The bartender pulled the plug, the jukebox grime slamming into an abrupt silence. North narrowed his eyes, fixing them on the enemy at the table; in the room beyond, a rowdy explosion of complaints from a clientele of hardened drinkers hustled to the door. Then a bang, and the sound of bolts being drawn. ‘Wir haben geschlossen’ – we’re closed, he heard, as an urgent knocking started up against the glass.
The old guy hadn’t drawn a knife yet. Either he didn’t have one or he was content for Erich and Birdie to take charge.
‘Did you need help spelling those tattoos?’ North’s enquiry was studiously civil. He walked back to the table. ‘Because there are some long words there and you guys normally make do with the swastika. Less is more, right?’
North was out to provoke. But he was also figuring out the architecture of the fight to come. Three against one, but one of them was old. Four, if the barman was about to get involved. Five, if Klara was a grouch. Worst-case scenario: three men, all fit and mean; one man, old and armed; and one woman who couldn’t be in possession of a weapon because she had no conceivable place to hide it.
Bring it on, he thought, as Erich drew a Ruger LCP, Birdie pulled out a knocked-about Beretta 92, the bartender extracted a wooden bat from underneath the counter, and the old man stood and slid a boot knife out of his sleeve. The good news was Klara seemed happy to watch. She’d seemed like such a nice girl too. Genuinely appreciative of his efforts. He hated to think that was an act.
The bartender and his baseball bat were still across the room, but knives were dangerous and the old man was far too close to him. Taking a step away, North chopped down on the pastor’s arm with his right hand before flipping the card table with his left and back-footing the shining blade along the floor and away from his attacker. There was a thunder of gunshots as Birdie fired – once, twice – but North was already moving and the shots missed. He’d have liked to pick up the blade himself but all that bending and coming up again would take too much time. Instead, roaring and low, he went for the table, now on its side, using it as a shield to barge into and through Erich and Birdie, slamming them against the wall. Erich let go of his own semi-automatic with the impact and it clattered to the floor. North reached for it and the bartender swung the bat; a whole load of pain and misery slammed into his shoulders, flattening him. He should have taken the guy out first, but what can you do. He jerked to one side as the tip of the bat slammed into the plank six inches from his right cheekbone, before flipping on to his back, raising his boot and crashing it heel-first and hard into the other man’s shinbone. There was a loud crack and, screaming, the bartender went down. North scrambled to his feet as another 9mm round from Birdie’s gun grazed his bicep and pain blazed up through his arm and into every part of him.
Wailing, the bartender wrapped his hands around his shin and dangling foot. Still pointing his gun at North, the Nazi bared his teeth in what passed for a grin. ‘Klara said you were a drunken fool. You should have walked away.’
The smell of burnt powder, sweat and old booze hung in the air. North let go of his breath and felt the seductive tug of fate pull at him. He was a walking, talking miracle. Stumbling around civilian life with a bullet in his head, when he should be dead and buried. What if this was the moment? He could accept destiny this time, couldn’t he? What did he have to live for? He had no woman to love, no job to give him purpose, no country to defend to the death. He had no hope. Even Lazarus must have lain down and died all over again, at some time.
So what, if the Nazi shot him?
So what, if he died in a seedy bar in a place far from home? If he was tipped into a back-street dumpster and buried in a landfill. If he was eaten by German pigs and made into German sausage and sold in a German butcher’s. There was no one to mourn him.
As North took a step towards him, Birdie raised the Beretta to fix him squarely in his sights. He was aiming centre mass, so he knew what he was doing. How many rounds would it take before North dropped to his knees?
A long shadow of what might have been a man fell across the card table.
‘Germanic tribes traditionally considered the eagle a talisman of the great god Odin.’ The voice came out of nowhere – bass, gravelly, unmistakeably Belfast – and with it the room seemed to get colder. ‘For obvious reasons…’ As the speaker took a step towards them, light from the swinging bulb hit his face, revealing the one eye, the livid purple scar carved into the empty socket and down into the cadaverous cheek. ‘… I’ve claimed Odin as my own.’
Edmund Hone, head of the Friends of Cyclops, a discrete secretariat within MI5, appeared to have got taller and leaner since North had seen him last. ‘I take delivery of my eagle any day.’
North groaned – he didn’t think his night could get any worse. Why was Hone in Berlin? Was it the bodies North had left behind in London? Was the MI5 agent here to hold him to account?
‘This isn’t your business, friend.’ Birdie spat on the floor, keeping the sights of the handgun locked on North.
‘I hate to correct you but I’m nobody’s friend,’ Hone said, extracting a length of lead pipe, its ends soldered, from the folds of his waxed brown riding coat, which fell almost to the floor. He swung it around to smash it into Erich’s face, shattering his nose and front teeth, before whipping it through to smash into the thigh meat of the neo-Nazi. Birdie had opened his mouth to scream, but the sound hadn’t made it out before Hone booted him between his legs. The huge body curled over itself in agony; Hone gripped each end of the pipe to bring it down over the inked-on helmeted skulls. Birdie dropped as Hone flipped the pipe to catch it with his right hand, tugging the Beretta away with his left.
The bartender stopped shrieking, as if he had decided not to draw attention to his own vulnerability.
Erich’s hands were over his face, blood pouring from between them as he staggered towards the Ruger on the floor.
‘I’m not doing all the work here,’ Hone said, dropping the pipe back into his pocket to take apart the gun, before flinging its various parts across the bar.
North picked up a chair and smashed it over Erich’s head. The German’s soles lifted off the floor, the blue eyes rolling back in the yellow whites of his skull as the length of his body tipped and crashed against the wood.
The sound of sirens. The postman had indeed called the cops – good for him.
‘Shall we?’ Hone said, pointing at the exit, which North guessed led into a back alley. He stepped over the keeling barman’s body, cradled in Klara’s arms, and they both veered back. North tapped his wrist and, trembling, the barman unclasped the watch to drop it into North’s open hand. ‘Klara – great night.’ The girl glared at him, her eyes vicious. He stuck out his little finger and his thumb to make a ‘phone me’ sign and lifted it to his ear. ‘Call me.’
Klara let loose a string of German obscenities.
*
The two men stuck close as they weaved their way through the back streets and shadowy alleys. Hone moved faster than North expected. Fast enough for North to know he couldn’t shake him. As Potsdamer Platz came into view, the hooting and city roar of night-time traffic suddenly louder, North stopped in his tracks, took hold of Hone’s riding coat and slammed him up against the wall, one forearm pressing hard against the other man’s throat, the other hand blocking Hone from dipping back into his pocket for the pipe.
‘How did you find me?’ Close up, the scar that ran the length of Hone’s eye socket was jagged, like it had been sewn up in a hurry. Maybe by Hone himself.
‘Passengers who show up with a bullet in the head make an impression.’ Hone shoved him away, the flat of his hand against his chest, and North considered resisting, pressing back, crushing the other man’s larynx. ‘Airport security filed a report.’ Hone loosened the collar of his shirt before smacking the brick dust off his coat, and North had the impression that he was trying to keep his temper. ‘But you’re asking the wrong question.’
The alley reeked of urine and dog mess and days-old rubbish from the overflowing dumpsters lining the walls. Alarmed by their presence, a squeaking rat ran over his boot, and North suppressed a shudder. He could kill the one-eyed man. Or the one-eyed man could kill him. He braced himself as Hone moved out from the shadows and into the orange pool of artificial light on the cracked pavement. He started walking away, as if he expected North to follow. ‘If you had better sense, you wouldn’t be asking how I found you. You’d be asking why I bothered.’