Prinz did so. Herrmann lost all his appetite. The odor in his nostrils was not so much of the claret as of a scandal of cataclysmic proportions.
“And still no clues,” he murmured sorrowfully.
“Not a lot,” agreed Prinz. “First K have been told to pull every man off every case and put them onto this one. The search, of course, is for the gun and the owner of the fingerprints.”
Lothar Herrmann sighed. “I wonder if the culprit could be a foreigner?” he suggested.
Prinz scooped up the last of his ice cream and put down his spoon. He grinned. “Ah, now I see. Our external intelligence service has an interest?”
Herrmann shrugged dismissively. “My dear friend, we both accomplish much the same task. Protecting our political masters.”
Like all senior civil servants, both of these men had a view of their political masters that wisely was seldom shared with the politicians themselves.
“We do, of course, have some records of our own,” said Herrmann. “Fingerprints of foreigners who have come to our attention. ... Alas, we haven’t got copies of the prints our friends in the KA are seeking.”
“You could ask officially,” Prinz pointed out.
“Yes, but then why start a hare that will probably lead nowhere? Now, unofficially—”
“I don’t like the word unofficial,” said Prinz.
“No more do I, my friend, but ... now and again—for old times’ sake. You have my word, if I turn anything up, it comes straight back to you. A joint effort by the two services. My word on it. If nothing turns up, then no harm done.” Prinz rose. “All right, for old times’ sake. Just this once.” As he left the hotel, he wondered what the hell Herrmann knew, or suspected, that he did not.
In the Braunschweiger Hof in Münchberg, Sam McCready sat at the bar. He drank alone and stared at the dark paneling. He was worried, deeply so. Again and again he wondered if he should have sent Morenz over.
There was something wrong about the man. A summer cold? More like the flu. But that doesn’t make you nervous. His old friend had seemed very nervous. Was his nerve gone? No, not old Bruno. He had done it many times before. And he was “clean”—as far as McCready knew.
McCready tried to justify sending Bruno. He had had no time to find a younger man. And Pankratin would not “show” for a strange face. It was Pankratin’s life on the line, too. If he’d refused to send Morenz, they’d have lost the Soviet War Book. He had had no choice ... but he could not stop worrying.
Seventy miles north, Bruno Morenz was in the bar of the Black Bear Hotel in Jena. He too drank, and alone, and too much.
Across the street he could see the main entrance to the centuries-old Schiller University. Outside was a bust of Karl Marx. A plaque revealed that Marx had taught in the philosophy faculty there in 1841. Morenz wished the bearded philosopher had dropped dead while doing it. Then he would never have gone to London and written Das Kapital, and Morenz would not now be going through his misery so far from home.
At one A.M. Wednesday, a sealed brown envelope arrived at the Dom Hotel for Dr. Herrmann. He was still up. The envelope contained three large photographs: two of various 9mm slugs, one of a set of thumb, finger, and palm prints. He resolved not to wire them down to Pullach but to take them himself that morning. If the tiny scratches along the sides of the bullets, and the prints, matched up with his expectations, he was going to face a very major quandary. Whom to tell, and how much. If only that bastard Morenz would show up. ... At nine A.M. he caught the first flight back to Munich.
At ten Major Vanavskaya in Berlin checked again on the whereabouts of the man she was tracking. He was with the garrison outside Erfurt, she was told. He leaves at six tonight for Potsdam. Tomorrow he flies back to Moscow.
“And I’ll be with you, you bastard,” she thought.
At half past eleven, Morenz rose from the table in the coffee bar where he had been killing time and made for the car. He felt hung over. His tie was undone, and he could not face his razor that morning. Gray stubble covered his cheeks and chin. He did not look like a businessman about to discuss optical lenses in the boardroom at the Zeiss works. He drove carefully out of town, heading west toward Weimar.
The lay-by was three miles away.
It was bigger than the lay-by of yesterday, shaded by leafy beech trees that flanked the road on both sides. Set into the trees across from the lay-by was the Mühltalperle coffee house. No one seemed to be about. It was not seething with guests. He pulled into the lay-by at five to twelve, got out his toolkit, and opened the hood again. At two minutes after twelve, the GAZ jeep rolled onto the gravel and stopped. The man who got out wore baggy cotton fatigues and knee-boots. He had corporal’s insignia and a forage cap pulled over his eyes. He strolled toward the BMW.
“If you are having trouble, perhaps I have a better toolbox,” he said. He swung his wooden toolbox into the engine bay and laid it on the cylinder block. A grubby thumbnail flicked open the catch. There was a clutter of wrenches inside.
“So, Poltergeist, how are you these days?” he murmured.
Morenz’s mouth was dry again. “Fine,” he whispered back. He pulled the wrenches to one side. The red-plastic-covered manual lay underneath. The Russian took a wrench and tightened the loose nut. Morenz removed the book and stuffed it inside his light raincoat, jamming it with his left arm under his armpit. The Russian replaced his wrenches and closed the toolbox.
“I must go,” he muttered. “Give me ten minutes to get clear. And show gratitude. Someone might be watching.”
He straightened up, waved his right arm, and walked back to his jeep. The engine was still running. Morenz stood up and waved after him. “Danke,” he called. The jeep drove away, back toward Erfurt. Morenz felt weak. He wanted to get out of there. He needed a drink. He would pull over later and stash the manual in the compartment beneath the battery. Right now he needed a drink. Keeping the manual pinned beneath his armpit, he dropped the engine cover, tossed his tools into the trunk, closed it, and climbed into the car. The hip flask was in the glove compartment. He got it out and took a deep, satisfying pull. Five minutes later, his confidence restored, he turned the car back to Jena. He had spotted another lay-by, beyond Jena, just before the link road to the Autobahn back to the border. He would pause there to stash the manual.
The crash was not even his fault. South of Jena, in the suburb of Stadtroda, when he was driving between the huge and hideous apartment blocks of the housing estate, a Trabant came bucketing out of a side road. He nearly stopped in time, but his reflexes were poor. The much-stronger BMW crunched the rear of the East German mini.
Morenz began to panic almost at once. Was it a trap? Was the Trabant driver really the SSD? The man climbed out of his car, stared at his crushed rear, and stormed up to the BMW. He had a pinched, mean face and angry eyes.