Quiller Solitaire Read online

  Bang of a metal can somewhere, bringing a frisson along the nerves. There was a dog, I thought, rooting among the rubbish that had dropped from the truck along the edge of the wasteground.

  I am speaking of AK-47 assault rifles, anti-tank weaponry, small arms and mines. The Red Army Faction is known to have purchased a consignment of bombs and grenades. Another development in -

  The phone was ringing and I picked it up and shut off the tape.

  'Hallo?'

  'DIF.'

  Thrower.

  I've called in Thrower from Pakistan, Shatner had told me, to direct you in the field. I think you'll like his style.

  I gave him Blackjack.

  'What can I do for you?' he asked me.

  'Get Helen Maitland back to the UK'

  In a moment he said, 'Of course. I was told you're concerned about her.'

  'She's at risk. Just get her home.' Perhaps the implication wasn't really there – that for some reason I shouldn't be concerned. 'I'd been the only one in the field until now, the only one who knew the risk she was running. I didn't want it disputed.

  'Of course,' he said again. I didn't want humouring either. 'I've got the ticket for her in my pocket, according to your request to Control.'

  'What airline?'

  'Alitalia is the first flight out.'

  'What time?'

  '09:34.'

  Faint light began flooding from behind the Audi.

  'I want her escorted onto the plane.'

  'Of course, since you say she's at risk. I've laid that on.'

  His tone was soft, a degree smooth. He didn't sound like an experienced director in the field; he sounded like a lawyer.

  'That's all I need,' I told him.

  The light was spreading across the wasteground; then it vanished.

  'What is your situation?'

  'I'll have to call you back,' I told him, and shut down.

  The light hadn't been switched off: it had moved behind the buildings. I heard a car turning and stopping. This time the lights were cut dead.

  I waited two minutes, three. No one got out of the car. It was in the next street, facing the house where Sorgenicht lived: the lights had been shining in that direction.

  Five. Five minutes. No one got out of the car: I would have heard the door slam.

  So I took the cassette out of the slot and slipped it into my pocket and got out of the Audi and left the door open and walked across the wasteground to the street at the top and turned right and kept on going and then turned right again, and right again, coming back on the street where the car had pulled up and cut its lights. It was cold, outside the Audi. I felt very cold.

  He was there, sitting in the car, in the black Mercedes 300E, sitting at the wheel. He wasn't reading anything; there was no light inside the car. His face was pale, square-looking in the light from the distant street lamps. His head was against the padded rest; I couldn't see where his hands were; they weren't on the steering-wheel. He was watching the house, the house where Sorgenicht lived. It's always dangerous to assume things on simple appearances, but this man's aspect and behaviour were a model of the archetypal surveillant, and I decided to go to work accordingly.

  He was here, then, as I had expected, not to watch the house, but to watch for anyone who set out to track Sorgenicht when he left there. He would then keep station in the traffic stream and use his phone and call in mobile support to cut off Sorgenicht's tracker and deal with him, as they had dealt with George Maitland, and soon afterwards, McCane. That was what this man was doing here: he was watching, in effect, for me.

  There was deep shadow where I stood, at the end of an alleyway joining the two adjacent streets. I was perhaps fifty feet from him, but if he turned his head he wouldn't see me. He was a quiet man, well in control of himself; he didn't fidget; he'd got up early but he didn't yawn. He wasn't smoking. He hadn't got the radio on: I would have heard it.

  He was a good surveillant, first class, the kind they try to turn out of Norfolk when they're thinking straight. If I hadn't seen him here, and began tracking Sorgenicht, this man in his Mercedes would become the equivalent of a shark fin in the water, and I would be the swimmer.

  I leaned my head back to rub the nape of my neck against the rough collar of my coat to ease the chill of the nerves. He wasn't a young man – I would have said close to fifty; but his head was square and massive and he was thick in the shoulder. He would not, then, be very fast, but quite strong – even, if he were trained, dangerously strong. But soon it would be getting light and there would be people about, and I didn't want to attract attention. It could also be that Sorgenicht would leave his house before dawn, though the windows were still dark. I had better do what I had to do as soon as I could.

  There were soft echoes from the brick walls in the alleyway and I stepped lightly and broke the rhythm, because the regularity of footsteps is extraordinarily perceptible, the brain stem recognising the sound of another animal in the environment. I turned right when I reached the street, and right again at the T-section, and as I turned I saw a light come on in a window of the house, on the second floor. It wasn't necessarily Sorgenicht getting up: it could be his wife or his girlfriend or someone else there; but I would have to assume it was Sorgenicht himself. His car would be one of those parked in a line along the wall by the canal: there were no garages here.

  I turned again and began walking up the street to where the Mercedes was standing. The distance from here was a hundred yards or so, and it was facing me. I didn't walk quietly any more; I walked quite fast towards the Mercedes, because 'I'd overslept and was late and had to hurry. I blew into my hands: it was a cold raw morning and I didn't relish it. There was another dog over there towards the wasteground, or perhaps the one I'd seen before, scratching for scraps among some rubbish; I gave it a whistle – I was fond of dogs. My breath clouded in front of me as I passed under a street lamp, and I blew into my hands again, quickening my step; but there was a big notice in the window of an ironmonger's shop and I slowed for a moment, reading it as I went by: there was a sale on, with a 20 per cent discount on tools, well worth remembering. I noticed the Mercedes but paid no attention; you see cars parked everywhere.

  I looked at my watch,' then dug my hands into my coat pockets again, leaning forward a little, my head down as I breasted my way into the rat-race of another workaday morning. The Mercedes was quite close now and I gave it another glance, and it was then that I noticed something wrong. I stopped when I reached the car, and tapped on the window, pointing.

  The man inside swung his massive head and looked at me, taking his time. I pointed to the rear of the car again, and he opened the door. 'You've got a flat tyre,' I told him, and would have walked on, but he had a gun in his right hand and his finger was in the trigger-guard and it was pointing at me. I was alarmed. 'No – please don't shoot,' backing away, my hands spreading open, 'I just wanted to tell you the tyre was flat – please don't shoot me!'

  He watched me with a dead stare. It hadn't looked good enough, then, natural enough, whistling to the dog and reading the sale notice, not a good enough act, too late to clean it up now, just kept my hands raised, fingers open, and then he moved.

  The front tyre wouldn't have worked, because I'd had to assume he was right-handed: the chances of that were very high. So it had to be the rear tyre, and as he leaned out of the car to look at it he kept the gun trained on me and the nearest part of his body was his gun-hand and I had something like two seconds while he looked at the tyre and I used enough force to paralyse the arm through the median nerve and deaden the trigger-finger because if I'd used more it would have caused a great deal of pain and I didn't want him vomiting, I can't stand that. It was a sword-hand strike and its force brought the top part of his body down and left his neck exposed and I used the left hand before he could do anything and he sagged suddenly and I caught the Mauser before it could hit the pavement.

  There was no one in the street so I snapped the do
orlocks open and pulled him out and dragged him round to the passenger's side and got the door open and heaved him into the car and sat him with his head back against the rest and his hands on his lap. They were cold to the touch and his face had lost colour but I didn't think I'd overdone the strike to the occipital area: you're not going to kill anyone there unless you use enough force to break into the skull or snap the vertebrae: he'd be out for a while, that was all, and I used the ignition keys and got some jump-cables from the boot – I was hoping for some rope but there wasn't any. I lashed his wrists to his legs and shut the door and went round and got behind the wheel and saw two more lights come on in the house down there, one of them on the ground floor: I was worried now because it was possible I'd missed something- Sorgenicht's bedroom and bathroom could be at the back of the house and I wouldn't have seen the windows light up; it could have happened half an hour ago, an hour; he could be close to leaving.

  I picked up the phone and touched the numbers.

  It was very quiet inside the car, but I couldn't hear the man's breathing; that would be normal: I'd pushed his blood pressure right down and his brain had shifted into a mode that in certain creatures would be hibernative. I reached for his throat and found the pulse slow but still there.

  That too was normal. He was -

  'Bitte?'

  'Solitaire.'

  'Blackjack.'

  'How soon,' I asked Thrower, 'can you get support here? Only need one man.'

  'Same location?'

  'Close. The next street to the west of the wasteground.'

  'I'll contact Kleiber and take it from there. I'd say thirty minutes if they're coming from his place.'

  The light in one of the windows had gone out.

  'All right. But I might have to be mobile before then.'

  'We can tail you.'

  'Yes.' I told him the car I was in now, gave him the number. 'Relay that to the support, will you, and get someone to pick up the Audi that Home delivered to me. It's in the wasteground and the keys are in the ignition.'

  'Shall be done.'

  'I'll keep in touch.' I put the phone back. Thirty minutes was going to be too long by the look of things but there was nothing I could do about it: I could have called in a whole support unit, five or six people, when I'd first come here, but it wasn't a red sector and I didn't want a lot of movement going on.

  I checked the man beside me. His pulse was still slow and there was a sheen of sweat on his face.

  His eyelids were parted slightly and I could see the glint of the conjunctiva. I found his wallet and checked one of his credit cards, a Berliner Bank Visa. His name was Stefan Krenz. His business card said he was an electronics engineer, but that could be his cover: an electronics engineer would be wasting his time working as a tracker dog. I made a note of his address and put the wallet back.

  This was at 06:11 and three minutes later I saw the front door of Sorgenicht's house open and a figure show up against the light inside. I had the engine running by the time he'd shut the door and I was rolling the Mercedes with the headlights on as he walked out of sight beyond the building at the end of the street. When I reached the corner he was fifty feet away and still walking but now he was digging into his pocket and as I closed the distance he found his keys and stopped by a dark blue Volvo 242 and glanced up when I went past but my lights would have dazzled him and he didn't take any notice: in the mirror I saw him getting into the Volvo and slamming the door. I turned at the next street and made a square and found him a block ahead of me going west along Einsteinufer.

  I'd recognised him and that was the main thing but we'd got problems now because this man Krenz was in the car with me and he'd surface before long and try to give trouble. It would have been no good putting him in the boot of the car because at any time Sorgenicht could park the Volvo and I'd have to follow him on foot: I was after contacts, people he'd be talking to, and I wouldn't find them unless I kept close, and if I left this man in the boot he'd come to and start yelling and banging and someone would let him out and he'd get straight on the phone and give his location and there'd be a swarm of Nemesis agents moving into the area before I'd had time to get results.

  But I couldn't leave him sitting here on the front seat either.

  I picked up the phone and got Thrower.

  'Where's my support coming from?'

  'Kleistpark.'

  'Then it's not going to work. I'm mobile now and I need someone right away.'

  'Where are you?'

  'Moving south-west in Cauer-strasse.'

  'You don't know your destination?'

  'No.'

  'I'll get back to you,' he said and we shut down.

  I could have given him a lot more information but it wasn't necessary because when the shadow asks his DIF to do something for him right away it's understood that he doesn't want to delay things by protracting the signal. We don't chat when we're tracking.

  Traffic lights came up and I stopped between a VW and a delivery van. I wasn't happy about the van because the cab was high and the driver could look down into the Mercedes and might notice the jump-cables round Krenz's wrists. I angled my head and watched the driver's face but he was looking in front of him at the long blonde hair in the BMW.

  'Krenz,' I said in German, 'how are you feeling?'

  He didn't answer, so I slotted the cassette in and turned the radio on.

  As an example of how very dangerous the present-day arms market is becoming, rumours have been circulating well below media level that the US Army has either miscounted its stockpile of tactical nuclear missiles or has had one stolen from an unnamed military base. The weapon is said to be the NK-9 Miniver, a missile capable of being launched by one designated officer of high rank in the field at his personal discretion. The NK-9 has the capacity to knock out an entire division. If these rumours have any substance -

  The phone was ringing and I picked it up and touched for receive.

  'DIF.'

  'Hear you.'

  'Location?'

  I gave it to him.

  Then we're doing better: I've got someone starting out from the Siemensdamm U-Bahn area, not far from you. His name is Roach and he's in a black SAAB with Frankfurt plates.' He gave me their number and the number of the phone. 'You can call him direct at this stage.'

  I said I'd do that.

  'Wasser.'

  Krenz.

  'Shut up,' I told him, and got onto the support man, Roach. The line was scratchy but his voice was clear enough. I told him where I was and he said he'd try to intercept me somewhere near the autobahn.

  'Wasser!'

  Krenz, thirsty, not surprising, and fidgeting with the jump-cables. 'Shut up and sit still,' I told him in German, 'or I'll blow the brains out of your bloody head.' On the phone I told Roach: The situation is that I'm tracking someone and I've got a prisoner on board and what I want you to do is take him over when there's a chance and put him underground somewhere for the duration. Check with the DIF and ask for his instructions. His name is Stefan Krenz. You'll also take over his gun. Questions?'

  'Is he for interrogation, sir?'

  'Ask the DIF.'

  We sometimes take prisoners during a mission but it's usually forced on us as the only alternative to the extreme sanction thing, and we do it when they've got enough information about us to cause damage if we let them go, and this man knew enough about me to bring me down.

  'Do you know what I'm driving?' Roach asked me.

  'Yes.'

  'Where are you now?'

  'Northbound in Tegeler Weg, just going under the S-Bahn and coming up on the autobahn.'

  'Ten minutes, then.'

  Sorgenicht was three vehicles ahead of me in the same lane. He didn't know he was being tracked. If he'd suspected it he would have put the Volvo through a series of turns to find out. He hadn't done that.

  The lights of a train crossed the morning sky as we passed under the S-Bahn. It was between there and the autobahn
that Krenz heaved his weight off the passenger seat and hurled it against me and I took it on the right shoulder and the car swerved and I got it straight in time but the Lexus on our left had swerved too and the driver hit the brakes and shouted something. We were in a traffic flow of something like thirty miles an hour and I was in the middle lane and couldn't pull over and stop. Krenz had bounced back, onto the seat and now he was coming at me again, hands still tied to his thighs but with his massive head free to smash against mine if he could get it right, so I swung a backfist to his forehead to stun the pineal gland and he lurched back onto the seat and sat with his bulk against the passenger door, shaking his head like a boxer on the ropes, animal sounds coming from him, not quite words, I think, but just grunts of rage, and I left him like that and touched the numbers for Roach and spoke through the remote microphone.

  'Still in Tegeler Weg, approaching the autobahn from the south at fifty yards, middle lane. The dark green Volvo 242 is three vehicles ahead and that's the one I'm tracking.'

  'Got you. Five minutes.'

  I took the cassette out of the slot and put it into my pocket.

  The Volvo was changing lanes and I looked for a gap but there wasn't one. The traffic on both sides was moving ahead: I was in a slow lane and perhaps that was why the Volvo had used a chance and changed to the lane on the right. It was now four vehicles ahead and I'd have to do something because he could go through the next traffic lights just before they changed and leave me stuck: I couldn't afford to crash a red because I could hit something and in any case there could be a patrol car in the area and that wouldn't do any good, show me your licence please while the Volvo pulled away into the distance, and is this man sick and why are his wrists tied to his legs, so forth.

  Krenz had gone quiet and I took a look at him. His head was lolling but he wasn't out: the gland was still in shock and he felt giddy, that was all. I couldn't be sure that he wasn't faking it, or some of it, while he got enough energy back to come at me again.

  The pickup truck on my left was hanging back a little and I pressed into the gap and he used the horn but I stood a better chance now of pulling up on the Volvo. I called Roach.