The Berlin Vendetta
Book 3 in the series
The Enigmatic Defection
by S.E. Wheatley
Copyright: S E Wheatley
Published: 16 February, 2015
The right of S E Wheatley to be identified as author of this Work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system, copied in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise transmitted without written permission from the author. You must not circulate this book in any format.
Photograph by Mike Peel (www.mikepeel.net
The historical facts in this book are, as far as can be ascertained, correct. The characters, apart from those connected with history, are fictitious.
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I cannot live the way God wants me to live.
My only hope is that God will take over.
The Sermon on the Mount
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Those people who listened on the mountain
were blessed to hear Him and so are we.
The Berlin Divide
Book 1 in the series ‘The Enigmatic Defection’
A romantic thriller set in East Germany and England
before the wall came down
The Berlin Hope
Book 2 in the series ‘The Enigmatic Defection’
Shirley felt she had got it right. She divorced Daniel in order to ensure his safety in East Germany where he has defected. She has married Joshua to try to convince the East German authorities that Daniel is on the level. But things are not what they appear to be and her involvement in the intrigue which surrounds Daniel deepens.
The Berlin Vendetta
It is eleven months later and a few days from
the reunification celebrations in Berlin on 3rd October, 1990.
Shirley is unwillingly drawn into a
plot to overthrow the government which takes her
into danger and intrigue.
The Tangled Web
Book 1 in the series ‘The Web of Lies’
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Book 2 in the series ‘The Web of Lies’
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Your Time or Mine
Book 1 of the quadrilogy, ‘When Times Collide
This is a book about a young lady who accidentally discovers a
way to travel in time and travels back to just before the
first world war where she makes a friend who will change her life
Your Time is Mine
(Book 2 of the quadrilogy, ‘When Times Collide)
The first world war begins and Sylvia continues to travel back
in time while carrying on her own life in the year 2002
Your Time Remains Mine
(Book 3 of the quadrilogy, ‘When Times Collide)
In the nineteen forties the war is over for the world but for many its results are very real. Sylvia and Madeleine once again become
involved with the casualties of war and go on to live their lives
in both their times, not realising what lies ahead of them which
will complicate their lives even further.
Your Time or Mine Forever
(Book 4 of the quadrilogy “When Times Collide)
Sylvia and Madeleine are shot into 1914 as the time passage becomes unstable. Sylvia takes on the identity of Nyree Nouveau and Ann Lombard and Madeleine becomes Katherine Nouveau and Denise Nightingale.
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The basic history of October, 1990 is correct, insofar as can be ascertained. Most of the members of the Stasi, however, are fictitious, as is the story.
The description of the Reichstag, except for the outside, is not accurate. It has been invented for the purpose of the story.
There was no attempted coup in February, 1990.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 1
26th September, 1990
Daniel reached over to switch on a tape in his car tape deck. His very most favourite song in all the world and the rich and beautiful voice which filled the car was one he never tired of hearing. He had made love to that voice this morning, he thought, along with the beautiful body that went with it, and he was the most fortunate man in all the world. He had then played for a while with his little one year old sons, Timothy and Michael, and enjoyed the way Shirley kept looking over to where they sat on the floor in the kitchen with them. There was always a soft expression on her face when she watched him and the babies and he wanted that expression to remain all his life.
But what would she think if she knew he still worked for Intelligence in the field or did she know, anyway? She was more than astute and there was nothing much which got past her. Maybe she was working for Intelligence herself without telling him because Lindell had asked her a few times, he knew. Not doing anything dangerous, he told her, more in an advisory capacity. She refused but Daniel knew she had the kind of brain which liked to keep occupied. She also had the kind of brain which could crack codes, find information where no-one else would look and work things out. She had showed that a few times since he met her and Intelligence had benefited from that ability.
Shirley and the babies had planned to go with him today to The Sylvans which was his family home and one he loved to visit. Paul his father, Connie his stepmother who was twelve years younger than Paul. Martin and Katy, his brother and sister of thirteen and eleven from Paul’s first wife who died when they were small. Shirley now three years of age and Seth two. Both Daniel and Shirley loved them all to bits and Connie had been Shirley’s friend before either of them married.
They could take Michael and Samuel into the park on the way home, Shirley said, and slide them down the slides or push them on the swings or take them on the roundabout. She loved doing that, Daniel knew, and he had not been averse to her suggestion because he could not get enough of them all. Away for months when he was on the run in East Germany, it was wonderful to be home. He had never thought of himself as a family man but now that he had Shirley and the twins full time he was enjoying it. But the university rang and asked if she could fill in for one of the sociology lecturers who was ill and she decided to take the babies and put them in the crèche. It was good for them to mix with other children, she said. They did not mix, Daniel said. They just rolled around looking at one another. That was communication in itself, she replied, and that was what it was all about. Communication and their children were not going to be brought up in a cocoon just because they had each other.
They had re-married soon after Daniel’s return to the west when the Berlin borders were opened. Daniel was going to make an honest woman out of Shirley, he told her, and she was never getting awa
y from him again. He still could not accept the time she spent with Joshua even though their marriage was only four months long before it was discovered he was a member of the double chain of spies and before he was murdered. She might have married Joshua to take the heat off him when he was in East Berlin, Daniel told her, but he still didn’t like it. She smiled, was pleased to have him back and told him even his nagging was acceptable. Well, acceptable for now but she could not guarantee the future.
And he still did not like it, he knew, because she had slept with someone else when she should have been with him. It was his fault but he had never expected to meet someone like Shirley and marry her a couple of days later. He thought at the time that what he was going to do had been cancelled. But then the East Germans rang him to say it was on again and he knew he had to defect in order to fulfill the assignment he had agreed on with British Intelligence.
It was a beautiful day. The sun shone without a cloud in the sky, which was something it had been doing most of the summer. The figure of 37.1 degrees centigrade recorded at Nailstone, Leicestershire was one degree Fahrenheit higher than the previous record set in 1911 though the new record had not been officially confirmed, everyone was told. The hot weather had brought countryside fires in North Yorkshire and also in more than a hundred square miles of the Peak District National Park which was closed for a while to protect the moorland from careless visitors. Shirley and Daniel had watched the news with great interest and enjoyed every minute of the sunshine.
Penguins at Bristol zoo and a herd of rare pigs from Ludlow in Shropshire had to receive daily cold showers of water to prevent them from dehydrating. Roads around the country were clogged as motorists made their way to coastal resorts and some intercity trains had run at reduced speeds because of possible distortion of the rails in the intense heat. Reservoir levels were low but officials said they were confident that supplies were not yet at risk.
Shirley and Daniel decided to have a swimming pool built in their large garden and had helped to install it. They spent a lot of time in it and taught the infants to swim. They also went to The Sylvans quite often to do the same in the swimming pool they had had for years. Daniel’s family also came to them, as did Shirley’s parents who lived in the Midlands. It had been a good summer, Daniel thought, and wonderful after spending the three years prior to it in East Berlin and then on the run until the walls and barriers were opened. Wonderful after first being divorced by Shirley at his suggestion and after her marriage to Joshua. He was the most fortunate man out and he was glad that now Germany would be officially reunited on third October.
Which was something they would be a part of because Shirley was giving a concert on the third in the Philharmonie in Berlin. She needed to keep in the public eye, she told Daniel, and she was a popular singer. In two months she would be doing a concert in the Royal Albert Hall and she was already writing her Christmas single. With any luck she might be top of the charts at Christmas, she said. It would not be luck, he replied. It would be because she was so talented.
And after four years of knowing her, even though a lot of that time they had been apart, he still loved her deeply. He loved her more as time progressed and her love for him he felt he would never take for granted.
The song finished and another one began. He drove steadily, enjoying the beautiful Sussex countryside in the way he always did. He had decided to travel on the smaller roads in preference to any A roads and knew this part of the countryside very well. Crossroads loomed ahead. Not large ones because he was on a small country road and he could not see immediately what came out of both sides. He knew that from travelling on the road before. He slowed a bit in case. They would not be able to see either, he felt, until he got close. His vision of the road to the left improved and he drove forward.
In the one second there appeared to be nothing, in the next a huge truck speeded towards the road on which Daniel was travelling. It would hit him, he knew, because of its speed which he estimated to be at least seventy miles an hour. Nobody travelled that fast if they were approaching a junction which meant the truck had to be out of control. He wrenched his wheel to the right and the impact of one car crashing into another was ear splitting as the truck caught the corner of his car. The metal buckled. Glass shattered. Tyres split. Daniel’s car went across the road. The truck which went into it followed it and threatened to flatten it.
The car came to an abrupt halt against a hedge and the truck went on its side. Daniel was grateful for the airbags which shot from the steering wheel and on the passenger side of the car. Not all cars had them but Shirley had made sure they were in theirs when they bought it. She was not going overboard on safety, she had said, but airbags were practical and they had two little babies who needed both their parents.
For a few moments Daniel felt a bit dazed. He had not hit his head but the shock of the crash caused him to be somewhat disorientated. The windscreen was non existent apart from a few jagged pieces at the edges. One piece had caught his face causing it to bleed. The airbag was jammed against him and made him feel claustrophobic. The thought that he could have been killed was terrifying. He would have definitely been killed, he thought, if he hadn’t turned the car away from the truck.
He squeezed round the airbag and rolled down the window, thankful that it had not buckled. He must get out in case the car exploded. Except that such a thing was unlikely because, Shirley had told him one day when they were discussing it, petrol tanks were insular and would not explode. Daniel, as a scientist, should know that, she said. Was she married to a moron or something?
In other instances he would have smiled at the memory, he thought, but he did need to get out of the car in case she was wrong. He pushed the door hard. Buckled, he knew, because it would not open. It would not even budge an inch. He reached for the handle to roll down the window and was relieved when the glass slid down. Levering himself through it he landed on the grass beside the hedge, wincing as some thorns from it pierced his arm. He pulled them out, squeezed to make himself bleed and stood.
He needed to see if the driver of the truck was alright, he thought, because the vehicle was now on its side. The wheels were still spinning but it certainly was not as badly damaged as his car. He walked over to it but there was no-one in the driver’s seat. No driver? Bells rang loudly in his brain. No driver therefore the accident could possibly not be an accident but something deliberate. His work in Intelligence told him that and particularly his time in East Germany where his training to recognise suspicious situations always came in useful. He went back to his car, reached into the car cubby hole and took his gun from it.
But a quiet country road was not the place where he would expect something like this to happen, he thought, and there was no-one around. He had not noticed anyone following him at any time and felt sure he would have done so if there had been someone. He was trained for that too. Even as he thought of it a police car appeared on the horizon travelling towards him from the opposite direction.
He walked towards it as it stopped and the driver got out. At the same time someone came from the back of the truck. Hans Schmidt and what was he doing in England? How did he know Daniel would be just here? The only way, he thought, was if they had put some device on his car in order to follow him.
He reached for his gun, something Shirley did not realise he had and of which he was sure she would disapprove. But for him it was standard equipment as a member of Intelligence and he had not been at all sure that there would be no repercussions from his time in Berlin. The survival of Schmidt when everyone thought him dead and the injuries Schmidt had sustained from the car bomb which the underground in East Berlin had planted Schmidt would definitely not have forgotten. He felt he had a score to settle and he obviously was trying to settle it.
But the men did not produce any guns as they walked towards Daniel. Schmidt stood in front of him, tall, muscular, the inevitable cigarette hanging from his mouth in the way it always did. The other man stood ju
st behind him.
“I need your help,” Schmidt said.
“My help,” Daniel repeated.
“Yes.”
Daniel looked at the smashed up truck and car. “There are phones,” he said.
“Huh?” Schmidt looked bemused.
“Phones. Was it necessary to smash up a truck and a car to get my attention or were you aiming to kill me?”
“I wasn’t trying to kill you. I did not think you would listen to me if I just rang you,” Schmidt said.
“You could have tried it. How did you get this truck to smash into me without a driver?”
“Fritz drove it and jumped out before it hit you,” Schmidt replied.
“And how did you know I would be just here?”
“We put a tracking device on your car so we would know where you were.”
A tracking device, Daniel thought, and that was more than unnerving. To do it they would have gone to Daniel and Shirley’s house during the night.
“I could have you arrested for that,” Daniel said. “I’m not sure I won’t. You are not in East Germany now, Schmidt, nor are you in charge of anything. Accept that and move on before you find yourself in prison for life. There is no East Germany now nor will it return. I am going to ring the police and report the accident.”
“No police,” Schmidt said. “I will pay for the damage to your car and get tow trucks to take the car and the truck to the garage.”
Daniel frowned. “Why should I listen to you? Can you give me a good reason?”
“I need your help,” Schmidt repeated.
“My help with what?”
“We need to do something about the cars first.”
“You are impersonating a policeman,” Daniel said. “Nobody takes lightly the impersonation of a policeman and the real police will be here soon because someone is bound to have reported the accident or they will soon when somebody passes. I suggest you leave your mate here because the police will want to know who was driving the truck. Do you both have driving licences?”
The Berlin Vendetta: Book 3 in the series 'The Enigmatic Defection' Page 1
