The Helsinki Pact (56 page)

He smiled as he remembered how
Dieter had asked him to investigate in the utmost secrecy who
within the Stasi was connected with Phoenix. "Interesting." Sponden
had said when he'd told him. "Let's give him a few names - you can
feed them slowly to him. That'll give him something to think
about."

"Bohm", Hanno had said first of
all, "and that KGB guy, Putin, too I think. He's playing a very
devious game." Dieter had looked hard at him and he'd been tempted
to say "Mielke" to see what effect that produced but he'd left it
and now, carrying out Sponden's orders, it was too late, which was
a shame he thought.

He heard the sound of the old
woman dragging herself back to the door, announcing her return with
her gun, and immediately raced to his car, several streets away. He
opened the boot, scrabbling around until he found the large lump of
metal he kept there to smack the bar when undoing tight wheel nuts
and from the tool kit he picked out a screwdriver and a tyre lever.
He slammed the boot lid shut, grabbed his own gun from the glove
compartment, and raced back.

"Stand back from the door!" he
shouted, placing the blade of the screwdriver in the gap of the
door at the level of the lock and smashed at the haft with the
weight, cursing as the wooden handle of the screwdriver split in
two and fell off. At least there was now a larger gap into which he
was able to fit one end of the tyre lever. With two or three blows
the lock was pushed back off the screws holding it and a swift
wrench with the lever freed the door completely. He burst in,
pointing his gun at Frau Schwinewitz and showing her his badge with
his left hand.

“Where is she? What about the
roof? Is that a possible escape route here?”

Frau Schwinewitz pointed up the
stairs. “There’s two of them there. Mr Room ..., Room ... ." She
ferreted around, deep in her mind trying to dredge up memories.
"Room ... , Rumpel, yes, that's who it is. Rumpel!" She was silent,
looking at nothing, blinking her eyes. There was something she knew
she should know but couldn't remember. Hanno grabbed her by the arm
and shook her hard. "Mr Rumpel. Yes, and his girlfriend. They're
both there."

Hanno had bounded to the first
half landing before she’d finished speaking, exulting at the
thought of a double bounty if he found Thomas as well. And if
Thomas wasn’t there he would return and so it was just a case of
waiting for him. Things were turning out well! He raced up the
stairs then crept quietly up the last flight, gun in hand, and
listened at the door. There was a very faint whirring noise with an
occasional squeak which he couldn't identify but otherwise silence.
He listened again then moved back the width of the landing and
launched himself hard at the door, planting his boot on the mortice
lock which gave with a sharp crack, the lower part of the door
splitting away. With his shoulder he smashed open the upper part
and stumbled in to the room, gun ready.

A large TEAC recorder, reel was
still turning, was the first thing he noticed.almost the only sign
that the apartment had been used. He looked for a moment at the
three dirty cups by the sink, one of them slightly warm, and
wondered what that might mean. Why three? He'd need to remain
particularly alert, he thought. But the few rooms and cupboards
were empty of anyone and there was no trace of an attic entrance.
He stood on the small balcony and looked down. It was clearly
impossible for Bettina to have jumped down without killing herself.
Climbing down might just have been possible but would have been
very difficult and in any case there was no obvious exit from the
internal courtyard except back into the building. He leant as far
out as he could from the balcony and looked up but the roof was a
good five or six metres above it and it looked impossible to reach.
It was obvious no one could be there.

In the hallway Frau Schwinewitz
was waiting patiently and as she stood there scraps of memory
floated into her consciousness. There had been something earlier,
something similar which had damaged her, given her this limp,
something in this building. There had been a chase. A woman.
Rumpel, perhaps, and another man. No, two men and she’d been
attacked. There was something else. Something important but she
couldn’t remember. Darkness and pain.

“The apartment’s empty. No one is
there. She's hiding in one of the others. We’ll search them all.
Get your keys.”

Obediently Frau Schwinewitz began
her dragging shuffle back to her apartment and then stopped,
turning slowly to face Hanno, struggling to put scraps of memory
into order.

“The basement. They’ve dug a
hole. A tunnel. That bastard. And his girlfriend. She's not always
here but I saw her today. Going out. Rumpel. That's the bastard
that did this to me." Her face crumpled, she beat with a withered
hand at her useless leg and then screamed suddenly and loudly, high
and keening, startling Hanno as the echoes reverberated round the
hall.

She shuffled over to the grey
door leading to the basement, took out her small bunch of keys and
tried to open it, then pushed feebly against it. She battered her
fists on the door, her fury returning. “That’s where they are. I
remember now.” She screamed again. "I remember. The
tunnel."

Again Hanno smashed at the door
with his shoulder, this time nearly tumbling down the steps as it
suddenly cracked open.

Frau Schwinewitz pointed into the
darkess. “Go there, all the steps, right to the bottom. Follow the
main corridor. Go right to the end. It’s the last door. I remember
now. I remember!” She shook her head like a bull, dart-struck in
the neck, unable to raise its head, groaning with impotent rage.
"Now I remember! The last door. Right at the end." she screamed,
flailing her leg with her arm as she turned and dragged her body
back to her apartment.

Chapter 47

Sunday January 21
1990, evening

HANNO ran quickly down the
stairs, snapping on lights as he went. Reaching the basement he
switched on the corridor light and moved cautiously, gun at the
ready, alert for the slightest sound or movement. His heart
hammered and he stopped for a moment to breathe deeply and calm
himself. There was no trace of Bettina, no sound, no movement of
any kind. This wasn’t how it was meant to happen. But she had to be
there and he would get her. He was certain of that.

When he reached the last door he
listened carefully but heard nothing from the other side. He shot
three bullets from his silenced gun through the wood at different
positions in case she was hiding behind the door but there was
still silence after the echoes faded. The door was locked but he
dealt easily with that, bursting it open with a couple of
well-positioned kicks and stumbling into the room.

He stared in amazement at the
scene. Near one wall he saw a large hole, a tunnel leading into
darkness. Dirt was piled high, sometimes to the ceiling, and
scattered in ridges and piles over the floor. There were tracks
around the hole, well defined and some looking new, the footprints
revealing slight damp where the earth had been
disturbed.

He crouched and looked closely at
the marks, confirming his initial glance suggesting that there were
two distinct sets of footprints, each a different size. A wave of
excitement hit him and he laughed at the realisation that he’d
trapped them both. Cautiously he examined the entrance then leant
down into the hole, flashing his torch to light up the empty
tunnel. Again there was silence but a few moments later he heard a
faint, distant rumble and the slight singing sound of metal on
metal. He dropped into the hole, bent over and hurried off to track
and catch his prey.

At the end of the tunnel he found
the hole in the bricks and, looking through, saw the gravel-strewn
area below. Flashing his torch in the cavern he caught a glint of
rails and picked out the tiles lining the walls opposite and a
little distance away. He wriggled through the gap, lowered himself
as the others had before him, and dropped lightly on to the gravel,
swinging round and instantly ready in case of attack. "Where the
hell am I" he wondered "and what's this tunnel? What are these
rails?" He shivered in the damp air and tried to make sense of
things and work out which way to move. So much for his earlier
excitement, he thought, this was going to be harder than he’d
expected. Still, if he was careful he would probably take them by
surprise.

He stood in the darkness shining
his torch around, trying to make sense of the situation and find
clues as to the direction in which they might have gone. Then he
felt a slight waft of air on his face and heard again that far-off
rumble and singing, the noise growing louder until a train appeared
round a bend and he realised he'd stumbled into some part of the
metro. The brickwork of the tunnel was now lit up and beyond and to
his right he picked out the platform of what looked like an
abandoned station, its tiled walls now clearly visible. He read the
name ‘Leinestraße’ on the train's illuminated destination
indicators as it came towards him, before it roared off and left
him again in darkness.

"Of course!" he thought "This is
the bit that crosses the border." and he tried to remember what
he'd earlier heard about this closed loop and the abandoned
stations.

Towards Leinestrasse was going to
be the quickest way to West Berlin, he reasoned, and if Bettina and
Thomas knew what they were doing they’d almost certainly have gone
that way. But what if they hadn't, what if they'd researched this
hidden part of the line and knew something he didn't. He dredged up
from his memory what he could about the loop, deciding that the
other direction definitely went deeper into East Berlin, at least
for several stations. So even if they had gone that way and he went
the other he could most likely get out at the first station he came
to and get colleagues to guard the various exits and arrest the
pair when they emerged. He would regret not being able to toy with
and enjoy Bettina before killing her but he couldn't risk letting
them get away. He set off after the train, running lightly between
the steel rails.

As the sound of the approaching
train grew behind them Thomas and Bettina were still short of the
first station, Jannowitzbrücke. They were running as fast as they
could, but they had only one small torch, already in Thomas's
rucksack, and the lack of light was a major handicap. He cursed
himself for forgetting the bigger and stronger one he'd left on the
table in the apartment. At one point he misjudged his footing,
stumbled and crashed to the ground, barking his shin badly as he
hit a tie securing the rails. Moments later, as they rounded a
bend, there was a slight lightening of the gloom and they could see
the start of the station looming out of the darkness a few metres
ahead. Thomas scrambled up, reached out a hand and helped to pull
Bettina on to the platform. Less than thirty seconds later the
train passed slowly in front of them, its headlight opening up the
station’s shadows and its passengers brightly visible, sitting in
their seats reading and staring and talking, oblivious to the
fugitives lying a metre or two away. Bettina stared around in
wonder.

For a moment, Thomas considered
shooting to try to stop the train but realised the driver would in
all likelihood accelerate and call the police for help. Once the
train had passed, they dropped back down on the tracks and again
started running. After a few steps, however, Thomas had stopped and
caught Bettina by the shoulder, gesturing to her to wait. The sound
of the nearby train was still in their ears, dying away in front of
them, but from the other direction came the faint, steady pad of
footsteps and occasionally a sharp clink, the sounds amplified and
sharpened by the hard walls and contained by the tunnel.

“Shh! Someone’s coming. Listen!”
For a moment they stood, silent and increasingly afraid, then
Thomas whispered again.

“Shit! It must be Hanno. At least
it sounds like only one person.”

Gripping their guns they set off
again, moving deeper into the tunnel, trying to juggle speed with
silence but realising that it was impossible for Hanno not to hear
them while they were moving.

The footsteps behind them were
growing louder and a few moments later changed in character and
they realised that Hanno had reached the station and was rapidly
catching them up although it was difficult to judge just how close
he really was. At one point there was a brief flash of light behind
them. The sounds echoed down the long tunnels, the echoes changing
as the configuration of the tunnels changed, but it seemed likely
that he was now no more than maybe four or five hundred metres
away. At their respective speeds, and particularly in the faint
light they had to rely on, they had no chance of making the next
station before he was on to them. It was better to turn and face
him, to try to hide their presence, to avoid the noise of running
and perhaps take him by surprise. There were, after all, two of
them and if they separated Hanno would be unable to deal with them
simultaneously.

“There’s another bend just ahead.
Maybe the tunnel will widen a bit or there might be alcoves. You
keep on this side and I’ll cross over. Run for two hundred steps
and then get as close to the wall as you can. If you see him, or he
sees you, shoot. I’ll do the same.”