Authors: T Davis Bunn
The next morning found Jake making the hardest decision of his life.
“I can’t go,” he told the others quietly. “It is one thing to have an assistant who takes off for a while with a friend. If we’re being watched, though, and they see me do something strange, they may stop me from coming back. And this marketplace is the only point of contact I have for the man who met us yesterday.”
He looked from one to the other, willing them to object, to demand that he come with them. “You’ve seen her note. I don’t know why she’s there, or what she can do for us.”
“She will be expecting you,” Rolf said doubtfully.
“I know.” Jake sighed into his coffee cup, watched a glorious dawn turn faded and dismal as it rose over the ruins of what had once been the national capital. From his position leaning on the side of the truck, Jake looked out over an endless display of destruction. Those buildings which remained intact showed sightless eyes to the rubbled streets, their windows boarded over, their doors often barricaded. Jake reached into his pocket and handed over a folded paper. “I have written her a note. It explains that we are supposed to meet our contact here today, that he had something urgent to tell me. Something vital. Those were his words.”
“But what—”
“If she can take you through the border, go,” Jake said. “That was my first objective, getting you to safety.”
Rolf and Hans exchanged glances. “How will you know if we get through?”
“I won’t,” Jake said grimly. “But that can’t be helped. If there’s something
vital
that man with the bad eye needs to tell me, then I have to wait. I have no choice.”
The smell of coffee and frying bread drifted from one of the early morning stalls. Across the open space came the sound of footsteps scuffling over the rubble. Jake watched the first patrons scurry toward the traders selling black-market food. “She said nine o’clock. You need to get there early, hide yourselves well. Make sure there is no one observing. If there is, wait until she moves toward you, don’t go to her.” He glanced back at them, nodded once, ached with the desire to go with them. “Good luck.”
———
Theo’s first words to Sally when he stopped to pick her up in front of her hostel that next morning were, “Something’s wrong.”
She felt her stomach zoom down below street level. “You can’t go?”
“Of course I can go. Who said anything about not going? I said something is wrong.”
She reached up for the side railing and climbed on board, then shut her door. “Theo Travers, you are about to catch some of what has been called my bad side.”
He grinned. “A kitten like you?”
She started to snap, then realized there was a worry there beneath his smile of greeting. “What’s the matter?”
His smile disappeared. “Easier to show than tell. Let’s get started.”
Their way took them back along the Kurfurstendamm. Even in the early morning, she saw signs of the growing difference between the city’s eastern and western sectors. There was activity here in the west. Makeshift signs decorated the few buildings still intact, advertising everything from clothing to cooking oil. Besides the trundling military carriers, a number of antiquated private cars and trucks puttered about, most loaded to the gills with wares of one kind or another. The people she saw looked tired, but they lacked the haggard hopelessness of those in the east. There was a sense of purpose to their step, an awareness of having somewhere to go.
“It all looks the same to me,” she said.
“No it doesn’t,” Theo replied, and pointed through the windshield. “Up there. Tell me what you see.”
She peered, decided, “A police jeep.”
“Right. Only the Russkies aren’t there anymore.” Theo watched the jeep pass before continuing, “I’m quartered over near one of the border crossings. Only place they could put us on short notice. Last night all the Russkies just up and vanished. Not a word. Just weren’t there.”
Sally felt her nerves draw to humming tautness. “So?”
“So all military police, vehicles and borders and foot patrols,
all
of them are supposed to have one guy from each of the four sectors. That’s part of the plan, see. Four sectors, one city. Only the Russkies have all disappeared.”
A sense of foreboding tolled deep within her. “What does it mean?”
“I wish I knew.” He rubbed the stubble on his chin. “From what I saw around HQ this morning, it’s got some others worried. It’s been bad ever since they started erecting their border checkpoints here in the city. That was strictly against regs. But this is something more. This morning the brass were scurrying around like somebody stepped on their anthill.”
“Did they make problems about you going over?”
“Naw.” The now-familiar grin returned. “Those guys, they know as much about construction as I do about brain surgery. I gave them a song and dance, got them eating out of my hand. Told them how this sand is tons better, which it is, and heaps cheaper, which it oughtta be if those political joes’d get their thumbs out. Never knew buying a few loads of sand could be so much trouble.”
Their day yesterday at the site had been almost as frustrating as Sally’s trip to the market. A long line of suspicious political officers and their Russian counterparts had come by, each insisting on beginning the negotiations over from the start. Theo had handled it with remarkable calm.
“Heads up,” Theo said. “Border check.”
Instead of being passed through the American side as was customary, the guard-sergeant stepped in front of the barrier and waved them to a halt. He walked around to Theo’s window and saluted. “You Major Travers?”
“The one and only. What can I do for you?”
“Got a call from HQ. Told us to have a jeep escort you over.”
“That won’t be necessary, soldier.”
“It wasn’t a request, sir. Orders came straight from General Collins. If they aren’t let through, you can’t go, sir.”
“Eating right out of your hand,” Sally muttered. “Better watch out or they might decide to take a couple of fingers.”
Theo ignored her, kept his head stuck out the window. “Are my eyes deceiving me, or have the Russkies moved their border station?”
“Yessir. Been at it almost all night. Pushed it back a coupla hundred feet or so.”
Theo opened his door and stepped onto the running board. “That a tank?”
“Looks like one to me.” The sergeant looked up at him. “You sure you need to be going over there this morning, sir?”
“I’m sure.” Theo climbed back on board and shut his door. “Round up your men, sergeant. Let’s go see what they’re up to.”
“If you say so, sir.” The sergeant signaled to a waiting jeep, then turned back and said, “Just make sure my buddies all get back in one piece, will you, sir?”
“Right.” Theo edged the big truck forward, muttered to Sally, “Stranger and stranger.”
The Russian border post had been transformed. Barriers formed from rail cross-ties had been erected in a long forbidding line, with strands of barbed wire strung between them. The long, ominous snout of a tank poked out from a tent of camouflage netting. Armed men were everywhere.
Their arrival was met by a phalanx of stern-faced soldiers with guns at the ready. The same political officer as the morning before came around, saluted them nervously, demanded, “Why are you traveling with an armed escort?”
Sally leaned across and retorted, “Why did you move the guard station? And why the tank?”
The officer reddened. “I will ask the questions here!”
A hand signal from Travers caused Sally to back down. “We have no choice. The major’s superior has commanded us either to travel with guards or not to travel at all.” She saw the man hesitate, and she pleaded, “We are very interested in beginning these shipments this afternoon. The major has received authorization for immediate payment.”
Once again, the offer of dollars softened the man’s resolve. “Wait here,” he snapped.
He was gone almost an hour before returning and announcing, “There has been a change of plans. The materials will be transported on our trucks. You will pay the costs, of course.”
“Of course,” Sally said, and turned to translate.
“Tell the guy he can bring it to us by Chinese sampan if the price is right,” Travers responded. “But I still need to go collect those samples and talk to the guy responsible for the dig. So how about letting us get out from under the eye of that big gun.”
They were eventually let through, but only after they were joined by two Soviet jeeps. Their extended convoy made its way through streets void of life. Sally watched as one boulevard after another appeared, devoid of even the first glimmers of activity. “Something’s really wrong.”
Travers looked over at her. “We got a squad of Russkies in front and behind us, we’ve spent the best part of an hour staring down the business end of a tank barrel, and you’re just figuring that out?”
Sally met his gaze straight on. “Why didn’t you tell me you spoke German?” She watched his double take give swiftly over to a denial, but she cut him off with, “Don’t even try, Theo. You knew what I had said to that turkey in blue, and I never even got around to translating.”
Travers eased off and grinned ruefully. “Harry told me you were a fast one. Guess I just didn’t understand how fast.”
It was her turn to play dumb. “Harry? You know Harry Grisholm?”
“Old buddies,” Theo affirmed. “Somehow he heard I was coming over. Asked me to keep an eye on you.”
“But how—” Sally stopped, the bits and pieces clicking into place. “They left the door to their office open on purpose.” And the file. No confidential file would have been left out for the evening, especially not if there was the possibility of a leak. “I’ve been played for a fool.”
“Don’t think that even for a minute,” Theo retorted. “You were Harry’s only hope. Of course, that’s all unofficial. Officially, he’s hopping mad over you disappearing without a by-your-leave.” Theo eyed her with mock seriousness. “Not to mention something about a false passport and illegal travel documents.”
“So he told you everything?”
“Not me,” Theo assured her. “That’s basically all Harry said when we talked, and I got the impression I couldn’t ask anything more than that. Which was why I didn’t have to play interested when you spilled the beans in the plane.”
She looked at him with suspicion. “Are you a spy?”
“Not a chance,” Theo replied cheerfully. “Just watched from the sidelines, is all. Which I guess is why Harry felt like he could trust me.”
Sally turned her attention back to the window, her mind churning. The morning was strong and clear, the sky pristine blue. But nothing was stirring. No cars, no people, nothing. “I don’t like this.”
“Too quiet,” he agreed. “Like the calm before the storm. A big one.”
The atmosphere of buried tension and fear stayed with them throughout the remainder of their trip. The sand pits were at the end of a lower-class neighborhood whose low-slung apartment buildings extended almost to the company’s rusted gates. They drove past the derelict office building, its myriad of broken windows staring down on them like sightless eyes. Two giant mixing towers had escaped the bombings, two others looked as though a giant’s hand had crumpled them.
Beneath the last of the towers clustered a group of men who made no move as the convoy pulled up. Beside them waited a long, low sedan painted army brown with a single red star on its portal. As Theo and Sally’s convoy halted by the first dig, a soldier opened the car’s rear door. A Soviet officer emerged, straightened his tunic, and walked toward them.
“Stranger and stranger,” Theo muttered. “What’s a Russian officer want with somebody buying a load of sand?”
Sally opened her door and stepped forward to greet the officer, but he ignored her and walked directly to Theo’s side of the truck. In heavily accented but understandable English he said, “You are Major . . .” He paused to inspect a card in his palm. “Major Travers?”
“That’s me.” Theo opened his door and slipped down. “What can I do for you?”
The officer’s eyes were as glacial as his voice. “Your papers.”
“Sure.” His cool unruffled by the officer, Theo handed over his military ID. “Mind telling me what gives?”
Instead of replying, the officer gave Theo’s pass a minute inspection, then turned and snapped his fingers once in the direction of the waiting group. Instantly one older man doffed his cap and came scurrying over. “Ja, Herr Oberst?”
The officer acknowledged Sally’s existence for the first time. “You will tell this man that he is to execute the major’s instructions, so long as they are restricted to digging in the pits here within the compound perimeter. You will tell him that the major is to pay for his services. Is that not correct, Major?”
“Anything you say,” Theo replied with false ease.
“Trucks will begin making delivery in four days, unless there are . . . delays.” A hint of a smile appeared, then vanished without a trace. “You will pay seventy dollars for each load. Cash. No negotiations.”
“Seventy it is,” Theo agreed.
The officer glanced at his watch. “I was informed that you require samples.”
Theo gestured toward the truck. “Got the shovels and the sacks in the back.”
“You are to gather your samples and depart before twelve noon.” He fastened his full attention upon the major. “You will not be permitted to delay your departure one minute beyond twelve. Is that clear?”
“Twelve sounds good to me.”
“I don’t care how it sounds, Major,” the officer snapped. “I am telling you what you will do. You will treat these as orders, and you will obey. Now is that clear?”
Instead of anger, there was merely a deepening to Travers’ gaze. Even from where Sally stood, she could see the depth and strength beneath the major’s calm veneer. All he said was, “Perfectly.”
Without another word, the officer wheeled about and stomped away. He stopped to give crisp orders to the two jeeps, then walked back to his car. The driver closed the door behind him, climbed in and shut his own door, then drove off.
Travers watched them depart in thoughtful silence. Then he turned to examine the old man who stood waiting to one side, his hands crumpling the brim to his battered hat. “Ask the fellow here what’s planned for this afternoon. And why the streets here have about as much life to them today as a tomb.”