Vortex- Berlin

by Lee Jackson

  “Who’s ‘they’?”

  Klaus grinned. “I’m not the talkative type.” He rubbed his stomach and glanced at Etzel. “I’m hungry. Let’s go eat.”

  Etzel nodded. Klaus turned back to Atcho. “We’ll bring back food. If you’re good, we might let you have it.” He laughed, and then looked up at the window. It was the kind that leaned into the room along a hinge at its base. No sill to hang on to. It was high on the wall, above where a tall man could reach, even standing on the table. “Don’t get any ideas. We won’t be gone long.” They left, locking the door behind them.

  Atcho stayed in place until their footsteps receded. He heard an outside door close. Then he jumped to his feet.

  He shoved the table, deliberately making it screech across the floor. He stopped to listen. No returning footsteps.

  He set the chair on the table and stood on it. The window was still too high. He moved the table against the opposite wall and set a chair on it. Next, he upended the cot, bracing one end against the back of the seat and the other at the window’s horizontal hinge along its bottom. Then he wedged the flimsy structure in place. He tested it with his weight a few times.

  He stopped again to listen. No sound.

  He spread a blanket under the window, wrapped a shoe in a second blanket, and clambered onto the tabletop.

  He tried crawling up the surface of the cot. It was too slippery.

  He shinnied by wrapping his legs around each side of the cot. That worked, but the chair fell forward slightly. The cot buckled.

  Atcho’s breath caught. The chair and cot held. He exhaled slowly. Sweat poured from his forehead and down his neck. He climbed until his hands reached midway up the open window, then he pushed against the glass.

  The window stuck in place. He shoved harder. It creaked. He almost fell off the contraption.

  He pushed again. The window gave, but still did not close. He stopped to listen. Nothing.

  He reached as high as he could and delivered a blow with the shoe to the side of frame. The window closed a few inches, but still leaned into the room. He banged it a few more times, with the same result.

  His legs perspired. He felt himself slipping. He squeezed his legs against the side of the cot for more traction but knew he could not hold the position much longer.

  The cot sagged. Furiously, Atcho reached with both hands and pushed on the window as hard as he dared without losing his balance. By slow degrees, the window closed into its upright position. Sweat poured from every one of Atcho’s pores.

  He found that by wedging his feet against the crossbar under the cot, he could hold himself in position. He stretched farther up the cot. Then, holding the blanket-wrapped shoe tightly, he struck the pane, hard.

  The glass was ancient and brittle. It shattered easily. Most of the pieces tumbled outside the window. A few fell inside and landed on the blanket below. A hole appeared in the glass, framed by jagged shards. Atcho knocked them outside.

  When the window was sufficiently clear, he dropped the shoe and threw the blanket over the bottom edge of the sill. Then he slid down and put his shoes back on.

  He heard the outside door open and then the voices of Klaus and Etzel. They conversed easily, seeming in no hurry, headed his way.

  Atcho sucked in his breath. He thought of jumping up to the window. That was impossible. The angle was too steep, the distance too great, and he might slice his hands shards of glass protruding through the blanket put there to protect them.

  The brothers continued to approach. Atcho heard their footsteps above their voices. He wrapped his legs around the open cot and struggled up the incline again, his hands reaching the window frame.

  He tried to pull himself up. The blanket prevented a solid grip. He shinnied furiously, his legs weakening their hold. Finally, his arms slipped over the window’s edge to his armpits. He lifted one leg through the window.

  As he struggled to pull himself up, the brothers’ conversation stopped. Then Klaus spoke from just outside the door. Etzel mumbled something. Keys jangled.

  With a herculean effort, Atcho pulled himself astride the window frame. Without time to see where he would land, he slipped his other leg through, and dropped. To his surprise, he fell just a few inches, onto the roof of a shed attached to the building.

  He heard the door open and then Klaus’ yell of alarm. Running footsteps followed.

  Atcho crouched. When he heard the outer door slam shut, he stood and lifted himself back over the window frame. No one was in the room. The door was open. Both men had gone in pursuit.

  He climbed down the way he had come. They’ll look everywhere but here. He lowered himself to the floor, then crept to the door and peered around the frame. It opened into a foyer, empty except for a few old pieces of broken office furniture and trash strewn about. The only light came through windows coated with the dust of ages. On either side of the main entrance, halls led into darkness in both directions.

  Atcho moved to the center of the foyer. In the distance at either end, he saw what looked like balustrades for staircases. He chose the corridor to his right and ran. As he reached the end of the hall, the telephone in the foyer rang. He darted into the shadows and started up the stairs.

  The ringing continued, and then stopped. Atcho hugged the shadows. He reached the second floor. Another hall traversed the building. Near the center, he saw a break, and then a continuation of the corridor.

  He stole through the half-light filtering from the windows of offices lining the corridor. He reached the break, a second-story mezzanine that overlooked the foyer.

  The phone rang again, interrupting the ghostly silence. It kept ringing.

  Staring around the empty room, Klaus fumed. Atcho was gone. A glance at the broken window, the blanket over its edge, and the cot propped against the wall atop the chair and table told him how the escape had been engineered. True to his word, Klaus had brought a bag of food. In his rush to pursue, he tossed it onto a chair in the foyer.

  Klaus and Etzel raced out the front doors. The building was a large relic of wartime Germany, a bureaucratic headquarters left to decay. Several minutes elapsed before they arrived under the broken window at its rear. They stared at the gaping hole.

  Around them more old structures decayed, some with crumbling walls and caved-in roofs, all abandoned. East Berlin did not tolerate vagrants, squatters, or the homeless, declaring that in a socialist state, such people did not exist. Hidden as it was by other development, this small area stood empty, inhabited sporadically by only the criminally minded.

  Etzel’s lungs heaved from running. “Where could he have gone?”

  Klaus leaned over, hands on knees, catching his breath. Sweat poured from his brow. “He could be anywhere.”

  They examined the ground for footprints. Finding none, Etzel climbed atop the low shed under the window. Broken shards of glass lay scattered about. Nothing indicated Atcho’s direction. Etzel jumped down and they looked farther afield. Finding no clue, they trudged back around to the front of the building.

  When they reached the entrance, they heard the phone ringing. It was an old phone, dating back to wartime. Finding one that could be repaired to working condition and then stringing a hidden line had been difficult, but they had managed. Although never anticipating the current turn of events, they had long ago scouted for a place like this, intending to develop their own organization here.

  Despite the building’s age and poor maintenance, it was strong, having been spared most of the bombs that had hit Berlin near the end of the war. It was roomy, with numerous inside structures capable of hiding groups of men.

  “The jihad is coming,” Klaus had told Etzel, “maybe sooner than we think. East Germany is near its end. The Soviet Union is creaking. All it needs is a push. When that happens, the jihad will rise.”

  He hurried to the phone, grunted a greeting, and listened. The conversation was in English. “That’s good.” He listened some more. “We can do that. Have th
em at that location tomorrow at this time.” More listening. “Three days?” He exhaled into the receiver. “All right, but hear me on this. If there is another delay, we’ll deliver Atcho ready for burial. Then we’re gone. You won’t find us.” He hung up.

  “You heard?” he said, turning to Etzel and neglecting to switch languages.

  “How are we going to deliver?” his brother responded impatiently.

  Klaus chuckled. “We don’t have to. If Atcho is too much of a problem, my instructions are to kill him.”

  “Why didn’t they kill him to begin with?”

  “Who knows? Anyway, they want to triple the assignment. Three bombs.”

  Etzel stared at him in shock. “Three? Three nuclear bombs?” His face broke into an amazed smile, his eyes wide open. “I thought they would be furious with us. You were right—jihad will come soon!”

  Klaus ignored the last part of his comment. “Why are we speaking in English?” he said, as if suddenly realizing that is what he was doing.

  Etzel shrugged. “You got off the phone using English. That’s what comes from using so many languages.”

  Klaus switched to their native tongue. “Who else can do the job? By now, most of the Stasi operators already hear the roar of the Wall coming down. They’re running for cover. Yermolov knows we were Spetsnaz. By bringing Atcho here, we regained credibility.”

  Etzel nodded glumly. “And now Atcho’s gone.”

  Klaus laughed out loud. “They don’t know that. All we have to do is kill him—or not—and say we did.” He laughed again and slapped Etzel on the shoulder. Etzel joined in. “We’ll watch for Atcho,” Klaus went on. “He still has to escape East Berlin.”

  Etzel mulled over what Klaus had said. “What are the targets for the bombs?” he asked at length.

  “The US Embassy is still the first. They’ll tell me the second target later. Our price for kidnapping Atcho and setting their bombs is a third bomb for our own use.

  “I agreed not to hit anywhere in the Soviet Union. I can live with that if it means taking a nuclear bomb into the Middle East.” He let the notion sink in.

  “You said something is happening in three days. What was that?”

  “We get the bombs then.” Klaus started toward the door. “Come on, we need to find Atcho.”

  “I thought we didn’t have to deliver him.”

  Klaus rolled his eyes. “Etzel, if we tell them Atcho’s dead, we can’t have him showing up. Our goal is to get those bombs. After that, who cares? Meanwhile, we have to make sure Atcho stays silent.” He headed out at a fast pace. Etzel followed.

  “He’s got to be hiding in one of these empty buildings,” Klaus said, closing the door behind him. “We’ll come back at dusk. He’ll go for the embassy. If he tries to get out any other way, he’ll be treated like everyone else attempting to escape East Germany. He’ll be shot.”

  They walked to a smaller adjacent building. Inside was the entrance to their tunnel. Forty-five minutes later, they emerged in West Berlin. They made their way to an apartment building in Little Istanbul, a section of the city inhabited by a community of Muslims. After climbing several stories, they entered one of the units.

  Soft strands of Eastern music met them, at once merry and doleful, its quarter-note chords alluding to an ancient struggle. The aroma of mint tea floated on the air.

  A group of men sat cross-legged in a circle on the floor. The music ceased. In terse words, Klaus told them what he needed. He spat out orders. Several men jumped to their feet and headed out to go back through the tunnel and keep watch around Klaus’ building. Four more left to alert their network to set up surveillance on the eastern side of the Wall.

  When all were gone, Klaus and Etzel sat alone on the floor. “Will they find him?” Etzel asked.

  “I don’t know. They’re not trained or armed.”

  “They’re not good for much.”

  Klaus regarded him irritably. “Those Turks were good enough to keep working until they broke through the tunnels. They’re good enough to have jobs at the major hotels, and they helped get us through security at the Mövenpick. They don’t love Germany. They came for work. The population here was decimated after the war. They helped rebuild West Germany. The country needed them but treated them like vermin. They’re happy to help us.”

  Surprised at Klaus’ passion, Etzel drew back. “Sorry, brother. I just meant that they won’t do us much good in a fight.” He arched his eyebrows. “They’re not really good Muslims. They like their women and their drink and other Western depravities.”

  Klaus held his brother’s gaze with an expression at once faraway and fierce. “That will change.” He sat another moment, wrapped in thought. Then his expression reverted to normal. “They aren’t fighters. I want them to keep Atcho from escaping until we get those bombs. He won’t move before dark. The men will check out the empty buildings. We’ll go there at dusk. If we don’t find him, we’ll wait outside the embassy.”

  Atcho had sat in the mezzanine above Klaus and Etzel, shocked at the part of the conversation he had understood until the brothers switched to the language they had used in the tunnels. Three nuclear bombs in the hands of those thugs? The prospect was unthinkable. He had to get back into West Berlin and alert authorities.

  Nighttime was still hours away. He had eaten nothing since the day before, and he felt lightheaded. As he peered at the brothers conversing below, he spotted the bag of food that Klaus had tossed there. When the two men left the building, he retrieved it. The food was passable. He settled in to wait for nightfall.

  Several hours later, he crept downstairs. In a side office, he found a window on the back of the building. He pried it open and slid through into darkness. The brothers had not returned. Nevertheless, he kept a watchful eye while he gained his bearings.

  He figured he must be near the Wall—the Mövenpick had been close to it, and the trek through the tunnels had gone at a snail’s pace. He sat for several minutes, listening to the sounds of the night. A few crickets clamored intermittently, but otherwise, all was quiet. In front of him, the horizon was dark, but looking about, he saw a glow in the sky to his right. Not many city lights in East Berlin. West Berlin must be in the opposite direction.

  As he considered a route, he saw glimmering of a different type to the east. The first sliver of a full moon rose over the edges of the rooftops.

  The air was cold, and he was not dressed for it. The silver orb would soon illuminate his position. He had to move. He hugged the shadows as he skirted abandoned buildings and made his way to the street.

  Glancing toward the ascending moon, he took a deep breath and scurried across to the welcoming darkness on the other side. There, he stopped again to listen. He was in an alley. In the distance he heard the sound of light traffic.

  A slapping sound in the bricks next to his head startled him—a bullet—and then the loud report of a rifle followed by shouts and the scurry of running feet. He moved over a few feet and dodged into deeper shadows. He held fast there, assessing where the attack had come from.

  A dark silhouette moved past him, a man, his shape outlined by moonlight. Atcho crouched. The man continued down the alley. Atcho remained still. Another man moved past, and then a third. Klaus’ network.

  Atcho froze. He had seen the brothers in action and guessed members of their group might have similar capabilities. With at least three on his tail, he had to assume the worst, and they had already shot at him.

  The third man halted. Atcho held his breath. The man turned toward him and seemed to stare into the dark recess. Atcho could not see his face to know for sure. The man stepped toward him. Atcho lunged.

  Hearing movement, the man swung his weapon around, but too late to use it effectively. He fired a burst. The bullets missed. The staccato of submachine gunfire broke the stillness.

  Atcho and his adversary connected. The other man was stronger, and possibly more physically capable. Atcho planted a foot behind the man’s leg
and barreled his left shoulder into his clavicle. As the man fell backward, Atcho locked his own right arm around his adversary’s neck. When the two hit the ground, Atcho felt the snap of the man’s spinal column. The fight was over.

  He heard a yell from the direction the other two men had gone, and then running footsteps. Looking up, he saw them.

  Light reflected off the MP5 next to his dead opponent. Atcho grabbed it and fired off a burst. One of the men shrieked and went down. The other darted into shadows. Then Atcho heard a voice he recognized.

  “Etzel?”

  Klaus. He called to his brother in their native tongue. As before, Atcho understood not one word, but he knew the context. He glanced down at Etzel’s dark corpse. Things just got personal.

  Out on the moonlit street, the wounded man writhed in pain. Klaus yelled at him to shut up and called for Etzel again.

  Atcho backed further into the shadows against the building and slid in the direction he had come. He watched for other men. Seeing none, he rounded the corner, crouched against the wall and scurried along its length. Just as he reached the far end, he heard an anguished cry. Klaus found Etzel.

  “I’ll kill you,” Klaus screamed. “Do you hear me, Atcho? I will find you, and I will kill you. Nowhere is safe for you.” He continued wailing into the night.

  Atcho heard more cries, and men running toward Klaus. He shrank into a dark place and checked the MP5. The magazine was empty. He slid the weapon under a bush and stayed in darkness until the last man was well past him. Then he dodged from shadow to shadow, heading for the darkest areas he could find. His breath came in staggered heaves. Sweat streamed from every pore. He slowed to a walk, but kept heading east, away from where they would continue to look for him, away from the bright glow of the West Berlin sky.

  After Sofia had finished her meeting with Wolfgang Sacher, Jeff dropped her near the US Embassy, situated adjacent to the Wall. She walked the remaining distance. Inside, she found Nina. They once again swapped clothes.