A Question of Time

by James Stejskal

  It was dark and they had 10 kilometers to go when Marazano asked Bright,

  “Are we ready to go dark?” “How long?”

  “At this speed, six minutes.” “Wait a bit, the road is clear.”

  Marazano pulled his NVGs out of a pouch. He slowed for a moment and then hit a switch and the lights went out; it was pitch black inside and outside the car. He had his NVGs on in a second and accelerated again. Becker watched, blind in the back—all he could see was the green glow of the NVGs that illuminated Marazano’s face. Bright hadn’t put his on yet. He had a small red light on the odometer that he shielded so it wouldn’t blind Marazano and was calling the kilometers as they clicked past.

  “Seven clicks out, six, five, four, coming into range, three, slow down… now! Stop!”

  The big Mercedes’ speed was arrested by its powerful braking system. Marazano controlled the car well. The tires rolled to a stop without any chirping or squeals. Becker got out of the car quickly. No brake lights showed to betray the stop and no interior lights illuminated Becker when he got out. Marazano had turned all the lighting systems off.

  The trunk lid popped open with a command from a dashboard switch. Kim grabbed his rucksack and made sure it was securely closed before he swung it over his back. He quickly adjusted the straps as Major Bright silently closed the trunk lid. He grabbed Becker’s hand and whispered to him.

  “Good luck and God speed.”

  “Thanks. I’ll see you back in Berlin soon.”

  Becker hoped he wasn’t being overly optimistic as he plunged into the forest.

  Bright turned and looked back. The road was empty. He hopped back in the car. The Mercedes disappeared into the night as silently as it had arrived.

  27

  Lila closed up her shop and turned towards the street to walk home. Up and down the avenue, it was dark. The street lights put out barely enough light to indicate that they were on, and even less made it to the ground. The apartment blocks also suffered from the same starvation, the inhabitants making do with small lamps and sometimes candles to light their worlds. It was only the major streets that were well lit, but the dark buildings above them showed that the electricity went only so far.

  She looked across the street to make sure that Max wasn’t there. Lila was still wondering about Max’s recent appearance. It had been two days and there had been no news.

  I hope he’s alright.

  She started on her way home along the familiar streets that she walked each day. The city’s monotone sameness surrounded her but she took no note; there was no other life for her, the grayness of East Berlin was all she had ever experienced. She would often think about what life might be like in West Berlin. The lights and sounds of that part of the city, so long denied to most East Berliners, occasionally drifted across the Wall.

  “The West is permeated with decadent capitalism,” the State organs always said.

  Lila had always wondered.

  It had been a late day. Her shop was well visited and she was tired. But not too tired to realize there was a shadow behind her. At first, she just sensed the presence. The person made the same turns and walked in concert with her. She felt her heartbeat begin to race. Although Max had taught her the basics of counter-surveillance, she had never actually experienced being followed before.

  Should I speed up or just keep cool and walk slow? Maybe it’s a thief?

  At a corner, she took the opportunity to look back in time to see a van stop behind her. A man got out and walked in the same direction she was walking. Now they were on both sides of the street. The van rolled past her and turned the corner—it was the same direction she intended to go. As she approached the corner she could see the dark green vehicle—parked. A third man was standing next to the van.

  Now she remembered what Fischer had said: “Don’t just worry about what is behind you, the danger could be in front.”

  She stopped. She had no idea which way to go.

  “Fräulein, stehen bleiben.” Don’t move. The voice came quietly from behind her.

  She turned to see a woman who flashed her identification wallet and returned it to her coat.

  “Fräulein, are you Eva Maria Pfeiffer?”

  Lila hadn’t heard her true name in over twenty-five years and she was too shocked to lie.

  “Ja?”

  “We are State Security. Please come with us.”

  The woman grabbed her roughly by the arm and pushed her into the van. The men followed them.

  “Los!” Go! They took off down the street as the van’s side door slammed shut.

  28

  Becker knew from his map reconnaissance and the odometer that he was within 100 meters of where he wanted to be. He knew he would be able to find OZ’s Dacha without a problem. He just had to get there without being seen or heard.

  The forest floor was damp. He could tell because he felt the water soak through his pants when he knelt on the ground. Not soaking wet, but it was damp enough to make moving through it quieter than it would be in summer when the dry leaves and pine needles crunched and the sticks snapped with each step if you weren’t extremely careful. Becker walked a few paces deeper into the greenery and stopped. He listened to the sounds, trying to accustom himself to the normal noises before he crashed further into the woods. He wanted to know the forest and become part of it so he could tell when its mood changed, when something disturbed its normal rhythm. Above him, he could hear the wind rustling through the pine branches, a sound that would have been relaxing if he was anywhere but where he found himself. It had been several months since he had been in a forest at night—not since an exercise in the Swabian Black Forest the previous spring—but his senses were already becoming attuned to the environment.

  ***

  It was times like these that he remembered why he came to be in Special Forces. Becker’s father had been in Europe during World War II. He survived and came home after the war none the worse for his experiences. He liked the army and stayed in the reserves as much for the camaraderie as for the extra money it brought in. One year, it might have been 1964, Dad came home from summer training camp and dropped an Army Special Forces recruitment brochure on his son’s bed, along with a P-38 can opener and a couple of boxes of C-Rations. It was the only reason Becker didn’t mind his father’s absences too much. He knew Dad would always come home with something interesting for him.

  The brochure was especially cool. He studied its photos, as well as the descriptions of the “Green Beret” missions. The different jobs a man could fill on an “A” Team and their specialized equipment were described in a way that made Becker feel like he was reading Ian Fleming’s James Bond. Then there were the gadgets, parachutes of course, but there was also the scuba gear, radios, explosives and many different foreign weapons. One image captivated him more than any other—it was of a soldier descending under parachute at night into a small forest clearing. On the edge of the moonlit clearing stood a wooden cabin, its windows glowing from the firelight inside, and a tendril of smoke curling up from the chimney into the dark sky. It was the epitome of everything he had imagined when he read books about the OSS working with the partisan fighters against Nazi Germany in World War II. It was there and then that he decided he would join the army; there was really never a question of him serving in the navy or the marines. Later events in life, some unfortunate, others fortuitous, conspired to ensure he followed through on that dream.

  After five minutes of listening, he walked onwards, from time to time checking the luminous dial of his compass for his azimuth and picking out a landmark in front of him to stay on track. There was a waxing gibbous moon that gave him plenty of light despite the scattered clouds that were racing high across the sky. He wouldn’t use his NVGs unless the moon disappeared and he lost all the ambient light. He didn’t want to lose what night vision he had.

  Becker had memorized the detailed map and carried only the map that showed the whole area up to the Baltic Sea. If h
e got caught he didn’t want to be carrying anything that might give away his true objective. Still, he knew he was close to the target; if he was caught the East Germans might guess where he was headed, but there were always risks involved in these operations.

  He went back to the business of walking. He had around 8 kilometers in front of him. Eight thousand meters, roughly 88 football fields to go. He wanted to be in place before daybreak and had all night to do it. He paused again for several minutes. Walk five minutes, listen for several, then walk again. It was the same routine for any patrol in “Indian country.”

  ***

  He first learned patrolling techniques during infantry training at Fort Polk’s “Tigerland.”

  Polk was a shit-hole place. How much can they teach you when you’re one of 200 newbies and the drill sergeants are training to the lowest common denominator?

  And there was the hippy turned drill sergeant who kept saying, “Be one with the forest and the enemy can never see you.”

  Right, tell that to Charlie. I think that guy later got fragged in an outhouse in Da Nang.

  When he got to the 82nd Airborne Division he was retrained by a squad leader who had served in the Marines during Vietnam. After he managed to escape from the 82nd a year later, he was retrained again in long-range patrol tactics at Camp Mackall. And then came Vietnam. He did two tours with 5th Group before he and a friend volunteered for a third with SOG.

  SOG. Someone told him it was a good deal. The rule to never raise your hand for anything notwithstanding, he did just that. Special Forces training was rough, but getting prepared for the cross-border missions SOG ran in Laos was another story altogether. Even their train-up was live-fire from almost day one. They practiced with real bullets and a real enemy who didn’t know they were being used as training aids.

  I imagine they would have been pissed off to find that out. It was almost like the Union regulars getting their butts handed to them by Citadel cadets.

  But he survived that year and here he was again in the badlands. The saving grace was this forest was nowhere near as hostile as a war zone. All he needed to do was avoid being seen. There weren’t active enemy patrols seeking him out. He was not nearly as anxious as he had been in Laos; he just had no inclination to be shot as a spy. He stopped for a moment and listened. It was still quiet. As he stood in the dark, he smelled the forest and the tilled earth from the distant fields that surrounded it. For a moment he was lost in thought and his concentration wandered.

  Never volunteer, indeed. Just what exactly am I trying to prove here? Nothing, I’ve done that already. What am I doing then? Freeing the oppressed? Hardly, I’m preparing to kill Russians and now I am saving a spy’s butt. And why exactly is he worth even one soldier’s life? Is this why I don’t have any family other than my team? Are they who I am protecting? We need to think this through better when we get home.

  He thought of Rohan and where he had left the conversation he might have had with her.

  Tell me about her. Who?

  The woman you didn’t mention. The one you’re holding back on, the one that hurt you.

  He paused before he answered. This woman should be an interrogator, she’s good.

  She didn’t hurt me, I did. I killed off what should have been a good relationship.

  How?

  Have you ever heard of time and distance? And not in the mathematical sense. They always say that absence makes the heart grow fonder—it may for some, but time and distance actually tore us apart. If a couple doesn’t communicate often, as we didn’t, you lose something. Intimacy and trust disappear. That’s what happened to us.

  Did you love her?

  I thought I did, until I discovered she didn’t love me. How did you know?

  I just found out. Let’s not go there.

  Okay, but that usually means you were both at fault, not just you. The loss of friends, the loss of a lover: it seems my life is defined by those kinds of things, Becker thought. He looked around again.

  He couldn’t let his mind wander.

  Concentrate!

  Becker walked on through the night.

  He had to cross several dirt roads in the forest. Like the West Germans, the Ossis also subdivided their forest lands into blocks for management. That meant tracks and pathways to clear the brush and overgrowth, danger areas he had to clear carefully before he crossed them. Being on his own required him to be extra careful, but it was nighttime and he didn’t expect to encounter any one out here. At most, he might run into some civilians who decided to take a night-time walk, but he couldn’t afford that kind of contact either.

  It was like the one of the questions they often asked during the final selection board.

  “Your team is moving in enemy territory, heading to blow a bridge. You come upon a shepherd watching his flock. He sees you and could report you to the authorities. What do you do?”

  There is no perfect solution to the problem, but there definitely is one incorrect answer. And that answer would never cross Becker’s mind even if he did come across any unlucky innocents.

  Becker crossed a small ravine and saw a slice of silver moonlight across the ground about 50 meters in front of him. He approached it quietly and stopped short of the forest edge. If he had a full patrol he would have sent flankers out to check along the danger zone, before he sent another pair across to check out the other side while the rest of the patrol covered them. But he didn’t, he had only himself and in some ways that was better; a single shadow flitting across the gap might be mistaken for an animal if was seen at all.

  He crawled forward slowly until he could see down the road in both directions. Satisfied, he stood up, made his way quickly to the road and scampered across. He had to trust in the probability that no one would be out.

  On the other side, he waited for a couple of minutes before he continued through the forest. It was mostly flat ground and he was not carrying much weight or equipment, at the most 30 pounds. For that, he was thankful. His usual combat load was more like 80 to 100 pounds and it was the reason he never became a communications sergeant. Their rucks were always the heaviest at well over 100 pounds. In winter the load was even heavier.

  I am traveling light.

  Pushing on, he moved slowly through the tall trees until he saw another cut in the forest. It was a big one, the biggest he had encountered and he knew he was very close to his objective.

  The road cut was 50 meters wide. Again, he approached it carefully and observed.

  At least I can see if any headlights are coming.

  The grass was tall enough to hide him if a vehicle did come down the road. For the moment it was clear.

  This time he bolted across the road, only slowing at the far edge to trot into the forest. Dropping into the grass, he listened and gained control of his breathing. It was dead quiet.

  Now he had to find the access road. He walked along the road inside the forest, first north and then south until he saw it. He checked the gate to see that it matched the description OZ had given him and he knew he was there. Turning north again he walked a few meters and clambered over the fence before moving deeper inside the forest. Then he paralleled the access road until he could see it open into a large clearing. He moved towards the house.

  Close enough.

  The binoculars came out of his rucksack so he could peer at the house. There were no lights except for a solitary dim bulb over the entry door. He looked over the tool shed and the car.

  The moon came out and lit up the scene. He looked again. A thin wisp of smoke curled up from the chimney into the night sky. He smiled and knew he was almost home.

  Becker backed off and plunged deeper into the forest until he found a copse of small pine trees. It was as good a place as any, he thought. The trail he had chosen was not too far away and the location was secluded enough. He felt secure enough to pull out his poncho liner and wrap himself up inside it.

  I shouldn’t have to worry about anything other than t
he rabbits

  and deer, or maybe a herd of wild boar. That would be bad.

  As he set up his camp, he ate some of his food and thought about next steps. He would sleep a bit and then get ready for his contact.

  There were still a couple of hours until dawn.

  29

  It was late evening when the six-truck convoy entered Checkpoint Alpha at Helmstedt-Marienborn. Captain Welsh, the commander of the convoy, ostensibly an officer in the Army Transportation Corps, got out of the lead truck and walked into the Military Police post. He handed over the orders and identification cards for all the convoy drivers to the MP on duty behind the high counter.

  “We need the drivers inside to compare them with their papers, sir,” said the MP sergeant.

  “That won’t be necessary this time, Sergeant,” said Major Wise.

  The MP looked at his unit operations officer who had shown up about fifteen minutes before “just to see how things were going.” Now he knew why the major was here.

  “Yes, sir.” He stamped each set of Flag Orders after making sure the ID card matched and then handed the sheaf back to the captain. He looked at the clock one last time.

  “It’s 2310 hours. You need to reach Checkpoint Bravo not earlier than 0110 and no later than 0310 hours, sir.”

  “Thank you, Sergeant. We’ll be fine,” Welsh said as he took the papers and turned to the major. Saluting, he said, “And thank you, sir.”

  He walked out the door and handed each driver his copy of the order and ID card before getting in the cab of the first truck. The first five vehicles were identical US Army Heavy Equipment Transporters—HETs—big olive-green tractors that pulled long, green, closed trailers. The last truck was a Chevrolet pick-up.

  Staring out at the convoy as it departed the sergeant said, “What was that, sir?”

  “A special equipment convoy, probably classified stuff.”