Freedom Bridge: A Cold War Thriller (25 page)

Chapter 52

“I
don’t understand,” von Eyssen said in German as he paced back and forth in the East German guard house.
“
Why would you give the cigarette lighter to Dr. Brenner?”

“I told you. For safekeeping. He’s an American, after all.” Brenner’s emotions were on the edge of crumbling despite his pose of nonchalance. He took a long drag on his cigarette. “Brenner’s escape plan involved less risk than mine. Why is that so difficult to grasp?”

“What plan? What risk? How did you get here from the airport? Where have you been? Who helped you? Where
are
Brenner and his wife?”

Brenner smiled enigmatically.

“What was your plan? Swim for the other side?” von Eyssen said slowly. “You of all people should have known better. You know what’s out there. You’d probably be dead now instead of sitting here toying with me. A bullet in the back. Loss of blood from some underwater barbed wire. Maybe ripped apart by one of the dogs on a patrol boat—”

Von Eyssen couldn’t contain his fury. “God damn it, Andreyev, where is Dr. Kurt Brenner?”

“
And
his wife? I’ll tell you. But only if you let me walk across that bridge. I go free. You get the Americans and the cigarette lighter.”

And proof of what Aleksei and the Russkies were up to at the summit.

“Shall we stop playing games, Colonel?” Brenner said, feeding impatience into his voice. “You think I don’t know what’s at stake for you here? Letting me cross that bridge gets you a lot and costs you nothing. I’ll vanish into the West. The Americans are your problem. But you’d better decide. Brenner and his wife are almost out of your grasp.”

Von Eyssen made a lightning-quick calculation. If he acted fast, not only would the Russians be embarrassed, not only would Stepan Brodsky’s attempted escape finally be laid at the doorstep of both Andreyevs, but
he
would get the credit. The cherry on the cake? Von Eyssen’s superiors would be delighted.

“Now or never, Colonel,” Brenner snapped.

“How do you want to do this?” von Eyssen asked, acutely aware that Aleksei Andreyev was on his way. “Do you really think I’ll let you walk across that bridge, then wait patiently for a postcard from Paris?”

“Do you take me for a fool? We’re wasting time. My brother Aleksei will be here soon. You and I will walk side-by-side to the middle of the bridge. We stop about fifteen feet from the West Berlin side.”

“With my revolver in your ribs, don’t forget,” von Eyssen snarled. “Get on with it, man!”

“Think of it as a three-step scenario. I tell you where Brenner and his wife are. You verify it
instantly
. I cross the dividing line.”

And into West Berlin.

“Instantly?” von Eyssen said, incredulous.

“Instantly,” Brenner repeated. It was true enough.

“Let’s go.”  Von Eyssen practically pushed Brenner out the door.

As soon as they began walking, he waved the bridge guards aside.

They were halfway to the middle when a Soviet limousine skidded into the square on the rain-soaked cobblestones at the mouth of the bridge. Out leaped Aleksei Andreyev, followed by Luka Rogov. As von Eyssen and Brenner walked toward the middle of the bridge, Aleksei and Luka froze in place.

Hearing the car, von Eyssen said under his breath, “We’re going to turn around slowly, our backs to the West.”

They turned.

“Now start walking backward very slowly,” von Eyssen ordered.

As soon as he saw the two men start to turn, Aleksei grasped what von Eyssen was up to. He’d made a deal. Set Kiril free in return for Kurt and Adrienne Brenner’s hiding place—and, most important, for the microfilm in the cigarette lighter.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. Kiril will lie—who wouldn’t? And whatever else he is, von Eyssen isn’t stupid. What’s he up to? One thing is certain. They must be stopped.

Von Eyssen and Brenner continued to walk carefully backward.

Aleksei and Luka ran toward them, slipping and sliding on the wet pavement, Aleksei cursing under his breath at their slow progress.

As they closed the distance, von Eyssen said, “They’re only a few yards away, Dr. Andreyev. It’s now or never. Either you tell me where the Brenners are or I’ll blow your brains out.”

“They’re in the truck,” Brenner told him.

“Truck? What truck? Where?”

“They’re hiding in the Studebaker behind the guardhouse.”

Von Eyssen smiled. “Just in time,” he said as Andreyev and the Mongolian reached them. He raised his revolver and shot Brenner in the right eye.

Kurt Brenner’s body sank to the pavement.

“You fool!” Aleksei yelled as sirens blared and guards rushed to the bridge. “With Kiril dead, we’ve lost our only lead to the cigarette lighter!”

Von Eyssen smiled inwardly.

If you only knew how close you are to it.

Aloud, he said innocently, “You always said there was no love lost between you and your brother. Is that really why you’re so angry?”

“Frustrated, not angry. I’d have put Kiril before a firing squad once the dust settled,” Aleksei said, nudging Brenner’s head with the toe of his boot.

They saw it simultaneously—dark brown stains seeping into a puddle under Brenner’s head. A small patch of white hair slowly growing larger in the water.

“You idiot! You stupid Kraut!” Aleksei screamed. “You just shot the wrong man! You killed a famous American heart surgeon who just told the world he intended to defect to the Soviet Union!”

Aleksei knelt down, oblivious to the muddy water seeping into his pants. Seizing Brenner’s head with both hands, ignoring the ghastly hole in one eye, he pulled at a patch of hair. Another. Another.

White, all white!

“Look! Look at his hair, you moron. It’s
you
who’s going before a firing squad!” he screamed.

“You think so?” von Eyssen said, leveling his revolver at Aleksei’s chest.

Luka Rogov dropped von Eyssen with one shot to the head.

Utter chaos erupted.

Guards running. Voices screaming. Sirens wailing.

And lying amidst it all, the hollow-eyed corpse of Dr. Kurt Brenner.

* * *

Gunshots.

From the flatbed’s compartment Kiril and Adrienne had heard the commotion.

“What’s going on?” Adrienne whispered.

“I don’t know. But it’s time to leave.”

“Do we have a chance?”

“A chance, yes. Can we make it from here? Maybe.”

Ironic
,
he thought. I’m as far back from the middle of the bridge as Stepan was.

Ripping the cardboard away, he exposed the six slats and the rear of the cab. Sliding the slats away, he kicked out the cab’s window and slid under the wheel as Adrienne jumped into the passenger seat.

The Zinds had done their work well.

Kiril engaged the Studebaker’s gears, swung round the guardhouse and, slipping and sliding through the cobblestone square, headed for the mouth of the bridge, pressing the truck’s air horn as if his life depended on it. Which, in fact, it did.

The unearthly sound of the air horn on the bridge stopped everyone in their tracks. There was no way people could miss that oncoming behemoth of a truck in the distance.

Everyone sprinted to the sides to avoid it.

Everyone except a stunned Aleksei Andreyev and a puzzled Luka Rogov. They stood frozen in place as if, by the sheer force of their combined will, they could stop the juggernaut hurtling toward them.

Confused by the chaos on the bridge, the watchtower guards held their fire. A signal from Aleksei would have instantly sent a torrent of machine gun bullets to drench the bridge with death.

Aleksei, recognizing what was happening, signaled Luka to move away from the middle of the roadway.

Kiril had just passed the mouth of the bridge.

A straight run to the middle, then West Berlin and freedom!

“Crawl under the dashboard—now, Adrienne!” he shouted as he floored the accelerator. His brother had just signaled the watchtowers to fire.

Aleksei was nearly halfway to the middle of Glienicker when the watchtowers, joined now by some of the soldiers and guards on the bridge, opened up with everything they had. Most of the rounds missed because of the truck’s speed.

But Kiril knew how vulnerable they were, just as Stepan had been. The tires, he thought—as one of the truck’s eight rear tires blew.

The Studebaker slowed but didn’t stop. Kiril kept to the middle of the blacktop road.

West Berlin just ahead
.

Off to the right, Kiril spotted Aleksei and Luka Rogov. Seconds before he had to decide, he hesitated.

Monsters. They deserve to die!

At the last second, he swerved away.

But Luka Rogov stepped into the middle of the road, aiming his submachine gun at the Studebaker as if it were some huge animal he could bring down.

Kiril had no choice but to run him over.

Bullets raked into the right side of the truck. The cab’s front left tire blew. Through the driver’s door, Kiril took a 30-caliber round in his thigh.

Seconds later, Kiril and Adrienne burst into West Berlin.

Epilogue

W
hen Dr. Kiril Andreyev qualified to practice medicine in New York City, he and his parents took over the Dr. Kurt Brenner Medical Center for Underprivileged Juveniles. Despite the many wrongs Kurt had committed, continuation of the Center’s work would rightly commemorate his many contributions to helping young heart patients.

Adrienne Andreyev turned over her husband Kiril’s microfilm to Paul Houston, who still claimed he was employed by the Department of State.

Two years later, with the help of unknown persons somehow connected with Houston, the entire Zind family was ransomed out of East Germany and settled in West Berlin.

No one ever learned what became of KGB Colonel Aleksei Andreyev.

In 1992, a year after German reunification, Dr. Kiril Andreyev returned to Berlin. A search of
Stasi
records had revealed that Stepan Brodsky had not been buried in Treptower Park’s mass grave after all.

Kiril had tracked down Stepan’s younger sister, a longtime anti-communist, who knew of Kiril through her brother. He persuaded her to allow disinterment of Stepan’s remains from a family plot near Frankfurt.

Air Force Captain Stepan Brodsky was reburied in Kensico Cemetery, Hamlet of Valhalla, County of Westchester, State of New York.

United States of America
.

Coming Soon
From Erika Holzer

EYE FOR AN EYE: A NOVEL OF REVENGE

W
ith scalding suspense and a plot ripped out of the headlines,
Eye for an Eye
explores urban violence and retribution.

Karen Newman is a smart savvy executive whose sole contact with violence is abstract, and whose soft-on-crime inclinations are in striking contrast to her hard-headed business acumen.

Until violence strikes a much-loved member of her family and sends her life spinning out of control.

Confronted with the spectacle of street gangs and sadistic young killers free to kill again, an increasingly enraged Karen finds herself the object of recruitment efforts by people who promise “vigilante justice.” Mildly curious, she takes the first tentative step, cynically anticipating a bunch of bat-swinging amateurs — and is caught off guard by the professionalism she encounters.

Despite her initial reluctance, Karen finds herself seduced by what she sees and hears firsthand. Gradually, she is drawn into the inner circle of a fascinating, chillingly organized group. Its name: VICTIMS ANONYMOUS. Its structure: secret cells in far-flung major American cities.

Its motto:
Vengeance is mine
.

Knowing her particular business expertise is needed to catapult a growing organization into a national phenomenon — a force to be reckoned with — Karen tries to convince herself that Victims Anonymous is a
force for good
. In the face of mounting evidence that the police and the courts are increasingly unable to cope with violent crime, she no longer needs much convincing.

She makes the ultimate commitment.

It does not waiver until she crosses swords with a man who shares that commitment — a passion for justice that equals her own. A man she must deceive before he can bring the entire edifice crashing down upon the heads of everyone and everything she cares about.

Eye for an Eye
is the story of a gutsy woman’s personal struggle to balance genuine compassion for the abandoned victims of a collapsing criminal justice system with a dangerous romance and a growing conviction that vigilantism, however well intended, is a magnet for evil.

* * *

Nelson DeMille,
best-selling author of
The Panther
,
has said that:

“
Eye for an Eye
is a serious and disturbing look at street gangs, urban violence, and the criminal justice system. It is also a story about the uniquely American response to crime—vigilantism.

Eye for an Eye
is not so much about America as it is a book of America; a story that grows organically out of the ongoing American obsession with law and order. Erika Holzer, an attorney, understands the system, and more importantly she understands the society she and the rest of us live in. She has created a plot from what could be, and often is, any newspaper headline, and carried it a step further, a step many of us would not take but think about in our darkest moments.

Holzer’s characters are vividly created, impassioned, and interestingly flawed so that we relate to them and believe they exist. The writing is sharp and terse, moves at a fast pace, and the dialogue is snappy and to the point.

Highly recommended. A sort of American
Clockwork Orange
.