Edge of Eternity (139 page)

He picked up the package and handed it to Alice. ‘Open it,’ he said.

Alice took off the brown paper wrapping. Inside was a copy of Plum Nellie’s latest album,
The Interpretation of Dreams
. Her face lit up.

Lili wondered what trick Hans was up to now.

‘Why don’t you play your father’s record?’ Hans said.

Alice withdrew the inner white envelope from the coloured sleeve. Then, with finger and thumb, she took the black plastic disc from the envelope.

It came out in two pieces.

Hans said: ‘It seems to be broken. What a shame.’

Alice began to cry.

Hans stood up. ‘I know the way out,’ he said, and he left.

*  *  *

Unter den Linden was the broad boulevard through East Berlin to the Brandenburg Gate. Under another name, the street continued into West Berlin through the park called the Tiergarten. Since 1961, though, Unter den Linden had dead-ended at the Brandenburg Gate, blocked by the Berlin Wall. From the park on the West side, the view of the Brandenburg Gate was disfigured by a high, ugly, grey-green fence covered with graffiti, and a sign in German that said:

WARNING

You are now leaving

West-Berlin

Beyond the fence was the killing field of the Wall.

Plum Nellie’s road crew built a stage right up against the ugly fence and stacked a mighty wall of loudspeakers facing out into the park. On Walli’s instructions, equally powerful speakers faced the other way, into East Berlin. He wanted Alice to hear him. A reporter had told him that the East German government objected to the speakers. ‘Tell them that if they take their wall down, I’ll do the same with mine,’ Walli had said, and the quote was in all the papers.

Originally they had thought to do the German gig in Hamburg, but then Walli had heard about Hans Hoffmann breaking Alice’s disc, and in retaliation he had asked Dave to reschedule in Berlin, so that a million East Germans would be able to hear the songs Hoffmann had attempted to deny to Alice. Dave had loved the idea.

Now they stood together, looking at the stage from the side as thousands of fans gathered in the park. ‘This is going to be the loudest we’ve ever been,’ said Dave.

‘Good,’ said Walli. ‘I want them to hear my guitar all the way to fucking Leipzig.’

‘Remember the old days?’ Dave said. ‘Those tinny little speakers they had in baseball stadiums?’

‘No one could hear us – we couldn’t hear ourselves!’

‘Now a hundred thousand people can listen to music that sounds the way we intended.’

‘It’s kind of a miracle.’

When Walli returned to his dressing room, Rebecca was there. ‘This is fantastic,’ she said. ‘There must be a hundred thousand people in the park!’

She was with a grey-haired man of about her own age. ‘This is my friend Fred Bíró,’ she said.

Walli shook his hand, and Fred said: ‘It’s an honour to meet you.’ He spoke German with a Hungarian accent.

Walli was amused. So his sister was dating at the age of fifty-three! Well, good for her. The guy seemed to be her type, intellectual but not too solemn. And she looked younger, with a Princess Diana hair style and a purple dress.

They chatted for a while then left him to get ready. Walli changed into clean blue jeans and a flame-red shirt. Peering into the mirror, he put on eyeliner so that the crowd could read his expression better. He remembered with disgust the times when he had had to manage his drug intake so carefully: a small amount to keep him level during the performance, and a big hit afterwards as his reward. He was not for one second tempted to return to those habits.

He was called to go on stage. He joined up with Dave, Buzz and Lew. Dave’s whole family was there to wish them well: his wife Beep, their eleven-year-old son John Lee, Dave’s parents Daisy and Lloyd, and even his sister Evie; all looking proud of their Dave. Walli was glad to see them all, but their presence reminded him poignantly that he was not able to see his own family: Werner and Carla, Lili, Karolin and Alice.

But with any luck they would be listening on the other side of the Wall.

The band went on stage and the crowd roared their welcome.

*  *  *

Unter den Linden was jammed with thousands of Plum Nellie fans, old and young. Lili and her family, including Karolin, Alice, and Alice’s boyfriend Helmut, had been there since early morning. They had secured a position close to the barrier the police had set up to keep the crowd at a distance from the Wall. As the crowd had grown through the day, the street had developed a festival atmosphere, with people talking to strangers and sharing their picnics and playing Plum Nellie tapes on portable boom boxes. As darkness fell they opened bottles of beer and wine.

Then the band came on, and the crowd went wild.

East Berliners could see nothing but the four bronze horses pulling Victory’s chariot atop the arch. But they could hear everything loud and clear: Lew’s drumming; Buzz’s thudding bass; Dave’s rhythm guitar and high harmonies; and, best of all, Walli’s perfect pop baritone and lyrical guitar lines. The familiar songs soared out of the speaker stacks and thrilled the moving, dancing crowd. That’s my brother, Lili kept thinking; my big brother, singing to the world. Werner and Carla looked proud, Karolin was smiling, and Alice’s eyes were shining.

Lili glanced up at a government office building nearby. Standing on a small balcony were half a dozen men in ties and dark coats, clearly visible by the street lights. They were not dancing. One was taking photographs of the crowd. They must be Stasi, Lili realized; they were making a record of traitors disloyal to the Honecker regime – which was, nowadays, almost everyone.

Looking more closely, she thought she recognized one of the secret policemen. It was Hans Hoffmann, she was almost sure. He was tall and slightly stooped. He seemed to be speaking angrily, moving his right arm in a violent hammering gesture. Walli had said in an interview that the band wanted to play here because East Germans were not allowed to listen to their records. Hans must have known that his breaking Alice’s disc was the reason for this concert and this crowd. No wonder he was angry.

She saw Hans throw up his hands in despair, turn, and leave the balcony, disappearing into the building. One song ended and another began. The crowd yelled their approval as they recognized the opening chords of one of Plum Nellie’s biggest hits. Walli’s voice came through the speakers: ‘This one is for my little girl.’

Then he sang ‘I Miss Ya, Alicia’.

Lili looked at Alice. Tears were streaming down her face, but she was smiling.

57

William Buckley, the American kidnapped in Lebanon by Hezbollah on 16 March 1984, was officially described as a Political Officer at the US Embassy in Beirut. In fact, he was the CIA head of station.

Cam Dewar knew Bill Buckley and thought he was a good guy. Bill was a slight figure in conservative Brooks Brothers suits. He had a head of thick greying hair and matinee-idol looks. A career soldier, he had fought in Korea and served with Special Forces in Vietnam, ending with the rank of colonel. In the sixties he had joined the Special Activities Division of the CIA. That was the division that carried out assassinations.

Bill was single at fifty-seven. According to Langley gossip, he had a long-distance relationship with a woman called Candace in Farmer, North Carolina. She wrote him love letters and he telephoned her from all over the world. When he was in the US, they were lovers. Or so people said.

Like everyone else at Langley, Cam was angry about the kidnapping and desperate to get Bill released. But all efforts failed.

And there was worse news. One by one, Bill’s agents and informers in Beirut began to disappear. Hezbollah had to be getting their names from Bill. That meant he was being tortured.

The CIA knew Hezbollah’s methods, and they could guess what was happening to Bill. He would be permanently blindfolded, chained at the ankles and wrists, and kept in a box like a coffin, day after day, week after week. After a few months of this he would be literally insane: drooling, gibbering, trembling, rolling his eyes, and letting out sudden random screams of terror.

So Cam was savagely pleased when at last someone came up with a plan of action against the kidnappers.

The plan originated, not with the CIA, but with the President’s National Security Advisor, Bud McFarlane. On his staff Bud had a gung-ho Marine Lieutenant-Colonel called Oliver North, known as Ollie. Among the men North had recruited to help him was Tim Tedder, and it was Tim who told Cam of McFarlane’s plan.

Cam eagerly took Tim into the office of Florence Geary. Tim was a former CIA agent and an old acquaintance of Florence’s. As always, he had his hair cut as if he were still in the army, and today he wore a safari suit that was as close to a military uniform as civilian dress could get.

‘We’re going to work with foreign nationals,’ Tim explained. ‘There will be three teams, each of five men. They won’t be CIA employees and they won’t even be Americans. But the Agency will train them, equip them, and arrange finance.’

Florence nodded. ‘And what will these teams do?’ she said neutrally.

‘The idea is to get to the kidnappers before they strike,’ Tim said. ‘When we know that they’re planning a kidnapping, or a bombing, or any other kind of terrorist act – we will direct one of the teams to go in and eliminate the perpetrators.’

‘Let me get this straight,’ said Florence. ‘These teams will kill terrorists
before
they commit crimes.’

She was not as excited by the plan as Cam was, evidently, and he had a bad feeling.

‘Exactly,’ said Tim.

‘I have one question,’ said Florence. ‘Are you two out of your fucking minds?’

Cam was outraged. How could Florence be against this?

Tim said indignantly: ‘I know it’s unconventional—’

‘Unconventional?’ Florence interrupted. ‘By the laws of every civilized country it’s
murder
. There is no due process, there is no requirement of proof, and by your own admission, the people you’re targeting may have done nothing more than merely
think
about committing crimes.’

Cam said: ‘Actually, it’s not murder. We’d be acting like a cop who gets off an early shot at a criminal who is pointing a gun at him. It’s called pre-emptive self-defence.’

‘So you’re a lawyer, now, Cam.’

‘That’s not my opinion, it’s Sporkin’s.’ Stanley Sporkin was the CIA general counsel.

‘Well, Stan’s wrong,’ said Florence. ‘Because we never see a pointed gun. We have no way of knowing who is about to commit a terrorist act. We don’t have intelligence of that quality in Lebanon – we never have. So we’ll end up killing people who we
think
might be planning terrorism.’

‘Perhaps we can improve the reliability of our information.’

‘What about the reliability of the foreign nationals? Who will be on these five-man teams? Local Beirut bad guys? Mercenaries? International-security-company Eurotrash? How can you trust them? How can you
control
them? Yet whatever they do will be our responsibility – especially if they kill innocent people!’

Tim said: ‘No, no – the whole operation will be arm’s-length and deniable.’

‘It doesn’t sound very deniable to me. The CIA is going to train and equip them and finance their activities. And have you thought of the political consequences?’

‘Fewer kidnappings and bombings.’

‘How can you be so naive? If we strike at Hezbollah this way, you think they will sit back and say: “Gosh, the Americans are tougher than we thought, maybe we’d better give up this whole terrorism idea.” No, no. They will be screaming for revenge! In the Middle East, violence always begets more violence – haven’t you learned that yet? Hezbollah bombed the Marine Corps barracks in Beirut – why? According to Colonel Geraghty, who was the Marine commander at the time, it was in response to the US Sixth Fleet shelling innocent Muslims in the village of Suq-al-Garb. One atrocity brings another.’

‘So you’re just going to give in and say nothing can be done?’

‘Nothing
easy
can be done, just hard political work. We lower the temperature, we restrain both sides, and we bring them to the negotiating table, again and again, no matter how many times they walk out. We don’t give up and, whatever happens, we don’t escalate the violence.’

‘I think we can—’

But Florence was not yet done. ‘This plan is criminal, it’s impractical, it has horrendous political consequences in the Middle East, and it endangers the reputations of the CIA, the President, and the US. But that is not all. There is yet one more thing that completely rules it out.’

She paused, and Cam was forced to say: ‘What?’

‘We are forbidden
by the President
to carry out assassinations. “No person employed by, or acting on behalf of, the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, assassination.” Executive Order 12333. Ronald Reagan signed it in 1981.’

‘I think he’s forgotten that,’ said Cam.

*  *  *

Maria met Florence Geary in downtown Washington at the Woodward and Lothrop department store, which everyone called Woodies. Their rendezvous was the brassiere department. Most agents were men, and any man who followed them in here would be conspicuous. He might even get arrested.

‘I used to be size 34A,’ said Florence. ‘Now I’m 36C. What happened?’

Maria chuckled. At forty-eight she was a little older than Florence. ‘Join the club of middle-aged women,’ she said. ‘I always had a big ass, but I used to have cute little boobs that stood up all on their own. Now I need serious support.’

In two decades in Washington, Maria had assiduously cultivated contacts. She had learned early on how much was achieved – for good or ill – through personal acquaintance. Back in the days when the CIA had been using Florence as a secretary, instead of training her to be an agent as they had promised, Maria had sympathized with her plight, woman to woman. Maria’s contacts were usually women, always liberal. She exchanged information with them, giving early warning of threatening moves by political opponents, and helped them discreetly, often by assigning higher priority to projects that might otherwise be sidelined by conservative men. The men did much the same.