The Tsunami File

by Michael E. Rose

  The difference, in his case, as Heinrich appeared only too happy to tell Associated Press and Die Welt and the BBC and anyone else who interviewed him, post-1990, was that he eventually managed to insinuate himself back into East Germany as a BND mole.

  He had been a radical, a far left university student, in West Germany. Or so it appeared. He had marched in the 1968 student protests that shook Europe, had got himself arrested, even though somewhat past prime student age by then, and had been active in student Communist groups and other far left groups of various descriptions. Then, at the height of the Cold War and the East-West tensions, he defected to the East, with much fanfare and blazing front-page stories in the GDR and Soviet press.

  Heinrich, it seemed, was a young man who could not bear being stifled, anywhere. West German capitalism, he had now decided, was stifling him unbearably. He had made a mistake in 1959, he said. He could no longer in good conscience live in West Germany and he wanted to go home to the GDR where he could feel truly at home and make his contribution to the socialist paradise. And perhaps visit his ancient mother in Dresden. Or so he said at the time.

  Heinrich left West Germany just months before the spectacular story broke of a Stasi spy, Gunter Guillaume, having made it to the very top echelons of Willy Brandt’s Social Democrat government. Guillaume had managed to have himself appointed a top aide to Brandt himself. That scandal brought Brandt down as Chancellor in 1974, and brought Stasi and its enormous, Byzantine network of spies inside and outside East Germany, into very sharp focus. Everywhere it was said that Stasi had completely outmanned and outclassed the BND in the spying game.

  But one Klaus Wolfgang Heinrich was providing a success story at the time that no one in West German intelligence wanted to put on any front page—not yet. In fact, said the post-1990 news and feature stories, Heinrich was never anything other than a loyal member of the BND, despite his highprofile defection back to the GDR, and for years this deep undercover super spy sent back a constant stream of excellent-quality intelligence to the West.

  East Germany had, very unwisely as it later turned out, embraced their brilliant high-profile defector with great enthusiasm and given him a political science lectureship at Humboldt University in East Berlin, where everyone was ideologically sound indeed. Heinrich moved from there into very powerful circles, acting as a sort of informal government adviser on all things West German, rubbing shoulders with senior bureaucrats and politicians and like-minded academics and intellectuals. His sources in the GDR were excellent, he had access to highlevel discussions and reports and files, and no one, it seemed, ever suspected that this Dresden native was anything other than what he appeared.

  In those first chaotic days and weeks after the Wall came down in 1989 and thousands of Stasi files were seized that showed in detail the breathtaking level of infiltration of West Germany by East German spies, the Klaus Heinrich story, about the man who had duped the best Stasi minds for more than a dozen years, was a welcome counterweight to the impression that Stasi had outmaneuvered the West at every Cold War turn.

  Heinrich was the kind of hero West German intelligence sorely needed at the time and they used him for all he was worth. Until, of course, a defective heating stove blew up in Heinrich’s little cabin in the Siebengebirge hills and his brilliant career finally, spectacularly, ended.

  As Ackermann had said, there were the inevitable suggestions at the time that Heinrich had been assassinated by Stasi stalwarts in retaliation for his betrayal. But those stories soon faded away, partly because from every possible level in West Germany there came assurances that the house fire had been no more than what it appeared. That Heinrich had died accidentally at the age of 61 from smoke inhalation and horrific burns, leaving a charred corpse in the ashes for all investigators to examine for suspicious bullet wounds or knife wounds or poisons or whatever other signs of displeasure a Stasi assassin might have left behind.

  The stories faded away after the very thorough official investigation. They faded also because the world’s attention was understandably elsewhere at the time. In October 2001, the death in the Rhine countryside of a former West German Cold War super spy in a house fire was news from another era. It was not a story to hold media interest for very long. The media, post-9/11, had far too many new preoccupations to spend very much time writing feature stories and analysis pieces about the death of one Klaus Wolfgang Heinrich.

  Delaney himself was feeling stifled after such a long online research session in his room. It was a sultry Phuket evening and from his open balcony door he could see giant thunderclouds building over Chalong Bay. A heavy overnight rain might break the oppressive humidity but any downpour was some hours away yet. His air conditioner was off, as usual. After years of life spent in hotel rooms, he had developed a strong preference for sleeping under fans.

  He headed down to the lobby bar, laptop in hand. The night-desk girls, like the day shift, were aware, apparently, of his preference for solitude, possibly celibacy. Unlike so many of the male hotel residents, he had not found himself a local Thai “friend,” whether male or female, to bring back to his room each night. The night-desk girls found this worthy of an intense round of giggles every time he returned to the hotel alone and asked for his room key. As he passed them on the way to the bar, the giggles followed him until he was well inside.

  The Metropole bar, like thousand of bars in upmarket hotels around the world, was dark, heavily carpeted, tinkling faintly with piano sounds, clinking with ice in glasses, and humming faintly with conversations in many languages. He sat at the long wooden bar along with the usual suspects. Journalists on assignment, stir-crazy European sales representatives, and, in this case, a good sampling of off-duty police, European and Thai. The hotel management frowned on prostitutes actually sitting in the bar, so Delaney did not have to fend off offers of company here.

  He had developed the habit, again from too many years alone on the road, of repairing to such dim oases to think things through; when on assignment he needed some time to reflect carefully on information gathered and information still required. He ordered a double Jameson’s and a beer, and pondered the situation he had encountered.

  Rawson was absolutely correct. This was not at all the usual International Geographic hippos in the waterhole kind of story that he was starting to cover, or uncover. But, as usual for him, exactly where a story might lead and whether a story would ever make it into print was actually beside the point. At this stage he was simply seeking information.

  Eventually, having read through and amplified his many pages of notes on the story so far, from the day he had first met Jonah Smith at the victims’ funeral service at Phuket airport until logging off the news databases only a short while ago, having given the developing saga his undivided attention over a series of overpriced whiskies, Delaney made up his mind that his next destination must be Berlin.

  He opened his laptop and composed two email messages. The first was for Rawson in Ottawa:

  Jonathan, I have the third name for you. It is Klaus Wolfgang Heinrich. D.O.B. 18/05/40. Deceased possibly 08/10/01, possibly 24/12/04. Apparently a West German spook. What have you got? Bests, FD.

  For Ackermann, there was this:

  Dear Gunter. So sorry to have caught you, as it were, so early this morning. Far too early, I know. Sorry, sorry, sorry. But pressing affairs of state made it unavoidable, et cetera. Some good news for you, my friend. You will be delighted to know I’m coming to Berlin ASAP. Fun times ahead. Stand by. Regards, Delaney.

  Delaney decided to approach Horst Becker directly. He didn’t ask Smith for an opinion on this move, because he suspected that Smith would advise against it. He didn’t ask press officer Ruth Connolly for permission to interview this particular member of the DVI teams; first, because he was absolutely sure she would forbid it, and second, because she seemed to be drowning in a sea of other troubles in her unenviable assignment of managing the wor
ld’s media in Phuket while simultaneously managing a giant sampling of the world’s police.

  He had seen Connolly squabbling again a day previously with the Kendall man, about some public relations misdemeanour or other. And he had seen her locked in conversation, or possibly debate, with Braithwaite on the steps of the IMC as he arrived a day before that. As he passed them, Connolly and Braithwaite stopped their conversation and watched in silence. Perhaps, Delaney thought, as they would watch a condemned man walking to the gallows. Wishful thinking on their part. Or perhaps he was just becoming paranoid.

  Delaney called Becker quite late, after he had got back to his room from the hotel bar. His decision to take the step of calling the German pathologist was assisted somewhat by the rapid series of whiskies and beers he had consumed that evening. Smith had told him Becker was staying in a villa somewhere well out of town with a number of other German colleagues. His phone number was on a neatly typed list of DVI team contacts Smith had been given by the Thai police when he arrived in Phuket, a copy of which Smith had very kindly donated to International Geographic.

  “Ja,” Becker said after just one ring on his mobile phone.

  “Mr. Becker, this is Frank Delaney. I’m a journalist doing a story here for a magazine. I’m sorry to call you after hours.”

  There was only a slight pause at the other end.

  “I know about you, Delaney,” Becker said.

  “I was wondering if I could perhaps come to see you, to do an interview.” Another pause, again only very slight. “I see you have abandoned altogether the proper channels for such requests,” Becker said.

  Now the slight hesitation came from Delaney’s end.

  “I suppose I have,” he said.

  “I am not surprised by your request, Delaney,”

  Becker said.

  “I see,” Delaney said.

  Another slight hesitation from the German side. Then Becker said: “Tomorrow, yes?”

  “That’s fine. When and where?”

  “It is for you to choose. The prerogative of the journalist?”

  Delaney hadn’t thought this would be so easy. He had not expected to also be able to choose the venue. He thought the management centre would be too public a place, in case discussion got heated.

  “Your villa?” he said.

  “You are already aware of my accommodation details,” Becker said. “Very good.”

  “Will that be all right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ten o’clock?”

  “Yes. I will be alone here then.”

  “If you prefer,” Delaney said.

  “I do,” Becker said.

  Delaney called Bishop in his room. It was well after 11 p.m.

  “You sober, Tim?”

  “Always, Frank. Are you?”

  “Sort of. Not really.”

  “What’s up?”

  “You want to take some wildlife pictures tomorrow?” Delaney said. “A possibly dangerous beast?”

  “Sure. What time?”

  Delaney rented a car the next morning for the drive out to the German team’s villa. In his experience, it was always better to have return transportation arranged, if an interview was expected to be hostile and it was to take place away from major thoroughfares where taxis ply their trade.

  Bishop was happy to be on a shoot of any sort. Delaney explained on the way that Horst Becker, however, would not be happy with the sort of questions he was going to be asked about a missing DVI file and that they both might get ejected from the house. He did not tell Bishop that he badly wanted a photograph of Becker to show Ackermann, and possibly others in Berlin and Ottawa, if required.

  Becker’s bald head looked for all the world like a glistening, partially excavated flesh-toned cannonball. The archeological impression was reinforced by the grey beard that covered the bottom half of the aging sphere.

  A Thai houseboy had come to the door of the villa, but Becker was standing right behind. The German pathologist wasn’t wearing a DVI team shirt. Instead he had on a khaki expedition shirt, with button pockets on the chest, and epaulettes. Khaki trousers matched the safari look. All was immaculate, military-style, precisely pressed. Only the leather sandals betrayed a certain informality.

  “And who is this with you, Delaney?” Becker said as they all stood at the doorway. He did not offer a handshake.

  “This is my photographer, Tim Bishop,”

  Delaney said.

  “You said nothing about bringing a photographer.”

  “It’s standard procedure for my magazine to have pictures of people I interview.” Bishop was fitting a wide-angle lens to one of his cameras while he waited.

  “There is no need to prepare your equipment, young man. There will be no photographs taken here today.” Becker said.

  “Why is that, Mr. Becker?” Delaney said. Bishop looked over at Delaney, as he had looked often in previous assignments in many places around the world, often rather unpleasant and dangerous places, waiting for a cue as to whether to try to take a few quick shots before being sent away by an uncooperative subject.

  “No photos,” Becker said. “If you raise that camera, young man, I can assure you your career will be over.”

  Bishop enjoyed such situations very much. He was no longer bored. Becker locked eyes with Delaney.

  “Let’s not play journalist games this morning, if you please, Delaney. Send your young man away. You and I will go inside.”

  “I’ll go have a juice somewhere, Frank,” Bishop said. “There’s a place down the road I saw coming in. Call me on my cell when you’re done.”

  Delaney was sure Bishop would take lots of shots of the exterior of the house as he left, as well as the car in the driveway, the mailbox, the houseboy if possible, the neighbours’ houses and anything else of any remote possible interest.

  “OK, Tim. Maybe Mr. Becker will change his mind after we’ve had the interview.” “This will not happen,” Becker said.

  They sat at a wicker dining table in an alcove near sliding doors to a long back courtyard filled with fragrant flowering jasmine and bougainvillea. The houseboy brought them iced tea. Delaney wondered if the boy might be Becker’s bit of local R&R. Becker looked like any number of aging German sex tourists who got off planes in Thailand on any given day. Except that Becker had other reasons for coming to Thailand, possibly even legitimate ones.

  “I am not a man who likes to waste time, Delaney,” Becker said.

  “I see,” Delaney said. “Well, then, thank you for agreeing to meet me today.”

  “Let us not waste time then pretending you are here as a journalist today,” Becker said.

  “I am a journalist,” Delaney said.

  “Please,” Becker said. “You insult my intelligence. My only problem has been trying to find out who you actually work for.” “Why do you think I’m here?”

  “The file,” Becker said without hesitation.

  “Jonah Smith.”

  Delaney had not expected to get down to basics so quickly that morning.

  “That’s something that would interest a journalist, wouldn’t it? A missing file?”

  “Or someone else.”

  “Like who?”

  “That is what I would like to find out. Who you are and why you are here in Phuket.”

  “So you will be interviewing me today?” Delaney said.

  “In a sense, yes,” Becker said.

  “Look, Mr. Becker, as you don’t like to waste time, I’ll just get straight to the point. I’m a journalist, despite what other theories you might have developed. I’m doing a story for International Geographic about the DVI work here and in other places like Sri Lanka and the Maldives. I’ve interviewed a lot of people. Along the way, I’ve been told about a file that’s gone missing here. . . .” “By Smith,” Be
cker said.

  “. . . It sounds to me like a breach of procedure or security and it may be that a body that could have been identified may now not get identified. That’s something that would interest a journalist, surely.”

  “Or someone else.”

  “Can you help me with this angle, Mr.

  Becker?”

  “Why do you think I would have information on such matters, Delaney?”

  “The body was a German national.”

  “Was it?” Becker said.

  “I believe so.”

  “Someone has told you this, or you have proof?”

  “There was a tattoo, for example. It said Deutschland, apparently.”

  “You have seen this body? You have seen such an identifying mark? You have seen the missing file? Some papers? Who tells you such things? These are confidential matters. You are confident about these facts?”

  “Can you confirm any of these facts for me, Mr. Becker?”

  “Why would you think I am able to do that, Delaney? And why do you think I would assist you in police matters even if I had such an ability?”

  Delaney said: “Why did you go to Jonah Smith’s hotel last week and warn him to stop asking about the file, Mr. Becker? As we’re not wasting any time here today . . .”

  Becker got to his feet and stood over Delaney, as short men often do. His face had been reddening. Beads of sweat glistened on the top of his smooth head.

  “Smith is an extremely indiscreet man. He is also a fool,” Becker said very quietly.

  “But is he correct?” Delaney said.

  “About what?”

  “Has the file been stolen?” Becker remained on his feet. The Thai houseboy hovered in the doorway to the main house.

  “Back inside,” Becker snarled at him. The boy retreated. Delaney waited.