The Lucy Ghosts

'When did you find out who it was?'

'When I interrogated Ivana Volkov.'

'The cypher clerk.'

'Yes. After the War she remained in Germany. Never wanted to come home. She fell in love with a German, a soldier. Worse, a Nazi. To save him from deportation, she managed to destroy his records. It was easy. She spoke German and she was in charge of the files. They lived together for years before he died of cancer. That's when she decided to return. But her ties had been forged. He, in his time, had been a high-ranking Nazi, I think at one of the concentration camps. She refused to say anything about that. But, like many of them in East Germany, he kept the Hitler dream alive. One of his closest friends was Grob Mitzer, the industrialist. Through her, and her occasional visits to Moscow, Mitzer and her lover kept their links with those over here, with the Lucy Ghosts. After all, they were after the same thing. To get back home and make Germany one again.'

'Who ordered her to burn the files?'

'Probably someone in Dresden. She wouldn't say. It doesn't matter. What does matter is that she was working for them, not for us.'

The Director didn't ask what had happened to the woman. It would have been a harsh sentence; treason had never been dealt with lightly in Russia.

'With the troubles going on in Germany,' continued Rostov, 'there's suddenly a real possibility that a strong, nationalistic political party could emerge once again. We knew there were neo Nazi groups, but nothing as organised as this. So I went through our records, tried to find whose loyalty we could count on. I picked a young Stasi officer who had a tremendous reputation and had always kept in touch with us after reunification. His name was Kaas. Luckily for us, the Nazi group he was involved with also thought highly of him. It was he who told me of the reign of terror they were unleashing, he who told me of their plans.'

'Who killed our agent in Goose Bay? And the Americans'? I presume it had something to do with their German backgrounds.'

'Frick's people in Dresden. They wanted to wipe out all the records of the past. Grob Mitzer was in a position to do that in America. In our case it was Ivana Volkov. Fortunately we didn’t have our records on computers and the fire attempt failed. Frick decided to leave the Lucy Ghosts where they were, in hiding. He wanted to create chaos without being linked to supporters who had Nazi records. Some of the Lucy Ghosts were impatient. They saw the unification of Germany as their chance. They were old, they weren't prepared to wait. So they were taken out. Even before he became leader.'

'Kushman?'

'Assassinated. So that Frick would come to power. It went wrong. They hired an amateur. Someone who'd been in Angola. I think he was also meant to take out Trimmler, and possibly even Mitzer. We'll never know now.'

The Director paused for a moment before asking the question that Rostov knew could spell his doom. 'And you told the Americans everything?'

'Old friendships are useful,' he answered eventually.

'Who in the CIA knew?'

'The Deputy Director of Intelligence. He may have told his Executive Director.'

'Or he may be telling him now?'

'Or he may be telling him now.' The point wasn't lost on Rostov. 'As with the British.'

'So the three of you, old friends, decided to resolve it yourself.'

'As I was asked to. By you.'

'Anyone else?'

'My assistant. And an operative in New Orleans. A cripple. But he had no idea of the scale of things.' He didn't add that Frankie Mistletoe was a double agent, one of the few still left in America. Rostov trusted the Americans up to a point, but always believed in keeping his options open.

'Why not simply pass the information on? Once you had it.' The Director knew the answer before he asked the question. That's why he had commissioned Rostov in the first place.

'Because once the authorities became involved, they would have made me pull back. They might have arrested one or two Nazis, but the organisation would have simply gone underground.' He paused before he continued. His words were chilling. 'We took the decision to wipe out the organisation. To kill their leaders. To leave the snake headless. Drastic measures were the only solution to bury this thing once and for all.'

'So you let them go on with their plans, let them enter the Reichstag before you acted. A most dangerous and risky move.'

'We didn't think so.'

'We?'

Rostov shrugged. 'Kaas was trusted by them and the best we had. He always had it under control. They never expected him to take them out. One by one.'

'Where is he now?'

'In Moscow. He wants to live there. And work for us.'

'A most dangerous move.' The old man repeated. 'But successful.' It was his way of giving praise.

'In the next few days, when the police have finished in Dresden, from leads and information we have supplied anonymously, the whole plot will become public knowledge. Nazis setting out to destroy world leaders and take control of Germany. Just as Hitler did in 1933. It will horrify people. They won't come back.'

'They always come back. Eventually.'

'Not for a long time. It may also force the police to bring the other terrorist groups under control. It's the chance that peace needs.'

'Ever the philosopher. Ever the Christian.' The Director sat still, saying nothing for some considerable time. He watched a woman take a candle and light it, place it with the other candles. He wondered who she was praying for, who she was remembering. 'Why?' he asked finally. 'It's not up to us to make such decisions. It's up to our masters.'

'The politicians abdicated their responsibility during the Gulf War.'

'How?'

'Because they didn't destroy Saddam Hussein when they had the opportunity.'

'The Soviet Union supported him.'

'But we wanted him dead. And because he lived, because the politicians pulled us back, he turned on his own people and killed them, the Kurds and others, in their millions. While we were patting each other on the back, he was destroying a nation. The SAS or Special Forces should have taken him out.'

'Dangerous words.'

'We never learn from our mistakes. Churchill was right to bomb Dresden, to try and force force Hitler into submission. But then, in the name of humanity, the Allies backed down. And Hitler fought on. How many hundreds of thousands of Russians did we lose then?'

'We don't make the decisions.'

'But we police them.'

The Director shrugged. In his heart he agreed with Rostov, but he could never voice that. 'I want you to swear me, in this House of your God, that you will never step outside the bounds of your responsibility again.'

'Someone has to clear the dirt. Someone has to go on fighting. '

The Director sat back, sat stone still and watched people going forward to pray. 'The deaths of Trimmler and Goodenache. Very gruesome.' he said eventually.

'Not as we planned it. Not with Trimmler. Our man in New Orleans…'

'The taxi driver?'

'The taxi driver. He arranged the death. Cutting off the arms was purely a symbolic gesture by those he paid to accomplish the deed. They were local voodoo men. Apparently, the arms were not placed in the form of a swastika, but in the shape of an inverted cross.'

'And Goodenache?'

'That was deliberate. We knew our enemies by then.'

'Hmm.' He paused for some considerable time before he spoke again. 'You're not Robin Hood. Never cross the line. That's anarchy. Otherwise we become the masters, instead of the servants. Do I have your word?'

'Yes.'

'In this House of God?'

'In this House of God.'

'Good. Was the Englishman and his woman part of your plan?'