Krysalis: Krysalis (2 page)

“Hardly worth raising, really,” Shorrocks put in. “This is Krysalis.” Brewster’s voice had turned acid.
“It’s not just your common or garden in-depth vet, now is it?”

“Sorry.”

“Lescombe will understand, I’m sure, that we don’t want to overlook anything.” Brewster’s irritation was unappeased. “With the Vancouver summit less than three months away, and Washington breathing down our necks.”

“Quite,” David said. “Please ask me anything you like.”

His polite smile signaled that he did not anticipate any disasters, but inside him fear was gathering. If he could but pass this, he would become a member of the elite Krysalis committee, that select band of Englishmen and Americans whose job it was to prepare ground plans for the next European war. It would mean more money, more prestige, but above all it would mean that he belonged. That at the impossibly early age of forty-two he’d become a major power player. For a second he let himself imagine that moment of bliss when he would say to Anna: “I’ve done it!” Next second he had levered himself back to reality to hear Shorrocks say, “Your wife, Anna.”

With an effort David somehow managed to keep his face under control.

“At one time she seemed to be rather friendly with a German chappie.”

“Indeed?” David forced himself to produce an unruffled smile.
Say something!
“Am I allowed to ask, what does friendly mean, in this context?”

“Just that. Our informant … let me see …” Brewster flipped through several pages. “Ah, yes … this is a couple of years back, although it only surfaced recently…. A Treasury man, went to his favorite
restaurant, there was your wife at the next table, didn’t seem to notice him although they’d met before … her companion talked fluent German to a passing acquaintance, obviously his native language….”

“So it’s linguistics in the Treasury now, is it? I often wondered what they did.”

Idiot! They don’t like fun and games.
But Shorrocks laughed; and this time even Brewster permitted himself a smile. Only the female commander continued to sit there, flintlike. Shorrocks wrote something on a scrap of paper and slid it in front of Brewster, who affected not to see it. David would have given three years’ pension to know what it was.

“I think that must be Duggy Atkinson,” he said quickly. “Your source.”

“I’m afraid we’re not allowed to disclose—”

“Oh, quite. Do excuse me.”

Brewster cleared his throat. “Then it would appear that the same thing happened the next week and the week after that.”

“I see. Two years ago, you say?”

“Yes.”

David looked up at the ceiling, as if pursuing some elusive memory. In truth, he was trying to quell the apprehension that had begun to undermine him. What on earth had Anna been up to? No, don’t think about that, just
deal with it.
“But not since then … however, the restaurant sounds all right.” David was seized with a sudden inspiration. He took out his diary. “What’s it called?”

Shorrocks chuckled. He produced the restaurant’s name and even, after further research, a phone number. “According to our source, you should try the salade Nicoise.”

“I see.” David’s forehead creased in a frown. “I’m sorry, I feel I’m missing something terribly obvious but … it hasn’t been made a crime to have lunch with Germans, has it?”
Wonderful! Keep going!

“Do we know which Germany?” the woman commander asked; and David turned to her. “I think we can safely assume West Germany,” he said.

“Why?” she asked.

David raised his eyebrows. “East Germans having lunch with lady barristers, well … ha ha. That
would
be in the file, now wouldn’t it?”

“Ha ha,” Brewster agreed. “But you can see our problem, I’m sure. Do you recognize this man, from our informant’s description?”

David shook his head. “Anna’s circle of friends doesn’t totally overlap with mine. Possibly a client? She’s always had quite an extensive Euro-practice.”

“Possibly.” Brewster made a note. “Now you know the next question, and it’s a frightful bore, I realize that, but—”

“How’s the marriage?”

“Ah …”

“Sound as a bell, I’m happy to say.”

“You’re surprised by this information but not perturbed by it; would that be a correct summary?”

Damn right!
David thought; but what he said was: “As to the second part of your analysis, yes; the first part gives me pause. I don’t find it surprising that my wife should lunch several times with the same man. What were they discussing, do we know?”

“We don’t.”

David shrugged. “She’s a barrister, very successful. Quite a lot of wining and dining goes on at the bar, from what I hear.”

“When you next see your wife, will you put this to her?” Shorrocks asked.

“Something that happened two years ago? I suppose I might. If I remember, which I probably won’t. Why, would you like me to?”

“Noo …” Shorrocks shook his head with a smile. “And for the record, let me just say that Lescombe does have a point: the Germans—half of ‘em—are on our side now, you know. Not like last time.”

Big Ben struck the quarter, affording Brewster an excuse to crush his ebullient colleague with magisterial silence. “Can I take it, then,” Brewster said at last, “that you have no objections to the admission of Mr. Lescombe to the Krysalis Committee?”

“You can.”

Brewster opened a plastic-backed folder at the last page. David drew a deep breath. Brewster was uncapping his fountain pen, was actually on the point of appending his signature, when Shorrocks cleared his throat and David’s chest tightened. Surely there could be nothing else,
surely?
But Shorrocks merely nodded toward the far end of the table.

“Commander?” Brewster’s face was flushed.

“No objections from Branch, sir.”

Brewster signed.

David sprinted through the arch into Whitehall as if competing for a place on the Olympic team. He did not pause until he came to a phone booth on the fringe of Trafalgar Square. It seemed like an eternity before Anna’s clerk put her on the line, but then there was that wonderful, musical voice: “Darling! How did it go? Did they …?”

“Yes!”

“Oh
David!”

“It’s all right. It’s all right.” Memories of his wife having lunch with mysterious Germans fled from his mind, leaving only a heady mixture of love and exultation. Let Anna have lunch with everyone and anyone, who cared?

“I knew it,” she cried, “The champagne’s already in the fridge; damn it, I’ll put another bottle in to chill the minute I get home.”

David was trembling; he could scarcely hold the receiver steady, but one thing he must say and the words came rushing out, “I’m too ill to drink—”

“Ill! What’s wrong?”

“Nothing that a few hours in bed with you won’t cure.”

He ran out of the booth, leaving the receiver to swing at the end of its cord. When the next caller in the queue picked up the phone, he was astonished to hear a woman’s joyous laughter still echoing down the line.

CHAPTER
2

When Jürgen Barzel turned the key in the lock of his Köpenick apartment that evening he had no idea that he was opening up the end of the world. Then he entered, caught sight of Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung’s Colonel Huper perched on the kitchen table, swinging a bamboo swagger cane against his leg, and he knew. Twenty years of heartache, gone for nothing.

“Books,” Huper said mournfully. “Why, Jürgen?” It was the use of his first name that told Barzel how serious things were.

“You were the best HVA had,” Huper went on, coming out to meet Barzel. They stood face to face opposite the door to the huge living room. Huper gestured with his cane. Barzel looked. They had taken up the floorboards. All of them.

There was nothing for them to find, but still he wanted to vomit. Something rose out of his stomach and he swallowed it down hard, repelled by the awful aftertaste. His teeth chattered with cold. Somehow he
managed to keep them clenched together. It was all right as long as he averted his eyes from the carnage that once had been his living room.

“Four thousand books, and more,” Huper went on. “You’re the best we have. And you make a library for yourself.”

Barzel became aware of others in his apartment: gray men in macintoshes, who now seemed to come slithering out of his carved oak paneling like rats from a sinking vessel.

Barzel looked down to find the tip of Huper’s cane planted against his breastbone. “You
are
a library. You know that, mm?” When Barzel said nothing, Huper continued: “Every secret service has two or three like you. ‘Why use the computer; Barzel’s in the building?’ A walking library. Twenty years of knowledge. Secrets. Connections. Cross-references.”

Huper sighed. He was short and stout and he had little hair left; his face was that of a schoolmaster who has uncovered a drug ring in his honors class. Now he removed the cane from Barzel’s chest and said, “Let’s talk.”

He raised his voice and ordered the apartment emptied. The gray rats scuttled. Moments later the two men were alone.

Huper eyed Barzel. “Want a drink?”

For the first time since entering his domain, Barzel felt strong enough to speak. “There’s whisky … but of course, you know.”

Huper nodded lugubriously. “I know.”

They sat in the kitchen and drank. “Shakespeare,” Huper said between fastidious sips. “Proust.” Sip. “Boll.” Sip. “Orwell.”

“Who told you?” Barzel asked.

“One of your bookseller friends. Someone you’d tried to help get over the border, in exchange for a handful of first editions.”

That must have been Ratner, Barzel supposed; Ratner who was so good on the Romantic poets. He did not feel resentment toward his betrayer, any more than he hated Colonel Huper, who had been a humane boss over the years. Rather, he felt a bizarre kind of gratitude toward this man, who at last had set him free. Perhaps in prison they would allow him to keep some of the books….

Yes, that was it, Barzel told himself: Concentrate on doing a deal to keep the books with you in jail. Even if it’s only ten of them.
The Analects.
And Ovid, no, not Ovid, oh dear God in heaven,
which …?

Huper started to speak, sighed, tried again. “I know why you did it, Jürgen. Retirement. Old age. These books are worth a fortune on the black market, aren’t they?”

Barzel stared at him, keeping his face expressionless. What was Huper talking about? Books were beyond price. They took you far away, into a world circumscribed only by your own mind, your own imagination. A world of civilized values, rare sensations, exotic scents. A world, above all, where the Communist party of East Germany, and its secret service, the HVA, occupied none of the space.

Barzel looked into the colonel’s eyes and knew a moment of hope. “They’re worth a lot,” he admitted slowly. “In the right hands.”

Could Huper be bribed?

“We have a problem, Jürgen. Don’t we?”

Hope died.

“We have a problem … more than one. Does the name Krysalis mean anything to you?”

Barzel thought the colonel must be referring to a book title. He frowned, shook his head.

“We have a little problem, we have a little opportunity. The KGB invites our cooperation in obtaining a British file entitled ‘Krysalis.’ It must be done before the Vancouver summit.”

Barzel, knowing himself to be at the end of his career, could not understand why Huper was telling him this. Might as well show interest … “Why have we been singled out for this …” The two men’s eyes met briefly. “… privilege?”

“One of your agents in place has a connection with this file.”

“Who?”

“Gerhard Kleist.”

Barzel had been struggling with the realization that Huper might offer him some kind of deal. But on hearing Kleist’s name, his hopes fell again. The steam had gone out of that one, long ago.

Huper leaned forward to rest his elbows on the table. “Jürgen. Listen to me. You can keep the job. The car. The apartment. Even the books.”

Breath rushed through Barzel’s lips, his heart jolted against his ribcage, he felt dizzy. “The books?”

“Yes. All of them. Even the banned ones, the ones you stole on raids. But …”

Barzel scarcely heard the “but.” “Thank you,” he breathed. “Thank you, thank you, thank you …” He could not stop speaking the meaningless phrase.

“But it won’t be
easy.”

Barzel’s lips continued to move; now, however, as he
caught sight of the glint in Huper’s eyes, they moved soundlessly.

“You have to get that file, Jürgen.
Soon.
Otherwise …” Huper spread his hands, shook his head. “Finish. Sorry.”

Barzel stared at him, his heartfelt elation dwindling rapidly now.

“Gorbachev needs that file for Vancouver, you see. So the KGB must have it. So they’re leaning on me. I’m leaning on you.” Huper smiled, made a pathetic attempt at humor. “The only person nobody’s leaning on is Gorbachev.” His expression had turned painful. He wiped his face with his hand, then said: “I don’t like screwing you. Really. But we do have to have that file.” He paused. “Or I’ll make a bonfire, Jürgen. A four-thousand-volume bonfire.”