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Authors: Ken Follett

Tags: #Fiction, #Sagas, #Historical

Edge of Eternity

Where Were You Then

Edge of Eternity
features some of the biggest and most important historical events of the second half of the twentieth century, from the building of the Berlin Wall to the Cuban Missile Crisis. We’re collecting your memories of where you were and what you were doing when some of these events took place as part of a major digital project. We’ll publish a selection in the second edition ebook and paperback editions of
Edge of Eternity
, publishing in 2015.

 

To take part and share your memory of Where You Were Then, visit:

 

www.wherewereyouthen.com

KEN FOLLETT

EDGE OF ETERNITY

MACMILLAN

To all the freedom fighters, especially Barbara

Cast of characters

American

 

Dewar Family

Cameron Dewar

Ursula ‘Beep’ Dewar,
his sister

Woody Dewar,
his father

Bella Dewar,
his mother

 

Peshkov-Jakes Family

George Jakes

Jacky Jakes,
his mother

Greg Peshkov,
his father

Lev Peshkov,
his grandfather

Marga,
his grandmother

 

Marquand Family

Verena Marquand

Percy Marquand,
her father

Babe Lee,
her mother

 

CIA

Florence Geary

Tony Savino

Tim Tedder,
semi-retired

Keith Dorset

 

Others

Maria Summers

Joseph Hugo,
FBI

Larry Mawhinney,
Pentagon

Nelly Fordham,
old flame of Greg Peshkov

Dennis Wilson,
aide to Bobby Kennedy

Skip Dickerson,
aide to Lyndon Johnson

Leopold ‘Lee’ Montgomery,
reporter

Herb Gould,
television journalist on
This Day

Suzy Cannon,
gossip reporter

Frank Lindeman,
television network owner

 

Real Historical Characters

John F. Kennedy,
35th US President

Jackie,
his wife

Bobby Kennedy,
his brother

Dave Powers,
assistant to President Kennedy

Pierre Salinger,
President Kennedy’s press officer

Revd Dr Martin Luther King, Jr.,
President of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference

Lyndon B. Johnson,
36th US President

Richard Nixon,
37th US President

Jimmy Carter,
39th US President

Ronald Reagan,
40th US President

George H. W. Bush,
41st US President

 

 

British

 

Leckwith-Williams Family

Dave Williams

Evie Williams,
his sister

Daisy Williams,
his mother

Lloyd Williams, MP,
his father

Ethel Leckwith (née Williams),
Dave’s grandmother

 

Murray Family

Jasper Murray

Anna Murray,
his sister

Eva Murray,
his mother

 

Musicians in the Guardsmen and Plum Nellie

Lenny,
Dave Williams’s cousin

Lew,
drummer

Buzz,
bass player

Geoffrey
lead guitarist

 

Others

Earl Fitzherbert,
called Fitz

Sam Cakebread,
friend of Jasper Murray

Byron Chesterfield (real name Brian Chesnowitz),
music agent

Hank Remington (real name Harry Riley),
pop star

Eric Chapman,
record company executive

 

 

German

 

Franck Family

Rebecca Hoffmann

Carla Franck,
Rebecca’s adoptive mother

Werner Franck,
Rebecca’s adoptive father

Walli Franck,
son of Carla

Lili Franck,
daughter of Werner and Carla

Maud von Ulrich (née Lady Maud Fitzherbert),
Carla’s mother

Hans Hoffmann,
Rebecca’s husband

 

Others

Bernd Held,
schoolteacher

Karolin Koontz,
folk singer

Odo Vossler,
clergyman

 

Real Historical Characters

Walter Ulbricht,
First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party (Communist)

Erich Honecker,
Ulbricht’s successor

Egon Krenz,
successor to Honecker

 

 

Polish

 

Stanislaw ‘Staz’ Pawlak,
army officer

Lidka,
girlfriend of Cam Dewar

Danuta Gorski,
Solidarity activist

 

Real Historical Characters

Anna Walentynowicz,
crane driver

Lech Wałȩsa,
leader of the trade union Solidarity

General Jaruzelski,
Prime Minister

 

 

Russian

 

Dvorkin-Peshkov Family

Tania Dvorkin,
journalist

Dimka Dvorkin,
Kremlin aide, Tania’s twin brother

Nina,
Dimka’s girlfriend

Anya Dvorkin,
their mother

Grigori Peshkov,
their grandfather

Katerina Peshkov,
their grandmother

Vladimir, always called Volodya,
their uncle

Zoya,
Volodya’s wife

 

 

Others

Daniil Antonov,
features editor at
TASS

Pyotr Opotkin,
features editor-in-chief

Vasili Yenkov,
dissident

Natalya Smotrov,
official in the Foreign Ministry

Nik Smotrov,
Natalya’s husband

Yevgeny Filipov,
aide to Defence Minister Rodion Malinovsky

Vera Pletner,
Dimka’s secretary

Valentin,
Dimka’s friend

Marshal Mikhail Pushnoy

 

Real Historical Characters

Nikita Sergeyevitch Khrushchev,
First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Andrei Gromyko,
Foreign Minister under Khrushchev

Rodion Malinovsky,
Defence Minister under Khrushchev

Alexei Kosygin,
Chairman of the Council of Ministers

Leonid Brezhnev,
Khrushchev’s successor

Yuri Andropov,
successor to Brezhnev

Konstantin Chernenko,
successor to Andropov

Mikhail Gorbachev,
successor to Chernenko

 

 

Other Nations

 

Paz Oliva,
Cuban general

Frederik Bíró,
Hungarian politician

Enok Andersen,
Danish accountant

Contents

Part One: WALL 1961

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Part Two: BUG 1961–1962

11

12

13

Part Three: ISLAND 1962

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

Part Four: GUN 1963

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

Part Five: SONG 1963–1967

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

40

Part Six: FLOWER 1968

41

42

43

44

45

Part Seven: TAPE 1972–1974

46

47

48

49

50

Part Eight: YARD 1976–1983

51

52

53

54

Part Nine: BOMB 1984–1987

55

56

57

58

Part Ten: WALL 1988–1989

59

60

61

62

Epilogue: 4 November 2008

63

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Also by Ken Follett

Part One

WALL

1961

1

Rebecca Hoffmann was summoned by the secret police on a rainy Monday in 1961.

It began as an ordinary morning. Her husband drove her to work in his tan Trabant 500. The graceful old streets of central Berlin still had gaps from wartime bombing, except where new concrete buildings stood up like ill-matched false teeth. Hans was thinking about his job as he drove. ‘The courts serve the judges, the lawyers, the police, the government – everyone except the victims of crime,’ he said. ‘This is to be expected in Western capitalist countries, but under Communism the courts ought surely to serve the people. My colleagues don’t seem to realize that.’ Hans worked for the Ministry of Justice.

‘We’ve been married almost a year, and I’ve known you for two, but I’ve never met one of your colleagues,’ Rebecca said.

‘They would bore you,’ he said immediately. ‘They’re all lawyers.’

‘Any women among them?’

‘No. Not in my section, anyway.’ Hans’s job was administration: appointing judges, scheduling trials, managing courthouses.

‘I’d like to meet them, all the same.’

Hans was a strong man who had learned to rein himself in. Watching him, Rebecca saw in his eyes a familiar flash of anger at her insistence. He controlled it by an effort of will. ‘I’ll arrange something,’ he said. ‘Perhaps we’ll all go to a bar one evening.’

Hans had been the first man Rebecca had met who matched up to her father. He was confident and authoritative, but he always listened to her. He had a good job – not many people had a car of their own in East Germany – and men who worked in the government were usually hard-line Communists, but Hans, surprisingly, shared Rebecca’s political scepticism. Like her father he was tall, handsome and well dressed. He was the man she had been waiting for.

Only once during their courtship had she doubted him, briefly. They had been in a minor car crash. It had been wholly the fault of the other driver, who had come out of a side street without stopping. Such things happened every day, but Hans had been mad with rage. Although the damage to the two cars was minimal, he had called the police, shown them his Department of Justice identity card, and had the other driver arrested for dangerous driving and taken off to jail.

Afterwards he had apologized to Rebecca for losing his temper. She had been scared by his vindictiveness, and had come close to ending their relationship. But he had explained that he had not been his normal self, due to pressure at work, and she had believed him. Her faith had been justified: he had never done such a thing again.

When they had been dating for a year, and sleeping together most weekends for six months, Rebecca wondered why he did not ask her to marry him. They were not kids: she had then been twenty-eight, he thirty-three. So she had proposed to him. He had been startled, but said yes.

Now he pulled up outside her school. It was a modern building, and well equipped: the Communists were serious about education. Outside the gates, five or six older boys were standing under a tree, smoking cigarettes. Ignoring their stares, Rebecca kissed Hans on the lips. Then she got out.

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