“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?
39
The following afternoon, with our bags and suitcases packed—mine was the smallest—we prepared to leave the pension in Dreyse Strasse and move into the apartment on Schulzendorfer Strasse. None of us were sorry to be out of there. The landlady owned several cats and these were not much inclined to piss out of doors; even with the windows open, the place smelled like an old people’s home. We filled a newish-looking VW transporter van with ourselves and our luggage and our equipment. Scheuer drove, with me sitting in the passenger seat and giving directions, while Hamer and Frei rolled around in the back with the bags, complaining loudly. Following at a distance was the ambulance containing what Scheuer called “security”—CIA muscle with guns and shortwave radios. According to Scheuer’s plan, the ambulance would park a short distance away from Schulzendorfer Strasse, and when the time came, these men were ready to help us grab Erich Mielke.
I told Scheuer to drive north onto Perleberger Strasse intending to go across the canal on Fennbrücke, but an old building on the corner of Quitzowstrasse had collapsed across the road and we were obliged by the local police and the fire brigade to go south down Heide Strasse.
“We’d better not cross the canal on Invalidenstrasse,” I told Scheuer. “For obvious reasons.”
Invalidenstrasse, on the east side of the canal, was the DDR, and a new-looking transporter filled with Americans—not to mention an ambulance filled with armed men—was certain to attract unwelcome attention from the Grepos.
“Go west on Invalidenstrasse until you’re on old Moabit and then right up Rathenower Strasse. We’ll have to cross the canal on the Föhrer Bridge. If it’s still there. It’s been a while since I was up this way. Every time I come to Berlin, it looks different from the last time I was here.”
Scheuer shouted at the two in the back. “That’s why Gunther has the seat,” he said. “So he can tell us where to go.”
“I know where I’d like to tell him to go,” grumbled Hamer.
Scheuer grinned at me. “He doesn’t like you,” he said.
“That’s okay,” I said. “I feel the same way about him.”
On Rathenower we drove past a large, grim, star-shaped building on our left.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“Moabit Prison,” I said.
“And the other building?”
He meant the great, semiruined building just north of the prison, a huge fortress of an edifice that ran west along Turm Strasse for almost a hundred meters.
“That?” I smiled. “That is where this whole lousy story began. It’s the Central Criminal Court. Back in May 1931, there were police cars parked the length of the street. And cops everywhere, inside and outside the building. But mostly outside, because that was where most of the Nazi storm troopers were gathered. A couple of thousand of them. Maybe more. And newspapermen crowded around the big doors of the entrance.”
“An important trial was in progress, huh?”
“The Eden Dance Palace trial,” I said. “Actually, it was a routine sort of case. Four Nazis had tried to murder some communists in a dance hall. Back in 1931, that was almost an everyday occurrence. No, it was the witness for the prosecution that made the case so noteworthy and why there were so many cops and Nazis on the scene. The witness was Adolf Hitler, and the prosecution lawyer wanted to show that Hitler was the malign force behind this kind of Nazi-on-communist violence. Hitler was always publicly affirming his commitment to law and order, and the prosecution hoped to expose this for a lie. So Hitler was summoned to testify.”