Disorderly Elements by Bob Cook

abortive moustache.
    â€œMajor Bulgakov? I am Hauptmann Fichte. I have been assigned to be your assistant.”
    â€œPleased to meet you, Hauptmann.”
    Bulgakov studied the young captain with amused contempt.
    â€œWe have a car waiting, Herr Major. The driver is collecting your luggage now.”
    Bulgakov was escorted to a black Wartburg near the airport terminal. They found the driver holding Bulgakov’s suitcase.
    â€œShall I put it in the boot, Herr Major?” asked the driver. “Put it in the back seat,” Bulgakov said. “I don’t want to lose sight of it.”
    â€œOf course,” said the captain. “I assume it contains vital documents.”
    â€œNo,” said Bulgakov. “It contains a set of monogrammed silk pyjamas I bought in Savile Row. It would cost a fortune to replace them.”
    The captain studied Bulgakov’s face to see if he was joking, but he couldn’t be sure. They got into the car and drove swiftly into the centre of Erfurt. On the way he tried clumsily to make conversation with Bulgakov.
    â€œMay I compliment you on your German, Herr Major. My superiors were wondering if you would need an interpreter.”
    Bulgakov ignored the captain’s remark and continued to stare out of the window.
    â€œHow long have you been with the SSD, Hauptmann?”
    â€œEight months, Herr Major. May I ask…?”
    â€œI was wondering how much contact you’ve had with my organization.”
    â€œNot much, Herr Major,” Fichte said. He was puzzled and a little disconcerted by Bulgakov’s manner.
    â€œClearly,” Bulgakov smiled.
    The captain flushed scarlet and abandoned his efforts to make conversation.
    Within minutes the car arrived at a small, sober, eighteenth-century building just off the Futterstrasse. This was the Erfurt base of the SSD, East Germany’s security service. Since November 1957, the Staatssicherheitsdienst has been run by Erich Mielke, the Minister for State Security. It was an indication of both Mielke’s stature and that of his organization that he was given full membership of the DDR’s Politburo in May 1976.
    Western observers tend to underestimate the power and efficiency of the SSD, and it is widely regarded as little more than a handmaiden of the KGB. There is some justification for this view: the KGB have little regard for the Germans, and they refer contemptuously to the DDR as “the sixteenth republic of the USSR”.
    Within East Germany, however, the SSD wields enormous power, and it has scored some notable successes abroad.
    Intelligence networks outside the DDR are organized by an SSD department known as the Hauptverwal-tung Aufklärung , or HVA. It is run by Generalleutnant Markus Wolf, and was responsible for some of the most notorious spy scandals of the 1970s. Günther Guillaume, who became a personal aide of the West German Chancellor, Willy Brandt, was an employee of the HVA. So were Lothar-Erwin Lutze and his wife, whom Edgar Rawls had helped to expose. It was not until January 1979, when one of Wolf’s officers defected to the West, that the full extent of HVA infiltration throughout West Germany became known.
    But as far as Bulgakov was concerned, the SSD was a shower of amateurs, and he made little effort to conceal his feelings about Captain Fichte and his organization.
    An office had been prepared for Bulgakov, and Fichte showed him to it. The major gave it a cursory glance and nodded.
    â€œI trust this is all to the Major’s satisfaction,” Fichte said.
    â€œThere are two desks,” Bulgakov observed. “Whose is the other one?”
    â€œMine, Herr Major. I assumed you would want me to be at hand.”
    â€œYou assumed wrongly, Hauptmann. Is this where you normally work?”
    â€œNo, Herr Major. I have an office downstairs.”
    â€œThen you will stay there, I think.” Bulgakov smiled and lit a cigarette. “You may remove