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Hans wasn’t looking forward to giving Drexler the news. He’d just received a call from the Hungarians in Szolnok to the effect they couldn’t find Radler. The East German wasn’t on any train bound for Budapest that stopped in their city. He waited for his boss to come back from the gym and his shower.
Drexler received the information in a stoic manner. He simply thanked Hans for all the assistance he had provided over the last year, asked him to take a file to the room at the end of the corridor, closed the door to his office, sank into his leather, high-backed swivel chair and opened the drawer in which he kept his service pistol. He took it out, slid in the magazine, pulled the working parts back and released them to carry a round into the chamber. Placed in front of him, on his desk blotter, he stared at it for several minutes. Then he looked down at himself wearing his Stasi sports society sweat-stained standard tracksuit. He didn’t want that to be anyone’s last memory of him. He got up, went to the cupboard and removed a clean suit, shirt and tie. When dressed, he picked up his service pistol.
Hans returned to the office unsure what he would find. Tentatively, he opened Drexler’s door.
Max turned away from the mirror at which he’d straightened his tie. He pointed at the pistol on his desk. “Hans, please do me a favour, unload that and return it to my drawer. I must go to see Colonel-General Wolf and tell him everything.”
He’d had better encounters. Briefing a superior with such bad news could have been a lot worse. Of course, Wolf wasn’t well pleased but he seemed to understand the position Max had been in. In fact, he actually commented, “Radler’s a crafty old bastard. I doubt whether anyone outside this room would have fared better against him.”
Meeting over, Drexler had authorisation for extreme measures and full co-operation from the Czechs and Hungarians, including use of their airspace by the Tupolev transport placed at his disposal. He’d been dismissed with the words, “Make sure you do not fail me.”