German from northern Yugoslavia, and had been three years in Tito’s post war prison camps. The uncle taught the child, Dieter, aged twelve, the twin arts of survival and advancement as he had learned them in the prison camp near to Novi Sad. He had also taught young Dieter to understand the mind and character of the Slav Russian without which the distant friendship could not have been bred. He informed, after his first FDJ summer camp, on the other children, on the brigade leader, on what the other children said about their parents. He was given coarse chocolate, and made a unit leader. He had a handler, he was noticed, he tasted power.. And he had learned to fear the loss of power…
Volunteer to Border Guard, 1970. Volunteer for additional six months service. Doctorate of Law, University of Potsdam (MfS sponsorship). Joined MfS, 1976, Normannen Strasse HQ, Berlin. KGB fast track promotion course, Moscow, 1979. Bonn, (importexport cover) 1980. Posted to Rostock, 1981, rank Unterlea tnant. Married Eva (nee Schultz), FDGB organizer at Neptun shipyard, Rostock, 1981.
On the horticultural farm, a friend of his sister, the daughter of workers in the tomato houses, was Annelore. He had promised, dishevelled, wet, naked, that he would love Annelore all of his life. When he had gone to join the Border Guard, Annelore had come with him on the bus to Rostock, and walked with him onto the platform of the Hauptbalrnhof, and waved to him until the train had curved away on the tracks. Sex in the seed store with Annelore when he had returned on leave from the Magdeburg sector. Sex in his mother’s bed, through long afternoons, with Annelore when he had come back for the vacations from the university at Potsdam. There were many girls he could have fucked, sucked, stroked, in Potsdam and when he was posted to Normannen Strasse, but he had stayed faithful to his Annelore. And he had come back to Rostock, and they were to be married. It had been a summer’s evening when he was ordered to the office in August-Bebel Strasse of the major who headed the internal security Abteilung. Annelore was not suitable. Annelore’s cousin was associated with an environmental action group. Annelore, if he wished for a career in the MfS, should be dismissed from his life… He had written to her that evening, four lines… He had been introduced the next month to a quite pretty FDGB organizer. He had chased the power, clung to it. He would not lose the power.
Promoted to Oberstleutnant 1984, transfer to CounterEspionage. 1986, authorization for ‘friendship’ with Major Pyotr Rykov, Wustrow Base, w. of Rostock. Promoted to Hauptman 1987. Following incursion of UK agent, Hans Becker, to Wustrow Base (run, non-authorized, by I Corps, west Berlin) shot agent dead after capture – 21.11.1988.
There had been sufficient light for him to see the way that the back of the boy’s head, against the dirt and the grass of the square, had exploded. Before they had dragged the boy away, they had all knelt on the ground and picked in the earth for the tissue of the boy’s brain and for the fragments of skull bone. Earth was kicked over the blood… He had had the pain in his groin, and he had not felt bad then at shooting the boy or dropping the body into the night sea… He had felt the pain, the next day, when he had been called to the office of the minister, Mielke. Made to wait in the outer corridor, eyed with contempt by officers who used the corridor and the secretaries at their typewriters in the outer office. Marched into the inner office, as if he were a prisoner. Standing, the ache still in his groin, blurting answers to the questions of the old man. Then the monologue of abuse from Mielke. Through the cigarette smoke, he was an incompetent cunt. He had shivered as the smoke had played at his nose, trembled, because he had thought he had lost his power…
Believed to have sanitized personal MfS file, and Becker file, Dec. 1989. Unemployed. 1992, worked in Rostock bank (four months), dismissed. Unemployed. 1995, hardware salesman (on commission). 1996, offered himself to BfV, Cologne.
He had sat for two hours in the public hallway of the BfV complex. He had himself typed the letter he had handed in at the desk, and with the letter had been the torn out photograph from the newspaper. He had sat there for two hours, a man forgotten, without status. A secretary, a plump and grey haired woman so similar to the one he had slept with in Bonn so many years before, had come to the public hallway and given him a security pass and escorted him to the elevator. The faces had been suspicious and sober. He had talked of his friendship with Pyotr Rykov as the spools of a tape recorder turned. He had given the name of a secretary in the Foreign Ministry, and many years before the woman had played her fingers in the hair of his chest and whispered love. They had changed the tape three times… A week later he had been called back to Cologne, escorted with deference to the room of a senior official. There had been sandwiches of Scotch smoked salmon and white wine from the Rhine. He had been welcomed, his power had returned. He remembered the sick feeling of relief as he had driven back again to Rostock. On the autobahn he had made the pledge to himself, over and over, repeated and repeated, that he would never, a second time, lose the power…
·. Thank you, Fleming, very concisely put. I feel all of us now know Dieter Krause, share his skin with him…’
It was a short meeting and would produce, as the assistant deputy director was to inform the deputy director, Olive’s finest hour.
To draw it together – Albert Perkins, in Rostock, provides us with back-up should the pair, Mantle and Barnes, fail to provide evidence of murder against Krause. The indication, as of this moment, they are not close to that evidence. The back-up, the cuckolding of Krause by Rykov, could be used to discredit Krause’s address in Washington next week… of course he knew, he was a ranking intelligence officer, he would have known. Vindictive, bitter, humiliated, spreading lies… Not much of a back-up, but perhaps enough to throw doubt on his veracity. Is the back-up, a salacious film, worth that amount of money?’ The assistant deputy director was due at the ballet and would have to join his wife after the performance had started.
‘I can push it through the books, no problem, bounce it out of any number of budgets. But, it’s more than half a year’s salary for a junior executive officer. Personally, I’d say there’s better things to spend our money on.’ The woman from Resources was anxious to be home to relieve the child minder of responsibility. It was the third successive evening that she had telephoned to beg the girl to stay the extra hour.
‘If you believe a little extramarital on the part of his wife with Rykov is going to faze our American friends, then you are on another planet. I see no reason, none at all, why such nonsense would diminish Krause’s standing in Washington. They’re all at it there, screwing like rabbits. Sorry, but the money would be wasted.’ From North America Desk.
‘My own view, it would be cheaper for Perkins to get his kicks down in Soho, give him a bunch of luncheon vouchers and pack him off to get an eyeful if it’s films he needs. I vote against.’ The head of Russia Desk was due to collect his serviced car from the garage, and if he were not there in 25 minutes the garage would have closed.
‘Sorry, Fleming, but that’s the verdict of colleagues. Perkins shouldn’t take it personally, it’s been good ferreting. Thank you all for your time.’
The assistant deputy director shovelled his papers into his briefcase. Fleming stood grimly. The head of Russia Desk scraped back his chair. The stenographer folded away her pad. Resources was half way to the door. The head of North America Desk smiled sheepishly at Fleming… and Olive Harris still sat and she rapped her pencil hard on the table.
‘I’ll take them,’ she said. ‘I’ll take those videos because they’re cheap at the price.. I find it sad and extraordinary that none of you recognize their value.’
He heard her footfall, and the knock.
‘Josh.’
‘Yes.’
‘Have you been having a good cry?’
‘Actually..
‘It wasn’t true, Josh, not a word of it, but it was what you wanted to hear. Right? You wanted a bloody good sob story, and I gave it you. I am what I am, Josh, take it or leave it. What you see, Josh, is what you get. You fell for it, Josh, all gift wrapped. So, don’t try again to package me, put me in a little slot where you can get all bloody sentimental. There was no baby, Josh and no abortion. Because they killed Hans Becker, and that’s going to have to be good enough for you, I’m going after those bastards. And, I’m hungry…’
He heard her go back to her room.
He had watched Christina’s victory. He had kissed her, had congratulated her, had left Eva to take her
