The Berlin Spies

by Alex Gerlis

  ‘Hang on, hang on…’ Fleischhauer tried to sound calm, but the panic evident in the other man’s voice felt contagious. ‘Start from the beginning, tell me what on earth is going on.’

  ‘I don’t have time. Just get away. It’s seven o’clock now. Get out as soon as you can, certainly before eight. There’s a man looking for you. Do you have somewhere to go?’

  ‘Yes, but…’

  ‘Tell me where.’

  ‘You’ve rung me on an open line. I’m going to leave as soon as I can. I’ll try to send you a message...’

  Fleischhauer jumped out of bed and pulled the curtain aside just enough to look up and down the street. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary, but he couldn’t afford to leave anything to chance. In the twenty or so years since he’d arrived in the Federal Republic he’d anticipated this moment: a warning that his cover may be blown, the need to dispose of Heinz Fleischhauer in an instant.

  He didn’t trust the West Germans or the British, and certainly not the Russians. He knew who he could trust, the only people he had ever trusted: his friends on the farm. He felt some regret he was leaving Cologne on the eve of his transfer to the Military Liaison Office, which would have been the culmination of his career, what he’d been working towards all these years. But there was nothing he could do about that now.

  If Heinz Fleischhauer had learned just one thing from a lifetime of subterfuge, it was the value of allowing a few minutes to think, even in the most perilous and urgent of situations – to never take the most obvious course of action, at least not before stopping to consider it. It was the reason he had avoided being caught and put on trial by the Poles in 1945, it was the reason he had survived captivity in the Soviet Union, and it was the reason he had thrived while working for many different masters since then. He went into the kitchen, made himself a coffee, and thought.

  The obvious course of action would be to do as Cowley instructed: to leave the apartment as soon as possible and disappear. And it wasn’t as if he didn’t have somewhere to go. A place where he knew he would never be found, a place where he knew he’d be protected: the friends on the farm. He looked out of the kitchen window. His BMW motorbike was parked just below it – he could be at the farm by the end of the day. This life, of never knowing when he’d be found out, would be over. He almost felt a sense of relief.

  But what if this was a trap?

  Someone is on to you… just get away.

  It could be Cowley trying to trick him, or someone else. He would, he decided, wait in the apartment. He would be surprised if Cowley did not call again soon, if only to check he’d left. He needed to ask him some questions. He would wait.

  And then there was the body: trussed up on the floor of the lounge and wrapped in sheets and plastic. He’d had it all planned. He was going to take the next day off work, hire a van and then, when no-one was around, take the body down to the basement. He’d even worked out where to bury it. Now it would have to stay here.

  ***

  The buzzer rang less than five minutes later, causing him to jump. It hardly ever rang, and certainly never at this time of the morning. Cowley, maybe? Fleischhauer sensed he’d been calling from a phone box: maybe he’d done so from one nearby and was now checking he was going to leave the apartment.

  But it would be out of character for Cowley to behave in such a manner, and in any case it was too soon. He decided to ignore the buzzer, hoping it was a mistake. When it rang again, moments later, he went to the kitchen window and looked down. He could just about make out the shoulder of man with long hair and wearing a light-coloured top. The rest of his body was obscured by the doorway.

  The buzzer rang again, the third time.

  ‘Is Herr Fleischhauer there?’

  He hesitated, trying to work out who it could be: it certainly wasn’t Cowley. It was a German accent, but not the voice of someone in authority – slightly hesitant, young.

  ‘Yes, this is Fleischhauer. What do you want?’

  ‘Are you Wilhelm Richter?’

  He felt the apartment swimming around him, the walls moving up and down, and he had to lean against the kitchen counter. It took a considerable act of self-restraint to prevent him answering instinctively in the affirmative.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Are you Wilhelm Richter?’

  ‘Who the hell…’

  He ran to the kitchen window just in time to spot the man walking quickly away from the entrance and up Kuenstrasse, away from Niehler Strasse.

  From a hidden compartment in the base of the bedroom wardrobe, he retrieved three padded envelopes. They contained his new papers, plenty of Deutschemarks and a small fortune in Swiss Francs, along with his Walther semi-automatic pistol. A few clothes and toiletries were ready, as they always were, on a shelf in the wardrobe. He threw them into a grab bag along with the envelopes.

  He had a quick look around his apartment. He’d lived there for a dozen years but had always assumed it could be raided and searched at any time, so there was nothing to give him away. Nothing which could be construed as political, let alone extremist, nothing personal, no photographs other than a few of someone else’s family he’d bought in a flea market, because it would have seemed strange to have none at all.

  So he felt no sentimentality in leaving the apartment, no emotion. He stopped only to sweep a careful eye over the place to check he was leaving nothing incriminating, nothing to provide even the slenderest of clues as to where he was heading. Under the instruction booklet for the oven and other papers in a kitchen drawer was a road map of Denmark, along with a Danish phrase book. He doubted they’d fall for it, but he’d reckoned it was worth a try and maybe send them in the completely opposite direction to where he was going.

  ***

  Afterwards – later that day – at the insistence of Kemp from Bonn, Edgar had compiled extensive notes of what happened and when that morning.

  At three minutes past seven he saw a light go on in one of the second floor apartments, one of the two he thought Richter could be in. Moments later the curtain opened, though not wide enough for him to see who had opened it. Six minutes later he sent Andreas over to the apartment, after he had run through his script with him one final time. As Andreas walked over to the apartment, Edgar eased the Audi out of its parking space and into one on the other side of Niehler Strasse, more or less opposite the entrance to the apartment building, although a short distance up the road from it. At ten past seven he watched Andreas press the buzzer and, soon after, a face appeared in a small window in what he took to be the apartment. It was too fleeting and distant for him to be able to make much out, the best Edgar could say was it was a man and could have been Richter. Moments later – at eleven minutes past seven – he saw Andreas speaking. A minute later – twelve minutes past seven, according to Edgar’s log – Andreas moved away from the entrance and hurried up Kuenstrasse, much too fast for Edgar’s liking.

  At nineteen minutes past seven, the man Edgar assumed was Richter rushed out of the apartment building, pausing in the entrance to put on a motorcycle helmet. He looked up and down the street but didn’t appear to spot Edgar in the Audi. He crossed the road and, in his mirror, Edgar saw Richter stuff a bag into the steel pannier of a BMW motorbike. As he did so he removed something from the bag and put it inside his leather jacket pocket. He then leapt on the bike, gunning the powerful machine into life.

  Edgar had not factored a motorbike into his planning. He knew the Audi couldn’t compete with a motorbike that had a top speed of over one hundred miles an hour. But Richter was not driving fast, he was too smart for that. Just before Kuenstrasse crossed Neusser Strasse, Richter slowed down, and Edgar wondered whether he’d spotted him following, so he dropped his own speed. Then he saw why Richter had slowed. Moving fast along the pavement was Andreas, his long hair flowing behind him. Richter swerved the BMW into position behind him and reached into his jacket.

  By the time Edgar realised what was happening it was too late:
a single shot rang out. Edgar watched as the back of Andreas’s neck exploded in a mass of red.

  The Englishman steered the Audi towards the motorbike, aiming to collide with the BMW, but Richter was too quick. As soon as he’d shot Andreas he swerved the bike back into the road and accelerated hard. For perhaps a mile Edgar managed to keep the bike in sight, but it was a hopeless task. The last he saw of the BMW was it turning sharp left into an alley, too narrow for a car. He’d lost his man.

  He found a phone box. He’d have to call Kemp in Bonn. It was not going to be the conversation he’d thought he was going to have.

  ***

  Samuel was in Cologne by eleven, less than two hours after the telephone call from Reinhard Schäfer. He doubted whether the KGB would appreciate quite how well he’d done to get there in that time, just managing to catch the nine forty direct train. From Cologne station he’d taken a taxi, telling the driver his destination was on Niehler Strasse, a block past Goalkeeper’s apartment.

  But when he walked back into Kuenstrasse there was a group of police officers milling around outside the entrance to the apartment building. He didn’t stop, carrying on instead west down Kuenstrasse. In the distance he could see more activity, and headed in that direction. He came to a section of road that was closed. On the pavement was a tent-like structure, with police officers guarding it. A small group had gathered behind a cordon. Samuel only needed to listen.

  A man’s been shot, they say he’s dead… pretty much took his head off, must have been a high-calibre weapon… the person who shot him was on a motorbike, a BMW apparently… I heard one of the policemen tell someone else it’s the Red Army Faction… I don’t know what the world’s coming to: Hamburg, Munich, Frankfurt – and now here.

  Samuel spent another half hour on Kuenstrasse; long enough to ascertain the man who’d been shot was young and certainly didn’t match Goalkeeper’s description. He was as sure as he could be that Goalkeeper was the assassin. He knew he had a BMW motorbike, and there was now no BMW outside Goalkeeper’s apartment building.

  Samuel walked another three blocks before he felt it was safe enough to telephone Schäfer. It was a complicated procedure: he had to call a Hamburg number and from there the call was patched through to East Berlin. He wasn’t too sure how much he trusted the connection, but there was no alternative.

  The KGB officer took the news calmly enough. ‘You’re sure it was Goalkeeper who shot the man?’

  ‘Not one hundred per cent, but it looks that way.’

  ‘And you have no idea who he is?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Listen Samuel… go to Bonn. Deal with Uncle. Go to ground after that.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Samuel. ‘But I’ll need you to make a phone call.’

  Samuel took a tram as far as the ring road and soon found what he was looking for: a tall office building with a large car park wrapped around it. Down the side of the building he found a light grey Volkswagen Golf and had no difficulty breaking in and starting the engine.

  Once he was in Bonn, he drove straight to the apartment building. He’d been there before on Schäfer’s behalf and he knew exactly what to do, exactly where to wait. Just before arriving at the apartment he’d stopped to phone Schäfer.

  ‘Telephone him now.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘You want me to do this job for you or not?’

  ***

  Clive Cowley could have wept with relief when he took the call at ten to one. It had come through as a local Bonn number – he had no idea how Schäfer managed that – and the message was clear: your suit is ready; please collect it immediately.

  There was a time when that message would have terrified him, now it felt like an act of mercy: he was to leave Bonn. He’d spent a decidedly nervous morning at his desk in the British Embassy, convinced his fear was radiating throughout the office, expecting an arresting hand on his shoulder at any moment.

  But no-one in the office was especially interested when he explained that he needed to collect a suit from the dry cleaners. He would need to return to his apartment, collect a few things and then travel to Paris, which was five hours by train, with a change at Mannheim. He’d arrive at the Gare l’Est then walk a short way to the address on Rue La Fayette. It was a journey he’d known he’d take one day and he was well prepared for it. He had even been on a couple of dry runs, just to get a proper sense of it.

  From Rue La Fayette he’d be taken to a new life – he’d be looked after. He would be treated with respect; he’d have nothing more to worry about.

  So there was plenty to think about as he parked his car under the dreary apartment building in Friesdorf. Even the location of his apartment just about summed it up: he hadn’t been allocated an apartment in Bad Godesberg or Konigswinter, where the more senior embassy staff lived. But it didn’t matter now.

  There were few cars in the basement car-park at that time of day, and no sign of anyone about. Clive Cowley was slightly surprised to hear footsteps behind him as he approached the lift, but he had no time to do anything about it other than half turn round. As he did so he was bundled into the fire escape doorway and then shoved against a rough concrete wall, his face smashing against the pitted surface. And before he could react, before he could even cry out, a knife plunged deep into him.

  Chapter 29

  East Berlin

  The Wednesday

  It was approaching half eight when Viktor wearily headed in the direction of the Unter den Linden. He paused once or twice, wondering whether to go back to his apartment, despite the obvious risks. He stopped at a grim café on Mittelstrasse and sat for a while at the back, sipping a lukewarm mug of bitter coffee. Next was a news kiosk where he bought a copy of that morning’s Neues Deutschland, a newspaper he rarely read and which towed the party line so cravenly that the joke in the Embassy was it made Izvestia read like a liberal western newspaper.

  For no other reason than this was how he was trained, he went back on himself before turning into Neustädtische Kirchstrasse for a few yards, his destination soon looming ahead on the other side of the main road.

  To his surprise no-one stopped him at the entrance, just the usual grunt and whiff of alcohol as the thickset guards nodded him through once he’d shown his pass. Viktor decided not to go to his office: there was an advantage to be gained in appearing before they had an opportunity to arrest him. As it was, he found it difficult to believe he’d made it this far.

  Avoiding the lifts, he climbed slowly up the rear staircase to the fifth floor, pausing to catch his breath on each landing. He walked through the first security door and past a dozing guard at the entrance to the corridor that led to the office. He quickly backed into a doorway when he spotted Schäfer, and a couple of the agents who he recognised from the previous night, at the other end of the corridor, but they were soon gone and he was able to stroll unimpeded into the office of the Head of the KGB in East Berlin.

  Piotr Vasilyevich Kozlov stared at Viktor in apparent shock: his mouth half open, his eyes unblinking, no other facial muscles even twitching. Then he hurriedly removed his vodka bottle from the top of his desk.

  Minutes earlier Kozlov had been chastising Schäfer and his other agents for allowing Irma to escape to the west and Viktor to become a fugitive. Now Viktor had ambled into his office, as if he didn’t have a care in the world and had popped in to exchange gossip about who was in line for the Bucharest job.

  ‘You look confused Piotr Vasilyevich: is anything the matter?’

  Kozlov reached down and returned the vodka bottle to the desk top, pouring himself a large measure which Viktor considered to be ill-advised at any time of the day, let alone so early in the morning.

  ‘Where the hell were you last night Viktor Leonidovich?’ Kozlov’s normally booming voice was little more than an uncertain whisper. He was staring at the desk top, occasionally shooting a glance in Viktor’s direction as if to check he was really there.

  ‘I was at a ba
r in Marx-Engels-Platz comrade.’

  ‘Who with?’

  ‘Various old friends.’

  ‘Was one of them…’ Kozlov checked a notebook open in front of him, ‘a Max Lazerowitz?’

  ‘Max? Of course, old Max is a fixture at that bar … You know Max?’

  ‘And you think it is wise to trust this Max Lazerowitz?’

  ‘Why comrade?’

  ‘He’s a Jew.’

  ‘A Jew who commanded a partisan brigade that fought the Nazis for four years. He has more decorations than…’

  ‘And how did you leave this bar Viktor Leonidovich?’

  ‘Is that not in your notes Piotr Vasilyevich?’

  ‘Don’t be so fucking insolent with me!’ Kozlov’s voice had returned to its normal volume. The portrait of Brezhnev appeared to shake.

  ‘I left through a side entrance. It’s not my fault your people were too busy drinking – there were enough of them.’

  ‘And where did you go?’

  ‘Well, you obviously know I didn’t go back to my apartment. Even your people no doubt managed to work that one out. I met a lady and went back to her place.’

  ‘Her name?’

  ‘I don’t know it. She was not the kind of lady with whom you exchange names.’

  ‘And where does she live?’

  ‘Nor was she the kind of lady with whom you exchange addresses comrade. I just followed her there.’

  ‘I assumed you’d left East Berlin and escaped to the west.’

  ‘Obviously not comrade: why on earth would I do that?’

  The conversation – and Viktor did his best to make sure it was more of a conversation than the interrogation Kozlov intended it to be – continued in that vein for a while. Try as he might, the Head of the KGB in East Berlin could not get Viktor to admit to any wrong-doing. Viktor answered all his questions politely and plausibly, repeatedly asking one in return: what proof did comrade Kozlov have that he had done anything wrong?