The Helsinki Pact (19 page)

“No, we didn’t. That would have
required extra security procedures, because it’s on the Board
members’ floor. He only showed me around the other parts of the
twin towers. At lunch, we discussed the people I’d be meeting for
the interviews. He told me a little about what they did, and what
they were likely to ask.”

As Thomas spoke, he kept looking
at the faces around the room. The bigger man was again stroking his
moustache and there appeared to be a slight upward curl to his
lips. Dieter remained as impassive as ever. Bettina seemed to be
growing more and more nervous.

“Did he say anything interesting
about them?” Dieter asked nonchalantly.

“No, not really. They were all
from corporate finance, and mainly worked on corporate Eurobonds
for German and international clients. I can tell you later about
the interviews themselves.”

Thomas had rehearsed carefully
what he would say to Dieter when they met, although doing so had
cost him a sleepless night. He’d worked out what to say to suggest
that Stephan had been slightly indiscreet but without giving any
hint of what’s he’d actually learned at lunch.

“How long was your lunch with
Stephan? Did you meet anyone else in the restaurant or while you
were touring the building?”

“I guess it was about forty
minutes. And, no, it was just Stephan and me. He greeted some
colleagues during our tour but didn’t introduce me. We reminisced a
bit over lunch, school days, things like that, and then Stephan
told me a little about the bank and what he was doing but said he
couldn’t really go into much detail.”

“Tell us about Mr Herren. Did
Stephan tell you at all what Herren was doing, or what his travel
plans were, perhaps what business meetings he was
attending?”

Dieter steepled his fingers,
placed them on his mouth and looked steadily over them at Thomas.
Thomas’s felt his heart starting to thump and he glanced away and
took a couple of breaths to steady himself. Bettina caught his eye,
fidgeted on her chair, screwed her eyes up suddenly and looked down
at her feet. Thomas to a breath to try to calm himself.

“I tried to bring Herren up in
conversation a couple of times, like we had agreed. All Stephan
said was that Herren had been busy with the acquisition of a UK
merchant bank, and that he kept travelling a lot. He did say he’d
had a meeting recently with Chancellor Kohl but he said he didn’t
know what it was about. He wouldn’t go into more details, however,
and I didn’t want to make him suspicious by pressing him too
much.”

“Where was Herren
travelling?”

“He only mentioned that he was
leaving again next Monday morning, but didn’t say where. He said
he’d be away for a few days and that he, Stephan, was looking
forward to a bit less pressure in the office.”

“And that’s all he
said.”

Thomas hesitated. “Basically,
yes.”

“You’re quite sure of that, Mr
Wundart? Nothing you want to add?”

“This is easier than I expected.”
thought Thomas, pleased with his deception.

“Yes. There was one thing I
forgot. Sorry. Stephan said that Herren had gone to Mainz suddenly
last week. He said that he’d telephoned first thing in the morning
to cancel a meeting and returned in the early evening, saying only
that he’d gone to watch a golf match.”

As Dieter stared at him Thomas
wondered if he’d gone too far with that rococo extra
touch.

“Hmmm. A golf match! Really? A
golf match? And I'd thought that he found golf boring, that
Herren's game was tennis.” Dieter said, pronouncing the sentences
slowly and carefully as if watching such an event showed Herren in
a surprising but quite admirable light which he wanted to savour
fully. “Well, well. It’s as I feared.” He paused for a long moment,
continuing to look at Thomas. He shook his head almost
imperceptibly and exhaled and Thomas was reminded suddenly of his
headmaster expressing disappointment at some behaviour in which
he’d been caught out. Bettina was now very still, tense, staring at
the floor, refusing to meet his eye.

“Certain things just take time
and learning can be a gradual process. I’m sure you’re a quick
learner, though, Thomas, and our friends here may help to teach you
just how useful a good memory can be. Perhaps when we return to
continue this conversation you’ll have some more interesting things
to tell us. Things that, on reflection, you may earlier have
thought so trivial as to be scarcely worth mentioning.”

He got up from his chair and as
he reached the door turned to the larger man. “Spare his face.” he
said. "Come, Bettina."

Fifteen minutes later they
returned. Thomas was crumpled in a corner, barely conscious, his
face streaked with blood from a wound on his scalp and his right
arm at an unnatural angle below his bruised and aching body.
Angrily ordering the smaller man to bring some water, Bettina
cradled Thomas’s head and tidied up the blood streaks and the cut
at the back. As she sprinkled water on his face Thomas could make
out her voice, sounding a million miles distant as he swirled in
and out of consciousness, whispering to him not to hide anything
because Dieter already knew everything about his meeting with
Stephan.

It took another ten minutes
before Thomas fully regained consciousness. He could feel a sharp
pain as he sucked in air to his lungs with difficulty. His right
arm refused to move as he willed it and he saw that the upper part
was at an odd angle and stuck in front of his chest. Bettina gently
helped him drag his body up along the wall till he sat leaning back
on it and his left arm for support.

“Your arm’s dislocated, not
broken.” she said. “We’ll get you a doctor shortly. Now tell us the
truth, Thomas. All of it.”

It was useless to play games.
That much was now painfully clear. He had tried twice with Dieter
but somehow this man was always one step ahead of him. He recounted
the day in the twin towers and the discussion over lunch. He
revealed that he’d met Herren briefly when he’d come to the
restaurant to speak with Stephan. They asked him the same things a
hundred times it seemed, in different ways. It felt as if they had
the puzzle and only a few small pieces were missing. Then they
asked him about his interviews and about whom he’d seen after he
left the bank. Thomas briefly went over the evening with his
brother and his mother.

“Did you tell your brother
anything about why you were in Frankfurt or who’d sent
you?”

“I mentioned meeting Stephan and
my interview but nothing more. Please. He’s just a kid. Keep him
out of this.”

“He’s out of it as long as you
keep him out. And everyone else. If you talk, your life is in
danger but so is theirs. Do I make myself understood?”

It was late afternoon when he
finally reached home. His shoulder, strapped into place by the
doctor who seemed to consider his injuries as routine, was painful
and his body ached. He climbed the stairs with difficulty wondering
what explanation he could give to John but found a note to say he’d
left for a few day holiday at a girlfriend’s house at Wannsee, with
a party of university friends, and that Thomas was welcome to join
them.

He lay down on the bed without
bothering to undress or wash. He drifted in and out of a troubled
sleep and when he woke fully it was well into the following
morning. His shoulder throbbed. He felt sick and profoundly
depressed.

Chapter 15

Sunday October 8
1989

SUNDAY October 8 was a bright,
clear day, one of those where both the past warmth of summer and
the coming bleakness of winter coexist in autumn. There was a
crispness to the air, hinting at later snow from the vast plains to
the east, but in the bright sunshine it was warm. It was
approaching eleven and the three men – East Germany's elderly
leader Erich Honecker, 82 year old Stasi head Erich Mielke, and
Honecker's deputy Egon Krenz, a mere youth of 52 - now nervously
pacing the garden of Honecker’s villa just outside Berlin had spent
most of the past hour inside the house in heated debate over the
disturbing reports of growing unrest throughout the country and how
best to contain it. Dresden had recently been turbulent and in
Leipzig a pastor was openly mocking the government and calling into
question its moral right to govern. The Stasi and KGB were
unanimous in expecting a huge popular demonstration in that city
the following day, a demonstration anticipated to be the largest in
post-war history.

The automatic but strongly
fortified gates flicked open and two official cars crunched over
the gravel and swung round in front of the house.

“Time to start the meeting. Let’s
go in.” said Honecker, opening the door and ushering Krenz and
Mielke into the spotless hall. “There’s Sindermann with Willi
Stoph. Still giving himself airs, still thinking that being
President of the Volkskammer has some status, still not realising
he’s no one. Bloody fool. Still, he had to be invited.”

Leading the way to the large
meeting room at the back of the house Honecker sat down at the head
of the heavy, polished oak table. Krenz sat immediately to his left
and Mielke took his accustomed position at the corner of the far
short end where he could most easily observe everyone present yet
still see through the windows on both walls to observe anyone who
might approach the room.

Within a few minutes the last of
the vehicles arrived and their passengers hurried in to sit round
the table, the more established members looking curiously at some
newcomers. On the marble mantelpiece a large ormolu clock struck
eleven and Honecker rapped the table for attention as the last
stroke died away.

“Comrades! We are facing
uprisings of counter-revolutionary unrest in parts of the
Democratic Republic and we therefore need to take action urgently
to contain and eliminate this treasonous behaviour. I have
accordingly invited to this meeting not only those experienced in
leading the socialist Republic but also others who may usefully
contribute specialist information.”

He glanced round the table and
indicated a man of about sixty with unruly hair turning white, a
keen, intelligent face sitting half way down on his left. “You will
know Comrade Hans Modrow, Secretary of our Socialist Unity Party in
Dresden and therefore responsible for guiding our citizenry there,
a guidance which, if I may say so, perhaps needs some closer
attention. On his left is Comrade General Horst Böhm, head of the
Ministry of State Security in Dresden. He is, I know, someone who
is assiduous in and fully committed to this vitally important
work.”

He looked with some distaste at a
thin-faced man in his late thirties sitting beyond Böhm but
although courtesy to others was not part of his character decided
to treat the newcomer with at least minimal respect, aware that
there was some tension between Putin and Modrow and thinking it
prudent to cultivate possible allies.

“On Comrade Böhm's left is
Comrade Major Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. Comrade Putin is from
Leningrad and is an officer within the Soviet Committee for State
Security. His training has been in monitoring counter-revolutionary
activities and in countering political dissent and his particular
focus is on helping foreigners to understand how they might prove
useful to us. It is true that the KGB might well learn from our own
Ministry how best to manage matters of State security but I
nevertheless thought it might be helpful to hear whether Comrade
Putin could contribute anything helpful.”

He looked round the table fixing
each person with a direct gaze, relishing the authority which had
kept him in power since the very beginning of the East German
state, initially as the protégé of Walter Ulbricht, the country’s
first leader, and then as his successor. He gestured to his
right.

“On the advice of Comrade Mielke,
I have asked two others to attend. Comrade General Gerhard Neiber
is the head of the State Security directorate charged with
preventing escapes from the country. Sitting beside him is Comrade
Colonel General Markus Wolf, deputy to and close ally of Comrade
Mielke for 34 years.”

“Here in our Democratic Republic
the freedom and quality of life enjoyed by our citizens makes us
the envy not just of our brothers and sisters in our socialist
neighbours to the east, including even those in Moscow, but also in
the west, now suffering from the excesses of capitalism and the
corruption inevitably attendant on it, exactly as predicted over a
century ago by Comrade Marx. Nevertheless, there remain in our
State a number of citizens affected by the false consciousness
which can arise from being exposed to the pernicious influence of
wrong ideas coming from abroad, sadly even on occasion from other
socialist states.” He glanced pointedly at Putin as he said this.
“This unrest has recently been fomented by assorted criminals and
other treasonous anti-social elements and has to be stopped.
Comrade Mielke?”

Mielke, the state’s leading
secret policeman through his career almost from the founding of the
DDR and head of the Stasi from 1957, arranged the papers before
him.

“As Comrade Honecker has
explained, anti-social elements have been stirring up trouble, much
of it criminal. We therefore need to deal promptly and firmly with
this challenge to the authority of the State and the well-being of
our citizens. Our elite unit, staffed by carefully selected members
of the counter-terrorism and counter-espionage directorates, is
intentionally small, rapidly reactive, and ruthless in action.
Under my direction it will have no hesitation in challenging and
destroying the hostile opposing forces and groups which are seeking
to use what methods they can to bring about changes in power." He
raised his hand and brought it down hard on the table as he spoke.
"There must be zero tolerance of any illegality whatever. We will
use whatever force is necessary to ensure the submission of
counter-revolutionary elements.”