Fireman, yes. This was an identity parade and every one of us would have to be cleared by the fireman somewhere up there at the end of the street, the only man who knew my face.
This is the one?
I think so.
Take a good look. Make sure.
Staring at me from the top of a ladder one minute, seventy feet in the air, staring at me in the street the next minute, in the middle of a horde of police. Life is a game, my friend, life is a cabaret.
And this is the man with no papers?
Yes, captain.
Then bring him along, two of you.
Thirty minutes, at an approximate estimation. Thirty minutes from now.
You will now leave your vehicles and form a single line. Please leave your vehicles.
Doors opening and slamming shut like a fusillade of shots along the street, the echoes bouncing from the buildings. The lights still flashing in the eerie silence that came down now, except for the shuffling of feet.
'Are they searching them?'
A small man beside me suddenly, keeping his voice low; he was on his toes, trying to see the front of the line.
'I don't know,' I said. 'Why not leave it in the car?'
He flicked a look at me. 'If they're searching us, they'll search the cars too.'
Not the first time he'd been caught in a drug bust. But that wasn't what it was.
It's a trap.
I don't need telling.
It had probably been Melnichenko who had started this. As a high-level member of the GRU he'd carry a lot of clout and he'd use it. He would have put two and two together when he'd found the window still open an inch and seen the fuss in the street: the man he'd seen later, running for the stairs, might have been in his office earlier and been surprised there. He would think immediately of the Trumpeter file and pick up a telephone very fast indeed. The file would still be there — he'd check on that — but he would want to know who'd been in his office and what they were looking for.
I want police blocks set up immediately and the area contained. I want everyone searched and questioned. I shall remain in my office in the Airforce Building and you will please report to me there.
Thy will be done.
Move along, please. Keep the line moving.
It wasn't, at this end. We were a stationary herd, twenty or thirty of us in the immediate group, standing around the cars. The police kept well back against the buildings, hands behind them, guns on their hips, their peaked caps turning slowly as they watched the crowd.
'I think they're going to search us.'
'Try dropping it between your feet.'
I moved away from him; he might try something cute, and I didn't want them to find a bag of cocaine in my pocket.
It wouldn't matter.
You're perfectly right.
There was another man.
'You'll be late for the party.' The girl with the red mouth.
'Yes,' I said.
'You want to take us along?'
This was the other girl, the one who'd been at the wheel, a mane of black hair, gold earrings, hips tilted, one leg dipped at the knee.
'If I ever get there,' I said.
The other man was looking around him, though not obviously, not obviously at all, just taking a quick glance as he shrugged deeper into his coat, as he brushed ash off his sleeve.
'If you're too late for the party, would you like to come home with us?'
'Very much.'
And you cannot, my good friend, say that I was lying.
He'd been standing close to the pagoda-top Mercedes until a few minutes ago, but now he was deeper into the crowd, not so isolated.
'We'll give you a good time.' The hips tilting the other way. 'I'm Lili, and this is Marie.'
'Delighted.'
He was worried, the man in the crowd. The police weren't likely to notice it because they had to keep so many of us under observation, whereas I could watch the man with more concentration.
'What's your name?'
'Mickey Mouse,' I said, and they both laughed.
When I'd got out of the car I'd done the same as the man, taking some quick glances around the environment; I'd no need to check it again. Behind us there was the intersection and a police car was stationed there and a barricade set up. In front of us was the group of police and the head of the line. There were doorways along the street but none of them offering cover. The only exit was a narrow gap between two of the buildings, not wide enough to call an alley; perhaps only a passage where dustbins were kept. Two Vopos were stationed there.
'Are you married?'
The man had a belted coat on; he was middle-aged, medium height, with a fur hat and a good pair of gloves. He wasn't a businessman, because of the soft rubber shoes. He wasn't, had never been, an official, despite the belted coat: he carried no air of authority, nor even a semblance. The car he'd got out of was the black pagoda-top Mercedes, an old model but light and fast; it suited him.
'Yes,' I said. Married.
He could conceivably be an agent of some kind; not necessarily a spook but an entrepreneur in one of the intelligence services; or freelance.
'What's your wife's name?'
But he didn't have nervous stamina.
'Minnie Mouse.'
Got another laugh. By nervous stamina I mean that he was visibly beginning to break down. His head was turning more often now as he looked for a way out, and the colour was leaving his face. This is the way a trap will work on you, bringing the onset of panic by infinite degrees; and every time you look around for some way of escape and don't see one, the nerves go through another little death. I could see what was happening to the man over there because it was also happening to me.
Movement, near the Lancia.
'If I were you,' I said, 'I'd shut the windows of your car.'
Marie turned her head. 'What?'
''That chap's trying to get rid of some stuff.'
'What stuff?' Then she saw him, the short man; he was standing right against the Lancia and she took straight off like a good gal and clobbered him with her handbag and I turned away because one of the policemen had caught on and was coming across from the buildings and with the all-points bulletin out for me I couldn't afford to let them come too close.
'What's going on there?'
The poor little bastard had dropped the package he'd been trying to shove through the Lancia's window and stood there with one arm up as a shield against the handbag.
Everyone turned to look, except the man with the belted coat, and he was using the chance to move nearer the gap between the bank and the library and I decided to head him off but it took a good ten minutes, stamping my feet quietly to keep them warm, shifting them backwards an inch at a time, watching the comedy going on near the Lancia — a cop, two tarts and a drug-pusher, what a cast — and finally I made the distance and got between the man in the coat and the alleyway and stood there with my back to it, blowing into my hands, slapping my shoulders.
Keep the line moving. Keep moving.
You must be joking, we haven't budged for the last fifteen minutes.
He looked at me now, just once, his glance passing across me and away again, and by now his face was bloodless. I would have said he'd got more on his mind than a packet of snort, though God knew what it might be. Both his hands were in the pockets of his coat and I noticed that the right one seemed a little larger, as if he were holding something.
Keep the line moving. Keep moving, now!
The PA horn wasn't close but its sound hit his nerves and he flinched. And then we were off at last, shuffling towards the checkpoint, and he broke and swung round and started his run and I got in his way and he tried to dodge round me and I let out a shout and he pulled his gun as the nearest policemen came away from the buildings very fast in a crouching run with their own guns out and I moved backwards out of their way and got to the alley as the first shot sounded and then a fusillade so I suppose he'd fired first and they'd just wiped him out before he could hurt anyone, they're very efficient in East Berlin.