Little Grey Mice

by Brian Freemantle

  Safe, picked out Elke: the word that used to be so important to her. She felt momentarily lifted – exalted, as she sometimes had before with him – by the way the conversation had gone. He had chosen: he’d chosen her. Anxiously agreeing she said: ‘All right. When you say so.’

  Reimann smiled at her across the table, enjoying the moment despite its true emptiness. ‘Is that an acceptance?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Elke. ‘It’s a very proud and grateful acceptance.’ If he married her she could forgive everything: learn to forget all the unpleasantness in time.

  Reimann was aware how Elke felt, so for a long time he let the evening drift, not wanting to spoil the mood he had created by announcing another absence, this time a genuine one. Turev’s summons, through Rome, had arrived that morning. It was not until just before they went to bed that he said he had to go away again, hurrying the assurance that it did not have to be until after the weekend. They could go to Ida’s on Saturday if she wanted. And he wanted to go with her to Marienfels on the Sunday.

  ‘How long away this time?’ asked Elke, dully.

  ‘Just a day,’ Reimann promised. He couldn’t guess the reason for being called yet again to East Berlin, but he was so accustomed to the trips by now that he knew he could get there and back without having to stay overnight.

  ‘But we’ll have the rest of the week together?’ Elke pressed.

  ‘I can’t see you tomorrow night,’ he evaded. ‘I’ve got a column to write.’ Jutta was leaving the day after tomorrow for Vienna: she could take with her his belief that Elke was about to cross the final divide with a provably official document.

  Like so much else, Elke was never able, later, to find an explanation for what she did. So much about it was illogical. Coincidental, too: it made her hate coincidence. She was at Nord-Stadt by five-thirty the following evening, going there directly from the Chancellery. His Mercedes was already there, parked directly behind the Audi. Elke waited, her fragile, recovered happiness withering inside her, until midnight. The Mercedes was still there when she finally drove away.

  She’d wanted to believe him: begged to believe him. But it had been another lie: the worst so far. And now she didn’t regard Jutta Sneider as the only one. Who, Elke wondered, had sent the postcard from Rome that she’d read the previous night, discarded on the desk at Rochusplatz? The one that said Looking forward to meeting again.

  Chapter Forty-One

  Jutta had been off-balanced by the announcement, but pleasantly so, and now she was excited, impatient to get to Moscow, straining through the aircraft window for the first sight of the countryside below that she would know to be Russia. The fat man overflowed from the seat beside her, his arms and legs intruding into her space, and she was inhaling as much cigarette smoke as he was, which were further reasons for her wanting the journey to be over. There was never enough room in Aeroflot jets.

  She looked towards the man and said: ‘You must have some idea!’ She’d shown the same insistence several times since they’d met, only a few hours before, in the glass-fronted café of the Sacher, in Vienna.

  Turev shook his head. ‘Just that you are to be given more responsibility: that things need to improve, as they did when you ran the operation more completely in West Berlin.’

  Jutta identified the implied criticism of her husband. Loyally she said: ‘It can’t be easy …’ She looked around the crowded aircraft.’… and I have some encouraging news, later.’

  ‘That’s good,’ said Turev. He was relieved it had gone as smoothly as it had, without the slightest difficulty. He’d taken the precaution of having a well briefed four-man snatch squad close at hand in Vienna, not just to be ready there but to escort him unseen to the aircraft upon which they were travelling back to Moscow – here they were spread around the immediately adjacent seats. But there hadn’t been any need for them and he was confident one wouldn’t arise now. The silly bitch had reacted exactly as he’d anticipated, with the immediate conceited acceptance that there was some function for which she was indispensable. It wasn’t going to take much longer for her to realize just how dispensable she really was.

  ‘I assume I shall be remaining in Bonn?’ asked Jutta.

  ‘I really don’t know. I told you: it’s being handled at a higher responsibility than mine.’

  ‘I want to change apartments,’ she declared. ‘I intended discussing it with you today, in Vienna. There won’t be any objection, will there?’

  ‘What’s wrong with the one we found for you?’

  ‘It’s not safe,’ insisted Jutta, the argument prepared. ‘The walls are too thin. And the complex isn’t big enough: everyone comes to know everyone else. Otto doesn’t think it’s wise for me to stay any longer. We’ve talked about it and he told me to tell you.’

  Turev nodded, glancing at his watch: they’d be landing in under an hour. Playing out the charade, the Russian said: ‘Have you found anywhere else?’

  ‘It’s further out of the city than where I am now,’ said Jutta, eagerly. ‘On the other side of the river. It’s bigger but the rent is the same.’

  Turev realized, suddenly, that there was a reason to pursue the conversation: nothing could be left unresolved behind her. ‘Have you entered into any contract? Made any definite arrangements?’

  Jutta shook her head. ‘I’ve just put down a small deposit, to hold it until I had a chance to talk about it with you today.’

  No problem, Turev decided: she’d simply become a prospective tenant who’d changed her mind. Keep her happy for just a little while longer. ‘I can’t imagine there being any objections.’

  Jutta looked down at the brooch Reimann had bought her in Koblenz, smiling at the recollection. It had been a perfect day, and he’d promised they could do something like it again, very soon. She was glad she had made the apology to Otto: settled their relationship on a better footing. How stupid she’d been, imagining any threat from someone like Elke Meyer, simply because the woman wasn’t dowdy or unattractive. She’d get the move to Niederdollendorf arranged the moment she got back to Bonn: tomorrow if possible. She was sure she could do it in days.

  The seatbelt sign came on simultaneously with the pilot’s warning, and Jutta gazed through the torn clouds on the final descent. The countryside looked flat and grey and unwelcoming in the fading light of the day: it would probably look more attractive under a snow carpet. She’d obviously have to stay overnight. It was too much to expect that the opulent apartment on the Neglinnaya Ulitza would be made available, just for herself.

  The arrangements were in place for their arrival at Sheremet’yevo. Turev led Jutta off ahead of everyone else, directly through a small building separate from the main airport terminals, and by so doing dispensed with any arrival formalities. Two of the Vienna escorts caught up with them as they entered the building, but Jutta did not recognize either of them from the flight. Having reluctantly imagined herself relegated to a secondary role, she was impressed – and encouraged – by this preferential treatment.

  The curtained Zil was drawn up waiting when they exited on the other side of the building. Turev gestured her into the rear, following behind. There was a back-up car, although smaller, for the escorts.

  ‘Are we going straight to a meeting?’ Jutta inquired.

  ‘Yes.’

  The limousine gained the peripheral motorway that encircles Moscow and increased speed with the unrestricted freedom of an official car. Jutta sat with her hand nonchalantly through the courtesy strap beside her seat. If she was being accorded the luxury of a vehicle like this, then Neglinnaya Ulitza was certainly a possibility. She frowned at the sudden slowing, and then at the vast, modern building bordering the motorway into which they began to turn.

  ‘Where is this?’ she asked.

  ‘Where the meeting is to be,’ said Turev. Sure of his way through the huge building he controlled, he waddled urgently along a ground floor corridor, anxious to end everything: he’d got her back without any eruption of sus
picion, but he’d felt himself under strain the entire time.

  From long-standard design, the door outside which Turev halted seemed quite ordinary, with no indication of the steel lining or multi-locking securing mechanisms considered necessary for an interrogation room. Only when she was well across the threshold and Turev had come in behind her, sealing the door after them, did Jutta jerk to a stop, properly aware of the interior. There was only one window, high and barred, the opaque glass beyond wire-meshed and utterly without functional purpose, because daylight scarcely penetrated. Illumination, so whitely harsh that it was necessary for anyone inside to screw up their eyes against its glare, came from lights recessed fully into the ceiling behind glass again wire-meshed and unbreakable. Much of that ceiling and all four walls – again from standard psychological design – were white-tiled, and the floor was of white tiles, too, although slightly larger. The intentional effect was of a sterile, impersonal operating theatre: a place where men anonymous behind gowns and masks might carry out whatever exploration or experiment they considered necessary. There was a starkly functional table, again like an operating slab, in the middle of the room: to the left of the table was a tape recorder. Sorokin was already sitting on one chair: Turev went by her, to occupy the only other one, slightly to the side, leaving Jutta to stand.

  ‘… I don’t … this isn’t …’ stumbled Jutta, completely bewildered.

  Sorokin thrust out an impatient hand, starting the recording. The volume was tuned deliberately high, so the room was filled with the argument between her and Reimann after she’d followed him to the Maternus.

  Jutta gazed uncomprehendingly at the machine, unable in the first few moments fully to absorb all it meant. Then she said: ‘You’ve had the apartment bugged, all this time!’

  Sorokin ignored her awareness. ‘Never go near them,’ came his quiet voice. ‘Those were your instructions. Never put yourself in any direct contact.’

  ‘This isn’t fair … not right!’

  ‘No, it wasn’t right,’ Sorokin seized. ‘Where was the discipline? Why?’

  Jutta didn’t respond to the question. ‘There was no harm.’

  Sorokin had the tape carefully marked. When he pressed the play button, the room echoed with Jutta’s remark about wishing the Bonn operation were over. ‘What’s that mean?’

  ‘It was a casual remark … nothing …’ She came to a halt and then repeated: ‘No harm.’

  ‘Not that time. What about the next?’

  ‘There won’t be a next time!’

  ‘I know,’ said Sorokin. ‘We’re not going to allow you the opportunity. You became emotionally involved. Which could have put everything at risk. An operation of the highest importance: one that has taken months, years, to establish. All jeopardized.’

  ‘That’s not true! … it’s ridiculous.’

  ‘You’ve become an uncertainty. We can’t allow any uncertainties.’

  ‘What’s going to happen to me?’ For the first time there was fear in her voice.

  ‘You’ll be kept here, in Moscow, until we decide otherwise. We can’t trust you anywhere else, certainly not until the Bonn operation is completed. Some function will be found, in one of the Directorates. Or a ministry, maybe.’

  ‘I want to see Otto!’ said the woman, with forced defiance.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

  ‘He’ll refuse to work, without me!’

  ‘We’ll see.’

  ‘I love him! That’s why I wanted to see her … I love him!’

  Sorokin appeared genuinely surprised. ‘What the hell has love got to do with anything?’

  *

  ‘We had to preserve the operation,’ said Turev, in near apology, snapping the cassette from the recorder.

  ‘Yes.’ Reimann stared around the familiar room in the East Berlin safe house, waiting to experience some emotion. Nothing came. But why should it? He’d known they would hear: made no effort to get Jutta out of the apartment. He hadn’t expected them to withdraw her, though. Or had he? ‘I don’t think she endangered anything.’

  ‘She disobeyed a specific instruction. We can’t take the risk.’

  ‘I suppose not.’

  ‘We expected more. We’re surprised.’

  ‘What will happen to her now?’

  ‘She’ll be given some work in Moscow.’

  Virtual arrest, Reimann accepted. No need for bars or warders. ‘How long will she stay here?’

  ‘For as long as we consider necessary.’

  ‘I see.’

  Turev hesitated. ‘Arrangements could be made, for you to see her. Not immediately: not today. But sometime in the future.’

  What would there be for them to talk about? ‘Thank you,’ he said. He tried to identify the feeling and decided it was pure relief: he wouldn’t have the perpetual challenge of Jutta any more: the nagging awareness of responsibility for her, the constant need to make excuses to get away and be with her. From now on it would just be himself and Elke. And the job he had to fulfil, of course, he reminded himself hurriedly; he shouldn’t forget the job. He said: ‘What about liaison, from now on?’

  ‘Direct links between the two of us,’ ordered Turev. ‘It was a mistake to have included your wife at all.’

  The fat Russian remained in the East Berlin house after Reimann left, waiting to be joined by Panin, who had witnessed and heard the entire exchange over the monitoring equipment.

  ‘I thought there might have been a stronger reaction,’ said Turev, although he allowed the doubt into his voice.

  ‘I didn’t,’ said the psychologist. ‘Otto Reimann behaved exactly as I expected. He’s become the professional his wife used to be but isn’t any longer. We were mistaken about her.’

  ‘It’s the only mistake we’ve made,’ said Turev. ‘And we’ve recovered from it completely.’

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Elke Meyer provided a document exactly one week after Reimann’s East Berlin visit. And as she was handing it to him Reimann felt a surge of regret, absurdly wishing at the moment of his achieving his complete goal that she hadn’t finally capitulated. Something of his reaction was visibly obvious, because Elke regarded him curiously and said she thought it was what he’d wanted to see, the precise layout and composition of a memorandum from the special Cabinet committee to guide his article on the interlocking of the two Germanys. Reimann had to call upon every ounce of inculcated expertise to cover his lapse. He assured her that it was exactly the guidance he needed to satisfy his demanding, dismissal-threatening editors, and promised that he would never utilize the contents so as to embarrass her, but would merely refer accurately to the format. It was a one-sheet paper, marked as a second copy for Cabinet Secretariat retention, and the moment he looked at it – moving his head to give the impression of being more interested in its layout than its brief contents – the bubble formed in Reimann’s stomach at his immediate realization that it was sensational.

  The memorandum was headed Eyes Only, which he knew to be the top security classification. It was entitled Future Intention on Unification/Federation, dated the previous week – while he had actually been in East Berlin – and was listed for circulation to all members of the special committee, each of whose names the Russians had already identified.

  In full it read:

  Options to be decided from previous private discussions and contacts with German Democratic Republic:

  1 To support acceptance of GDR within European Economic Community as separate member state.

  2 To support acceptance within European Economic Community of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Romania.

  3 To oppose acceptance into European Economic Community of GDR, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Romania in favour of these countries becoming linked as separate trading partners.

  4 To resolve, by whatever protocol necessary, the military presence and requirements of a united Germany within NATO.

  ‘Will that help?’ Elke pressed.

&n
bsp; ‘Very much,’ said Reimann. The fourth point itemized was precisely what he had been ordered to discover. And was electrifying: nowhere, before, had there been any mention of protocols.

  ‘If you continue getting guidance like this, there won’t be any danger of your being transferred from Bonn?’ she asked, needing the answer. I don’t intend letting anyone else have him.

  Reimann stared directly back at her, but not for the usual reasons. Had she really guessed? Was this an invitation for him to declare himself completely, as she had committed herself completely by disclosing such a Top-Secret document? He had an overwhelming urge to tell her, to admit the truth so that he wouldn’t be deceiving her any more, but again the expertise won. He couldn’t take a chance like that based on just one, possibly ambiguous question, and a particular look on her face when she asked it. Later, perhaps, but not yet. Going as far as he felt able, Reimann said: ‘If I go on getting guidance like this there’ll be no possibility of my being transferred.’ And then he waited.

  So did Elke, for a moment. ‘That’s what I wanted to hear,’ she smiled. She nodded towards the memorandum he still held. ‘I have to return it in the morning.’

  ‘I know,’ Reimann accepted, unsure if he had handled the exchange as he should have done. That night, waiting until he was quite certain she was deeply asleep, he used the long-neglected Nikon camera with its copying lens for the first time.

  The memorandum was greeted by the Soviets with the alarm Reimann anticipated. Sorokin travelled from Moscow to the East Berlin meeting following the one at which Reimann handed over the film. After quick congratulations came the fervent demand that Reimann obtain more: Sorokin actually admitted that policy decisions at the highest level were being formulated on the material that Reimann was now obtaining.

  ‘It can only indicate secret protocols!’ Sorokin said.

  ‘I think so too,’ said Reimann. ‘This is the first indication.’

  ‘We must have everything! Every negotiation we are having hinges on this information!’

  ‘I realize that,’ said Reimann. ‘I’ll get it.’