A plane thundered into the dark.
And now the appalling idea came to me that I'd been wasting time, trusting the whole of the mission to a hypothetical rendezvous while all those people were busy packing their bags and saying goodbye to friends and filing through the departure gate for their exciting ride with the little teddy bear. I'd have to signal Cone and tell him there was a change of plan, I'd need to find another way in to Nemesis if it wasn't already too late, but the phone began ringing suddenly in the quiet room and I swung round and picked it up and Kleiber told me that Inge Stoph had called to say that if I wanted to talk to Dieter Klaus I must be at the north-west corner of Waldschulle Alice and Harbigstrasse at 5:15 this evening and that I must go there alone.
Chapter 13: KLAUS
And now Johan has the puck and he's leading with it all the way and he's going as if there just isn't anybody here to stop him. This is only his second time out since the injury he sustained at Frankfurt, but that's obviously old history by the way he's moving.
Floodlights roofed the night.
'Isn't he amazing?' Inge asked me.
I said yes, amazing.
'Would you like one?' Waving a bratwurst.
'Thank you.' I hadn't eaten since this morning.
But we didn't expect Tommy Warnke to get across there so fast and it looks as if Johan's going to have his work cut out unless he can pile on that extra turn of speed he's so famous for.
The stadium was packed, the colours of the sweaters and scarves and woollen hats turning it into a vast flower bed.
'You like ice-hockey?' Inge asked me.
'Very much.'
I'd reached the north-west corner of Waldschulle Allee and Harbigstrasse at the precise hour for the rendezvous and paid off the taxi and the crimson Porsche 911 had pulled in to the kerb with a squeal of tyres.
'Hans!'
She waved from the car and I went across to it and got in.
'It's so nice to see you again!' Showgirl smile, the eyes ice-bright and observant. She took the Porsche away with a dash of expertise, her right hand caressing the gear-knob. She was wearing the same crimson calf-length boots, but tonight she sported a Russian fur hat with fur gloves to match.
A dark green Jaguar was trailing us: it had pulled up behind the Porsche and started off again, keeping close enough to make sure no one slipped in between. Later it overtook us and the woman at the wheel glanced across at Inge and away; then she held back and began trailing again. Inge knew the Jaguar was with us, but didn't say anything. She drove steadily, playing the lights and the traffic lanes without flash but with effectiveness.
'Dieter said he can only give you a few minutes,' she told me as we waited for a green. 'But even so, you're lucky.'
'So is he,' I said. 'I assume you told him what I've got for him?'
She looked at me. 'You don't understand. It's very difficult to get Dieter to see anyone at all.'
'It's very difficult,' I said, 'to keep me waiting so long for a meeting.'
The lights changed to green and she shifted the gear-lever. 'So? Then why did you decide to wait?'
I let my eyes move over her face. 'For one thing I find you charming.'
'Thank you.'
She wasn't impressed: she was a knockout and she knew it. But she flashed me the dazzling sharp-toothed feline smile, and I was fairly sure now that Dieter Klaus had instructed her to spring a Venus trap on me, and I was going to walk right into it because I knew how to pick up information that way. It would also be in keeping with my cover: an international arms dealer passing through Berlin wouldn't turn down the chance of a night with a girl like Inge Stoph.
'And for another thing?' she asked me.
'I confess to a certain admiration for Dieter Klaus.'
She said rather quickly – 'What do you know about him?'
'Not very much, but in my trade the word gets around that he's different from the kind of thugs you find, say, in the Rote Armee Faktion.'
'That's exactly the word,' Inge said. 'Dieter Klaus is very different.'
It was all she said, and she drove in silence until we reached the stadium.
I'd telephoned Cone before I left the hotel, and told him what time the rendezvous was, and where. He said he already knew: Kleiber had signalled him. I cancelled the car: it was a mobile rdv with no fixed address and I didn't know the area, didn't know where they could leave a car for me to reach if I needed one. Cone made a last try, asking me if I'd changed my mind about using support. I said I hadn't.
I don't think I've ever seen Braun so quick with the passes – I think the comeback Johan has made is inspiring him, and in fact the whole team.
I glanced sometimes at Dieter Klaus.
'He's over there,' Inge had told me when we'd sat down.
There were two men and four women around him: they were three rows down across the aisle in the best seats, the Ehrentribune. My view of him wasn't obstructed but it was at an angle of ten or fifteen degrees from behind, and I only saw his face when he turned to speak to the woman on his left. His head was bare; his hair was dressed in the Prussian style, brush-cut and blond. He wore a black overcoat with a dark sable collar, no gloves, a pair of designer sunglasses.
His entourage was fitted out with the same black padded track suit for each of them, except for the woman on his left. She wore a tourmaline mink coat and hat, a flash of gold at her ears, nothing on her wrists unless it was under a sleeve. She was young, olive-skinned, a Latin, and she was giving more of her attention to the game than to Dieter Klaus, even when he turned his head to say something.
Inge watched him with a lot more interest. She was sitting on my right, so that when she moved her head to look across at Klaus I couldn't see her eyes, but the angle of her head and its stillness told me a great deal, and when she turned to look at me for a moment to talk about him, the expression in her eyes was clear enough: Dieter Klaus was the subject of her adoration.
'He's here in Berlin tonight,' she told me, 'For a special reason. Normally he stays in Frankfurt -he flew in an hour ago.'
'Quite an aficionado.'
She looked surprised for an instant. 'Yes, but he didn't come to Berlin tonight to watch ice hockey.'
'It sounds interesting,' I said. 'Something, perhaps, I can help him with?'
She gave me a long look. 'No. Everything is arranged.'
Teddy bear.
And Lange takes the puck but he's not too well placed for a strike if he means to go for a goal at this distance and with those two quarterbacks moving in from the flank. But he's got the speed if he wants to take it closer before he strikes – just look at that!
Teddy bear in the sky.
He was fifty feet away from where I was sitting, Dieter Klaus, and the thought was running through my mind that if I could get close enough to him when we were leaving the stadium I might go for a quick direct kill and take it from there, keep the others off me if I could, use the confusion and the crowd for cover. They wouldn't use guns, even if they had any; it was illegal to carry arms in this city and the sound of shots would bring the police and security much faster than a brawl.