Shaken and uncertain, Krebbs watched Scharff leave. He went back to the window. For a moment he stood staring into space. The sun had extinguished the blazing cross on the tower globe. Dusk was falling over the city.
He tried to collect his thoughts. Not for a moment did he believe that Scharff was sincere in wanting to help him defect. He felt a leap in his chest. After so many years… Even the slim hope held out to him made his heart beat faster. So many years.
Ever since — Oberammergau…
He was bitter about it — but he blamed himself. He should have seen what was in store for the Communist-occupied part of the Fatherland. He should have left when he still had the chance — instead of one day waking up to the fact that he was a prisoner. Eighteen years ago. He still remembered looking in unbelieving horror at the ugly scar that suddenly ran across the face of his once beautiful city. A scar that was to be known as the Berlin Wall.
And still he had procrastinated, until the wall had become an insurmountable barrier.
For him.
He had often thought of joining Theo — but he had never found the courage to act. He had chuckled, in secret, with his friends over the Witz—the joke about the walclass="underline" What would you do if the barriers were suddenly removed? And the answer: Shin up the nearest tree. Why? To avoid getting trampled to death in the rush!
He had chuckled. But his heart had ached.
He knew that hundreds of men and women did manage to escape every year. Running the death strip — the Todeslauf, they called it. The Death Run… Digging tunnels or swimming icy waters in a hail of bullets; flying small planes; hijacking or crashing tank-like vehicles through the barriers; stuffed into converted gas tanks — or, as one family did, soaring across the hideous traps on a steel wire high in the air…
He also knew that most of the escape attempts were destined to be suicidal.
But he — he was too old to endure the exertion or perform the acrobatics necessary to flee to freedom. Too old to brave the alarm fence, the armed patrols, the mine-fields, the anti-vehicle trench, the guard dogs, the trip wires and the automatic-firing machine guns, the watchtowers — and the terrible wall itself.
And now — after thirty-five years…
He suddenly drew in his breath. An idea had shot through his mind. A preposterous, audacious idea. A way that he, Dr. Wilhelm Krebbs, might turn the tables on the powerful State Security Colonel and take advantage of the man's plot, whatever it was.
Perhaps he was no longer physically able to leap the wall.
But his mind was as agile as ever…
Colonel Gerhardt Scharff felt pleased with himself. He awarded his not inconsequential ingenuity with a glass of brandy, savored in the privacy of his office.
He had devised a most clever solution to all his problems.
If the Marcus affair should go sour, it was, of course, imperative that he, Scharff, save face. And provide an acceptable scapegoat.
It was childishly simple. And foolproof. He would let Krebbs go now. That way, chances of his being connected with the final part of the Marcus case, should it fail, would be minimized. He would give the man his false paper — untraceable, of course. He would let him get to the checkpoint unmolested. And he, Scharff himself, would be there. On a routine inspection. He would “discover” the defector — recognizing him from his prior and still current investigation of the man when he became suspicious of him and had him detained — and before Krebbs could get across to the West, he'd kill him in a flagrant attempt to defect! It would be simple to concoct some evidence connecting the dead scientist with his friend in America. A connection which might well have served to warn the U.S. military intelligence agencies. A perfect scapegoat — caught and eliminated through the vigilance of a valuable security officer!
He savored his brandy. It was excellent.
So was his plan.
The brandy and his self-congratulatory exercise made him feel almost mellow enough to put his latest confrontation with his superior into perspective. Almost — but not quite. He still fumed inside at the supercilious attitude of the man, a pompous ass at best, lecturing him as if he were a minor bureaucratic minion on the fact that the D.D.R. government could not afford to create an international incident. That delicate negotiations were going on between the U.S.A. and the Russians. Negotiations that the U.S.S.R. wanted to conclude successfully. Negotiations that could in no way be disrupted — or wrecked — by Scharff's undertaking. The man had been insufferable. Even to the point of adding insult to injury by hinting at his own doubts that the Unternehmen should have been, entered into at all! After he himself had given the go-ahead! The Minister quite obviously was setting up his own scapegoat.
And he, Scharff, was it.
So much more important that his own scheme was fool-proof.
He was perfectly aware that there were holes in his presentation of his plan to Krebbs. He did not care. Even if the scientist should get suspicious, there was nothing he could do but follow orders. And he was also perfectly aware that he was employing cover-ass ploy. He always had. Always would. It was the only prudent procedure to follow.
He contemplated the half-full brandy snifter.
The Marcus mission was still far from kaput. There were still highly trained and dedicated agents on the case. The American pilot could still end up dead. If he could prove that his foresight, his actions, had set back the development of the Marcus device significantly, he could still come out smelling as sweet as a whorehouse customer.
Chances, he felt, were excellent that he would.
One way or another…
3
Stripped of past splendors, the gaunt brick skeletons of three-and four-story buildings stood silently brooding in the night as Tom and Randi slowly approached the mountain ghost town.
The invincible desert had won back its own and swallowed up the once great town of the lusty gold-bonanza days. Dead and deserted, the remaining ruins pointed huge, grotesque stone fingers reaching up from fists of rubble toward the night sky, where, high above, the moon still drenched the barren land with pale light.
Like some hollow-eyed desert beasts, the gutted walls stared down at the two exhausted creatures who sought refuge in their midst. It mattered not to Tom and Randi that once the imposing, silent stone-and-concrete ruins had formed a boisterous town proud of its name.
They crept down into the basement of a structure that looked like a classical ruin, standing forlornly under the stars. Among the rubble of decades they found a sheltered spot and sank down to rest.
A few withered weeds and shrubs grew among the ancient chunks of masonry. Tom ripped off some of the dry leaves. He sniffed them — and threw them away.
Leaden from fatigue, hunger and thirst, Randi gazed dully at her husband. Then she lowered her eyes. Hope was slowly dripping away…
Tom got up and started to climb out across the wreckage littering their shelter. Tiredly, resignedly, Randi struggled to get up. Tom turned to her. He pushed her down. Again he moved away, stopping only to make certain she was staying.
Then he disappeared among the jagged stone shapes, leaving Randi behind, huddled miserably in the shadows of decay.
The strange, sustained sound came from a ramshackle hovel backed up against the rocky hillside just outside the ghost town and surrounded with heaps of old lumber and railroad ties, rusted drums and oil cans, a few pieces of broken furniture and other junk. It rose and fell and wailed in muted shrillness into the night.