The Secret of Spandau (32 page)

Red made up his mind. ‘Get your shoes on, then, and be bloody quick about it.'

There was a time when the fastenings on a piece of luggage were a testimony to the craft of the locksmith, but mass-production methods ended all that. As anyone knows who has bought a suitcase in the last fifty years – even a smart, upmarket, leather suitcase with a brand-name – it comes with two keys on a piece of wire, and can be opened almost as simply with the wire as with the keys.

After Julius had been driven into the Soviet Legation in Zurich, he carried the suitcase he had collected across the courtyard and through a side entrance. Using the back stairs, he moved inconspicuously upwards to the privacy of the bedroom he had been allocated. Having gone to so much trouble to obtain the suitcase, he felt he was entitled to a sight of the contents.

He locked the door and heaved the case onto the bed. The fastenings opened ridiculously easily with the aid of the pointed end of his tiepin. When he lifted the lid he saw why the case had weighed so heavily. It was stacked solidly with bundles of paper, tied with string and wedged so tightly that it was difficult to remove one without tearing it. He prised one out with the pocket-knife. It consisted of several hundred scraps of paper, end-sheets torn from books, pieces of newspaper, calendar date-sheets, toilet paper, labels soaked from bottles – in fact, almost every paper surface that human ingenuity could improvise in prison conditions. Each fragment was covered in minuscule handwriting and indexed with a serial number.

Julius harboured no illusions about Hess; he was an enemy of the Soviet people, and according to Soviet thinking was justly condemned to see out his days in Spandau. Any reduction of the life sentence would be an insult to the twenty million Soviet citizens who died as a direct result of Nazism. Yet as Julius stared down at the bundles of paper, he could not fail to be impressed by the sense of purpose represented there.

He lifted out several more bundles, stacking them methodically on the bed so that he could replace them later exactly as he had found them. Underneath were more, every one tied with string by Edda Zenk when she had finished typing the script that had been delivered to the Munich publisher, Sigmund Beer, in 1964. Julius had not discovered how she had been assigned the task; he had needed only to establish that she was the typist and that the manuscript still existed in the Zurich bank vault.

The logic that had brought him this prize was pleasing to Julius. He was going to enjoy recounting it to his superiors. His man Valentin had learned through the girl Heidrun Kassner that Hess had been disturbed about a newspaper report of a fire in Munich. It was, of course, the fire that had destroyed Beer Verlag. Hess had become alarmed, believing, possibly, that the typescript of his book had been burned with the house, or even suspecting, if he were still capable of recognizing a KGB operation, that it was in Soviet hands. He had wanted to be reassured that the original manuscript was still safe in Switzerland. So he had asked the warder he trusted most, the American, Cal Moody, to visit Edda Zenk and check that all was well. This Moody had done, innocently leading the KGB to Fraulein Zenk, and so to Zurich, and the prize.

But it would not be wise to spend too long enjoying this private moment of self-congratulation. The suitcase had to be closed again and prepared for its removal to Moscow Centre. For this, a well-tried but efficient stratagem had been prepared. Downstairs in a locked room, an open coffin was waiting. Julius had instructions personally to place the suitcase in the coffin and screw down the lid. Word had already been passed to the Swiss that one of the Soviet mission had suffered a fatal heart attack. The coffin was to be conveyed to Zurich Airport under the cloak of diplomatic immunity and put aboard an Aeroflot aircraft. Julius would oversee every stage of the loading and unloading. His responsibility did not end until the cargo was delivered to the top man at Moscow Centre, KGB General Vanin.

He took care to replace the bundles exactly as he had found them. It took only a few seconds to re-engage the locks with his tie-pin. He unlocked the door of his bedroom, made sure the corridor was clear and then carried the suitcase down the back stairs and through a corridor that connected with the medical bay. He reached the room he wanted without meeting anyone.

He let himself inside and went straight to the open coffin standing on trestles in the centre and swung the suitcase into position. It lodged snugly in the satin-padded interior, where the shoulders of a corpse would normally lie. He reached for the hinged coffin-lid and froze as a voice behind him said, ‘Not yet, Comrade Julius.'

Footsteps crossed the stone floor. Julius turned and looked into a face he had only ever seen before in one studio portrait photo that appeared from time to time in Party newspapers and magazines: a broad, high-boned face with deceptively primitive features, almost the features of an Eskimo – slit eyes, thick brows and flat, wide-nostrilled nose.

Julius swallowed, took a short, deep breath, and made a sort of bow. ‘Comrade General.'

General Mikhail Vanin smiled and revealed a set of teeth the colour of a cornfield in Kazakhstan. He was clearly pleased to be recognized out of uniform. His blue suit had the sheen of an expensive Soviet-made cloth. ‘Yes, I decided to make a change in the arrangements,' he announced with the air of a conjurer who has just materialised unexpectedly. ‘I have saved you a trip to Moscow. When I have checked that the contents of the suitcase are in order, you may consider your assignment completed. Hand me that tool, will you?'

Julius picked a heavy-duty screwdriver off a chair beside the trestle. He felt sick at the thought that while he had sneaked his look at the Hess papers, the military head of the KGB was waiting for him downstairs. But General Vanin appeared not to suspect anything. He, too, was curious to see inside the suitcase, only his methods were more crude. He grasped the screwdriver like a dagger and thrust it downwards, ripping through the lid of the case and carving a long gash in the plastic material. Two more stabs, and he was able to tear most of the lid apart, like a lion eviscerating its prey. He drew out several bundles of Hess's papers, glanced at them, wrenched off the string and let the pieces scatter in the coffin and on the floor.

The savagery of the exercise came as a further shock to Julius. It was alien to everything he understood about the KGB. Its officers were trained to be efficient and dispassionate, ruthless but unemotional. Documents of any sort were treated with respect. Everything had a value of some sort to the service. Everything had to be indexed and filed and retained until it was required again. Yet General Vanin was attacking the Hess papers as if they were the Deputy Führer in person.

He was breathing rapidly as he addressed Julius again. ‘Comrade, you have done well. This is the end of Herr Hess's literary enterprise. Do you like slivovitz? I have a bottle upstairs and I should like to drink with you.'

‘Shall I pick the paper off the floor?' Julius offered.

‘Leave it. Filthy garbage. It will all go in the shredder.'

‘It's not going to Moscow after all?'

‘Filth and lies are better destroyed where you find them, Comrade,' answered the General. ‘I shall take care of it later.'

Three minutes after, they stood in the carpeted luxury of the boardroom on the first floor. ‘We serve ourselves,' the General explained, ‘because we have sensitive matters to discuss.' He filled two cut-glass goblets with the liqueur and handed one to Julius. It would have been a generous helping of wine, let alone slivovitz. ‘To a successful operation, Comrade.'

Julius touched glasses and drank deeply of the plum-flavoured drink, grateful for its warming properties as he prepared to discuss ‘sensitive matters' with General Vanin. He felt more comfortable here than downstairs beside the coffin.

‘Sit down now, and give me your comprehensive account of the operation,' said the General, pointing to a velvet-upholstered, horseshoe-backed chair. It was the finest chair in the room.

Julius sat in it like a hero of the Soviet Union and told his story. His confidence grew as he recollected just how smoothly the whole operation had gone.

General Vanin looked well pleased. He came over to top up Julius's glass. ‘So. Thanks to you, Comrade Julius, we have acquired the only two copies of the Hess memoir. We have already destroyed the typescript, and now we shall deal with the manuscript itself. There will be no record that the book ever existed.'

Even to a man as case-hardened as Julius, such destruction seemed regrettable and crude. Emboldened by the slivovitz, he said with deference, ‘If I may make an observation, Comrade General, would it not be profitable to retain the manuscript in Herr Hess's own handwriting, expunging any passages detrimental to the honour of the Soviet State?'

The General frowned. ‘Profitable in which sense, Comrade?'

‘Not as a money-making venture,' Julius answered in a suitably shocked voice. ‘I meant profitable to the highest enterprises of the State. We have skilful craftsmen at our disposal who could edit certain sections of the manuscript. They would be undetectable by scholars.'

‘Which sections did you have in mind?' enquired the General casually.

Julius was not so far gone as to step into that morass. ‘Nothing I could name, Comrade General. I haven't examined the script in detail myself. I simply anticipate the poisonous lies one must expect from an enemy of the State.'

‘Ah.'

‘Don't you agree, Comrade General, that an edited version of the Hess book might be put to the services of the State?'

General Vanin shook his head. ‘Too dangerous. Every scrap of paper must be shredded.'

Julius found himself wishing he had taken an opportunity to read the book in full. His thoughts went back to his meeting with Harald Beer, when the publisher had talked of the Russians going berserk when they read the book. When General Vanin had ripped the suitcase open, those words had seemed prophetic. The sensitive issue was the Polish soldiers liquidated in 1940, Julius recalled. He should have taken the trouble to read that chapter, if no others. But on reflection, perhaps he had been wise to remain ignorant.

‘I shall top up your glass,' the General told him.

‘No more for me, I think,' said Julius, putting his hand towards the goblet, but the General was already pouring.

‘We must finish the bottle,' he said.

Julius nodded in acquiescence. The drink was too fruity for his taste, and his head felt muzzy; but who argued with the head of the KGB?

‘Always finish everything,' explained the General, still managing to sound remarkably lucid. ‘When I was a child, I didn't need to be trained to eat everything on my plate. I was hungry. I have always endeavoured to finish everything I start.'

‘An excellent principle, Comrade General.'

‘Yes. One small matter that I should not like to overlook in this highly satisfactory operation is the girl who supplied information about the warder,' the General confided.

‘Fraulein Heidrun Kassner,' said Julius.

The General nodded. ‘You didn't meet her yourself?'

‘Comrade Valentin was her contact, Comrade General.'

‘How much did she know about the operation?'

‘Practically nothing,' Julius declared confidently. ‘She was of no importance, except as a contact with the American warder. She can be paid and dismissed.'

‘I think she should be induced to leave West Berlin now,' said the General.

‘I will arrange it,' Julius affirmed.

‘No,' said the General. ‘You will not.' He smiled as if to soften the prohibition. ‘It will not be possible for you to perform that service, Comrade. You have another duty.'

‘What's that, Comrade General?'

There was a pause. General Vanin slipped his hand into his pocket and took out a white pillbox, which he passed to Julius. ‘In there, Comrade, you will find a cyanide capsule. Your duty is to swallow it.' As Julius gaped in horror, the General raised his hand like a fighter acknowledging a low punch, but he didn't apologise. He went on, ‘You will do it because you are a loyal servant of the State, a true hero of the Soviet Union. Your name will be honoured and your family, your aged mother and your unmarried sister in Leipzig, will be given a generous gratuity and an annuity for life.'

Julius swayed in the chair. The room was beginning to reel. As if it mattered any more, he was suddenly afraid that his bowels would loosen. ‘Why?' he managed to ask. ‘Why me?'

‘Because the secrets at stake are more precious than any one officer of the KGB, however valuable his services have been,' the General explained. ‘You have become a security risk, Comrade Julius.'

‘And if I refuse?' Julius shook his head. ‘All right. I know the answer to that.' He sat staring into the middle distance. ‘You could trust me,' he hazarded, then stopped and closed his eyes in resignation. After a moment, he opened them and asked, ‘What about the others – Valentin and the hit-man? They knew almost as much as I.'

‘They were taken care of in East Berlin this afternoon,' said the General.

‘Taken care of …?'

‘By a man with a gas-gun.'

Julius knew for certain that he had no alternative. ‘This is what you meant by finishing what you started.'

‘But I have offered
you
the means to finish it,' the General pointed out.

‘What will happen afterwards, to my … body?'

‘Your death will be diagnosed correctly as due to cardiac failure and I shall make arrangements for your remains to be returned to your family for a dignified disposal. Why don't you take the capsule now, Comrade? It is mercifully quick, as I am sure you know.'

‘The coffin downstairs …'

‘… is for you,' murmured the General tolerantly.

‘Everything planned to the last detail,' said Julius, mustering a smile. Before he closed his mouth, he had forced the capsule between his lips and bitten it.