Stasi Child by David Young Page B

it, to persuade Reiniger to authorise a spot check – and if necessary the temporary confiscation – of one of the construction trucks. Schmidt would try to discover which one was likely to be transporting suitable sand.
    Standing nervously in front of his office desk, Müller could see the suspicion in Reiniger’s expression. But he nevertheless agreed to sign the necessary form of authority.
    ‘I hope you’re not bending the rules here, Karin.’ Then he lowered his voice. ‘And if you are, make sure you don’t get caught. I don’t want any of your shit left at my door. Understand?’

    Finding a suitable truck proved easier than Müller expected – Schmidt seemed to have strange contacts everywhere. She and Tilsner had tracked it along Siegfriedstrasse, and then – with the Wartburg’s siren blaring and blue light flashing – pulled it over in Herzbergstrasse. The driver and his mate protested their innocence, but once Müller made it clear that they would be arrested if they defied Reiniger’s signed order, they calmed down. Müller insisted she and Tilsner would explain the situation to the motorway construction company, but that they would have to confiscate the vehicle to check its contents thoroughly, grain by grain.
    They were in the truck now, driving slowly back towards Lichtenberg for the second time in the space of a few hours: their first visit had taken place the previous afternoon, to check that the slightly hare-brained scheme at least had a chance of success. The next significant movement of limousines from the service depot on the industrial estate to the storage compound was due in a few hours’ time – and would be under cover of darkness. Müller and Tilsner were heading there now in the tipper truck, with Schmidt following behind in the unmarked Kripo Wartburg. Both vehicles with just their sidelights on to try to make sure they didn’t draw attention to themselves down the wide boulevards of the eastern part of the Hauptstadt. Müller glanced to her left in the lorry’s cab, where Tilsner had his hands gripped to the IFA W50 tipper’s steering wheel, shirtsleeves rolled up despite the winter weather. He seemed all too at ease in what ought to have been an unfamiliar role. There was a lot to her handsome but mysterious deputy that she still hadn’t fathomed.
    The wide avenues they were driving down were the scene of the parades that had played in her head at the cemetery. She recalled the most recent: celebrating the Republic’s twenty-fifth anniversary, the previous October. Müller had stood at the edge of the crowd, filled with a sense of pride about what her small country had achieved, watching the massed ranks of People’s Army soldiers on their synchronised march, followed by party and government leaders – in Volvo limousines. Now, that pride was replaced by a sense of foreboding. Karl-Marx-Allee, and its monolithic wedding-cake-style buildings, held a much more sinister air in the semi-darkness of weak street lighting. Were they doing the right thing? It felt slightly treacherous. But then she remembered the mangled face of the girl, and what had happened to her in the hours immediately before and after death. If anyone from the government or party was involved in that , well, they deserved to be brought to justice and shamed.
    Schmidt had provided them with their disguises – the hard hats and overalls of construction workers – together with diversion barriers and lanterns from the People’s Police’s supply depot, which they’d thrown on the back of the tipper truck. They needed to work quickly, closing off a section of Siegfriedstrasse between two junctions and putting up the diversion signs. Schmidt had established that a convoy of limousines would move between the two bases tonight, and had even pinned down an exact time. Müller didn’t ask him how he’d obtained the information. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know.
    Traffic was thin at this time of night, and