The Helsinki Pact (5 page)

Suddenly, the background thumping
of the drill over the raucous music stopped and was replaced by
erratic dull thuds. The music stopped as well and shortly
afterwards Klaus appeared through the basement door.

“We’ve done it! Bernhard cut
through nearly all of it – it was over half a metre thick at one
point. I think they’d just tipped concrete in here and there to
fill up holes they’d left, real cheapjack building. Anyway, there’s
a big hole in the floor now so we’re OK.”

The three of them worked in pairs
in half hour shifts during the afternoon and late into the evening,
camouflaged for sound by a variety of bands, one person digging and
another filling the sacks with excavated soil and rubble. At first
it was easy. They dug down a metre below the floor and then started
a horizontal, slightly sloping tunnel west towards
Alexanderplatz.

As Kai ended a digging shift he
stretched and casually tried to lift one of the filled
bags.

“God! That’s heavy!” He lifted it
again, raising it from the floor with difficulty, and walked a few
paces round the room before it slipped from his hands. “Do we have
to fill them so much? That’s not going to be easy moving them up
stairs and out to the van. And if Schwinewitch is around ...
”

“But we’re also running out of
bags. Look, we’ve already filled ten out of the ones I brought over
and that’s before we’ve even really started on the proper tunnel.
I’d no idea the earth was going to be so heavy or so bulky, once
we’d dug it out. This isn’t going to work is it? We’ve got ten,
twenty times as much to dig out, how can we carry all that out
without being seen? And if we don’t do that where can we put it
all? Maybe we should just forget the whole idea.” Klaus sat down
gloomily on one of the filled bags.

“Bugger that! I’m not forgetting
it.” said Kai furiously. “I’ve had enough of this country and I’m
getting out. And this tunnel is how we’re going to do
it.”

“I don’t like it here either but
there’s just too many things that could go wrong. " Klaus objected.
"It’s not just shifting the earth. Alexanderplatz is still used for
the other lines isn’t it? There’ll be people around, passengers,
police, Stasi, everyone you don’t want, till midnight anyway,
probably later. I bet there are guards patrolling when it’s closed
as well.”

“I’ve been into all this with
Thomas and we’ve checked things out. Yes, the station’s still used
but it’s an entirely different part, different lines. The bit we're
breaking into is really another station completely. No one’s going
to be around in that part, not even maintenance. No one’s been
there for years. It’s completely shut off, deserted.”

“I still don’t like it.” said
Klaus. “The more I think of it now the more crackpot it seems.
Someone’s going to hear us or see or we’ll get run over by a train
or step on the life rail or something. And you know what happens if
we get caught. If we’re lucky not to get shot trying to escape
we’ll be in jail for ever. The foreman was complaining about
shortage of bags this morning and fussing about the drill not being
where he’d left it. And this thing about getting rid of the earth
has tipped it for me. It’s just too risky.”

“I’m with Kai.” said Bernard.
“Everything’s risky but I’m getting out, whatever it takes. I’ll
eat the fucking earth myself if that’s the only way we can get rid
of it, just to get out of this shitty country. We’ll work something
out tomorrow. Come on, Klaus. Let’s get these tools back to the van
and you can give me a lift home.”

Chapter 3

Sunday September 3
through to Saturday September 9 1989

BERNHARD and Klaus returned
together the following day, Sunday. Klaus was reluctant, nervous
and anxious about getting caught and ending up either shot or
imprisoned but Bernhard had insisted Klaus drive him
over.

“Think about what you can do when
you get there!” said Kai. “Think of the freedom. None of this
looking over your shoulder all the time. None of this thinking
twice before you say anything. And you’re a skilled carpenter,
you’ll be able to pick up a job in no time. Think of the money
you’ll make! Think of all the rubbish you’ll be able to buy, stuff
which you just can't get here!”

“True. And I do think of that. I
want that. But I also think how really risky it is. And then
there’s Ingrid. You know Ingrid, Bernhard, she's in accounts. Well,
we’ve got together and sometimes she stays over. I don’t want to
lose her.”

“Well, you certainly can’t take
her, not right now anyway!" Bernhard looked startled. He'd known
vaguely of Klaus's interest but hadn't taken it very seriously.
"You’ve not said anything to her, have you? No hints, no pillow
talk?”

“I’ve said nothing. What do you
take me for?" Klaus was indignant. He sat down. "Why are you
looking at me like that. Anyway, why would it matter? Ulrike knows
all about it and she’s coming with us. You've not got a girlfriend,
Bernhard, but Ingrid and I are getting close. Maybe I’d like to
take her. Maybe she’d want to come. What would be wrong with
that?”

Bernhard glanced at Kai. “You
know where her father works, don’t you? Normannenstrasse. He’s head
of the division that controls this sector." He walked over and
stood directly in front of Klaus, leaned close as Klaus stood up.
"I like you, Klaus, I do, but if I find out you’ve said a word to
Ingrid, dropped a hint, anything, anything at all, I’ll break your
fucking neck. Don’t think I won’t. That heavy machinery I work can
cause accidents if I get a bit careless. And if Kai and I get
picked up first, well, I’ve some pretty good mates on the site.” He
laughed. “We’re the Stasi of the heavy plant operators, we know
exactly what’s going on and how to deal with it.”

He made a shudder at Klaus and
growled theatrically in his face. “We’re ruthless!”

He threw an arm around Klaus’s
shoulder. “Look Klaus, no cunt’s worth it. Send for her later if
you want. OK, let’s get working. I’ll start digging and you fill
the bags. How about getting us some coffee, Kai?”

Working in shifts as before they
made good progress, opening up over a metre of the tunnel by late
Sunday evening. Kai, smaller and slighter than the others and with
a desk job, found it harder. By the time they stopped his muscles
were aching, he was drenched with sweat and it was with difficulty
that he was able to stand upright. He groaned and tried to
stretch.

“Ugh! I don’t think I can survive
another fortnight, maybe more even, of this! You’ll have to carry
me through the tunnel when we finish, I think. But, seriously,
guys, I’m excited about it. We’ve only got evenings now till next
weekend but I’m going to take a day off, maybe Wednesday, say I’m
sick or something. How about one of you doing the same?”

“I guess I could.” said Bernhard.
“Not Wednesday, though. Maybe Friday when we’re less busy, or
Thursday. I’ll sort something out, get one of my mates to cover.
I’ll let you know tomorrow.”

All the bags had been filled by
midday and they’d been forced to start building a spoil heap of
excavated earth in a corner of the room. Bernhard walked over and
looked at the mound, then dropped into the hole and looked over the
tunnel start.

“I don’t like this, though. We’re
going to run out of space well before the end. We can reduce the
tunnel dimensions a bit, maybe. A metre 75 height is nice but we
could get away with a metre, I think, maybe a metre 20, and, what,
maybe three quarters wide, less if we can stand it. Can’t not
doavoid the shoring up either. I don’t fancy being buried by a roof
fall.”

“Well, we’ve tried carrying the
stuff out to the van and that’s hopeless.” said Klaus. “That woman
caretaker was watching me when I carried the bags out and when I
did the second lot she was on to me, asking what I was up to. Told
her I was helping you clear out old junk, Kai, but she’s not going
to believe that, day after day. Something will go wrong and we’ll
be caught.”

“Room nine is empty.” said Kai
suddenly. “I’m sure of it. That’s three doors down the corridor
from this one. It’s the old couple on the floor below me. They find
it hard enough getting up three flights to their apartment so they
almost never go out, let alone down here. I know them a bit and
they’re OK so I’ll find out what the score is. That one's got a
padlock, not a mortice, so that's good. Bernhard, can you get some
bolt cutters and a new padlock and we’ll start moving the stuff in
there.”

They dug on through the following
week starting each evening at seven and putting in four and
sometime even five or more hours. On the Friday both Kai and
Bernhard called in sick to their work and by the end of the evening
they’d hit the ten metre mark. They had been forced to change
direction twice, once because of a water pipe exactly in their path
which forced them downwards another half metre, and then because of
a huge slab of rock too big and hard to break through and which
seemed endless as they dug round it. Kai and Bernhard had bickered
about whether to go left or right. They’d tossed a coin, dug to
their right for a couple of metres without success, bickered again,
and Bernhard had finally broken through by going a metre to the
left. At least, the consoled themselves, they now had a large,
roomy chamber about half way along, useful for storing tools and
bags.

But now it was getting
increasingly difficult. There was little air in the tunnel and
hardly any room to manoeuvre. Wary about Frau Schwinewitz’s
snooping they’d decided to wait to the Saturday morning to shift as
much soil as they could into the neighbouring room. Till then they
had no option but to pile up the excavated earth in the room and
they’d already filled over half the cellar, floor to ceiling. Klaus
had stolen a further twenty bags and the forty remaining, filled to
bursting, sat in one corner, piled high on themselves in a shaky
edifice which made everyone near it wary and which they resented
because of the time spent juggling earth and bags around to fit in
the small space.

On one occasion Kai had grown
dizzy and collapsed as he’d crawled back and might well have
suffocated had Bernhard, alarmed that he’d missed his shift change,
not gone looking for him and dragged him out. They’d discussed
trying to buy breathing equipment but in the end settled for
installing a long plastic pipe back to the cellar which they could
grab and get fairly fresh air through it if they began to feel
faint.

One evening they returned to find
that there had been a minor fall as part of the roof had collapsed
and they’d then had to waste more time and space shoring up better
the sides and building roof supports for a three metre stretch. Kai
tried not to think about the many tonnes of material directly
overhead and about what would happened if the roof gave way while
anyone was under it.. Most of the time they’d had to work in the
dark or using a small lantern battery torch as the heat from the
electric lamp they’d brought quickly became intolerable.

Klaus had been becoming more and
more withdrawn as he worked, grunting in response to comments and
ignoring the banter of the others as they dealt with the various
problems that kept occurring. On Saturday Kai repeated his
monitoring of a fortnight earlier, looking down from the top floor
to watch for Frau Schwinewitz’s departure to her debriefing
meeting. Ten minutes after she’d left Bernhard snapped off the
existing padlock on the room three doors away and hung on the
staple a second hand lock resembling the original. They crowded
into the room, relieved to find it empty.

“Hey, it’s just like mine. A few
trips shifting that earth over and it’ll be even more like mine!
I’m going to paint the floor with a drawing of a jagged concrete
hole and a tunnel entrance. Make me feel at home. What do you
think, guys?”

Klaus grunted and returned a few
moments later, dragging one of the sacks behind him, then emptied
it in the far corner. Bernhard carried one from one room to the
other and did the same but when Kai attempted it he could only drag
the sack, spilling earth on to the corridor floor as he went and
treading and scuffing it into the surface.

“Kai, get a brush and a cloth,
maybe some water too, to clean all this up. Your snooping
caretaker’s going to go apeshit if she finds all this earth around.
She'll suspect something and start watching you closely. We can’t
risk that. Go on. Klaus and I’ll carry the bags over and empty
them. You can stay in the room and fill them up for us.”

At midday, their limbs aching and
their faces and hands streaked with dirt, they took a break,
looking with satisfaction at the greatly reduced pile of dirt in
the tunnel room. Kai brought down coffee, a pail of water and some
old cloths to clean themselves up when they’d finished.

“When does Schwinesnitch usually
get back?” Bernhard asked.

“Half two, two maybe, something
like that. Once she got back at one but mostly it’s been later.
We’re safe for another half hour at least, I’d say, maybe another
half hour after that. We should just about clear it completely in
that time. I’ll go up to the hall with the alarm device at one,
though, to be safe.”

Klaus stood, drained his coffee,
dragged a bag over the floor, hoisted it on to his shoulder as he
opened the door, stepped into the corridor and moments later burst
back in and slid the bolt across.