Brandenburg (26 page)

Harland nodded.

‘We are straying from the point,’ said Costelloe. ‘I believe we have—’

‘No,’ said Griswald. ‘This
is
the point. We can’t ignore what Rosenharte is telling us.’

‘I wasn’t suggesting we should. But the assessment of the Kafka product and what action governments take is not our problem at the moment. There are many unknowns - for example what the Stasi make of the material we’re feeding them and the motive and reliability of Kafka - but we
do
know that Zank is involved, which I believe means that we can set our stop watches because it’s only a matter of time before his doubts are allowed to prevail. As we know he’s no ordinary officer. So I would suggest it’s wise to decide on a deadline, by which time Rosenharte and his family are brought out and people are placed around Kafka - say four weeks.’

Having defused the problem, Costelloe turned to Rosenharte. ‘I want you to think about your decision not to tell us Kafka’s true identity. This isn’t just a matter of your brother’s health and freedom, important though that is to you: the information could save scores of lives. Don’t respond now; just think about it over the next twelve hours.’ He rose from the sofa. ‘Right, you’ve a lot to get through. We’re going back to London. Keep in touch, Bobby.’

He shook hands with Griswald and then turned to Rosenharte and asked him about the democracy and peace movements in the East. ‘In your opinion, will it amount to anything?’

Rosenharte replied that he was sure the Stasi would act forcefully to suppress at least one demonstration to send out a message to dissident groups all over the country.

Costelloe nodded. ‘But there is a groundswell of opinion?’

‘People are coming together, but one determined use of force will end it.’

‘I’m afraid you’re probably right.’ Costelloe moved towards the lift with Phillips in his wake. ‘We’d be very interested to hear anything you pick up on this. Remember that when you’re next in Leipzig.’ He took Rosenharte’s hand. ‘You’re doing a very remarkable job, sir. It’s been a pleasure. No doubt we will be seeing you again.’

Rosenharte watched as he ushered Phillips into the lift and nodded to them. Costelloe’s eyes came to rest on him before the doors closed and Rosenharte had the impression that he saw right into him. For a brief moment he experienced a vertiginous fright. He was now playing off four intelligence services against each other across the Iron Curtain. With individuals like Zank, Vladimir and Costelloe involved it was not a situation that could continue for very long.

By six thirty they had been joined by Macy Harp, the Bird and Tudor Williams. Griswald showed Rosenharte to a phone in the bedroom and told him that Harland would listen in on the set in the sitting room.

Looking out on the enticing lights of West Berlin Rosenharte dialled the number of Frau Haberl, a Party member who lived near Else but who was well disposed to her and took messages for her. On the third attempt he got through and Else answered.

At the best of times Else was hesitant, but now she sounded cowed - the effects no doubt of her interrogation by the Stasi and then the sudden, baffling release. He realized that she had been told that he would ring, but had no idea of the circumstances of the call.

‘How are the boys?’ he asked straight away.

‘They’re better now. Florian says he hasn’t been sleeping. Christoph doesn’t seem to have taken in what happened. I think they were shocked by the experience of being . . .’ She stopped. ‘Of being away. They’ll be fine after a few days here.’

Rosenharte saw her in his mind: a large woman with surprisingly delicate features and hands. Over the years her expression of lovely, shy amusement had become dominated by anxiety. ‘Yes, I understand. Give them a hug from me. Else,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to raise your hopes, but we should see Konrad soon.’

She said nothing.

‘It’s okay. There are no secrets about this. I saw him this morning. They let me see him. Do you understand?’

‘Yes.’ The whole tone of her voice changed. ‘Thank God! How was he?’

‘Well, but very, very tired.’

‘Is his health standing up? Tell me.’

‘He’ll need rest when he comes home - your cooking and seeing the boys will do the trick. Else, I want you to know I’m working very hard to achieve this.’

‘Thank you, Rudi . . . we can’t thank you enough.’

‘Send the boys my love and tell them we’ll go on a hike at the lake. I hope to be with you very soon.’ He waited to see if she understood. Konrad and he used the word ‘lake’ as a code to indicate that they couldn’t talk and that an explanation would follow later. It was no more than an alert.

‘Yes, the lake. That will be fun. Maybe I’ll come too.’

‘Everything is going to be okay,’ he said. ‘I’ll ring again and leave a message with Frau Haberl.’

‘Thank you Rudi - we send our love to you.’

Rosenharte replaced the handset with a sense of his enormous responsibility. Else was not robust: she couldn’t tolerate much more worry without succumbing to depression. If this went wrong, what the hell would she do?

He took himself next door to the sitting room and walked to the window, ignoring the others. He looked out and thought what it would be like to explore West Berlin, the other half of the capital he knew so well. The East had the lion’s share of the good architecture, such as had been left after the war, but the West had all the life.

He turned. Harland had begun unfolding a large map of Leipzig. ‘Well, that’s some cause for a small celebration, isn’t it? Did everything sound all right to you?’ He was evidently pleased to be rid of the pair from London.

Rosenharte poured himself another drink and lit a cigarette. ‘It means nothing,’ he said.

Harland searched his face.

‘It means nothing that the Stasi have kept to their agreement by releasing Else,’ he continued. ‘Not to release her would have sent a message to me that they did not believe in Annalise’s material. Besides, they know they can pick her up any time they want. That’s why I want her and the kids out as soon as possible.’

‘We’re going to talk about that in a minute. Just show me where this house is in Leipzig.’

Rosenharte went to the table and immediately pointed to the spot on Clara Zetkin Park. ‘It’s not easy to see from the park because there is a high fence and some trees, but access is potentially good, should anyone wish to visit Abu Jamal unannounced. Kafka will tell us the moment he is there. And if he stays at another house she will get this information to me.’ He pointed out the addresses given to him by the Russian.

‘Good, now we need to talk about your brother and his family. First your brother. Al, have you got those photos?’

Griswald moved to a desk in the window, picked up an envelope and withdrew several large satellite images. ‘These come from 1985, but they should be good for our purposes.’

Rosenharte peered at them, moving his head up and down to bring them into focus. ‘You need reading glasses,’ said Griswald.

‘I don’t. My eyes are tired.’

‘Believe me, you need glasses.’

At any rate, Rosenharte saw enough to put his finger on the main entrances to Hohenschönhausen, the interrogation centre and the hospital building that ran along the inside of the perimeter wall.

Macy Harp and the Bird got down close to the four photographs. ‘One thing is immediately obvious,’ Harp said. ‘We only stand a chance of pulling this off while he’s still in the hospital. Once he’s been transferred back to the main detention and interrogation centre, there will be little hope of locating him quickly. But the hospital wing does provide opportunities, even though we have no idea where he’s being kept in that building. If we knew that we would be in better shape.’

‘There is something that I can do to find that out,’ said Rosenharte.

‘Oh, how?’ asked Harland.

‘I must be allowed my secrets too,’ he said.

‘We will need the information fast,’ said the Bird.

‘I’ll try to get it as soon as I can, though how do I communicate with you? That’s going to be a problem.’

‘Let’s concentrate on this problem for a moment,’ said Harland. ‘How sick is your brother? We need to know whether he can walk or even climb. Up until now we’ve never cracked open a jail, which I suppose may be one thing in our favour, but if your brother is unable to move, we need to take that into account.’

‘He’s sick,’ said Rosenharte, ‘but the moment he realizes he’s being freed he’ll do everything he can to help. He knows it will be his only chance.’

‘Was he in bed when you saw him?’ asked Harp.

‘No, he was sitting at a table. I think it was a room they use to continue interrogations while prisoners are receiving treatment. And I do not believe he was drugged.’

‘Was there any sign of a gurney or a stretcher in the room?’

‘No.’

‘So, we can assume he walked. That’s good to know, but we will need to take some emergency medication for his heart and maybe a tranquillizer or two. We’ll get advice on that.’

‘What’s the earliest you’d be ready to go?’ asked Harland.

Harp frowned. ‘Seven to ten days. Maybe more. It depends how long we take to exfiltrate Konrad’s missus and the boys. Cuth is going to handle that. He shouldn’t take more than thirty-six hours from start to finish.’

Harland glanced at Rosenharte, then spoke. ‘Clearly, these two operations need to be planned as near as possible to each other. I’m keen for Else and the boys to disappear without being noticed. Maybe they should visit you in Dresden.’ He paused. ‘But I have to get these ideas sanctioned by London and . . . well. One thing occurs to me straight away. Once we get Konrad and the family out, there’s absolutely nothing to keep you in the GDR. We’d lose our contact with Kafka.’

‘That’s correct,’ he told them. It would be pointless to deny he would leave for the West.

Griswald rubbed his hands together. ‘Rudi - may I call you that? - you gotta have some faith in us. We’re going to a lot of trouble to help you and it doesn’t look good to our governments if you continue to hold out on us.’ Then he opened his arms in a gesture of appeal. ‘This thing goes beyond you and your family. To be brutal, it’s five people against the lives of many. The intelligence you have brought to us today could be massively important. We need to get to work on it straight away. We have to equip ourselves with all the information.’

There was a silence in the room. He felt uncomfortable. All eyes had come to rest on him expectantly. ‘I have one good card in this game,’ he said pleasantly. ‘You all understand that once I give it you, I may condemn my brother to rot in that place.’

Griswald started shaking his head. ‘You got it all wrong. We’re not communists, Rudi. We’re different. I’ve known Bobby for a long time and he’s never welched on a deal. None of us enter an agreement that we can’t keep. If we say we’re going to get your brother out we’ll all do our damnedest to get him out. You know why that is? It’s because we’re compelled to make the distinction between what your side does and what we do, between a secret police force and an intelligence agency. We’re not angels, but you cannot doubt our motives.’

‘You forget that I’ve been in the business. I understand the symmetry of the two sides. And besides, I don’t have Kafka’s permission to reveal her name.’

‘That’s crap, Rudi. It’s implicit in the information she gave you. No one could say those things and not expect to be named. She understands that. She’s put herself on the line.’

‘But I still have a responsibility to her. I have to protect her.’

‘No,
we
have a responsibility to her and to the people who wind up at the end of one of these terrorist attacks. That’s what this is about.’

Rosenharte put his hands up. ‘I’ll think about it. But if I do give you her name, I’m going to need certain guarantees about her safety.’

‘That goes without saying,’ said Harland. ‘There’s just one more area I want to explore before you go off with Cuth and Macy to discuss arrangements for next week.’

‘And that is?’ Rosenharte had watched Harland closely these past few hours. He was clearly a field man with little taste for office politics, yet he conducted himself well, letting first Costelloe then Griswald say the things he needed to be said, even if it meant him looking less capable.

Harland looked away. ‘When the Bird and Macy came back from Dresden after seeing you, they told me about the surveillance deployed against you. They said it was truly impressive - so heavy that they doubted they would be able to get near you.’

‘It was,’ said Rosenharte.

Macy Harp produced a grin as confirmation. The Bird nodded sagely.

‘What I don’t understand is how you were able to slip away to travel to Leipzig and to contact Kafka without being observed.’

‘I caught the very earliest service to Leipzig. There was a car in my street, which I assumed was Stasi, but they didn’t stir when I left the building.’

‘Yes, but given the effort they had mounted in the previous week, it seems downright strange that they did not follow you to Leipzig. Do you see what I’m driving at?’

‘No, I don’t.’

‘Well, that was the one time you needed to be travelling without restriction and unwatched.’ He let that thought settle in the room. ‘When were you picked up again?’

‘In the main square going back to the Bahnhof.’

‘How long was it since you had parted company with Kafka?’

‘Not long, perhaps twenty or thirty minutes.’

‘And up until that time you had not sensed you were being followed?’

Rosenharte shook his head, then remembered the tall man in a checked shirt. ‘That’s not entirely true. There was one man who appeared after I left Kafka. It seems the same man had presented himself at the Gemäldegalerie. At least the description of my visitor matched.’

‘Was this man Stasi?’

‘No, I know the type well. He was far too obvious, too big to be a good surveillance officer.’

‘Have you any idea who he was?’

‘I was puzzled at the time, but then I forgot about it because I had so much on my mind. He spoke to one of the assistants. By his accent, she took him to be Polish or Czech.’