“He’s probably at the club, sir. The Officers’ Club. He often stops there on the way home.” The corporal’s voice became confidential. “Sometimes he stays there quite late, sir. Trouble at home, I think—”
Ulanov gritted his teeth, trying to remember that just moments before he had been in the very best of humor. “Do you have the telephone number of the colonel’s club?”
“Oh, I can connect you directly, sir. It’s in the same building, on the top floor. It used to be in the basement, but there wasn’t any view, so they moved it to the—”
“Corporal!”
“Yes, sir. I thought you wanted to talk, sir,” the corporal said in a properly aggrieved tone. “I’ll connect you right away, sir.”
There was the sound of mingled voices accompanied with static, the usual cacophony when telephone calls are transferred, then a bit of silence — welcome to Ulanov after the corporal — after which a familiar voice came on the line.
“Colonel Müeller here.”
“Colonel? This is Major Serge Ulanov.”
“Major!” Colonel Müeller sounded delighted. “When did you get in?”
“I didn’t get in. I’m in London, but I’ll be in Berlin tomorrow. Listen, I need your help. I get to Schönefeld at 13:25 on Lod flight 286. I want to be met with two cars. I—”
“Two cars?” The colonel chuckled; it was obvious he had been at the club some time. “Have you gotten that fat since I saw you last?”
Ulanov did not smile. “No, I’m quite the same. But I want two cars because I want to be very sure we do not lose the people we will be trailing, and if one car has to be left to trail them on foot, I want another car handy. I want both cars completely nondescript. Nothing official-looking about them, understand? And I’ll want a good driver with each car, and a good man with the driver in the second car.” He thought a moment. “Is it possible to get cars with some sort of telephonic communication between them?”
“Of course. How would I do for the man with the driver in the second car? I assume you’ll be with the driver in the first, and getting away from my desk would be a welcome change.”
“Excellent! Oh, one more thing. The man we will be trailing — at a distance, by the way; we don’t want to pick him up — is named Gregor Kovpak. He’s a Russian. He’s arranged for a car at the airport, a rental. Is it possible — well, to put some sort of a bug on that car?”
“A homing pigeon? Certainly.” The colonel paused and cleared his throat. “Major, this Kovpak — a criminal of some sort? Is he dangerous? Will we be requiring arms of any sort?”
Ulanov laughed. “No, he’s not dangerous; just to secrets buried in the earth for a few thousand years. What you might bring along, though, is a cooler in each car with some bottles of beer and some sandwiches. We may have a long drive.”
“Oh? Where to?”
“All I have is a silly hunch I’d be ashamed to tell you about,” Ulanov said. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” and he hung up.
Sonia sipped her vodka and made a face. “The bottle,” she said disdainfully, “says ‘Finlandia’ on it, but the vodka says ‘Made in Great Britain,’ and in somebody’s bathroom, in my opinion.” She pushed the glass away from her with a distasteful grimace. “Get me a plain whiskey, please.”
“Right,” Newkirk said, and made his way through the evening crush to the bar. With a good deal of effort he managed to get the barmaid’s attention and in a burst of genius ordered a triple, with a half-pint of lager for himself. If he had to spend most of the evening running back and forth to the bar, he was never going to get any useful information from Sonia.
He came back and placed the drink before her. If she thought it rather larger than the normal drink she received when buying her own, she made no sign of it. Probably never bought her own in her life, Newkirk thought sourly. Probably thinks a triple whiskey is the normal size.
“Now,” he said, trying not to raise his voice, although otherwise it was almost impossible to be heard. Due to Britain’s licensing law there was less than an hour in which the pub’s customers could build up a glow that had to last until eleven o’clock the next morning, and the calls to the barmaid, plus the exuberant conversation in general, made communication difficult. “What have you been able to learn?”
“You mean, about your friends?” Newkirk nodded, hoping Sonia would come up with something before her triple disappeared; in fact, came up with enough to even justify the expense of the triple. She frowned, and then her face cleared. “Oh, yes. You know? You’re lucky I worked late tonight.”
“Lucky?”
“Yes. They just changed his schedule a little while ago. He’s not going to Leningrad. He’s to leave on the Lod plane for Berlin tomorrow—”
“Berlin? Who’s going to Berlin?”
“This Gregor Kovpak. You wanted to know about him, didn’t you?”
“Berlin?” Newkirk frowned. “Not Leningrad?”
“What did I say? Did I say Leningrad? I said Berlin. Do you have trouble with your ears?”
Newkirk overlooked the obvious effect of the triple on Sonia. His mind was on other things. “What do you mean, was scheduled?”
Sonia glared at him. “Please don’t interrupt! I said he was scheduled to go on that plane, but he was put on another, one that connects in Amsterdam.” She sipped her drink, hiccuped gently, and put her glass down. “I don’t know why, so don’t ask me.”
“Ulanov, too?”
Sonia shook her head. “No, he’s taken one of the seats in the Lod plane.”
Newkirk wrinkled his forehead, trying to digest this odd information. “They aren’t traveling together?”
“I said—!”
“I heard what you said. It was a rhetorical question.” He hurried on before he could be asked to define the term. “They are both — or each, I suppose — traveling alone?”
Sonia giggled. The triple was definitely getting to her. “This Dr. Gregor Kovpak, he must be some sort of a man, huh? He’s traveling with a woman, a Dr. Ruth McVeigh. Or maybe she’s really a doctor, huh? If he doesn’t feel so good, she puts him to bed, huh?” She grinned and then yawned deeply.
Newkirk took a deep breath. He had no idea how much alcohol Sonia had consumed since their lunch, but it must have been a fair amount, because despite her admittedly large capacity, she was beginning to look very sleepy, and he wanted to be sure he had all the information from her, and correct and proper information, before she put her head on the table and dropped off to sleep. Or simply disregarded his questions altogether and screamed at him like a fishwife, which he was also sure she could do.
“Sonia, listen,” he said, hoping the urgency in his voice would keep her awake a few moments longer. “I want to be absolutely certain I’ve understood you correctly. Ulanov goes to Schönefeld in East Berlin on the Lod flight first. Then Kovpak and McVeigh go to the same place, but leave later. Is that right?”
“Not later.” Sonia shook her head and then caught her balance as she almost fell over. Newkirk kicked himself mentally for not having limited her drink to a double, or even a single. “They leave at almost the same time, only the two doctors have to change in Amsterdam, so they’ll arrive in Berlin later. Don’t you understand English?”
Newkirk considered this information. Ulanov had obviously arranged the change in Kovpak’s flight. This had to mean he had arranged it in order to get to Schönefeld earlier. Had he wished to travel with the other two there would have been no problem of having some other passenger bumped to make room for him. Which, in turn, meant he wanted to get there first in order to follow Kovpak and McVeigh when they arrived. Which was certainly interesting! A surveillance by the KGB on one of Russia’s top scientists? Why? Fear that he might defect? But who went to East Germany to defect from Russia? And where did the American, McVeigh, come into the picture? The only reason she would be involved had to mean the entire affair was concerned with the Schliemann treasure. Possibly, when he had been unable to keep an eye on them, they had run into some information—? And Ulanov suspected what it might be, and therefore planned to keep an eye on them without their knowing it. That had to be the answer, and if that was of such interest to the KGB, it had to be of equal interest to the CIA. A thought came.