The Helsinki Pact (11 page)

“What time is it now?”

Dieter smiled as he closed the
door and the darkness returned.

Approaching forty minutes later
Thomas stepped into sunlight and a fresh breeze, a welcome change
to his dank and gloomy cell. He looked back at the featureless
block of concrete, a single storey high with no windows and only
the heavily fortified door at the side. There was no one around. No
signs or writing identified the building, apparently abandoned in a
field. From a casual glance it looked like a partially derelict
industrial or agricultural unit. Kai had once told Thomas that
there were a dozen such buildings scattered around the perimeter of
the city and in out of the way places. Officially they didn’t
exist.

The young escorting officer led
him to a grey Trabant. As he settled in his seat Thomas discreetly
tried to open the door but found the handle had no effect. He tried
to talk to the driver who ignored him and drove precisely and with
care. In about fifteen minutes Thomas began to recognise where they
were and realised they’d entered from the north and were
approaching the city centre. The sun broke from the clouds on to
his face through the windows and he basked in the warmth, closing
his eyes and listening to the drumming of the tyres.

He woke with a start. This must
be Saturday, he thought again, judging by the daylight and the
slope of the sun's rays. Yet that was difficult to understand. How
could he have slept, or been unconscious, for so long? Then he
remembered recently reading of an experiment where volunteers had
been kept deep underground in limestone caves to check the effect
on circadian rhythms and how initially the absolute blackness and
lack of ordinary sensation had disorientated them.

His own experience made no real
sense but then the time in the cell had seemed to have had a life
of its own, stretching and contracting without properly matching
what he’d felt of time passing. He felt weak, unsure of what he
wanted, unsure even ... and with an effort he decided not to follow
where his thoughts seemed to be leading.

I am Thomas Wundart, West German
citizen, economics student in West Berlin but going to become an
opera singer, he told himself at speed, over and over. He closed
his eyes and breathed deliberately and slowly.

As he was repeating the mantra
they stopped by a solid door beside which was a metal plaque on
which Thomas read Ministerium für Staatssicherheit, the Ministry
for State Security and the most feared address in East Berlin. The
Stasi HQ was where regime opponents, and too often ordinary
citizens picked up in the wrong place, often vanished without
trace, held in what was almost a state within a state. Senior Stasi
members largely made their own rules, acted with extreme secrecy
and ignored the law with impunity when necessary. With its
capillary network of agents spread throughout the country and
abroad, it was a formidable power base.

The officer led Thomas through a
network of corridors into a large room with spacious windows
overlooking Normannenstrasse. A huge and ornate desk dominated the
well furnished room with, behind it, a large nineteenth century oil
painting of a battle scene, apparently commemorating a victory in
the Franco Prussian War. A marble statue of Dzerzhinsky, the
founder of the Cheka, precursor of the KGB, stood on the right.
Dieter entered and sat down at his desk, ignoring the two standing
in front of him. Pulling out a file from a drawer, he placed a
series of papers on the desk and gestured to the officer to
leave.

“You will sign these documents.
You needn’t read them. However, the first paper says that you are
collaborating with us of your own free will. If you play any tricks
on us we’ll release that to the press in the West and to the West
German secret service, the BND. The second document is your
confession to your crime and the charges laid against you. If we
set you free and you try to change your mind we will find you and
return you here – make no mistake about that – and that sheet will
mean your trial will take only a few minutes, the result a foregone
conclusion.”

Thomas signed both papers quickly
without reading them. Dieter took his left hand, pressed the thumb
on an ink pad and further marked each paper with the
print.

“Despite what you might think you
have no way of leaving West Berlin without our permission and you
will only leave with my prior agreement and approval. Your name
will be on the checklists used by the border guards. In case you
think that false travel documents might work let me assure you that
they will also have several photographs of you and that they are
extremely efficient in their work. They have been well trained in
psychological profiling and analysis, for instance. You might be
surprised to learn how well even West Berlin’s Tegel Airport is
covered by us and the extent of our agent network in the West. If
you try anything foolish and survive the attempt you’ll find our
prison impossible to escape from, even with twenty years of
trying.”

Despite the sun and the pleasant
warmth in the room Thomas felt chilled. Dieter poured some mineral
water into an elaborately decorated beer stein.

“Our department’s operational
offices are in Alexanderstrasse, number 12. You will report there
and receive further instructions weekly, sometimes more frequently
if necessary. You will report there on Monday morning at 9.00am,
for your first briefing. You will ultimately report to me but most
of your contact will be with a junior agent who will take
responsibility for you. In exceptional cases you may be brought
also to my operational office.”

He lit a cigar, leaned back in
his chair, smiled thinly, pressed the record button on the machine
standing on his desk, and said “Now tell me all about
yourself.”

The interrogation continued for
some two hours, Dieter looking steadily at him and occasionally
making notes. From time to time he revisited Thomas’s answers,
sometimes asking the same question in different ways, sometimes
pretending to have misunderstood or remembered wrongly, constantly
checking the truth of what Thomas was saying, right down to
intimate details of his life, his friends and his sexual habits and
experiences. He got increasingly confused and even began to doubt
his own answers, to worry whether what he was saying was
sufficiently accurate and true. Only in one area, which took all
his strength to hide, was he anything other than fully open with
Dieter but he felt that Kai had risked enough already without being
incriminated and probably spied on as one of his East German
friends.

“Initially, I want to know
everything you can tell me about Alfred Herren and what he’s
working on. We know he has the ear of Chancellor Kohl and that the
government listens to his advice on many financial and policy
matters. Perhaps you will need to halt your studies for the moment
and become an intern at the bank. That should be easy with your
connections and your friendship with Fischer. I shall decide that
later. If you are there you will meet daily with Fischer and report
everything by telephone to your contact at an agreed hour each
day.”

“Obviously no one must know about
your connection with us. If there is any leak then not only your
life but that of anyone who knows this about you will be at risk.
Your contact will brief you in detail at your meeting in just over
a week's time. Do you want to ask anything?”

“Who is my contact?”

Dieter turned toward him with a
smile, the more unexpected because of its apparently genuine
warmth. It was the kind of smile his father used to give him when
he returned from one of his many work trips abroad. He pressed a
button on his desk and Thomas heard a buzzer next door. “I would
introduce you ... " he waited for a moment "But then I have the
impression you may already have met.”

The connecting door opened and a
figure walked in slowly. Thomas started from his chair, his initial
horror changing to anger.

“Miss List is one of our best
young agents.” said Dieter, formally introducing Bettina, a slight
smile flickering on his face.

“You bitch! You goddamn, lying,
treacherous bitch.”

Thomas sank back into his chair,
then swung sideways to avoid looking at Bettina as she sat in the
chair next to his. A faint trace of her perfume reached his
nostrils, transporting him back to the moments by the river, where
he’d inhaled it so fully, nuzzling her neck and her face, now
feeling sick with the recollection, an idiot for having believed
there was something there between them.

“You goddamn lying bitch.” he
thought. “It was to have me trust you, keep me around until
everything was ready. Just what the Stasi would require. How much
further would you have gone if necessary?”

He felt anger, tried to glare at
her but couldn’t as a deep sadness and despair suddenly welled up
and choked him.

“I’m afraid we weren’t entirely
straight with you earlier, Mr Wundart.” Dieter opened a drawer in
his desk and handed Thomas his watch. “It’s now nearly four in the
afternoon, but Friday, not Saturday as the guard may have implied
earlier. So of course you will all go the opera as planned tonight.
I think your friend Stephan and” – Dieter glanced at his notes –
“his friend Camille will be excited to meet your beautiful new
girlfriend. And as a Berliner now" - he marked the ambiguity with
an emphasis on the noun - "she’ll know the good places to go to eat
afterwards. Forget business - that can wait till later. This is
pleasure. Enjoy your evening. I’m sure you’ll all have a wonderful
time.”

Chapter 8

Friday September 15
1989

"THAT'S a bugger Klaus leaving
like that." said Bernhard.

The work became harder with only
two working but also because of the distance they’d reached. The
confined space was too small for both and so they developed a
routine where one would dig but also fill the bag and the other
would fetch and stack it up in the corner. Then the bags had to be
moved periodically to the other room, risky because Frau
Schwinewitz was a lurking menace, suddenly appearing. Although it
was almost impossible for her to be completely silent coming down
the stairs they became tense and snappy with each other during
these periods.

In between times they built the
roof supports and the wall cladding. All this slowed down their
progress considerably and because neither dared to call in sick for
the second week running they had to do what they could in the
evenings only.

By the Friday evening, nearly a
week after Klaus had left, they measured the tunnel at just under
19 metres of travel. They stood in the room, looking morosely into
the tunnel mouth.

“I guess that’s about sixteen,
maybe a little more, in a straight line.” said Kai. “Allowing for
the pipe first of all, then that bloody great rock we had work
round. Three quarters there, about. So maybe another three or four
to go, till we hit the wall. Sunday? Monday? Weekend at very
latest, I guess. What do you think?”

“Depends if we hit another big
rock or more of that stuff with lots of little stones. Oh, god,
that bit – you just couldn’t drive the spade in, use the pickaxe to
loosen it, scoop it, same again, over and over. But, yeah, mid week
probably.”

"I have nightmares about this
tunnel. The dirt and the work. I wake up thrashing about thinking
it's falling in on me. How much longer? Are we ever going to make
it? Surely we're nearly there." He stretched and yawned again,
luxuriously. "We're close, though, I'm sure of that. Look, your
plans showed it about 20 metres in a straight line and we're well
over that now. OK, it's not straight but it must be approaching
that. I reckon we'll hit the wall tomorrow." He straightened,
beamed at Kai and clapped his hands sharply "OK. Last shift
tonight. In you go, Kai and see what you can do."

For twenty minutes Kai dug with
renewed energy. The thought of coming close to the finish had fired
him up and he’d forgotten his tiredness and aching limbs. He filled
one bag in record time and summoned Bernhard to collect it,
returning to attack the surface with enthusiasm. Suddenly Bernhard
was back in the tunnel.

“It’s that Schwinewitz woman
outside the door. She’s banging on the door, shouting and saying
she wants to talk to you. She says she knows you’re in here. Go and
talk to her now before she goes and calls the Stasi or the
police.”

“Oh shit.” They scuttled back
quickly. Bernhard moved to the tunnel mouth as Kai stood by the
door, listening.

“I can hear you moving in there.
Now open this door right now!” Frau Schwinewitz shouted, banging on
the door. “You’ve been avoiding me for weeks and your rent is well
overdue. Come out of there at once. If you don’t come out I’m going
to get the police and have you kicked out of your flat.”

Kai and Bernhard stood silently,
looking at each other.

“OK, that’s it. I know you can
hear me. I’m going to call the police now, and they’ll sort you
out. We’ll see how this story ends, Herr Rumpel.”

There was a further long silence
and then they heard her footsteps echoing down the long
corridor.

“Go and stop her.” whispered
Bernhard, throwing Kai a clean sweater to cover his muddy shirt.
“Comb your hair and wipe that smudge off your forehead, yes, just
there. Tell her she’ll have the rent Monday at latest, maybe even
tomorrow. You’re getting it from a friend and you don’t think he’s
around. Make up some story anyway.”