The Helsinki Pact (43 page)

Switching on his torch he cursed
on discovering that the batteries were very low so that he could
hardly see where he was going. Too late he remembered the set of
new batteries he’d left on their dressing table to make sure they
weren’t forgotten. As he moved further into the room and out into
the corridor the moonlight faded and although the torch gave hardly
any light his eyes had acclimatised and he was able to move
reasonably well although although he banged his shin hard on a low
table in his way and hopped in pain for some seconds.

He opened another door and found
himself at the top of stairs leading to the lower floors. The
building was designed with a large rectangular atrium roofed with
glass through which moonlight now streamed making his descent easy.
On the ground floor he stopped, looked around to orientate himself
and to work out where the exit to Ziegelstrasse was likely to
be.

As he left the atrium by a nearby
corridor the light from the moon again faded and half way along his
torch gave up completely forcing him to feel his way. At the end
the corridor became a T-junction and the direction he tried first
became a dead end lined with nothing but locked doors. Frustrated
and angry at the loss of time, cursing himself again for his
stupidity in forgetting the batteries he retraced his steps and now
saw, as his eyes had again become accustomed to the darkness, a
faint glow ahead of him growing brighter and which turned out to be
moonlight coming through a fanlight above what had to be the
outside door.

Running his hands down the edge
of the door he found what felt like a cylinder deadlock with a
doorknob further down but no sign of a mortice lock as well. He
turned both knobs and pulled at the door without success. He tried
again, first ensuring that the lock was caught open and then
twisting the doorknob with both hands and tugging hard.

Perplexed and frustrated, the
moonlight little help as it cast light behind him and left the door
in shadowy darkness, he looked at the door and then, realising, ran
his hands round the frame until he found the bolts securing it
further, one at the top and the other near the foot. They were
stiff but slid back without too great an effort and as he turned
the door knob and pulled the door it began to open with a slight
creak. At the noise a man, dressed in a long sludgy green, belted
greatcoat, standing a few metres away on the edge of the pavement,
entirely along and looking into the street, threw down his
cigarette and turned towards the opening door.

Chapter 36

Thursday January 18
1990, early hours

“SO, what kept you Thomas? Had a
bit of a sleep on the way, did we? Let me in – it’s fucking
freezing out here.” She punched him lightly on the shoulder as she
stepped past him then turned and threw her arms around him.
“Actually, that was pretty amazing. Except you scared the hell out
of me on that last bit. I thought you weren’t going to reach the
balcony, maybe even come crashing down.”

She hugged him again, hard, and
held her face against his for a moment. “Don’t ever, ever, do
anything like that to me again. Just don't. Please.” They stood
together for a moment.

"That man," he asked "who was he?
That's what scared the hell out me - seeing him there and no sign
of you. I thought he was Vopo. And then when you knocked just now I
couldn't be sure that it was you. What happened?"

"Him? Oh, that's Heinz." She bent
her fingers and studied her nails. "I've a date with him tomorrow
evening, well, half past midnight. Here. Just outside."

He stared at her.

"He works night shift round the
corner, making uniforms, things like that." She smiled at his
confusion. "His wife's just run away with someone to the West and
he was pretty fed up so he'd come out for a smoke on his long break
and to think about things. I knew where his factory was so I asked
for directions to a street near there and he walked part of the way
with me and then I doubled back. He said he saw the door opening
but I said it was probably just the cleaners and he accepted that."
She smiled again. "He was sweet. Shame I have to stand him up
tomorrow. Maybe, though, I could just ... a quickie ... you
wouldn't mind would you?" She laughed and skipped out of the way as
Thomas growled and lunged at her.

“Don't you dare! OK. Let’s get
moving, though I’m not sure how we can even start. This place is a
maze, it could take us forever just to find the right room, and all
the doors seem to be locked as well. We’ll need your torch, mine’s
given up.”

As they walked along the corridor
and turned to return to the atrium they flashed Bettina's torch on
the doors, trying them randomly. On each door there was a brass
casing holding a light yellow card with a single name – A
Altdorfer, H Burgkmair, H Bosch, I Calvino, A Merkel, name after
name but with no indication of the sex or status of the employees
working behind the doors.

“This is hopeless! These are just
private offices, I think. Maybe the archives are upstairs.” It was
now just after one in the morning and Thomas’s tone was gloomy as
he could see things becoming a complete failure. They went to the
stairs leading up from the atrium floor and lit by moonlight they
climbed to the top of the building. At first this looked identical
to the area they’d just left but as soon as Thomas checked a door
their excitement returned. Instead of names on the doors the cards
now had dates.

“Jan-Mar 1967, Apr-May, 1967 ...
” he read out then moved rapidly along the corridor. “Jun-Jul 1968
... Apr-May 1970 ... ”

The last entry on the corridor,
at the end furthest from the atrium, was Nov-Dec 1971. They tried
the neighbouring corridor but the dates there were earlier. In the
other direction they found 1972, then 1974 and as they moved round
the edge of the atrium and into the corridors finally hit 1979
before the door cards changed again, now marked with titles like
‘Stationery’, ‘Cleaning supplies’, “Men”, “Women”, ‘Interview 1’,
‘Interview 2’, and with several claiming assertively to be private.
They went down the stairs one level and after further false starts
again picked up the date trail.

“OK, we’ve got dates again. 1980!
Looks like we’re on the right floor at least.” Thomas laughed, his
earlier brush with death forgotten in the excitement of tracking
down the document. “And only thirty or forty locked offices to
search in, what is it now, a little over four hours, five if we
push it!” He laughed again. He’d just have to try using his master
keys to open the various doors and then use the keys that Bettina
had persuaded Georg to lend her to try the filing
cabinets.

“I should have asked Georg the
date in which the current President of the Court was named −
they've probably not backdated it beyond that.” Bettina
apologised.

In the distance, towards
Lothringerstrasse, there was a noise of a key being turned and then
a door scraping open. Thomas stopped and held his breath, listening
to the noise which was now certainly that of the main door being
pushed shut and locked. The faint sound of footsteps was gradually
becoming more distinct, moving towards them.

“Shit! It must be the guard doing
a patrol, coming to check all’s OK.” Thomas peered over the balcony
but could see nothing in the shadows.

There was nowhere to hide and all
the doors were locked. Breaking into an office would be impossible
without being heard. They took off their shoes, knotted the laces
together and hung them round their necks. By now the noise from the
hard leather shoes of the intruder had grown louder and was mixed
with speech, indistinct but clearly speech. “Shit! There must be
two of them. Jesus! Let’s hope they stick together or at least stay
downstairs.”

Then there was the sound of a
door opening followed by a silence which was more unnerving than
the footsteps had been. A long minute passed, then a second which
stretched on and on and well into the third again the sound of a
door opening with, faintly in the background before it banged shut
the noise of a cistern flushing. The footsteps started again and
and they strained to distinguish the number. Now it was clear that
the steps were coming up the stairs towards them.

They had already established that
all the side corridors running off the main perimeter corridor were
dead ends. All they could do was stick to the main perimeter
corridor, keeping ahead and hoping that the guard or guards would
do one circuit only and then leave. They set off, moving as rapidly
as they dared, away from the moonlit staircase to the relative
darkness of the perimeter corridor but it seemed that as the
following footsteps reached the the top they turned towards them
and increased in speed. Thomas and Bettina moved as fast as they
dared and again the footsteps moved faster in turn. Now they were
almost running but hampered by the need to keep as quiet as
possible. At the corner of Schulgutstrasse and Ziegelstrasse, they
paused to catch their breath, wondering how long they could survive
this chase in the darkness without giving themselves
away.

Suddenly, from the direction of
the following footsteps, the beam of a powerful torch cut them out
of the blackness, blinding them, turning them into perfect targets.
There was nothing they could do, no chance of escape. There was a
clink of metal and Thomas braced himself for a shot. He moved to
Bettina and held her, turning to shield her with his body. He felt
in his pocket and eased out his pistol, hiding it for the
moment.

The figure moved nearer,
breathing hard, saying nothing, the torch still trained on them but
wavering as if it was too heavy to hold still. Suddenly the figure
stopped and sank to the floor in front of them.

“Bettina!” it croaked. “Bettina!
You can’t do this to an old man.”

“Georg!” she shouted. “Damn it,
Georg, you scared the shit out of us.”

"Jesus!" said Thomas crossly.
"Forget this old man stuff. You can't do that to us. We were
pissing ourselves not knowing what was happening. We could have
been shot. I nearly shot you. If you're a friend why didn't you say
who you were?"

Bettina patted him on the arm,
laughed softly in relief, then reached out to help Georg to his
feet and hugged him. The large bunch of keys at Georg's waist
clinked as he moved.

“I told the custodian there was
an emergency hearing and I needed the keys to access documents
urgently for a court case tomorrow." He stopped and panted for some
moments, leaning forward with his hands on his knees. "I was sure
you’d be here and that you could do with some help.” Georg said.
“He lives out of town, some distance away, but I’d hoped to get
here by midnight only there was an accident on the road back and
that delayed me seriously.”

“Georg, this is Thomas. He’s a
friend.” The two shook hands.

“Georg, when did the current
Court president get nominated?” Thomas asked.

Georg thought for a moment. “It
must have been just over seven years ago, in 1982,” he said
finally. “Ah, I see. If his signature’s on the document then it has
to be after he was appointed. So we only need to look between 1982
and 1985. Well, maybe till 1989 if I'm wrong about why they did it
but let's start with those four years.”

“And if a new document was to be
added to an existing list it would have to be placed as the last
one of the year because of the numbering, wouldn’t it. So we only
need to check the December files of the various years.” Thomas
added.

“That’s rightThat's good
thinking. So that’s only four sets of files to check. Or maybe
eight maximum. Let’s go!” Georg was smiling now, caught up in their
enthusiasm.

The door marked “Nov-Dec 1982”
was two side corridors away and opened easily when Georg selected a
key from his bunch and fitted it into the lock. The room was
approximately four metres square painted in the standard grey of
the DDR as if using a bright colour would show a lack of serious
purpose in the important task of building socialism in the country.
The walls were lined with three-drawer filing cabinets in an
identical shade to the walls, each drawer neatly labelled with
numbers which meant nothing to Thomas or Bettina.

“Don’t worry!” Georg said,
noticing their dismay. “Sifting paper is now my speciality. Look,
they’re all ordered by date and protocol number. There’s probably
only one drawer which has the files of the thirty-first of
December. The later the date, the farther back in the room it is.
Then it moves from left to right.” He moved to the right side of
the room. “Here it is. Bring your torch over.” He pulled out
another key and opened the bottom drawer of the file cabinet. “It
should be somewhere in here.” He pulled out a couple of files and
laid them out. “Protocol 82/9227. No, this isn’t it. A sentence on
a petty theft. Protocol 82/9228. Nothing.”

Thomas and Bettina glanced at
each other, marvelling at the speed with which Georg checked
through the files, realising it would have probably taken them an
hour merely to find the right cabinet. Finally Georg stood up.
“No.” he said, locking the cabinet and getting up, “It’s not here.
Let’s try another year.”

They moved down the corridor and
into the “December 1983” room. It took fifteen minutes for Georg to
sift through the cabinet, but again he found nothing.