‘So where are you planning to send us next?’
‘It depends. You are the one, mon chèr, who goes forward and finds which doors are open and which are closed — who makes the first footprints. I merely follow, and try to make sure that no harm comes to you.’
Hawn took a deep breath, gasping for oxygen. The towel wrapped round his waist was already soaking with his sweat. He eased himself up on to one elbow, so as to get a more commanding look at Pol.
The Frenchman shifted his belly with a sucking sound, like a stopper being pulled out of a bottle. ‘Tonight I have arranged, on your last evening in West Berlin, that you should meet someone rather interesting. Rather superior to these policemen and gangsters who have been pestering you recently. Have you ever heard of a Doktor Wohl — Oskar Wohl?’
‘Might be familiar,’ Hawn said carefully; ‘I can’t place him off-hand.’
‘He is what is known, in the terminology of East-West relations, as one of the “Grey Men”. His precise status is difficult to define. By profession he is a qualified lawyer who practises in East Germany. He lives just outside the city boundaries, in a big luxurious house on the Grunau Lake. Runs the latest model of Mercedes, which he changes every year, and has apparently unlimited access to the West. He is a sort of unofficial Mister Fix-it between the Russians and the Americans. If Moscow, or one of the Warsaw Pact countries, wants to feed some information to the West, or fly a kite to test Western reactions, they use Wohl.
‘You remember in 1963, when there was a phoney story put round the world that Khrushchev had resigned or been sacked? The story was said to have originated in Tokyo, of all places. In fact, it originated with the main Japanese agency here in Berlin. The Moscow caucus were just testing the water, before they finally gave old Nikita the boot a year later. The man who planted the story was Wohl.
‘But his journalistic activities are something of a sideline. His main function — where he comes into the international eye — is, as one of those East German lawyers who fixes up exchanges between Soviet spies being held in the West, and Western ones, so-called, being held by the Russians. Wohl’s exact brief and methods of action are not quite clear. But his orders certainly come from the top in Moscow, and he also has access to the highest authorities in the West.
‘Obviously he is accused of being an agent of Soviet Security. Some sources insist that he is a full colonel in the KGB. This he vigorously denies, and has even threatened to sue one of your English newspapers for saying so. He prefers to be thought of as an international lawyer with a special interest in East-West relations. In any case, you will shortly have the privilege of meeting the gentleman, when you will no doubt draw your own conclusions. He is not a particularly admirable man, although I hear he has great charm. In any event, you must trust him. You have no alternative.’
‘I can always refuse to meet him.’
Pol dabbed at his goatee beard, which was pouring sweat like a tap. ‘You are a newspaperman, Monsieur Hawn. You will not refuse. Besides, what harm can there be in meeting a legitimate German citizen on German soil? It is not something which should concern you.’
‘It concerns me in so far as it concerns this whole story. What’s he got to do with ABCO? Or with Mönch? Or Salak, perhaps?’
Pol had cocked his head and was grinning at him mischievously. ‘Or with Doktor Alan Reiss, who has an important job with the German Democratic Republic’s petrochemical industry? Born Alan Rice, of Anglo-German parents, and whose activities during the war are best not discussed. You know the name, of course?’
‘Of course.’ It was almost too casual, too obvious: and Pol’s appearance, through the haze of steam, tended to render it absurd.
‘So you see, mon chèr! You see how the circle seems to be getting smaller? It is no coincidence. A grand conspiracy on this scale is very much like those merry-go-rounds one used to know as a child, where one had to try and step on to the revolving rim without being thrown off. It was very difficult, but once one had managed to get aboard and move towards the centre, it became easier. The trick, of course, was that the wheel was moving much more slowly at the centre. That is a rough but nonetheless accurate analogy for what we have both been doing — although each of us climbed aboard the wheel at opposite sides. But once we had learnt of the magic name, Doktor Reiss, then immediately the dimensions of the whole conspiracy shrank. You see, the success of “Operation Bettina” lay not only in its secrecy, but in its very compactness. It operated more like a club than a government agency.’
‘It seems to have been a pretty big club — with half its members being Doktors. And once one started digging, an awful lot of people seemed to know about it. The first person to mention Reiss’s name to me got his throat cut a few days later. A little matter that still hasn’t been cleared up.
‘Then there’s a Monsieur Toby Shanklin — that high-flying trouble-shooter for ABCO who actually knew Rice in Central America in the last years of the war, and for whom all references, for some reason, have been either withheld or excised from the Public Record Office in London.
‘Then we have Salak. I suppose Rice was one of the names on Salak’s list?’
