Ding-ling—
The wind chime on the wooden door of the Moscow Café was still swaying.
A cold draft, laced with the acidic bite of lignite, slipped through the crack and made the blackened silk handkerchief on the corner of the table flutter.
Dr. Klaus Weber sat rigid in his chair.
His eyes were still fixed on the street outside. The black Mercedes-Benz with West German plates had already rolled over the wet cobblestones and disappeared into the gray mist of Alexanderplatz.
On the table, the stack of East German marks with Marx's portrait lay scattered. Coffee dripped from the edge of the tablecloth.
Drip. Drip.
The drops hit the wooden floor.
Weber swallowed. His right hand inched off the tabletop, reaching for the slip of paper with the Swiss bank account number in his right pocket.
Just as his fingertips brushed the rough corduroy fabric, two massive shadows blocked the weak light from the crystal chandelier.
Heavy, hard-soled boots struck the wooden floor with a thud that made his chest tighten.
A black leather glove appeared without warning and slammed onto the table in front of him with a bang. The edge of the palm pinned the corner of the East German marks.
"Dr. Weber."
The voice above him was cold and flat.
Weber's breath caught.
He turned his head slowly.
Two men in dark gray double-breasted trench coats stood behind him. No expressions. No IDs. In this country, the coat and the undisguised menace were ID enough.
Stasi.
Ministry for State Security.
The other café patrons became deaf and blind on cue. Heads went down. Eyes locked on empty coffee cups. No one breathed too loud. Behind the counter, the waiter turned to wipe a clean glass, his back stiff.
"Stand up. Hands on the table," the man in gray said. His other hand rested on the slight bulge at his waist.
Weber's mind blanked.
Pure fear locked his muscles. He opened his mouth, but only a strangled croak came out.
He braced himself on the table and stood, shaky. The chair screeched across the wood.
"Do… do you need something?" Weber managed, forcing his voice to stay level.
The agent on the right didn't answer. He grabbed Weber's arm and shoved him face-down onto the table with a thud. Weber's cheek hit the cold coffee stain. The bitter smell filled his nose.
Rough hands started patting him down.
Ribs. Waist. Down to his legs.
When a hand reached for his right pocket, Weber's heart slammed against his ribs.
The slip of paper. If they found it, Tokyo would turn into a one-way trip to Hohenschönhausen.
"What's this?"
The agent pulled something from his left pocket.
It was the silk handkerchief with the Saionji family crest, stained with coffee.
The agent examined it, then tossed it back on the table in disgust. His eyes dropped to the old leather briefcase, also stained.
He grabbed the briefcase.
"Let's go."
The two agents took Weber's arms and dragged him toward the back door like he was empty.
Outside, a green-and-white Wartburg police car idled in the rain, exhaust puffing blue-white.
The door opened.
Weber was shoved into the back seat. The agents boxed him in.
The door slammed. Rain noise vanished.
Inside smelled like cheap tobacco and wet wool.
"Drive."
The Wartburg took a sharp turn on the slick road and accelerated toward the gray complex behind the Rotes Rathaus.
Half an hour later.
A windowless basement interrogation room.
One incandescent bulb hummed overhead. The dim yellow light barely reached the iron table in the center. The walls were damp, plaster peeling, giving off a sharp mildew smell.
Weber sat on a hard wooden chair behind the table.
His legs were pressed together. His hands clutched his knees. Sweat beaded on his forehead, ran down his cheeks, and soaked the collar of his faded corduroy suit. During the quick frisk in the car, they hadn't found the slip of paper tucked into his cigarette pack.
Across the table sat the two agents.
One of them toyed with the battered briefcase.
Slap.
He threw it onto the iron table. The sound echoed in the cramped room.
"Dr. Weber."
The agent pulled out a chair and sat, leaning forward. His eyes scanned Weber's face.
"Bulletproof Mercedes. West German plates. Four armed bodyguards. An Asian woman."
He took out a pack of unbranded cigarettes, put one in his mouth, and struck a match.
"According to our files, a senior engineer at Carl Zeiss Jena does not have clearance to meet foreign capitalists of that level."
He exhaled. Bluish-gray smoke coiled under the bulb.
"What did she give you in the café? What was the deal? Is she a Western spy?"
Three questions. Three hammers.
Weber's breathing sped up. He dug his nails into his knees to stay sharp.
He remembered Satsuki's eyes in the café.
That cold, appraising look. Like everything was inventory. That casual contempt when she tossed down a few thousand marks like she was feeding pigeons.
Suddenly, Weber stopped shaking.
A crazy idea formed.
He snapped his head up. His bloodshot eyes met the agent's. He forced his fear into a new shape, gritting his teeth until his face twisted into rage born of humiliation.
"A spy?"
Weber's voice was hoarse, shaking with fury. He slammed his hand on the iron table. The briefcase jumped.
"If spies were that stupid and arrogant, counter-intelligence would be easy!"
The agent's eyes narrowed. The cigarette paused halfway to his mouth.
"What do you mean?"
"That woman is a damn vampire! A nouveau riche who knows nothing about optics!"
Weber sucked in air. His cheeks went red with what looked like outrage. He channeled every bit of the shame he'd felt in the café — an old scientist getting slapped with capitalist money.
"She came to me about old optical lenses in our warehouse. I thought she was a real buyer. I thought I could get some foreign currency for the factory."
Weber pointed at the coffee-stained briefcase, his voice breaking.
"And you know what she offered?"
"She wanted to buy our precision instruments by the ton, at scrap metal prices! She treated fifty years of Carl Zeiss work like garbage!"
"I tried to explain the coating process. She got bored. She knocked over the coffee and ruined my bag."
Weber sagged back against the chair, chest heaving.
"I was sitting there swallowing it for the good of the country! Trying to squeeze a deposit out of her! And you drag me in here as a spy!"
The room went quiet.
The two agents exchanged a look.
Weber's anger looked real. The resentment of an old intellectual humiliated by a capitalist practically bled through his worn suit. In a country starved for hard currency, an engineer trying to hustle some foreign exchange made sense.
But it wasn't enough. It was just his word.
The agent with the cigarette studied Weber's flushed face. His mind ran the math.
The surveillance team outside the café had been clear: contact lasted under ten minutes. Ten minutes barely covers half a cup of bad coffee. Two strangers under watch don't cook up a perfect lie that fast.
He pulled up Weber's file in his head. Core technician at Carl Zeiss. Clean record. Quiet. Law-abiding. Decades in the lab. Breakthroughs for the state. No deviations.
A timid intellectual.
And intellectuals had pride. They could live poor. They couldn't stand being treated like junk dealers.
East German propaganda had spent forty years painting capitalists as greedy, stupid vampires. This arrogant Japanese heiress trying to buy scrap metal at garbage prices fit that picture exactly. When reality matches bias, brains relax.
Greed and stupidity explained the whole stupid meeting.
"Do you have proof?" the agent asked, still doubtful.
"She left a deposit," Weber said immediately, pointing at the evidence bag on the table.
"It's in there. That's what she gave me. A few thousand East German marks. Pocket change."
The agent glanced at the bills in the bag.
Just then, someone knocked on the heavy iron door from outside.