persons. We entered it, the door closed, and there were no buttons to push if you wanted off on the mezzanine. It rose quickly and I judged that it went to the top floor of the building. When it stopped the door opened again automatically and soundlessly and we stepped out into what seemed to be a reception room whose walls were of plaster that was painted a pastel green. The plaster looked as if it had been brushed with a comb when it was wet. Pictures, oils and pen-and-ink sketches of Berlin, covered the walls above the furniture. There were a couple of matching orangered sofas, two or three casual chairs with eager Scandinavian lines, and a severe coffee or cocktail table adorned with a thick mottled-green glass ash tray shaped like a kidney. The rug was deep-piled and made up of squares of brown and black and green. It wasn’t a restful room and it spoke of money, but its tone was neither restrained nor cultivated.
Directly opposite the elevator door was another door that was covered with the kind of wallpaper that pretends to be wood paneling but never succeeds in bringing it off. Max stood in front of that door for a while and it slid open just like the one downstairs. It also had the round aperture above it covered with the fine wire mesh. I guessed that it shielded a television camera. We went through, walked down a hall and turned left into a long, oblong room that had a fireplace burning at its far end. A man stood before the fireplace warming his back. He held a cup and saucer. I could smell coffee and saw a sideboard along the left-hand wall that held an electric percolator that looked as if it could handle eighteen cups or more. Some other dishes were on the sideboard, resting on a thick white pad that I took to be a warming unit. The room was paneled in a dark wood, and there was a library table with a lamp; some beige drapes; a couple of leather couches; some leather armchairs, two of them wing-backed; a dark-green rug; and a full bookcase. I thought I could smell toast and bacon as well as coffee. The man smiled when he saw Padillo, set his cup and saucer down on a table, and walked toward us. He shook hands with Padillo. “Hello, Mike,” he said in English; “it’s good to see you again.”
“Hello, Kurt.” Padillo introduced me to Kurt Wolgemuth, who shook hands with me as if he thought it were the pleasure he said it was. He was in his early fifties and he carried them nicely. His long hair was only touched with gray and it lay brushed and shining and cared for on his well-shaped head. He had dark-brown eyes, a good straight nose, and a small firm chin below a mouth that seemed to have all of its teeth and not too much gum when he smiled. He was wearing a maroon dressing gown with a white silk scarf above darkgray or black trousers. He stood straight and kept his stomach in most of the time.
“I need some food and a bed and a shower for these two,” Padillo said, indicating Symmes and Burchwood. Wolgemuth’s dark eyes flicked over them. He smiled again and stepped back to the fireplace and pushed an inset ivory-colored button. The door opened a moment later and two men came in. They had the air of quiet competency that big men often have. “These two gentlemen,” Wolgemuth said. “They need to clean up, have some food and some rest. Take care of it, please.” The two big men looked at Symmes and Burchwood carefully. One of them nodded toward the door. Symmes and Burchwood walked through it. The big men followed.
“You’ve prospered, Kurt,” Padillo said, glancing around.
The man shrugged and walked to the sideboard. “Let’s have some coffee—and let me apologize for what happened the other night at the wall. We slipped up.”
“Somebody did,” Padillo said.
Wolgemuth paused by the sideboard, a cup and saucer in one hand, the large percolator in the other. “I have a complete report for you, Mike. You may wish to read it after breakfast.”
Max announced that he was worn out and would get some sleep. “I’ll be up and around in about four hours,” he said, and left.
Padillo and I loaded our plates with scrambled eggs, bacon, cheese and sausage. We ate from small tables that Wolgemuth had placed in front of the two wing-back leather chairs that flanked the fireplace. We gobbled the food without conversation, and when I was on my third cup of coffee I accepted an American cigarette from Wolgemuth with gratitude.
“Could you get all the items we need?” Padillo asked, borrowing a cigarette for himself.
Wolgemuth nodded and waved some of the smoke away with a cared-for hand. “Uniforms per your request, the necessary travel orders, the tickets, and I’ve laid on transport to Tempelhof for this afternoon. Also a car—a fast one—will meet you at Frankfurt.” He paused, smiled delicately, and said: “Since my report indicates that you seem to be free-lancing, Mike, whom shall I send the bill to?”
“To me,” he said. “Max can give you a small down payment.”
Wolgemuth smiled. “I always had the feeling that you were too sensitive for this business. You can send me a check when you get back to Bonn—if you get back.”
“They’ve really turned it on, huh?”
Wolgemuth picked up two blue file folders from the mantel. He gave one to Padillo and one to me. For your bedtime reading,” he said. “It’s a rundown of everything we’ve found out—with a few conjectures thrown in for good measure. But to answer your question, yes, they have indeed turned it on. Even the British are making unpleasant noises because of Weatherby. The only ones you haven’t offended are the French.”
Padillo leafed through his file. “We’ll have to think of something. Right now we need some sleep.”
Wolgemuth rang the ivory button again. One of the big men appeared. “Herr Padillo and Herr McCorkle are special guests,” he said. “Show them to their rooms. Were they prepared as I instructed?”
The big man nodded. Wolgemuth looked at his watch. “It’s six-fifteen now. I’ll have you called at noon.”
I nodded wearily and got up to follow the outsized guide. Padillo followed me. We walked down the hall and turned right. The big man opened a door, walked into a bedroom, checked the windows to see that they were open, turned on the bathroom light, pointed to a bottle of Scotch and two packs of Pall Malls, and handed me the key. I almost tipped him. I went into the bathroom when he left and looked at the tub. It was white and shiny and inviting. I turned on the water, sat down on the John, and opened the report. I had a carbon copy. It was single-spaced and written in German, and it was three pages long.
FROM: FMS
TO: Wolgemuth
SUBJECT: Michael Padillo and Associates
Michael Padillo, 40, using the name Arnold Wilson, arrived at 2030 hours Wednesday aboard BEA Flight 431 out of Hamburg. He then proceeded to a cafe at 43 Kurfurstendamm, where he met John Weatherby as scheduled. They talked for 33 minutes, whereupon Padillo left by taxi for the Friedrichstrasse crossing into East Berlin. He crossed, using a British passport and the name Arnold Wilson.