He looked at his watch. It was just after 1am. He thought momentarily about his team of watchers waiting at the petrol station. For what he was paying them, they could wait. Settling back behind the desk, the headphones on his head, he listened carefully, occasionally adjusting the enhancer dial, his eyes narrowing as he tried to focus on what was being said.
It was just after three when he moved, cat like, down the short steep staircase and into the main room. He now knew what he was looking for.
By 4.30, he was back at the petrol station. As the taxi tag car pulled away for the return run into Frankfurt, a delivery truck pulled into the station and threw several bundles of newspapers towards the office door. Across the bottom of the front page, below the stories of East German policy changes – ‘Panzer Perestroika’ as one column called it – coal miner strikes in the Ukraine, and the resignation of the Bulgarian Party Chief, was a story about an armed assault and kidnap at a millionaire’s hide-away villa in Mallorca.
*
Kurt Eicheman was at his desk early that morning, sitting back reading the reports of a surveillance exercise on a small group of extreme left-wingers. This group was of interest because two of them were suspected of having links with the old Bader Meinhof group. Yet, try as he might, his mind was not on the file, and when the phone rang he snatched it up.
“Ja?”
“Kurt?” The voice was English.
“Who is this?” he asked. Very few people had his private number.
“Hugh Cockburn.”
Eicheman sat forward, putting the report down and creasing his brow. “Hugh! I have been expecting your call.”
“We need to meet.”
“I know. As a matter of fact, I had a call this morning…”
“I’m at the Hilton. Room 617.”
“I’ll be twenty minutes.”
The call had come at 4am, from Helmut Blucher himself. At the mention of his name, Kurt was wide awake in milliseconds. Blucher was Head of the BND, a measured stern old man, and often took his orders direct from the Chancellor’s office. He, in turn, ordered Kurt to hand over Frankfurt Station to his assistant until further notice, and lend all possible aid to the MI6 people without – repeat, without – involving unapproved BND resources. He was to consider himself on secondment.
Picking up his coat, Eicheman moved toward the door, looking at his watch. Quayle was due to contact the Bremen conduit between 8 and 9pm, so he had another hour at least. Things must have gone well because there were no reports coming through from the civilian police that could be linked. Two people dead after a domestic quarrel and a body in a foundry pond was the sum total of the night’s police activity, and as yet there had been no calls for a clean-up crew. But things could get tricky now, he thought. With Hugh here, there’s every chance it’s Titus he’s after.
He stopped in the lobby of the hotel, bought a paper and walked straight to the lifts, ignoring the front desk.
Hugh Cockburn answered the door.
“Hello, Kurt. Come in.” He pointed across the room to a stocky black girl sitting on one of the chairs by the television. “This is Chloe. She works for me.”
On the table beside her was what the services called a bug-alarm. It was a box of sophisticated electronics the size of a small portable Walkman that would sound an alarm if there was an audio bug within one hundred feet. They were extremely sensitive and the little red operational light shone reassuringly.
“Hello,” he said to Chloe. Then he turned back to Cockburn. “I believe you have something for me?”
“I do.” Cockburn handed over a sealed envelope. Eicheman slipped it open, quickly scanned the contents, and then slid it into his breast pocket. They were the confirmation of his orders. “Do you know why you’re here?” Cockburn asked.
Eicheman shook his head. “Not really.”
“Kurt, I have to find Titus Quayle, and find him fast. Now, I think you know where he is or how we can contact him…”
“What makes you think that?”
“Everything. You’re good friends. He would have contacted you, and you couldn’t possibly have said no.”
They looked at each other for a few seconds, each knowing better than to lie to the other.
“Look,” Kurt said, “just leave him to finish it. These people have had their own way long enough. They just tried it on the wrong man this time.”
“Do you know who these people are?”
“That’s the problem,” Kurt replied. “No-one does.”
“Except Titus.”
“Not yet,” Kurt said firmly, “but he’s getting close.”
“Can you contact him?”
“Can’t you leave it alone, Hugh? Let him take these bastards. They’ve tried to kill him and his woman. Enough is enough.”
“They got her,” Cockburn said. “Here, look at this.”
He threw a paper across to Kurt – who began to read the story. Once he was finished, he dropped the paper Hugh had given him and took up the one he had bought in the lobby. The same story was there but on page two.
“We mean him no harm. You have my word of honour on that. Quite the contrary. I need his skills. I want these people as well, Kurt. That’s the job. Find Titus, get him back on service and take this organisation down.”
Kurt walked to the window and looked out over the grey damp city, shrouded in rain. It was quiet for a full minute before he spoke, his mind in a turmoil. For years he had protected sources: his cells, both guilty and innocent. Never. in all his time as an intelligence agent. had he ever betrayed a confidence.
But now the time had come.
“He’s here,” he said sadly. “In Germany.”
“Great!” Cockburn stepped forward eagerly. “Where? Can we contact him?”
Kurt turned and looked him in the eye. “He uses a conduit. All I can do is ask him to see you. The choice is his… and the way he’s been treated, I don’t like your chances.”
“How soon can we get
