Mielke frowned a big, puzzled frown, like a bear gradually realizing that it had been stung by a bee. He shook his head.

“Well, this didn’t make any sense to me. After all, it was hardly my fault that I’d been forced to work for the Nazis. But I was told that the party wouldn’t see it that way. And against all of my instincts, which were to have faith in Comrade Stalin and the party, I decided to put my trust in this one man. His name was Victor Dietrich. So I told them I’d been lying low in Spain and then fighting with the French partisans. It was just as well I did say this, for without Dietrich’s advice my honesty would have been fatal. You see, back in August 1941, Comrade Stalin, as People’s Commissar for Defense, had issued an infamous order—order number two-seventy—which, in essence, said that there were no Soviet prisoners of war, only traitors.” Mielke shrugged. “Of almost two million men and women who returned from German and French incarceration to the Soviet Union and its zones of control—many of them loyal party members—a very large percentage have been executed or sent to labor camps for between ten and twenty years. These included my own brother. That’s why I no longer believe, Gunther. Because at any moment my past might catch up with me and I could be where you are now.

“But I want a future. Something concrete. Is that so unusual? I’m seeing this woman. Her name is Gertrud. She’s a seamstress in Berlin. My mother was a seamstress. Did you know that? Anyway, I’d like us to feel that we might have a life together. I don’t know why I’m telling you all this. I don’t have to justify why I’m helping you, surely. You saved my life. Twice. What kind of man would I be if I forgot that?”

I stayed silent for a moment. Then his face darkened with impatience.

“Do you want my help or not, damn it?”

“How is it going to happen?” I asked. “That’s what I’d like to know? If I’m going to put my soul in your hands, you can hardly be surprised if I want to check that your fingernails are clean.”

“Spoken like a true Berliner. And fair enough. Now, then. The Central Anti-Fa School is in Krasnogorsk. Every month, we send them a bag of Nazis on a plane from Berlin for reeducation. There’s quite a number of them there now. Members of the National Committee for a Free Germany, they call themselves. Field Marshal Paulus is one of them. Did you know that?”

“Paulus, a collaborator?”