The Helsinki Pact (24 page)

Bettina looked at Thomas and as
she did he felt his heart sink. Dieter had indicated that it was
just a matter of time until the Stasi disappeared and yet he wanted
everything to remain the same. Surely with the dramatic changes
taking place he had no need of what Thomas could bring him? And how
could he talk of honour and responsibility when he was forcing
Thomas to continue to spy for what was still an enemy state? But
with the hold Dieter had over him, and over Bettina too for all he
knew, they would be forced to stay in active service until the West
German agents entered the building and found their files. They were
doomed. They would be tried in the West and jailed as spies. Dieter
was crazy.

“Now, I require that you both
remain at my disposal until the service is disbanded. This doesn’t
mean that I want to ruin your lives.” he said, as if reading
Thomas’s mind. “You’re young, and both of you deserve better. All
my files are to be moved to this office from the HQ and yesterday,
during all that chaos, I erased your files and all references to
you from the central computer system. Your written records will
stay here, under lock and key in my personal safe or in some other
secure location and so available to me alone. They will not be
handed over to anyone from the BND, you have my word on that. I
will destroy them personally before I leave the
Service.”

He walked to the window and stood
watching the sun disappear behind grey clouds. He turned to them.
“There’s very little time to lose and I now need to rely on you two
more heavily than I’ve done in the past. I trust Hanno enough, but
no one else within the Firm needs to know of your existence. You’re
no longer in the Stasi’s computer files, only in the ones in my
safe keeping, and apart from your own safety you can be a lot more
useful to me this way. But never forget that you have nowhere to
run and if you do not continue to follow my instructions, Thomas, I
shall send your file to the BND. However, the game is about to
become much rougher. From now on, consider yourself an agent, not
an informant.”

He pulled out a small black box
from inside the desk and handed it to Thomas. “You’re going to need
to learn how to use this. Bettina will show you. She’s one of the
best sharpshooters in our section.”

Inside the box was a Walther P38.
The serial number had been erased, Thomas noted. His throat
suddenly went dry and he shut the box hurriedly as if to forget
what he’d just seen.

Dieter looked at Bettina. “I have
decided to discontinue Project Cargo. I’ve got bigger things for
you to look after. But you and I will discuss them separately,
later. They relate to internal matters. Come to this office
tomorrow at noon.”

He again turned to look out of
the window and he spoke in a more sombre tone, not looking at
either. “A final word. From what I saw yesterday, it’s only a
matter of time before everything will start to crumble. Not just
the Stasi, but the whole country. Anyone with any authority will
either follow what I believe is the only honourable approach or
will try to cover his tracks and so evade responsibility. Some,
however, will seek to take advantage of the chaos, perhaps to
reinvent themselves and rewrite the past in ways more favourable to
them, some no doubt to enrich themselves. More and more it will be
every man for himself. From now on, you must be very wary of what
you say and of whom you confide in, even within the organisation
itself …” He lost himself in thought for a long moment, then
sighed. “ ... even within the organisation,” he repeated slowly, as
if he were now entirely alone “ ... even here.”

Chapter 19

Saturday January 13
1990

JOHN looked up from the desk as a
key scraped in the lock. There was a scrabbling outside, the
apartment door swung open, and Thomas stumbled into the room,
kicking the door shut behind him. He rapidly lowered something
bulky and heavy in his arms towards the floor, losing his grip and
letting it fall the last few centimetres with a heavy
thud.

He stretched his arms, pulling at
each wrist as if his joints had seized up, and took several deep
breaths, leaning against the door.

John stared at the massive,
ancient TEAC 4-track tape recorder on the floor, its two large tape
reels like owl’s eyes staring him down. “What in God’s name is
that? Why? Are we going into the disco business or something? Do we
have to feed it? And just where do you plan to keep it?”

Thomas laughed. “Don’t worry. We
don’t have space here. I’m going to use Kai’s apartment for a bit.
It can go there.”

“What, in East Berlin? Why there?
Are you planning to move?”

“Listen. It makes sense. We need
to concentrate on our theses and that’s hard if we’re both always
around in this tiny space."

"True enough." John
nodded.

"I’ve got Kai’s keys, remember,
and when I was over there a bit ago I found this note chasing him
for rent. I guess they don't realise he's escaped and that's when
it struck it me how useful the flat could be. The rent's not much
so I stuck it in an envelope and pushed it under the door of the
caretaker’s flat. There’s a man looks after things while the old
woman’s in hospital, picks up letters and stuff, does a bit of
cleaning. He doesn’t know much about what’s going on though. The
flat’s empty, no phone, no distractions, perfect for working in.
You work here. I’ll work there.”

“Fine by me, just so long as you
don’t expect me to meet all this rent.”

“Don’t worry, John, I’ll pay my
share. Just so long as I can sleep here every so often. Could we
use your car, maybe shift my stuff over just now?”

By mid-afternoon Thomas was
installed in Kai’s apartment and ready to assemble the equipment
he’d brought over. The building seemed deserted and he was certain
no one had seen him or John carrying stuff upstairs.

He’d wanted to inspect the
tunnel, both to get an idea of what Kai had been up to and also to
satisfy his curiosity about the phantom station. But time was
getting short and so he’d merely run down to the basement to check
if there was any evidence of investigation. As far as he could see
no one had visited the basement room – everything there looked in a
state of chaos, unchanged from how Kai and the others had said
they'd left thing when they fled.

Back upstairs Thomas worked out
what he needed to do, making notes on a scrap of old paper. As he
worked he thought about Bettina and the effects the political
changes were having on her. He could see that she was uneasy,
unsure about the future and sometimes almost out of her depth, it
seemed. At the shooting range the day before she'd told him Dieter
wanted to see them both that afternoon at four in his private
office.

He soldered a couple of wires to
the antenna of a radio receiver he’d recently bought and then ran
them carefully outside the main window, first using the sill to
shield them from view and then running them neatly up the side of
the window to as high as he could reach. He stepped back on the
tiny balcony and looked at his work, reassured that his additions
didn’t look in the least out of place among the jumble of other
wires and pipes which festooned that side of the building. He was
confident no one would notice them from the courtyard or from the
apartments opposite.

It was now just after three
thirty and he thought again of what Bettina had been able to tell
him, really very little beyond Dieter's own uneasiness and
uncertainty about developments and that he wanted to talk urgently
with them both. He'd sensed that she had a premonition of growing
danger and this worried him both on account of the uncertainty and
because of the effect it was having on her.

Ten minutes later he’d tidied up,
hurried downstairs, walked round the corner into Alexanderstrasse
and entered the unmarked building housing Dieter’s private office.
He felt nervous as he entered and, glancing at his watch, saw that
he was gong to be slightly late. Handing his Walther P38 to the
guard at the entrance he hurried up the stairs and along the
corridors, thinking that there were many fewer people wandering
around than usual. The walls were patchy, darker rectangles showing
up on the drab paint and showing that pictures of many prominent
party members had been removed.

Bettina was already in the office
and looked relieved to see him. She was wearing a light brown linen
shirt, open at the neck, and a dark green sweater which toned with
her simple shoes and trousers. Its colour brought back to him the
sight of her that morning in November after the fall of the Wall,
still slightly sleepy, her blonde hair tousled, half smiling to
herself as she gazed at the breakfast he had made for
her.

He’d felt very close to her both
then and the evening before but after the phone call things had
again changed and barriers had once more gone up. Time and again
Bettina and he would move closer to a point where he felt she was
within reach and at that precise moment there would be an
unexpected coldness, leaving him wondering what had gone wrong. It
was frustrating and upsetting but he consoled himself with thinking
that perhaps she recognised where her feelings were leading her,
how strong they were becoming, but for the moment didn’t dare to
act on them.

“Whenever you’re ready to join
us, Mr Wundart … ” Dieter’s deep voice, with a hint of mockery,
interrupted his daydream. Embarrassed, Thomas sat down quickly in a
chair beside Bettina. She looked at him and smiled.

“I’ll get straight to the point.
Things are moving much faster than I anticipated. First they
changed our name to the Office of National Security. Now,
apparently to appease the public, we’ve been officially disbanded
as a separate unit as of today. However, much as the politicians
might like us to vanish from the face of the earth, it’s not that
easy to dismantle an atomic weapon. And that’s what we are. Some
pieces are just too hard to break. Our division has been moved to
form part of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. They are
dismembering the network of informers although I know that for many
months now people have already been leaving steadily, rightly
confident that they can get away with doing that. However, old
habits linger and I’m hearing that a lot of the people being laid
off are regrouping on a private basis and setting up their own
intelligence networks. That’s highly dangerous to the state for all
sorts of reasons. Highly dangerous.”

“So it’s official? We no longer
exist as we were?” Bettina asked.

“It was announced half an hour
ago. Thirteenth January will go down as the day the biggest mistake
in East German history was made. Let’s get rid of the controllers
just before the state implodes and a huge wave of crimes begins.
But nobody will study our history any more, so it doesn’t matter.
Anyway, it’s not my problem and it’s the West who’ll foot the
bill.”

“What do you mean by that?”
Thomas asked.

“Elections will bring a landslide
victory for Western parties, for the CDU particularly, and
annexation will follow. The SED is in a shambles. There is no date
set for uunification, but it's likely to happen quickly. What that
means for you, Thomas, as I promised, is that you’ll be free to
forget us in a short while.”

Thomas was surprised about his
mixed feelings. There was relief that soon everything would be
forgotten and he could get on with his life. But there was
something else as well, something which pushed in the opposite
direction. Over the past two months he’d changed. He enjoyed the
daily shooting practice with Bettina, basked in her compliments as
he’d steadily improved over the week. He felt that he'd moved
beyond just being a student. It was as if familiarity with the
pistol had changed him further, made him more responsible, more
mature. He was even prepared now to put his own life at risk if
necessary, even welcomed the idea. He'd seen how others like Kai
had risked their lives for something important to them. He’d taken
the easy way out. He'd become a collaborator. He needed redemption
if he was going to be able to look at himself in a mirror with
pride, he thought to himself.

“I have two important projects,
one for each of you.” Dieter re-lit a half-smoked cigar. He moved
to the window and opening it waved his hand about to clear the
smoke. “Let’s start with you, Bettina.” He stared into the street
for a minute or more, his hands on the sill, not moving, then
turned back into the room.

“As you'll know, the Stasi was
one of the few organisations in the country permitted to hold
foreign currency. Each regional head office was provided with the
funds it needed direct from the central bank. A detailed reference
note was then sent to head office for updating information
records.”

Bettina nodded. Although she had
never been involved in the funding side, she was aware of the
financial autonomy of the regional offices.

“On 31 December, Gerd Henkel, the
Treasurer of the Dresden operation, requested currency valued at
around ten million Ost marks. The majority was in Ost marks, a
portion in Deutsche marks and the remainder in French francs. It
was sent from Berlin a week later, this Monday past, and apparently
deposited as usual in the special custody vault within the local
branch of the bank. Three days later Henkel informed us that when
he next checked there was no trace of the currency in that
vault.”