‘Yes, he is,’ Stack agreed. He stood up. ‘Thank you for giving me so much of your time,’ he said formally.
They shook hands.
‘The mind can play tricks,’ Lieffer said quietly. ‘It is well to be cautious before jumping to conclusions when the mind is in its fanciful mood.’
The two men looked at each other. Lieffer smiled.
‘I am only offering advice,’ Lieffer added quietly. ‘You have appeared so tense these past few weeks that I worry in case you are becoming a victim of the undercurrents of mystery and secrecy that our position here in Berlin seems to have developed.’
‘Thank you for your advice,’ Stack replied seriously. ‘I am a journalist, and the search for truth and news often misleads people into doubting our motives, but in the main we are simple folk who have a healthy desire to stick to our objectives and not become involved.’
Lieffer nodded his head approvingly.
‘Auf wiedersehen,’ he said.
‘Auf wiedersehen,’ Stack replied.
He left the director’s room and was taken to the records department, where he was met by a bespectacled, elderly woman. She was as equally efficient as her image presented, as Stack found out.
‘We have further particulars on the file that interested you at your last visit, Herr Stack,’ she said. ‘We have the report now from the border guards.’
Stack complimented her on her memory. She handed him a file. It had a coded reference and was numbered, but to Stack it was Emil Berak.
He studied the cold, clinical facts of Berak’s file. The name and known history of the victim were given. Also the place, time, and date of his attempted escape. On June 9th Berak had been shot, dead, by the East German guards, near a deserted churchyard at Fenstadt.
The additional information referred to by the assistant was the report of the West German border guards. At 23.00 hours, the East German searchlights had swept the area. A small, orange glow had pinpointed Berak’s position. The border guard suspected that Berak had accidentally set off a small trip flare which had given away his position. He had been instantly shot at by machine gun fire and hit six times. Berak had been alone in his attempted escape. There was no other person whom Stack could consult.
Stack read the facts and returned the documents. He thanked the woman for her help, but he had found out nothing new, except for the information given in the report of the West German border guard. He had gone over old ground and still the doors of his mind remained locked. If they failed to open soon, he thought grimly, he would have also failed, because whatever his mind was keeping closed from him would soon become history. He felt the danger was that imminent.
He left Lieffer’s office and took a sightseeing trip around the city before going to the restaurant where he had arranged to meet Lehna. He still hoped to protect her from becoming involved, especially after the way Sue had been treated the previous evening.
Lehna hadn’t arrived at the restaurant. Stack went to the bar and ordered a drink. He had been in Berlin almost twenty-four hours, he thought sadly, and he was getting very few of the islands of memory that Lorenzo had referred to, never mind a full recovery. If only he could remember what Berak had got on to, or what it was connected with, but he couldn’t.
He sighed and took a drink. The newspapers were playing up President Tito’s visit. Had it anything to do with that, he wondered? Were the Communists out to spike the German Chancellor’s guns? Honecker, who had taken over as the number one man in East Germany, was a disciple of the old school. He and his friends were setting up their hard line at their conference. Were they also planning to undermine Tito’s visit? Was that what Berak had got on to?
Lehna arrived as Stack started his second drink. She refused a cocktail and they sat at a table. She was smartly dressed in a light-coloured suit that attracted the eye of several other customers. Stack liked it. He also liked having her around. She was emotionally uncomplicated. With her, he could relax.
‘I didn’t remain in the hotel,’ she said guiltily, after they had ordered lunch.
‘You didn’t?’ Stack asked, frowning.
‘Don’t be cross,’ she said hurriedly. ‘I couldn’t. I wanted to do some sight-seeing.’
‘Sight-seeing?’ Stack asked suspiciously.
‘I took a sight-seeing bus tour of East Berlin,’ she said.
Stack opened his mouth to chastise her.
‘I have my passport,’ she explained. ‘There was no risk.’
‘No risk,’ Stack sighed, but let it pass. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘You went sight-seeing. What did you see?’
She told him about her trip around the Eastern sector. She hadn’t been impressed. He watched her as she talked. Her features were not particularly Jewish, he thought. She could have belonged to any of the Balkan countries. She spoke to him normally in English, but she was equally at home with other languages. He really knew very little about her, and she about him.
She smiled at him. ‘What are you thinking about?’ she asked.
‘You.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Whereabouts is the Kibbutz in Israel?’
She told him. He hadn’t heard of the place, or the area, but he would remember it.
‘And you were a teacher?’
‘Are,’ she corrected him. ‘I hope to return to it, soon.’
‘Yes,’ Stack said. He had noticed that she had lowered her eyes and wondered why. ‘And you have never been abroad before?’ he asked.
She looked up at him, frowned, and looked away again. ‘That’s not quite true,’ she said quietly. ‘I have been abroad before — several times.’ She played with her table napkin. ‘I suppose I wanted you to think of me as some helpless innocent,’ she added ruefully, ‘to get you to help me.’
Stack didn’t reply. He was wondering how much more there was about her that wasn’t quite true.
‘But I’ve never been to Berlin before,’ she sighed, ‘and I wish I had never come.’
He looked at her with surprise.
‘I’ve done the sights,’ she said. ‘The Wall and East Berlin.’
‘And?’
She furrowed her brow and frowned. ‘Before I came here, I thought it would be all like a game. It was an adventure. Even when I met Doctor Lorenzo, and then you, it all seemed to be as I had expected.’ She wasn’t looking at him. ‘That day at the hotel in Marseilles was great fun,’ she said, and looked past him. ‘Then the fun stopped with Henri Gallon,’ she added sadly, ‘and Berlin.’
‘And Berlin?’ Stack asked, encouraging her to go on.
She shook herself, as if trying to shake off some feeling. ‘The whole city has an air of intrigue and mystery about it,’ she said scornfully. ‘Even the travel brochures play on it. Go to East Berlin, they say, and every man in a trench coat will look like a potential spy.’
‘That’s for the tourists,’ Stack said lightly.
‘Those guards on the Wall are for real,’ she replied earnestly, ‘and those men that attacked you last night weren’t acting.’ She dropped her eyes. ‘I wish I had never come,’ she whispered.
The waiter served their meal. Stack saw two men enter the restaurant and glance suspiciously around the tables. Lehna was correct, he thought. It was a city of mystery and intrigue.
‘There is still Criller,’ he pointed out.
‘Paul?’ Lehna looked wistful. ‘Girlish dreams, perhaps.’ Her face became serious. ‘It is too dangerous,’ she whispered. ‘Those guards on the Wall brought it home to me. Paul could be killed. It is not worth it. I don’t want any bloodshed on my account.’
‘On your account?’
From a corner of his eye, Stack saw the two men move to a table close to where he and Lehna were sitting.
‘I persuaded Paul to try and escape,’ Lehna said. ‘Now I wish I hadn’t. I wish I could forget all about it.’
‘Can you forget about it now?’
She didn’t answer. Stack caught her looking at the two
men. He turned her attentions back to him.
‘Can you forget about it now?’ he asked again.
‘Yes,’ she said emphatically. ‘Oh! I don’t know,’ she added. ‘I just don’t want anyone to get hurt.’
‘They won’t,’ Stack said encouragingly, and wondered where the two men fitted into her thoughts. Had she seen them before?
‘What about your wife?’ Lehna asked abruptly, changing the subject.
‘What about her?’ Stack asked.
‘How is she this morning?’
‘Still resting,’ Stack replied, ‘but she has got over the shock. She will be at the studio this afternoon.’ Ruddi’s studio, he thought, and wondered if that was such a wise move for Sue. There was a tie-up somewhere.
‘Are you going through with your divorce?’ Lehna asked hesitantly. She dropped her eyes when she saw Stack look up with surprise.
‘That depends,’ Stack said. Depends on how he felt when his present business was finished, he thought. How he felt about Sue. How she felt about him. But he didn’t want to talk about it. ‘It will sort itself out,’ he added. ‘What has to be will be.’
‘You can help it along, or change its course,’ Lehna said pensively. ‘You can be master of your own ship.’
‘Are you master of yours?’ Stack asked. Again Lehna dropped her eyes.
‘No,’ she said sadly. ‘No. I wish I was.’ She looked up and saw his puzzled look. ‘Please don’t ask me anything,’ she pleaded. ‘Please.’
‘Okay.’ Stack shrugged. ‘Anything you say.’
‘Thank you.’
She became silent. Stack wondered if it had anything to do with the two men watching them. Her attitude had changed after she had noticed them. He looked at the two men again. They didn’t look like policemen, he thought, so that meant they belonged to some special organisation. Unless they were Schmidt’s men.
They finished their meal and left the restaurant. Lehna seemed anxious to get back to their hotel. As they got into their car, Stack saw one of the two men from the restaurant hailing a taxi. He made certain that they lost him, quickly.
In the hotel, Lehna still remained unusually silent. When it was time for Stack to leave for the conference she mustered up a faint smile.
‘Take care of yourself,’ she said quietly, with feeling.
‘Sure,’ Stack agreed. ‘See you when I return.’
CHAPTER 12
Lehna’s attitude bothered Stack as he drove to Friedrich Strasse. He didn’t like to think of her being troubled and upset. When he drove into Checkpoint Charlie, however, he forgot about her. The Wall always had a monopolising effect on his thoughts, as did the East German guards with their automatic weapons.
The guards went through the pantomime of inspecting his documents and the car. It was a slow procedure, aimed at instilling some kind of awareness into the would-be visitor. They need not have bothered. The effect was felt as soon as the visitor entered the Eastern Sector — capital of the German Democratic Republic.
The Eastern Sector of the city differed from the Western Sector, and their differences were not only in the ideals of the two regimes, or the architecture of their buildings. There was also a difference in the very heartbeat of the city. The traffic was not so busy in the East; the shops not so decorative, and the people not so bustling.
Stack felt the differences as he continued along Friedrich Strasse. The feeling became stronger as he turned into Unter den Linden Strasse, and came to the Marx Engles Platz. The area was cordoned off with police and military. He was stopped at a control point and his credentials checked. He was allowed to pass and proceed to a car park. Other journalists were parking their cars. Some of their faces were familiar. It made him feel easier. Together, they went into the building of the Council of State.
The assembly hall where the press conference was being held displayed photographs of the grim, unyielding faces of the Communist leaders. The hall seemed to epitomize the cold, functional approach of the Communists in East Germany under Honecker’s leadership.
Stack had been in the room many times. The ghosts of Berak and Gunter were present. He could feel them. It had been at such gatherings that Berak had often passed his messages. Stack felt sad as he reflected on those moments. They seemed a long time ago. Gunter had also attended such meetings, he thought. How had Gunter made his pass? How had Gunter operated? Berak had been quite brazen. What about Gunter?
Silently, Stack racked his brains. Berak was an open book to him. Even the tense, anxious days when Berak had been arranging his defection were quite clear to him. But Gunter was a mystery. Feverishly Stack tried to slot him into the sequence of events, but they wouldn’t come.
He scanned the room searching for some familiar sign or object to start his memory going again. His eyes fell on a man watching him. Instantly he knew that they had met before. The man was of slim build with flaxen hair, and had a stiff, efficient air about him. Momentarily the rest of the assembled gathering didn’t exist. Stack and the man eyed each other, and Stack knew where they had met. The man had been standing in the reception foyer of the Hotel Excelsior in Barcelona! The man was a Communist agent! He had probably followed Stack to Spain! Now he was openly watching him in his own parlour!
Stack turned away, and he suddenly felt as if the temperature in the room had dropped. There was now a cold chill about the atmosphere.
A spokesman of the German Democratic Republic came to the front of the platform and started to read from a prepared handout, which the Press were to be given later. The conference, they were told, expressed, unanimously, its support of the policies of the Warsaw Pact Defence Organisation, and reiterated that the countries of the Organisation would not allow any interference in the internal affairs of any of their friends or allies by the United States or any other NATO government.
After the expression of support, indirectly directed to the policies of the Soviet Union, came the sabre rattling. The speaker went on to compare the might of the Russian Fleet in the Mediterranean with that of the U.S. Sixth Fleet.
Stack recalled some of the documents that Berak had passed to him. They had shown the concern that the Soviet Union felt at not having a suitable naval base in the Mediterranean. They had also told of an unsuccessful attempt made by the Russians to establish a base in the Balkans. The threats and warnings now coming from the platform were undoubtedly being aimed at the meeting of the West German Chancellor and the Yugoslav President. It was a clear message of warning. Yugoslavia was part of the Balkans. It was also on a razor’s edge. The forthcoming state visit was not to change its status in any way.
From the international scene, the speaker referred to the current negotiations being undertaken between the German Democratic Republic and the West German Federal Government over further access rights and movement in Berlin between the two zones. The conference was united in its support of the German Democratic Government and its rightful demand for full sovereign recognition before acceding to any requests made by the West German Federal Government. There was to be no soft touch on Berlin, Stack thought. Any agreement was going to have a high price.
The speech abruptly ended. The speaker had read the statement. There were to be questions.
There was a general movement of the journalists sitting in the main body of the hall. They discussed the statement amongst themselves. The essence and real purpose of the conference had been to give weight and support to Honecker in his negotiations with the Federal German Government, they thought. It was known that he had been pushed into the negotiations by the Russians.
Stack wondered what else had been agreed behind the locked doors. They had made it clear that Tito was not to shuffle any closer to the West. The status quo had not to be changed. Had they taken any precautions to make sure that it didn’t, Stack wondered? Had anything else been planned? Had Berak’s contact actually passed on to Gunter what was being discussed behind their locked doors?
Stack felt himself perspiring. He was on
the right track, he thought. There was something familiar about that line of thought. He could feel his excitement starting to trickle through his body like the first stream after a drought. He was thinking right. It made him feel good.
The journalists started to move into the anteroom to contact their offices. Stack stood up and found he was still being closely watched. It irritated him. He purposely made sure that he passed by his watchdog. As he came up to the man, he took the initiative. ‘Have we met before?’ he asked.
If the man was surprised at Stack forcing the issue, he didn’t show it.
‘I don’t think so, Herr Stack,’ the man replied calmly, his eyes unflinching.
‘You have the advantage over me,’ Stack said. ‘You know my name.’
‘Heltman Preiser,’ the man replied formally, and bowed his head.
‘Press or police?’ Stack asked.
‘Like you, Herr Stack,’ Preiser said cynically. ‘Press.’
Stack smiled. ‘You will excuse me,’ he said. ‘I have to make my report.’ He looked directly at Preiser. ‘Are you certain we didn’t meet in Barcelona?’ he asked. ‘At the Hotel Excelsior, for instance?’
‘We did not,’ Preiser replied evenly, ‘but I feel certain that we will meet again.’
So did Stack. Preiser was another cold fish, he thought. Cold and efficient like the man who had enlisted Stack into British Intelligence. They must be an international breed, he thought.
Preiser moved away, and Stack went into the anteroom. He got straight through to the office and dictated his copy to a typist. Within seconds it would be flashed around the world. When his copy had been accepted, he was put through to Schafer.
‘What gives?’ Schafer asked.
‘Support for Honecker’s hard line,’ Stack replied. ‘They are also trying to kill Tito’s visit before it starts. Anything at your end?’
‘No,’ Schafer grumbled.
‘When are you flying to Bonn?’ Stack asked.
‘Probably tonight,’ Schafer replied. ‘I’ve got several other interested bodies lined up for a picture cover of the visit. We are on the gravy trail with this one. I’ll keep in touch.’
The Berlin Spy Trap Page 9