Quiller KGB

'I was on time?'

'Yes.' He wanted praise, and I should've thought of that; in this trade we don't give it. 'Exactly on time. Take a right and a left as fast as you legally can.'

'Whatever you say.'

Give me your wife's name and her sister's address, and by the end of the month I'll see she gets a permit to visit the cemetery on the other side.

He didn't think I'd give him a bill. I hadn't put it specifically but I'd given him the cover of being what they called a live-body entrepreneur. Ever since the Wall had gone up there'd been a steady trade in people who needed to reach the other side. Prices varied, and the cost of getting young people across was higher, their working life and value to the German Democratic Republic making them expensive: in the region of twenty-five thousand US dollars. For this man's wife the price would normally be a quarter of that: she was middle-aged and a woman. But he didn't think I'd give him a bill because I'd told him there were things he could do for me.

'Get into Unter den Linden.'

He nodded his head.

I wanted Unter den Linden because we'd have more room to manoeuvre. The Mercedes had been behind us when we'd pulled out from the kerb in Charlottenstrasse but that didn't mean anything. I didn't think it was Cone's because it was a four-door model and too big, too noticeable for a tracking vehicle and too expensive for the Bureau's economies. It could be Volper's, making a series of sweeping passes ever since I'd walked out of the Steingarten. It couldn't have shadowed Gunter from his apartment because I'd taken extreme care before I'd decided on it as a safe-house. The SEL could have more than one, more than two men in it. The object of their operation was to get onto my track and stay with me until they'd set up the kill and could trigger it but it didn't have to take all afternoon — they could pull into the next traffic lane at any time and come alongside and put out a burst of rapid fire. But I didn't expect that. The streets of East Berlin are well policed and the bleak, quiet atmosphere would deter anyone from calling attention.

And I was beginning to know Horst Volper's style. The first attempt at a kill had been carefully organised, and designed to look like a hit-and-run. He wouldn't start lashing out in a panic.

'Gunter. What kind of car have we got behind us?'

'A VW.'

'And behind that? Don't move your head.'

He let the cab drift a couple of feet to the left side and checked the mirror again.

'A Mercedes SEL.'

'Find me a phone box.'

It took us another three blocks and he pulled into the kerb and waited for me while I got out and crossed the pavement to the telephone and called the Soviet Ambassador.

12: SHARK

'Liaison.'

'How can I help you?'

'Is Major Yasolev still in the embassy?'

'I will see.'

It was only three o'clock but the rooftops were already losing definition. Dark would soon be coming down.

'Yasolev.'

'Liaison.'

'Yes?'

'Have you put a tag on me?'

'No.

The Mercedes had pulled into a space well ahead of us; I could only just see its rear numberplate. Within that distance Gunter wouldn't be able to make a U-turn legally and there was no sidestreet. All they had to do was wait, and if I didn't go back to the cab they'd simply deploy people on foot.

'Are you sure?' I asked Yasolev.

'Of course I am sure. We agreed.'

'It's not that I don't trust you. I'm just checking.'

'Where are you?'

'I'll be in touch,' I said, and rang off and went across the pavement and got in and saw the small black Audi reflected in a window on the flier side. It had swung into Unter den Linden three blocks ago and I’d seen its image in windows at the first and third intersections. I thought it was best to leave it alone and blow the Mercedes.

'Gunter, that SEL is parked about seventy metres ahead of us on this side. When you go past it, put your foot down hard and take a right into Spandauerstrasse and then a left as fast as you can.' He started the engine. 'If the lights are against us at Spandauer, go into it when they change and then do whatever you think best to lose the Merc.'

'Without doing anything the police — '

'Your own discretion.'

'I could lose my licence, and it's my living.'

'Absolutely at your own discretion. Just lose the Merc.' He got into gear.

It wouldn't be difficult.

They would let him do it.

Host Volper knew more about me than I knew about him. He knew I was experienced: witness the Skidder incident. He knew London wouldn't send anyone out here who didn't know what a tag was, who didn't know how to get rid of it: they'd seen me lose Cone's man a few minutes ago. So I had to blow either the SEL or the Audi because that would be my level of street-craft and they'd expect me to conform. The Merc had been with us longer and it was more noticeable and it was slower on the gun than the Audi so this was the better one to go for.

And they'd let it happen because then I'd be lulled, satisfied that we were alone again. I wasn't expected to know about the Audi.

'Yes,' Gunter said, 'it's just — '

'All right. Turn your head and look at it when you go past and then give it the gun.'

But the lights were red at Spandauer and we had to wait till they changed, but he'd gone through the motions and worked up a bit of tyre-squeal and when the green came on he jumped it by a fraction and took a right and two lefts and I told him to slow and take it easy: we'd lost the Merc.

The Audi was still with us.

'Put me down outside the U-bahn station at Alexanderplatz. Have you had lunch yet?'

I eat on the job.'

'You did well.'

I got out and went into the subway entrance, checking the environment as a precaution, simply as a precaution, looking as if I didn't expect tags now that the Mercedes was blown.

Two men got out of the Audi but I made sure to catch them only at the edge of the vision-sweep; then I went down the steps.

Chicken, I suppose.

I mean going down into the subway. Nerves.

All right, I'm not your bloody hero.

The subways in Europe are normally safe from killing attempts because they're confining and limiting in terms of freedom to get away. You can make the kill quite easily — I've done it twice, but only because i had to do it there or nowhere — but if there's going to be any noise or fuss you risk getting cut off from escape. I used my hands on both occasions, in total silence.

The U-bahn in East Berlin is a safer place than most others in Europe; as safe as in Moscow. I didn't expect an attack at Alexanderplatz; all I wanted to do was make sure they were still on my track and begin the major work of the afternoon. This was to make it seem that I had a rendezvous to keep, that I realised they were still in the environment and that I couldn't make the rdv until I'd thrown them off,

This meant using a phone at intervals, to give the impression that I was having to shift the rendezvous in timing and location because I wasn't alone and mustn't expose the contact. The entire operation for an agent's enticing the opposition to make an attack in the hope of securing one of them for interrogation is in the books at Norfolk but I don't know anyone who's carried it through; the risk factor is exorbitantly high and a director in the field would never ask his executive to do it, because it'd be like giving him a loaded revolver with five rounds in the chamber and asking him to play Russian roulette.

Sitting with my tea in this sleazy cafe scared to death.

I'd got on a train and got off again at Schillingstrasse and here I was and here they were, one of them at a table across by the door and I couldn't help that because I hadn't wanted to sit there myself: it was too exposed. The other man was in a corner as far from the door as possible, so that I couldn't keep both of them in sight at the same time, which is good close-surveillance practice and very effective.