Berlin Encounter (3 page)

The journey to Rostock went so well that Jake found himself mildly disappointed.

Their landing zone had turned out to be a thin strip of farmland separating the dangerously sandy Baltic shoreline from the hilly forests and industrial towns of inner Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. Jake trundled down an empty brick-and-mud country lane with a carefully battered road map in his lap. The rain had lessened with the dawn, and the wind had freshened to gusty squalls.

He drove slowly, looking for what should be the turnoff to Rostock. Jake squinted down at the map, felt the dismay of a lost traveler. He had a fleeting image of perhaps wandering along some uncharted road, the glider having been set free a thousand miles off course and depositing them in a land so far from where he was supposed to be that the map was utterly useless.

Then in the distance he spotted a great metal crane, the sort used for unloading ships, and suddenly the map came into focus. The road was identified, his target pinpointed. A few miles later he crossed a rise, and the port of Rostock spread out beneath him.

The harbor was a mere shadow of its former self. Four of the five giant loading cranes had been reduced to hulks of steel and slag. Of the dozen port buildings, none had their roofs intact, three had been totally destroyed, and another four were so pitted and scarred that he could watch men moving the pallets about inside. Roads and rails surrounding the port were studded with shell holes. The ships waiting patiently at dockside appeared to be in equally bad shape. Jake spent a long moment inspecting the scene, then gunned his motor and drove on.

His way took him down and around the city’s western side, skirting the main roads and most activity. Still, what he saw depressed him. Little repair work appeared to be going on. Two and a half years after the war’s end, and most of the damaged homes and factories still bore only the most basic reconstructions. The contrast with the frenetic activity surrounding every town and city in the western sectors was staggering.

Most bomb-splintered windows had been replaced with plywood or cardboard; Jake saw almost no glass. Crumbling walls had been propped up with uncured tree trunks still bearing leaves and limbs. Roads were pocked with shell holes filled with dirt and gravel or simply left in their dismal state. Wires and cables remained strewn everywhere, which more than likely meant that electricity had not been generally restored. Jake found this remarkable. The entire region around Karlsruhe, where he had served, had returned to full power within a year of the peace settlement. How else were the factories to run, giving people jobs and the economy a chance to get back on its feet?

It was hard to tell much from the people. They looked grim, but so did most Germans. Five hard years of war, followed by total defeat, had left scars which would not fade so swiftly. But he had the impression that there was more hunger here than in the western sectors, more hardship, more despair.

And less traffic. Jake’s was one of the few vehicles he saw upon the road which did not bear military markings. He saw only an occasional car, and the few civilian trucks he spotted looked as bad as his. So did the scattering of trams and buses, all stuffed to the point that passengers hung from the stairs and outer railings and children crammed onto the back runners.

The closer he drew to the town, the more stares he drew. Some looked with hostility, others with outright envy. Here was a truck. Privately owned. A man wealthy enough to have both transport and fuel and some reason for both.

He arrived at the unmarked crossing with vast relief at having escaped those hostile eyes and at not having passed a checkpoint yet. The longer he could remain unchecked, Jake reasoned, the less chance there would be of his being connected to the mysterious arrival of a British glider bearing two trucks with U.S. Army markings.

Jake stowed the map back under his seat. It was of no use to him now. This road and all that was yet to come had been committed to memory before he had left England.

Jake drove two miles farther and reached the last farm before entering the woods. He checked his watch and pulled off. His instructions were to arrive at the installation’s outer gates precisely at noon. If not that day, then the next, or the day after. But only at noon.

Jake did not need to see the people to know that eyes were watching him. He climbed down, stretched his back, proceeded to make and eat an early lunch. Calm, casual, easygoing, but watchful. A trader operating on his own had every reason these days to seek a solitary lay-by before stopping.

Twenty minutes later the farmer finally stepped from behind his ramshackle barn. He stood for a long moment before walking slowly over, using a sharpened pitchfork as a staff. Jake turned and watched him approach, but did not stop eating. He returned the farmer’s suspicious greeting, decided he might as well give his story one trial run before hitting the big time.

“You a trader?” The farmer tried for nonchalance, but his squinty gaze continually flitted toward the back flap.

“Feed and seeds,” Jake replied, his tone laconic. “Some tools. Pots and pans. Boots.”

“Boots,” the man said, and glanced down at his own feet. His shoes were bound to his ankles with twine. Newspaper poked from holes at the toe. The squinty gaze rose and leveled on Jake. “Where you from?”

“Everywhere,” Jake said, knowing his accent was rough, but hoping the instructors had been correct when they said he did not sound like an American. Americans tended to mangle the tones of other languages, they had told him. Jake had a careful ear, holding the tones as correct as he could. He sounded foreign, but not from any particular place. Dutch, perhaps. Or Hungarian who had learned Swiss German. Or Danish, except his coloring was too dark. “I’ve spent my whole life traveling, buying and selling.”

Envy flashed across the farmer’s seamed features. “Been here all my life. Watched the world come and go, I have. Trouble and woe, only things that have remained.”

Jake grunted, figuring that a man who made his living off small-time deals would not have much time for the troubles of others. He reached into the back, carefully shielding the payload from the farmer’s prying eyes, and drew forward one of the two sacks bearing boots. Both the canvas sacks and the boots themselves had been brought to England from the western sector of Germany, as had all the other manmade products.

Jake unleashed the neck catch of one bag and drew out samples of recovering Germany’s workmanship. Each segment of the boots had been cut from different-colored leather, the stitching was irregular, the eyelets were uneven, and the soles were made of tire rubber. But from the farmer’s expression Jake realized they were far better than anything he had been offered recently.

“We don’t have money for boots,” a woman’s voice announced sharply.

The farmer did not look around as he accepted one of the boots, handed Jake the pitchfork, and raised one foot to compare the sizes. “The trader’s got pans.”

The woman took an involuntary step forward. “Took all our pots, they did. All of them.”

“Been cooking on a coal griddle and a shovel blade,” the farmer said, giving the second shoe a careful inspection. “
Ach du lieber,
I grow mighty tired of fry-grease.”

Jake’s only reaction was to reach back inside and heave close the nearest crate. He lifted the first handle, unwrapped the burlap used to keep the pots from rattling, hefted the great cooking-pot and said as he had been instructed, “These come dear.”

The woman was unable to conceal her desire. The farmer inspected his wife and sighed in defeat, “How much for the boots and the pan?”

“We don’t have money,” the woman warned. “It’s gone.”

“We sell to the commissar,” the farmer said, his eyes pleading, though simple pride kept it from his voice. “Have to. They pay in scrip. Lets us buy supplies, if there are any, which isn’t often.”

“All the farm is listed,” the woman said bitterly, grasping the handle from Jake and clasping the pot to her chest. “Everything we own, or what’s left. Every cow, every chicken, every tool. Can’t let you have an animal.”

Jake bit back the urge to give them the goods, said simply, “What can you trade?”

Thirty minutes later he drove away, feeling for the first time that he just might make this whole thing work. His tank was topped off with twenty liters of fuel siphoned from the farmer’s worn-out tractor. The truck was sweetly perfumed by a quarter ring of homemade cheese and half a loaf of fresh-baked bread. Two jars of honey nestled within straw in his glove box, and on the seat beside him rode two dozen newly laid eggs.

Which was why, when he approached the sentry guarding the derelict control station and did not see his contact, he leaned from his window and said as casually as he could muster, “Got any need for fresh food?”

Before the soldier’s evident hunger could descend from his eyes to his tongue, a second man stepped from the sentry house. This one was dressed in the blue uniform of the political officer. “What’s this, what’s this?”

Jake watched the soldier stiffen to attention, saw the disappointment which could not be masked. He made mental note of this as he slid from the cab. If soldiers at key installations were going hungry, things must indeed be bad. “Farmer up the road said I might find a buyer for some fresh goods.”

“All produce is to be sold directly to the commissary and given out according to passbook regulations,” the officer snapped. He squinted at Jake. “What was the farmer’s name?”

“Didn’t say I bought anything from him. Just got directions, is all.” He cocked a thumb at the open door. “You want the stuff or not?”

The political officer jerked his head around the door, and his eyes widened. “Eggs!”

“Two dozen, fresh as they come,” Jake said, enjoying himself despite the risk. Maybe he had a knack for the world of high finance, if this present line of work gave out. “You take them all, I’ll make you a good deal.”

The officer raised himself up to full height, a shrewd glint appearing in his eyes. “These are legally licensed eggs?”

“They’re mine,” Jake replied, an edge creeping to his voice. “And they can be yours if you’ve got anything to offer besides—”

“You made it, good, good!” His contact scuttled through the sentry point. “Herr Thalle, this is the trader I mentioned, the one with the tools!”

The political officer saw his hopes fading. Greed turned to sullen anger. “Not to mention unlicensed eggs.”

The scientist wore a white lab coat turned gray with age and hand washing. He gave a false little laugh. “Ah, but what are a few eggs among comrades?”

“I could have him thrown in jail for such a crime.”

“Yes, but then where would we be? You know we’ve been waiting almost six months for these tools.” Sweat beaded his upper lip as he turned to Jake and demanded, “You have them?”

“I might,” Jake drawled, his eyes still on the political officer. The man was an officious little puppet, all spit and polish in his bright blue uniform with the silver buttons and the ribbons on his lapel. “Then again, I might have stashed them up the road a ways. Until I could see what kind of reception I was going to have here.”

“An excellent reception!” The dark-haired scientist positively burst with nervous bonhomie. “We have been looking out for you now for over a month, haven’t we, Herr Thalle?”

“Even so,” the officer grumbled, “I still say we have no cause to deal with common criminals.”

“Then I’ll be on my way,” Jake said, and turned back toward the truck.

“No, no, please, wait!” Frantically the scientist grabbed at his sleeve, his spectacles sliding down his nose in the process. He let go of Jake long enough to readjust the glasses, then slid between Jake and the cab. The smile was still there, but slipping around the edges. “Perhaps a small gift, a token, to the good Herr Thalle would ease our way through this misunderstanding, yes?”

A little smirk painted itself on the officer’s face as he replied, “Perhaps.”

“A bribe, you mean.” Jake felt his hackles rise at giving this petty troublemaker anything. Still, he was blocking Jake’s way inside. Reluctantly Jake turned to the cab and brought out four eggs. And as he placed them in the man’s hands he brought his face in close and said with quiet menace, “I think that should be more than enough, don’t you?”

Something in Jake’s gaze caused the man to take a single step back before replying, “Sentry!”

“Sir.”

“Take his papers for inspection.” The officer then wheeled about and retreated to the sentry building with as much firmness as he could muster.

Jake reached back inside the cab, took another four eggs, reached to the sentry, and said quietly, “My papers.”

In his haste to take the eggs, the sentry almost dropped his rifle.

The scientist said, “The tools are very heavy. We will need to draw the truck up alongside the second entrance.” When the sentry nodded without looking up from his prize, Jake shoved the scientist inside the cab, slid in beside him, slammed the door, and drove on.

“That was awful,” the scientist said. “Why were you so rough on Herr Thalle?”

“No small-time trader is going to be an easy mark for a worm like that,” Jake replied. He glanced over at the heavily perspiring scientist. “You are Doctor Rolf Grunner?”

“Yes. And you?”

“Jake Burnes. Colonel, NATO Intelligence.”

“What has taken you so long, Colonel?”

“Had to set things up, then wait for the weather,” Jake said succinctly. “Where to?”

“There, beside those green doors. We have been waiting almost a month. Hans, Dr. Hechter, he almost gave up hope. Things have been increasingly difficult in the laboratories. The rumors have been constant. Again yesterday we heard that they were taking us to a new facility. One somewhere in Kazakhstan, I think they said.” The scientist pointed and said, “Stop here.”

At first glance Jake understood why wartime bombing of the facility had been so ineffectual. The great metal doors did not open into buildings at all, but rather into cliffs that protruded from a steep-sided hill like buttresses from a great sand and rock vessel. The only exposed points were the outbuildings, several of which were blackened hulks. The concrete launching strip was also pocked with hastily repaired holes. Jake eased up to the set of crumbling concrete stairs, cut the motor, and let the scientist slide out.