Field Gray

38

We moved to a small and very crummy safe house on Dreyse Strasse, east of Moabit Hospital, in the British zone, which, Scheuer said, was as close to Stallmacher’s apartment as we dared to get for the moment without tipping our hand to the Russians or, for that matter, the French. The British were told only that we were keeping a suspected black marketeer under surveillance.

The plan was simple: that I, being a Berliner, would contact the owner of the building on Schulzendorfer Strasse and offer to rent one of several empty apartments using my wife’s maiden name. The owner, a retired lawyer from Wilmersdorf, showed me around the apartment—which he’d furnished himself—and it was much better on the inside than it looked from the outside. He explained that the building had been owned and administered by his wife, Martha, until she had been killed by a bomb the previous year while visiting her mother’s grave in Oranienburg.

“They said she never knew a thing,” said Herr Schurz. “A two-hundred-and-fifty-kilogram American aerial bomb had lain there for almost ten years without anyone noticing. A grave digger twenty meters away was digging, and he must have hit the thing with his pickax.”

“That’s too bad,” I said.

“They say Oranienburg is full of unexploded ordnance. The soil is soft there, you see, with a hard layer of gravel underneath. The bombs would penetrate the earth but not the gravel.” He shrugged and then shook his head. “Apparently, there were a lot of targets in Oranienburg.”

I nodded. “The Heinkel factory. And a pharmaceutical plant. Not to mention a suspected atomic bomb research plant.”

“Are you married, Herr Handlöser?”

“No, my wife also is dead. She got pneumonia. But she’d been ill for a while, so it wasn’t as unexpected as what happened to your wife.”

I went to the window and looked down onto the street.

“This is a big apartment for someone living by himself,” said Schurz.

“I’m planning to take in a couple of tenants to help me with the rent,” I said. “If that’s all right with you. Some gentlemen from an American Bible school.”

“I’m pleased to hear it,” said Schurz. “That’s what the whole French sector needs now. More Americans. They’re the only ones with any money. Talking of which.”

I counted some banknotes into his eager hand. He gave me a set of keys, and then I returned to the safe house on Dreyse Strasse.

“As far as the landlord is concerned,” I said, “we can move in tomorrow.”

“You said nothing to him about Stahl or Stellmacher,” said Scheuer.

“I did exactly as you told me. I didn’t even ask about the neighbors. So what happens now?”

“We move in and keep the place under close surveillance,” said Scheuer. “Wait for Erich Mielke to visit his dad and then go upstairs to introduce ourselves.”

Frei laughed. “Hello, we’re your new neighbors. Can we interest you in defecting to the West? You and your old man.”

“What happened to the idea of making him into your spy?”

“Not enough leverage. Our political masters want to know what the East German leadership is thinking now, not what they’re thinking in a year’s time. So we grab him and take him back to the States to debrief him.”

“You’re forgetting Mielke’s wife, Gertrud, aren’t you? And doesn’t he have a son now? Frank? He won’t want to leave them, surely.”

“We’re not forgetting them at all,” said Scheuer. “But I rather think that Erich will. From everything we know about him, he’s not the sentimental sort. Besides, he can always apply for them to come to the West as well. And it’s not like there’s a wall that’s stopping them from coming.”

“And if he doesn’t want to defect?”

“Well, then that’s too bad.”

“You’ll kidnap him?”

“That’s not a word we use,” said Scheuer. “The U.S. Constitution permits public policy exceptions to the normal legal process of extradition. But I doubt any of this is going to matter. As soon as he sees the four of us, he’ll know the game is up and that he has no choice in the matter.”

“And when you do take him back? What then?”

Scheuer grinned. “I don’t even want to think about that until we’ve got him, Gunther. Mielke’s the great white whale for the CIA in Germany. We land him, we get enough oil to burn in our lamps to see what we’re doing in this country for years to come. The Stasi might never recover from a blow like this. It could even help us to win the Cold War.”

“Damn right,” said Hamer. “Mielke’s the whole fucking ball game. There’s very little that bastard doesn’t know about communist plans in Germany. Will they invade? Will they keep to their side of the fence? How far are they prepared to go to hold on to the yardage they’ve already won? And just how independent of Moscow is the current East German leadership?”

Frei clapped me on the shoulder amicably. “Gunther, old buddy,” he said. “You help us get this bastard, you’re set for life, do you hear? By the time Ike gets through thanking you, my German friend, you’ll feel more American than we do.”

Hamer frowned. “Don’t you think it’s time Gunther should maybe get some more intel from his lady friend? Does Mielke come on a weekend? Does he come at the beginning or the end of the month? We could be in that apartment for weeks waiting for this kraut to show up.”

But Scheuer was shaking his head. “No, it’s best we leave things as they are. Besides, I think Gunther’s already tested the limit of his friendship with this lady. If he asks her any more questions about Mielke, she’s just liable to start wondering who he’s more interested in. Him or her. And I wouldn’t want her to become jealous. Jealous women do unpredictable things.”

He went to the window of the safe house, drew back a gray-white length of net curtain, and looked out as an ambulance raced up Bendlerstrasse to the hospital, its bell ringing furiously.

“That reminds me,” said Scheuer. He turned to look at Frei. “Did you get hold of that ambulance?”

“Yes.”

“It’s not for us.” Scheuer glanced at me. “It’s for the package.”

“You mean Mielke.”

“That’s right. But from now on we never use that name. Not until he’s on a private wing at the U.S. Army hospital in Lichterfelde.”

“I suppose you’ll give him thiopental, too,” I said.

“Only if we have to.”

“Ain’t like it’s rationed,” said Frei.

Hamer laughed. “Not for us, anyway.”

“By the way,” I said. “Feel free to pay me any day soon.”

“You’ll get your lousy money,” said Hamer.

“I’ve heard that before.” I shot a sarcastic smile Hamer’s way and then looked at Scheuer. “Look, all I am asking is that I see a letter from the kind of Swiss bank that treats you like just another number. And all I want is what’s mine.”

“And where did that come from?” said Hamer.

“None of your goddamn business. But since you ask so politely, Hamer, I won it gambling. In Havana. You can pay me the twenty-five thousand as a bonus if and when you collect the package.”

“Gambling. Yeah, sure.”

“When I was arrested in Cuba, I had a receipt to prove that.”

“So did the SS when they robbed the Jews,” said Hamer.

“If you’re suggesting that’s how I came by my money, you’re wrong. The way you’re wrong about nearly everything, Hamer.”

“You’ll get your money,” said Scheuer. “Don’t worry about it. Everything is in hand.”

I nodded, not because I believed him but because I wanted him to believe that money was what motivated me now, when it wasn’t. Not anymore. I squeezed the black knight in my trouser pocket and determined to imitate its action on the chessboard. To move obliquely one square to the side before jumping two squares forward. In a closed position, what else could I do?