Baltic Approach

by Max Hertzberg

  It took five minutes for the Polski to appear, the driver had obviously missed my sudden turn, had carried on for a while before noticing he was all by himself. Difficult situation—I could sympathise—but the Polski driver had made the right call and had returned to do a sweep of the nearby streets.

  He didn’t notice the Shiguli parked on the wrong side of the street as he went past. Wasn’t even alert enough to clock that my car was the only one not coated with frost.

  On the other hand, I didn’t manage to get more than an impression of the driver—the streetlamps were directly above the junction, putting the interior of his car in shadow, and I was a little preoccupied with staying out of sight myself.

  Once the little car was well out of the way, I started the Shiguli and took myself back to the main road as fast as I could without drawing too much attention.

  68

  Berlin Friedrichshain

  When I let myself into my flat, the television was on, the after-hours white noise and scrambled screen providing mood music to Lütten’s slumber. He was sprawled on the couch, three or four beers and half a bottle of vodka showing the progress he’d made through my provisions.

  I sat myself in the armchair and sank a glass or two of the clear stuff. Leaving the television on—the racket would help keep stress levels just where I wanted them—I pulled the car keys out of my pocket and threw them on the table. Hard enough to scratch the veneer, loud enough to wake Lütten.

  His head jolted up and he began rubbing his eyes.

  “You told the Russian where to find me,” I said. I didn’t shout, but my voice was stony enough for him to know just how pissed off I was.

  Lütten had stopped rubbing his eyes, was now kicking his feet off the couch and levering himself upright. “The Russians came here, asking questions—what did you expect me to do?” He had his elbows on his knees now, was looking at his feet and starting to piece his defence together. “You didn’t say anything about the Friends being involved!”

  “I let you in on far too much. Who did you tell about today’s trip to Rostock?”

  “Where’s the old man? Merkur?” Lütten reached for the vodka, and I let him. Must have been in the job too long, I was getting soft.

  “I asked who else knew about my trip to Rostock?”

  “The two Russians who came here … My department, up at the District Admin. That’s it, nobody else.” He sipped his vodka. I glared at him until he felt the need to break the silence: “Thought you might get into difficulties with the car, you know? Turning up in the Administration’s vehicle, without your clapperboard—if anyone checked …” He stumbled to a halt. It must have been obvious that I wasn’t in the market for excuses.

  “You’ve been helpful since we first met. Helpful and inquisitive—always nosing around, wondering how you could be of assistance to the man from Berlin.” He wasn’t going to respond to that, so I asked about something I should have thought to chase up a long time ago.

  “What department are you in?”

  Lütten hunched over his glass, giving the impression he wasn’t about to answer. I stood over him and asked again.

  He put his glass down, and without looking up, mumbled, “Department II.”

  “That’s what you told me when we first met, all that time ago in the cutesy tea shop with the funny hat. So, if I phone up Rostock right now, ask for Department II, they’ll confirm you’re one of their model workers, due back any day now?”

  “Department XV,” he amended, head still down.

  XV, the local level of HV A: foreign intelligence. The same department in Rostock that Sachse was posted to. Department XV, part of the same HV A that sat on the committee overseeing Secondary Operation Merkur, where they lobbied so hard to get Merkur out of the country. The same HV A that, back in the mists of time, had killed Merkur’s protégé, Bruno. And if that isn’t enough for you, the same HV A that provides the liaison between the KGB and the MfS.

  Everything that had happened since before Secondary Operation Merkur even began had been overseen, surveilled and manipulated by HV A.

  “The keys to your car are on the table, now fuck off back to fishtown.”

  69

  Berlin Friedrichshain

  I watched from the window as Lütten examined the rear door of the Shiguli, the one that had taken a bash from the flowerpot. He glared up at my flat for a while before driving off.

  I remained where I was standing, sipping vodka and staring at the space vacated by the Rostocker’s car. Then, instead of refilling my glass, I took myself over to the wall unit, switching off the television as I passed. Opening a drawer, I pulled out the Berlin phone directory and flicked through to S. Ran my finger down the lines until I got to Station der jungen Naturforscher und Techniker. It was there alright, but instead of an entry for each of East Berlin’s nine boroughs, I found just a single number—the Prenzlauer Berg Station. I flicked backwards until I found Lichtenberg, Bezirksamt, but the Station wasn’t hiding among the libraries and other such borough institutions.

  Fine, these places obviously didn’t deserve one of the scarce telephone connections, which is why they weren’t listed in the telephone book. Still, there were other ways of finding the address of the Lichtenberg Centre for Young Natural Scientists and Engineers. I headed for my coat hanging in the tiny hall.

  As I passed my bedroom door, lethargy hit me like the edge of a riot shield.

  One more drink, I told myself. It had been a hard day, one more drink would give me the edge I needed to take myself to Berlin Centre in search of the address I needed.

  One more drink to get me going, and another wee one after that to celebrate cracking Bruno’s code …

  70

  Berlin Friedrichshain

  The alarm clock shook me into consciousness at 0530 hours the next morning. My fingers found the catch, pulling the little lever until the bell was silenced, all without having to pull my head from under the pillow. Another moment, long enough to push away the memory of Sanderling, then I folded back the duvet and sat up.

  My dreams had been crowded, Sachse was a new guest to my sleep, although he hadn’t exactly shown himself. He’d been a shadow in the background, two fingers pointing, thumb cocked like a hammer, aiming at Sanderling, who was too busy staring at me to notice the danger she was in.

  I swung my legs out of bed and the shock of the cold lino propelled me onto my feet and towards the bathroom.

  As I walked through the living room, a Russian soldier climbed out of the armchair and stood to attention. Even though he was out of uniform, I could tell he was Russian—it was the way he stood there, chest pushed out like a pigeon, chin in the air.

  Ignoring him for the moment, I went for a piss, then splashed cold water on my face.

  Still not ready to face reality, wondering whether the Russian had somehow escaped my dreams, whether Sanderling and Sachse would be looking for him, I headed for the tiny kitchen and made myself a coffee.

  I could see the soldier from my position by the stove, He was still standing at attention. Well, let him—I hadn’t asked him in, so I certainly wasn’t going to invite him to make himself comfortable. I turned round so I didn’t have to look at him, concentrating instead on pouring boiling water from the pan into my mug.

  A sip of coffee, and another. OK, let’s do this.

  “Dobre utro,” I mumbled as I sat down opposite the Russian.

  He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. The usual, grey, coarse kind used in offices throughout our half of the world.

  I took it from him, unfolded it and scratched my head a bit. I’m OK on spoken Russian, but reading Cyrillic takes a bit longer, particularly at this time of the morning.

  The note was handwritten, printed in neat letters—the kind the technical experts hate because it makes it hard to identify the author: Subject held at Beelitz, not available for questioning.

  Beelitz, the Soviet Army’s central hospital in German
y. Which meant either Merkur had suffered an accident of some sort, or Pozdniakov wanted me to think he had.

  “A bit too enthusiastic with the interrogation?” I asked. The soldier thought I was talking to him—maybe I’d spoken in Russian—but I’d actually been addressing the KGB major, who I imagined standing by a bedside forty or fifty kilometres southeast of my flat, in Beelitz.

  I dismissed the soldier, but he remained where he was, chest still puffed out, chin up, heels together. The Russians are brutal to their enlisted men, won’t let them speak without permission, but I guessed what he wanted without him needing to say a word.

  With a sigh I held out Pozdniakov’s message, and the Russian pulled a silver Zippo lighter from his pocket and set fire to the note while it was still in my hand.

  I dropped the paper into the ashtray and the pair of us watched it burn. When it had been reduced to a fine film of grey ash, the soldier leaned over, using the base of the lighter to mash the remains of the note in with the cigarette butts and bottle caps.

  I didn’t see my guest out, I returned to the bathroom and started shaving, dragging the blade over my chin and wondering what Pozdniakov’s real message had been—why had he given the soldier Merkur’s lighter to use?

  I shook my head. No point guessing—I’d never understand the way the Russians think.

  But Pozdniakov’s news didn’t matter, neither the written message nor the hidden one—I no longer needed to interview Merkur, I now knew more than him. I’d decrypted Bruno’s message and all I had to do was find the Lichtenberg Station and then go to retrieve the papers.

  Perhaps the only question I had left was whether there would be enough material in Bruno’s cache to condemn Sachse. And if so, whether Sachse’s downfall would exorcise Sanderling from my nights.

  71

  Station der jungen Naturforscher

  Before going to my own office at Berlin Centre, I dropped round to the secretariat at HA XX, the Main Department responsible, among other things, for state institutions. Laying my clapperboard on the desk, I told them what I needed.

  “What, all of them?”

  “Just the ones in Berlin.”

  One of the secretaries made her way to a filing cabinet while the others eyed me suspiciously. No one asked why I needed the information, but I knew my details would be passed on for scrutiny and further enquiry.

  The secretary came back with a file and I sat myself in the corner, perusing the list. It was several pages long, included not only the addresses of each Station, but also the responsible persons with their home and work addresses and, where available, phone numbers.

  I made a show of examining each page in turn—let the busybodies put that in their report—but I only committed one entry to memory: Scheffelstrasse 21, 1156 Berlin.

  Despite the heavy traffic typical of this time of the morning, it was only a five-minute drive to Scheffelstrasse, a quiet road that led to a bridge over the railway, just north of the container terminal at Frankfurter Allee.

  I drove slowly along the road, counting down the numbers on the unpretentious pre-war flats. The last block ended at 23, after that, a rigid-mesh fence fronted a snow-laden garden dotted with half-standard trees. A haven for young natural scientists, I murmured to myself before continuing over the railway bridge and doing a U-turn to park on the other side of the road. While I locked my car, I had a good look around, paying particular attention to the pedestrian traffic—mostly clutches of children making their chattering way to school.

  I walked back over the bridge, stopping at the garden fence, next to a gate that allowed access to a cobbled path up to the last house in Lichtenberg: the Station mentioned in Bruno’s message.

  I tried the gate, locked of course, but it was low, no higher than a metre-sixty, so with a brief check up and down the road—just kids intent on organising trips to the recycling shop or whatever it is little snots talk about—I pulled myself up onto the metal gate, rolling over and down the other side, ignoring the inevitable complaint from my still-sore knee.

  I wasn’t expecting trouble, so I didn’t hang around in the cold for long, but followed the cobbled drive up the slight incline, the long and low shape of the Station looming behind the bare hedge to my right.

  The gate in the hedge was unlocked, I passed through and walked the couple of metres to the Station, ignoring, for the moment, the orchard area in front.

  I paused at the bottom of the short flight of steps that led to the front door, listening to the cadence of the place: vehicles passed along the road outside, tires humming and crunching over the snow and ice. Sharp clanks and bangs from the container terminal in the railway cutting beyond the garden.

  No wind in the trees and bushes, no creak of wood, either from the orchard or the building. I climbed the steps and tried the door. The lock was a simple lever type that needs a heavy key—easy enough to pick, were it not for the padlocked security gate in front. I examined the padlock, no signs that anyone had tried to break it—no scratches around the keyhole or scuffs on the shackle.

  I turned my back on the building and stared at the trees as they loitered in the deep snow. I’m no arboricultural expert, couldn’t tell a cherry tree from an overgrown asparagus, so I decided to concentrate on locating the bird boxes rather than identifying the make and model of each trunk.

  From the road, the snow had looked pretty much undisturbed, but with daylight growing more confident, I could see several sets of footprints. I bent down to examine them, noting the different sizes and vintages.

  I followed the traces, my ears picking up the scrape and crunch of snow under my boots and the crashing from the container terminal along with the steady whine of the electric S-Bahn trains as they glided past. A plane banked above, positioning itself to land at the West Berlin airport in Tegel, while down on earth, I circled a tree.

  I stopped. Leaning on the trunk of the third tree over was a ladder. There was nobody on it right now, but that didn’t mean they weren’t still nearby—a ladder isn’t something you leave propped against a tree all winter long, it had been placed there recently.

  Moving to the nearest trunk, I gave the orchard another sweep, shifting sideways to try to cover the whole area. Life continued beyond the edge of the garden—traffic on the road, trains on the tracks in the cutting, but my attention was focused on the silent building: all windows and doors shut, no lights on.

  I squatted in the snow, hoping that by moving closer to the ground I would be shielded from the din coming from the container terminal, making it easier to pick out nearby noises. The grinding of a bus on the road behind me, slap of footsteps on icy pavements, children’s voices. Still no birds, no wind in the branches.

  I stayed low, listening, watching. The sky was a lighter grey than I’d seen in a long time, maybe it would be the first clear day of the year.

  Then the sound I’d hoped I wouldn’t hear—the whispered rasp of snow under a boot. Just the once, a single step—not the regular gait of a pedestrian walking along the street outside.

  I twisted around, at the same time reaching into my jacket, hand closing around the butt of my Wamme. I pulled it out and pointed it at the tall man in a padded buff raincoat and fur hat who had entered the garden from the drive.

  He had his hands out to either side, palms showing and elbows crooked, but he didn’t stop. He continued towards me, unbothered by the sight of the Makarov aimed at his stomach. I let him come closer—he’d make an easier target if he wasn’t so far away.

  He was very obliging, he walked slowly, hands always in sight, finally stopping about six metres away. Then he spoke.

  “Good morning, Comrade Reim,” a Mecklenburg accent. I swore, yet another fish-head.

  But he had me scratching my own, non-fishy head. Who knew I was here? I came up with a shortlist of nobody—I hadn’t told anyone I was coming, until twenty minutes ago I hadn’t even known this place existed.

  Another thought: Merkur—I’d left him by himself in
the car for about half an hour in Malchow, he could have decrypted Bruno’s message then. But who might he have told? Only Pozdniakov.

  Perhaps the new arrival could hear the gears working in my head, his right hand crept toward the pocket of his coat. Very, very slowly, so as not to frighten the audience, he pushed the tips of two fingers inside and snagged a green clapperboard, just like mine. This was a colleague.

  He flicked the identity card towards me, it landed about a metre away and I put a knee in the snow when I reached for it. With my left hand, I flipped the booklet open to the page showing his photograph: light blonde hair, the irises of his eyes so light they were hardly visible, large ears for someone his age, no glasses, no facial hair, a chin, once strong, but slowly merging with his neck. After comparing him with the mugshot, I read the entry next to it: District Administration Rostock. I flicked the page to look at the name of the Fischkopp.

  “Oberleutnant Gerhard Sachse,” he said, in case I had trouble with reading.

  72

  Station der jungen Naturforscher

  I closed Sachse’s clapperboard and tossed it back. He caught it with one hand.

  “I hear you’ve been looking for me,” he said once he’d stowed the clapper. His hands came back to his sides again, palms out.

  Now we’d got the excitement of the reveal out of the way, I took another look around the orchard, unsurprised to find it suddenly crowded. Prager, Lütten’s big goon from Rostock, had come round the far end of the Station, was covering me with his service pistol. A glance over my other shoulder told me that Lütten himself was also present and correct, firearm in hand—although he had the grace to look slightly apologetic about it.

  When I got round to looking at Sachse again, he no longer had his hands where I could see them, his right hand was in his pocket, and in the circumstances I felt it best to assume that he was gripping the butt of a pistol.