The Helsinki Pact (10 page)

Thomas stared at Dieter in
horror, then looked away, unable to stand the penetrating
examination, so much at variance with the calm and reasonable
voice.

“Unconsidered trifles can be
valuable when connected to other information we have. We’re skilled
at making these connections. You can become our Autolycus, snapping
up careless morsels from the West. All this unpleasantness will
vanish." Dieter clicked his fingers. "Your life will continue much
as before.”

Dieter’s voice suddenly lost its
soothing tone, became brisk as if he’d suddenly become bored
talking to someone who couldn’t see where his best interests
clearly lay. He glanced at this watch. “But the choice is yours.
You have two days before the trial. Think about your future.
Remember, the choice is yours.”

He turned on his heel and slammed
the door shut, the dull clang overlaid, Thomas noticed despite
himself, with dying harmonics. The switch outside clicked and and
the steps echoed down the corridor leaving Thomas in darkness. A
faint glow came through the flap in the door but as the footsteps
finally faded even that vanished and Thomas was left with the
absolute darkness again singing in his ears.

Chapter 7

Friday September 15
1989

DIETER’S footsteps had died away
and the now total silence made the darkness heavy and oppressive.
Thomas glanced by habit at his wrist then remembered that his watch
had gone. He felt for the bed and sat down. The darkness waved and
swirled in front of his eyes and took on a solidity, seeming to
press down on him, force him back against the wall. He suddenly
relived the terror when, as a child, he'd dived at high tide deep
into an underwater cave in a cliff and became disorientated, unable
to sense the way to the surface, desperate to breathe, scrabbling
deeper and panicking as he struggled to escape. He clutched and
pulled up with all his strength on the hard, sharp edge of the bed
frame, searing pain into his hands but returning him to reality and
halting for the moment the mad drumming in his ears and the
feelings of nausea. He heard his heart hammering as Dieter’s words,
insisting that it was up to him to choose, kept pace in his
head.

Whether Thomas faced trial or not
was entirely under Dieter's control, he realised. Dieter could
certainly also influence the trial as he wished, ensuring a long
sentence of perhaps twenty years or more, if he felt so inclined.
Lawyer there might be for him but that was mere gloss and would
make no difference to the result.

He’d already been stitched up on
a drugs-related charge, Thomas thought, and although he was
innocent of that he knew that getting off would be almost
impossible if Dieter chose to press his case. Conditions might be
better than what he was enduring now but whatever the improvement
he just couldn't face twenty years in a Stasi jail.

He remembered the contempt Dieter
had shown when he'd offered to pay a fine. Money worked in the West
but here it didn’t, or at least not in the same way. He thought
back to how often money had bought him out of trouble. That new
housemaid when he got back from university at Christmas; their
child would have been about three now. He remembered how
exasperated his father had been as he’d paid for the clinic and
given the girl a generous amount to forget the careless
indiscretion and to start again in another town. But here it was a
matter of principle, not price. This was unfamiliar to him and
Thomas was unsure how to handle it. The mantra started up again
loudly in his head. It was his choice, certainly, but even that
freedom to choose, he realised, was illusory.

But what was Dieter seeking to
achieve? Yes, Thomas knew, even if only casually, many important
people in Frankfurt through his family’s connections. Frankfurt was
Germany’s financial powerhouse but all the political power was in
Bonn and it was Bonn that called the shots. He knew very few people
there and certainly no one of high political status or power. Why
was Frankfurt so important? Why was the Stasi so interested in him?
Why him?

Thomas heard steps outside and
then a harsh screech ripped his ears as the panel in the door
opened. In the rectangle of light which followed he saw a tray and
at the same time, out of the corner of his eye, he sensed the rapid
scurry of something small along the floor by the far wall. He
reached for the tray and the panel snapped shut, the footsteps
dying away and leaving the darkness as oppressive as before. He
felt for a fork or a spoon but there was nothing of that kind,
merely some hard bread, a bowl of mushy mixture that might have
been old potato salad and a tin mug of flat water.

His anger flared up but he
stopped himself in time from hurling the tray into the darkness.
That would disturb no one other than himself. He laughed suddenly,
remembering the care with which he and Stephan had examined the
menu and the expensive wine list when they’d last met. Well, nor
was he now at the Ephraim Palais but he was hungry and had no way
of knowing when his next meal would come. He'd better accept what
was offered.

He dozed fitfully, waking with a
start, his limbs and chest still painful, fully alert and again
conscious of the decision he had to make although still refusing to
acknowledge that the choice offered was no choice at all. Perhaps
Dieter wasn’t so powerful as he seemed. Perhaps he could get a fair
trial after all. Perhaps he could get friends in the West to pull
strings to get him out. He tried to sleep but as this list of
hopeful possibilities churned in his mind, growing wilder as time
passed, he realised that he was trudging down a corridor with only
one exit. “But if I don’t do it, someone else will. If I don’t
collaborate, they’ll find other ways to get what they need anyway.”
he thought. “And it’s not as if I’ll have access to any important
secrets." He looked into the blackness. "I just need my life back.
Is that so bad?”

The tray and the mug were each
too flimsy to make much noise on the door but he found that by
hitting the panel with the side of his clenched hand at a certain
spot he could make it flex slightly and generate an additional
faint booming which faded down the corridor. The slight scrabbling
in the far corner that occasionally he heard and which he linked to
the scurrying flash he’d caught earlier when the tray arrived gave
him strength and after many minutes he head footsteps dragging
towards his cell. The panel scraped open once more and Thomas
briefly basked in the light.

“I need to speak to Colonel
Dieter!”

The man laughed. “Go back to
sleep. It’s the middle of the night! He gets in later at weekends
and doesn't stay long. When he gets here in a few hours we’ll tell
him you want an audience. Perhaps he’ll be able to fit you in
today. If not, you'll have to wait till Monday.”

It must already be Saturday
morning, he thought. His flatmate, John, wouldn’t be concerned
because they each would go off suddenly if something came up. But
then he remembered Stephan and the planned visit to the opera.
Shit! There was Bettina as well. They’d agreed to meet on Friday
evening outside the opera house. After their difficult start
standing her up was the last thing he needed. Well, being locked up
in a Stasi dungeon was a pretty good excuse, he thought bitterly as
he again fell asleep.

The light being switched on from
outside and then the noise made by the door opening woke Thomas.
His neck and his arm felt stiff and cramped, his leg ached, and he
shivered slightly in the cell’s dampness. Dieter, this time in
uniform, stood in the doorway his face in shadow so that it took
Thomas a moment to realize that it was the man he’d met
earlier.

“What have you
decided?”

Some of Thomas’s earlier
confidence drained away as he looked at Dieter, the crisp, full
military uniform reinforcing his stern bearing and reminding Thomas
of the vast difference in the power of each of them.

“I’ll do what you want – but only
on certain conditions.”

Dieter smiled coldly.

“Do you really think you’re in
any position to dictate anything?" He made a small gesture with his
fingers. "But, well, go on.”

“I’ll help, but you need to let
me get on with my life. I’m a student. I’ve got a life ahead of me.
I can’t give that up.”

“We want you to be successful. We
will even help you because that will make your job easier. All we
need is that you get for us information from certain people.
Provided you do that to our satisfaction we’ll make sure that your
life continues pretty much as before.”

“Who do I have to inform on? Are
you going to tell me that just now?” Thomas felt some of his
earlier confidence returning. How would they know that he reported
things correctly and completely. If anything was too secret or too
dangerous to West Germany he could easily forget about it or subtly
misrepresent what he'd learned.

“Let’s see.” said Dieter.
“Frankfurt. We know your family is well connected, particularly in
banking circles through your late father. Who do you know who might
interest us?”

“I have an uncle in Essen who
heads a major pharmaceutical plant and who obviously knows many
important industrialists. I’m sure he could be someone worth
following more closely, also as ... ”

The slap of Dieter’s gloves on
Thomas’s face echoed in the cell. It had been more done out of
irritation and warning than real anger but his cheek stung and he
sensed again the menace behind Dieter’s urbane and sophisticated
manner.

“Why would we care about
industrial espionage when our factories produce all that the DDR
needs? I’m interested only in anyone close to the levers of power.
Who do you know, or who can you contact, high up in the Bundesbank
or maybe one of the important ministries such as
Finance?”

A guard entered and handed a note
to Dieter who scanned it quickly.

“Good!” he said “You haven’t been
missed. I had one of our female agents call up your apartment to
say you were spending a couple of nights with her. Your flatmate,
John he said his name was, took that as quite normal. He said there
were several calls from a Stephan Fischer, calling from Frankfurt –
I have his number here so you can call him back. Who is Fischer?
Tell me about him.”

Thomas’s mind raced, wondering
what he could say and hold back about Stephan. What did Dieter
already know? Would he guess if Thomas lied?

“I’m waiting, Mr Wundart. Who is
Fischer? Why has he called you frequently? I want to know all about
him.”

“He’s an old friend. We’re the
same age. We were at school together, grew up together. We meet
every few months either here or in Frankfurt. He and his girlfriend
were coming to visit this weekend.”

“And what does he do? The office
number is in the Deutsche Bank headquarters. Where does he work?
What is his position? What other friends of his do you
know?”

“He’s an assistant in Deutsche
Bankthere. He’s been there for perhaps a year but I’m not sure
exactly what he does. I’ve met some of his friends but apart from
his girlfriend, Camille, I don’t really know them.”

This was dangerous ground, Thomas
realised, but he hoped that his feigned candour and apparent
willingness to cooperate would satisfy Dieter. The slap of the
gloves, harder this time, jolted him.

“He’s an old friend, you say. My
patience is limited. You will know exactly what he does! You said
he’s an assistant, not a trainee. Which department? Who does he
work for? You know, Mr Wundart, we expect far more cooperation from
our agents. I’m not a dentist, I shouldn’t have to pull stuff out
bit by bit!”

Thomas looked down and as he
again glanced up saw that Dieter was staring steadily at him,
waiting, dominating Thomas.

“I, I believe he’s Alfred
Herren’s personal assistant.”

Dieter’s eyes gleamed and opened
slightly and a flicker of excitement lit his face before he resumed
his usual manner and tone of voice.

“Ah! The CEO of Deutsche Bank.
You say he was due to visit you for the weekend … ”

“And now I’ve missed him through
being stuck here. We shan’t get a chance again for a month or two,
I expect.” This was a small victory, he thought.

Dieter ignored the
comment.

“Where were you going to meet
them? And when?”

“Stephan had booked a room in a
West Berlin hotel near my apartment but we thought it best to meet
at the Opera House here. On Friday evening, yesterday evening,
maybe half past seven. He was going to telephone to let me know
when he could get away. We were going to see Fidelio. He’ll be
concerned about why I didn’t appear, about what’s happened to
me.”

Dieter’s face was
immobile.

“OK!” he said “I think we have a
deal. I’ll get the charge against you dropped and your trial
cancelled. In return you’ll intensify your contacts with Mr
Fischer, see him more frequently in Frankfurt, find interesting
things to bring him to Berlin. You’ll find out from him all you can
about Herren and what’s going on in his office. There are other
people in Deutsche Bank we’ll want to know about as well and we’ll
tell you about these. Perhaps we’ll even transfer you back to
Frankfurt for a while. I’ll have someone bring you to my office one
hour from now.”