Baltic Approach Read online

  “Deutsche Volkspolizei, Ausländermeldung im Reisebüro der DDR. Hauptwachtmeister Fries am Apparat.” A deep voice, Berlin accent. Slow but steady.

  I hung up on him. He’d already told me what I wanted to know: Sergeant Fries was on duty, I’d find him at his post if I left now.

  No need to give advance notice, I find it better that way.

  4

  Berlin Alexanderplatz

  Police Sergeant Fries was just how I’d imagined him. He filled his green uniform nicely, his tunic buttons pulled tight over a proud belly. Four chevrons on his lower sleeve showed he’d been a cop for over twenty years, and the Kaiser moustache pinned above his thin mouth told me everything I needed to know about this character.

  I was sitting in the waiting area, between a draughty door and a dusty rubber plant. From here I had a good view of the sergeant while I pretended to leaf through a travel brochure advertising the touristic highlights of our little Republic.

  An American couple were eyeing the stack of forms Fries had shunted over the desk towards them, they were beginning to wonder whether a visit to Frederick the Great’s palace and gardens in Potsdam was worth the paperwork.

  The policeman wasn’t being unfriendly, he was just doing his job by refusing to respond to any of the pleasantries the couple were trying to share with him. In the end they gave up their attempts at small-talk in broken German and filled in the forms with an industriousness that revealed Teutonic heritage.

  Fries looked on impassively. He didn’t care whether the tourists went to Potsdam or not. Whichever way it turned out, he’d get to wield his oversized rubber stamp. He did so now, only the movement of his moustache betraying his enthusiasm for the task at hand.

  The stamp thumped down on several pieces of paper, some disappeared beneath the counter, others were handed back to the subdued tourists before they crept out of the building.

  I put my brochure down and joined Fries at the counter.

  “Wait!” he growled without looking up. The rubber stamp was hovering, about to slam down onto the ink-pad again, but he held his hand when I failed to respectfully move away.

  He looked up, clocked me. His moustache moved up and down as he swallowed. I wasn’t in uniform, but Fries was smart enough to recognise me for what I was, and he carefully replaced the stamp on its stand.

  “Comrade,” he said in a different tone of voice from the one he’d used with the Americans. Less assertive, but equally bureaucratic.

  I unbuttoned my coat and fetched the photograph of Merkur from the inside pocket. Taking my time about it, my eyes never leaving the cop’s, I pushed the picture across the counter and Fries lowered his head, dedicating his full attention to the task at hand. When he finally looked up he didn’t say anything, but I saw the light of recognition in his eyes.

  “Tell me about him, Comrade Hauptwachtmeister.”

  “Yesterday-”

  “Wednesday?” I interrupted, just for the sake of it.

  “Wednesday the 1st of February,” Fries confirmed with a clipped nod. “The person depicted in this photograph, wearing Western clothes, approached the foreigner registration desk of the German People’s Police in the Haus des Reisens and asked to speak to Frau Gisela Bauer. The subject had a west German accent, from somewhere in the north. I told him that no-one of that name worked here.”

  “Did you ask for his papers?”

  The cop shook his head. “The subject told me he’d call again later and left.”

  “Why didn’t you demand to see his papers?”

  “It would have necessitated following the subject outside, leaving the registration desk unstaffed.”

  “Tell me more about him,” I demanded. I didn’t give him much time to answer my questions, hurried him along with more demands. I wasn’t here to listen to rambling accounts and evasions.

  “That’s your lot. He wore Western clothes, had a Western accent, asked for Frau Bauer and left.”

  “And he waited to hear your answer regarding Colleague Bauer before leaving?”

  Fries paused, his fingers found his moustache and twisted one end. “No, he turned away before I could tell him there was no Frau Bauer here—he was half-way through the door before I thought to ascertain his particulars.”

  Seemed Merkur had had no expectation of meeting Gisela Bauer here. Another point in favour of the message-in-a-bottle theory.

  5

  Berlin Alexanderplatz

  I left Sergeant Fries fingering his moustache and pushed my way through the doors and back into the heart of cold, busy Berlin. Traffic grumbled past, whining Trabants and Barkas, moaning W50 and LO trucks, buzzing Schwalbe and MZ motorbikes. Blue fumes hung in the still air, mixing with pungent brown coal dust.

  I crossed at the lights and started across Alexanderplatz towards the S-Bahn station. The border crossing point at Friedrichstrasse Station was next on my list—I wanted to take a look at their records, still hoping to establish an exact exit time for Merkur.

  Just as I was rounding the corner by Café Polar, I felt a tap on the shoulder. I tensed, bringing my briefcase up to protect my stomach as I turned to see who it was. A young lad stood just behind me, his narrow eyes seeking mine. His hair was cropped close to the skull, ears red with cold. His clothes hung from his frame, his arms drooped at his sides.

  He wasn’t an immediate threat, so I turned my head from side to side, checking for goons in the background. Berliners, tourists and Poles pushed past us, making their way to the Centrum department store on the other side of the square. The boy jerked his head in the direction the crowds were taking, at the same time pulling down the zip of his winter jacket to reveal a Telnyashka undershirt. Green and white horizontal stripes: issued to Soviet border units, but often worn by other branches of the KGB.

  He zipped up his jacket again and left me, merging easily with the masses hurrying across the square. I stayed where I was, scanning for potential hostiles, but could see none. A wary glance at the cameras bunched along the Berolina building above the café, then I decided to go and see what the young Russian had for me.

  He didn’t bother turning to check I was following—his job had been to attract my attention. He’d done that, the rest was up to me.

  I could see the lad’s bare head as it bobbed through the doors and up the wide staircase of the Centrum department store. I kept about five or six metres behind him, in sight but not too close. On the top floor he slowed down, taking an improbable interest in the racks of men’s suits and jackets. As I overtook him, he jerked his head again, towards a door partially hidden by a display of mannequins wearing work shirts and holding leather satchels.

  Another look around—just the young Russian at this end of menswear. Further away, a few sales assistants were keeping an eye on the customers in the changing cubicles. I pushed through the door onto a dimly lit staircase. Rough concrete steps led both up and down, and while I was looking over the banisters to check for anyone lurking in the stairwell, I heard the door behind me open again. It was the Russian lad.

  “What do you want?” I asked.

  But he didn’t seem to have any use for language, maybe he didn’t speak German. He just pointed upwards.

  From where I was standing, leaning over the balustrade, I could see the head of the staircase, it ended at a blank concrete wall. Further passage was provided by metal rungs, leading to a hatch in the ceiling.

  I turned to look at the boy for confirmation, but he’d gone. Only one way to find out what this was all about, and that was to see what was waiting at the top of the ladder.

  I pulled the handle, and shoved against the hatch, the metal was sticky with cold. It swung upwards, pulled by counterweights, and I climbed out, my view of the roof widening with each rung. As I hoisted a foot over the rim of the shaft a figure emerged from the shelter of a heating stack. Civilian clothes—winter boots, dark trousers, dark grey padded anorak and felt hat. Average height and build.

  With a glance at the
television tower to orientate myself, the bulb at the top of its spindly length vague in the leaden skies, I marched over to the chimney.

  I didn’t greet the man as I drew closer, even though we knew each other. I didn’t salute, and he didn’t hold his hand out. So I came to a halt a few paces away and kept my hands tucked in the warmth of my pockets.

  This man and I had our history. Short version: he saved my life and in return I did a job for him, a mutually beneficial mission involving illegal border crossings and extra-judicial enforcement action. But far from calling it quits, we were all in agreement that I still owed him. You want my advice? If you ever end up in someone’s debt, make sure it’s not the KGB.

  So whenever Major Pozdniakov turned up—as he had a habit of doing—I counted my toes, fingers and teeth and was always surprised when I still had the full complement at the end of the meeting.

  I didn’t want to be on this ice-swept roof, but I couldn’t leave. A conspirational meeting with the KGB isn’t the kind of thing you walk out of.

  “I may be of use to you, Burratino,” Pozdniakov said, using the codename he had chosen for me. Perhaps I was flattering myself, it may have been the name he used for all his pets.

  He lit a short black cigarette then waved the match until he was sure it had gone out and stowed it in his anorak pocket.

  It was time for me to say something, and not just because I wanted to know what we were doing up here.

  “Comrade Major?”

  “Good to keep in touch. Sorry, rude of me …” he held out the soft pack of papirosas. I shook my head. “I thought we worked well together, a few months back, during your Operation Oskar. You helped me, I helped you. And you never know when we might be in a position to help each other again.”

  I looked up at the television tower again. I couldn’t help it, there wasn’t much else to see up here. A flat, concrete roof with chimneys and ventilators. The high letters mounted at the edge, lit by neon tubing and spelling out CENTRUM backwards. Beyond the tall letters, the roofs of the other buildings dotted around the Alex. Off to the left, coy behind the chimney, the Interhotel Stadt Berlin. Almost straight ahead of me, the high rise Haus des Reisens where I’d just come from, with its socialist bronze frieze and fancy concrete curls.

  But I couldn’t see the crowds filling Alexanderplatz below, the only human in sight was the disconcertingly cordial KGB officer next to me.

  I felt a need to be rude, to demand he tell me straight out what he wanted. But that would have been stupid, even for me. So a deep breath and a polite tone of voice: “Comrade Major, it is a pleasure to meet you again. Is there anything I can do for you?”

  “That’s better!” Pozdniakov smiled at me, revealing his crooked teeth. But the smile didn’t reach his eyes: the one functioning eye with which he was staring at me was as hard as the glass ball in the neighbouring socket. “I think we will be working together again, very soon. There will be things you can help me with, and I believe I can return the favour in advance.”

  I still had some coffin nails of my own, I pulled them out of my pocket and stuck one between my lips, leaning forward to catch the lit match that Pozdniakov was already cupping in his hands for me. When I had my cigarette going, he turned his hand so the tiny flame was exposed to the wind that had followed him all the way from the steppes. The match guttered and went out, not bothering to put up a fight, but the officer waved it anyway before slipping it in his pocket with the other.

  We stood like that, Russian and German, KGB and MfS, a pace or three between us, smoking and inspecting the dull bronze bulb of the Television Tower. I wasn’t going to break the silence, I had another few cigarettes and was happy to stand here and let the wind smoke them for me.

  “No need to be coy,” said Pozdniakov eventually. “You’re looking for a man, from the West. Tell me about him.”

  Should I have been surprised? I’d been on this case for less than twenty-four hours and he already knew about it. No, I felt no surprise. But I did realise that it was too cold for games after all.

  “He came over from West Berlin on a day visa,” I replied. “Been given the codename Merkur.”

  “Merkur,” the major repeated to himself. “Relating to his career in the postal services—yes, most suitable.”

  I sucked on my cigarette, waiting for the KGB major to stop showing off and start talking.

  “And this Merkur has been asking after the colleague you’ve been trying to find out about? The suicide?”

  “Sanderling didn’t commit suicide—she was killed,” I snapped, I couldn’t stop myself.

  “What have you got on Merkur?” said the major, ignoring my outburst.

  “Merkur is the father of a defector—a walk-up last December, Source Bruno—it didn’t end well for him. Yesterday, the father rode into town, asking to speak to Sanderling. Right now, I’m in the process of establishing his movements while he was here in the capital.” I doubted any of this was new to Pozdniakov, but hoped I was being co-operative enough to at least keep the conversation civil.

  “Your Merkur has booked himself into the Hotel Neptun next week.” The Russian lifted a foot and ground his spent cigarette with the sole of his boot before putting the butt in his pocket with the matches.

  “Neptun? In Rostock?” It was a stupid question, there’s only one Hotel Neptun a Westler would want to visit—the luxurious complex on the sea-front in Warnemünde, a suburb of Rostock.

  While I welcomed the information, I couldn’t shake the feeling that any intelligence coming from the Russian would have a price tag attached.

  “Let’s not talk about cost,” said Pozdniakov, recognising the direction my thoughts were taking me. “Drushba, friendship, is a good that cannot be bought. Instead,” he paused, “usluga za uslugu—how do you say it in German? Good turn for good turn?”

  “One hand washes the other,” I muttered the German idiom, still trying to work out the price of his information. Then, aloud, to the major: “Fine. You help me, I’ll help you and if you want, we’ll call it Drushba.”

  6

  Berlin Friedrichstrasse

  I paid little attention to the justifications dished up by Passport Control at Friedrichstrasse Station, I was more interested in the relevant records, which I reviewed without comment.

  My silence made them squirm, although for a change I hadn’t actually intended to intimidate them—I was just preoccupied by the earlier conversation with Pozdniakov. Nevertheless, a reputation as a bastard isn’t a bad thing in this line of business, and if PKE thought I was cold and heartless then that counted as a bonus.

  Even though the head of PKE outranked me by several chips on the shoulder, I had the upper hand here. We were both MfS officers, but I was from Berlin Centre while he was serving in a deployed unit. He didn’t even have the standard MfS uniform—Passport Control are dressed as regular border guards so Westerners don’t cotton on to the fact that crossing points are under the direct control of the Firm. But more important than all of that, this unit had failed, and I was the man from ZAIG/II—the department responsible for investigating fuck-ups.

  Such was the measure of respect afforded me that I had the only seat in the room. The captain stood behind me, attentively advising on how to wind forward to the footage of Merkur leaving the Capital of the GDR.

  The jittery, grainy video of the subject was almost indistinguishable from that I’d seen the day before in the conference room back at Centre. Only someone familiar with this border crossing would know that the cabin shown on the screen was based not in entry control in the body of the station, but in the light and airy exit hall built on the banks of the Spree and connected to the station by a long, dimly-lit and windowless passage.

  I watched Merkur collect his passport and follow the stream of passengers through the labyrinthine corridors that we’ve built to control movement between the two Berlins. I followed his image from one monitor to the next, the captain stacking the tapes in order so I could ob
serve Merkur moving into range of each camera. The final tape I watched showed Merkur boarding the S-Bahn on the upper platform that would take him to West Berlin.

  I sat back and closed my eyes, mentally reviewing what I’d seen. The only useful pieces of information were that Merkur appeared to have been alone when he entered and left East Berlin, and that he’d taken only a quarter of an hour to get from the police desk at the travel agency on Alexanderplatz to Friedrichstrasse station—just enough time to walk the distance: no sightseeing, no diversions, no clandestine meetings on the way.

  I stood up, informed the captain he could expect further questions regarding the PKE’s tardiness in reporting the subject’s exit time and left him in the control room with his tapes and machines.

  I navigated my way out of the labyrinth, back to the outside world, showing my clapperboard to a sentry at the door to the public area of the station. As I pushed through the crowds of Berlin, I allowed my mind to return to the conversation with Pozdniakov.

  If Merkur was booked into the Hotel Neptun next week, his visa should already be on file, and that would show the dates of entry and exit.

  Pausing by the River Spree and watching the queues of pensioners and Westerners waiting to be allowed into the exit hall that Merkur had passed through the day before, I decided to take a trip to my old department in Treptow.

  Until I’d confirmed Pozdniakov’s information, a discreet chat with old colleagues who had the information I needed would be preferable to an official request that would be logged and necessarily mentioned in my next report. It’s a policy of mine to only report success.

  7

  Berlin Treptow

  The sentry saw me pull up at the gatehouse of the HA VI compound on Schnellerstrasse, but there was no smile for an old comrade.

  I’d seen this man every day for more than five years, and every day, as I passed him on my way to work, he had acted as if he’d never seen me before.