Man Who Wanted Tomorrow (16 page)

He shivered, like someone coming into close contact with a person suffering an incurable illness. Horrible, he thought.

She began walking away, and he turned to avoid her, but as she went by their arms actually brushed. She glanced an unseeing apology, hurrying on. He allowed her to get about twenty-five yards ahead before turning, to follow. She walked jerkily, as if she suffered from rheumatism. It was her thigh, or maybe her back, he thought, professionally. She had tried to simulate a model's walk, he recalled, all those years ago. And had succeeded, he remembered. Yes, she had once had quite a graceful carriage.

He was worred about her realizing the man near the grave was in the same bus-queue, but she seemed oblivious to her surroundings, glancing constantly at her watch as if she feared being late for an appointment. He sat six rows behind, eyes fixed intently on the back of her head as the vehicle wound its way back through Charlottenburg
en route
to the city center. She got up in Westfälischestrasse and he hurriedly glanced away, stupidly fearing identification. Quickly, just before the bus moved off, he followed. She was some way ahead in the Saturday-morning flurry of shoppers, but he had little difficulty in keeping her in view. She was obviously in a hurry, he decided. Several times she consulted her watch, bustling up Paulsbornerstrasse into Brandenburgische and then turning almost immediately into Duisburgerstrasse. He had moved closer, fearing he might lose her as she twisted through the streets, and was only feet away when she turned into the building where apartments had been constructed over shops. He was at the entrance when the concierge looked up and greeted her.

“Guten Morgen, Frau Pöhl.”

He moved on, smiling. His luck was holding, he decided, desperate for omens.

Frau Pöhl? He wondered where she had got that name. Wasn't there some member of her family named Pöhl? He couldn't remember.

He looked around, anxious for a taxi. How, he wondered again, as the vehicle moved off towards the hotel, would his story of becoming hopelessly lost be accepted?

Five miles away, Suvlov replaced the telephone, considering the result of that morning's surveillance. He shook his head, sadly. Kuraov must be insanely desperate, he decided, to behave as he was doing. Who, he wondered, was the old lady whom he had so clumsily followed?

In the Seelingstrasse apartment, the two Jewish agents gave a detailed report of their observation of the man whom Mosbacher had identified from their file pictures as the person he had seen leaving Bock's flat the previous evening. Perez fingered the thick file that had been amassed over the last thirty years on the wife of Heinrich Köllman.

“Frau Pöhl?” he mused. “Well, we wanted confirmation. I never guessed he would provide it for us so positively.”

“He's running scared,” said Mosbacher, unknowingly echoing the thoughts of the Russian secret policeman.

“Not yet he isn't,” argued Perez. “He's not as scared as he's going to be.”

He looked up, inviting the argument from the fat man facing him.

“If it works,” said Mosbacher definitely, “then one day you'll hate yourself.”

“Bullshit,” rejected Perez.

There was nothing, thought Mosbacher sadly, that could save their friendship. Whatever the outcome of this operation, their association would never be the same again.

(14)

There were many related telephone calls in Berlin that day.

The first, by carefully rehearsed design, was to the apprehensive Bock. He feared the call, of course, staring at the strident telephone like a small animal gazing hypnotized at the snake whose bite it knows will kill. And with that same inevitability, facing danger instead of running from it, he reached out, picking up the instrument.

Immediately he heard the accent, the fear cut through his drug-induced shield and, dry-mouthed, he mumbled single-word responses to the instructions, twitching at the other man's harshness. The man had Nazi training, he decided. All the intonations were there, so similar to Buchenwald.

Like water bursting a blocked stream, his anxiety flooded over immediately he telephoned Kurnov, who had arrived back at the hotel thirty minutes earlier to find his explanation of getting lost easily accepted by the other Russians.

Kurnov sighed at the babble, closing his eyes. Bock was becoming an encumbrance, he thought. And a danger. He could never leave Berlin with the man alive. He paused, considering the decision. He'd killed before, countless times. But it was always quite automatic, dispatching people with the lack of feeling of a scientist killing animals upon which he had experimented and written opinions, and for which he had no further use. With Bock he would be for the first time killing someone he knew, albeit distantly. He wondered if it would make any difference. He smiled into the chatter coming through the receiver, personally embarrassed at the reservation. A ridiculous thought, he decided. Of course it would make no difference, no difference at all.

The Bavarian had been curt, Bock reported. The surgeon was speaking in spurts, as the recollections came to him, with the anxiousness of a pupil wishing to recount verbatim the lessons from a teacher he wished to impress. The Bavarian had appeared even more confident than before, laughing almost as if he had expected the suggestion when the surgeon had put forward the idea of purchasing only two folders, leaving the rest to be sold to the highest bidder.

“Did he agree?” snapped Kurnov, urgently.

For several seconds there was no reply, as if Bock were unsure of the answer.

“Did he?” demanded the Russian, shouting.

“Yes,” replied Bock, simply, at last. Then he added, He said, “What else could you do?”

Kurnov considered the reply, the familiar feeling of helplessness coming again. A leaf blown in any direction, he decided again. The Bavarian knew the value of what he held, and was aware they would do anything to recover it.

“He said ‘us'?” queried Kurnov.

“Yes,” reported Bock. “The moment I identified the files, he started laughing.”

“What did he say?”

“He said, “‘So Heinrich had to come running',” replied the surgeon.

Kurnov stared down at the telephone number the Bavarian had given and which he had written, under Bock's dictation, upon the bedside pad. He checked his watch. Three minutes before he had to make the call.

“So he mentioned my name?” said Kurnov.

Again Bock hesitated before replying. Then he said, “Of course. Once I'd mentioned the files, it was a fairly obvious inference, wasn't it?”

Kurnov slumped, weighed by fatigue and the inability to run the negotiations as he would have liked. If only that gibbering fool at the other end of the telephone could be trusted. But he couldn't, certainly not with anything upon which the life depended. So Bock was useless. He paused, halted by the word. Bock
had
exhausted his use, he thought. In a few minutes, he would be taking over the discussions with the Bavarian. Carefully hidden in his briefcase were the bank withdrawal forms that Bock had already signed. So when should the man die? Tonight? Kurnov shook his head in the empty room. It was ridiculous to eliminate his only contact in Berlin before he held the file in his hand. But he must deal with him immediately afterwards, he thought. Bock's collapse was far too dangerous to be allowed one minute beyond what was absolutely necessary.

It was almost time to make the telephone call.

“Stay in your apartment tonight,” ordered Kurnov. “This has got to be finished. Soon. I might need help.”

“Of course,” concurred Bock, immediately. It would be wonderful, he thought, to complete everything so that he could go back as he was before. He replaced the receiver and headed for the bathroom. It was only temporary support, he reassured himself. Once this was over, he would stop again. It wasn't difficult. He'd done it before, for God's sake. His hands shook as he re-pared the injection.

On the far side of the city, Kurnov took off his wristwatch and placed it on the bedside table, so he could watch the sweep of the second hand wiping away the time. He was very frightened, Kurnov realized. Because it had been far easier to move unrestricted around Berlin than he had expected, he had gained confidence, he knew. But equally, he accepted, it was a brittle sureness, easily shattered.

The second hand moved quickly past the six and sped up the watchface, and the hour hand moved almost imperceptibly to one o'clock. Somewhere outside the hotel-room, a distant clock struck agreement.

The breath jerked from him, in stages, and he pulled himself upright, nervously. He recognized the symptoms, the abandonment of hope he had seen so often in his experiments. Not yet, he determined. He was a long way from capitulation. He'd win. He knew he'd win. He always had. There was no reason why there should be a reversal now. He twitched, disconcerted, recognizing the shallowness of his confidence.

Swallowing, the Russian picked up the receiver, obtained an outside line and dialed, holding the instrument away, as if there might have been an electrical shock from it. The receiver at the other end was lifted after the second ring and a voice came almost cheerfully on the line. The Bavarian accent was very pronounced, he thought.

“Guten Abend, Herr Doktor Köllman,” greeted the man.

Kurnov gasped, immediately regretting the reaction, knowing the other man would have detected it.

“Come now, doctor. Or shall I call you Heinrich? Yes, I'll call you Heinrich. Come now, Heinrich, let's not have any theatricality …”

“How do you …?”

“… Know that the infamous Dr. Köllman would be the person on the telephone? Because it had to be, hadn't it? Remember what I've got from the lake. I've always known what you did, Heinrich. Now I've got proof. I've got the secret you hoped would never come out. So I knew you'd have to come and get it back, if you were alive, no matter where you were hiding … and then, Bock mentioned the files he wanted to buy. So I knew you'd arrived. Just simply deduction.”

“No matter where you were hiding,” picked up Kurnov. Did that mean the man at the other end didn't know his new identity? An ephemeral hope. But hope, nevertheless. Bock was right; it was unquestionably a Bavarian accent. Kurnov wished he had had the forethought to have a glass of water on the tiny bedside table, coughing through his blocked throat.

“Who are you?” demanded the Russian.

It was a jeering laugh. “You'll be surprised, Heinrich. So surprised. I can hardly wait to see the look on your face …”

“You mean … I know you …?”

Again the laugh. “Oh yes, Heinrich. You know me. That's what is making this all the more enjoyable for me.”

Kurnov squeezed his eyes shut, forcing himself to think. Who? It
had
to be possible to guess. But there was no one, no one at all. Only Grüber. And Grüber was dead. Yet it was obviously someone who knew him. And knew him well. But there was nobody that close. There never had been.

“Bock's broken, isn't he?” said the other man, defining Kurnov's earlier thoughts. This time the Russian avoided any obvious reaction. But only just.

“He's very dangerous to you, Heinrich,” continued the Bavarian. “You'll have to dispose of him soon, for your own protection. You've decided to kill him, of course, haven't you?”

Kurnov's mouth moved, forming the words, but no sound emanated. He recognized the method: had used it even, to break a person. A cardinal principle was to anticipate the thought in the victim's mind, as it occurred, so that he became disorientated and muddled, feeling the interrogator could reach in to control his reasoning. But it was necessary to have studied the victim first, for the psychology to succeed.

“Come now,” went on the Bavarian, the lilt in his voice hinting his elation at his control of the conversation. “There's no need to be shy with me, Heinrich. I know you. So I know just what you will have been planning over the last twenty-four hours. Bock's probably necessary as a contact. But that is over now. Remember what you always said, Heinrich—‘Stay alive. Whatever happens, stay alive.' That was your credo, wasn't it? Bock's endangering your chances.”

Who? searched Kurnov, desperately. Whose knowledge was complete enough to recall remarks he'd made over thirty years ago? In every sentence there was a clue and still he was unable to identify the man. He stared at his hand, vibrating on the table. His nerves were being destroyed, he realized. He would have to conclude everything soon, otherwise he would be reduced to a mumbling apology of a man. Like Bock.

“You must tell me …” he started, but immediately the German talked him down, enjoying his superiority. Another psychological trick, identified Kurnov. Bully an uncertain man, to keep him jumping.

“I haven't got to do anything for you,” insisted the voice, with sudden vehemence. “Nothing. Just as you did nothing for me.”

Another clue, snatched Kurnov, desperately. It was someone he'd offended, in the past.

“Look,” tried Kurnov, urgently, gesturing with his free hand. “I don't know who you are. But you're obviously someone from the Party … someone I've hurt, unknowingly. I don't know how … unless you tell me. Or why. But I'm sorry. I'm prepared to make any apology. And to pay … to pay very well for what came from that damned lake. There's no point in this baiting, no point at all …”

He stopped, abruptly. It was working, he thought, worriedly, analyzing what he had just said. He was capitulating, offering concessions unthinkingly … just like his own victims had, over and over again, when he had practiced the same approach.

“It's not nice, is it, Heinrich?” teased the voice, and Kurnov gripped his hands, tightly clamping his mouth together to prevent the exasperation escaping in a sound. He was doing it again! Always the other man was ahead, anticipating the thoughts. It was almost as if the two had worked together, in the early days. Another clue?