Thriller (48 page)

Henry preferred a good western to the opera, but not so the man

he’d come to see.

General Georgy Ivanovich Preminin, marshal of the Soviet Red

Army and commander of the Group of Soviet Forces Germany,

was Stalin’s iron fist in East Germany. He was also the last piece

of the puzzle Henry was hurrying to assemble.

He parked under a copse of linden trees behind a halfdemolished church on Oranienburger Strasse and climbed out.

The earlier drizzle had turned to freezing rain and the pellets

ticked against the brim of his hat. He walked to the rear of the

car and shined his penlight under the bumper. The transmitter

was there, probably planted while he was in the Schwarz Katze.

He ripped it off, crushed it under his heel and tossed the remains

away. The move wouldn’t save him, he knew, but it might buy

him time as the
Stasi
quartered the area looking for his car.

He pulled the brim of his hat lower and started walking.

With the sleet, a thick fog had risen off the Spree. The Schiffbauerdamm seemed to float above the ground, mist swirling

around its Gothic cornices. Lit from within, the stained-glass

windows were rainbow-hued rectangles in the darkness.

369

From the alley Henry studied the parking lot until he spotted

Preminin’s car, a black ZIS-110 limousine with a hammer-andsickle flag on each fender. Preminin’s chauffeur/bodyguard stood

under an umbrella beside the driver’s door, smoking.

Henry heard the squealing of tires. Down the block a black Mercedes pulled around the corner, rolled to a stop and doused its

lights. Two figures, cast in silhouette from the streetlight, sat in

the front seat. Henry saw the tip of a cigarette glow red, then fade.

He pulled a pint of whiskey from the pocket of his trench

coat, dumped half of it onto the ground, then took a gulp and

swished it around his mouth. He tossed his hat away, dipped his

hand in a puddle and mussed his hair, then stepped out onto the

sidewalk.

Playing a drunk was a tricky performance but Henry had used

the ruse before. Humming tunelessly, he stumbled off the curb

and weaved his way toward Preminin’s ZIS. Spotting him, the

chauffeur flicked his cigarette away and slipped his hand inside

his coat.

“Hey, nice car,” Henry called in German. “What is it, eh? A

Mercedes?”

“
Nyet
,
nyet
,” the chauffeur growled. “Go away.”

Henry ignored him and shuffled around to the passenger side.

The chauffeur followed, hand still inside his jacket. “
Nyet
,

nyet
….”

“Big bastard, whatever it is.”

The ZIS’s rear window was rolled down an inch.

Henry took a swig from the bottle. From the corner of his eye

he saw the chauffeur moving toward him. Henry lurched forward

and grabbed the upper edge of the window, pressing his face to

the glass. “Big interior! Is that leather?”

“Get away from there!”

He grabbed a handful of Henry’s coat. Henry let the slim aluminum tube slip from his hand. It bounced off the back seat and

rolled onto the floorboard. The chauffeur jerked him backward.

Henry let himself fall to the sidewalk. “Hey, what’s the idea!”

370

“Go away, I said!”

“Okay, okay…”

Henry rose to his feet, brushed himself off and stumbled back

across the street.

Behind him he heard an engine rev. Headlights washed over

him. He glanced over his shoulder. The Mercedes was accelerating toward him. He dropped the bottle and ran.

Having sprung the trap, the
Stasi
was everywhere. For the next

hour Henry sprinted through parks and hopped fences; down alleys and up fire escapes and over rooftops. Sirens warbled, sometimes in the distance, sometimes close. At every turn, blue

strobes flashed off wet cobblestones and shop windows. Henry

kept going, picking his way north and west until he reached the

alley across from the apartment.

Crouched behind a hedge, he watched for five minutes,

waiting for the skidding of tires and the blare of sirens. None

came. He trotted across the street. As he mounted the steps, a

pair of headlights pinned him, then a second pair, and a third.

Car doors opened, slammed shut. Booted feet hammered the

pavement.

“
Schnell, schnell!
”

“
Halt!
”

Henry charged up the stairs, fumbled with the key, then

pushed through the door and locked it behind him. Boots

pounded up the stairs. The door shuddered once, then again. The

wooden jamb splintered. Henry rushed across the room, dropped

to his knees, pried back the baseboard. Glass shattered. He

glanced over his shoulder. An arm was reaching through the window, groping for the doorknob. Henry pulled the packet from its

hole, then carried it to the woodstove. Inside, a single ember

glowed orange. He blew on it. A flame sprung to life. He shoved

the packet inside. Too big. He folded it, tried again.

The door crashed open.

“
Halt!
”

371

He turned around and caught a fleeting glimpse of a rifle butt

arcing toward his face.

Everything went black.

Blindfolded and shackled, he was taken to what he assumed

was either
Stasi
headquarters on Normannenstrasse or to Hohenschoenhausen prison. No one spoke to him and no questions

were asked. Around the edges of the blindfold he could see shoes

coming and going in his cell, then he felt the prick of a needle

and suddenly he was floating. Sounds and smells and sensations

merged. He heard Russian voices, smelled the tang of cigarette

smoke, felt himself being stripped naked.

His days became a blur as he teetered at the edge of consciousness. His world narrowed: the prick of the needle…the

drug coursing hot in his veins…the rhythmic thump of steel

wheels on tracks…the hoot of a train’s whistle…the stench of

burning coal. In that small, still-lucid part of his brain, Henry

knew who had him and where he was going.

On the morning of the third or fourth or fifth day, the train

groaned to a stop.

He was lifted to his feet and dragged down steps. He felt the

crunch of snow under his feet and through the blindfold he

could see sunlight. He was trundled into a car. After a short ride

he was jerked out and marched down more steps, then a long

corridor. He was shoved from behind. He stumbled forward and

bumped into a wall. A door slammed shut behind him.

Henry put his back to the wall and slid down to the floor.

Lubyanka
.

He sat in darkness for three days. On the fourth day, two

guards came for him. He was blindfolded and marched down a

corridor, then several flights of stairs, then another corridor,

ever deeper into the bowels of the prison.

He was guided into a room, where he was shackled to a chair

bolted to the floor. His blindfold was removed. The room was

372

small and square, windowless, with a single bulb hanging from

the ceiling. A man in an MgB uniform stood before him. The

man’s epaulets told Henry he was a colonel.
Second Chief Direc-

torate
, he thought.
Bad, bad news
.

“Good morning, Mr. Caulder,” the colonel said in accented

English.

Henry wasn’t surprised they knew his name. He’d run dozens

of operations in Berlin, either from the ground or at a distance,

causing both the
Stasi
and the MgB a lot of heartache.

The colonel said, “I’ve been wanting to meet you for a long time.”

“And now that you have, I assume you’ll let me go?”

The colonel chuckled. “No, I’m afraid not. Let’s have a talk,

shall we?”

Over the next two days the colonel interrogated him twenty

hours a day, at dawn, during the day, in the middle of the night,

sometimes for twelve hours, sometimes only an hour. All the questions were variations on a theme: Why had he come to East Berlin?

Henry remained silent.

On the third day, the beatings began. He was hung by his

wrists from the ceiling while a bald, heavyset man worked on

him with a truncheon, pausing only to catch his breath or to let

the colonel ask questions.

Still Henry remained silent.

At the start of the second week, he was brought again to the

interrogation room. This time, however, he was stripped naked

and shackled to the chair. The colonel stood in the corner, smoking, watching him. The bald man entered, carrying what looked

like a birdhouse.

No, not a birdhouse,
Henry thought.
Get a hold of yourself. You

know what it is
.

A hand-cranked field phone.

The bald man attached wires first to the phone, then with alligator clips to Henry’s testicles. He then nodded at the colonel,

who walked over and stared down at Henry. “One last chance.”

373

Henry simply shook his head.

The bald man started cranking.

He managed to hold on for another week. Once he started

talking, it came in a flood, from his arrival at Tempelhof, to his

meetings with Belikov, Kondrash and Preminin, to his capture

at the Pieck apartment. Friendly now, the colonel walked

Henry through the story again, and again, and again, looking

for inconsistencies and contradictions. Finally, on the fifth day

the colonel ended the questioning and dismissed the stenographer.

“Don’t feel bad, my friend. You did your best.”

For the first time in forty days, Henry Caulder smiled.

Now, standing at the threshold of the execution room, Henry

felt that same smile forming on his lips. He quashed it and

stepped forward. The space was identical to the interrogation

room, save two features: The walls were draped in thick, heavily stained canvas, and off to one side lay a body bag.

“Good morning,” the colonel said.

“That’s a matter of perspective, isn’t it?”

“Indeed. A poor choice of words. I wish it hadn’t come to this,

but I have my orders.”

“Don’t we all.”

“We are enemies, you and I, but professionals nevertheless.

You were doing your job and I was doing mine. Of course, they

don’t see it that way.”

“They never do.”

“It will be quick, I promise.”

“What’s going to happen to my people?” Henry asked. “Belikov, Kondrash and Preminin?” He already knew the answer, but

he wanted to hear the words.

“It’s already happened. They were convicted of treason and executed yesterday.”

“And my network?”

374

“We’re investigating each of their commands. We’ll have confessions soon.”

“I have no doubt,” Henry said.

“On your knees, please.”

Henry turned to face the wall and knelt down. He was waiting for the fear to come, ready for it to fill his chest like acid, but

nothing happened. He felt peace. Suddenly a cough welled up

in his chest. He heaved, bent double with the pain until the

spasm passed. He wiped his mouth. His palm came back bloody.

“Pneumonia,” the colonel said.

No, I don’t think so,
Henry thought.

Ironic that only now he was feeling the symptoms. The doctor had given him four months, no more, before the cancer

would metastasize and spread from his lungs to his brain, then

to the rest of his organs. Past that, he had a week, perhaps two.

For years both the American and the British intelligence communities suspected Stalin would eventually send the Red Army

rolling across Europe, and the allies would be hard-pressed to

stop them without going nuclear. The question was how to stop

it before it started. For Henry, the answer was simple: Gut the

Red Army of its best and brightest. Stalin’s own paranoia had

cocked the gun; all that remained was the gentlest of nudges on

the trigger.

He’d purged the Red Army a dozen times since the twenties,

killing hundreds of thousands of dedicated soldiers based on

nothing more than suspicion and innocent association. Despite

this, three of the most gifted had survived and had come to command key positions: Colonel General Vasily Belikov, General

Yuri Kondrash and Marshal Georgy Preminin. When war came,

these three men and their armies had the power to conquer

Western Europe.

Of course, all three had sworn their innocence, but the MgB,

ever ready to ferret out traitors to the motherland, and Stalin, ever

wary of plotters from within, had all the evidence they needed.

375

Planning the operation, Henry had rehearsed the scenario

from the MgB’s perspective:

A British spymaster who has plagued them for years suddenly

appears in East Berlin on a hurried mission.

A message intercept from a code the CIA believes still secure

mentions an Operation Marigold and the activation of three

agents: PASKAL, HERRING and ARIES.

In the weeks preceding the agent’s arrival in East Berlin, CIAbacked Radio Free Europe strays from its normal programming

and begins broadcasting what the MgB believes is plain-talk

code, which includes multiple uses of the word
Marigold.

Finally, coinciding with the agent’s arrival in East Berlin, an

executive secretary at GSFG headquarters vanishes.