The Berlin Assignment (26 page)

As Hanbury was leaving, at the entrance to the building, her face again took on an impish smile. “So don't forget the rally. And don't forget your cowboy boots. Otherwise I might not spot you.”

Fat chance of spotting anybody, the consul now thought. How many hundred thousand were there? He was locked into a human tide slowly moving past the Opera, past the imperial armoury, across the bridge onto the island in the river. Locating Gundula would be impossible, so he decided to aim for the VIP area next to a stage put up at the far end of the Lustgarten. People were coming to a halt, the continuous arrivals on the periphery were causing compression at the centre. Hanbury squeezed through an increasingly denser crowd. At a security cordon he showed identification and slipped into the area reserved for VIPs. Gundula had been right. In their dark coats the motionless, hunched diplomats stood around like penguins in slumber.

One of them woke up. “Canada!” he sang in welcome. He fingered Hanbury's waterproof jacket. “You dressed for the occasion. Such courage.” Another said, “I considered it. I almost decided to dress casual.” This started an animated discussion on the staggeringly high price of clothing in Berlin, which converted slowly into muted criticism of the distance they were forced to walk in formal attire through the security cordon. A Scandinavian complained police patrols had not been provided to ensure safe passage of official cars through Berlin and a Latin American observed no escorts were available with free umbrellas should it start to rain. The group then compared their getaway plans once Germany's President had spoken, how best to race back to the sanctuary called Dahlem.

Von Helmholtz appeared. He shook hands, thanking the diplomats for coming. They congratulated him that such a huge crowd had been assembled. “It will send a message to the world,” prophesied the representative of France. Hanbury moved towards von Helmholtz and asked if everything was as expected. “Yesterday's prediction was three hundred thousand, but the estimate keeps rising. It could be four. But, the police have picked up a rumour. We're worried about trouble.” Von Helmholtz surveyed the front ranks of the crowd.

Hanbury had never seen four hundred thousand people together in one place. Most remarkable was the stillness, the queer silence. An air of duty had settled over the Lustgarten and its neighbouring boulevards and squares. It seemed almost half a million people in an immense, open-air temple were waiting for a religious act to start. Von Helmholtz excused himself. Shortly after, the stillness was broken by a scattering of applause. Von Helmholtz was now on the stage in the company of the President of the Federal Republic of Germany. Everyone sensed the aura of noble purpose with which they walked to the front. The Chief of Protocol spoke into the microphone. His voice jumped out of a hundred speakers. The sound echoed lightly off the wall of the Berlin Cathedral and further back,
more faintly, off the glass face of the Palast der Republik. He thanked the people for coming, described their common aim and the symbolic nature of their act.
Meine Damen und Herren
, he announced,
der Bundespräsident
.

The President spoke without a prepared text. Words from the loudspeakers filled the Lustgarten and reached towards the far corners of Marx Engels Platz. It crossed the river, echoing down Unter den Linden. The people were attentive. In understatement he addressed the past, its horrors, and the fear ordinary people feel when faced with tyranny. Every society has a potential for tyrants, he said. Every society is obligated to find ways to keep them down. He described the power a society acquires when toleration and vigilance are in balance.

Hanbury, looking at von Helmholtz, saw him suddenly stiffen. He made a series of rapid, scarcely noticeable signals. At the same moment there was a rustle in the crowd. Hanbury turned. Objects were flying through the air. One hit him on the shoulder and clung. An egg, wet and sticky, dripped down his jacket. Another, better-aimed egg got the President on the side of the head. Still more landed on the stage with no effect. It was over in seconds. Von Helmholtz stepped to the President to rub the worst away with a wipe or two of a handkerchief. Hanbury perceived vaguely that the rustle in the crowd was now moving to the sidelines. Undercover agents had jumped on a half dozen assailants and were hustling them away. No one had said anything. No shouting. No commotion. In those few seconds the same queer silence reigned. The President and the Chief of Protocol, close to the microphone, were heard whispering, their indistinct exchange sounding like a wind moving through a stand of trees. The President shook his head. He would not back away. Unfazed, he intended to continue. His voice betrayed no change in emotion. Reason and persistence were his weapons for this fight.

Two hundred metres deep in the crowd it would have been difficult
to notice something had happened. People saw the Chief of Protocol go towards the President and move away to the side, no more. But TV cameras saw it differently. The image speeding around the world was of a President assailed and of a demonstration that had failed.

When the President finished and a rock band began setting up, the diplomats departed. Several commiserated with Hanbury over his soiled jacket. The Scandinavian made a little joke about bird droppings; the Latin American concluded the mishap proved that people in public life should wear washable garments. Von Helmholtz came along, saw what had occurred and asked Hanbury to walk with him to his office. The official part of the event was over; the rock concert would be routine.

As they walked the Chief of Protocol vented his anger. “They weren't neo-Nazis,” he said grimly. “Merely anarchists. Ineffective, pathetic creatures who lack purpose. Still, we know what the headlines will say. I'm sorry you were hit.”

“No harm done.” Hanbury replied, keeping up with the Chief of Protocol's fierce pace. “It was the President who got it on the head. Otherwise everything went fine. Everyone was calm. The mood was serene.”

Von Helmholtz slowed. The sun was setting behind them through banks of clouds; one strip was nearly black, another lit up red and beneath it a luminous ribbon of yellow. “We knew something was planned,” he said. “Dozens were intercepted. Seven or eight got through. It shouldn't have happened. We gambled. We didn't succeed. I must say, the President took it well. He asked if others were hit. When an opportunity arises I'll introduce you to him. You're his only co-victim.”

“Maybe Gundula Jahn will do a column on it,” Hanbury said. She was still in his thoughts. Where had she been at the rally? Had she seen what happened? “Maybe she can recover some ground with a good piece.”

Von Helmholtz doubted it, but the mention of Gundula changed his mood. Some of his tension drained off. He praised her talent as a journalist, but said he worried she was becoming too identified with the problems of the East. “You could help. You should try to interest her in international affairs. She needs to widen her scope before she hits a dead end.”

In the Rote Rathaus courtyard, von Helmholtz commanded a car and driver to take the consul home. Hanbury argued he could find his way, but the Chief of Protocol insisted. “You're one of us now, Tony,” he murmured, opening the door of a limousine. “You too have been embarrassed by the Fatherland.”

The Monday papers gave the incident in Berlin front page treatment. Randolph McEwen sitting in the breakfast pavilion of a Munich hotel was deciphering the story. The indoor garden with banana plants and palms might be fine in summer, but on this frosty Bavarian morning it was filled with cold convection. On the other hand, the article he was translating – word by word – provided unexpected inner warmth.

Eggs on their faces
, he thought. A rally against xenophobia! A batty idea. In the old Berlin, the one administered by the Allies, the right wing would have gotten short shrift: infiltration of the neo-Nazis, hooligans rounded up as they slept, quick judicial arrangements. But now… well…deep down the Hun's brain was soft. The demonstration proved it.

Delightful though the headlines were, they didn't alter McEwen's mood. Guidelines for the transfer of operational control of security and intelligence gathering in the Berlin arena to the Germans were part of the agreement on the withdrawal of foreign troops. In accordance with this unknown blip on Germany's reunification map, McEwen was in Munich
to bare his networks to new German counterparts. Who would have predicted a day would come when he would be forced to swallow a pill this bitter?

Transfer an intelligence-gathering function! An absurd notion. Yet, it was all spelled out in detail in an outrageous, secret annex to the Two Plus Four Agreement which charted the reunification course. Not only that, but the fine print said the handover of Berlin Station operations would be in Munich, in the suburb of Pullach, in Uncle Teut's own complex. An insult in itself.
We won the wars
, McEwen kept thinking.
I shouldn't have to go to Uncle Teut
.

There was worse. New operations during the changeover period were to be double key. McEwen needed Uncle Teut's approval for every initiative as his own resources disappeared. Could there be a greater ignominy than a career ending in dependency on the Hun? McEwen's frustration was so great he felt his spleen was on the verge of rupturing. Berlin was so delightful before Europe changed. Tussling with the Soviets had been amusing. Uncle Sam had been supportive. Double keys with Uncle Sam meant operations moved like lightning. But Uncle Teut was different. Uncle Teut was grave. He was ponderous. He needed time to think things through. He only acted once the highest court in the land granted clearance. By the time an operation began, the Libyans, Iranians, or Iraqis, not to mention the Russian Mafia, had had their day. Half a nuclear arsenal might have been smuggled in and out. Uncle Teut lacked two ingredients for success: flexibility and instinct. His complicated rules rendered a distressing certainty: operations that were permanently jammed.

The egg-splashing yesterday showed the rot. In a sardonic corner of his mind, as he methodically deciphered the front page story, McEwen composed a few remarks he would soon make.
Sorry to hear about Berlin, Alex. Frightfully embarrassing. I heard the anarchists had intentions. How did they get through? Dressed as police agents?
Nothing wrong with
goading Uncle Teut. Uncle Teut wasn't above delivering insults himself. Why else had an Oxford man been named for this partnership undertaking. Partnership undertaking! That's what the fine print said.

Alexander Graf Bornhof spoke English with such nearly perfect Oxford diction that whenever McEwen heard the accent he felt robbed blind.

No Hun should be allowed to steal the British soul by speaking like a don
.

Graf Bornhof
pretended
to be friendly; he liked to
show
himself cooperative; he
made out
he was self-effacing. The Oxford veneer made him difficult to deal with. But today, at least, McEwen had the unexpected gift of a smelly egg laid in the Hun's own tidy nest. It mitigated the humiliation – a little.

The humiliation deepened after breakfast. Transportation to Pullach was in a Mercedes 600, V12, bullet-proof, with a communication system and voice scrambler in the trunk.
Somewhat
more comfortable than McEwen's own imported compact. A
little
faster.
Slightly
better equipped.
Real
leather seats. And so deeply, deeply silent.

He loves to rub it in, the Hun. We won both World Wars. We won the Cold War. We win all the wars, but it's the Hun that profits
.

The gate to the Pullach complex slid aside. Papers were checked.
Für Graf Bornhof
, the driver snapped.
Warten Sie!
Wait, ordered the guard. He telephoned, then returned.
In Ordnung
. That's fine. McEwen heard the exchange as a series of short verbal explosions. McEwen knew Pullach by now, but he didn't like the place. He didn't like the sound of it. He didn't like the sound of the orders.

He was escorted to the conference room. As always, fruit juices, soft drinks and a thermos with good coffee were on offer on the table. Christmas was not far off and there was decoration too: holly twigs, red candles and trays of Christmas cookies. Interspersing the colour were small poinsettias alternately red and white. Into this festive atmosphere Graf Bornhof and two subordinates arrived.

“Randolph!” Graf Bornhof exclaimed with delight.

“Terribly pleased to see you, Alexander,” came the flat reply. “Starting the annual celebration, I see. Very pretty.” He nodded to the decorated table.

“I shall pass your compliment to the ladies. They are quite excited at this time of year. And why not? Intelligence work can have a human face. Allow me to introduce my colleagues.” Graf Bornhof presented Herr Seidel and Herr Heine. “Howwayuh,” said Seidel. “Hi,” Heine added. American accents. Uncle Sam trained. Seidel was bald. Even his eyebrows were thinning into nothing. He wore rimless glasses which heightened the effect of the naked head. A Himmler clone, thought McEwen. But Heine was an imitation Ivy Leaguer: well-trimmed hair, a Harris Tweed jacket, and thick-soled brocade shoes.

They settled around the table. “Good to have you here again, Randolph,” Graf Bornhof said. “Trip went well?”

“Got out just in time, I'd say, Alex. It turned jolly nasty yesterday in Berlin. The President pummelled with eggs. What went wrong?”

Graf Bornhof's smile dried up. “We had an emergency post-mortem last night,” he said. “The enforcers flew in and when we sat down, that was indeed the question. Where was the mistake? Was it the information, the manpower, the control system? Once we pieced things together, we decided the question should be otherwise. What went right? Almost everything went right, Randolph. The event was high risk – there were enough arguments against it – but overall it worked. Four hundred thousand people, orderly and peaceful. About fifty anarchists were intercepted on the way, sifted out from four hundred thousand participants. Seven got through, but they were dragged off the moment they cocked their arms to throw. I believe only one egg landed.” Graf Bornhof relaxed. How close to perfection can one get, his posture asked.