The Unknown Subject: The Story of a Cold War Spy

By Gerard Shirar

It's been three years since Germany's unconditional surrender, and United States Army Sergeant Rich Hammond remains on duty after originally being drafted in 1942. Exploiting the divisions between East and West Germany, Hammond runs a profitable black market business for drugs, cigarettes, porn-even Spam-as goods remain sparse. But Hammond's dealings make him a perfect target for the Russians in their search for spies.

With tensions between the United States and Russia escalating, Hammond is blackmailed into supplying seemingly mundane information. It's a role that suits him, at least while he's still stationed in Germany. When Hammond is shipped back to the States, the stakes begin to rise. The Russians want Hammond as a stateside operative, but Hammond wants that part of his life left in Europe. Unfortunately, he can't shake it off.

Only slightly behind Hammond on his trail of treason is Carl Foreman, an officer serving in Army Counterintelligence. As Foreman begins to rise through the ranks, he puzzles together pieces of Hammond's deceptions, even as the trail just seems to become more and more confusing.

With the twists and turns of this spy game ever more entangling, discover if Hammond is able to keep Foreman at arm's length-or if the spy will ultimately meet his demise.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jun 4, 2008
• ISBN: 9780595602322

Gerard Shirar

Gerard Shirar is a Purdue University graduate, a US Army veteran, a former director of security of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and a former attorney who practiced in Everett, Massachusetts. Now retired, he resides in an assisted living community amid pleasant surroundings and company. This is his sixth book.

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Copyright © 2008 Gerard Shirar.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Certain characters in this work are historical figures, and certain events portrayed did take place. However, this is a work of fiction. All of the other characters, names, and events as well as all places, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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ISBN: 978-0-5954-8135-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-0-5957-1614-2 (hc)

ISBN: 978-0-5956-0232-2 (e)

iUniverse rev. date: 04/05/2021

CONTENTS

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

Twenty-Four

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Six

Twenty-Seven

Twenty-Eight

Twenty-Nine

Thirty

Thirty-One

Thirty-Two

Thirty-Three

Thirty-Four

Thirty-Five

Thirty-Six

Thirty-Seven

Thirty-Eight

Thirty-Nine

Forty

Forty-One

Forty-Two

Forty-Three

Forty-Four

Forty-Five

Forty-Six

Forty-Seven

Forty-Eight

Forty-Nine

Fifty

Fifty-One

Fifty-Two

Fifty-Three

Fifty-Four

Fifty-Five

To my grandchildren, Shirar, Jeffery, Morgan and Michael, and to my colleagues in the Law office at 14 Norwood Street Everett, Massachusetts.

ONE

Berlin, Germany, Dahlem District, Late October1948

The wind blowing in from the Russian steppes brought a chill to the attic room. Two men stood over a Bolex motion picture camera mounted on a tripod. They were intently working on the camera’s mechanism, their bodies side by side, their heads close together.

A woman dressed in a loosely fitting housecoat sat on the edge of a steel-frame bed in the center of the room. Her legs were crossed and she smoked a cigarette. The bed and the immediate area surrounding it were bathed in light from two floodlights set atop stands positioned at either end of the bed. The rest of the room remained in darkness. An almost palpable stillness hung in the air, broken only by the faint sounds the men made as they worked on the camera and the faraway sound of a gramophone coming from one of the floors below; a woman was singing in German, a love song from the war years.

The men working on the camera wore the garrison uniform of the United States Army, their Eisenhower jackets unbuttoned, their shirt collars and ties loosened.

The taller of the two, a buck sergeant, stood about six feet tall, had a ruddy complexion, and was of medium build. He was youthfully thin, with a slim waist and broad shoulders. His facial features were just beginning to evolve from the immaturity of youth to the beginnings of adulthood. One could consider him handsome but in a youthful, not quite fully mature way. While his age was somewhat difficult to tell from his appearance, the sergeant stripes on his sleeves and the ribbons on his jacket indicated he was a veteran of the recent war and was likely in his early twenties. His hair was neatly trimmed, and his light blue eyes looked out from behind a pair of unattractive U.S. Army-issued eyeglasses.

A section of the camera’s case had been removed exposing the mechanism. The sergeant was probing the sprockets that moved the film through the camera with his right index finger, a look of intense concentration on his face.

I think I see the problem, he said as he moved one of the sprockets with his finger.

The other man, a corporal, was shorter by two inches and appeared to be about the same age. His blond hair was cut close in the military style. His build was also slight and youthful, and he was slightly stoop-shouldered. The corporal had been intently watching the sergeant as he worked on the camera, the fingers of his right hand moving, subconsciously guiding those of the sergeant, his impatience mirrored in the expression on his face. Why is he taking so long? he thought. The problem is obvious. All it needs is a small drop of oil on the upper sprocket.

The corporal’s name was James Mitchell, and for the past three months, he had been in partnership with the sergeant, Richard Lee Hammond. Both men worked in the Berlin Command’s motor pool and along with a silent partner, a master sergeant in the Berlin Signal Support Company, were producing pornographic films, which Hammond and Mitchell showed to fellow soldiers in the back room of a bar in the Zehlendorf District.

I think the upper sprocket’s stuck, Hammond said. Do we have any oil?

Mitchell walked to a white canvas bag resting on the floor beside the staircase that led to the floor below and ruffled through the bag. In a moment, he returned with a small can of oil.

Be careful how much you use, he said as he handed Hammond the oil can. We don’t want the drive spring to slip.

The sergeant abruptly turned his head and looked back at Mitchell. With a tone of disgust registering in his voice, he said, What do you take me for? I ain’t a complete fool.

Hammond tolerated Mitchell because he was a follower. Whatever he asked him to do, he did. He was there when they made the films and when he needed someone to help him with his black market business. Now, he needed him to act in the film with the woman. He had found the woman he called Hilda—he never bothered to get her true name—in a bar in the Russian zone of the city during one of his trips there in connection with his black market business. German woman were good about sex, and they were desperate for money to survive—the war had done that.

Hammond applied a small drop of oil and tested the camera. That’s got it, he said as he handed the oil can back to Mitchell and replaced the camera cover.

While the men worked on the camera, the woman sat smoking and watching them, her right foot tapping faintly on the floor, a look of impatience on her face, the smoke rising from her cigarette bathed in the light from the floodlights like a cumulus cloud caught by the sun on a bright summer’s day."

The woman was in her early thirties with long blond hair, which was tangled at the ends. Her blue eyes were dull and the area around them puffy, her complexion in the harsh light, mottled and pale. Her eyelids were half closed, her mind deep in thought. It has finally come to this, she thought. Making a sex film with two American occupiers. A far cry from my life before the war. Life was good then. Helmut was home, I had friends, and oh the parties. That was before Stalingrad. Helmut’s death at Stalingrad was the turning point; after that, everything came apart. The day and night bombing raids, and life in the shelters. Then the Russians came. The gang rapes followed, but I survived it. What can a woman of privilege do now? The world is upside down. What can I do? I do the best I can. All I have now is my body to sell.

I guess we’re ready to go now, Hammond said. I’m pooped, and I ain’t in the mood, he said trying to sound wearier than he actually felt. You do it.

She probably has the clap, and I don’t like using rubbers, he thought. Let Jim catch the clap.

Hammond was particular about whom he slept with. He was living in violation of the no fraternization policy, with a Polish displaced person named Gurd Blunt. She was four years his junior and a refugee from Warsaw. They lived, when his duties permitted, in a recently rebuilt apartment in the Charlotenburg District of Berlin, which he paid for with the proceeds from the films and his black market businesses. He had met Gurd in Austria where his unit had ended up at the close of the fighting. She was working as a prostitute, and he had used her services when he was in Austria. When he left Austria for Berlin, she had followed him and without warning suddenly turned up one evening in his barracks. Unlike the woman on the bed, Gurd was physically attractive with a curvaceous body. She had an appetite for sex, with a preference for varied partners, both men and women.

Why don’t we hire a Kraut to do this? Mitchell asked. I ain’t in the mood either.

I’ll think about it, but for now, you get down there with her.

I guess it’s you and me, Hilda, Mitchell said as he turned toward the woman and began removing his clothes.

The woman stubbed her cigarette out on the sole of her shoe and took off her housecoat, tossing it on the floor. She lay back on the bed, naked except for a garter belt, stockings, and black high-heeled pumps.

I feel stupid in these, she thought, pulling on the garters to smooth out the stockings. The sergeant had insisted on tight stockings, and she wanted to please him. She desperately needed the money.

We only got five minutes of film, Hammond said, so start out with her sucking you and then you licking her.

The camera they were using, a 1933 16-mm Bolex spring-wound motion picture camera, was equipment from the former Berlin studios of Universum Film AG or UFA, Germany’s pre-war premiere motion picture production company. Hammond had bought the camera from a former UFA cameraman he had run into during one of his trips into the Russian sector for two cartons of Lucky Strike cigarettes. It was Hammond’s acquisition of the camera that was the catalyst for his pornographic film business, a business which produced films totally lacking in the filmmaker’s art, but graphic enough to tantalize the young, sexually inexperienced soldiers who viewed them.

The bed squeaked as Mitchell got down beside the woman. Soon, the sounds of the squeaking bed and the earthy, involuntary sounds made by the couple copulating broke the silence.

As the action on the bed intensified, Hammond slowly moved the camera in for a close-up.

TWO

Clay Kaserne, Berlin, Early November 1948

Political tension in Germany was high. In July, the Russians had closed the land routes to Berlin, and the Allies had launched an airlift to bring food and the necessities of life into the city. But Hammond was oblivious to all this. Politics bored him; world events were for the newspapers and the politicians. His was a life of realities, and he found it easy to ignore the tenseness that surrounded him. His concentration was on himself and pursuing a normal life, as he saw a normal life.

Tonight, Hammond was making another trip into the Russian zone in furtherance of his black market business. He also had to go on duty as charge of quarters at Headquarters Company Berlin Command at eleven o’clock in the evening, so time was critical. He had been working against a list of items that were desired by his East Berlin associate and had gathered most of what was wanted. He kept the stuff in a locked cabinet in the attic of the house in Dahlem where he did his filming so the time constraint he was under prevented him from traveling to the apartment in Charlotenburg.

He would have dinner in the company mess, pick up the items he was to deliver to his associate in the East from the Dahlem attic, and then take a taxi to the nearest S-Bahn station. S-Bahn service, Berlin’s elevated rapid transit system, had been partially restored, and Hammond planned to ride the S-Bahn to the last stop before it entered the Russian zone and walk the rest of the way to his destination using one of the unguarded side streets. Berlin was still an open city with movement between the various zones largely unchecked. Before starting on his trip, Hammond had changed into civilian clothes in the Dahlem attic, putting on a pair of civilian pants and shirt under his army overcoat. Clothing was in short supply among the German civilian population, and there was a flourishing market in Allied military clothing, so it was not uncommon to see a German civilian wearing a U.S. Army overcoat or uniform jacket.

He was one stop on the S-Bahn from where he planned to get off when two West Berlin policemen boarded the car he was riding in. The civilian police were known to be corrupt. Many were recruited from the prewar German police force and harbored a secret dislike for the American occupiers and a distrust of the newly instituted democratic institutions. Most had been members of the Nazi party and wished for those times to return.

Hammond knew what a vulnerable position he was in and wished he had taken the taxi all the way to the demarcation line. The Berlin Command had recently issued an order prohibiting the travel of U.S. personnel into the Russian zone unless on official business. The duffle bag and his being on the S-Bahn one stop from the boundary line was a sure giveaway that he was a black marketer on his way into the East. He wished he had planned better. If the cops weren’t corrupt, he was in for trouble. If they were corrupt, he would be lucky, but he might lose all he was carrying.

The two policemen approached him. It was obvious that they had spotted him as a GI. He would soon learn which way it would go.

Where … you … going? the taller of the policemen asked in heavily accented English. He had paused between the words as if he were dredging them up from deep in his memory. Maybe he had learned English in school and was struggling to recall the words.

It was obvious to Hammond the cops knew what he was and where he was heading.

What … you have … in that bag? the policeman asked. He had a smirk on his face, a sure sign to Hammond there was trouble ahead.

I’m getting off at the next stop. I got stuff in the duffle bag for a family me and the other guys in the unit have adopted to help out. They live in a bombed-out place near the demarcation line.

Let me see … your papers, the policeman insisted.

Hammond handed over his ID card. I’m with the headquarters’ motor pool. The stuff inside is comfort stuff, some coffee, Spam, stuff like that. We all pitched in. As he said it, Hammond knew his explanation wasn’t working.

The policeman handed back the ID card.

"That is Scheiße (Shit), the cop said mixing German and English. You are a … schwarz marktverkäufer … a … How do you say it? … black marketer."

Why should I lie? Hammond said. I’m just helping someone out.

The train stopped. It was the last stop before the train entered the Russian zone. Hammond knew the policemen would get off and ride the next train back into the West. It was decision time for the cops.

I get off here, Hammond said. Can I go now?

You got … cigarettes? the cop asked. "Give me some … then you can … wegfahren … How you say? … go," the policeman said smiling as he winked at his companion.

The train would be halted for a few minutes while the East German police and Russian Army MPs who usually accompanied them boarded the train and began to check the identities of those who would be traveling into the East. Hammond had to act fast before they got on. He quickly opened the duffle bag and removed three cartons of Camels. The Germans accepted the offering and quickly left the car.

Hammond, relieved, hurriedly left the car as well. Those Krauts were sons of the old sod, guys like me, he thought. His father, a coal miner who had worked in the Consolidation Coal Company mine in Baxter, West Virginia, often used the phrase son of the old sod. He had no idea where his father had learned the term; there were no Irish in the family. He had probably learned it from one of his drinking buddies. He hated the drunken bastard, who had beaten and abused him when he was a kid. He had been forced to live with his father when his mother had left them for a life in Charleston, but because of the old man’s drunken abuse, he had quit school when he was sixteen and moved out to live with the family of a friend. After quitting school, he had worked in the Consolidation mine until he was drafted in January 1942. He had not spoken to his father since the day he moved out of the house, even though they had often worked side by side in the same mine. He kept track of the old man through friends in Baxter and knew that his father had come down with the coal miner’s lung disease and lived on a small union pension with a woman much younger than himself in a run-down cabin just outside the Consolidation mine property line. The old bastard can rot in hell for all I care, he thought.

His luck had been with him with the cops. He was a believer in luck and often relied on it and was grateful for it when he did stupid things, like he had done tonight. Since the blockade, the West Berlin police and MPs were cooperating more. He was lucky he hadn’t run into a joint patrol. If he had, he would probably be on his way to an MP lockup by now. Everyone is in it for themselves, he thought. Thankfully, he had only run into two cops who were not too greedy.

The duffle bag, even minus the three cartons of Camels his encounter with the German cops had cost him, proved heavier than he figured, and he was tired by the time he drew near the bar in the Russian zone where he planned to meet his German black market partner. The night was clear but cold with the feel of snow in the air. He had left the S-Bahn and walked five blocks, entering the Russian zone through one of the many bombed-out side streets. As he walked along, his breath registered in the cold night air. There had been no snow so far this year, but the November nights in Berlin could be bitterly cold, and tonight was no exception.

The neighborhood he was passing through had been working class before the war. Most of the buildings he passed had been destroyed during the Allied blitz and not rebuilt. In spite of this, some were occupied by people who lived at barely subsistence level. The economy in the Russian zone was struggling, and jobs were scarce.

There were no streetlights so Hammond had to be careful walking around the piles of rubble that littered the streets. He had to stop to rest because of the weight of the duffle bag, and when he did, he immediately went on the alert. Strangers were subject to robbery and assault in this neighborhood, and everything a man wore or carried was of value to the people who lived there.

He was now only a block or so from the bar. As he rested, he noticed several shadows moving in the ground floor of one of the buildings across the street and decided he had best move along. In spite of being tired, he hefted the duffle bag and double-timed the last few blocks to the bar.

As he opened the door of the bar, he was confronted by a heavy drape covering the opening, a holdover from the war intended to keep light from escaping when the door was opened. He closed the door behind him and then moved the drape aside. When his eyes adjusted to the light, he looked around and found his German associate sitting at a table with two other men.

In the prewar days the bar had been a typical neighborhood Gastehouse. You could have gotten a light meal and a room for the night. But the section where the kitchen had been and the second and third floors where the guest rooms were previously located had been destroyed in the Allied bombing and were no longer usable. It was now only a bar, and the sign that hung outside, Gastehouse Zweizimmer, was now a misnomer.

There were about six tables and a like number of booths along one wall. Two female bartenders worked behind the bar, both shabbily dressed and in their early thirties. Several of the bar stools were occupied by men wearing various parts of the former German Army uniform. Even though three years had passed since the end of the war, former members of the German Army still bore the hangdog look of the defeated. The lone waitress, a girl still in her teens, was just setting down large mugs of beer in front of two men sitting opposite one another in one of the booths. The tables and booths were only partially occupied.

The conversation in the room had briefly stopped when Hammond came in but resumed when his purpose for being there was recognized by most of the occupants. The army duffle bag Hammond carried and his appearance clearly marked him an American black marketer. The black market was the only source of luxury items, like coffee and American cigarettes, and so it was not at all unusual for Berliners to turn a blind eye to this activity. As he approached the table where his East German partner sat, the conversation the men were engaged in abruptly ended and the two men with his partner got up, leaving the man alone at the table. Hammond deposited the duffle bag by a chair and sat down.

Hello, Rich, the man said in English. Let’s have a beer before business. The man signaled one of the barmaids, and the waitress soon brought two large mugs of draft beer, one of those very heavy beers loaded with calories that small local breweries in the countryside produced.

Have you brought me something good? the man asked.

Hammond and the man, Walter Friedman, had been doing business for some time. Recently, the list of items Walter had wanted had included medicines like penicillin and narcotic painkillers. These had presented a problem, and Hammond had been unable to get any. He hoped that Walter wouldn’t mind.

Over small talk, they finished their beer, and now it was time for business.

Let’s go into the back room and see what you brought me, Walter suggested.

The back room was a combination storage room and office. Stacks of boxes filled with cigarettes, cans of coffee, and similar items were scattered around the room—testimony to the other American servicemen who worked with Friedman. The room was windowless, and the single bulb that hung from the ceiling over a large wooden table was the only source of light. Except for the table, a rolltop desk with a swivel chair, and three chairs placed around the table, the room contained no other furniture.

Sit down, Rich, while I see what you brought me.

Walter Friedman had been a member of the Abwehr, German Army Intelligence, stationed in Berlin where he worked as an analyst on the British Desk in the intelligence section of the German High Command. When the Russian Army entered the city, he had removed his uniform and blended in with the civilian population. He was a good-looking man, thin, with an angular face and graying hair; his mouth bore the persistent ghost of a smile. He had lived by his wits ever since the war’s end and now owned the former Gastehouse from which he conducted his business.

Friedman had spread the contents of the duffle bag out on the table and was examining the items Hammond had brought him.

A good selection, Rich. How much do you want?

A thousand, Hammond said.

You are crazy, my friend. Eight hundred is the best I can do. I have other suppliers now so the market is not as good for you. Walter’s English was spoken with a noticeable British accent, a reflection of his having lived in England during the inter-war years. He had attended Oxford and after graduation worked for a Swiss insurance company in London. Like most patriotic Germans living abroad, he had returned to Germany when Hitler mobilized for war. Hammond had learned all this information from Walter over the course of their business relationship.

You know I pay in greenbacks, so the money is good. What do you say?

United States currency, or greenbacks, and occupation script were the only stable currencies in Germany. Possession of greenbacks by U.S. occupation forces was forbidden, so Hammond had enlisted the assistance of a captain in the Berlin Command’s finance section to launder the greenbacks and deposit them into an account Hammond had opened in the First National Bank of Trenton, New Jersey. Some of the money was also converted to marks and occupation script, for use in paying for the apartment, paying the women who performed in his films, and sampling Berlin’s nightlife.

Hammond had counted on seven hundred and thought Walter’s offer more than fair, but it was the nature of the business that one tried for more.

I will take nine hundred fifty, he said.

Walter did not immediately answer, and then he said, You know, Rich, you are on my territory.

The threat did not go unnoticed but Hammond held his ground. Nine hundred fifty, he repeated.

Okay … okay … Rich, Friedman said. He reached into his pants pocket and brought out a large wad of U.S. currency. Walter counted out the money, laying each bill on the table. When he had counted out the amount agreed on, Hammond picked it up and placed it in his right front pants pocket.

Thanks, Walter. It’s a pleasure doing business with you, Hammond said.

Hammond respected Walter but he didn’t particularly like him. Walter took advantage of his situation, just as he was doing, and in that they were birds of a feather.

They returned to the bar and had one more drink. When it was time for Hammond to leave, Walter handed him a slip of paper on which he had written his wants. After looking it over, Hammond said, I can get most of the stuff, but the penicillin and the pain medicine I can’t help you with.

Do what you can, Walter said. Then they set the date and time for the next delivery.

It had gotten colder, and a wind had come up while Hammond was in the bar. When he emerged into the night, the combination of the wind and cold stung his face. He pulled the collar of his overcoat up and started on his way back to the S-Bahn station. He had gone about fifty yards when he noticed a Mercedes 239 sedan