The Helsinki Pact (18 page)

As Stephan was talking a tall,
silver haired man, conservatively dressed in a finely tailored suit
walked up behind Stephan, parting and quieting with his presence
the noisy hubbub as he approached. He laid a hand on Stephan’s
shoulder and as Stephan glanced up and then scrambled to his feet
asked “Does your contract specify time to breathe Mr Fischer?
Perhaps I should have Personnel look into that, eh?”

“Mr Herren! Is there something
you need? I can be back in the office straight away if you require
me.”

“I just need a brief word in a
moment Mr Fischer.” Thomas began to stand and Herren turned to him
courteously. “Are you a new recruit?”

“This is my very old friend
Thomas Wundart, Mr Herren. He’s interviewing with us today. Perhaps
later he will ... ”

“Wundart? Wundart. Hmm, an
unusual name. Are you from Frankfurt?”

“His father was Albrecht
Wundart.” Stephan added.

“Really? Ah, yes. I knew him
well, though not socially. We’ve sat together in many meetings in
the past and I was very sorry to learn of his premature death. I’m
pleased to have met his son. Please give my regards to your mother.
Now, will you excuse us for a moment, Mr Wundart?”

He motioned to Thomas to sit down
and took Stephan away a short distance for a brief discussion then
turned, waved cordially to Thomas and strode away.

“So that’s Herren!” Thomas said
when Stephan returned and they resumed their meal. “He’s got a real
air of authority, hasn’t he?”

“Too right. He’s very shrewd,
very smart and he gets results. Sometimes he just faces people down
to get his own way. Sometimes he does it in such a roundabout
manner that I can’t keep up with him. I think, what’s he playing
at? why is he doing that? and then the next thing I know it all
falls into place, exactly as he wanted.”

“Well, I’m glad I met him. Brief
though it was.”

“He’ll remember you. Make no
mistake about that. Partly it’s on account of your father, of
course, but if you do come here the next time you see him he’ll
remember exactly who you are and where you met. Play that right and
it’ll stand you in good stead.”

“I hope so. Maybe I’ll throw
something into my interview later – ‘Interesting you should mention
that aspect. I was discussing it with Mr Herren only today, at
lunch.’” He laughed and took a sip of Riesling. “But you were about
to tell me why you were so busy. Some crazy project, you said. What
was that?”

Stephan looked at him for a
moment, and hesitated. It was over a fortnight since he’d met the
Finance Minister and it would be a relief to tell someone about it,
maybe, if he was honest, even boast a little bit about how well he
was getting on in his career. After all, Thomas had no links with
competing banks or with the press and if he couldn’t trust his
oldest friend just who could he trust?

“You absolutely must say nothing
to anyone. Nothing in the interviews or anywhere else.”

Thomas nodded.

“It’s a huge loan to the Soviet
Union.” Stephan smiled as he saw Thomas’s eyes widen. “I was really
surprised too, but in a way it makes sense. Gorbachev’s reforms are
producing great results politically but the country isn’t doing
that well economically so they need to raise money abroad. The West
German government is prepared to help and Deutsche Bank has been
brought in to manage the deal. I was at a meeting with the Finance
Minister recently when it was discussed and agreed.”

Thomas whistled and sat
back.

“Whoah! That’s cool. How
large?”

“It’s huge, really huge. I’m
working on the first tranche and that’s likely to be around fifteen
billion DM. We're underwriting that but for the later tranches,
maybe coming to twice as much again, we’ll syndicate parts out to
other German banks.”

“Fifteen billion! God, that is
huge, isn’t it? And what, 45 in total you say. How can you take
that kind of risk on a country like the USSR? What if it all goes
wrong?”

Stephan looked around nervously
and leaned closer to Thomas.

“Shhh! But you’re right. I raised
that point myself. No bank, including ours, will give them money
unless some other rated entity guarantees the loan.”

“So who’s doing that? The World
Bank?”

“Not the World Bank, though that
could make sense.” Stephan thought how much he missed being able to
confide in someone who was at least his intellectual equal. He
glanced around again and lowered his voice. “It’s actually the West
German government. I’ve only been involved in discussions on the
technical aspects so I’m not clear about the background details,
and that’s extremely confidential anyway. All the documentation is
in the hands of the Ministry of Finance and the Bundesbank and I
don’t get to see it. Not even the Russians are at the meetings.
You’re the first person I’ve mentioned this to. And you absolutely
must, must, must, keep it completely secret.”

“But why would the German
government be doing this? Isn’t that kind of odd?”

“I’ve tried asking Herren but he
was always vague although he did mention similar examples. The US
has been funding Israel for years, for instance, and it’s poured
money into areas to buy influence or control countries to their own
benefit all over the place - Nicaragua, El Salvador, funding the
coup against Allende in Chile, Egypt, other places in the Middle
East, working with the Brits to get rid of Mossadegh in Iran way
back in the '50s, and plenty more. Maybe no one's quite as bad as
the US but they're all at it, the Brits, the French, us, the USSR,
most countries. The thing is, though, that West Germany and the
USSR are really on opposite sides of the political spectrum even
though we’re not as paranoid as the US – you’ll remember that
Reagan called the USSR ‘the Empire of Evil’ a few years ago. That’s
the bit I don’t really understand. Why is the government prepared
to guarantee this? What's the payoff?”

“Well, Reagan always was a bit
loopy about these things but even allowing for that West Germany
and the USSR really are on opposite sides, as you say, economically
anyway, and it does seem very odd.”

“My guess is there’s some deal
going on. West Germany’s getting something in return. There’s been
little bits here and there I’ve picked up, overheard, whatever. For
instance, some months ago, Herren came into my office, something he
rarely does, and asked me whether I knew anything about the
Louisiana Purchase.”

“That was when the United States
bought a large chunk of French colonial territory in eighteen
something?”

“Yes, exactly. We discussed it
for around ten minutes, agreeing on how intelligent Jefferson had
been to buy from the French when Napoleon was at war and needed the
money. What was it Rothschild used to say 'Buy on the sound of
cannon, sell on the sound of trumpets.' After the Napoleonic wars
the French would never have sold anyway, most likely. But think of
it. Imagine a quarter of present US territory, even a bit more,
right down the middle from the Canadian border to the Mexican Gulf,
being French. Instead of the US we’d have had three countries
there, maybe, a couple of Anglophone ones sandwiching a Francophone
one.”

“Who cares about the Dakotas,
Oklahoma, Montana, all that dismal lot? Nothing but grain growing
prairies worked by inbreds. Oh, and a few mountains. The really
important question is what about New Orleans? That music, those
sounds, that jazz, the atmosphere, Mardi Gras, the food, the women,
best place in the whole damn US of A!”

Stephan laughed. “Might have
become even better!”

Thomas nodded, perhaps thinking
of a Creole Paris. “Well, my guess is that the Americans would have
bought it, so to speak, some time later anyway, just like they did
with Texas and California – bring in plenty of soldiers with plenty
of fire power and make the Mexicans an offer they just couldn’t
refuse!”

“Possibly, but remember that the
French were US allies in the Revolution. But anyway, the point is
that after this conversation, Herren asked me if there were any
lessons to be learned from that event. I answered that certainly
one lesson was that it paid to propose a deal when the other side
is at its weakest. He agreed with me, smiled and walked back into
his office. At the time I was a bit puzzled about what all of this
meant, but now it’s starting to make sense.”

“Wait a minute. You’re not
telling me you think West Germany has struck a deal to …
”

“Shhh. Not so loud.” Stephan
admonished him, coming closer and looking around behind
him.

“Yes, that’s exactly what I
think. I know it sounds absurd, but that’s politics. It hasn’t
changed in the last hundred years as much as we sometimes think it
has. It’s only that the smoke screen has got thicker. Why do you
think the East German government is tolerating all the
demonstrations that are going on now against it? Only a year ago,
they would have sent the tanks against the people without thinking
twice. Now they’re being stopped by the Russians. And it’s only a
question of time before the whole house of cards falls. Without the
Russians, the DDR makes no sense whatsoever.”

“You’re right about that. But how
can you be so sure of what's planned?”

“There’s something else.
Something I overheard last week, waiting to see Herren. His
secretary had let me through but I stopped in front of his private
door because I heard him pick up the phone and realised he was
talking with the Chancellor. I only heard one side, obviously, and
so only snippets, but it was quite extraordinary. They were talking
about the East and Herren asked Kohl whether the issue of the
military bases had been solved and whether a larger amount of money
would have changed matters. He said that sixty or even seventy
billion could be raised if necessary. Then he made a comment that
things needed to happen in East Germany first and so Kohl should
wait before telling the Western European allies. That was all I
heard, though. His secretary came to tell me that he was taking an
important call and that I should return later.”

Thomas, his meal forgotten, had
been sitting with his fork in the air, arrested on the way to his
mouth. He ate the mouthful absently, leaned closer, whistled again
softly, and put his fork down.

“So this huge loan has something
to do with East Germany?”

“I’m certain of it. The
impression I got was that Bonn will back the loan if they get
Gorbachev’s support on a pan-German solution of some kind. It
probably doesn’t mean reunification, but maybe a gradual
liberalisation and a common economic market, something like that.
German governments have been after that sort of thing since the
fifties, a way to work towards the former unity. The problem has
always been the USSR.”

Thomas took a gulp of his
Riesling. “Incredible! So, the Berlin Purchase, eh?”

“Look, Thomas, please, please
don’t breathe a word about this. If anything leaks to the press,
you’ll find my balls at the boulette shop.”

Chapter 14

Tuesday October 3
1989

“SO, tell us what happened in
Frankfurt yesterday. Everything. Leave nothing out, no matter how
trivial you think it is. I’ll decide what’s important.”

Dieter’s voice was soft but clear
in the large, empty room furnished only with a few scattered chairs
and the solid table at which he was sitting. There were no windows,
Thomas saw, no pictures or other decorations, and the walls looked
irregular and slightly wavy, as if they were padded or insulated
with some soft, grey plastic. Bettina sat in a corner, fidgeting
with a pencil. Every so often she looked at Thomas as if willing
him to understand something she was trying to convey.

Thomas had flown in that morning
to West Berlin's airport, Tegel, from Frankfurt. As he’d entered
the arrivals hall he’d noticed two men in dark glasses standing
slightly to one side, watching the stream of passengers. He’d made
for the exit, intending to get the airport bus to the centre and
return to his apartment for a few hours before crossing to East
Berlin for his meeting with Dieter late afternoon, but the men had
fallen into step beside him, one on each side. The larger one had
gripped his left biceps firmly and steered him to a car with
darkened windows.

“Colonel Dieter would like to see
you straight away, if that’s convenient.” he had said, stroking his
moustache lightly on each side with his free hand as he spoke.
Despite the apparent courtesy Thomas recognised it as the order it
was. Ushered into the front seat he’d surreptitiously tried the
handle as the driver was getting in finding, exactly as he’d
expected, that he could open neither the door nor the
window.

It had been a long drive and the
nondescript, semi-abandoned building in East Berlin’s suburbs
reminded Thomas ominously of his prison cell. Dieter had greeted
him briefly then pointed to a chair and as he’d sat down the two
men had taken up positions by the only door.

“Start from your arrival at the
Deutsche Bank building.”

“As soon as I arrived, I met with
Stephan. He showed me around the building, then we had
lunch.”

“Did you visit his
office?”