Berlin Exchange

by Joseph Kanon

Genres: Spy Thrillers; Historical Thrillers

Synopsis

From “master of the genre” (The Washington Post) Joseph Kanon, an espionage thriller set at the height of the Cold War, when a captured American who has spied for the KGB is swapped by the British and returns to East Berlin needing to know who arranged his release and what they want from him.

Berlin. 1963. The height of the Cold War. An early morning spy swap, not at the familiar setting for such exchanges, or at Checkpoint Charlie, where international visitors cross into the East, but at a more discreet border crossing, usually reserved for East German VIPs. The Communists are trading two American students caught helping people to escape over the wall and an aging MI6 operative. On the other side of the trade: Martin Keller, a physicist who once made headlines, but who then disappeared into the English prison system. Keller’s most critical possession: his American passport. Keller’s most ardent desire: to see his ex-wife Sabine and their young son.

The exchange is made with the formality characteristic of these swaps. But Martin has other questions: who asked for him? Who negotiated the deal? The KGB? He has worked for the service long enough to know that nothing happens by chance. They want him for something. Not physics—his expertise is out of date. Something else, which he cannot learn until he arrives in East Berlin, when suddenly the game is afoot.

Filled with intriguing characters, atmospheric detail, and plenty of action Kanon’s latest espionage thriller is one you won’t soon forget.

Release date: February 22, 2022

Publisher: Scribner

Print pages: 384

Sample

Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

Berlin, 1963

The exchange, it was decided, would take place at the Invalidenstrasse checkpoint. The press kept an eye on Glienicke Bridge now, hoping for another Powers-Abel swap, and the international crossing at Checkpoint Charlie would be crowded, cars streaming out of the American sector on day visas. Invalidenstrasse had the virtue of being discreet, out of the way, designated for the few West Germans heading east. And it was in the British sector. This was officially a British exchange, Martin for an MI6 operative the East Germans had held for years and two English students caught helping friends over the wall. Small fry. For someone who’d made headlines. Well, years ago. How many of the young guards up ahead would even know who he was? All they’d see would be the prisoner skin, the unmistakable pallor of someone who’d been inside. There was a different light in prison, even in the exercise yard, the sun itself filtered, behind bars.

“We get out here,” McGregor said, his escort since Heathrow, guiding him through customs at Tegel and across the British sector, staying close, as if he were afraid Martin would pick his moment and bolt. Where?

“We walk?”

“Just to the other side of the bridge,” McGregor said, nodding to the checkpoint barrier up ahead. They had stopped on the western side of one of those canals that trickled out of the Spree. “The car needs to turn around here.”

Martin got out, feeling the cold through his coat. There it was, the wall he’d seen in a thousand pictures, more brutal somehow in real life, a gray slab running along the water, broken here by a gap the width of a car. Some men were getting out of a black sedan on the other side.

“Right on time,” McGregor said, checking his watch. “Germans.”

A few minutes and he’d be free. Which wasn’t how Digby, the junior warden who’d handled his release, had seen it. “You ask me, it’s changing one prison for another. Different walls, that’s all.” But how could he know, someone who went home at night? “They’re trying to get out over there, not in. You’ll be getting parole soon. You’d have a choice. And who’d choose—?”

“I have a son there. A wife.”

Digby looked at him, surprised. “A wife. Who never visits. Not as long as I’ve been here.”

“Ex-wife.”

Digby took this in, then side-stepped. “Now, Moscow, that would be different. I mean, that’s who you did it for. The spying. A hero’s welcome there, wouldn’t it be?”

Martin smiled a little. “Except they haven’t asked for me. The East Germans have.”

“And that’s the wife asking, is that it?”

Martin ignored this. “I didn’t do it for the Russians.”

“No. Who, then?”

“I thought I was doing it for everybody.”

Digby looked away, uncomfortable. “But that’s not the way it worked out.”

“No.”

Digby handed over his personal papers, the American passport on top. “I still say, hold on to this. Ticket home. You never know.”

Home. Where they’d executed the Rosenbergs. Getting caught in Britain had saved his life. Under British law, only high treason, working for the enemy in wartime, was a capital crime. They gave him the maximum sentence, fourteen years, but he was alive.

“They’ll miss you at the library. You’ve done a nice job there.”

“It passes the time.”

“Well, that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?” Digby turned to go, then hesitated. “I wish you luck. I’ve enjoyed our chats.”

Martin looked up, not expecting this. What had they talked about?

“You keep your cards close to your vest, though. A wife. First I’ve heard of it.”

“Before your time.”

“Still. You don’t give up much.”

“Less for you to pass along.” To whom, Martin wondered. MI5? The head warden? Was anyone still interested?

“You think that?” Digby said, pretending to be offended. “Not very nice. But I suppose you have to think like that. In your line of work.”

“My line of work.”

“On second thought, maybe you’ll fit right in. With the Krauts. They say everybody’s got an ear out over there.”

The men on the other side had now formed a line, like a team taking positions, their clothes so similar they might have been uniforms: gray baggy raincoats, mufflers, rimless German glasses. Except the last one, smart in a belted camel-hair topcoat and thick black-framed glasses, the fashion look a surreal touch in the morning gloom. But what wasn’t surreal in Berlin? Even on the drive in from Tegel he had been disoriented, once familiar streets now unrecognizable. There were still pockets of bomb damage, after all these years. Stretches of wasteland next to new apartment buildings. An empty space where Lehrter Station had been, the whole ornate pile gone, vanished.

At least the Charité hospital complex was still there, across the canal, its nineteenth-century red brick evidently strong enough to survive the wolf’s blast, like the clever little pig’s house. Or just lucky, the bombs falling somewhere else. Hospital wards and classrooms shoehorned into Wilhelmine mansions, Luisenstrasse with its medical supply shops and textbook sellers, the streets running off it lined with old apartment buildings where students rented spare rooms or pooled their money to share a place of their own. And gave parties. How he had met Sabine. A casual invitation from Georg, a break from Göttingen, carrying his overnight bag from Friedrichstrasse Station, the rush of hot smoky air and music when he opened Georg’s door, music the Nazis disapproved of, just playing it an act of rebellion. A beer thrust into his hand before he could even put his bag down. And then, a sudden opening through the crowd, her eyes looking up at the same time. She’d been sitting on a couch, legs curled beneath her, an ashtray in her lap, a cigarette in one hand, the other at her elbow, as if she were holding herself down, about to float away with the smoke. She stared at him, a snapshot second, head half-turned, like someone who’d been tapped on the shoulder. Yes? Then Georg came over to greet him and he lost sight of her again behind the crowd. That had been the beginning. A party at the Charité. Just across the bridge.

“Now what?”

“They start. Then we start. High Noon.”

“Without the guns.”

“Now,” McGregor said, beginning to walk. “Not too fast. We want to be there at the same time. When you get to the barrier, they’ll raise it and you keep going. The others will pass you coming out. So nobody’s first. Nobody pulls anything.”

“That ever happen?” A chess piece yanked off the board.

“No, they’re just like that. By the book.”

Over the water now, the wall ahead. Behind it a heavy turn-of-the-century building big enough to have been a government ministry, its façade unscarred by bombs. Massive doors and pediments, built to last. The confident years.

The man in the camel-hair coat stopped, as McGregor had, the three in raincoats coming on by themselves. Three for one. The road barrier was raised and Martin walked through the checkpoint, the others passing on his left, nobody hurrying, wary, as if they were expecting something to go wrong at the last minute. And then they were in the West and Martin was in East Berlin, free.

He stopped for a minute, breathing in the damp air. He was through. Nobody was going to pull him back, lock him up again. He’d paid and now it was over.

A smile from the man in camel hair, hand outstretched.

“So. Welcome to the better Germany. As we like to say. I’m Kurt Thiele. You had an easy trip?”

“Sabine’s husband.”

“Yes,” he said, still smiling. “She’s anxious to see you. After so many years. And of course Peter.”

“You arranged this,” Martin said, waving his hand to take in the whole border crossing.

“It’s what I do,” he said easily. “These exchanges with the West. It’s a kind of specialty. I used to work with Vogel, the lawyer. You’ve heard of him?”

“No, sorry.”

“He arranged the Abel swap. And many others. Now too many. So there’s business for me,” he said, breezy, a car salesman. But she’d married him. Made him Peter’s father. Did Peter call him that?

“Then I have you to thank.”

“No, no. Sabine. The British would say no and she would say, ask again. Offer them more. I think she feels—you know, you’re so many years in prison. Only you.” So he knew. But of course he would. “But the British still said no. I think because the Americans didn’t like it.”

“And then you changed their minds.”

“Well, the Americans. It’s a long time and maybe they don’t care so much anymore. And I made the point that your parole would come soon. After that, they don’t have you to trade, so why not make a deal now? Get something for you.”

“Like those dangerous characters,” Martin said, cocking his head back toward the raincoats.

“Yes, Boothby. Just in time for his pension. The students.” He waved his hand in dismissal. “So also some political prisoners for the West Germans. They’ll be exchanged tonight at Herleshausen. And the West Germans will be very grateful to their British friends. So everyone gets something.” The salesman smile again. What was he talking about? Political prisoners. Martin just a piece of contraband. But what did it matter? He was here.

“Sabine didn’t come?”

“No. This business, it’s better if it’s done quietly. But you will come tonight. For dinner.” He hesitated. “You know, I maybe should be a little bit jealous. The first husband.”

“A long time ago.”

“Still. The first love,” he said.

Martin looked over to the Charité complex, then back at him. “A long time,” he said again. “I’m grateful for everything you’ve done.”

A faint nod. “Peter. He’s always known you were his father. We made sure of that. So he’s curious. He thinks you’re a socialist hero.”

“Hardly.”

“The man who gave us the bomb. That’s what they used to say in Neues Deutschland. You know you’ll have to give them an interview. It’s not so usual these days, coming east.”

“Why all the secrecy, then? If it’s going to be news.”

“No secrecy,” Kurt said. “It’s better people don’t know how these things are arranged. The details. That’s all. It’s enough to know you are here. Well, there’s the car. I’ll drop you at the hotel.”

“The hotel?” Not with Sabine and Peter, his family. But they were Kurt’s family now.

“The Berolina. Only the best for a distinguished guest,” Kurt said, a wink in his voice. “We’ll find you an apartment later. When your plans are settled.”

“That’s very generous. I didn’t expect—”

“Apartments are assigned,” Kurt said, explaining. “I’ll get you a priority on the list, but until then, the Berolina. A guest of the state.” He lowered his voice, suddenly practical. “You still have an English bank account, yes? Hard currency. Very valuable here when you transfer the funds. Well, come.”

An ambulance was pulling into Invalidenstrasse, life going on. The raincoats had disappeared into their pickup car. Martin looked at the bridge, empty now, the road barrier still up, waiting for them to leave, the final exit of the play.

“Of course you will also have a pension from the state,” Kurt was saying. “You will be comfortable.”

“But I’d still want to teach, do something. Be useful.”

“A good socialist,” Kurt said, another wink. He nodded. “You will be. Don’t worry about Neues Deutschland. I’ll help you—what to say. One interview only. Be careful,” he said, suddenly pulling at Martin’s sleeve. “They don’t slow down.” Backing them away from the path of the ambulance, then doing a double-take. “But it’s the wrong way. Alt!” A shout to the guards, who were stepping back to let the ambulance pass, then springing forward again to stop it at the wall opening.

“Alt!”

A sudden roar, the ambulance shooting ahead, crashing past the checkpoint, no barrier, a moment they must have been watching for. Just a second from the bridge. A gun sticking out the passenger window, pointing. Martin froze, the old instinct, a leopard about to leap out of the tree, then ducked, pushing Kurt to the ground with him, the bullet passing over their heads, the whole quiet morning erupting with sound, gears grinding, another shot, closer, his face against the pavement now, trying to sink into it, out of range. He glanced up at the guards, rifles out, but looking at each other, not sure what to do. Another bullet from the ambulance, hitting the waiting car. A shout from the Western side of the bridge. Now the guards at the wall crouched down, aiming at the ambulance as it came toward them, a burst of tat-tat explosions that finally made it careen into the wall, out of control. Scraping metal until it stopped.

“Fools,” Kurt said, his breath ragged.

The guards rushed over to the ambulance, yanking open the door, guns on the driver, slumped forward over the wheel.

“Out!” Motioning with the gun.

The driver stayed slumped over, but a young man opened the passenger door, hands up. “Don’t shoot.” He looked at the driver, distraught. “You killed him. Murderers.”

The guard moved the driver’s head back, putting his fingers on the neck, checking for a pulse.

“He’s alive. Still bleeding,” he said, pulling his fingers away, queasy.

“How many in the back?” Kurt said, getting up and brushing his coat, the movements jerky, shaking. He held out his hand to help Martin to his feet.

The passenger shook his head. “Nobody else. He’s going to die.”

“I can’t help that,” Kurt said, suddenly in charge, the guards as young as the passenger. Then, coming back to himself, “Call the hospital. This one’s useless now.” Waving his hand at the ambulance. “Did you steal it?”

The passenger shook his head. “It’s ours. I mean we work on it. For the Charité.”

“Even worse. State property. Stealing state property. For this foolishness. What were you thinking?”

“I didn’t mean to hit him,” the guard said. “We’re not supposed to use guns. During an exchange.”

“No one’s blaming you,” Kurt said.

“It went through the windshield,” the guard said, tracing the trajectory. “Off the hood.”

“He’ll die,” the passenger said, hands still up in the air. He looked at the empty bridge, his eyes watering. For a moment Martin thought he would run, chance it, but his eyes now were on the guard’s gun, the years ahead.

“I’m sorry for this,” Kurt said to Martin.

Martin nodded, holding his hands steady, the gunfire still in his head, like radio static.

The driver moved, his body pitching sideward, about to slide out of the seat. The guard stuck the rifle against his shoulder, propping him, then looked over to see the Western guards rushing over the bridge, following the noise.

“Stay back!” the guard shouted. “It’s finished.”

The Western guards, also young, hesitated, trained not to cross the border line.

“He’s bleeding to death,” the passenger yelled, a plea.

“Then he can bleed here. In his own country,” Kurt said. “Take him away,” he said to the guard holding a gun on the passenger. Then, to the other, “You have a field phone? Call the hospital.” He looked to the bridge, raising his voice. “Go back.”

The Western guards took a minute, hands on their guns, then backed away, boys standing down from a fight.

“You see what it’s like,” Kurt said to Martin. “They see things on television. The paradise in the West. And then look.” Taking in the crashed ambulance, the slumped driver. “Flight from the Republic is a serious crime.”

“What’ll happen to him?”

“Prison.” He watched the passenger being led away. “So, another chip.”

“Chip?”

“The West Germans will want him. There is no East Germany to them. Only German citizens, all of us. So by this logic, we’re putting their citizens in jail. They have a responsibility to get them out.”

“How?” Martin said, watching the guard on the phone.

“Trade someone, like you.” He paused. “Or buy them out,” he said, almost a grin.

“Buy them?”

“All this business, a spy for a spy. It’s valuable, yes, of course we must do it, but what we really need is hard currency.”

“Not old spies.”

“Don’t misunderstand. It’s an honor to do this for you. But as a practical matter—”

“You can’t sell people. That’s—”

Kurt jumped in. “Yes, I know, how would it look? To the good West Germans. Hypocrites. But here are two more.” He nodded to the young men. “What do we do with them? More expenses.”

An ambulance was coming around the corner, followed by a car of border police.

“Let’s go,” Kurt said, leaving the guards to deal with whatever reports were going to be made. “It’s another matter, the exchange. Nothing to do with this. We don’t want them confused. Come.” Protecting himself.

They got into the back of the black sedan, saying nothing for a minute, still shaken.

“Not a very pleasant welcome,” Kurt said as their driver pulled out. “I hope you won’t think this is typical. Very rare. Before the wall, it was a problem. The state trains someone, years of free education, and then one day he takes the S-Bahn to the West and all the skills are lost. Years of investment gone. You heard them. Their ambulance. Skilled medical workers.”

They were speeding past the Charité grounds, nurses and students filling the street. Sabine hadn’t been a medical student, just a friend of Georg’s brother, a girl at a party.

“I’m too much a coward,” she’d said. “All the blood. I don’t have the stomach for that. It doesn’t bother you?”

“I’m not in medicine. Physics.”

“Oh, physics. I don’t even know what it means. Something they teach at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, I think. I met someone from there once. He said it was how the world works. Yes?” Her eyes moving all over his face, studying him, already familiar.

“He meant the underlying principles of—”

“I know what he meant,” she said, a quick smile. “You’re at the Kaiser Wilhelm too?”

“Göttingen. I’m just here for the weekend.”

“So you don’t know Berlin?”

“A little.”

“Well, I don’t know any Americans. You’re the first.” Looking at him, the eyes again.

“What do you think? So far.”

“You’re a serious person,” she said, glancing at the rest of the room, her voice throaty with smoke. “That’s what I think. So far.”

“Serious. Is that good?”

“For me, yes.” She drew on her cigarette. “Are you political?”

Almost a laugh, caught in time. Then, when she kept staring, “We don’t have politics. Not like here.”

“Everybody has politics.”

“What about you?”

“Don’t you know it’s dangerous to ask a German that?”

“Unless you’re a Nazi, you mean.”

“We’re all Nazis now. If you ask that.”

He looked at her. “Not you.”

“How can you know?”

“You’re here, for one thing. In this crowd.”

“That doesn’t mean anything.”

He shrugged. “I trust my instincts.”

“Ouf,” she said, dismissing this. “Instincts.”

“You trusted yours, didn’t you? When you started talking to me?”

She smiled, then looked away. “No, that was flirting. A difference.” The word running through him, a jolt, the eyes sexual now. She turned back. “But you’re right. I’m not a Nazi. The opposite.”

“What, a Communist?” he said, not serious, party talk.

“Not officially. But up here, yes.” She touched her head. “I used to think I was anyway.” Something people didn’t say out loud, the boldness of it another jolt.

“But not now?”

“Now? If I were a Communist in Germany now, I’d be dead.”

But of course she had been, even then, something he would have known if he’d been listening, too busy hearing the rush of blood in his ears, the throaty voice. At the beginning, when he believed everything she said.

And then, abruptly, “Do you want to leave?”

“Leave?” he said, surprised. “I’m staying here.”

“Georg won’t mind.” Another smile, conspiratorial. “He’ll be impressed.” She touched his arm. “I just have to get my coat.” Moving away, everything decided. Around him people were talking and smoking, unaware that anything was happening.

The car turned right on Chausseestrasse.

“You’re all right?” Kurt said.

Martin nodded.

“He’s right, you know. The guard. They have orders not to shoot, during an exchange. Such a tense moment. You can imagine what would happen if— They must have known about it, those two. The time of the exchange. How?” He leaned over. “That’s where Brecht used to live,” he said, pointing. “Another one who joined us in the East. And was very happy here.” Still apologizing for what had happened at the checkpoint.

Martin looked out the window, then up, following the line of the buildings. The contrast with the West had become a magazine cliché—the shiny cars reflecting the lights of the Kurfürstendamm, the gray shabby streets of the East—and it was true that the buildings were dingier on this side, neglected, but it was still the same city, the same architecture. They passed Torstrasse. She’d lived near here, an old tenement building in Albrechtstrasse, because it was close to the theaters and she wanted to be an actress, was an actress, except it was all foolishness in the theater, nothing serious, you had to scrape by with walk-on bits out at the UFA studios. When you could get them. And the building was all right, your own bathroom, not a shared toilet down the hall.

He remembered that the stair lights had a timer. You had to hurry if you lived at the top, and that was how they’d first kissed, the light clicking off, pushed against the wall, slightly out of breath from the climb, opening his mouth to her. The taste of cigarettes and the smell of her perfume, the same brand for years and he’d never known which, just the smell of her. They pressed against each other on the stairs, and then she clutched his coat and pulled him up with her, and when they were inside, the back of the door was like the stairway again, pushing against it, but now they were taking their clothes off as they kissed, moving toward the bed. No drinks, no conversation, working up to something. They were already there, so excited he thought it would happen too soon, and then in, panting now, not caring who heard. And when they came, her eyes were on him again, taking him in, seeing him.

After, they lay still for a few minutes, and then he rolled off, slightly embarrassed, afraid he’d given himself away, who he really was. She reached over and took out a cigarette, something he imagined she would do every time, the way he’d first seen her, smoking.

“Would you like to know my name?” she said, drawing in smoke, amused. “You never asked.”

He smiled. “I guess I didn’t,” he said, only half there, lazy with sex.

“Well, I didn’t ask either. I wanted to see first. If we fit.”

“What?”

“If we fit. You know, like this,” she said, waving her hand between them.

He sat up halfway, propped on his elbow. In the light coming in from the street he saw the gleam on her skin, the dark patch farther down, and then the red tip of her cigarette. He ran his hand over her, a physical contact to make sure she was really there.

“Why?”

She hesitated for a moment, drawing on her cigarette. “You want to know? All right. We should never lie to each other, don’t you agree?”

He nodded, not sure where this was going.

“So we’ll know what’s true, between us. The others? That’s something else. But between us, the truth.”

He hitched himself up a little higher. “Which is?”

“You’re an American. I thought, he can get me out of Germany.”

“Out?”

“What’s going to happen here? A war. Things will get worse and worse. And now it’s not so easy to go. But an American. And then you looked at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“The way you want someone to look at you. Like a hunger. And I thought—if we’re telling the truth—maybe with him. But I had to know first. If we fit. You see, I don’t lie to you. I wouldn’t say this if we didn’t fit.”

He was quiet for a second. “But we do.”

“Yes,” she said, crushing out the cigarette and looking at him. “It’s a good fit. And once that’s right, you always have it.”

And they did, again that night and for years after. They always had the sex. Even after things changed, after they became different people, they had the sex. One of their secrets. Sometimes, in prison, he wondered if he had done it for sex, had been that much of a fool. But it hadn’t felt that way at the time. Something the Party needed, the world, if it was to have peace. Serious reasons. He hadn’t done it for her, the spying. But he wouldn’t have done it alone.

Now he was riding down Friedrichstrasse with her husband. How did they fit? he wondered. Don’t. Past the station, turning onto Unter den Linden, the imperial route. But the street looked more run-down than the ones by the Charité, the old Schinkel buildings sooty and damaged, what they must have looked like right after the war. Down toward the Gendarmenmarkt you could still see heaps of rubble that no one had bothered to cart away.

“The Schloss is gone,” Martin said, seeing the empty space where the palace had been. Across from it, the Dom was streaked with black char.

“Yes, a long time now. It was dangerous, not worth saving.”

“A shame, though.”

“Well, perhaps. But a bad symbol. There was so much to do after the war. And no money. What do you do? Save the past, patch it up? Or build the future. A socialist society—we had to look ahe