I still reckoned the voice on the phone that got me out of Hamburg just in time was that of a Friend, someone from the Firm, and one good turn deserves another. Besides, it all seemed so simple.
There was an asset, a Russian colonel, working for us deep inside East Germany, and he had a package that we needed brought out. No, not in East Berlin, but based outside Dresden. He could not get farther than a meet in Dresden. It began to be not quite so simple. Dresden was a long way in.
The proposed plan had been minutely studied long before the meeting at the safe house and appeared to have the fewest flaws. It would have to be by car, because the package, which in deference to Alfred Hitchcock I always called the McGuffin, would have to be concealed far from prying hands and eyes on the way out. Besides, there was another package for the asset that had to go in. So, a swap. One in and one out.
They knew I had a car, at that time a Triumph Vitesse drophead convertible. Could they borrow it for a day or so? Of course.
I had to leave the Triumph outside my apartment with the keys under the floor mat. I never saw who took it or returned it. No need to. It just vanished and reappeared, but slightly different.
The battery in the Vitesse was in the engine bay. It sat on a tray beside the left-hand engine wall. Two metal clips prevented it from moving and a thick rubber pad prevented vibrations. The pad had been removed, slit open, and a cavity created.
To get at the cavity, one had to use a spanner to release the positive and negative leads, then undo the two retaining clips. Lift the battery out and place it to one side. Peel the rubber pad open. And inside was the fat wad of papers destined for the asset and the cavity in which his reports (whatever they were, I would never know) would ride out of the workers’ paradise.
I spent a day by the curbside in the warm summer sun practicing until I had it all down to less than thirty seconds. And there was more.
The “cover” was a visit to the Albertinum Museum, East Germany’s cultural jewel, amazingly untouched by the Anglo-American bombing of February 1945, which had flattened most of the city. Greco-Roman treasures were my new enthusiasm, and there were books to study as if for an exam. Finally, it seemed I was ready to roll.
It was a long drive across France and West Germany to the East German border, but under the Four-Power Agreement, my British passport entitled me onto the autobahn running across East Germany to the enclave of West Berlin. Once there, I avoided all contacts I had made during my time ten years earlier.
But there was a travel agency permitted by the East German authorities to be the conduit for visas for genuine Western tourists whom the Politburo was keen to entice into East Germany for the foreign currency they brought.
My handler, Philip (a pseudonym, of course), certainly did not wish to be photographed sitting beside me in the passenger seat when the Triumph entered East Germany, so he had flown into Tempelhof, the airport that serviced West Berlin only. He waited in a different hotel until the visa came through and my passport returned. The agency took its fee and gave me my passport back. Philip secured the final OK from London, meaning the asset was ready, and I was cleared to roll through Checkpoint Charlie the following morning.
There were several conditions for the visa. A minimum sum in deutschmarks had to be changed into worthless East marks, and this was duly done. On the East German autobahn south, there were specific filling stations where I was allowed to refuel. I had no doubt that if the Stasi were not going to tail me all the way, there would be checkpoints along the route at which the dark-blue Triumph with British number plates would be “clocked” and noted.
And there was just one hotel in Dresden where I was expected and where a reservation had been made.
I had not seen Checkpoint Charlie for ten years, but it was much the same. West Germans (but not West Berliners, who were forbidden) and other Europeans queued as usual by the checking sheds while mirrors on wheels were run under the chassis to scan for contraband.
The usual “bonnet up” and “boot open” orders, the usual nervous obedience, the usual tourist attempts to be lighthearted, the usual grim, unsmiling response. The border guard assigned to me looked around the engine bay, but touched nothing. The battery pad had passed its first test.
My small valise had been emptied and searched inside the shed and, that apart, the boot contained nothing, so I was allowed to replace it and slam the lid shut. Then the final curt wave toward East Berlin, the barrier rising, and the roll into Redland.
I had memorized the route through the southern outskirts of East Berlin toward the Dresden autobahn. Of course, there was the second border check—the one to get you out of East Berlin and into rural East Germany. This I recognized: it was the one through which the Magdeburg Stasi had escorted me after the RB-66 incident in the pine forest ten years back. I hoped Captain Holland’s leg had mended.
Then it was the open road, south into Saxony province and the city of Dresden, which I had never seen. The hotel was clearly marked on my street map and I was installed by midafternoon.
The car park was underground, and this was before the all-seeing CCTV cameras. There seemed to be no one watching, though I had no doubt my room was bugged, my telephone was tapped, and that it would be searched while I was at dinner. So I left the McGuffin under the battery pad until morning.
There was no point in going out to wander the streets. My brass-buttoned blazer yelled “Englishman” to any drably dressed East German, so I stayed in and studied the two books I had brought with me on the Albertinum Museum and its many ancient treasures. I hoped these would be noted by the hotel staff and that if they reported, which they almost certainly would, it would be to say the Brit was simply obsessed by Roman antiquities.
Not entirely unnaturally, I slept lightly and woke early. The meet was for two o’clock in a certain aisle between display cabinets inside the museum. I breakfasted at eight and checked out at nine, paying cash (no credit cards back then). But I left my valise with the concierge and was assured my car could remain in the garage until I needed it. I was not told what else would happen—that my case would be searched again. Good, there was nothing in it.
At half past nine, I ducked down into the garage, waited until another hotel guest drove out, clipped open the bonnet, removed the McGuffin, slipped it into my blazer pocket, replaced the battery, reconnected it, and closed up. Then it was a leisurely walk with textbooks under the arm to the museum. At five to two, I was in the aisle between the cabinets, engrossed in shards of pottery.
There were others there. Couples, threesomes, the inevitable guided groups of schoolchildren. I had my picture book open, comparing the photographs with the real artifacts behind the glass, occasionally looking out for a single man with a dark-red tie and black stripes. A few seconds after two, he turned into my aisle.
Germans usually do not have Slavic features, but this one did. And the tie. I saw his glance settle upon the one I was wearing: dark blue with white polka dots. No one else remotely like either of us. Then a wandering curator in uniform. Sometimes the simplest way is the best way.
“Entschuldigung [excuse me], where is the men’s room?”
He was politeness itself and pointed out the sign Herren above a door at the end of the gallery. No eye contact with “Chummy” standing ten feet away. He should know the “meet” would be in the toilet. So I wandered away toward it, entered, relieved myself, and was washing my hands when he entered. Apart from us, it was empty and all the stall doors were open. He, too, began to wash his hands. So two noisy streams of water. His turn. In German.
“Excuse me, did we not meet in Potsdam?”
My reply.
“Yes, I was there last April.”
Enough. No one else was talking this garbage in Dresden that morning. I nodded to two adjacent stalls. He took one, I took the other. Under the cubicle partition came a fat package of paper. I took mine and s
lid it the other way.
I defy anyone to resist the small worm of anxiety in the pit of the stomach at that moment. Is Chummy the real Chummy or was the real asset picked up a week ago and broken in the interrogation cellar to reveal all the places and ID codes of the coming “meet”?
Is the place about to be invaded by screaming hordes of goons with drawn pistols, handcuffs, clouts about the head? Even the silence seems menacing. But the biggest fear of all is not that you have run out of tradecraft or luck, but that far away back home, some bastard has betrayed you. “They” knew all along, they were waiting for you, mocking all your precautions. That is why Dante put the traitor in the final circle of hell.
Nothing happened. Chummy left the booth and I heard the outer door slam shut. I have never seen him since. I hope he is all right. There were still eighteen years of the USSR to go, and the KGB had a very nasty procedure for traitors.
I also left the booth, but had another hand wash to kill time. When I left, I bumped into another man coming in, but he was just a visitor. We nodded, passed, and I strolled out, still clutching my textbooks. There were a few more hours to kill until dusk, for I wanted to motor in darkness.
The visa expired at midnight and the way to the West was not via East Berlin but south to the Saale River crossing point, one of the few tourist-approved crossing points. South of Saale, in the town of Bayreuth, Philip would be waiting.
Back at the hotel, I collected my valise with assurances of having had a wonderful time in Dresden and copious compliments on the superb Albertinum Museum. Then down to the car park. But there was a large conference party checking in. Too many people. If I was seen waist-deep in my own engine bay, there might be offers of help, the last thing I needed. I kept the McGuffin in my breast pocket, got into the Triumph, which was already attracting curious glances, and drove out. Darkness was descending. I took the signs pointing to the Geraer Kreuz, the major autobahn junction where the highway turned south to the Bavarian border.
It was pitch-dark when I saw the lay-by in the headlights and, as I had hoped, the road by night was almost empty. I eased to the right, slid up the shallow ramp until the pine trees enveloped me, and stopped. Lights out. Wait, have a cigarette. Relax. Nearly there.
There was a small spanner in the glove compartment. Not enough to arouse suspicion, but vital for the nuts on the battery leads. I got out, opened the bonnet, and used my spanner to ease the first nut, the one on the negative battery lead. There was no need for a torch, the sickle moon was enough. At that moment, the lay-by was flooded with a harsh white light.
Another car had cruised up the ramp behind me, its headlights undipped. I slipped the spanner into my trouser pocket and straightened up. The car behind was a Wartburg saloon, and by its own lights I could see its livery: green and cream, the insignia of the Volkspolizei, the People’s Police, the VoPos. There were four of them climbing out.
They had clearly by then recognized the Triumph and the number plates as British. The reason they had come off the autobahn made itself plain when one of them faced the woods and unzipped his fly. A comfort break, but that bursting bladder might prove to be their lucky night.
The senior of them was a top NCO, what I took to be the Unteroffizier. The other two examined the Triumph curiously while their colleague urinated. The NCO held out his hand.
“Ausweis, bitte.” The “please” was good news, still polite. I dropped into Bertie Wooster mode—the hapless, helpless, harmless English tourist, completely lost and very dim. Halting German, awful accent.
The NCO examined the passport page by page by the light of a torch from his pocket. He saw the East German visa.
“Why are you stopped here?”
“It just stopped, Officer. I don’t know why. Just motoring along and it starts to cough, then cut out. I had just enough speed to get here before it stopped.”
The Germans are probably the best engineers in the world, but they know it and loved to be told it. Even East German engineering was enough for its degrees to be acknowledged in the West. So I laid the flattery on with a trowel.
“I cannot understand engines, Officer. So I do not know what to look for. And I have no torch. You Germans are so brilliant at this . . . I don’t suppose you could have a look?”
The senior NCO thought it over. Then he snapped an order at the one who had finished his ablutions and buttoned up his fly. In that crew, he seemed to be the mechanic.
“Guck mal,” he said, gesturing toward the engine bay. “Have a look.”
The urinator took the torch and went into the engine bay. Inside my breast pocket, the fat pack of papers was beginning to feel like a tombstone, which it could turn out to be if I was ordered to empty all pockets.
Then there was a shout of triumph and the engineer straightened up. He was holding up in his right hand the disconnected battery lead, illuminated in the torch beam.
“Hat sich gelöst,” he shouted. “It just shook itself off.”
Then it was all grins of pleasure. Point proved. Germans are better. I was handing around Rothmans, much appreciated. The disconnected lead was replaced and I was bidden to try the starter. It kicked into life at once. Bertie Wooster was beside himself with amazement and gratitude. Bonnet down and locked. Salutes all round. Please, mein Herr, on your way.
An hour further on, I did it again and this time was not disturbed. At half past eleven, I rolled into the arc lights and customs sheds at the Saale River crossing.
And there it was thorough. Boot, engine bay, high-powered flashlights into every crevice. Upholstery patted for hidden lumps, with mirrors and lights rolled underneath.
Inside the customs shed, pocket and body search. I was the only crosser; I had their undivided attention and I suppose they were bored. Excess cash handed over, passport taken to a back room, muffled sounds of phone calls. Eventually, with expressions of disappointment on their faces, the curt nod. Proceed. Valise back in boot, climb in, start up. Roll.
Back then, the East Germans had a trick. Their border point was a quarter of a mile inside East Germany. After the lifting of what looked like the last pole, there was a long, slow cruise at only ten kilometers per hour down the last stretch. It was bordered on both sides by chain-link fence. Unclimbable. And watchtowers with machine guns. Easy to hear the roared bullhorn command “Halt. Stehenbleiben.” Halt, stay where you are.
Finally, at the end, another barrier. Behind it, the West Germans were watching, hidden behind their own lights, field glasses on the approaching car and the East German controls farther back. There were no shouts as front bumper approached the barrier, which finally jerked into action.
Perfect joy? Oh, yes. Perfect joy is the sight of a red-and-white-striped pole rising into the Bavarian night as the rearview mirror fills with the wash of headlights.
I was very late into Bayreuth and found Philip at the only place in town still open for coffee, the railway café. He seemed distraught. He thought he had lost me. I was touched. So I gave him the McGuffin, went to the hotel, and slept like a log.
The next day I filled the tank and drove back across Bavaria, over the Rhine, through France to the Channel port of Calais. Thence the first ferry of the day for Dover and the chance to see once again, standing on the forepeak, the great white cliffs coming through the morning mist.
FRIENDS AND OPPONENTS
There are few experiences that appear so harmless, but turn out to be so exhausting, as the round-the-world promotion tour.
At first blush, it sounds varied and interesting. Just twelve cities in twenty-four days with a couple of “rest” weekends in the middle and first-class all the way. Why not? The reason why not is that after six or seven days, the effects of rapidly changing time zones, strange beds, constant airports, and the draining dawn-to-dusk interviews are starting to drag at the nerve ends, exacerbating the inevitable jet lag.
I only did one
such, and that was in 1978, to promote the fourth novel, The Devil’s Alternative. Just Toronto, Vancouver, Hong Kong, Brisbane, Sydney, Auckland, Perth, Johannesburg, Cape Town, Frankfurt, and back to London. It was all new to me and exotic. Years later, just two stopovers stand out—Hong Kong and Mauritius, which was a weekend break between Perth and Jo’burg.
By the time the airliner touched down at the small and crowded Kai Tak Airport in Hong Kong, I was only a third of the way into my journey and still pretty fresh. The Peninsula Hotel had sent a car, and I had to admit I had never, ever been looked after like this.
I had just been bowed into my suite on the tenth floor of the Peninsula when the phone rang. It was “Johnny,” the Firm’s head of station for the colony and several outstations besides.
“Are you on for dinner tonight?”
“Er, yes.”
“Splendid. I’ll pick you up. Far end of the front car park, eight o’clock, red car.” Then he was gone.
The Peninsula in those days had not one but a fleet of chocolate-colored Rolls-Royces for its guests. At eight I was on the front steps peering through the regiment of Rollers when I saw a flash of a red car right at the back. It turned out to be the most clapped-out Jowett Javelin I had ever seen, with Johnny beaming at the wheel. The Jowett car company has long ago passed into history, and quite rightly, too.
Johnny clearly knew his Hong Kong intimately, but I was lost within seconds of entering the narrow alleys of the Walled City. Finally, even the Javelin could go no farther, so it was parked by the curb and we walked.
The thought occurred to me that if the British taxpayer, accustomed to seeing James Bond in his Aston Martin, could see this rolling scrapyard, he would realize he was not actually being overcharged by Her Majesty’s overseas intelligence arm.
Johnny strode knowledgeably down alley after alley until we came to a door studded with heads of big black nails. He knocked. A small panel opened. There was a rapid exchange in Chinese, though whether Mandarin, Hakka, or Cantonese, I could not tell. Then the door creaked open and we were inside. That was when I realized that my host for dinner was an honored guest.
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