However, there was a definite risk that the girl could point Johnson toward others who were better placed to help him in his investigations. Among them would be people who had been in the same circle of KGB and Stasi operatives during the 1980s. He ran through a mental list of them, but there only a couple of men really mattered, both of whom had been in the Stasi but had worked closely alongside the KGB.
What decided it for him was the arrival of a secure message from Anastasia in London, relaying details picked up from her agent ANTELOPE, who was trying to keep a close watch on Joe Johnson’s investigation. Details were sparse because ANTELOPE was not in the loop on everything. But apparently, Johnson had gotten back to Berlin, along with Katya Yezhova, and was heading to Leipzig the following day.
Severinov thought he knew exactly who he would intend to visit there, although there was no confirmation of that from Anastasia.
He also knew for certain that unless he acted now, he would be effectively hanging himself out to dry.
He checked his laptop: yes, he still had addresses for both men. He just hoped they were still current, as it had been a long time since their last contact.
Severinov did a quick mental calculation. If he got Balagula on a plane that evening, he could be in Berlin by midnight and operational first thing in the morning for the two tasks that he had in mind.
After all, dead men could tell no tales.
He picked up the phone and dialed.
Thursday, April 10, 2014
London
The breakthrough came just after three o’clock on Thursday afternoon, when the B2 surveillance team that was stationed near the Bread Street motorbike bay saw a woman walk up to the motorbike they were watching.
The team of four was staked out in two nearby buildings and the adjacent streets.
The building across the street from the motorbike belonged to an investment company where a female B2 member, Zara Ashwin, was sat at a corner desk on the ground floor. One of Bennett’s “fixers” had forged an arrangement to use the desk with the investment company’s managing director, telling him only that they were following up on a lead on a suspected illegal immigrant.
The second building, where the fixer had made a similar arrangement to temporarily use a desk with a view of the motorbike bay, lay on the other side of Cannon Street and belonged to a law firm. Ashwin could actually see her B2 colleague from her vantage point.
The other two members of the team loitered nearby, drinking coffee in cafés, sitting in parks, browsing in shops, and waiting in line for buses. They changed their disguises frequently, and Ashwin occasionally amused herself by trying to spot their next appearance in the vicinity.
Ashwin herself spent most of her time on her laptop computer surfing the internet but with her attention mainly focused on the bike, a Yamaha.
As soon as Ashwin saw the Southern European woman take out a key and unlock the Yamaha’s pannier bag, she calmly closed the lid of her laptop, placed it in her bag, and walked out into the investment company’s rear courtyard that led onto Bread Street via a pair of heavy wooden doors.
Ashwin exited the doors onto the street and found herself about thirty yards away from the motorbike. She was just in time to see the woman place something in the pannier and lock it again. Ashwin lit a cigarette, as if on a break from her work, and called Bennett on her secure cell phone.
“Gary, the drop’s been activated,” she muttered. “Am starting foot surveillance immediately. It’s a Southern European–looking woman, possibly Spanish or Italian, shoulder-length black hair, dark jacket, jeans, with a beige shoulder bag. She’s about five feet six inches tall, olive skin, medium build. She has placed something in the Yamaha’s pannier, presumably a flash drive or similar. Please launch backup team.”
“Thanks, Zara, will do,” Bennett said. The arrangement was that the other three members of the team would now operate together to tail the woman as she left the scene.
Ashwin ended the call.
Thursday, April 10, 2014
London
Jayne could hear only silence at the other end of the secure phone connection as Johnson digested what she had just told him.
The good news she had to report from London was that the B2 team had spotted the illegal, a Southern European woman, while she was placing material in the motorbike dead drop near St. Paul’s Cathedral and had now put her under surveillance.
The bad news was something that occurred to Jayne in response to Johnson’s news that he was heading to Leipzig the next morning to chase down Ludwig Helm.
Having gone over the documents that had been circulated to the joint CIA-MI6 team over recent days, and which therefore might have been leaked to Yasenevo, Jayne had realized that one of them, dated April 4, was a short update from Vic Walter to Mark Nicklin-Donovan that mentioned Johnson’s intention to travel to St. Petersburg to locate Varvara Yezhova.
It stated that this followed intelligence sourced from an agent in Berlin, an unnamed SVR officer.
“That’s how the FSB got onto your trail in St. Petersburg,” Jayne said. “They saw the leaked report.”
“Yes, maybe, but that’s not going to impact my Leipzig visit,” Johnson said. “They won’t know about that.”
“They might not know, but they could work it out. If Moscow Center knows we have been getting our information from one of their SVR people, it won’t take them long to work out that it’s Schwartz, and then—”
“They have lots of people in Berlin—they might not deduce it that quickly,” Johnson interrupted.
“Who knows? And if they then realize that Schwartz and Helm were connected in the ’80s, they could put two and two together and work out that Helm was next on your list for a visit.”
“That’s a very long shot.”
“Yes, but they’re good at long shots.”
Another silence from Johnson. Jayne knew that maybe her mind was working overtime, but that’s what she was paid for and why she had delivered such good results over more than two and a half decades in the intelligence community. In her experience, a little paranoia kept the adrenaline flowing and often put her one valuable step ahead.
In this case, she realized that her concern was due to more than purely professional reasons.
“Joe, from what I’ve heard, it sounds as though you’ve almost used up your cat’s nine lives on this operation. Just be very careful. I want you back. I was worried as hell when you went off the radar in St. Petersburg.”
Johnson chuckled a little. “Good to know someone cares. I wish I’d had your levelheaded companionship and humor in Russia—unlike the loose cannon I was with. Although to be fair, she saved my skin. I’ll be back. I’m looking forward to seeing you too. Listen, I’ve got to go. I need to call Vic and update him.”
Jayne ended the call and sat staring at the ceiling of the Rossmore Road safe house. She was getting a bad vibe, and Johnson’s reassuring words hadn’t shaken it off.
Chapter Forty
Friday, April 11, 2014
Berlin
Reiner Schwartz stood on the sidewalk outside his house. He watched the unmarked gray CIA car that had just dropped him off skirt around a white Volkswagen parked a few meters farther along the street and disappear around the corner. Then he turned and made his way up the narrow driveway that ran alongside his house.
The whole episode seemed like a nightmare. Maybe if he went inside and poured himself a large tumbler of brandy, he might wake up.
But the twelve days’ worth of beard growing on his face and the kilos he had lost were evidence that it had been no bad dream.
Those bastards in the CIA and their British sidekicks were as bad as the damned SVR. How dare they imprison him in some safe house for nearly two weeks.
How dare they.
He felt anger rising up inside him like a wave. Anger at himself, for being so stupid and careless as to be captured in the first place, and anger at everyone else. People. He hated people.
The problem he now had was what to do next. His job at the ministry was finished; he knew that. Quite apart from the fact that he hadn’t been into the office for two weeks without contacting his boss, he knew that the Americans would have to pass along their intelligence about his role with the SVR. They would have to—if they didn’t, their friends at the BND would find out at some stage anyway.
He was also finished in Germany for the same reason. If he stayed, he would be inside a prison cell before he could blink. So he needed to get out, and the only place he could realistically go now for refuge was Moscow.
As Schwartz turned right to go along the path that led to his rear door, he heard a car door click shut out on the street.
He turned to look. A barrel-chested, muscled, military-looking man was striding up the drive toward him, dressed in a dark jacket and trousers. Black chest hairs were showing at the V where his shirt buttons were undone.
Mein Gott. My God.
As the man drew near, he put his hand inside his jacket. It was obvious what was hidden there.
“Go inside,” the man said in German. But Schwartz immediately picked up on the Russian accent.
They must know what I’ve done, what I’ve given away.
Schwartz hesitated for a beat, then walked slowly along the path to his door. He knew this was the end. Somehow the Russians had found out he had been talking to the CIA. They wouldn’t be interested in why he had talked, how he had been captured, or the torture he had faced. He looked briefly up to the sky—he would likely need a miracle to save him now.
“Open it and go inside. Do not try anything stupid,” the man said.
“I must take my key from my pocket,” Schwartz said.
“Yes. Do it slowly.”
Schwartz removed the key from his jacket pocket, inserted it into the lock, and opened the door. He couldn’t help noticing that the daffodils in his flower bed, which had been yellow and thriving when he had been taken away, were now brown, their heads drooping.
“Walk into your kitchen and stand in front of the fridge,” the man said. “Then raise your hands above your head.”
Schwartz did as instructed.
The man positioned himself about two meters in front of Schwartz and raised his handgun, which Schwartz could see was a Makarov with a suppressor screwed into the barrel. He pointed it directly at Schwartz’s head.
“No! Don’t do that. Please! I can—” Schwartz shouted.
There was a muffled thwack, and Schwartz’s world went black.
Friday, April 11, 2014
Leipzig
The apartment building was a five-story stone property overlooking a cobblestoned square that housed an old church, Thomaskirche—St. Thomas Church. The church’s white tower, imposing vertiginous stone walls, and tall arched stained-glass windows dominated the square, where two solitary trees were showing the first signs of spring growth.
Johnson gained entry to the building by tailgating a teenage girl who was entirely focused on the music blaring from her headphones, not on the middle-aged balding man who followed her in through the main entrance.
From there, it was a straightforward matter to take the elevator to level two, where Ludwig Helm’s apartment, number thirty-six, was located halfway along a dismally lit high-ceilinged corridor with faded dark-green carpet.
Before approaching the apartment, Johnson checked out his exit routes, as he always did when visiting a new building. Apart from the twin elevators, which were located in the center of the corridor, there was also a main staircase next to the elevator shaft, and at the far end of the corridor there was a sign marked Fire Escape.
He wandered along to check the fire escape, the door to which was set back from the main corridor in a recess. Unlike the main staircase, which was wide and carpeted, this one was narrow and consisted of bare concrete steps and landings.
Satisfied, Johnson pushed his Beretta down into his jacket pocket and checked that the handkerchiefs he had positioned to disguise the gun’s outline were still in place. Then he walked back to Helm’s apartment and knocked on the door.
The stooped man who answered had an unruly mop of white hair, a gray complexion, and round metal-framed glasses.
So this is the Nazi’s son.
Johnson, telling a few half-truths, deployed his fluent German to claim that he was an American historian who was carrying out anonymous interviews with former senior members of the Stasi for a book and a film that was planned to mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Helm’s lip curled up when Johnson told him he was American. “So will this be a well-balanced view of the Stasi? I haven’t seen one yet from your side of the Atlantic,” he said. But after Johnson deployed some of his well-practiced doorstep charm and a little persuasion, Helm eventually let him into the apartment.
A grand piano that looked like a museum piece stood beneath a window at one end of the lengthy living room. The lid was covered in scratches, the varnish was peeling off in places, and some of the white keys were chipped. Piles of yellowed sheet music lay on top of it.
“Do you play it?” Johnson asked.
“Of course,” Helm replied as he walked stiff-legged to the piano. He tapped his hand on the lid. “Everyone in this city plays music. I was the organist at Thomaskirche across there for a few years in the ’90s.” He indicated through the window at the church across the square. “And I also used to be chairman of the Leipzig Bach Festival—one of the biggest music festivals in the world. Did you know Johann Sebastian Bach was Kapellmeister, music director, at Thomaskirche in the eighteenth century?”
Johnson admitted he didn’t know that. This story was becoming stranger with every revelation. An ex-Nazi, ex-Stasi turned church organist?
Helm gave him a short unprompted lecture on the famous composer’s twenty-seven-year tenure at the church. “He wrote more than three hundred cantatas and his famous Mass in B-minor here, and the St. Matthew Passion,” Helm said. He pointed out a large statue of the composer that stood on a stone plinth in the square in front of the church, between the two trees.
“Anyway, enough of Bach.” Helm pushed his glasses up his nose and smiled. Despite being eighty-nine, he was clearly still bright and switched on. This was promising.
He indicated to Johnson to sit in a faded leather armchair and took his place in a matching chair that faced Johnson’s. “How can I help you with your book? I don’t get many people who are interested in the Stasi these days, thankfully. Everyone tries to forget those times, including me.”
“I’m actually interested in two quite narrow aspects of the Stasi,” Johnson said. “The first relates to the Stasi’s links with the KGB and to one person in particular. The second is to do with a terrorist attack.”
Helm’s smile disappeared. “The KGB? Which person are you talking about? And which terrorist attack?”
“The person was a KGB officer, Gennady Yezhov, who I understand was a friend of yours, and the attack I am interested in is the La Belle discotheque.”
Helm’s eyebrows flicked up, and he visibly stiffened in his chair. There was silence for several seconds.
“I don’t want to talk about this,” Helm said eventually, his voice now quavering a little. “It was a long time ago, and I can’t remember a great deal.”
“Listen,” Johnson said. “This is an anonymous conversation. I can assure you of complete discretion, and your name will not appear in any publication or article I might write. As you say, it is history. I need to tell you that Gennady Yezhov was murdered recently in Berlin by his former colleagues in the SVR as he was in the process of defecting. He was shot dead in the street. My understanding is that he was to inform Western intelligence services about many things, some current, some historic, but among them was information relating to La Belle and the events of early April 1986 when that disco was blown up. Gennady gave his daughter your name as a person to contact if anything happened to him.”
Hel
m’s eyes narrowed, and he scrutinized Johnson. “Gennady has been killed?”
“I am sorry to report that yes, that is true. It happened on March 21 near to Friedrichstrasse station. I can prove it to you, if you like. There was a lot of news coverage, but his name was not released.”
Helm looked at the floor. “Yes, I remember the TV news bulletins, now that you mention it. I am sorry to hear that. Very sorry. He was a good friend.”
After a few seconds, Helm looked up. “You’re not writing a book, are you? Das ist doch Quatsch. That is bullshit.”
Johnson raised his hands, as if to admit defeat. “No, I am not writing a book. I am carrying out an investigation into Gennady Yezhov’s murder and the reasons why that happened.”
There was fear in Helm’s eyes now. He shook his head. “No, I cannot help with this.”
Johnson had a feeling that was going to be Helm’s reaction. Fear of the state still ran deep in these eastern areas of Germany. “Let me just assist you with your decision about this. Let’s go back in time a little, shall we? Back to the Second World War, when it is my understanding that you were a member of a certain organization—the Nazi Party. You joined the Schutzstaffel, the SS, and you were following firmly in your father’s footsteps, weren’t you?”
Helm tightened his fists so his knuckles were showing white through his mottled pink skin. He pressed his lips together. “I didn’t. No. I wasn’t anything like that. You have got it wrong.”
“And at the end of the war, you became a Junker. You joined one of the Junkerschulen, and your aim was to become an SS officer, again in the mold of your father, Heinz.”
There was a shake of the head, and Helm’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed hard.
“It’s all in your Nazi Party file, Mr. Helm,” Johnson said. “I have seen it, and I have seen your father’s file. I have copies of both of them, actually, on my phone, if you would like to look at them.”
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