The Berlin Conspiracy (10 page)

I took a seat across from Powell, who showed signs of rigor mortis. That was fine with me—he could give me the evil eye all night and I’d be very happy. There was a pack of Kents on the table, so I reached across and helped myself. I noticed that the magazine, which he’d set aside, was open
to a photo spread of a Buddhist monk who’d committed suicide in Saigon by dousing his body with gasoline then setting himself ablaze. The picture was making all the papers and getting Vietnam a lot of unwelcome attention, from our perspective anyway. The monk was protesting against the regime of President Diem, a Catholic who by all accounts treated the Buddhists pretty badly—his troops had recently fired into a street demonstration and killed nine monks. All this made things awkward for us since we had about sixteen thousand military “advisors” supporting Diem’s fight against Ho Chi Minh. But the way I heard it, Diem was more concerned about the Buddhists than he was about the Communists and there were rumors that he might even be talking peace with the North. If that was true, his days were numbered, and it wouldn’t be a very high number.

Powell coolly watched me smoke his cigarette down to the filter before he spoke up.

“It’s true what they say, then.”

“Okay,” I smiled gamely. “I’ll bite. What do they say?”

“That you’re such a dumb asshole you don’t even know when you’re being well and truly fucked.”

“You’re just upset because I made you look like a jerk.” I crushed the butt in a tinfoil ashtray. “By the way, what did you put in your report? I mean, you couldn’t really say that you got locked in the bathroom, could you? Stuff like that tends to stick.”

He smiled, but not out of amusement. “You’d better have a damned good story for me.”

“I don’t know about the story”—I shrugged—”but I’ve got a hell of a storyteller.”

“Go on,” he said. “Make me happy.”

“Would a STASI colonel do it for you?”

It stopped him cold. He pulled his feet off the table,
leaned forward, and extracted one of the Kents from the pack. “How do you know that?”

“He told me,” I answered.

“Maybe he’s lying.”

“No, he’s for real,” I said flatly. “I’m sure of that.” Powell gave me a dubious look, but he believed me.

“Name?”

“He wouldn’t go that far,” I said. “But you’ve probably got him on file.” I was hoping to get stuck on the question of identity and avoid talk of assassination plots until the morning, when Sam arrived. I could look at photos all night.

“Does he want to come over?”

I shook my head. “No. That was the first thing out of his mouth.”

“Can we get him to double?”

“I didn’t get that impression.”

He paused to light up and think. “So? What does he want?”

“Well…” I shifted in my seat, tried to look like I was considering it. “He was kind of elusive. You know, said a lot but didn’t give out much.”

Powell knew I was stalling. He gave me a look, stood up, and paced the room a couple of times before stubbing out his cigarette and sitting on the edge of the table. Taking the high ground.

“You had two meetings with the guy, correct?”

“Right.”

“Why don’t you take me through it? Step-by-step.”

There was no legitimate reason to hold out on him. After all, he was chief of station and had an absolute right to know everything the Colonel had said to me, word for word. But the guy was cross-examining me in an interrogation room. What an asshole.

“I’d rather wait for Sam,” I said.

He went rigid and his face started to turn red. I really thought he was gonna go pop this time.

“Who the hell do you think you’re talking to, Teller?” he snarled, low and quiet, from the back of his throat.

“Look, Chief, I don’t want to fuck with you,” I lied. “It’s just that Sam brought me into this and I feel like I should go over it with him before anybody else. It’s not personal.” I ended with a smile.

That was bullshit, of course, and he knew it. But there was another, more legitimate reason I didn’t want to say anything. The idea of a conspiracy within the U.S. government to assassinate the president seemed even more far-fetched now than it did when I’d first heard it. I didn’t want to give Powell the pleasure of laughing in my face.

At the moment, of course, he wasn’t laughing.

“Okay,” he said, standing up. “If that’s how you want to play it, that’s how we’ll play it.” He scooped up his magazine and headed for the door. “Sorry we don’t have any jet sprays in here for you. Sleep well,” and he turned out the lights. I stretched out on the floor and, actually, I didn’t sleep too badly.

Sam was the last one off the aircraft, which had flown in from Frankfurt with a motley crew of journalists, Secret Service, and advance men. He finally emerged with the pilot, immersed in deep conversation. They stopped at the bottom of the stairs, Sam talking excitedly and jabbing his finger into the man’s chest, the pilot holding his ground. Finally the two men shook hands and parted.

Sam spotted us and sauntered over with a cocky grin on his face. “I just got three-to-one on Clay to take the title from Liston. Dumb bastard. Where’s the car?”

“Over there.” Powell pointed toward the terminal building
where we’d left the driver. Sam took the lead and we fell into step.

“Did you see what the kid did to Cooper in London last week? And Cooper’s no pushover.”

“I missed it,” Powell said with deliberate apathy. “What happened?”

“Your man went down, that’s what happened,” I said to Sam.

“Ah, he was playing with the guy and got caught off guard. I was there, in the first row, and I’ve got Cooper’s blood on my suit to prove it. It was over in the second round, but the kid was pussyfooting around, waiting to get him in the fifth just because he said he would. You should’ve seen him,” he laughed. “Dancing around, making faces at the poor bastard.”

“I heard the poor bastard laid Clay out pretty good,” I noted. “If Liston connects like that, they’ll have to scrape your guy off the mat.”

“You want a piece of the action?” he offered, but I declined. Sam didn’t make losing bets.

“Too bad he’s got such a loud mouth,” Powell threw in, just to stay in the conversation.

The driver, waiting by the car, opened the back door for Sam, who stopped long enough to give Powell a contemptuous look. “This kid’s got the best jab in the history of boxing and he’s gonna be champ before he’s twenty-two years old. Who the fuck cares if he’s been to charm school?”

I was starting to feel better already.

Powell sat up front with the driver, I got in back with Sam. We had a few moments of silence, just the hum of the Mercedes while Sam cut a Monte Crista and fired it up. He looked tired, older than in Miami, which had been just six months earlier. Maybe time was catching up with him, or maybe it was the travel.

“So I hear you boys don’t play well together,” he grumbled through the cigar. “What’s the story?”

Powell turned around so he could look Sam square in the face. “I want him out of my hair. He’s dangerous.”

Sam turned to me. “Jack?”

“He’s right, I am dangerous,” I said.

“And still a pain in the ass,” he muttered, before turning back to Powell. “So what the hell happened? I told you to get this guy on tape from the git-go.”

“You try wiring up a loose cannon,” Powell hissed, turning his back on us.

“He’s upset because I gave him the slip,” I said.

“You gave him the slip?”

“That’s right.”

“You locked him in your goddamned bathroom! You’re lucky he hasn’t put a bullet in you. I sure as hell would have!”

I looked at the back of Powell’s head, incredulous. “You put the bathroom thing in your report?
What’s wrong with you, man?”
He ignored me.

“He’s a team player,” Sam declared. “Unlike you.”

“Okay,” I admitted. “I’m not a team player. And if I was, you wouldn’t have a STASI colonel on the line.”

Sam gave me a look and I detected a hint of a smile. “He’s got a point there, Jim.”

Powell faced us again. “All we have is what he’s told us, which isn’t a whole hell of a lot.”

Sam nodded and turned to me. “What about it, Jack? Is this guy the real McCoy?”

“Yeah, he’s for real,” I said.

Sam turned to Powell for confirmation. “Is he?”

“Since he decided to go solo I have no way of knowing, do I?” He was pouting now.

“Did you go through the files?” Sam asked, losing patience.

“Not yet…” Powell waffled. “We didn’t have time.” I gave him a look, but kept quiet. We’d had all night to go through files.

“Well, that’s number one,” Sam said firmly. “We get an ID on this clown, then Jack makes like a tape recorder and goes into playback mode. End of discussion.”

And it was.

The “target room” at BOB was the gathering point for everything we knew about Soviet and East German operations—personnel files, architectural plans, information on safe houses and drop zones. There was even a file with names and numbers for the garbage men at hotels where government officials stayed. The ultimate Cold War reference library. Sam had cleared the room so we could sit at a table and go through the files without anyone looking over our shoulders. It didn’t take long for me to find the Colonel and I handed the folder over to Powell.

“Josef Becher,” he said. “He’s STASI all right. We’ve had him pegged for a while, although we weren’t sure of his rank.” He handed the black-and-white photos over to Sam, who put his reading glasses on and leafed through the images. They were taken in various locations around East and West Berlin—on the street, in a restaurant, getting into a car. Becher had the same solemn expression in every shot and I thought he almost seemed aware of the camera. I guess watching his back had become second nature.

I pulled his bio out of the file. It made for interesting reading:

“What’s the HVA?” I asked.

“Security admin,” Sam answered absentmindedly, still studying the photos. “The guys that run the show. Let me see that.” He held his hand out for the bio, skimmed it quickly, then removed his glasses and rocked back in his chair. “So it looks like we’ve got a big fish on the line. How do we reel him in?”

“We could start with a little more information,” Powell said pointedly.

“How about it, Jack?” Sam looked to me. “Wanna fill us in?”

“Or would you rather I leave the room?” Powell threw in sarcastically.

“Knock it off, Jim,” Sam said sharply. Powell gave him a piercing look, but Sam ignored it. “Let’s get beyond the playground. Jack—the floor’s yours.” I could feel Powell
burning a hole in me, but I kept my eyes on Sam and didn’t mince words.

“He told me there’s a plot to kill the president while he’s in Berlin.” The statement hung there for a moment while they absorbed it, then Sam leaned forward, started tapping his pen on the table. Powell continued to stare at me.

“Did he give you any details?” Sam finally asked.

“Not really.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Powell snapped.

“It means no, he didn’t give me any details.”

“Did he say anything else?” Powell asked drily. “Like who’s behind this supposed plot?”

“Not specifically.”

“For Christ’s sake,” Powell moaned.

“I assume you asked him if it’s a Soviet operation?” Sam interjected.

“I did and he said it wasn’t.”

Sam nodded slowly then continued. “Jack …” He scrunched up his face in an expression of pain. “I get the distinct feeling you’ve got something else to say. So why don’t we stop playing twenty questions and you can just spill it?”

“He said it was an intelligence operation.”

“He said that?” Sam frowned. “In those words?”

“Not exactly,” I said. They knew there was more, so I gave it to them. “He said it was being run from our side.” There was silence for a long moment, then Powell laughed contemptuously.

“That’s ridiculous!”

Sam leaned forward, cocked his head. “Do you realize what you’re saying, Jack?”

“I’m not saying anything,” I asserted. “He is.”

“You’re being taken for a ride.” Powell started gathering the photos and replacing them in the file.

“I’m just telling you what I was told.”

“Come on!” He was getting warmed up now. “The East Germans uncover a plot to kill the president and decide the one person in the world they need to tell is Jack Teller? Please!”

It was a good point.

“Any indication why he asked for you in particular?” Sam asked.

“None,” I admitted, realizing that I hadn’t even thought about that since the Colonel had sprung his story on me. It was puzzling, to say the least.

“Whatever the reason, you’re being played,” Powell asserted.

“It does look like you’re being romanced,” Sam added.

“What for?

“It’s usually because someone wants to screw you.” Sam turned to Powell. “Section 10.”

Powell gave a nod of agreement.

“What’s Section 10?” I asked.

“Disinformation,” Sam responded. then continued with Powell. “What do you think?”

Now it was Powell who didn’t want to talk in front of me. He looked at me sideways. “Don’t worry about him,” Sam said. “Tell me what you think.”