The Cold War Swap (18 page)

Maas stopped talking and finished his wine. “And that is the story of the tunnel.”

“What happened to the girl?” I asked.

“A pity,” Maas said. “She died in childbirth five months later.”

He called for the waiter, who entered a few moments later bearing a new round of drinks.

When he had gone, Maas continued: “And it is a pity about Captain Boehlmer, too. He has been passed over for promotion. Not only that, but the government plans to raze the entire block in which his fine home is located. They are going to build a warehouse, I believe. One with no windows. Captain Boehlmer has decided that he might turn the tunnel—still in good repair, he assures me—to a profit. Just once. Fortunately, his discreet inquiries reached me before anyone else.”

“You want five thousand dollars?” Padillo asked.

Maas knocked an inch of Havana ash from his cigar. “I am afraid, Herr Padillo, that the price is somewhat higher than that which I previously quoted my good friend, Herr McCorkle. It has risen, I assure you, only in proportion to the intensity with which you are being sought by your friends here in the East—and, I might add, in the West.”

“How much?”

“Ten thousand dollars.” He held up his hand like a traffic cop signaling stop. “Before you object, let me say that I will not haggle, but I will extend credit. The ten thousand can be paid to me in cash in Bonn upon your return.”

“You’re getting awfully generous, Maas. The last time I talked to you, it was all cash and carry.”

“Things have changed since then, good friend. I have learned that my popularity here in the East Sector—which is really my home, by the way—has diminished. In fact, you may say that I, too, am the subject of a search, though not as intensive as the one that is being conducted for you.”

“How much are they offering for us?” Padillo asked. “Not the public offer—the private one.”

“It is a considerable sum, Herr Padillo. One hundred thousand East German Marks. That’s about twenty-five thousand DM or seven thousand, five hundred of your dollars. You see I am not being overly greedy.”

I took a sip of my vodka and then demanded: “How do we know you won’t cross us, Maas? How do we know that we won’t waltz straight into the arms of Captain Boehmler and sixteen of his finest?”

Maas nodded rapidly in apparent agreement and approval. “I not only do not blame you for your caution, Herr McCorkle, but I admire it. There are two ways that I will demonstrate my good faith. First of all, I must get out of East Berlin, and it is not easy right now—especially right now. So I plan to go with you. Thus, I gain free egress from the East and, at the same time, I will be able to keep a close eye on my investment.

“Now my second method of showing good faith must be unpleasant news for you, but I am sure that you will bear it with your usual fortitude.”

“Go ahead,” I said.

“It is with deep regret,” Maas said in his formal, almost pontifical manner, “that I must inform you that your friend Mr. Cook Baker is not to be trusted.”

Padillo played it straight. He even let his mouth drop open slightly and raised his eyebrows in surprise. “I don’t understand,” he said,

Maas shook his head sadly. “I must confess that it is partly of my doing. If you recall, Herr McCorkle, you were good enough to allow me to sleep on your couch until my appointment the following day in Bonn. My appointment was with Herr Baker. It’s true. I must tell it all. After I failed to make a proper connection with Herr Padillo here, I acted like the businessman I am. I sold my information to Herr Baker.”

“How much?” Padillo asked.

“Three thousand dollars, Herr Padillo.”

“I was in a good mood that day. I might have paid five for it.”

“It was cheap, but the market was limited. Herr Baker was the only other customer.”

“Why would he buy?” clever McCorkle asked.

“He was told to. You see, gentlemen, Herr Baker is an agent for your opposition.” He let that sink in. “Of course, he has not been active until recently. Apparently he committed some indiscretion of a particularly unsavory nature some few years back. Pictures were taken. The pictures fell into certain hands. Herr Baker has his firm in New York, his financial interests to consider. So when friends obtained his current job for him in Bonn the KGB approached him quietly. He is acting not out of conviction but out of fear. Blackmail, its attendant embarrassment and disgrace—a man of Herr Baker’s temperament could not stand it.”

Maas sighed. “I may as well tell the entire story. It was Herr Baker’s idea for me to approach Herr McCorkle and to devise a story that would necessitate my friend to summon Herr Baker to Berlin. Fortunately, I thought of the tunnel, and since I am a businessman I made a legitimate proposition. The five-thousand-dollar price was worked out by me with Herr Baker. He thought the tunnel was a myth. I saw no reason to enlighten him. But now he poses a problem.”

“We’ll worry about that,” Padillo said. “Just when is your tunnel available?”

Maas looked at his watch. “It is twelve forty-five now. I can make arrangements for five o'clock this morning. Is that satisfactory?”

Padillo looked at me. I shrugged. “As soon as possible.”

“I have to make certain arrangements with the captain.”

“You mean pay him,” Padillo said.

“To be sure. Then I must arrange for a car. It would be better if I picked you up. It is too far to walk, especially at that hour of the morning. You must give me your address.”

Padillo took out a piece of paper and wrote the address of Langeman’s
garage and handed it to Maas. “The back door, in the alley.”

Maas tucked it away. “I will be there at four forty-five this morning. In the meantime, Herr Padillo, although I realize you are a man of considerable experience in these affairs, I must urge you to make some arrangements about Herr Baker. He is a danger to us all, and he is also very accurate with a pistol.”

Padillo stood up. “He’s not any more, Herr Maas.”

“Bitte?”

“He’s dead. I shot him this afternoon.”

Our luck ran out on the way back to Langeman’s garage. They stepped out of
a dark doorway, the pair of them, and shined a flashlight into Padillo’s face. One of them said, “May we see your papers, please?” His voice sounded young and it almost cracked on the last word. Padillo said, “Of course,” and flicked his cigarette into the face of the one with the flashlight. When the Vopo’s hands went up to his face, Padillo hit him hard in the stomach. That left me with the other one. He was as tall as I and seemed broader, but I couldn’t be sure in the dark, so I kicked him in the crotch, and when he yelled and doubled over to grab himself I lifted my right knee into his face. Something seemed to break and his teeth bit into my leg. He fell to the pavement and groaned and twitched, so I kicked him twice in the head. He stopped twitching. The Vopo who had asked for the papers lay sprawled on the pavement. His flashlight still burned. Padillo leaned over, picked it up, switched it off, and stuck it in his topcoat pocket. Then he knelt down and examined both men. He rose and said, “Yours is dead, too.”

Padillo looked up and down the street. It was empty. “Let’s get rid of them,” he said. He led the way to the middle of the street and then began to run, zigzagging back and forth until he found what he was looking for. It was a manhole cover—the kind that has three inch-long,
half-inch-wide holes for lifting it up. Padillo took out a four-inch pocket knife, unknotted his tie, and made a small square knot around the knife. He slipped it through one of the holes in the cover, fiddled it around until it was crossways with the hole, and started to pull. The manhole cover came up an inch and I got my fingers around it and pulled until it was upright and then eased it back on the pavement.

We ran back to the Vopos and dragged them by the legs over to the manhole. We dumped them in without ceremony. Padillo went quickly back to the spot where they had asked for our papers. He took the flashlight out of his pocket and shined it around. He found their two hats and carried them over to the manhole and threw them in. Then we quietly put the cover back. Padillo slipped his knife into his pocket and reknotted his tie as we walked down the street.

I was still shaking when we got to the alley that ran behind Langeman’s garage. I wanted a drink badly and decided that I would even settle for the unlabeled potato gin that Langeman had supplied. Padillo knocked softly on the door that led to the cubicle office. It opened a crack and Max whispered Padillo’s name. Padillo replied and we went in.

“They O.K.?” Padillo asked.

“Still sleeping,” Max said.

“Close the trap door. We’ve got some things to talk about.”

Max undid the hook and eye and lowered the trap door. I sat on the desk, Padillo sat in the old swivel chair, and Max stood.

“We ran into trouble on the way back,” Padillo said. “Two Vopos asked for our papers. We dropped them down a manhole.”

Max nodded his head in approval. “They won’t find them until in the morning,” he said. “But they’ll start looking for them in an hour or two when they don’t check in.”

“There’s nothing we can do about that. Do you think you’re still clean—enough to get across to the West Sector?”

“If I could get home, shave, take a bath,” Max said. “I have the proper papers. They’re valid—not even forged.”

“The exporter’s papers?”

“Yes.”

“Did you bring the map?”

Max reached into his inside coat pocket and produced the map that we had used to trace the route of Burchwood and Symmes from the airport. It seemed that all of that had happened sometime last month. Max spread the map out on the floor. Padillo knelt beside it and ran his finger through the Kreuzberg area for a moment. “Here. This park. The one in the shape of a triangle.”

“I know it,” Max said.

“We’re coming out there—in the middle of a clump of arborvitae. There’s a tunnel from a house that’s located here.” And his finger moved to a block shaded in light tan, which indicated, according to the map, a “built-up area.”

Max tapped a finger against his lower lip. “I don’t remember that block—just the park. But the wall runs right next to the park. It almost touches its point.”

“Right,” Padillo said. “I want you to be there at five-thirty with a van: a Volkswagen panel truck will do. Park it here. Also set up a place for us to go and get in touch with Kurt’s outfit. Now you’d better write this down.”

Max produced a spiral notebook and a ball-point pen.

“Four GI uniforms,” Padillo said. “One with tech-sergeant’s stripes, one with master-sergeant’s, one with corporal’s, and one with bucksergeant’s. Get hold of two combat infantry badges.”

“What sizes?” Max asked.

“What do you take, Mac?”

“Forty-two long,” I said.

“One forty-two long, one forty regular, one thirty-eight short—you think that’ll do for Burchwood?” I nodded. “And a thirty-eight long for Symmes. And get them some shoes: they can wear ten-B. Anybody can.”

“You want this by five-thirty?” Max asked. “It can’t be done.”

“No, just get Kurt’s outfit working on it and tell them to get it to wherever they’re going to hole us up. Don’t forget the shirts—all fifteen necks and thirty-four-inch sleeves.”

“They’ve got most of this stuff already,” Max said.

“How about the identification?”

“No trouble.”

“Furlough papers?”

Max paused and thought. “We worked that once before with Passen, if you remember. We may have to cut some new orders, but maybe not. I’ll check. Fourteen-day ones?”

“Good,” Padillo said. “And four round-trip tickets to Frankfurt. Let them figure out the names, but tell him not to get clever. Just plain names like Johnson and Thompson and Miller. The kind you don’t remember.”

Max scribbled some more.

“How’s the money holding out?” Padillo asked.

Max frowned and shook his head. “Langeman cleaned me except for a couple of hundred Marks.”

“How much do we have in West Berlin?”

“There should be twelve or fourteen thousand Marks, plus about five hundred dollars.”

“O.K. Tell Kurt to make the plane reservations for tomorrow evening and then have a car for us at Frankfurt. At the airport. Tell him to get us a fast one. He can get it back in Bonn.”

Max made another note. “Is that all?”

“That’s all I can think of. You’d better get moving.”

“I’ll go down and get the bottle,” Max said. “If they stop me, I’ll be tipsy, just getting home from my girl friend’s.” He opened the trap door and went down the ladder, reappearing moments later with the bottle of potato gin. He uncapped it, took a mouthful, rinsed it around, and swallowed. “My God, that’s terrible.”

My hand was already reaching for it.

“One more thing,” Max said. “How long do I wait at this park?”

“Until six,” Padillo said.

“And if you don’t show?”

“Forget about us.”

Max peered at Padillo through his glasses. He smiled. “We’ll see,” he said. Then he opened the door to the alley and left.

I handed Padillo the bottle and he took a long drink. He almost got it down without a cough.

“Who’s Kurt?” I said.

“Kurt Wolgemuth, Berlin’s version of Available Jones. An honest crook. The blond kid who got shot on the wall worked for him. He supplies things in a hurry for a price. You’ll meet him. He made his first money in the black market; then he caught the crest of the jump in German stock prices and rode that. He gets people over the wall and furnishes passports, new identities, secondhand clothes, guns—anything that turns a dollar. We’ve done business before.”

“I can follow you on the uniforms and on the stripes,” I said. “We’d be a little old to pass as privates. But why Frankfurt? Why not straight back to Bonn?”

“GIs don’t go to Bonn—not even to Cologne. They go to Munich or Frankfurt or Hamburg, where there’s booze and women. How many GIs have you seen in Bonn?”

“Damn few,” I admitted. Then I asked, “How do we get our two sleeping friends on and off the plane?”

“You still have that belly gun?”

I nodded.

“Just keep it in your raincoat pocket and nudge one of them with it every so often. They’ll behave. And once they’re across the wall, there’s no place for them to hide. If they kick up a fuss, they’ll wind up where they’re going anyhow. It’s just a matter of who delivers them. I intend to deliver them.”