It was she who spotted the sign on an iron post: Hollandische Siedlung.
She who spotted number “13.”
When Kiril pulled the bell cord, she slipped her hand into his. The tightness of his answering grip became a substitute for breathing.
The door opened. A pair of expressionless blue eyes looked them over, curiously at first, then intently.
“Come in. Quickly!” Albert Zind said.
Adrienne was stunned. Not because she thought Albert Zind and his family wouldn’t help them. After taking his measure in East Berlin, she had felt sure that he would.
What she hadn’t expected was that he spoke English!
As soon as all three of them were inside, the door was closed and bolted behind them.
Chapter 46
Albert Zind sat in the cab of an ancient truck parked on the middle of the bridge. It was a huge 1942 Studebaker, one of thousands sent by the United States to the Soviet Union during World War II.
It had four sets of double wheels in the rear, and two more up front. It could carry up to 2½ tons of cargo, had heavy springs and shock absorbers, and boasted a powerful diesel engine. The height of the Studebaker’s sides was increased by six horizontal slats around all three sides, making the cargo area roughly six feet high. The height of the bed’s sides were increased even more by U-shaped struts that could be fitted to them. A tarpaulin, if tossed over the top, would completely enclose the rear of the truck.
Zind had built an armoire-like structure in the bed of the truck just behind the cab for storing tools and other supplies. The vehicle’s front and rear bumpers were massive. And though not fast, the truck was a veritable juggernaut when rolling. Its front windshield could be raised, removing any impediment to the driver’s line of sight in inclement weather. The glass window in the rear was roughly four feet wide and two feet high.
For a man like Zind, who was in the construction business, it was the ideal vehicle to own.
For a tough-guy type like his Vopo “pal” Bruno, who drove Zind and his crew on and off the bridge every day, it was pure pleasure—an opportunity to change seats with Zind, get behind the wheel of the powerful ’42 Studebaker, and drive!
Seemingly absorbed in thought, Zind was acutely aware of what was going on. Bruno had tried—unsuccessfully—to start the engine. Three times the diesel motor almost caught. Three times it died. Bruno was well aware that if he continued to crank the heavy-duty battery, he would kill whatever power the truck still had.
Shooting a sideways glance in Albert Zind’s direction, Bruno said, “Cat got your tongue, Zind?”
“Just wondering what the foreman will say when he finds out I pulled the crew off an hour early.”
Bruno shrugged. “Who could work in all this rain? Those twenty guys in the back of the Studebaker are already soaked. You’re a foreman same as me, Zind. Foremen are supposed to take care of their men, am I right?” he said good-naturedly.
“The problem is that my foreman is nervous about completing the repair job on this bridge,” Zind said. “He’s being pressed, so naturally he’s in a big hurry to get it done. Glienicker Bridge handles way too much traffic—particularly going from East to West.”
There has to be some way to take advantage of that.
This time when Bruno hit the starter, the engine struggled to life and turned over—barely. Bruno revved it for a few minutes until the battery was charged, then left the bridge and pulled to a stop at the cobblestone square between the East German and Soviet guard houses. Yanking the hand brake, Bruno killed the diesel engine and got out of the truck.
“You better check that battery, Zind,” he chided.
“Will do.”
“See you Wednesday. Tomorrow I’m off duty,” Bruno reminded him.
“Wednesday it is,” Zind acknowledged as he slid behind the wheel.
The bridge crew scrambled off the back of the truck and lined up for the headcount.
The “headcount” triggered a reminder of its own… How the Wall was being haphazardly thrown together, and what desperate East Germans were doing to escape. During the past several weeks, some would-be defectors were leaping from windows and rooftops to freedom even as other windows and doors were being bricked up, other rooftops sealed, entire buildings demolished.
Sewers were one way out, Zind mused, but there was a price tag attached—the risk of drowning from a sudden rainfall, like today. Or suffocating from accumulated gas. Or being blocked by iron grates and manhole covers that had been welded shut.
Elsewhere throughout Germany, the East and West had always been separated by fences and barriers, he thought. Checkpoints and guard shacks. Barbed wire and land mines. Scrutiny by watchtowers that were manned by Vopos with machine guns. Swimming across a lake or a river even in darkness was problematical.
Yet according to the grapevine, a handful of would-be defectors had made it out not long ago. The student who’d buried his fiancée in a trunkful of clothes. Two heavily-clothed families, eleven kids between them, who’d flattened themselves under a refrigerated truckload of frozen meat. Some electrician who had scurried hand-over-hand across a disconnected high-tension cable. Four East German soldiers who’d bulled their way through fences and mines in an old armored Cadillac.
Such incidents were unique, unrepeatable—ideas that worked only once because the border patrols hadn’t anticipated them.
The Zind brothers, Erich and Gunther, climbed into the front seat. “Crew’s all counted,” Gunther said to Albert.
“Come up with any ideas?” Erich asked him.
“Not yet.”.
He headed for the marshalling yard. When he pulled up, his foreman was pacing outside the engineering office.
“I know, I know,” Albert grumbled as he and his brothers emerged from the truck. “We just cost you an hour out of your schedule. But everyone is soaked to the skin.”
“That’s not the worst of it,” Mueller groaned. “Those new steel supports I ordered? They’re being delivered on Wednesday. Day after tomorrow.”
“So?”
“So I need to be on the bridge when they get here! But they want me in Berlin that day so they can grill me about the delays on repairing this godforsaken bridge. How can I be in two places at once?”
“What are you worried about? I’m an engineer too. I’ll handle it.”
Mueller was visibly relieved. “Then do,” he said.
As Albert and his brothers waited in the rain for the bus ride home, a torrent of water rushed down the gutter heading for the sewer—prompting Albert’s thoughts to turn to tunneling. A lot of tunnels would be built—eventually. But not yet. Lousy timing, he thought as he replayed what Kiril had told them last night…
Any minute now this whole town can be subjected to a house-by-house search by Vopos—maybe even Russians. We’re running out of time.
That Monday evening as everyone sat around the dining room table, Albert raised a troubling question. “Is it time to relocate the three of you?”
“Where to?” Kurt Brenner asked.
“A place far from the border until I can come up with a plan.”
“No,” Kiril said with quiet emphasis. “The time is now. The place is Glienicker Bridge.”
Albert’s eyes narrowed. “Why do you think you’ll have better luck than your dead friend?” he asked solemnly.
“I’m not irresponsible, Albert,” Kiril said, not taking offense. “It’s just that we’re too close to run. We’re only meters from West Germany. But run deeper into East Germany? I’m convinced that the risk is much worse. Is there any chance we could pose as members of your construction crew?”