Baltic Approach

by Max Hertzberg

  Weber grunted. We’d come out of the far side, and she was doing another handbrake turn, drifting the rear until we were pointing at the tunnel again. “They’ll probably head round the block, try to catch us there—get yourself down the tunnel, signal when you see the Wartburg turn the corner.”

  I ran down the alleyway, holding my injured arm tight against my body, boots crunching over gritted ice. I slowed at the end and poked my head into the open, in time to see the Wartburg’s back end disappear, just as Weber had predicted.

  Stepping out of the way, I beckoned Weber on, and she came through the gap, even faster this time, more confident of the car’s dimensions. She slowed down to take the bump back onto the roadway, and I pulled the door open and slid in as she went past.

  “That way, yeah?” she nodded to the right, the way the Wartburg had gone, and took us in the opposite direction.

  Up onto Frankfurter Allee, a right-hand turn, towards my workplace. I wasn’t sure that was the best direction to take, but the Western agent seemed to know her way around East Berlin, and she knew what she was doing, so I decided she could take me wherever she wanted.

  76

  Berlin Lichtenberg

  I fetched a Bockwurst from the serving hatch and took it back to the table in the underground passageway at Lichtenberg railway station.

  “Bockwurst? For breakfast?” But Weber took it anyway and I went back for my own.

  When I lifted my roll, biting into the length of protruding sausage, I couldn’t taste anything. I was still coming down from the high of being shot and the subsequent car chase. I put the food back on the paper tray, and looked at Weber. She was no ordinary civil servant—she had experience and she’d had training, lots of each.

  After we’d lost Sachse and his men in the Wartburg, Weber had brought us here, straight down Frankfurter Allee, past Berlin Centre. Keeping to the speed limit, fitting nicely into the traffic—neither too fast nor too slow. I had to admire her professionalism, but just because I respected her ability and knowledge didn’t mean we were on the same side.

  “Are you here on a day visa?” I asked.

  “Booked into the Berolina.” The Interhotel behind the Kino International. Good choice, not as obvious as the Stadt Berlin on Alexanderplatz or the various options around Friedrichstrasse. “But don’t worry, I didn’t leave anything in my room. I travel light.”

  “Good, so we can get you back to West Berlin as soon as you’ve finished your breakfast.”

  “You look good in that,” she changed the subject.

  I looked down, grimacing at the lime green and red stripes of the padded jacket. It had probably been the first item to hand when Weber had walked into the HO clothes shop, but I shouldn’t complain, I was at least presentable again, even with my arm in a sling beneath the zipped up jacket.

  Still not feeling hungry, I watched the crowds passing us, coming from or going to the mainline platforms, climbing or descending the steps from the U-Bahn platform. A dark blue uniform caught my eye, the only stationary person in the passage. A second glance to check: Transportpolizei or the slightly lighter coloured railway workers uniform?

  “Time to go,” I grabbed Weber’s wrist and pulled her from her seat. She came without complaint, didn’t even look around. Just left her Bockwurst and neatly twisted her wrist out of my hand as she stood up.

  We strode through the tunnel, away from the policeman, up the ramp into wan sunlight, going at a reasonable clip, not quite hurrying, towards the little Polski that we’d left on the station forecourt.

  There are always swarms of passengers at Lichtenberg—most long distance trains terminate and start here—Saxon, Thuringian and Mecklenburg accents mingled at the station. As a dense clump of luggage-toting farmers cleared, I saw our car, parked next to a Trabant with a postal horn decal on the door.

  I felt for Weber’s wrist again, giving it a gentle pull as I changed direction out of the stream of passengers. I put my spare arm around her, pulling her head close as if about to kiss her on the cheek.

  “The Trabant next to your car—why would the post office park there?”

  Weber leaned in, resting her head on my shoulder, her lips next to my ear. “Post Office employee borrows car, wants to buy train tickets? Or empties postbox?”

  She was right, there were so many reasons to park a Post Office vehicle outside the station, but it didn’t feel right. I manoeuvred her around until she could see over my shoulder while I watched the car.

  “I’m not happy about that aerial on the Post Office car—it’s a bit too long,” I murmured into her hair. “Man in the driver’s seat, looking towards the station main entrance. You see anything?”

  “Hang on,” she whispered. I could feel her chin nuzzling my jacket as she scanned the crowds. “Yes, got him—another man at the main entrance, taking a little too much interest in the people around him.”

  She lifted her head, gave me a wide smile, took my hand and started walking towards the road. I fell in step alongside her as we hurried down a side street.

  77

  Königs Wusterhausen

  It took nearly four hours to get to Königs Wusterhausen, four hours of winding through Berlin on foot, by bus and tram, then finally, when we were certain we hadn’t been followed, the S-Bahn to Königs Wusterhausen.

  “I preferred the Fischerklause,” Weber said as she gave the Seven Steps bar a doubtful once-over. It was the usual sort of place, fluorescent strip-lights, stained Sprelacart tables, hard wooden chairs. Grubby net curtains over the windows. I liked it. “What are we doing here?”

  “It’s quiet, we can talk.” This place and I had history, but I wasn’t in the mood to reminisce, pain was making me tired and irritable. “You and me, there’s a few things we need to sort out.”

  Weber took another look around the dive, noting the resident dipsomaniacs, her eyes resting on the barman for a moment or two. “OK, let’s talk.”

  “Start with the basics: what were you doing at the Station der jungen Naturforscher this morning?”

  Before she answered, the barman came over with a couple of beers. He placed them on the table, was about to turn away when Weber spoke: “I’d like a coffee.”

  He raised an eyebrow at me, perhaps in reproach for bringing her to his bar, but he nodded and shuffled away.

  “Polizeirat Portz told me where to go.”

  That was a surprise. I started my beer, watching her over the rim of the glass. “Merkur knew? So why the trip to Rostock if he already knew where the material was?”

  She shrugged, thought about it for a moment. “Perhaps he wanted to test you? Maybe thought he could trust you if you were prepared to risk the trip to Rostock with him? All I know is that he told me to wait twenty-four hours—if I didn’t hear from him, I was to retrieve the cache myself. Where is he, anyway?”

  “He’s safe.”

  Weber twisted the corner of her mouth up, a slight frown, but she accepted what I’d said. At least for the time being.

  “Did he put the one time pad there himself, while he was in Rostock?”

  She shrugged again. The possibility didn’t seem to interest her, and deciding she probably didn’t understand Merkur’s contorted way of thinking any better than I did, I moved on:

  “Who are you?” I asked, even though I could see who she was. Her coat was over the back of the chair and she’d taken the scarf off, her hair was down, the same as on that first night, in the pub in Warnemünde. Comfortable in her seat, prepared to wait but ready for action—she was a Western agent, and capable with it.

  The barman returned, holding a cup and saucer emblazoned with the Mitropa logo. He slid the coffee across the table, gave me another baleful glance then headed back to the sanctuary of his bar.

  She didn’t lift her cup to drink, didn’t even look at it. But she did lift the teaspoon from the saucer and stirred the musty-smelling coffee. The handle of the spoon caught the side of the cup once each rotation: tink, tink, tink.<
br />
  “My name is Anna Weber, I’m from Lübeck.” I decided not to quiz her on the name—Anna Weber was a legend. She’d doubtless given a different name at the Hotel Berolina, if she was staying there at all, and if I insisted, she’d be able to provide me with a third name. Yet I believed her when she said she was from Lübeck—go along the Baltic coast, first town on the other side of the state border is Lübeck, which is probably how she could pretend to be from Mecklenburg—different vocabulary, but no need to change the accent much. “I’m here to support Polizeirat Portz in his mission.”

  “And what is that?”

  “Didn’t he speak to you about it? Merkur you call him, don’t you? I thought you two had enjoyed a few cosy chats?”

  “You know how it is, we like to have collateral—without corroboration, all material is worthless.” I took another sip of beer, then leaned across the sticky table. “This mission, you and Merkur—it’s not even official, is it? Merkur has gone off-piste, but what about you? Are you here to drag him back to Bonn, or are you here to help him?”

  No answer.

  I relaxed back into my chair. Let her take her time, I had a few hours to spare. This evening I would meet Major Pozdniakov, and I would give him the evidence against Sachse, the contents of an oilcloth pouch that Weber still had in her possession. The only question was whether I could get that pouch by using charm, or whether I’d be obliged to resort to force.

  “I’m here to make sure Portz is taken back to Bonn, he’s got questions to answer.” She’d put the spoon down, but still hadn’t touched the coffee. Probably not up to the standard she’s used to. “But it’s not going to happen, is it? I can’t see you allowing him to leave.”

  “Merkur asked to stay, we take care of our guests.”

  Weber snorted. I gave her a moment longer, just to see if she had anything else she wanted to say, but she used the time to play with her coffee.

  “If you’re here to take Portz back, why did you help him the other day, all those games we played, the meeting by the Müggelsee?”

  She let the teaspoon drop, reached over to take the cigarette out of my fingers and put it to her lips. I watched as she sucked too hard, choking slightly, yet somehow managing to hold the smoke in.

  She held the cigarette upright between us, watching the glowing tip.

  “I knew Seiffert, the one Portz wants to avenge. What was the codename you gave him?”

  “Bruno.”

  “Right, Bruno. The department had doubts about him—as far back as last summer—so they sent for me. Despite it all, Seiffert was a good man.”

  “Even though he was about to defect?”

  She dipped her head, then handed the cigarette back. I put my lips where hers had been, sucked in, breathed out.

  “I’m here to try to get Portz out, take him back to Bonn. But seeing as I’m here, I’m not above getting a little justice for Seiffert—whatever he did, he didn’t deserve to go that way.”

  78

  Königs Wusterhausen

  Weber half-turned in her seat and slid her hand into her coat. When she took it out again, she held a dark-green package.

  “Shall we see what we’ve got?”

  “That was in the bird box?” I asked as she unwrapped the oil-cloth.

  “Right at the bottom. Underneath all the feathers and bird droppings.” She had it open now, the material spread out to reveal a small brown envelope, the kind you find your wages in. Weber ripped open the flap and shook the contents onto the cloth: a strip of 16mm film with four negative exposures and several pieces of microfiche. I took the film strip, held it to the light. A figure, outside a stone building. The next frame showed two men, both wearing suits, shaking hands. The final two frames were blank.

  “Can’t make much out, what else is there?”

  “Documents. Looks like they’re from different files,” Weber replied, holding the microfiche to the light, just as I’d done with the negatives. “We need a microfilm reader.”

  And there was our next problem—we couldn’t stroll into the local branch of the Firm and ask to use their equipment. I drained my glass and tapped the next coffin nail out of the packet.

  “I’ve got an idea,” I told her, heading for the bar.

  With the directions given by the barman, it didn’t take us long to find the public library. I showed my fake Kripo tin and told them what I needed, and they took us down long corridors and through doors marked No Entry and Staff Only. Finally, the librarian opened the door on a small room with a Pentakta sitting on a desk against the opposite wall. “You’ll be able to find your way back again?” she enquired nervously.

  I ushered her out while Weber inspected the top-heavy contraption, a doubtful look on her face. Microfiche readers must look different where she comes from, but to me this ungainly chunk of metal was almost as familiar as my Wamme.

  I fed the strip of negatives into the slot on the side of the hood and plugged the Pentakta in, adjusting the lens once the machine had warmed up. Weber turned the overhead light off, staying by the switch and staring at the projection on the wall as it swam in and out of focus.

  Once I’d established that any blurriness was due to the quality of the photograph and not my inability to fine-tune the projecting lens, I stood next to Weber, inspecting the first frame.

  Not enough that the picture was slightly fuzzy, it was also over-exposed—but I could make out a figure wearing an overcoat and a brimmed hat, standing in front of a wide doorway faced with dressed stone. The perspective was foreshortened, the shot had been taken with a telescopic lens.

  Weber didn’t have any comments, so I fed the strip of negatives further in to look at the next frame.

  Better quality this time, the picture showed two men in suits. I was interested in the taller of the two men, the one standing to the right. His hair was almost black, a few grey specks giving it texture—allowing for the inversion of colours, this man’s hair was very fair, practically white. The eyes, deep in dark sockets, were almost as black as his hair, all except the pupils, tiny discs of light.

  I sucked my teeth as my brain, converting the colouring, delivered the identification: Sachse.

  The second man, dark hair, glasses, was shorter than Sachse. Other than a wide desk, nothing of note in the background—no pictures, typewriters or flags to tell us whether we were looking at an office in the East or the West.

  “The first picture was taken in Wiesbaden main station,” Weber said after standing up to get a closer look at the dark face and the sepia hair of the man on the left. His lips, nostrils and glasses showed up beige, his suit more of a buff shade. The desk was a matt grey, the papers and folders piled on top a deep brown. “This one here,” she tapped the library wall where the chest of the shorter man was projected, “looks familiar … And the taller one—he looks like one of those jokers in the orchard this morning.”

  I pulled out the negatives and slid the sheet of microfiche into the machine, adjusting the lens again to sharpen the projection on the wall.

  We sat next to each other as I shifted the microfiche and the lens around so we could read each document in turn: a typed summar, West German Federal Crime Agency letterhead. A source, referred to only as Codename Dresden, had supplied the information in the report we were looking at—information about Building 74, a debriefing and training centre in the woods east of Berlin.

  The next sheet, on the same headed notepaper, provided a précis of the interrogation of Bruno. The next few documents related to Building 74 again, providing the names and dates of visits from members of the West German terrorist group, Red Army Faction.

  I watched Weber as she read the reports, but since pointing to the man in the photograph, she’d remained silent.

  “Is it true that Bruno was working on identifying second generation members of the Red Army Faction?” I asked when we were finished.

  She nodded, looking at the last document, still projected onto the wall.

  “
Anything you want to tell me?” I pressed.

  “The name at the bottom of this file, and this one,” she took over navigating around the microfiche, “that’s the short man in the second photo.”

  I looked at the name she was pointing out. “Polizeidirektor Jüliger?”

  “He’s based at the Federal Crime Agency headquarters in Wiesbaden. And as I said, the first picture was taken in Wiesbaden main station.”

  She pulled the film out of the microfiche reader and I turned it off. We sat for a while in the darkness.

  “Do you have any idea who the second man is, this Agent Dresden? Is he the other one in the photograph?” she asked.

  “Merkur was looking for this man, he told me he was responsible for Bruno’s murder,” I answered. I could see his eyes, the almost translucent blue eyes that showed up black on the negative. “His name is Sachse.”

  “Do we have enough …?”

  Merkur had said that the same person was responsible for the murder of both Bruno and Sanderling—but did I believe him? Not necessarily, although when I’d asked Sachse this morning, he hadn’t denied it.

  We had enough evidence to open doors, enough to investigate Merkur’s claim about Sachse’s guilt. I leaned back in my chair, almost feeling at peace with the world, almost feeling I’d be able to sleep that night.

  “Enough to avenge Bruno’s death?” I said. “It’s a start.”

  79

  Mittenwalde

  We caught the next bus out of Königs Wusterhausen. I wasn’t fussed about the destination, the point was to keep moving in case Sachse was still searching for us. It also kept Weber occupied while I thought about the next steps.

  We sat at the back of the Ikarus bus, both of us aware of what other vehicular traffic was about, although once we’d left Königs Wusterhausen, the roads were practically empty.

  The bus was heading to Zossen, but I stood up as we drove up the main road in the small town of Mittenwalde. Weber followed me down the aisle, and we alighted in the centre of the old town. A few citizens moved purposefully along the high street, choosing their queues and planting themselves in the snow and frost, clutching bags while waiting patiently for admission to their chosen shop. A yellow phone box stood beyond the line for household goods, and I found a way through the Omas and mothers with pushchairs and stepped inside.