She went first, throwing her right arm up, followed by her left and hooking the fence with both. She gripped the wooden toggles tightly until her knuckles were white and lifted her right leg. Guided by Keifer, hooking the boot into the fence, she heaved herself up. With Keifer’s hands either side of her slim hips, his shoulder providing additional leverage, she brought up her left boot. Clinging on and jutting outwards, avoiding the double strand of wire, supported by fifteen-centimetre prongs, in front of her. One at a time, she unhooked each hand and extended them further up the four-metre fence, straightening her knees, her fiancé ensuring they didn’t touch the wires. Again guided by Keifer, she lifted her feet over the wires, eventually above and free of them, her head less than two-metres from the top. He urged her on and started the climb himself, hanging outwards to avoid the tripwires that could easily set off the deadly mines. It took them twenty minutes to get over the top. Suddenly he heard her yelp. He jerked his head down and saw her left leg and arm flaying about, free of the fence, eventually swinging back crashing into it, the wires vibrating on the other side from the force of the strike. The silence was sudden, both breathing deeply, ears pricked for the sound of discovery.
“Quickly, we need to get down now!” hissed Keifer.
Adali climbed down, lowering her tired body the last metre, collapsing to the damp, grassy earth in exhaustion.
Keifer crouched down beside her. “Come on, Addi, we need to move. One fence left; then it’s freedom.”
The two border guards had reversed direction and were now patrolling south again, their ultimate destination a concrete bunker overlooking the control strip where Becker could finally partake in the smoke he was so desperate for. They were so occupied in their heated debate about whether Magdeburg was worth a weekend away that they missed the darker patch of footprints that snaked across the raked control strip, partially hidden by the low-lying mist.
Keifer and Adali were now at the last obstacle: just one fence keeping them from escape. Once across, they would be able to sprint for the freedom they had talked about incessantly for months. There were no mines on this fence. It was just a case of clambering over it, using their special boots and hooks, and dropping down the other side. Keifer led the way this time and was quickly at the top, watching Adali as she soon joined him there. He climbed down and dropped the last metre, turning round ready to support his fiancée as she still had over two metres to go before she too could put her feet on solid ground. He felt good. All his meticulous planning and preparation had paid off. They were close to setting foot in the Federal Republic of Germany. She removed the left-hand bale hook from the fence, then her left boot hook and lowered both before resinking the two spikes into the small gaps lower down in the fence. Trusting in the security of her position, Adali then loosened and released her right hand and foot, and repositioned them lower down. As she did so, the hook of her left boot, which had only just tagged the join of the overlapping fences, suddenly gave way unexpectedly. With most of her weight still on her left leg, it shot downwards. The sudden shock caused her to let go of the left bale hook as she swung outwards in a half-star shape, left arm and leg adrift. The force of the unexpected move twisted her right ankle and wrist, the bale hook was forced from her right hand, and her body arced downwards. Keifer rushed to help arrest her downward fall as her upper body slowly passed the one boot that was still attached. He grabbed for her outflung arm as it sped past, slowing her fall slightly, but not enough as, now upside down, he heard the sickening crack of her shattered ankle still trapped in the fence above her. A long, drawn-out scream of agony emanated from her pained mouth and, along with the rattle of the fence as she thudded against it, broke the silence.
Both Becker and Holzmann snapped their heads round at the sound of the blood-curdling scream, followed by the noise of the reverberating fence. With assault rifles unslung, they ran across the control strip, tripping a flare as they went, heading for the point where they thought the sound had come from. As a consequence of the dazzling light, they could see two shadowy figures on the other side of the outer fence. Fear suddenly welled up inside Becker, not because of the escapees but because the two figures had got that far without being discovered at the same time as he and his companion were patrolling the fence. There would be consequences when this was all over. Becker cocked his rifle, raised it at an angle and fired two shots into the air.
“Halten sie, halten sie,” he bellowed at the top of his voice.
“Shall we open fire on them?” asked a panicky Holzmann, fumbling with his AK, eventually managing to cock it and put a round up the spout.
“Don’t be stupid, Burlin. There’s two bloody fences in the way.”
Crack. Crack. “Halten sie, halten sie,” he called again after firing two more shots into the air.
The lieutenant in command of this section of the wire was talking to his opposite number in command of the engineers, trying to ascertain what the point was of their current activity. Why were they effectively dismantling the border crossing, yet making it look fully functional? Although being evasive with his answers, the engineer actually had no idea himself. He had been given his orders and ordered not to discuss their activities with anyone. In fact, his engineers and the border guards in this vicinity had been confined to barracks, unless on duty.
Both started when they saw a flare burst into light, closely followed by the sound of two gunshots. The one thousand watt beam of the suchscheinwerfer (searchlight) stabbed the darkness and was immediately rotated around, by the tower guards, towards the sound of the gunfire. It immediately bathed the two escapees in its glow. One, a young man, suddenly blinded by the intense glare, shielded his eyes with his arm. The other, in front of him, was suspended from the fence, upside down, her twisted leg the only thing holding her up.
“Baer, the Jeep!” yelled the Grenzer leutnant. “Schnell!”
The Unterfeld, junior sergeant, ran for the Jeep, practically throwing himself into the driver’s seat, and turned the ignition, the engine roaring into life as he gunned it. He called to two other border guards to join him. The leutnant dropped down into the passenger seat and slapped the dashboard. “Go, go!”
He undid his holster and pulled out his service pistol, cocking the weapon. The two grenzer in the back did the same with their AKs. They sped off, heading north along the patrol road then turned left onto the road that would take them across the border. A guard at the border crossing point lifted the barrier and the Jeep shot past, heading west towards the currently unmanned West German border control. The Jeep raced through the channel, smoke belching from its exhaust as it tore along the road, passing the death strip, the first fence and, finally, the last fence. The driver swerved left and bounced onto the verge that would take them around the unmanned West German barrier which, once passed, would allow the Jeep to swing right, back onto the road. The occupants searched ahead and to the left, looking for any signs of the escapees.
Crack. Crack.
“Foot down!”
“I’m going as fast as I can, sir.”
“Left, left, down the track.”
The Jeep turned south, leaving the road, and traversed left, heading for a rough track that ran alongside the outer East German border fence. The vehicle travelled down the bumpy track that was barely inside the East German border, running parallel with the fence line; to their right, another patrol road used by the West German border patrols: either the Bundesgrenzschutz (BGS), the Federal Border Protection, or even by military forces from the British Army of the Rhine or the British Frontier Service. The beam of the Jeep’s headlights danced across the landscape, like theatre lights, picking out elements of the route and border barricade before being whipped elsewhere as the vehicle careered erratically down the track. The occupants were jolted from side to side as the Grenzer raced to head off the escapees.