Then We Take Berlin Read Online Free PDF Page A

back on many occasions since. It changes. It changes all the time, but there’s something about it that doesn’t.”
    “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose?”
    “A touch of that.”
    “And since you left your . . . ‘Company’?”
    “I’ve been private. What you would probably call a gumshoe.”
    “A good living?”
    “A variably good living. Has its moments. I’ve worked for British Intelligence a few times since. They pay better now than they ever did when I was enlisted.”
    “Frank tells me you know Berlin from the ground up?”
    Frank shot him a look across the rim of his glass. Wilderness did not know how to read it.
    “More than that,” Steve went on. “He tells me you know Berlin from the ground down .”
    Now he knew.
    “Why not tell me what it is you want, Steve?”
    Steve paused. Wilderness did not think his question had taken the old man by surprise, but still he seemed to need to gather his thoughts.
    “Frank. Freshen the drinks all round would you? Your legs are longer and younger than mine.”
    Frank bumbled through his bad impression of a waiter, topped them all up and refilled his dish with peanuts, which he still hogged.
    With a large, untouched scotch on the rocks in his hand, Steve was ready.
    “My wife has an aunt. Aunt Hannah. Hannah Schneider. Sixty-nine years old. Last of her generation in the family. Never married. She lives on her own in East Berlin. My wife Debbie is the only kin she has on earth. We’d like to get her out. To be exact—we’d like you to get her out.”
    Wilderness just looked at him and nodded.
    “I know we’ve missed chances. She could have left in 1933. But millions didn’t and millions died. There’s no wisdom in that particular hindsight. We could have brought her over any time after 1945. But we didn’t. And she wouldn’t. And who among us foresaw the Berlin Wall, the speed with which Khrushchev would be able to split the city?
    “Of course, we’ve been able to make contact with one of those student groups that have dug tunnels and such—but Frank tells me the Stasi, the Vopos, whatever, are pretty wise to that now. Kids get people out through the sewers, so they weld the sewers shut. Kids drum up fake passports, so they double-and triple-check everyone at the crossings. And they are kids. I think we can use them, I think they’re sincere, but they are kids. Nineteen and twenty. I think we need a man in charge who is not a kid. And I think that man is you.”
    “I’m flattered.”
    So obviously non-committal.
    “I’m in no hurry. She’s been stuck there for years already. A few more weeks won’t kill her. Take your time. Think about it for a day or two. It’s a business proposition. We’re both in business. I’ll meet your terms.”
    Wilderness hadn’t mentioned any terms. But neither had Steve or Frank.
    “What I’d like to avoid is incident. And this situation is fraught with possibilities. I don’t want Hannah exposed to anything . . . anything . . . well, like that old lady a couple of years back who seemed to be hanging off a building right on the sector line, in some kind of insane tug of war. Half the world looking up her skirt. Cop had her by the wrists, pulling her back up to the East, some guy looked like he was a fireman had her by the ankles and was trying to pull her down to the West, and she looked like she was about to fall and break her neck. I couldn’t expose Hannah to that. These kids are good kids, gerekhte kids, but they have no . . . discretion. Their pride gets in the way of discretion. They’re having too much fun not to want to boast about it. Discretion is a valuable commodity. You can get paid for discretion.”
    “And for knowledge.”
    “So . . . you bring me to the point, Joe. Frank tells me you know of tunnels under Berlin deeper than the sewers, older than the sewers?”
    “I know of a tunnel.”
    “And it’s possible the Reds don’t?”
    “It’s possible. I think it might be more