Brandenburg (47 page)

‘That’s up to them. But they gotta get the evidence to make criminal charges stick. So my guess is that they’ll wait for a week or two.’ He stopped and punched Harland on the arm. ‘Off you go, sport. I’m going to catch my ride to Berlin.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Think nothing of it.’

‘What about the computer?’

‘Bring it with you Sunday. Remember, brunch at my place.’

‘See you then.’

‘And Bobby, you stay safe.’

Harland went inside.

By the time he got to the debriefing room, the assembled intelligence officers were already having sandwiches and coffee. The head of the BND team, a man named Heinz Wittich, introduced Harland to Voss as the mastermind of operation Samaritan. Harland smiled modestly and said that the German component deserved just as much praise for its professionalism.

Dr Voss, a brunette with a neat little bun and a handsome, straightforward face, regarded him with pleasure. ‘We know the British culture dictates modesty at all times, but really, you should accept our praise, Herr Harland. It’s a wonderful thing you’ve done.’ Voss was good. He wondered how long she had been working for the Stasi and what had led her into the clutches of Schwarzmeer. It had to be ideological conviction because it was plain she wasn’t some lovesick secretary with nothing to do in the evenings. Voss was an attractive and self-possessed pro, a career spy who had probably been put in place by the Stasi in the sixties or seventies.

Harland poured himself some coffee and complimented her on her suit, a well-cut grey tweed. She thanked him.

‘I have to confess,’ he said, ‘that we’re very pleased about the latest development. I can report that the pair who helped us on the other side are on their way out.’

Heinz Wittich gave him a wintry smile. Clearly he had just been informed about Voss’s treachery. He was willing Harland not to say any more with a steady gaze that no intelligence officer could mistake.

Harland ignored him. ‘They had a few close scrapes but it’s all worked out fine. I’m going back to Berlin this afternoon for the celebration.’

‘You deserve it,’ said Voss with matronly indulgence.

Harland drank his coffee. ‘Thank you. In fact I’ve already shared a couple of brandies with my friend Alan Griswald.’

At the mention of Griswald’s name, a shadow of understanding passed through Wittich’s eyes. ‘I wish we had some beer here to toast you for a magnificent job,’ he said.

‘And to absent friends,’ said Harland. ‘In particular to a diligent young colonel in Main Department Three. Where would we be without him, eh?’

‘I’m afraid I do not know to whom you refer,’ said Wittich, playing it beautifully.

‘Sorry, I can’t enlighten you further, Heinz,’ said Harland. Everyone knew he was referring to Zank. ‘I’ve already said more than I should.’

‘You’re among friends here,’ said Wittich.

‘Yes, but even in these hopeful times we must maintain operational security.’

‘Quite so,’ said Dr Lisl Voss, with not the slightest hint that she had registered the significance of what had been said.

Rosenharte watched the blackbird furiously wipe its beak on the side of a branch, then straighten and sing for a few brief moments before dropping into the air.

They were in the car waiting for the dark. Ulrike watched him watching the bird. ‘When did you become interested in birds?’ she asked.

‘When we were boys, I suppose, but it wasn’t until I was in my forties that I really came to love them - their defiance of gravity, the mystery of migration and their sudden reappearance in the spring, as if they’ve been hiding all through the winter in the forests. They fascinate me. They’re not part of this earth.’

‘You said when
we were
boys, as though you did all your thinking with your brother.’

‘I suppose that’s right. My interests were Konrad’s, and vice versa. Up until we were eighteen there were very few things that we didn’t experience together; nothing, in fact, because we had no secrets, no privacy. That’s why we had such an advantage over the other kids; we pooled everything, shared our knowledge.’

‘Like having another self.’

‘Yes.’

‘But you must have had arguments, like all children?’

‘We did, but intellectually Konrad always beat me and when I won, well, he would usually make me feel so guilty that I would concede in the end.’ He smiled and reached for his cigarettes on the dashboard.

‘Should we be going? It’s nearly dark.’

They had already passed through the village once and had noticed that the public phone by the church was not overlooked by any houses. They parked on the far side of the church and Rosenharte approached the booth via an alley without street lighting. He dialled the number and was told to wait. After a little while he began to worry whether he would have enough money. Eventually Vladimir came on the line.

‘I’m using a public phone,’ said Rosenharte.

‘Good, that’s good. Thank you.’ His voice was different. Hesitant.

‘So is everything arranged as we agreed?’

‘There is a problem,’ said Vladimir.

‘What kind of problem?’

‘I was hoping that you’d learn before I spoke to you, but I see now that there was no way you could know.’

‘What? What’s the problem?’

‘I’m sorry to be the one to break this to you, but your brother has died. He died of natural causes - a heart attack - the day after you saw him.’

Rosenharte couldn’t react.

‘Rudi, are you there?’

He was staring at the outline of the church steeple, doing all he could to remain on his feet.

‘Yes, I’m here,’ he said slowly.

‘They kept it from you because they wanted you to work for them,’ continued Vladimir in his factual monotone. ‘They needed the third delivery. It seems that he died after composing that letter to you. I’m afraid he never saw your letter to him. Rudi, I can imagine what you’re feeling, but you must listen to the rest of what I have to say. They plan to use this against you. They know you’re on the run and they will use—’

‘How?’ he heard himself say. ‘What can they do?’

‘They plan to say that you killed your brother in order to marry his wife. That way they can use your picture in the newspapers and encourage people to turn you in. They’re very angry about what happened in Leipzig, more so at being fooled by these disks. Take my word for it you have to cross the border tonight. You must leave.’

Some part of Rosenharte understood that Vladimir needed him to run. If he was caught, there was no doubt that he would eventually reveal Vladimir’s knowledge of his plan to spring Konrad. That could end the Russian’s career. But given his exposure, Vladimir’s tone was not unsympathetic.

‘Have you understood what I’ve told you?’

‘Yes.’ He fought to keep his voice normal. ‘What happened to his body? Where did they bury him?’ This was suddenly very important.

Vladimir coughed. ‘Rudi, I’m afraid they cremated your brother a few days later. It’s said that they tried to contact his wife, but that she’d already fled to the West. I have no reason to disbelieve this.’

Rosenharte’s rational part was functioning, like a wounded animal still running on adrenaline. ‘So, there’s no proof that he was killed by them?’

‘Ultimately, no. But I believe my source on this. He’s always been reliable.’ He stopped. ‘I’m sorry for you. Truly, you have my deepest sympathy.’

Rosenharte muttered something and Vladimir said goodbye; the constriction in his throat was audible. The line went dead. He sank to a squatting position still holding the receiver, then he let go of himself completely, falling against the inside of the booth. He had no sense of anything other than the unimaginable void that had opened in him and also, he felt acutely, beside him. The presence existing alongside him that he had known all his life had gone, and with it the context of his being. His parameters had suddenly and catastrophically disappeared. He didn’t know where he was nor why he was there.

It began to rain, a thin, mountain drizzle, and his gaze came to rest on the halo of light around a solitary street lamp about fifty yards down the road. He could not see any reason for rising and running to some cover, but Ulrike was now in front of him, pulling both his arms, insisting that he stand. ‘What’s the matter?’ she kept on asking. ‘What happened to you?’

He stood and found a strange, autonomous calm. ‘Konrad’s dead. They killed him one way or the other - by design or neglect, I don’t know which. Vladimir’s just told me.’

‘Oh, my poor love.’ She cradled his head against her chest. He submitted, but it was a very short time before he straightened, pulled away from her and went to the iron gate of the churchyard to stand by himself.

He got drunk on the bottle of Goldi she had put in the back of the car, and spoke without stopping because it meant he didn’t have to think. The talk was automatic, a free association of tales from his boyhood about school, their hideout on the lake, the first girls who came their way and were dated and kissed by the twins with the farcical interchangeability of a play by Shakespeare. He even laughed in the hour or so it took to travel to the place where he knew they would never be found, a place he now also had an urgent need to see. Ulrike followed his directions, occasionally glancing at him with concern, but mostly concentrating on the roads which were awash from the autumn storm.

At length they found the gateway he was looking for and he was able to get his bearings. Rather than forcing the padlock, he told her to go back down the road and turn into a lane about four miles on. He did not remember the actual lane, but he knew that it must be there. Very soon they came to a much more imposing gateway with massive stone gargoyles that had all been decapitated. This was also barred to them with coils of barbed wire and two or three boulders that had been dropped in the way. He remembered that a little way along there was another entrance to what once had been the estate farm.

Rather doubtfully, Ulrike crept along the lane until they saw some abandoned farm buildings in the headlights. They took another right and proceeded up an overgrown driveway where the car kept slewing right and left because the wheels found no grip on the grass. Four or five hundred yards from the farm buildings they burst from the cover of the dripping trees and came to a mesh fence. Stapled to one of the posts was a notice that read ‘Verboten - Ministerium für Staatssicherheit’.

‘Where the hell are we?’ she asked Rosenharte as he almost fell out of the car. He did not answer, but ran to the fence and started working with a blind fury at the post immediately in front of them, rocking it back and forth until he felt the wood give beneath the soil. The wire came away easily and he rolled it back.

‘Where are we?’ she repeated.

He got back into the car. ‘Go straight ahead and stop asking so many damned questions.’

‘Rudi, I have every right to know where you’re taking me,’ she said reasonably.

‘Pull up there,’ he said as they reached the façade of the great ruined house. ‘Over there by the wall.’

Ulrike looked up at the baroque profile looming over them. ‘What
is
this place?’

He didn’t answer, but got out and started removing all the bags from the car.

‘Rudi!’ she said, placing a hand on his arm to stop him. ‘Tell me where we are.’

‘Schloss Clausnitz. The ancestral home of my family that was stolen by the Stasi. It’s also Schwarzmeer’s private country retreat. But he stays way over on the other side of the estate.’

‘We can’t stay here!’

‘We can,’ he said, wresting his arm free. ‘It’s mine now.’

‘For goodness’ sake, Rudi. Calm down. We need to think about this. It’s crazy.’

He was aware of his unreason, but could not stop himself. He rushed to the stairs with the two bags and quickly broke in through the French windows with his knife. Ulrike followed him into the dusty blackness.

‘Where are we going to sleep?’ she asked.

‘There must be fifty rooms in this place. It shouldn’t be too difficult to find somewhere warm and dry.’

‘But why are we here?’

‘Because this is where we came from. This is my home. Konrad’s home.’

‘Forty-five years ago it was your home,’ she said softly. ‘It’s no longer yours. There’s nothing of your life here.’

He looked at her in the beam of his torch. ‘I thought of coming here yesterday, because they won’t look for us here. There’s nothing around here except the forest: no villages, just a few houses. And Schwarzmeer won’t be here. He’ll be far too busy defending his rear in Berlin.’

‘What happened to the farm we passed? Aren’t there people still living in it?’

He saw that she was trying to calm him down. ‘Who knows? Probably screwed up like everything else during collectivization. You know, I had an idea to tell Konrad about this place. He didn’t know about it. I thought it would entertain him to come back here and make one of his strange little films.’ He paused. ‘It’s where we come from! For all I know we were conceived here, early in 1939, just on the eve of war.’

The beam from the torch skidded along the floor as he stumbled from room to room with the bottle of brandy. He paused in the dining room, where there was nothing but a pile of floorboards and a jumble of rags, then in a reception room, which he seemed to remember was used in the mornings by women dressed stiffly in suits of dark green and grey. They came upon the double staircase, which still had a semblance of grandeur like the stairway of an ocean liner, though it was much older and palpably better made. He flashed the torch across the ceiling where there was an eighteenth-century mural of a winged archer that had been left untouched by the troops who had been briefly billeted in all the great houses of southern Germany after May 1945. Around the walls, the old mirrors had been vandalized and bits of glass hung from the plaster frames and flashed in his beam.

‘We used to play here,’ he said, his hand sweeping wildly across the stairway. ‘There were pictures along here. I remember dogs were everywhere: terriers, German shepherds, dachshunds and an English spaniel. The place was alive with guests, the extended family and servants and they all came through this part of the house. It was like a rail terminus.’