The Vault Read online

  Jimmy heard the knock at the door. He pad­ded across the car­pet on stockinged feet and looked through the spy­glass: Mack­in­tosh was stand­ing out­side the door, his face dis­tor­ted by the fisheye lens. He turned the handle and left the door open, mak­ing his way back into the room. Mack­in­tosh came in­side and closed the door be­hind him. Jimmy turned back and watched as he went to the ra­dio and switched it on, turn­ing the volume up. Jimmy frowned at him; Mack­in­tosh put his fin­ger to his lips. He took out a piece of moul­ded black plastic and pulled out an ex­tend­able aer­ial from the top.

  Mack­in­tosh flicked the dial on the face of the ma­chine to switch it on.

  “What is that?” Jimmy asked, point­ing at the plastic box.

  “A ra­dio fre­quency de­tector. The room’s clear.” He turned the volume down as Ya­zoo was re­placed by Tears for Fears.

  “You think it could’ve been bugged?”

  “The Stasi make it a habit to leave them in rooms where vis­it­ors might stay.”

  “But this is West Ber­lin.”

  Mack­in­tosh looked at him as if he was stu­pid. “You know how many act­ive of­ficers they have? Agents, in­form­ers, people sup­ply­ing them with in­form­a­tion? One hun­dred thou­sand, James. They’re every­where. The cleaner who does your room? Maybe she’s get­ting a little on the side for keep­ing an eye on west­ern guests. The bell­boy? The same. The re­cep­tion­ist, room ser­vice, the valet down­stairs.”

  “I get the pic­ture.”

  “As­sume the worst. That way you won’t be sur­prised.” He switched off the device and put it back into his bag. “I’ve got some­thing for you.”

  Mack­in­tosh took out a pho­to­graph. He handed it to Jimmy. It was of Isa­bel and Sean. They were on Well Street Com­mon, near to the house. Sean had a ball at his feet and had been cap­tured in the act of kick­ing it. Isa­bel was smil­ing at him, but there was a sad­ness in her face.

  Jimmy felt a sense of wist­ful­ness. “Where did you get this?”

  “It was taken this morn­ing, while you were still in the cell. I thought you might like it while you were over here.”

  The mel­an­choly be­came an­ger. “You had someone watch­ing my girl­friend and kid?”

  “Only for this.”

  Jimmy took a step to­ward Mack­in­tosh, grabbed the lapels of his jacket and drove him back against the wall. “Stay away from them,” he said, his mouth close to Mack­in­tosh’s ear.

  “Re­lax,” Mack­in­tosh said. Jimmy saw the fear in his eyes.

  “I don’t want you or any­one else who works for you any­where near them.”

  “Fine,” Mack­in­tosh said, grabbing Jimmy’s wrists and gently lower­ing his hands. “Fine. It didn’t mean any­thing. I just thought you’d like a photo.”

  Jimmy put the pho­to­graph in his pocket and went to the win­dow. He looked down onto Mohren­straße and saw a gang of young­sters id­ling at the junc­tion with Mark­grafen­straße. Drink­ers gathered out­side the bar there. The sky was dark, with a thick can­opy of cloud block­ing out the moon and the stars. Snow was fall­ing, a thin dust­ing that settled on everything. It al­most looked fest­ive.

  “So why am I here? What do you want me to do?”

  Mack­in­tosh put his bag on the bed and sat down next to it. “There’s a man I’m in­ter­ested in,” he said. “I’d like you to fol­low him.”

  “Who is he?”

  Mack­in­tosh took a folder from his bag and put it on the bed. He opened it and slid out a large black and white pho­to­graph.

  “His name is Mor­gan. He works for me at the con­su­late.”

  Jimmy looked at the pho­to­graph: the man was in late middle age, with curls of thick black hair atop a roun­ded face, with thick rimmed glasses.

  “So he’s a spy?”

  “He’s an agent run­ner. But, yes, you could call him a spy.”

  “So why am I fol­low­ing your own man?”

  Mack­in­tosh ex­haled. “I had an op­er­a­tion in East Ber­lin on Christ­mas Eve. It was com­prom­ised and two of my people were killed. Someone be­trayed us to the Stasi.”

  “And you think it was him?”

  “I do.” Mack­in­tosh glanced away, his thoughts tem­por­ar­ily fo­cussed on some­thing else. When he looked back, there was fresh de­term­in­a­tion on his face. “He was born in Cairo. Son of an Aus­trian mother and a Jew­ish father. They sent him back to Aus­tria and he was there when the war star­ted. His fam­ily fled and trav­elled to Bri­tain. They were nat­ur­al­ised and he joined the Navy be­fore he was re­cruited by SIS. He’s been all over the world: he in­ter­rog­ated U-boat cap­tains in Ham­burg, went to Seoul un­der dip­lo­matic cover to get in­tel­li­gence on the North. He was cap­tured when Seoul fell and was held near the Yalu River. If we’re right, and the So­vi­ets turned him, I’ll bet it happened there.”

  “And you’re sure?”

  “Not com­pletely. I hope I’m wrong, but that’s where you come in. I’m go­ing to tell him some­thing to­mor­row morn­ing that will give him cause for ser­i­ous con­cern. I know what Mor­gan is like—he’s a cow­ard, James. If I’m right, he’ll run straight to his hand­ler. He doesn’t know who you are—no one knows. I want you to fol­low him.”

  “And how am I go­ing to do that?”

  Mack­in­tosh took a key from his pocket and put it on the bed next to the pho­to­graph. “There’s a Mer­cedes parked down­stairs in the car park—a red 190E Cos­worth. I’ve writ­ten the plate on the pa­per. This is the key. There’ll be a safe house some­where in this part of the city. That’s where he’ll go. You’re go­ing to find it for me.”

  “Where do I find him?”

  “There’s an ad­dress on the pa­per, too. That’s the con­su­late. Be there to­mor­row morn­ing at nine. I’ll speak to Mor­gan just after that—he’ll be frightened and I don’t think he’s got the guts to wait it out. He’ll make an ex­cuse and run. There’s a car park op­pos­ite it. He has an Audi Quat­tro. Fol­low him.”

  “Any­thing else?”

  Mack­in­tosh reached into his bag again and took out a pis­tol and a spare magazine. He put both items on the bed.

  “Ser­i­ously?”

  “Just in case you need it.”

  “You said you wanted me to fol­low him.”

  “I do. But he’s prob­ably go­ing to go and meet a Stasi agent and I’d rather you had a weapon and didn’t need it than need one and not have it.”

  Jimmy reached down and picked up the gun.

  “Have you used one be­fore?” Mack­in­tosh asked.

  “Never,” Jimmy said.

  Mack­in­tosh put out his hand and Jimmy gave him the gun. “Don’t point it at any­one you don’t want to kill. When you want to shoot, click the safety off, look at the tar­get, grip the handle in both hands, press the gun to­ward the tar­get, pull the trig­ger. Re­peat un­til dead. Got it?”

  “Got it,” he said.

  Mack­in­tosh flicked the safety on and gave the weapon back to Jimmy.

  “You’ll need some loose change. When you find out where he goes, find a payphone and call me on this num­ber. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  Jimmy took the piece of pa­per that Mack­in­tosh handed him. “All right,” he said.

  “To­mor­row morn­ing, James. Be in the car park at nine o’clock. Don’t be late. We’ll only get one chance at this. They’ll try and get him into the East. We’ll never see him again if that hap­pens.”

  “What are you go­ing to do if it is him?”

  “He’ll need to be per­suaded to an­swer a few ques­tions. But you won’t need to worry about that—it’s my re­spons­ib­il­ity.”

  Mack­in­tosh told Jimmy to get some sleep and left the room. Jimmy sat down on the mat­tress. He was tired. He brought out the pho­to­graph Mack­in­tosh had given to him and looked at it again. Isa­bel was smil­ing in the p
ic­ture, but it wasn’t a real smile. He wondered: what would hap­pen if he didn’t make it back home? What if some­thing happened to him here, in this shi­thole? The thought of Sean kick­ing a ball in the park with no one there to kick it back to him… that thought threatened to over­whelm him. He felt a burn­ing in his chest, like a hot poker slowly slid­ing through his body. The tears came, and he wiped them away. They never helped.

  Part IV

  23

  It was a con­tinu­ing source of dis­ap­point­ment to Gen­er­al­leut­nant Karl-Heinz Som­mer that his of­fice was not loc­ated in House One of the Min­istry for State Se­cur­ity. The vast com­plex that housed the Min­istry stretched across the Ruches­traße and was re­spons­ible for the op­er­a­tion of the Stasi as well as fa­cil­it­at­ing its huge net­work of in­form­ants. The Min­istry’s pur­pose was simple: the pre­ser­va­tion and pro­tec­tion of the state. Som­mer’s pur­pose was the at­tain­ment, con­sol­id­a­tion and ex­er­cise of power. It was a pity that his po­s­i­tion, al­though sig­ni­fic­ant, was not enough to move him into the ex­ec­ut­ive of­fices. That was where he wanted to be; that was where the real power was loc­ated. But there were con­sol­a­tions to make up for the dis­ap­point­ment. The lux­ury of his build­ing bore no com­par­ison to the drab fur­nish­ings that were found in the build­ing that housed the head of the Min­istry, for ex­ample. Herr Pabst made do with thread­bare car­pets, walls painted in mu­ni­cipal green, and fur­niture that was util­it­arian, at best.

  Som­mer had loc­ated this build­ing him­self. It had been a wreck, used and ab­used by a gar­rison of Rus­sian troops and then left to rot. It had been a vicar­age be­fore the war, hun­dreds of years old, and still re­tained ar­chi­tec­tural fea­tures that marked its age, worn as badges of hon­our. Som­mer had lob­bied the Ad­min­is­tra­tion Di­vi­sion for a budget to make it whole and had taken his time to make sure that it was done right.

  There was a suite of private rooms on the top floor where he lived dur­ing the rare oc­ca­sions when he wasn’t work­ing. There was space for his staff on the three floors be­neath: of­fices, brief­ing rooms, a typ­ing pool. Be­neath that, the base­ment had been ex­cav­ated and con­struc­ted to his ex­act­ing re­quire­ments: his in­ter­rog­a­tion room was there, a place where he had de­rived hours of the most ex­quis­ite pleas­ure. He had spe­cified everything: the pre­cise cant of the floors, a shal­low V that met in a trough that led to a drain in the middle of the room; the stain­less-steel table, with leather straps, that could be angled up or down by way of a pivot, bet­ter to al­low for blood and vis­cera to be sloshed clear; the se­lec­tion of tools that were hung from hooks on the wall, ar­ranged just so. Next to that was the wa­ter cell, an­other of his designs. Sus­pects who fell into his hands were sub­jec­ted to what he termed ‘im­mer­sion in­ter­rog­a­tion.’ The cell had been equipped with a five-foot pit that was then filled with freez­ing wa­ter. He found that the fear of drown­ing was of­ten more ef­fect­ive in pro­cur­ing in­form­a­tion than other more tra­di­tional tech­niques.

  And then there was the vault. It was his pride and joy. He was the only man alive who knew how to get in­side. It was the ful­crum of his power, a re­pos­it­ory for the files and au­dio re­cord­ings and com­prom­ising evid­ence—and yes, the loot—that he had ac­quired over the years.

  Som­mer was in his private of­fice on the third floor. He looked around and re­minded him­self that whatever he lacked in prestige, he made up for in aes­thetic pleas­ure. A thick blood-red car­pet covered the of­fice floor. The fur­nish­ings were clas­sic: an an­tique wal­nut desk, a roll-top bur­eau, a sofa in the old French style, and gold-base lamps with muted silk shades. Som­mer ad­jus­ted his tie in the ro­coco mir­ror and then shrugged on his jacket. The Stasi of­ficer’s uni­form boas­ted a re­mark­able sim­il­ar­ity to the first uni­form that he had worn: that of the Allge­mei­neSS. This jacket did not have the Wehr­macht-style nar­row braided sil­ver shoulder boards, but it was double-breasted, just the same, cut from rich black cloth with gold flashes on the lapels.

  He looked into the mir­ror again, ex­amin­ing his uni­form, re­mind­ing him­self of how sim­ilar it was to the one that he had worn forty years ago. He closed his eyes. He had not tried to ex­punge the memory of what had happened to him. Why would he want to do that? He re­vis­ited it of­ten. What had happened to him in Ber­lin had been his mo­tiv­a­tion, the reason for his drive, the cru­cible in which his char­ac­ter had been forged.

  24

  It was the day of his nine­teenth birth­day when Som­mer saw the first Rus­sian tanks rolling into the streets around the Chan­cellery. He was serving in the SS 12th Pan­zer Di­vi­sion Hitler­ju­gend, and had been in­volved in the mas­sacre of one hun­dred and fifty Ca­na­dian POWs in Nor­mandy one year earlier. The Di­vi­sion had been re­called to as­sist in the de­fence of the cap­ital, but it had quickly be­come clear—even to the young Ober­stam­mführer Som­mer—that the Wehr­macht was be­ing over­run. He could see the tec­ton­ics of the situ­ation shift­ing, could fore­see what the next weeks and months might look like, and had star­ted to plot his sur­vival. But the tanks had rolled in faster than any­one had an­ti­cip­ated, and he had had to think quickly.

  He con­cocted a plan and moved quickly to put it into ef­fect. He swapped his SS uni­form for the clothes of a dead man who he had found in the rubble on the first floor of a ruined house. Then, he took a knife that he found in the kit­chen and sliced into the skin just above his scalp, en­cour­aging the blood to flow. It did, a crim­son mask that slid down his face and dripped onto his clothes.

  He made his way south, where he was picked up by Rus­sian in­fantry. He feigned am­ne­sia. He said he was a ci­vil­ian and that he re­membered shel­ter­ing in­side a build­ing and then that build­ing be­ing shelled. He said he re­membered ma­sonry fall­ing onto him and then noth­ing after that. His memor­ies were a nar­row en­vel­ope; he couldn’t re­mem­ber his name, who he was, or where he was from. The sol­diers took him to Beel­itz-Heil­stät­ten, the hos­pital that had once treated Hitler dur­ing the Great War. It was hideously over­crowded, with sol­diers and ci­vil­ians filling beds in the wards and cor­ridors and over­worked staff flit­ting between them. The nurses didn’t have time to speak to Som­mer prop­erly; they con­cluded that he must have been struck on the head, treated him as best they could and then ad­mit­ted him.

  He had time and that was all he needed. He con­struc­ted a story for him­self, fur­nish­ing it with lav­ish de­tail. The Rus­si­ans were search­ing for SS of­ficers who were flee­ing the city in dis­guise; a mil­it­ary in­tel­li­gence of­ficer came to quiz him. Som­mer said that he was a young Aus­trian farmer and told the of­ficer about life on the farm, of how he had worked with his father in the fields. He ex­plained how his father had gone off to fight in the war and how he had died on the front­line at Stal­in­grad and how his mother had drowned her­self after hear­ing the news.

  What had happened to Som­mer’s mother and father was easy to tell: it was all true.

  The rest of what he said was not.

  Som­mer told of how Ger­man sol­diers swept over his vil­lage in search of a Jew­ish fam­ily who were be­ing har­boured there. He told him that he had watched the sol­diers ar­rive and had heard the crack of their rifles as they lined the fam­ily up against the wall of the barn and shot them.

  The story had eli­cited sym­pathy from the of­ficer, but it wasn’t en­tirely true. He had omit­ted sev­eral key de­tails.

  The sol­diers did come to the vil­lage and they did find the fam­ily, but it was not a mat­ter of chance. The day after Som­mer bur­ied his mother, he walked ten miles into the town and re­por­ted that his neigh­bour was har­bour­ing Jews in his loft. The SS of­ficers con­grat­u­lated Som­mer. He liked their uni­forms. One of the of­ficers gave him a chocol­ate
bar. It was the first that he had ever seen, never mind eaten. He re­membered the taste of the chocol­ate, eaten as he sat on a fence and watched the sol­diers ex­ecute his neigh­bours and the young fam­ily that they had been hid­ing.

  Som­mer was given money and a train ticket to Ber­lin. He was in­struc­ted to join the Hitler­ju­gend. He did so, and, after show­ing par­tic­u­lar aptitude, he gradu­ated to the SS as one of their young­est of­ficers.

  The Rus­sian of­ficer be­lieved Som­mer. He was sent out of the city with the refugees who had no wish to be im­mol­ated on the pyre that was be­ing cre­ated for Hitler and the Reich. Som­mer had ended up in Luck­en­walde, had stayed there for a year, and then had drif­ted back to Ber­lin again, sucked back by the op­por­tun­it­ies that he knew were swirl­ing around in the vor­tex that had been cre­ated by the clash­ing armies, all of them squab­bling over the spoils. There was con­fu­sion every­where, and Som­mer knew that he could profit from it. He joined the So­cial­ist Unity Party. He ap­plied to join the po­lice and, in 1950, when it was in­sti­tuted, he trans­ferred into the Stasi.

  He had sur­vived. More than that: he had done well. In all wars, both cold and hot, there were sur­viv­ors. Those who were destined to make it out alive no mat­ter the odds, no mat­ter the pain, no mat­ter how many lives they had to take.

  Som­mer was one of them.

  25

  Som­mer’s tele­phone rang. He picked up the re­ceiver and cradled it to his ear as he ad­jus­ted the cuffs of his shirt.

  “Who is it?”

  “Ma­jor Hoff­man, sir.”

  “What is it, Ma­jor?”

  “There has been an in­cid­ent at our sta­tion in West Ber­lin.”

  “Which sta­tion?”

  “Kreuzberg. It’s been at­tacked, sir.”

  Som­mer took a gold-tipped foun­tain pen and made notes in a small black book. “Go on.”