Winslow stood at the open window of the old Berlin building that looked down on Checkpoint Charlie’s US Army security hut. It was not yet 9:00 A.M. He adjusted the focus of his M19 army binoculars to sharpen the image.
“There she is.”
Seventy-five yards away a woman was stepping into the queue of people waiting to pass through East German border control.
He cleaned the lenses that had fogged from cold air coming through the window, and he looked again at Anne presenting her papers. She wore a scarf on her head, dark glasses, and tan raincoat.
“How can you be sure?” Praeger asked.
“The coat. And she’s predictable.” Winslow looked at Praeger. “That’s why returning her passport was the right thing.”
They watched Anne move to the head of the queue, trying to look inconspicuous, but in doing so, appearing nervous.
Praeger grunted. Proven wrong, he was silent. He saw Anne in her raincoat. The line was mostly foreign businessmen and a few tourists, and the vehicle lane had old Volkswagens and Trabants waiting their turn. Everything was being checked.
“Is she alone?”
“Cooper is there. He already passed through.”
“I thought she was going first.”
“If she’s stopped, we abort. He’ll keep out of sight. She won’t know he’s there unless things go wrong.”
“Something always goes wrong,” Praeger said.
Winslow didn’t answer. He handed Praeger the olive-green 7x binoculars and took the cup of coffee held by an orderly. Cold air sweeping through the open window drew steam off the hot drink, which Winslow sipped, looking at the heavily armed forces on opposite sides of the checkpoint. The 39th Special Forces Detachment observation post operated in the shadows of the Cold War’s front line; a secret garrison known only to a privileged few in Clay Headquarters and their Soviet counterparts in a corresponding command post a few blocks away. Two advance outposts peering at each other, watching for early signs of hostile action. Visible to each other, but invisible to German civilians on the streets below. Soldiers of Special Forces Berlin kept surveillance of the Soviet enemy with the vigilant preparedness of frontline soldiers everywhere. They had flak jackets, assault rifles, and the grim expressions of men who knew they would be the first casualties of war.
“She has their forged passports,” Praeger said. “She’ll lead us to him, if he’s alive.”
“You still think he’s dead?” Winslow didn’t hide his disdain.
“We’ll see.” Praeger added, “She doesn’t know we found the JAROC forger she used.”
Winslow looked away. “Don’t underestimate her. She’ll do what she thinks we won’t expect.”
“Whose side is she on?”
“Her own.”
The beat of silence ended when Praeger said, “I got a call from George Mueller, deputy director, CIA. I assume you know him?”
Winslow slowly turned, taking in the news that Praeger had spoken to his boss. “What did he want?”
“He asked for an update. Why didn’t he ask you? Or maybe he did and he was confirming the truth of what you told him.”
The two men stared at each other. Praeger smiled. “He said I should keep an eye on you.”
A telephone rang somewhere in the large room. A corporal in a Kevlar helmet and body armor approached Winslow.
“There is a problem, sir.”
“What?”
“We heard from our contact in the consular office near Unter den Linden. East German soldiers have surrounded the building and are not letting anyone in or out.”
“Why?”
“They don’t know. They heard the border will close today. No one will be able to cross back to West Berlin.”
“Problem?” Praeger asked.
Winslow knew that every plan carried risks, but the only bad plan was the one that didn’t anticipate failure. “The border won’t stay closed forever,” Winslow said. “Cooper’s been in East Berlin before. He’ll know what to do. If she’s in trouble, he’ll intervene. When the family crosses, we’ll be there to close the trap.”
Suddenly, the boom of a low-flying airplane rattled windows and drew all eyes to the sky. A pair of Soviet MIGs carved an arc across the gray sky and then disappeared over the city. In the silence that followed, a distant rumbling could be heard, and then it became obvious to all that the ground vibrated with the approach of heavy vehicles. Anxious cries rose from the street, and when Winslow stepped to the window he saw East Germans watching lumbering Soviet tanks roll by.
Winslow glassed the streets with the binoculars. He couldn’t see Anne any longer, but he knew she must be among the crowd lined up watching the armored convoy.
“She’s not there,” Praeger said.
“She’s there. You don’t know where to look.”
“This won’t work,” Praeger said. “The idea. A Pied Piper with false documents and a family following behind, waiting for Kruger to pounce. She’s not clever enough.”
Winslow lowered the binoculars. “She’s done this before. She is confident. Maybe too confident.”
“An amateur.”
“Yes, an amateur,” Winslow turned. “But if you had your way, we’d still be looking for his body in the canal.”
The shrill ringing of an alarm brought the large room to a nervous standstill. Helmeted men had the anxious expressions of soldiers ready to face the unexpected. A yell somewhere and then Winslow joined several men who swept across the room to peer out windows on the adjacent street. Sandbags hid the black muzzles of .30 caliber machine guns.
“There!” a voice shouted.
Winslow leaned forward to look out the window. His gray hair lifted in the breeze and the chill stung his cheeks. The MIGs had made a wide arc over West Berlin airspace, crossing the invisible boundary in an obvious provocation. But it wasn’t the presence of the MIGs that drew his attention.
A loud, raucous crowd gathered at the end of the narrow street. Beyond that, swelling into an open platz, there were shouting East Berliners. They passed near the twelve-foot-high concrete Wall topped with barbed wire. They were a motley crowd, full of the faces of discontent: people in blue jeans and denim jackets; others in red ski parkas and running shoes; professionals in hats and business suits; parents with children on their shoulders. Loud voices yelled. Drums were a booming rhythm that accompanied a steady chant of, “We are people! We are not rowdies! We are people!” One man broke from the crowd and proceeded to spray paint the slogan on the Wall. Yelling protesters egged him on, a chanting chorus.
Then Winslow saw the source of the rumbling. An armored vehicle with a water canon appeared from around a corner, facing the marchers. East German Volkspolizei with truncheons, gas masks, and plastic shields advanced on the crowd.
“This changes things.”
Winslow turned to Praeger. “Cooper will call it off if he needs to.”
“Some plan.”
“Go to hell,” Winslow said.