'Berlin Approach, we have runway three six,' the major announced gleefully into the headset's microphone.
It took the lieutenant another thirty seconds before he could make out a series of dim white lights delineating the runway. 'You have the aircraft, sir?'
'I have it, Lieutenant. Give me full props, rest of the flaps. I have the power.'
The lieutenant had been only slightly happier to get his first promotion than he was to see Templehof's massively hideous fascist architecture through the blowing snow. The Allies had built a bigger, modern, joint civilian military field to the west of Berlin, but Templehof was much closer to the center of the city. The lieutenant supposed the older facility still operated, because no one wanted to shut down a living monument to those who had flown those months of 1948-49, landing an aircraft every sixty-three seconds, night or day, fair weather or foul, to bring food and fuel to the besieged city. Although he couldn't see it, he knew that on the edge of the field stood a three-pronged monument to those men, a modern sculpture the ever-irreverent locals dubbed 'the Hunger Finger.' Templehof would, the lieutenant supposed, remain as long as anyone remembered the Berlin Airlift.
The buildings needed paint, and the tarmac could use paving. The field reminded the lieutenant of one of those movie stars from the 1940's now down on her luck, living on charity and Social Security.
The lighted wands of the line personnel were the only signs of life outside the aircraft as the turboprops spooled down. As the major completed the shutdown checklist, the lieutenant stooped through the cramped division between cockpit and passenger compartment.
The passenger was rubbing his eyes, clearly awakened only by a landing somewhat more rough than the flight crew would have wished. He smiled sleepily at the lieutenant and looked out of the window. Squatting to follow his gaze, the lieutenant was impressed, if not surprised, to see a black limousine pull up beside the airplane and douse its lights.
The passenger stood and stretched as high as the cabin's low ceiling allowed. 'That's for me, I think. Thanks for the lift.'
'Our pleasure,' the lieutenant muttered, edging past. He twisted the latch and the clamshell door's airlock died with a hiss. He stood aside as the passenger went down the stairs. 'Enjoy Berlin.'
The passenger stopped and turned. 'Thanks. But I'm afraid I've made other plans.' The lieutenant noted that the young man had wrapped, a scarf around the lower part of his face. To keep warm or avoid the East German spies who frequently photographed arriving passengers? The major came up behind the lieutenant. 'Who the hell was that?' The lieutenant shrugged. 'Name on the manifest is Langford Reilly, some civilian employee from Frankfurt.'
The major stooped to watch the car glide off into the white. 'Spook, I'll bet.' The lieutenant held up a book. 'Mebbe. But he left this, Winnie Iile Pooh.' The major squinted. 'What's that? It's a foreign language.'
'It appears to be Winnie the Pooh in Latin.'
Now that he was actually in Berlin, Langford 'Lang' Reilly was having trouble appearing composed. He felt the combined urges to vomit, urinate, and open the car door and run. What idiot idea had compelled him to volunteer for this, anyway? When he had been hired by the Agency right out of college, he had envisioned lurking about romantic European cities, Budapest or Prague, perhaps, with a silenced pistol in one hand and a local beauty's arm in the other. As is most often the case, mature reality trumped youthful fantasy. He had taken the standard training at 'the Farm,' the Agency's facility south of Washington-cryptography, marksmanship, martial arts, psychology, and a number of subjects that, as far as he could see, bore no relationship to the courses' names.
Training complete, he had been assigned to the Third Directorate, Intelligence. He had been disappointed. The Fourth Directorate, Operations, had been his and all his classmates' choice. He had either been too good at the intellectual side of spycraft or insufficient in killing, maiming, and the other activities ascribed to the Fourth Directorate by the fiction industry if not the Agency itself.
Could have been worse, he consoled himself. He could have been First Directorate, Administration, spending his days reviewing budgets, checking expenditures, and generally being the spook equivalent of an accountant. No, he couldn't have been. His math stunk. And he had no engineering background, thereby. disqualifying. him from the Second Directorate, Material, the Agency's own special version of James Bond's Q, the supplier of poison needles in umbrellas, cameras fitted into belt buckles and cigarette lighters that fired bullets.
He sat back in the car, staring into the snowy night. So why the hell had he left his Eastern European newspapers, TV transcripts, and comfortable if unglamorous office with the view of the Bahnhof in Frankfurt? Worse, why the hell had he volunteered?
Well, he told himself, this was. likely to be, one of the very last real ops of the Cold War. The Russkies and their workers' paradise in East Germany were collapsing fast. He had seen the info himself. They were going to be defeated not by superior arms, brighter generals, or better ideology. They were going broke, just plain bust, trying to do the military equivalent of keeping up with the Joneses. Or, in this case, NATO and the United States.
Collapsing or not, he was doing something that could get him killed just for an adventure he could relate to his grandchildren. If he survived to have any.
The car turned onto Friedrichstrasse and slowed to turn into a street the name of which Lang could not see. Stopping in front of a building indistinguishable from its neighbors, the limo waited until a garage door swung open.
Inside was an ancient and battered Opal truck and two men in suits. One stepped forward to open the door next to Lang and extended a hand. 'Welcome to Berlin, Lang.'
Lang was uncomfortable, because he was unable to exactly place the vaguely familiar face as he climbed out.
Being able to instantly recall the circumstances and surroundings of someone was essential to this sort of work. 'Thanks.'
'We were afraid the weather might scrub the mission,' the other man said.
Lang had never seen him before.
The first man handed Lang a suit on a hanger. 'We're still running late. See how quickly you can get these on.'
In minutes, Lang was attired in a worn but neatly pressed dark suit and highly starched shirt with frayed cuffs. The black tie was a clip-on.
'These, too.' The first man handed over a pair of shoes. Lang noted that they were highly polished but there were holes in the soles.
The next item was a shabby overcoat.
'The only thing that doesn't fit,' Lang observed, rolling the sleeves back from over his hands.
'Even in West Berlin,' the second man said, 'most people can't afford to throw things away, wear hand me- downs. You'd look suspicious if everything looked tailor-made.'
'Okay,' the first man said, 'here's the plan: You go out of here, turn right onto Friedrichstrasse. Go straight to Checkpoint Charlie. You can't miss it…'
The other man snickered, drawing a glare from his companion.
'Once through the checkpoint, take your second left. At the corner, there'll be a man repairing the chain on a bicycle. He'll get the job done as you arrive. Follow him. The guy you're picking up will direct you back out.'
Lang was finishing tying the shoes, noting that the laces had been mended by being spliced. 'How do I know I've got the right man – some sort of password?'
The first man pulled a photograph out of his coat pocket. 'We've progressed a little farther than that. This is your man. Be sure you can recognize him.' This was a face Lang was going to be certain he remembered.
The Opal's single wiper only moved the accumulating snow from one side of the windshield to the other. Every few minutes, Lang had to crank down the window and reach outside to maintain a hole of visibility. If the heater had ever worked, it no longer did. Lang was thankful for the overcoat, too large or not.
In two blocks, he saw the reason for the laugh. Checkpoint Charlie's lights would have made an operating room's illumination dim by comparison. A queue of vehicles waited in front of a billboard-size sign announcing, ''You are leaving the American Sector,' as though the number of armed East German military and Vopo didn't make the fact clear.
When Lang's turn came, a barrier lifted and a man in uniform motioned him forward. A few feet in front of the truck was another barrier, behind which five or six more soldiers paced up and down, trying to keep warm while
