Chapter 8: KRENZ

Despite the proliferation of sources of supply, mainland China still remains important, and I would place it about eighth on the list of the major world suppliers.

05:43.

The five windows in the house over there were still dark. August Sorgenicht was not an early riser.

You should know that there are still over 200,000 Soviet troops stationed in former East Germany waiting to be sent home, and many of them are busy pilfering their arsenals and selling whatever they can get hold of to whoever will buy it.

A sweet smile: you could hear it in his voice. Mr Samala was showing me over his toyshop. I kept the volume low, barely audible, because I needed to hear sounds from the greater environment. Both windows were down.

Bang of a metal can somewhere, bringing a frisson along the nerves. There was a dog, I thought, rooting among the rubbish that had dropped from the truck along the edge of the wasteground.

I am speaking of AK-47 assault rifles, anti-tank weaponry, small arms and mines. The Red Army Faction is known to have purchased a consignment of bombs and grenades. Another development in -

The phone was ringing and I picked it up and shut off the tape.

'Hallo?'

'DIF.'

Thrower.

I've called in Thrower from Pakistan, Shatner had told me, to direct you in the field. I think you'll like his style.

I gave him Blackjack.

'What can I do for you?' he asked me.

'Get Helen Maitland back to the UK'

In a moment he said, 'Of course. I was told you're concerned about her.'

'She's at risk. Just get her home.' Perhaps the implication wasn't really there – that for some reason I shouldn't be concerned. 'I'd been the only one in the field until now, the only one who knew the risk she was running. I didn't want it disputed.

'Of course,' he said again. I didn't want humouring either. 'I've got the ticket for her in my pocket, according to your request to Control.'

'What airline?'

'Alitalia is the first flight out.'

'What time?'

'09:34.'

Faint light began flooding from behind the Audi.

'I want her escorted onto the plane.'

'Of course, since you say she's at risk. I've laid that on.'

His tone was soft, a degree smooth. He didn't sound like an experienced director in the field; he sounded like a lawyer.

'That's all I need,' I told him.

The light was spreading across the wasteground; then it vanished.

'What is your situation?'

'I'll have to call you back,' I told him, and shut down.

The light hadn't been switched off: it had moved behind the buildings. I heard a car turning and stopping. This time the lights were cut dead.

I waited two minutes, three. No one got out of the car. It was in the next street, facing the house where Sorgenicht lived: the lights had been shining in that direction.

Five. Five minutes. No one got out of the car: I would have heard the door slam.

So I took the cassette out of the slot and slipped it into my pocket and got out of the Audi and left the door open and walked across the wasteground to the street at the top and turned right and kept on going and then turned right again, and right again, coming back on the street where the car had pulled up and cut its lights. It was cold, outside the Audi. I felt very cold.

He was there, sitting in the car, in the black Mercedes 300E, sitting at the wheel. He wasn't reading anything; there was no light inside the car. His face was pale, square-looking in the light from the distant street lamps. His head was against the padded rest; I couldn't see where his hands were; they weren't on the steering-wheel. He was watching the house, the house where Sorgenicht lived. It's always dangerous to assume things on simple appearances, but this man's aspect and behaviour were a model of the archetypal surveillant, and I decided to go to work accordingly.

He was here, then, as I had expected, not to watch the house, but to watch for anyone who set out to track Sorgenicht when he left there. He would then keep station in the traffic stream and use his phone and call in mobile support to cut off Sorgenicht's tracker and deal with him, as they had dealt with George Maitland, and soon afterwards, McCane. That was what this man was doing here: he was watching, in effect, for me.

There was deep shadow where I stood, at the end of an alleyway joining the two adjacent streets. I was perhaps fifty feet from him, but if he turned his head he wouldn't see me. He was a quiet man, well in control of himself; he didn't fidget; he'd got up early but he didn't yawn. He wasn't smoking. He hadn't got the radio on: I would have heard it.

He was a good surveillant, first class, the kind they try to turn out of Norfolk when they're thinking straight. If I hadn't seen him here, and began tracking Sorgenicht, this man in his Mercedes would become the equivalent of a shark fin in the water, and I would be the swimmer.

I leaned my head back to rub the nape of my neck against the rough collar of my coat to ease the chill of the nerves. He wasn't a young man – I would have said close to fifty; but his head was square and massive and he was thick in the shoulder. He would not, then, be very fast, but quite strong – even, if he were trained, dangerously strong. But soon it would be getting light and there would be people about, and I didn't want to attract attention. It could also be that Sorgenicht would leave his house before dawn, though the windows were still dark. I had better do what I had to do as soon as I could.

There were soft echoes from the brick walls in the alleyway and I stepped lightly and broke the rhythm, because the regularity of footsteps is extraordinarily perceptible, the brain stem recognising the sound of another animal in the environment. I turned right when I reached the street, and right again at the T-section, and as I turned I saw a light come on in a window of the house, on the second floor. It wasn't necessarily Sorgenicht getting up: it could be his wife or his girlfriend or someone else there; but I would have to assume it was Sorgenicht himself. His car would be one of those parked in a line along the wall by the canal: there were no garages here.

I turned again and began walking up the street to where the Mercedes was standing. The distance from here was a hundred yards or so, and it was facing me. I didn't walk quietly any more; I walked quite fast towards the Mercedes, because 'I'd overslept and was late and had to hurry. I blew into my hands: it was a cold raw morning and I didn't relish it. There was another dog over there towards the wasteground, or perhaps the one I'd seen before, scratching for scraps among some rubbish; I gave it a whistle – I was fond of dogs. My breath clouded in front of me as I passed under a street lamp, and I blew into my hands again, quickening my step; but there was a big notice in the window of an ironmonger's shop and I slowed for a moment, reading it as I went by: there was a sale on, with a 20 per cent discount on tools, well worth remembering. I noticed the Mercedes but paid no attention; you see cars parked everywhere.

I looked at my watch,' then dug my hands into my coat pockets again, leaning forward a little, my head down as I breasted my way into the rat-race of another workaday morning. The Mercedes was quite close now and I gave it another glance, and it was then that I noticed something wrong. I stopped when I reached the car, and tapped on the window, pointing.

The man inside swung his massive head and looked at me, taking his time. I pointed to the rear of the car again, and he opened the door. 'You've got a flat tyre,' I told him, and would have walked on, but he had a gun in his right hand and his finger was in the trigger-guard and it was pointing at me. I was alarmed. 'No – please don't shoot,' backing away, my hands spreading open, 'I just wanted to tell you the tyre was flat – please don't shoot me!'