A Patriot in Berlin

by Piers Paul Read

  Kraus shrugged. ‘Very well. We will see what we can do.’

  ‘I would be most grateful.’

  ‘I shall make some calls. We can talk later.’

  ‘Many thanks.’

  Both men stood up. ‘By the way,’ said Kraus. ‘I had heard that your managing director was … not well.’

  ‘That is true. Herr Khrulev is indisposed. But the new management is still most interested in the business in hand.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Kraus escorted Gerasimov to the door of the outer office. The secretary remained at her desk.

  ‘Thank you for calling.’

  ‘Thank you for receiving me without an appointment.’

  ‘I am the one who has been remiss.’

  ‘I look forward to hearing from you.’

  ‘Good day.’

  ‘Good day.’

  The young Leipzig detective greeted Gerasimov in the lobby of his hotel. ‘Good evening, Herr Inspector. I just called on the offchance that there was something you would like me to do.’

  ‘Thank you, no.’

  ‘Inspector Kessler telephoned to ask whether you had made any progress …’

  ‘Disappointing. It has been disappointing. One or two leads, but they have led nowhere. In fact, there is nothing more I can do in Leipzig. I shall return to Berlin in the morning.’

  ‘Would you like me to make a reservation?’

  ‘That would be kind. A mid-morning train.’

  ‘And this evening? Can I offer you our hospitality?’

  ‘Thank you, no. I must read the material provided by Inspector Kessler. I’ll grab something to eat in the hotel or in the town.’

  ‘Very well.’ The young man bowed and clicked his heels. ‘I shall come in the morning with your reservation.’

  ‘Many thanks.’

  Back in his room, Gerasimov took off his jacket and shoes and lay on his bed. What line should he take with Kraus? Clearly, he had been one of Khrulev’s agents and had provided the van for Orlov. What else had he done for Orlov? What had been his cover at the time? The shiny new plaque and the empty drawers of the filing cabinet suggested that he had not been a private detective for long. Nor did he look like a man who had spent his life on petty investigations. His manner was too imperious: he was a man who was used to command.

  An executive? Not under socialism. An army officer? Too cunning. The speed with which he had concocted the story about the shoes in Weissenfels had impressed Gerasimov. Here was a man accustomed to thinking on his feet. And why was he watched? And by whom? If his cover was blown as a Soviet agent, then he would not have been afraid to mention Khrulev. It seemed more likely that he had worked for the Stasi under East Germany’s Communist regime.

  That was it! Kraus must have been an Eleventh Department agent within the Stasi, probably recruited by Khrulev, and answerable to Khrulev alone. To recover the icons, Khrulev could not trust ordinary KGB channels: too many agents had done business with Maslyukov. The team had been Orlov, Partovsky and the Chechen with Kraus providing support in the field. By then the Stasi had been disbanded: Kraus, starting up as a private investigator, would have been under some kind of surveillance. But even if Kraus had been an officer in the Stasi, there had been so many Stasi operatives that it was unlikely that a close watch would have been kept on him. Probably it was left to the secretary to make reports to the BfV. He could understand now why Kraus had been afraid to talk. It was one thing to have been in the Stasi, quite another to have spied for the KGB.

  What approach should Gerasimov employ? Quite possibly Kraus had held a commission in the old KGB with a higher rank, no doubt, than Gerasimov’s. Was he still committed, or keen to end that chapter of his life? Had he helped Orlov in obedience to an order from Khrulev? If so, would he be prepared to take orders from the new security service of the Russian Federation? Or was he a hard liner who still shared Khrulev’s Communist zeal? Would Gerasimov have to blackmail him with the threat of exposure? Or simply rely on the man’s Prussian sense of duty? With Khrulev dead, Savchenko was now in command.

  As Gerasimov had predicted, most of his fellow guests in Auerbach’s Cellar were tourists or businessmen from outside Saxony – some from western Germany, others from further afield. There was a group of Italians and an American couple with two bored adolescent children.

  Gerasimov chose a table between the Italians and the Americans. Promptly at seven, Kraus came down the steps in the restaurant, looked around as if looking for a spare table, came up to Gerasimov and said: ‘Do you mind if I sit here?’

  ‘Please …’

  Kraus sat down and studied the menu. ‘If we are watched,’ he said softly, ‘we will fool no one.’

  Gerasimov nodded, and leaned forward as if to introduce himself. ‘Whoever watches you may not know me, and whoever watches me may not know you.’

  Kraus nodded. ‘We can only hope so.’

  The waiter came. ‘Together or separate?’ he asked.

  ‘Separate,’ said Kraus.

  They sat in silence until the waiter had returned with two glasses of beer. Then, as if they were indeed two solitary businessmen, Gerasimov began talking, at one point opening his copy of Time magazine to point to an article, as if it had something to say about the issue under discussion. ‘There are changes in Moscow,’ he said to Kraus as he did so.

  ‘So I read.’

  ‘Khrulev is dead.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘His place has been taken by General Savchenko.’

  Kraus said nothing.

  ‘You are to answer to him.’

  This last remark was a gamble but it seemed to pay off. ‘You must explain to the general,’ said Kraus, ‘that my position is precarious. Mielke is under arrest. Wolf’s position is also insecure. Either of them could expose me to improve their own position. They are prosecuting officers who gave orders to shoot fugitives trying to escape over the Wall. And my links with the Dzerzhinski bridge are already known.’

  ‘But they have not prosecuted you?’

  ‘No. By and large, Stasi officers are being left to their own devices. No pension, of course, even though they honoured the Nazis’ pension commitments after the war …’

  ‘Scandalous.’

  ‘But there are still the files in the Ruschestrasse. There is no knowing what they may find there.’

  ‘It will take them years to sort through those …’

  ‘I know. And my links with Moscow will not appear in those files. Only Mielke knew, and perhaps Wolf. But General Savchenko should understand that there is little I can do now for Moscow, and really the risk I run in performing an auxiliary logistical role is out of all proportion to the value of the service …’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘Khrulev offered me a post in Moscow but I have a wife and children here in Germany. Moving to Leipzig from Berlin was bad enough for them. They certainly do not want to move to Moscow. But if I remain here, it is imperative that contacts be kept to a minimum, if they are not terminated altogether. For if the BfV ever discover the connection with the Lubyanka, then they could put me under great pressure. A charge of treason is not unknown – as a means of persuasion, you understand, to tell all I know. That is why a meeting like this is so dangerous to everyone concerned.’

  Ah, thought Gerasimov: he is trying to put a little pressure on me to leave him alone. ‘I am here for two reasons,’ he said. ‘The first is to reassure you that your past services are not forgotten, and will not be forgotten, by the new security service of the Russian Federation.’

  ‘It would be better …’

  Gerasimov raised his hand. ‘Let me finish. Your past services are not forgotten but any future participation is a matter for you to decide.’

  A look of great relief came onto Kraus’s face. ‘It would be infinitely preferable for me simply to be left alone.’

  ‘Of course. That is what we supposed. And that brings me to the second point. The help you gave to Comr
ade Orlov two years ago was much appreciated but his more recent demands were quite unauthorized.’

  Kraus turned pale. ‘Unauthorized? He told me that he was acting under orders.’

  ‘Whose orders?’

  ‘Khrulev’s.’

  ‘Khrulev is dead.’

  ‘I know that now. But not then.’

  ‘No one will hold you responsible,’ said Gerasimov slowly, ‘if you can help us to limit the damage.’

  ‘The damage?’

  ‘Where is Orlov?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘What is he doing?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘What did he want from you?’

  ‘Names.’

  ‘Whose names?’

  ‘Names of men, former officers and men in the Dzerzhinski brigade whom he could recruit for an operation …’

  ‘What operation?’

  ‘He didn’t say.’

  ‘Did you give him such names?’

  ‘Yes. Two names. An officer and an under-officer.’

  ‘How did you choose them?’

  ‘For their commitment, their zeal, and their loyalty to the Soviet cause. It was my job at the Ruschestrasse to know who was ideologically sound.’

  ‘Did you contact them?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did he?’

  ‘I believe so.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I was called by one for confirmation.’

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘His credentials.’

  ‘From where?’

  ‘Bautzen.’

  ‘What did he want them for?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Gerasimov frowned. ‘He must have given you some idea of what he had in mind.’

  Kraus looked perplexed. ‘It was not customary to ask questions. I simply obeyed orders.’

  ‘If they were orders.’

  ‘Two months before, he had been sent by Khrulev. I assumed that Khrulev had sent him again.’

  ‘Two men …’ Gerasimov repeated. ‘What on earth could he want with two men?’

  ‘I believe two was only the start. He intended to call upon the two to recruit more.’

  ‘Up to how many?’

  ‘Twenty or thirty. I am not sure.’

  ‘Did he propose to pay them?’

  ‘I don’t know. He appeared to have ample funds at his disposal, but the quality he looked for was not venality, it was commitment. He realized that there were still some who remained dedicated to the Communist cause.’

  ‘You could presumably furnish me with the names of the two men?’

  Kraus hesitated. ‘I have destroyed the file. It was too dangerous for me to keep it.’

  ‘Can’t you remember them?’

  ‘The two names. Not the addresses.’ He took out a notepad and started to write them down.

  ‘He told you nothing about the operation, or about who was involved.’

  ‘I assumed that it was the same team as before.’

  ‘Partovsky? The Chechen?’

  ‘I never knew their names.’

  ‘Anyone else?’

  Again, Kraus hesitated. ‘He was in touch with someone with the code name Chameleon.’

  ‘Who is Chameleon?’

  ‘An unofficial collaborator of our state security, who also worked for Khrulev, but not one under my control.’

  ‘Do you know his real identity?’

  ‘No I don’t. But I got the impression from Orlov that it was someone now in a position of some influence.’

  ‘But surely his cover is blown?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘His file?’

  ‘It has gone.’

  ‘Who saw to that?’

  ‘According to Orlov, Chameleon saw to that himself.’

  ‘A clever fellow.’

  ‘Not clever enough. Orlov could prove that he had been controlled by Khrulev, so Chameleon had no choice but to cooperate.’

  ‘Orlov blackmailed him?’

  Kraus shrugged. ‘In effect.’

  ‘And you don’t know his name.’

  ‘No.’

  The two men had finished with their food. Kraus’s was mostly uneaten.

  ‘Another beer?’ asked Gerasimov. ‘A dessert? Coffee?’

  ‘I had better go,’ said Kraus. ‘My wife will be expecting me. I told her only that I was working late.’

  Gerasimov called the waiter to pay the bill. ‘If any of the opposition should ask you about Orlov, say nothing.’

  ‘And if they ask me about you?’

  ‘I was after the consignment of shoes from Weissenfels. They might even believe it.’

  The two men rose to go. ‘When you saw Orlov, that second time. Had his appearance changed?’

  ‘No. I don’t think so. A little unkempt, perhaps.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘My daughter tells me it is now the fashion.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The unshaven look. Designer stubble, I believe it is called.’

  SIXTEEN

  As the day approached for his great patriotic gesture, Colonel Nogin grew increasingly ill at ease. Keminski’s nephew, Perfilyev, had been back to the base at Waldheim on three or four occasions. Nogin had been delighted to see him, not least because he always arrived with a case of vodka but, five months on from their first meeting, he did not feel that he knew Perfilyev any better or that he could altogether trust him. Perfilyev was intelligent, amusing and a good listener – a quality of value to a bored veteran of the Great Patriotic War; but, while Nogin had told Perfilyev everything there was to know about Nogin, Perfilyev had given away very little about himself. He was also one of those men who make others feel that it is somehow improprer to enquire, so Nogin did not feel he could ask Perfilyev, for example, how he got hold of the Deutschmarks to buy the vodka, or the chocolates and other delicacies that he always brought for the officers’ wives.

  Nogin knew well enough that everyone involved in the dismantling of the Soviet military machine in East Germany was making out of it what he could, from the private soldier who sold his cap to the nuclear engineer who hawked plutonium from the boot of a car; and so it would not have surprised Nogin if he had learned that Perfilyev, despite his denunciation of the corrupt reformers, should have some Deutschmarks-earning business on the side. Such contradictions had always been part of the Soviet way of life, and if Perfilyev had put to Nogin some modest scheme for selling surplus weapons systems to the third-world countries, or tanks for scrap, as a way of bolstering Nogin’s pension when he finally retired, Nogin would have been happier than he was with his promise to destroy highly secret equipment from Jena.

  Nogin recognized, of course, that there was a world of difference between selling weapons to Arabs or Africans to kill one another, and selling sophisticated systems to the potential enemies of Russia. For this reason, Nogin did not intend to go back on his promise to place the base at Perfilyev’s disposal, even though he could reasonably argue that he had been drunk when the promise was made. But the whole plan made him feel uneasy. If schemes to raise currency were uncovered, the currency could be used to escape the consequences. Where the rewards were purely political, noble motives would not save one from the Lefortovo prison.

  There were other reasons for his unease. The first was that the scale of the thing was greater than he had been led to expect. Perfilyev now talked of several vanloads of equipment arriving on a single night. The second was the sense Nogin had gained, for no particular reason, that it would be less dangerous now to proceed than to change his mind. He had always known that engineers working for the Ministry of Medium Machine Building might be more than they seemed, but the mystery surrounding Perfilyev had taken on an element of menace. He did not give the impression of being a man who would take kindly to being thwarted.

  The third was the realization that there were others in Jena besides Perfilyev who were involved. On the last two occasions that he had come
to Waldheim, Perfilyev had been accompanied by a Chechen. As a rule, Nogin disliked Chechens along with Azeris, Armenians, Georgians and Jews. He had to tolerate them: many of his troops now came from the Muslim republics of the Russian Federation; but he never trusted them. Behind the shifty expression in their narrow Asiatic eyes lay centuries of resentment at Russian rule.

  Nogin realized that Perfilyev might have had to bring the Chechen into the conspiracy because it would be dangerous to leave him out. Perfilyev introduced him as a friend and fellow engineer, working on the same project in Jena. To Nogin, he did not look like an engineer, nor did the two men behave as if they were friends.

  Nogin had left the detailed arrangements for the operation to Captain Sinyanski: it had occurred to him that if the whole thing blew up in their faces, Sinyanski would make a suitable scapegoat because of his earlier links with the KGB. Nogin could argue that he had cooperated at the request of Sinyanski who had led him to believe that the operation had been authorized by the security service of the Russian Federation.

  It became apparent, however, that Sinyanski was thinking along the same lines. After the last visit of Perfilyev and the Chechen, Sinyanski came late to report to Nogin that Perfilyev had changed his instructions: the machinery was not to be destroyed on arrival, but was to be hidden in the empty hangars pending Perfilyev’s further instructions. Sinyanski pointed out to Nogin that this increased the risk: ashes could be scattered but what was hidden could later be found. He insisted that Nogin decide whether or not to go ahead with these new arrangements.

  Nogin reached for his telephone, but then remembered that he had neither an address nor a number for Perfilyev. Should he call Keminski in Moscow? It seemed too risky. He told Sinyanski they would have to wait until Perfilyev returned.

  Sinyanski now raised another odd aspect of the whole thing, already noticed by Nogin – the apparent disharmony between Perfilyev and his Chechen friend. On their last visit they had stayed with Sinyanski: he was not married, and had two spare rooms. After the two visitors had supposedly retired to their respective rooms for the night, Sinyanski had overheard an acrimonious exchange in Perfilyev’s bedroom. He had picked up only scraps of their conversation, and from them gained the impression that they had been quarrelling about some woman.