Friday Fiction: The Berlin Plan

The following is a draft excerpt from my novel, Gyeosunim. If you haven't read my previous novel, Songsaengnim: A Korea Diary, be warned that while there are no spoilers, you may be missing some context.

 

June 1, 1988

“The same damned clothes? Are you bloody mad, Moore?”

“Easy now, Charles,” Sir Harold Kent cautioned. He was not a man who seemed accustomed to raised voices. He was sitting at the head of the boardroom table, which was made of thick, shatterproof glass, suspended on a chrome, tubular frame. The chairs were a black leather, supported by similar chrome tubes. Sir Harold was dressed in an oak-brown Herringbone Tweed three-piece suit with a crisp white shirt that had barely distinguishable brown pinstripes, and sported a dark brown Savile Row bow tie to complete the look. He flicked the ash from the end of his cigarette into the glass ashtray that appeared to be suspended in air. “Berlin is Nigel’s territory and therefore, quite rightly, the plan is his decision. You’ve merely been invited to provide support.”

“I’m just not sure that Nigel’s up to such a sensitive operation. This plan sounds ludicrous. Field agents want to blend in, to seem invisible. What he’s doing is hanging bloody neon signs on their backs.”

“Steady on,” said Nigel Moore, rising from his seat and running a hand through his thinning hair, obviously agitated. His words seemed hesitant, contrary to his actions, as though he wanted to show that he was in charge but was afraid to stand up to Charles. It was as though he was a teenage son, challenging his overbearing father for the very first time.

“Someone is going to get killed; perhaps, all of them,” continued Charles, unaffected by the protestations of Sir Harold and Nigel. His face was reddening and blood vessels at his temples were starting to swell. This was the first time in which I had seen him lose his temper. I have heard him speak in frustration, but for the most part he had always kept his cool in our Ottawa office. As if to let out steam, Charles unbuttoned his charcoal twill waistcoat, having already removed his matching jacket and draping it over the back of the chair next to him. At least his silk tie was a brighter red than his face.

“We’re going to get everyone out,” insisted Nigel, who composed himself. He was wearing the same suit as he had on yesterday but this time, like Sir Harold, Nigel wore a bow tie. His was an Irish-green that looked like it was patterned with dozens of tiny sunny-side-up eggs. The hand that had combed his hair ran over his moustache and then dropped at his side. He took a slow, deep breath and then sat down again.

“Gentlemen, as Nigel presented to me, the plan is to create confusion. While the men bear little resemblance to one another, wearing identical clothing may make it difficult for anyone who may be following Gunther to keep track of him. The men will meet near Alexanderplatz Station, they will walk amongst one another before they all get into their respective cars and drive away, each car going in its own direction.”

“All of the automobiles will be tracked,” said Charles.

“The drivers have a set route,” countered Nigel. “They each have a second car waiting at a predetermined location. The agents will quickly swap vehicles and continue on their routes. The cars without Gunther will make their way to the Autobahnen and head out of East Berlin. One car will head to Leipzig, another to Dresden, and the third to Magdeburg. There, they will ditch their vehicles and make their way to safe houses that we have in each city. Over time, we’ll get them out. I don’t need to go into further details.”

“Eight agents, plus Gunther,” chuckled Charles under his breath. “If the KGB catches them, it will be a mighty blow to London. Moscow will be rubbing it in their faces till the end of time.”

“There’s a risk, of course, but we’ve thought this through, Townsend old boy,” said Sir Harold. “Nigel and I have been discussing this plan with his team for weeks. We’ve weighed the risks and, though bold, we believe it will work. And then we’ll be laughing at the Ruskies till the end of time.”

Charles became silent, though I could see the way his eyes met no one else’s that he was in deep thought. The veins around his temples said that he was still outraged. Though he was no longer the head of the Berlin unit, nor was he an employee of the British Foreign Intelligence Office, he appeared like a man who still had a lot of clout. Or, at the very least, thought he had clout. But for the moment, Sir Harold Kent and Nigel Moore seemed like they had the upper hand.

For my part, I sat in an armchair in the corner of the room, away from the briefing room table. I was an observer only, not part of the conversation or the plan. Dressed in an inexpensive grey wool suit from Tip Top Tailors, in Ottawa, with a white and blue-striped shirt with a matching blue tie that had tiny polka dots, I didn’t even look like part of this team. Only so often would either Sir Harold or Nigel look in my direction, seemingly surprised to see me, as though they had forgotten that I was in the room. Now that Charles seemed defeated, he looked over at me in his anger. In return, I could only offer a sympathetic smile. I was on Team Townsend, though we both knew that we were on the losing side of the match.

So Long, Sir Ian

Image by source, fair use, Wikipedia.

I first saw Ian Holm on the big screen in Chariots of Fire, and soon after in Time Bandits and Brazil, but it wasn't until I watched the 1988 TV miniseries, Game, Set, and Match, based on the series by my favourite spy novelist, Len Deighton, that Sir Ian became my favourite actor.

Ian Holm was perfectly cast as the central character, Bernard Samson, the SIS British agent who must find a Russian double-agent within the organization. The series was brilliantly adapted for television and superbly acted by the well-rounded cast, including Mel Martin, Michael Culver, Michael Degen, and others.

Deighton went on to create two more trilogies, based on the Game, Set, and Match series: Hook, Line, and Sinker, and Faith, Hope, and Charity. A tenth book, Winter, sets up the city of Berlin—but from a German family's perspective, from 1899 to 1945—and introduces characters that are carried forward into the modern-day spy stories.

When the TV series aired, I was patiently awaiting the first book in the second series, Spy Hook, and as I read it, I could picture Ian Holm reprising the role of Samson as he pulls himself together after the crushing outcome that was set in the first trilogy (no spoilers, here). And indeed, I hoped that another TV miniseries would spawn from the new stories, and that Holm would once again play our hapless hero.

By the time I saw the movies Robin and Marian and Alien, I was already a huge fan of Sir Ian Holm, who passed peacefully away on June 19 at the age of 88. But I also delighted at seeing him in Kenneth Branagh's Henry V, Naked Lunch, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, The Madness of King George, The Sweet Hereafter, The Fifth Element, and finally, the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit films.

When Hamlet was released in 1990, I chose to go mainly because Holm was in it, playing the role of Polonius. Mel Gibson, in the lead role, was not a determining factor in me viewing the film (I went in spite of Gibson's appearance).

Last month, I decided to pick up Winter from my book shelves and read it again. Immediately after, I read Berlin Game and am currently halfway through Mexico Set. I have been putting Holm's face on Bernard Samson, and even imagined similar looks to Samson's father, Brian, in Winter.

I'm going to continue to read the entire series, again, only now I will do so with a bit of a heavy heart.

Source: unknown, via Twitter.

Photo Friday: Last of the Cold War

I thought I'd take a moment to explain this week's Wordless Wednesday and use one more image from that day in 1988 for Photo Friday.

In 1987, I was finishing journalism school but had hopes of becoming not a reporter, but a fiction writer. And at the time, my favourite genre of fiction was the spy novel. I wanted to become a great Canadian spy novelist.

I began writing very short stories about a nameless spy. My first story started in the middle of the action, where the main character was running from persuers: he had no memory of who he was or why he was running, a la Bourne (though I hadn't read any of those novels—I was influenced by the novels of Len Deighton). My stories were simple, very brief, and always involved the same character.

And they always had a dark ending. I'm not one for happy endings.

As I started to develop this spy, I needed a background. The character needed a name and an origin. I picked Roland as his first name and plunked my finger in a phone book to get his last name. I aimed for the Bs, so he would have the same initials as me, but missed: I landed on Axam.

For his origins, I used an atlas. Did you know that there's a lot of water and other uninhabitable places on our planet? After several unrealistic picks, I settled on a page that had the U.K. and Ireland. Anywhere there, I told myself, would be fine. I closed my eyes and dropped my finger.

And landed in water.

But very close to land. I had hit the mouth of the Firth of Forth, in Scotland. The closest town was North Berwick.

And thus, Roland Axam of North Berwick was born.

I decided that I wanted to write a longer story with Roland, one that took him to Europe. I had just finished reading Len Deighton's Game, Set, and Match trilogy, and had fallen in love with the city of Berlin. And so Roland's first big adventure would take him to the divided city.

In May of 1988, I travelled to Scotland, where I stayed with a friend who was studying at the University of Glasgow, and made my way to Roland's home town. There, I got a feel for Roland's roots and discovered a setting that would be the climax location for the story: Tantallon Castle.

I took a train from Glasgow to London and to Harwich, crossed the channel by ferry to Hoek van Holland, and then hopped another train that led me to West Berlin.

I was alone, didn't speak the language, and knew nothing about this city. And I had three days to gather as much information as I could, take as many photos as my film would allow.

And to cross into East Berlin in search of a spy.

But that's another story. Today is all about the picture.

Today's picture is the last photo I shot of the wall, on the night before I was to return to Glasgow. I decided to use a red filter and capture one of the many guard towers that lined the eastern side of the wall. The street lamps actually only shone down on the vast emptiness between the inner and outer walls, on the fields that were strewn with land mines. The photos that I used for this week's Wordless Wednesday were shot before I walked through Checkpoint Charlie—all of my photos of East Berlin were shot in black and white film, and some day I'll share them too.

I wanted my last shot of the wall to reflect the bold imposition of that wall that divided a city, that split up friends, family, and a sense of community. I don't know if I was able to truly reflect what I felt at that time. And I only took the one shot.

What do you think?

Happy Friday.