Frederick Forsyth - The Deceiver

“It’s not that kind of area. Not like the Harz with its dense forests. Open rolling farmland, towns, villages, hamlets, farms.”

“No place for a middle-aged fugitive who’s lost his mar­bles,” commented Appleyard.

“Then we’ve lost him,” said Claudia. “Him, the War Book, and Pankratin. The whole deal.”

“I’m afraid it looks so,” said Edwards. “The People’s Police will use saturation tactics. Roadblocks on every street and lane. Without sanctuary, I fear they’ll have him by midday.”

The meeting ended on that gloomy note. When the Ameri­cans had gone, Edwards detained McCready at the door.

“Sam, I know it’s hopeless, but stay with it, will you? I’ve asked Cheltenham, East German Section, to step up the listening watch and let you know the instant they hear any­thing. When they get Poltergeist—and they must—I want to know at once. We’re going to have to placate our Cousins somehow, though God knows how.”

Back in his office, McCready threw himself into his chair in deep dejection. He took the phone off the cradle and stared at the wall.

If he had been a drinker, he would have reached for the bottle. Had he not given up cigarettes years earlier, he would have reached for a pack. He had failed, and he knew it. Whatever he might tell Claudia of the pressures they had put on him, it had, finally, been his decision to send in Morenz. And it had been a wrong one.

He had lost the War Book and probably blown away Pank­ratin. It would have surprised him to know that he was the only man in the building to hold these losses as secondary to another failure.

For him, the worst was that he had sent a friend to certain capture, interrogation, and death because he had failed to note the warning signs that now—too late—were so blazingly clear. Morenz had been in no state to go. He had gone rather than let down his friend Sam McCready.

The Deceiver knew now—again, too late—that for the rest of his days, in the wee hours when sleep refuses to come, he would see the haggard face of Bruno Morenz in that hotel room. ...

He tried to drive his guilt away and turned his mind to wondering what happens inside a man’s head when he under­goes a complete nervous breakdown. Personally, he had never seen that phenomenon. What was Bruno Morenz like now? How would he react to his situation? Logically? Crazily? He put through a call to the Service’s consultant psychiatrist, an eminent doctor known irreverently as “the Shrink.” He traced Dr. Alan Carr to his office in Wimpole Street. Dr. Carr said he was busy through the morning but would be happy to join McCready for lunch and an ad hoc consultation. McCready made a date for the Montcalm Hotel at one o’clock.

Punctually at ten, Major Ludmilla Vanavskaya entered the main doors of the SSD headquarters building at 22 Normannenstrasse and was shown up to the fourth floor, the floor occupied by the Counterespionage Department. Colonel Voss was waiting for her. He conducted her into his private office and offered her the chair facing his desk. He took his seat and ordered coffee. When the steward left, he asked politely, “What can I do for you, Comrade Major?”

He was curious as to what had brought about this visit on what would for him undoubtedly be an extremely busy day. But the request had come from the commanding general at KGB headquarters, and Colonel Voss was well aware who really ruled the roost in the German Democratic Republic.

“You are handling a case in the Jena area,” said Vanav­skaya. “A West German agent who ran off after a crash and left his car behind. Could you let me have the details so far?”

Voss filled in the details not included in the situation report that the Russian had already seen.

“Let us assume,” said Vanavskaya when he was finished, “that this agent, Grauber, had come to collect or deliver something. ... Was anything found in the car or in the secret cavity that could be what he either brought in or was trying to take out?”

“No, nothing. All his private papers were merely his cover story. The cavity was empty. If he brought something in, he had already delivered. If he sought to take something out, he had not collected.”

“Or it was still on his person.”

“Possibly, yes. We will know when we interrogate him. May I ask the reason for your interest in the case?”

Vanavskaya chose her words carefully.

“There is a possibility, just a chance, that a case upon which I am working overlaps your own.”

Behind his impassive face, Otto Voss was amused. So this handsome Russian ferret suspected the West German might have been in the East to make contact with a Russian source, not an East German traitor. Interesting.

“Have you any reason to know, Colonel, whether Grauber was to make a personal contact or just administer a dead-letter box?”

“We believe he was here to make a personal meet,” said Voss. “Although the crash was at twelve-thirty yesterday, he actually came through the border at eleven on Tuesday. If he simply had to drop off a package or pick one up from a dead-letter box, it would not have taken over twenty-four hours. He could have done it by nightfall on Tuesday. As it was, he spent Tuesday night at the Black Bear in Jena. We believe it was a personal pass that he came for.”

Vanavskaya’s heart sang. A personal meet, somewhere in the Jena-Weimar area, along a road probably, a road traveled by the man she hunted at almost exactly the same time. It was you he came to meet, you bastard! she thought.

“Have you identified Grauber?” she asked. “That is cer­tainly not his real name.”

Concealing his triumph, Voss opened a file and passed her an artist’s impression. It had been drawn with help from two policemen at Jena, two patrolmen who had helped Grauber tighten a nut west of Weimar, and the staff of the Black Bear. It was very good. Without a word Voss then passed her a large photograph. The two were identical.

“His name is Morenz,” said Voss. “Bruno Morenz. A full-time career officer of the BND, based in Cologne.”

Vanavskaya was surprised. So it was a West German oper­ation. She had always suspected that her man was working for the CIA or the British.

“You haven’t got him yet?”

“No, Major. I confess I am surprised at the delay. But we will. The police car was found abandoned, late last night. The reports state its gasoline tank had a bullet hole through it. It would have run for only ten to fifteen minutes after being stolen. It was found here, near Apolda, just north of Jena. So our man is on foot. We have a perfect description—tall, burly, gray-haired, in a rumpled raincoat. He has no papers, a Rhineland accent, physically not in good shape. He will stick out like a sore thumb.”

“I want to be present at the interrogation,” said Vanavskaya. She was not squeamish. She had seen them before.

“If that is an official request from the KGB, I will of course comply.”

“It will be,” said Vanavskaya.

“Then don’t be far away, Major. We will have him, proba­bly by midday.”

Major Vanavskaya returned to the KGB building, cancelled her flight from Potsdam, and used a secure line to contact General Shaliapin. He agreed.

At twelve noon, an Antonov 32 transport of the Soviet Air Force lifted off from Potsdam for Moscow. General Pankratin and other senior Army and Air Force officers returning to Moscow were on board. Some junior officers were farther back, with the mail sacks. There was no dark-suited “secre­tary” from the embassy sharing the lift home.

“He will be,” said Dr. Carr over the melon and avocado hors d’oeuvre, “in what we call a dissociated, or twilight, or fugue state.”

He had listened carefully to McCready’s description of a nameless man who had apparently suffered a massive nervous breakdown. He had not learned, or asked, anything about the mission the man had been on, or where this breakdown had occurred, save that it was in hostile territory. The empty plates were removed and the sole prepared, off the bone.