The Vault Read online

  Mor­gan slowed and parked the car against the kerb. Jimmy drove on, took the first left and parked. He opened the door and stepped out, hur­ry­ing back to the main road. Mor­gan was walk­ing away from his car. Jimmy crossed over, look­ing straight ahead, and paused to fiddle with his shoelace as Mor­gan con­tin­ued along the pave­ment on the op­pos­ite side. Jimmy waited and watched; Mor­gan walked for fifty yards and then turned on to a nar­row path that cut across a patch of snowy ground to the en­trance of a par­tic­u­larly ugly block.

  The Wall loomed to Jimmy’s left, a bru­tal slab of con­crete that reached high over­head. He knew that there was no way he would be able to fol­low Mor­gan in­side the build­ing; he was for­tu­nate that he hadn’t been made so far, and to push his luck any more would be ask­ing for trouble. He waited a mo­ment to see whether Mor­gan would re-emerge and, when he didn’t, he re­traced his steps to the payphone that he had seen on the street near to where he had parked the car and called the num­ber that Mack­in­tosh had given him.

  29

  Mack­in­tosh took Jimmy’s call, noted down the de­tails, and put the phone down. He opened his Ro­lo­dex, found the num­ber for the Ber­lin In­fantry Bri­gade, and called it. He had a brief con­ver­sa­tion, left clear in­struc­tions, and put the phone down again. He left the con­su­late in a hurry, got into his staff car and headed east, fight­ing against his im­pa­tience and driv­ing with the care and at­ten­tion that the icy streets de­man­ded. It would do him no good at all to slide into the back of an­other car on the way. On the other hand, he knew that his im­pa­tience was war­ran­ted; the build­ing that Walker had de­scribed in­cluded an apart­ment that was known to west­ern in­tel­li­gence as a Stasi bolt-hole. If Mor­gan was go­ing to run, they would ex­filtrate him from there. And if they did that be­fore Mack­in­tosh ar­rived, then the traitor would be in the wind and all of Mack­in­tosh’s plans would be for noth­ing.

  He couldn’t al­low that to hap­pen.

  He ar­rived in Kreuzberg and saw the red Audi parked next to one of the big blocks. The build­ing was grey and un­in­vit­ing. It was four storeys tall, pocked with mean little win­dows and com­munal bal­conies. The Wall was close, and any­one above the second floor would be able to look out over it, across the death strip and into the East. The build­ing was as ugly as its neigh­bours, scarred with graf­fiti, its win­dows dark and un­wel­com­ing. Ban­ners had been hung from the up­per win­dows, high enough to be seen from the East. One of them had an ob­scene car­toon of Erich Ho­necker and Mikhail Gorbachev.

  Mack­in­tosh drove on; he turned onto a side street and re­cog­nised the Mer­cedes that he had ar­ranged for Walker. He parked be­hind it and hur­ried back on foot.

  There was a small chil­dren’s play­ground on the op­pos­ite side of the road. Walker was wait­ing there, par­tially hid­den from the en­trance to the block. He saw Mack­in­tosh and stepped out so that he could see him. Mack­in­tosh crossed the road and joined him next to a broken swing, the seat hanging down from one chain.

  “He went in there,” he said, point­ing at the block.

  “Has any­one else gone in­side?”

  “I haven’t seen any­one. Why?”

  “There’s a Stasi safe house on the fourth floor.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Be­cause we had it un­der sur­veil­lance last year.”

  “And you haven’t done any­thing about it?”

  Mack­in­tosh spoke with ex­ag­ger­ated pa­tience. “What good would that do? They’d just move it some­where else and then we’d have to find it again. It’s use­ful to know where it is so we can keep an eye on it.”

  Mack­in­tosh saw two men ap­proach­ing them from the other side of the street. Mack­in­tosh gaped at them, and then pulled Walker farther away from the street. The men stopped op­pos­ite the door to the block. One of them went in­side and the other one stayed on the street.

  “Who are they?” Walker asked.

  Mack­in­tosh didn’t re­spond; he felt a flash of an­ger that he thought might over­whelm him.

  “Who are they?” Walker pressed.

  Mack­in­tosh paused un­til he had re­gained his com­pos­ure. “The man who went in­side is Axel Geipel. He’s a col­onel in the Hauptver­wal­tung Aufklärung, the Main Dir­ect­or­ate for Re­con­nais­sance.”

  “And?”

  “He’s the most senior Stasi of­ficer in West Ber­lin.”

  “And the two of you don’t get on?”

  “We have un­fin­ished busi­ness,” Mack­in­tosh muttered.

  “And the one wait­ing out­side? His body­guard?”

  “Yes. Prob­ably from the Dzerzh­in­sky Re­gi­ment.”

  Mack­in­tosh took a step for­ward and looked at the build­ing again. It loomed over them, a grim and dis­figured mono­lith, hun­dreds of people—thou­sands of people—swal­lowed in­side it. The second man still stood on the street, the tip of a ci­gar­ette glow­ing as he in­haled on it. The man stomped his feet against the cold; Mack­in­tosh stepped back again.

  “Mor­gan’s been in there thirty minutes,” Walker said.

  “I frightened him—he thinks he’s about to be blown. He ran straight to Geipel, prob­ably to ask him to ac­tiv­ate his ex­filtra­tion plan. They’ll be get­ting him ready to cross the bor­der.”

  “So what’s the plan?”

  Mack­in­tosh frowned and rubbed his fore­head. “We wait.”

  “What for?”

  “Backup. It should be on the way.”

  Walker gazed up at the build­ing. “What is it that you need from him?”

  “I want to know who he’s work­ing for.”

  “And now you do—he’s work­ing for Geipel. What else?”

  “I want to know how to get to two people: Günter Schmidt and Karl-Heinz Som­mer.”

  “Who are they?”

  “Schmidt is an as­set I wish to re­cover. Som­mer is a man I want to kill.”

  “And once you have Schmidt and Som­mer is dead, you’ll let me go home?”

  Walker stated the im­possible with such bliss­ful ig­nor­ance it was al­most charm­ing. “If that hap­pens I’ll take you home my­self. You have my word.”

  Walker nod­ded, turn­ing back to the build­ing.

  “How easy will it be to get to Geipel?”

  “He’s a Stasi of­ficer. Not easy at all.”

  “How many men do you think are in­side?”

  Mack­in­tosh ex­haled. “A small op­er­a­tional team. They’ll have Stasi of­ficers in the flat—a couple, per­haps. Geipel makes three. The body­guard makes four. Mor­gan makes five.”

  “All armed.”

  “The Ger­mans—very likely. I doubt Mor­gan is.”

  “Which flat is it?”

  “414.”

  Walker reached into his jacket and took out the pis­tol that Mack­in­tosh had given him. “You got one, too?”

  “No, James—this is too dan­ger­ous.”

  “You have a bet­ter idea? They don’t know we’re com­ing. Come with me or don’t—it’s up to you. But I have no choice. I’m not do­ing a twenty-year stretch in Worm­wood Scrubs. But I’m not go­ing to do a twenty-year stretch in this shi­thole either.”

  Walker put his hand with the gun into the out­side pocket of his coat and set off to­ward the en­trance to the block. Mack­in­tosh reached for him and snagged his shoulder just as a car rolled slowly by them.

  Mack­in­tosh re­cog­nised the driver.

  Walker saw the car, too. “Who’s that?”

  “Backup.”

  Mack­in­tosh sig­nalled for the car to turn down the road where he and Walker had parked and led Walker there to meet them.

  30

  Mack­in­tosh opened the rear door of the car and got in­side. Walker went around and got into the other side. Cameron and Fisher were in the front.

  “Thanks for com­in
g, lads,” Mack­in­tosh said to them.

  Cameron turned around and nod­ded at Walker. “Who’s this?”

  “He’s work­ing with me,” Mack­in­tosh said.

  “Who are you?” Walker asked, star­ing the man out.

  Cameron eye­balled him right back. “You got a prob­lem, pal?”

  “I don’t know. Do I?”

  “This is Walker,” Mack­in­tosh said. “He fol­lowed Mor­gan for me. Walker, this is Cameron and this is Fisher. They’re sol­diers. We’re all on the same side so, if it’s all right with the three of you, do you think you could shut the fuck up and listen to me?”

  The out­burst broke the ice. Walker looked sat­is­fied and the two sol­diers didn’t press things.

  “Aye,” said Cameron, hold­ing Jimmy’s eye for an­other beat be­fore re­lax­ing and sit­ting back in his seat. “Fine.”

  “Sol­diers?” Jimmy asked.

  “SAS,” Mack­in­tosh ex­plained. “The Stasi am­bushed us a week ago—Som­mer and his men killed two of my agents, and nearly killed us, too.”

  “And we’re not too thrilled about that,” Cameron said.

  “They’re go­ing to help us get to Mor­gan and Geipel.”

  Mack­in­tosh had kept in touch with the two men after the am­bush. This wasn’t an of­fi­cial de­ploy­ment. They would be court-mar­tialled if their in­volve­ment in Mack­in­tosh’s plan ever came to light, but they had seen what Som­mer and his men had done—opened fire on un­armed ci­vil­ians, ex­ecuted a dip­lo­mat rather than take her in for treat­ment—and they said they figured pay­back was in or­der. Mack­in­tosh had been grate­ful, and knew that he was for­tu­nate. The two of them were ex­per­i­enced killers. They had both been on the SAS team that had wiped out eight IRA on-the-runs, Re­pub­lican her­oes who hid in the Ir­ish bor­der counties. They were the kind of men Mack­in­tosh would have dearly liked to have on his team, but Bloom had nixed that and so he had been cre­at­ive.

  Mack­in­tosh no­ticed that Fisher had a plain black bag on his lap. Fisher un­zipped the bag and took out a small sub­ma­chine gun. Mack­in­tosh re­cog­nised it: a Heck­ler & Koch MP5-SD 9mm, the model with the in­teg­rated sup­pressor. Fisher re­moved the magazine, checked that the weapon was not charged, pulled the char­ging handle and locked the bolt. He in­ser­ted the magazine, slapped it home, re­leased the bolt and then en­gaged the safety. His move­ments were smooth and prac­tised, as though he were shelling peas.

  There was a sim­ilar bag next to Walker in the back. Cameron turned around again. “Pass me the bag.”

  Walker did as he was told and watched as Cameron pre­pared his own weapon.

  “What’s the SP?” Fisher asked.

  Mack­in­tosh nod­ded to the apart­ment build­ing. “Mor­gan sold us out—we know that now. He’s in a Stasi safe house on the fourth floor of that build­ing with at least one other man, and prob­ably more. There’s also a guard in­side the en­trance.”

  “And you want us to take them all out?”

  “Every­one but Mor­gan and a man called Geipel. He went up there ten minutes ago.”

  “We know Mor­gan,” Fisher said. “De­scribe Geipel.”

  “Thirties, six feet tall, black hair.”

  “Wear­ing?”

  “I didn’t get a good look.”

  “He had a coat down to his knees,” Walker said. “Beige trousers. Black boots.”

  “That’ll do,” Cameron said. “You want us to do it now?”

  “Yes, please,” Mack­in­tosh said.

  31

  The en­trance to the block was set within a re­cess, with a wide porch ex­tend­ing its roof out over the pave­ment. Cameron and Fisher went first, with Mack­in­tosh and Walker a few feet be­hind them. Mack­in­tosh saw the body­guard who had de­livered Geipel stand­ing just in­side the door. He was big, well over six feet tall and heavy with it. Mack­in­tosh saw a flash of or­ange as he put a lighter to the ci­gar­ette in his mouth; the man put his back against the wall and in­haled.

  Mack­in­tosh turned to check be­hind him. Walker was there, ten paces back. There was no one else on the street. No one ahead, either. The only man he could see was the guard out­side the build­ing. The two sol­diers slowed down. A car turned into the street. They waited un­til it had passed by be­fore pick­ing up the pace again.

  Cameron reached the build­ing first. The guard’s head turned as he heard the sound of his boots. The man looked him up and down, his ci­gar­ette poised to go back to his lips.

  “Ex­cuse me,” Cameron said.

  He used Eng­lish and the man’s fore­head crinkled in con­fu­sion. Cameron drove the butt of the MP5 into the man’s face. He stumbled back, de­fence­less, and Cameron fol­lowed up. He grabbed the man by the scruff of the neck and brought the butt of the gun down, crack­ing it against his skull. The guard slumped for­ward; Fisher came for­ward and helped sup­port the man’s weight. Cameron slipped around be­hind him so that he could loop his arms be­neath the guard’s arms and they dragged him in­side.

  Mack­in­tosh fol­lowed them into the lobby and looked around: it was wrecked, with paint peel­ing from the walls, puddles of wa­ter, and piles of trash that had gathered around the edges of the space, rust­ling in the wind that blew in through broken win­dows. Cameron dragged the guard across the floor, his heels scrap­ing twin trails through the grimy slush that had been trod­den in­side.

  Mack­in­tosh quickly scanned the rest of the lobby. There were el­ev­at­ors, but the doors were covered with wooden boards. The fire es­cape was to the left, a set of stairs that as­cen­ded to the other floors. Cameron dragged the man through the door to a half land­ing where he would be out of sight of pass­ers-by, and dropped him there.

  “Ready?” Cameron said.

  Mack­in­tosh nod­ded.

  “We’ll take the stairs. Walker—stay here with this guy. Keep him quiet. We won’t be long.”

  Walker nod­ded.

  Cameron turned to Mack­in­tosh. “Do you have your weapon?”

  Mack­in­tosh opened his jacket to show his holstered Ber­etta.

  “Take it out. We’ll go in first, but don’t hes­it­ate if you need to use it.”

  “Un­der­stood.”

  “Let’s go.”

  Cameron and Fisher star­ted to climb with Mack­in­tosh close be­hind them.

  First floor.

  Second floor.

  Third floor.

  They reached the fourth floor. There was a door and he pushed it open and stepped through onto the cor­ridor bey­ond. There were win­dows along the right-hand side of the cor­ridor. Mack­in­tosh glanced through the first one that he reached and saw the Wall, the death strip and the watchtower that he had seen from the street. There were two guards in the watchtower, both armed with rifles.

  The left-hand side of the cor­ridor had a num­ber of doors set along it. Cameron reached the first one, saw that it had the num­ber 400, and then con­tin­ued along un­til he reached 414. He paused out­side the door and leaned closer so that he might be able to listen to the noises from in­side. Mack­in­tosh listened, too. He thought that he could dis­tin­guish three sep­ar­ate speak­ers: Mor­gan, Geipel and one other?

  Cameron raised his hand and held up three fin­gers, con­firm­ing Mack­in­tosh’s count. The sol­dier held the MP5-SD in both hands, right hand on the pis­tol grip and left hand cradling the re­ceiver, took a step to the right, and then turned so that he was just off square with the door. Fisher came up and stood next to him, straight on with the door handle.

  Cameron whispered: “Three, two, one, breach.”

  Fisher drew back his right foot and kicked the door just be­neath the handle.

  The thin ply­wood splintered around the lock and the door flew back into the apart­ment. Cameron aimed for­ward, his el­bows bent slightly. Mack­in­tosh was in the cor­ridor and couldn’t see in­side, but he heard the re­port of the
MP5-SD as Cameron fired it. The sup­pressor deadened the sound a little, but it was still loud. There was a short pause and then the gun chattered again.

  “Clear,” Cameron said.

  Fisher went in next, and Mack­in­tosh fol­lowed. He scanned his im­me­di­ate sur­round­ings. He was in a sit­ting room: there was a large win­dow dir­ectly ahead and a door to his right. There was a beige sofa and two match­ing arm­chairs to his left and a cof­fee table to the right. The apart­ment was heated with coal that was burned in a free-stand­ing ceramic oven. Cameron saw a pile of dusty bri­quettes in the space next to the win­dow.

  There were three men in the room: Geipel was sit­ting on the arm­chair at Mack­in­tosh’s nine and two men he didn’t re­cog­nise were on the sofa at his el­even. Both of those men had been shot. Cameron’s gun was aimed at Geipel.

  “How many oth­ers?” Cameron asked in Ger­man.

  “One,” Geipel replied, his eyes go­ing to the only other door that led off the sit­ting room.

  Mor­gan was the only man who was un­ac­coun­ted for.

  Fisher ap­proached the door. “Come out,” he called.

  The door flew open to re­veal a small, un­pleas­ant bath­room. Mor­gan was stand­ing there, a small pis­tol in his hand. He was four feet away and couldn’t miss. Fisher fired a three-shot burst and all three rounds found their mark. Mor­gan was struck in the throat and chest, a cas­cade of blood splash­ing out to spray over the stained por­cel­ain and the dirty tiled floor. He fell back, stum­bling over the toi­let bowl and yank­ing down the mil­dewed shower cur­tain as he slumped to the floor.