by Alex Cugia
He breathed a sigh of relief.
He fast forwarded slightly then set the tape playing again. “... so there’s been no reaction yet.” It was Dieter’s voice, loud and clear. A long pause followed his words as if he were talking on the phone.
Thomas moved the fast forward button again. He fast forwarded the tape then, pressing play periodically and listening for a second or two each time.
“Hello Hyena. Anything urgent to report?” It was Dieter’s voice, followed by a long pause. “Yessss ...” Thomas said, punching the air, happy that the system had worked and that the quality was good though he wished he’d been able to put the microphone inside the telephone instead of underneath the table. They listened to the conversation, then Thomas rewound the tape again.
“It’s as if he wants someone to hear that he’s calling the investigation off. Probably the person who was in the office with him then. Listen to it again.” He pressed the play button once more.
“ ... seems all clear and straightforward ... your mission is over ... another urgent matter ... ”
Bettina’s lip trembled as Dieter’s familiar voice reached them. “You’re right. Dieter would never have called the investigation off until he’d heard what we had to say.”
“Let’s try to see what happened before you rang.” Thomas said.
He rewound the tape, listening to the helium-gabbling until there was a sharp crack and then silence. He fast forwarded to the crack, backtracked a few seconds and then set the machine to play. The speakers gave the sound of a door being slammed shut, heavy footsteps and an angry voice becoming louder and clearer as it approached the area of the hidden microphone under Dieter’s desk. They listened, silently holding their breaths as if they would otherwise give themselves away, as the tape played on slowly and the angry voice berated Dieter. The words were hard to make out, coming and going, as if the person were walking around the room and only occasionally talking in the direction of Dieter or approaching the desk.
Thomas pressed the stop button and turned to Bettina. “Do you recognize the voice?”
“No,” Bettina said. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard it before.”
Thomas rewound for a second or two then pressed the play button again. He started jotting down the words he could make, hoping to fill in the gaps later.
“ ... an investigation going on of which I’m not aware. Since when do you have the authority to conduct missions without my ... understand what and who ... ” There was a sudden bang as if the unknown man had slammed his fist on to the desk to vent his fury.
Thomas pressed the pause button. “Damn it, there’s huge gaps. But it must be someone superior to Dieter, complaining that he’s not been informed. Who else is above him in the chain of command?”
“I’ve no idea now that we’ve been moved under the Interior Ministry. Dieter used to be one of seven heads of department. They all reported to the Director of Operations, Markonberg. Above him are the Leiter of the whole Secret Service, Mielke, and the Vice-Leiter, Sponden. I’ve never met any of them, I’m afraid. But the most likely should be Markonberg. He’s Dieter’s direct superior.”
Thomas pressed the button again and the tape continued.
“... about financial services. We have other priorities. The ... is over. ... an order. I don’t want to hear another ... Securities.”
Thomas stopped the tape and wound it back. “Did you hear the last words? It seemed to me like he was saying Phoenix Securities.” He pressed play again.
“… an order. I don’t want to hear another ...eenix Securities.”
“It’s definitely Phoenix he’s saying.”
Bettina nodded. “He’s being ordered to halt the mission on Phoenix. That’s why he told us to come back immediately. Of course, and that's why he mentioned Henkel! I'd told him of the suicide letter copies we had and I'm sure he picked up my doubts. That's why he said so firmly it was clear and straightforward, finished, when it obviously wasn't.”
Thomas let the tape run on.
“I believe there may be a case of fraud on a vast scale. They have built a network all over the country.” It was Dieter’s voice now, perfectly audible. He was talking vehemently, but with the respect due to his superior. “The ...”
There was another loud bang as if the second man had again slammed his fist on to the desk. The voice continued gaining and losing volume as Dieter's visitor strode around in his fury, sometimes shouting, sometimes talking quietly and coldly.
“... has been investigated fully ... Wornletz ... you appointed ... nothing to explain. Do you not understand? That is an order. You are to take no further action in this area.”
"Hanno?" Bettina looked at Thomas. "That means Hanno's in danger too. I need to warn him."
From the tape there was the sound of the phone ringing, a pause, a click, and then Dieter’s bored voice repeating “Hello Hyena. Anything urgent to report?”
“That’s when you called.” Thomas pressed the pause button. “No wonder he reacted the way he did. You couldn’t have chosen a worse moment.” The tape continued, and they listened, waiting for the phone conversation to end. When it did, the other voice resumed, perfectly clear as if he was now standing next to Dieter.
“Thank you, Colonel Dieter. I’m glad to see you have understood. Don’t let me ever hear about you taking up this investigation again or you’ll find yourself in extremely serious trouble.”
The door again slammed. There was a pause, then…“Yessir, Mr Herr Sponden, sir.” Dieter’s voice said as if to himself, as the tape ran out.
Chapter 41
Friday January 19 1990, early morning
“SO that's who was trying to stop the investigation.” They looked at each other, now seriously concerned that the corruption triggered by imminent unification reached almost to the top.
He sighed. "Looks like every single former Stasi high ranker's got his snout in the trough. Who the hell can we talk to about Phoenix and what we've discovered in Dresden? Dieter was maybe an exception to this grubbing around for personal gain and look where that got him. And why was he interested in Phoenix anyway? Was it just because he didn't like what he suspected others were getting up to? Maybe. There's got to be more to this than we know."
“Thomas, Phoenix is the least of our concerns right now. We're in serious danger and we need to work out what to do. If people of Sponden's rank are involved and this is linked to Dresden that's why Dieter was killed. I'm sure of it. And I'm next in line - you too because even if they didn't know before what Dieter was up to they sure as hell know now and they'll be looking for both of us."
“Maybe they killed Dieter because they discovered he’d evidence of their links with Phoenix. Maybe it was something else entirely. Maybe the money disappearing in Dresden and the sale of the mill are nothing to do with Phoenix, just coincidence. Maybe it's just simple theft and fraud.” He indicated the small stack of tapes on the table. “We should try to listen to all these tapes. They may well have clues to ... ”
“Thomas! You have no idea, do you? Jesus! How can I get it into your fucking thick head that these people don't play games when they're threatened. You come poncing around with your liberal Western ideas of what's right and wrong but you haven't a clue about how ruthless true believers can be when things don't go their way. These peopleThey're probably already looking for us, guns ready, and you want to listen to tapes?”
“It could help us to work out why Dieter was killed and learn who might be trying to kill us and why.”
“To do what? There’s no way we can stop people like Roehrberg or Sponden now that Dieter is gone. They still control thousands of people inside the country and outside. Listen! Dieter had integrity. He had intellectual honesty. And so although he was committed to this country and its ideals, like me, he also saw how things could get bent, how people could justify things, how the Stasi grabbed more and more power to itself."
She look straight at him. "Look how they justify spying
on people in the name of state security. Look how they get ordinary people to spy and report on others. Look how they bend the laws to hide what they're doing. All that shit is just to frighten people about things they don't really understand. It can seem plausible enough but really only has one aim and that's to ensure the powerful retain power. They've seen how things are going now, they intend to benefit and if people get in their way they'll be eliminated. That includes us."
Thomas had rarely seen Bettina simultaneously so angry and so despairing. She sat with her face in her hands and for a minute or two there was silence. She looked up at Thomas and spoke more quietly.
"We have to get away. We have to disappear. But even that won’t be easy. Dieter promised to deal with our files but we don't know what that meant – now that he's dead they could be going through them right now.”
Thomas had forgotten about the files. Even if Dieter had managed to hide them somewhere in his office where the murderers wouldn’t find them, it was likely that the files would shortly fall into the hands of BND agents. Either way he was doomed. He had no idea about what they contained but the documents he had signed, and which would certainly be there, were sufficient proof that he had been a Stasi agent.
“Where would Dieter keep them?”
“They could be anywhere. He said on a couple of occasions that he would keep them with him at all times. So they were probably in his house when he got killed. Maybe he secured them well, maybe he didn't.”
Thomas thought to himself for a moment. He could see only one opportunity. If he couldn’t find his file and destroy it then he needed to prove that he’d been trying to collaborate with the West German services. If the BND found his files and pulled him in then even the tapes wouldn't be much use.
“Is there anyone within the organisation that you can absolutely trust to help us?”
Bettina sat silently for a long moment, biting her closed fist. Then she shook her head.
“I’ve always worked for Dieter, and mostly on my own. I’ve never been involved with the political aspect of things. I met a lot of colleagues but most of them I know only superficially."
She coloured, looked away from Thomas, theen added.
"There's Hanno, of course. Remember, you met him briefly that day in Dieter's office. He's OK but he's still junior, although he was always pretty ambitious. And from what the tape said he's at risk too as he seems to have been asked to make some report about what we were investigating. I really don’t know anyone strong enough to go against Sponden or Roehrberg, like Dieter could have done. Dieter was very different from the others. He did whatever he felt was right, regardless of the consequences. That’s why he never made it to the top, despite his intelligence and capability. He wasn’t controllable and he wasn't really interested in money or power or prestige for its own sake.”
"OK, so we need to vanish. But how do we do that? Trying to hide from the Stasi, ex-Stasi I guess though it doesn't really matter, is going to be pretty much impossible wherever we go in Europe if the likes of Roehrberg or Sponden really want to find us. And we can't hide forever, particularly as we need to find out more. Trouble is finding out more, getting the proofs we need to nail them and free ourselves, makes us even more dangerous to them short term."Despite the formal disbanding of the Stasi framework there was enough residue and enough contacts and loyalties among the former agents for it to remain a powerful force
Thomas took a deep breath. He knew what had to be done but he also knew there would be fierce resistance from Bettina and he wanted to explain and justify his plan to minimise that. Though as with all unwelcome news, he thought, maybe the best thing was to come straight out with it. Pull the plaster straight off in a swift jerk.
“The Firm is finished. What's more it looks as if it was responsible for killing the one person there you valued most. I know your loyalty to it and particularly to your country. But the Firm's become your enemy, our enemy, and if there's a link with Phoenix or with the kind of financial scam we saw with the mill then it’s your country’s enemy as well. We’re not strong enough to stop it or halt people like Roehrberg or Sponden on our own so we’ve got to get somebody as strong as them, even stronger, to help us.”
They looked warily at each other. Thomas could see that Bettina was already ahead of him. He took another deep breath and rushed on.
“We need outside help to find and prosecute Dieter’s murderers. We need help against Roehrberg and his comrades and we urgently need protection. We need to contact the BND. We need to tell them everything we know. With unification they’ll control everything ... ”
He reeled back as Bettina slapped him hard across the cheek. He felt her fists striking wildly at his chest, his shoulders, his arms and his head in a flurry he could do nothing to control. He’d expected a strong reaction but this was something else entirely, its violence well beyond anything he’d anticipated. Suddenly, the onslaught stopped and Bettina threw her arms round him, sobbing bitterly into his chest as he held her.
“You can do what you like, Thomas, but don’t ask me to betray my country. To me the BND is no different from the CIA or MI5, worse even, the number one enemy of my country for as long as I can remember.”
“If it comes to unification it will be because the majority of your fellow citizens just as much as mine want it. It’ll no longer be us and them, the DDR against the West, Stasi against the BND. We’ll be the same country, one nation.”
He stroked her hair gently, talking softly and trying to calm her.
“No, we won’t be. West Germany is one nation. The DDR will be a colony, an appendix, a poor relation, nothing more.” She gulped convulsively.
It was as if he were hearing Dieter himself as he looked out of his office on the last occasion they’d met, his thoughts clearly having influenced Bettina greatly. Thomas decided to approach the matter from a different angle. The information he knew personally was too limited to be of much interest to the West German services, the tapes perhaps excepted, and he desperately needed Bettina’s cooperation and support. In any case, there was no way Thomas could craft a credible story without mentioning her or Dieter, and they both needed to flee Berlin to have a chance of surviving.
“Bettina, do you want Dieter’s killers caught and prosecuted? Or would you be happy to see them escape, go unpunished for what they did?” he asked. “This is what it boils down to.”
Bettina remained silent, trying to think of something to say, some other way out of her nightmare. Thomas could see the tension in her features, the conflicting thoughts flitting over her face, her desperate efforts to avoid accepting the inevitable. She was like a caged lioness, pacing up and down the room, torn between remaining faithful to her principles and her will to survive. Finally her gaze sank and Thomas knew she was about to give in.
“Do as you wish.” she said, in a whisper. “Now I must sleep.” She lay down on the bed which served also as sofa in the room, turned to the wall, curled up tightly and drew the covers over her head. He watched as they jerked and shook and then settled as her breathing grew calmer.
It was now approaching five in the morning and still dark outside. He was tired too but reluctant to lose connection with the events just past, to draw a line under Dieter's death and their flight. He put a fresh tape in the machine. “I’ll keep on listening while I work in case anything is going on in Dieter’s office. Then we can listen to the earlier tapes at night when nothing should be happening there.”
He pulled out a pad from his briefcase and started jotting down the things they needed to do immediately. He had to call home to Frankfurt and contact John here in Berlin, telling them he was travelling outside the country and wouldn’t be reachable for another month, just in case someone found his file and started enquiring for him. They were probably safe here in Kai’s flat for a while but Bettina would have to stay inside and avoid being seen. And he would need to be especially careful at border crossings. Although now people could move freely there were st
ill a series of formal checkpoints where he would be easy to spot.
Thomas pressed the record function, put on the headphones and then lay back on the easy chair and quickly fell into a fractured doze. The sound of a key turning in a lock woke him suddenly and for a moment he lay back confused as to where he was but certain that someone was entering Dieter’s office. It was only when the door swung open suddenly in front of him that he realized the noise was right here, that someone was entering the apartment.
Chapter 42
Friday January 19 1990
THE slam of the door startled Bettina awake and for a moment she was lost, groggy and unsure of herself in the unfamiliar surroundings. Instinctively, still half asleep, she rolled on her back sliding her hand beneath the pillow for her pistol as she did so. That there was nothing there brought her to full consciousness and she looked towards the noise, fearing that whatever had made it might be the last thing she would see. It came back to her that in this supposedly safe location, dog tired and distressed with all that had happened, she’d dropped her gun on the floor by the bed as she crawled under the duvet. She could see the gun now, just out of easy reach and with its safety catch on.
At the same sound Thomas had jerked upright, fully awake, and was raising himself from the chair and dipping into the rucksack beside him for his own gun. As his hand closed on the butt and he moved it round, ready to fire through the canvas, the figure turned towards him and beamed with delight.
“Thomas!” John exclaimed. “Hey! I didn’t know you were here. When did you get back?”
Thomas removed his hand from the rucksack and lay back in the easy chair, his heart pumping furiously and the adrenalin tenseness slowly ebbing. He thought John’s dramatic entrance had probably shortened his life by a couple of years but he was nevertheless delighted to see his friend. He rested his forehead in his palm for some moments, breathed slowly and deeply, and waved a hand in laconic greeting in John’s direction.