Len Deighton - Berlin Game

'You don't think that was some kind of routine visit that the Stasis made to Rolf Mauser tonight? They know you're here, Bernie. They're looking for you – it's obvious.'

'Let me do the worrying, Werner,' I said. 'I've had more practice.'

Werner got to his feet and said, 'Let's go downstairs and I'll show you the truck you'll be hiding in.'

I got up and drained the dregs from my glass.

'Drinking makes you bad-tempered,' said Werner.

'No,' I said. 'It's having the bottle taken away that does that.'

The warehouse, which Werner leased from the Foreign Trade Ministry, was big. There were two thirty-ton trucks parked downstairs and there was still plenty of room for packing cases and workbenches and the office with two desks, three filing cases and an ancient Adler typewriter.

'We bolt you in,' said Werner, climbing into the back of the trailer. His voice echoed in the confined space. 'The first couple of times we did it, we welded that section after the people were inside, but we burned someone's leg doing it, so now we bolt it up and paint it with quick-drying paint. I hope you don't suffer from claustrophobia.' He pointed to the place at the front of the cargo compartment where two metal sheets had been opened to reveal a narrow compartment. 'Plenty of air holes, but they are not visible because of the baffles. These two brackets hold a small wooden seat, and we'll fix a soft cushion on it because you'll be a long time in here.'

'How long?'

'Those bastards at the customs don't work a long hard day,' said Werner. 'Ten minutes of writing out forms and they have to sit down and recuperate for an hour or so.'

'How long altogether?'

'Sometimes the trucks are parked in the compounds for two days before the officials even look up and nod. Drivers have been known to go crazy in the waiting room. Maybe that's the idea.'

'Three days, maximum?'

'We're talking about a game of chance, Bernie. Relax, and take along something to read. I'll fix a light for you. How about that? It could be they'll wave us through.'

'I won't be the one travelling in this metal box,' I said.

'I knew that,' said Werner in a voice that was more annoyed than self-satisfied.

'What did you know?'

'Right from the start, I thought, that bastard is going to pull some kind of switch. And here it is. So who is going?'

'Brahms Four goes first. He wants to take his wife. You could fit two people in here, couldn't you? It's better they go on the first trip.'

That's not the reason. That's just calculated to break my heart and make me think you're a wonderful fellow.'

'I am a wonderful fellow,' I said.

'You're a devious bastard,' said Werner.

'You told Dicky?'

'I did it just the way you wanted. No one knows except Dicky Cruyer… and anyone he tells.'

'And my kids?' Finally I had to ask the question I'd been avoiding.

'You're worrying unnecessarily, Bernie. It can't be Fiona.'

'Twenty-four-hour cover? Three men and two cars each shift?'

'I did it just the way you said. Your kids are watched night and day. I was surprised that Dicky Cruyer okayed it.'

'Thanks, Werner,' I said.

'Does Fiona know where this place is?' So now even he was truly convinced.

'Not from me, she doesn't.'

'She wouldn't let you get arrested, Bernie. You're the father of her kids.' He spoke of Fiona apologetically. Why does the betrayed partner always get treated like a leper? It's damned unfair. But it was no different from the way I'd treated Werner all through his sufferings with his disloyal wife.

'So you'll put two seats in here?' I said, rapping the metal sheet of the hidden compartment.

'Where do we pick them up?'

'We'll have to think carefully about that, Werner,' I said. 'Not a good idea to let them come here. You don't want some little creep writing down your address in a debriefing sheet that gets circulated to NATO intelligence officers.' Werner shuddered and said nothing. I said, 'But we don't want a big truck like this going off the main roads. It would stick out like a sore thumb in some back street in Pankow.'

'Müggelheimer Damm,' suggested Werner. It was a long, almost straight road through the forest that bordered the Grosser Müggelsee – a big lake just outside the city. 'There are no houses all the way from Alstadt to Müggelheim – just the forest road. And it's convenient from here.'

'Which way will you go? Through Russian Army HQ Karlshorst? Or past the Red Army memorial at Treptow?' Both places were always well provided with sharp-eyed traffic police and plainclothes security men.

'What does it matter? We'll be clean at that stage of the journey.'

'A halted truck on that long forest road?' I said doubtfully.

'It will look as if the driver has gone behind a tree,' said Werner.

'Where on the Müggelheimer Damm?'

'Keep driving till you see me,' said Werner. 'It's better that I choose somewhere I like the look of. You'll find me. There won't be many bright yellow thirty-ton articulated trucks parked along that section of road on a weekday.'

'At twelve-thirty,' I said. 'We'll hope the traffic cops will be having lunch.'

'Do you think his wife might be claustrophobic? A lot of women are. There was a case some years ago, I remember, where an escapee started beating on the floor of a car to get out. She just couldn't stand being locked in the luggage compartment. They were all arrested. If I gave Brahms Four a needle, could we rely on him to give her a shot?'

'If necessary.'

'I knew you wouldn't go first,' said Werner. 'I knew you'd want to get Brahms Four out before you went yourself.'

'What made you think so, Werner?'

'You wouldn't put yourself into a position where London Central could have a change of mind and you not be able to do much about it.'

'Go to the top of the class, Werner,' I said.

'Fait accompli , that's your style. It always has been.' He jumped down from the truck.

'One more thing,' I said. 'Just to be on the safe side, I want Brahms Four under observation right from the time he gets on the streetcar at Buchholz to go to work tomorrow.'

'No problem,' said Werner.

'Any divergence from what I've told him to do and we'll scrub the whole thing.'

'I like you, Bernie. You're the only man I know who's more suspicious than I am, and that reassures me.'

'Any divergence at all,' I said.

'You won't tell him about Müggelheimer Damm before he gets there?'

'I won't even answer if he says good morning.'

'Even if it is Fiona,' said Werner, 'she can't act on this day-today information without making it obvious that she's the KGB agent.'

' Moscow might decide it's worthwhile. Brahms Four is a good source – maybe the only really big leak they haven't been able to plug.'

'That's why you want him to go first. Moscow will let the first one through even if they know about it. They'll let it go believing it's you and thinking the second escape will be their only chance of getting Brahms Four. It's a dangerous game, Bernie. If you are right, you'll get caught.'

'But maybe I'm wrong,' I said.

'Don't worry, Frau Doktor von Munte,' I said.'Your husband will soon be back.' I looked out the window. The little gardens of fruit and vegetables stretched in every direction across the flat land, and the curious assortment of hutments and sheds looked even more bizarre by daylight. On every side there were heaps of sand, bags of cement, and piles of bricks, blocks and timber for more amateur building work.

Now May was here. Fruit trees, climbing flowers, shrubs and bushes were engulfing the buildings. There was lilac – the smell of it was everywhere – and cherry trees in snowy bloom, tubs of roses and dwarf rhododendrons. But the vegetation was not enough to hide the one-storey building that the next-door neighbour had painted bright red, and laboriously drawn wobbly lines of yellow upon, to produce the effect of a medieval castle.