Another Time, Another Life

by Leif G. W. Persson

  When the Wall fell the Stasi also fell apart like a house of cards. Suddenly everything was for sale, and because it was a matter of getting there first if there was going to be any money worth talking about, it was the seller who made contact with the buyer. At the end of November 1989 an officer of the Stasi, who was not particularly high ranking but was stationed in the right place, brought a copy of the computer tapes with the names of all the GDR’s spies and contacts abroad to a Russian colleague at the KGB office in Berlin-Karlshorst. From there the computer tapes were sent by air to the KGB in Moscow so that the sellers from the Stasi and the KGB could finally meet the purchasers from the CIA and calmly and quietly do business in person. On Tuesday the fifth of December 1989 everything was ready. The computer tapes were exchanged for dollars, hands were shaken over the deal, toasts were made with Russian vodka and Russian champagne.

  The tapes had been acquired at a bargain-basement price, which did not surprise Liska, who had experienced the Second World War as a small child and the Hungarian Revolution as a teenager and had observed with his own eyes that sometimes a human life was not worth anything at all. Here in any case the sellers reaped a hundred dollars a head, he thought, shaking his own sympathetically.

  The evening when Major Manfred Sens was about to choke on his coffee in his apartment in Prenzlauer Berg in Berlin, Liska had been invited to dinner in the fashionable Stockholm suburb of Djursholm more than six hundred miles to the north, but in contrast to Sens, Liska would not have time for any coffee that evening. Something he could live with, by the way, because his waiting would soon be over.

  His host was an old acquaintance from the early seventies who was now working as an adviser in the Swedish government offices, where he was officially occupied with research and future issues, but in reality functioned as the prime minister’s extended arm whenever a matter concerned Swedish national security.

  Their acquaintance had been far from unproblematic. During the early years it had even been so complicated that the slightest official scrutiny would have meant serious problems, not only for those most closely involved but also for their superiors and the national interests they represented. Now, however, the situation was different, and the fact that the Russian bear was on the ropes had also in a very tangible and positive manner eased the association between Liska and the Swedish government’s top security adviser. “To put it simply, the Swedes don’t need to be so damned moody anymore,” as Liska himself summarized the geopolitical background when he was discussing it with one of his bosses at home at Langley.

  Liska and his host had reserved the entire evening for good drink, good food, and agreeable conversation about old memories, the brightening future, and the current geopolitical situation, but they hardly had time to sit down at the table before they were interrupted. Just as the host’s red telephone was ringing, Liska’s driver and bodyguard knocked on the door, and then it was back to work—for both of them, each in his own sphere, but for the same reason.

  Before they went their separate ways, Liska’s host quoted Churchill with an easy smile and the reservation that the value of being forewarned obviously depends on the possibility of being able to defend oneself. Liska then went to his borrowed office at the American embassy out on Djurgården. There he spent the night mostly talking on the phone and wandering back and forth between his desk and the TV over by the window. “Poor bastards,” he thought as he looked out into the black November night, and it was the fifty thousand people whose lives had just been put on the market that he had in mind.

  Part 4

  Another Life

  21

  Autumn 1999

  It was Bureau Chief Berg, head of operations for the Swedish secret police, who asked the question.

  “Could you see yourself doing it, Lars?” Berg asked.

  Could I? thought Johansson. Could I see myself doing it?

  “Yes,” said Johansson.

  And that was how the whole thing started.

  A good many things had happened in the secret police since the prime minister was murdered in February 1986. The fact that the murder had unleashed a number of re-evaluations of the secret operation was the least important. Where wriggling out of such things was concerned, the people at the agency had decades of practice. In secret police–related work, it was also the case that every investigator with a minimum of instinct for self-preservation realized the importance and value of proceeding carefully.

  As this concerned things that were secret by nature, it was extremely important in the process not to damage an operation of decisive public significance, for that could only profit the enemy and in the final analysis even risk the well-being of the entire nation. Therefore the object of the re-evaluation, just like always, escaped with the usual mixture of cosmetic measures and minor personnel changes. All in accordance with the old, proven rule of giving the idealists peace of mind and the cannibals the pound of flesh they were always coveting.

  In order to “underscore a more civilian and democratic direction,” the operation changed its name from the security department of the National Police Board—Sec—to the Security Police, or SePo, as nowadays even police officers called it. For the same reason the operation was also given greater independence in relation to its immediate parent body, the National Police Board. In order to finally make the head of the Swedish secret police the formal equivalent of his foreign colleagues he had been elevated to the position of general director. Finally, a number of individuals had been kicked diagonally upward or moved around within the upper police bureaucracy, while just one had to step right out into the cold, though he retained his salary.

  At the same time other things had happened that had considerably more far-reaching consequences, the most important being the collapse of the Soviet Union and the breakup of the Eastern Bloc. The old “Russian squad,” which historically had claimed more than half of all combined resources if properly calculated, was now not even a shadow of its former self, and if it hadn’t been for Bureau Chief Berg’s bureaucratic creativity the entire organization would have been in serious danger even as the enemy lowered the flag.

  Berg was without comparison the shrewdest operational head in the history of the secret police, and instead of coming to a stop when the old main road was closed off, he quickly found new paths in the terrain of security politics: the situation in the Balkans, European and international terrorism, the new threat from the extreme right, the nation’s own growing need for Swedish constitutional protection, and best of all the assassination of Olof Palme, which created a veritable boom in the personal security industry.

  The same year that the Berlin Wall fell, SePo’s bodyguard squad passed the agency’s old Russian squad in personnel strength, and after that the demand for bodyguards only increased. Upper-class people felt threatened as never before, and right or wrong this was useful to SePo. So far all was well and good, but other things were considerably more worrisome.

  The threat against Swedish democracy nowadays came from the right and not from the left. It would have been simple enough just to turn your head, but the problem was the historical inheritance from the days of the cold war collected in the archives of the secret police. A workforce of hundreds who had worked doggedly for decades registering hundreds of thousands of Swedish citizens because their political sympathies were to the left of the Social Democratic regime. A sad story, but unfortunately only one side of the problem.

  Another side of the problem was that the political powers that be from the days of the cold war who had authorized SePo to collect all this information were now on their way out. The majority of the older ones had already died a natural death or had long since retired. The prime minister had been shot and his contemporaries who still remained in the corridors of power were a shrinking few who were counting the days to the end. Thus the basis for the exchange of services between the secret police and its political client had been demolished.

  The burden of guilt still
remained, and in a moral sense it was greater than ever, but there were no old clients to go to for help paying the claims that would be raised against the secret police. Much less anyone with whom you could exchange services when you ended up with your beard in the mail slot through your own fault. Nowadays the whole system was rotten through and through, in Berg’s opinion. Humanly and morally rotten to the core, and deeply unjust to him and his colleagues, who had only been doing their jobs.

  And as if this wasn’t enough, there was a third side to the matter. The new powers that be—historically unburdened by this sorry story—were obviously also strongly overrepresented in SePo’s old archives from the radical sixties and seventies. This Berg knew from his own experience, because he’d had to play fireman on a number of occasions when new individuals, who were now living other lives and operating in a different time, had been appointed to high-ranking official positions. And thanks for the help was the last thing he could expect. Instead it was a matter of keeping his lips sealed and hoping for the best.

  This complication also happened to be one of the first issues that Berg brought up during his conversation with Johansson, and the reaction had of course been as expected.

  “If you want me to clean up after you then I think you’ve come to the wrong person,” said Johansson, who suddenly appeared both expectant and guarded.

  “No, God help us,” Berg answered, making a deprecating gesture. “I intend to take care of that myself. I thought you should start with a clean desk.” Thanks to me cleaning up after others. It was that unjust, he thought.

  “A lovely thought,” said Johansson. “That we’ll all get to go into the new millennium with an empty desk.”

  “That’s pretty much the point,” Berg clarified, still sensing Johansson’s hesitation.

  “So that’s why you’ve turned to a predecessor of the ’68 generation,” said Johansson, smiling.

  “Oh well,” said Berg soberly. “You understand what I mean.”

  “What do the ones who decide think?” Johansson appeared genuinely curious about the reply.

  “The government offices thought your name was an extraordinary suggestion,” said Berg. “I’ve talked with the responsible undersecretary … you must have met him, by the way, around the time Palme was shot. As you know it’s the government that controls the appointment, and we were in complete agreement.”

  “That’s a relief,” said Johansson, who now seemed rather amused. Times are changing, he thought. “What does the GD say then?” said Johansson. The new general director was nonetheless head of the secret police.

  “The general director,” said Berg, who had a hard time concealing his surprise. “There’s never been any problem with him.” It didn’t matter what title they gave these high-level bosses (and personally he was now on his fifth), though naturally he couldn’t say that, he thought. Johansson would certainly figure that out all on his own as soon as he got his feet wet.

  “As head of operations you’re the one who will lead the work itself, and in the government offices they have great confidence in you as an individual,” Berg clarified, nodding seriously.

  And I’m easily flattered too, thought Johansson.

  After that they talked about other things that Johansson wanted said before he decided. That he wasn’t a politician but a police officer. That for him it was about putting people who were involved in serious crimes in jail before they had a chance to cause even more mischief, and that the only reason for him to change jobs was that he wanted finally to get involved in a few serious operational assignments.

  That was no problem at all, according to Berg. On the contrary, the political client, top-ranking police leadership, and, obviously, Berg himself were of the exact same opinion.

  “I think you’re going to appreciate this job and I’m quite certain that you’re going to be pleasantly surprised. I know that a horrifying lot of nonsense gets talked about us among our colleagues in the open operation, but that should be taken with a large grain of salt,” said Berg, nodding decisively. “This is a job for a real policeman.” Someone like you and me, he thought.

  A real policeman, thought Johansson. That sounds good.

  Then they proceeded to practical details. Higher rank? Yes. Salary? Obviously higher, which by the way was a natural consequence both of the higher rank as well as the fact that those who worked in the closed operation had always earned more than those who were part of the regular police.

  The possibility of choosing his own coworkers? Of course. Assuming that Johansson only spit out a little three-letter word he was the one who was the boss and it was no more difficult than that.

  Despite everything, one somewhat sensitive detail remained.

  “How long do you intend to stay?” said Johansson. You look tired, he thought. You’ve lost a lot of weight too.

  “I can go tomorrow if you want,” said Berg, smiling. Today if it were up to me, he thought, but naturally he didn’t say that.

  “And here I was hoping for a guided tour,” said Johansson, smiling.

  “I’ll be glad to give you one,” said Berg. “I was hoping you’d ask, actually.” What’s a few weeks more or less after all these years? he thought.

  Johansson nodded. He really seems worn out, he thought.

  “Oh well,” said Berg, looking almost a little solemn. “What do you say? Could you see yourself doing it?”

  “Yes,” said Johansson.

  And that was how the whole thing started.

  • • •

  Johansson’s existence as a transient resource within the police department was over. He was no longer a police jack-of-all-trades whom the government offices and National Police Board could call in whenever it was time to clean up after some highly placed colleague who had been discreetly dismissed or had simply thrown in the towel because he’d had enough. Now he was an established man with operational management responsibility for what was called the closed operation in police talk, and for anyone who coveted police authority there was no better place to be.

  He himself did not give much thought in particular to that part of it. He had plenty to do recruiting coworkers to the free investigation and detective team he intended to have in his immediate vicinity. He would need the help of his best friend Bo Jarnebring because it had been years since Johansson had worked in the field himself and there must be many capable new people whose existence he didn’t even know about. In that way he acquired ten or so new coworkers, and the only fly in the ointment was that Jarnebring himself steadfastly resisted all his friend’s attempts at recruitment.

  “I don’t look good in a fake beard,” said Jarnebring, shaking his head. “Besides, I’m starting to get too old.”

  “Say the word if you change your mind,” said Johansson. I guess we all get old, he thought.

  “Not this time,” said Jarnebring. “On the other hand I wonder what’s happened to you?”

  “What do you mean?” asked Johansson.

  “How long have we known each other? How long is it since you and I met for the first time out at the old police academy?”

  “Thirty years,” said Johansson, shrugging his shoulders.

  “If I don’t remember wrong you were the class socialist. You were more or less alone in that besides, and I seem to recall that you wanted to shut down the secret police.”

  “You don’t say,” said Johansson. How time flies. It actually is more than thirty years now, he thought.

  “If I don’t remember wrong, you couldn’t have something like the secret police in a democratic, lawful police organization. It was absolutely unthinkable, and if anyone had asked you at that time if you could imagine working as a spook, I know exactly what would have happened.”

  “What?” asked Johansson, despite the fact that he already knew the answer.

  “The person in question would have been socked on the jaw,” said Jarnebring, not mincing words.

  “Oh well,” said Johansson, shrugging his should
ers.

  “And because you’ve never been particularly good at such things, I would have had to jump in and help you, too,” Jarnebring declared.

  “Sure,” Johansson agreed. “I’m sure I would have been counting on that.”

  “But now you’ll be head of the whole thing,” said Jarnebring. “What’s happened?”

  “These are new times now,” said Johansson. New and I hope better times, he thought.

  “I don’t believe that for a moment,” said Jarnebring. “Possibly these are different times.”

  22

  Autumn 1999

  Of course Johansson spoke with his wife before he decided to change course in his police life. Ten years earlier, after almost fifteen years as a divorced man—or a single man or a bachelor or whatever you want to call it—he had proposed to her after an emotionally charged week of basically uninterrupted togetherness. In that way he had settled accounts with the solitude he had come to consider a natural part of both his individuality and his existence. Disregarding the fact that he might still miss that solitude when their togetherness became too much or when he simply felt like being by himself for a while.

  She had said yes despite the fact that he couldn’t offer her a new job but only his heart, and because Lars Martin Johansson was a person who knew how to distinguish between great and small he had subsequently devoted himself to his “marital community”—that was how he looked at it—with great seriousness and considerable energy. It hadn’t been easy, not all the time, but who ever said we humans should have it easy? We make a choice, and important choices have major consequences, thought Johansson. Like now.