Winter Work, page 27
Ah, yes. Now Emil remembered. The episode in question had occurred the very weekend that he and Bettina had learned the test results from the doctor, so by Monday morning he had been somewhat distracted when Mielke’s personal assistant had come to his desk for the thin file—so distracted, in fact, that Emil had brusquely sent the fellow away and told him to return with written authorization. Probably the only reason he remembered any of this was that later that day an irritated Mielke himself had come for the file. Visits like that stuck with you, even when you were going through a personal ordeal.
“Of course. I do remember. Mielke was angry with me because I’d blown off his assistant. So he actually rode the paternoster down to see me. Wasn’t this about some mailbox we cleared for them?”
“A dead drop, yes. Exactly. I knew it would come to you. The Russians were shorthanded that weekend, for whatever reason, and they had an urgent need to clear a dead drop for one of their agents. They never said why the agent couldn’t take care of it himself—or I suppose it could have been a she—but we were happy to do it, of course.”
“The location was in some park, wasn’t it?”
“Correct again. On the outskirts of Washington. Under a pedestrian bridge in a park area, along a road called Little Falls Parkway.”
“That’s a lot of detail. Sounds like you’ve been doing more than just reminiscing.”
Wolf shrugged.
“I remember that we handled it promptly and smoothly. An easy matter. But I was wondering if you remembered what our old boss, Mielke, said he was going to do with that file? Because, well, I’ll confess, his action of personally taking charge of things made me believe that maybe this was a bigger item than we had thought. Or connected to something bigger, anyway.”
“Yes, that’s possible.”
“Did Mielke say he was handing the materials over to them?”
“To the KGB?”
“Yes.”
Emil thought about it for a minute.
“I don’t think so. I don’t recall him saying he was going to give it to anyone.”
“Then why didn’t he just let your people file it as a matter of course, along with our other materials in the American section?”
A good question. Emil took a long swig of beer and thought it over. He also thought a little about Markus Wolf, and his sudden interest in this “bit of housekeeping,” as he had just described it. And with his memory astir, Emil now had a hazy sense that something other than the location of the dead drop had ended up in the file. Something quite valuable, perhaps, even if he couldn’t recall exactly what. Besides, at the moment he was more interested in figuring out what Wolf was really up to.
Emil knew plenty about the man and his motivations, but the two most salient details with regard to Wolf’s current state of mind seemed to be that, one, he was deeply disappointed with how he had recently been treated by the Russians, and, two, he had begun meeting secretly with his old foes, the Americans.
In that context, Wolf’s reason for wanting to know more about an item like this seemed all too obvious—as a means of either prodding his old friends to treat him better, or of spurning them by helping the Americans. Since neither option would involve betraying his own agents, Wolf would feel perfectly justified in taking either course of action.
But the KGB had never responded well to being leveraged in that way. They almost certainly wouldn’t like it in this case, even if the instigator was their homegrown German, the former wunderkind Mischa Wolf. While Emil doubted they would go so far as to squash him like a bug on their windshield, he doubted seriously they would respond in the way Wolf wanted, by applying pressure on his behalf with the West Germans.
That left the other option.
Giving the Americans the possible key to a potentially important Russian asset working in the Washington area, well, that could be valuable indeed, especially if it helped Wolf earn a new, clean-washed future somewhere in the West, free from prosecution and economic worries.
But why give it to Wolf, when Emil needed it more?
“Well?”
“I’m sorry, Mischa. I’m drawing a blank. It was a difficult time for me, as you remember, and…”
“Yes, yes. Of course. But did Mielke at least say whether he planned on keeping the file? Did he offer any possible hint of its destination?”
“As I said, it’s a blank, almost everything from that period. But maybe if you knew some of the possible destinations, it might jog my memory.”
Wolf waved away the suggestion and finally drank some beer, but only a single swallow. He was here to retrieve information, not dispense it. A one-way street, which had always been his preference. Emil was reminded of one of the reasons why Wolf’s reputation had sometimes bred resentment among his colleagues. He was a hoarder, stingy with the good stuff, and stingier still with any credit due for the HVA’s operational successes.
But this time Wolf was at a disadvantage. Obviously, he badly wanted this item. So, maybe, just this once, he would have to give some to get some. Or that was Emil’s thinking as he polished off the last of his beer.
Rudi the bartender looked over. Wolf shook his head. No second round, then. Emil supposed it was now or never, but there was no way he was giving up anything further unless he got something first.
Wolf took another sip of beer, then leaned across the table, coming even closer than before. There was an intense look in his eye, and his voice emerged in a whisper.
“Did Mielke perhaps happen to say anything to you then about the Bülowplatz materials?”
“Bülowplatz materials?”
“Yes. They were a personal holding of his. He kept them in a safe. In his villa.”
“At Waldsiedlung?”
“Of course.”
“No. He made no mention of Bülowplatz. In fact…” Emil let his voice trail off. He gazed toward the bar, as if lost in thought.
“Now I remember!”
“Wunderbar!”
“He said he was sending the file to be shredded, that very afternoon. In fact, he said he was going to deliver the file himself, and then personally witness its destruction. As a favor to our comrades in Moscow, he said.”
“You’re certain of this?”
“Quite certain. Thank you, Mischa. I never would have recalled it without your help. But, yes, that’s what he did. So if the idea of that file still floating around somewhere unsecured has been keeping you awake at night, well, rest easy. It was taken care of.”
“Yes.” Wolf smiled weakly. “We should all be thankful for that.”
Wolf slumped back into his seat, his eyes no longer alive with hope. Then he checked his watch. His beer glass was still nearly full, but he was ready to leave.
So was Emil, because he now had the means to possible salvation, even though it was quite a long shot, and would certainly involve difficult and even dangerous actions. He at last knew what his big boss Erich Mielke had been talking about all those years ago when he had angrily come straight to Emil’s desk to demand the file. And he knew because now he remembered their conversation perfectly.
“Of course, sir,” Emil had said, already reaching into a drawer to retrieve the file in question. “For transport to our comrades, sir, or for destruction?”
“No, no. Neither of those.”
Mielke had then grinned like a mischievous boy keeping a secret from the teacher. “This is a Bülowplatz matter, Grimm.”
“Bülowplatz, sir?”
“Yes. And that’s all you will ever need to know about it.”
So Emil, with no idea at the time of what that meant, had handed him the file, and Mielke had carried it away. And now, thanks to Wolf, Emil knew that this possible key to the identity of a KGB asset, operating somewhere near the heart of the U.S. government, could be found locked in a safe inside Mielke’s empty villa in the piney woods of Waldsiedlung.
That was less than ten miles from where he and Wolf now sat. The question, then, was how to acquire it, safely, and without being caught.
A tough question, indeed. But Emil was already working on an answer.
41
Tacheles was a revelation, a glimpse forward at the freewheeling East Berlin that might yet rise from the crumbling gray ruins of the old one. Claire saw right away why Emil Grimm had chosen it as their meeting site. Already it had become a squatter’s paradise, and most of the new inhabitants were artists from across Germany and Western Europe. Looking for suspicious characters? Take your pick. Everyone here seemed worthy of curiosity, and, as Grimm had foretold, almost all of them were speaking English. Claire and Grimm wouldn’t merit a second look.
The massive five-story building seemed on the verge of collapse. Long ago it had been a department store, a vibrant center of commerce in the city’s Jewish quarter. Then the Nazis had taken away the Jews, and bombs and artillery shells had blown apart the store. In the forty-five ensuing years the East German government had done virtually nothing to restore either, although a grandly domed synagogue just down the block had been rebuilt and was looking almost as good as new.
At Tacheles, on the other hand, much of the rear wall was still missing. The rooms along the back were open-air chambers gaping onto a vast dirt lot. Claire easily spotted Grimm, who stood in the open archway of the passage connecting Oranienburger Strasse to the dirt lot out back, where artists had already piled up plenty of items for their own use—scrap metal, junked cars, planks of wood.
Ron Kent was there, too, posted off to the side of the lot as he kept a watchful eye on her and everyone else.
Claire lingered in the empty lot, deciding to let Grimm come to her. He was bareheaded today, his graying hair looking more unruly than ever in the light breeze. She listened as a couple of nearby artists argued about which of them was going to take up residence in one of the open-air rooms looming above.
Grimm sauntered up to them, as if preparing to add his own opinion, then, pretending to notice Claire for the first time, he arched his eyebrows and walked over.
“I see your new boy over there, eyeing me from across the way. Didn’t expect to see the older one again, though. He looked a little tired. But I’m guessing he’s been around the block a few more times than even me.”
Baucom was here? It was news to Claire, but she tried not to show her surprise. How had he even found out about this meeting?
“Should we go upstairs to one of those, well…”
“Studios, I believe they’re calling them. Or ateliers, if you’re inclined to be snooty. Complete with running water, straight from the sky. That’s a joke I heard one of them telling. No, we’ll be fine right out here. The authorities, such as they are anymore, are scared to death of these people, mostly because they have no idea what to make of them.”
The two arguing artists had apparently settled their dispute. Now a taller man named Martin was berating a grizzled young fellow with a beard over his treatment of a nearby woman with an orange buzz cut and torn purple tights. The woman, named Griselde, didn’t seem the least bit perturbed by either man, perhaps because she was smoking a hand-rolled joint as big as a cigar.
Claire was still a little off balance from learning that Baucom was on the premises, although she supposed he would at least be serving as an extra lookout for any interlopers in black leather. To her dismay, Grimm wasn’t carrying any sort of bag or parcel. Maybe he had only come to beg for more time.
“I was hoping you’d brought something new for me. Because I have to warn you, my superiors are short on patience. They’ve decided it’s a buyer’s market, so if you’re going to give them an upgrade it had better be soon. Preferably now.”
“Oh, I have an upgrade, all right. But first I have a question about your meeting the other day with Wolf. Did he promise you something as well, perhaps? Or at least the possibility of something? Particularly with regard to a Russian asset who might yet be operating on American soil?”
It was an impressive question, freighted with all sorts of interesting possibilities.
“No. He didn’t. But…”
“What?”
Should she tell him? Probably not. Certainly not. But she did, if only because she disliked and feared his Russian competitors as much as he seemed to.
“The whole reason Wolf wanted to meet us, or so he said, was that he’d gotten a back-channel invitation for a visit from someone quite high in the Agency, maybe even director level, and he was hoping we could tell him what they wanted from him.”
“Could you? Did you?”
“Only in the most general sense.”
“And?”
“Understand, I’m only telling you this because it follows so naturally from your question. But apparently they want to ask him if he knows of any Russian assets—one in particular—working within our organization.”
“A mole, then. Inside the CIA, possibly at headquarters.”
“Yes.”
“Then what I have for you may be valuable indeed. Especially if, as I suspect, our mutual friend Kolkachev is merely offering something false, intended to lead you astray.”
“Because he works in counterintelligence, you mean.”
“Precisely. It’s his nature to misdirect the opposition. And if he can make a small fortune while doing so, and also while giving you our agent files as his sole authentic offering, all the better for him and for the KGB.”
“Unless, of course, he’s the real deal, a possible defector in place. In which case, you’ll need to up the ante. So what’s your contribution?”
“The location of a dead drop near Washington, and a file about a small operation to service it that our people carried out several years ago. They cleared the box when our Russian friends were unable to do so, presumably due to some sort of crisis. All of which leads me to believe that it is, or was, a favored communications point for this asset.”
“Interesting. But that would only be valuable if the asset is still using it.”
“My thoughts as well. Then I recalled this morning that in carrying out this task our people on the ground also took the liberty of making a copy of the items they collected at the dead drop. Not because our comrades asked us to, but because that is what spies do. Only a few documents were involved, and while I don’t recall their substance, I do remember they came with the usual trappings of office correspondence, including a circulation list of names. One document only had four names, total. Those copies also went into the file. So if you’re looking to narrow the field of suspects, well…”
“Added value indeed.”
“Pleased to know you agree.”
“Then let’s have it.”
“Gladly. As soon as I have obtained it, with your help.”
“There’s always a catch.”
“Only a small one. Although it will involve night work.”
“Which night are we speaking of?”
“This one. Very late. But if you agree to this, I can put the item in your hands before the sun rises, at a safe location where you can help me exit safely and securely.”
“That’s more than a small favor.”
“Perhaps. But I’ll be doing the hard part.” He glanced back to where Ron Kent was now drifting along, some thirty yards in their wake. “All you’ll have to do is wait in the woods for an hour or so while I retrieve the item. You can even stay in your car, if you like, although don’t bring that silly Trabi, which fools no one. The place I’ve marked will provide ample cover even for a Mercedes.”
“So you brought me a map?”
“And instructions.”
He pulled a folded sheet of paper from his pocket and casually handed it to her. She immediately put it in her purse as they continued to stroll the grounds. They were approaching a sandy area where two bearded young men in jeans and wool sweaters were working with shovels to bury an old Trabant at a forty-five-degree angle. Claire was guessing they’d end up calling it an art installation.
“Will your lady friend be helping?”
“Don’t ask about her.”
His reply was curt, a little chilly. Her hunch had been correct, then. The connection was both personal and professional.
“I’ll have to ask permission, of course. From my superiors.”
“When you do, also mention that I don’t expect you to arrive empty-handed.”
“Money?”
“Not important, or not yet. I know there was a price mentioned earlier, but the greater urgency is for two passports. West German.”
“Only two?”
“I have my own set of documents available for this sort of thing, and they are still current. What’s important is that you bring me two West German passports using these photos, names, and dates.”
He handed her another folded paper, which also went straight into her purse.
“I will also expect your Agency’s assistance in putting these passports to use, and in providing us with accommodations during our transition to another life.”
“And you want these passports tonight? That’s asking a lot.”
“It is, but I know from experience that your people are capable of it, just as ours were. With the proper sense of urgency, almost anything is possible in our business. I suggest that you be in place by four in the morning. That gives you plenty of time to get this done.”
“You’ll get no argument from me.”
“So it’s your superiors that are the problem? The ones who have fallen in love with Kolkachev?”
“Yes, but maybe this will turn their heads. Maybe I’ll also pass along your observation about how much he would enjoy stringing us along. Come what may, I expect you’ll be seeing me, late tonight.”
“Do not arrive empty-handed.”
