I'm a Profiteer in Cold War Germany

Chapter 138: Chapter 48: The Stasi’s New Upstart

Werner turned around.

Anna stood up too and walked over to him. Less than a meter of space separated them.

She looked up at him, her eyes filled with a complex emotion. "Thank you."

"Don’t mention it," Werner said. "I told you, you’re useful to me."

"I know," Anna said. "But I still want to thank you. Not because you saved me, but because..." She paused, a faint smile gracing her lips. "Because you showed me that in a place like this, there are still people willing to take risks for someone ’useful.’"

Werner didn’t respond. He just looked at her, then turned and walked toward the door.

"Werner," Anna called out again.

Werner stopped but didn’t turn back.

"Be careful of the Stasi," Anna said. "They may have let me go for now, but they’ve surely started investigating others. You’d better keep a low profile for a while."

"I will," Werner said, pushing open the Church door.

The sky outside had completely darkened. The streetlights cast blurry halos in the fog. Werner pulled up his coat collar and walked into the gray night.

The sound of the heavy Church door closing, dull and drawn-out, came from behind him.

Werner lit a cigarette. The smoke he exhaled dissipated quickly in the cold wind. He thought of the final look in Anna’s eyes, that complex, ineffable emotion.

’They really were the same kind of people.’

’In this city divided by a wall, in this absurd era, finding someone who truly understood your situation was a rare luxury.’

****************

When the Stasi came to visit Werner, he was in his office in the Prenzlauer Berg District, tallying his accounts.

It was a converted basement that had originally belonged to a post-war reconstruction apartment building.

A huge map of East Berlin hung on the gray concrete wall. Red pins marked various cargo transfer points, blue pins were for his key subordinates and informants in the Black Market, and black pins represented dangerous areas to be avoided.

Thick ledgers were piled on the desk, recording the details of every transaction—who bought what goods, at what time, in what place, and for what price.

This was his "Office Number Two," a semi-public place.

After Vonke had discovered his previous office at the textile factory and called him with a semi-warning, Werner had decisively abandoned it, setting up two new offices.

This current Office Number Two was used to handle business that the Stasi could know about—transactions that were gray, but not fatal.

For the truly confidential secret dealings that the Stasi must never get wind of, he had another, more hidden office.

Werner hadn’t deliberately hidden the existence of this Office Number Two; he knew the Stasi would discover it sooner or later. So the ledgers placed here were all ones the Stasi could see—not entirely clean, but not life-threatening either.

Nevertheless, to be cautious, he had thoroughly checked the walls and floor to confirm there were no listening devices. He had even had a technician friend of Ivanov’s scan the phone line with professional equipment to ensure it wasn’t tapped.

"Comrade Betelich," the messenger was a young man in his twenties, his Stasi uniform impeccably ironed, the brim of his cap pulled down low. "Major Lainer von Braun requests your presence tomorrow at two in the afternoon, at number thirty-two Normannen Street."

Werner looked up, his gaze lingering on the other man’s face for two seconds.

The young man’s eyes were somewhat shifty; he was clearly just a small-time messenger.

"Understood," he said flatly, asking no further questions.

The young man saluted as if a great weight had been lifted, then turned and walked away briskly. The sound of his footsteps echoed in the stairwell, gradually fading.

Werner lit a cigarette and took a deep drag, the smoke slowly rising under the lamplight.

Lainer von Braun.

That name had been popping up frequently on the Black Market lately.

After the internal purge within the Stasi, this major, who was in his early thirties, had shot up like a rocket, becoming Vonke’s direct superior.

He was rumored to have trained in Moscow, earning high praise from his Soviet advisors before being entrusted with great responsibility upon his return.

Even an old fox like Vonke had to walk on eggshells around him, which was not a good sign.

Werner stubbed out his cigarette, picked up the phone on his desk, and dialed Anna’s secret number.

The phone rang seven times—that was their agreed-upon signal, so Anna would know it was him.

"Hello?" Anna’s voice came through, deliberately hushed.

"Have you heard of a man named Lainer von Braun?" Werner got straight to the point.

The other end of the line went silent for a few seconds.

"The new golden boy," Anna said. "Thirty-two years old, a graduate of the KGB Academy in Moscow, specializing in counter-espionage and intelligence analysis. While in Moscow, he dismantled two Western intelligence networks. They say his methods are ruthless. He was parachuted directly into the anti-smuggling department upon his return and is now in charge of monitoring the entire Black Market in East Berlin."

"And his personality?"

"Friendly on the surface, but a venomous snake underneath," Anna said in a low voice. "He likes to make a show of goodwill first, making you think you can cooperate. Then, the moment you let your guard down, he delivers the fatal bite. A Black Market dealer named Herman was taken down by him just like that. Herman thought he had reached a deal, but the next thing he knew, he was sent to Horner Schonehausen Prison. He’s still locked up there now."

Horner Schonehausen. East Germany’s most notorious prison, the Stasi’s exclusive interrogation site. It was said that its basement held hundreds of interrogation rooms with specially soundproofed walls, so no one outside could ever hear the screams from within.

"He’s asked to meet me tomorrow," Werner said.

Another silence on the other end of the line.

"Be careful," Anna said finally. "This man is not easy to deal with. If he’s looking for you, it’s definitely not for anything good."

After hanging up, Werner lit another cigarette. He walked to the map and stared at the dense constellation of pins, contemplating his strategy.

’Von Braun wants to deal with me for one of two reasons: either he thinks I’m too big of a threat and wants to eliminate me, or he wants to use me as a pawn for the Stasi. But either way, it’s not good news.’

’He had to be prepared.’

*****************

Number thirty-two Normannen Street was a nondescript gray building. There were no signs on the outer wall, but Werner knew it was one of the Stasi’s secret offices in the city center.

Two armed guards stood at the entrance, dressed in dark green uniforms, their faces expressionless.

Werner showed them the notice. One of the guards made a phone call, then nodded at him. "Third floor, first door on the left."

The stairwell was quiet, unsettlingly so.

The hallway was carpeted in dark brown, with standard portraits of Ublis and Khrushchev hanging on the walls.

The air was filled with a mixture of disinfectant and mildew, which reminded Werner of a hospital morgue.

He knocked on the door.

"Come in," a young man’s voice called out. The tone was relaxed, even cheerful.

Werner pushed the door open and walked in.

The office wasn’t large, but it was tastefully furnished.

An East Germany map hung on the wall, next to several black-and-white photographs of the Berlin Wall’s construction—soldiers laying barbed wire, workers laying bricks. A pot of pothos sat by the window, looking particularly vibrant in this bleak season.

Lainer von Braun was sitting behind the desk, reading through a file.

He was younger than Werner had imagined, looking to be in his early thirties. His short blond hair was impeccably combed, and his light blue eyes glinted with shrewdness. He wore a crisply ironed uniform, the collar buttoned tightly, the two bars on his epaulets gleaming with a metallic luster under the light.

"Comrade Betelich," von Braun looked up, a gentle smile spreading across his face. "Please, have a seat. Smoke?"

He pushed a pack of "Berlin" brand cigarettes across the desk—a special product available only to high-ranking East German officials, far superior in quality to the "Kabinett" sold on the market.

"Thank you." Werner took the cigarette but didn’t light it immediately.

He sat in the chair opposite von Braun, his posture relaxed, his gaze calm.

Von Braun observed him for a few seconds, then smiled. "I hear you’re quite a force on the Black Market?"

"Just doing a little business to get by," Werner said nonchalantly.

"A little business?" Von Braun opened the folder on his desk and began to read. "Let’s see... Church charity channels, arbitrage on goods from foreign trade stores, custom services for high-ranking officials, Ministry of Foreign Trade quotas, and even Soviet Army supply channels..."

He looked up, his smile widening. "Comrade Betelich, your ’little business’ isn’t so little, is it? All these enterprises combined bring in at least five thousand Marks a month. You know, the director of a state-owned factory earns only four hundred Marks a month."