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.
Keifer felt a sudden pressure on his fingers and immediately withdrew the probe, before moving it forward again with extreme care until it came up against the tripwire. He felt Adali close behind him and eased her back gently before crouching down to confirm that it was indeed a tripwire. He felt a chill as he disturbed the fine mist that blanketed the ground around his feet. He prayed for dense fog, but knew that would be too much to ask for. He felt around with the tips of his fingers until they touched the thin, taut wire that was only a few centimetres off the ground. He whispered instructions into Adali’s ear, rallying her at the same time. Both stepped over the tripwire carefully before making their way to the other side of the strip, Keifer checking for further traps, coming up against the most daunting barrier of alclass="underline" the four-metre high metal fence. It was formidable, constructed from several overlapping, horizontal tiers of expanded steel-mesh fencing.
Keifer was confident about scaling the fence, but less confident about Adali. He indicated for her to crouch down, the mist swirling about her as she disturbed it. They both removed their ghillie suits. They had served their purpose and would just hinder the rest of their progress. Speed and agility was of the essence now. Once they were discarded, he rummaged in his rucksack again and removed the contents he would need next. Not only was the fence forbidding but it had added danger. Mines! He undid the drawstring on the soft pouch and opened it up, removing the collection of wires and the device they were attached to, something he had built weeks earlier. Copper wire coiled around a magnet taped up and connected, by bell wire, to a home-made circuit board of transistors, capacitors and diodes powered by a nine-volt battery. A set of earphones, from his personal transistor radio and which would receive the feedback for him to listen to, completed the gadget.
He told Adali to wait where she was and plugged the earphones into his ears, turning on the detector. There was a satisfying hum transmitted through to his eardrums followed by a higher-pitched tone as he held the magnet closer to the fence. Holding the device about fifteen-centimetres away from the fence, he slowly waved it up and down as he moved along it until he found what he was looking for, the squealing in his ears signalling the discovery of a Splitter mine. He could just make out the darker shadow of the cone-shaped mine. The SM-70 was a directional anti-personnel mine. Activated by a tripwire connected to a firing mechanism, once detonated, the cone-shaped charge, filled with 110 grams of TNT, imbedded with eighty small, sharp-edged cubes of steel, would explode and spray its deadly load along the line of the fence with a lethal range of over thirty metres. Sixty thousand of these deadly Soviet-made mines had been laid along the Inner German Border. Other anti-personnel mines, over one million, had been laid along the border to deter escapers. Keifer couldn’t dismantle it, he didn’t know how, but at least he could ensure they were to the left and at the furthest distance from SM-70 further to the south.
He went back to get Adali and walked her to the point where they would climb over. Picking up the rucksack again, he removed the next, and last, of the items they would need to continue their journey.
“Here’s your overshoes. Make sure your boots are laced up tight before you put them on. Once the overshoes are on, make sure they’re tight as well. If they’re loose, it will make it harder to climb.”
“Check them for me when I’m done,” she suggested, a tremble in her voice.
“We’ll check each others, OK?” he said with a smile and a sound of confidence in his voice, although doubts were starting to cloud his thoughts.
Pushing the dark notions aside, he bent down to sort out his own boots. There were two straps: one went over the top of the front of his foot then under the sole, the other just in front of the ankle, wrapping around his foot beneath the arch. Both affixed on one side to a third strap that circuited the entire diameter of the edge of the boot’s sole, supported behind the heel. A buckle on each strap connected them, securing them to his boot. At the toe, a hook jutted out. He tightened the buckle of the single strap that circuited his boot then the two buckles of the upper straps, tugging them hard to ensure they wouldn’t slip when he put his full weight on the hooks. The holes in the fence were deliberately made too small to allow a foot or hand to get a grip and climb. The hooks were the only solution he could think of. It was too strong to cut through or pull the overlapping layers apart, and it was sunk into the ground preventing an escapee from easily tunnelling underneath it. He did the same with his second boot then made sure Adali’s were fitted correctly and were secure. They both faced the fence, ready for the climb, a small bale hook in each hand.
“You go first, Addi. Don’t forget to keep your body away from the wires, OK? Keep that bum of yours stuck out. Don’t catch it with your boots or hooks. I’ll help you up.”
She didn’t respond. Had it been daylight, he would have seen her face frozen in fear. But, behind her dilated pupils, there was a determination to see it through; a resolution not to let her fiancé down, to start their new life in the West.