'I thought you might know him,' I said.
'Not an uncommon name, not uncommon.' His tone had a deadness to it suddenly; he spoke like an old man weary of talking any more. 'Keep away, I would,' he said, 'keep away from those bastards, if you know – if you know what's good for you, they're not – they're not the original angels of – of mercy, you understand, they're just – they're just a bunch of fucking terrorists, you see, just – just a bunch -' his voice changing to a spasm of coughing that went on and on with some words in it – 'some stuff, Mary… need more stuff, please -' but she was already at the little white table by the bed, filling a syringe as the coughing went on and on and I took his hand and held it for a while, the wheelchair shaking as if it had an engine running 31 it, the needle going in while I crouched lower so as not to get in her way as she said quietly, 'I'm afraid time's up now.'
I said yes and thanked her and squeezed his cold emaciated hand and left them, going out and past the lift and down the stairs and into the lamp lit street.
When I got back to Whitehall a man came across the little square at the back of the building and said through the window, You can leave your car here and they'll run it over to your place. My name's Bloom and I'm driving you to the airport, all right?'
'Are we cutting it fine?'
'Not too bad, but we don't want to -'
'I'm not cleared yet.'
You'll do it on the way.'
He took me across to the dark green Rover parked by the railings and I got in and the man in the back asked me, 'Is there anything you need from the office?
'Is there a bag on board?'
He was Loder. He'd cleared me before.
Yes, in the boot.'
Bloom shut the rear door and went round and got behind the wheel. Your flight's leaving at 21:06, so there's plenty of time, but – you know – you can always get a puncture.'
Loder put a thin briefcase onto my lap. 'Have a look through it, see if it's all there.'
Bloom took us into the evening traffic, south through Parliament Square.
I signed the medical form and the codicil and the active service waiver and checked the maps, two of Berlin with different scales, one of the whole country. Hotel reservation, expense sheet, embassy contacts, Signals grid. Signed for the bag though I hadn't checked it, but they knew my sizes by now. No next of kin, money to the battered wives home.
Take this bloody thing,' I said, and gave Loder the expense sheet. My director in the field would have one and he could look after it for me; one of the really trying chores of a mission was having to deal with those arthritic old harpies in Accounts when you got back, and I'm often tempted to charge them for a bag of cocaine or a tart or a Stealth bomber just to get the dust out of their bustles.
'Looking good,' Loder said.
'What? He'd been watching me, I suppose, in the pale shifting light of the street lamps as we turned West along Victoria Street. 'I'm feeling fine,' I said, 'yes.' There's never been anything official about it in the book of rules but the people in Clearance make a point of catching our mood if they can, because they're the last people we see before we leave the building and the mission starts running, and what they're looking for is an abnormal show of nerves. They'd pulled one of the new recruits off a courier job last week because they'd noticed Ms hands weren't all that steady when he was signing the forms. Have they got a code-name for this one yet?'
'Solitaire,' Loder said. 'It's gone up on the board.'
'Who's the crew?
'Gary and Matthews.'
They'd be manning the board in shifts around the clock. I hadn't worked with Gary but I knew Matthews, one of the old hands, a retired sleeper from Marseilles. And if I needed the Chief of Signals he'd be there, Croder, with his basilisk eyes and his hook of a hand and his cold-blooded expertise. And if I needed total support at the Signals board there'd be Ashley, Bureau One, Host of Hosts, with a direct line to the prime minister and enough clout to call every agent-in-place out of his foxhole and bring in enough fire power to sink a destroyer, an exaggeration, but you get my drift.
Smell of burning.
'Has she been told,' I asked Loder, 'not to recognise me when she sees me at the departure gate?
'But of course.'
I shouldn't have asked. It sounded as if I didn't trust Shatner to look after even the basics.
I almost said to Loder, do you smell burning? But of course he didn't. It wasn't on my clothes any more or in my hair. It was in my head. For all the very good reasons the Bureau had for sending me to Berlin – to infiltrate the Red Army Faction, perhaps prevent some kind of coup – my own reason for going out there still contained an element that was primitive, brutish and urgent. They had drawn blood.
Chapter 5: BERLIN
She picked up the phone, swinging her head to look at me.
'Do you want to talk to him?'
'Yes,' I said, 'if he's willing.'
There was nothing I wanted to say to Hartman over a telephone: all we needed to do was make the rendezvous; but it would give my voice an identity for him.
Helen dialled.
This was her room, 506. The Bureau had chosen the Steglitz. I was in 402 on the floor below: they knew I would want space and distance so that I could check on any tags when she left her room. There wouldn't be any, at least not tonight. Only the Bureau knew where we were. There'd been no message for me. Shatner had said that Thrower, my director in the field, would reach Berlin some time tomorrow. There was no hurry; I didn't need him yet.
'Willi,' she said on the phone, 'this is Helen, and it's just gone ten. I thought you'd be there. I'm in Room 506 at the Steglitz. Will you ring me when you come in? Any time tonight.'
She put the phone down and turned and looked at me, puzzled. 'I rang him from Heathrow before we took off. From my hotel there. He said he'd wait in.'
'He wouldn't have gone to bed?'
'He never sleeps. That's why he loves Berlin.'
She came slowly across the room, watching me, worried. A jet lowered across the window, the lights of the city colouring its wings as it made its way into the airport.
'When you phoned him,' I said, 'from Heathrow, how did he sound?'
'He said he was glad I was coming to Berlin, and -'
'I mean did he sound nervous? Nervous about meeting me?'
She thought about it. 'A little, I think, yes. He said I mustn't tell you where he lives. He's going to meet us somewhere else.'
That made sense. His friend Maitland had been dead less than a week, and Hartman knew that any enquiry would risk exposing him to the Faction.
'When he phones,' I told Helen, 'if he doesn't want to talk to me, try and reassure him. I guarantee his absolute protection – tell him that.'