“I have no desire to be the Stasi’s apprentice. Thank you for breakfast.” She left the room.
Schmidt raised his voice, but remained sitting. “Frau Doktor, I know what happened to your father. And he’s not dead.”
CHAPTER SIX
To choose one’s victims, to prepare one’s plan minutely,
to slake an implacable vengeance and then to go to bed…
there is nothing sweeter in the world.
– STALIN
DEMOCRATIC BERLIN – MITTE
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 19
MfS General Gregor Kosyk hailed a cab on the former Stalinallee. Even though the recruitment of Whitney had taken longer than he had budgeted, he was now back on schedule. Taxis were rare, but a boxy green Wartburg stopped for him within minutes. He surveyed the street and jumped into the car.
“You should’ve been here on time,” Kosyk said as he slammed the door shut. “Because of you I’ve been exposed on the street corner for two fucking minutes.”
The cabdriver turned toward his fare. A tuft of hair peaked in the middle of each bushy white eyebrow. “It’s a beautiful day for a drive to the countryside.”
“Ivashko, haven’t you known me long enough to dispense with this idiocy?”
He repeated the code phrase.
Kosyk sighed with irritation, then spoke with the mocking cadence of a schoolboy reciting a lesson. “Do you know if the Moskva restaurant serves solyanka on Wednesdays?”
“I make my own soup with ingredients from the Russian store on Andernacher Strasse.”
“Many of our friends shop there, don’t they? You feel like a real spook now, Ivashko?”
Ivashko dropped the flag on the meter and sped to the Soviet enclave in the Karlshorst district. The KGB residency there was the largest in the world, and, thanks to the Stasi’s efforts, the most productive. Ivashko took a circuitous route through Lichtenberg, constantly glancing in his rearview mirror. Neither man spoke.
As the car bumped along the cobblestones of Köpenicker Allee heading southeast, Kosyk congratulated himself for his quick thinking during his meeting with Honecker and the other naïve conspirators. Taking personal control over the MfS surveillance of the Soviets was a stroke of brilliance. As Kosyk neared Karlshorst, the units assigned to the KGB residency were across town on a futile counterespionage mission following the chief resident to lunch. No one would ever learn of his secret meeting with the Russians or suspect him of betrayal.
The car turned into Rheinstrasse and immediately pulled up to a control point at the entrance to the KGB compound. Few efforts had been made to hide the purpose of the gray multistoried building that could have passed for regular barracks if it hadn’t been for the roof: Antenna masts, cables and satellite dishes pointed to the truth.
A uniformed KGB officer waved the taxi into the residency and the driver parked in an underground garage that was large enough for only two cars. He escorted Kosyk through a private entrance to a conference room, drew hot water from an electric samovar and poured tea from a porcelain teapot into the hot water. Without querying Kosyk about his taste, he plopped two sugar cubes and a small silver spoon into each glass, both cradled by an ornate silver holder. He then slipped from the room, shutting the solid wood door.
Kosyk sipped his tea, regretting having allowed the sugar crystals to dissolve into the already-saccharine liquid. The longer he waited, the more he resented the KGB. The Stasi handed some of the best intel in the world over to the residency that it in turn transmitted to Moscow, claiming it as their own. Most of the KGB’s intelligence on NATO and Western Europe was courtesy of the Stasi. Without the Stasi and its tens of thousands of operatives in the West and its advanced signal intercepts, the KGB would be nothing. How typical of the KGB to keep him waiting just like Honecker and the other fools in the Politburo. The arrogant bastards liked to remind everyone who the real bosses were.
He would show them soon enough.
A half-hour later, Lieutenant Colonel Bogdanov entered the room wearing the KGB service uniform with its royal-blue epaulets and trim. Her curly black hair, dark brown eyes and Mediterranean complexion made her look more Italian than Slavic. Kosyk guessed she had Tartar blood mixed with the Russian, and that would explain her guile. She shook Kosyk’s hand and seated herself at the head of the conference table.
Kosyk spoke in German, although his Russian was flawless. “How’s your father? So few ever make the leap from the Foreign Service to the Politburo. The news of his early retirement was a disappointment.”
“For him, too,” Bogdanov said in Russian, despite fluency in German.
Kosyk persisted in German. “So did he really step down for health reasons?”
“Comrade Kosyk, I don’t know where you’re leading with this, but I have no doubt you know Gorbachev removed him. You didn’t request a clandestine meeting to chitchat about my pensioned father. Get on with it.”
“You’re certain this room is clean?”
“Absolutely. Only my assistant knows you’re here and I even broke protocol and didn’t inform the chief resident.” Bogdanov sipped her tea. “Now what do you want?”
“Nothing said here today leaves this room without my consent. I need your word.”
She nodded.
“In a way, I am here to talk about your father. What does he think about Gorbachev’s reforms? About his decision to allow the Hungarians to dismantle the border to the West?”
“I haven’t spoken with him about it, but it doesn’t take a Gypsy to see the future on this one.”
“True.” Kosyk stroked his goatee. “And what you see pleases you?”
“I’m a loyal Party member. I believe in the progress of history toward communism, but I must say what I see right now is not progress.”
“And I understand your career has also made little progress. Disappointing after your early meteoric rise. Your work impressed me. You had such promise.”
“Politics haven’t treated me well, but I got out of Pyongyang and back to Berlin. And I’m still in the foreign directorate.”
“You used to be posted in capitalist states. It must be hard to go from plum assignments to here.” Kosyk’s left eye twitched.
“What’s your point? I think you’re going to have to get to it or leave.” Bogdanov stood. “I’ve never liked you.”
“I’ve never liked you, either,” Kosyk said, reverting back to German. “But you’re a highly effective operative, although I question some of your unorthodox methods. I also don’t understand how anyone of your lifestyle can be tolerated in your position, especially now that your father is out of the picture.”
“I suppose there is one advantage to glasnost, isn’t there?” Colonel Bogdanov motioned toward the door.
“And because I don’t like you, I trust you-fondness compromises objectivity. I know how we can avoid the impending chaos and move in the direction of progress-for both history and your career.”
Bogdanov sat down and said in German, “Continue.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
WEST BERLIN
Her roommate’s study reeked of a photo lab, but today it was perfume to Faith. Negatives and prints cluttered a light table. Blown-up official seals from a dozen different governments were tacked to a wall above rows of homemade rubber stamps and an impressive collection of inks. When she walked in, Hakan turned down Wagner and squinted at her through the jeweler’s visor. He flipped it up for a closer look. “What happened to you? You okay?”
“How can you listen to creepy Teutonic schmaltz like ’Ride of the Valkyries’?” She dropped her purse onto the floor.
“When you didn’t come home, I thought you’d finally defected.” Hakan grinned.