Date: Tue, 12 May 2020 21:18:19 +0100
From: Vincent Appleyard <vincentinanotherlife@gmail.com>
Subject: The Geisenberg Conspiracy Chapter 6

The Geisenberg Conspiracy
by Vincent Appleyard

A story set in East Germany in 1965

Please help keep the wonderful Nifty Archive going by donating to:
http://donate.nifty.org/donate.html
Chapter 6

London, England and Adorf, East Germany

Three days after Corden had sat across a desk from Berg in Geising, he
found himself looking across a much less impressive coffee table in the
kind of small, unlovely but decidedly discreet office that, he had come to
realise, was especially favoured by the security services. His passage back
to London had been uneventful, all achieved under his cover as Gunther
Erlich, a Nuremberg-based dealer in agricultural machinery parts. He was
perched on an uncomfortable wooden chair, incongruously reminiscent of his
schooldays. He had laid the folder of incriminating photographs on the
long, low table that was positioned between him and his London handler, who
leaned back in a more luxuriously padded chair and smiled, indulgently, at
the display.

Marcus Gough-Hardy was a slightly fleshy caricature of a civil servant who
had established himself at a relatively young age and had, ever since,
seemed to wallow in the remoter corridors of Whitehall, never progressing,
never looking back but spreading out like a giant squid around his own
small, uncontested kingdom. There was a rumour that he kept a maisonette in
Hounslow solely for the purpose of entertaining young men on whom he
lavished attention for a week or two before withdrawing his tentacles and
disappearing once more into the labyrinth of official secrecy he had
painstakingly allowed to build up around him. Every so often, he would be
spotted shamelessly parading the object of his latest love-interest around
the London art galleries or, if they were especially favoured, at the
premiere of a new, modernist production at the Royal Opera House.

He examined the photos with frank interest, a prurient, sly raising of one
shaggy eyebrow seeming to communicate an odd mixture of surprise and
boredom.

"My, my...," he murmured. "Somebody got his jollies that night, didn't
they?"

Corden looked pained but said nothing.

"We are sure, aren't we? Sure it is Becker?"

"Completely," said Corden.

"Who's the lucky little lad? Can't be much more than...20? 21? If that!
Very sweet, of course but awfully crude bait, if you know what I mean?"

Corden knew exactly what he meant but he wasn't about to press the point.

"OK!" said Gough-Hardy, decisively. "I will take it to the Chief, let him
have a look at it. Same with the microdot. I'll get our boffins onto it
right away. Any idea what's on there?"

"Not really," said Corden wearily. "I think it'll be useful though. I don't
think Berg would have taken the risk if it wasn't going to make you lot
happy."

"Quite so, old boy," said Gough-Hardy as he snatched the material up from
the desk and locked it all away in his safe.

"Let's hope so, eh?" he added with a kind of leer. He then turned back to
Corden and opened wide the door of his office with a quite unnecessary
flourish, clearly indicating that the meeting was over.

"Well done, by the way! Really...very well done!" declared Gough-Hardy
patronisingly, clapping a hearty hand on Corden's retreating back.

'The Chief', as Gough-Hardy had referred to him, was an old China hand. As
a youth he had studied Oriental languages and had a passion for ancient
history. He had produced one or two papers on the the difficulties of
translating certain scrolls from the Tang dynasty that had been published
in an obscure, learned journal whilst he was still an undergraduate at
Oxford. He had spent the war years following various bands of Communist
insurgents around North China, trying to recruit them in the fight against
the Japanese. He had, eventually, to make an emergency getaway in 1946 when
the political climate became too hostile and after a brief spell at a
Foreign Office desk, had begun a short and seamless rise to the pinnacle of
British Intelligence. He was now a scrawny man in his mid-sixties, a rather
petulant prima-donna, some thought but his judgment was held to be as acute
as ever and his political instincts sound.

The precise nature of the discussions that had subsequently taken place
when the photographs were presented to him and his small cabal of trusted,
senior advisors, would only ever be known to those who had been present but
a week had passed since Corden's return before he was contacted again. It
was now quite late in September and he was sitting once more in Malcolm
Gough-Hardy's office. Despite the rather blandly merry expression on his
handler's face that morning, Corden immediately had the feeling that
something was afoot.

"We're sending you back," said Gough-Hardy in his familiar blunt
fashion. "We need some more on Berg. Fact is, old sport, the Chief can't
quite make up his mind. Understandable, of course when you're being asked
to get into bed with someone like that. Can't really blame him, can you?"

Corden grunted, non-committal. He really had hoped for some kind of
decision here.

"We won't get any more gifts, you know," he said eventually. "I'm sure of
that. The photos, the microdot...they're a one-off. He's not in the game of
playing silly buggers just for the sake of it. He's shown us his hand...not
all of it, I suppose but some of it. Enough, I think. He'll expect us to
give him something in return."

"Question is, what is his game? I mean what's his game, really? You get my
drift? The Chief wants a bit more to go on, is all. Needs to be absolutely
sure old Berg's not just leading us up the garden path, you see?"

"It'll take time," objected Corden mildly. "We could lose the initiative
here. I can't just go blundering in asking questions. I'll need a way
in. I'll need to find a way to get something more on Berg. To get to him
through someone..,"

"Taken care of, actually," said Gough-Hardy smoothly. He had produced a
slim file from his desk drawer and passed it over to Corden.

"He's your best bet, we reckon. Name's Lothar Weill. He's one of Berg's
young acolytes. Good looking chap I must say. Our friend Matthias knows how
to pick them, that's for sure. It's all there, all you'll need. He owns a
photographic studio -- which is quite interesting in itself if you think
about it. Rumour is, he runs a sideline in pornography, wouldn't you know?"

Gough-Hardy winked, lewdly.

"Funny old world," he reflected. "Seems the Reds have very much the same
tastes as ourselves, when it comes right down to it. Makes you wonder why
we bother, eh?"

Corden studied the photograph of Weill. The face was striking, blond and
handsome, youthful and intelligent as well. He knew straight away that he
would recognise this man when the time came. He took the file and left.

      .....................................................................

Another two days had gone by and now Corden was sitting in his car, hunched
slightly in his overcoat against the cold. Adorf in September could be very
warm but when the wind blew from the East, as it did that day, it felt like
Winter had arrived. A thin curtain of rain washed miserably across the
street and the sky darkened with what looked like thunder-bearing
clouds. It was still barely mid-morning but he had been there for nearly
three hours and felt stiff and bored. He needed a coffee and wanted
something stronger. He'd watched the faces of passers-by, anyone who
approached the building on Freiberger Strasse and who might have fit the
profile, comparing them mentally with the picture of Lothar Weill that
Gough-Hardy had shown him back in London.

He scanned occasionally the surrounding streets but was satisfied that his
presence had not drawn any unwanted attention. He was parked rather badly
but in a position that allowed him to clearly view the building from across
the road, any comings and goings. It was no different really from the way
that anyone around here seemed to park and he knew that ignoring minor
traffic regulations was normally met with a shrug of the shoulders. He
looked at his watch for the third time in fifteen minutes and told himself
to relax, that he was no doubt in for a long wait and needed to be patient.

It was indeed another half-an-hour before it happened. He'd seen him
approaching from almost right down the street and knew straight away that
this was his man. He waited, breathing deeply to steady himself for what
was to come and going through his head for the fifteen-hundredth time the
lines he had prepared to use. He scrutinised the face now as the man came
closer. He couldn't make it fully out, semi-masked as it was by a scarf but
everything else fitted the description he'd been given and he knew. As soon
as the man drew up to the door of the building and shuffled in his pocket
for the key, Corden exited his car as noiselessly as he could. He walked
straight over to the entrance, arriving just as the man closed the door
behind him. Corden waited barely a few seconds and then knocked,
deliberately loud, a definitely official-sounding knock. The door wasn't
opened right away even though the man could only have been a few feet from
it at most. Corden wondered briefly if this might be significant but the
door was finally opened before he had arrived at any conclusion.

Lothar Weill stood before him exactly as his picture had shown. He held his
scarf in both hands as if preparing to strangle someone and Corden studied
his handsome face, its square regularity, the blueness of his eyes and
rather floppy yellow hair, his wide, handsome mouth.

"Herr Weill?" he asked with bureaucratic indifference, the way officials
everywhere will ask a question they already know the answer to. "Herr
Lothar Weill?"

Weill regarded him with suspicion, looking slightly sideways as if trying
to remember if he'd seen this man before.

"Yes. I am Lothar Weill. Can I help you?"

Corden produced a laminated card from inside his jacket. He had other ID to
go with it if necessary but he hoped this would suffice. London had
prepared it all for him, a decent job too. He was Max Walter, a district
tax inspector. His Erlich ID was stashed temporarily, hidden underneath the
matting in the front seat of his car. He would use the Walter ID for this
one job only and then burn it.

"Yes. You can help me inside. If I may...,"

Corden walked through the door and Weill stood aside to let him in. As
expected, he had an automatic deference towards authority and submitted
meekly in the face of the apparently official nature of the visit.

"Is there somewhere we can talk?" asked Corden.

Weill glanced behind him, wanting to be helpful but also, it seemed,
needing to make sure that any help was provided discreetly.

"What's this about?" he asked. "You are from the Tax Office?"

"It's nothing to worry about. It's just routine."

"I'm not worried!" said Weill, a little too quickly.

"Then it shouldn't take too long, should it?"

Corden waited now for Weill to make a move and then followed him closely
after he had gestured for him to do so. He was led to a small, untidy
kitchen. Weill glanced around as if worried by the mess.

"I'm sorry. It's...um...a little bit...," he raised his hands helplessly
and smiled. And when he smiled, Corden could see at once the charm, the
youthful brio of the man and remembered that he was only 21 years old.

"Your military service was deferred, I understand," said Corden briskly,
hoping by this sudden and unexpected approach to throw Weill off his
guard. He had memorised all the necessary details from the briefing paper
London had furnished him with.

"I'm sorry?" said Weill, looking slightly shocked. "What has that to do
with anything? With my tax affairs? You are here to discuss my business,
yes?"

Corden didn't answer for a long minute, allowing Weill's questions to hang
teasingly in the air.

"Actually," he said at last, "I want to discuss your dealings with Matthias
Berg."

"Matthi...? But...what does...?"

"You do not deny knowing Herr Berg?"

"No, of course not. Herr Berg is...a highly respected citizen. Why would I
deny...?"

"Was it Berg who helped you put off military service? You asked him to help
you out, perhaps. After all, he knows you as a fine young man. One of the
Young Leaders at his camps. A word from him in the right ear could well
have...,"

"You know Matthias Berg? You know him, personally?"

Corden paused again.

"I met him at Geisenberg; at the last camp, in fact."

"The last camp? You were there? So was I. I was...one of the organisers."

Weill brightened visibly at this news but darkened again in an instant,
seeing the grim set of Corden's mouth.

"You are investigating me?"

"No. I'm investigating Matthias Berg."

Weill looked stunned. A slow, dark light was clouding his blue eyes.

"Then you are...you work for the same people that he works for, yes?"

"You can say the name. The Stasi."

"You are not a tax inspector, Herr Walter!"

"You've seen my credentials. Do you want to examine them again?"

Weill didn't answer.

"Any help you can give me with my investigation will be noted. The military
service thing need not be an issue."

Weill raised his head suddenly at the implied threat. He had indeed asked
Berg to intervene on his behalf to keep him out of the army. He considered
himself to be more the artistic type.

"You're working for Hans Becker, aren't you?" he said slowly.

"What makes you say that?" asked Corden as steadily as he could manage.

Weill thought for a minute. He looked stressed and undecided.

"Because there are rumours," he said carefully and then, less carefully,
with sudden passion:

"Rumours? Ha! It's an open secret. Hans Becker's trying to stir things up
to harm Matthias Berg. To discredit him. I'm not sure I want to be party to
any of that, Herr 'Tax Inspector' Walter or whoever you are!"

Corden paused to allow this outburst to subside.

"What if I wasn't? What if I could help Berg? What if I were in a position
to stop Becker?"

Corden let this sink in. Weill looked morose and defeated and Corden
decided to change tack again and play it more gently.

"What can you tell me about Berg? You may be frank. In fact, you better be
frank, if you understand me."

"What do you want to know?"

"Give me your impressions of him. As a man. His views. His ideology."

Weill hardly hesitated.

"He is a visionary. His views are well known. He might not be orthodox
exactly but...there is room for that, surely? The State provides the
leadership, of course, that is unquestioned but there is surely room
for...challenges? No? For radical thinking?"

Lothar Weill was flustered now. Corden reckoned one little push more and he
might start to talk. Really talk. He switched tack again, hoping that these
sudden changes in the thrust of his questioning would throw Weill and force
him to reveal something of greater value than he had so far disclosed.

"I'd like to see what you do here. It's a photography business, I
understand." Corden had moved quickly to a door at the far end of the
kitchen and was already halfway through it before Weill could react.

"No. You cannot just...please, come to my office upstairs. I have all the
paperwork you need. I...,"

Corden was now heading down a thin corridor, bare walls except for a couple
of old movie posters. At the end was a thick, seemingly soundproofed wooden
door which he reached just as Weill caught up with him.

"Please, my colleague is working in there. It is a closed session...you
can't just...,"

But Corden was by now through the door and standing in a large, well-lit
studio. A young man of about Weill's age was holding an expensive-looking
camera, taking a couple of shots then moving to one side or crouching for a
different angle, taking another. He kept up a stream of commentary as he
danced lightly around, his voice eager and encouraging and only slightly
marred by a sense of professional ennui.

"That's it. Lovely. Stay there. No, don't move. OK. Same again. Stay with
me. Stay with me. Wait...wait. OK, now! That's lovely. One more
time. And...good. That's good. That's very good. Hold it. Again...a bit
more...and a bit more again. That's the one! That's it. Beautiful!"

In the centre of the room, against a rather corny set-piece wall of
drapery, cream-coloured and with vases of plastic roses at either side,
stood a third young man. He was dark and intense, an impression made
stronger by the brilliant white of the shirt and trousers that he wore. He
was barefoot. He held a large running shoe in one hand. It looked brand new
and had evidently never been worn for any athletic event unless its current
use could be so described. It was certainly being brought down with a fair
degree of athleticism on the backside of a young boy maybe thirteen years
old, who bent before the man in nothing but a pair of white Y-fronts, as
gleaming clean as the man's shirt.

"What's this?" the photographer said, seeing Corden standing there. Both
the barefoot man and the child turned around, not in alarm but vaguely,
rather bored, annoyed at the interruption of their work.

"You needn't look like that!" declared Weill, standing squarely in front of
Corden. He felt emboldened now that there were the three of them against
his one and Corden wondered what his look had been -- of fascination, anger
or disgust? Or just a fleeting flare that showed his deep, deep interest.

"It's all above board. It's staged. All staged. Well mostly, anyway. It's a
private commission. You'd be surprised at the demand for this kind of
material."

"What about him?" Corden spoke hoarsely, nodding towards the boy.

"Paul here's a friend. We take good care of him. You need have no
concern. I personally take an interest in his welfare. Like I say, most of
it is straightforward fakery. He won't get hurt."

"Not unless he really wants," muttered the man with the plimsoll and
grinned at Paul, who merely shrugged. And it was true that most of the
shots Corden had seen were of the plimsoll raised mid-air, the pose held,
or held resting on the fabric of the boy's underpants until the
photographer was satisfied.

The cameraman now approached and leered slightly at Corden.

"He's a special one is Paul." He leaned in close and almost whispered. "He
enjoys it. He's one of those enjoys it, don't you see? He loves it."

Corden studied the man's camera. He knew cameras a little and recognised
the Praktica FX2, not the latest, not the very best but professional
enough. He turned to Weill.

"You rent out equipment? Rent out the studio?"

"Sometimes, yeah. Why?"

"You ever rent a camera to Matthias Berg?"

Weill hesitated and before he could reply, the cameraman called out to him.

"Hey, Lothar. We've got to wrap this up. There's hardly any time left and
I'll need to get the prints done and sent off by tonight!"

Lothar looked wearily at Corden one more time and nodded briefly to the
others. They resumed their positions without another word and simply
carried on, ignoring the two men who huddled together deep in conversation
at the side. Corden listened carefully as Weill laid out his dealings with
Berg that Summer but part of his mind was occupied in watching Paul with
great intent; his actorly finesse, his poise, his loving it.

The boy bent over again. He was highly attractive and given the company he
was keeping, was probably well-aware of the fact, surrounded as he was by a
chorus of flattery and encouragement. He was slightly plump, his features
rounded. His face was youthful and still freckled like a ten-year-old. He
had a small, button nose and a wide grin. His dark, straight hair fell in
an unruly fringe over his brow. His backside too was plump but proportioned
perfectly, its round orbs stretching the thin white cotton underpants that
barely covered him, the darkness of his long, generous crack discernable
through the fabric. One could tell his balls had dropped by a certain
pouchiness in front but that pouch was small and child-like still. His
general demeanour, Corden noted was of gurgling happiness. He acted as if
an equal to these men; as if his bending down before them was, indeed, his
own sweet choice.

"God, that one hurt!" he suddenly exclaimed and laughed deliciously. He
quickly pulled his pants down at the back, baring his lightly-smarting pink
arse to the room. He wanted his spanker to acknowledge that he'd hit the
mark but the man only slapped him lightly, jokingly on his bare backside
and took up a new pose. Paul pulled up his pants and did the same whilst
Corden watched. The little lad seemed totally unconcerned at his new
audience, a trooper in this theatre of dreams.

"You'll get me hard again!" he cried, gleefully, his voice containing more
than a hint of a challenge.

"Yeah, about an inch and a half in your case!" said the photographer,
teasingly.

"Fuck you!" cried Paul, charmingly.

Corden and Weill left them to it. Weill led his unwelcome guest back
through the kitchen and up to his first-floor office. The stairs were in
poor repair, the carpet shabby, stained and torn. The office itself was no
more than a large cupboard; one tiny desk, one chair, one steel filing
cabinet. Weill had by now revealed everything of his arrangement with
Berg. Over the Summer, Berg had hired the studio on a number of occasions,
paid for the cameraman and for the models. He'd been provided with a set of
prints on each occasion but Weill had not known at first who they were
intended for. They were certainly not for Berg's personal enjoyment, he
knew that much. A few weeks ago, Berg had confided in him, disclosing that
the photo-shoots had been part of Berg's attempt to counter Becker all
along.

Weill peered at Corden, as if trying to decide just how far he could trust
this mysterious Tax Inspector.

"You cannot judge him by these," he said mildly, indicating a number of
folders, which he withdrew from his locked cabinet and handed to
Corden. "They were necessary. He had to stop Becker somehow. He thought he
could discredit him by having these planted in his office and tipping off
the Party. But it all went wrong. Becker found out somehow and managed to
get it covered up. He had the planted copies destroyed. That's when Berg
asked for the camera. I said he could use the studios anytime, for free!
But he said he had to do this particular job himself; that it needed to be
clandestine, the photos."

He had stopped, torn it seemed between holding back in deference to Berg
and confessing all in contempt of Becker.

"Matthias Berg is a great man. He will be a great man. You cannot judge
him, you and your kind. I don't care who you work for."

His voice was cracked and stifled, like he had reached the end of something
but did not know how to stop or how to carry on, for that matter. But then
he resumed, simply.

"When Berg told me that Markus Rihm would be involved, would be modelling
for those shots, I got a very uneasy feeling. Becker had a thing for him,
you see. And I realised what Berg was probably up to...that he planned to
capture the two of them together in compromising ways, you understand? If
you ever got to see those pictures, Herr Walter, I think you would
understand right away. Anybody would."

"Have you seen them?" Corden asked.

"No, of course not. Berg kept the whole thing very private. Very close, you
understand? But I believe my speculation here is accurate. I was sorry,
actually, because I like the Rihm boy very much. I thought he was being
used, to be honest. But like I say, Berg had to do something to stop Becker
and Plan A had failed so he had to go to Plan B, no? He had no choice."

Corden turned to the folders -- Berg's Plan A. They contained A4-sized
prints separated by tissue paper. There were three or four sets of prints
in each folder and forty individual shots per page. The first was of a boy
of about fifteen, costumed as a kind of fantasy Roman Centurion. He posed
moodily, clearly taking direction as he attempted a sexy narrative which
took him from fully-clothed to semi-naked, finally only keeping his helmet
on. His cock was very large and amply-haired and when he turned, raising
his short red tunic to display his rear, his buttocks were firm and muscled
and completely hairless.

Another set was of a younger boy of maybe nine in Arab gear, as if cast as
a shepherd in a school Nativity play. Only this shepherd bared his bottom
for the camera, provided artful glimpses of his genitals and, finally, a
lovely smile about his face, his short blond hair meticulously groomed, he
stood naked, holding his little member out as if to pee.

Corden looked up at Weill, wondering. He turned to the third folder and
took out the topmost sheet. It was two boys together, naked mostly or just
in tight, little underpants, not posing much but simply standing there,
smiling shyly at the camera, now and then showing their bums, showing their
cocks, showing their togetherness. The boys were Karl and Johann Wagner.