Man Who Wanted Tomorrow (30 page)

Far away he heard the persistent sirens. Getting nearer. Meant the raids were coming closer. Führer had to be warned. He began scrambling up again, urged by the sudden, desperate knowledge that if he fell he would not again be able to attempt the climb. He drove his fingers into the cracks, ignoring the pain, the effort coming from him in sharp, gagging sounds. Had to do it. Had to warn the Führer. As his hand covered the top he sobbed with relief, hanging there. Made it. Führer would be grateful. Barbed wire. Should have expected it. He felt carefully, wedging his hands between the spikes, so he could use the wire for support, pulling his legs up to perch precariously on top. He looked to where the Bunker should have been visible. Odd. Just a hump in the ground. Camouflage. That was it. Cleverly hidden. He glanced back, into West Berlin, seeing the sodium glow reflected as an orange blur against the low cloud. God, it was a bad raid tonight. Funny he hadn't been aware of the explosions. Wrong wind direction, probably.

The searchlight hit him like a physical blow and he swayed, nearly falling. He snatched out and felt the barb bite into the plam of his hand and groaned with the pain.

“Don't shoot,” he screamed, urgently. They'd be under orders to protect the Führer, quite ruthlessly, he knew. “Don't shoot. It's me, Köllman. Heinrich Köllman. Important I see the Führer.

There seemed to be searchlights from either side. He waved his free arm, hesitantly, his balance tottering.

“Blackout,” he shouted. “Too dangerous. Stop the lights.”

Behind him he thought he detected a vehicle with a red marker revolving on the roof, but the other lights were blinding, so he couldn't be sure. There were voices telling him to come back, but he ignored them. Just firemen and Landwehr. Didn't know how important it was to get to the Führer. Wouldn't understand. Limited mentality. Only good for menial work.

“Got to see the Führer,” he shouted down to them.

He clambered over the wire, trying to judge the distance to the ground. They'd have to bring a ladder. He looked up, to call for one, and the movement dislodged him. He fell, feeling the wire rip at his clothing like a hand trying to pull him back. He landed with a sickening jolt and lay, open-eyed, hawking the air back into his lungs. His wrist hurt and was twisted beneath him. Why didn't they come to help? Where was everybody? He'd tell the Führer. Make sure names were on the list.

Fifty yards away, the Russians and East Germans who had had a street-by-street account of Kurnov's progress toward the Wall from people whom they regarded as agents but who were, in fact, carefully planted members of Perez's team, watched the prostrate figure fixed in the beam of the searchlight. From the other side of the Wall, the West German police-car spotlight went out and the occupants ran to the observation posts looking into East Berlin.

“Get up, Heinrich Köllman,” shouted Suvlov, formally. He wore his uniform, which made him seem more imposing. There might be photographs from over the Wall, he knew. He was smiling, confident the expression would be misunderstood by everyone around him.

He'd recovered, decided the Russian colonel. He would be known as the man who had captured the Nazi. A total disaster had been turned into complete victory. He grabbed a megaphone from the man standing next to him. An officer hurried up, reporting that the electronic mines had all been turned off, so there would be no danger in moving forward to get the man.

“Let him crawl to us,” said Suvlov. He switched on the megaphone, knowing his voice would be heard over the wall and that the arrest would be fully reported in the Western press.

“Heinrich Köllman, you are a prisoner of the Soviet Union,” he shouted. Should he have added, “and the German Democratic Republic?” Perhaps. But diplomatic niceties didn't matter. Later perhaps. But not now.

The old man pushed up, trying to shade his eyes against the light with one hand. The other was hugged across his chest, as if he were injured. He squinted, unable to see anything.

Very confusing. Not what he had expected. Russians. Definitely Russians. Recognized the accent. How? Didn't matter. Definitely Russians. So he was too late. Was he dead? Was the Führer dead? Or captured? Neither. Would have escaped. Obviously be a plan. He would have been too clever for them. Escaped to regroup further south, with the reinforcements. Of course he had.

Only a temporary setback.

He couldn't feel his legs and swayed, staggering slightly backwards. Careful. Mustn't collapse. Mustn't show weakness. Had to demonstrate superiority. That was important.

He came forward, his body moving stiffly, puppet-like, and after a few steps his mouth opened and he threw back his head. Suvlov put his head to one side, but couldn't identify the words.

“What's he saying?” he demanded from the men who had given the news about the mines. Before there could be an answer, the old man got nearer and they were all able to hear. He sang croakingly, but still discernibly. He was off-key, but the tune of the Hörst Wessel song was easily recognizable.

“… And comrades whom reaction and Red

Front has slaughtered

In spirit march with us and ne'er shall die …”

From behind there was the click of a rifle-bolt.

“No!” ordered Suvlov, urgently. “That's what he wants, to be shot.”

Faltering, breath driven from him by the effort of walking, the mass murderer sang on.

“For brown battalions clear the streets of others,

Clear us a way and each Storm Trooper cheer,

The Swastika brings hope to all our myriad brothers,

The day of freedom and of bread is here.”

He was close now, his feet scuffing over the rough ground, blinking in an attempt to see them. Impossible. They were just black blurs.

“For the last time, Reveille has been sounded, for battle …” he began again, but his voice trailed away at the awareness of so many men in uniform. Lucky he was in civilian clothes. Wouldn't know who he was. No documents. He'd lie. Be easy, with so much confusion everywhere. No difficulty getting lost in all the prisoner-of-war camps that would be created. He'd beat them. Be easy.

“Heinrich Köllman?” challenged Suvlov.

The scientist looked at the uniformed man. Difficult to recognize the rank from his shoulder epaulettes.

“No,” he denied, positively. “I'm …”

He halted, confused. He couldn't think of another name. He looked around the half-circle of soldiers. And burst into tears.

It was over a year later, long after the remedial plastic surgery and the allocation of the Chair of Psychiatry at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, that Uri Perez was asked the question at the end of a lecture. It came from a student who watched the film, shot from one of the abandoned houses on the West side of the Wall, showing Köllman walking forward to confront the Russians.

“Having once been in one of Köllman's camps, and then having evolved the scheme that trapped him, you had an enormous personal involvement,” said the boy whom Perez had selected as one of the brightest in the course. “What satisfaction did
you
feel, seeing everything work so completely.”

Although he had answered the question to himself many times Perez hesitated. There really wasn't another reply, he decided, finally.

“None,” he insisted, definitely. “Not the slightest satisfaction. In fact, I experienced the most overwhelming feeling of pity.”

He stayed at his desk, long after the lecture hall had emptied. Why had he never been able to convince Mosbacher, he wondered, regretfully. Perhaps, if he had, they would still be friends.

A Biography of Brian Freemantle

Brian Freemantle (b. 1936) is one of Britain's most prolific and accomplished authors of spy fiction. His novels have sold more than ten million copies worldwide, and have been optioned for numerous film and television adaptations.

Born in Southampton, on the southern coast of England, Freemantle began his career as a journalist. In 1975, as the foreign editor at the
Daily Mail
, he made headlines during the American evacuation of Saigon: As the North Vietnamese closed in on the city, Freemantle became worried about the future of the city's orphans. He lobbied his superiors at the paper to take action, and they agreed to fund an evacuation for the children. In three days, Freemantle organized a thirty-six-hour helicopter airlift for ninety-nine children, who were transported to Britain. In a flash of dramatic inspiration, he changed nearly one hundred lives—and sold a bundle of newspapers.

Although he began writing espionage fiction in the late 1960s, he first won fame in 1977, with
Charlie M
. That book introduced the world to Charlie Muffin—a disheveled spy with a skill set more bureaucratic than Bond-like. The novel, which drew favorable comparisons to the work of John Le Carré, was a hit, and Freemantle began writing sequels. The sixth in the series,
The Blind Run
, was nominated for an Edgar Award for Best Novel. To date, Freemantle has penned fourteen titles in the Charlie Muffin series, the most recent of which is
Red Star Rising
(2010), which brought back the popular spy after a nine-year absence.

In addition to the stories of Charlie Muffin, Freemantle has written more than two dozen standalone novels, many of them under pseudonyms including Jonathan Evans and Andrea Hart. Freemantle's other series include two books about Sebastian Holmes, an illegitimate son of Sherlock Holmes, and the four Cowley and Danilov books, which were written in the years after the end of the Cold War and follow an odd pair of detectives—an FBI operative and the head of Russia's organized crime bureau.

Freemantle lives and works in London, England.

A school photograph of Brian Freemantle at age twelve.

Brian Freemantle, at age fourteen, with his mother, Violet, at the country estate of a family acquaintance, Major Mears.

Freemantle's parents, Harold and Violet Freemantle, at the country estate of Major Mears.