Dead Secret

by Alan Williams

  Anna, her face almost as white as the duvet, had sat up and was reaching for her clothes, which she had left scattered on the floor. ‘Tom, what’s happening?’

  ‘What’s happening, my love, is that we’ve just been arrested by the Security Police of the sweet German Democratic Republic.’

  ‘But why?’

  Hawn felt a stab of irritation. ‘How the hell do I know? Either it’s a mistake, or we’ve been set up. But why we’ve been set up, God knows. We’re not going to be a lot of use to anyone in an East German clink.’

  They finished dressing and opened the door. The young Vopo took up the rear and followed them down the stairs.

  ‘I will say this for them,’ Anna said, ‘their timing was perfect.’

  ‘That’s about the only consolation we have.’

  The other three were waiting in the passage. Without word or gesture they turned and marched towards the door, the plain-clothes man in the lead. Outside stood a small olive-green truck with no windows in the back. One of the Vopos opened the double rear doors and motioned Hawn and Anna to get inside. He and a second Vopo followed, while the other two got into the front.

  As the engine started, a dim blue light came on. The interior of the truck was empty, except for the two steel benches along each side and a grill at the front end, opening into the cabin.

  The two of them sat together on one of the benches, with one of the Vopos on one side, another opposite. Hawn turned to the one beside him: ‘Where are we going?’

  The boy shrugged. It was the second Vopo who answered: ‘Security Headquarters, Oranienburg.’

  ‘Do you know what the charges are?’

  He was answered by the first Vopo. ‘We are not permitted to talk to prisoners.’

  Hawn squeezed Anna’s hand, and they rode in silence.

  The truck slowed down, took a sudden right turn and stopped. Above the throb of the diesel engine, the rhythm of marching feet. A bell rang; the truck drove forward again; stopped after about thirty yards. The rear doors clanged open and the inside was flooded with light. The third Vopo, from the cabin, motioned them to get out.

  They were in a broad courtyard surrounded by grim five-storey walls in which few lights showed. Two platoons of Vopos were goose-stepping at the far end. The plain-clothes man led Hawn and Anna through an archway, down a bright corridor and up two flights of stairs. The three Vopos followed. They came to a polished wooden door with a black plaque marked PRIVAT in white lettering. The plainclothes man knocked twice and entered.

  It was a spare room full of cheap office furniture: grey steel filing cabinet, plastic Venetian blinds drawn across the window. The only luxury was a carpet. Like the rest of the building, the room was very bright, lit by two strips of neon, one of which fizzed and blinked at uneven intervals. On the wall a photograph of Lenin.

  The man behind the desk had haggard, heavy features behind horn-rimmed spectacles. Hard, questioning, suspicious: but not an altogether bad face, Hawn decided. He was dressed in a dark business suit and wore a wedding ring. A couple of small red and gold badges adorned his buttonhole.

  The plain-clothes man from the truck handed him the two passports and visas, then withdrew, followed by the Vopos. The man gestured Hawn and Anna towards two straight-backed chairs, then offered them a box of cigarettes. When they declined, he lit one himself, and Hawn saw that he had two fingers missing from his right hand.

  ‘I am Colonel Kardich, of People’s Security.’ He spoke slowly in English, with a thick, awkward accent. ‘First there are certain questions I must ask you. You entered the German Democratic Republic from West Berlin earlier this evening. You entered with Doktor Oskar Wohl. Wohl obtained your visas. Is that all correct?’

  ‘Perfectly correct,’ said Hawn.

  ‘Can you think of any reason why you should have been detained?’

  ‘None at all. We came as Doktor Wohl’s guests. As such, we assumed we would receive a proper, decent welcome.’ A faint, apologetic smile crossed the man’s severe features. ‘You have already observed that I address you in English — not in French.’ He leant out and gently drummed the three fingers of his right hand on the two passports. ‘These documents are forged. You know that?’

  Hawn was silent for a moment. He was fairly certain that the Grenzpolizei would not have spotted the forgery unless they had been told. ‘How do you know?’ he said at last.

  ‘It is not important how I know. The fact is, they are forgeries. You are therefore in the German Democratic Republic with false documents. That is a serious crime.’

  Hawn felt Anna flinch beside him. He put his hand out and touched her arm. ‘You said you had several questions to ask us. That’s only one. And you seem to know the answer. What about the others?’

  ‘Who supplied you with these passports?’

  Hawn paused only a fraction of a second. They had been betrayed, and must fend for themselves: it was too late to start clinging to old loyalties, if such things had ever existed.

  Hawn saw no reason to lie. But it was quite another matter whether he would be believed. He said: ‘A Frenchman — Charles Pol. Do you know him?’

  ‘Please, I am asking the questions. Why did this man issue you with French passports when you could have travelled on your own?’

  ‘It’s a long story.’

  ‘Very well. I am a patient man. Tell me the story.’

  Colonel Kardich interrupted only once, near the beginning of Hawn’s monologue, only to ask if they wanted coffee. They accepted. Kardich had smoked at least ten cigarettes, and drunk almost as many coffees, by the time Hawn was through.

  ‘So you say you were issued these passports in order to escape a possible murder charge by the Istanbul Police? It seems that this man Pol is exceptionally…’ he snapped his fingers for the word — ‘findig?’

  ‘Ingenious,’ Hawn suggested.

  ‘Exactly! And you accepted his friendship without question?’

  ‘We had no alternative. I don’t know what your prisons are like, but I dare say they’re better than Turkish ones.’

  ‘I hope so. Though we are not proud of our prisons. They are an unpleasant necessity — as is my job.’

  ‘Do you accept my story?’

  ‘Do you ask me if I believe it?’

  ‘If you put it that way.’

  ‘At this stage I do not believe it or disbelieve it. First, I have still not asked you the most important question. What are your real names, where do you come from, and what are your professions?’

  Hawn told him, and the man wrote the details down on a pad, holding the pen in a pathetic claw of three fingers. He sat back. ‘Well, Mr Hawn, Miss Admiral. So, what to do with you? You cannot expect us to ignore this peccadillo, just because you, Mr Hawn, as a journalist, are interested in finding out the possible criminal activities of one of your leading oil companies.’

  ‘The leading oil company.’

  Kardich nodded. ‘At this stage I am not going to proceed with formal charges against you, until I have made further investigations. However, you will be detained here while these investigations are made. We will make you as comfortable as possible.’

  ‘Let me ask you a question, Colonel. Who shopped us? Wohl? Or Pol?’

  Kardich gave a sterile grin. ‘Even if I knew, Mr Hawn, I would not tell you.’

  He must have pressed a bell under the desk, for the door opened and two Vopos — different ones this time — strutted in and saluted. ‘These officers will accompany you to your quarters. I regret that our accommodation does not allow you to share a room. Are you hungry?’

  ‘I think we’d like a drink.’

  ‘I’ll have some wine sent to you both. If you need anything, the guards will attend to you, in the day or the night.’ He gave a dismissive gesture. Hawn and Anna stood up, and the two Vopos marched them to the door.

  CHAPTER 27

  It was a Spartan room: a camp bed with a sheet and two military-style blankets; window of opaque glass h
igh in the wall; lino floor, bare grey-brick walls, a table and chair. At the back, a windowless washroom and lavatory. No bath or shower, just a basin with a single cold tap, and no mirror. The lavatory paper consisted of a wad of Neues Deutschland torn into small squares and skewered on to a nail. Both rooms were lit by naked bulbs in wire cages, which could be turned on and off by separate switches. The door was steel, locked, and fitted with a Judas eye.

  Not so much a cell, Hawn thought, as the temporary billet of a military commander on manoeuvres. Nor was he denied the bare essentials of civilized living. Toothbrush and paste, shaving tackle, a cheap deodorant, hairbrush and pocket mirror, a pair of coarse striped pyjamas, even a change of socks and underwear — all supplied by courtesy of the People’s Security Service. The one thing he still hankered after was reading matter. He asked if they had any Western Communist newspapers, and was brought a tabloid called Soviet Newsletter, published in Prague. Apart from that, there was a bottle of tolerable Riesling.

  He slept surprisingly well. Breakfast was lentil soup, hot Bockwurst and sauerkraut, together with the local coffee, which tasted of nutmeg.

  Boredom set in soon after; and he tried to occupy his mind by running through all possible permutations of plot and counterplot, pondering on the various motives of Pol and Wohl, and why they should have betrayed them both. He went back even further, to Robak and Shanklin and French, even the absurd Hamish Logan, trying to decide whether the riddle lay with one of them. Was it possible that ABCO had so much manipulative power that it could influence the East German police? And what would the East Germans have to gain? A matter of forged passports might, as Colonel Kardich had stated, be a serious crime or a peccadillo: but even the East German Secret Police must be subtle enough to realize that they were not dealing with a pair of ordinary criminals?

  Of course, the crux of the problem were those two damned French passports. Hawn had a decent scepticism regarding the powers of the British Foreign Service, and without British passports he saw his and Anna’s difficulties becoming more than just temporary. Or was it possible that Pol had intended all that from the very start? There was at least one small point in their favour. Colonel Kardich had said they were not being charged, while investigations were being continued. What investigations?

  At lunch he had another bottle of wine, on which he slept for a couple of hours. He then shaved in cold water, but felt grubby and listless. He was beginning to worry about Anna. He called the guard and asked to see her. The man shook his head and turned away. Hawn muttered after him the most complicated German obscenity he could remember from his student days, and the man stopped. A second guard appeared. ‘You do not talk like that here,’ he said. Both of them were fingering their AK47S.

  ‘Bring the girl to me,’ Hawn said. ‘I only want to see her for a few minutes. If I don’t get to see her, I will demand to see Colonel Kardich.’

  There were mutterings beyond the door, then the sound of more boots as a third man arrived, though out of sight. Hawn guessed, from the way the other two saluted, that he was an officer.

  He was a very tall man with a tired, sagging face, and wore soft leather boots and flared trousers under a loose grey-green smocked jacket, Soviet-style, with two shelves of red epaulettes. He seemed to be unarmed. He leant against the doorjamb and said, ‘You make much noise, English.’ His accent had the deep round Russian vowels.

  Hawn said, ‘Colonel Kardich has told me that I was not under arrest. I demand to see my friend — Miss Admiral.’

  The Russian looked down at him with his blue-pouched eyes; his cheeks were creased and lightly pitted with acne scars. It was a face which managed to be both sad and cruel. ‘The girl is correct. There is no problem.’

  ‘I demand to see her! Get me Colonel Kardich.’

  ‘The Colonel Kardich is not a domestic servant. I have authority here.’

  ‘Then bring me the girl. For five minutes. I am claiming my rights as a free citizen in the German Democratic Republic.’

  The man stared at him with blank eyes, then straightened up and turned, pulling the door shut with a bang. Hawn, in a burst of impotent fury, kicked it and hurt his toe. If this meant being detained pending investigations, he wondered what it would be like to be under full arrest.

  The door was flung open again, and Anna walked in. She walked unsteadily, touching the wall for support, and her face had a slightly greasy pallor. ‘Tom! I can’t stand being shut up in that little room any more. What are they going to do to us? I can’t sleep, I can’t eat. I’ve been asking to see you too, but nobody took any notice. I suppose it’s because I can’t speak German.’

  Two Vopos stood in the doorway. One of them was smirking. Hawn led her over to the bed and sat her down; then turned to the two guards. ‘She stays here — with me.’

  ‘Five minutes,’ said one of them. The other, with the smirk, began to smile openly. Hawn advanced towards him.

  ‘Tell me what’s so funny.’

  The man shrugged, but said nothing. The second Vopo stepped forward. ‘So the little lady is dissatisfied with her room? Where does she think she is — in a hotel?’

  ‘A State hotel,’ his companion said, and laughed. Hawn stepped up to him and hit him hard in the stomach, just above his belt; then he wheeled round and smashed his left fist into the other’s eye.

  Several things happened at once. Hawn kicked out and his shoe collided with a soft calf boot. A machine-pistol sprang up and its skeleton handle slammed against his cheek. He reeled back, bumping into Anna who had leapt up from the bed and now hurled herself between the two Vopos, her fingernails reaching for their faces. One of them chopped her down with a blow on the neck. Hawn tried to reach him, when his head seemed to explode in a bright flash. Fists were pummelling his face as though it were dough. He could taste the salty blood, but couldn’t see anything. His head was bouncing off the lino floor, and Anna was screaming, but the screams seemed to be growing more distant; then an excruciating pain in his belly, followed by nothing.

  Hawn woke, staring at the concrete ceiling, at the wire-caged bulb which looked enormous. It looked like an enormous birdcage. He wondered why he couldn’t see the birds. His face felt huge. He touched it, and it felt soft, like a toy balloon. He realized he could see with only one eye. There was a wet towel on his forehead. He moved his tongue against his lips and felt a brittle flaking, as though he were about to shed a skin. Then he passed out again.

  The next time he opened his eye, he could just make out someone sitting at the foot of the bed. He tried to lift his head and gave a grunt of pain. A voice said, ‘You are a very foolish man, Mr Hawn. You are lucky to be alive.’

  A gruff, heavy voice. Not unfriendly. Solid man, square face, grey hair, horn-rimmed spectacles. Dark suit and tie. All dressed up for the occasion.

  Hawn licked his fat flaking lips and said, in a voice slow and struggling, like a deaf-mute’s, ‘They insulted my girl. They insulted Miss Admiral.’ He managed to get his head up this time, despite the pain. The towel remained clinging round his head like a turban. ‘Where is she?’

  ‘She is back in her room,’ said Colonel Kardich. ‘She has been given a sedative.’

  ‘How kind of you. You Communist bastard.’

  ‘Mr Hawn, you are very lucky. There are not many countries in the world where you can attack a policeman and expect to get no more than a little blood on your nose. Your attack was unprovoked.’

  ‘They insulted Miss Admiral,’ Hawn said again, feebly. ‘What are you going to do now? Charge me with assault?’

  ‘We will forget about the assault. You are not only very foolish — you are very impatient. I wonder how you would behave if you had to spend twenty years in a prison cell.’ Hawn rested his head back and closed his eye. He was aching horribly from the neck up.

  Colonel Kardich said, ‘I have arranged for a doctor to come and arrange your wounds. You will not be pretty for several days, but you will survive. Your stupid action has come at an incon
venient time. I have arranged this afternoon for you to meet a most important person. He has flown here especially to see you.’

  ‘Flown in from Moscow, eh?’ Hawn said, without moving. ‘In the meantime, I have given orders that if you make any further trouble, you are to be handcuffed to this bed. I repeat, you have been most fortunate.’

  ‘Bloody fortunate. The German Democratic Republic welcomes you — arrest on arrival, interrogation, locked in a bare room, smashed up with rifle butts.’ He paused, exhausted; and felt the bed stir as Colonel Kardich stood up. A moment later the door opened then clanged shut.

  Hawn and Anna met again in Colonel Kardich’s room. This time two Vopos — ones they had not seen before — stood on either side of the door. Hawn’s head was tightly bandaged and the blood had been wiped off, and his bloated lips and the side of his nose were now thick and sticky with some foul-smelling antiseptic jelly. His head still ached and there was a dull pain in his gut; but he could just walk straight and use his arms.

  Kardich said, ‘I have explained to Miss Admiral here that you will be meeting with a gentleman who has arrived especially at Oranienburg to see you both. He knows certain of the events in which you are involved, so he will know if you are lying, or when you ignore certain facts. So you will tell him everything. It is not my duty to question you further. So — do you have any further questions to put to me?’

  ‘Our passports,’ Hawn said. ‘Do we get them back? And when will we be allowed to leave the country?’

  ‘That will depend on the satisfactory outcome of the meeting that has been arranged for you.’ He stood up. ‘We will go now.’

  The two Vopos led the way at a discreet distance, as though Hawn carried some contagious disease. Colonel Kardich walked behind. They left the building, crossed the corner of the parade ground, through an arch where a red-and-white pole with an illuminated disc saying HALT! had been raised for them; and out into a grey street where it was already getting dark.

  The Klub Hotel was three minutes’ walk away: an anonymous block of dirty yellow concrete, brightened up with the statutory bunch of red flags and a slogan urging the German people to fight for peace.