The Valley of Shadows
East Berlin
A bomb dropped on East Berlin as I walked back to my house. I was the new ambassador, straight out of university, to the German Democratic Republic—and I was there when a bomb coming from further east dropped on East Berlin.
I quickly dropped for cover. A second bomb dropped, and then a third, a fourth, and a fifth. Buildings crashed around me. I looked up, the blocks immediately surrounding me gone. This wasn’t an assassination attempt, otherwise a truck would have crashed into my car or an enraged gunman arrived at my house, or the secret police would have dealt with me personally.
This was, in fact, a declaration of war on East Germany, and it was coming from the direction of the Soviet Union. That’s the only conclusion I could come to. But this was 1982; Russia was caught up in Afghanistan.
I walked into one of the now-decimated houses. “Is anyone here?” I called—first in English, then in German.
When I came to what would have been the living room, a man was standing there holding a Colt Peacemaker. “Sit down, Mister Smith,” he said in a condescending Liverpool accent, gesturing me to one of the chairs.
I did so. What else could I do? “Who on Earth do you think you are?” I demanded. “I’m a citizen of the United Kingdom and an ambassador on behalf of Her Majesty’s government—”
“You are a pawn in a game that’s been happening before you were even in diapers,” the man replied. “Didn’t you hear what happened to the last ambassador to East Germany? He retired. But he’s only forty-six, Mister Smith.” He paused for a second. “You’re a pawn and you never even knew it.”
“You haven’t answered my question.”
“Call me Boots. You don’t need to know who I work for, needless to say it’s one of those three-letter agencies that can get you into a lot of trouble if it were so inclined.”
MI5, probably, I thought. Or the SAS. Who else would send someone like him around?
And I’m going to tell you now, Mister Smith, that this bombing was planned.” A sixth bomb fell. “And we have been planning it for a very long time…do you know what this is going to do? It’s going to put the Cold War in our favour permanently. That is a very good thing, Mister Smith.”
“Boots, our government would never do such a thing. It goes totally against the principles of democracy—”
“Why? Because self-centred assholes are cut off from the decision-making process for once? When have you ever known the people to get the vote on when their country goes to war, Mister Smith? Letting people vote on something they know nothing about is not an effective way of running countries.
“Of course, you’re right, it does go against the principles of demokrattia, doesn’t it? We’ve cut the people off from their power, and when they catch wind of what’s happened the Thatcher government is on its way out for letting it happen. Of course the people should vote on what the military does.
“But we’re fighting a war in the Falklands now. Russia is caught up in Afghanistan. We won’t have a new war in Europe just yet. No, we’ll just have the Red Army going back to Moscow and the Iron Curtain falling. Yes, this has undermined democracy in its purist form, but almost everything that happens out here undermines democracy. This is the land of the Iron Curtain."
He laughed. “We’re going to start a new war, eventually. But it won’t be a war between us and Russia, Mister Smith, or even a war between us and East Germany…no, this war is going to be between Russia and East Germany. Germany will be crushed, of course. But we will have destroyed some of the Soviet Union’s most important facilities by the end of today.
“Nor,” he continued, “is this a war that’s going to start immediately. It’ll take months for either side to rebuild their facilities to any meaningful capacity. It’ll take months to see this war break out, not days or weeks.”
“But this is East Berlin, not Moscow or Leningrad.” I pause for a moment. “Damnation! You’ve bombed the wrong city!”
“No. You don’t comprehend at all. We’re bombing all the major cities in the Soviet bloc, and it’s going to look like they did it to themselves. There are going to be quite a lot of angry east Europeans very soon, Mister Smith, and it’s going to be on Russia’s hands.”
“How could you do this? Don’t you care at all about human lives? What if the Russians were doing this to us?”
“The Russians can’t do this to us, they’re too busy killing their own fucking people or trying to steal military secrets from America to be worried about what’s happening in Berlin…don’t you see, Mister Smith? This is brilliant.” He laughs again, grins broadly and holds his arms out wide. “The Cold War is ours, Mister Smith—not the Americans’, or the Russians’, or China’s, but ours! We, the United Kingdom, will have won the Cold War.”
“If winning the Cold War is your only objective, then I was never a pawn in your game, Boots.”
“You were a pawn, Mister Smith; you were a pawn who never knew what he was! Your task was to keep the eyes of the Germans off us for long enough for us to set this all up and in that task you succeeded wonderfully. Relations between East Germany and the United Kingdom have never been better! But we’re going to send them all to hell and back because they’re not like us, Mister Smith—they’re the largest threat to modern democracy the world has ever seen.”
“This act of subversion isn’t a patriotic act, Boots! What happened to the patriotism of our men?”
“This world isn’t run by patriots…do you think any leader outside of the democratic first world is a patriot? Lenin was the only true Russian patriot, Mister Smith, and he was the only one. None in Russia have been patriots since he died. And to fight a war against those who aren’t patriots, you can’t afford to be a patriot, either.”
Another bomb fell. “I’m a patriot and I’ve dedicated my entire life to serving my country, Boots! Hundreds of thousands do the same thing across the world. Surely it counts for something!”
“NO!” he shouted. “It counts for naught. Patriotism counts for naught in this world where it’s all about whose team can beat the others the fastest…what matters is how smart you are…in this world, you could only ever be the pawn sent out to save a knight or take a queen.”
“But my life…I’ve only just started…”
“Your life has been used,” said Boots, almost at a whisper now. “You have served your country in the most honourable way…but our ways are not your ways. You would have lived as a sheep among wolves, Mister Smith, and that is not a nice way for anyone, Mister Smith. We are the ones who walk through the valley of shadows, and that in itself comforts us…if things had have been different, you could have been trained to be one of us, Mister Smith.
“But you were always a pig made for slaughter. If you survive and are withdrawn to London, the Soviets will know what happened here and their eyes will turn to us. And we can’t leave you here, knowing what you know.” He points the Peacemaker at me. “What we can do, however, is get rid of the problem altogether.”
And Boots fired. In that moment, the world, for me, became the valley of shadows and I found no comfort in it.
I quickly dropped for cover. A second bomb dropped, and then a third, a fourth, and a fifth. Buildings crashed around me. I looked up, the blocks immediately surrounding me gone. This wasn’t an assassination attempt, otherwise a truck would have crashed into my car or an enraged gunman arrived at my house, or the secret police would have dealt with me personally.
This was, in fact, a declaration of war on East Germany, and it was coming from the direction of the Soviet Union. That’s the only conclusion I could come to. But this was 1982; Russia was caught up in Afghanistan.
I walked into one of the now-decimated houses. “Is anyone here?” I called—first in English, then in German.
When I came to what would have been the living room, a man was standing there holding a Colt Peacemaker. “Sit down, Mister Smith,” he said in a condescending Liverpool accent, gesturing me to one of the chairs.
I did so. What else could I do? “Who on Earth do you think you are?” I demanded. “I’m a citizen of the United Kingdom and an ambassador on behalf of Her Majesty’s government—”
“You are a pawn in a game that’s been happening before you were even in diapers,” the man replied. “Didn’t you hear what happened to the last ambassador to East Germany? He retired. But he’s only forty-six, Mister Smith.” He paused for a second. “You’re a pawn and you never even knew it.”
“You haven’t answered my question.”
“Call me Boots. You don’t need to know who I work for, needless to say it’s one of those three-letter agencies that can get you into a lot of trouble if it were so inclined.”
MI5, probably, I thought. Or the SAS. Who else would send someone like him around?
And I’m going to tell you now, Mister Smith, that this bombing was planned.” A sixth bomb fell. “And we have been planning it for a very long time…do you know what this is going to do? It’s going to put the Cold War in our favour permanently. That is a very good thing, Mister Smith.”
“Boots, our government would never do such a thing. It goes totally against the principles of democracy—”
“Why? Because self-centred assholes are cut off from the decision-making process for once? When have you ever known the people to get the vote on when their country goes to war, Mister Smith? Letting people vote on something they know nothing about is not an effective way of running countries.
“Of course, you’re right, it does go against the principles of demokrattia, doesn’t it? We’ve cut the people off from their power, and when they catch wind of what’s happened the Thatcher government is on its way out for letting it happen. Of course the people should vote on what the military does.
“But we’re fighting a war in the Falklands now. Russia is caught up in Afghanistan. We won’t have a new war in Europe just yet. No, we’ll just have the Red Army going back to Moscow and the Iron Curtain falling. Yes, this has undermined democracy in its purist form, but almost everything that happens out here undermines democracy. This is the land of the Iron Curtain."
He laughed. “We’re going to start a new war, eventually. But it won’t be a war between us and Russia, Mister Smith, or even a war between us and East Germany…no, this war is going to be between Russia and East Germany. Germany will be crushed, of course. But we will have destroyed some of the Soviet Union’s most important facilities by the end of today.
“Nor,” he continued, “is this a war that’s going to start immediately. It’ll take months for either side to rebuild their facilities to any meaningful capacity. It’ll take months to see this war break out, not days or weeks.”
“But this is East Berlin, not Moscow or Leningrad.” I pause for a moment. “Damnation! You’ve bombed the wrong city!”
“No. You don’t comprehend at all. We’re bombing all the major cities in the Soviet bloc, and it’s going to look like they did it to themselves. There are going to be quite a lot of angry east Europeans very soon, Mister Smith, and it’s going to be on Russia’s hands.”
“How could you do this? Don’t you care at all about human lives? What if the Russians were doing this to us?”
“The Russians can’t do this to us, they’re too busy killing their own fucking people or trying to steal military secrets from America to be worried about what’s happening in Berlin…don’t you see, Mister Smith? This is brilliant.” He laughs again, grins broadly and holds his arms out wide. “The Cold War is ours, Mister Smith—not the Americans’, or the Russians’, or China’s, but ours! We, the United Kingdom, will have won the Cold War.”
“If winning the Cold War is your only objective, then I was never a pawn in your game, Boots.”
“You were a pawn, Mister Smith; you were a pawn who never knew what he was! Your task was to keep the eyes of the Germans off us for long enough for us to set this all up and in that task you succeeded wonderfully. Relations between East Germany and the United Kingdom have never been better! But we’re going to send them all to hell and back because they’re not like us, Mister Smith—they’re the largest threat to modern democracy the world has ever seen.”
“This act of subversion isn’t a patriotic act, Boots! What happened to the patriotism of our men?”
“This world isn’t run by patriots…do you think any leader outside of the democratic first world is a patriot? Lenin was the only true Russian patriot, Mister Smith, and he was the only one. None in Russia have been patriots since he died. And to fight a war against those who aren’t patriots, you can’t afford to be a patriot, either.”
Another bomb fell. “I’m a patriot and I’ve dedicated my entire life to serving my country, Boots! Hundreds of thousands do the same thing across the world. Surely it counts for something!”
“NO!” he shouted. “It counts for naught. Patriotism counts for naught in this world where it’s all about whose team can beat the others the fastest…what matters is how smart you are…in this world, you could only ever be the pawn sent out to save a knight or take a queen.”
“But my life…I’ve only just started…”
“Your life has been used,” said Boots, almost at a whisper now. “You have served your country in the most honourable way…but our ways are not your ways. You would have lived as a sheep among wolves, Mister Smith, and that is not a nice way for anyone, Mister Smith. We are the ones who walk through the valley of shadows, and that in itself comforts us…if things had have been different, you could have been trained to be one of us, Mister Smith.
“But you were always a pig made for slaughter. If you survive and are withdrawn to London, the Soviets will know what happened here and their eyes will turn to us. And we can’t leave you here, knowing what you know.” He points the Peacemaker at me. “What we can do, however, is get rid of the problem altogether.”
And Boots fired. In that moment, the world, for me, became the valley of shadows and I found no comfort in it.