“Permission to speak?” I asked. If the major was feeling expansive, I wanted to make use of the opportunity, fill in a few more gaps. “I wish to report suspicions regarding Bruno’s research into the West German terrorist organisation, the Red Army Fraction, and his presence at Building 74, commonly used by the HV A.” I was extrapolating on the few facts I had.
“Building 74 is regularly used for housing and training RAF operatives. HV A wanted to make Bruno available so ex-RAF members now resident in the GDR could confirm or deny that he was a danger to activities in the operational area. Bruno was recognised by said operatives, and based on the analysis that his offer to defect was part of a hostile-negative operation to undermine operative co-operation between the HV A and active members of the RAF, HV A took the decision to neutralise him.”
I was still processing the news that HV A had eliminated Bruno when another thought intruded. When you’re standing at attention, staring at the wall above a superior officer’s head, you don’t have much brain-space to spare. Sure, you might think standing there gawping at the wallpaper shouldn’t require much in the way of thinking capacity, but let me tell you, you need to stay alert. Superiors like nothing more than to trip you up—it’s like an interrogation, you never know when they’re going to slip something into the conversation, make you say something you shouldn’t. It’s not called standing at attention for nothing.
And the thought that intruded on my standing around? Holger.
If HV A were the bad guys in this one, if they’d decided to liquidate Bruno, then there was no mole.
Holger wasn’t the mole. I’d suspected him, which made me not just a pillock, but a poor friend. Again.
“Anyway,” said the major. “Not our concern. I want a full report from you next week, in the meantime, aren’t you meant to be on sick leave?”
“Comrade Major!”
Clickety-heels. Exit.
52
Berlin Weissensee
The condensation on the cold windscreen was crystallising, with every exhalation I added further clouds of moisture. My hands were red, my fingers numb.
I could run the engine, switch the heater back on, get warm and drive home and see how the young goon was doing, whether the sleeping pills had worn off yet.
Or, I could get out of this icebox, cross the car park and ring Holger’s doorbell.
With a sigh, I opened the car door and got out. I pushed the door shut and locked up, the whole time watching the windows of Holger’s flat. A light was on—it was the middle of the day, but the cloud layer was so dense and low that it felt like dusk.
I walked across the car park, wondering what I’d say to Holger. Sorry didn’t quite do the job. I could say: Sorry, old friend—I suspected you were a mole, but it’s all OK because I didn’t get a chance to denounce you to the chief.
I gave the front door a push, it clicked open, so I headed up the stairs to Holger’s flat. I could hear music through the door, something synthetic and poppy, not my style. And the shouting was even less to my taste.
The door was ajar, so I went in.
“Holger, please!” Ilona had pasted herself against the living room door at the end of the hall. She was on her knees, her fists banging the wood.
I ran towards her, passing a teenager standing there, mouth hanging open, wonky glasses. That’d be Hannes. Nice kid in a not-so-nice situation.
I was next to Ilona by now, trying to pull her upright.
“What’s going on? Ilona, tell me!”
She was still sobbing and shouting, I slapped her.
That got her attention. She turned away from the door long enough to slap me back, then carried on banging her fists against the wood, shouting for her husband.
Her wedding ring had caught one of the bruises on the side of my face, opening it up. I could feel blood trickling down my chin. I took a step back, wiped the blood away and assessed the situation. Ilona wasn’t going to let me distract her, so I decided to join in.
“Holger!” I banged on the door. “It’s Reim—let me in!”
And he did. The key clicked in the lock, and I shoved the door open.
“I’ll deal with this,” I told Ilona, holding her back as she tried to follow me into the living room.
I managed to shut the door on her and turned the key again. Only then did I turn around and look at Holger. He was standing by the window, looking at the cars parked below, a Makarov pistol in his right hand.
“I was watching you down there in your car. Wondered how long it would take you to work up the courage,” he said to the glass.
I stayed where I was, back against the door, I could feel it shudder as Ilona’s fists continued their pounding.
“You come to apologise or to arrest me?” The glass misted where his breath hit it. Holger turned around, slowly, as if I was the one holding the gun.
But all I had were words, and precious few of those. We looked at each other, I tried to read his gaze, hoping his eyes would tell me why he was in a locked room with his service weapon drawn.
“Holger, the Bruno case is all wrapped up. We know everything.”
“I’ve been waiting for you.” He waggled the pistol in his right hand. “Now you’re here you should sit down.”
He gestured at an armchair, the one I’d sat on the night I was here for dinner. The one Ilona and I had fucked on.
“I panicked when Bruno started talking about a mole, knew my time was up.”
“Holger?” He really was meschugge.
“Shut up, Reim! You’ve come to get me, fine. But let me tell it my own way.” He turned back to the window again, wiped the condensation away with his left sleeve.
I could rush him, seize the Makarov. But he was already turning around again, whatever he wanted to say, he wanted to say it to my face.
“It was me. There you are, that’s the word straight from the mole’s mouth.” He wiped his sleeve across his nose, the pistol passing in front of his eyes. “I’ve been waiting for a long time for Bruno to activate me. We had a legend prepared, you want to hear it? I was meant to become his handler, but actually he was my handler—clever, isn’t it?” Another wipe of the sleeve, Holger was crying. “We don’t give the West Germans nearly enough credit—they come up with a plan like that, years in the making—they deserve some credit.”
He grinned at me. Not a grin like yesterday at Building 74, it wasn’t friendly or warm. It was without meaning.
“So why did you tell me there was a mole?” I asked, eyeing his Wamme. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“I needed to test my legend. You and I, Reim, we’ve known each other since we both started out—if you couldn’t see what was going on then I knew I’d be safe.”
“And if I exposed you?”
Holger raised the pistol, pointed it at me and made an almost silent peng noise with his lips.
“You got away with it,” I told him, trying to keep my voice level. “Nobody knows. Just us two.”
“You hear that?” he gestured at the door with his left hand, the one not holding the gun. Ilona had stopped banging, was no longer shouting, but her sobbing still plucked the air. “They know, there’s no going back from this.” He still had the Makarov trained on me. “And you know, too. So peng.”
“Why was Bruno arrested?”
“HV A. They suspected something, I needed to throw them off. So I sent a message to the West: arrest Bruno. But it didn’t help, HV A got to him anyway. And now they’ve sent you—that’s a step up for you, working for Mischa Wolf’s boys. It’s all over. Too late.” He raised his right hand, and took aim at me.
“Wait! There’s still a way, I think I can still get you out of this … I came to tell you how we can … we can …” I didn’t recognise Holger, his eyes were dark, the empty grin pasted to his face was as wide and hard as a lion’s. “Triple agent! We play you back to the West but the Firm is in control—they’ll like that, they’ll boast about it to the big brothers in Moscow. You’
ll get a medal!”
I leaned forward in the chair excited by what I was saying. Holger was still pointing his grin at me, and the gun didn’t look any less dangerous. I could rush him, nothing to lose—go on Reim, get yourself out of that chair and disarm him!
“There’s no future for me here. Look after Hannes and Ilona for me—you’ll like that, won’t you, an instant family?” Holger edged back until he bumped up against the window again, out of reach.
Perhaps he wasn’t going to kill me—can’t expect me to look after his wife and son if I’m dead, can he? But I didn’t relax, not yet. Holger was too unpredictable.
“You heading West? You got a plan? You know what they’re like, they’ll track you down, they’ll kill you or bring you back—they never give up.” I was gabbling, trying to buy time, enough time to work out how to disarm him.
“The problem with you, Reim …” The arm holding the Makarov was shaking, the finger behind the trigger guard was trembling. “The problem with Comrade Reim is that people like the idea of him more than they actually like him.”
Before I could answer, Holger’s forearm jerked back. In one swift movement, the muzzle of the pistol went under his chin and his finger tightened on the trigger.
When Ilona broke the door down, she found her husband’s body on the carpet and the back of his head spread over the window.
Epilogue
There were three funerals in January 1984.
I heard that Bruno was buried with full honours in Osnabrück, West Germany, his family and colleagues at the graveside.
Over here, in East Berlin, I attended the Baumschulenweg cemetery in my dress uniform. We stood there in the cold, a dozen comrades from the Ministry on one side of the hole in the ground, Lieutenant-Colonel Schur standing at the head of the grave, mouthing socialist platitudes to the gusting wind.
Ilona and Hannes didn’t listen to the officer’s empty words, and they did their best not to look at Holger’s old colleagues. Ilona had an arm around her son, but the wetness on her cheeks was rain, not tears. Hannes didn’t cry either, he clasped his hands, as if in prayer, and watched as the four NCOs slowly paid out the ropes, letting Holger’s coffin sink into the grave while we officers shivered.
I hadn’t reported my last conversation with Holger. There was no point, it would only have unleashed the wolves and I couldn’t afford that level of scrutiny.
I hadn’t spoken to Ilona since New Year’s Day, we hadn’t exchanged a word since I’d held her next to the body of her husband. I’d told her what to do, what to say, then I’d phoned an ambulance and instructed them to take the body to the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Hannoversche Strasse.
After the ambulance had gone, I returned to Berlin Centre and informed Holger’s colleagues of his death, telling them that I’d been concerned about his mental health ever since I’d interviewed him a couple of weeks earlier.
The coffin bumped against the bottom of the grave and the ropes were pulled out. Ilona released a handful of damp earth over the hole then turned away, pulling Hannes with her. She strode down the path, making no attempt to avoid the puddles and mud. She ignored the car the Ministry had provided and passed through the cemetery entrance.
Around me, Holger’s ex-colleagues began to relax. Hands and heads were shaken, kind words were spoken. The lieutenant-colonel was already being ushered into his Chaika by the chauffeur.
“You were with him when he died?” one of the colleagues asked me, a captain.
I didn’t answer. I was still watching Ilona’s receding back.
“Had a bright future, did Comrade Captain Fritsch. What a waste …” The captain’s words were as empty as those of the lieutenant-colonel.
I waited until I was the only one left. The gravediggers were nowhere to be seen, they’d be in their cabin, drinking beer and waiting for the rain to ease. I looked down. Holger in his grave, handfuls of mud and a tangle of red chrysanthemums on top of his coffin.
“Goodbye old friend,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
The crematorium worker and I were the only ones present. He had the oven door open, the white tiles on the walls and floor flickered and shone in the light of the flames.
In the middle of the room, a plain wooden box was mounted on a trolley. I watched from the side as the worker took a form, placed it on the top of the coffin and signed it. He folded the paperwork and put it in his pocket then wheeled the trolley forward. With a jolt, the coffin slid over the lip of the furnace and into the flames.
The heavy oven door closed, and the worker went off, leaving me alone with Sanderling’s burning body. I still didn’t know why she’d been shot, whether it was true that she’d changed her mind and was trying to escape back to the West. But I had connections, in time I’d find out.
“Goodbye Sanderling,” I said. “We could have been friends.”
I walked out of the crematorium and between the graves, heading for the gates. And maybe those were tears on my cheeks, not rain.
I thought about what Holger had said to me the day he died, the last friendly conversation we’d had.
You’re not the Reim I used to know.
Lieutenant Reim will return in
Baltic Approach,
the fourth instalment of the Reim Series
Sign up to Max Hertzberg's newsletter for sneak previews, special offers and information about new books by this author.
The East Berlin Series
‘An authentic atmosphere of tension and uncertainty … The brilliance of Stealing the Future lies in the honest portrayal of a young country and its idealistic inhabitants struggling to keep alive their dream of freedom, justice and equality in the face of international and domestic opposition.’
Jo Lateu, New Internationalist
‘A compelling re-imagining of East Germany’s peaceful revolution in 1989—exploring what might have been. As Europe grapples with the consequences of austerity, this novel poses questions both about the lost chances of 1989, and about how we organise our society—questions that are more relevant with each passing day.’
Fiona Rintoul, author of The Leipzig Affair
‘An intriguing and gripping page-turner of a thriller—believable and exciting. More than that, though, it's an exploration of power—political, economic and electric power; and what it might be like, day to day, to put our ideals and hopes for self-determination into practice.’
Clare Cochrane, Peace News
About The Author
After the experience of the East German political upheaval in 1989/90 Max Hertzberg became a Stasi files researcher. Since then he has also been a book seller and a social change trainer and facilitator.
Visit the author’s website for background information on the GDR, features on this book and the East Berlin Series and its characters, as well as guides to walking tours around the East Berlin.
www.maxhertzberg.co.uk
Also by Max Hertzberg
The East Berlin Series
Stealing The Future (2015)
Thoughts Are Free (2016)
Spectre At The Feast (2017)
Reim GDR Spy and Detective Series
Stasi Vice (2018)
Operation Oskar (2019)
Berlin Centre (2019)
Baltic Approach (2020)
Other Fiction
Cold Island (2018)
Non-fiction
with Seeds For Change
How To Set Up A Workers’ Co-op (2012)
A Consensus Handbook (2013)
E 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Published in 2019 by Max Hertzberg
www.maxhertzberg.co.uk
Copyright ©Max Hertzberg 2019.
Max Hertzberg has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
Cover photograph copyright ©Michel Huhardeaux, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 International Licence.
Text licensed under the Creative Comm
ons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No-Derivatives 4.0 International License. View a copy of this license at: www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
c/o Wolf Press, 22 Hartley Crescent, LS6 2LL
A CIP record for this title is available from the British Library
ISBN: 9781913125028 (paperback), 9781913125028 (large print paperback), 9781913125035 (epub)
All characters in this publication, except for those named public figures who are used in fictional situations, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is entirely unintended and coincidental.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on any subsequent purchaser.
Berlin Centre
December 1983
1 Berlin Lichtenberg
2 Berlin Lichtenberg
3 Berlin Lichtenberg
4 Berlin Lichtenberg
5 Berlin Lichtenberg
6 Berlin Lichtenberg
7 Berlin Lichtenberg
8 Berlin Lichtenberg
9 Berlin Friedrichshain
10 Berlin Lichtenberg
11 Berlin Lichtenberg
12 Berlin Lichtenberg
13 Berlin Lichtenberg
14 Berlin Lichtenberg
15 Berlin Lichtenberg
16 Berlin Weissensee
17 Berlin Lichtenberg
18 Berlin Friedrichshain
19 Berlin Lichtenberg
20 Berlin Lichtenberg
21 Berlin Lichtenberg
22 Berlin Lichtenberg
23 Berlin Lichtenberg
24 Marienborn Border Crossing Point (rail)
Berlin Centre Page 17
