by Nina Berry
“Did he…” She didn’t know how to say this, but suddenly the answer felt very important. “Did he feel the same way about you?”
Thomas shook his head. “No, but for the longest time I wasn’t sure. About him or about anything. So I kept hoping, stupidly hoping.”
Guilty relief washed over her, followed by anger. At Devin. “I wouldn’t put it past Devin Black to encourage you, to keep you hoping so he could get you to do what he wanted.”
“That may be so,” Thomas said. “He didn’t flirt with me, exactly, but…” His gaze flicked over to her. “You’re not surprised? About me?”
“A little, maybe,” she admitted. “I had no idea, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“But it doesn’t bother you?” He slid his good hand around his own shoulder as if he’d gotten a chill. “Knowing that I’m…that way?”
“Oh, please,” she said, keeping her voice light. “Move to Hollywood. I’ll introduce you to Monty Clift and Tab Hunter. They don’t advertise it, but everybody kind of knows.”
“Montgomery Clift?” He sat up straighter. “He’s like me?”
She nodded. “I heard similar things about James Dean.”
“I don’t want to be like this, I don’t.” Thomas pounded his right fist on the armrest. “I’ve tried so hard not to be. But these feelings, they just keep…” He gripped the front of his shirt, as if to keep his heart from spilling out of his body. “I’m so sorry if I misled you, Pagan, or made you think that you and I…”
“Don’t apologize,” she said. “I like you, Thomas, but I might be where you were not long ago with Devin Black. Stupidly hoping.”
“He’s a brilliant bastard,” he said. “I think he likes you.”
Her heart did a soft-shoe. “If we get through this,” she said, “I’m going to slap Devin Black just like that stupid Stasi soldier slapped me. We’ll see how much he likes that.”
The road branched before them. “Go right, here,” Thomas said, and pulled out the magazine of the pistol. “Four bullets left.”
“Let’s hope we don’t need them,” Pagan said. “The border is officially closing at 1:00 a.m. If we’re lucky…”
“It’s twelve-thirty now,” Thomas said, peering at his watch. “They must have posted checkpoints on the way into the city.”
“Maybe not,” she said. “They want to keep people from going to West Berlin. It sounded like they were concentrating their soldiers on all the points where the two halves of the cities meet. You and I are just two silly kids returning from a delightful party on a Saturday night.” She glanced over at him. “A party where you got punched a lot. Here.” She tossed her purse onto his lap. “I’ve got some pancake in there that might cover up your bruises. Probably not exactly your shade, but…”
“…still better than my current shade of purple,” he said, fishing her makeup out of her purse. “Brilliant.”
“Part of every good spy’s tool kit,” she said. “Or it should be.”
Thomas turned her rearview mirror toward him and began applying the makeup. “Easy to say when you carry a purse.”
The trees were thinning around them, buildings cropping up more frequently, changing from barns and sheds to homes and stores, all shuttered and dark for the night. But something up ahead was growling like heavy machinery. A line of lights bobbed over the road.
They started passing tanks.
The first one loomed ahead of them, taking up most of the left-hand side of the road, so they cautiously passed on the right. The treads rumbled ominously, and something near
the main turret squeaked like a giant sewing machine in need of oil. The air was choked with gasoline and dust.
Pagan looked up as the young man sitting in the open hatch glanced down. He had his hand on the machine gun perched there. His helmet shaded his eyes, and he wore some kind of earmuffs that gave his head a funny shape. Tank guns must be very loud when they fired. Pagan hoped she wouldn’t find out firsthand.
Pagan didn’t wave or smile, because she had to look ahead at the road and to the dozens of tanks trundling slowly down the street toward East Berlin.
“Mein Gott,” Thomas said under his breath.
Between the tanks were trucks filled with armed soldiers, cement blocks, and wheels of coiled barbed wire. The men glanced at them as they passed by, but no one tried to stop them. They had their orders to close off the city. Two teenagers were of no concern.
Pagan and Thomas encountered no checkpoints as they entered East Berlin. They didn’t speak much, as if holding their breath lest the spell be broken. Thomas quietly told Pagan to turn right as soon as possible, to get away from the tanks, jeeps, trucks, and soldiers marching endlessly down the main streets.
As the adrenaline of their escape drained away, a cold stillness took its place. Goose bumps crawled over Pagan’s skin. Her wet feet in their battered heels were colder than a frozen martini shaker.
Pagan glanced at her watch and managed to find its hands in the dark. It was five minutes to one.
“Your apartment isn’t far from the northern border of East Berlin,” Pagan said. “Ulbricht said they’ve closed down all the metro lines that link to the West, so we can’t go underground. There must be a lot of little streets that cross into West Berlin nearby. Once we get your mother and Karin in the car, maybe we can sneak down one of those, or go on foot if we have to.”
“Leaving our whole lives behind,” Thomas said, staring out at the bomb-damaged buildings and empty streets. “But it’s better than what the Stasi has planned.”
“I wish we could stop and call to warn your mother,” said Pagan.
Thomas shook his head. “All the lines are tapped. And they’ve probably cut off all the phone exchanges until the job is done. Turn left here.”
They wound through the smaller streets of East Berlin, passing ragged silhouettes of damaged buildings and blocky newer construction, all cloaked in an eerie middle-of-the-night silence.
“It’s like the witch from Snow White gave the whole city a bite of the poison apple,” Pagan said.
“Except tomorrow they will wake and find not a prince, but a prison,” Thomas said.
“I guess that makes us two of the seven dwarves,” Pagan said. “I’m Dopey.”
“Don’t be foolish,” Thomas said. “You’re Doc, the only one with any brains.”
She grinned at him. “I think you just said I was smart.”
“I knew you were a wonderful girl the first day we met,” he said. “But tonight…” The headlights reflected off a glass window and lit his somber face, staring at her. “You saved my life by distracting that guard and kept your head while they were shooting at us. I can’t quite believe you’re real.”
It was embarrassing to hear such things, to hear someone she respected say that she was smart, although it made her chilled flesh glow with warmth. But this wasn’t about her. This was about something more important than her sad, silly life.
“We can’t let them win, Thomas,” she said. “To them, you and your family are just one tiny skirmish in a much bigger war. But for you and me, they’re everything.”
Thomas put his hand on her arm. “Thank you for saying that. Here’s my street up ahead. Turn left.”
“Lights off, I think,” she said, turning off the headlights. “In case anyone’s watching.”
She slowed as they coasted around the corner. At the end of the block, a tan Trabant sat parked, lights pointing away from them. Between the trees, near the main door to their apartment building, shadows moved down the steps.
Thomas gasped. “Nein! Zu spät!”
Too late? Pagan jerked the car to a stop, peering through the windshield.
Human shapes moved onto the sidewalk. A man in a Stasi uniform had his hand on Frau Kruger’s arm. She was half
turned around yelling at the soldier behind her, who was struggling with a smaller blonde figure. Karin. He tried to wrangle her legs, cursing, as she kicked and scratched at him.
Rage sent the iciness in Pagan’s body fleeing, clearing her head. She shoved her hands into the depths of her seat, found the unused lap belt and clicked it over her. “Brace yourself,” she said.
“No, no, we’re too late!” Thomas moaned, head in his hands. “They have them!”
“Only two soldiers,” Pagan said shortly. Her stomach lurched, but she pushed the car into first gear and gunned the motor.
Thomas looked at her, not comprehending, then fumbled between the front seat and the door, pulling up the strap of the belt and clicking it into place. “But—”
“It’s our only chance. Get ready!” They were half a block away, hurtling forward.
The Stasi soldier escorting Frau Kruger lifted his head to peer down the street toward them. He must have heard the engine.
Thomas grabbed his pistol, shoving the magazine into place. “Four bullets.”
“Make them count.” Pagan pushed the car into second and aimed it at the Trabant.
The soldier let go of Frau Kruger, pulling his rifle off his back, and stepped off the curb into the street to get a better look at the engine roaring toward him.
Pagan smiled tightly. She was about to deliberately crash a car. She who had killed her father and sister in a car crash. But this time she wasn’t drunk. It was her choice, and her passenger’s choice, too.
The soldier was between her and the back end of his Trabant, lowering his rifle and shouting, “Halt!”
“Better get out of the way, you son of a bitch,” she said, and flipped on the headlights.
The soldier shielded his eyes from the sudden glare, letting go of the rifle with one hand.
The Mercedes-Benz bore down. Beside Pagan, Thomas braced himself. Caught in the brilliance of the lights, Frau Kruger’s face contorted with fear. The other soldier threw Karin to the ground to reach for his own gun.
The soldier in front of the Trabant scrambled toward the cover of the trees, shouting. Pagan gritted her teeth and kept the accelerator pressed down. He needed to move faster if he was going to make it. She hoped he did.
“Zu spät,” she said.
Too late.
The bumper clipped his legs, and he went flying. Pagan braced her hands against the steering wheel, and the Benz slammed into the Trabant. The upper half of Pagan’s body jerked forward. Her forehead bonked against the wheel.
As Thomas hurtled forward, he torqued so that his shoulder hit the dashboard instead of his head. Pagan heard him grunt in pain, then he was out of the seat belt, shoving his door open, gun in his good right hand.
A man moaned in agony nearby. A loud pop, and Frau Kruger screamed. Something warm trickled down Pagan’s forehead between her eyes as she peered over the dashboard, unbuckling her seat belt.
Lit by the one remaining headlight of the Mercedes, the soldier she’d clipped lay on his back on the sidewalk. His right leg was splayed out at an unnatural angle that made her wince. Blood spread outward from his knees, soaking his pants. His rifle had been flung several yards away, where it lay beside a tree. As Pagan watched, he stopped moving. She could only hope he’d passed out instead of something worse.
Another crack. The Mercedes’ windshield spider-webbed as a bullet thwacked into the back of the seat where Thomas had just been sitting.
The remaining soldier wasn’t using blanks first, even though Ulbricht had told Honecker to make that happen. Maybe those instructions were only for the soldiers manning the border posts.
A train-whistle scream split the night.
Karin.
Pagan had to shove her car door hard to open it. The entire front end of the Mercedes was pushed in, warping the car’s frame. Using the door for cover, Pagan rolled onto the street, trying to spot Karin and the remaining soldier.
She fell against the body of the man she’d hit with the car. She put one hand on his chest and relief rushed over her as it rose and fell.
Another gunshot, coming from the sidewalk. Pagan crawled up to the narrow trunk of a tree beside the walkway and peered around it. The glare of the headlights lit a strange tableau.
The remaining Stasi soldier was using Karin as a shield, his left arm around her waist, holding her against his body, while his right hand pointed a pistol at her temple.
The impact from the crash had pushed the Trabant forward, smashing its hood into a thick tree, which tilted at a dangerous angle over the soldier’s head. Steam rose from its engine.
A few yards past the streaming veil of vapor crouched Thomas, pistol pointed at the soldier holding his little sister. His mother stood behind him, her arms outstretched toward her daughter, her face a mask of terror.
The solider had his back to Pagan. She was unarmed.
“Surrender yourselves!” he shouted.
Any moment, more soldiers could come running to his aid. That’s probably what he was hoping for.
Pagan dug her nails into the bark of the tree in front of her. Now or never. Focusing on the back of the soldier’s knees, She scuttled out from behind the tree, keeping low.
In the periphery of her vision, she saw Thomas point his pistol at her, waver for half a second, then turn it back on the soldier.
“You will surrender!” Thomas shouted back in German. “She’s better off dead than in your hands, so don’t think I won’t shoot.”
Every detail of the Stasi soldier’s uniform came weirdly into focus as Pagan rushed toward him: the torn hem of his long coat; the scuff marks on his boots; the tension drawn in the tendons at the back of his neck.
At the last moment, he must have heard her because he made an “Oop!” sound and began to pivot.
She cannoned into him, arms hooking around his knees. He kicked, but her weight and momentum slammed through. All three, Pagan, the soldier, and Karin, fell hard to the ground.
Pagan’s left shoulder banged into the sidewalk, and her arm went numb. She heard the air whoosh out of the soldier as Karin cried out. Running footsteps moving toward them. Somehow Karin was up, free of the man’s hold.
The soldier’s legs scrambled near Pagan’s head as he tried to get up. Remembering something Mercedes had taught her, Pagan shoved herself single-mindedly to her raw knees, pulled her right arm back, and punched the soldier in the crotch.
The man let out a coarse shriek. His knees jerked up into a fetal position, his hands grabbing between his legs.
Thomas loomed over them. The pistol glinted as he smacked it into the side of the soldier’s head once, twice. The man stopped moving.
Pagan was on her feet, breath coming hard. Thomas was listing to his left, blood running down his right leg, but his green eyes were sharp and focused.
“Remind me not to make you angry,” he said.
“Are you shot?” Pagan asked, pushing the hair out of her eyes.
“It’s not deep,” he said, beckoning with his injured left hand. “Mutter!”
Behind him, Frau Kruger walked Karin toward them, inspecting her for wounds as they came. Karin broke free and flung herself at her brother, arms wrapping around his waist.
Thomas staggered a little. “I’m all right, Liebling.”
“Both cars are useless.” Pagan leaned over to grab the pistol still clutched in the unconscious soldier’s hand. “And I don’t think you can walk far with your leg—”
A gunshot popped down the street. Flashlights bounced toward them as running steps echoed between the stone buildings. “Halt!”
“Stasi,” Frau Kruger said. “Run, Karin!” She grabbed her daughter’s hand and bolted past Pagan down the sidewalk.
Thomas fired a shot at the soldiers. Their boots thumped to a
stop. “That’s my last bullet.”
“They’re under orders to fire blanks at first,” Pagan said, throwing him the unconscious soldier’s gun. “I got you a backup, now go!”
Thomas grabbed it out of the air and threw down the empty pistol. He lurched around the body on the sidewalk toward her. She took his right elbow. “Lean on me, come on!”
They ran in an awkward rhythm down the sidewalk. “My car’s a block away, in a garage,” Thomas said. He was panting.
Pagan glanced over her shoulder. The flashlights were scanning the wreckage, moving cautiously. Ahead, Frau Kruger darted to the right down an alley.
“Your car?” Something inside Pagan stirred sickeningly. “I don’t think I can—”
A soldier behind them shouted in German, “There! Down the street!”
He stood in silhouette, his arm an accusing slash of shadow. Beside him, another aimed his flashlight. The glare lit up the sidewalk at their feet.
“This way!” Thomas tugged Pagan down the alley where Frau Kruger had vanished. It cut a narrow valley between buildings, dark as a cellar. Ahead, feet scuffled, and a cry from Frau Kruger pulled them forward even faster.
“Stop it, stop it!” Karin was yelling in German.
The alley turned left, and Thomas almost barreled into a soldier grappling with Frau Kruger. Karin was kicking at him, pounding his back with her little firsts. He wrenched Frau Kruger’s arm, and she screamed, falling to her knees. Without hesitation, Thomas aimed his pistol at the man’s head and fired.
Blood sprayed like a fountain out of the back of his head. He fell back, stiff as a board.
Pagan grabbed Karin in her arms. “Are you all right?”
“Mama!” Karin yelled, pulling Pagan toward Frau Kruger.
Thomas was helping his mother to her feet, but touching only her left arm. The right shoulder was hanging at a very wrong angle, the arm useless. Sweat covered Frau Kruger’s pale face, pain written in every muscle.
