Brandenburg (21 page)

Harland confessed that the operation had sprawled in a way that he simply hadn’t envisaged. At SIS headquarters in Century House it was openly said to be taking up too much money when the clear priority of the moment was Gorbachev’s visit to the GDR and the need to acquire intelligence about the Soviet Union’s intentions in the event of widescale upheaval in the East.

Griswald’s response to this was to blow out his cheeks and lift his shoulders. ‘Yeah, well, we all have that problem. Believe me, every jackass at Langley thinks he knows better than I do what I should be doing in Berlin. Don’t worry, Bobby. I have a real good feeling about this operation of yours.’ He looked up at the board again. ‘You’re certain she’s coming?’

‘Yep. Talked to her yesterday. We’re assuming the letter was intercepted and they will act on its instructions.’

‘You know, they aren’t total jerks, Bobby. And Rosenharte, well, he’s not one of your natural good guys. Remind me why you didn’t insert someone more reliable than Rosenharte in Leipzig and forget this rigmarole with Annalise. It makes the whole operation so goddamn complex.’

‘This way we get the chance to feed them information from an impeccable source that’s going to cause them years, well, at least months, of barking up the wrong tree.’ He stopped and revolved his spoon in the sugar at the bottom of the coffee cup. ‘It’s too good an opportunity to pass by, Al. Besides, Kafka chose him. Rosenharte was the only person Kafka would work with. You know I had to do it this way.’

‘Does that bother you?’

‘Everything bothers me.’

‘You don’t worry that we’re being used?’

Harland thought for a moment. ‘Could be, but all I know is the first material proved damned helpful. On that basis I am happy to proceed. Are your people getting hot under the collar?’

‘No, they just raised the usual issues. They’re cool for the moment.’

They waited a further twenty minutes. Flights from Dusseldorf, Cologne and Brussels all landed without a sign of Jessie.

‘Doesn’t look like she’s coming,’ Griswald said.

‘Of course she’s coming,’ said Harland. ‘She’s got to make it look as though she’s taking precautions to cover her movements from Nato.’

Griswald sighed again. ‘You know what? I’m gonna go to the Blue Fish and have some goulash. It’s quarter of nine already. Why don’t you meet me there later?’

‘Hold on!’ said Harland. ‘Look, it’s her.’

Jessie was marching along a glass-covered walkway carrying a shoulder bag.

‘Where the fuck’s she been? Nothing’s landed in the last half-hour.’

‘Sitting it out in the Ladies, I imagine, and so disguising which flight she came in on. She did exactly the right thing. She’s a bloody good operator, Al.’ Harland spoke into a radio mike inside his coat. ‘Macy, you ready? She’s here. Cuth, did you get that?’ He pressed the earpiece home, listened and turned to Griswald.

‘Have they seen any familiar faces?’ asked Griswald.

‘They’re not sure,’ replied Harland. ‘Let’s move.’

They went down to the main arrivals hall and waited at a discreet distance from customs fifty yards apart, Griswald using his new phone rather ostentatiously. It was only a few minutes before Jessie walked out of customs and searched for signs for the taxi rank. She was wearing a well-cut, dark-blue business suit that was perhaps a little conservative for Annalise Schering’s taste but was in keeping with someone who wanted to go unnoticed. She had walked a few paces from the barrier when Harland heard the Bird’s voice. ‘Bobby, there’re a couple of bogies moving in from your left. One’s in a light-grey suit, the other a leather jacket.’

Before he had time to reply he saw another two men come in through a revolving door and look in Jessie’s direction.

She kept on towards the exit for buses and taxis without seeming to notice the men.

‘They’re going to take her when she gets outside,’ Harp whispered in the radio. ‘Tudor says two of them have just left a blue Merc. Another is still at the wheel.’

Harland swore. He was still far enough away to see the situation as a whole. If Jessie left the building she could be bundled into a car without difficulty and be carried over the border within the hour. There was nothing for it but to move. ‘We’re going to stop them. The whole bloody thing’s blown. Okay, go!’

At this, the Bird appeared from a queue at the hotel information desk and started towards Jessie. Macy Harp walked from the entrance to a washroom, while Tudor Williams moved rapidly into position behind the two men who had just entered the terminal building.

Jessie pushed on apparently oblivious, yet seemed drawn to Griswald’s bulk. Griswald took the hint and swivelled round to face her. He was still on the phone, but all his body language indicated that he wanted to end the call and approach the woman that he had just noticed moving in his direction. Not for the first time, Harland briefly noted his friend’s acting skills. Griswald dropped his newspaper, fumbled with the phone then opened his arms.

‘Wait.’ Harland spat out the word and, without missing a beat, the Bird, Macy Harp and Tudor Williams dispersed, two of them losing themselves in a tour group that had just exited customs, the members of which were all swapping telephone numbers and saying their goodbyes.

‘Hey there,’ Griswald cried. He had lowered the phone and was simulating disbelief and pleasure. ‘For Chrissake, what are you doing here? Jesus, Annalise. I’ll be damned.’

Jessie looked taken aback, but smiled bravely and approached to offer him her hand. Griswald bent down and planted a kiss on both her cheeks. ‘Jesus, I thought you were living in Canada, sweetheart. What the hell brings you to Berlin? You’ll have dinner with me. Promise.’

These were the last words that Harland heard before he too plunged into the crowd and started calling out, ‘Car for Neumann, car for Herr Neumann.’ He reached the other side of the mêlée and turned to see the man in the grey suit standing about twenty feet from Griswald. The young tough in the leather jacket had walked over to the car hire desk and was watching Griswald and Jessie with open interest. The other two men had disappeared.

He turned and spoke into the microphone. ‘Tell me what you see.’

‘I’m outside,’ said the Bird. ‘They’ve definitely got a team here, but they’re not going to try anything while she’s talking to Alan. Tudor’s gone to get one of the cars in case we need to pursue.’

‘Tudor,’ hissed Harland, ‘make sure you pick up the black Merc and park it right outside entrance C. Then go in and make as though you’re Griswald’s driver. Leave the rest to him. Now get a bloody move on. Cuth, stick by their car in case anything goes wrong. You’re responsible for her safety. Do anything you need to protect her.’ Harland slunk away, briefly registering that the Stasi’s effort to mount one of the first abductions in Berlin for many years meant that while they had doubts about Annalise’s story, they were still genuinely interested in what she might have. If it had all been a put-up job, as Griswald suggested, they wouldn’t be risking a snatch in the view of Tempelhof’s new CCTV system.

By now Griswald had put an arm round Jessie and was steering her gently towards the exit. He couldn’t know that Tudor would be outside when he got there, but at least he and Jessie were working a good double act. Even from where Harland stood, he could see she was protesting and at one stage pulled the bag from Griswald’s chivalrous grasp. He lifted his lapel and spoke. ‘Everyone except Tudor back off. Macy and Cuth, you get the other car and follow Tudor. He’ll drive to the Avalon Hotel on Emser Strasse. Macy, find a phone and book a room for two nights in the name of Annalise Schering. Tell Markus on the front desk that we won’t be using the room and that I will sort things out later. We want them to see her going to the hotel and having a drink with Griswald. Convey all this to Griswald, Tudor.’

‘Then what?’ This came from Macy Harp.

‘We’re going to have to improvise things from the Avalon, but I’m working on the assumption that they’re here because they really are interested. That means the betting is on Rosenharte coming over. We’re just going to have to keep her out of their clutches until then.’

‘But what then?’ Macy Harp again. ‘They’re not going to give up tomorrow just because Rosenharte is in the West. In fact the likelihood is that they’ll try harder.’

‘Later, Macy. We’ll cross that bridge when—’ He stopped. Griswald had come to a halt at exit C and was gesturing outside. Jessie shook her head. Harland thought they were both overdoing it a bit, and for one moment it looked as though the East Germans were going to intervene, but Tudor came through the door and spoke to Griswald.

‘What the hell are they doing?’ asked the Bird, who could see everything from the car.

‘Quiet! I’m trying to listen to Tudor’s mike,’ said Harland. He heard Griswald say, ‘Well, my car’s outside, Annalise. At least let me give you a ride to the hotel. Maybe we can have a drink at the Avalon - it’s my favourite bar in Berlin.’

She replied: ‘We’ll have a drink, then I really must have an early night.’ She allowed Tudor to take her bag and was ushered through the door by Griswald. It was then that Harland understood. Griswald was playing himself, an inquisitive CIA officer who had happened upon someone working at Nato with no obvious reason to be in Berlin. He was giving Jessie the once over and in so doing, providing her a story for the following day. And Jessie, being no slouch in these matters, had grasped the tactic immediately and was responding with a combination of reluctance and guilty compliance that the Stasi could not mistake.

This might just work, thought Harland.

In the early hours of Tuesday 26 September, as Rosenharte lay on the narrow iron bed, one leg on the cell floor, an arm folded over his eyes against the light, it occurred to him that the Stasi headquarters possessed a kind of organic life of its own. The walls sweated condensation; the smell he’d found so unsettling in the minister’s suite was just as present on the lower floors although it included new elements which he approximated to disinfectant and decay; and there was a queer noise - a distant clicking followed by a long sigh, which suggested an enormous ventilator keeping the place filled with just the amount of oxygen necessary to sustain life. In his half-dreaming state, he remembered Konrad talking about the earth’s largest living organism, a giant underground fungus, which had spread over hundreds of years through a forest in Michigan. Konrad had gone on and on about it, explaining that the DNA of the fungus taken from one end of the forest was exactly the same as at the other end, which proved that it was the same organism. Trees had lived and died, but the fungus continued silently occupying the forest inch by inch, either as a parasite or saprophyte - he wasn’t sure which. Rosenharte had asked him what the difference was. ‘The first draws life from the living, the second from death and decay,’ he replied, giving his brother a meaningful glance over the top of his round spectacle frames. ‘I suspect this is parasitic, which is why I would like to make a film about that giant fungus in Michigan.’ It was a few moments before Rosenharte realized Konrad saw the fungus in the forest as a metaphor for the Stasi and the GDR.

He smiled to himself. At times Konrad could be slightly priggish and superior yet he also had a mind so oblique, so gentle in its dissent that it was truly surprising that his work had ever offended the authorities. He often said the Stasi had only persecuted him because although they didn’t understand his work they suspected criticism lurked in it. That was why the charges at his secret trial in Rostock had been vague and the prosecution case so blustering and inept. They didn’t possess the sophistication to pin anything on him, and so had relied on the catch-all charge of anti-state propaganda, which no court official felt it necessary to substantiate before sentencing him to three years’ hard labour in Bautzen.

Rosenharte also knew, and reminded himself as a matter of course every once in a while, that his failure to return from Brussels in 1975 had first prompted the Stasi to investigate Konrad, who until that moment had lived his life pretty well below the parapet. They had become interested in him and later investigated his work for hidden meanings, an investigation that ended with his trial. Konrad had never even so much as hinted at his brother’s responsibility and always took pains to blame the totalitarian state, but then he understood that Rosenharte had joined the HVA primarily to get out of East Germany and organize Konrad’s escape so that they could both live in the West. It was an irony - or something worse - that the delayed return had resulted in Konrad’s detention.

And now they were both behind bars in Stasi cells.

He swung his other leg to the floor and rested there with his head in his hands for a few seconds before springing up, taking a leak and washing his face in the basin. He would neither sit nor lie any longer because it indicated submission - an acceptance that locking him up was reasonable.

A few hours passed. He prowled his cell until the daylight began to show on the reflection in the lino beyond the bars. Then sounds of the workforce entering the Stasi citadel came to him as though he was hearing the footsteps and the slamming doors from one end of a long tube. A uniformed orderly arrived and placed some bread and tea on a small flat surface outside the cell, then worked the lever so the bed slammed up to the vertical position. Rosenharte was told to stand back as a small table together with a fixed stool were swung into the cell by means of a kind of turnstile. He did not move. ‘Take it away,’ he said quietly. ‘I won’t eat until I’m let out of here.’

The man shrugged, revolved the table out of the cell and walked off down the passage carrying the tin tray. Another hour passed.

He knew the deliberation that would decide his and Konnie’s fate was still going on and he had now given up all idea of predicting which way the decision would fall. He distracted himself by trying to remember the thirty paintings by Giorgione in order of their likely execution, then the thirty-five works by Johannes Vermeer with similarly demanding conditions. He daydreamed about a visit to the Mauritshaus in The Hague where three of his favourite Vermeers hung. There was much to see and much to do in his life yet.