The Vault Read online

  “LEXIKON called and said that he had been ex­posed. He was told to re­port to Kreuzberg for de­brief­ing and pos­sible ex­filtra­tion. Col­onel Geipel was to con­duct the de­brief him­self.”

  “And?”

  “And they were at­tacked. LEXIKON, Stabsfäh­nrich Gross­man and Stabsfäh­nrich Vokes were found in the apart­ment. All shot. Un­ter­of­f­iz­ier Beck­man was found un­con­scious on the ground floor. He said that he saw four men go­ing into the build­ing—one of them at­tacked him and knocked him out. He didn’t re­cog­nise any of them.”

  “And Col­onel Geipel?”

  “He is miss­ing, Gen­eral.”

  Som­mer un­der­lined Geipel’s name, re­peat­ing the stroke un­til the nib of the pen sliced through the pa­per.

  “Does any­one else know about this?”

  “The Bundespol­izei were called.”

  “And would they be able to identify the dead men?”

  “They are un­likely to have any­thing on Gross­man. LEXIKON, though—I think it is pos­sible.”

  “Find out. And tell no one else of this—do you un­der­stand, Ma­jor? No one.”

  “Yes, Col­onel,” said Hof­mann, and hung up.

  Som­mer stood, put on his jacket and left his of­fice.

  *

  Som­mer walked down the cor­ridor to the el­ev­at­ors. He called the lift and se­lec­ted the ground floor. He got out and walked over to the second el­ev­ator that would take him down to the base­ment. It could only be op­er­ated by those with the cor­rect key; he took his from his pocket, pushed it into the key­hole and turned it. The door slid open; he got in­side and se­lec­ted the but­ton for the base­ment. The ma­chinery clanked and whirred and even­tu­ally brought him to a dark lower level, lit only by caged bulbs dot­ted along one side of a long, damp brick wall. On the op­pos­ite side was a row of heavy steel doors.

  A guard was sta­tioned in an en­clave three-quar­ters of the way along the cor­ridor. The men on duty here smoked and drank thick stewed cof­fee from steel mugs. The smell of hu­man sweat, ci­gar­ette smoke and briny cof­fee was heavy in the air. Som­mer went to the third door and called for the guard to open it. The man put out his ci­gar­ette and took a bunch of keys from a steel ring that had been fastened to the wall. He opened the door and stood back.

  There was no light from the room; thick dark­ness lay within. The qual­ity of that black­ness never went un­noticed. It was a dense noth­ing­ness, save the small area near the door where the nearest bulb ex­ten­ded its feeble glow. Som­mer heard foot­steps and then a man—young, pale skin, blue eyes—stepped into the half-light.

  Som­mer looked at the sores on his skin; there were red marks on his arms and neck, ab­ra­sions on his ankles and chest. The guard stepped away from the door and went back to the al­cove. Som­mer no­ticed that the man’s teeth were yel­low, and his lips were cracked and bleed­ing. He could not look at Som­mer and Som­mer knew why: he was ter­ri­fied of him.

  With reason.

  Som­mer smiled.

  “Günter,” he said. “How are you en­joy­ing your stay?”

  The man said noth­ing.

  “Si­lence? Really? But our last chat was so in­ter­est­ing.”

  He looked away.

  “I’m afraid I can’t help my­self, Günter—we’re go­ing to need to have an­other.”

  26

  Som­mer was al­most dis­ap­poin­ted. Al­most. Günter Schmidt was so frightened that there was no need for him to in­dulge him­self in or­der to get him to speak. Som­mer en­joyed his more ob­dur­ate pris­on­ers; per­suad­ing them to talk was one of his pleas­ures in life, and some­thing that he was par­tic­u­larly good at. He con­soled him­self with the know­ledge that there would be other op­por­tun­it­ies for that. For now, he needed to know what had made Schmidt so in­ter­est­ing to the Brit­ish.

  Schmidt had been in the cell for days, ever since Som­mer had in­ter­cep­ted him on his way to the tun­nel un­der the Wall. There had been no hu­man con­tact save for the meals that were passed through the slit in the door. It had been a de­lib­er­ate ploy. Som­mer knew the power of the ima­gin­a­tion, and he wanted Schmidt to have as long as pos­sible to con­sider the aw­ful­ness of the treat­ment that he might ex­pect once the ques­tion­ing began. Con­found­ing those ex­pect­a­tions could be ef­fect­ive. He brought Schmidt up to his quar­ters on the top floor. There would be no stain­less-steel table, no sur­gical in­stru­ments, no hooks in the ceil­ing for him to be upen­ded and hung from his ankles. Those would come later, per­haps. In­stead, there was a com­fort­able room, a jug of cof­fee and po­lite ques­tions.

  Som­mer knew it would work.

  “I’m sorry to have kept you down there for so long. I hope that won’t be ne­ces­sary again.”

  Schmidt looked at him; he re­minded Som­mer of a cornered rab­bit.

  Som­mer took the jug and poured cof­fee into two mugs. “Do you take sugar?”

  Schmidt nod­ded, and Som­mer ad­ded a heaped spoon­ful, stirred the brew and slid it over the table. Schmidt put the mug to his lips and sipped the cof­fee, his eyes on Som­mer as if he ex­pec­ted some trick.

  Som­mer drank from his own mug and then placed it on a coaster. “I’m curi­ous, Günter. The Brit­ish went to a lot of ef­fort to get you out. They dug a tun­nel, sent senior per­son­nel here at con­sid­er­able risk. Why would they do that? What did you of­fer them?”

  Schmidt swal­lowed, his larynx bob­bing in his throat.

  “Please. There’s no need to be frightened. If you have some­thing of value to them, it’s likely to be of value to me, too. I’m a prag­matic man. Per­haps we can work to­gether.”

  Som­mer smiled, reached down for the plate of bis­cuits and slid it closer to Schmidt.

  “My work,” Schmidt began, then paused, un­cer­tain of how to pro­ceed.

  “Go on. Your work?”

  “I am an es­cort.”

  “A pros­ti­tute?”

  Schmidt flinched, as if he found the word dis­taste­ful.

  “An es­cort,” Som­mer cor­rec­ted him­self. “Of course. Please—go on.”

  “A year ago,” he said, “I was at a party in Friedrich­shain. There were some men there from the Party. At the end of the night, one of them came up to me and said that he would like to see me again.”

  He stopped speak­ing and took a drink from his mug of cof­fee. Som­mer no­ticed that his hand was shak­ing.

  “Go on, Günter,” he en­cour­aged him. “You’re do­ing well.”

  “I said yes, and ar­ranged to meet him in Café Warschau the next day. He said that it would be im­possible to meet in a pub­lic place and sug­ges­ted that I should come to his apart­ment. I did and…” He paused again, look­ing into his cof­fee. Som­mer gave him a mo­ment and, after Schmidt had found the right words, he con­tin­ued. “We star­ted see­ing each other. It wasn’t a pro­fes­sional re­la­tion­ship, not like the oth­ers were. I thought we were in love. He said that he loved me, any­way. He looked after me, gave me nice things and told me that he would look after my fam­ily, too. And he did. There was enough money for me to move them into a house out­side the city. He even gave me the money to buy them a hol­i­day. My mother and father hadn’t been out­side Ber­lin for years. They couldn’t af­ford it. They went to the Baltic Coast.”

  Som­mer re­garded him shrewdly. Schmidt spoke openly, and there were none of the tell-tale signs that might have in­dic­ated du­pli­city. Som­mer was an ex­cel­lent judge of char­ac­ter, and of vera­city, and he be­lieved that Schmidt was telling the truth.

  “What happened then?”

  “He broke up with me. A month ago. Didn’t tell me why. I went to his apart­ment and he wasn’t there. I tried to get in but the locks were changed. I went to find him at his of­fice but the guards took me away and beat me. They told me if I came back they would kill me.
I didn’t do any­thing wrong. It’s not fair. It’s not fair that I’ve been treated this way. All I wanted to do was to have him tell me what I did to de­serve this. But he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t tell me. I want him to know that what he did was wrong.”

  Som­mer leaned for­ward. “This man,” he said. “Who is he?”

  Schmidt looked up at him, his face pale and be­gin­ning to dampen with per­spir­a­tion.

  “It’s fine, Günter. You’re do­ing well. But I do need to know.”

  “Stan­i­slaus Pabst.”

  Som­mer was not of­ten lost for words, but now he was struck dumb. Pabst was the head of the Min­istry. He was a gen­eral in the East Ger­man army and a mem­ber of the Polit­buro. He was re­spons­ible for the Stasi, and for the main­ten­ance of se­cur­ity in the GDR. He was also the main im­ped­i­ment to Som­mer’s own as­cent through the party ap­par­atus. Som­mer had al­ways tried to be civil with Pabst, but the gen­eral had made it known that he didn’t like him and that Som­mer would never reach the heights that his tal­ent de­served while he re­mained in con­trol.

  Som­mer could see now why the Brit­ish had gone to such lengths to ex­filtrate Schmidt. The dam­age the young man could do… it was in­cal­cul­able.

  “You told the Brit­ish about this?” Som­mer asked.

  “Yes. I went to the con­su­late and told them what I knew. They told me to come back. I did. I met a man from the gov­ern­ment. He said he would bring me into the West. My fam­ily, too.”

  “And this man’s name?”

  “Mack­in­tosh.”

  Som­mer already knew that Harry Mack­in­tosh was re­spons­ible for the op­er­a­tion. Som­mer had been tipped off by LEXIKON; the tip was how he had been able to pre­vent the ex­filtra­tion from tak­ing place. The ac­tual nature of the in­tel­li­gence that Schmidt was selling had never been re­vealed; Mack­in­tosh had kept that close to the vest, and LEXIKON had not been able to un­cover it.

  But now Som­mer knew.

  “Can you prove any of this?”

  Günter looked away, too late. Som­mer saw through him.

  “Please, Günter, I would like to be your friend. But I can only be your friend if there are no secrets between us. Your story is in­ter­est­ing, but without some­thing to sub­stan­ti­ate it, well, it is… just a story.”

  Günter bit his lip.

  “Come, now. I feel you are with­hold­ing some­thing from me. Friends don’t do that.”

  “I have told you my story,” he said. “That is it.”

  “And now you are ly­ing to me.”

  “I am not—”

  “I have a friend in MI6, Günter. Do you think I don’t know?”

  He looked away. “I have pho­to­graphs.”

  Som­mer felt a buzz of an­ti­cip­a­tion run up and down his spine. “You do?”

  He nod­ded. “Of Stan­i­slaus and me.”

  “I would dearly like to see them.”

  “I can’t,” he said. “They are my guar­an­tee.”

  Pos­sib­il­it­ies spooled through Som­mer’s mind and he was un­able to pre­vent the grin that cracked his face. The Rus­si­ans called it kom­pro­mat. Lever­age. The Brit­ish would have wiel­ded it for their own pur­poses, bend­ing Pabst to their will and dam­aging the in­sti­tu­tion that he ran and the Party that de­pended upon it. Som­mer did not care about any of that. If he did, he would have taken Schmidt to Pabst and aler­ted him to the danger that had been aver­ted. That was still a pos­sib­il­ity. Pabst might be grate­ful. He might re­ward him for his di­li­gence and tact. But, Som­mer knew, he might just as eas­ily have him shot in or­der to guar­an­tee his si­lence.

  He had a bet­ter idea. The kom­pro­mat would not be of be­ne­fit to the Brit­ish alone. He could hold onto Schmidt, keep him safe and out of the way, ready to be de­ployed at a mo­ment of his choos­ing. Ho­mo­sexu­al­ity had been de­crim­in­al­ised in the East for twenty years, but the sug­ges­tion of it would still be enough to bring Pabst down. The stench of it would cling to him. The Party would not ap­prove.

  Som­mer would con­sider how and when to use the know­ledge, but one thing was cer­tain: Pabst was done, and Som­mer could put him­self in po­s­i­tion to take his place.

  He turned back to Günter. “What was your plan? You would wait for Mack­in­tosh to do what he prom­ised and then tell him where to find the pho­to­graphs?”

  Günter nod­ded.

  “That’s very wise. But it is un­ne­ces­sary now. Tell me where they are, Günter. I will send someone to get them.”

  The young man shook his head. He had found strength from some­where. “You need to help me get over the bor­der.”

  Som­mer was pre­pared to be pa­tient; the prize was worth it. “Per­haps,” he lied. “But you need to co­oper­ate with me.”

  “Get me into the West and I’ll tell you where to find them. I swear it.”

  “No,” Som­mer said. “That isn’t go­ing to work. Do I need to re­mind you where you are? You’re not in a po­s­i­tion to make de­mands. You are be­ing treated with kind­ness be­cause I want to be your friend. But there are other ways that this can be done. I would not re­com­mend them.”

  He sat down op­pos­ite Schmidt and stared at him. He smiled his most re­as­sur­ing smile. “Where can I find the pho­to­graphs?”

  Part V

  27

  Jimmy fol­lowed the dir­ec­tions that Mack­in­tosh had given him and ar­rived at Uh­land­straße at seven in the morn­ing. Mack­in­tosh had ex­plained that the Brit­ish gov­ern­ment had main­tained three of­fices in Ber­lin: the polit­ical ad­viser to the Brit­ish Mil­it­ary Gov­ern­ment had of­fices at the Olympic Sta­dium; the com­mer­cial of­fices were leased in the In­ter­na­tional Trade Centre Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing on Geor­gen­straße; the con­su­late-gen­eral was in leased premises here on Uh­land­straße. This of­fice of the con­su­late-gen­eral was just as the older man had de­scribed it: a bland build­ing, most likely in­fill from the six­ties that had been con­struc­ted out of the wreck­age of the war. It was mod­est, not par­tic­u­larly at­tract­ive and com­pact in size. The con­su­late took up two floors, and there was of­fice space above it. There were two en­trances: one at the front, be­neath a Union Jack that fluttered from a flag­pole, and a plainer en­trance that was reached via the al­ley that ran between the build­ing and its neigh­bour.

  There was a park­ing lot on the other side of the main road, and Jimmy parked his car there; he was able to see both en­trances while main­tain­ing enough dis­tance from the ped­es­tri­ans and traffic that passed ahead of him to min­im­ise the chances of any­one see­ing him in his car and de­cid­ing that he was sus­pi­cious.

  Jimmy got out of the car and looked over the roof at the other cars. There were only a hand­ful at this early hour, but one of them stood out: a cherry-red Audi Quat­tro. It was the model with the five-cyl­in­der tur­bocharged pet­rol en­gine. Jimmy thought the paint job and the brick-shape design was ugly—he pre­ferred Porsches when it came to Ger­man en­gin­eer­ing—al­though the car looked as if it was reas­on­ably new, if a little gar­ish. Mor­gan was hardly try­ing to blend in; Jimmy wondered whether that was the be­ha­viour of someone who had some­thing to hide. Maybe Mack­in­tosh had the wrong man?

  The morn­ing was bit­terly cold, with a freez­ing wind that was ush­er­ing a pro­ces­sion of leaden clouds in from the East. The snow on the ground had frozen overnight, and as Jimmy looked up at the dark­en­ing sky he could see that more would be fall­ing be­fore the day was out. He got back into the Mer­cedes, turned the key in the ig­ni­tion and flicked the switch for the heater; the unit was old and it spluttered, emit­ting a pathetic gasp of warm air.

  Jimmy pulled the zip of his leather jacket all the way up to his neck and thought of Isa­bel: he should have taken her up on her of­fer to buy him some­thing more sub­stan­tial. />
  He took the pho­to­graph of Mor­gan and stood it on the dash, prop­ping it against the wind­shield.

  He settled in to wait.

  28

  A man came out of the side en­trance just after nine. Jimmy looked at the pho­to­graph on the dash and com­pared it to the man; it was Mor­gan, he was sure of it. Late middle age, a full head of dark hair, a moon-like face and heavy dark glasses.

  Most of the con­su­late staff com­pleted their jour­neys to work in thick coats with scarfs wound around their faces or with sub­stan­tial hats pulled down low. Mor­gan hur­ried out­side with his coat still un­done and without a hat. He tried to zip up the coat as he made his way along the al­ley, lost his con­cen­tra­tion and al­most skid­ded over on the frozen ground. He re­gained his bal­ance and paused for a mo­ment as he fastened the zip. Jimmy put both hands on the wheel, wait­ing for him to cross the road to him.

  Mor­gan jammed an ush­anka onto his head and made his way across the road. He hur­ried to the Audi and got in­side. Jimmy heard the rumble of the en­gine and watched as the car rolled out. Jimmy put the Mer­cedes into gear. The Quat­tro rolled to the east, the en­gine rum­bling. Jimmy fol­lowed.

  Jimmy didn’t know Ber­lin, and was quickly lost as he fol­lowed the Quat­tro through the city. Mor­gan stayed on main roads, but drove a little over the speed limit. Jimmy hung back as far as he could while still stay­ing close enough to keep the Audi in sight. The snow was all around, scraped up and piled onto the pave­ments by ploughs. Jimmy could feel the com­pacted ice crunch­ing be­neath the tyres. The sur­face was treach­er­ous, and Jimmy braked early and gently as he ap­proached a set of red lights. The Audi pulled away when the lights went green, and Jimmy fol­lowed.

  Mor­gan drove on Li­et­zen­bur­ger Straße, switch­ing onto Schöne­ber­ger Ufer and fol­low­ing the curve of the Landwehr Canal. They passed through a com­mer­cial dis­trict with shops open­ing for the day, queues of Ber­liners wait­ing to scour the shelves for pro­vi­sions, and con­tin­ued east into a res­id­en­tial area. There were tall apart­ment blocks, rows of three-and four-storey build­ings that had been carved up into flats. It was cheap and run down, with rub­bish spill­ing from bins, blow­ing up against drifts of snow. They turned again and the Wall ap­peared, a massive slab of con­crete topped with coils of razor wire. It was twelve feet tall and, when Jimmy looked ahead, he could just see the roof of a watchtower pok­ing up over the top of it.