decided something, he decided it quickly. And events would then unravel very fast. He had the capacity to think fast and very far ahead on these occasions. As it turned out, the telling of this story put into play all that was to follow. From that afternoon at Barvikha what has happened to Finn and me was set in motion.
His aim was later to become clear to me, but it wasn’t clear at the time. He had a plan, for far into the future, to make sure we could share our lives together without the artificial, professional barriers preventing it. And it was for that reason alone that he began the process of burning his boats.
Six years later, picking up Finn’s first notebook and reading it by the light of the oil lamp in the vault at Tegernsee, it is an eerie experience. The first lines written in Finn’s hand are word for word what he said on that evening, the eve of the millennium.
‘For me,’ Finn begins, settling a cushion behind his lower back and tickling Genghiz under the chin, ‘the story began in January 1989. Although it really started back in 1961.
‘In 1989, I was stationed in West Berlin. One grey middle-European winter night an East German citizen by the name of Anatoly Schmidtke landed on a flight from Geneva at Berlin’s Tegel airport. The flight was less than half full and he was easy to spot. He was stopped and arrested immediately by the British. We controlled the zone around Tegel. Berlin was still divided into four zones. The Soviets had East Berlin, and West Berlin was divided between the British, the French and the Americans.
‘We swiftly moved Schmidtke to London where we put him in a high-security cell in Belmarsh prison. It’s where we keep awkward foreigners out of sight from the press.’
Finn bends down to stroke Genghiz who is curled up at his feet, ancient now like Nana, and who seems, unusually, to have given Finn his stamp of approval.
‘I was sent with a senior officer from the Service to interview Schmidtke,’ Finn continues. ‘I was an up-and-coming officer and my station head considered this to be a golden opportunity to introduce me to a real Russian- or East German- spy.’ Finn grins like a schoolboy at the word.
Then he looks at me and I see for the hundredth time how his eyes become completely different from each other when he’s focusing on something. One of them, the left one as I look at him, is soft and gentle. The other is hard, cruel even. He is like two different people in one pair of eyes. I’ve never seen a man’s eyes like this, eyes that could express two completely separate expressions at the same time, as if they were operated by two different sides of the brain.
‘So off we went to Belmarsh prison,’ Finn resumes. ‘You knew him?’ Finn says to me. ‘Schmidtke?’
‘Only by name.’
‘Yes, Schmidtke was a bit before your time.’ Finn smiles. ‘Anyway, back in eighty-nine, I was sent to Belmarsh to interview him about what he’d been doing in Geneva, not to mention what he’d been doing in the other twenty-eight years of his operational life.’
‘He wasn’t Russian?’ Nana asks.
‘He was—is—a Russian German, originally from the East. He became a Stasi officer. He was even Foreign Minister for a short time. But mainly he headed an organisation just over the Wall on your side called KoKo, for short. Kommerzielle Koordinierung. Of all his positions and centres of power, KoKo was the gold seam of his influence. It was KGB, of course, but it was run on a day-to-day basis by the East Germans.’
And now Finn barely pauses.
‘KoKo was set up in 1961, just after the Wall went up. It was a hybrid trade organisation the purpose of which was to get hold of foreign currency to fund KGB and Stasi operations abroad. Foreign currency wasn’t so easy to obtain for your people after the Wall went up. Your own Wall made traffic from East to West more difficult for the KGB, too. So Schmidtke’s mission was to find new ways to get hold of
His aim was later to become clear to me, but it wasn’t clear at the time. He had a plan, for far into the future, to make sure we could share our lives together without the artificial, professional barriers preventing it. And it was for that reason alone that he began the process of burning his boats.
Six years later, picking up Finn’s first notebook and reading it by the light of the oil lamp in the vault at Tegernsee, it is an eerie experience. The first lines written in Finn’s hand are word for word what he said on that evening, the eve of the millennium.
‘For me,’ Finn begins, settling a cushion behind his lower back and tickling Genghiz under the chin, ‘the story began in January 1989. Although it really started back in 1961.
‘In 1989, I was stationed in West Berlin. One grey middle-European winter night an East German citizen by the name of Anatoly Schmidtke landed on a flight from Geneva at Berlin’s Tegel airport. The flight was less than half full and he was easy to spot. He was stopped and arrested immediately by the British. We controlled the zone around Tegel. Berlin was still divided into four zones. The Soviets had East Berlin, and West Berlin was divided between the British, the French and the Americans.
‘We swiftly moved Schmidtke to London where we put him in a high-security cell in Belmarsh prison. It’s where we keep awkward foreigners out of sight from the press.’
Finn bends down to stroke Genghiz who is curled up at his feet, ancient now like Nana, and who seems, unusually, to have given Finn his stamp of approval.
‘I was sent with a senior officer from the Service to interview Schmidtke,’ Finn continues. ‘I was an up-and-coming officer and my station head considered this to be a golden opportunity to introduce me to a real Russian- or East German- spy.’ Finn grins like a schoolboy at the word.
Then he looks at me and I see for the hundredth time how his eyes become completely different from each other when he’s focusing on something. One of them, the left one as I look at him, is soft and gentle. The other is hard, cruel even. He is like two different people in one pair of eyes. I’ve never seen a man’s eyes like this, eyes that could express two completely separate expressions at the same time, as if they were operated by two different sides of the brain.
‘So off we went to Belmarsh prison,’ Finn resumes. ‘You knew him?’ Finn says to me. ‘Schmidtke?’
‘Only by name.’
‘Yes, Schmidtke was a bit before your time.’ Finn smiles. ‘Anyway, back in eighty-nine, I was sent to Belmarsh to interview him about what he’d been doing in Geneva, not to mention what he’d been doing in the other twenty-eight years of his operational life.’
‘He wasn’t Russian?’ Nana asks.
‘He was—is—a Russian German, originally from the East. He became a Stasi officer. He was even Foreign Minister for a short time. But mainly he headed an organisation just over the Wall on your side called KoKo, for short. Kommerzielle Koordinierung. Of all his positions and centres of power, KoKo was the gold seam of his influence. It was KGB, of course, but it was run on a day-to-day basis by the East Germans.’
And now Finn barely pauses.
‘KoKo was set up in 1961, just after the Wall went up. It was a hybrid trade organisation the purpose of which was to get hold of foreign currency to fund KGB and Stasi operations abroad. Foreign currency wasn’t so easy to obtain for your people after the Wall went up. Your own Wall made traffic from East to West more difficult for the KGB, too. So Schmidtke’s mission was to find new ways to get hold of
Similar Books
