Алистер Маклин - Prime Target

‘Do you remember anything else?’

‘Lots of photographs were taken. It was a charity affair, I think.’ Wolff paused. ‘My God.’ He snapped his fingers, making a cracking sound on the line. ‘I had forgotten it completely…’

‘What?’

‘Two different people, members of that coterie – if it was a coterie – told me I had the same name as a boyhood friend of theirs, now sadly dead.’

Mike groaned. ‘Good old mistaken identity.’

‘Oh no, they didn’t think I was their friend.’

‘No, but the person who made up the list did.’ Mike had no doubt Wolff was telling the truth. ‘You’re the right age to have been in the Hitler Youth.’

‘Only just.’

‘These men were the last of the chosen,’ Mike said. ‘You’ve been seen in their company and by a nasty coincidence you’ve got yourself lumped with them. That’s bad for your reputation, but it’s worse for your long-term prospects.’

‘I find it hard, accepting that I am at risk.’

‘Well, you’ll have to. You could be high on the list by now. I want you to stay put and don’t move far from the guys looking after you.’

‘Whatever you say.’

Mike rang off, then he put through a call to Philpott in New York and told him about his conversation with Wolff.

‘We’ve been digging in the news archives since we got the records from Sabrina,’ Philpott said. ‘We found that a Berlin businessman called Andreas Wolff, born in Munich in 1934, died in a motoring accident in 1982. Significantly, a newspaper account of his funeral reported that among the pallbearers were Erich Bahr and Klaus Garlan.’

‘Who are both on the list.’

‘So the real Wolff is dead and our man is being mistaken for him.’ Mike heard muffled voices in the background. ‘C.W. is in the process of suggesting to the Austrian police that they double their efforts to protect Wolff,’ Philpott said. ‘Have you contacted Sabrina yet – I assume you are in Berlin?’

‘I’m in Berlin, but I haven’t been in touch with Sabrina. I’m about to do that.’

‘As soon as anything happens, for good or ill, let me know.’

Mike went directly to a bar off Kantstrasse, near the Kurfürstendamm. Sabrina was waiting, sitting alone at a table by the door. Her hair was combed down, touching her shoulders. She wore a dark blue linen dress with a flared skirt; around her shoulders she wore a silk shawl.

‘Going somewhere special?’ Mike said, sitting down.

‘I made an effort to look civilized, that’s all.’ Sabrina poured him a glass of wine from the carafe on the table. ‘That’s Scheurebe Kabinett. Not bad.’

‘Why did they want you to stay in Berlin?’ he said. ‘Did somebody think maybe I couldn’t cope on my own?’

‘Keeping me here is like parking a car handy to where you might need it. C.W. thinks Philpott wants the case resolved within the next twenty-four hours. If it comes to a showdown rather than a routine arresting of guilty parties, I suppose it makes sense to have us both where the action’s likely to break out.’ She sipped her wine. ‘Care to bring me up to speed?’

Mike told her about his conversation with Wolff. ‘What’s the lead you have on the assassin?’

‘It’s his girlfriend. Magda Schaeffer. She’s a stripper at a club in Oranienstrasse. I’ve bought you temporary membership. The show doesn’t start until eleven.’

‘Even if we corner this guy, he isn’t going to throw up his hands and tell us we’ve got him fair and square,’ Mike said. ‘That’s way too low key. If he goes down, he’ll be fighting all the way.’

‘He won’t be the first one.’

‘I had a dream about him,’ Mike said. ‘It was jumbled, but he had just blown away somebody, in a fairground. I was going right up to him and he was standing there with the gun still smoking in his hand. I was getting ready to put an armlock on him. He turned and he had this terrific smile. I smiled back, completely won over in spite of myself, and he brought up the gun and shot me in the heart. The pain woke me up.’

‘This is no time to talk about death-dreams,’ Sabrina said.

‘Are there good and bad times?’

‘It’s what my friend Pratash believes.’

‘Pratash. I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure.’

‘He’s a mystic. Or I think he is. I met him in Calcutta. He told me he was drawn to my emanations.’

‘Which always look nice when you wear light clothing.’

‘He wasn’t coming on to me, he was serious. A little, old, deeply serious man. He believes the world is a great big mistake and that the Creator will one day realize this and start it all over again from scratch. In the meantime, we should keep our heads below the parapet. One way of doing that, he told me, is never to think of danger, or dwell on dreams of jeopardy or death, at a time when real danger is likely to occur. He says such behaviour stimulates disaster.’

‘I suppose we all have our spiritual authority,’ Mike said. ‘I haven’t settled on mine yet, but Ralph Waldo Emerson might just fit the throne. Here’s an example. You know I love speed.’

‘Real speed. Not chemical speed.’

‘Real speed. I use speed as recreation, but I also use it to tune myself for challenges that come up in the job. I believe that life rewards those who move fastest, and that speed is sometimes a kind of magical cloak. Emerson said, “In skating over thin ice, our safety is in our speed.” Now how’s that for a guru tuned to my own needs, huh?’

‘I’m sure he’ll serve you well.’ Sabrina held up her glass. ‘To Ralph Waldo.’

Mike picked up his. ‘And to Pratash.’

They drank, watching each other over the rims of their glasses. Sabrina was caught by the moment’s warmth, the clarity of good feeling between them.

‘Tell me something honestly,’ she said. ‘Are we really friends? At heart, beneath all the top show?’

‘I would say so, yes.’

Sabrina could not bring herself to ask any more.

‘And I’ll tell you something else,’ Mike said. ‘Just this one time. The past hasn’t finished with me yet. But one day it will. I’ll be liberated, if that’s the word. And when that happens, maybe you’ll detect a change or two.’

‘You mean that one day we won’t automatically bunch our fists at the sight of each other?’

‘Something like that,’ Mike said.

They smiled again. So did the woman behind the counter.

In theatrical terms, the on-stage act performed by Magda Schaeffer contained plenty of conflict and a good measure of tension, but it was entirely lacking in imagination.

Magda swayed and splayed to electronic music on a tiny area of spotlit floor. At appropriate intervals, with apparent reluctance, she lost parts of her costume. As each item fell away from her body, her own excitement seemed to increase. As the minutes passed, however, her timing deteriorated and the pretence of sensuality gave way to vulgar posturing. In the end, what began as an apparent attempt at improvisational, sensual dance, ended up as old-fashioned downmarket striptease, with the audience roaring for her to take off the final wisp of material. When she did, it was to a scattering of applause from a crowd already losing interest.

Mike saw no need to waste time on niceties. Ten dollars bought him the complete co-operation of the bar-tender who promised that as soon as Magda was decent, he would arrange for her to join Mike at his table in the corner.

Less than five minutes after her act concluded she slid into the chair opposite Mike’s. She was wearing a white T-shirt and jeans and carried a small grab-bag which he assumed contained her costume.

‘I hope you liked the show, Mister–’ She fluttered heavily darkened eyelashes at him. ‘What should I call you? My name is Magda, by the way.’