The Helsinki Pact (27 page)

He spread out the house plans on
the small table and looked at the notes on the current uses of the
rooms, measurements and other useful details. There were similar
detailed maps for Roehrberg’s and Spitze’s villas. His head
hurt.

“We’d better head out soon.”
Bettina said after a while, tidying away her papers and gathering
up her clothes to change in the bathroom. “Almost time to meet our
Herr Henkel.”

Chapter 21

Sunday January 14
1990, evening

BETTINA and Thomas were silent as
they drove to the appointment with Henkel, each immersed in their
own thoughts. Bettina was nervous, mulling over how best to
approach Henkel and get information from him. On one occasion she
nearly clipped a parked car as she turned a corner. Thomas was
tense and distracted because they’d finally agreed that he’d enter
the house secretly while Bettina kept Henkel occupied in the living
room. Their argument about this approach an hour earlier had been
fierce although the absurdity of sitting on the mattresses on the
floor whispering and hissing at each other to avoid being overheard
by the Dornbusches had struck them simultaneously and released some
of the anger and tension between them.

She parked the car some distance
from Henkel’s house. This was a stately villa set in a large walled
garden and situated in the Prussian quarter, a favoured locality
with the Dresdener Party hierarchy and one of the most elegant
residential areas of the city. This was less than a kilometre from
the Stasi office complex in the Bautzner Strasse and close to the
houses of the other two officials, Roehrberg and Spitze.

“Once I’m confident Henkel’s
alone in the house” she had said “I’ll send you a signal that it’s
safe to come in. Look, we’ll be in the living room, here. I’ll
excuse myself to go to the bathroom. The nearest one’s on the
ground floor, here, so that’s where Henkel will direct me. I’ll
switch the light on and off three times then leave it on for a few
moments – you’ll see that easily from the garden. I’ll unlatch the
window so you can squeeze through into the house that
way.”

“I don’t like it at all.” he’d
objected. “You can't know who’s in the house and he won’t tell you.
There could be a dog. He might have a housekeeper, maybe a
girlfriend keeping out of sight.”

“Trust me, I know how to find
out, and I shall. Once you’re inside go to the study, here, and
check what documents you can find. Photograph anything interesting
but, anyway, take as many pictures as you can, including of the
room itself. Check whether there’s any money hidden or any pointers
to it anywhere. Look behind the pictures for wall safes. Photograph
anything of that kind you discover. If you’ve time check under the
carpets and floorboards.”

“You’re mad! I can’t do all that
while you’re nearly next door chatting to Henkel. Much better if we
break in while he’s away. What if I drop something, scrape a chair
maybe? Any noise like that and he’ll be on to me and we’ll both be
in the shit. What if a drawer squeaks? Why don't I open up the roof
while I'm at it; there's bound to be a secret room in
there?”

“The only squeaking I can hear is
this frightened mouse talking to me.” she’d said. “But I’m not
giving you a choice. All these houses have sophisticated alarm
systems linked to the Bautzner Strasse complex and five minutes
after we broke in they’d be here with the building surrounded. We
wouldn’t stand a chance. The only realistic time is when the
alarm’s off and that’s only when he’s at home. Just do
it.”

Thomas stood in shadow some
distance away and watched as Bettina walked into the circle of
light by the gate and pressed the intercom button, glancing up at
the point of the brilliant cone of light in which she now stood,
shielding her eyes from the glare of the security lamp. She pressed
the button again and waited, then angrily pressed it a third time
before shortly walking back to where Thomas was waiting.

“He’s not answering.”

“Yes. Strange. Judging by the
lights he's at home. Maybe the intercom isn’t working.”

“Seems OK. I heard a buzz when I
pressed it and, anyway, if it was broken he’d have warned me when
we spoke on the phone.”

A dark blue Zil cruised slowly
past, moving down Böhmerstrasse, its lights chasing the shadows and
illuminating the pair briefly. Instinctively Thomas had turned his
back to the street and embraced and hid Bettina as the car
approached, lingering until it had well gone.

“Maybe he’s in the garden and
can’t hear the intercom. I'll try it another couple of times and if
there’s still no reply we’ll find somewhere and phone him. If we
don't get him here we'll try the office – maybe he had to go there
and is just running a little late. Anyway, we can’t hang about,
people are going to notice.”

She returned a few minutes
later.

“Still nothing. Let’s go. There’s
a restaurant not far from here, the Weisser Hirsch, just down the
hill. They’ll let me use the phone. You’d better wait in the car
for me.”

Thomas drove, dropped Bettina and
parked some distance from the entrance and well away from street
lamps. The street was empty but Thomas stiffened as he saw in the
mirror a thickset man in a raincoat, a hat low over his eyes and
with a small dog on a lead, approaching on his side of the road. It
was too late to hide but as the man reached the car Thomas turned,
leaned away from the pavement, and busied himself looking in the
glove compartment until he saw the man safely in front and about to
round a corner. Moments later Bettina strode out of the restaurant
towards him, entered the car and slammed the door shut.

“Goddamn it!” she snapped. “No
reply. Maybe Henkel is doing this on purpose to see how I react.
Maybe he’s just sitting at home in front of the TV waiting to see
what I’ll do next.”

Thomas glanced at his watch.
“It’s half an hour after you arranged to meet him here. I'd say
you’d be fully justified in climbing into the garden to see if he’s
at home. You’re on a mission from HQ. You’ve got a formal
appointment and he’s late. If you’re found in the garden you can
easily justify it, explain what’s happened, say why you’re
there.”

“Whereas your presence couldn’t
be justified, right?”

Thomas sighed, irritated by the
implication that he was letting her take all the risk.

“That’s not what I meant. Of
course my presence could be justified as much as yours. You could
confirm that. But what if Henkel's at home and sees two strangers
prowling round in his garden or climbing through a window? Who
knows how he’d react and, anyway, if that happens I’m hardly going
to be invisible am I? I can’t waltz in behind you going ‘Don’t mind
me Mr Henkel, I just need to root through your stuff while you’re
with Bettina; this is the way to the study, isn’t it?’ But, OK, if
we’re careful enough we’ll be able to see if he really is around
without his seeing us.”

Thomas drove a few metres away
from the gate towards the side of the house, choosing that part of
the road least lit by street lamps. The solid stone-built garden
wall, topped with metal spikes, was approaching three metres in
height and he parked as close to it as he could manage.

“You’re not exactly dressed for
this kind of thing are you?” He laughed and his glance lingered on
the stylish light grey silk dress which clung to her body, a dress
chosen to distract Henkel and imply that she posed little
threat.

Stepping on the bumper Thomas
jumped lightly on to the boot then stepped on to the Trabant’s roof
before she could say anything. Reaching up he grasped a spike in
each hand and reverse abseiled up the wall till he could swing his
left leg up into a space between a couple of spikes, twist his body
and lever himself fully on to the wall. That the wall was convex
and the coping stones of smoothly polished marble made balancing
difficult. He anchored himself and squatted carefully between two
spikes, stretching out a hand and pulling her until she could
similarly grasp the spikes and haul herself up beside him. The
momentum of her arrival caused them both to teeter wildly for a
moment before clinging together, balancing and recovering their
positions.

“Careful Bettina! These spikes
are sharp. If we slip and fall on them, well ... let's say I prefer
the tone of my voice as it is.”

Thomas looked into the garden,
scanning the borders and bushes as well as he could from their
precarious position. He froze as he saw a slight movement by a tree
then realised it was the breeze swaying a small hanging
branch.

“Dogs? You mentioned rottweilers.
What did the file say about that?”

Bettina ignored him and, sensing
her embarrassment, he realised that, irritated earlier with his
attitude, she’d made up the story of guard dogs, needling and
testing him further.

Edging round carefully Thomas
bent down, firmly grasped a spike in each hand, shuffled his feet
backwards to the garden edge of the wall, lowered himself on his
stretched arms and dropped almost silently into a flower bed.
Bettina threw down her shoes and followed and for a few moments
they stood absolutely still, hardly breathing, little fingers
unconsciously linked, listening to the night sounds and letting
their eyes get accustomed to the darkness so that they could start
to see better the outline of the garden and the bushes and shrubs
between them and the dark bulk of the house with a single window –
the kitchen, Thomas realised – spilling a shaft of brightness
towards them.

As they moved carefully towards
the house there was a rustle of leaves in a dark part of the
shrubbery to their right. They froze and Thomas could feel his
heart hammering as they listened. Suddenly Bettina squealed, farted
involuntarily, then laughed softly and picked up the cat which had
begun making figures of eight by her feet, rubbing itself on her
bare legs and purring.

“Not much of a guard tiger are
you?” she said, dangling the cat in front of her and rubbing her
nose affectionately to its own, then putting it down. The cat
miaowed and made little scampering rushes ahead of them as they
moved to the house.

They peered in through the
kitchen window. The remains of a meal, complete with emptied bottle
of wine and a used glass, stood by the sink but the room was empty
and there was no one in the corridor which was partly visible
through the open door.

They moved along the wall to the
living room. The blinds on the windows looking to the front of the
house were down but those on the side window were not. The room was
dark but they could see outlines of the furniture, wooden cabinets
and a large sofa, in the light coming through the open door from
the kitchen. There appeared to be no one around.

“Let’s see if any of the windows
are open.” Thomas whispered. “If we can find a way in, you go first
and call out loudly to him. If he doesn’t respond I’ll follow you
in. If the alarm system starts, well, we’ll just have to get the
hell out of it and back to the car as fast as we can.”

This side window to the living
room was firmly shut as were the large, white framed windows facing
the front. They felt their way carefully to the far side, walking
on the strips of grass by the house walls to avoid the gravel path
in front. Behind them as they rounded the next corner was the main
stretch of the garden, filled with ornamental flowers and long
established trees. There was a French window in this wall leading
into what looked like a smaller living room and when Bettina turned
the handle and pushed the door it swung open silently into the
room. She stepped inside and the cat scampered after
her.

“Mr Henkel. Mr Henkel! It’s
Bettina List. We’re due to meet and you didn't answer the phone. Mr
Henkel. Are you there?”

She giggled to herself and
whispered “So me and my hired gun, we jest nipped over your spikes,
and broke into your house, overpowering your guard cat on the way.
A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do when the intercom don’t
work!”

Racked with nervous laughter she
stuffed the edge of a cushion into her mouth and collapsed, shaking
and snorting, on to a sofa with its scarlet silk cushions. The cat
twined round her legs. Thomas peered round the door and she waved
her gun, gesturing to him to come in.

The house muffled the garden’s
night sounds and the sudden silence felt oppressive, growing and
looming more obtrusive. Even the noise of the scant traffic on the
street hardly reached them but that there was no sound from the
alarm system was disturbing. She could feel her heart pounding in
the quietness. She wondered if the alarm was a silent one, alerting
security staff at the Stasi offices without warning an intruder.
They’d find that out soon enough and she’d have to talk fast to
explain about her meeting with Henkel. The files described Henkel
as meticulous and obsessive, almost paranoid in his approach to
security. His alarm system was the most sophisticated of the three
and it made no sense that they could enter so easily without
anything happening.

Bettina felt cold and hot at the
same time. Pearls of sweat formed on her forehead and her armpits
felt damp. She could even hear her heart now, she thought. She
stopped for a moment, supporting herself on the back of the sofa
and breathed slowly and deeply to try to calm herself. She was
about to mention the alarm but moved instead to the door as Thomas
cautiously flashed his torch around the room. There was a whisky
glass on an occasional table set beside a dark leather easy chair
next to the sofa. The bottle beside it was almost empty.