'How will you explain it?' I said.

'Rid me of that man and I won't have to explain anything.'

I still wasn't sure. 'Kill him, you mean?'

She was nervous and excited. Her answer was shrill. 'People get killed. It wouldn't be the first time that someone was killed at the Wall, would it?'

'No, but I can't start shooting at a delegation like yours. They're likely to bring up the tanks. I don't want to be the man who starts World War Three. I'm serious, Fi.'

'You must do it personally, Bernard. You mustn't order anyone else to do it. I don't want anyone else to know it was discussed by us.'

'Okay.' I heard myself agreeing to it.

'Promise?' I hesitated. 'It's Werner; your friend,' she said. 'I'm doing everything I can. More than I should.' Because it suited her, I thought. She wasn't doing it for Werner, or even for me. And what was she doing anyway? I was going to be the one putting my neck on the block. And now she wanted to deprive me of the chance of explaining it to my masters.

'I promise,' I said desperately. 'Put him and Stinnes in the last car and let me ride with them. But the children stay with me. That's a condition, Fi.'

'Be careful, Bernard. He's a brute.'

I looked at her. She was very beautiful, more beautiful than I ever remembered. Her eyes were soft and the faint smell of her perfume brought memories. 'Stay here, Fi,' I said. 'Stay here in the West. We could fix everything.'

She shook her head. 'Goodbye for the last time,' she said. 'Don't worry, I'll send Werner back. And I won't take the children from you for the time being.'

'Stay.'

She leaned forward and kissed me in a decorous way that would not smudge her lipstick; I suppose they'd all be looking at her for such signs. 'You don't understand. But one day you will.'

'I don't think so,' I said.

'Let's go and see Comrade Stinnes,' she said. And now her voice was hard and resolute once more.

29

I'd allowed for a lot of varied possibilities arising from my meeting with Fiona, but her demand that I kill Pavel Moskvin, one of her senior staff, caught me unawares. And yet there could be no doubt that she was serious. As Bret and Frank had already agreed just a few minutes before the meeting, my friendship with Werner was damned important to me. If killing a hood like Pavel Moskvin could rescue Werner from a prospect of twenty years in a gulag, I wouldn't hesitate. And Fiona knew that.

But there were a lot of unanswered questions. I found it difficult to accept Fiona's explanation at face value. Would she really ask me to kill Moskvin just so she could keep to her side of the bargain? It seemed far more likely that Moskvin was an obstacle to her ambitions. But it was difficult to believe that Fiona would go that far. I preferred to think that her desire to have him dead came from somewhere higher up in the echelons of the KGB – Moscow Centre, in all probability.

But why didn't they try him, sentence him, and execute him for whatever he'd done? The obvious answer to that was blat, the Russian all-purpose word for influence, corruption and unofficial power. Was Moskvin the friend or relative of someone that even the KGB would rather not confront? Was getting rid of him in the West – and so attributing his death to the imperialists – a clever scheme whereby Moscow kept their hands clean? Probably.

Werner Volkmann was still in the roadway on the wrong side of Checkpoint Charlie – our man could see him clearly from the observation post on Kochstrasse. According to what was being said on the radiophone, Werner was wearing his grey raincoat and pacing up and down, accompanied by a guard in civilian clothes.

As arranged with Fiona, I was in the last of the three KGB Volvos when they pulled away from the front of the Steigenberger. There were plenty of policemen there, some in civilian clothes, but not so many that the KGB party attracted any more attention than would the departure from the hotel of any minor celebrity. At the front of the line of three black Volvos there was a white VW bus, an unmarked police vehicle, and a motorcycle cop. Behind us there was another white VW bus containing Frank Harrington, Bret Rensselaer, and three members of the Berlin Field Unit. It was our communications van, two whiplash antennas and an FM rod on the roof.

The convoy of cars moved out into the traffic and past the famous black, broken spire of the Memorial Church, incongruously placed amid the flashy shops, outdoor cafés, and swanky restaurants of the Kurfürstendamm. There were no flashing lights or police sirens to clear our way. The cars and their two escorting buses eased into the lanes of slowly moving traffic and halted at the traffic signals.

I turned my head to see the white van behind us. Frank was in the front seat, next to the driver. I couldn't see Bret. The cars followed the motorcycle cop, keeping a distance between them so that it didn't look as if we were all together. We attracted less attention that way.

Along Tauentzienstrasse the traffic thinned, but we were stopped by red lights at the big KaDeWe department store. The lights turned green and we began rolling forward again. Then someone stepping into the road threw a plastic bag of white paint at the car I was in. Whether this was part of Fiona's plan or the action of some demonstrator who'd seen the Volvos – with their DDR registration plates – parked outside the Steigenberger, I never discovered. Neither did I ever find out if Pavel Moskvin had been prepared by stories of danger and possible attempts on his life. But as the bag of white paint hit our car and splashed across the windscreen, the driver hit the brakes. It was then, without any warning, that Pavel Moskvin opened the door and jumped out into the road. I slid across the seat and scrambled out after him as the traffic raced past. A red Merc hooted and almost ran over me; a kid on a motorbike swerved round Moskvin and almost hit me instead.

Moskvin ran for the old U-Bahn station that stands in the middle of the traffic there at Wittenbergplatz. I was a long way behind him. There were cops everywhere. I heard whistles and I noticed that one of the other black Volvos had stopped on the far side of the traffic circus.

Obviously Moskvin didn't know the city well. He ducked into the entrance to the U-Bahn expecting some escape route, but then, realizing he would be trapped, he dashed out again and raced into the fast-moving traffic, jumping between the cars with amazing agility. He ran along the pavement pushing and striking out with his fists to punch people out of his way. He was a violent man whose violence provided a spur for his energy, and, despite his bulk and his middle age, he ran like an athlete. It was a long run. My lungs were bursting and my head spun as I pounded after him.

He turned to see me. He raised an arm. There was a crack and a scream. A woman in front of me doubled up and fell to the ground. I ducked to one side and ran on. Moskvin kept running too. He raced towards Nollendorfplatz. In Kleiststrasse the tracks of the railway emerge from under the roadway and occupy the centre median of the street. He climbed the railings, ran across the tracks, and jumped down the other side. I did the same. I stood on the railings trying to see where he was, thankfully gulping air as my heart pounded with exertion. Bang! There was another shot. I felt the wind of it and jumped down out of sight. Was he, I wondered, heading for the Wall? It wasn't far away; the vast arena of floodlights, barbed wire, mines and machine guns at Potsdamerplatz was close. But how would he try to get across? Were there some secret crossing places which the KGB used and we didn't know about? We'd suspected it for ages but never found one.

I got my second wind and kept pounding after him. He had to go to Nollendorfplatz unless he had a safe house in this street. Then I saw him. And on the other side of the street – the wrong side of the street – one of the VW vans was grinding its way through the oncoming cars. Now there was a blue light flashing on its roof. No siren though. I wondered if Moskvin could see the light. Frank and his BFU detachment were trying to get to the other side of the Platz and cut him off. I saw old Percy Danvers jump out of the white VW bus and start running. But Percy was too old.