“Ah, Doc, Doc,” Malik sighed, warming to the business at hand. “Let’s just say that my administrative position at the oldest university in Germany—East or West—is a convenient platform from which I can oversee goals important to the national security of both the Motherland and, hopefully, the East German government. Suffice to say, I continue to be KGB and I still outrank Colonel Andreyev. But while I readily admit that what we’re about to propose was his idea, I should add that I approve wholeheartedly of the steps he’s taken.”
Making an effort to look nonchalant, Brenner said, “What ideas, gentlemen? What steps?”
Malik indicated a small briefcase which Aleksei had placed on the floor near his chair. “Colonel, please show Doc the ‘artifact’ we’ve been saving these many years.”
Aleksei put out his cigarette, opened the briefcase, and removed a large square box that dangled an electrical cord. Placing the box on the coffee table, Aleksei plugged the cord into the nearest outlet.
Brenner’s heart sank. He recognized the wire recorder. It was a World War II predecessor of today’s newer tape version. “God in heaven,” he whispered as if he were alone in the room, realizing that Malik and Andreyev must have recorded him when he sold out the Ukrainian children.
Unless they were bluffing. Even if they weren’t, maybe he’d been careful not to incriminate himself. Or maybe a wire recording this primitive could not survive the last fifteen years.
As if Malik were a mind-reader, he said, “No, Doc, we are not bluffing. And yes, a fifteen-year-old wire recording can indeed pass the test of time.” Smiling broadly, he stood up.
But instead of leaving, Malik leaned against the doorway with folded arms—as if, after all those years, he couldn’t resist witnessing Brenner’s frantic response to the blackmail.
Aleksei tossed back his glass of vodka in a single gulp, activated the recorder with the spool of wire… and released the past.
When it was over, Malik left the suite, as if he’d lost interest in what was to follow.
The first words that spilled from Brenner’s mouth were, “Name your price, Colonel.”
“Name your price,” Aleksei repeated, parroting Brenner. “Save your money, Doc. We have something else in mind. We want you to defect to the Soviet Union.”
Brenner shot to his feet. The idea that he would agree to spend the rest of his life in some squalid Communist dictatorship was so far removed from his rational zone of reference that he could only stare.
Aleksei shifted gears immediately, recognizing his mistake. All stick and no carrot…
“Your reputation precedes you, Dr. Brenner,” he said, feeding admiration in his voice. “You’re a humanitarian. Think how your considerable talents would be a boon to us. Think of the challenge! And let’s not forget your financial difficulties of late,” he added, managing to sound both pragmatic and solicitous.
“You’re delusional!” Brenner said, incredulous. “You expect me to leave my country for good, just like—like switching off a light bulb?”
“It need not be forever,” Aleksei said, recalling Kiril’s suggestion about turning this particular issue into a bargaining chip.
“You want me to desert my institute for, what—a couple of years? You want me to abandon my parents? My wife?”
Back to the stick.
“As to your charming wife, Adrienne, only a few hours ago she committed a serious crime against the German Democratic Republic, possibly against my country as well. I’m in a position to have her detained for taking photographs of a national security nature. Rest assured that I will detain her if you refuse my terms.”
“Terms? What terms?” Brenner asked shrilly. “You lose nothing. I give up everything!”
Aleksei smiled. “You capitalists believe in negotiating, do you not? Lend the Motherland a few years of your life. In return, I guarantee to keep your reputation intact so that ultimately you can reclaim everything you have lost. Refuse us—” he paused while he practically obliterated the remnants of his last cigarette, “and I promise you the consequences will be permanent.”
As he headed for the door, Aleksei couldn’t resist one last jab. Resting one hand on the doorknob, he said, “They tell me you are an imaginative man in the operating room, Dr. Brenner. Imagine this, then. Picture your colleagues, your family, your friends—everyone who admires those capable hands of yours for their capacity to save lives. Now picture those same people unable to look at your hands without seeing a permanent stain—the blood of innocent children.”
His superior having left the scene, Andreyev ignored the glass and drank from the bottle of vodka.
“The clock is ticking, Dr. Brenner. Don’t keep me waiting too long. Don’t keep the press and the television cameras waiting.”
Chapter 39
Kurt Brenner stared at his image in the bathroom mirror. “I am Dr. Kurt Brenner,” he asserted, as if someone were challenging that fact. “I am not—I will not—be intimidated.”
His image, haggard-looking, was unconvinced.
“They cannot destroy my career.”
The image said they could.
“They’ll never get away with it! In a showdown, people will believe me, not them.”
The image looked doubtful.
His glance shifted to the coffee table in the next room, empty now except for a heavy glass ashtray. He strode over to it and sent the ashtray to the floor in a cloud of ashes.
Brenner sat down at the table and slowed his breathing, something he did just before a particularly complex operation. He thought of it as his “sniper mode”—a perfect, nearly impregnable state of calm.
A World War II “artifact” and a sixteen-year-old conversation—who would take it seriously? Who would take the word of the KGB over the word—the vehement denial—of a prominent American heart surgeon?
Who wouldn’t take them seriously? These people have proof. Facts!
Brenner thought of his own reverence for facts. How they kicked in the minute he stepped into an operating theater.
Fact. A clogged line in a heart-lung machine sends blood clots to the brain.
Fact. A patient five or six minutes off the machine will turn into a vegetable.
Fact. Every patient I operate on depends on my skills, my ability to choose without hesitation between life and death alternatives.
Now, ensnared in the worst crisis of his life, Brenner was caught between the unpalatable and the unthinkable. Defect to the Soviet Union? Ridiculous. See his past exposed, his career in a shambles? Never!
In the end, as in every major crisis in his life, he succumbed to the inevitable: the famous Dr. Kurt Brenner temper. What ignited the explosion was Andreyev’s smug parting remark.
“Picture your colleagues, your family, your friends, unable to look at your hands without seeing a permanent stain—the blood of innocent children.”
Brenner could picture it all too well. His hands, shaking as if he were some pathetic alcoholic with the DTs. How ironic, he thought with a tight smile. It was Andreyev’s last-minute threat that had galvanized him.