Len Deighton - Spy Line

He sat back and gave a half smile, but not at me. He didn't even see me at that moment: Rolf Mauser was miles away, and decades back in time, fighting his war in Russia. He rubbed his face. 'Taking command of six huge 15cm heavy howitzers mounted on tank chassis was quite an event in the life of a young man. I took it very seriously. I went round and spoke to every officer and man under my command: two officers, twenty-nine NCOs and ninety-two enlisted men. Most of them were newly arrived replacements: green kids, not long out of school. The other night in my dream I recalled every name and face. I even remembered the equipment I signed for.' He looked at me and wanted me to see how important all this was to him. 'I could even taste that damned Erbsensuppe .'

'And when you woke up?'

'Still remembered everything. Twenty-eight lorries, two motorcycles, sixteen light machine guns, twenty machine pistols, forty-eight handguns and seventy-eight rifles. I even remembered the names and ranks. Every one of their stupid faces.'

For a moment I thought he was about to recite all their names and numbers and give me the specifications of the hardware and its state of readiness. Perhaps the consternation showed on my face, for he said, 'Take my word for it. I can see those men now. Every face, every accented word they spoke. We left most of them deep under the ice and snow. By summer, only half a dozen of those men were still serving with me.'

For the very first time I saw that Rolf Mauser had spent his life entertaining dreams of military glory. An absurd ambition perhaps, but no more absurd than the dreams of most men. And, if the statistics were to be believed, no more unlikely than ending up with a happy marriage and loving family. 'General Rolf Mauser' had an implausible ring to it but the award of a 'tin tie' must have provided new impetus to his hopes of promotion, and certainly he had the necessary ruthlessness.

'Everyone dreams, Rolf,' I said. 'It's nothing to do with getting old.'

'So what do I do?'

'Get another doctor.'

He gave a humourless smile before paying all his attention to the coffee and what remained of his pastry.

For a brief time neither of us spoke. Then, 'Der grosse Kleiner is dead,' said Mauser as he stuffed down the final mouthful of his Danish pastry.

'So I heard. What do you know about it?'

'Don't tell me it was suicide.'

'I don't know anything about it,' I protested.

'Kleindorf wasn't the type.' He used the tip of his tongue to remove a crumb from his teeth.

'So what was it then?'

'He was a dope dealer. He was behind the refining and he was the contact between East and West.'

'Who says?'

'Regular consignments of it were coming through Schonefeld, arriving in the West for re-packaging and then going back there again. There were DDR officials taking a cut. It's all being hushed up. Even the West Berlin authorities are keeping stumm.'

'Why?'

'The official word is that the relationship between the two Germanics must not be threatened by such crimes.'

'And the unofficial word?'

Rolf let a slow smile spread across his big round face. 'That officials on both sides are deeply implicated. Big shots, I mean.'

'Sounds a bit far-fetched,' I said doubtfully.

'Does it, Berad? We've known each other a long time, haven't we? Are you seriously telling me that you've never heard rumours or stories about such dealings?'

'Rumours, yes.' I wondered if he'd heard the sort of stories Larry Bower had got from Valeri the double agent. 'Even so…'

'Kleindorf had a massive dose of heroin; that's what he died of. You know that?'

'I thought it was sleeping tablets.'

'Yes. That's the story that's being put around.' He nodded. 'Do you happen to have a cigarette on you, Bernd?'

Having stopped smoking for a long period I'd lately been accepting offered cigarettes. This morning my nerve had cracked and I'd bought a packet of cheroots. But I suddenly resolved to try harder. I handed the unopened packet to him. I said, 'Isn't that more to your taste?'

'It's very kind of you, Bernd. Are you sure?'

'I've stopped smoking.'

He lit one immediately and continued. 'But the real story is that Kleindorf died while in bed with one of his young dancing girls, a woman with a strong Silesian accent who disappeared long before the police arrived and has never been traced.'

'What are you getting at?'

'She'd worked for him for only a few days. The name and address she gave to his secretary at the Babylon were false.' He blew smoke.

'Do you think the woman murdered him?'

'She arrived in town with an American. They flew out together: two first class tickets to Rome. There were no needle marks on Kleindorf. Except for the marks of the needle that killed him.' He waited for me to absorb that fact and then said, 'He'd never take hard drugs: he was a health freak. Jogged every morning without fail.'

'What did the autopsy say?'

'No autopsy. The certificate said death was due to an overdose of sleeping tablets. An accident. Hurried burial; a demand for an inquest summarily refused.'

'I heard he'd drunk a whole bottle of vintage brandy.'

'There was an empty bottle in the bedroom. Who can say how much he'd drunk unless they open the stomach? Probably he'd had a drink with the girl. Did you ever see Kleindorf drunk?'

'No,' I said.

'Exactly. It's a cover-up. It sounds perfectly credible unless you know what Kleindorf was really like.'

'Okay,' I said. 'The stuff comes from Asia. They bring it into East Berlin. The Schonefeld airport customs let it go through because it's official policy to help the decadent West mainline its way to oblivion. Okay. What I don't get is why it does a turn-around and makes a journey back East again.'

'The consignments they are tapping into are brown, raw stuff. You have to be pretty desperate to float that shit into your bloodstream. None of the people at that end of the dealing has the know-how, the resources or the equipment to refine it, or the guts to risk it. That was Kleindorf's contribution to their game.'

'Have another coffee, Rolf.' I signalled to the waitress.

'This is a good place for coffee,' said Mauser appreciatively. 'I'm glad I met you, Bernd.'

'What sort of people in the East would be buying this stuff?' I said. 'And where would the money come from?'

Rolf Mauser knew he was being pushed, but that was better than admitting to not knowing. 'You know how these things work, Bernd. The transaction was drugs for paper-work.'

He paused as if he'd said something self-evidently significant.

Perhaps he had but I wasn't going to let him stop there. 'Would you enlarge on that notion?'

'Permissions. Imports. Contracts. A signature and a rubber stamp on a desk over there can mean a lot of money over here. You know that, Bernd. So does your friend Werner Volkmann.' He puffed smoke. It was a subdued gesture of aggression. He looked at me and waited for a reply.

'You're not saying Werner was implicated?' Before taking over the running of Lisl's hotel Werner had made a lot of money from avalizing: putting together import and export deals so that the DDR didn't have to part with hard currency. In that respect Werner's livelihood had depended upon East Berlin signatures and rubber stamps.

'I don't know.' He waved a hand. 'But if he was, he got out of that business at exactly the right time. He doesn't go over there any more.'

'He's busy with Lisl's,' I said. I watched Rolf tap ash from the cheroot. All my desire to smoke had gone: the smoke, the smell, the ash, the very idea disgusted me.

'Of course he is,' said Mauser. 'And if I were you, Bernd, I'd find myself something to be busy with.' A meaningful look. 'Because there are a lot of people on both sides of the Wall who are looking for someone to lay the blame on. You would fit the role nicely.'