The Helsinki Pact (51 page)

Finding a suitable public
telephone was difficult but he eventually came across one in
Jacobystrasse, isolated enough to make it difficult for someone to
overhear him without being spotted. He sorted through a handful of
coins, thought about what he was going to say to the BND and what
excuse he’d make to Stephan but then decided first to call his
family in Frankfurt. To his relief it was the answering machine
rather than his mother and he left a message explaining that he’d
be travelling for a bit.

There was now no putting off the
critical next call. He knew he had to handle it well, develop
enough interest but not give anything much away. He spent some more
time planning his approach and then pulled out a piece of paper and
dialled the number on it. Almost immediately the phone was
answered.

"Richard Köpp,
please."

In a moment the phone was again
answered, this time by a young but authoritative voice.

“Köpp!”

“Hello, is this Richard
Köpp?”

“Speaking.”

“A mutual acquaintance gave me
your name.” There was a short pause.

“Yes. Go on. Where are you
calling from?”

Thomas recognised the secret
service style, its immediate instinct being to control the
conversation and to try to gather as much information about an
unknown caller as possible.

“East Berlin. We need to talk. I
have information useful to you.”

“Yes. Go on.”

“No. It’s not safe here. I’ll
come to Frankfurt. Can we meet tomorrow?”

“Yes. I’m here. But can you tell
me at least ... ”

“I’ll call you again from
Frankfurt as soon as I get in.”

Next he rang Stephan but learned
from his secretary that he was not yet back in Frankfurt as planned
but had further meetings East Germany. She promised to contact
Stephan immediately. Moments later the phone rang.

"Thomas, I'm really sorry. I'm in
Berlin tonight but as soon as I land I've got meetings with the
senior Berlin-based management over dinner and until really late so
I shan't even be free to meet you after that. Damn! I thought you
were still in Dresden or I might have wangled things differently
but I'm committed now. You're going to be in Frankfurt tomorrow I
hear but tomorrow afternoon I'm off to Leipzig. Damn! Damn! At
least you can stay at my place. I'll warn the porter to expect you
and he can let you have a key. Oh, well, see you next time. Got to
rush."

Thomas hung up, managed to book a
seat on the last flight that evening to Frankfurt, and left the
area immediately. Remembering there was almost no food in the
apartment he bought some black bread and some tinned food and other
items in a small grocery shop. On his way back he passed a tiny
confectioner’s, tucked between two larger shops and proudly
displaying in its window some of the extravagant tarts and
chocolates which had begun to appear in the city, and spent more
money than he would otherwise have thought sensible on getting
something he knew would appeal to Bettina and perhaps soften her
isolation. As he arrived at the apartment block, now uniformly grey
and again desolate as the sun had moved round, he checked that
there was nobody following or watching him, strolling beyond the
door and then doubling back. He opened the door swiftly and raced
up the four flights of stairs, knocking first on the apartment door
in their agreed manner and then opening it with his key.

Bettina put down the headphones.
“She looks worn out!” Thomas thought as he pulled up a chair beside
her and put his arms round her. She rested her head on his
shoulder, closed her eyes and nestled closer.

“How did it go?”

“I’m meeting with one of their
agents tomorrow. I've booked a flight to Frankfurt this evening. I
can stay at Stephan's but he won't be there.”

She sat up, distancing herself
from him so that she could see his face.

“What do you mean, I? Aren’t we
both going?”

“Better if you wait for me here.
I’ll negotiate a deal for both of us, and then we’ll get them to
work out how to bring you over. It’s too dangerous for you to leave
the city now in the ordinary way. The more I think about it the
more certain I am that it whoever had Dieter killed was someone
with influence and authority. They’ve probably passed your name and
picture to all the border crossings, to the train stations and the
airports as well. They could arrest you on any pretext and just
hold you. With luck, at least if they haven’t found the files yet,
I’m relatively unknown. I’m sorry. But it’s really the best way.
Heard anything useful?”

“No, nothing. Nobody has come
into Dieter’s office yet. I expect it won’t take long before
someone does though.”

“Before I go, I need to know what
I can tell them. I can’t risk writing anything down and I’ll
explain that the detail has to come from you but at least I can
give them a good idea of the sorts of things you know
about.”

It started as a trickle but
rapidly grew in scope and volume. Thomas was surprised at the
amount Bettina knew about events ranging from the attempted murder
of the Pope by Ali Agca and the Bulgarian services a decade
earlier, through various quite diverse matters including about the
Red Army Faction training camps and the military support provided
by the East German services. As what she knew flooded out, some of
her information first hand, some of it clearly from other agents or
perhaps through Dieter, he became more and more convinced of its
value to the BND. There was plenty they could offer and he became
increasingly confident they could use it to save
themselves.

“Now, tell me all you know about
Herren’s assassination.” He had waited to ask this question until
the end. He wasn’t sure he wanted to have it confirmed that the
Stasi had actually been involved and that the information he’d
delivered had in fact been used to help the terrorists plan and
complete the attack. Rather, he still hoped Bettina had earlier
told him the truth. She held his gaze without speaking and he
sensed that she was thinking the same, asking herself whether he
really wanted an answer to that same question. “Do you really want
to know?”

He nodded slowly. “Yes, I have to
know about that. Without some credible information then the other
stuff is going to be discounted. But if we can tell the BND things
they perhaps don’t actually know that will make them listen to us
and help us.”

“Herren was on our list of
priorities for a long while. He had enormous political influence.
He had control of much of Germany’s industry, and particularly the
defence industry, through Deutsche Bank’s participation in
Daimler-Benz. And he enjoyed a special relationship with the
Chancellor.”

“Do you mean that you’d intended
to assassinate him?”

“No, we needed to, as we called
it, source him. He was a perfect source of valuable information.
That’s why Dieter was so pleased when he learned of Stephan’s role.
Maybe in time we could have found out something about Herren,
something compromising, a bit of evidence that could have helped us
blackmail him, get him gradually under our control. But in the
beginning it was the value of the information we could get about
West German industry, about secret areas of West German politics
and policies, about all sorts of little things as well, that was
important to us.”

“So why kill him?”

“Exactly. That’s the last thing
we wanted. We needed him alive. But we had to share the information
youupi gave us. For instance, it was the twenty-second department
that dealt with terrorists, not us. And they were among those who
had to be kept informed of what we knew.”

“So you’re saying it’s possible
that the information I provided on Herren was leaked to the
Baader-Meinhof gang even if the Stasi didn’t order his
assassination? Nods and winks, maybe?”

“I know for a fact Dieter didn’t
want Herren dead and would never have ordered or requested that. He
was furious when he heard the news. Absolutely furious. Storming
around and office and talking of going direct to Mielke. But you’re
right in saying our politicians wanted Herren dead. Dieter had to
file and report your conversations immediately and so among the
others the political spheres were updated, and their reaction was
extremely violent.”

“So the Party found out too. And
they were the ones who were most directly affected, since they
would be losing their position and influence.” Thomas said.
“Unification was at stake and the SED and the Stasi were the
sacrifices to help achieve that and of course they didn’t like
it.”

“Yes, killing Herren was a
simplistic attempt to halt the negotiations, or at least delay
them. Dieter only found out after the assassination that a Major
Gudenberg of the twenty-second division had been the one who leaked
the information - and he was rapidly promoted to
Colonel.”

“They attacked the West Germans
because they couldn’t lift their hands against the
Soviets.”

“The SED tried to get the Soviet
generals to overturn Gorbachev but failed. Then we learned that 50
billion DM will be paid by West Germany to the USSR.” Bettina said.
“Officially, it’s for the replacement of the military bases and the
repatriation of the Soviet military. Then, there’s the amount to be
paid to their allies in Europe.”

“What do you mean?”

“You remember the initial
reactions after the fall of the Wall? The French and the British
kept insisting that unification was out of the question and that an
enlarged Germany would pose a threat to European
equilibrium.”

“Yes, I remember. Thatcher had
spoken quite clearly against the idea.”

“Then Kohl made his speech on the
ten points to unification and things really got going. We heard
through our contacts in London that the deal to get agreement was
that Germany should pay a larger share of the European Community’s
bill for the next ten years.”

Thomas thought back to his first
meeting with Dieter and Dieter’s comment then: “Most of real
history is never written down.”

It was now early evening and much
as Thomas ached to stay with Bettina he knew he had to leave
shortly for Tegel airport in order to catch his flight.

He hated the idea of leaving
Bettina and was worried about her. He had never seen her so tired
and so lost, so disheartened and apparently lacking in spirit,
following Dieter’s death. She was almost unrecognisable compared to
the carefree and self-confident girl he’d met at the party in the
youth centre. But then he too had changed, he knew.

They lay on the bed and he
caressed her body which then arched toward him in response. They
kissed deeply. “I’ll be back in a couple of days. I’ve brought
enough food for three or four. Don’t go out for any reason. They’re
out there looking for you. Try to listen to the back tapes and see
if there’s anything useful there for us. When I come back,
hopefully we’ll get straight out of here with the help of the BND.”
He handed her a small sheet of paper. “I’ll be staying in Stephan’s
flat in Frankfurtprobably stay with Stephan. This is his number in
case of an emergency. Try to memorise it or else conceal it
somehow, mixed up with another number you recognise maybe. And this
is the BND number here.”

“Don’t go, not yet. I need to
feel you next to me.”

Thomas held her tightly and
gently kissed her face and neck. He wished for time to stand still
so they could make love and forget about everything around
them.

“Bettina, I hate to leave you but
I really have to go now.”

“Take me with you. Please. I’ll
go crazy here on my own.”

“I’ll be back soon. I
promise.”

He gave her a last lingering kiss
and held her tightly in his arms for several minutes then eased
free, kissed her lightly again, and walked to the apartment door
without daring to look back. He descended the stairs silently, lost
in thought. He had almost reached the ground floor when the small
black door on the right opened, the corridor light snapped on and
an old lady in black, carrying a stick and walking with a heavy
limp, emerged and turned to shut the door carefully. Thomas headed
hastily to the front door, glancing in her direction, but before he
reached it she turned again, saying nothing but staring at him in a
way that made him shiver despite himself as he recognised Frau
Schwinewitz. He closed the front door behind him, feeling deeply
uneasy, and headed to the Friedrichstrasse crossing.

Chapter 43

Friday January 19,
evening, then Saturday January 20 1990

THOMAS had become concerned about
catching the last British Airways flight out of Tegel airport to
Frankfurt but it had been straightforward enough. The border
crossing had been easy. There was huge chaos as hundreds of people
kept streaming in from all directions, paying little attention to
queues or order but just milling around and pressing forwards. The
border officer only had time to look at his face and check that he
had a valid document before the surge of people behind Thomas
pushed him towards the Western side.

Maybe I should have brought
Bettina along as well, he thought, as he found his seat. Dieter’s
murderers could still be looking for her in Dresden and might not
yet have switched the search to Berlin. In a couple of days’ time
everything would become more difficult. But they'd have needed to
bring all the tapes and the documents over as well in order to find
out what was in them. And anyone moving around with a couple of
large suitcases would seem suspicious and likely to be detained and
inspected more carefully when leaving.