28

Sassnitz Harbour Station

Transit Traffic to Sweden, 1985

Colonel Hubert Stanz, in his early forties, a tall, slender man with pale skin and many freckles, stood in the terminal of the train station and watched the international Berlin–Malmö express, which was being searched by sniffer dogs in the light of glaring floodlights for the third time in the past half-hour. Stanz was nervous. The last time he’d had that feeling was during his final exam at law school, and that was at least a couple of years ago. Up until now, his focus had been on managing and carrying out interrogations, and this was his first ‘open air’ operation. It was dawning on him that the gap between theory and practice was substantial. For instance, while it was possible to plan an operation perfectly, it was far from guaranteed that the plan would be executed perfectly.

Theatre was being performed here, and the passport control officers had to follow orders. Everyone else was in position. He jumped when the telephone rang in the ghostly empty train terminal. Two steps and he’d reached the device and lifted the receiver.

‘Thirty minutes,’ it hissed. ‘What’s going wrong?’

‘I don’t know.’ He looked at the train and knew that Lindner was sitting somewhere on the through coach. The rat. The turncoat. Together with a clutch of high-profile BND agents. And they couldn’t get to him. Two coaches further on, in the Bergen locomotive, Sonnenberg sat with her daughter, carefully watched by the conductor. The rat’s spawn. The vermin. They didn’t move. And the longer they waited, the more likely it was that the whole operation would peter out. ‘Maybe they have a signal arranged.’

‘Yellow ribbons?’ Rose’s voice sounded contemptuous. ‘We can’t keep the train here forever. Tell your people to storm it.’

Stanz shook his head, even though she couldn’t see him, because the train was between them. ‘Out of the question. Too many witnesses.’

He didn’t even want to think about the diplomatic complications that would ensue. Arrested in transit. Mother and child. Unbelievable. The tabloid press would eat it up. The interest-free trade credit had just been increased to 850 million West German marks, the West German government guarantee was at 950 million. Erich Honecker wanted to visit Bonn in September. Back in the day, they would have just pulled the woman and her child out of the train by the hair. Now they needed evidence. Ironclad.

‘She knows just as much as Lindner. She can identify the BND agents,’ she said.

And why can’t you do that? Stanz was tempted to ask. Didn’t you do your homework, or what? He was so tired of being treated like a yokel by these stuck-up Western women. He managed to swallow his words in time. From the very beginning she had made clear that she could only betray the BND plan, not tell them who would carry it out; she didn’t know who would be doing the smuggling. Sometimes even the pushy women from the West reached their limits. Stanz looked nervously at the clock. Way past midnight. They were running out of time.

‘Then pull them out,’ was all she said.

She hung up. Stanz pulled another cigarette from his pack and lit it. That gave him a few more minutes to think. Why wasn’t anything happening out there? The conductor had changed sides for a thousand West German marks. The Swedish! He didn’t know what he despised more: the corruption in and of itself or the speed with which people let themselves be bribed. He was supposed to get them as soon as the woman gave the sign. But she hadn’t done that. Did she have the feeling that her escape plan was in danger? Did she have a sixth sense? Had the dogs or the floodlights or ultimately her own crazy plan scared her? Stanz inhaled deeply. On that train sat two people who were committing high treason and a Western agent. And a child. The child was the weakest link.

He dropped the cigarette and stepped on it. Then he went to the platform and boarded the coaches that were to be uncoupled from the through train.

Stanz had committed the photo to heart long ago. The woman sat next to the window in a six-person compartment, her arm wrapped around her daughter, and stared at the border patrol with their German shepherds inspecting the underside of the coach again and again. Stanz pulled the door open with a jolt.

‘Mrs Sonnenberg?’

She started and stared at him. Her face was pale, and she was more beautiful than the photos from the dossier had suggested. The girl clung to her a stuffed animal. She was tired and rubbed her eyes. The other passengers stared at him in fright.

‘I’d like you to come with me. Come along.’

‘Why?’ she asked.

‘Your husband would like to speak with you.’

In the bluish glow of the neon lights she appeared to lose her last bit of colour. She jumped up and grabbed the girl by the hand.

‘My . . . husband? Has something happened?’

The fellow passengers received Irene Sonnenberg’s confusion as a welcome change of pace from the tedium of waiting. Stanz knew that he didn’t have much time.

‘Yes. Please follow me.’

In that moment she had to know that her plan had failed. Stanz wasn’t the conductor who should have brought her into the through coach. The cabin door rolled shut behind her.

‘What’s wrong?’ She was breathless from fear.

‘Mrs Sonnenberg, we want to avoid a fuss.’

‘I’m here to go on holiday. The train will be uncoupled and continue to Bergen any minute now. We have a room in the FDGB-Heim Prora. Here.’

She nervously searched through her handbag until she had found a scrap of paper.

‘Mummy? What’s wrong with papa?’

She bent over to her child. A delicate girl with angelic curls; the similarity between them was impossible to overlook.

‘Nothing, darling.’

‘He’s waiting for you,’ Stanz said to the child. ‘Over there, look. The coach next to the locomotive shed. Can you see it?’

The girl pressed her nose flat against the windowpane.

‘Yes.’

‘Your papa’s over there.’

Irene Sonnenberg staggered but was able to catch herself. All life appeared to have been leached from her face. Stanz was familiar with those moments. Those were the seconds before a confession; the moments before the final collapse.

‘That’s Lenin’s lounge car,’ Stanz said. ‘And that’s where we’re all going now.’

‘Please,’ Irene Sonnenberg whispered. ‘Please don’t.’

Stanz led the way, opening the door that led to the dark side of the tracks.

‘Come on, little girl. Your papa is waiting.’

Two cops with machine guns accompanied them. On this side of the train there were only hallways, no cabins. The conductor made certain that no unwanted witnesses were milling around. No one would see how Irene Sonnenberg and her daughter were led away. It was less than thirty metres, but Stanz knew that for the woman it would seem like the last steps to the gallows. It had taken quite some time for him to suppress his empathy. He had led many interrogations. He had been the best in his class. He knew how to break people. They had been trained not to pay attention to the tears, not the stammered explanations, not the pleas and begging. They were even experienced at ignoring the inner voice that occasionally whispered that enough was enough.

Sonnenberg deserved the death penalty. Even if she looked like an angel, she still harboured corruption and betrayal inside her, and had put thousands of agents in immediate danger. He was remarkably moved by the child. The little girl had firmly grabbed her mother’s hand and stumbled over the tracks and the rocks. Once a stuffed animal fell from her hand. Stanz picked it up, but Sonnenberg ripped it out of his hand and gave it back to her daughter herself.

The lounge car had been Rose’s idea. And once again, Stanz couldn’t help but admire the way that she had planned the operation and left nothing to chance. Stanz didn’t work with a centralised command, and such an approach was new for him. As he pushed down the heavy door opener and let the two go ahead, he was glad they wouldn’t have to bring all this to an end at the train station.

The child looked around in amazement. In her eyes, the threadbare velvet and the spotted brass transformed into a palace.

‘Where is Lenin?’ she asked.

The heavy, red curtain moved. A hand pushed it aside. The child turned around and let a scream loose.

‘No!’

Sonnenberg wanted to grab hold of the girl, but Stanz pulled her back.

‘Stay calm,’ he said. But the whole situation was spiralling completely out of control. ‘Completely calm.’

‘Lenin is on his way,’ Rose said and aimed at the child.

The welder drank half of a bottle of mineral water in a single gulp, set it down, and burped loudly.

‘Can I have my phone back now?’

TT cursed to himself. Why wasn’t Kaiserley answering his telephone?

‘Right away.’

He reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out another fifty. Shit. No idea when he’d get to another cash machine.

‘I’ll buy it from you. It’s ancient anyway.’

‘Hey!’

TT tossed the note on a pile of cobblestones and sprinted off. Dressed in his heavy work clothes, the welder was too slow to follow him. But he could still hear him yelling from two blocks away.

His landline, his laptop, his smartphone – all bugged. Someone had been following him each step of the way, the entire time, read every email he’d sent to Kellermann. And if what TT had just pieced together was true, then even Kellermann was in trouble up to his neck.

He dialled Kellermann’s number from memory and fervently hoped that he had remembered it correctly.

Kellermann didn’t answer. TT felt his throat tighten. Kaiserley had been right about everything, and TT despised himself for not having believed him. Pick up, he prayed. Pick up!

A hand grabbed him from behind and wheeled him around. He stared at the furious face of a strong man, flushed with anger.

‘Phone,’ was all he grunted, and grabbed TT by the lapels. It was the welder, and behind him his buddy appeared, ominously rolling up the sleeves of his checked shirt.

‘It’s an emergency,’ TT squawked. ‘Please! I need it!’

The welder pushed him against the wall. It knocked the wind out of him, and the device slipped out of his hand, falling to the ground.

‘You want trouble? You can have it.’

He rammed a fist into TT’s stomach. TT folded up like a pocket knife. A metallic taste flooded his mouth. He had bitten his tongue. Slowly he slid down the wall to the ground. He crouched on all fours. His hand reached out for the phone, but the welder was quicker. He stepped on TT’s fingers. Not hard enough to break them, but hard enough for TT to howl in pain.

The other one picked up the phone and wiped it off.

‘I have to . . . call someone,’ TT groaned. ‘It’s urgent.’

The welder pulled back his foot, but only to boot TT in the ribs again.

‘Remember that.’

They turned away. TT’s head raced. There was no more room for cover stories and lies. The two of them walked off, and there was only a few seconds left for what was essential: the truth.

‘Just one call!’

TT pulled himself together and ran after them. He was limping, and his hand was hurting badly.

‘Let me try one last time. Please! Please!’

Passers-by on the other side of the street turned toward them. The whole situation was becoming embarrassing for the two workers. They walked faster.

‘It’s a matter of life and death!’ TT bellowed.

One of them stopped, but the other one roughly dragged him further. TT ran past them and positioned himself in their way. The first welder wanted to push him aside.

‘I have to try again. One more time. Give me your phone. I’m sorry, I didn’t want to steal it. Let me use it for a call!’

‘Shut up,’ the welder said, but it no longer sounded so self-assured. ‘Use your own.’

‘I can’t. It’s bugged. Please. I have to warn someone.’

The two of them marched on.

‘It’s my father!’ TT yelled. ‘A woman is on her way to him. She wants to kill him!’

The welder stopped and turned around.

‘Then call the cops.’

‘Yeah, but with what?’ TT yelled in desperation.

Judith stared past Merzig, looking at the fish, but not seeing anything else. It was as if someone had pulled back a velvet curtain in her mind, and suddenly everything was back. The barking dogs, the spotlights, and the ‘clickety-clack, clickety-clack, clickety-clack’, moving closer and closer.

‘Judith?’ Kaiserley’s voice, from very close. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘She . . . she told me something,’ she whispered. ‘She said she was leaving because she wanted to show the man something. She climbed out of the lounge car and the man followed her, and then . . . there was a locomotive. There was a bang, completely muffled. And then someone screamed. High and shrill. Someone screamed and couldn’t stop.’

For the second time that evening something flashed in the eyes of the Stasi Lieutenant-General. Empathy?

‘That was you, Ms Kepler. You were severely traumatised. Your mother was shot before your eyes.’

Judith felt her mind powering down, section by section, as if she were standing at her own circuit box and flipping one switch after another. She resented, hated, despised this small, old man on his corduroy couch, who had still not reached the end of his, her, all of their story.

‘She said she wanted to show Stanz the hiding place for the microfilm. No one could hold her back; she knew exactly what she was doing. And then the switch engine for the train to Bergen. She ran off. Behind the locomotive. Over the tracks. Into the floodlights. The snipers had no choice.’

Judith pulled the weapon from her bag, jumped up, and pointed it at Merzig.

‘You pigs. You miserable, godless pigs! You shot her down like a rat!’

‘Judith! No!’

She flipped down the safety, like Dombrowski had once shown her.

‘Who was Rose?’

Merzig raised his hands. ‘Child, put the gun away.’

‘Look in there.’ She pointed the barrel in Merzig’s face. ‘And think very carefully about what you say. Who was she?’

Kaiserley stood up, slowly and calmly, but Judith danced to the side, out of his reach.

‘Tell me her name! Now! And fuck you, with Rose and Stanz, and Lindner, and . . .’ She pointed at Kaiserley, who raised his hands. ‘Weingärtner and all that shit! Who was she?’

Just then the window exploded with a loud bang. Cracks spread through the glass like a huge spider web. Another bang. Judith couldn’t duck down fast enough. The walls of the aquarium broke into a thousand shards, tearing clothes and skin, and before Kaiserley flung her to the floor, she saw the water standing for a moment like a pillar in middle of the room, before crashing over in a single wave, a metre high. Under Kaiserley’s weight, she slammed onto the coffee table, then the floor. The force of the impact flung the pistol out of her hand, landing out of her reach underneath the couch. A silver grey fish landed directly next to her face, twitching and flopping about. Kaiserley pressed his hand to her mouth. He was soaking wet, water dripping from his hair and onto her. Judith’s heart hammered against her ribs. She was gasping for air as desperately as the fish next to her.

Then it was still. A quiet rattling, there was water dripping, forming puddles on the floor. Merzig lay across from them behind the coffee table, no more than a metre away. Blood streamed over his face. He twitched. And the flash in his eyes was no long the reflection of his strange soul, but rather came from razor-sharp shards of glass. His head fell to the side. There was a small, black hole in his temple. She felt Kaiserley’s breath on her face. He slowly pulled his hand away and placed an index finger on his lips. She lay there and didn’t move. And then the shards of glass crunched behind her as someone stepped on them.