Read Online A Most Wanted Man by John le Carré - Free Book Online

ship’s last port of call was Copenhagen ”—the word becoming a positive triumph of will over nature.
    Muddied footage of thin bearded man in long dark overcoat, kaffiyeh and zigzag-patterned skullcap dismounting from the rear of lorry at dead of night.
    Lorry driver waves.
    Departing passenger does not wave back.
    Familiar landmarks of Hamburg’s main station concourse, rank upon rank of pastel-yellow cabs.
    Same thin figure stretched horizontal on station bench.
    Same thin figure sitting up, speaking to gesticulating fat man, accepting paper beaker of refreshment from him, sipping from it.
    Cross-cut comparisons between Issa’s mug shot and enhanced stills of thin bearded man on station bench.
    Another still of same thin bearded man standing full length on station concourse.
    “The Swedes measured him,” Maximilian said, after a couple of tries. “He’s tall. Pushing two meters.”
    On the screen, a virtual measuring stick appears beside the bearded man lying down, then sitting up. The measuring stick reads one meter ninety-three.
    “What in heaven’s name made you pick on the Hamburg railway station footage?” Bachmann protested. “Somebody gives you a mug shot from Sweden of a man who’s gone to Denmark, and you trawl the drunken layabouts at Hamburg railway station? I think I should have you arrested for being psychic!”
    Scarlet with pleasure, Maximilian flung up a hand needlessly for attention, and with the other again clicked on his screen:
    Enlarged image of same lorry in railway station concourse, side view, no markings.
    Enlarged image of same lorry, rear view. Maximilian zooms in on vehicle registration plate. It is part covered by a knot of black rag. One side of a European Union emblem and first two figures of a Danish registration visible. Maximilian struggles to speak and fails. His pretty girlfriend, the half-Arab Niki from audio section, speaks for him.
    “The Swedes questioned the other stowaways about him,” she says while Maximilian nods. “He was on his way to Hamburg. Nowhere else would do. Everything was going to come right for him in Hamburg.”
    “Did he say how ?”
    “No. He went all secretive and mysterious. His companions thought he was a nutter.”
    “By the time they got out of that container they were all nutters. What languages does he speak?”
    “Russian.”
    “Just Russian. Not Chechen?”
    “Not according to the Swedes. Maybe they didn’t try him.”
    “But Issa ’s his first name. As in Jesus. Jesus Karpov. He’s got a Russian surname and a Muslim first name. How in hell did he come by that?”
    “Niki didn’t christen him, Günther dear,” Erna Frey murmurs.
    “And no patronymic,” Bachmann complains. “What happened to his Russian patronymic? Did he leave it behind him in jail?”
    Instead of answering him, Niki took back the story on her lover’s behalf: “Maximilian had a brainwave, Günther. He reckoned that if Copenhagen was the ship’s next port of call, and Hamburg was the boy’s destination, how about checking the video footage on the Hamburg station platform whenever a Copenhagen train came in?”
    Sparing as always of his praise, Bachmann affected not to hear her. “Was Issa No-patronymic Karpov the only one to get out of that Danish lorry with the concealed registration plate?”
    “He was alone. Right, Maximilian? Solo.” Enthusiastic nods from Maximilian. “Nobody else got out of the Danish lorry and the driver stayed inside his cab.”
    “So tell me who the fat old bastard is.”
    “Fat bastard?” Niki was thrown momentarily off balance.
    “The fat bastard with the paper beaker. An elderly fat bastard talked to our boy on the railway concourse. He wore a black seafarer’s cap. Am I the only person to have seen that fat bastard? I am not. Our boy talked back to the said elderly fat bastard. In what language did they talk? Russian? Chechen? Arabic? Latin? Ancient Greek? Or does our boy speak German and we don’t know