Berlin Game. Len Deighton

let Werner use the bank.’

      ‘Did you have a row with him?’ said Fiona.

      ‘He had to show me how tough you get after sitting behind a desk for fifteen years.’

      ‘What did he say?’

      I told her.

      ‘I’ve seen you punch people for less than that,’ said Fiona, having listened to my account of Rensselaer’s tough-guy act.

      ‘He was just sounding me out,’ I said. ‘I don’t take any of that crap seriously.’

      ‘None of it?’

      ‘Rensselaer and Cruyer don’t think that Brahms Four has been turned – neither does the D-G, you can bet on that. If they thought he was working for the KGB, we wouldn’t be debating which member of the London staff goes over there to put his neck in a noose. If they really thought Brahms Four was a senior KGB man, they’d be burying that Berlin System file now, not passing it around to get “Immediate Action” tags. They’d be preparing the excuses and half-truths they’d need to explain their incompetence. They’d be getting ready to stonewall the questions that come when the story hits the fan.’ I took the wine that Tessa had abandoned and added it to my own. ‘And they don’t have any worries about me either, or they wouldn’t let me within a mile of the office while this was on the agenda.’

      ‘They’ve got to deal with you, Brahms Four insists. I told you that.’

      ‘What they really think is that Brahms Four is the best damned source they’ve had in the last decade. As usual, they only came to this conclusion when it looked like they were losing him.’

      ‘And what do you make of this ghastly business with Trent?’

      I hesitated. I was guessing now, and I looked at her so that she knew this was just a guess. ‘The approach to Trent might be a KGB effort to penetrate the Department.’

      ‘My God!’ said Fiona in genuine alarm. ‘A Russian move to access the Brahms Four intelligence at this end?’

      ‘To find out where it’s coming from. Brahms Four is one of the best-protected agents we have. And that’s only because he did a deal with old Silas, and Silas stuck to his word. The only way they would be able to trace him would be by seeing the material we’re receiving in London.’

      ‘That’s unthinkable,’ said Fiona.

      ‘Why?’ I said.

      ‘Because Giles could never get his hands on the Brahms Four material – that’s all triple A. Even I have never seen it, and you only get the odds and ends you need to know.’

      ‘But the Russians might not know that Giles couldn’t get hold of it. To them he’s senior enough to see anything he asks for.’

      Fiona stared into my eyes, trying to see what was in my mind. ‘Do you think that Brahms Four might have got word of a KGB effort to trace him?’

      ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘That’s exactly what I think. Brahms Four’s demand for retirement is just his way of negotiating for a complete change in the contact chain.’

      ‘It gets more and more frightening,’ said Fiona. ‘I really don’t think you should go there. This is not just a simple little day trip. This is a big operation with lots at stake for both sides.’

      ‘I can’t think of anyone else they can send,’ I said.

      Fiona became suddenly angry. ‘You bloody well want to go!’ she shouted. ‘You’re just like all the others. You miss it, don’t you? You really like all that bloody macho business!’

      ‘I don’t like it,’ I said. It was true but she didn’t believe me. I put my arms round her and pulled her close. ‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘I’m too old and too frightened to do anything dangerous.’

      ‘You don’t have to do anything dangerous in this business to get hurt.’

      I didn’t tell her that Werner had phoned me and asked me how soon I’d go back there. That would have complicated everything. I just told her I loved her, and that was the truth.

       7

      It was cold; damned cold: when the hell would summer come? With my hands in my pockets and my collar turned up, I walked through Soho. It was early evening but most of the shops were closed, their entrances piled high with garbage awaiting next morning’s collection. It had become a desolate place, its charm long lost behind a pox of porn shops and shabby little ‘adult’ cinemas. I welcomed the smoky warmth of Kar’s Club, and I welcomed the chance of one of the hot spiced rum drinks that were a speciality of the place no less than the chess.

      Kar’s Club was not the sort of place that Tessa would have liked. It was below ground level in Gerrard Street, Soho, a basement that had provided storage space for a wine company before an incendiary bomb burned out the upper storeys in one of the heavy German air raids of April 1941. It was three large interconnecting cellars with hardboard ceilings and noisy central heating, its old brickwork painted white to reflect the lights carefully placed over each table to illuminate the chessboards.

      Jan Kar was a Polish ex-serviceman who’d started his little club when, after coming out of the Army at war’s end, he realized he’d never return to his homeland again. By now he was an old man with a great mop of fine white hair and a magnificent drinker’s nose. Nowadays his son Arkady was usually behind the counter, but the members were still largely Poles with a selection of other East European émigrés.

      There was no one there I recognized, except two young champions in the second room whose game had already attracted half a dozen spectators. Less serious players, like me, kept to the room where the food and drink were dispensed. It was already half full. They were mostly elderly men, with beards, dark-ringed eyes and large curly pipes. In the far corner, under the clock, two silent men in ill-fitting suits glowered at their game and at each other. They played impatiently, taking every enemy in sight, as children play draughts. I was seated in the corner positioned so that I could look up from the chessboard, my book of chess problems and my drink, to see everyone who entered as they signed the members’ book.