“Not enough leverage. Our political masters want to know what the East German leadership is thinking now, not what they’re thinking in a year’s time. So we grab him and take him back to the States to debrief him.”

“You’re forgetting Mielke’s wife, Gertrud, aren’t you? And doesn’t he have a son now? Frank? He won’t want to leave them, surely.”

“We’re not forgetting them at all,” said Scheuer. “But I rather think that Erich will. From everything we know about him, he’s not the sentimental sort. Besides, he can always apply for them to come to the West as well. And it’s not like there’s a wall that’s stopping them from coming.”

“And if he doesn’t want to defect?”

“Well, then that’s too bad.”

“You’ll kidnap him?”

“That’s not a word we use,” said Scheuer. “The U.S. Constitution permits public policy exceptions to the normal legal process of extradition. But I doubt any of this is going to matter. As soon as he sees the four of us, he’ll know the game is up and that he has no choice in the matter.”

“And when you do take him back? What then?”

Scheuer grinned. “I don’t even want to think about that until we’ve got him, Gunther. Mielke’s the great white whale for the CIA in Germany. We land him, we get enough oil to burn in our lamps to see what we’re doing in this country for years to come. The Stasi might never recover from a blow like this. It could even help us to win the Cold War.”

“Damn right,” said Hamer. “Mielke’s the whole fucking ball game. There’s very little that bastard doesn’t know about communist plans in Germany. Will they invade? Will they keep to their side of the fence? How far are they prepared to go to hold on to the yardage they’ve already won? And just how independent of Moscow is the current East German leadership?”

Frei clapped me on the shoulder amicably. “Gunther, old buddy,” he said. “You help us get this bastard, you’re set for life, do you hear? By the time Ike gets through thanking you, my German friend, you’ll feel more American than we do.”

Hamer frowned. “Don’t you think it’s time Gunther should maybe get some more intel from his lady friend? Does Mielke come on a weekend? Does he come at the beginning or the end of the month? We could be in that apartment for weeks waiting for this kraut to show up.”