Mexico Set

'There are still plenty of defectors, though,' persisted Zena.

'Yes,' I said. 'Many defectors are sponsored by the USA, the way that famous musicians or performers are, because of the bad publicity their escapes make for the communist system. And they can earn their own living easily enough. The remainder have to bring something worthwhile with them as the price of entry.'

'Secrets?'

That depends on what you call secrets. Usually a country provides asylum to someone bringing information about the way the Soviets have been spying on the host country. For that sort of information a government is usually prepared to withstand Russian pressures.'

'And for that reason,' said Werner, 'most of the decent Russians can't defect and the KGB bastards can. Put all the defectors together and you'd have a ballet company and orchestra, some sports stars and a vast army of secret policemen.'

Zena looked at me with her big grey eyes and said archly, 'But if you two are right about Erich Stinnes, he's a KGB man. So he could provide some secrets about spying on Mexico. So he would be allowed to stay here without your help.'

'Would you like to live in Mexico for the remainder of your life, Mrs Volkmann?' I said.

She paused for a moment as if thinking the idea over. 'Perhaps not,' she admitted.

'No, a man such as Stinnes would want a British passport.'

'Or a US passport?' said Zena.

'American citizenship provides no right to travel abroad. A British passport identifies a British subject, and they have the right to leave the country any time they wish. Stinnes will give us quite a list of requirements if he decides to defect. He'd need a lot of paperwork so that he has a completely new identity. I mean an identity that is recorded in such a way that it will withstand investigation.'

'What sort of things?' said Zena.

I said, 'Things that require the cooperation of many different government departments. For instance, he'll need a driving licence. And we don't want that to materialize out of nowhere, not for a forty-year-old with no other driving experience on file and no record of passing a driving test. He'd need to have some innocuous-looking file in his local tax office. He'll want a credit card; what does he put on the application? Then there are documents for travelling. He'll probably want some freedom of movement and that's always a headache. Incidentally he must give us some identity photos for his passport and so on. One good full-face picture will be enough. A picture of his wife too. I'll get the copies done at the embassy.'

Werner nodded. He realized that this was his briefing. I was talking around the sort of offer he would be able to make to Stinnes. 'You're assuming that he would live in England?' said Werner.

'Certainly for the first year,' I said. 'It will be a long debriefing. Would that be a problem?'

'He's always spoken of Germany as the only place he'd ever want to be. Isn't that true, Zena?'

'That's what he's always said,' Zena agreed. 'But it's the sort of thing everyone says at the Kronprinz Club. Everyone is drinking German beer and exchanging news of the old country. It is natural to talk of Germany with great affection. We all do. But when you are offering someone a chance to retire in comfort, England wouldn't be too bad, I think.' She smiled.

I said, 'Dicky thinks Stinnes will jump at any decent offer.'

'Does he?' said Werner doubtfully.

'London thinks Stinnes has been passed over for promotion. They think he's been stuck away in East Berlin to rot.'

'So why is he here in Mexico?' said Werner.

'Dicky thinks it's just a nice little jaunt for him.'

'It's a convenient thing to say when you can't think of any convincing answer,' said Werner. 'What do you think, Bernie?'

'I'm convinced he's here in connection with Paul Biedermann,' I said cautiously. 'But why the hell would he be?'

Werner nodded. He didn't take me seriously. He knew I disliked Biedermann and thought this was clouding my judgement. 'What makes you think that, Bernie?' he said.

'Stinnes and his pal didn't know I was listening to them out at the Biedermann house. They said they were running Biedermann and I believe it.'

'Paul Biedermann has been koshering cash for the KGB,' Werner told Zena. 'And sending it off for them too.'

'What a bastard,' said Zena. The family property in East Prussia, which Zena had failed to inherit because it was now a part of the USSR, made her unsympathetic to people who helped the KGB. But she didn't put much venom into her condemnation of Biedermann; her mind was on Stinnes. 'What's so special about Stinnes?' she asked me.

'London wants him,' I said. 'And London Central moves in strange and unaccountable ways.'

'It's all Dicky Cruyer's idea,' she said, as if she'd had a sudden insight. 'I'll bet it's not London at all. Dicky Cruyer went off to Los Angeles and had a meeting with Frank Harrington. Then he returned with the electrifying news that London wants Erich Stinnes, and he's to be coaxed into defection.'

'He couldn't do that,' said Werner, who hated to have his faith in London Central undermined. 'It's a London order, isn't it, Bernie? It must be.'

'Don't be silly, Werner,' his wife argued. 'It was probably made official afterwards. You know that anyone could talk Frank Harrington into anything.'

Werner grunted. Zena's brief love affair with the elderly Frank Harrington was something that was never referred to, but I could see it was not forgotten.

Zena turned to me. 'I'm right. You know I am.'

'A successful enrolment would do wonders for Dicky's chances of holding on to the German Desk,' I said. I got up and walked over to the window. I had almost forgotten that we were in Mexico City, but the mountains just visible behind a veil of mist, the dark ceiling of clouds, the flashes of lightning and the tropical storm that was thrashing the city were not like anything to.be seen in Europe.

'When do we get the money for finding him?' Zena said. My back was to her and I pretended to think that she was asking Werner.

It was Werner who replied. 'It will work out, darling. These things take time.'

Zena came across to the window and said to me, 'We'll not do any more to help until we've been paid some money.'

'I don't know anything about the money,' I said.

'No, no one knows anything about the money. That's how you people work, isn't it?'

Werner was still sitting heavily in his chair, munching his biscuits. 'It's not Bernie's fault, darling. Bernie would give us the crown jewels if it was only up to him.' The crown jewels had always been Werner's idea of ultimate wealth. I remembered how, when we were at school, various prized possessions of his had all been things he wouldn't exchange for the crown jewels.

'I'm not asking for the crown jewels,' said Zena demurely. I turned to look her in the face. My God but she was tough, and yet the toughness did not mar her beauty. I suddenly saw the fatal attraction she had for poor Werner. It was like having pet piranhas in the bath, or a silky rock python in the linen cupboard. You could never tame them but it was fun to see what effect they had on your friends. 'I'm asking to be paid for finding Erich Stinnes.' She picked up a notepad by the phone and entered the cup and saucer on to her list of breakages.

I looked at Werner but he was trying on some new inscrutable faces, so I said, 'I don't know who told you that there was a cash payment for reporting the whereabouts of Erich Stinnes but it certainly wasn't me. The truth is, Mrs Volkmann, that the department never pays any sort of bounty. At least I've never heard of such a payment being made.' She stared at me with enough calm, dispassionate interest to make me worry whether my coffee was poisoned. 'But I probably could sign a couple of vouchers that would reimburse you for air fares, first class, return trip.'