“Just the extra pips?” he asked, stamping the paperwork.
“The whole lot.”
He looked at me again: “Haven’t you already been issued with a uniform?”
“Plain clothes. But now I need a service uniform too—so far I’ve only had dress.”
He shrugged and turned to the shelves, “What size?” he called over his shoulder.
Twenty minutes later I had what I needed and I was out of there. He’d even given me a woven nylon bag to put it in, printed with a brown paisley pattern. I reached into the bag and checked the shoulder boards—they had the usual green piping of the Volkspolizei rather than the Bordeaux red of the RS. I grinned and checked the left sleeve of the jacket I’d been given—it had the Volkspolizei shield sewn on it.
“Very sloppy” I murmured.
If that cop had been paying attention he would have given me the red RS shoulder boards and removed the police shield from the jacket, but he hadn’t checked my paperwork properly—just assumed I was a cop too. That was fine, it suited me and my plans perfectly. For my purposes it would be much better to be seen as a cop than a member of the RS.
17:17
I got off the tram at the planetarium on the Prenzlauer Allee. I’d made sure to look around as I got on the tram, watching who else was getting on, then checking for the same faces when I got off. All clear, didn’t look like I was being followed. I walked over to the planetarium entrance and spent a few minutes admiring the notice board, then bent down to tie my shoelace. Plenty of people were walking up and down the Prenzlauer Allee, but I was the only person standing still. Walking around the building with a stick of chalk hidden in my hand I discreetly made a mark on the corner, just a short horizontal line at hand height. I carried on through the park, parallel to the railway tracks, heading towards the Thälmann memorial.
Between the planetarium and the memorial there’s a narrow bit, the path edged in by buildings, and at just that point it curves round to the right. I stood close to the bushes just after the bend—it was a good place to spot a tail, from here I couldn’t see the planetarium, which meant that anybody who was following me wouldn’t see me waiting until they reached the bend. The problem was that this simple trick wouldn’t work if I was being boxed: if I had a tail in front and to the sides of me as well as behind then they could simply pick me up again when I exited the park. After a few minutes of waiting I was satisfied that there was nobody behind me, and I left another chalk mark on the corner of the swimming baths.
Crossing through the shrubs I came up behind the huge Thälmann memorial, a bronze sculpture of Ernst Thälmann, the German Communists’ hero, fist raised in front of a red flag carved out of stone, flowing in the wind, and the whole lot set on a red granite plinth. It was large enough to hide a squad of cops behind, but there was nobody there. I walked around the whole monument, pretending to admire the stonework, but really looking over the Greifswalder Strasse to see if anyone was coming into the park. All clear, mark on the corner of the plinth, and off again.
A couple of turns around the small pond in the park, then Dmitri was standing there, in civilian clothes.
“Martin, how long do you have? Everything OK?”
“Things have started happening—I need some more information.”
“Ah! So, Martin, you have decided to trust me?”
“Perhaps. But it doesn’t look like I have many choices. Listen, Dmitri, last time we met you mentioned the Stasi task force, and you said you’d look to see if there were any links with Maier. Have you had a chance to do that? And were they, or even the KGB involved in the death of Maier?”
“Martin, Martin,” Dmitri shook his head, almost sadly. “An Englishman once said to me: It’s not the questions that are dangerous, it’s the answers—think twice before you ask anything, he said. And I think that was good advice. These OibE operatives are not amateurs, and nor are the KGB. No, it was someone else who killed the Maier politician. But, here, I have something for you.”
From under his coat he pulled out a file, buff coloured, with a red diagonal stripe, some Cyrillic letters and numbers on the front. I opened it, flicked through the papers. It was all in Russian.
“What does it say?”
“I don’t have time now, but it’s an internal KGB report on the task force that Maier was part of. Shall we just say someone from the KGB team sent by Moscow was persuaded to hand it over? Maier was being run by an OibE—I don’t know whether from here in Berlin or from Moscow, but the OibE is called GÄRTNER, he is leading the group. There is also a list of agents he or she has been running. I believe one of them panicked and killed Maier, then moved the body to the coal mine.”
GÄRTNER—gardener, another agricultural codename to go with Milkmaid, Field and Tractor.
“Why did they panic?” I asked Dmitri. “Was it perhaps because Maier was getting too cosy with Westgermany?”
“That is what I am thinking too, they had to ensure that Maier didn’t get too close to the West. Maybe Maier was becoming too much of a loose cannon, couldn’t be trusted any more. Perhaps GÄRTNER didn’t intend to have Maier silenced, just wanted him scared so that he’d do what he was told.”
This was at odds with the police investigation’s findings—did Fremdiswalde kill Maier because of an argument, or because he was ordered to by the OibE, or Moscow?
I flicked through the file again, this time a little more slowly. Codenames were written in Latin characters, and I could see now that TRAKTOR came up a few times, along with both FELD and MILCHMÄDCHEN and some new names: BAUM, ZIEGE, SPATEN—tree, goat, spade. This looked like confirmation that Maier was involved in the Stasi plans.
“Do you know anything about TRAKTOR?”
“I haven’t had a chance to analyse the documents, I just looked through, and thought that you probably needed it more than I do. But it looks like TRAKTOR is based in Berlin, he keeps a low profile. BAUM is in Berlin too.”
“Can you find out who these people are?”
“I have my staff on it already, although we do have some other priorities.”
I thought of the situation in Moscow, what was happening there made my little adventure here look petty.
“Of course, sorry.”
“No need to apologise. I think this is all linked. Stay with it Martin, I think you’re on the right track, and your timing is perfect.”
“How do you know what I’m up to?”
Dmitri didn’t answer, he just pointed at the nylon bag that I’d put down between my feet, the police uniform visible inside.
“I wish I could help you, but I think that if I did it may well do more harm than good.”
“But there is something you can help me with: can you spare a couple of your people? I need to make sure that a friend doesn’t get into any trouble.”
I gave him the details, and Dmitri nodded, then held out his hand.
“Martin, when we meet again we shall have a drink together, and make proper toasts—this time not to the great leader Stalin.”
“How do you know… oh, never mind.”
It was time for my next appointment.
18:26
I got to the Friedrichshain park and stationed myself in the bushes at the last junction before the footpath winds up to the top of the Grosser Bunkerberg—one of the many hills in Berlin made after the war from the rubble of the bombed-out city. I didn’t have long to wait, Erika, Laura and Klaus went up the hill together. I squatted in the foliage for another five minutes, waiting and watching to see if they were followed, then came out of my hiding place and walked up the path to the top of the hill. When I got there Klaus and Laura were deep in conversation, Erika stood off to one side, listening, but with arms folded. She saw me climb the steps, and came towards me.
“Martin, what’s going on?”
The other two had turned to face me, Klaus held his eternal cigar, Laura had folded her arms when she saw me.
“It’s all got really complicated, an
d honestly, I don’t know exactly what’s going on. Fremdiswalde is dead. Allegedly suicide, but he was badly beaten, and conveniently he died before he could be interviewed by Schadowski's murder squad. Here, look: I’ve got his files, Maier was both his handler and lover. Nevertheless it looks like Fremdiswalde killed him. I spoke to Dmitri—he’s KGB, Nik has contact with him, and I think he’s OK—this Dmitri thinks that there is a Stasi plot to destabilise West Silesia, maybe the whole of the GDR. It looks like Fremdiswalde and Maier were mixed up in it, and if I’m right, the Minister is too.”
The three of them stared at me, Klaus fiddled with his cigar, Laura shook her head, and Erika started massaging her left thumb.
“Yes, we know that Fremdiswalde did it, so surely the case is closed? Oh, and this came for you this afternoon.” Laura handed me an envelope, it was from the Saxon police.
It had already been opened, and I slid out a police report on the death of Maier. It was quite thick, full of unnecessary technical particulars that I wasn’t in the mood to pore over, but I scanned the summary and leafed through the rest. There wasn’t anything new in it, just the details and a catalogue of evidence. On the 22nd of September Maier had been at the Nochten open cast lignite mine for an official meeting about the low availability of the machinery due to frequent breakdowns. Afterwards he said he wanted to inspect the mine by himself. He was told where it was safe to go and issued a hard hat. The body, strangled using a length of soft material, most likely from a scarf, was found at half past one the next morning on the tracks of the transformer cars at the excavating end of the F60 Overburden Conveyor Gantry (F60 No. 33, built 1972-74; dimensions: 504m long x 82m high x 240m wide, capacity 100,000 tonnes per hour the report helpfully, if irrelevantly provided). Presumably the original intention was that the body should be left at the other end of the gantry where it would have been quickly covered by the spoil dump. The police theory was that the perpetrator had mistakenly enticed Maier to the wrong end of the gantry, by which time it was too late, since it would have been impossible for one person to carry a dead body 500 metres down into the pit and up the other side. So Maier had been left on the tracks. Signs of a scuffle had been found near the body. Workers at the site hadn’t seen or heard anything, which wasn’t surprising—although the mine ran all day and night the miners would have been concentrating on watching the machinery, not looking one and a half kilometres further down the mine to where Maier was being throttled. If the police estimate of time of death were correct, it would have taken about three hours for the lumbering F60 to reach Maier’s body, and another half an hour to roll over the head and feet as it moved along the rails. Fremdiswalde, who had worked at the mine after leaving school, had been recognised by a works security guard. The guard said that he saw Fremdiswalde leaving the mine at around 20.30 on the 22nd, and had seemed agitated. The guard had assumed that Fremdiswalde had been working and therefore had neither challenged him nor informed the police until Maier’s body was found. Two pairs of footprints led to the scene, but only one set led directly from the site of the murder to the edge of the mine were Fremdiswalde was seen. The police had found the draft of a letter at Maier’s flat, a dear John letter, ending the relationship with Fremdiswalde, and the police surmised that Maier had asked Fremdiswalde to meet at the mine in order to finish the affair in person.
Skin particles and hairs found on Maier’s body matched Fremdiswalde’s blood group.
Laura waited until I’d finished flicking through the file, then: “It looks pretty cut and dried to me.”
“I’m sure the Minister is very happy with the police conclusions—but he’s involved. How else can you explain everything that’s been happening over the last few days. It’s not just a case of a murder of passion, it’s bigger than this!”
“OK, so let’s just assume you’re right, how long have you suspected the Minister? And do you think he set those goons on you?” Laura demanded.
“I don’t know—the suspicion has sort of been growing over the last few days.”
“And you didn’t tell us? And why couldn’t we tell Bärbel about this meeting?”
“I did tell you—several times! I told you how I thought the Minister was behaving extremely oddly, that I was being followed. And as for Bärbel, well, think about it, somehow the Minister knew I wasn’t happy about the Maier situation—how? And why wasn’t she shocked, or even surprised when the cops—if they were even cops—turned up to fetch me today? She’s not one of us, she was an official under the old regime, and we inherited her—what do we know about her, really? I didn’t tell you about Dmitri, that was wrong, I’m sorry. But it was good that I didn’t, because otherwise Bärbel would have just told the Minister.”
“Martin, are you sure about this Maier connection to the Minister?” Klaus interjected before things could get even worse between Laura and me.
I looked at him, held my hands palm outwards, the police report and Dmitri’s papers stuffed under my arm.
“Look, I’m not a hundred percent sure, it’s all pretty circumstantial—I want to cross reference my own Stasi files. I think we might find something there. Did you bring your files too?”
We stood there for a few moments, all looking at each other, then Laura shrugged off the bag that was hung over her shoulder, and pulled out a couple of folders. She handed me one of them—it was my Stasi file. I took it and walked over to the low wall surrounding the area at the top of the hill. I laid the files on it, then looked over my shoulder, encouraging the others to join me. They came over, and watched as I flicked through Fremdiswalde’s papers.
“Here, look, Fremdiswalde was an IM—but he was working in a special task force, everyone in that task force has some kind of farming codename. Fremdiswalde was FELD, and Dmitri reckons that there was an OibE, this is him, GÄRTNER.” I looked up into three blank faces, “An OibE is a Stasi officer put into some position of power well before the 1989 Revolution so that he can exert influence, usually over a government department or government agency. Dmitri reckons there are still some active OibEs, and that they may be trying to organise a counter-revolution—they have the same set-up in the Soviet Union, and the attempts to depose Gorbachev may be part of the same plan as the secession of West Silesia. GÄRTNER must have been heading up a task force, and Maier was part of it. He was in at the beginning—his codename probably gave them the idea for all the other names—look, they’re all agricultural names, and we know that Maier was MILCHMÄDCHEN, and that his codename is older than the OibE plan.
“I reckon that he just got too close to Westgermany, started following his own agenda: an independent West Silesia with him at the helm. They needed to discipline him, bring him back into line. But they cocked it up and he ended up dead in an open-cast mine.
“If what Dmitri says is true then there’ll be links with the Ministry of the Interior here in Berlin—look,” I showed them the part in Fremdiswalde’s file that showed TRAKTOR to be the same agent as GOTTFRIED. “I’m sure that name crops up in my files too—maybe we can work out who it is.”
I started leafing through my files, looking for any mention of GOTTFRIED. Erika joined me at the wall, getting out her own file and looking through it. Although I had my back to Laura and Klaus I could hear them murmuring, then after a short hesitation they joined us—they’d brought their files too.
“We really need an F 3 for GOTTFRIED or Maier. That’s the ‘Who Knows Who’ file which would show us the links. That is, if there are any,” said Laura as she put her file on the wall.
“OK, I’ve got a GOTTFRIED here—report dated September 1983, the human chain for peace that we formed between the American and Soviet embassies. It says GOTTFRIED was present at the scene, but left before the participants were taken into detention,” said Erika.
“That doesn’t help us at all! There were hundreds of us there that day,” snorted Klaus.
“OK, keep looking, maybe we’ll find more, wait, here: Situation Report on the 1987 Peace Worksho
p—the one that the church banned, look: ‘GOTTFRIED has made representations to Diocesan Genaralsuperintendent Krusche, offering to act as one of a group of guarantors for the groups involved’.”
Trouble was, that made it look like GOTTFRIED was on our side, far from being the IM that was set on impeding the work we were doing. But at least it showed that GOTTFRIED had some links with figures high up in the church.
“OK, I think I’ve got something—Martin, you may be right, listen: Situation Report on the mood of the opposition groups after the Zion Church affair. It says that GOTTFRIED has begun discouraging groups from using his church—it’s in my file because I was in one of those groups. It was his church, it was the church where the Minister used to be the Pastor!”
It added up—he’d have links to Krusche, and he was there the day we did the peace chain between the embassies. I remember him staying long enough to get his photo taken by the Western media, then leaving just when the police vans turned up.
“OK, there was another one too, Dmitri said there was another person working from Berlin, what was the name?”
From my bag I pulled out the file that Dmitri had given, and looked through it.
“BAUM! That was it—but I don’t know what it says, it’s all in Russian. Klaus, do you understand this?”
Klaus took the file, and flicked through, stopping whenever he saw the codename BAUM. After a while he cleared his throat and looked up.
“Hard to say. But from what I understand it looks like BAUM is in the Ministry too. Look: there’s orders here regarding police and border guard deployments along the West Silesian border; or here: BAUM is instructed by Moscow to doctor reports on meetings between West Silesian and Berlin officials. Whoever she is, she must be pretty high up in the Ministry.”
“She?”
“Yes, definitely a woman, it always refers to BAUM as a female: yeye, ona, eu, etc.”
“Do you get any sense of her relationship with the Minister?”
Stealing the Future Page 20