Now Called Chemnitz

He adjusted the wire to sit comfortably on his chest. Taking a deep breath to steady himself, he prepared to infiltrate the group he'd been cultivating for years. The air, cold and damp, hung heavy and thick with the acrid smell of Karpaten cigarettes, the tab end of one smouldering in the cheap, pressed tin ashtray. His movements were deliberate, calculated; every step calibrated to the tradecraft he had mastered over the years.

Herbert headed out. The venue was a dimly lit establishment on the outskirts of Karl Marx Stadt, a city where secrets were sometimes whispered in the backrooms of cheap bars around the rail yards and factories. He hoped that the low hum of conversation and the clinking of glasses would provide the backdrop to the operation he was about to unfold. He blended seamlessly into the crowd, he’d been working in the town for four years. Everyone thought he was an immigrant from further east, from Eisenhüttenstadt, a steel town on the Polish border that accounted for his slightly odd accent. Actually, he was from the midlands in England, but nobody knew that. Fluent in German he had further built his legend by marrying a German woman. A woman of generous proportion but bad skin. She was not a long term part of his dreams. He was a chameleon in a world of suspicion and informants.

His handler, a shadowy figure known only by the code name Orion, needed him to join this group. There were players of interest who had detailed knowledge of loads and timings of freight, particularly some new machine tools, that were manufactured in the town and were said to be heading East. They were for the manufacture of a new type of precision guidance device. He knew that his handler was hoping to turn one of the group. Everyone in the group hated the Stasi with a passion and everyone hated the Socialist Unity Party (SED) but everyone was scared of everyone else. He slipped between the competing walls of loyalty and betrayal and he felt the weight of the stakes pressing against him like a vice.

The target was a man named Viktor Konstantinov, a key player in the rail yard. A leader of the union, a man of influence and power, a man of knowledge. Well connected, devious and dangerous. Konstantinov's alliances were as fluid as quicksilver, and his allegiance was a commodity sold to his friends and colleagues, unless someone else offered more. It was this aspect of his nature that had drawn the attention of the ‘office’ back in Vauxhall.

The room he entered was, as usual, full of talking, tawdry men, workers all, tired, dog poor and less than clean. The air thick with cigarette smoke and the smell of stale sour Raedeburger beer. Men with steely eyes and concealed minds leaned against the walls, nursing their drinks with a veneer of nonchalance that masked an ever fearful edge. Konstantinov, a tall and imposing figure, stood at the centre of the gathering, surrounded by an entourage of friends.

They were discussing the latest commodity that had mysteriously disappeared from the town. No working boots had been available for over a year now and, given that they were made of some sort of pressed cardboard, they didn’t last long and replacements were urgently needed. Someone was hazarding, to much laughter and head shaking, the treasonous view that nobody in the west would be short of work boots and certainly none of the Stasi or SED were without footwear.

As he approached, the wire concealed beneath his shirt transmitted the thud of his heartbeat, a metronome counting down the moments until they got to the meat of the conversation. He needed to catch Konstantinov saying something sufficiently compromising as to persuade him that his best interests might be served by doing what he was told by Orion rather than the Stasi finding out what he had said.

The meeting unfolded in a susuration of whispers, murmurings and exchanged glances. The drinks flowed steadily and the talk grew louder. Konstantinov though, was a canny player and remained circumspect, whilst appearing at the same time to be the life and soul of the group. Herbert felt that time was running out, and certainly the tape in the recorder would, He had to do something and so, fetching a round of drinks, Herbert dropped a moderately high dose of sodium thiopental into Konstantinov’s Raedeburger.

The night wore on, Konstantinov continued drinking as if unaffected by anything. The round of drinks went round and he tried again. By now Konstantinov had had enough of the drug to render a rhinoceros comatose, not to mention the beer on top. And at last he admitted to feeling unwell. 

Herbert walked him home and on the way, talked about the need for some sort of dream to unify Germany once again. Topics that he knew were close to everyone’s heart. Konstantinov blabbed. He talked of rolling back the tide of Soviet control, of unseating the ruling SED party, of what utter bastards the Stasi were, of how he wished he could escape to the West and rejoin his family in Cologne.

He had him. The wire had burnt a red line across his chest and the recorder was full, but he had it. The ‘Office’ would be rubbing their hands in glee. Herbert saw Konstantinov home, and then went back to his own shabby apartment in a shabby concrete hi-rise. Herbert’s fat German wife, who, mysteriously, constantly smelled of cabbage, was snoring in bed. He packed up the tape, and the next day left it at the dead drop.

Six weeks later, on his way into work, he met a crowd of men standing outside the rail yard gates. They were not happy.

He asked what was going on.

“The damned Stasi,” said one, “they’ve snapped up Konstantinov. They say he’s a spy.”

He looked across the road and noticed the man in a raincoat toss a red, white and gold cigarette packet into a rubbish bin. The man looked across at him before walking away from the bin.

Herbert knew it was time for him to leave. Time to leave now.