“I tell you what. I bought a round-trip ticket on an airplane that flies to Dusseldorf. I’ll use that.”
“I don’t think we’ll try going through the zone. We’ll have to fly. Maybe charter a plane,” he said dreamily.
“Something tells me they might be looking for us—I mean our side.”
Padillo scratched his chin. “You know, I think you’re right. We’ll figure it out later.”
In an hour Max returned. He brought cigarettes, vodka and sausage.
“Hear anything?” Padillo asked.
Max shrugged. “They’ve got the Vopos and Grepos on special alert. They expect a break over the wall tonight, tomorrow or the next day. My source wasn’t too communicative.”
“I can’t blame him,” Padillo said.
“But they have twenty-seven miles to cover,” Max said. “Tonight is as good as tomorrow. Maybe better. I don’t think they expect us to try so soon.”
“Everything O.K. on Kurt’s end?”
Max nodded. “They’re set. They sent word through the usual channel.”
“Good. Max, you slice the sausage and the bread. I’ll make some coffee.”
We ate and gave sandwiches and coffee to Symmes and Burchwood. They sat together again on one of the cots and ate hungrily. They whispered to themselves and ignored us.
All conversation died. Max sat and stared into his coffee, Padillo slumped back in his chair and elevated his feet to the table. He stared at the ceiling. His lips were back in their thin tight line. I put my head down on the table and closed my eyes. The vodka and food helped. I slept.
I awoke when Padillo shook my shoulder. “We leave in fifteen minutes,” he said. I nodded, rose and walked over to the sink. I doused my face in cold water. Padillo moved to the cots and shook Symmes and Burchwood awake. “Sit over there at the table,” he said. “I’m going to tell you what you have to do.”
Max had the map spread out. “You two,” Padillo said, “will go downstairs with us and get quietly into the back seat of the car. McCorkle will sit with you. Max will drive and I’ll be in the front. We have a twenty-minute ride ahead of us—maybe twenty-five minutes. If we’re stopped, say nothing. If you try anything, either Mac or I will shoot you.”
They nodded. I think they believed him. I didn’t know whether I did or not.
“We will park here,” he said, pointing to a spot on the map. “You will get out of the car and follow me. Mac will be right behind you. The four of us will stand in this doorway. When I give the signal you’ll run—not walk—to the wall. You’ll go up a ladder and down another on the other side. Then you’ll run to this doorway. Both times you’ll run as fast as you ever have in your lives. If you don’t run fast enough, you may get shot by the Germans. If you try any heroics, you will be killed by me. I hope you believe that.”
“What happens when we get over the wall?” Symmes asked. “We’ll save that for later,” Padillo said. “But nothing so bad as what will happen if you don’t make it.”
Symmes and Burchwood looked at each other glumly.
Padillo turned to Max. “You know what to do?”
Max examined the fingernails of his right hand. “I drive, park the car and wait three minutes. If you’re not back, I leave.”
Padillo looked at his watch. “We’ve got five minutes. We may as well have a drink.”
He poured five measures of vodka, held up the bottle, shrugged, and topped off the glasses with what was left. It was a sizable jolt. Symmes and Burchwood gulped theirs down greedily. I wasn’t far behind. I looked around the room. The blanket-covered shape in the corner was only a lump. I couldn’t feel anything toward it one way or the other. I was numb.
Max turned off the two sixty-watt bulbs and we walked down the stairs guided by his flashlight. In the shed Max flicked the light over the car.
“It’s a Wartburg,” he said. “The Citroen was too hot.”
I walked around the car and got in the backseat on the right-hand side. Padillo stood by the rear left-hand door until both Symmes and Burchwood were in. Then he closed the door, walked around the back of the car, slid the shed door open, and waited until Max backed the car out and had it pointed toward the alley. He closed and locked the door and got in the front seat next to Max. He turned and showed Symmes and Burchwood his gun. “This is just to remind you,” he said. “McCorkle has one, too.”
I dutifully dragged my .38 out of my raincoat pocket and let them look at it. “It shoots real bullets,” I said.
Max guided the Wartburg out of the alley and headed it west. It was about seven-thirty. Still daylight. He drove normally. The traffic grew heavier as we approached the Mitte section of East Berlin.
Padillo sat half-turned in the front seat, his eyes flicking from Burchwood and Symmes to the rear of the car and then to the traffic in front. Burchwood and Symmes sat stiffly in the back, their knees close together. They held hands again. I wished there was somebody to hold mine.
It grew darker. Max switched on his parking lights. It was that time of day when you debate whether you can see better with or without your headlights. We had been driving for fifteen minutes when we stopped for a traffic signal. We waited fifteen seconds, and then the Volkspolizei drew up beside us in a Trabant. There were four of them. The two on the right looked us over carefully. One of them said something to the driver. The light changed to green and Max pulled away. The Trabant dropped in behind us.
“They’re following,” Max said.
“Don’t look around,” Padillo warned Symmes and Burchwood. “Talk to each other. I don’t care if you repeat the Lord’s Prayer. Just talk like you were carrying on a conversation. Give me a cigarette, Mac, and offer me a light.”
