His Bossman said, as Carrick opened the door for him, ‘Now we will meet Reuven, an associate in business of mine — stay close — and then he shows me property which I may invest in.’
‘I’ll be close, sir.’
They walked. There was a pavement on each side of the bridge and heavy traffic surged past. He had noted that for part of the journey out from central Berlin, Viktor had driven fast, then glanced at his watch face and slowed for, maybe, five kilometres, as if he were ahead of schedule. They crossed the bridge, and when Carrick looked out over the water he saw small boats with raised sails, swans, grebes and coots. He thought the place pretty and calm.
Two men approached, both leather-coated, one to the knees, the other to the hips. Both had short-cut hair and hard faces. Carrick, his Bossman and Viktor walked towards them. Carrick was more than halfway across the bridge when he thought of the photograph he had been shown in the narrowboat, of the near-silent movement of a ferret’s pads in a dark, stinking tunnel, and of the cowering rabbits trapped in a cul-de-sac of their warren. He recognized Reuven Weissberg from the photograph that the younger man, Delta, had produced from the file. He seemed to hear every word, and the inflections, of the older man, Golf. Reuven Weissberg wore the shorter leather coat, which was older and frayed, and Carrick assumed it a less prized possession than that of the man standing a couple of paces in front. He did not do stereotypes. The prejudices of allocating men and women to pigeon-holes was dangerous to the culture of an undercover, level one. A prejudice, stereotyped, would have made him look for caricature Jewish features. There were none.
They came off the bridge. Behind the waiting men was a large villa that had decades-old bullet pocks in its walls. Its windows were boarded, and skirting it was a wide path for cyclists and those promenading beside the lake. He saw the villa, the walkers and a cyclist who pulled a mini-trailer in which a child was perched, because it was his role as a bodyguard to scan.
Over his shoulder, ‘Johnny, you should meet my associate, Reuven Weissberg.’
The man in the long leather jacket, which had more status and was obviously the more expensive, took a half-pace forward, as if he had heard what the Bossman said.
So easy … Carrick’s mind raced. He had not done this exercise in role-play during his training. So simple and therefore so easy to make the mistake. He had been shown the photograph of Reuven Weissberg and it was a good likeness, would have been taken by the German police, an organized-crime unit, within the last six months. As his legs went leaden, Carrick absorbed the extent of the trick offered him. If he went a half-stride beyond the long leather coat and greeted the man in the hip-length coat, he demonstrated that he had been shown an identifying photograph.
Carrick reached out his hand to the man in the long coat, whom he knew was not Weissberg. He tried a brief smile and his heart pounded. He said, ‘I’m Johnny — pleased to meet you, sir.’
There was laughter, not warm but cold, and no hand was pushed forward.
His Bossman said, ‘No, that is not Reuven. That is his friend.’
The one he knew to be Reuven Weissberg now came a step closer. The hand was extended. Carrick flushed, as if he had made an error. There was an exchange, in German, as his hand was held in a vice grip, between Reuven Weissberg and Josef Goldmann. Then Carrick’s hand was freed and the two men hugged. Carrick did not understand what was said.
His Bossman turned to him. ‘My associate wants to know, Johnny, why I have brought you with me. I said you were here because you had saved my life, and that is a good enough reason.’
Good enough? Carrick saw that Reuven Weissberg pondered on it, frowned fractionally, then turned to walk. He also saw huge properties, masked by trees, and thought them to be the ones that might be purchased to facilitate laundering, for investment.
He believed he had passed a test, did not delude himself that it was the last — and felt the sting of vomit in his throat.
‘It is the Glienicker bridge,’ Lawson said. ‘Two hundred metres across, and it’s where we did the big prisoner exchanges. Did it when they had someone to trade, and we did. Incredibly exciting, with a choreography all of its own. Two men starting to walk from either end when the second hand of synchronized watches reached the hour, and crossing in the centre — they never seemed to look at each other as they passed. See that building on the other side, young man? That used to be stuffed tight with the East’s security people, a sardine tin of armed men. Took months to set an exchange up, and it could all go down at the last moment. It was the American sector, of course, but Clipper used to bring me here for the theatre of it — and we’d go across there, the Schloss built as a hunting lodge for Prince Karl, the brother of Friedrich Wilhelm the Third, and there was a café and—’
‘Don’t tell me, Mr Lawson. You’d have a pot of tea together.’
‘Yes, we did — most times.’
He was staring across the expanse of the bridge, and on the far side was Königstrasse and the wide road on into Potsdam. Lawson felt, almost, joyous, reckoned himself blessed to have been brought here. They had travelled, again, in two vehicles. The woman, codename Charlie, had driven the car carrying himself and Davies, following the minibus, Deadeye at its wheel. They were mob-handed that morning. Deadeye had now pulled off at the approach to the bridge over the Wannsee, and had stayed in the minibus with Bugsy and Shrinks. On either side of the bridge, on the pavements, were Adrian and Dennis, the stalkers. Lawson found it hard, at that distance, and with the bridge’s slight hump, to follow the targets but they’d had a good view of November and Target One crossing, a reasonable glimpse of the meeting, and that had gone well. He was wired, from a transmitter on a harness on his back, a microphone in his sleeve at the wrist and a button for speech in his pocket and a moulded earpiece, to Bugsy.
Lawson raised his arm and his cufflink brushed his mouth. His finger, in the pocket, held down the button. ‘Golf here. Move off, maintain visual contact. Out.’
Heard a little chuckle. ‘Best you stay with the trade talk, Golf. We call it eyeball. Will do, out.’
The sun was on his face. He thought years were propelled off his shoulders: age was shed like a snake’s skin. The minibus came past and headed on to the bridge.
Then something was nagging at him. ‘I suppose you had to be pretty high up the pecking order to get a Glienicker swap — assuming he’d been arrested, higher than Foxglove was. What counted for an acceptable swap?’
‘If the man in their cells was one of our high fliers or, indeed, if he was one of us.’
‘Is November “one of us”?’
‘That is a provocative and pointless question.’
‘I just wanted to know whether I should keep a couple of beers handy in my kit, and a few teabags … just in case.’
The car pulled up.
Lawson said, ‘If you believe that Haystack depends on your presence — the participation of a junior — you delude yourself. I would imagine there is a flight for Heathrow out of Tempelhof every two hours, and I’m sure there are seats available.’
The young man slipped, sullen, into the back of the car, and Lawson took the front seat. He anticipated now that the pace of events would quicken. Charlie, his cuckoo, drove over the bridge, and at its highest point he could see Adrian and Dennis on different sides of the path to the right, meandering. Ahead of them was the little group with the agent — he thought Luke Davies decent enough but lacking spine and needing to learn, fast, the realities of the trade — and they had stopped in front of a villa that had scaffolding across its façade. The agent stood away to the left, as though isolated.