wasting a lot of time. 'Give my number to the DIF as soon as you can. Where is he now?'

  I heard the pitch of his voice alter a fraction as he raised his head to look up at the board. 'He landed at Werneuchen Airforce Base at 03:51 local time and left there in a military helicopter at 03:59, so he'll still be airborne. His ETA Berlin is 04:07, a minute from now.'

  I felt a certain degree of relief. You can sometimes push a lot of the way through a mission on your own if it's low key and there's no hurry, but with this one the deadline was any next flight of a US airliner and the first one of the day was due for takeoff in three hours from now, destination New York via London, I'd checked the schedules in the paper.

  'You've put him into the Steglitz?' I asked Matthews.

  'Yes.'

  'Room?

  '510.'

  On the same floor as Helen Maitland. I felt reassured. 'Ask him to phone me as soon as he can.'

  'Will do.'

  'Is Control at the board?' Shatner.

  'I think he's resting up, but he's in the building. You want me to -'

  'No, but listen. Norfolk's sent a support man out here, name of Home, with absolutely no experience in the field – he's just graduated. He's quite good but he shouldn't be working on a major mission for at least twelve months and they should know that.'

  The sound of a vehicle was coming into the environment, some kind of truck. 'This isn't a complaint, as far as he's concerned, it's not his fault, but for God's sake tell Norfolk to watch what they're bloody well doing, they can get people killed like that.'

  In a moment Matthews said, 'This is to go on record?'

  'You're dead right. It's for COT Norfolk, Control, COS and Bureau One.'

  Chief of Training Norfolk, Shatner, Chief of Signals and the head of the entire Bureau, host of hosts. Life's cheap in this trade and on our way through the labyrinth of a mission there's often a dead spook left behind in the shadows when it's all over but with Solitaire we'd got civilian lives to look after, hundreds of them, and if any one of us made a mistake somewhere along the line then yes indeed, it should go on record.

  'I'll see to it,' Matthews said, and I shut down and watched the flood of light sweeping across the front of the houses over there as the banging began, garbage truck.

  The ashtray still stank so I pulled it away from the dashboard and threw it out of the window. There hadn't been time to eat anything because sleep had been more important, so I was having to take the stink of someone's nicotine fix on an empty stomach.

  Bang of the garbage truck – I could see it now, a humped silhouette against the wall that ran the length of the canal.

  04:51 on the digital clock.

  I was feeling all right at this time, the nerves quiet. They'd start tightening up a bit before long because of what we had to do, but for the moment I felt relaxed, the smell of the hotel's sandalwood soap on my skin; I'd had some sleep and I was clean, and when you feel clean you feel in control again, as I'm sure you've noticed.

  At 05:03 faint light began flooding from somewhere behind, and I tilted the mirror and waited, watching the things the light began picking up in the environment as it brightened: a parked baker's van, three bicycles chained together, one with a pedal missing, a wrecked brass bedstead leaning against a shed. Then a black VW came onto the wasteground and made a U-turn and swept its lights across me and straightened up and stopped not far away and the headlamps went off and I watched the man get out, watched him carefully.

  He walked slowly across the littered ground, a short fat man, his arms hanging at his sides and held a little way out from his body, the posture recognisably harmless, and when he reached the Audi I ran the window down on the passenger's side.

  'Solitaire,' he said, his face dark, bearded, smiling sweetly as he peered into the car. I could see him better than he could see me, because of the street lights over there. 'Ahmad Samala,' he said, garlic on his breath.

  I answered the parole. 'I'm sorry they got you up so early, Mr Samala.'

  'It is of no importance. Here is what you want.'

  I reached for the cassette, still watching him, not looking at the cassette, because if anyone is going to do anything inconvenient you see it coming in their eyes first, before their hands move. I was virtually sure of him, because the Bureau doesn't often send the wrong people to a night rendezvous with the executive, but in this trade you can't take anything on trust: look what those clods had done at Norfolk.

  'Thank you,' I said, and put the cassette on the ledge below the windscreen.

  'I would have liked to talk to you about it all,' Samala said, 'but they told me this way was better.' He sounded infinitely sad.

  He'd wanted, I suppose, to go through the whole thing with me, enjoying the role of tutor, bringing his sweet smile to bear upon the business of trading a consignment of Heckler and Koch HK91s for a dozen bags of cocaine on the dockside in Istanbul, or of buying Semtex by the square yard without blowing up the freighter. It would have been amusing to hole up with him for an hour or two in some kind of safe-house; he was obviously an interesting man. I have been bathed in smiles as sweet as his before, sometimes over the muzzle of a gun.

  'Perhaps we can meet again,' I said, 'when it's more convenient.'

  'I would enjoy that.' He offered his hand, not knowing any better, and I broke every rule in the book and shook it politely. 'Now I am going back to bed,' he said, and backed away and went over to the VW and squeezed himself into it. He made a U-turn again, this time with his lights off.

  London had done well: it had been 12:00 this morning when I'd called Signals to debrief and ask for an update on the arms dealing scene to secure my cover, and they must have got onto Samala in Berlin not long afterwards and asked him to get it onto a cassette for me, and then they'd had to phone him soon after 04:10 to give him my precise location for the rendezvous. Even without my DIF in the field, Signals and support services were running efficiently, and it calmed the nerves.

  The windows of the house beyond the end of the street were still dark. One of them, or more than one of them, would show a light when August Sorgenicht got up and began his day. Then I would move in a bit closer.

  Calmed the ne
rves, but only a little: they were starting to tighten now as the minutes went by, because the opposition knew what had happened to him at the bottom of the flight of stairs at the Cafe Brahms last night. It had looked like a simple mugging, with the wallet gone; I hadn't taken his keys because he would have had all his locks changed right away, and in any case it would have been less interesting to look around his house than to track him to whatever contacts he would make during the day, because one of them could lead me to Nemesis, right to the centre. When I'd signalled London that I'd secured access, this is what I had meant.

  But Nemesis would know it hadn't been a simple mugging, because Sorgenicht would have told them what I'd said to him. You're to phone Dieter Klaus right away. Tell him that Hartman has just got here. He'd assumed I was one of them, a new recruit he hadn't seen before, but when he'd come to in the men's room he had known better.

  The five distant windows were still dark. Traffic on the far side of the canal was on the move now as the city's longitude swung towards morning.

  He would have known better, yes, Sorgenicht, he would have known that the opposition cell from London had now got his address, and this was why the nerves were starting to tighten a little as the minutes went by, because Dieter Klaus was a professional and he wouldn't leave me free to track Sorgenicht through the city today. It had been good news for London that I had access to Nemesis. The bad news was that when I began tracking Sorgenicht, Nemesis would have access to me.

  Chapter 8: KRENZ

  Despite the proliferation of sources of supply, mainland China still remains important, and I would place it about eighth on the list of the major world suppliers.

  05:43.

  The five windows in the house over there were still dark. August Sorgenicht was not an early riser.

  You should know that there are still over 200,000 Soviet troops stationed in former East Germany waiting to be sent home, and many of them are busy pilfering their arsenals and selling whatever they can get hold of to whoever will buy it.

  A sweet smile: you could hear it in his voice. Mr Samala was showing me over his toyshop. I kept the volume low, barely audible, because I needed to hear sounds from the greater environment. Both windows were down.