The Company of Strangers

by Robert Wilson

  It was late. Schneider’s body craved more sleep. The covers weighed a hundred kilos. Leaving the warm sheets was like struggling out of the arms of a woman, but not Elena. She wasn’t the type. She was already up, giving the girls their breakfast. They never made love in the mornings. He couldn’t bear her looking over his shoulder to make sure the girls weren’t at the door. She couldn’t bear…all that mess, as she put it.

  In his office twenty-four hours of paper had built up on his desk. Twenty-four hours of endless reports on what this foreigner had drunk in which bar, who that diplomat had lunched with at what restaurant, what that businessman had said to which girl and what they had done together…sometimes with photographs. Nothing surprised him, except that any work was done by these people at all. They were either drinking, eating or fucking. He leafed through, reading the summaries only, his eyelids heavy. At 11.00 a.m. he was summoned to a meeting in the HVA Dept XX, which handled dissidents and was overseen by the KGB General Yakubovsky. He put a call through to the general, hoping for a corridor chat, but he wasn’t in.

  The meeting was opposite a colonel, who informed him that another deal had been concluded. The sale of two East German politicals had been agreed and there was to be a handover on the Gleinicke Bridge on Sunday at midnight. Schneider would be the driver. This surprised him. It meant that his under-investigation status was not yet common knowledge. Rieff had put him back into the sea.

  After work he passed by the Volkspark Friedrichshain and picked up from his dead-letter drop. The note was short. A British intelligence agent posing as a British Steel delegate, codenamed Rudolph, would meet him in the usual place, a deserted Mietskasern in Knaackestrasse in the Prenzlauer Berg district at 10.00 p.m.

  Schneider performed his family duties and went out into the cold night to catch a bus to the Alexanderplatz and then a U-bahn to Dimitroffstrasse. From there it was a short walk to the Mietskasern. He passed under the arches and crossed the courtyards of the massive boarded-up complex and went up the staircase of the Dreiterhof to the fourth floor. He went to a room above the arch and waited. He was half an hour early. He was always early.

  He took the full-face ski hat out of his pocket and fitted it on to his head. He didn’t pull it down because the wool itched against his scarred flesh. Twenty-five minutes of refrigerated silence passed and he saw the British SIS agent arrive. He rolled down the ski mask. The footsteps came up to the top floor and approached. He stopped them with his introduction and received the right password back. He clicked on a torch for the SIS man, who had always been annoyed by his codename and especially at this time of year. They went to a table, stood over it and Schneider produced cigarettes which they lit up. Rudolph looked very young for this kind of business, not even thirty. He had the feeling of an undergraduate about him – dissolute, uncaring, loose – a very bad combination for a spy, thought Schneider.

  ‘What’s the problem?’ asked Rudolph, staring fixedly at the ski mask.

  ‘Apart from the ones outlined in my note, you mean?’

  ‘You asked about Cleopatra. How’s that relevant?’

  ‘That’s what I want to know,’ said Schneider. ‘I’ve got somebody standing on my neck. I said I’d find out about Cleopatra for him.’

  ‘What’s the background?’

  ‘My funding comes from extra-curricular work I do for General Stiller…’

  ‘Ulbricht’s head of personal security…the one who got shot yesterday with a girl.’

  ‘Olga Shumilov…KGB. I didn’t know what to make of it. Still don’t. I had to call General Rieff.’

  ‘Who’s he?’

  ‘Well, the last time I bumped into him was years ago and he was running the HVA Dept X, which is Disinformation and Active Measures. I don’t know where he went from there,’ said Schneider, ‘but now he’s operating under the umbrella of the Ninth Main Directorate, which is the Stasi’s investigative arm.’

  ‘That sounds a very Kafkaesque department.’

  ‘General Rieff is putting me through the wringer. So far only my fingers have gone through. A little bit of pain to see if there is anything more to come out. I don’t want him to feed me all the way through…’

  Rudolph sniggered.

  ‘Sorry…’ he said. ‘Just an image…that’s all.’

  ‘You should try it. A quick twelve hours in the U-boat in Hohenschönhausen would further your education.’

  ‘Carry on…sorry.’

  ‘He mentioned Cleopatra, asked me who she was. In return for staying off my back, I said I’d get him some information.’

  ‘Well, now…Cleopatra,’ said Rudolph, preparing himself, ‘you might find this surreal.’

  ‘It’s all surreal,’ said Schneider.

  ‘This, even more so. Cleopatra is an American idea. She recruits senior KGB officers. She pays them for intelligence. That intelligence is then circulated around the SIS, CIA and the BND. Between the British, American and German intelligence agencies we try and work out from the disinformation the KGB seniors supply and the real information we’re getting from our reliable agents…a picture.’

  ‘My God.’

  ‘It’s what it’s come to. Nobody knows what’s real any more, so we examine and qualify untruth to get closer to the truth.’

  ‘I don’t know whether I can get Rieff to believe that. He’s old school, you know.’

  ‘They’re all old school on this side of the curtain. That’s why everything stays the same. You’ve got flat-earthers in charge.’

  ‘Thanks for that, Rudolph,’ said Schneider. ‘What did Stiller have to do with Cleopatra?’

  ‘His name was put forward for recruitment by General Yakubovsky. Stiller was the only German on the list.’

  ‘And the only one to get shot,’ said Schneider, and they lapsed into silence.

  ‘Do you want London’s theory?’ asked Rudolph.

  ‘Might as well, seeing as we’re here.’

  ‘Yakubovsky wanted to get rid of Stiller.’

  ‘Doesn’t make sense. Yakubovsky’s making money out of Stiller’s contacts in the West.’

  ‘What if he’s been told by Moscow that Stiller’s got to go? All his commercial concerns go out the window. Oleg’s job is on the line.’

  ‘Why would Moscow want to get rid of Stiller?’

  ‘You said he was Secretary General Walter Ulbricht’s personal security man.’

  ‘You said that.’

  ‘Wouldn’t that suggest they’re trying to weaken Ulbricht?’ he said. ‘They take Stiller out of the game. He’s corrupt and deserves to go. If Ulbricht cries foul, Moscow shows him he was on the take, not just for money but intelligence as well. Ulbricht has to swallow his bitter little pill.’

  ‘What’s wrong with Ulbricht?’

  ‘Brezhnev thinks he’s too full of himself. So full that he thinks he doesn’t have to pay attention to Moscow any more. He’s getting to be a loose cannon…and then there’s all that stuff with Willi Brandt.’

  ‘What stuff?’

  ‘Ulbricht hates him. You remember Erfurt, March last year. Willi got a big reception. Crowds cheering him outside his hotel window. Biggest crowds ever in East Germany for a pol. And if you don’t know Ulbricht, we do. A CIA man said to me the other day: “That guy Walt’s got a personality cult following…of one.”’

  ‘We all want to be loved…even communists.’

  ‘Well, it’s made Ulbricht a difficult customer to handle. Brezhnev doesn’t want the West riled up, what with the Chinese and their H-bomb in the east. And if he wants to keep the whole communist edifice in place he has to make it look as if he’s moving, when in fact he’s still on the same old treadmill. Hence détente. Given Ulbricht’s antipathy to Brandt, Moscow doesn’t think his contribution to any negotiations is going to be positive. Ergo they want to give Walter his cards and find someone who will toe the line and be less of a maverick.’

  ‘That makes sense, Rudolph,’ said Schneider, surprised that the boy had it in
him.

  ‘Well, there’s as much truth potential in it as anything else, I suppose.’

  ‘Another thing…’ said Schneider. ‘The money. I need money.’

  ‘Don’t we all,’ said Rudolph, still dazzled by the brilliance of his analysis.

  ‘To get Varlamov out, Rudolph.’

  ‘Oh, yes, sorry, I’d forgotten about him.’

  ‘I’ll need help too. The kind of help that’s not going to compromise me.’

  ‘OK. First of all, the money. London have assured me that they’re going to deliver your money with a one hundred per cent guarantee of anonymity. They also said you can spill it about Cleopatra. She’s a closed operation. I think that should keep you snug with General Rieff, by the sound of it.’

  ‘Or it might just increase his already very suspicious mind,’ said Schneider. ‘He accused me of being a double today.’

  ‘The way the money is going to come to you, I have been assured, will make you cast iron with Rieff, with Mielke, with Yakubovsky, and with Lord Leonid Brezhnev himself, too.’

  Chapter 36

  16th January 1971, safe house, Pellatt Road, London.

  Gromov sat in the armchair in the front room of the safe house in Pellatt Road. He’d slipped his shoes off and was warming his toes on the tiled hearth. Andrea sat opposite, not wanting to smell whatever vapour was coming off Gromov’s feet. She had just reported the conversation with the section heads and Gromov was digesting it, along with two biscuits which had showered crumbs down his front. She lit a cigarette and tossed the match into the fire over Gromov’s wriggling toes.

  ‘A very interesting development, don’t you think?’ said Gromov, flat as beer from the drip tray.

  ‘It seems to be progress.’

  ‘Is this a money-related problem that the Snow Leopard has?’

  ‘Wallis said, “It’s not a banking matter.”’

  ‘Not a banking matter, yes. So what is his problem?’

  ‘Something to do with the defector?’

  ‘The defector. An expert in ICBM deployment in the Soviet Union,’ said Gromov. ‘There is a Russian physicist due at Humboldt University to give two lectures, attend a dinner, receive a prize, and spend the night before returning to Moscow. His name is Grigory Varlamov.’

  ‘Is he a known defection risk?’

  ‘If he was we wouldn’t be sending him to Humboldt University,’ said Gromov. ‘When do you leave for Berlin?’

  ‘Tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Varlamov arrives the following day…in the afternoon and stays for twenty-four hours,’ he said, and then, thinking out loud: ‘If Varlamov’s satisfactory defection is the goal of the SIS’s operation then what could be giving the Snow Leopard his problem? If it’s not money, it must be that his situation has changed and, for whatever reason, he’s finding it difficult to manoeuvre.’

  Gromov came up with a crumpled white paper bag of the sort given in sweet shops. He offered it to Andrea and she turned her head. He fished out a miniature rugby ball of yellow sherbet lemon and threw it in his mouth. He rattled the sweet around on his teeth.

  ‘You gave me Cleopatra’s list,’ he said. ‘There was a name on it that shouldn’t have been there. When I sent that list back to Moscow I was told that General Lothar Stiller who was Secretary General Walter Ulbricht’s personal security chief did not have permission to enter that operation.’

  ‘Was?’

  ‘Stiller couldn’t come up with any explanation that could save him,’ said Gromov, and Andrea whitened. ‘No, no, no…nothing to do with your intelligence. I’ve since learned that he was already under a death sentence. It was the KGB who put his name forward to Cleopatra. His appearance on the list in London was just some paperwork to legitimize his termination.’

  ‘To whom?’

  ‘The East Germans, of course. If we show them categoric proof that their man is a traitor – on file as a traitor in London – there can be no argument.’

  ‘Why did Moscow want to get rid of Stiller?’

  ‘He was a disgrace to communism and because of his corruption or his generosity, whichever way you choose to look at it, he had a comprehensive and far-reaching power base within the Stasi. And that is all I’m prepared to say at the moment. There’s a political angle to this development that cannot be discussed. My point is that the Snow Leopard’s problems started after Stiller’s death.’

  ‘So now you are investigating Stiller’s contacts?’

  ‘I said they were comprehensive and far-reaching. We have begun an investigative process but there are hundreds of people involved and given that Varlamov will be arriving in East Berlin within the next thirty-six hours, and presenting the SIS with twenty-four hours to get him out, we have very little time. Breaking men down takes time. Your action will be faster, more direct.’

  ‘Do you really expect me to believe that?’ said Rieff.

  ‘I told my contact you wouldn’t,’ said Schneider, who’d just finished telling Rieff the bare bones of Operation Cleopatra, no theory, no mention of Stiller, just that the Americans had set it up to buy Soviet intelligence with the certain knowledge that they were receiving KGB disinformation from which the Allied Intelligence services hoped to be able to draw conclusions as to the real picture.

  ‘It’s absurd.’

  ‘It’s the point at which we have arrived in the…er…impasse,’ said Schneider, which seemed to strike home with Rieff, because he gave a little jump in his seat.

  ‘You know, it would be typical of the KGB,’ he said.

  ‘What?’ asked Schneider, dismally stirring the rough Cuban sugar into his weak black coffee.

  ‘That the KGB should mount an operation without telling us and without showing us any of their results.’

  ‘What’s there to show?’ asked Schneider. ‘That we’ve reduced the enemy to such absurdities? I suppose it might improve morale.’

  ‘You think morale is low?’

  ‘I mean give an extra fillip to our already high morale.’

  ‘You don’t fool me with that plastic face of yours, Schneider. The result of your so-called laboratory accident,’ he said scornfully.

  Schneider didn’t like this about Rieff. The way the man hugged you to him, conspiratorially, and then thumped you in the gut just as you thought you were friends. He said nothing.

  ‘In your work for the AGA you meet a lot of foreigners,’ said Rieff. ‘You must have quite an extensive network on both sides of the Wall.’

  ‘I’ve been working at it for seven years.’

  ‘In those seven years have you ever come across an agent codenamed the Snow Leopard?’

  ‘No, I haven’t. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Because I want to find him.’

  ‘What’s his game?’

  ‘He’s a double, who’s successfully blown several of our undercovers in the West as well as having arranged at least three high-profile defections.’

  ‘Has he been operating long?’

  ‘In the region of six or seven years.’

  ‘I’ll put the name around my network, see if I come up with anything.’

  ‘I doubt anyone will.’

  ‘Why not? It’s very difficult to operate completely anonymously. You shouldn’t be so pessimistic, General.’

  ‘I only doubt it, Major, because I think you are the Snow Leopard.’

  Andrea took an Interflug flight into the Schönefeld Airport in East Germany. The East Germans had only been prepared to accept her as a visiting mathematician to Humboldt University if she came as a guest of the DDR, although it didn’t mean they paid for her flight or hotel, which were expenses she would have to cover in hard currency.

  She went through a lengthy document check, during which her two letters of invitation, one from the chancellor of the university and the other from the head of the maths department, Günther Spiegel, were verified by telephone. Her luggage was dismantled and left for her to put back together again, but there was no personal search. S
he made a currency declaration and bought the standard twenty-five Ostmarks from the State bank. A driver sent by the university was waiting for her, with her name misspelt on a card. He took her straight into the centre of town, into the flattest city she’d ever been in, and dropped her at the Hotel Neuwa on Invalidenstrasse. He didn’t speak a word, not of his own volition and not to answer any of her questions.

  She ate lunch on her own in the hotel. A terrible piece of gristly pork with a mush of red cabbage and waterlogged potatoes. The driver returned and took her in his usual surly silence to the university. He led her up the stairs to the first floor, pointed to a door and left. A woman answered her knock and, in asking her to come in, offered her the first words of welcome since she’d been in the country. She had an initial meeting with Günther Spiegel, who at the end of it asked her to attend one of his lectures later in the afternoon with a group of his postgrad students.

  She found her own way to the student canteen, where she sat alone with a cheap coffee, but even nastier than on British Rail. People looked at her but nobody dared to approach. After her lecture with Spiegel he invited her back to his apartment for dinner.

  ‘I would have asked you earlier,’ he said, ‘but it had to be cleared first.’

  Back in the hotel she found that her room had been searched, her clothes unpacked and repacked with near precision. She ran water into the bath, stripped naked and peeled off a dressing from the small of her back and unpinned a sanitary towel from the gusset of her knickers. She opened them and removed twenty thousand Deutschmarks in soft used notes which she wrapped in tissue.