The Secret of Spandau (17 page)

I would be grateful, Herr Hess, for your early consideration of this suggestion. If a meeting can be arranged, I will be more than happy to come to Spandau to discuss it further with you.

I look forward to hearing from you. Rest assured that we shall adhere to your instructions in these matters.

Yours sincerely,

Harald Beer

Managing Director

The Colonels stared at each other across the table. The Russian was ashen-faced. He muttered something to his interpreter, who got up and spoke quietly to the French interpreter and the shorthand-typist. The three of them left the room together.

The other directors exchanged significant looks. It was unprecedented for the chairman to adjourn a meeting without consultation.

‘Gentlemen,' he said in English, ‘I think we should discuss this letter among ourselves.'

‘Off the record?' said the British director.

‘Exactly. Clearly there has been a terrible breach of security.'

‘Hold on, Colonel,' said the American in a pacifying tone. ‘This letter is about something that happened twenty years ago. OK, the old man has outsmarted us, but he wouldn't be the first. Albert Speer was busy smuggling his diary out of here on scraps of paper for the whole of his goddamned sentence.'

‘Hess may have learned the trick from Speer,' speculated the British director. ‘Who did Speer use?'

‘Any number of people,' said the American. ‘Medical aides, warders, you name it.'

‘My people are not going to like this,' the Soviet Colonel muttered. He was practically wringing his hands in despair.

‘I guess not one of our governments is going to be over the moon about it,' commented the American.

‘Can we stop it?' asked the Frenchman.

‘You mean stop them publishing the book? No way. The publisher has the contract and a property worth millions of bucks. Plus the exclusive rights to sell it throughout the world. You think he's going to hand it back to the Allied Commission and say sorry?'

‘It cannot be allowed,' said the Russian.

‘Try and stop it,' said the American.

‘The point is,' said the Russian Colonel, ‘that this breach of prison regulations must be handled with the utmost secrecy. Of course it must be reported to the Commission and that will be my duty as chairman, but on no account must the public get to hear of it. That is why I asked the interpreters to leave.'

‘Wasn't that a little late?' The British director turned to the Frenchman. ‘Presumably your efficient young lady prepared these translations?'

The Frenchman nodded.

‘You must caution her,' the Russian told him with such truculence that he might have been recommending a flogging. ‘Until we receive instructions from our superiors, we must treat this as top secret.'

‘How about Number 7? Will you let him see his letter?'

The Soviet director's clenched fists tightened until his knuckles were white. The others fully expected him to pound the table. ‘That is unthinkable. He is in breach of prison regulations. I withdraw his letter-receiving privilege until further notice.' He scooped up his papers and thrust them into his case. ‘I declare the meeting closed.' He marched out and slammed the door.

‘I hope he makes it to the john. That is one shit-scared Soviet colonel,' commented the American director.

‘Why?' asked the Frenchman. ‘He was not here twenty years ago. None of us were.'

‘Guillaume, when this gets out, as it will, the Russians are not going to like it. Why do you think they kept the old man locked up all these years? He knows things. They could never be sure if he'd got something on them, because he was so smart. He played the amnesia game for all it was worth and none of the damned shrinks could tell if he was bluffing. The Russians wouldn't take a chance on it, so they vetoed every move to release the old guy. It was cat and mouse all the way. Through the first twenty years or so he was convinced they meant to poison him. He used to switch plates with Speer. Only this mouse had a trick of his own. He wrote down the things he knew and got them to a publisher. Nothing will come out until after he dies, but he can die laughing. He's beaten the bastards.'

‘Do you think we should show him the letter?'

‘No point. He's too smart to be railroaded by some get-rich-quick publisher. He knew what he was doing in 1964 and the game hasn't changed. Rudolf Hess is coming out the winner.'

At Karlshorst, a suburb of East Berlin, a tall iron fence encloses a vast area that is guarded on the perimeter by East German police with dogs and at each entrance by Red Army sentries. Since the end of the war, it has been the principal administrative headquarters of the USSR in Germany. It is, in effect, a Soviet settlement. One group of buildings houses the Soviet High Command; another the Soviet Branch of the Allied Control Commission; and at the eastern end of the compound is a large hospital block that no longer ministers to the sick. It is heavily guarded, inside and out. It is the operations base of the KGB in Germany, second in size and importance only to Moscow Centre.

Here, this morning, the security was exceptional even by Soviet standards. The uniformed guard had been doubled, sniffer dogs had been brought in to check each room, and officers in plain clothes patrolled the corridors, challenging everyone. Nothing was being said officially to explain the increase in activity, but even in a KGB headquarters there is a grapevine. The word was that a top-level emergency meeting had been called. Two generals from the First Chief Directorate, the foreign intelligence service of the KGB, had been flown in from Moscow. Two generals from Moscow: nothing like it had been seen in Berlin since the swapping of the U-2 pilot, Gary Powers, for Colonel Rudolf Abel in 1962.

The meeting was taking place not in the regular conference room, but in a suite on the fourth floor normally occupied by General Raiko, Head of KGB, Karlshorst. Only Raiko and the two visiting generals were in session. No administrative staff were present and no record was kept, either on tape or in transcript. The entire third and fifth floors had been cleared for the duration of the meeting, and guards prevented anyone from using the elevator or the stairs.

Still within the KGB compound, but in the several detached houses that had once been the homes of affluent Berlin families, a number of smaller meetings were simultaneously in session. Up to fifteen KGB agents had been summoned to Karlshorst to make personal reports to their case officers. Their conversations were routinely taped.

In one of the houses, agent Kurt Valentin was reporting to the officer he knew as Julius. Julius was in his thirties, a slight, dark man with a relaxed manner. Like Valentin, he was wearing a suit tailored in the West. His concession to the system was a garish, vertical-striped pink and red tie, but it was fastened with a gold tiepin. He had apologised for the coffee several times.

Valentin's face was running with sweat. He had never been called to Karlshorst before. The meetings had taken place in various safe houses in the city.

‘And is Moody proving a capable partner?'Julius was asking.

‘As a player?' said Valentin tentatively.

‘I understood that was the basis of the partnership.'

‘Yes, indeed. They played their first match together recently and won.'

‘Splendid!'

‘He used to play for a club in Philadelphia.'

‘You heard that from me, Kurt,'Julius pointed out.

Valentin took out a handkerchief and wiped his forehead. ‘Of course. Sorry.'

‘Don't be. So it's going well. How much longer do we have before the table-tennis league finishes?'

‘About five weeks.'

‘Not a long time.'

Valentin screwed up the handkerchief and returned it to his pocket. ‘I was hoping that the relationship might have strengthened by then.'

‘Into sex?'

‘More like friendship. She says he doesn't seem interested.'

Julius frowned. ‘We have no information that he is homosexual. Has she given him any encouragement? She's an attractive girl, isn't she?'

‘I find her attractive, certainly.'

There was a slight smile from Julius. ‘We know all about you, Kurt. What I am asking is why she is not attractive to Moody. We need a stronger tie than the fact that they once played table-tennis together.'

‘I suppose she might be too domineering for some tastes.'

‘Is there anyone else?'

‘In Moody's life?'

‘Fraulein Kassner's.'

‘No one she has mentioned.'

‘You might enquire. Perhaps she is not trying hard enough with Moody.'

‘We don't want to make him suspicious.'

Julius shook his head. ‘We won't. Most men are incapable of rational thought when they are offered sex. He may turn her down, but only because he doesn't fancy her, then at least we'll know where we stand. Talk to the girl about it, Kurt. She'll be much more likely to make him suspicious if she hangs on to him for no apparent reason.'

‘All right.'

After a pause, Julius said as if he were asking a favour, ‘Would you care to summarise what Fraulein Kassner has learned so far from Moody?'

Valentin tensed visibly. This was the crunch. ‘It's early days,' he said in his defence. ‘Moody isn't the loquacious sort. We know his hours of work. We know he has been a warden in Spandau since 1982. He's keen on fitness, jogs regularly, lives in old Spandau, within a mile of the prison.'

‘We do have warders of our own in there,' said Valentin. ‘We know all this, Kurt.'

‘Yes.'

‘Has Fraulein Kassner told us anything we would like to know, touching, perhaps, on Moody's contacts with Rudolf Hess?'

‘She reports that he is sympathetic to Hess.'

‘Better, Kurt. Go on.'

‘Hess rarely confides in anyone. He is very self-contained, very taciturn.'

‘I think we are beginning to scrape the barrel, aren't we, Kurt?'

Casting about for something to say, Valentin found himself remarking, ‘He wouldn't have much conversation, would he, after more than forty years in prison?'

Julius said slowly, ‘Was that meant to be clever at my expense?'

‘No, not in the least,' said Valentin, flustered.

Julius stared out of the window as he said, ‘I would like you to convey to Fraulein Kassner that Moody is more than just a ping-pong player, Kurt. If there is one man in Spandau with the glimmer of an understanding with Hess, we must monitor him. It may be Calvin Moody.'

‘I understand.'

‘Hess learned the hard way not to love the British. He wouldn't trust a Russian warder either. That leaves a Frenchman or an American.'

‘Yes.'

‘We wouldn't have brought you here for the coffee, Kurt. I won't hide it from you: there's a full-scale emergency on. Moscow Centre beating the drum. You and your ping-pong player may be more important to the security of the State than ever you realized. I won't promise you an Order of Lenin if you deliver, but I'll guarantee a knock on your door if you don't.'

Valentin had run out of responses. He simply lowered his head to signify assent.

Had he been privileged to sit in on the meeting of the three KGB generals, his worries would have increased. The First Chief Directorate as a matter of policy rarely authorises the liquidation of foreign nationals other than Soviet emigres and spies. The KGB has scrupulously resisted any association with groups practising assassination to achieve political ends: the Baader-Meinhof Gang, the PLO or the IRA.

Yet by the end of the day the unanimous conclusion of the generals was that a ‘wet affair' was inescapable. The highest interests of the State were under threat.

The order was given. The hit-man was briefed and issued with a weapon.

Dick and Jane crossed the floor of the newsroom to a chorus of good-natured abuse. There had been storm warnings all day from Cedric, and his blue-eyed boy and girl were slinking into the office as if they had been caught smoking in the toilets. All very entertaining if you weren't involved.

Inside, Cedric sat hunched over his desk in a posture of unmitigated gloom, the flab of his several chins overlapping his fists.

‘Shut the door.'

When they were seated, he creased his features into something marginally more accommodating and said slowly, picking his words, ‘I don't want you to take this personally, either of you. I've decided to blow the whistle on the investigation before someone else does.'

Jane exchanged a glance with Dick. ‘Someone else? You mean whoever it was who broke into my flat?'

Cedric dipped his head. ‘Or whoever gave the orders.'

‘Dick told me you suspect the security services.'

‘It was always a risk,' Cedric confirmed, trying to sound as if he had never been wholly in favour. ‘We couldn't do this without making waves. I don't hold anyone responsible.'

‘You're serious?' Jane said. ‘You want us back in the newsroom?'

‘Yes.' His small eyes studied her. ‘My information is that you want to drop out anyway.'

She made a sharp intake of breath. ‘Well, your information is wrong, Cedric. I have a personal stake in this now. My flat was broken into, and I'm angry. All right, I'll admit it shook me up at first, but that's turned to anger now. Why do these people think they have a right to invade my home? What have I turned up that is so fascinating to them? I don't want to pull out. I mean to get to the truth.'

Cedric shook his head. ‘There isn't any point, Jane. They'd hit us with a D Notice before you could write the story.'

‘A D Notice has no legal force. It's advisory.'

He sighed wearily. ‘It's a warning that we'd be risking prosecution under the Official Secrets Act.'

‘With a story about Rudolf Hess in 1941?'