Section 4

Pastor Martin Kuhne sat in his study composing his homily for next Sunday. The telephone rang. He picked it up quickly, hoping it had not disturbed his wife.
"Pastor?" the quiet voice at the other end of the line asked.
"Yes."
"Pastor Kuhne?"
"It is."
"You remember Matthiaskirche?"
The pastor went chill. "I remember."
"So do we, pastor."
"What do you want?"
"We are looking for Silber. You remember Silber?"
"Who are you?" He asked, although he felt sure he knew and he felt sure they would not tell him.
He heard a chuckle. "Guess. What connects Matthiaskirche and Silber?"
He did not answer.
He heard the voice again. "Exactly. So, where is Silber?"
"I don't know what you mean."
“Silber has run, Pastor. Where might he run to? We think he might come here. We think he might come to you or, if he does not come, he might contact you. Where is he?
“Not here. It's been years.”
“He sends you a card at Christmas.” The voice was cold. “Where is he?”
“I don't know. I haven't heard from him.”
“When you do, tell us.”
“What does it matter if he comes here. It's been years. There is no East and West now.”
Again there was a chuckle at the other end of the line. “Read the newspapers, listen to the radio, watch television, pastor. Then tell us there is no East now. Silver is a dangerous man. Dangerous to us; dangerous to you. If he comes to Halle we may have to visit you.”
“No.” He had gasped the word out before he thought.
“No indeed pastor. Frau Kuhne would be most distressed to see us again. Think about that.”
The line went dead.
He put the phone down and then realised that his wife was at the door.
“Who was that?” she asked.
He knew he could not deceive her. “Someone inquiring about Silber.”
“Silber. You said that was all over, that he was an old man fighting a dead war and you would have no more to do with it.”
“I did,” he agreed, hoping this would calm her.
“After the Matthiaskirche you said that Silber had got what he wanted; that henceforth he would want only friendship,” she went on.
“After the Mattiaskirche we got what we wanted for Germany. It should have ended. I thought it had ended. Silber was not responsible for the Mattiaskirche; the Stasi were. It was their last throw.”
“Silber did nothing to prevent it.”
“There was nothing he could have done. Once the wheels were set in motion the juggernaut had to roll on.”
He watched her shudder at the analogy.
“And now?” she asked at last.
“And now Silber has fled. Someone who is looking for him thinks I may know where he has gone. I could not help them.”
“Who is looking for him, Stasi, KGB, the foreigners?”
“I don't know. They did not say.” He sat a while thinking his own thoughts then added, “Ilse, there is no more Stasi or KGB.”
Ilse gave a bitter laugh. “And no more foreigners either I suppose.”
“The foreigners were a side show. They meant nothing,” he muttered, but Ilse had already turned and left the room.
Martin fought down the urge to go to her. He could not calm her fears. He would only add to them. He sat and stared at the notes for his sermon but he did not see the neat bold strokes of the writing before him.
Instead he saw the small square of grass, the grey concrete pavement bordering it, the soldiers, standing on the road, rifles in their hands, facing him and his congregation as they left the Matthiaskirche by its main door that Sunday. All his work over the years, at first to meliorate the oppression and later to overthrow the state that would not allow the expression of any contrary view, was assayed at that moment.
He had heard the sharp click of the latch on the back door of the church, felt the faint breath of air that brushed past his cheek with the door's closing. Silber, his friend, had slipped away while he and his congregation distracted the army and the VOPOs. He relaxed.
That was when he saw the muzzle flashes, heard the crackle of gunfire and the whine of bullets passing, the thud as they struck the masonry, the tinkle of a broken pane. About to step down the path to the road and the cordon, he stood, poised on one leg, hardly daring to set the other to the ground. Then he saw that Ilse had continued past him and was walking confidently towards the road. He had let the other leg drop and stepped over the threshold, only to fall, screaming at the sharp pain in his knee. Ilse stopped, turned, dropped to the ground. He saw this before he passed out with the pain. He called to her but never heard his own voice.
It had been months before he knew that Ilse was not dead. He had woken in a prison hospital where he had been told that he was charged with inciting revolution against the state and treason in consorting with enemy agents. He asked for the evidence but none was ever produced to him. No one mentioned Ilse to him and he dared not ask about her. Then one day he was loaded into an ambulance and taken back to his house next to the Matthiaskirche.
To his surprise Ilse was in the house. They clung together like shipwrecked sailors, saying nothing. At last she asked if he would like a coffee. For six months they had lived in the same house conversing about nothing other than the meals she prepared and he ate. The church was locked and he had no keys. His injured leg did not allow him to take a walk of any distance. Then the wall fell.
Suddenly they could talk about that day, the days since. She would tell him nothing and his suspicions that she had become a Stasi informant deepened.
One day a former parishioner came to the house. He brought a sheet of A4 paper, a grainy photocopy.
“They broke into the Stasi offices,” he told the Pastor. “Look what they found.” He handed the pastor the sheet of paper.
Martin saw a photograph that might be of Silber. He scanned the text and picked out phrases, “enemy of the state … British Intelligence … provocateur … working with elements of the the Lutheran Church …” He looked inquiringly at the parishioner.
“Look further. See the name of the reporting officer.”
Martin looked at the foot of the report. “Informant, agent Mozart,” he read.
The parishioner offered him a second sheet. Again it was a grainy photocopy. Again there was a photograph. The only text was the identifying caption, “Agent: Mozart.”
“This is the man we have seen with Silber,” the pastor said.
The parishioner nodded.
“Where did you get this?” Martin asked.
“In the street, outside Stasi HQ.”
Martin nodded. “Disinformation?” he mused.
The man shrugged. “London should be told.”
“Yes. Let them evaluate it,” Martin agreed, wearily.
After the man left Martin told Ilse that he would go for a walk. Unsure whether the former protocols were still extant he walked in the public park nearby and left the sign to request a meeting.
Every day he took a walk in the park. One week later he saw the sign confirming the meeting.
The following day he went to the park and sat at a bench reading a book. A man approached and asked, “Are you expecting anyone,” gesturing at the vacant part of the bench.
“No.”
The man sat down. After ten minutes Martin closed his book and began to rise from the bench.
“What are you reading?” the man asked.
Martin told him and passed the book to him to inspect it. The man passed it back and nodded. Martin walked away. The man now had the two sheets of paper.
One week later Silber arranged to meet Martin. He asked the questions Marin anticipated about the provenance of the two sheets. He made no comment on what Martin told him.
Then he asked. “Do you recognise the man “Mozart.”
“He looks like the man who has accompanied you sometimes. The man you call Tungsten.”
“You think so.” Silber had sat for a few moments more then looked at Martin. “Do you need anything?” he asked.
“Nothing, thank you. My work is done now the wall has fallen. We are all Germans now. I hope to have access to the Matthiaskirche any day, if they can find the keys, but for Ilse's sake if not mine I should welcome another church.”
“In Halle?” Silber asked quickly.
“In Halle.” he agreed.
“Will you still help me if need be?”
“Why? What is there to do now?”
“That may depend on what London makes of these sheets from the Stasi files.”
“I have no knowledge of those beyond that they exist.”
“The question will be why they exist. And why they were found.”
“You suspect a plant?”
“I suspect nothing. It is for my headquarters to evaluate them.”
“But you have a view?”
“I have a view.”
“And you think there may be more to do?”
Silber did not answer the question. “Pastor, have you heard of a man called Mahmud?” He asked

Five hundred miles away Wiggins listened to the ringing tone on his phone.
"Oakfields," a voice said when the tone stopped.
Wiggins grinned, recognising the clipped, military tone.
"Did you order a pizza, sir?" he asked
"No I did not," heard the voice say and then it paused. "John? Is that you?" It asked.
Wiggins laughed. "Gotcha."
"Where are you?"
"I'm just down the road. Have you got a spare bed?"
"For you? Any time, you know that."
"I don't want to presume. I can find somewhere if it's any trouble."
"Wouldn't hear of it. Come on round. Have you eaten?"
"I'll be there in ten minutes."
Oakfields had been a genteel bed and breakfast establishment run by a retired member of the secret service. Wiggins had discovered it years before , after they brought him back from Germany in disgrace. He had taken a break intending to walk the gentle hills of the North Downs and visit the churches that nestled in below them, Leigh, Newdigate, Rusper and so on.
His Section Head recommended Oakfields, "You'll find the company congenial and you can talk freely in front of Captain Bland, he's one of us."
For three weeks Wiggins had tramped the streets of Purley, shuffling through gold and brown autumn leaves and talking a blue streak to Bland. It got a lot of his German experiences out in the open, it gave him the chance to get a perspective on them and to test his perspective with someone else.
When he returned to duty he was as confident as he had ever been and as convinced of the flaws in the East German office as he had become in the last days before the wall fell.
He even had a theory about Mahmud. It was Bland who pointed him in the right direction.
"Ask yourself, John, what resources has he got, what can he do with them. What are the products of his part of the world; what can they sell to the west. Then factor in the former ruling class in East Germany. What will they be looking for now that they are exposed to western competition. What is their 'unique selling point'"
They teased out the question on those walks, they analysed their logic over long suppers fuelled with wine and then whiskey. Wiggins found nothing to fault the conclusion that the answer had to be drugs.