Adam Hall - Quiller Solitaire

'And when could you deliver the warhead?' he asked me instead.

'When do you want it delivered?'

'As soon as possible.'

In a moment I said, and with the greatest care, 'You know, of course, that this kind of bomb has got its drawbacks. You couldn't, for instance, get it through an inspection area.' It was as far as I could go. 'It's not like a bit of Semtex.' It was as far as I could go because Inge had told Willi that these people were planning a Lockerbie thing, and Inge knew that Willi had talked to me. I'd be lighting a short-burn fuse if I mentioned an airport.

'That's no problem,' Klaus said.

I didn't show any surprise. The Miniver warhead wasn't all that big: it'd go into a suitcase; but you wouldn't get it through an X-ray unit. It worried me a little; Klaus was deviating from the script, and I didn't know why.

I asked him, 'Will you need a conventional explosive charge to provide detonation?'

'No.'

He'd got one already: teddy bear. 'You can deposit the funds in Geneva within twenty-four hours?'

'Yes,' he said and got up suddenly and walked about, marched almost, energised by his new-found lust for that bloody thing. 'Half down, half on delivery.'

'Here in Berlin?' 'No. In Algiers.'

Oh really.

'I haven't any plans,' I told him, to go to Algiers, so I won't be there at the delivery point.'

He stopped his restless pacing and turned and faced me. 'If we are to complete this deal, Herr Mittag, I'd prefer you to remain within my organisation as a respected guest until delivery is made. Then if there are any problems you'll be there to take care of them and receive the final payment.' He was standing very still, watching me. 'I don't insist on it, but I would prefer it. What do you say?'

I got out of the chair and turned away from him, took a step or two, turned back, because it'd seem natural for me to want a little time, to give it a little thought. But I didn't need any time and I didn't need to think. It was a trap, because he was giving me a choice and he didn't have to.

There was no good reason why I shouldn't stay with his organisation through the performance of the deal; it's often done in cases like this when the final payment is to be made at the delivery point. I could refuse, but if I refused he'd know I was frightened of something or that I wasn't on the level and it'd be tantamount to blowing my own cover and he'd forget the Miniver and tell Geissler to put a bullet into the back of the head and take me across to the East side and leave me there for the garbage collectors to pick up.

But if I agreed to stay with his organisation until the warhead was delivered it'd be the same thing as going to ground: I'd be cutting myself off from my director in the field and from London, and Cone would assume I'd bought it and they'd put me down on the Signals board as missing, missing or deceased, and it might not turn out to be a lot different from the truth because the strain of keeping to my cover in an organisation, like this one even for another twenty-four hours would be critical – get a word wrong or forget something I'd said and finis, finito.

He was waiting for my answer, Klaus. But I hadn't any choice.

'If that's what you'd prefer,' I said, 'I'll stay, of course. See the deal through.'

Klaus went across to the door and pulled it open – 'Schwartz!'

There were guards, then, within call.

It would be difficult, difficult in the extreme, for me to leave this house during the night, if I wanted to. At the moment I didn't want to.

Klaus came back into the room, energy almost shaking him: he looked caged. But it wasn't that: I think I'd moved in on Nemesis at a time when their operation was ready to run, and had given it a sudden unexpected boost – the promise of nuclear augmentation. And Klaus was getting impatient now, wanted to press the button, see it all happen. Certain things about him seemed familiar to me, rang bells.

The man in the doorway fetched up short as if he'd run here.

'Herr Klaus?

'Schwartz, I want a secure telephone line. How long will it take you?

'Ten minutes.'

'When you've got it, call me with the number, then bring the car here.'

The man's heels came together and he ducked his crew-cut head as he swung the door shut.

'Will you drink?' Klaus asked me.

'Don't let me stop you.'

He went to the bureau and poured some schnapps, tilting the glass towards me. 'Your health.'

'Thank you. I ought to tell you, Klaus, that if you're going to drop the warhead from a plane, you can't do it from less than five thousand feet without catching the flak.'

'No problem.'

'As long as you know.' I hadn't got any idea what the actual safety distance was; I was trying to find out if he meant to drop the nuke on something from the air instead of bringing a plane down with it. 'I imagine you also know that it's not something you can put aboard a commercial aircraft in the normal way. It's bigger than a bit of Semtex.'

'What gives you the idea that I'd want to do such a thing?

I shrugged. 'ltd be trendy.'

He gave a short laugh. 'I don't follow trends, Herr Mittag.'

I got out of the wing chair and wandered about, took a look at the bar. 'In terms of weight,' I said, 'we're talking about forty-two kilos.' I found some Schweppes and poured some. 'Cheers.'

'You told me you wouldn't drink.'

'It was discourteous of me not to join you. It's fairly rugged, but the detonator's rather fragile, have to watch bumps if you're going to take it overland across rough terrain.'

'No problem.'

And not much headway. It looked as if the plans he'd already got on the board would accommodate a Miniver warhead without any changes. I suppose that was partly why he'd begun lusting after it: the project wouldn't be held up.

I gave him a few more statistics and he wanted to know about critical temperatures, contamination zones, half-life figures. It was all in the faxed specifications I'd got from London. He hadn't asked me to get on the phone yet, because he wanted a secure line. He was efficient, Klaus, had been well-trained, and the way he was talking, the way he'd handled me so far, had that familiar ring to it: I'd been handled like this before, and it had been inside Lubyanka.

The telephone rang and he went over to it.

He'd worn a uniform, once, had wielded authority, like the KGB colonel who'd put me under intensive interrogation in Moscow. Klaus had the same stamp: I put him down now as a reasonably high-ranking ex-officer of Stasi, the former East German secret police; five or six hundred of them had gone to ground after unification and counter-espionage were still looking for most of them.

'Yes,' he said at the telephone. 'Give it to me.'

Some of them, the rabid Communists, had joined terrorist groups, mostly in Europe. This one had joined the Rote Armee Faktion and then broken away and set up on his own.

'Now bring the car here,' he said and rang off, and I took in a slow breath because as soon as the stolen car reached here I would have to use the phone in it, and it was going to be an appallingly sensitive call and the whole of the mission would pivot on the outcome and could easily crash.

'So,' Klaus said. 'When can you deliver?'

I took a slow swig of the Schweppes. 'You said you want it as soon as possible?

'Yes.'

'I'll have to see what we can do.'

A wash of headlights came sweeping across the curtains while we were still talking, and Klaus nodded.

'Well go down.'

I saw three guards on the way, one on the second floor and two below. They watched us but didn't come close. Our coats were in the hall and we got into them and I told Klaus, 'My partner's an Englishman.'

'And he doesn't speak German?'