Flight of Eagles

‘Well, love knows no frontiers,’ I told him.

‘I suppose so. Interesting family though, just like you. Born in England, Irish-Scot, raised in the Shankill in Belfast. What they call an Orange Prod.’

‘So?’

‘But also raised by your mother’s Catholic cousin in Crossmaglen. Very republican down there, those people. You must have fascinating contacts.’

‘Look, sir,’ I said carefully. ‘Is there anything you don’t know about me?’

‘No.’ He smiled that beatific smile. ‘We’re very thorough.’ He stood up. ‘Must go. Sorry it turned out this way.’ He picked up his raincoat. ‘Just one thing. Do remember you signed the Official Secrets Act. Prison term for forgetting that.’

I was genuinely bewildered. ‘But what does it matter now? I mean, your regiment doesn’t need me.’

He started away then turned again. ‘And don’t forget you’re a serving member of the Army Reserve. You could be recalled at any time.’

What was interesting was a German connection he hadn’t mentioned, but then I didn’t know about it myself until 1952. My uncle’s wife had a nephew named Konrad Strasser, or at least that was one of several names he used over the years. I was introduced to him in Hamburg at a party in St Pauli for my uncle’s German relatives.

Konrad was small and dark and full of energy, always smiling. He was thirty-two, a Chief Inspector in the Hamburg Criminal Investigation Department. We stood in the corner in the midst of a noisy throng.

‘Was it fun on the border?’ he asked.

‘Not when it snowed.’

‘Russia was worse.’

‘You were in the Army there?’

‘No, the Gestapo. Only briefly, thank God, hunting down some crooks stealing Army supplies.’

To say I was shaken is to put it mildly. ‘Gestapo?’

He grinned. ‘Let me complete your education. The Gestapo needed skilled and experienced detectives so they descended on police forces all over Germany and commandeered what they wanted. That’s why more than fifty per cent of Gestapo operatives weren’t even members of the Nazi party and that included me. I was about twenty in 1940 when they hijacked me. I didn’t have a choice.’

I believed him instantly and later, things that happened in my life proved that he was telling the truth. In any case, I liked him.

It was 1954 when Wilson re-entered my life. I was working in Leeds, as a civil servant at the time, still writing rather indifferent novels that nobody wanted. I had a backlog of four weeks’ holiday and decided to spend a couple in Berlin because my uncle had been moved there on a temporary basis to Army headquarters.

The phone call from Wilson was a shock. Yates’ Wine Bar again, downstairs, a booth. This time he had ham sandwiches, Yorkshire, naturally, and off the bone.

‘Bit boring for you, the Electricity Generating Authority.’

‘True,’ I said. ‘But only an hour’s work a day. I sit at my desk and write.’

‘Yes, but not much success there,’ he informed me brutally. There was a pause. ‘Berlin should make a nice break.’

I said, ‘Look, what the hell is this about?’

‘Berlin,’ he said. ‘You’re going to stay with your uncle a week next Tuesday. We’d like you to do something for us.’

Sitting there in the normality of Yates’ Wine Bar in Leeds with the muted roar of City Square traffic outside, this seemed the most bizarre proposition I’d ever had.

‘Look,’ I said. ‘I tried to join 21 SAS, you said my bad eye ruled me out, so I never joined, did I?’

‘Not quite as simple as that, old boy. Let me remind you, you did sign the Official Secrets Act and you are still a member of the Army Reserve.’

‘You mean I’ve no choice?’

‘I mean we own you, my son.’ He took an envelope from his briefcase. ‘When you’re in Berlin, you’ll take a trip into the Eastern Zone by bus. All the details are in there. You go to the address indicated, pick up an envelope and bring it back.’

‘This is crazy,’ I said. ‘For one thing, I remember from my service in Berlin that to go through on a British passport is impossible.’

‘But, my dear chap, your Irish antecedents earn you an Irish passport as well as a British one. You’ll find it in the envelope. People with Irish passports can go anywhere, even China, without a visa.’ He stood up and smiled. ‘It’s all in there. Quite explicit.’

‘And when I come out?’

‘All taken care of.’

He moved away through the lunchtime crowd and I suddenly realized that what I was thinking wasn’t ‘When I come out.’ It was ‘Will I come out?’

The first surprise in Berlin was that my uncle had been posted back to Hamburg, or so I was informed by the caretaker of the flat he lived in.

She was an old, careworn woman, who said, ‘You’re the nephew. He told me to let you in,’ which she did.

It was a neutral, grey sort of place. I dropped my bag, had a look round and answered a ring at the door to find Konrad Strasser standing there.

‘You’re looking good,’ he said.

He found a bottle of schnapps and poured a couple. ‘So, you’re doing the tourist bit into the Eastern Zone, boy?’

‘You seem well-informed.’

‘Yes, you could say that.’

I swallowed my schnapps. ‘What’s a Hamburg detective doing in Berlin?’

‘I moved over last year. I worked for the BND, West German Intelligence. An outfit called the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. Our main task is to combat Communist infiltration into our part of the country.’

‘So?’

He poured himself another schnapps. ‘You’re going over this afternoon with Germanic Tours in their bus. Leave your Brit passport here, only take the Irish.’

‘Look, what is this?’ I demanded. ‘And how are you involved?’

‘That doesn’t matter. What does is that you’re a bagman for 21 SAS.’

‘For God’s sake, they turned me down.’

‘Well, not really. It’s more complicated than that. Have you ever heard the old IRA saying? Once in, never out?’