Berlin Centre

by Max Hertzberg

  “Did you hear about the time the lads from HA XX went to the circus?” Holger asked. It sounded like the beginning of a joke, but like so much in this country these days, what he said next wasn’t funny. “The animal trainers showed them shock and control techniques. If you know how to intimidate a pride of lions then a pack of punks won’t cause you any problems.”

  “Holger, off the record … I wanted to say …”

  “Yeah, what do you want to tell me?”

  “I wanted to say …” I swallowed, looked at the road ahead. To either side was darkness, we were crossing some brook or stream, lots of trees, branches reaching up to the moonlight. “Thanks, Holger.”

  “Are you being sarcastic?”

  “No. You’re a good mate, not many of those around. And you’ve been looking out for me—I know that.”

  Holger chuckled. “You’ve changed over the last few months. You’re not the Reim I used to know—that tour at a toxic waste dump must have done you some good. But listen, mate, you owe me. Big time. And one day, I’m going to call that debt in.” He said it in that jokey, half-serious tone we blokes use when we’re being open. If he weren’t driving he might have patted me on the shoulder. But he hadn’t finished yet. “A few weeks ago, I was worried. I don’t mind telling you that. When Bruno was arrested, I was shit-scared that I’d run into my own bad case.”

  The mythical bad case. Except bad cases weren’t mythical. We’d all seen colleagues dragged down through no fault of their own. Sometimes it was a silly mistake, more often it was someone else’s ambition that saw for them.

  “You straightened me out, made sure nothing came of it and I’m happy to return the favour.”

  And that was the end of it. I’d said what I needed to say and Holger had responded. But there was something else burrowing its way below my ribs, something I needed to let out: “Are you having an affair?”

  We were in Mahlsdorf before Holger answered. “Depends who’s asking,” he said, his jovial tone undermined by the long silence before the answer.

  “Bowling practice. Every Wednesday, without fail,” I suggested, paraphrasing his wife’s words. “Plus all the other times, the evenings when you’ve had to work late.”

  “That was you? The night before the big match with your department—it was you, wasn’t it?” Holger wasn’t asking, he was working it out. “You fucked my wife!”

  If you’re expecting me to tell you that the Skoda wobbled across the road, skidded on an icy patch and overturned, tragically killing our hero in the moment of his realisation then you’ll be disappointed. Holger kept the car under effortless control, but he had to work harder to keep his temper in check.

  “How many times?” he demanded. “How often?”

  “Just that once. Ilona was feeling frustr-”

  “Don’t tell me what my wife was feeling!” Holger shouted, slamming his fist into the steering wheel. Finally, the car wobbled a bit, but there was no handy patch of ice to bring the awkward conversation to an end.

  “Fuck’s sake, Reim! Two minutes ago, we were giving each other declarations of undying love and then you go and spoil it by telling me you’ve been sleeping with Ilona.”

  “Just the once-”

  “The way you treated your own wife—no surprise Renate decided she’d had enough. So she leaves and you start sniffing around my wife! But best friends, yeah? You couldn’t make this shit up!”

  I let him rant. Sure, he was upset, who wouldn’t be? But he hadn’t answered the question, and now I really wanted to know. What does he get up to on Wednesday evenings?

  49

  Berlin Friedrichshain

  At some point, Holger lapsed into silence and the atmosphere in the car grew so cold that I wound down the window in an attempt to warm up a bit.

  Holger dropped me in front of my flat and watched me walk up the path. His instructions had been to stay with me, but he preferred remaining in the car. I didn’t invite him up.

  Back in my flat, I had a shower then poured myself a drink. Standing in the dark room looking out of the window—the street lights had been fixed while I’d been away—I could see the orange sodium light flare over the roof of the Skoda. I wanted to go to bed, I was beginning to feel a little light-headed, not in the mixing-alcohol-and-pain-killers way, more in a still-broken-after-taking-a-beating way. But first I had some thinking to do.

  Delaying the inevitable, I examined my injuries in the mirror. The bruises had come up nicely, plenty of parallel welts from truncheons and a few hoofmarks where I’d been kicked. I pulled on a shirt and sat in my favourite chair, refilled my glass and settled down to work.

  Dawn crept through the window and found me fast asleep in my chair. The glass of schnapps had fallen from my hand and was lying on the rug at my feet. I woke with a curse, flexed my head left, then right, trying to crack the ache out of my neck, but it didn’t help, so I stood up and stretched. That just made my ribs complain.

  From the window, I could see that Holger’s Skoda had gone. In its place there was a Lada the colour of stale blood.

  The cupboards in the kitchen were bare, a forgotten packet of Filinchen crispbread and a creased packet of KaffeeMix were pretty much all there was, remnants of my wife’s last shopping trip before she walked out on me. But I was hungry, so dry crispbread, helped down with the adulterated coffee mix was what I had.

  I hadn’t managed to do my thinking last night so I had some catching up to do this morning. At this point there were only a few crumbs left on my breakfast plate, and there wasn’t much more than that going on in my head.

  At the start of all of this, Holger had come to me with a second-hand tale of a mole in the Ministry. he was pretty down at the time, but soon perked up after I’d investigated a little and told him that there was nothing to support the story about a mole, at least not in the material I’d had access to.

  But when I looked more closely at Holger’s report on babysitting Bruno, I’d uncovered discrepancies. His account of the source’s trip home had been full of holes, but that wasn’t the only thing that troubled me. I still wanted to know where he went every Wednesday evening—because I was sure he wasn’t at bowling practice. His assertion that a Saxon interrogator was the mole was untenable, not least because not a single one of the officers who interrogated Bruno was from Saxony.

  Perhaps it’s not so surprising that I had questions; look at anyone hard enough and you’ll find they’re hiding something. Why should Holger be any different? But whenever I’d tried to clear up the inconsistencies, Holger had always avoided giving me clear answers.

  Maybe he was in the middle of a nervous breakdown, perhaps he’d been working too hard. It happened, I’d seen colleagues go meschugge many times. First their judgement goes, then they have trouble remembering important things. In the end they’re unusable as an operative, kaput, fit only for being hidden away.

  I took my plate and cup back into the kitchen and left it by the sink then went to stand in the middle of the living room, between the television and the couch.

  Holger had been one of the first to have contact with Bruno, he was likely the only one to have heard Bruno’s story about the mole, and he’d been the only one anywhere near Bruno when he was arrested.

  Bruno had been well and truly neutralised. After his arrest the Firm wouldn’t have trusted anything he said or did, which made his death redundant. So why did he have to die?

  And what was Holger’s role in all of this? It was possible that he’d caused Bruno’s arrest and taken the opportunity to poison the burgers in Bruno’s freezer. My friend Holger clearly had the means and the opportunity to eliminate Bruno.

  But what about motive?

  I sat down on the couch again, picked up the pencil and pulled the pad of paper towards me.

  What motive could Holger have had to ensure the Firm would reject Bruno? I could think of only two possibilities.

  First up, Holger could have received some kind of reward for neutral
ising Bruno. But from whom? Just as the Firm has their own means of dealing with inconvenient subjects, Western agencies also have specialised units for that kind of work. No reason to involve Holger—not unless they wanted it to look like we did it. Besides, I’ve already mentioned that the kind of wet job carried out on Bruno isn’t their kind of style. Unless it was some kind of propaganda job? Do the deed and then blame us?

  What about the second possible motive? Try this for size: Holger was worried he could be put in danger by something Bruno might say or do. But what would Bruno have on Holger? It would have to be something big.

  Both of the above were plausible, at least in the kind of world that Holger, Bruno and I moved in.

  So there we have it: motive, means and opportunity—Holger had all three, and I was sure I could get to the bottom of it—but only if I was given proper access to Bruno’s files. I needed to see the interrogation transcripts, the evaluations and analysis reports. The whole works.

  I reached for the phone and dialled Kühn’s number.

  50

  Berlin Friedrichshain

  The secretary said she’d call me back, but after half an hour of pacing around my flat the phone still hadn’t rung. I crossed to the window, looking down at the cars below. Nobody had left, no new cars had arrived. What do you expect at half-past nine on the first morning of the new year?

  But I couldn’t stay here, I had an idea in my head—an idea I didn’t like—and I needed to prove or disprove it to myself. And if my idea was right? Then I’d lose a friend but I’d keep my job. Probably get a promotion out of it, too.

  Whatever. After the ill-judged admission on the journey back to Berlin this morning, I’d probably lost Holger’s friendship anyway.

  I crossed the room again, but this time I kept going. Through the short vestibule, out of the flat and down the staircase.

  The concrete pathway outside was slippery with ice, but I stalked along, wrapping my arms over my chest to ward off the cold. The door of the red Lada opened, and a young man got out. He stood there, watching my approach, one hand on the door, the other holding a portable radio.

  “You cold?” I asked and came to a stop a pace or two away.

  He didn’t answer, his wide blue eyes were fixed on my face, but the fingers of his left hand nervously stroked the transmit button of the radio.

  “No need for you to stay out here, you can do your watching just as easily upstairs. I’ve done the job too many times—I know how it is: freezing your bollocks off, desperate for a piss … Come on, I’ll put the coffee on.”

  I headed back to the block of flats, turning when I got to the front door and holding it open for the goon still standing in the road. He looked at his radio for a moment or two, then slammed the car door and followed me down the pathway.

  “Make yourself comfortable. Toilet’s through there, switch the telly on if you like—I’ll get the coffee.”

  The goon hadn’t said a word yet, was probably trying to work out how many rules he was breaking by accepting my offer of hospitality. I didn’t know what he’d been told at the start of his shift, but I could tell he’d recognised me as a colleague and that had probably swung it for him.

  In the kitchen, I turned the percolator on, putting a few teaspoons of KaffeeMix in the filter. Once the water was hissing nicely and starting to bubble through, I left it to do its job and headed to the bathroom.

  “Only KaffeeMix, I’m afraid. Run out of real coffee,” I told him as I brought the tray into the living room.

  The kid was still sitting there, back straight, radio on the coffee table in front of him. He hadn’t made himself at home, hadn’t put the television on. Was probably having second thoughts about being here.

  “Here you go.” I poured us both some of the coffee-surrogate blend and watched him pick his cup up.

  The young colleague held his drink between both hands, enjoying the warmth. He sipped at it, trying not to grimace. KaffeeMix, what do you expect from a drink that’s made from less than fifty percent coffee beans?

  He politely finished his cup and, with the exaggerated care of a drunk, put it back on the table, next to his radio. He flopped backwards with a smile on his face.

  “Want another one?” I asked.

  He didn’t answer. He wasn’t asleep yet, his eyes were still open, but his breathing was slow.

  “I’m just off out for a bit, you stay here,” I told him. “OK to borrow the car keys?”

  He tried to answer, but it was too much effort. I dipped into his pocket and took the keys.

  I went to the kitchen, emptied the dregs from the coffee pot and my still full cup down the sink, picked up the packet of Radedorm sedatives and put them in my pocket, then put my coat on and left the flat.

  I got rid of my wife’s left-over sleeping tablets in a bin a couple of streets over, then went back to the Lada and drove myself to Berlin Centre.

  51

  Berlin Lichtenberg

  The secretary saw me coming and lifted the phone. A few quiet words, her face set in an even sterner frown than usual, then she replaced the receiver.

  “Comrade Second Lieutenant Reim, you are to wait here!” she snapped.

  I could have gone straight through the connecting door to Kühn’s office, but what I had to report was delicate, I needed to catch my chief in a receptive mood. So I stayed where I was in the ante-room.

  There were chairs provided for waiting junior officers, but I was too impatient to sit twiddling my thumbs and looking at the scenery. Whatever Kühn was up to in there, it wouldn’t take long—it was New Year’s day, how full could his diary be?

  But it did take a while. Under the liverish gaze of the secretary, I soon ceased my pacing and sat on one of the chairs reserved for the likes of me. I watched the wallpaper for a while then I stared at the portrait of General Mielke, so familiar I could draw it from memory. I looked out of the window at the static blanket of cloud that wouldn’t shift for another three months. But waiting for a superior is like doing sentry duty. You straighten the back, point the eyes forward and switch off higher cognitive functions.

  And just like sentry duty, you have to be able to snap to attention in less time than it takes for a door to open.

  When I saw grey uniforms through the doorway, I stood up, eyes straight ahead, waiting for whoever it was to pass through my field of vision on their way out.

  Comrade Major General Koschack, head of section IX of the HV A and Comrade Lieutenant-Colonel Schur who headed up HA II/2, Holger’s department.

  Major Kühn had been in conference with the big fish, and that on New Year’s day. Something was brewing.

  “Reim!” the order, such as it was, came from Kühn. He didn’t bother with the honorific comrade-plus-rank—I was in trouble.

  I followed him into his office, closing the door behind me. He was already sitting down, and I came to attention the regulation number of paces before his desk.

  “Make this good,” he ordered, leaning over his blotter, hands clasped in front of him.

  “Comrade Major, regarding the case of Source Bruno. Here at Berlin Centre, I have detected the activities of a hostile provocateur-”

  “Watch your language!” Kühn rasped.

  That threw me. Watch my language? We were talking about the possibility that Holger might be working for the other side, was maybe even a long-term mole, a double-agent who had burrowed deep into the Ministry …

  “We all know HV A prefer to keep to themselves. Their actions may have been borderline provocative, and I accept that you haven’t been treated well by them, nevertheless I forbid you to refer to our distinguished colleagues in the foreign intelligence department as hostile provocateurs!” Why was Kühn blethering on about HV A?

  Sanderling’s last words to me had been about the watchers in Bonn being from HV A, that they’d been running an operation against Bruno. And now Major General Koschack of HV A had just walked out of this very office. When in doubt, shut up, I to
ld myself.

  And it was good advice, Kühn assumed I was keeping my gob shut out of respect, not confusion.

  “How did you work it out?” he asked.

  I risked a quick glance downwards, far enough to see his face, check whether or not the question was genuine. Kühn seemed interested, this time it wasn’t one of those rhetorical questions that superior officers like to leave lying around the place for us juniors to stumble over.

  “The watchers in the locally registered vehicle outside Bruno’s place of residence, Comrade Major.” I risked another flick of the eyes downwards to gauge the major’s reaction. He was wrinkling his nose, which made his eyes creep even further under his beetle brow.

  “Didn’t see that in any of the transcripts of your debrief, Comrade Second Lieutenant,” he announced, like a judge reading from a prepared sentencing statement. “Care to explain?”

  “In the absence of firm proof, I thought it prudent to reserve my statement until I could make a personal and informal report, Comrade Major.”

  “Which is why you’re here. Next time, go through the proper channels, Comrade.” It sounded like a dismissal, but then the major started up again. “Of course it’s nothing to do with us, but if I were in charge of HA II, I’d be referring the matter to the Minister’s office. Inserting First Lieutenant Gerhard Sachse into an HA II operation wasn’t in the spirit of political-operational co-operation-”

  “Der Sachse, der war es …” The words popped out when I heard Kühn mention the name. The Saxon, it was him.

  My interruption irritated the major but he decided to ignore it. “First Lieutenant Sachse has returned to his post at HV A. I’ve just had the heads of both departments in here, I smoothed things out a little but if HV A had concerns about Source Bruno they should have gone through the proper channels.”