It was still dark when we arrived, but the barracks were wide awake, the night shift climbing down from LO and W50 trucks that had brought them back from their posts.
The Stoffhund pulled up at the main entrance and the sergeant came around the vehicle to stand beside me as I climbed out, indicating I should go up the steps to the company building.
“Operational co-operation with the Ministry for State Security,” he told the UvD, the duty NCO, who was sitting in his cubby hole to the side of the entrance hall. “I’ll take him for breakfast, will you inform the colleagues in Administration 2000?”
The night watch were filing past the UvD’s office and handing their Kaschi rifles into the armoury further down the corridor, but we took the other direction, picking up a couple of trays before queuing at the food counter.
The sergeant still hadn’t said anything to me since I’d got into the jeep, he’d confined communications to nods and polite gestures. That was fine, I had no questions the sergeant could answer and, sooner or later, I’d bump into someone from my own Ministry and they’d be able to tell me what the hell was going on.
Besides, the adrenaline rush from the incident at the border had ebbed and now my lack of sleep was catching up with me, so I wasn’t feeling chatty. Which is how we ended up sitting opposite each other at a table, munching our breakfast in collegial silence. I picked up a couple of apples and put them in my pocket. Emergency provisions.
I’d finished my bread and sausage, and the Feldwebel had taken my mug for a refill of coffee. The food had done me good, but the coffee was doing me better and I’d become restless, wondering when Sanderling would get here.
I was considering a third coffee when a red-faced NCO with a prominent chin marched up to our table. He was wearing the UvD armband, but he wasn’t the same duty NCO as before, must have been shift change for him, too.
“Transport for the guest is waiting in the yard,” he announced, standing uncomfortably close in an effort to encourage me to get up from the breakfast table and leave his company to their duties.
“And my colleague?” I asked the Feldwebel, who had got up from the table and was staring down at me, also hoping to get rid of me sooner rather than later.
He didn’t answer, just held out his arm, helpfully pointing me towards the door in case I’d forgotten the way out. I stubbed out my cigarette, drained my coffee, left my tray on the table and did them the favour of leaving.
A sand-yellow Moskvitch with Gera district plates was waiting for me at the side entrance, so I got in.
The driver didn’t turn around, and there wasn’t much I could tell from the back of his head. Dark hair, military cut. Wide shoulders inside a civilian jacket.
Wanting to know more, I asked him a question:
“What can you tell me?”
If I was hoping for an answer, I’d have been disappointed.
34
Jena
If there’s one thing I’ve learnt in my years at the Firm, it’s that it’s not worth arguing. Once the brass get an idea into their heads, there’s no stopping them. Best just to wait things out.
Deciding I should follow my own advice for a change, and taking comfort in the fact that I was sitting in a chauffeur-driven Moskvitch rather than banged up in a cramped cell in a Barkas, I put my head down and got some shut-eye.
I slept well in the back of the Moskvitch—it’s a much quieter and smoother ride than a Trabant—and I didn’t wake up until we were turning off the motorway. I saw the sign, Jena, and smiled. Last time I’d been here, it had been spring, my Boss had sent me to liaise with the local Department XX who were planning to wipe out a group of dissidents that were getting too uppity for their own good. Nice bunch of lads down here, they had some interesting ideas about forcing the troublemakers out of the country. My job had been to liaise between the Jena branch of the Firm and the Passport and Control Unit at the rail border crossing point in Probstzella.
Good times—before everything started going wrong for me.
We turned south on the F88, wherever my silent driver was taking me, it couldn’t be far—our little Republic ended forty or fifty kilometres further down this road. It was mid-morning now and from the back seat I had a good view of the surroundings—a pretty route, the river Saale to the left, steep, wooded hills to the right. But I’d been here before and I still had some sleep to catch up on.
The F88 is a windy road and all the sharp curves meant I didn’t get to sleep too well and I was awake when we arrived in Saalfeld.
We crossed the river and the road mounted a second bridge, this time over the railway tracks. To the south-west, the sun was trying to break through the clouds. Frost glinted on some of the lesser used goods lines. Steam trains in the sidings were being heated, their chimneys belching grey-black smoke that shed fine, red grit as it billowed towards us. Behind it all, the Thuringian Slate Mountains massed, a natural rampart along which the border to Bavaria runs.
It was just a blink as the Moskvitch sped over the bridge and out of the town, a snapshot of tangled tracks pointing towards the hills. The steel rails dividing and coming together held some meaning for me and I tried to work out why—but it was like when you wake up after an epic dream and you know you have just a moment to try to work out what it could mean before the whole story slips away from you. Definitely still had some sleep to catch up on.
When the blast furnaces of the Unterwellenborn steelworks came into view, we turned off the main road, the driver taking the car up the valley, along the side of the forest. Patches of dirty snow loitered beneath pine trees, potholes were crusted with frozen mud. Steam and smoke from the plant flattened into layers in the still sky.
My left thigh had gone to sleep and I turned awkwardly on the seat, bumping up against the apples in my jacket pocket.
“How much longer?” I asked, wondering whether it was time to break out the emergency rations.
“Nearly there, Comrade.” Even as he said it, he steered into a smaller lane that crossed the contours of the steep slope, worming its way past an unoccupied sentry box and between the trees until a hunting lodge the size of a villa lifted into view, nestled against the wooded slope.
We drew up by the entrance, a suit opened the door and came down the steps. He wasn’t in uniform, but he might as well have been. His hair was shorn at the back and sides and his progress across the concrete slabs of the driveway could only be described as marching.
When you look at a member of the armed organs—doesn’t matter whether it’s People’s Police, Border Troops, National People’s Army or the Firm—you can put them in a box: soldier, NCO, junior officer, senior officer or cosmonaut. And this was a senior officer, a caterpillar carrier: if he was in uniform he’d be wearing the furry braid shoulder boards of a major or above.
My driver smartly stepped out of the car and stood at attention. With a moment’s delay to gather my wits, I did the same.
There was silence as the officer looked me over, and he had something to look at. My Western suit was ruined. Not just crumpled after twenty-four hours of constant wear, but stained with mud and ripped by the brambles and blackthorn bushes at the border. I stank of stale sweat, and going by the length of the fuzz on my tongue, my breath wasn’t all roses, either.
35
Hunting Lodge, Saalfeld
From my window I could see down the valley to the slag heap that divided the steelworks from the eastern edge of Saalfeld. It wasn’t the best view ever, but whatever I was here for, it wasn’t to admire the scenery.
The major had taken his time inspecting me. When he’d finished a flunky had appeared from the lodge and brought me up here.
If I was already confused about what was happening, my confusion grew when I saw the room. It was comfortable enough, a decent breakfast waited for me on the desk by the window and there was a key in the door—on the inside. Those were all good signs, and I knew to appreciate them.
But neatly laid out on the bed wer
e a grey towel, as pliable as cardboard, a blue tracksuit, cheap tartan slippers and grey underwear that made the towel look soft: prisoners’ clothes. I’m not a proud man but I wasn’t keen to put on that outfit—the last time I’d worn a blue tracksuit was when they had me banged up in Hohenschönhausen prison, interrogating me non-stop for seventy-two hours at a time.
I took the towel and went in search of a shower. It wasn’t hard to find, a communal wash room and three toilet cubicles were just down the hall, at the back of the building. A thorough wash followed by a close shave and a brush of the teeth and I was ready to go back to my room. I ignored the clean, dry prison clothes on the bed and took fresh underwear and socks out of my briefcase then put the grubby suit back on.
I stared out of the window and ate my second breakfast.
Where was I? That was easy. On a hill above the road somewhere between Saalfeld and Unterwellenborn.
But what was this building? Pass.
Obviously I’d been expecting a debrief, but why wasn’t it taking place at Berlin Centre? If they were in a rush then the MfS District Administration where we crossed the border, in Suhl, would have had suitable facilities. Instead, I’d been brought to a small town in a small district, to a building which clearly wasn’t being used for the purposes of administration. A conspirational flat.
And since I was already asking questions: where was Sanderling?
The debrief began half an hour later. The flunky knocked on my door and did the whole clickety-heels thing before inviting me downstairs for a chat.
The major was sitting at an antique oval dining table, eight chairs placed around the edge. Otherwise the huge room was empty, there weren’t even any curtains over the tall windows that had a view down what was once a lawn, but was now mainly moss and dead weeds.
Once the flunky had marched off, the major told me to sit down. There were no introductions, he knew who I was but didn’t feel the need to let me know who I was dealing with. I should have gone on strike, asked to see some identification so I could be sure he had the necessary authorisation to talk to me. That’s what the rules say, but in real life we all know that nobody likes barrack room lawyers. Senior officers least of all.
So I sat down and waited for his questions. But he started with an apology:
“I’m sorry about the limited choice of clothes—the tracksuit was all we could get at short notice.”
So that was that little problem cleared up. Nobody had been willing to donate a pair of trousers, a shirt or a jumper and the shops were empty—as always at this time of year: Christmas stock has sold out, and what truck driver wants to do deliveries between Christmas and New Year?
Still didn’t mean I was going to put that blue tracksuit on for him.
The major’s nose was twitching now, he was wondering whether I’d taken the opportunity of a shower. Perhaps I should have told him the smell wasn’t coming from me, but from my briefcase. He didn’t ask, but I lifted my bag onto the table and opened it anyway. I pulled out the freezer bag with the carton of burgers. The clear plastic was bloated with fermented gases or whatever it is that rotting meat gives off. Dead flies speckled the bottom of the bag and dying maggots were attempting to crawl out of the cardboard box. It wasn’t very pretty.
“Before we start, this needs to go to the nearest lab. Source Bruno had one of these burgers shortly before he died,” I said, carefully laying the bag on the table.
There was no need to mention any suspicions I had about the meat being poisoned, the unhappy maggots were testimony to that and the officer got the idea, leaning back in his chair, trying to get as far away from the sample as he could without losing face.
The flunky appeared, no idea how he knew he was wanted. Maybe he followed his nose.
“Get this sample to Operational Technical Sector in Gera for analysis,” ordered the major.
The flunky got the drift and took the bag out at the double. A moment later a Wartburg coughed into life and made its way down the driveway, just visible at the end of the moss. I couldn’t see who was at the wheel, but was prepared to put a small bet on it being the flunky, which would mean this officer and I were now alone in the big house.
He was on his feet, heading towards the windows to let some of the stink out. That gave me my chance to look him over. Tall and thin, but not gangly. There was still muscle under his shirt, even though he must have been in his mid-fifties. Full head of grey hair, but his regulation moustache was yellowing, whether from tobacco or residual pigmentation I couldn’t tell.
But that wasn’t all I knew about him. The most interesting thing wasn’t what I could see, but what the flunky had said: Jawohl, Genosse Oberleutnant, he’d answered after receiving his orders. I was seldom wrong when it came to finding the right box to put members of the armed organs in, but I’d made a mistake here. The man opposite was a first lieutenant, only a couple more pips on his shoulder than I.
That put a whole new perspective on the situation.
Of course, rank isn’t everything. I’ve led operational teams with officers who outranked me. But if you’re still a first lieutenant by the age of fifty then you’re a jobsworth. You’ve missed the early chances of promotion, risen through the ranks on the strength of time in service rather than ability. And he wasn’t even a very good jobsworth, hadn’t even made captain yet.
I didn’t like the situation, so I stalled for time.
He was still at the windows, fumbling with a catch when I stuck two fingers down my throat. The results were better than I’d hoped for.
The first lieutenant swivelled around at the sound of my vomiting, backing into the glass. I couldn’t see his face, I was still doubled over, concentrating on some convincing retching.
“Poison,” I gasped, hawking up a piece of badly-chewed and partly-digested sausage that had stuck in my throat. I staggered to my feet and headed for the doorway.
Once in the hall with the door firmly shut behind me, I straightened up and made for the bathroom to swill my mouth out with water. Hurrying into my bedroom, I stuck my head out of the window and had a good look at the grounds in front of the house. I could see the drive curling down the slope, dense spruce on one side, abandoned lawn on the other. Leaning out, I could see more spruce and pine closing on the house to either side.
What I didn’t see was any sign there may be a telephone in the building. Electricity came up the drive on poles, but the ceramic insulators that should hold the telephone lines were empty. Little point tip-toeing around the house looking for the phone, then.
Another lean out of the window to examine the outside of the building. The rendering had flaked away, exposing the brickwork, and the weather had nibbled at the pointing. Tempting as it looked, I knew there was no safe way for me to shimmy down the facade. I was a desk-stud with a side line in operational activities, not a member of the anti-terrorist Unit IX.
Taking the key out of the door and hanging the blue tracksuit jacket over the doorknob to hinder any attempts at peeking through the keyhole, I went out into the hall and locked my door behind me.
In the bathroom, I pulled one of the frosted windows open and looked out at the spruce woods that pressed against the house. The ground was higher on this side, barely a two-metre drop from the windows. But before I let myself out, I had just one minor problem to solve.
Taking the top off one of the toilet cisterns, I waggled the pin in the lift arm until it came loose, then put the lid back on the tank. Back at the window, I took my tie off, held the wide end against the bottom edge of the window and drove the pin hard through the fabric of the tie and into the rotten wood. The pin was too blunt to properly penetrate the material, but the window frame was so rotten that the pin and the end of the tie had ended up deeply embedded in the wood.
I gave the other end of the tie an exploratory tug before climbing out, pulling the window shut behind me as best I could while squatting on the rotten sill and holding onto the side. Making sure the tie was draped ove
r the sill and hanging down, I shuffled around and over the edge, hanging by my fingers for a second or two before dropping the last few centimetres onto the needle-strewn soil under the trees. Reaching up, I pulled the tie until the window was practically closed, anyone looking into the bathroom wouldn’t immediately notice my escape route.
A last tug, but the tie remained attached to the window, jammed in the frame. It hung there, obvious to anyone who cared to take a stroll around the perimeter of the building. Nothing I could do about it, so I left it and headed deeper into the woods.
36
Saalfeld Gorndorf
People in Saalfeld gave me strange looks. Couldn’t blame them—a stranger wearing a worn and ripped Western suit turns up in an insignificant suburb of their arse-end-of-nowhere town—more than enough reason to take a second look.
Nobody challenged me, and the couple of people I asked for the nearest phone box were polite enough, but somewhere along the way somebody must have reported me. Fucking grass.
I’d paused outside a new-build block, plenty of greenery and trees, pleasant enough, but it didn’t match the detailed route instructions the old biddy had given me just a couple of blocks earlier. According to her, I should now be face to face with the local supermarket and, more importantly, the telephone kiosk by the entrance. Instead, I was looking down a gap between two rows of 1950s slab-built blocks of flats, all set up like dominoes, ready to be knocked over.
“Good morning.”
The greeting came from behind me, but I didn’t have to turn around to know what kind of person said Good morning in that kind of way. And when I turned around, sure enough, there was a policeman, for the moment still at the courteous stage, hand touching his brow in the polite, toy-soldier salute the Volkspolizei do. A glance at the patch on his sleeve: Abschnittsbevollmächtigter, the beat bull responsible for keeping his beady eye on the local neighbourhood.
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