The Red Effect (Cold War)

by Black, Harvey

  He felt her head nod slightly.

  “Right. I’ll check the area, you take a pee. OK?”

  She responded with a barely audible whisper. “Yes...”

  Keifer moved away and did a complete 360-degree circuit of their position before returning. “All done?”

  “Yes.”

  “OK. Move along the shrubs for about twenty metres and wait for me there. I will be right with you. Where did you pee?”

  Had it been daylight, he would have seen her blush. “Over there, to your left.”

  “Start moving. I’ll be right with you.”

  She moved off and he pulled the side of his ghillie suit up onto his shoulder, giving him access to the small rucksack on his back underneath. Reaching behind with his right arm, he awkwardly pulled a small plastic bottle, a spray bottle containing a mixture of water and ammonia, from the side pocket. He pumped the trigger until there was a steady spray of the repulsive- smelling liquid cascading over the area that Adali had just used for her toiletry needs and the area where they had spent the night. The pungent smell made him wince. The idea was that it would mask their trail from any dogs the guards might take on patrol with them. He moved backwards slowly, at a crouch, spraying the ground behind him until he bumped into his fiancée who was stationary, waiting for him.

  He checked the immediate area and found a gap in the sparse shrubbery where they could easily pass through, pulling it apart as Adali pushed through it. He sprayed the side they had just left then moved about two metres to the right, north-west, until he came upon a stretch of patchy shrubbery that disappeared in the darkness towards the south-west, heading deeper into the Sperrzone.

  The two men walked along the grassed area in between the signal fence to their right and the dog run on the left.

  “Your dog really bad then, Gerhard?”

  “Yes,” responded the thirty-one year-old border guard, part of the infamous Grenztruppen der DDR. “He’s being kept inside. The vet’s concerned about him. I am as well.”

  “I can tell.” His comrade Burlin Holzmann, also a border guard, laughed. He was much younger than his companion, only twenty-three years of age, and had been in the job for less than a year. “We see you walking him up and down rather than leaving him chained up on the dog run.”

  “It’s cruel, Burlin, leaving them tied up like that.” Gerhard’s voice rose passionately. “Tied to a chain for twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, in all weathers and only a box to sleep in.”

  “You’ve always been soft towards them. Someone told me you took one home rather than let it be put down.”

  Gerhard turned towards his companion and slapped him on the back. “He makes a great house dog, and God help anyone who tries to break in.” He chuckled. “They have a shit life though.” He patted the pockets of his splinter-pattern tunic top then rummaged through each one of the four pockets. He and his companion were dressed alike: splinter-pattern tunic top, with a black belt around the middle, over the top of matching combat trousers and black three-quarter-length boots. They also wore soft forage caps, some basic skeleton webbing, and a knife and scabbard. Their uniform was very similar to that of soldiers in the National Volksarmee. The only thing that differentiated them from the East German Army were the green tabs on their shoulders marking them out as Grenztruppen der DDR. Each had an MPiK Kalashnikov automatic rifle slung over their shoulder.

  “Can’t you find your cigarettes, Gerhard? You know the leutnant doesn’t like you smoking when on patrol.”

  “Bugger the leutnant, bugger them all. I need a smoke.”

  “Twenty minutes and we’ll be at the bunker. You can sneak one there.”

  “Good idea, young Burlin, you’re smarter than I thought. Anyway, they’re all occupied down by the border crossing point.”

  “Probably. What’s going on down there?”

  Gerhard patted his pockets again, eventually finding the packet in his trouser pockets. “Here they bloody are. I’m not sure. But the Pionier Kompanie seem to be loosening some of the roadblocks and then placing them back.”

  “I saw that yesterday. They were digging up the Czech hedgehogs, freeing them from the concrete then putting them back.”

  “Crazy, the bloody lot of them. No point in having bloody great pieces of angle iron to stop vehicles if you can just lift them out of the way.”

  “Hmm, does seem a bit strange.” Burlin took off his assault rifle and slung it over his other shoulder, quickly scanning the ground around him. Looking left, he could see the dog run and, beyond that, the patrol road; then the control strip: a freshly raked piece of ground that would easily show up footprints of anyone who tried to cross, even if they managed to miss the trip wire. The other side of the strip, two parallel fences, constructed from several overlapping, horizontal tiers of expanded steel mesh over four meters high, ran along the border. The inner fence was lined with SM-70s Splitter Mines, directional anti-personnel mines. Beyond those fences was the Federal Republic of Germany.

  Ahead, about two hundred metres away, stood the Beobachtungsturm 11 (BT-11), a twelve-metre high, spindly tower made up of interlocking circles of three-centimetre thick concrete laid on top of each other. On top, an octagonal observation building with glass windows giving a full 360-degree view of the surrounding area. Burlin shuddered at the thought of the times he had been up there on duty, knowing how unstable they were, a few having collapsed with border guards still up top. To his right was the signal fence, signalzaun, a continuous expanded metal fence some several hundred kilometres long and two-metres high, lined with low-voltage electrified strands of wire. If an escapee touched or attempted to cut the strands of wire, an alarm would be activated, warning the border guards of their escape attempt.

  Burlin nudged his comrade and indicated the tower up ahead. “I think the Feldwebel is up there tonight.”

  “He’s in a bad mood again. Surprise, surprise.”

  They both unshouldered their weapons, put the slings around their necks, held their AKs in the ready position and pulled their uniforms into order. They became more alert the closer they got to the tower that dominated the immediate area and under the watchful eye of their senior NCO, who was no doubt watching them through his binoculars. Any minute now, they expected the one thousand-watt searchlight to bathe them in a flood of light. They continued towards the tower where they would turn back and head south, and continue to patrol their sector of the Schutzstreifen, the heavily guarded protective strip that ran along the Inner German Border.

  The two East German civilians crouched down at the edge of the border road that ran east to west where, north-west of their current position, it crossed the Inner German Border into West Germany, hopefully their final destination. The crossing point was lit up like a football stadium. This disturbed Keifer as the previous times he had reconnoitred the area the lighting had been fairly low-key. The crossing point was normally closed at night. He scanned the border crossing point with the binoculars he had purchased from a flea market. They were OK, apart from one of the lenses being slightly cloudy. Beneath the lights, he could pick out a number of vehicles: small utility vehicles, three trucks and some form of digger. The guards seemed to be furiously working on dismantling the border defences, but then putting them back into position. For one moment, he thought they may be dismantling the entire border, opening it up for free passage. They could then all pass freely into the West. He smiled to himself, knowing that premise was extremely unlikely.

  They needed to move. They were well inside the Sperrzone now. Even though civilians were allowed in the area with a special permit, particularly those that lived within its confines, the couple would have great difficulty in explaining away their garb and being this close to the border. He whispered to his fiancée, “I’ve got my bearings, Addi. We need to head south a bit before we turn west again.”

  Adali shivered. Not from the cold. Although not warm, the cool air was not too harsh, but a thin layer of mist was forming
around their feet. She shivered out of fear. They were in heavily guarded enemy territory now. That’s how they saw the Grenzer, Grenztruppen der DDR: as the enemy.

  “I’m so scared, Keifer.” She gripped his arm tightly.

  “It’s OK, it’s OK,” he consoled her. “I know what I’m doing.”

  She peered into his blackened face; like hers, plastered in mud to cover the whiteness of their skin. The strength and confidence in her fiancé’s features were obvious, the determination set. She relaxed slightly, intent on playing her part and not letting him down. Her Keifer would get them to the West and the freedom they sought. For the first time that night, she smiled. “I know. Let’s go.”

  Keifer sprayed the area with his increasingly depleted bottle of ammonia spray and led them south. The area was quite damp, almost swamp-like in places, their footsteps sounding louder in their minds than they actually were in reality. There were numerous ditches, a metre deep in places, criss-crossing the area in lines east to west, a few running north to south. It was these that Keifer was using to aid their concealment as they moved closer and closer to the likely patrol areas. The ditches were too undulating and numerous to be patrolled easily, and probably too far away from the Schutzstreifen to receive constant attention.

  They moved at a crouch along one of the ditches, their boots soaking wet, but their feet, although uncomfortable, were dry. Keifer’s insistence that they wore a pair of thick socks, then a thin layer of waterproof plastic sheeting, followed by a second pair of thinner socks was paying off. Although in the long-term their feet would suffer badly, for now it was the best option. They came to a ditch that crossed in front of them, and he led them south before turning west again where they came to yet another junction.

  He suddenly pulled her down next to him. He put his finger on her mouth. “Shush.” He cocked his ears and listened; then strained to see through the darkness for any sign of movement. Nothing; it was a false alarm. They crept forward, Keifer keeping the pace slow the nearer they got to the death strip. They stopped again and Keifer checked his luminous watch. Two twenty. He was pleased with the progress they were making. He wanted them to get to the first of the fences by three, the time when most individuals would be at their lowest ebb. Having been up for most of the night, sleep would be slowly dragging at the guards’ eyelids, and the temptation to close them for a few moments would be alluring, with the probability that sleep would overcome them completely. Or they would find somewhere to hide from their NCOs or officers and take a breather from the constant boredom of patrolling the seemingly never-ending border.

  “Are you ready?” Keifer whispered to Adali.

  She didn’t verbally respond, but he sensed her head nodding in reply.

  He put his mouth up against her ear. “We need to move really slowly now. The signal fence can’t be far away.”

  She nodded again, and he helped her up. He felt his heart suddenly beat faster, panic welling up inside him, doubts flooding his mind, but he quickly quashed them. He had planned it meticulously, spending night after night in the Sperrzone, scrutinising every aspect of the border and its defences, making sketches of the main features of the daunting barrier ahead of them; a huge risk had he been caught with them in his possession. But, as a result of being able to study them in the relative safety of his home, he had a good perspective on what lay ahead of them both.

  He tugged gently on Adali’s arm and, after another twenty minutes making their way in the dark, they came to the edge of the final ditch. Once they left the safety of the channel, they would be extremely exposed: the ground fairly flat and free of undergrowth and shrubbery.

  “You wait here, OK?”

  “What happens now?” she whispered back.

  “I’m going to move up to the signal fence, scout around and then come back for you.”

  “Don’t be long. I’m really, really frightened.”

  “I won’t, Addi.” He put his arm around her shoulder and squeezed her gently. Letting go of her, he hoisted his rucksack higher up onto his shoulders and headed across the open ground, crouching as low as he possibly could. It wasn’t long before he could see the dim shape of the fence ahead, the dark line of the mesh and the darker, evenly spaced, thicker vertical posts that held it up. He moved right up to it then lay down on the ground. He looked to his left and right. It was quiet apart from the occasional sound drifting across from the activity at the border crossing. The tower was on the other side of the fence, about a hundred and fifty metres off to the right. The one to the left was even further away. They wouldn’t be able to see him though, unless they used the powerful one-thousand-watt searchlight that was available to the guards on the tower.

  He examined the fence. He had been this close to it before, but on his own, on one of his reconnaissance trips. Two-metre high concrete posts supported a mesh fence with half a dozen barbed wire strands, attached to insulators, running along the top. Two pieces of angle iron, at a forty-five degree angle, held them up and out, making it impossible to climb over without catching them. A further two lengths of wire ran along the mesh. All the wires were linked to an alarm system. If he caught, moved or tried to cut the wires, an alarm would be activated warning the border guards that the fence had been breached.

  Keifer heaved his ghillie up, shrugged the bag off his shoulders, took out the wire-cutters from one of the pouches and started to cut the mesh just above the kickboard that ran along the bottom. He moved quickly; the clock was ticking. He stopped after every minute or so to listen and look about him. He knew the risk was great: a guard, or even one of the dogs, hearing the snip of the cutters. Keifer had selected a spot in between two of the dog runs which were fortunately a hundred metres apart. A westerly wind would help to keep his scent away from the dogs. He had two pairs of wire-cutters, and had made sure they were powerful and very sharp. Wrapping a cloth around the blade each time, he made a cut, hoping it would deaden some of the sound. Snip, snip, snip, snip. Pause, look and listen. Snip, snip, snip, snip. Pause.

  Once he had finished, the fence was cut along the bottom and along two vertical strips, just under a metre high and about two-thirds of a metre wide. When pulled up, the bend at the bottom was just below the first of the sensor wires. He took a quick look around then headed back to where Adali would be lying low. He was sure she would be worried.

  Eventually he found the ditch and heard Adali’s trembling voice call out to him. “Is that you, Keifer?”

  He smiled at the naivety of the question. Had it not been him, she would now be a prisoner.

  “Yes. Come on, we need to go.”

  Gripping her wrist, he helped her up and, keeping a hold of her hand, led her towards the signal fence. He soon found the place where he had prepared it. Gesturing for Adali to lie down, he proceeded to ease the section of wire upwards, pulling it towards him first so it bowed, as he had practised at home, then pulling up over the alarmed wire. Taking the thin strips of wire from between his teeth, he wrapped them around the recently cut edge, securing it to the main fence. He was ready.

  Adali lay on her back and shuffled through the gap, Keifer placing one of his hands on her feet to give her some purchase, watching the alarmed wire at all times. Once she was through, he did the same. The wire was pulled back down and secured at the bottom and the sides with the twists of thin wire. Not perfect, but it was better than leaving a gaping hole. There was no time to waste. They were now in the Schutzstreifen, the heavily guarded protective strip, nearly a thousand metres wide. He rifled through his rucksack and took hold of a sealed plastic bag and pulled it out, half opening it to check on its contents: heavily drugged pieces of lean meat. He had ground up over four dozen of his mother’s sleeping pills and secreted the powder into sections of the steak. They walked slowly across the strip, not wanting any sudden movement to be noticed by a sleepy guard. Keifer steered them at an angle, heading for the dog run he thought would be somewhere to his right. He just hoped they could get close enough to
throw the baited feast before the dog smelled or heard the two of them approach.

  The darker shadow of the dog run slowly became apparent, the worn track where the dog had run up and down day after day standing out from the grassed area either side. Keifer could see the larger shape of the kennel; perhaps the dog was asleep in there. They crept closer, Keifer constantly scanning the area, looking for patrolling vehicles or guards, the searchlight from the tower, or the sound of shouts or sirens. Arriving at the kennel, there was no sight nor sound of the dog. Keifer was puzzled. Maybe luck was on their side. The collar, attached to a length of thin chain, which in turn was linked to the cable that ran the full length of the one-hundred-metre run, was lying on the ground next to the dog’s home. He had a moment of panic. Perhaps the dog had been let loose and was running wild. He removed the meat from the packaging and tossed it into the kennel, just in case it returned. Checking his watch, three ten, he tugged at Adali’s arm and they moved to the next barrier that awaited them. Arriving at the kolonenweg, two parallel lines of small, perforated blocks of concrete embedded into the earth, ensuring the patrol road was accessible all year round, they quickly crossed it. Looking about him, Keifer could see a faint glow of light to the north, where he saw the activity at the border earlier in the morning. Almost immediately the other side of the road was the control strip, a line of bare earth that ran in between the patrol road and the first of the main fences. It was raked regularly, ensuring anyone crossing it would leave a trail of footprints, clearly visible for the guards to see as they patrolled past.

  Keifer knew that, once they stepped onto the strip, they were committed to seeing it through. There would be no turning back. He turned to Adali and whispered, “Keep directly behind me. We’ll be moving slowly.” He squeezed her hand in encouragement then pulled out a metre-long strip of flexible plastic that had been secured to the outside of his rucksack. At the end, the strip tapered into almost nothing and would bend at the slightest touch. He held it out in front of him at a narrow angle, almost vertical, and started off at a steady pace across the death strip, Adali close behind him; moving west towards the metal fence opposite, the penultimate barrier in their quest for freedom. The tip of the home-made detector was held so it was about a centimetre off the ground and about ten centimetres out in front of his feet. He moved forward slowly, holding the thicker end of the diviner loosely in his hand, waiting for the sudden twitch as it came up against a tripwire. If triggered, the tripwire would initiate a flare close by, illuminating the entire area, bathing it in a yellow light, indicating to the border guards that an escapee, or an animal, had crossed the control strip. The searchlight would be switched on instantly, seeking them out. Guards, and possibly a vehicle, would be dispatched to the source of the flare where only capture or death awaited the Republikflüchtiger, Republic deserter. In the last ten years, over two thousand had fled East Germany, escaping across the border, but hundreds had been killed in the attempt.