Len Deighton - Berlin Game

There were memories everywhere I looked, and there was no getting away from the war. The last escapers from the Füihrerbunker had come this way, crossing the river by the footbridge when all else failed, and leaving Martin Bormann dead by the river.

The Charité Hospital. In the mortuary of that grim building, the Red Army found the bodies of the men who had tried to overthrow Hitler in the July 1944 plot. Their bodies had been kept in the cold room there on Hitler's personal orders.

A policeman came walking up from the old Brecht theatre beside the Spree. He hurried his pace as he saw me. My papers were in order but I realized too late that I didn't know how to talk to a policeman. 'Hey, you,' the policeman called.

How did East Berliners address a policeman nowadays? This wasn't the USA. Being too familiar would be just as suspicious as being too respectful. I decided to be a little drunk, a shift-worker who'd had a couple of vodkas before heading home. But how many vodkas could a man have these days before he risked being taken to the police station?

'What are you doing here?' The policeman's voice was shrill, and his accent revealed his home to be somewhere in the north: Rostock, Stralsund or Rügen Island, perhaps. On this side of the Wall there was a theory that out-of-town recruits were more reliable than Berliners.

I kept walking. 'Get up,' the policeman said. I stopped and turned round. He was talking to a couple of men sitting on the ground in the shadow of the bridge. They didn't get up. The cop said, 'Where are you from?'

The elder of the two, a bearded man wearing overalls and a battered leather jacket, said, 'And where are you from, sonny?'

'Let's get you home,' said the cop.

'Get me home,' said the bearded man. 'That's right. You get me home to Schöneberg.' He laughed. 'Yorckstrasse, please, right near the railway.'

The younger man got to his feet unsteadily, 'Come on,' he said to his companion.

'Yorckstrasse, Schöneberg,' said the bearded man again. 'Only two stops from here on the S-Bahn. But you've never heard of it and I'll never see it again.' He began to sing tunelessly. 'Das war in Schöneberg im Monat Mai .' His singing voice revealed the extent of his drunkenness in a way that his speech did not.

The policeman was less conciliatory now. 'You'll have to get off the street,' he said. 'Stand up. Show me your papers.'

The drunk gave an artful little laugh. His companion said, 'Leave him alone – can't you see he's not well,' in a voice so slurred that his words were almost incomprehensible.

'If you're not on your way home in two minutes, I'll run you along to the police station.'

' Er ist polizeiwidrig dumm ,' said the bearded man, and laughed. It meant criminally stupid, and it was a joke that every German policeman had heard.

'Come along with me,' said the cop.

The man began singing again, louder this time: ' Das war in Sch ö neber g im Monat Mai …'

I hurried on lest the policeman call for help with his two difficult drunks. Even when I was a hundred metres or more down the road, I could still hear the drunken old man singing about the little girl who had so often and gladly kissed the boys as they did in Schöneberg so long ago.

At Oranienburger Tor, where the Chausseestrasse leads up to the football stadium, I turned into the dark labryinth of side streets. I'd forgotten what it was like to be a newly 'deposited' field agent with false papers and a not very convincing cover story. I was too old for it; once I was safely back behind my desk in London, I wouldn't fret to move again.

More than a century old, these grim-looking apartment blocks, five and six storeys high, had been built to shelter peasants who came to the city looking for jobs in the factories. They had changed very little. Rolf Mauser lived on the second floor in a rambling, tumbledown apartment building in Prenzlauer Berg. He was bleary-eyed and barefoot when he opened the door, a red silk dressing gown over his pyjamas.

'What the hell are you doing here?' he said as he took the chain off the door. It was his turn to be surprised in the middle of the night, and I rather relished it.

He motioned me into the sitting room and I sank down on a soft chair without removing either coat or hat. 'A change of plan, Rolf,' I said. 'I had a feeling that it wasn't good on the street tonight.'

'It's never good on the street,' he said. 'Do you want a bed?'

'Is there room for me?'

'Rooms are all I have in abundance. You can take your choice of three different ones.' He put a bottle of Polish vodka on the table alongside me and then opened the white porcelain stove to poke the ashes over. 'The rents over this side of the Wall are more or less the same, whether you've got a two-room flat or a huge house. So why move?' The acrid smell of burning coal filled the room.

'I wondered whether you'd be here, Rolf.'

'Why not? After what happened in London, this is the safest place, isn't it?'

'How do you figure that, Rolf?' I said.

'The evidence will be in London. That's where they'll be looking for the culprit.'

'I hope so, Rolf,' I said.

'I had to do it, Bernd. I had to bring him round the corner, you know. That man in London was going to blow the whole network.'

'Let's forget it,' I said, but Mauser was determined to have my approval for his deed.

'He'd already told Berlin KGB to have personnel and solitary prison accommodation ready for up to fifty arrests. The Brahms network would have been kaputtgemacht . And several other networks too. Now do you understand why I had to do what I did?'

'I understand it, Rolf. I understand it even better than you do.' I poured myself a shot of Rolfs fruit-flavoured vodka and drank it down. It was too fiery for the fruit flavouring to soften it much.

'I had to execute him, Bernd.'

' Um die Ecke bringen – that's gangster talk, Rolf. Let's face the truth. You murdered him.'

'I assassinated him.'

'Only public officials can be assassinated; and even then the victims have to be tyrants. Executions are part of a process of law. Face it: you murdered him.'

'You play with words. It's easy to be clever now that the danger has been removed.'

'He was a weak and foolish man, riven by guilt and fear. He knew nothing of importance. He'd never heard of Berlin System until last week.'

'Yes,' said Rolf. 'Berlin System – that's what he promised them. I asked Werner about it. He said that it was a complete breakdown of all networks and contacts, including emergency contacts and inter service contacts, for the whole Berlin area. We were very worried, Bernd.'

'Where did you get Trent 's name and address?' I asked.

He didn't answer.

'From Werner. Who got it from that bloody Zena. Right?'

'You were asking Frank Harrington questions about some mix-up in 1978. Frank guessed that this man Trent was being investigated.'

'And he told Zena?'

'You know Zena. She got it out of him.'

'How many times do I have to tell you that Werner is not employed by the Department. Why didn't you get in touch with Olympia Stadion?'

'Not enough time, Bernd. And Werner is more reliable than your people at Olympia. That's why you use him, isn't it?'

'Why didn't you tell me what you were going to do that night in London?'

'We didn't want London Central to know,' said Rolf. He poured himself a shot of vodka. He was beginning to sweat, and it wasn't with the heat from the stove.

'Why not?'

'So where was this man Trent getting his Berlin System from? Answer me that. He was going to get it from someone in London, Bernd.'

'Damn right,' I said angrily. 'He was going to get it from me .' I looked at him, wondering how much to confide to him.