The Story of Henri Tod (25 page)

Henri knew the moment he saw him. He would not have needed to say, “The answer is no, Henri. The President isn't sending in the tanks.” Blackford added, “And if you don't mind, I don't want to talk about it. I'm going to go get some sleep. I'll check on the phone and see if the information is in on Clementa's custodian. If it is, I'll get back to you. But it may not be till tomorrow.”

“Thank you, Blackford. And my news is that the wall will go up at 0100 Sunday.”

“This
Sunday?”

“Yes.”

“You will be interested to know, Henri, and this is obviously confidential. At Washington we were told that the intelligence services of France, Great Britain, and, yes, the United States, informed the foreign ministers at their get-together in Paris last weekend that there was no indication whatever that partition was being planned.”

Henri managed a smile.

32

“Why is supper taking so long?” Caspar looked over from the radio at the end of the sofa in Berchtesgaden.

“Because tonight we are going to have a special dinner.”

“Why? It's not your birthday, Claudia. Is it mine?”

“You can be very silly, Caspar.”

“Well, then, why are we having a very special dinner?”

“Because I feel like it.”

“Well, that's a good reason. Come to think of it, you don't really need an excuse for a specially good dinner, do you? It's always a good idea. But rather a bore to bring in all the makings, isn't it?”

“I have it pretty well down to a system. Caspar, I went
over
today, and I came back with a ham. You ought to see what the stores there have. It's like Christmas.”

“Henri told me I was not ever to go over, you know that.”

“Henri is quite right. But I want to talk to you about something after dinner.”

“Sure, what?”

“I said after dinner. Anything special on the news?”

“Yes. The great Rudolf Nureyev has just defected, in Paris.”

“Who is Rudolf Nureyev?”

“Who is Rudolf Nureyev?
Who is Napoleon Bonaparte!”

“Come on, who is he?”

“He's only the world's best ballet dancer.”

“Have you ever seen a ballet?”

“No.”

“When did you hear about the great Rudolf Nureyev?”

Caspar giggled. “Tonight. Over the radio. Anyway, I'm glad. Aren't you?” Claudia had sat down at the little table, decorated with three candles and two apples, one facing Caspar's plate, one facing Claudia's. Each had been made to look like a human face, by means of raisins and cherry stems and careful peeling. Caspar cried out his pleasure. “They're beautiful!” He leaned down and kissed her, and slid into his seat. Hitler's seat.

It was the finest meal he had ever had, said Caspar an hour later, “and that includes one of Uncle Walter's banquets I was invited to two years ago.” Claudia was pleased, and emptied the wine bottle into Caspar's glass.

“Come on, let's go to bed. We can clean up later.”

As was their habit, Caspar went into the stateroom first, arranged the lighting in the way he knew Claudia liked it. She came in, in her nightgown, from the bathroom. She smelled like apple blossoms, but then she always did. Caspar was stirred, and quickly they were embracing. He felt the special intensity of her embrace and returned it, his passion now overwhelming. Claudia gasped, and when it was over clasped him to her, her arms around his neck.

“Darling, darling. I can't breathe.”

She loosened her hold on him, but just a little. “Caspar, there is something I must say to you.”

“Well, silly, say it.”

“We must leave.”

He sat up. “Leave … Berchtesgaden?”

“No. Leave East Berlin.”

Caspar was thoughtful, but said nothing.

“We know now it may not be possible after Sunday.”

“But—what would we do?”

“What did the thirty thousand who left in July do?”

“Well, yes. I suppose we could find jobs. I don't need to worry about my mother. What about yours?”

“She has been urging me to leave for over one year.”

Caspar said, “Don't you think we ought to check it out with Henri?”

“I think we should tell him; I don't think we should give him a veto.”

“No, I suppose you're right. On the other hand, if the Americans do what we expect them to do, Sunday won't mean anything.”

“Your uncle will find some other way of stopping the traffic. Caspar, let's just agree to go on Saturday night, as if we were going to a movie over there—and then just not come back. Henri would look after us.”

“Yes, he would. I don't worry about that.” He sighed. “Oh dear, how I shall miss Berchtesgaden. Claudia! I just had a wonderful thought. Couldn't you, since you work for the director of the railroads, issue an order that car 10206 should be hauled out of the sidings, and railed over to West Berlin? Tell them it is in exchange for a traitor, or something like that?”

“You
are
a silly ass, Caspar. Now. We will stop by on Saturday afternoon and say goodbye to Berchtesgaden. And it will just be a happy dream.”

“How long does it take to get a marriage license in the West, I wonder, Claudia?”

“Why do you wonder?” she smiled, now the coquette.

“I was just wondering, that's all. You don't need an excuse to get a marriage license, do you?” And he returned her embrace, and inhaled her apple blossom, and reflected on how deeply he loved her, and how happy he was when in her company, and how in West Berlin they would insist only on this, that they work together wherever next they worked.

33

Blackford had been asleep a half hour when the telephone rang, just before one in the morning. He had that afternoon slept two hours, then attended to his rounds. The report on Frank proved nothing much. His real name was Dmitri Gouzenko, he had not lived in Berlin up until about a month ago, so that he might indeed have been at the camp in Vorkuta. And he was attached to the Amtorg Trading Corporation in the foreign merchandising division, and he did inhabit 117 Frankfurter Allee, and there was, at that address since last Tuesday, a young woman registered as Mrs. Gouzenko. If he was KGB, which Blackford continued to believe was the case, Dmitri was being thorough. Blackford had attempted to reach Henri to give him this information, and indeed told Bruni, to whom he had been put through, that the matter was of some importance. He was surprised that Henri did not get back to him, but reasoned he would do so in the morning. Still tired from his trip, he had gone to sleep just after midnight. Now, awakened by the phone, it required a few seconds to orient himself. He dreamed he was in an airplane.

“Yes,” he picked up.

“It's Bruni. Number one priority. It is 12:47. Can you meet me outside at 1:04? I'll be in a blue two-door Fiat.”

It was Bruni all right, no question about the voice. Bruni had been in this business for several years. But Blackford had been at it for ten years. And certain things certain people in this business do not do. Like go out of their houses into a strange car after midnight.

“Bruni, sorry, it doesn't work that way. And you've made things tough on me, because if someone is standing beside you with a gun pointed at your head, he is obviously also after me, which is going to bring on a sleepless night.”

“Dammit, Blackford, I'm here alone. This is terribly important. I wouldn't wake you otherwise. Our friend needs you right away.”

Blackford thought, and relented in part.

“Listen, Bruni. You go and park that Fiat of yours. In fact, at this hour you can even leave the motor running. Then come into my apartment.
Then
I'll go out with you.”

Bruni swore. “All right,” he said. “Please be ready.”

Blackford dressed, checked his pistol, turned off his light, looked out the window, and waited. Just after one o'clock a car stopped, a single figure emerged, and he heard the ring above the doorway, apartment 3C. He pressed the buzzer to open the door at the apartment entrance, opened his own door, turned on the lights in the living room into which the apartment door opened, and retreated into the bathroom. From there, with its light off, he could see his living room but not be seen. There was an almost soundless knock and Blackford, pistol in hand, called out, “Come in, Bruni.”

It was he. Blackford stepped out. “Where are we going, Bruni, and what's up?”

“Henri wants to tell you himself. He asked me just to bring you. Please do hurry.”

Blackford deeply trusted Henri and Bruni. He put down his firearm, tucking it back into the pocket of his raincoat in the closet. “Okay. Let's go.”

Bruni drove to Lepsiusstrasse, yet another safe house, one Blackford didn't know. Number 8, Bruni said. The car was parked, and they walked across the street, dimly lit by the streetlight on the corner. Like so many Berlin dwellings, it was new in appearance. Probably it had been built since the bombings, or at least rebuilt—but solid; dark red, it appeared in the dim light. The door opened before they could knock. It was Henri.

“Thanks, Blackford. Come with me, please, to the cellar office.” A figure loomed between them and the cellar door. “Oh, meet Mateus. Mateus used to work for my father.”

Blackford found himself shaking hands with a large, muscular man, bald, in his late sixties, wearing an open shirt and faded brown slacks. Henri had not given Blackford's name, and now said, “We're going to meet downstairs, Mateus. If I need anything, I'll ring.” Mateus nodded.

They walked down stone steps. At the bottom Henri flicked on a light illuminating a whitewashed corridor. A few feet to the right of it was a heavy wooden door. “They used this as a bomb shelter,” Henri said, opening the door and flicking on another light. The interior was small but comfortably furnished, a straw mat on the stone floor, a desk and a cot on the far side and, visible because its door was open, a little, utilitarian bathroom.

Henri sat down at the desk and began instantly to talk.

“Blackford, my men are going to run the blockade on Sunday. In United States tanks. Wait, listen. I was able to organize this afternoon and evening. I have rounded up six men. Three of them drove tanks during the war. Another three work during the day in the armory, two in yours, one in the British armory. My men are Bruderschaft, of course. They understand what it is we are up to. They will assemble at your armory at the McNair Barracks. On Sunday, one of them assures me, the probability is that the situation there will be pretty sleepy. The MP at the gate we may have to overpower if he is suspicious. Though Sunday is not the day for tank testing, it is plausible that orders came in during the night to test tanks that may be suffering from mechanical problems, and because of the general emergency conditions this is being done on Sunday, rather than on Monday. The tanks will leave in a single file. When they reach the Brandenburg Gate, they will fan out in formation and trample over whatever the Vopos have constructed. Having done that, the tanks will swing around and head back for the armory. No one will have been hurt. The Vopos aren't going to fire from their armored cars at tanks. But the partition of Berlin will have been frustrated.” He paused. “We call it Operation Rheingold.”

“Go on,” said Blackford.

“I want you to help us.”

“How?”

“We have an agent in East Berlin. He knows how to tap one of your codes. If you can arrange for a bogus instruction to come in on that code as if directed to General Greenwalt telling him to proceed with plan A3, and to send three tanks in to destroy the blockade, I can arrange for that intercepted message to get through right away to East German and Soviet intelligence. That would convince them the U.S. military isn't going to tolerate partition. And when the tanks materialize, they'll know it for certain.”

“When do you see that message coming in?”

“They're going to begin, as you know, at 0100. That's 7
P.M
. Washington time. I would recommend the cabled instructions coming in at, say, 4
A.M
. That allows approximately three hours for a) news of the partition to get from the border to the U.S. military here, b) a cable to Washington, c) a couple of hours' deliberation in Washington, and d) returned orders. To designate the maneuver with a code name ‘A3' also suggests it is the contingency plan to cope with this maneuver. Will you help? I am talking about the future of Berlin and of millions of Germans. I may be talking about the future of the West.”

Blackford stood up. “Henri,
Henri
. I'm with you and you know it, but the answer's got to be No. How in the hell
can
I? I'm an American citizen and an agent of the Central Intelligence Agency, and we get our instructions from the President of the United States, and he gets his from Congress, and Congress gets its from the voters. Now you people have put on one hell of a show. But you also write your own rules. You go out and kill people as required. I'm not saying the people you do this to don't deserve it. I'm not even suggesting that if I lived here I wouldn't join your organization. I'm just saying that I'm an American citizen, and when I got into this job I made certain
commitments
—”

Tod interrupted him. “Blackford, I know about the nature of formal obligations. I also know that you are something of a moralist. So, why can't you satisfy your conscience by resigning from the CIA? Now. Before you help us? The Agency would no longer have any claim on your movements and you would be freed to advance—history.”

“Henri, that sounds good. But really, it isn't. I'd be using skills the CIA taught me, contacts the CIA has set up for me—including you. I'd be an accomplice in a venture that involves stealing American tanks and writing American foreign policy in defiance of constituted authority.”