Freelance 3 CHAPTER FOUR – TEMPELHOF

Lindsay sat daydreaming as the last of the Dusseldorf passengers trickled off the plane. He visioned himself in a luxurious bedroom with dimmed lights and something tasty in a silver bucket by the bedhead, and he was watching Roswirtha beginning to strip for him, raising her arms to lift her yellow silk dress over her head, moving with a kind of sleepily sinuous grace, her eyes closed and her copper hair making a dark cascade against the paleness of her neck. He licked his lips, for the vision was almost too much for him.

A voice broke in on his reverie. ‘Thinking about your dishy redhead, dear boy?’

He frowned, opening his eyes reluctantly, to see Lester settling himself in at his side, glass in hand. His first thought was to scowl at this interruption, but then he licked his lips again, and realised that they had grown very dry. He allowed himself a gracious smile, the smile of a freelance, the smile of a winner. ‘She’s going to be in Berlin tonight.’ He spoke dreamily, as a man might speak who entertained great expectations.

The plane began to run, and swept steeply up into the air. Lester eyed him a little doubtfully. ‘Congratulations, dear boy.’ But a tiny spear of fear stabbed at the PR man’s mind, because he really did not want Lindsay distracted in any way. ‘You will churn out some copy first, won’t you?’

Lindsay held up his hand. It was empty, and he was a freelance, and he would do great deeds.

Lester signalled for a stewardess. ‘Of course, dear boy, of course.’ He ordered two miniatures of malt whisky and two black coffees, and then reflected for a moment, and ordered two more whiskies. He must have this man on side, and small whiskies were a tiny price to pay. ‘What time is she coming in?’

Lindsay emptied two scotches into the same glass and eyed Lester’s pair reflectively. Then he changed his mind. He must stay sober if he wanted to seduce and be seduced. He beamed reassuringly. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll get your pieces away before she arrives, I’ll be inspired.’ Then two thoughts crossed his mind and intertwined. He still had the best of an hour on the plane, and he needed to pinpoint Lester’s case. ‘Have you any leaflets? A press pack, or anything like that?’

Lester was alert. ‘D’you want them now?’

‘I could rough out some stuff.’

Lester was on his feet immediately. He fumbled with an overnight bag stowed in a rack just behind them, and returned with a great sheaf of print, several brochures on the Interglobal, a quantity of material about Berlin, a couple of guidebooks and a ream of press releases, to place them carefully on the little fold-down table in front of Lindsay.

Lindsay already held his ballpoint poised.

‘I’ll leave them with you, dear boy.’ Interglobal’s PR man stayed on his feet. ‘I’ll go and sit with Howard, so you’re not disturbed. Use the backs of the PR stuff as copy paper.’

But Lindsay was already busy scribbling. He was on a mission, and he must clear every potential interference from his path as quickly as he can. He raced through the brochures, soaked up some history, conjured up a couple of opening pars, sketched some notes for some charming word pictures, and was away. Intros were always the toughest part of any feature, but now he felt inspired. Clever phrases danced in his mind, and his thoughts flowed free. Soon he had three good features roughed out, and another three shorter, five hundred word options in outline form, and he began to wind down. He had broken the back of the job, before even landing in Berlin, and from now on everything was going to be smooth sailing.

Suddenly he realised that the plane had begun to circle, and remembered Roswirtha’s package. Lester was several rows in front of him, deep in conversation with Rosser, the Interglobal marketing man, but his overnight bag was virtually above Lindsay’s head.

He got to his feet, clutching paperwork, and tugged gently at the bag. It was unlocked. He quickly reached into his pocket, took the little green package to stuff it into the middle of Lester’s papers, meanwhile glancing at the PR man out of the corner of his eye. But Lester was oblivious. In a flash he rammed everything into the bag, making sure Roswirtha’s package was buried deep, and closed it again. He looked down again, and now Lester had turned to watch him, so he waved cheerily at the PR man, and edged up the aisle to stand beside him.

‘Everything’s back in your bag.’

Lester eyed him uncertainly. He could feel Rosser breathing down his neck, and it was not a very pleasant sensation. ‘Did you…?’ His voice trailed away.

‘I’ve roughed out three features, and three smaller things.’ Lindsay beamed seraphically. ‘I’ll type them up when we get to the hotel.’

‘Already?’ Lester was dumbfounded. This was beyond his wildest hopes.

‘I’m a freelance.’ Lindsay preened himself. ‘The main piece will go to The Times, because they’ve commissioned me. But I’ll also stick a colour piece in the Sunday Times, add a couple of glossies who take my stuff, bang something into the Director, and syndicate something with Tourism International. They’ll plaster me around the world.’

He noted that Rosser’s scowl had subtly transmuted into a looked of respect, and smiled briefly at Interglobal’s marketing chief.

Lester beamed. ‘You’re a star, Richard. A real star.’

A stewardess shepherded Lindsay back to his seat, and he fluttered his fingers in a victory gesture. He had done his work. Now the good times were beginning.

Tempelhof Airport was a strange place, a green strip laid out in the heart of suburban Berlin, with a terminal building in national socialist concrete that must have filled Hitler’s heart with joy. It was being phased out in favour of a big new airport at Tegel, in the French sector of Berlin, because there were apartment blocks at either end of the main runway, and new airliners demanded increasingly long distances for taking off and landing. But the American military kept it as a base, though civilian facilities were being run down.

Captain Eugen Ehrlich, duty police commander, was relaxed. He knew that a couple of heavies from the Teutonic Order were waiting down in the arrivals area to greet an inbound flight from London, but it was not really anything to do with him. They could do their own dirty work, and he would turn a blind eye, and the Yanks could sweep up any shit. But he checked the gun in his top right hand desk drawer, just in case, because he was a methodical man, and took his work very seriously. Then he lit himself a fat green cigar, provided by an American friend with access to the Tempelhof base PX. Weekend duty was always a bore, and he would much rather be sharing a beer with a colleague or two. But there was a roster, and it was his turn, and he must do what he had to do.

His telephone rang, and he reached out to answer it reluctantly. A good cigar was a good cigar, and not a thing to be disrupted.

‘Ehrlich?’ The small voice in his ear was staccato. ‘This is Dusseldorf airport police. Schulz left the Berlin flight. But she was travelling with an Englishman, height about one metre eighty, weight maybe seventyfive kilos, dark blue suit, light blue shirt, blue tie, name unknown. Altenburg wants him detained for questioning.’

Ehrlich’s teeth tightened on his cigar. ‘I’ll tell the Teutonics.’

‘No.’ The voice marched on. ‘Not if he’s carrying a British passport.’

‘Bitte?’ Ehrlich bit the word off. Police work was police work, and spy games were spy games. He was enjoying a quiet cigar, and the rest of the world could mind its own business.

‘They can’t touch Allied nationals.’

Ehrlich sighed. He hated jurisdictional problems. He ran possible options through his mind. ‘I’ll call the Americans.’

‘He’s a civilian.’

Ehrlich banged his telephone back onto its rest, and then hauled himself slowly to his feet before reaching for his uniform jacket, hanging over the back of his chair. Hee was a big man, tending a little towards overweight, square-jawed, with grey-green eyes matching his uniform. He would go down and tell the two Teutonic heavies, and notify the base military police as well, and let other people sort out this mess.

The two men from the Teutonic Order’s Berlin headquarters were both tough looking men, as squarecut as Ehrlich and with the same close-cropped hair, both in dark suits that barely camouflaged heavy bulges below their respective left shoulders. They nodded attentively as Ehrlich rapped out Lindsay’s description. Neither seemed particularly bothered at having to arrest an Englishman, or any other nationality for that matter. But a policeman hurried up just as Ehrlich was turning away.

The newcomer looked strained, and spoke quickly. ‘The Teutonics have fucked everything up at Dusseldorf.’

Ehrlich’s jaw tightened. He had a presentiment that he was going to have a bad weekend. He nodded to the man to continue.

‘One tried to arrest Schulz, found himself in a wrangle with an Englishman, snatched a gun from a cop, and the police killed them both.’

‘The Teutonic and an Englishman?’ Ehrlich struggled to make sense of what he was hearing.

‘The Teutonic and Schulz.’

‘So?’ He snarled the word, because now he knew that he was going to have a hard time.

‘You’ve got to detain him. You must use force if necessary.’

Ehrlich closed his eyes. ‘I don’t have the authority.’

‘Dusseldorf rang the BSD in Bonn, they spoke to the CIA, it’s down to you.’

The police captain took a deep breath, and then shrugged. Now he really was wading through shit. ‘Ok, I’ll do it.’ He paused for a moment, reviewing his options. ‘But I’ll need it in writing.’ He glowered at the waiting policeman. ‘Telex everybody in sight, and tell them to give me clear orders.’ Now he frowned at the two men from the Teutonic Order. ‘You both stay close to me, and get the man out of here as fast as you can. He’s your baby, not mine.’

He sighed to himself. Bang went his quiet weekend. Arresting a man would only take a few moments. But then he would have to deal with the paperwork, and the paperwork would be a pain. Tempelhof was supposed to be running down, but now it seemed to want to go out with a bang.

The next forty minutes frayed his nerves. He chew one cigar down to a pulp, then a second. A fresh message arrived from Frankfurt. A distant voice reported that Schulz was thought to have been carrying a microfilm detailing CIA operational plans, secured with British help.

‘But we can’t find it.’ The voice was bad-tempered. ‘We’ve stripped her down and lookeded at her millimetre by millimetre, we can’t find a thing. It’s not in her fanny, it’s not up her arse. Our friends are going spare. They think she must have given it to her Englishman, they want him minced. You nick him, the squareheads can do the mincing.’

Ehrlich winced. ‘Our friends’ was a euphemism for the CIA, ‘the squareheads’ were the two tough men in dark suits, who now had the air of hopeful bloodhounds waiting to hunt down a prey.

‘They’re not mincing him here,’ his voice was curt. This was not a police matter. He had clean hands, and he was determined to keep them clean.

His telephone made a rude noise. ‘Your telexes are on their way.’

Lindsay felt buoyant as his flight landed. He could look forward to a date that promised much, he had broken the back of his homework, and he was going to clean up. He smiled graciously at Lester and Rosser, and ignored jealous glares from the Daily Telegraph and the two travel trade reporters making up Lester’s press party. He was a freelance, a newspaperman above other men, and his rewards were on the way. He joined the queue to descend a steep mobile staircase.

Suddenly he shivered, despite the hot late morning sun. A couple of policemen and two men in dark suits had got out of a police car to stand watching the plane, and there was something menacing about them. A bus drew up, ready to embark passengers for the terminal building, but the men did not move. Lindsay descended the staircase and had the feeling that he was being watched, and the four men circled in around the knot of passengers like wolves. Two men climbed down from the bus: one was plump, and smart in a cream safari suit and pink open-necked shirt, the other wreathed in camera equipment.

‘Richard, come and have your picture taken.’ Lester bustled up, looking pleased with himself. Rosser was now in a very good mood, and Interglobal had sent its Berlin manager and a photographer to welcome them. He had a definite feeling that this was going to be a good weekend.

‘Please, please. We want a group picture.’ The pink-shirted man gathered them together like a mother hen.

Lester placed a proprietary hand on Lindsay’s arm. ‘Gunter, this is Richard Lindsay, our star man. Richard writes for The Times, and a number of other papers.’

‘Ah, the voice of the British government.’ The pink shirted man beamed. Everyone knew The Times was really an arm of British Intelligence. ‘I am Gunter Horstmeyer, I run Interglobal here in Berlin.’ His smile was all wrinkly charm, and he pumped Lindsay’s hand warmly. Lindsay glanced around. The two policemen and their dark suited companions had drawn in a little closer. He also notices that a large black limousine with darkened windows had arrived, and it had something of an air of a hearse.

The photographer was now on one knee, taking his pictures. The little group beamed, though the Daily Telegraph distanced himself as far as possible from Lindsay. Then Horstmeyer insisted on pairing Lindsay and Rosser for a follow-up shot, and the Daily Telegraph scowled openly. The Daily Telegraph was a senior national daily newspaper, ranking way ahead of freelances. But the photographer had finished, all the other passengers from the plane were already in the bus and the bus driver was plainly keen to go.

Then one of the dark-suited burly men walked towards the bus, holding up his hand. Ehrlich twitched uncomfortably. He now had written orders to arrest anybody he considered suspicious, and the group of Englishmen boarding the bus plainly included his suspect, because none of the plane’s other passengers matched the blue suit, blue shirt, and blue tie description he had been given. But the group also included a photographer, and photographers spelled trouble. He glanced at his companion policeman, seeking support, but his companion looked away, because he had seen the photographer as well, and Ehrlich was up at the sharp end. The burly man was now closing on the bus. The man turned to looked at Ehrlich, and it was time for action.

Ehrlich took a deep breath, heading for Lindsay. This was no time for beating around bushes. He had orders to detain an Englishman in dark blue suit, blue shirt, blue tie, and detain him he would. He held out his hand. ‘Ihre papieren.’

Lindsay fumbles for his passport. Roswirtha had never said anything about a police trap at Tempelhof. But he also kept his cool, because he knew that her little package was safely out of his hands.

Horstmeyer watched in alarm, and pushed forward. ‘What is this? This gentlemen is in Berlin for The Times, the British newspaper.’

Ehrlich swallowed hard. Nobody had told him anything about newspapers, let alone The Times, and everyone knew The Times formed part of British intelligence. But he had started, and he must press on. He ignored the man in the pink shirt, glanced at Lindsay’s passport quickly, and looked his most official. ‘I have orders to detain you, Herr Lindsay. You must go with these gentlemen.’ He nodded towards the two men in dark suits who had moved to stand either side of Lindsay.

Lindsay’s head began to thump again. Now he was beginning to grow anxious. But he was also affronted, for now yet another petty official was trying to give him a hard time, and he had already suffered more than his fair share of hard times. He matched Ehrlich’s eyes, scowl for scowl. ‘Why? What have I done?’

The two men in dark suits fidgeted. This was all taking much too long. Arrests should always be quick and tidy and uncomplicated. Ehrlich was wasting time. They seized Lindsay’s arms, one at each side, and began to push him towards the waiting car.

For a moment Horstmeyer and Lester watched in uncomprehending horror. They faced losing a star turn, and the day had begun to turn into a nightmare. They both rushed forward to try and free Lindsay. Ehrlich and his companion held them back. But the photographer was having a field day, snapping away for all he was worth.

The two men in dark suits bundled Lindsay unceremoniously into their waiting car. Horstmeyer was now gobbling like an angry turkey.

‘You will answer for this.’ He glared at Ehrlich. ‘I will tell British military headquarters at the Olympic Stadium that you have arrested a correspondent from The Times, and they will take you apart.’ He opened his mouth to add some more angry words, and then changed his mind and stamped into the waiting bus. He must get back to the Interglobal as quickly as possible and begin making a major fuss. Some stupid policeman had made a colossal mistake, and the mistake must be put right.

Ehrlich felt himself sweating profusely as he watched the bus drive off. Some stupid shit at Dusseldorf had dropped him right in it, and there was no way he was going to carry this can. He must get to a telephone, talk to Berlin police headquarters and the Teutonics and tell them all to sort things out at the double.

Freelance 5