Len Deighton - Berlin Game

'It's nearly forty years ago,' I reminded him. 'You're not still blaming yourself?'

'I should have stayed with him. He was only fifteen years old.'

'You did what you thought was right,' I said.

'I did what I was told,' said Munte. 'I did it because I was frightened. I've never admitted that to anyone else, but I will tell you truthfully I was frightened.'

The Russian convoy passed and our lane of cars started moving again. Munte sat back in his seat with his head resting against the window. He did not speak again for the rest of the journey, except to warn me when we were getting near to the autobahn interchange for Pankow.

It was late when we reached Buchholz, a village that has become a suburb. The tramlines end in front of the church in a street that is wide enough to be a village square. It was dark and the only light came from a Weinstube where a waiter was sweeping the floor of an empty bar.

Munte told me to turn off at the church. We bumped along a narrow country lane alongside a cemetery. It was dark, but by the headlights' beams I could see that there were trees and bushes on each side of a track that was only just wider than the car. Marking these plots of cultivated land were elaborate little wrought-iron gates, neatly painted fences and trimmed hedges displaying an individuality of taste that bordered on caricature.

Against a horizon faintly pink with the advertising lights of the Western Sector of the city I could make out the squat shapes of the houses and hutments on each patch of ground. Lovingly fashioned by dedicated owners, this was the only sort of private house ownership permitted in the Democratic Republic. And selling such improved property provided a rare opportunity for officially tolerated capitalism.

Munte held out his hand to show me where to stop. I welcomed the careful directions he gave me how to get out of this maze of narrow tracks, for there was not space enough to turn the car or even to avoid another on the same path.

I said, 'Your material is kept quite separate from everything else, Dr Munte. Even if there is a traitor in London, you needn't fear that you'll be betrayed.' The old man got out of the car with a stiff-limbed difficulty that he'd not shown before. It was almost as if he'd aged during the short car journey.

He bent down to look at me. I leaned over the front passenger seat and wound the window down so that I could hear him. 'You have no need to be so devious, Bernd,' he said. 'I intend to go to my office in the morning. I will get the document for you. I am not afraid.'

I said nothing. I noticed that he was wringing his hands again, the way he had in his office earlier that day.

'I never go that way,' he added as if he owed me an explanation. 'No matter how much longer it takes me or where I want to get to, I never go that way. Until tonight, I haven't been back on that section of autobahn since it happened.'

'I'm sorry if it upset you, Dr Munte.'

'I should have done it years ago,' he said. 'At last I've got rid of those terrible old nightmares.'

'That's good,' I said, although I knew he'd only exchanged old ones for new.

I was tired by the time I got back to Rolf Mauser's place in Prenzlauer Berg. But I observed the customary precautions and parked Werner's Wartburg round the corner and sat in it for a few moments scanning the area before locking up.

The streets were empty. The only sounds came from the elevated railway trains on Schönhauserallee and the occasional passing car or bus. There was no parking problem where Rolf Mauser lived.

A glimmer of light in the entrance to the apartment building was provided by a low-power bulb situated too high to be cleaned. It illuminated the broken floral-patterned floor tiles and, on the wall, a dozen or more dented metal boxes for mail. On the left was a wide stone staircase. To the right a long narrow corridor led to a metal-reinforced door that gave on to the courtyard at the rear of the building. At night the metal door was locked to protect the tenants' bicycles, and to prevent anyone disturbing the peace by using the rubbish bins or the ash-cans.

I knew there was someone standing there even before I saw the slight movement. And I recognized the sort of movement it was. It was the movement a man made when his long period of waiting is at last near an end.

'Don't do anything,' said a whispered voice.

I inched back into the shadow and reached in my pocket for a knife, the only weapon I would risk in a town where stop searches were so common.

'Bernie?' It was Werner, one of the few Germans who called me anything other than Bernd.

'What is it?'

'Did anyone see you come in?'

'No. Why?'

'Rolfs got visitors.'

'Who?'

There came the sound of two cars arriving. When two cars arrive together at a residential block in Prenzlauer Berg, it is not likely to be a social call. I followed Werner quickly down the narrow corridor, but he could not get the door to the courtyard open. Two uniformed policemen and two men in leather overcoats came into the entrance and shone their flashlights at the names on the mailboxes.

'Mauser,' said the younger of the uniformed cops, directing the beam of his torch on one of the boxes.

'Master detective,' growled a leather-coated man in mock admiration. As he turned, the light of the torch showed him to be a man of about thirty-five with a small Lenin-style goatee beard.

'You said number nineteen,' said the young policeman defensively. 'I took you to the address you gave me.' He was very young, and had the sort of Saxon accent that sounds comical to most German ears.

The boss ordered me to be here fifteen minutes ago,' growled Lenin in the hard accent of working-class Berlin. 'I should have walked.'

'You still would have ended up at the wrong address,' said the cop, his Saxon accent stronger than before.

The leather-coated man turned on him angrily. 'Maybe someone told you it's a softer touch being drafted into the police service than into the Army. I don't care that your daddy is a Party bigshot. This is Berlin. This is my town. Shut up and do as you're told.' Before the young conscript could reply, the leather-coated man started up the stairs. The other three followed him, and his harangue continued. 'Wait till this KGB Colonel arrives. You'll jump then, boys, you'll jump then.'

Werner was still twisting the handle of the door to the yard when he realized that the cops were not going to shine their lights and discover us at the end of the corridor. That was a close thing,' he said.

'What's going on?'

'Two of them; Stasis. Upstairs in Rolfs apartment. They got here about three hours ago. You know what that means.'

'They're waiting for someone.'

'They're not waiting for someone ,' said Werner grimly. 'They're waiting for you . Did you leave anything in the apartment?'

'Of course not.'

'Let's get out of here,' said Werner.

'Do you think they'll have a guard posted outside?'

'Let me go first. My papers are good ones.'

'Hold it a minute.' I could see a shadow, and then a cop came into view. He moved into the doorway as if he might have heard our voices, and then went outside again.

We waited a few more minutes and then the four security policemen brought Rolf Mauser downstairs to the car. Rolf was making a lot of noise; his voice came echoing down the stairwell long before he came into sight.

'Let me go. What's all this about? Answer my questions. How dare you handcuff me! This could wait till morning. Let me go!'

Rolfs angry shouting must have been heard in every apartment in the building. But no one came to the door. No one came to see what was happening.

The front door crashed closed and we heard Rolfs voice in the empty street before the sound of the cars' engines swallowed his protests.