The Berlin Vendetta: Book 3 in the series 'The Enigmatic Defection'

by Sylvia Wheatley

  “That brings quite a responsibility,” Daniel said.

  “Yes.”

  “Can you see anything more on the computer?”

  “Not really. I’ve been looking for new codes but I havn’t discovered anything so far.”

  Which wasn’t true, Shirley knew, but she couldn’t share with Daniel the things she was finding at the moment. When she did it would be too late for him to do anything about it. She thought of how she sat in the park earlier waiting for Susan and Helen. It was very near the Reichstag, just five minutes walk and at midnight tomorrow the celebrations would begin. The third technically because it would happen after the clock struck midnight and what would have occurred by then?

  On her way to the park she had visited the library in Postdamme Strasse and spent some time there. She had wandered round the area looking at buildings. Some which were more public she had gone up to each floor taking innumerable photographs. All of the buildings she had photographed from many angles. She had worked out angles from where people could shoot someone in the Reichstag the most easily. She had taken notes.

  Afterwards she sat in the park waiting for Helen and Susan, a place she always loved with its beautiful flower beds, its lake and multitude of trees. The trees at this time of year were a variety of orange, yellow and red and absolutely beautiful. She felt she would like to walk around it but there had not been time before the two women arrived.

  Now she desperately wanted to share with Daniel what was on her mind but she dare not. If he had any inkling he would try to do something about it and that would ruin her chances of doing what she felt she had to do. She put her laptop on the table and turned towards Daniel. Pulling his shirt up she began to caress him with her fingers.

  “I love you so much,” she said against his face and for a while all work stopped as they went on the soft carpet together.

  Afterwards Shirley continued to study the laptop while Daniel wrote notes and read some literature Johann had given him. Something totally unrelated to what was going on in Berlin now but Johann wanted his opinion. After three hours of working on their separate projects Shirley stood and put out her hand.

  “I need a shower,” she said.

  “Did you shower with Joshua?” Daniel asked.

  She screwed her nose at him. “What made you ask me that?” she asked. “Visiting Ada and Rolf?”

  “Maybe. Did you?”

  “No, darling, I didn’t.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Then why did you ask?”

  “Because I’m jealous of him. Why else?”

  “I love you,” Shirley said. “I’ve always loved you. Don’t you believe that?”

  “It doesn’t always help. I don’t think of it often, just when I have it jammed into my face.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Daniel lifted Shirley. “Never leave me.”

  “I won’t. Never leave me.”

  “I can’t. Let’s shower then. Afterwards I’ll get us a snack because I’m hungry.”

  She would wait for him in bed, she told Daniel after they showered. What would she like to eat, he asked. Mushroom omelette and bacon, she said, and he ran downstairs to get it. One more day, he thought, because tomorrow at midnight the treaty would be signed. One more day and then hopefully they could get back to normal. Hopefully they could ask Shirley’s parents to bring the babies to Berlin.

  But what would lie between and was anything untoward going to happen? He dished up the food, put a red rose which he had bought earlier on the tray and ran upstairs.

  By this time Shirley had travelled a few miles and was approaching the outskirts of Berlin. This was her last chance to find out if her suspicions were true and she felt relatively sure they were. The web sites had revealed more than she wanted to know but now she had to make sure they weren’t the invention of some crank. She drove to Potsdam past the Brandenberg gate and on towards the residential area. Pulling into a small wooded area she sat watching the gate of Ada and Rolf’s house.

  Nothing might occur tonight, she thought, but she rather felt it would. If preparations were to be made for the following day it would probably be at night. She looked at her watch. Going on for midnight and what would Daniel be thinking now? The second time she had walked out while he was cooking a meal for them and it was unforgiveable or he might think that.

  After watching for some time the gates of the house opened and a car drove from the premises. She needed to follow it, she thought, but that was rather difficult because she would be noticed. It was a quiet road and her lights would easily be seen.

  The car drove out, stopped and a tall man got out of it and walked back through the gate. She got out quietly and walked forward at the inside of the pavement where she could not be seen. The man ran to the house, opened the door and Shirley jammed a tracking device onto the underside of the car before running back to hers. A couple of minutes later the man returned and drove away.

  She waited a couple of minutes before driving after him though not on the road he was travelling but on a parallel one. He made his way towards the Reichstag in the way she was expecting.

  He parked next to the park and by this time she had parked a bit further down but where she could see him. She watched him walk towards the area, her face creased in a frown and a feeling of constriction on her chest. It was happening again and was she going to really be the cause of someone’s death this time?

  The most obvious place for someone to take a shot at a person in the entrance to the Reichstag would be from the trees, she thought, not from buildings because they were too far distant. There were buildings at the back but the action was more likely to be at the front where there was room in the grounds for people to gather.

  She followed the man at a distance, not really caring if he saw her or not. Except that she needed to know what he was doing and if he had any part in the suspected coup. What his thoughts would have been on the reunification she had no idea but what good would it do him, anyway? Unless he planned himself to become chancellor of a reunited Germany which was controlled by the former regime. Gros might want to do the same along with a few others who had been part of the former East Germany. It was highly unlikely that such a thing would succeed but some people would be mad enough to try it.

  As mad as this man must be, Shirley thought as she watched him, because it had been a couple of years since she last saw him and what had he been doing in that time? Where had he been hiding? Who had been helping him? With Daniel when he was on the run it had been Abel Schneider and members of the East German Underground. Would this young man’s helpers be just the members of his family or members of some underground movement aimed at ousting the government?

  She followed him at a distance then stiffened as she saw a couple of men coming from another direction though also at the edge of the property where the lights were not shining. She shrank against a tree and looked round her. People could come from any direction and she did not want them seeing her now that there were more of them.

  One of them was Herr Schneider, head of the former East German Intelligence. She could not see faces but she recognised shapes and the way people walked. Gros. He could not be missed. Schmidt. She frowned. Why had he been released from prison? The four men stood for a while at the edge of the field before moving towards the huge building ahead of them.

  She watched them carefully. Surely there was some kind of surveillance to spot them, except that Gros worked for the government and could have done something about that. There might even be people who would help him. They walked to the side of the building and she rather felt there must be an entrance there.

  But she wanted to get in the building also, she thought, but how? She switched on her phone and looked at a series of photographs she had taken earlier in the day.

  Who ever had done the site had put a plan of the building on it and she knew all the entrances and exits. But why on a site because anyone could access that? Except that
anyone couldn’t because most people would not know how to do it. Anyone except her clever friend, and she was grateful to Connie, Shirley thought. She had to admit she had not regarded her as clever enough to do what she had done.

  If the alarm system had been rendered useless then Shirley should be able to get in too, she thought, but she could not go through the same door as the men were going through at this minute. She moved quietly past the door and made her way a bit further along.

  There was a tiny door, tiny insofar as it was modest compared to the rest of the building. It led into a small utility room next to the kitchen, Shirley knew. She fiddled with the lock, opened the door and locked it behind her.

  She could hear voices and that was where she needed to be, she thought, but surely there were security guards of some kind. They had probably dealt with them was her next thought but not by killing them she rather felt because nobody would want anyone discovering they had been in the building tonight. She peeped round the door and the four men were fiddling with lights.

  Bombs? Some kind of poisonous fumes? Cameras? Shirley’s imagination went into overdrive. It had to be something because men did not break into a place like this just for the fun of it and particularly men like the four in front of her. She stood back as one of them turned and virtually held her breath. Waiting for a few seconds she looked again and he had turned back.

  “I think that should do the trick,” Gros said. “Don’t you? I put the other two devices upstairs earlier.”

  “Where exactly?” Schmidt asked.

  “The room above us in the ventilation shaft. They are set to go off just before the chancellor goes out to speak to the people. Our men will go into the building in the ensuing panic and take over. There will be a lot of dignitaries there because they are all coming over from Bonn. Once we have control we will make our headquarters here. Those who are with us from the army and the police will be stationed among the crowd. There will probably be some trouble from enthusiastic young people so there are going to be a lot of policemen. Many of them will join us at the appropriate time.”

  “Are we sure this is going to work?” Schneider asked.

  “Yes. The surprise of it will give us success. It has been carefully planned. I have put the names of all those involved on the site.”

  “What if someone accesses the site?” Schneider asked.

  “They won’t. What we do goes beyond current technology. It is in the pipeline but probably will take a while to perfect. The only access for anyone else is the original URL address and nobody knows that except for the three of us.”

  “Four,” Schmidt said.

  “Three because you do not know it. We cannot risk you being watched in prison.”

  So he hadn’t been released, Shirley thought, and it was time for her to go before anyone discovered her. She stuck a small device against the lintel of the door in front of her, went back to the door from which she came and made her way by a roundabout route to her car.

  So far, so good, she thought, and she needed to get home so she could inform Daniel and Johann. She needed the names of all those who would be involved. She needed a router for her laptop to do it. She drew out into the road and could not see the car which had come from the house in Potsdam or any other cars. Driving away she made her way towards Helen and Johann’s house.

  It was in darkness but she expected that because they were staying in their lodge some way from Berlin. She must not use the lights or go in the front door, she thought, because someone might be watching the house. She could not see anyone but there were houses nearby. Parking some way from the property she walked towards it through the back alley she knew Helen used when she took the babies to the airport.

  She let herself into a side door with the key she had stolen some time before. She had felt more than guilty when she did it but felt it might be useful at some point for this very kind of eventuality. She locked the door behind her, ran up the stairs and plugged in the router and laptop.

  But now she had to find out where the names were and they certainly were not on the pages she had examined before. She looked at the final page closely. Who ever had done this certainly was clever and she looked forward to such technology in the future. But this was not future and she had little time to do what needed to be done. She scanned the page carefully, put her cursor on dots, commas, letters. But nothing came up and she felt a bit desperate.

  There had to be something, she thought, because Gros said the names were on the web page. Maybe she should be trying to access it from one of the earlier pages. She went back to them one by one until she came to the second one.

  She ran the cursor over it very carefully once more and there was a dot marginally lighter than the others. She went onto it and nothing happened. Where could she look? What could she do? She double clicked on the dot and a page opened.

  The page, she thought, and she had to do some more double clicking elsewhere once she had got what she wanted. She printed all the names which came up and there were a lot. About five hundred, she rather felt, but she was not going to waste time counting. Pasting them onto a document she sent an email to Helen.

  She looked at her watch. One thirty and would Daniel be out looking for her? She had not dared to keep her mobile on and had forgotten to put it on. Maybe she should now. She went to do so then paused at a sound downstairs.

  Helen and Johann? Not likely at this time of night, she rather felt, which meant someone was breaking in. She turned off her laptop, pushed it under the floorboard Helen had showed her and stood behind the door. Whoever it was could be looking for information but it just might be a burglar who knew the house was empty. She took her gun from her jacket pocket and waited, listening for noises.

  It sounded as if someone was rummaging around and the person was obviously moving from room to room. After fifteen minutes there were sounds of someone coming up the stairs. Just one person, it appeared, so it could be a burglar. The footsteps went along the landing and doors were opened. Whoever it was seemed to be looking for something and maybe Shirley could get out between room searches.

  But she wanted to know who it was and she wanted to apprehend them. It was irresponsible not to do so, she felt. She heard them approach the door behind which she stood and waited. She would trip the person when he or she came through the door in the way she had Schmidt. But the steps moved on and went into another room. Shirley stood quietly, feeling as if the beating of her heart must be heard by all Berlin. The steps came back and the door opened.

  Shirley put her foot out, the man flew and she jammed a chair over him which she had put near her. She aimed her gun at him and he looked up and back.

  “Hello, Shirley,” he said.

  “Hello, Joshua,” she replied.

  Chapter 7

  2nd October, 1990

  Rolf looked at his watch, his face creased in a frown. One thirty and Joshua should be back by now. He said he would return near midnight. It was difficult keeping an eye on his comings and goings because Rolf did not want Anna to know he was in the house. Joshua desperately wanted to see his mother, Rolf knew, but it wouldn’t be good. Once the reunification celebrations were over Joshua could move somewhere else and then they would tell Anna and Hugh he was alive.

  Joshua said he had been living abroad and would be returning soon. All he wanted was to see his parents. He loved them deeply, Rolf knew, and what Joshua had been doing he had no idea. He did not know why he had come here just now unless it was something to do with the reunification. He was not sure he wanted to know.

  Because he loved his grandson even as he hated what he had done in the past. Whether he had really reformed as he said he had Rolf did not know. He faked his death, Joshua had told him, in order to start a new life because he would always be in danger, both from the British and from the East Germans.

  But the East German government had toppled nearly a year previously and in the confusion of everything many had got away with literal murder. So J
oshua probably could have done the same, Rolf felt. Rolf ought to do his duty and report his presence in Berlin, he knew, but he hadn’t the heart to do it and if Anna found out she would never forgive him.

  Except that Anna thought her son dead and maybe it was best that it remain that way. He heard a soft noise behind him and turned.

  “Is he not back yet?” Ada asked.

  “No. He’s a grown man. We shouldn’t be worrying about him.” He frowned as a car pulled up outside the property. “That looks like the police.”

  “It’s not a police car,” Ada said.

  “But it’s something to do with them or with Intelligence. I know the type of car they use. I wonder what they want. I’ll go and answer the door.”

  They wanted them to accompany them to Intelligence headquarters, they were told. Would they come with them, please? The request was very polite even apologetic, Rolf felt, which was understandable in view of him working for the government.

  “What is wrong?” he asked.

  “We don’t know.”

  “I’ll get my coat then.”

  “Both of you,” the man said.

  Rolf frowned. “Why both of us?”

  “I don’t know, sir, but I have my orders.” Rolf went for their coats and Anna ran down the stairs.

  “Where are you going?” she asked.

  “A friend of ours is ill,” Ada replied. “Go to bed, darling. We’ll be back as soon as we can.”

  “Is everything alright?” Hugh asked from the stairs.

  “Fine, thank you, son.” Rolf helped Ada with her coat and they made for the door. “We’ll ring if we get held up.”

  “Those are officials,” Anna said after they left. “And I don’t believe they’re going to friends. I wish we hadn’t come here. I feel all the time as if we’re on the edge of a volcano which is about to erupt.”

  “I don’t suppose it’s that dramatic,” Hugh replied. “Come to bed, darling. We can’t do anything else.”

  “No.” She followed him upstairs. “I think Shirley thinks they have something to hide. I think you do too.”