The Helsinki Pact (54 page)

She made a sudden decision.
Towards dusk, around four thirty she calculated, she’d slip out of
the apartment, make a quick phone call to the general BND number
Thomas had left her, perhaps buy some bread and cheese, and be back
in no time. The chances that anyone would mark her, let alone
recognise her if she dressed appropriately, were remote. She longed
to be outside and she was desperate to find out something of
Thomas's movements. She might even manage to speak with him. The
decision elated her and she thought with excitement of her coming
adventure and temporary escape.

She found a dark brown scarf and,
tying back her hair, used it to cover her head completely. She
chose an old coat, a slightly shabby one in a sludgy greeny-brown
wool, with a belt, which she'd never liked much but which she
occasionally wore when it was particularly cold. She looked at
herself in the mirror, pushed under the scarf a few stray bits of
her distinctive blonde hair and decided that she looked older, a
little run down and not someone that anyone would look at twice.
Importantly, it would be difficult for anyone to recognise her
unless they were very close. She must remember to look down and
perhaps shuffle slightly, she thought. A battered leather shopping
bag she found in a cupboard completed the illusion of a housewife
out for supplies.

Bettina slipped her gun into a
coat pocket, listened at the door for some minutes and then opened
it cautiously. She looked down the stairs and over the rail into
the well and, seeing no one and hearing nothing, pulled the door
behind her using the key to prevent the lock clicking into place
with a loud snap. She turned the key of the mortice lock carefully
and in silence.

Again she looked over the rail
and then quickly ran downstairs. It was a wonderful feeling to be
able to move freely again. The apartment was so small her legs had
almost felt numb and she’d felt heavy and dissatisfied with her
lack of exercise. As she reached the bottom of the stairs she heard
dragging footsteps but hardly noticed the old lady cleaning behind
the staircase with a broom. Quickening her pace, anxious to get out
into the open, she reached the front door as she heard a cough and
then a voice behind calling out to her. Ignoring the sounds she
opened the door and stepped out. Who the woman was she had no idea
but she didn’t seem particularly friendly and Bettina saw no reason
to engage with her.

Chapter 45

Sunday January 21
1990, evening

IT was now dusk and the street
lights had come on, some of them not yet warmed up and so still
fairly dim. She turned to the right, recalling there was a public
phone not too far away. She felt slightly unstable as she made her
way down the street, trying to avoid looking into the eyes of the
people she passed. Lack of sleep and the constant nervous tension
of being hunted had made her feel weak and the familiar streets
outside almost seem part of a foreign country.

On the corner of
Schillingstrasse, she again turned right. It was an area of Berlin
she knew well since it was close to where she’d studied at
university and near the Stasi offices. The small coffee shop where
she’d brought Thomas on their second meeting was just around the
corner, and she felt very tempted to make a detour and stop by. For
her, the place was like home.

Then she had a sudden, unexpected
vision of Dieter’s body lying on the floor in a pool of blood and
had to stop, leaning briefly against a wall until the weakness and
distress she felt passed. A man walking towards her hesitated as if
to ask if she needed help, a movement that shook her and reminded
her of how dangerous it could be for her to have left the
apartment. She straightened, lowered her head to avoid eye contact,
coughed into her hand, and walked on. At least the phone booth was
now close by in a small side street and in a moment, turning the
corner, she saw it.

Searching in her pockets she at
first found nothing but then, a couple of seconds later, crumpled
and in a small inner pocket where she’d stowed it for safety, she
found the piece of paper which Thomas had left her. She tried
Stephan’s number first. Nobody answered. Hesitantly, she called the
second number and asked to be put through. After four further
rings, a firm, young-sounding voice, answered.

“Köpp.”

“I’m looking for Mr Schultz.” she
said, in her most nondescript tone of voice. "He asked me to call
through this number." She had no idea of how the discussions
between Thomas and the agents had gone.

“There is no one of that name
here. Who am I speaking to?”

“A friend. Do you know his
movements? Is he on his way back?”

“Ah, I understand. You must be
the other person he spoke to us about." Köpp became authoritative.
"What is your code name? Where are you calling from?”

She hung up. There was no way she
would start a conversation with a West German agent without knowing
first what had happened to Thomas. Perhaps he was now in prison and
they were trying to get hold of her. She stood in front of the
phone unable to decide what to do next. She lifted the receiver to
call Stephan again and leave a message but then put it down almost
immediately. She knew she should head straight back to the
apartment and wait but the sense of freedom kept her outside. Still
she waited by the phone, reluctant to move, uncertain of what to do
and continuing to relish being out in the open again. At least
Thomas had made it to Frankfurt and met with Köpp, it seemed, but
if he didn’t return by the next afternoon it would suggest that
something had gone wrong.

She shook her head slightly to
clear her thoughts, and noticed someone walking towards her. She
looked down and turned away from the phone. She would buy some
food, she thought, and as she and the man passed each other she
turned right, heading for a small shop two streets away. The
thought that she and her colleagues had often stopped there to buy
food when they were working late at the office alarmed her but it
was the only shop within a kilometre or more of where she was and
also took her back somewhat in the direction of the apartment. It
was dangerous to wander around the city, she decided, so she would
just have to be careful and make sure to be extremely quick in
buying what she wanted.

She passed the small clothes shop
and a bank and was heading along the well-known street towards the
grocery shop when she noticed a tall, blond-haired man walking
towards her on the opposite pavement. He seemed familiar and when
they were almost opposite she glanced towards him again. Their eyes
met only briefly but it was enough for her to recognise that it was
Hanno Wornletz. Overjoyed at seeing one of the few colleagues she
considered a friend and anxious to warn him of the danger she
thought he was in she started to greet him when a strange gut
feeling of something not quite right, of some imminent danger,
stopped her. Instinctively she dropped her eyes and turned back in
her earlier direction.

“Bettina! It’s wonderful to see
you.” Hanno was now crossing the street, apparently ready to greet
her warmly, now bending a little to look at her closely. "We, I,
thought you were still in Dresden. When did you get
back?"

"How are you Hanno? It's good to
see you." It was impossible now to pretend and she smiled at him,
taking the hand he held out to her to shake. She noticed as he did
so that he'd retained his old habit of slightly clicking his heels
and nodding his head as he did so, a telling rigidity of manner in
a young man which had always slightly disturbed her, even when they
had been close for a period earlier.

"Dresden?" she said and wondered
why she felt this prickle of suspicion, why she felt a need now to
hide things. He was in as much danger and she was and surely she
needed to warn him. Why, then, these guarded responses, this need
she felt to test him? "Oh, only just back. I'd finished things on
Friday but I couldn't get hold of Dieter so I thought it could wait
till Monday and so I took a day meeting old friends."

"And Thomas? Did he come back
with you?" The tone had an edge to it and he spoke each word of his
next question distinctly. "Where is he now?"

"A friend of his was visiting
Dresden so Thomas spent some time with him and then we drove back
together this morning. I dropped him near Friedrichstrasse so I
guess he's back in the West. We can both report to Dieter
tomorrow." She looked up at his handsome face with its open smile,
and as she noted again his differently coloured eyes, one brown and
the other a greenish grey, remembered their joint mission some
years earlier in Poland and how confused but also drawn to him
she'd felt when he made it clear how attractive he found her. "How
is Dieter? Have you seen him recently?"

Hanno glanced up and down the
street and put a hand on her shoulder, drawing her closer and
talking softly.

“You hadn’t heard? Dieter is
dead. Someone killed him.”

It took all Bettina's skill to
express surprise and horror. “What! God, no! No! When?” She looked
at her feet and then at Hanno, wide eyed and with her mouth open
and then forced herself to cling to him for a moment. "Oh, dear
God! How did that happen?"

“A couple of days ago, at his
house. At night. Seems there was a burglary which went wrong. He
was shot.”

“A burglary? Armed thieves? Are
we turning into the United States?”

“I guess so. I don’t really know
the details. Someone in the office told me about it. I hadn’t
actually worked for Dieter in quite a while or seen him
recently.”

Bettina remembered Hanno's
discussions with Dieter on the tapes andd disengaged herself from
the embrace. Was Hanno himself involved or he was distancing
himself from Dieter as a defence against his murderers? Either way
it was now impossible to ask whether his internal investigation
around Phoenix had yielded results. Looking at him closely, she saw
no trace of nervousness but noted someone fully confident and in
control and nothing like a hunted animal trying to shake off
predators. Despite herself she shivered, realising she needed to
leave immediately but although she did her best to appear normal he
clearly sensed that something had changed. He moved closer to her,
took her arm and smiled.

“Shall we get some coffee and
catch up?”

“I'd love to but not now, thanks,
I’m tired and I need to get home once I’ve bought a couple of
things. Another time soon, though. Tomorrow, if you're
around.”

“Where are you, still living in
Prenzlauer?”

“Yes.” she said, surprised, and
then remembering she had given him her address at the
time.

“Let me give you a lift home
then. You do look very tired. Tired, but still very
beautiful.”

She smiled back. “Thanks, that’s
kind, but I’ve got my car just round the corner.”

“OK, but I’ll come with you, help
you carry your shopping and we can chat.”

She nodded. “Sure, thanks.” He
was becoming more insistent and she didn’t want him to realise how
nervous she had become. "It'll be good to catch up."

The shop was small and there was
only a pair of double backed shelves, sparsely filled with tins and
some packets, subdividing the rectangular room. To their right as
they entered was a small counter with a few small loaves next to a
large sausage, half sliced. A plump woman with badly dyed hair
stood behind it, idly examining her nails. On the near row of
shelves were a pile of tins close to where they stood and some
scattered packets elsewhere and on the backing shelves more packets
and another pile of tins at the far end. Beyond this central island
of shelves and on the row at right angles on the back wall were
some bottles of beer and soft drinks. She took a tin from the pile
beside her, looked at it, and then turned to Wornletz.

“Hanno, could you get me half a
dozen bottles of beer, maybe, and two or three tins, please? Chick
peas or maybe beans or both. These ones,” she said, looking at the
tin of lentils in her right hand, “are about the only thing I can’t
stand. Anything else will do. I’m starving. I’ll get the bread and
maybe some fruit here as well.”

"OK!" He headed down the narrow
aisle and picked up six half litre bottles of beer from the far
wall, holding them against his chest. As he disappeared round the
end of the middle shelves in search of the tins she brusquely swept
the pile of tins of lentils from the shelf beside her scattering
them between the counter and the door as she rushed out into the
street to the cries of outrage from the shop assistant.

Although she ran as fast as she
could the street was long and as she turned into Schillingstrasse
she caught sight of Hanno loping after her, easily keeping her in
sight. For a fraction of a second she thought of trying to reach
her car, parked in a nearby lane, before remembering she had left
the keys in the apartment. She pushed some pedestrians out of the
way and darted across the street, narrowly missing being run over
by a car bearing down on her at speed. Hanno was now chasing her
openly. The charade was over.

She fingered the pistol in her
pocket but realised she couldn’t use it - regardless of whether she
hit him that would bring the police after her in minutes. As she
ran, her heart thudding in her chest, she tried to decide whether
to lose him by disappearing somewhere nearby or to run direct to
the safety of the apartment and risk Hanno seeing where she was
hiding out. After a moment’s indecision, she decided on the
apartment and although she feinted and cut through a narrow
alleyway and then doubled back she was unable to lose him, despite
her speed, and she could hear his footsteps growing louder. She
could feel her chest tightening and her legs aching and an acrid
taste at the back of her throat but fear helped and for a minute or
so she even gained some distance till he in turn began to close on
her again. As she ran she felt in her pocket for the keys,
selecting the large one for the street door and holding it firmly
at the ready as she sprinted the last hundred metres to the grey
building.