The Vault Page 15

The door­man shook his head; Jimmy doubted that he un­der­stood him.

  “Müller,” Jimmy said. “I’m here to see Müller.”

  The man re­gistered the name and stood aside. Jimmy went in­side. The smell of sweat hit him like a five-pound ham­mer as soon as he crossed the threshold. The place was packed. It was lit with red bulbs that lent it a crazed, hellish air. The cus­tom­ers were all men. Most of them were drunk. A dozen crowded the bar, leer­ing men­acingly at the bar­maid with money proffered in their fists. In the other half of the room, on the left and closest to the win­dows, were ten round tables that were big enough to ac­com­mod­ate three or four chairs around them.

  Jimmy looked around at the faces of the men un­til he saw a man at one of the tables. He was short and squat and ob­vi­ously power­fully built. His hair was cropped short, right up against the scalp. He was wear­ing a black leather coat and a dark tur­tle­neck sweater. He was clean shaven. He looked like a sol­dier. Jimmy thought back to the SAS men in Ul­ster, shorter than you would ex­pect, less phys­ic­ally im­pos­ing, but they held them­selves with a cer­tain bear­ing that was im­possible to miss once you had re­cog­nised it. This man looked just like that: con­fid­ent, com­pet­ent, in con­trol.

  And star­ing right at Jimmy.

  He squeezed through to the back of the room and reached the table: the man stared up at him, hard-faced and with a dull hos­til­ity in his eyes.

  “Müller?” Jimmy asked.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “I’m Jimmy Walker.”

  Müller nod­ded. “I know.”

  “Good to meet you. Mind if I sit?”

  Müller shrugged and flicked his fin­gers at the empty seat.

  Jimmy sat down.

  When Müller fi­nally spoke, his voice was quiet, his Eng­lish heav­ily ac­cen­ted. “How are you en­joy­ing Ber­lin?”

  Jimmy smiled at him. “There’s noth­ing in the shops, what little food there is doesn’t agree with me, the people are miser­able, the pro­pa­ganda mur­als are well drawn, and the weather’s shite. It’s just like home.”

  Müller stared at him and, for a mo­ment, Jimmy wondered whether he had taken his com­ment as an in­sult.

  “You are a funny man,” he said at last, without the slight­est hint of a smile.

  “I aim to please.”

  “I know a little about you, of course.”

  “All good, I hope?”

  “You are from County Louth.”

  “Bel­fast,” Jimmy cor­rec­ted. “You try­ing to catch me out?”

  Müller didn’t ac­know­ledge Jimmy’s grin. “Born in 1960. Joined the IRA, re­spons­ible for over­sight of the or­gan­isa­tion’s arms caches.”

  “All spot on, so far.”

  “Now you live in Lon­don with your girl­friend and son.” Müller stared at him. “Isa­bel and Sean.”

  Jimmy man­aged to sup­press the in­vol­un­tary flinch of panic. He had no idea how Mack­in­tosh had con­struc­ted his cover story. He had as­sumed that most of it would be ori­ginal but now, with the names of his girl­friend and son still hanging in the air, he real­ised that that was not the case. They had woven strands of his real life into the façade that they had con­struc­ted for him. He knew why: the more of it that was le­git­im­ate, veri­fi­able, the bet­ter the de­cep­tion. It still caught him cold, though, and he felt a buzz of an­ger that Mack­in­tosh would do that without telling him.

  “What is it?” Müller asked him.

  “Why would you men­tion my fam­ily?”

  “To demon­strate that we con­duct care­ful re­search into the men and wo­men that we meet.”

  “It soun­ded like a threat to me.”

  “It’s not a threat—”

  Jimmy spoke over him. “If you men­tion the name of my girl­friend or child again, we’re go­ing to have a prob­lem. Do you un­der­stand?”

  Müller eyed him. “Calm down, Herr Walker. I’m not threat­en­ing you or your fam­ily. You checked out. You wouldn’t have been al­lowed to meet me oth­er­wise. Now—can I get you a drink?”

  Jimmy nod­ded to the empty steins on the next table across. “One of those,” he said.

  Müller called out some­thing in Ger­man, poin­ted to the steins and held up two fin­gers. Jimmy turned around to see a man who had been stand­ing at the bar, pre­sum­ably watch­ing in the event that he was needed. The man glared back at him, then turned to the bar and whistled to sum­mon the bar­maid.

  “You like Ger­man beer, Herr Walker?”

  “I prefer stout.”

  “Ah, yes. Guin­ness.”

  “You can get that here?”

  “Of course not. But I have worked abroad be­fore. Lon­don.”

  The man from the bar re­turned to break the si­lence, de­pos­it­ing two steins of la­ger on the table.

  “This is Kirch­ers Pils from the brew­ery in Dreb­kau. It is the best in the DDR.”

  Müller took his stein and held it up. Jimmy did the same, and the two touched glasses and drank. Müller watched him as he drank; the beer was de­cent, if a little warm, and Jimmy fin­ished half.

  “You like it?”

  “Not bad.” Jimmy put the glass to his lips and sank the rest, re­pla­cing the stein on the table and wip­ing his lips with the back of his hand. “You want an­other?”

  Müller fin­ished his stein and put it down next to Jimmy’s. He held up two fin­gers again, and the other man went back to the bar.

  “So what is it you want?” Müller asked.

  “I’m here to buy some goods. You know who I rep­res­ent. We share a com­mon en­emy with you. And my en­emy’s en­emy is my friend—un­der­stand?”

  “I do un­der­stand, Herr Walker, but we are not friends.”

  “Really? Col­onel Gad­dafi was our friend, and he made a lot of money with us, but he can’t sup­ply us any longer. Trans­port routes from Libya have been closed. We are look­ing to re­place him as our sup­plier.”

  “What kind of goods do you have in mind?”

  “I have a long list. For now, I need RPG-7s. So­viet-made, not cheap South­east Asian knock-offs. Anti-ar­mour and anti-per­son­nel gren­ades, maybe PG-7VLs. A hun­dred and fifty gren­ades and let’s say fifty launch­ers.”

  “That’s a lot of ord­nance.”

  “That’s just to start. If all goes well, we’ll re­order. Two hun­dred and fifty RPGs and five hun­dred gren­ades, plus auto­matic weapons and am­muni­tion.”

  “Any­thing else?”

  “Sem­tex and blast­ing caps.” He looked at Müller. “Are you go­ing to re­mem­ber all this?”

  “I’m sure I’ll man­age. But tell me—why should we sell to you?”

  “Herr Som­mer will be well paid for his troubles. I’m not a fool—the weapons won’t cost him any­thing. They’ll come out of cent­ral sup­plies and he’ll pocket all of the pur­chase price. And good for him. I don’t give a shit.”

  “And you think he is mo­tiv­ated by money?”

  “There are other be­ne­fits, too. How about a much smal­ler Brit­ish in­tel­li­gence staff in Ber­lin? Would that be help­ful?”

  “Go on.”

  “Do you re­mem­ber the at­tack on the gov­ern­ment in 1984? In Brighton.”

  “Of course. The hotel bomb­ing.”

  Jimmy smiled. “Brit­ish in­tel­li­gence was gut­ted for a year. Agents were called back. Every MI5 and MI6 agent who could be spared went home to find the cul­prits. Ima­gine what it would be like if we went after Lon­don, Manchester and Birm­ing­ham with RPGs. A dozen mo­bile units, all trained and highly mo­bile, hit­ting and run­ning, hit­ting and run­ning, again and again. Those units are all over the coun­try right now, wait­ing for those weapons. Tell me that’s not in your in­terest.”

  “But only if they could not be traced back to us.”

  “I’m sure the gen­eral’s deals are all off book. You can file the mark�
�ings off the weapons if you like. How could they be traced? We can be as care­ful as you like.”

  Müller sucked his cheek as he con­sidered the of­fer.

  “So?” Jimmy said. “Yes or no?”

  “The gen­eral will want a de­posit. Some­thing to show you can meet your side of the deal.”

  Jimmy took the bag from the floor and put it on the table. He un­zipped it and opened it up so that Müller could look in­side.

  “There’s fifty thou­sand in there,” he said.

  “Ost­marks?”

  “Deutschmarks.”

  Müller looked into the bag and then stared at Jimmy, siz­ing him up.

  “Well?” Jimmy said. “It’s a simple yes or no. If you don’t think your boss would want to sell to me, that’s fine. Just tell me now and I’ll get on a plane to Mo­scow. The KGB will be trip­ping over their fur coats to work with us.”

  Müller zipped up the bag and lif­ted it from the table. “I will be in touch.”

  “And?”

  “If the gen­eral wants to meet, I’ll let you know.”

  “Fine. One thing, though. I’ll want to see the goods be­fore I do a deal. If he wants to meet, tell him to have samples for me to in­spect. Launch­ers, gren­ades, ex­plos­ives and det­on­at­ors.”

  “Go back to your hotel, Herr Walker.”

  48

  Jimmy got up early. Snow had fallen all night and the streets were choked, some of them im­pass­able. Work­men in bright red over­alls were spray­ing chem­ic­als on the road, and an­cient snowploughs, some of them barely run­ning, cleared the drifts and cut chan­nels between parked cars that had been en­tirely sub­merged be­neath the blankets of white.

  Jimmy stomped through the snow, his boots quickly over­topped and the cold icing his feet. He thought back to last night and the meet­ing with Müller. Ok­sana had driven him back to the hotel and had de­briefed him in the car. Jimmy said that he felt the meet­ing had gone well, but that he had found it dif­fi­cult to get a read on Müller. She said that she would con­tact him to find out whether the gen­eral would pur­sue the deal.

  Jimmy was on his own again un­til that happened. He went to the res­taur­ant for break­fast, not­ing that the same people that had been there yes­ter­day were there today, eye­ing the weather with bale­ful ex­pres­sions, grumbling about the latest in­con­veni­ence that they would have to face. Jimmy ordered saus­ages and tea, the same as the day be­fore, and sat down to eat. He looked up to see the man who had been fol­low­ing him yes­ter­day in the door­way. The man—Jimmy guessed that he must have worked for the Stasi agency deputed to deal with the mon­it­or­ing of for­eign­ers—stomped the snow from his boots and came in­side. The pro­pri­etor looked at him war­ily, most likely very much aware of whom he rep­res­en­ted, and pre­pared a mug of cof­fee. The man sat down at a table on the other side of the room, seat­ing him­self so that he could watch Jimmy.

  Jimmy had had enough. He picked up his plate and his mug of tea and crossed the room. The man watched him as he ap­proached, his eyes widen­ing as he real­ised that he was headed straight for him.

  “Morn­ing,” Jimmy said. He nod­ded down at an empty chair. “You mind?”

  The man didn’t speak, and it wouldn’t have mattered if he had; Jimmy put his plate on the table and sat down.

  “Jimmy Walker,” he said, hold­ing out his hand. “Who the fuck are you?”

  The man replied in Ger­man.

  “Don’t know what you’re say­ing, mate,” he said. “But I bet you un­der­stand me. I know you people are fol­low­ing me around. I don’t sup­pose there’s much I can say to get you to piss off, so I’ll just say this. You’re so bloody ob­vi­ous I al­most find it in­sult­ing. You might try and make a bloody ef­fort, that’s all. It’s em­bar­rass­ing. You’re giv­ing the Stasi a bad name.”

  Jimmy stabbed the last piece of saus­age with his fork, put it into his mouth, and washed it down with the rest of the tea. He got up, went to the counter and paid for both his meal and the man’s cof­fee, leav­ing a gen­er­ous tip.

  “See you to­mor­row,” he said.

  The pro­pri­etor looked away, un­will­ing to en­dorse a cus­tomer who had just con­fron­ted a secret po­lice­man like that.

  Jimmy turned to the man who had been fol­low­ing him.

  “Com­ing?”

  He went back out­side and looked through the win­dow. The man was on his feet, hur­riedly pulling on his over­coat. Jimmy paused on the threshold un­til the man had buttoned it all the way up, gave him a cheery wave, and then set off back to the hotel. He knew that he ought not to have done that, but he couldn’t res­ist it. And, he ad­mit­ted to him­self, while it might have been child­ish and ill-ad­vised, it was still en­joy­able.

  *

  Jimmy went back to bed and slept for an­other three hours. He would have slept longer, but the ringing of the tele­phone roused him.

  “Hello?”

  “It’s me. How are you?”

  Jimmy re­membered what Ok­sana had told him last night. The room would be bugged. The tele­phone would be bugged. He had an audi­ence and now he had to per­form for them.

  “I’m get­ting im­pa­tient,” he said. “Have you heard from them?”

  “Yes,” Ok­sana said. “The gen­eral wants to see you this even­ing.”

  “About bloody time. I was be­gin­ning to won­der if my money wasn’t good enough for him.”

  “It’s good enough.”

  “What about the shop­ping list?”

  “He says it can be done.”

  “Good. When and where?”

  “I’ll pick you up to­night at eight,” she said. “The meet­ing will be at the gen­eral’s premises.”

  49

  Mack­in­tosh woke up and struggled to open his eyes. He was in a dark room. There was al­most no light, save a thin sliver that leaked in be­neath a door a few feet ahead of him. Everything else was pitch black. He was sit­ting on a chair that had been bolted to the floor. His arms were be­hind his back, se­cured by cuffs around each wrist. His legs were sim­il­arly re­strained, with the cuffs shackled in turn to the legs of the chair. He was un­able to move his limbs more than a few de­grees. The ache in his muscles sug­ges­ted that he had been left in this po­s­i­tion for some time. His neck, in par­tic­u­lar, was stiff. His head had been lolling to one side, and he grim­aced with pain as he tried to lift it back into its nor­mal po­s­i­tion.

  It took him a mo­ment to re­mem­ber what had happened to him: the three men who had burst into his flat, how they had re­strained him and then drugged him. He found that his mouth was dry, and tried to sum­mon a little saliva so that he might moisten it. It was fruit­less; he badly needed a drink.

  “Hey!” He yelled out. “Hey!”

  There was no re­sponse. He tried to free his wrists, but the shackles were se­curely in place and all he man­aged to do was chafe the skin.

  “I’m a Brit­ish dip­lo­mat! You have no right to hold me.”

  He heard the sound of foot­steps ap­proach­ing from the other side of the door. A spy hole slid open and let in a shaft of ar­ti­fi­cial light. The light was ex­tin­guished as someone put their face to the spy hole, and then closed the slide once more.

  “Open the door,” Mack­in­tosh yelled out.

  He heard the sound of a key turn­ing in the lock, and then of bolts be­ing slid back. The door opened on rusty hinges and light poured in from the cor­ridor out­side. Mack­in­tosh blinked and then looked away un­til his eyes had ad­jus­ted to the sud­den change. He saw the sil­hou­ette of a man in the door­way.

  “I’m sorry to have had to bring you here like this,” the man said. He spoke in Eng­lish, heav­ily ac­cen­ted. “Still, we needed to have a con­ver­sa­tion and I doubt that would have been pos­sible un­less it was here. There are some things that we need to talk about that might be a little un­pleas­ant.”

>   Mack­in­tosh re­cog­nised the voice, and knew who it was even be­fore the man came for­ward so that the light fell on his face. Karl-Heinz Som­mer was in uni­form, the dark green fab­ric al­most black in the gloom.

  “You have no right to do this.”

  “You can’t really com­plain, Herr Mack­in­tosh. You brought it upon your­self. Some might have de­scribed your at­tack on my safe house as an act of ag­gres­sion. It was very reck­less. It could have pre­cip­it­ated a crisis.”

  “You’re not really in a po­s­i­tion to cri­ti­cise me. Men in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.”

  Som­mer chuckled. “Who was re­spons­ible for what happened? I hear it was the SAS. Very im­press­ive. I’d like to meet them.”

  “I’d like that too. Maybe I could make an in­tro­duc­tion.”

  Som­mer leaned against the door frame, his face half in shadow. “Thank you for bring­ing Günter to my at­ten­tion. He really does have an in­ter­est­ing story to tell, doesn’t he? I wondered whether it could be true, but he’s very con­vin­cing. I might have you tell him what happened to his fam­ily. He thinks they’re out­side the city. They’re not. I have them. He hasn’t told me where to find the pho­to­graphs yet. I was go­ing to bring them in and have them shot in front of him, one by one. What do you think? You are re­spons­ible for what hap­pens to them, after all. If you had kept your hands off him, none of this would have happened. I think you should tell him what’s go­ing to hap­pen to them.”

  Mack­in­tosh ground his teeth.

  “And it’s aw­ful what happened to your French friend. What was her name?”

  “Élodie,” Mack­in­tosh said, his voice low.

  “Élodie. I took one look at her and I knew the best thing was to put her out of her misery. It was mer­ci­ful, in the cir­cum­stances. You can thank me later.”

  Mack­in­tosh wanted noth­ing more than to launch him­self at Som­mer; to get his hands around the man’s throat and squeeze.

  “There’s someone who’d like to see you. Come in, my dear. Herr Mack­in­tosh is here. You really should say hello.”