The Oktober Projekt (39 page)

‘You have nothing to worry about,’ he said, a clumsy knot to
his voice. ‘You are safe. Blümhof is an animal,’ he added, seeing for himself
the depth of her beauty, the reason why she’d become the preferred honeytrap
bait.

‘They threatened to kill her,’ Freja said with a narrow smile.

‘They would,’ he answered, going through into a small office.

The office was painted a dull brown with a stout ledger desk
taking pride of place under a window. Blueprints, newspaper cuttings and
steerage charts were pinned in no order on the walls, a pot bellied stove gave
the only warmth dropping ash into a split pan. There was a smell of cigars,
cheap aftershave and cooking more than a day old. Nick however had no surge of
excitement, or righteous justification or even cathartic release; which given
the circumstances might have been appropriate. Instead, he paid much attention
to a sepia print coming away from its frame. Young faces discoloured over the
years turned brown, given a hard edge, as though their skin were leather. A group
of them arranged stiffly at the stern of a yacht about to be launched. From its
mast, tails of bunting were caught in a breeze that would later carry the scent
of war and death. The waiting is almost over he decided, heading out into the
yard.

• • •

Nick drove away from the river into a
plantation of saplings as slender as nails, a snowplough lumbering up the road
behind him as he made a tedious journey back into Hamburg and Venlag & Co.
GmbH. The company had its registered base in a small suite of rented offices
behind the solid Gothic-styled brick walls of a former spice warehouse; its
jutting gables and towers climbing high above Pickhuben, marooned between
canals in the port’s Speicherstadt district. Besides Jack Balgrey’s quite
spacious office, there was a small anteroom for Lucy, a Service administrator
and behind secure metal doors, the comms room run by Euan, a bookish
thirty-year old who longed for an exotic embassy posting with a communications
room larger than a cupboard.
   

But as Nick patrolled outside that evening, only a single light
burnt in Balgrey’s office on the third floor. Headlights streamed past Nick as
he rounded the back of the warehouse, the city running up to full flood as
commuters and shoppers poured towards the autobahn and suburbs. Rolling in
along the canal a fine web of mist clung to the freezing air. Come on, Jack
what’s keeping you? Nick walked off the cold in his legs, fifteen paces each
way never moving from the shadows, not stepping near the security camera’s
infrared cone. The Volkswagen had a coating of dust and dried mud down each
wheel arch and was the dirtiest in the car park; a burgundy estate that Jack
Balgrey finally approached at a quarter past seven, careless, not checking the
shadows.

Whipping round too late as he opened his door, Balgrey never
saw Nick strike. A low punch in the small of his back followed by the Heckler
& Koch jammed roughly into Balgrey’s flabby neck.

‘It’s time we talked, Jack, time we talked about a house on
Fehmarn.
 
Time we talked about you working for Moscow. Time we
talked about everything,’ Nick whispered into his ear. ‘We’re going for a
drive, Jack,’ he ordered, lowering the weapon, resting its muzzle under
Balgrey’s ribs.

‘Steady on, old son,’ groaned Balgrey clutching his side, his
breath drawn hard into his chest gave wheezy lunges that rocked his body. ‘I
don’t know what you’re flaming talking about, but you’ve done damage, old son,
that’s what you’ve done. Put that thing away before you do me a permanent
injury.’ His back curved away from the seat too brittle to be straight, his
unblinking eyes observing Nick’s steely stare.

‘Drive, Jack, because we don’t want disturbing do we? You
follow my directions. Now drive.’

Closing his eyes, Balgrey shifted his body in the seat. Sheila
was right, Sheila his wife was never wrong. Too old, too slow, not sharp enough
for a tough operator like Torr any more. He should have thrown in the towel
years ago, taken a pub in Dorset, a free house with passing trade and a tasty
barmaid to ease the winter nights. As long as they had somewhere for Sheila’s
bloody precious dolls they’d be fine. Starting the engine he found a gear and
drove; traffic lights, festive lights, colour and ruddy pain. He teased himself
with a clip of how he’d bolt for it, taking his chance at a red light. Glancing
at Nick’s face set tight next to him, he swallowed his plan concentrating on
trying to memorise the route, anything to give him hope. Ten bloody years too
late for anything remotely heroic against someone as good as Torr.

‘Bloody hell, old son,’ he said, as Nick made him cut a corner
and park in what must have been the darkest spot in the city near the Altona
fish quays.

‘Out.’ Nick barged him towards the door. Jack Balgrey, our man
in Hamburg, fifty plus and never going to change. A booze soaked mind that ran
on dreams of his retirement, the fuel for a lack of imagination. ‘Out.’

‘Steady on old son.’

‘Move, Jack, we’re running out of time.’ Nick shoved him
forward on a long churned cinder track cutting into a gorge of factory walls
covered in moss and green streaks, melting snow spewed from smashed
gutters.
 

‘How long have you been Moscow’s stooge? London aware of the
property you manage for Moscow?’ He jabbed the swelling chest with the Heckler
& Koch and Balgrey stumbled backwards into a cobbled loading bay. Falling,
he crumpled saturated cardboard boxes and smashed a couple of empty bottles.
‘Come on Jack, lost your tongue?’

‘Look old son, I don’t know what your game is but you’re
scaring me,’ he wined. Puffing and blowing he got onto his feet. ‘I’m one step
down to retirement here, old son. I’m ignorant of what anyone’s got up their
sleeves. I run the office, do what London ask, pass on the tittle-tattle Petra
thinks is gold, but that’s about it. Moscow, old son, I would never get
involved.’ He shivered and pulled his coat together. His fingers trying to
fasten the buttons that had burst free as he went down. ‘I’m an outside
interest as far as London’s concerned, someone to pass on tips about raids and
busts, and that’s all I can tell you, old son.’
 

‘Come on Jack, you were working late this evening. What’s all
that about?’

‘End of year accounts, London want ‘em filed by yesterday.’

‘Part of your duties to be a caretaker is it Jack?’

‘Don’t know what you mean, old son.’

‘Lets begin with the house near Puttgarden,’ Nick suggested.

‘Why would I have anything to do with a house on Fehmarn?’
Balgrey asked.

‘I don’t know, Jack, that’s why you’re going to tell me.
Explain about the arrangements you have with a Swiss company for the upkeep of
the house.’

Balgrey laughed but it was only nerves, the type when a student
is caught cheating in an exam, a natural mechanism for defence.
 

‘Hear the river Jack? Not far to walk is it? Out on your own
they’d say, meeting who or what they wouldn’t know. Only assume that you must
have tripped, gone into the water swallowed a lot, bobbing up and down in your
heavy overcoat. Alive, just, thinking of someone you care for until along comes
a passing ship. Death by drowning, Jack, that’s not a way to retire. Tell me
about London, Moscow and the Puttgarden house? Save getting yourself wet,
Jack.’

‘I’m with you, old son, I’m
walking up the hill fast, I
comprehend.’

‘About the house?’

‘Came as part and parcel of the posting,’ said Balgrey,
‘another routine that I had to tick the box for. Look old son, whatever
mischief you think I’ve been getting myself into was already here when I
arrived,’ he said, his flaccid throat quivering.
    

‘Now you’ve got that out of the way, how about telling me the
truth before I lose my patience? Come on Jack, spit it out,’ Nick hissed, his
nose almost touching Balgrey’s. ‘Tell me about London, you doing your bit,
Moscow and the house? What’s the arrangement? I’m losing confidence in you. I’m
sorely tired with people not cooperating.’

He’d run, he bloody well would. A couple of times Jack’s leg
had twitched in a sprinter’s nervous longing as he out manoeuvred Torr in his
mind, but where would he reach? Out of condition and giving umpteen or more
years to Torr, he’d get nowhere fast.

‘Look old son, this isn’t going to do you any good,’ he said,
going for some of the guff he’d ladled out over the years.

‘The house, start with that.’

‘You’re crowding me old son, I’ve a lot of face to lose if all
this comes down about my ears.’

‘You?’ Nick flung out his arms, turned in a half circle of fury
and his composure went. He swung hard and Balgrey sank to his knees in pain.
‘You’ve not even started to hurt yet, Jack.’ He dragged Balgrey to his feet and
stood back. ‘Answers.’

‘Hamburg was a smack in the face, a don’t thank us posting to a
backwater Service post-office,’ Balgrey wheezed. ‘I have a year to run before
early retirement and for that reason London couldn’t work out where I should
spend my final posting. Square peg and round hole syndrome, old son. So when my
predecessor here managed to apparently drown himself on his annual scuba diving
trip in Egypt, London had a solution to its problem of what to do with me. My
routine old son, is to sit tight and do what I’m asked until I retire.’

‘The house Jack?’

‘So what is there to tell?’ Balgrey shrugged and finally
thought it safe to straighten up, his hands off his knees facing one bloody
dangerous Nick Torr. ‘The house was all part of the mundane and not very
exciting in-tray I inherited from Partington when he failed to surface from the
Red Sea. There was the usual watch list, potential contacts, potential spooks
and one grand coastal pile on Fehmarn, for the Hamburg officer to provide
adequate care and upkeep of, lock, stock and barrel, including a bunch of keys.
Another Venlag property I had to manage, so what, it was cosy for everyone, old
son.’

‘Didn’t you find that odd?’

Swabbing his mouth with a handkerchief, Balgrey bent and
straightened once more, forcing air inside his lungs. ‘Why should I, old son? I
presumed it was just another safe house, one of the many that we have salted
across the globe.’

‘So if I asked you nicely about Partington, you’d be able to
give me all the details?’

Balgrey laughed right in his face, rotten breath and serve him
right. Nick Torr, the hero on his white flaming charger. ‘You’re sounding
obsessed, old son.’

‘How long had Partington been in Hamburg?’

‘Ask personnel.’ The handkerchief swabbed again, the brightest
object around.

‘I’m asking you, Jack, and this is your last chance,’ said
Nick, taking off the safety, raising the Heckler & Koch. ‘How long?’
Shouting, his finger tense, he was ready to squeeze the trigger; a lever had
tripped releasing the venom and destructive charge. ‘Tell me?’

‘Since 2000, maybe 2001, but I can’t be sure,’ Balgrey
disclosed, ramming the handkerchief into his pocket.

‘Did you visit the house?’

‘Once or twice a month as per standing orders and no, there
wasn’t a bunch of squatters in there, no it wasn’t my pension policy that I
hired it out. I just did precursory checks inside and outside, made sure there
were no problems and on the odd occasion that a job needed doing I got local
trades in, paid up and sent the receipt to Switzerland,’ Balgrey said. ‘Good
old Jack, never let anyone down.’

‘So help me Jack, you expect me to believe that someone with
your experience never queried why a Service safe house had its upkeep paid for
through a Swiss company? That you weren’t required to call in our own trades
for maintenance from London, come on Jack you’re beginning to disappoint me
again. You know London is all about accountability, Jack don’t you, every penny
scrutinised by accounts, no wastage, no overspend.’

Jack forlornly squinted around, looking for a way out or help
but there was nothing forthcoming. ‘All right,’ Balgrey confessed, ‘I was
informed that it was a joint venture between us, the Canadians and Americans
called Operation Five Star Delivery, funding was a three-way split, hence the
Swiss company as a front. As the nearest station Hamburg was tasked to maintain
and care for the place, two trips each month to check its condition and any
problems we had to sort locally.’
 

‘Who briefed you?’

‘Jane Stratton, old son, came under the jurisdiction of that
Special Operations Directorate.’

‘Why the isolation from
London?’ Nick wondered, but he already knew the answer.

‘It’s a sort of half-way terminus for anything coming in from
Eastern Europe. That’s the truth, old son, the whole truth and nothing less or
more.’

‘How does it work?’

‘The house is used to meet a
senior Ukrainian agent, high-ranking, plenty of stars on his chest. Us, the
Americans and Canadians take it in turns for a heart-to-heart, no fixed and
fast dates and that’s why it’s checked religiously twice a month.’

‘Then you do what?’

Jack Balgrey, for the very first time that evening, and quite
possibly even in months, shook his head in complete honest ignorance.

‘You report to who, Jack? Who do you tell it’s clear, all tidy,
ready for action, who do you tell?’

‘No one, old son, I’m just the caretaker.’

‘Someone in London makes the arrangements, Jack, that it?’
proposed Nick.

‘Look old son,’ said Balgrey getting agitated. ‘I’m this close
to signing off and it isn’t my place to question the eighth floor’s strategic decision
making policy. I’d be hauled back home and let go. Thanks Jack old thing, very
nice what you’ve achieved, nothing fantastic, but solid stuff, now bugger off
and collect what little pension you’ve got coming to you. Me, I’m just content
minding my own business, don’t want to rock the boat, old son, nothing wrong
with that is there?’