Winter Work Page 9

  He took the back way in case the watcher in the Citroën had his eyes on the lane, and within a few minutes had reached the narrow path that led to Lothar Fischer’s dacha.

  Earlier that day, Dorn’s men had taken custody of Lothar’s dog, Gretel. Emil had watched out his window as they led her down a path on a leash. The poor dog had looked bewildered, repeatedly checking over her shoulder for any sign of her master. She was a sweet dog, with a weakness for treats. He hoped they found her a good home, but for the moment the most important fact of her removal was that Lothar’s place was now empty and unguarded.

  The first thing he checked was Lothar’s vegetable garden. He was displeased but not at all surprised to see that someone had recently been digging there. The earth was turned and gouged, with clumps of brown weeds cast to the side. A shovel was propped against the nearby wall of the dacha. Whoever had used it hadn’t even bothered to clean off the blade. Footprints of various sizes crisscrossed the raw ground. He turned away with a shudder.

  Emil bypassed the front door and went around to the back. In his overcoat pocket was a small kit with an array of lock-picking tools, which the ministry had given him the same week as his Pistol-M. He took off his gloves, chose a slender steel tool, and within seconds sprung the lock. He stepped inside, shut the door behind him, and switched on his flashlight just long enough to refamiliarize himself with the lay of the land. Then he switched the light back off and waited for his eyes to readjust.

  Lothar’s dacha was a little bigger than his, with an extra bedroom and a second bathroom. It was also better appointed—electric baseboard heating, newer appliances. The great room was furnished like a typical living room of almost every tower block in the German Democratic Republic, with a massive wood-grain console that took up most of the main wall. Its shelves and compartments housed a TV, a hi-fi with a turntable, plenty of books, and a framed glossy photo of Erich Honecker, the East German premier who’d been forced from his job the month before the Wall came down. Honecker was now holed up only a few miles away, taking refuge at an Episcopal vicarage in Bernau.

  “Hello, Erich,” Emil couldn’t help but whisper. “Started packing for South America yet?”

  The curtains, the carpet, and the upholstery were dominated by brown and gold tones in bold, modernist patterns that had looked out of date almost the moment they were installed. Everything smelled like cigarette smoke.

  Emil slipped off his shoes, partly to keep his movements quieter, but also to avoid tracking mud and twigs across the floor. He scanned the room as his eyes adjusted to the gloom. Dorn’s men had already been here, and had left obvious traces of their search—disturbed shelves, open drawers.

  The carpet had been rolled up in a corner where they had removed a floorboard. Just like a cop to think that’s where Lothar would have hidden something. Any well-trained spy would consider such a location to be beneath him, a cliché. Emil took a look anyway, flicking on his flashlight to peer into the opening. Nothing but a few mouse droppings, unless of course Dorn’s men had taken something with them, which he doubted.

  From previous visits, Emil knew that Lothar had turned one of his bedrooms into a hobbyist workshop, where he had spent hours building those quaintly kitschy little matchbox rooms that the tourists liked to buy at Christmas shops. He decided to start there.

  The ashtray smell gave way to that of wood shavings and varnish as he entered the doorway. There was a long workbench, impeccably neat, with a wall of hand tools stored just so—screwdrivers and chisels in rows by ascending size, three kinds of spirit level, hammers, pliers, wrenches, awls, and so on. Off to one side, a few recently finished matchboxes, freshly painted, had been set out to dry. One looked like a tiny living room, with a Christmas tree in the middle and a boy on a stepladder, placing an ornament. The other matchbox had an outdoor scene of a father and son fishing from a rowboat. The father smoked a tiny pipe.

  Like so many spies Emil had known, Lothar was a miniaturist at heart, a trait that knew no borders. He had read with fascination of their formidable American adversary, counterspy James Angleton, whose hobbies were fly tying and cultivating orchids. Little wonder that such people sometimes tied themselves into knots by pondering the details of files and agent reports. And what good had that done any of them?

  How, then, had Lothar become sloppy enough in his work habits for Krauss to have heard so easily about his most recent movements? Disturbing.

  Emil was looking for a specific item. In recent years, with his memory slipping, Lothar had taken to scribbling notes to remind himself of upcoming meetings and appointments. Such notations might be as simple as a number or two on a scrap of paper, or even a block of wood, along with a set of initials. That’s what Emil hoped to find.

  It seemed like such a trivial goal, but without that information Emil might soon be facing the prospect of a long and fruitless day, and perhaps the end of everything he’d been working toward. But where would Lothar put such a reminder? His pocket, perhaps? If so, then it had long since been confiscated by either Dorn’s men or Krauss’s.

  There was nothing like it on the workbench, or pinned to any wall, or folded on the small table where Lothar kept sketches of the designs for his little matchboxes. Emil supposed it might be elsewhere—on a bedside table, maybe, or stuck to the refrigerator.

  He was about to open a drawer beneath the workbench when he heard footsteps approaching outdoors. He held still, listening. The steps halted near the front of the house. A key rattled in the knob of the front door.

  Emil slid into a corner on stockinged feet until he was hidden behind a huge drill press. He heard the front door open with a click and a creak. Then a light came on in the great room. Footsteps crossed the floor—one person, probably male, moving with the assurance of either ownership or authority. Lothar had a son who lived in Jena and an older brother in poor health in Leipzig. Emil watched the lighted opening to the great room for any movement or shadow.

  A tall, well-groomed man crossed the opening. It was his old boss, Markus “Mischa” Wolf, and it was all Emil could do to keep from gasping in surprise.

  Wolf disappeared as he moved off toward the big console. The next thing Emil heard was the sound of books being pulled from shelves, and of pages being flipped—in one volume after another. He wondered how long he could remain undetected. If Wolf next went into the kitchen, or a bathroom, he might be able to slip back into the great room and out the back door.

  Then he remembered that he had left his muddy shoes by the back door, near the console. Wolf, one of the most careful observers Emil had ever known, surely would have spotted them by now.

  The house went silent. Perhaps Wolf had sensed that he wasn’t alone.

  Emil sighed, came out of the corner, and announced his presence as he stepped through the lighted doorway.

  “Mischa?”

  Wolf did not flinch, or even widen his eyes. He had always been difficult to surprise, and Emil saw now that he was holding one of his muddy shoes.

  “Well, that explains these, at least,” Wolf said, speaking as casually as if they had just bumped into each other at the market. “Did you take them off to avoid leaving tracks, or because it was quieter?”

  “Both.”

  “And during the Hour of Opportunity, no less. How predictable that we would both choose it. But what enticed you to come here, Emil?”

  It was vintage Mischa Wolf—the seemingly offhand question, offered affably even as it implied that a confession was now in order.

  “I suppose I’m here for the same reason as you. To try and make some sense of what happened to Lothar.”

  “Well, that’s the beginning of an explanation, anyway. How ’bout if we have a drink while we discuss it further. Lothar keeps—kept—a very nice supply here.”

  “At this hour?”

  “Unless you have somewhere more urgent to be.” Wolf smiled sl
yly. “Besides, you look like you could use one. Make yourself comfortable over there on the couch. I’ll do the honors.”

  Emil had little choice but to accept. The problem now would be in coming up with a plausible explanation for why he was here. And who knew? Maybe Wolf had suggested a drink because he, too, needed to come up with a cover story.

  Wolf turned away from him and reached toward the top row of cabinets. He seemed to know exactly where to look. Emil glanced at his watch and settled onto the couch. The night was shaping up to be more complicated than he had bargained for.

  12

  Lothar’s liquor cabinet was a revelation. Inside were French cognacs, Russian vodkas, scotch whisky, British gin, American bourbon. Every brand was top of the line, including some you couldn’t find even in the exclusive stores for party officials.

  On Emil’s many previous visits, Lothar had always grabbed a few beers for them from the fridge, or, if he was feeling more expansive, maybe a chilled bottle of Riesling. Wolf, obviously, was accustomed to a higher level of hospitality, which made Emil wonder what else Lothar had held out on him.

  Wolf sorted through the offerings with the eye of a connoisseur, and didn’t ask for Emil’s preference. He was a decade older than Emil, but his posture was still upright, his movements vigorous, his brown eyes probing and active. He had built a towering professional reputation that probably exceeded his abilities. The disparity had inspired some jealousy in the ranks, although mostly among those who’d been passed over for promotions.

  Even at this ungodly hour, Wolf was impeccably dressed in creased charcoal slacks and a pressed white shirt. He exuded competence; a gray eminence eager to take charge. The only time Emil had ever seen him look out of his element was at a public appearance in the week before the Wall came down, when Wolf had gone to Alexanderplatz to address a restive crowd of half a million protesters.

  Emil and Bettina had watched the rally on television at their apartment in Berlin, although they could hear the distant roar of the crowd through their walls. For three hours, dissidents and reformers climbed onto a rough wooden platform mounted on the bed of a truck to exhort the masses. Whenever a representative of the government spoke, the crowd jeered defiantly. It was extraordinary.

  Then Wolf stepped to the microphone, holding a folded sheaf of remarks in his right hand. His other hand was stuffed in his pocket, as if for ballast, and his face radiated the confidence of a man accustomed to taking charge in difficult circumstances. Surely they would be won over by his calming voice of reform, the very sort of man to reunify the people with their estranged and discredited leaders.

  But within only a minute the boos and whistles began, and at times they were loud enough to make him stop altogether. Wolf looked bewildered.

  “My God, are his hands trembling?” Emil had asked aloud. Bettina blinked once, meaning she certainly thought so. The man seemed to shrink in stature before their eyes, and for Emil and many others watching that day, that was the moment when change felt not only inevitable but irreversible, even if no one would have yet predicted that the entire edifice would crumble five days later, virtually overnight.

  Now Wolf looked more like the man who had always patrolled the corridors of Normanenstrasse, calm and resolute, a planner who surrounded himself with other careful planners. He poured them two fingers apiece of single-malt scotch, handed Emil a glass, and raised his own for a toast as he settled into an easy chair on the opposite side of a modernist coffee table.

  “Prost!”

  “Prost,” Emil replied.

  Each man sipped. Neither took his eyes off the other. Wolf reached into a pocket for a lighter and a pack of Kabinett cigarettes, his longtime brand. Then, after looking around the room, he seemed to think better of it and pocketed the items.

  “No sense drawing attention to our visit, I suppose. Unless you’d like to light up as well.”

  “I’ve been trying to quit.”

  “Ah, well. To your health, then.” He nodded, took another sip of whisky, then zeroed in on Emil.

  “I hope it is not inappropriate of me to ask how Bettina is faring. I have been away, so if anything has, well, happened recently…”

  “She is still living, if that’s what you mean. But her condition continues to deteriorate. We do what we can.”

  “I am sorry. Christa was always fond of her.”

  Christa was Wolf’s second wife, although he had split up with her four years ago to marry his current wife, Andrea. Both women were more than twenty years younger than him. Christa was tall, Andrea was short, and they were longtime friends. Or had been until Wolf’s affair with Andrea, which had supposedly begun right here on the Bauersee, at Wolf’s dacha. Emil had heard all the gossip then, partly because the prudish Mielke had made such a fuss about everything. Wolf had been on the verge of retirement at the time.

  “Tell me, Emil. What do you know about that Citroën parked further up the lane?”

  “It belongs to one of Dieter Krauss’s people.”

  “Krauss has been here?”

  “He was one of the first on the scene of the shooting, with three of his men. He claims he’s still in business, working out of some satellite office he set up on his own. Then Lieutenant Dorn arrived, a cop from Bernau. He’s investigating Lothar’s case. Dorn and his men chased Krauss away.”

  Wolf laughed with what sounded like genuine amusement.

  “I would have enjoyed seeing that.” Then he frowned. “I did hear that it was done with his own pistol.”

  “Who told you that?”

  Wolf shrugged.

  “Well, is it true? You saw his body, yes?”

  Emil found it odd that Wolf knew these details but hadn’t known about Krauss. What sort of source would have told him the first item but not the other? Or had he perhaps watched some of the events firsthand, from a vantage point in the trees? Emil supposed it was even possible that Wolf had quietly walked down for a look at the scene while Emil was talking to Dorn in his dacha. Or he could have acquired his knowledge another way—by being there when the shooting happened—a thought jarring enough to make Emil take another sip of scotch.

  “Yes, I saw it. Saw him. Lothar was holding a Pistol-M in his right hand.”

  Wolf showed no immediate reaction to the latter forensic detail, which was a bit surprising. The man knew the tics and habits of his agents down to the tiniest detail, but maybe he’d been less assiduous about learning those of his fellow managers.

  “Do you really think it’s possible he took his own life?” Wolf asked.

  “Well, he was out of a job. Living alone, with an uncertain future.”

  “Oh, it’s so much larger than that, don’t you think? This is an existential crisis, Emil. We gave the greatest efforts and passions of our lives to a cause that has been deemed useless. It’s as if our work never existed. And as spies, what are we to make of all those secrets that were once matters of life and death? How do we even assign them a value now? What are we even to make of ourselves?”

  This, too, was vintage Mischa Wolf—turning a discussion of bleak practicalities into a philosophical meditation. Maybe at some level he was still tending to his image, that of the deep thinker among ministry knuckle-draggers; the Sage of the Spree, ruminating aloud to show that he hadn’t lost a step.

  “Knowing Lothar, I think he was most worried about where his next paycheck was coming from,” Emil said. “And it’s a valid question. Who could possibly want to hire us now?”

  “I suppose you’re right. Did you hear Bachmann is working as a doorman at some big hotel near the Ku-Damm?”

  It was news to Emil, and a bit shocking. Bachmann had helped Lothar run their operations against the Americans.

  “You’re serious?”

  “Quite. He wears a ridiculous uniform, like a nineteenth-century Balkan hussar. He bows and scrapes for everyone wh
o comes through the door, surviving on tips from the bankers who pull up in their Mercedes. And, well, you heard about my son-in-law, I suppose.”

  “Yes. I’m sorry. I hope he’s recovering.”

  “My daughter seems to think so, but we’ll see. Half a million D-marks! Whoever would have believed it?”

  Then, an interlude of silence, as each of them took a contemplative sip.

  The whisky was already working its magic. Emil felt himself sag with weariness as the shock of their initial encounter wore off. The lateness of the hour lent an air of unreality to the scene. Were they really doing this, two intruders who happened to be old colleagues, chatting sensibly at half past four in the morning in their dead comrade’s dacha? And if that were possible, had the Wall really fallen? For that matter, had it ever even existed, except in their minds?

  The house creaked in a sudden gust of wind, and at that moment Emil would not have been at all surprised to see Lothar’s former wife, Käthe, enter from the kitchen, followed by a younger, healthier Bettina, the two of them carrying trays of snacks, laughing and chatting, with the prospect of a pleasantly sociable evening ahead. He hoped that Bettina was sleeping comfortably.

  Wolf broke the spell.

  “Now the Americans have entered the bidding war.”

  “So I’ve heard. Dialing for dollars, I heard someone call it.”

  They shared an uneasy laugh.

  “Apparently one of our people sold them an office directory which even has some of our home numbers. Have they reached you, Emil?”

  “No. Any number listed for me would be for the apartment in Berlin. I haven’t been there in weeks.”

  “Yes, well, I heard today they’ve started approaching people face-to-face. Bachmann, for one. They went up to him right there in the hotel. Took him aside in the lobby, didn’t care at all who was watching. He blew them off, of course. Quite angrily.”