Berlin Encounter (12 page)

It was a totally different Hans Hechter who woke him. A frantic, frightened Hans. Shaking him roughly, hissing softly, “Up, get up! We must flee!”

Sally was already out of bed and flinging clothes over her nightgown while Jake was still fighting off the fog of insufficient sleep. “What time—”

But hands were already jerking him up and onto his feet. “They have found me,” an anxious voice whispered as Sally came around the bed and began tossing clothes at him.

“Who?” Jake’s mind moved a half-step behind his fingers, which was why he buttoned his shirt up lopsided and tried to fit feet into the wrong shoes.

Hans was bundling him toward the door when it exploded inward and the heavyset woman hurried in. Her nightshirt was as great as a sail, and it billowed out around her as she shouldered past. “Down the back,” she whispered. “Through the closet, into the sewers, hurry.” Then she slid into bed, pulled the covers up to her curlers, and commenced to wave them frantically out and away.

With Hans pulling and Sally pushing, Jake had little choice but go with the flow. His mind remained sluggish, and his feet scuffled blindly until two steps into the hallway he heard the ice-chilling voice. “I asked you a simple question, Herr Schreiner. I suggest you not try my patience any further. Did you or did you not speak with a certain trader at what the locals call the chapel market?”

The cadaver. Jake came awake with electric suddenness, recognizing the voice of the rocket plant’s political officer.

“And I told you as clearly as I know how,” the big man rumbled back. His voice sounded bored and sleepy and irritated with being disturbed. “I talk with every trader who comes through. It is part of my job of keeping order. Tall and dark hair and a strong face could describe a dozen of them. More.”

“Your job,” the officer sneered. “All right, then. He was traveling with one or both of these two men. Look carefully, Herr Schreiner. Your very life depends upon it.”

“Ah, why didn’t you say you had photographs.” The bear’s voice receded into the distance as together they scurried down the hall, ducked into the dank chamber used as a hold-all for medicines, lifted Sally up and through the hole which opened into the sewer. “Yes, this blond one. He looks familiar. But I’m not exactly sure—”

“Search the place,” snapped the officer, granting Jake the adrenaline surge he needed to grab the lantern hanging on the wall, then lift himself one-handed up and through the hole and follow Hans and Sally down the dark concrete tunnel.

They stumbled around two turnings before stopping and lighting the lantern. Their faces looked strained and hollowed from the fright. Hans looked at Jake and asked, “What do we do now?”

“I don’t know,” Jake whispered, his voice still shaky from the shock. “From what Karl said, the border is sealed tight as a drum.”

“I have to go back,” Sally said.

Jake shook his head. “We can’t risk it. Not for us, not for Karl. He said there were informers in his congregation.”

“I
have
to,” Sally countered. “In the rush I left my passport. I don’t have any papers.”

Jake opened his mouth to criticize, then slapped his own pockets, and confessed, “Neither do I. Or money.”

Back around the corner there was the faint sound of voices. Instantly Jake lowered the lantern’s flame to a dull glow. The voices called back and forth in what was clearly Russian. Then there was the sound of grunting, the snick of metal on stone, the splash of footfall in water.

They turned and fled.

———

By midday they were running on empty. Stumbling in hunger and exhaustion, jerking at every sound, feeble with the fear that there was no escape.

There were checkpoints everywhere. Soviet military vehicles filled the streets not choked with rubble. Civilians went about their business with furtive haste, scurrying from place to place with heads bowed and eyes sweeping everywhere, jumping into shadows or doorways or ruins at the sound of approaching vehicles. In that, at least, Jake and Hans and Sally looked like all the others.

Twice they had circled back toward the ruined manor and Karl’s cellar, but they had been stymied by soldiers posted at corners and searching all buildings extending out from the chapel market.

Hunger gnawed at Jake’s middle. They did not have a cent between them. Passing food stalls, especially the ones grilling black-market meat, was agony. He could not look at Sally’s drawn and haggard face without feeling a rising panic. They had to do something, and fast.

They crouched in the doorway of an apartment building, hooded by makeshift repairs holding up the crumbling facade. Jake looked from one spent face to the other and felt his determination harden. “We’ve got to make a run for it. They can’t be watching every inch of the border area. There has to be some place we can cross.”

“Twilight,” Hans said, his voice chalky with weariness. “At night they search with lights and dogs.”

Jake looked at him. “You know Berlin?”

“Some. We are approaching the university. I have lectured there from time to time. Beyond that is the central city.”

“How far to the western border?”

Hans closed his eyes, the strain of concentrating tensing his features. “The closest point is about a half kilometer to our left. Another half-kilometer beyond that, perhaps less, lies the Brandenburg Gate.”

Jake gripped Sally’s hand, willing his strength into her. “Let’s go.”

They continued to skirt the main ways wherever possible, but were drawn unwillingly onto the thoroughfares when smaller streets became impassable. On one such instance, Jake caught sight of something that caused him to pause. Sally took it as another alarm, and started to draw into the closest doorway. “It’s okay,” he murmured. Then to Hans, “What do you make of it?”

“I’m not sure,” the scientist said uncertainly. “But they appear to be headed toward the western sector.”

Jake continued to stare down the connecting street, watching as what appeared to be a continual stream of civilians headed down the thoroughfare paralleling theirs. All of them were headed west.

“Russians,” Sally whispered.

They slipped around the corner, and continued holding to smaller ways. Another two blocks, however, and a caved-in office building left them with no choice but to return to the thoroughfare. This time they almost ran headlong into a Russian jeep. But they slipped back unnoticed. The jeep’s four passengers were all watching one street over, where the tide of civilians was growing ever larger.

Jake waited for the jeep to pass, searched in both directions, then said, “Across the street, hurry.”

“Where are we going?”

“Might be safety in numbers,” Jake said. “At least as far as they’re headed.”

They crossed the thoroughfare, hastened down a narrow way, clambered over a hill of broken bricks and concrete, and stopped in the corner’s shadows.

The stream of civilians had reached flood proportions. Hundreds and hundreds of people, most of them young, walked purposefully by. There was no talk, no banners, no anger or raised fists or clubs or pickets. Almost all the young men wore coats and ties, the women dresses and matching jackets.

Sally murmured, “What on earth?”

Jake shook his head, studied the determined young faces, saw how the political police and the Russian soldiers lining the way watched but made no move to stop them. He had no reply.

Then Hans pointed and said, “I know that man. Come on!”

Before Jake could think of an objection, Hans had already pulled him away from the shadow’s safety and out and into the stream. They worked their way over toward an older bearded gentleman dressed in tweeds and hat and starched shirt and tie. It was only on closer inspection that Jake could see the coat’s multiple patches, the frayed collar edge, the caverns that years of perpetual hunger had hollowed beneath the neatly cropped beard. Still, the eyes were bright and intelligent, the hands active as he punctuated his discussion with the pair of students who walked alongside him.

Then he caught sight of who approached and raised up to full height. “Hans! What in heaven’s name are you doing here?”

“I should ask you the same thing,” Hans replied, falling in alongside the older man.

“We are leaving,” he replied simply, his eyes upon Jake.

“May I introduce,” Hans said, and covered the hesitation by turning and placing a proprietorial arm upon Jake’s shoulder. Then his blue eyes glinted with a faint trace of humor, and he went on, “Dr. Jakob Burnes and Frau Burnes. Perhaps you are familiar with his work on philosophy and metaphysics? He is quite famous in some quarters. It did not save him and his wife, however, from being rousted by our new masters.” Hans indicated the old man with a nod of his head. “This is Dr. Ronald Hammer, head of Berlin University’s renowned physics department.”

“Burnes, Burnes, no, I can’t say . . .” The old man waved his hand. “No matter. You are most welcome, of course.” He glanced at Hechter’s rumpled and dirty form. “You are in trouble?”

“I am a wanted man,” Hans confessed readily. “As is Dr. Burnes and his charming wife. Can you help us?”

“Perhaps, perhaps not. We are, as I said, leaving.”

“Who?” Hans demanded, matching his step to the old man. “Leaving what?”

“All of us,” Hammer replied simply. “The entire Berlin University. This very day. Students, professors, administration, even most of the janitors. Sixty thousand people, more or less. We see the hand of oppression tightening upon us once again, and we are departing.”

“Will they let you out?”

The old man nodded ahead, toward the towering Brandenburg Gate. “That,” he replied, “we shall see soon enough.”

The gate was a mammoth affair, huge pillars rising to support a vast and ornately carved frieze. Upon the broad platform raced a divine chariot powered by mammoth winged beasts, the charioteer raising the crown of victory high toward the heavens. The closer they drew to the gate, the thicker the crowd became. Dr. Hammer was clearly well known and was permitted passage closer toward the front. Hans and Jake and Sally kept by his side and allowed themselves to be drawn further and further through the throng.

“The Free University of Berlin, it shall be called,” Jake heard a voice ahead of him say. Despite the crowd’s vast size, the people were so quiet that the words carried easily. “We shall found it in the western sector, if they will have us.”

“That is the university chancellor,” Hans said quietly. “A very brave man.”

Dr. Hammer continued his gradual progress forward until Jake was able to make out a very erect old gentleman in university robes and a great mane of snow-white hair confronting a red-faced Russian officer. “You are gathered without permit,” the officer rasped, his German carrying growling Russian overtones. “You are breaking the law.”

“Then shoot us,” the chancellor shouted back. “Show the entire world what your true colors are.” He waved his arm beyond the three tanks and squads of Soviet soldiers to where the western correspondents stood massed. A pair of flatbed trucks had been backed up as close to the checkpoint as they could manage. At least a dozen cameramen stood crouched over their apparatuses, filming it all. “Either that,” the chancellor cried, “or stand aside and let us go. For go or die we shall!”

With that he nodded once toward the massed assemblage, then turned and started for the checkpoint. As one, the crowd surged forward behind him. The Soviet officer raged a moment, raised his fist in threat, but as his soldiers raised their guns, the officer glanced over toward the cameramen. The officer dropped his hand, barked an order, and stepped back, defeated. The soldiers lowered their guns and moved out of the way.

In absolute silence, the gathering herded forward, carrying Jake and Sally and Hans along with them. Jake looked around as they passed under the great gate, passed the raised yellow barrier, passed the correspondents and the western soldiers. All in silence. Not even the newspapermen dared break the power of that quiet moment.

Then they were past, and Jake’s chest unlocked, and he could breathe again. Sally turned and swept into his arms. Hans deflated from his stiff posture, his shoulders slumping so far his chest went concave. They were through.

Jake motioned for Hans to follow them. Together they worked their way to the corner of the crowd, past the first line of soldiers, and into the guardhouse.

“I’m sorry, sir,” the guard officer said, his voice still harboring awe from the scene. “You can’t come in here.”

“My name is Colonel Jake Burnes, NATO Intelligence.” Suddenly Jake found himself so weak he had to lean on the wall for support. “I was told if I made it through to ask for an Uncle Charles.”

The lieutenant’s eyes popped wide open. “Yessir, I know about that one. Corporal, shut the door. Are these two people with you, Colonel?”

“They are indeed,” Jake said, weakened even further with relief of being known and expected. And safe. Finally, finally safe. He felt Sally sway and held her close as he asked, “Could you find my wife a chair?”

“Your wife? I mean, yessir.” The lieutenant snapped to action, lifted the chair from behind the corner desk. “Here, ma’am, you look all done in.” Then to Jake, “The whole army’s on the lookout for you, seems like, sir. Every guard detail here gets a call from some brass over at HQ, wanting to make sure we know what to do if you show up. I mean, when, sir.”

“And what is that?” Jake asked, fatigue granting him patience.

“Call General Clay or Colonel Rayburn,” the lieutenant snapped out, then realized what Jake meant. “Oh, right, sure. I’ll do it now, sir.”

“Excellent,” Jake said. “And in the meantime, ask your corporal to find us something to eat.”

“No problem, sir,” the lieutenant said, motioning toward the door with his head. A soldier jumped to comply. As he dialed, the lieutenant glanced in Hans’s direction and asked, “They’ll want to know who it is accompanying you, sir.”

Jake looked to where Hans stood propped in one corner, gray with exhaustion and hunger and confusion and released strain. And new fears. Jake waited until the scientist reluctantly met his gaze before speaking. “Tell them,” Jake replied, “I travel with a friend.”