understand
what you mean,’ he said. ‘But these things sometimes happen.’
‘Us
exposing Russian spies?’
‘Not
that, of course, but things happening very quickly, very suddenly,’ Tienhoven
clarified. ‘Your first question is easy. Normally the Commissioner wouldn’t
have given it to anti-fraud but to anti-spy. Except there is no such thing as
anti-spy in the Commission. We come fairly close with our sorta-kinda-police
job, and we already work for her.’
‘Okay,
so second: why do you think the Germans want to share this with us? Why
do they want to expose him together?’
‘Political
considerations, undoubtedly,’ Tienhoven shrugged. ‘To stress the spirit of European
collegiality, to not come across unilateralist, what do I know. But it doesn’t
even matter. We should be happy, because otherwise this Zayek would already be
in a German prison awaiting a hearing, and all we’d do here is make photocopies
for the German prosecutor.’
Hans
tried a smile. Tienhoven had always been a pragmatic manager, it was just that
in Hans’s time there had never been a situation like that. Usually there was
plenty of time to consider plenty of information. Now they had neither one nor
the other, but they had to decide all the same. And it was absolutely true. The
worst thing would be to sit around, do nothing, let the spy get arrested, and
then end up making photocopies for others. Oh sure, Tienhoven had said they
weren’t going to hunt any spies. But Hans understood very well that this was more
or less exactly what they’d be doing. Hunting corrupt mayors who stole
road-building money was of course also very exciting, but now he felt they were
entering a whole new league. Now Hans was smiling for real.
Saint
Petersburg
Werner
Ott finished talking, and waited for a reply. He pressed the receiver to his
ear. The encryption technology that the consulate used diminished the audio
quality a little.
‘Did
he change his mind?’, the serious voice at the other end of the line asked.
‘He
didn’t say anything to me,’ Ott said. ‘He just left. When I went to check his
room last night it was empty.’
‘Nothing
else?’
‘Nothing
else.’
The
voice paused. ‘All right, thank you.’
‘Goodbye,’
Ott replied and hung up.
It
was all for the better. Ott hadn’t asked what this meant for the validity of
the information that the visitor had provided. Berlin wouldn’t have told him,
and he didn’t need to know. Anyway, this type of situation was rather something
for the embassy in Moscow, not for a regional consulate like theirs, he thought.
Besides, it wasn’t entirely unproblematic even there. When he’d been posted to
Warsaw as a young man, back in the eighties, they’d received a defector, too,
and it had turned out very ugly for the poor man. And for his wife, too. Thank
God they hadn’t touched the child; they had sent it to grow up with the
grandparents. The times had been different then, of course. But regardless of
the times, none of this was ever a game.
Belgium,
Motorway E411, direction Luxembourg
Tienhoven
and Hans were sitting in the boss’s private car, a spacious Renault, and Hans
felt a lot like chatting. They were heading southwest past Namur and towards
Arlon and the Luxembourgish border. They would meet with Hoffmann on an agreed
parking lot along the motorway, so they still had some time to kill.
The
plan was clear. Meet with Hoffmann, go to Luxembourg, talk to Zayek. Hans and
Tienhoven would ask Zayek about how he had gotten onto the reserve list without
speaking Bulgarian. Maybe there was a harmless explanation. If so, they would
then ask whether he knew anything about any falsified nuclear reports. Maybe
there was a harmless explanation for that, too. If not, they could still make
further checks, because the evidence wasn’t going to run away. All the files
were there. Whether Zayek would still be there himself was beyond their control
anyway. After the
what you mean,’ he said. ‘But these things sometimes happen.’
‘Us
exposing Russian spies?’
‘Not
that, of course, but things happening very quickly, very suddenly,’ Tienhoven
clarified. ‘Your first question is easy. Normally the Commissioner wouldn’t
have given it to anti-fraud but to anti-spy. Except there is no such thing as
anti-spy in the Commission. We come fairly close with our sorta-kinda-police
job, and we already work for her.’
‘Okay,
so second: why do you think the Germans want to share this with us? Why
do they want to expose him together?’
‘Political
considerations, undoubtedly,’ Tienhoven shrugged. ‘To stress the spirit of European
collegiality, to not come across unilateralist, what do I know. But it doesn’t
even matter. We should be happy, because otherwise this Zayek would already be
in a German prison awaiting a hearing, and all we’d do here is make photocopies
for the German prosecutor.’
Hans
tried a smile. Tienhoven had always been a pragmatic manager, it was just that
in Hans’s time there had never been a situation like that. Usually there was
plenty of time to consider plenty of information. Now they had neither one nor
the other, but they had to decide all the same. And it was absolutely true. The
worst thing would be to sit around, do nothing, let the spy get arrested, and
then end up making photocopies for others. Oh sure, Tienhoven had said they
weren’t going to hunt any spies. But Hans understood very well that this was more
or less exactly what they’d be doing. Hunting corrupt mayors who stole
road-building money was of course also very exciting, but now he felt they were
entering a whole new league. Now Hans was smiling for real.
Saint
Petersburg
Werner
Ott finished talking, and waited for a reply. He pressed the receiver to his
ear. The encryption technology that the consulate used diminished the audio
quality a little.
‘Did
he change his mind?’, the serious voice at the other end of the line asked.
‘He
didn’t say anything to me,’ Ott said. ‘He just left. When I went to check his
room last night it was empty.’
‘Nothing
else?’
‘Nothing
else.’
The
voice paused. ‘All right, thank you.’
‘Goodbye,’
Ott replied and hung up.
It
was all for the better. Ott hadn’t asked what this meant for the validity of
the information that the visitor had provided. Berlin wouldn’t have told him,
and he didn’t need to know. Anyway, this type of situation was rather something
for the embassy in Moscow, not for a regional consulate like theirs, he thought.
Besides, it wasn’t entirely unproblematic even there. When he’d been posted to
Warsaw as a young man, back in the eighties, they’d received a defector, too,
and it had turned out very ugly for the poor man. And for his wife, too. Thank
God they hadn’t touched the child; they had sent it to grow up with the
grandparents. The times had been different then, of course. But regardless of
the times, none of this was ever a game.
Belgium,
Motorway E411, direction Luxembourg
Tienhoven
and Hans were sitting in the boss’s private car, a spacious Renault, and Hans
felt a lot like chatting. They were heading southwest past Namur and towards
Arlon and the Luxembourgish border. They would meet with Hoffmann on an agreed
parking lot along the motorway, so they still had some time to kill.
The
plan was clear. Meet with Hoffmann, go to Luxembourg, talk to Zayek. Hans and
Tienhoven would ask Zayek about how he had gotten onto the reserve list without
speaking Bulgarian. Maybe there was a harmless explanation. If so, they would
then ask whether he knew anything about any falsified nuclear reports. Maybe
there was a harmless explanation for that, too. If not, they could still make
further checks, because the evidence wasn’t going to run away. All the files
were there. Whether Zayek would still be there himself was beyond their control
anyway. After the
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