Tom Clancy Red Winter, page 20
Any call from West Berlin to an East Berlin exchange required an 0372 prefix—the dialing of which would likely set off trip wires at half a dozen intelligence agencies that kept tabs on such calls. The East was cordoned off, but relatives called one another from either side of the Wall more and more every day, talking about everything from the weather to wish-list items from the West, like blue jeans or metal plumbing fixtures. North would keep her call quick and generic, hoping to get lost in the chatter.
The phone rang twice in that extra-urgent tone spy movies tended to get right before a woman answered with the last four of the extension. In typical German fashion, she used two sets of two-digit numbers. Instead of five-one-six-seven, she greeted North with “Einundfünfzig, siebenundsechzig.” Fifty-one, sixty-seven.
“Dolly Dupont, guten Tag!” North said, introducing herself. “Bitte sagen Sie ihm, dass die Leitung besetzt ist.”
Please tell him the line is busy.
It sounded perfectly normal to anyone who happened to be listening in on the call.
The lady on the other end asked North to hold for a moment. Then, approximately ten seconds later, told her to go ahead.
Before placing the call, North had inserted a sewing needle into an almost invisible hole on the side of a TI SR-52, converting it from a working calculator to a device capable of digitizing encoded messages if she simply held the device to the telephone receiver. The Stasi clerk on the other end of the call had placed her handset on an acoustic coupler that would decrypt the message. The Stasi’s Technical Operations Sector nerds dubbed the device a Schnellgeber—or speed-giver.
The message was simple and concise.
“Ryan and Foley crossing on foot Friedrichstrasse as Jack and Mary Avery. 4M, 2F already there to greet/backup . . .”
North followed with basic descriptions for the six members of the team from Helsinki.
With her message sent, North hung up, making certain she used the needle to switch the SR-52 back to calculator mode. She’d call and talk to Schneider in person as soon as she crossed—if she wasn’t in a CIA holding cell by then.
Skip Hulse was more than a little naïve when it came to trusting people, but even he would be smart enough to call the guard shack at Checkpoint Charlie and have them stop her if she tried to cross. It was the entry point for all Allied nation personnel and non-German tourists who wanted to cross to the East. So, for today, she would just have to be German and cross at Friedrichstrasse station. Her German was impeccable and, though the travel documents Schneider provided said she was a citizen of the DDR, he’d added an innocuous annotation in the lower-left corner of her identity card so the Pass and Control units of the Border Police would know to let her cross unmolested.
North slowed in front of a shop selling designer shoes, using the reflection in the window to check her six o’clock on both sides of the street. CIA operations officers were creatures of habit—and she knew their habits. Oh, they all tried to be clever and creative, and some were better at it than others, but if they didn’t see a tail, people tended to grow lazy after a few minutes of a surveillance-detection route. Even North, who was considered one of the best, fell back on the same techniques when tailing someone. Army CID, Air Force OSI, DIA, they all attended much of the same training. She would be able to spot them if by some long shot they’d been able to get spooled up in time to be looking for her already.
Of course, depending on what Skip Hulse believed about her now that she’d disobeyed his embargo on leaving the office, tailing her might be the last thing on his mind. He might well just put a bag over her head and drive her to some dark German forest or secret NATO bunker for a lengthy interrogation. She shivered at the notion. Truth be told, there were monsters in every agency, in every country—even good American patriots who would pull out a fingernail or two if the need arose. She should know . . .
North rubbed her eyes with a thumb and forefinger, trying in vain to pinch away the thumper of a headache. This shitstorm was still salvageable, maybe. It had to be. Everything depended on silencing CALISTO, and to do that, North had to know who he was. Ruby Keller was either very guilty or very innocent. And if she was guilty, she held the key. If she was innocent . . . North didn’t want to think about that.
35
Keller woke to a musky antiseptic smell and the distant snap of boots walking across a hard floor. She tried to open her eyes, but they would not cooperate. The way her head felt, she would not have been surprised to find they were matted shut with blood. Every part of her body seemed to have clocked out. She was in a bed, her head was killing her, and this place stank. No, that wasn’t quite right. The smell was annoying but not altogether ugly. It was like a barnyard . . . if all the animals were human, sweating, and crowded in together—
A whispered voice nearly sent Keller out of her skin.
“Sehr gut. You are awake.”
The sudden sound broke the spell, and her eyes flicked open. It took her a moment to realize the young woman in the bed next to hers was speaking to her in English. Keller squinted, trying to focus her vision. The woman’s face looked friendly as she slowly came into focus, but trying too hard made Ruby’s head hurt worse. She could tell it was covered with freckles. It was enough to know that much for now.
Keller attempted to sit up, but the throbbing ache in her brain pressed her back against the pillow, the case obviously starched by someone who didn’t realize that pillows were supposed to be comfortable. She tried to rub her eyes but found her right wrist was chained to the bedrail.
“What in the actual hell?”
Something was wrong with her neck, so she had to move her entire upper body to look around. The walls of the sorry little medical ward were covered with sickly yellow floral wallpaper, the floors busy linoleum. There were four beds, but she and the freckled woman beside her were the only two patients. There were no guards, but that mattered little since there were no windows, either.
“Jail, sweetie,” the girl beside her said.
Keller had to keep her tongue away from her broken teeth, making her sound like she had a mouthful of marbles when she spoke. Only then did she realize that someone had taken her blouse and dressed her in a backless gown. The thought of strangers stripping off her clothes while she was unconscious made her want to throw up.
“But why . . . ? How did I . . . ?”
“You don’t remember?”
Keller dabbed at her jaw with her left hand, sure it was broken. “I don’t. I had a drink . . . There was a fire and my date went outside . . .” She rattled the handcuffs, trying to cut through the fog of pain. “Was I drunk? I just . . . I need to call the consular office.”
“Oh, me too,” the girl said and grinned, almost but not quite mocking her. “My name is Mitzi, Mitzi Graff. Sadly, I know why I am in here.”
“Why?”
“I chopped off my boyfriend’s toe with an ax.”
Keller shuddered. “That’s awful.”
“Do not feel sorry for him,” Graff said. “It was the same toe he used to kick the shit out of me. Do not waste your tears. Anyway, the asshole has friends in the People’s Police. They put their boots to my door and arrested me faster than you could say eine, zwei, Polizei.” She put a hand on her belly and cocked her head. Auburn hair fell across the shoulder of her blue jumpsuit. “You know the counting game? Eine, zwei, Polizei?”
“My grandfather used to sing it with me when I was small. One, Two, Police. The kids at school . . .” Her voice trailed off when it dawned on her what Graff had said. “Friends with . . . Who did you say?”
“The People’s Police,” Graff said. “I’m pregnant, so they will be keeping me in here overnight to make sure—”
“You mean the Bundesgrenzschutz,” Keller said. “The West German federal police.”
“I wish that were the case,” Graff said. “In the DDR it is the People’s Police.”
“I can’t be . . . I’m not in East Berlin!”
“Tell that to the Stasi guards when they come for you,” Graff said. “I’m sure they will see their mistake immediately and set you free.”
Keller choked back a tear.
Graff shook her head, a freckled cheek pressed against the pillow. “I am sorry,” she said. “I should not joke. It is not funny at all. I joke when I am frightened.”
An awful hissing suddenly filled the room, harsh, like thousands of angry whispers.
Keller’s eyes flew wide. She tugged against the chains. “What is that?”
Graff raised her head off the pillow for a moment and then lay back down again. “They are filling one of the wet cells.”
“What”—she gulped—“is a wet cell?”
“Ugh . . . It is the most awful thing. But do not worry. They only make you believe you will die.”
“What . . . Why? I haven’t done any . . .” She paused.
“There.” Graff stabbed the air with her index finger. “Whatever it was you were thinking about at the instant that made you go quiet. That is the reason you are in here.”
“Are you an American?”
Graff glanced up at the camera in the corner of the ceiling, then shook her head again. “German. My mother was a translator after the war. She made me learn English. I speak Russian, too. I think that is why they don’t kill me.” She rolled up farther on her side, hand on her belly now. “Do you happen to speak Russian? That might help you stay alive.”
“No,” Keller said, incredulous. “I . . . No, I don’t speak Russian. Why would they want to kill me?”
“Why does the Stasi do anything? Listen to me. A little advice. If they come into your cell, just make your mind go somewhere else. Somewhere . . . happier. What they do will be easier that way.”
“Holy shit!” Keller began to hyperventilate. “What . . . What are you saying? Do you really think they would come to my cell and . . . do that to me?”
Graff nodded. “I am sorry. Listen, I think they will leave me here in the clinic all night. When it gets too bad, tell them—”
The metal door creaked open and slammed against the wall with a deafening clang.
A guard in a green uniform loomed at the opening, hands behind his back, out of sight.
“Sechsundneunzig!” he barked.
Keller could only lie there and stare at the horrible man. This couldn’t be happening.
“Sechsundneunzig!”
“He wants you to sit up,” Graff whispered.
“But he said—”
“Right. Ninety-six,” Graff said. “That is your cell number. They will never call you by your name.” She gave a noticeable shiver and said under her breath, “Your cell is in the U-boat.”
“Submarine?” Keller jerked against the chains, searching futilely for any way out. She had to get away from these people. “What’s the U-boat?”
“You will see,” Graff whispered.
The guard stomped into the room.
“Du sprichst nicht!” No talking!
Keller pretended not to understand and whispered to Graff, “Tell them what?”
“Huh?”
Keller was frantic. She had to know what Graff had been trying to tell her. “If they try to rape me,” Keller said, “you said I should—”
The guard brought a wooden rod down hard across the top of Keller’s thighs.
The explosive pain snuffed out Keller’s scream. She shot a terrified look at Graff, who pursed her lips and looked away.
A second guard strode through the door and assisted the first, releasing Keller from the bed and wrenching her hands behind her back to cuff them. Every screaming command was to Ninety-six, landing on Keller’s ears like incoming artillery. The men had her cuffed and moving in no time. They dragged her out the door and down the hall toward a set of stairs leading into the shadows . . . to the windowless U-boat cells below Hohenschönhausen Prison.
36
The taller of the two guards who’d dragged Keller from the medical clinic removed her handcuffs at the door and gave her a shove in the small of the back, pushing her the rest of the way into cell 96, a ten-by-ten enclosure with sad-looking rust streaks dripping down the concrete walls. The light fixture in a metal cage in the center of the ten-foot ceiling was bright enough that she had to squint after coming from the dim halls. She wasn’t sure, but she thought she’d heard the shorter guard call the tall one Wolfe, so to her, that became his name. It was something to hold on to, to wrap her mind around.
Wolfe was direct, even brutal in his application of discipline if Keller strayed out of line or spoke when she was supposed to be silent—which was all the time except when directly addressed by a guard. Wolfe seemed to believe he was just doing his job and did not appear to hold any personal grudge. The shorter, probably younger, guard was nothing less than a tyrant, intent, it seemed, on punishing Keller for the smallest infraction. His commands dripped with such derision that she began to believe he must have blamed her for every slight and injustice he’d experienced in his life. He had a tendency to rise up on his toes when he screamed at her, flecking her cheeks with spittle.
Together, the guards made it perfectly clear that there were rules in Hohenschönhausen Prison. Rules that had to be followed or the consequences would be severe.
She fell when they shoved her into the cell, scraping silver dollar-sized wounds on her knees. Keller’s grandfather had immigrated to the United States before the war. She’d grown up listening to him and spoke passable German, but the angry shouts from the guards were nothing but gibberish. A moment later, a shadow passed over the far wall as if someone else had walked up behind her. She chanced a quick look over her shoulder and got the point of a rubber truncheon jammed in her kidney.
The pain sent her sagging to her knees. She grabbed the edge of the wooden bed to keep on her feet. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of a female guard. The guard wore the same uniform as Wolfe and his partner, but where they were bareheaded, she wore a peaked hat pulled low over her eyes.
“Face the wall!” Wolfe screamed.
It slowly dawned on her that except for a few ranting threats, the guards rarely said more than three things. “Come!” “Stop!” “Face the wall!”
The female voice spoke next, quiet clicking words, far more terrifying than the screaming men. They could hurt her physically, even rape her, but it was apparent in just a few moments that this woman wanted to kill her soul.
Though the woman spoke German like the men, her orders were more precise, easier to understand, and far more chilling. If spiders could talk . . .
“Remove your clothes!”
Keller shuddered. Once more, she tried to look behind her, and once more felt the blunt force of the truncheon in her back.
“Face the wall!” a male voice barked. Wolfe.
The hospital gown slid easily off her shoulders. She placed it at the foot of the bed, next to a folded blue jumpsuit she’d not noticed until that moment. She picked up the suit to put it on, bringing another volley of orders and insults.
“Remove everything!” the female guard said.
Keller froze, earning another vicious blow from the truncheon. She gritted her teeth, trying to steel herself, but unable to keep her body from shaking. She could feel Wolfe and his partner still behind her, leering.
“Now!”
Jolted into action at the prospect of further beating, Keller scrambled out of her underwear and stood naked and trembling, her toes digging into the filthy concrete floor.
The female guard put her through a series of squats and coughs and turns, a strip search ostensibly to be certain she wasn’t bringing contraband into the facility, but designed to maximize humiliation. Keller was forced to look at her feet throughout the process, avoiding eye contact with the guards.
“Face the wall!” the female guard barked when Keller finished her third complete turn.
Keller yelped when the truncheon brushed her at the base of the neck. It slid slowly down her back, then paused at the top of her hip. She stopped breathing.
Gruff voices carried down the hall, men’s voices, followed by the snap of boots.
Keller felt a sharp pain on her buttock, like a sting or the jab of a hypodermic needle. This bitch had just pinched her, hard, as if she wanted to leave her mark.
“Get dressed!” the woman snapped.
Keller complied instantly, yearning for the relative safety of the coarse blue coveralls and flimsy slippers.
Wolfe took over issuing the commands, each given with an air of finality, as if a comprehensive exam was sure to follow.
“No sitting! No leaning on the wall! No touching the wall! Sleep at ten p.m. sharp!”
He listed off myriad other rules as if they were all obvious and she should already know them. She was to lie flat on her back at ten p.m. The single blanket would be used to cover her body, but her arms and hands were to remain by her sides and on top of the blanket when she was asleep. Wolfe did not explain in detail, but Ruby learned through experience that if she made the horrible error of rolling onto her side or pulling a hand under the blanket in the middle of the night a guard would awaken her and remind her of the correct sleeping position. The light stayed on, and strange, throbbing music played incessantly. Every hour, a guard would walk down the hall, visiting the cells one by one, lifting the peephole covers and shouting, “You are ordered to be asleep!”
It would have been laughable if it were not so cruel.
37
Elke Hauptman gave a pitiful yelp when her husband walked up behind her in the kitchen. She threw a hand to her chest, catching her breath, forcing a grin.
“Why do you sneak around like that?”
