The Berlin Conspiracy (13 page)

“I’ll pay for the damages,” I offered weakly as we surveyed what was left of Horst’s car. It wasn’t pretty—the right front fender was hanging by a thread, the left rear one was gone, the back end was crushed, and the engine was spewing steam and oil. It had died soon after scraping through the alley and we’d pushed it off the road into an empty construction site, where it sat.

“I’m not so sure it can be repaired,” Horst said. I concurred and offered to buy the car from him. “No.” He shook his head sadly as he walked around the wreckage. “You can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because it belongs to Hanna.”

“Oh,” I said. “I see.”

“She was quite fond of it,” he said gloomily. “She even gave it a name—Otto. I don’t know why Otto.” I nodded
sympathetically and he stood there, head bowed, for a few minutes, looking over the twisted metal as though it was a fallen friend.

“How much would it take to get her another one?” I finally ventured.

“I don’t think there is another like this.”

I suggested that she might appreciate something a bit newer, a bit jazzier even. She could call it Otto Jr.

“It could cost quite a bit,” Horst suggested quietly.

“How much?” I wondered.

“Three hundred?” He shrugged.

“Marks?” I asked, and he looked askance.

“Dollars.”

I nodded, reached for my wallet, and counted three hundred into his palm. It pretty much cleaned me out of dollars, but I had enough deutsche marks to get me through a few days. I figured I could get the Company to cover the cost of the car as a legitimate business expense. If they didn’t kill me first, that is.

Horst removed the plates and we left it for others to decide Otto’s final resting place. The familiar grin reappeared on Horst’s face as he swung his arm around my shoulder.

“So why not a drink? I think our nerves do deserve it.”

He knew a little hideaway in the district called Stateside Inn. You could’ve been walking in off Route 66—license plates hanging from the ceiling, sawdust on the floor, a pool table in the back, and Hank Williams on the jukebox. It was Horst heaven. The only customers at this hour were three off-duty soldiers and a pair of old girls trying to do business with them and not having much luck. Gus the bartender went with the scenery, too, although I found out later he was a retired
English teacher from Philadelphia who had never been west of the Mississippi. We sat at the bar and Horst ordered a couple of Buds.

“You live in the beer capital of the world and you drink that piss water?” I smiled.

“You’re right.” He leaned in and whispered, “It’s terrible. But they have no Pilsner here.” He shrugged and offered a Camel, which I took. “By the way, how is your dog injury?” he asked.

“Not too bad,” I answered, rubbing my calf. “Just a little sore.”

“That’s good,” he said. “Sometimes these things can become quite nasty.” The beers came and I asked Horst what the hell he was doing at my hotel.

“I came to see you,” he shrugged.

“How did you know where to find me?” I didn’t remember telling him where I was staying and it was kind of strange that he’d turn up out of the blue, particularly at that moment.

“I don’t understand,” he said.

“I never told you I was at the Kempinski. Did someone tell you I was there?”

He gave me a quizzical look. “Who would tell me?”

“Then how did you—”

He displayed the Hotel Kempinski matchbook he’d just used to light our cigarettes. “Don’t you remember? You gave me a light with this match on the first night. I said to you all Americans stay at this hotel.”

“You’re right.” I smiled, feeling stupid. “I remember now.”

We both took a swig off the beers, then Horst said, “Who was the man that chased us?”

“A guy named Smith,” I answered. “It’s not important.”

“Ah,” he nodded, getting the message and changing the
subject. “So … It’s a shame you have left so quickly yesterday evening. Hanna has made quite a good meal for us.”

Of course I owed him an apology. And Hanna. I felt like a real heel. “Christ, Horst, I’m sorry. Tell Hanna, I’m sorry too, will you?”

“It’s not a problem.” He waved it off. He asked if I’d made it in time for my meeting and I told him I had. He suggested that I come to dinner tonight instead, then I could apologize to Hanna myself.

“I’m sorry, Horst, I, ah … I have to be somewhere again tonight.”

“I see,” he nodded earnestly. I didn’t want him to think I was avoiding him and I had to admit that the thought of seeing Hanna again was certainly appealing. “I’ll tell you what,” I suggested. “How about I take you both out to dinner one night? Someplace very expensive.”

“I know just the place!” he smiled.

“Good. That’s what we’ll do, then. Just give me a couple of days to clear up my business.”

Horst nodded happily, polished off his beer, and decided he’d better find a taxi since he was supposed to be using Otto to collect Hanna from the factory where she worked. He tried to get me to come along but I begged off, staying at the bar and ordering another Bud. I bought a pack of Marlboros from the machine and asked Gus how he ended up in Berlin. I listened for a while without really hearing, then asked if there was a public phone in the house. He pointed me to the back, next to the men’s room.

Sam was in his office, probably waiting for my call.

‘That son of a bitch tried to kill me!” I said as soon as he picked up.

“Which son of a bitch?”

“Smith,” I said.

“Who the hell is Smith?” He wasn’t talking to me, so I assumed Powell was in the room with him. Sam came back after a moment: “He says he fired two warning shots.”

“Is Powell with you?” I asked.

“That’s right,” he confirmed.

“The guy came within six inches of my head.”

“He says he came pretty close,” he said to Powell; then, after a pause, to me: “The feeling here is that if he’d been trying to hit you, we’d be at the morgue identifying your body right now.”

“That’s bullshit!” I said.

“Look, Jack,” Sam said in his “let’s cut the crap” voice. “Maybe the guy got carried away, but that’s not exactly the big issue down here at the moment. The big issue is what the hell are you up to?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted.

“That’s great, Jack. Great fucking answer.” He paused and I guessed Powell was saying something to him. When he came back on the line he asked, “Who was the guy waiting for you at the hotel?”

“Nobody,” I said. “Just a guy in the lobby that I hijacked.”

Sam relayed the information then chuckled.

“What’s funny?” I asked.

“How’d you manage to pick a guy with such a hot car?”

“Just lucky, I guess,” I said, but Sam had stopped laughing.

“Why don’t you just tell me where you are so I can send somebody out to bring you in?”

“Somebody like Smith?”

He didn’t say anything for a minute and I could tell he was pissed off. “I guess you think I’m part of the conspiracy, huh? Maybe all of us are. Powell, me, Smith … Who else? Maybe the whole fucking world’s out to get you.”

“Let’s just say I want to finish what I started.”

An unhappy silence greeted me. When he finally spoke, it was in a low-key, cold-blooded voice that I’d heard on Sam before, but never directed at me: “If you fuck with me on this, Jack, I’m gonna have to cut you loose. You’ll be on your own out there with nobody to come home to.”

It sent a shiver up my spine, which was exactly what it was supposed to do.

“Be smart, for a change,” he added.

I was about to spit out some kind of bravado bullshit, but I came up empty, which was unusual but probably just as well. So I just said, “Sorry you feel that way, Sam,” and hung up.

I went back to the bar, nursed my beer, and chain-smoked Marlboros while I thought things through. It was disturbing.
If you fuck with me on this…
he’d said.
Fuck with him?
That wasn’t how Sam and I operated. What the hell was it supposed to mean, anyway? Fuck with him
on what?!
And how did he think I’d respond to that kind of bullshit? Fold? Christ, he knew me better than that. But he meant it, that was for sure. So there was no going back now, even if I wanted to.

It looked like I was going to have to depend on the Colonel. Not the most comforting thought I’d ever had, but for some inexplicable reason I felt he was playing it straight with me. There was no evidence of that and nothing in his dossier to suggest that he was anything other than a callous instrument of the state, but I had a gut feeling—a sense that I could trust him. Of course, that’s exactly when you’re most vulnerable. I’d try not to forget that.

I considered how to play it. The Colonel couldn’t know that I was on my own now; that would make him too comfortable. He’d have to think I could walk out at any time. And I couldn’t seem too eager, either. In fact, I had to be
the opposite, play it cool, let him think I couldn’t care less. If he was on the level, you had to assume he was operating with Moscow’s blessing, at the highest levels, and that the idea was to prevent the assassination. If not, why bother telling anyone? So the Colonel would be getting pressure from above. I’d go in like I didn’t have a care in the world, say I’d passed the information on and was happy to be heading back to Florida. If he let me go, then I’d know it was all a scam. On the other hand, if he was serious he’d have to give me something to work with.

It was pushing five o’clock and the place was filling up, so I decided to move on. When I hit the street I realized I was a bit woozier than I should’ve been on two beers. Maybe it was the pack of Marlboros that I’d polished off, or the fact that I hadn’t had any real food in two days. I stopped at the first Imbiss I saw—one of the street-corner kiosks that were scattered around the city—and ordered sausages and coffee.

As I stood at the counter I couldn’t shake the feeling that I wasn’t alone, that someone had been watching me since I left the bar. Just to be sure I’d change cars a couple of times on the way to the meeting.

I arrived forty minutes early
and had the taxi pull up a block away from the house on Berlinerstrasse. I wanted to see if I could catch the Colonel off guard, maybe get ahead of the game for a change. The driver, happy enough with the meter ticking over, sank his head into a newspaper while I waited, watching the last rays of sunlight give way to a veil of murky darkness. The night air brought with it a sense of anticipation and I felt a surge of energy.

There was no sign of anything by nine o’clock, so I paid the driver and sent him off. I made my way through the pitch-black toward the house, wondering if the Colonel was already inside or if he was the one who was gonna be late this time. It seemed unlikely that he’d hang around in that rat hole for longer than he had to. I wished I’d thought of buying a flashlight.

The street was eerily quiet and my heart picked up a beat
as I approached the gate. Something made me stop there—a noise, maybe thirty yards in front of me. I held my breath and listened….

Suddenly an engine roared to life and I was hit with a blinding white light. The car came off the mark quickly and was there before I could figure out which way to jump. It screeched to a halt in front of me and sat there idling for a moment. Then the Colonel’s raspy voice came at me out of the darkness.

“Get in,” he ordered.

The door opened and I slid into the backseat of the Mercedes sedan. The Colonel sat there, motionless, his face obscured by shadow. A glass partition separated us from the driver, who eased the car into gear and gently pulled away.

“You certainly have a flair for the theatrical,” I said after a moment of dark silence.

“Yes,” he said ambiguously, reaching for one of his revolting cigarettes. He lit up without offering me one, which was just as well because I probably would have taken it. “Have you made any progress?”

“I passed your information on,” I answered. “It’s out of my hands now.”

The light caught his face as he turned toward me. He looked edgy, kind of anxious, unlike when I’d seen him before. “Did they tell you that I’m running a disinformation campaign?”

“Something like that,” I answered.

“What do you think?”

“I think I’d have a hard time buying your story even if it was in paperback.”

He let that stand for a moment, nervously flicking an ash. “Fact can be stranger than fiction,” he finally remarked. “That’s what they say, isn’t it?”

“They say a lot of things and most of them aren’t true. Anyway, your story’s a bit thin in the plot department.”

“I was hoping you would help fill it out.”

“You hoped wrong. I’m going home, where the only thing that smells fishy are fish.”

“I see.” He removed his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. It was the first overt sign of strain I’d seen. “Why did you come, then?” he asked.

“I guess I wanted to see if you had anything new to say,” I shrugged.

“I can’t tell you what I don’t know.”

“Then why are
you
here?”

He sighed. “What would you like me to say?”

I paused, looked him in the eye. “You could tell me about Iceberg.”

He looked at me blankly. “I’ve never heard of it. What is it?” I shook my head. “You don’t believe me,” he said.

“Imagine that,” I laughed.

“What reason do I have to lie?”

“You guys don’t need a reason. It comes naturally.”

“Do you include yourself in that?”

“You invited me to this party, Colonel. I’m happy to go home if we’re gonna play the same game over and over.”

“I see,” he said quietly. “Where does that leave us?”

“It leaves us nowhere,” I answered bluntly. “So feel free to drop me anywhere.”

He returned my stare for a moment, then nodded. “Of course.” He tapped the glass and signaled the driver to pull over. There was nothing out there but darkness and trees and more darkness. We were probably in Grunewald Forest, a massive woodland in the southwest corner of the city. It was a long walk to anywhere, even if I had somewhere to go, which I didn’t.

He smiled. “Is this all right?”