by Mark Dawson
Jimmy heard the knock at the door. He padded across the carpet on stockinged feet and looked through the spyglass: Mackintosh was standing outside the door, his face distorted by the fisheye lens. He turned the handle and left the door open, making his way back into the room. Mackintosh came inside and closed the door behind him. Jimmy turned back and watched as he went to the radio and switched it on, turning the volume up. Jimmy frowned at him; Mackintosh put his finger to his lips. He took out a piece of moulded black plastic and pulled out an extendable aerial from the top.
Mackintosh flicked the dial on the face of the machine to switch it on.
“What is that?” Jimmy asked, pointing at the plastic box.
“A radio frequency detector. The room’s clear.” He turned the volume down as Yazoo was replaced by Tears for Fears.
“You think it could’ve been bugged?”
“The Stasi make it a habit to leave them in rooms where visitors might stay.”
“But this is West Berlin.”
Mackintosh looked at him as if he was stupid. “You know how many active officers they have? Agents, informers, people supplying them with information? One hundred thousand, James. They’re everywhere. The cleaner who does your room? Maybe she’s getting a little on the side for keeping an eye on western guests. The bellboy? The same. The receptionist, room service, the valet downstairs.”
“I get the picture.”
“Assume the worst. That way you won’t be surprised.” He switched off the device and put it back into his bag. “I’ve got something for you.”
Mackintosh took out a photograph. He handed it to Jimmy. It was of Isabel and Sean. They were on Well Street Common, near to the house. Sean had a ball at his feet and had been captured in the act of kicking it. Isabel was smiling at him, but there was a sadness in her face.
Jimmy felt a sense of wistfulness. “Where did you get this?”
“It was taken this morning, while you were still in the cell. I thought you might like it while you were over here.”
The melancholy became anger. “You had someone watching my girlfriend and kid?”
“Only for this.”
Jimmy took a step toward Mackintosh, grabbed the lapels of his jacket and drove him back against the wall. “Stay away from them,” he said, his mouth close to Mackintosh’s ear.
“Relax,” Mackintosh said. Jimmy saw the fear in his eyes.
“I don’t want you or anyone else who works for you anywhere near them.”
“Fine,” Mackintosh said, grabbing Jimmy’s wrists and gently lowering his hands. “Fine. It didn’t mean anything. I just thought you’d like a photo.”
Jimmy put the photograph in his pocket and went to the window. He looked down onto Mohrenstraße and saw a gang of youngsters idling at the junction with Markgrafenstraße. Drinkers gathered outside the bar there. The sky was dark, with a thick canopy of cloud blocking out the moon and the stars. Snow was falling, a thin dusting that settled on everything. It almost looked festive.
“So why am I here? What do you want me to do?”
Mackintosh put his bag on the bed and sat down next to it. “There’s a man I’m interested in,” he said. “I’d like you to follow him.”
“Who is he?”
Mackintosh took a folder from his bag and put it on the bed. He opened it and slid out a large black and white photograph.
“His name is Morgan. He works for me at the consulate.”
Jimmy looked at the photograph: the man was in late middle age, with curls of thick black hair atop a rounded face, with thick rimmed glasses.
“So he’s a spy?”
“He’s an agent runner. But, yes, you could call him a spy.”
“So why am I following your own man?”
Mackintosh exhaled. “I had an operation in East Berlin on Christmas Eve. It was compromised and two of my people were killed. Someone betrayed us to the Stasi.”
“And you think it was him?”
“I do.” Mackintosh glanced away, his thoughts temporarily focussed on something else. When he looked back, there was fresh determination on his face. “He was born in Cairo. Son of an Austrian mother and a Jewish father. They sent him back to Austria and he was there when the war started. His family fled and travelled to Britain. They were naturalised and he joined the Navy before he was recruited by SIS. He’s been all over the world: he interrogated U-boat captains in Hamburg, went to Seoul under diplomatic cover to get intelligence on the North. He was captured when Seoul fell and was held near the Yalu River. If we’re right, and the Soviets turned him, I’ll bet it happened there.”
“And you’re sure?”
“Not completely. I hope I’m wrong, but that’s where you come in. I’m going to tell him something tomorrow morning that will give him cause for serious concern. I know what Morgan is like—he’s a coward, James. If I’m right, he’ll run straight to his handler. He doesn’t know who you are—no one knows. I want you to follow him.”
“And how am I going to do that?”
Mackintosh took a key from his pocket and put it on the bed next to the photograph. “There’s a Mercedes parked downstairs in the car park—a red 190E Cosworth. I’ve written the plate on the paper. This is the key. There’ll be a safe house somewhere in this part of the city. That’s where he’ll go. You’re going to find it for me.”
“Where do I find him?”
“There’s an address on the paper, too. That’s the consulate. Be there tomorrow morning at nine. I’ll speak to Morgan just after that—he’ll be frightened and I don’t think he’s got the guts to wait it out. He’ll make an excuse and run. There’s a car park opposite it. He has an Audi Quattro. Follow him.”
“Anything else?”
Mackintosh reached into his bag again and took out a pistol and a spare magazine. He put both items on the bed.
“Seriously?”
“Just in case you need it.”
“You said you wanted me to follow him.”
“I do. But he’s probably going to go and meet a Stasi agent and I’d rather you had a weapon and didn’t need it than need one and not have it.”
Jimmy reached down and picked up the gun.
“Have you used one before?” Mackintosh asked.
“Never,” Jimmy said.
Mackintosh put out his hand and Jimmy gave him the gun. “Don’t point it at anyone you don’t want to kill. When you want to shoot, click the safety off, look at the target, grip the handle in both hands, press the gun toward the target, pull the trigger. Repeat until dead. Got it?”
“Got it,” he said.
Mackintosh flicked the safety on and gave the weapon back to Jimmy.
“You’ll need some loose change. When you find out where he goes, find a payphone and call me on this number. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
Jimmy took the piece of paper that Mackintosh handed him. “All right,” he said.
“Tomorrow morning, James. Be in the car park at nine o’clock. Don’t be late. We’ll only get one chance at this. They’ll try and get him into the East. We’ll never see him again if that happens.”
“What are you going to do if it is him?”
“He’ll need to be persuaded to answer a few questions. But you won’t need to worry about that—it’s my responsibility.”
Mackintosh told Jimmy to get some sleep and left the room. Jimmy sat down on the mattress. He was tired. He brought out the photograph Mackintosh had given to him and looked at it again. Isabel was smiling in the p
icture, but it wasn’t a real smile. He wondered: what would happen if he didn’t make it back home? What if something happened to him here, in this shithole? The thought of Sean kicking a ball in the park with no one there to kick it back to him… that thought threatened to overwhelm him. He felt a burning in his chest, like a hot poker slowly sliding through his body. The tears came, and he wiped them away. They never helped.
Part IV
23
It was a continuing source of disappointment to Generalleutnant Karl-Heinz Sommer that his office was not located in House One of the Ministry for State Security. The vast complex that housed the Ministry stretched across the Ruchestraße and was responsible for the operation of the Stasi as well as facilitating its huge network of informants. The Ministry’s purpose was simple: the preservation and protection of the state. Sommer’s purpose was the attainment, consolidation and exercise of power. It was a pity that his position, although significant, was not enough to move him into the executive offices. That was where he wanted to be; that was where the real power was located. But there were consolations to make up for the disappointment. The luxury of his building bore no comparison to the drab furnishings that were found in the building that housed the head of the Ministry, for example. Herr Pabst made do with threadbare carpets, walls painted in municipal green, and furniture that was utilitarian, at best.
Sommer had located this building himself. It had been a wreck, used and abused by a garrison of Russian troops and then left to rot. It had been a vicarage before the war, hundreds of years old, and still retained architectural features that marked its age, worn as badges of honour. Sommer had lobbied the Administration Division for a budget to make it whole and had taken his time to make sure that it was done right.
There was a suite of private rooms on the top floor where he lived during the rare occasions when he wasn’t working. There was space for his staff on the three floors beneath: offices, briefing rooms, a typing pool. Beneath that, the basement had been excavated and constructed to his exacting requirements: his interrogation room was there, a place where he had derived hours of the most exquisite pleasure. He had specified everything: the precise cant of the floors, a shallow V that met in a trough that led to a drain in the middle of the room; the stainless-steel table, with leather straps, that could be angled up or down by way of a pivot, better to allow for blood and viscera to be sloshed clear; the selection of tools that were hung from hooks on the wall, arranged just so. Next to that was the water cell, another of his designs. Suspects who fell into his hands were subjected to what he termed ‘immersion interrogation.’ The cell had been equipped with a five-foot pit that was then filled with freezing water. He found that the fear of drowning was often more effective in procuring information than other more traditional techniques.
And then there was the vault. It was his pride and joy. He was the only man alive who knew how to get inside. It was the fulcrum of his power, a repository for the files and audio recordings and compromising evidence—and yes, the loot—that he had acquired over the years.
Sommer was in his private office on the third floor. He looked around and reminded himself that whatever he lacked in prestige, he made up for in aesthetic pleasure. A thick blood-red carpet covered the office floor. The furnishings were classic: an antique walnut desk, a roll-top bureau, a sofa in the old French style, and gold-base lamps with muted silk shades. Sommer adjusted his tie in the rococo mirror and then shrugged on his jacket. The Stasi officer’s uniform boasted a remarkable similarity to the first uniform that he had worn: that of the AllgemeineSS. This jacket did not have the Wehrmacht-style narrow braided silver shoulder boards, but it was double-breasted, just the same, cut from rich black cloth with gold flashes on the lapels.
He looked into the mirror again, examining his uniform, reminding himself of how similar it was to the one that he had worn forty years ago. He closed his eyes. He had not tried to expunge the memory of what had happened to him. Why would he want to do that? He revisited it often. What had happened to him in Berlin had been his motivation, the reason for his drive, the crucible in which his character had been forged.
24
It was the day of his nineteenth birthday when Sommer saw the first Russian tanks rolling into the streets around the Chancellery. He was serving in the SS 12th Panzer Division Hitlerjugend, and had been involved in the massacre of one hundred and fifty Canadian POWs in Normandy one year earlier. The Division had been recalled to assist in the defence of the capital, but it had quickly become clear—even to the young Oberstammführer Sommer—that the Wehrmacht was being overrun. He could see the tectonics of the situation shifting, could foresee what the next weeks and months might look like, and had started to plot his survival. But the tanks had rolled in faster than anyone had anticipated, and he had had to think quickly.
He concocted a plan and moved quickly to put it into effect. He swapped his SS uniform for the clothes of a dead man who he had found in the rubble on the first floor of a ruined house. Then, he took a knife that he found in the kitchen and sliced into the skin just above his scalp, encouraging the blood to flow. It did, a crimson mask that slid down his face and dripped onto his clothes.
He made his way south, where he was picked up by Russian infantry. He feigned amnesia. He said he was a civilian and that he remembered sheltering inside a building and then that building being shelled. He said he remembered masonry falling onto him and then nothing after that. His memories were a narrow envelope; he couldn’t remember his name, who he was, or where he was from. The soldiers took him to Beelitz-Heilstätten, the hospital that had once treated Hitler during the Great War. It was hideously overcrowded, with soldiers and civilians filling beds in the wards and corridors and overworked staff flitting between them. The nurses didn’t have time to speak to Sommer properly; they concluded that he must have been struck on the head, treated him as best they could and then admitted him.
He had time and that was all he needed. He constructed a story for himself, furnishing it with lavish detail. The Russians were searching for SS officers who were fleeing the city in disguise; a military intelligence officer came to quiz him. Sommer said that he was a young Austrian farmer and told the officer about life on the farm, of how he had worked with his father in the fields. He explained how his father had gone off to fight in the war and how he had died on the frontline at Stalingrad and how his mother had drowned herself after hearing the news.
What had happened to Sommer’s mother and father was easy to tell: it was all true.
The rest of what he said was not.
Sommer told of how German soldiers swept over his village in search of a Jewish family who were being harboured there. He told him that he had watched the soldiers arrive and had heard the crack of their rifles as they lined the family up against the wall of the barn and shot them.
The story had elicited sympathy from the officer, but it wasn’t entirely true. He had omitted several key details.
The soldiers did come to the village and they did find the family, but it was not a matter of chance. The day after Sommer buried his mother, he walked ten miles into the town and reported that his neighbour was harbouring Jews in his loft. The SS officers congratulated Sommer. He liked their uniforms. One of the officers gave him a chocolate
bar. It was the first that he had ever seen, never mind eaten. He remembered the taste of the chocolate, eaten as he sat on a fence and watched the soldiers execute his neighbours and the young family that they had been hiding.
Sommer was given money and a train ticket to Berlin. He was instructed to join the Hitlerjugend. He did so, and, after showing particular aptitude, he graduated to the SS as one of their youngest officers.
The Russian officer believed Sommer. He was sent out of the city with the refugees who had no wish to be immolated on the pyre that was being created for Hitler and the Reich. Sommer had ended up in Luckenwalde, had stayed there for a year, and then had drifted back to Berlin again, sucked back by the opportunities that he knew were swirling around in the vortex that had been created by the clashing armies, all of them squabbling over the spoils. There was confusion everywhere, and Sommer knew that he could profit from it. He joined the Socialist Unity Party. He applied to join the police and, in 1950, when it was instituted, he transferred into the Stasi.
He had survived. More than that: he had done well. In all wars, both cold and hot, there were survivors. Those who were destined to make it out alive no matter the odds, no matter the pain, no matter how many lives they had to take.
Sommer was one of them.
25
Sommer’s telephone rang. He picked up the receiver and cradled it to his ear as he adjusted the cuffs of his shirt.
“Who is it?”
“Major Hoffman, sir.”
“What is it, Major?”
“There has been an incident at our station in West Berlin.”
“Which station?”
“Kreuzberg. It’s been attacked, sir.”
Sommer took a gold-tipped fountain pen and made notes in a small black book. “Go on.”