message. Strictly for Masterson only. A phone number. And one word. Candlestick.
He'd closed the door of his private office, dialled the number. His top agent working under cover behind The Curtain. The Candlestick Man. They called him that because he was thin as a celery stalk, very stiff and erect. Based in East Germany.
Which was poaching on Hugh Grey's territory. The DDR was his penetration zone. Harry didn't give a toss. Just get the info. The phone conversation had been brief. Urgent – would Harry meet him outside the Opera House in thirty minutes? Harry had said yes, slammed down the phone, left the building, climbed inside the Audi held for his use.
He'd driven slowly along the Opern Ring, spotted Candlestick, pulled into the kerb and Candle had dived into the front passenger seat almost before Harry opened the door. While he listened, Harry drove round the whole Ring system at a sedate pace.
I've just come out of the DDR,' Candle had said. 'I think I'm being followed..
`Great. That's all I need.'
Candle had hardly heard him as he rabbited on in German. `I came from Leipzig through Czecho, crossed the border at Gmund. I thought you should know quickly…'
`Know what?'
Candle was wearing a rumpled brown raincoat and a cap. He'd never looked anything much, which was part of the secret of his success. He didn't look clever enough to worry about. His face looked more bony than ever, his thin nose longer, his spaniel eyes more mournful.
`That Dr Berlin has just returned to the Federal Republic – from London.'
`How the hell do you know that?'
Harry's technique was always the same dealing with agents who worked for money. Aggressive manner, short bursts of invective. Put them on the defensive. Make them feel important and they'd ask for more money.
`I got it from a contact in Markus Wolf's headquarters in Leipzig…'
`Wolf works out of East Berlin. Every schoolboy knows that.' `He has a secret HQ in Leipzig. My contact is on his staff.
He listened in on a conversation from someone in East Berlin.' `And who was this person in East Berlin talking to?'
`Markus Wolf himself. They use the code-name Balkan for Dr Berlin…'
`Balkan? Dr Berlin? What is this goulash you call information?'
`My informant knows about the code-name. He is high up in Wolf's organization. An Intelligence officer, if you must know.' `I need to know everything if I'm to believe anything.'
`It took all the money you gave me to obtain this – the fact that Dr Berlin is someone in London…'
`All the money?' Masterson sounded incredulous. 'That should have lasted you for months. It was a small fortune.'
`What I've given you is worth a small fortune,' Candle insisted. 'Someone in London,' he repeated.
'Sounds like a bloody fairytale to me,' Masterson snapped. `Check it with London. But be careful – Dr Berlin could be someone high up. My informant said he was…'
`So, give me a name.'
`Oh, he didn't know that..
`Sweet Jesus! You throw my money around like confetti. You don't expect more, I hope?'
`If I'm to go back there, find out more, I need funds.'
`Take this.'
Masterson opened the glove compartment, handed Candle an envelope stuffed with deutschmarks. He drove on while Candle carefully counted the amount. He slipped it inside his pocket, looking more mournful than ever.
`It's not what I expected..
`It's all you're getting. Anything else? No. Right. Where do I drop you?'
`In front of the Opera House. I'm staying at the Astoria – it's only a short walk from there. I don't want to he on the streets a moment longer than I can help. I was followed.'
`You said that before. Shake them, for God's sake. I'll be seeing you.'
He'd dropped Candle back in front of the Opera House, driven on to his office, told Lancing to take control until he got back. His Porsche was parked in a secret garage some distance from headquarters – no one on his staff knew it existed.
Masterson recalled all these recent events as he sped along the autobahn through the night. He had to reach Hamburg by morning. The information Candle had given was disturbing – to him personally. He could have flown, but he needed mobility.
Hugh Grey flew direct to Frankfurt International, took a cab from the airport to his headquarters – housed in a concrete slab of a building near the Intercontinental Hotel where he frequently entertained visiting members of the Bundestag from Bonn.
`Keeping my finger on the pulse,' was one of his favourite phrases.
He spent the rest of the day reading carefully typed reports prepared by what he called his 2-ic. If it was down in writing no one could later say he'd misunderstood them. Grey was notorious for his use of files.
It was late evening when he called in his deputy, Norman Powell, told him to take charge again. 'I have to check on something which has just cropped up,' he explained. 'And – taken by and large – you've done quite well. Keep up the good work…'
Grey had chosen Powell for the job for two reasons. First, he was good at admin. Second, a plodding man, Powell posed no threat to his own job. Grey had a leisurely dinner by himself at the Intercontinental's Rotisserie, ordering only a half-bottle of Chablis.
After the meal he collected the office Volvo from a nearby underground garage and drove north out of Frankfurt, moving quickly on to the autobahn. He didn't realize it, but Masterson was coming up behind him, still driving like a maniac between Mannheim and Frankfurt. Grey drove carefully, keeping within the speed limit. His destination – Hamburg.
Guy Dalby, characteristically, moved faster than any of his colleagues. He could have flown from Gatwick direct to Belp, the small airport outside Bern. Instead he flew to Geneva. He'd phoned his deputy before leaving London and Joel Kent was waiting for him at Cointrin Airport.
They had dinner together at the Au Ciel restaurant with huge picture windows looking out on to the nearby Jura Mountains.
Dalby listened while Kent, in his late thirties and very bright, talked. They drank a Montrachet '83 with their meal which Dalby selected after careful study of the wine list.
`I have to go on somewhere else,' Dalby informed Kent over the coffee, checking his watch. 'Keep things humming over…'
This decision did not surprise Kent in the least. Dalby was a man who believed in visiting his agents in the field to hear direct from them what was happening. The meal over, Kent left Dalby in the restaurant. He had no idea what Dalby's destination might be, nor would he have dreamt of asking. Dalby was a lone wolf.
Erich Lindemann landed at Kastrup, the airport for Copenhagen, waited at the carousel, collected his case, walked through Passport Control and Customs, and made for the bar in the exit hall. He chose a table with its back to the wall, ordered coffee, drank it slowly.
All the time he watched the entrance to the bar, searching for a familiar face. On board the flight from Heathrow he'd made one trip to the toilet at the rear of the aircraft. He had walked slowly down the central gangway, a dreamy look on his face. He was studying every single passenger and his photographic memory recorded them all. At Cambridge he had been a brilliant student; he only had to read a page once and all the relevant data was recorded in his mind.
Now, as he sipped his coffee, he checked to see if one of the passengers followed him into the bar. None of them did. Tweed had not, as he'd suspected he might have done, sent a streetwalker to tail him.
Wearing an old pair of grey flannels and a sports jacket with leather elbow patches, he carried his case back into the entrance hall, paused to glance round like a man unsure of his bearings, checking again, then went out and climbed inside a cab.
`Hotel d'Angleterre, please,' he said in English, his precise voice carrying through the open window where
