Little Grey Mice (12 page)

Reimann's general feeling of dissatisfaction was furthered by the unreality of their existence at Neglinnaya and his awareness that they were literally under a microscope. It had been instinctive bravado not to ask for a different, unmonitored apartment: fleetingly he wished now that he had, until he realized that anywhere else they might have been allocated would have been eavesdropped just as extensively.

He was surprised, too, at how Jutta was treated. They had both expected her to be briefed immediately after her arrival in Moscow, but she wasn't. Each day a driver took Reimann to study the Elke Meyer file at Arbat Ulitza, but there were never any instructions for Jutta. And there was no opportunity to question the Control known as Alexandr. After the first extensive interview the white-haired Russian did not appear again. On his following visits Reimann was greeted by a series of hurrying, unsmiling escort clerks who took him to and from the tobacco-stinking viewing room and the dossier tables and responded at once to every buzzer request for more files.

‘This has no point,' Jutta protested.

‘I would not have been briefed if there had been any change in the planning,' insisted Reimann, professionally. He had said nothing to identify Elke Meyer to his wife and she had not asked. Aware of the microphones and cameras, he would not have told her anything, if she had questioned him about the target.

‘Why haven't I been instructed, then?'

Jutta had always reacted with outraged indignation to imagined slights. ‘There must be some reason.'

There was, of course.

On the third day of monitoring both the sound and film recordings at Neglinnaya, the psychologist said: ‘They've both been extremely professional: she hasn't asked him anything about the mission and he hasn't volunteered anything.'

‘He knows the apartment is wired: you told me to admit it if he asked,' Turev reminded.

Panin nodded.
‘He
knows. But she seems altogether too confident of herself: there's not the slightest indication of her having any suspicion that we might be monitoring them. I'm glad we staged this test. It's helped a lot to confirm what I'm thinking about their relationship.'

‘Time to see her?' Turev suggested.

‘Most definitely,' Panin agreed.

Chapter Eight

The exclusive and guarded country dachas of the Soviet government elite are dotted discreetly among the hills that surround Moscow. The one to which Jutta was finally taken was actually at the beginning of the ascent, a sort of halfway house between privilege and practicality. It had its own woodland, however, which gave it seclusion. It was a rather stark, square building, with a shingle roof and rough timbered walls. As they approached, Jutta couldn't decide whether it was a completely new structure built to appear traditional or a genuine old cottage that had been renovated. There was another car already parked outside. The driver was leaning against the nearside wing, smoking the cheapest sort of cigarette available in the Soviet Union, the type where only half the tube contains tobacco, leaving the other part like a hollow filter. He watched with smirking interest when a woman got out of the car.

Jutta had prepared herself carefully. The fine check suit was severely cut but also accentuated her full-busted, slim-hipped figure. Her pale brown hair was strained back into its usual style, which she kept because she knew it was fitting for her height, just short of six feet. There was no embarrassment at the chauffeur's interest. Jutta remained by her car, staring back until the man looked away.

Turev, at the door of the dacha, was aware of the exchange. The Russian stood with odd formality, his body stiff, all three buttons of his suit fastened around his bulging body, as if he wanted to look immaculate for an official photograph. ‘Welcome, welcome,' he said, gesturing the woman inside.

Jutta entered unhurried and unsmiling. The main room was simply but functionally furnished, with a central table, a couch beneath the main window and two easy chairs, either side of a dead fire. On top of a small sideboard close to the table were bottles – vodka and brandy and wine – and Thermos servers of tea and coffee.

‘Sit. Be comfortable,' urged Turev. ‘I thought it would be better for us to meet informally like this. We have to become friends.' She had the palest blue eyes he had ever seen.

Jutta decided the white-haired Russian was uneasy as a social host. His discomfort pleased her. ‘This has taken a long time.'

‘There is much for us to discuss,' said Turev, not responding to the obvious complaint. The Russian had become dependent upon the American cigarettes he'd chain-smoked during an espionage posting to the United Nations in New York, early in his career. He could remember a lot of aloof women like Jutta, on Wall Street and Madison Avenue. He'd seen them described once as ‘business bitches'. He'd always been curious about them. Slightly nervous, too.

‘I want to know what my responsibilities are going to be,' Jutta insisted.

‘Which is why you have been brought here today,' smiled Turev. ‘But first let's make ourselves comfortable.' The Russian insisted on personally serving drinks from the sideboard – vodka for himself, coffee for Jutta – wondering if the effort was necessary. The dacha meeting was upon the guidance of Yuri Panin, to convey the ready inclusion of the woman into a special group for a special operation. Only when they were sitting in the easy chairs, their drinks between them, did Turev outline what that operation was to be. He provided only minimal details about Elke Meyer and did not offer any description, beyond her position in the West German Cabinet Secretariat. Neither did he offer a photograph and Jutta did not ask for one.

‘I am to be in charge, as I was before?' she demanded, when Turev finished his explanation. For five years, until early 1990, Jutta Höhn had headed a cell of four East German intelligence officers, one her husband, which had successfully infiltrated a West German rehabilitation charity for East European refugees crossing either legally or illegally into the West. It had enabled the KGB, through the East German Ministry of State Security, to create a vast bureau of detailed files complete with addresses and occupations and possibly useful intelligence access upon thousands of emigres who remained totally unaware how closely their movements and activities were monitored. As the result of information provided by Jutta's cell over those five years, twenty separate emigre men and women had been suborned either through threats against relatives still in the East or through open blackmail into becoming agents for the KGB or the now disbanded East German intelligence.

‘You did brilliantly well in the past,' said Turev, again avoiding a direct response. ‘Now the focus has to change. Your part in this new operation is extremely important.'

‘Am I still to have field control?' Jutta persisted.

‘Yes.' Turev lied. ‘But you must realize that the situation now is very different from what it was in West Berlin. The division will not be so easily defined. But you will always be the liaison, between your husband and myself.'

There was an expression that could have been doubt on Jutta's face. ‘This has been explained to Otto?'

‘In great detail.'

‘What did he say about it?'

‘Nothing specifically,' Turev replied. ‘He seemed to expect it. The system worked very well in the past, didn't it?'

‘Yes,' Jutta agreed. She seemed contemplative.

‘It is obvious why you must maintain separate apartments,' continued Turev, briskly but with a purpose. ‘Do not establish any regular pattern with his visits to you, for him to become familiar to neighbours or tradesmen. And
never
go to his apartment, to become established by anyone who might see you as another woman.' He stopped, waiting curiously.

‘That would be an elementary precaution, wouldn't it?'

She had responded as the psychologist predicted. ‘This could be a protracted operation,' Turev warned.

‘I accept that.'

She appeared willing to accept a great deal, reflected Turev. It made it easier to propose the second reason for her inclusion, beyond the ease of abandonment if either she or Reimann were detected by West German counter-intelligence. He said: ‘You have proven yourself to be an extremely dedicated and efficient officer.'

‘So?' There was a curious suspicion in the question.

‘No one knows Otto better than you.'

‘So?' she said again.

‘Enormous importance is attached to this operation. Nothing can be allowed to endanger it. So we want you always to watch him carefully.'

‘For what?' demanded Jutta.

‘Anything,' said Turev. ‘If anything occurs to you to be out of character – some change you find unusual – you must tell me …' He hesitated. Then he said: ‘It will not be spying upon your husband. It will be guarding the success of a vital assignment.'

‘Of course,' said Jutta, at once.

The Russian waited for her to say more. When she didn't, he said: ‘You'll use a different name, of course. Sneider: Jutta Sneider. Your work will supposedly be that of travelling salesperson of office equipment. All the necessary documentation has been prepared for you, in that name. I will decide the date and place of our first meeting after you have both settled into your separate apartments and established yourselves …' The Russian allowed a pause. ‘Any questions?'

‘No,' said Jutta, at once.

That night, at the Neglinnaya apartment, Jutta said to Reimann: ‘Operationally we are to continue as we were in West Berlin. I am to be field supervisor.'

‘I know,' said the expectant Reimann.

‘Good,' said Jutta. It was how it should be.

Turev returned to the Arbat Ulitza to view what had been recorded on the extensive equipment with which the dacha was equipped.

‘She's a formidable woman,' Turev assessed. ‘I was surprised by her complete acceptance of what was involved.'

‘I'm not sure she is a formidable woman at all,' argued Panin. ‘I think there's a shell, concealing a lot of softness.'

‘She ran the cell brilliantly in Berlin.'

‘Which makes her a good organizer. What else?'

Turev used the lighting of another cigarette to cover his difficulty. ‘It's not unusual, for a raven to be married. Or a swallow.'

‘It isn't just their being married, is it?' demanded the psychologist, with another infuriating rhetorical question. ‘She's not just having to accept her husband seducing another woman: at her level of professionalism that probably wouldn't be a problem. But whether she realizes or not at this moment, she's also being asked to surrender that professional superiority in their relationship as well, isn't she?'

‘How important is that?'

Panin pulled down the corners of his mouth, in a doubtful expression. ‘There's no way I – or anybody else – can assess that, not at this stage. To people such as I believe Jutta to be – people building a shell of apparent superiority around themselves – positions of dominance are very important. They don't like losing them. Or having them taken away.'

‘Are you saying we have a problem, before we begin?'

‘I'm saying we have an unknown and unpredictable situation with her.'

Chapter Nine

As Ida entered Elke tried to remember the last time her sister had come to the Kaufmannstrasse apartment but couldn't. Extending the reflection, she realized that Ida wouldn't have been there that evening had she not invited herself: Elke had expected them to meet during the day in a restaurant, as they normally did. Ida appeared to have the same thoughts about the length of time since her last visit. She looked curiously around the flat, as if it were strange to her.

‘I wish I could keep my place as tidy as this,' she said.

‘There's only me,' Elke reminded. ‘Me and Poppi.' She thought Ida looked remarkably chic. The light suit, which she hadn't seen before, was a mix of browns and oranges and reds, and there was a matching shawl which Ida wore with careless elegance across one shoulder. Elke was not sure she liked the tightness of the jacket, which seemed to pronounce the curve of Ida's bust. She said: ‘Would you like something?'

‘Whisky?'

‘I'm sorry,' said Elke. She never kept alcohol in the flat because she never entertained. She felt awkward, unworldly.

‘What is there?'

‘Coffee. Tea.'

Ida made a face. ‘I won't bother. It wasn't too much of a rush for you?' Ida had suggested six o'clock and arrived promptly on time.

‘Not at all,' said Elke. It would have been, if the workload had been anything like it had been for most of the past year. As it was, she'd only got back to the flat fifteen minutes before Ida.

‘I've got an apology to make,' said Ida.

‘What about?' As well as the suit jacket being too tight the skirt rode higher than Elke considered it should when her sister sat as she was now, one leg crossed casually over the other. She supposed, from the clothes of some of the younger girls at the Chancellery, that the cut was fashionable.

‘That was quite a maudlin little scene at the Reduttchen.'

‘You didn't embarrass me,' said Elke. What would Ida have said if she'd confessed the feeling had been fear, for herself?

‘It still wasn't particularly edifying.'

‘Have you spoken to Horst?'

‘As best as anyone can speak to Horst.' There was the sneer in Ida's voice again. Elke wished it hadn't been there.

‘What did he say?'

There was a laugh, still with a sneer. ‘Lots of bullshit at first. No difficulties, everything fine, he could manage the family affairs, rubbish like that. But I'd collected some of the bills that came in our joint names: final demands, too. Then he had to cut the crap.'

It was as if her sister was intentionally trying to shock her by speaking as crudely as she did. Elke said: ‘It must have been awful.'