“Thank you, you’ve been most helpful,” replied Merkur, and went for his breakfast.
When Merkur came out of the breakfast room and entered the lift, I remained in my seat, hiding behind my tourist guide. And I stayed right there when he came back down, fully togged up in his boots, shapka and loden coat, and strode purposefully to the doors.
I watched him through the window as he descended the steps and disappeared from sight. A moment later, he was back in view, stalking along the Promenade in the direction of the lighthouse and harbour.
I waited a little longer, and was rewarded when Unterleutnant Lütten entered the frame, hastening after Merkur. Only then did I pick up my book, drain my coffee and follow them into the cold.
It was another dry day, but clouds were massing overhead, giving the impression they might lower themselves onto the town at any point, suffocating us with snow and freezing fog.
I pulled on my gloves as I went, taking care to keep Lütten in sight, but also aware that Lütten’s colleague should be nearby. He’d be staying warm in a car if he had any sense.
At the Teepott, our little convoy turned right, heading down a back lane parallel to the Alter Strom quay. Past narrow houses, tight shops with empty shelves and long queues, grannies with red hands, shiny with arthritis, clutching shopping bags.
Merkur had reached the end of the lane where it widened out to meet Kirchenstrasse and the bridge to the railway station. A grey Wartburg was waiting at the side of the road, the driver had opened the door and was climbing out, ignoring the Barkas impatient to get past. As Lütten drew near, Merkur was already half-way over the bridge, and the two goons switched places, Lütten quickly putting the Wartburg into gear and making space for the greengrocer’s van to squeeze past. Lütten’s colleague hurried after Merkur, the Wartburg shuffling over the warped planks of the bridge.
I waited by the Alter Strom and watched the procession—Merkur had already disappeared into the train station, the road layout forced Lütten in his car to turn right onto the main road to Rostock, while the goon on foot had reached the booking hall, was cautiously opening the heavy doors to peer inside.
Lütten parked his Wartburg behind a row of Danish and Swedish lorries and hurried back to the station to see what was happening.
A rake of double-decker carriages was waiting at the platform next to the station building, a heavy diesel V180 droning away at the head, working itself up to pull the train to Rostock. After a moment’s hesitation, I boarded the first carriage, quickly working through the connections between the cars to the end and finding myself a window seat upstairs. The lower part of the window could be wound down, leaving a gap of about thirty centimetres, just enough to angle my head out to see along the length of the train.
I’d guessed right: just as the dispatcher appeared, carrying her whistle and her green and red lollipop, Merkur hurried out of the ticket office and marched across the icy cobbles to the nearest carriage. The platform manager, about to raise the signal, shouted in irritation as Lütten hurried after, jumping aboard as the whistle blew. The doors shuffled and clunked home and, with a jerk and a scream of exhaust, we set off.
As the platforms of Warnemünde station slid backwards, I made myself comfortable in a seat from which I could see Merkur or Lütten, should either decide to alight at any of the stations between here and Rostock.
27
Rostock
Lütten’s colleague was waiting for us at Rostock, pretending to make a phone call from the box outside the station, his Wartburg idling at the curb. Lütten himself paused to study the timetables on the noticeboard, and I dawdled at the ticket counters.
Merkur, the only one of us with no reason to hang around, headed directly for the tram stop.
Lütten decided he also had to make a call, so left the ticket hall and waited outside the phone booth, studiously avoiding eye contact with his colleague, who was still managing to hold a one-sided conversation down the line. I switched to the queue at the Mitropa kiosk, deliberating over the display of newspapers and magazines on the counter. I had a good view of Merkur at the tram stop, staring at the parade of flagpoles and their charges of national and red flags. They didn’t stir or flap, but drooped in the dead air.
When the Gothawagen rumbled around the turning circle, activity returned to our little tableau. Merkur boarded the first carriage of the tram, Lütten’s colleague finished his call and went back to his car, searching one pocket after another for his keys. Lütten was having problems with his pockets too, fishing around for coins for the telephone. Meanwhile, I decided that the nearest magazine would suit my needs and paid hurriedly.
Along with several other passengers, I boarded the trailer car and pretended to flick through my purchase, a little unsettled to discover I’d picked up the women’s magazine, Sybille. Through the windows I could see Merkur in the other carriage, fumbling with change, trying to pick out a twenty Pfennig coin for the ticket box. He found one just as the doors concertinaed shut and the tram hummed into life. The money dropped into the box, he pulled out a ticket and found himself a seat at the front, not paying any attention to Lütten and his friend, who were both climbing into the Wartburg behind us.
We weren’t on the move for long—Merkur got up as we screeched around the curve into Lange Strasse in the centre of Rostock. The doors scraped open and Merkur climbed down the steps, looking around, as if to orientate himself. He took a street map out of his pocket and unfolded it, giving me a chance to alight while he was distracted.
We were on a traffic island in the middle of the road. Beside us, Lütten’s Wartburg puttered, giving way to the passengers who wanted to cross from the tram stop to the side of the road. He glared at me as I walked in front of his car, I could still feel his eyes on my back as I reached the pavement in front of Hotel Varna.
Once safely out of the traffic, I dropped to one knee and retied my lace, taking a discreet look to each side as I did so. The tram had moved off and was gaining speed, Merkur was waiting for a gap in the traffic, wanting to cross to the far side.
A further glance over my shoulder, I could see the Wartburg doing a U-turn at the next junction then pulling up to let Lütten out.
I stood up and moved towards the hotel, using the reflections on the bronzed windows to keep track of Merkur—he was heading for the Centrum department store.
Once he’d disappeared through the doors I turned around, better to observe Lütten, puffing along the pavement and into the store.
As every watcher knows, department stores are a nightmare. Multiple floors, multiple exits and plenty of customers to provide cover. Poor Lütten, having to follow the subject through the Centrum on a Saturday morning!
Rather than head into the store, I decided to wait where I was, keeping an eye on the Wartburg and Lütten’s colleague, now standing beside it. The two Rostockers would be in radio contact so the second goon could intercept Merkur if he left by another exit.
It was ten minutes before anything happened, ten minutes in which to reflect that no matter how cold it was, it was at least a calm day—no wind, no snow and no sleet. That was when Lütten’s colleague reached in through the open window of his car and picked up the radio. He looked up and down the pavement, then spoke into the microphone.
It was the way he scanned his surroundings—not a good sign. A moment later, Lütten came out of the store, he spoke to the driver, they both scanned the street again before exchanging a few more words. Not friendly ones, by the look of it.
The colleague got into the Wartburg and drove off, leaving Lütten staring at the doors to the Centrum, doing his best to ignore me, even though he must have been aware of me, watching on the opposite side of the street.
Seeing a break in the traffic, I sprinted across the road.
“Hope you haven’t lost him!”
Lütten didn’t answer, he was too busy staring at the doors of the department store.
“You have, havn’t you?” I demanded,
but there was no need to wait for an answer. These two clowns had managed to lose Merkur. Again.
It didn’t take me long to find what I was looking for. My kind of place: open early in the day, dingy, no tourists.
“Einen Klaren,” I said to the barman. He didn’t reply, just got the bottle out. My kind of barman.
I downed the schnapps and let gravity put the glass back on the counter, ready for a refill. My barman obliged.
This time I took it to a table, ordering a beer as I went.
Either Merkur was cannier than I’d given him credit for, or the two colleagues from Rostock Department II were more useless than I’d feared. Which was it?
The beer arrived and I sank the schnapps in it. Lifting the glass to my lips I re-ran the film of Merkur, the one I kept in my head: Merkur getting on the train at the last minute. No, rewind a bit further: Merkur in the hotel lobby this morning.
Why had Merkur talked to the receptionist—on two mornings running—about walking along the beach to Heiligendamm?
“How far is it from Warnemünde to Heiligendamm?” I called out to the barman.
He stopped rinsing glasses and looked up, not in my direction, just vaguely upwards. There was silence, long enough for me to decide he hadn’t heard me, or hadn’t understood the question. Then came his answer.
“Depends how you get there.” Another Mecklenburger, slow to answer, vowels so steady you could fall asleep between the syllables.
“On foot, from Warnemünde.”
He nodded and turned back to washing his glasses. I watched him put them on the side to drain: one, two, three—then an answer: “Be about three and a half hours, three at a trot.”
Three hours. A pleasant stroll in the summer, not so much fun when it was minus twenty in the shade. So why the insistence that he wanted to go to Heiligendamm?
I stood up and went to the bar, coins in my hand, ready to pay.
“And what’s the best way to Heiligendamm from here?” I asked.
28
Heiligendamm
The next day, back in Berlin, I would sit at my desk and write the investigation report on Secondary Operational Procedure Merkur:
I determined the direction of travel of the subject through deployment of political-operational search methods. Consequently, I was in position to regain operational contact with MERKUR on the platform of Bad Doberan railway station.
It would have been more honest to state that Merkur was expecting me, but that’s not the kind of thing the brass like to read in reports. Nevertheless, there he was when I got off the train at Bad Doberan.
The train to Heiligendamm was standing at the other side of the platform, one of those toy trains that we seem to have a lot of in our Republic: narrow gauge steam engine pulling mismatched dinky carriages, each with an open platform at either end.
The locomotive gave a long, plaintive whistle, and Merkur stamped out a cigarette and climbed aboard. I chose a different coach and stood on the outside platform until the couplings stiffened and the train jerked into motion.
First we picked up some speed, but almost immediately slowed to a crawl as we crossed the main road and ratcheted down a shopping street, a warning bell clanging away as if the Young Pioneers had taken over the footplate. Trundling along, I admired the decorations in each of the empty shop windows as we passed: the banners proclaiming the Day Of The Soviet Army and the upcoming Day Of The Postal And Telephone Workers. But of more concern was the fact the train was moving slowly enough for Merkur to jump off anytime he liked.
But why would he? He’d practically invited me along for the ride.
The steam engine dragged us through Bad Doberan, stopping a couple of times to allow housewives with shopping baskets and workers travelling to late shifts to board. We finally left the town and picked up some real speed, boiling smoke and soot obscuring the view. The bell had stopped, but the steam whistle whooped every so often, perhaps worried we might fall asleep and miss the excitement.
Heiligendamm was the next stop, and as the train whined and screeched through a sharp curve and clacked over a set of points, I went to wait on the platform above the couplings.
Sure enough, as soon as we pulled to a halt, Merkur jumped down and headed through the woods at his usual brisk pace.
As I hurried down the woodland path after him, a short whoop of the whistle and the regular chug of steam told me the train was leaving.
The subject led me across a road and into another loose woodland, some kind of park. He left the path, cutting across the virgin snow under the trees with the certainty of a man who’d been here before.
It took less than five minutes from station to beach, but Merkur didn’t stop there. He turned right along the edge of the dunes, leaving the buildings of Heiligendamm behind him.
The wind blew in over the sea-ice, a gentle breeze, yet colder even than the driving storm of the other day. I shivered and walked on, half an eye on my surroundings, the rest of my concentration on Merkur. To my right, a marsh frozen hard, to the left, on the beach side, large boulders protected the roadway from erosion.
Up ahead, Merkur was waiting for me.
29
Heiligendamm
“I came here as a boy.” Merkur stared out to sea, his eyes focussed on the waves scraping the edge of the ice, a hundred metres or more from the shore. “It was summer, first time I ever saw the sea.”
“Weren’t you here yesterday?” I asked. I had no idea whether he’d come this far after giving Lütten and his goon the slip, but it was as good an opening as any.
“I wanted to get rid of the other two, didn’t want them spoiling our chat.”
I thought about this. It made sense, not wanting those two clowns hanging around. “The others, they’re … you’re aware that we’re all in the same club.”
“I doubt that. You’re in a different league.”
It was meant as a compliment, but try as I might, I couldn’t strangle the thought that I hadn’t been doing so well in this championship either—after all, I’d been sussed by a postman. I didn’t argue the point.
“How did you know you were being followed?”
“Dogs.”
“Dogs?” I asked, gathering my patience—I hate it when a subject comes over all arcane.
“When you’re a postman, you learn to keep an eye out for them. Dogs are territorial—you stop in front of their house, come into the hallway of their flats—so they see you as a threat. Postmen always have to be on their guard.
“Little dogs are the worst, terriers, I don’t like those—you have to watch out for terriers, vicious breed. Under bushes, behind bins—never know where they might be hiding.”
I had my arms across my chest, trying to keep the cold out, but Merkur stood easily, hands by his sides, still staring over the frozen sea.
“What do you want?” I asked.
“What makes you think I want anything?”
“Let’s talk Tacheles, Seiffert. You didn’t come over here to throw names around on a whim, you knew it would get our attention. So now you have our attention, what do you want to do with it?” I’d been preparing for this conversation for days, yet now I couldn’t wait for it to be over. It was too cold for flirting.
“I want to find out about my son. I want to know why he had to die.”
That was a good reason, but I wasn’t sure I believed it was the only reason. Naturally, he wanted to know how and why his son died, but was the ice-bound northern fringe of the GDR really the place to start?
It felt like a lifetime ago when I’d first heard of Source Bruno, Arnold Seiffert. A lifetime, and somehow only two months. And now I had his father standing in front me, asking why he no longer had a son.
“I understand your son’s death occurred in West Germany. You ought to direct your enquiry to the authorities over there,” I suggested helpfully.
“Your lot were involved, don’t pretend otherwise.”
“There is no reason for the Germa
n Democratic Republic to have any interest in your son’s activities.”
“Don’t take me for a fool—Arnold was over here, in the East. He visited his aunt and uncle and soon afterwards he was dead. Something happened while he was here, and I want to know what—you must know something, why else would they have sent you?”
“I looked at his file before I came here. I can assure you, there was nothing in it. He had a visa to visit his relatives in District Frankfurt-Oder. He arrived in the German Democratic Republic, registered with the local police and deregistered when he left. Your son wasn’t of any interest to the organs of our country. He left our jurisdiction on the third of December and that is all the information we have.”
Merkur sliced his hand through the air, cutting me off. It was a practised gesture, authoritative.
“I asked for Gisela Bauer because my son mentioned her. He said she was one of yours. If you don’t know anything, I’m sure she will.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know of any Frau Bauer, I checked the records, but no-one of that name works for the Ministry of State Security.”
Merkur finally turned away from the view, it was the first time I saw his face close-up. It was a fine face, the moustache and hair well groomed—a Western face, one that had known a good life, nutritious food and a warm house.
“Listen, if you won’t tell me what I want to know, then you should go back to Berlin or wherever you’ve come from. Go back and tell your ministry this: Arnold Seiffert’s father is here, and he knows that Arnold offered to work for you. Wait!” his hand shot out and grabbed my forearm even before I’d started to turn away from him. “There’s more … tell them this: just like my son, I am prepared to offer my services for Socialism.”
30
Berlin Lichtenberg
“I had the distinct impression, comrades, that Merkur was well-prepared for this mission. He was able to identify and monitor operational observation by myself and members of Department II of the District Administration in Rostock.” I paused in my presentation, took a peek at the caterpillar carriers seated around the table. They looked bored, preoccupied with greater concerns.
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