The Good Thief's Guide to Berlin (18 page)

The items now scattered around me could be divided into two categories. First, there was a selection of spy gear: covert listening devices, drugged cigarettes, a sedative pen, concealed cameras and the like. Then there was the self-defense weaponry: a stun gun and a Taser, a switchblade and a telescopic billy club, a pepper spray and a quite bewildering array of cuffs and restraints.

I didn’t like how I’d found the wallet abandoned on the floor like this. It made me think that Victoria had heard her abductors coming in and had tried to hide in the bathroom to arm herself. I didn’t suppose it had worked out too well.

I gripped the wallet tightly. I gnashed my teeth. I cursed. I raced back to my telephone and dialed Victoria’s mobile again and again, never getting through.

Then I got hold of myself, and I went and gazed out my living room window until I had the fragile beginnings of a plan.

*   *   *

I was standing across from the British embassy by seven-thirty in the morning. The sky was beginning to lighten from full black to indigo gray, and a damp, drizzly breeze was swirling around me, lifting my hair and wetting my face and hands. I could have used a pair of mittens. My arthritic fingers were starting to bloat and tingle and stiffen. I wrapped them around the takeaway coffee cup I was holding and transferred my cigarette to my left hand.

I was leaning against the brickwork of the building opposite the embassy entrance, one leg bent at the knee, my foot resting against the wall. The embassy was located on Wilhelmstrasse, alongside the rear of the Hotel Adlon and just round the corner from the Brandenburg Gate. The road was closed to most traffic. There were bollards at either end of the street that could be lowered for authorized vehicles, and a lighted security booth manned by two guys in Kevlar vests and baseball caps, with assault rifles hanging from straps on their shoulders.

The embassy had a striking exterior. Faced in sandstone, it had the appearance of a modern office building except for two peculiar shapes that protruded from a horizontal slash in the middle. One was a triangular glass structure that jutted out at an angle and was cantilevered so that it appeared to hover in midair. The other was a giant cylinder in royal purple. Between the two structures, a sloping flagpole extended outward and a Union Jack fluttered limply in the breeze.

Despite the quirky architectural touches, I couldn’t help focusing on the security measures that were in place. They were substantial. The windows were thin, vertical notches that seemed designed to deter anyone from trying to peek inside or out. The main entrance was protected by two retractable metal gates, an internal guardhouse, and an airport-style security scanner. There were at least eight closed-circuit cameras that I could see and probably more that I couldn’t. All things considered, it wasn’t a property that encouraged unexpected visitors, and it would be all but impossible to sneak into.

Difficult to get out of, too. I’d walked the entire block, and I couldn’t spot an alternative exit. The only option was to be funneled out past the guardhouse and the scanning machine and the metal gates and the surveillance cameras. Anybody leaving would be highly visible. So would anything they happened to be carrying. And that made me think some more about the mysterious package that had been swiped from the ambassador’s office. The thief would have had to come out this way. They would have had to pass through close scrutiny. There was always the risk of a routine search. And if they were carrying anything unusual or suspicious, there was every chance they’d be challenged. Did that mean the item was small? Easily concealed? And if so, how small were we talking? Because if it was tiny, then perhaps I really had overlooked it in the three locations I’d already searched.

I sipped my coffee. I smoked my cigarette. I gave it a good deal more thought.

As eight o’clock approached, more and more embassy staff arrived. Some came by bicycle, wearing glistening raincoats and waterproof trousers. Others arrived on foot, carrying black umbrellas above their heads and briefcases by their sides. The rest came by car. I counted six vehicles in all. It was the same routine every time.

A black town car with tinted glass and diplomatic plates would approach the security booth at the end of the street. The driver would power down his window. One of the armed guards would lean out of the lighted hut into the gauzy drizzle and inspect the driver’s credentials. Then the bollards would be lowered and the car would ease along the street, windscreen wipers sweeping lazily from side to side, and turn toward the double gates at the front of the embassy building. The gates would shuffle apart. Then the car would glide inside and the gates would narrow behind it, leaving just enough space for a cyclist or a pedestrian to enter.

Watching the cars gave me another idea. I guessed it was only the most senior staff who were provided with vehicles and allowed to park inside the embassy building. And their cars had tinted windows. They had spacious trunks and countless little cubbyholes. They would be ideal for concealing a stolen item. Perfect for shuttling that item out through the embassy gates and along the street and away.

I was still considering the possibilities a short while later when I saw movement from the inner guardhouse. A door opened and a man stepped out. He passed through the metal gates and hustled toward me.

He was a short, stocky guy, dressed in a tight-fitting blue suit with a white shirt and dark tie. His graying hair was trimmed army-style and I could see a flesh-colored wire extending from his shirt collar to his right ear. His left hand was pressed flat against his chest, holding his tie in place against the wet, blustery wind. His right was down by his waist, tucking the tails of his jacket behind a gun holster with a pistol in it.

I slurped my coffee and tapped some ash from my cigarette, then plugged it back into the corner of my mouth.

“Sir,” the man said. He was approaching me in a crablike stance, sideways on. “Can we help you?”

“Help me?” I asked, venting smoke off to one side.

“Sir, this is the British embassy. You’ve been standing here for close to an hour.”

I nodded over his shoulder, toward the fascia of the building. A British Government crest, fashioned from metal, was fixed to the wall. The words
BRITISH EMBASSY
were etched into the sandstone beside it.

“I kind of figured.”

The man fitted his hand around his pistol. He adjusted his grip. “Sir, you can’t just stand here.”

“Why not? It’s a public street.” I gestured along it with my cigarette. “People are walking through here all the time.”

“Sir, if I have reason to believe you pose a security risk to the embassy, I can ask you to move along.”

“So ask. But I’m not a security risk. What are you afraid of—that I might flick my cigarette at a window?”

He removed his free hand from his tie and held it in the air, palm out. “Sir, I’m going to ask you to stay very still. I don’t want you to move.”

He lowered his mouth toward his shirt collar. Mumbled something incoherent.

“Make up your mind,” I told him. “First you want me to leave. Now you want me to stay still.”

“Sir, this is no joke. What we have here is a situation.”

“You don’t have a situation.” I gestured at him with my cigarette, holding it between my finger and thumb, like a dart. “You have a request. A deadly serious one.”

“Sir?”

“I need to speak with Freddy Farmer. I need to speak to him inside his office, inside your precious embassy. I need that to happen within five minutes from now.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Sure you do,” I told him, taking a lingering draw on my cigarette. “Freddy sent you out here, didn’t he? I’m guessing he turned up in one of those blacked-out town cars I’ve seen driving into the building. Then I’m guessing he phoned down to your guard booth and told you to make sure I was sent on my way. But that’s not going to happen. At least, not how Freddy has in mind. Now,” I added, evacuating smoke through my nostrils, “I want you to go back inside and dial his extension. I want you to tell him that unless he agrees to have me escorted inside your building and up to his office, I’m going to walk round the corner into the middle of Pariser Platz, and I’m going to start shouting in my loudest voice about the very things he doesn’t want me to mention. Got that?”

The man peered at me for a moment, then glanced over his shoulder toward the embassy entrance. I could tell he was conflicted. He was feeling that way because I’d guessed right about Freddy. And that gave me some legitimacy in his eyes.

“I won’t move a muscle,” I told him. “I won’t even inhale. But if you don’t do as I say, you’re going to regret it. You’ll probably be fired. Chances are, you won’t be working here tomorrow.”

The man fixed on my eyes for a moment longer, then scuttled backward. I watched him enter his guardhouse. I saw him pick up a phone. Less than a minute later, he beckoned me over to him.

I took a final draw on my cigarette, flicked the butt away, and swirled the cooling coffee around in the bottom of my cup. I passed through the metal gates. The security guard was joined by his colleague. He was dressed the same. Built the same. He even spoke the same.

“Sir, come toward me through the scanner.”

I did as he requested. The scanner beeped as I passed through. I wasn’t surprised. They hadn’t asked me to empty my pockets. I was pretty sure it was deliberate. I guessed they were trying to intimidate me.

“Sir, raise your arms.”

I lifted them from my waist, parallel to my shoulders, my coffee cup in my right hand. The guy approached me. He patted me down thoroughly. He started at my wrists, then worked along my arms, down through my chest, my waist, my legs, my feet.

“Remove your shoes.”

“If you ask me,” I told him, “I reckon the beeping noise came from what’s inside my pockets.”

“Your shoes, sir.”

I sighed. Kicked off my scuffed baseball trainers. They were empty. The guy ducked behind the scanner and returned with a small plastic tray.

“Empty your pockets.”

“Now why didn’t I think of that?”

I dumped my coffee cup in the tray, then rummaged inside my trouser pockets and added my wallet and my house keys, my cigarettes and my lighter.

“Anything inside your coat?” he asked.

“Other than me?” He didn’t even smile. “Here,” I said, and dropped my penlight and my spectacles case inside his tray.

He checked everything in turn. He parted the compartments of my wallet and shuffled through my cards, verifying my name. He took a peek at my cigarettes, even raising the pack to his nostrils and sniffing the filters. He flashed my torch off and on. Then he pried open my spectacles case and did a swift double take.

“What’s all this?”

“My tool kit,” I told him. “I’m a handyman.”

It was true. In a fashion. But he didn’t believe a word of it. He turned to his colleague, the one who’d crossed the street to speak with me. He showed him my collection of picks and probes. My shims and torsion wrenches. The nine-volt battery, the coiled lengths of electrical wire, the razor blade, the micro screwdrivers, the fountain pen with the lid removed.

“What’s all this?” his colleague asked.

“Amazing acoustics you have here,” I told the first guy. “It took almost a minute for your echo to come back to me.”

“You can’t bring these inside.”

“Fine. I’ll collect them on my way out.”

“And you can leave the torch, too. And the cigarettes. This is a no-smoking building.”

I stuffed my wallet and my keys and my lighter back inside my trouser pockets. I put on my shoes. Then I reached for my coffee cup and toasted the guy who’d conducted my search.

“Follow me,” said the guy who’d crossed the street. “Stick close.”

“Like glue.”

He led me across an open-air courtyard. The embassy building surrounded us on all sides. There was a lot of glass and gray granite and exposed metal. It was very contemporary. Achingly so. In the center of the courtyard was a single English oak. It looked a little lonely. A little sad. I felt like I could relate.

I was marched around the tree and through a set of revolving glass doors to a reception counter where I was made to sign a register and take a security pass. Then I was accompanied up a flight of stairs and across another large courtyard enclosed beneath an expansive glass atrium. I clocked an impressive collection of modern art. Coiling sandstone sculptures, a large wall painting, a pair of light boxes, and a circular, mirrored sculpture by Anish Kapoor.

“This way,” the guy said. “Keep up.”

There was nobody else around. Our footfall was loud and ominous in the cavernous space. We climbed more stairs to a galleried balcony, where a guy in a blue uniform was pushing a mail trolley along. Then we turned a couple of corners and strolled along a couple of corridors until the guard paused outside a door with Freddy’s name tacked to it.

He squared his shoulders. He rolled his neck. He coughed into one fist and raised the other as if to knock. He hesitated.

“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” I said, and opened the door and breezed right in.

Freddy was sitting on an inflatable turquoise posture ball behind a very large wooden desk, with his head in his hands. His tie was loosened and the collar of his white shirt was unbuttoned. There were stains under his armpits and a day’s worth of stubble on his chin. His eyes were red-rimmed and glassy. His tightly curled hair was greasy and sticking out all over his head, like a bunch of loose springs.

“Good news,” I said, and raised my takeaway cup in the air. “I’ve brought you some coffee.”

TWENTY-FOUR

Freddy didn’t seem impressed by the coffee. He was even less impressed when he pried the plastic lid off and saw the cold dregs in the bottom. He turned up his nose and tossed the takeaway cup into a metal bin beneath his desk. Then he teetered to one side on his giant inflatable ball and peered behind me, as if he suspected that I might be concealing something from him.

“Did you find the item?” he asked.

“Afraid not.”