World War Two Will Not Take Place (13 page)

As a matter of fact, Valk didn't really have anything much against either of this pair, BL Schiff and V Mair. That was the point, though: the ‘either' aspect. He found each governable enough on his own, and very capable. Difficulties began when they worked together. Then they could become pushy, uncontrolled, headstrong. They primed one another's egos. Look at the way they wrote of altering ‘policy' and referred to ‘our operation'. They had no authority to alter policy. It was not
their
operation, but the department's. Valk felt irritated. Jointly, they might turn maverick. Probably psychologists could explain the case. ‘Mob Mentality' was well documented. What about ‘Chums' Mentality'? Naturally, having noted three or four times how they behaved when linked, he'd finally ordered Schiff and Mair should no longer be teamed. How did the ban get ignored or forgotten, then? Well, there had been exceptional manpower demands lately. Perhaps these made the error almost forgivable.

Error? Error! What error? Wasn't it because they'd been pushy, uncontrolled, headstrong, that they'd come up with these undoubtedly brilliant finds? They had to be hailed as a gifted, improvising twosome. All right, he'd hail. They had to be regarded as a dangerously independent twosome. All right, he'd stay watchful.

More of the report:

Of course, Schiff and Mair had supplied a verbal report of some items immediately, because twenty-four surveillance of both apartments had to be put in place at once, as well as permanent tails on both targets. Some backgrounding of the women was also needed, although they seemed on the face of it authentic, bar-stool whores, probably with only standard, surface knowledge of their customers. Leave them untroubled for now. They might have a use later – an operational use. On Valk's first readings of the written report, he had marked several paragraphs for possible follow up and expansion, including the whore references. Plus:

SIX

‘
T
hose twins of yours – they've done astonishingly well, wouldn't you say, Andreas?'

‘Well, yes, astonishingly, sir.' Valk got something like hearty but unhysterical enthusiasm into his voice. Necessary. Wise.

The Colonel Commandant flipped over several report pages so he could remind himself of the signatures: ‘V Mair, BL Schiff. Perhaps a little fancifully, I call them twins because they operate so naturally together. Veritable birds of a feather.' For that last bit, the birds and feathers, he dropped into English momentarily. Knecht, the Colonel Commandant, liked to show his international side. ‘Oh, do forgive me,' he said, as if poor Andreas Valk must be floored by the foreign phrase. So, back to German: ‘They combine by instinct. Or as if by blood. Remarkable. This report – remarkable! And photos!'

‘Yes, remarkable,' Valk said. ‘I naturally had them in to give my congratulations and, of course, sir, I said they could rely on you and even those above you to be very impressed by their work.' There
were
people above Knecht, naturally, but he might not care to hear them spoken of so bluntly.

But Knecht said: ‘
Very
impressed. Did you see them as a pair, Andreas? Excellent. Perceptive. To me they seem very much a unit.'

Valk thought that most probably this vindictive swine knew he had interviewed them separately. ‘Well, yes, sir, they
are
in some senses a unit. I felt, though, it was more appropriate to do it one-by-one. That is, I think, the customary way to interview our people, whether to praise or reprove.'

‘Oh, yes, I suppose that
is
the rule book. You would know it better than I.'

This, to Valk, sounded as if knowing the rule book was the pinnacle of his abilities. Knecht's tone was carefully polite and damaging. God, to get him some comeuppance! ‘I wanted to check certain matters. I thought it more suitable to hear them individually.'

‘To catch them out?'

‘For clarity.'

‘Which certain matters did you want to check?'

‘A degree of obscurity here and there in the report.'

‘Oh, where? I thought it remarkably graphic.'

‘The sequence at thirty-seven, mainly.'

‘Plain enough, surely. They take Eisen back. There is somebody in the apartment. He is surprised and gets out, so that, when they arrive, the apartment is unoccupied. They keep watch. Eisen almost immediately goes out to somewhere – somewhere unknown till next morning. The man who'd been at the window then returns to the apartment, most likely by some other entrance to the building so as not to bump into your two. In a while, he also leaves, and they tail him to Steglitz, where Eisen is presumably waiting.'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘No difficulty or possibility of a clash in their stories, surely? We're so fortunate to have them on the staff. These are men who make our Department strong, and, if our Department, our country. I don't think it's too much to claim.'

‘Certainly not,' Valk said. What else could he say? When the Colonel Commandant went off on one of his unfettered word trips – turned all fanciful, as he'd term it – you agreed with him. That is, you agreed with him if you were only the Deputy Commandant, older than the Colonel Commandant, and merely a major, and almost certain to remain a major, like Valk. It would be a kind of irreverence to contradict him – in fact, a blasphemy, bringing very rough reprisals, perhaps, in the way that the Old Testament God said, ‘Vengeance is mine. I will repay.' Of course, because Maximilian Knecht, the Colonel Commandant, was Maximilian Knecht, the Colonel Commandant, youngish, and in touch with all sorts of higher-ups, including even, he said, Himmler himself, he didn't have to worry that those remarkable, feather-matched twins might want to climb over him, kick him into oblivion. Or not yet he didn't.

‘We must cherish people of that calibre, Andreas. And I'm sure they cherish you, too. You, at your level, are so closely in touch with them and their work. Really down alongside the lads in the, as it were, engine room, accustomed to the sweat rag and so on, the sweat rag that is not without its own nobility. I float here, a little above it all. A Colonel Commandant's privilege! But also a Colonel Commandant's loss. I feel the distance from our boys and girls in the field. “Colonel Commandant” – oh, a very nice title to have on one's office door. A barrier, too, though; an obstruction to full and deep contact with the troops.'

They were behind the barrier and obstruction today, in Knecht's untidy office suite with coffees. ‘You – fortunate you – could be
au fait
with their achievements so soon after the actual events they describe.' Knecht picked up his copy of the report and pointed delightedly to part of it. ‘The frank admission of uncertainty about that possible watcher behind an undrawn curtain in the
plattenbauten
dump! This is scrupulousness. This is self-scrutiny. This is acute observational flair, Andreas. These are men we can trust. And the tailing skills and the brilliant caution and discretion.'

Knecht thrilled to an earlier paragraph. ‘The request in Lenin's tomb – my God, in Lenin's holy tomb! – for pointers towards living floozie flesh that offended dear “Ivan”. The contrast! Dick-twitch in a mausoleum! A humanizing touch. They acknowledge mausoleums exist, but do not allow this mausoleum to impose its defunct mausoleum nature upon them, nor upon their writing about it – the mausoleum.'

‘Well, no.'

‘And I love the way they speak so confidently, so offhandedly, indeed, of changing “policy” because the circumstances have changed. This is assurance. This is intelligent boldness, don't you agree?'

‘I hadn't really thought of it like that.'

‘Oh, yes – intelligent boldness, the term exactly. And it has become “
our
operation”. Did you note that, Andreas? That is, they are at once willing, unprotestingly willing, to assume absolute responsibility. They are willing and they are audacious enough. Reading their report as soon as it was ready, you must have become instantly aware of that almost magical link between them. Together they are clearly more than double their solo efficiency and invention. Inspired. Formidable.'

Excitement made him stand up from his desk and walk about the room, giving fist blows to the air as he went on enumerating the report's gorgeous strengths. Did this bastard Knecht sense how much Valk loathed and feared those two as a working combination? Their ‘magical' cooperativeness could also be seen as conspiracy – against him, Valk. Was Knecht's lilting enthusiasm meant to weaken Valk, shred his confidence, rupture his soul? Had he by some foul and filthy instinct guessed how much Valk would be offended by that reference to ‘policy' and ‘our operation'? Didn't he detect their abominable arrogance?

But Valk did feel there was usually a purpose to Knecht's multilingual, insistent, sky-high jabber. Nobody got to colonel at his age on flimflam. Although you could easily come to think he was off his head, or drunk, or drugged, or into premature, galloping senile decay, he'd suddenly come out with shafts of perception that seemed even more spot-on than they really were because of contrast with the lunatic lead up. He didn't need to argue a case. Surprise bordering on shock did that job for him. People obeyed from a kind of sudden happy thankfulness: they'd feared they were led by a rampaging maniac, but now realized that beneath the purple froth his brain did manage the occasional passably sane stint.

Knecht returned to his desk, his blue eyes behind heavily horn-rimmed spectacles still brilliant with wonder at the report's treasures. ‘Tell me, Andreas, how do you see it all?' he said.

‘In which regard, sir?'

‘The whole canvas.'

‘An officer from British secret intelligence has recruited a Foreign Ministry employee as agent and informant. It's a standard peacetime operation. Perhaps the agent dislikes the present regime. There are people like that about, even in positions salaried by the state.'

‘To what purpose has he recruited the agent?'

‘This to be made clear in due time, sir.'

‘In due time. Yes, I see.' He paused, then said in very throwaway style, ‘What, specifically, is Eisen's area of work?'

Of course, Knecht would know this. But he liked to show the processes of his mind. ‘He's on the Russian desk,' Valk said.

‘So, they are interested in Russia. The British are focussed on our relations with Russia, you think?'

‘Not established, Colonel. They may have looked for an agent anywhere in the Ministry, or anywhere in government service.'

‘And the choice fell on Eisen by chance, you think?'

‘My mind is open at this point.'

‘Your admirable, typical caution, Andreas.' The dreary tone said he considered Valk's mind as not just open, but open and catastrophically void, like some empty cardboard box caught by a gale and flung noisily all ways along the esplanade, but the noise hollow, booming evidence of emptiness. Knecht glanced down at the report again. ‘And they improvise so well, Schiff and Mair! Decisions taken in, as it were, the field of action. Their assignment was simply to take a functionary from his home to Moscow and bring him back. Mere couriers. Chaperones. Bodyguards. But, suddenly, as they near the end of their duties with Eisen, the face at the window –
possibly
a face at the window. And then the missing chair receipt. And then the unexplained sortie by KPE. Mair and Schiff could have ignored all this. They might have decided their assignment was over and they could go home and relax. But not at all. They see beyond their named task. They sense a new
magnitude
. Yes,
magnitude
. They swiftly get into tune with those fresh factors. And what are these factors? What is that new magnitude?'