The Waiting Time (13 page)

The woman looked at Tracy Barnes through her thick spectacles, and her eyes were distorted by the lenses. ‘Because I loved him, because we worked together in the railyard, because he brought light and laughter to me, because his father says they killed him, because you have come to find the evidence.’

The woman gave Tracy a pair of narrow steel-rimmed spectacles, and a scarf to wear over her hair. She was handed a plastic-coated ID card, and she saw that the photograph on the card was that of a woman with dark hair and narrow steel- rimmed spectacles.

There was a policeman in the shadows, shivering and stamping his feet, and the woman called cheerfully to him. It was a modern fortress complex, great buildings around a wide central open space. They went down a ramp to a steel door, well lit and covered by a security camera, and the windows beside the door were protected by metal bars. The woman rang the bell and held up her card in front of the camera and Tracy copied her. She had memorized the name on the ID. Inside at a desk, behind plate glass, there were two guards. She did what the woman did, and showed the card, scrawled the name, the signature, the time, as the woman had. The woman had moved away from her, to the other end of the desk, and she talked animatedly with the guards, distracted them, then went fast towards the inner door of plate steel. Tracy followed. The door was opened from the desk.

In the corridor beyond, the door slid shut behind them.

‘We have six hours,’ the woman said briskly. ‘Maybe there are a hundred million sheets of paper, maybe there are ten million card indexes.’

They went down narrow concrete stairs, poorly lit.

‘Maybe there are a million photographs — I do not know how many kilometres of audio-tape. Everything was filed. They kept, believe me, in many thousands of sealed glass jars the smells of their victims, they stole their socks and their underwear and put them in jars so that later if dogs had to search for those people they would have their smells. Most of all, there is the paper. The dictatorship of today does not need to shoot people, or gas them, or hang them. They do not have blood on their hands, but ink.’

They were at the bottom floor. Ahead was a door of reinforced steel, set with additional bars, opened by a lever.

‘You must have names and dates and places. You have that? If you do not then we search for a coin on the ocean floor.’

Tracy said, ‘Hauptman Dieter Krause, counter-espionage at Rostock, killed Hans Becker at Rerik, near to the Soviet base at Wustrow, on the evening of the twenty-first of November nineteen eighty-eight.’

The woman wrenched down the lever. The cavern ran as far as Tracy could see. As far as she could see were the metal racks on which were stacked the files. Cardboard file covers neatly tied with string, bound with elastic, as far as she could see. The racks were from the floors to the ceilings, and they had come down two flights of stairs.

‘A man was here two days ago, from the Office of the Protection of the State. He had the name of Dieter Krause from Rostock. He looked for evidence of a criminal act against human rights. He did not know of Hans. He had the name of a Soviet officer. He did not have the location of Rerik. He had the officer stationed at Wustrow. He did not have the date. He walked in fog

There was a part of the Krause file that was missing, and a part of the Wustrow file that had been taken out. He did not find what he looked for. He was here a whole day, with three assistants. I have to tell you that—’

‘How long do we have?’

‘We have a few minutes less than six hours, and only the one chance.’

The last flights were leaving Heathrow. Josh Mantle hurried to the check-in. The ffight for Berlin was closing. He was in the queue when he heard the voice behind him, ‘Hello, Mantle, cuttingitfine...’

He spun.

‘... but I didn’t expect to see you here. I’d have thought — your track record — you’d have realized this was heavy going and backed off, like you did before.’

‘What do you know of me?’

‘Not much short of everything.’ Perkins was smiling.

‘I’ve never seen you before the gate at Templer.’

‘Quite a crowd of folk never looked hard enough behind them, never saw me. Bad business that, Belize, would have thought a chap like you would have showed a bit more spine.’

‘Who are you?’

‘A government servant, man and boy. I walk the streets with a shovel so that the pretty people don’t get shit on their shoes. You were a piece of shit in Belize that I cleared up. Never seemed to find the time to introduce myself. . . Better stir a bit, if you want to get to Berlin tonight. It is Berlin, isn’t it? Chasing after the little corporal, are we?’

‘Where are you going?’

‘As if you need to know. Cologne. Off to see our gracious friends and respected allies.’

The queue lurched forward.

‘About her? About Miss Barnes?’

‘She’s on my Action This Day agenda. You’re very sharp tonight, Mantle.’

‘Running sneaky messages, piling up the odds. That’s work for a proud man.’

The smile had become the grin. ‘You used to be bright in the old days, as I recall, when you knew how to back out.’

‘You’re starting to feel like a boil in my arse. A damn nuisance, but I can ignore it. If anything happens to her, before I get to her, through your hand, I’ll...’

The smile, which had been the grin, had become the sneer. ‘Bit old for her, aren’t you?’

The check-in girl had her hand out for Mantle’s ticket. He passed it across the counter. He spun again.

‘... I’ll put your teeth through the back of your neck.’

The smile, the grin, the sneer had gone. ‘My advice, Mantle. You shouldn’t go to Rostock with a boil in your arse. Very painful if your backside were kicked — and in Rostock it will get kicked, hard.’

‘Rostock is not a part of it, so fuck you. I’m going to Berlin to bring her home.’

‘Of course . . . Oh, and the name is Perkins, Albert Perkins, by the way, a shoveller of shit for Her Majesty’s government. Don’t forget the name and have a good flight.’

He was given his ticket, his boarding card. When he came away from the counter, his overnight bag slung on his shoulder, Perkins was gone.

He walked towards Departures.

They had both gone to Belize. Captain Ewart-Harries and Sergeant Mantle, the Intelligence Corps presence. Supposed to know their job, supposed to predict whether the Guatemalan military were about to invade. The officer had school Spanish and Mantle had been on a phrase book. Hustling through
Jane’s Fighting
books for the strength of the Guatemalan Army, its elite units, its equipment. The Brigadier with his gunners and his infantry demanding an answer, and the Group Captain with his Harrier force. Were the Guatemalans coming? Would they come in force with tanks? Would they probe with reconnaissance units? Who knew more than damn all about the goddamn Guatemalan Army? Every morning at the Brigadier’s session, the pressure was growing. Answers, where were the answers? Outside Belize City was a heap of jungle; in the heap of jungle was a mapmaker’s line; behind the line was more jungle and the territory of Guatemala. He didn’t know, and Ewart-Harries didn’t know, what the Guatemalan military had under the triple canopy of the jungle. A patrol on the mapmaker’s line had brought the kid in. The patrol’s contact had been with three men of the Kaibil battalion, special forces. The patrol had killed two out of three. It had a survivor, neatly tied up and blindfolded, for interrogation. Interrogation was I Corps work. A helicopter ride, from the RAF strip, into the jungle. The prisoner was in a logging shed, no witnesses outside the patrol. The prisoner was just a ‘Guat’, and the Brigadier was demanding answers. . . Ewart-Harries had called the bet with Mantle for a hundred American dollars to be paid to whichever of them broke the Guat first. . . As if he was a football, a punchbag, taking it in three-hour shifts to work on him. Three hours was the limit for each of them because of the goddamn mosquitoes and the goddamn heat. Going into each shift with the adrenaline pumped at the prospect of an American hundred-dollar bill, coming out and reckoning that Ewart-Harries would win in that session. No gag on the kid, the Guat, because they had to be able to hear the answer when they broke him. Christ, the kid had screamed. Coming out of the logging shed and seeing the contempt of the squaddies who kept a perimeter defence line. Caught in a frenzy because it was just a game, and the kid was just a Guat. The third day, and the kid had died. He had stopped screaming and died in a Ewart-Harries session, and the bet was void.

He walked down the pier to the aircraft.

One of the patrol had gone to the battalion padre. There had been an internal inquiry. If it had ended as a court-martial, the killing of a Guat, then it would have gone public and the Guatemalan government and military would have had a field day of propaganda. As the officer, Ewart-Harries could have fallen out of sight if his sergeant had testified against him. But the sergeant had stayed quiet, as if it should be kept in the family, had refused to give evidence against his officer. A deal done. . He had been transferred from I Corps to the Special Investigation Branch of the Royal Military Police with no filth on his record. lain Ewart
-
Harries, with copybook references, had gone to civilian life.

He had not stood up to be counted, he had walked away, he had not shouted from the Guat’s corner. . . It was a part of Josh’s history, the day that he had compromised.

Josh Mantle flew to Berlin.

Under the beat of the air-conditioner, Tracy sat cross-legged on the floor between the racks. Untying the string, unfastening the elastic, skipping at the reports filed in the month of November 1988 by Hauptman Dieter Krause. Retying the string, handing the files back to the woman. Reports on environmental campaigners, on three Rostock athletes selected to travel for warm-weather training in Cuba, on the Rostock family of a drowned escaper washed up on the Baltic coast, on anti-social behaviour in the science faculty at Rostock. No report in the ifies for the dates of 21, 22 and 23 November, the only dates in the month that the busy bastard had not filed reports. She beavered at the paper, and the despair grew as the night hours slipped.

He was a trader. To Albert Perkins, all trade was acceptable. When he came to the trading stall, Albert Perkins was without inhibition. Among the street stalls, Albert Perkins, with quality knowledge of the German language, spoke only in English.

‘She is in Germany, seeking evidence. We, of course, in respect of a friend and ally will not help her to gain that evidence. We know where she will have gone. We know her start point. We believe you are short of that information. We believe, also, that should she find that evidence before your prize pig goes to market, before Hauptman Krause goes to Washington, then you will have no option but to slit his throat and hang him up for butchery, charge him, convict him, and wave him goodbye...’

The senior official’s cigarette smoke wafted between them. They were alone, two easy chairs used. There was whisky in a decanter on the low table between them, untouched. Neither man, when trading, would risk alcohol, would give advantage.

‘That we are prepared to offer you that information, where you could find her, should be taken by you as a mark of respect on our side for a friend and ally. Friendships, alliances, thrive on mutual respect, and we would be grateful for reciprocity — sorry, we barter. .

His voice was sweet, silky reasonableness. The senior official drew hard on the cigarette. The night air came through the window, opened on Perkins’s insistence.

‘The little matter we request in return. . . Iranian material, your dossier on Mi Fallahian. You have, last figures I saw, earnings of two point four billion American dollars from equipment supplied to Iran. I want the names of those German companies involved and their British collaborators . . . I want details on all commercial transactions by German companies for equipment sent to Iran that could be utilized in the production of atomic, chemical and biological weapons. I want the surveillance files on all members of the Iranian diplomatic mission in Bonn who have travelled to Britain in the last two years.’

The senior official stiffened. He stubbed out the cigarette and in the same movement was reaching for another, lighting it.

‘Did you actually entertain Ali Fallahian in this office? Did you feel the need to wash your hands afterwards, lot of blood on his fists? Must have been a jolly little occasion, entertaining the minister for information and security. Did you discuss the Lockerbie atrocity? I expect you did. I expect he thanked you, as a friend and ally, for refusing us access to those hoods on the Iranian payroll who organized the Frankfurt transfer of the bomb on to Pan-Am 103. Let them go now, haven’t you, slipped them beyond reach? I’ve told you what I want, I know what you want. Do we trade?’

The senior official paused. He held his hands together, over his mouth and his nose as if in prayer. Perkins assumed that he would be travelling to Washington on the back of Hauptman Krause, would take the opportunity to drive to Langley, to meet with the principals of the National Security Council, would be ushered to the big offices of the Pentagon. Another cigarette, half smoked, was discarded. Cancellation would be a bitter pill, would take more than prayer to flush it down.

The senior official went to his desk, telephoned, spoke in a low voice. Perkins heard the murmur of Mi Fallahian’s name. He returned to his chair and reached forward to pour the whisky. They both drank, equal measures. The trading had been agreed.