“What was Crandall thinking?” he spat. “If Scharf didn’t know his opponents were willing to kill him, he certainly does now. You have no idea how much more dangerous that makes him.”
Anna tried to regain her composure as she washed her face in the bathroom sink. Her hands were still shaking.
Hans could barely contain his anger. “Anna… why were you there?”
She looked in the mirror, then closed her eyes and exhaled. “For you.”
“What?” Hans was incredulous.
“It was Crandall’s plan,” she said, haltingly. “He promised he’d let you come home if we succeeded.”
Hans returned to the bedroom, slumped onto the bed and buried his head in his hands. “Oh, Anna, how could you have agreed to that? Look at the mess we’re in.”
She came into the room and sat next to him. “It was a poor plan, but I didn’t have another choice. You wouldn’t listen! I’m your contact. We could’ve made a plan together. Instead, I had to rely on Crandall.” Anna shook her head. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter now. What’s done is done.”
Hans grit his teeth. “Anna, Scharf sleeps with one eye open. Now he won’t sleep at all. By now every Stasi office and border checkpoint have your description. You can’t stay here any longer. Somehow, we have to get you out.”
“And you?” she asked.
Hans shook his head. “I’ll help you get out, but we can’t go together. I have to find another way to counteract STOSS, or none of us will be safe.”
Getting Anna out was not going to be easy. They quickly ruled out a sneak escape through the border. Going directly over the Wall was suicide, and hiding her in a truck, which the guards would be expecting, was far too dangerous. The latter had, in fact, been the contingency plan for Anna’s mission. Yet with the operation’s colossal failure, Hans knew security measures would now be far too tight. The most viable way to extract Anna—though still significantly dangerous—would be to disguise her and bring her through a checkpoint. Hans knew the Border Troops’ thirty-three point identification system to detect disguises, but with careful planning and his help at the checkpoint, she could make it through. Hans had an emergency makeup kit, including latex ears and noses and hair dyes for disguise. He also had all of the photographic equipment needed to create a new identity photo of Anna in disguise. What they needed was a passport.
Hans would use a CIA emergency dead drop to request a passport. The dead drop was a steel tin buried in the Friedrichshain People’s Park. Hidden in the ground behind the arches of the fairy tale fountain, the dead drop had been used, undetected, for over two years. There was an elaborate but secure method for its utilization. When Hans wanted to signal he had loaded a message into the dead drop, he would place a fist-sized rock at the base of the Hans im Glück statue on the right side of the fountain. When his contact had loaded a message or material for him, smaller rocks would be placed on the back of three of the decorative stone turtles along the left side of the fountain. To most passerby, the rocks would go unnoticed, or seem like child’s play. Hans requested an Austrian, West German, and Norwegian passport for Anna. He knew from experience that only the finest forgery would fool the border guards. Hans figured it was best to give Anna some options. It would take several days to receive the passports, and until then, Anna would stay hidden in the apartment. Hans hoped the heat would die down by the time they were prepared to make their attempt at the checkpoint.
Over the next few days, Danforth was held on an excruciating see-saw of nursing and torture. Scharf and his cohorts tried to draw information out of him using sodium thiopental. When that did not work, they tried harsher interrogative methods; yet the results were dismal. In the early days of the Cold War, when the Soviets controlled all prisons in eastern Germany, physical torture was the norm. The East Germans had developed a more finessed method of investigation—psychological torture. But these methods required time, and time was the one thing Scharf did not have. Danforth’s injuries made it difficult for Scharf to press him as hard as he needed. Scharf wanted to find Anna and uncover any trace of the network that had plotted against him. Soon it would go underground for good. It was clear now that a real spy was in his midst. As long as he could eliminate the threat, Scharf could use this information to his advantage. It legitimized his mole hunt and gave him even more leverage to purge his opposition. But Danforth proved to be difficult to break, even in his fragile state. After three days, he admitted only that he was an American citizen. He did not confess to being a CIA officer, but he gave up challenging the accusation. Scharf decided it was time to increase the level of torture.
It took almost a week for the passports to arrive. In the meantime, Hans kept up with his normal schedule while Anna lay low in the apartment. They carefully constructed a new identity for her, complete with false nose and graying hair. With makeup they added some wrinkles to her appearance. It was painstaking work, for this makeup had to withstand close scrutiny for possibly hours on end. The penalty for being caught was unthinkable. Anna spent hours adjusting the disguise before finally coming to a version she and Hans both found acceptable. Altogether, she looked some fifteen years older. They decided not to apply any padding to change her body’s appearance, but Anna developed a workable slouch to her posture, making her look more humble and less assured. It was a decidedly anonymous middle-aged disguise that Hans felt would fool the guards.
The May Day holiday came, and along with it the large parade in East Berlin from Alexanderplatz down Karl-Marx-Allee. Berlin was swarming with troops. Hans was called at the last moment to sit on the parade stand behind the generals and Politburo. The next day, Hans and Anna discussed final plans for her escape. Of the eight checkpoints into West Berlin, Friedrichstrasse, Bornholmerstrasse, and Checkpoint Charlie seemed best. Eventually, they ruled out the last two because of too much open space. For a pedestrian, a long walk of nearly a hundred meters was required to reach the safety of the Allied guard posts. Hans could watch, but do little else. Friedrichstrasse, with its rat maze of customs processing, compacted the masses better. If something went wrong, she could hardly run—but with Hans observing, he might be able to step in and help her escape through the labyrinth of back corridors.
Sharp hot pain shot through Danforth’s limbs. He had endured excruciating torture for nearly twenty hours straight. They had done everything they could that would not endanger his life. But now he lay on a cold cement floor, his body bruised and bloody, his head bowed in sweat. As Scharf came over to him and lifted his head, Danforth knew he was looking into the eyes of a monster. Danforth was well-trained to resist interrogation, but nothing could have prepared anyone for this. Scharf had broken him, bit by bit. Danforth eventually revealed Anna’s identity. He hoped Scharf was right and she was dead, or possibly that she had already escaped. In the next few hours, Scharf delivered crushing news: he had lied about Anna’s death. She was still alive, and being hunted by the Stasi. At this revelation, Danforth resolved he would not reveal another single word.