The Old Enemy by Henry Porter (read with me .TXT) 📕

got herself an MBA and created her own data company. Evidently, she understood what was happening in technology in the nineties and the importance of people’s personal information, a lesson she learned in the Stasi. Muller died, leaving a lot of money. His family disputed the will, but she won the court case, and then her career really began to take off because she was very rich as well as being a shrewd investor and businesswoman. She married twice more. The second husband died. His name was Mobius. The third husband is a foot doctor – a podiatrist, I believe it is called. His name is Dr John Gaspar, Italian and German parentage.’

‘Who is Jonathan Mobius?’

‘Her stepson, I believe. Bobby told me she had an affair with the boy, though he’s twenty years younger than her.’

‘What was she doing in Berlin that weekend?’

‘Can you believe it? One of her companies sponsored some kind of an event to do with anniversary of the fall of the Wall. She owns a German company and they gave money and entertained their clients at the Adlon Hotel.’

‘Surely, she might have been recognised a hundred times over that weekend when so many dissidents were celebrating?’

‘In the Adlon? I don’t think so. Those people have probably never been to such a place. Mila was safe, except Bobby saw her, because he was meeting an old source from the East and he wanted to give the man a good dinner. The man was his best agent.’

‘I thought you were.’

‘No, we worked together for a very short time and he didn’t even know my name. I called myself Kafka – very pretentious.’ She smiled at the memory and poured herself another whisky. ‘It helps talking and getting a little bit drunk with you here, Samson. Thank you for coming.’

‘My pleasure,’ he said. ‘You know how much . . .’

‘Yes, I do – really!’ She patted his knee, then sat back and toyed with her necklace. ‘Bobby might have forgotten all about Mila Daus, but the man with him knew of her reputation and took photographs with his phone. He checked with the people who had seen her in the prison all those years ago and they all made a positive identification, Bobby showed them to me and of course I knew immediately. Der Teufel von Hohenschönhausen. That was the woman who told me that she would enjoy breaking me and requested Colonel Zank to place me in the U-boat. This was the underground prison, part of the old Nazi building, and it’s where Bobby and Rudi found me, although I cannot remember much of that part.’

‘Do you have those photographs taken in 2019?’

‘Of course. Do you want to see them now?’

‘If it’s not too much trouble.’

She got up and went to detach her phone from a charger. She came back with glasses on the end of her nose, swiping through the album on her phone.

‘You had a long day today,’ said Samson.

‘You’re fishing, Samson.’

‘I suppose I am – yes.’

‘The CIA were here – a stern individual called Toombs. And that man from SIS that Bobby called the Tick, but I can’t remember what his real name is. You know – the man who was shot a little bit in the street outside the club.’

‘A little bit shot – that was Nyman.’

‘What does it mean – Tick?’

‘A tick is an insect that clings to you and sucks your blood.’

‘That makes sense. He insinuated his way into the meeting by telling the CIA that I would not see them without him, which was untrue. When they’d gone, Mr Toombs returned without him. I wanted to be helpful because Denis is so ill and to put that poison in Congress and risk so many lives was a disgusting thing to do. But I didn’t tell them anything about Mila Daus because I felt we should know what was in the book before we did that and I knew you would find it.’ She handed him the phone. ‘This is Mila Daus.’

Samson took the phone. He saw a woman in a dark trouser suit surrounded by four men. She was holding a drink in her left hand and wore a shoulder bag on her right side. The men were gesticulating, laughing, seemingly trying to impress. Her face was still beautiful, though her lips were thin and unexpressive. In the five frames, which he guessed were taken over a period of a minute, her countenance did not vary in the least. She looked towards the camera in the penultimate picture – focused, interested, alert to the possibility of being photographed – but in the last she turned away to show a well-proportioned head and face in profile. In this one, the body language and position of the men relative to her revealed who owned the power in the room. Beyond her group, there were several round tables with guests – mostly men – standing by their seats, waiting for Mila Daus to take hers, no doubt. Two waiters were in the process of closing the double doors to the private party. His clandestine skill had not deserted Harland’s agent: he had done well to get off so many clear shots in such a short time and without changing his position.

‘She has hardly changed,’ said Ulrike. ‘She’s carrying one or two extra kilos around her stomach and hips and her hair is darker, but she is the same woman that I saw in the interrogation room. She didn’t bother to alter her appearance to come to Berlin thirty years later. Such arrogance!’

‘Why did Bobby think she took that risk?’

‘He could only find one answer to that question.’

‘She was seeing her handler from Moscow,’ said Samson.

Ulrike nodded slowly. ‘She’s much too powerful to have a handler but, yes, Bobby thought she was talking to someone. The anniversary was possibly used by the Russians to meet up and see some old faces. Quite an irony, but it would delight them after the humiliation of 9 November 1989. Some sort of closure, perhaps. That’s why she took the risk.’ She