r side of Jena. I think if he had had the manual stashed in the compartment beneath the battery, even in his state he’d have taken the drunk-driving rap, spent the night in the cells, and paid his fine. Chances are the VOPOs would never have given the car a rigorous search.
“If the manual was lying in the BMW, I think some hint of the elation of the police would have come through on the intercepts. The SSD would have been called in within ten minutes, not two hours. I think he had it on him—under his jacket, maybe. That’s why he couldn’t go to the police station. For a blood test, they’d have taken his jacket off. So he ran for it.”
There was silence for several minutes.
“It all comes back to Poltergeist,” said Edwards. Even though everyone now knew the agent’s real name, they preferred his operational code-name. “He must be somewhere. Where would he go? Has he friends near there? A safe house? Anything?”
McCready shook his head. “There’s a safe house in East Berlin. He knows it from the old days. I’ve tried it—no contact. In the south, he knows nobody. Never even been there.”
“Could he hide out in the forests?” asked Claudia.
“It’s not that kind of area. Not like the Harz with its dense forests. Open rolling farmland, towns, villages, hamlets, farms.”
“No place for a middle-aged fugitive who’s lost his marbles,” commented Appleyard.
“Then we’ve lost him,” said Claudia. “Him, the War Book, and Pankratin. The whole deal.”
“I’m afraid it looks so,” said Edwards. “The People’s Police will use saturation tactics. Roadblocks on every street and lane. Without sanctuary, I fear they’ll have him by midday.”
The meeting ended on that gloomy note. When the Americans had gone, Edwards detained McCready at the door.
“Sam, I know it’s hopeless, but stay with it, will you? I’ve asked Cheltenham, East German Section, to step up the listening watch and let you know the instant they hear anything. When they get Poltergeist—and they must—I want to know at once. We’re going to have to placate our Cousins somehow, though God knows how.”
Back in his office, McCready threw himself into his chair in deep dejection. He took the phone off the cradle and stared at the wall.
If he had been a drinker, he would have reached for the bottle. Had he not given up cigarettes years earlier, he would have reached for a pack. He had failed, and he knew it. Whatever he might tell Claudia of the pressures they had put on him, it had, finally, been his decision to send in Morenz. And it had been a wrong one.
He had lost the War Book and probably blown away Pankratin. It would have surprised him to know that he was the only man in the building to hold these losses as secondary to another failure.
For him, the worst was that he had sent a friend to certain capture, interrogation, and death because he had failed to note the warning signs that now—too late—were so blazingly clear. Morenz had been in no state to go. He had gone rather than let down his friend Sam McCready.
The Deceiver knew now—again, too late—that for the rest of his days, in the wee hours when sleep refuses to come, he would see the haggard face of Bruno Morenz in that hotel room. ...
He tried to drive his guilt away and turned his mind to wondering what happens inside a man’s head when he undergoes a complete nervous breakdown. Personally, he had never seen that phenomenon. What was Bruno Morenz like now? How would he react to his situation? Logically? Crazily? He put through a call to the Service’s consultant psychiatrist, an eminent doctor known irreverently as “the Shrink.” He traced Dr. Alan Carr to his office in Wimpole Street. Dr. Carr said he was busy through the morning but would be happy to join McCready for lunch and an ad hoc consultation. McCready made a date for the Montcalm Hotel at one o’clock.
Punctually at ten, Major Ludmilla Vanavskaya entered the main doors of the SSD headquarters building at 22 Normannenstrasse and was shown up to the fourth floor, the floor occupied by the Counterespionage Department. Colonel Voss was waiting for her. He conducted her into his private office and offered her the chair facing his desk. He took his seat and ordered coffee. When the steward left, he asked politely, “What can I do for you, Comrade Major?”
He was curious as to what had brought about this visit on what would for him undoubtedly be an extremely busy day. But the request had come from the commanding general at KGB headquarters, and Colonel Voss was well aware who really ruled the roost in the German Democratic Republic.
“You are handling a case in the Jena area,” said Vanavskaya. “A West German agent who ran off after a crash and left his car behind. Could you let me have the details so far?”
Voss filled in the details not included in the situation report that the Russian had already seen.
“Let us assume,” said Vanavskaya when he was finished, “that this agent, Grauber, had come to collect or deliver something. ... Was anything found in the car or in the secret cavity that could be what he either brought in or was trying to take out?”
“No, nothing. All his private papers were merely his cover story. The cavity was empty. If he brought something in, he had already delivered. If he sought to take something out, he had not collected.”
“Or it was still on his person.”
“Possibly, yes. We will know when we interrogate him. May I ask the reason for your interest in the case?”
Vanavskaya chose her words carefully.
“There is a possibility, just a chance, that a case upon which I am working overlaps your own.”
Behind his impassive face, Otto Voss was amused. So this handsome Russian ferret suspected the West German might have been in the East to make contact with a Russian source, not an East German traitor. Interesting.
“Have you any reason to know, Colonel, whether Grauber was to make a personal contact or just administer a dead-letter box?”