Kompromat

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Sitting at the back of the Plenary Chamber in the row of seats reserved for high officials, Thomas Hartkopf, state secretary at the German ministry of the interior, watched with interest as President Igor Popov addressed the Special Session of the Bundestag.

It was a brief but well-judged speech. At a time when NATO and the EU had been testing Russian patience to the limit with their ill-judged sanctions over Crimea and their crude enticements to both Ukraine and Georgia (encouraging them to join NATO, for heaven’s sake!) Popov knew full well that at least in Germany many people, including the chancellor, were reluctant to provoke the Russian bear into a counter-attack, since – as recent history of the twentieth century had shown only too clearly – it would be, above all, Germany that paid the price.

So Popov studiously avoided any mention of the European Union and its irritating ambitions. He emphasized instead the historic ties between Russia and Germany.

‘Above all,’ Popov said, ‘let us stress the friendship between our two great countries. Russian-German relations are as old as our nations. The first German tribes appeared on Russian territory in the late first century. In the late nineteenth century Germans were the ninth most numerous ethnic group in Russia. But what is important is not just the numbers, but the role played by these people in the development of the country and in Russian-German relations. They were peasants and merchants, intellectuals, military men and politicians.

‘As a good neighbour in the West,’ Popov continued, ‘Germany often symbolized for the Russians culture, technical intellect and entrepreneurial wit. Small wonder that in the past all Europeans were known as Germans in Russia and the Europeans’ settlement in Moscow was known as the German Village!’

Popov paused, playing it for laughs. The Honourable Members duly obliged with a round of applause. What a showman the man was, Hartkopf thought.

There was more to come. ‘Nor should we forget Princess Sophia Augusta Frederika of Anhalt-Zerbst, who made a unique contribution to Russian history. Ordinary Russians called her Mother, but she went down in history as Russian empress Catherine the Great.’

He gestured towards the German chancellor: Helga the Great!

By the time he sat down, Popov had them eating out of his hand. It wasn’t just his gift of oratory and the sly sense of humour. The claws for the moment were well-concealed, but they were still there.

When it was her turn to speak, Chancellor Helga Brun sensed the mood lightening in the Chamber.

‘I thought I would start by talking about football,’ she began. ‘I know that’s a safe subject. Of course, Germany was delighted to win the last World Cup in Brazil in 2014, and we are all looking forward to the next World Cup in Russia in 2018.’

The parliamentarians applauded enthusiastically. President Popov leaned over to the chancellor and in a stage whisper said, ‘Maybe it will be a Russia–Germany final.’

Thomas Hartkopf’s attention began to wander. It always did when people talked about football. Couldn’t stand the game.

So he listened with half an ear as Helga Brun moved on from football, to welcome President Popov on his historic visit to Berlin. He heard her speak eloquently of the importance of the relationship between Russia and Germany, as Popov himself had. Then she started on about Europe. Funny, wasn’t it, how even the best-intentioned people could drone on?

The chancellor finally grabbed his full attention when she started to reflect on current challenges, particularly the war in Syria, the refugee crisis and its impact on Germany.

‘Let me be clear about this,’ Helga Brun said. ‘In the presence of my good friend, Igor Popov, President of the Russian Federation, whom we are honoured to have with us today, I condemn the surge in German attacks on refugee shelters. That is unworthy of our country. I believe that the issue of asylum could become a bigger challenge for the European Union than the Greek debt crisis or the stability of the euro. Indeed, the issue of asylum could be the next major European project, in which we show whether we are really able to take joint action.’

Thomas Hartkopf could sense the sudden change of mood in the Bundestag Plenary Chamber. It was as though a door had been left open and an icy blast had entered the room. Basically, he knew, the members were fed up with the asylum issue. Many of them thought that Germany had been far too generous to refugees already. How many more could the country absorb?

As the chancellor spoke, he could see members fidgeting on their well-padded seats. Surely the chancellor was not going to spoil the morning with some ill-judged platitudes about the need for compassion and brotherly love?

Well, on this particular historic occasion, Helga Brun, Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, eschewed platitudes entirely. She was not a tall woman, but that morning she stood very tall indeed.

She looked straight out into the body of the chamber, raising her voice, just as she would raise people’s hopes around the world.

‘Today I pledge,’ she proclaimed, ‘that Germany will play its full part in resolving this crisis. The UN refugee agency has said that the number of people driven from their homes by conflict and crisis has topped fifty million for the first time since World War II. Fifty million! That is unbelievable. This is a situation which cannot be allowed to continue. Germany will welcome those refugees with open arms. We will do what common humanity requires us to do. We already have over one million refugees in Germany. I promise that we will do more, much more. We can do it! And I promise we will do whatever we can!’

While the high-ups were being entertained elsewhere, there was a buffet lunch for officials in one of the Bundestag’s dining rooms. Thomas Hartkopf found himself standing next to a tall, suave Russian.

They had met several times over the last few years, for example at G8 summits. Russia had been expelled or ‘disinvited’ from the G8 in 2014, but it still participated in the annual Munich Security Conference.

The two men found a quiet corner where they could talk.

‘Chancellor Brun went out on a limb this morning, didn’t she?’ Yuri Yasonov commented. ‘If this hadn’t been a special occasion, I feel some hard words might have been said by some of the members. They weren’t keen on the chancellor’s open-ended commitment on asylum seekers, were they?’

‘Not at all,’ Hartkopf agreed. ‘I took a look at my boss, Otto Friedrich, the minister of the Interior. He was purple in the face with rage. That pledge on migrants obviously took him by surprise.’

‘Do you think Friedrich will make a move? Will he stand against Brun in the elections?’ Yasonov asked.

‘Your guess is as good as mine,’ Hartkopf replied. ‘He may not go for it now, but I don’t think he’ll wait for ever. And he has that Bavarian power base. That always counts for a lot in German politics.’

‘If Mrs Brun goes, Friedrich is the chancellor’s natural successor, isn’t he?’

‘A strong candidate, at least,’ Hartkopf acknowledged.

They had ordered a selection of pastries to follow the main course. Yasonov passed the plate across. ‘Here’s something which might help Dr Friedrich on his way.’

Hartkopf was careful to palm the flash-drive before helping himself to a thick slice of Black Forest cake.

Later that night, sitting in his study at home, Dr Otto Friedrich examined the dossier in detail. He was staggered. There it all was in black and white. The fact that her name hadn’t shown up in the Stasi files the government acquired after the fall of the Berlin Wall didn’t necessarily mean that Helga Brun wasn’t implicated. It could just mean she was already in a position to suppress the evidence. But the one file she had not been able to suppress was the one Popov had managed to take back to Moscow when the mission of the KGB’s Dresden office was disbanded.

So what had ‘Mina’ done for the Russians?

‘Mein Gott!’ he exclaimed. He had always wondered about the way Helga Brun had come to power, how she had out manoeuvred Hans Bloch, when Bloch was chairman of the CDU. Deed done, Helga Brun herself became party chairman and subsequently chancellor. The whole game plan was laid out in the documents. An extremely rude word escaped his lips almost involuntarily. It was obvious what had happened. Helga Brun may have been following instructions from Moscow for years!

There was one document he still had to study, and this one was Russian. It was labelled ‘Bundestag: Chancellor’s speech’.

‘Good God!’ Dr Friedrich exclaimed again when he opened the file. There it all was in black and white. The full text of the chancellor’s speech which he himself had seen in draft. A diagonal bar across each page said SECRET. How had Popov’s people got hold of that? Only a handful of Cabinet members in Germany had seen it in advance.

He had been furious that morning when the chancellor gave that pledge on the asylum seekers, cursing her for ad-libbing.

‘We can do it! And I promise we will do what we can!’ appeared in bold red type in the document he had up on the screen.

Dr Friedrich picked up the phone. He’d have to report this.

He paused. Who was he going to report it to? To the chancellor? Not likely, given the circumstances. To the minister in charge of security? Well, he was the minister in charge of security. He could hardly report to himself. Who else then?

Another thought occurred to him. People would ask how he came to be in possession of this explosive information. Was he going to admit that a senior Russian official passed a data-stick to his own state secretary concealed in a slice of Black Forest cake?

There were legal issues too. In the Federal Republic even ministers of the Interior needed court orders. At least they were supposed to have them. He could just hear the federal prosecutor asking with a sneer, ‘And have you been spying on the chancellor, Dr Friedrich?’

He replaced the phone. Better to wait.

Judging by the latest news bulletins, Helga Brun’s newly announced policy of a Germany ‘open-to-all-comers’ was already receiving a huge thumbs-down from the electorate.

Her star, as Dr Friedrich saw it, was beginning to fade and the effects of today’s speech might sink her altogether.

His own political star, on the contrary, was already rising fast.

When the moment came he would be ready. And he would have the top-secret ‘Mina’ dossier if he needed extra ammunition to fatally wound the political career of the chancellor.