'Without doing anything the police — '
'Your own discretion.'
'I could lose my licence, and it's my living.'
'Absolutely at your own discretion. Just lose the Merc.' He got into gear.
It wouldn't be difficult.
They would let him do it.
Host Volper knew more about me than I knew about him. He knew I was experienced: witness the Skidder incident. He knew London wouldn't send anyone out here who didn't know what a tag was, who didn't know how to get rid of it: they'd seen me lose Cone's man a few minutes ago. So I had to blow either the SEL or the Audi because that would be my level of street-craft and they'd expect me to conform. The Merc had been with us longer and it was more noticeable and it was slower on the gun than the Audi so this was the better one to go for.
And they'd let it happen because then I'd be lulled, satisfied that we were alone again. I wasn't expected to know about the Audi.
'Yes,' Gunter said, 'it's just — '
'All right. Turn your head and look at it when you go past and then give it the gun.'
But the lights were red at Spandauer and we had to wait till they changed, but he'd gone through the motions and worked up a bit of tyre-squeal and when the green came on he jumped it by a fraction and took a right and two lefts and I told him to slow and take it easy: we'd lost the Merc.
The Audi was still with us.
'Put me down outside the U-bahn station at Alexanderplatz. Have you had lunch yet?'
I eat on the job.'
'You did well.'
I got out and went into the subway entrance, checking the environment as a precaution, simply as a precaution, looking as if I didn't expect tags now that the Mercedes was blown.
Two men got out of the Audi but I made sure to catch them only at the edge of the vision-sweep; then I went down the steps.
Chicken, I suppose.
I mean going down into the subway. Nerves.
All right, I'm not your bloody hero.
The subways in Europe are normally safe from killing attempts because they're confining and limiting in terms of freedom to get away. You can make the kill quite easily — I've done it twice, but only because i had to do it there or nowhere — but if there's going to be any noise or fuss you risk getting cut off from escape. I used my hands on both occasions, in total silence.
The U-bahn in East Berlin is a safer place than most others in Europe; as safe as in Moscow. I didn't expect an attack at Alexanderplatz; all I wanted to do was make sure they were still on my track and begin the major work of the afternoon. This was to make it seem that I had a rendezvous to keep, that I realised they were still in the environment and that I couldn't make the rdv until I'd thrown them off,
This meant using a phone at intervals, to give the impression that I was having to shift the rendezvous in timing and location because I wasn't alone and mustn't expose the contact. The entire operation for an agent's enticing the opposition to make an attack in the hope of securing one of them for interrogation is in the books at Norfolk but I don't know anyone who's carried it through; the risk factor is exorbitantly high and a director in the field would never ask his executive to do it, because it'd be like giving him a loaded revolver with five rounds in the chamber and asking him to play Russian roulette.
Sitting with my tea in this sleazy cafe scared to death.
I'd got on a train and got off again at Schillingstrasse and here I was and here they were, one of them at a table across by the door and I couldn't help that because I hadn't wanted to sit there myself: it was too exposed. The other man was in a corner as far from the door as possible, so that I couldn't keep both of them in sight at the same time, which is good close-surveillance practice and very effective.
Scared to death because I hadn't wanted to mount this operation and I'd done it reluctantly and that's infinitely worse for the nerves. I knew that Shepley was pushing the Bureau to the limits trying to locate Horst Volper and I knew that Yasolev and his cell were doing the same, and at any time they could come up with some kind of access for me that would take me off the street and put me into a new direction. But they hadn't found anything and all I could do was sit here in this bloody place and hope these two would try an attack so that I could nail one or both of them and wring some information out of them, sit here and hope at the same time that they'd decide not to attack because it could easily go their way instead of mine and they could walk out of here a minute from now or an hour from now and leave me curled up in the cleaner's closet or one of the cubicles in the lav with my head on my chest and my eyes looking at nothing, nothing at all, while the blood — oh Jesus Christ this is the trade you're in and this is the way you want to play it so don't bloody well whine.
Got a bun.
Went and got a bun from the filthy cracked marble counter and paid for it, a huge woman, face like a po, her eyes already mourning a lost future, sat down again and started on the thing though I wasn't hungry — I needed fifteen more minutes in here and it was something to do, but at least I'd got a glimpse of him, the one by the door, in the mirror behind the counter, and that was a plus because it could be very important indeed if later the same man — if I got out of here — the same man came close to me in a crowd; I'd be able to recognise him and get a chance of jumping the gun.
But let's not talk about guns. Right — I never draw one when I'm going through Clearance because they can be dangerous: it's not just professional caprice. Carrying one of those things can make people nervous and they'll pay you a lot more attention and try for an overkill before you can do any useful work; but let them know you're unarmed and in their opinion harmless and they'll come up quite close and then you can go in with the hands and do a very great deal more damage than a bit of hot copper because you can be selective, picking on the right nerve for the job, producing paralysis or producing pain, the intense pain that's guaranteed to cool them off and get some answers out of them.
But it's like seat belts: they're effective eighty per cent of the time and for the other twenty per cent you're on your own. One of these people could pull something out and use it from where he was sitting, dropping me like a bird off a bough. The risks are calculated, and they're the only kind I ever take.
The one in the corner had gone to the phone when he'd come in here and that was why they weren't making a move. One of two things was on the programme: he'd got instructions to wait here until I left and keep up the tag, or he'd asked for someone else to get here very fast indeed because they had me set up and were ready for the kill.
It really was a bloody awful bun. This was East Berlin, not West, none of your delicate mille-feuilles or rum babas, just this rotten lump of crud straight out of the granary, rat-shit and all.
At 3:16 I began looking at my watch. The time wasn't critical, not important; it was just that the chances of doing anything in here weren't very good. The situation was far too static: when the time came for me to move in on them it'd be when things were suddenly starting to go very fast, so that I could work with reactions and reflexes, find a totally unrehearsed opening and take it on the wing, because the only way you can work this particular operation is in hot blood and with the system full of adrenalin.
At 3:27 I got up and went over to the phone on the wall and dialled at random. The two tags hadn't been joined by anyone: the only people who'd come in here in the last eleven minutes were two women and a man with one arm.