Freedom Bridge: A Cold War Thriller (8 page)

Chapter 18

K
urt Brenner experienced the old stir of excitement as Adrienne pushed through the revolving door and walked toward him in that easy rapid stride of hers. Sleek copper-colored hair. Green eyes with a catlike upward slant. Lovely.

Her tall, lithe figure attracted admiring glances. As usual, she was oblivious.

The cut and color of her pants suit—severely tailored black—stressed her slenderness, making her look vulnerable. He knew better.

“Late as always, but always worth waiting for,” he said, smiling.

“Sorry. My meeting took longer than I expected.” She slipped her shoulder bag to the floor and slid into the booth.

He reached for her hand. “When are you coming back to me? The apartment is like a mausoleum without you.”

“That depends.”

“I know,” he said. “But even though we agreed to settle things in Paris after the West Berlin conference, I have to talk to you now.”

“I’m not going to West Berlin. It’s just another back-slapping, good-ol’-boy excuse for physicians to massage their egos. I have too much to do here trying to get my hands around an Iron Curtain article I’m working on. Besides, I can’t get a visa out of the East Germans. I have a friend from the State Department working on it, but so far there’s been no movement.”

“You know,” he said irritably, “I realize your anti-communist views are a matter of principle. But what I
don’t
grasp is why you seem to take it personally.”

He steeled himself, expecting her to lash out. She surprised him by reaching for his martini and draining the glass.

“Order for me, will you? Whatever you’re having. Be right back.”

Adrienne opened a teak door with a discreet brass plaque: LADIES. She leaned her forehead against cool black marble. Kurt’s criticism had the ring of truth. Why
do
I take these things personally?

She ran the faucet and splashed cold water on her face. She was absently running a comb through her hair when the answer jumped out at her, as if liberated by her subconscious . . .

Because it feels self-evident that free people should care about those who aren’t. Because it shouldn’t take any imagination to picture a wife on one side of a closed border, her husband stuck on the other. Because a stranger’s body riddled with bullets could just as easily be your lover, your best friend, every mother’s son or daughter.

In fairness, Adrienne thought, could she blame Kurt for not grasping what she herself had just realized?

Which led to a more complex question: Was she really prepared to end her marriage, she asked herself as vivid memories flashed to the surface.

Six years ago, Adrienne Kalda had shared the balcony of an amphitheater with a bevy of young medical students fairly bubbling over with excitement. Excited herself by her recent promotion from drudge researcher to staff reporter, Adrienne was nervous at the prospect of her first assignment—an interview with the famous Dr. Kurt Brenner.

But peering down as Dr. Brenner entered the operating theater, she lost track of time as excitement turned into something else . . .

It was as if she were watching from a great distance what seemed like a dance performance with the most beautiful choreography she had ever seen. Every gesture was purposeful but unhurried. Relaxed but with no wasted motion. She was mesmerized by the sight of an exposed human heart. Of machines hissing. Strong light blazing. The faint odor of anesthesia. She saw nurses and assisting surgeons effortlessly maneuvered about the operating table by a master director. The elusive angle of an incision being probed by two equally deft hands. A perfectly positioned needle sewing up the patient’s chest cavity.

Her post-operative interview was pathetic: tentative questions awkwardly put.

Why couldn’t she keep the awe out of her voice?

Tamping it down by sheer will power, she asked about the famous Brenner temper. Were the rumors true about elbowing aside flustered assistants in the midst of an operation? About flinging an instrument at some nurse whose timing was a few seconds off?

Laughing good-naturedly, Dr. Brenner had owned up to such “outrageous” behavior—but only from time to time, he added. This so disarmed her that she forgot her next question.

To cover her embarrassment, Brenner said with a smile that took her breath away, “I have an idea. Since you’ve just been promoted, and since I recently opened a heart surgery clinic for underprivileged children, we both have something to celebrate. Why not do it together? Champagne, dinner, dancing—”

“Tonight?” she said stupidly. “You must be exhausted.”

“Quite the opposite. I’m exhilarated.”

Their courtship, like their first date, had been exhilaratingly brief.

Their marriage had made headlines. The famous heart surgeon and the neophyte journalist.

One of the things Adrienne appreciated most about her husband was how supportive he was of her fledging career. Another thing she cherished was his confidence in her ability to rise without milking his contacts. Nor did Kurt begrudge her the frequent and sometimes long separations when she traveled in relentless pursuit of a good story—especially when a trip ended with a brief holiday for both of them in some exotic locale.

Hers was a charmed life, one she never took for granted.

Until a few years later when she realized that the man she’d married had drastically changed.

It was all the more unsettling because the change had nothing to do with her—at least not directly. Kurt had metamorphosed into Dr. Kurt Brenner, world-famous heart surgeon, with a dazzling smile, the pseudo-confident style of a playboy, and an increasingly unpredictable temper in the operating theater. Or so it was rumored.

She refused to believe it. From time to time she returned to the amphitheater. Sitting in the same balcony, she would watch Kurt work his magic, eager to recapture what had made her fall in love with him.

Afterward, she would be relieved that he hadn’t lost his skills.

But she could no longer deny what
else
she had witnessed: nurses and even assistant surgeons fighting for his attention . . . and Dr. Kurt Brenner, peerless heart surgeon, enjoying the competition.

They had argued about it. Reconciled. Talked things out. There were times when she thought she was getting through. Times when she succumbed to the famous Brenner charm. Times, like now, when she called her own stubbornness into question.

She sighed, tired to the point of indifference, and headed for the dining room. Before she could even sit down, Kurt preempted the conversation.

“There’s been a new development about the West Berlin trip, Adrienne. That’s why I asked you to lunch.”

“Kurt, how many times do I have to—”

“What if I told you the
East
Germans will give you a visa? If you’re so eager to write some sort of exposé, I would think you’d jump at the chance to have a first-hand look from behind the Iron Curtain.”

“Why would they give me a visa?” she asked, incredulous.

Brenner filled her in about Humboldt University Medical Center’s conference on artificial hearts versus human transplants and how he would give the keynote address and perform a simple open-heart procedure.

“What do you
really
get out of it, Kurt?”

“I get to show off my lovely wife in both East
and
West Berlin,” he said.

And I keep Major Dmitri Malik happy until I find out what the hell his game is.

Chapter 19

A
drienne entered the oak-paneled taproom of the Manhattan Press Club and spotted him immediately, ensconced in the soft-leather comfort of a dimly lit booth.

“Hello, Paul. Happy Labor Day.”

“And to you, Adrienne.”

“Thanks for seeing me on a holiday weekend. It’s my only free time, these days. You doing okay?”

“Reasonably well under the circumstances.”

Well, you look wonderful. I wish women aged as well as men.”

“So you like a touch of gray in a man’s hair, do you?”

“I do when it’s real,” she said. “Kidding aside, how are you bearing up?”

“Let’s just say it wouldn’t surprise me if my hair turned color in the last fourteen months.”

Adrienne frowned. “That rough?”

Houston shrugged.

“I take it the Soviets have succeeded in getting you fired from the State Department.”

“Not quite. After a year-long investigation of what happened on that bridge, I’ve been asked to retire. Quietly.”

“I’m really sorry, Paul.”

“Don’t be. I was planning to quit my day job as soon as I got back from Potsdam last year. Now I’m not so sure. I think I’d much rather be sacked.”

“
Why
, for heaven’s sake?”

“My colleagues—those at the State Department, at least—are trying to convince the East Germans that the so-called
border incident
shooting had no official sanction. That it was nothing more than an unauthorized cowboy stunt staged by me alone. Being fired will make me feel better.”

“We’ve known each other a long time, Paul. For a diplomat, you’ve been involved in some pretty convoluted . . . ‘operations’ but I’ve never asked you if they’re limited to the State Department. I’m not going to start now.”

“Good woman. We’ll drink to it.”

Adrienne smiled and sat back.

“I’m going to East Berlin with Kurt in several weeks, and about a week later, the Medicine International symposium in West Berlin,” Adrienne announced when their drinks arrived. “Something to do with artificial hearts and human transplants.”

“You, of all people, are willing to go behind the Iron Curtain? What am I missing?”

“Isn’t it obvious? As the wife of the Symposium’s honored guest, I’ll have access to things that are ordinarily off-limits.”

“And you’ll write about what? As if I didn’t know,” he said with a faint smile.

“Human rights—or more precisely, the lack of them. Frankly, given my reputation as a journalist, I’m surprised the East Germans are letting me ride on Kurt’s coattails.”

“Maybe because your last few articles have honed in on the Soviet Union, so you’re viewed as anti-communist, period—and yes, I’ve seen that kind of skewed reasoning firsthand. These people don’t see the wider connection.”

“Which is?”

“That your consistent theme is anti-totalitarian.”

She grinned. “It’s so refreshing, not having to explain myself. By the way, do you happen to have a photograph of Stepan Brodsky?”

“I can do better than that. I’ll arrange for you to meet a man named Ernst Roeder. He’s a well-connected East German photographer. Roeder takes two kinds of photographs. The ones destined for the Communist newspaper,
Neues Deutschland
—New Germany—the others for a very different outlet—a small, mostly underground magazine called
Das Wort
.”

“
The Word
,” she mused. “A friend of mine mentioned it once. Very grim stuff.”

“Some of it. Remember the famous shot of a wizened old woman in East Berlin begging for food in front of Communist boss Walter Ulbricht’s office?”

“I’ll say! How could anyone forget?”

“That was Ernst Roeder’s work—anonymous, of course. Even so, with those kinds of photographs, Ernst is taking a big risk.”

“But if his photographs are anonymous . . .”

“Doesn’t matter. There’s an artistic phenomenon known as a
signature
, and I don’t mean a written one. Experts can spot a genuine Van Gogh—even an unsigned painting—by its style, subject, composition, color, brush strokes,
etcetera
. The same with photographs by Ansel Adams. Alfred Hitchcock’s films have a signature even without a director’s credit. Roeder’s photographs have a signature, too—one that’s distinctive in both
Neues Deutschland
and
Das Wort
. The only thing that keeps Roeder and photographers like him behind the Iron Curtain is the chance to fight the regime in the best way they know how.”

Impressed, and touched, Adrienne asked, “How do I contact him?”

“You don’t. I’ll see that he contacts you.”

“And he’s reliable?”

“There’s something you should know about Ernst Roeder,” Houston said evenly. “He was on Glienicker Bridge in May of last year when Stepan Brodsky was killed. He and Brodsky were friends. The idea was that Ernst would shoot some film as Stepan tried to make it across. If he succeeded, the pictures would show a defiant rebellious defection from communism. If not . . . well, something else. Ernst managed to take a few photographs of Stepan as he lay dying.”

“He’s allowed to take
those
kinds of photographs?!”

“Certainly not. Ernst Roeder has two things going for him,” Houston said with a wry smile. “He’s a large man—more like soccer coach than a celebrated photographer. But Roeder is cagey. He uses a conventional Leica or Speed Graphic for authorized photographs. For more surreptitious shots, his oversized hands can easily conceal a miniature camera. A Minox, for example.”

“Very enterprising, carrying two cameras,” Adrienne said thoughtfully.

“And dangerous. Don’t try it. Too many tourists have ended up in a communist prison—or worse—for something as innocent as a sunset that happened to have a piece of some bridge in the background.”

“
Bridges
are off limits?”

“Bridges and a lot of other things in East Germany.”

“How well-connected is Ernst Roeder?”

“Very. His brother-in-law is a colonel in East German intelligence.”

“Now
there’s
a double-edged sword,” Adrienne observed.

“Indeed.” Houston glanced at his watch. “Let’s get down to business. What do you want to know?”

She dipped into her shoulder-bag and pulled out a notepad.

For the next hour and a half over lunch, Paul Houston gave Adrienne Brenner a detailed intelligence briefing about the Communist regime in East Germany.

Chapter 20

T
he sign on the table said: SPECIAL SECTION FOR PERMISSIONS TO VISIT ABROAD, and under it, CENTRAL COMMITTEE, U.S.S.R. Alongside was a pile of filled-out forms, each one containing cautiously written answers to carefully drafted questions. Two men bent over one of the forms.

“I don’t like it,” muttered one of the men as he followed the line of questions with a sharpened pencil and stopped at the question labeled “Family Status.” The man had a pointy chin in perfect symmetry with the tip of his pencil.

His rotund colleague didn’t bother to look down. “The application seems to be in perfect order,” he said, examining his stubby fingers.

“Have you forgotten what happened to Simonov last month?” the first man shot back, not in the least reassured. “A severe reprimand for giving an exit permit to a man with a short tail. This applicant has no tail at all!”

“He has no need of one. You know who his brother is.”

“I still don’t like it. Whenever something goes wrong, we’re always asked the same question. How many hostages were you counting on?”

“What a lot of fuss over nothing, Lev. He’s only going to East Berlin.”

“Just the same, I want to ask him a few questions.”

“Fine by me.”

When his name was called, Kiril noticed that the people standing closest to him inched away, a few casting him a resentful glance—as if he should have known better than to join the group and possibly cast suspicion on them all. As if his six-foot one-inch frame were a personal threat.

He approached the table with the calm expression of a man who has nothing to fear . . . as if the two men really
were
innocuous bureaucrats instead of plainclothes officers in the KGB.

“Your residence registration certificate,” said the thinner of the two.

Kiril handed over the certificate.

“Your internal passport. Your military card,” he snapped.

“Both those documents were turned over to the proper authorities three months ago.”

His interrogator began leafing through some papers attached to the back of Kiril’s questionnaire.

“How many forms have you completed in the last three months? How many personal appearances have you made? How many photographs did you submit?”

“Many forms. Dozens of appearances. Photographs?” Kiril closed his eyes. “About twenty,” he said, opening them.

“Why, in your more recent photographs, are you wearing dark sunglasses?” the pencil-pusher asked.

“I explained that in my answer to Question Eleven. Several days ago I developed a minor infection. My eye is still very sensitive to light.” He removed his glasses so that both men could see for themselves.

Dismissing Kiril with a contemptuous wave of one hand, pointy-face ordered the entire group to approach the table.

“Do you all understand the loyalty pledges and the secrecy agreement you have signed?”

There was a general murmuring and a nodding of heads.

“Very well. You will not receive
these
”—one hand came down hard on a pile of green leather booklets—“until you have read and memorized
these
.” The KGB officer’s other hand touched a pile of red booklets with gold lettering. “Only then will you be ready to take the loyalty and secrecy oath.”

Kiril reached for a red booklet. “RULES OF BEHAVIOR FOR SOVIET CITIZENS ABROAD” it said on the cover, and under that in smaller letters:
For internal distribution only
. As he thumbed through the booklet, he couldn’t help thinking the rules were written in a style suitable for children. Do not drink. Do not visit places of doubtful entertainment. Do not talk with foreigners outside the presence of a reliable witness. Do not use the normal mail facilities of the host country. Do not fail to report suspicious behavior on the part of associates and traveling companions. Above all, do not forget that every Soviet citizen is a potential target of provocation by mercenary anti-Communist elements, all of them eager to recruit the unwary into their ranks.

Twenty minutes later, Kiril left the building. The sound of iron doors slamming shut behind him gave him an almost giddy sense of finality.

The feel of the green leather booklet in his pocket gave him a sense of lightheadedness. He walked through a courtyard and into the street as if his feet never touched the pavement.

Free
, he thought wonderingly.

Free, at least, to leave the building, he thought with a jolt of fear. It isn’t the West, but it’s a giant step in that direction. At least I’m free to leave the Soviet Union!

He passed ponderous granite structures with six-story- high portraits hanging over ornate facades—comic-strip versions of his country’s “illustrious heroes,” past and present. He saw string after string of red flags waving hypnotically in the breeze. But high above the sprawling flatness of Moscow, a few tall buildings rose in self-conscious defiance. Kiril felt a moment’s kinship with them.

There was no queue at his trolley stop, but as usual, people packed themselves into each car with the zealousness of combat soldiers embarking on a mission. As soon as the trolley car doors closed behind him, he was struck by the contrasting stillness inside.

He stared out the window. Row after row of prefabricated apartment houses rolled past—pale yellow cinderblocks, each a shabby functional echo of its neighbor. Half an hour later, he worked his way to the front of the car, exited at the next stop, and headed for one of the cinderblocks—his home for the last ten years.

As he climbed the stairs in the drab hallway, he was assaulted by a pervasive dinginess. The thought of never again having to walk up these stairs and down this hallway gave him an odd sense of detachment. He passed through the communal kitchen and unlocked the door to his room. It was simply furnished for simple needs. A narrow bed. A few shelves and wall hooks for clothes. A small scarred table and a couple of chairs. Apart from some medical books piled at one end of the table that provided the only spot of color, there was nothing to suggest the character or personality of its occupant. It was a suitable room for a transient-in-spirit, he thought, closing the door. He switched on an overhead light. A plastic suitcase lay open on the bed next to his raincoat. Some bottles and an eye dropper were on the table. A towel with brown stains hung over the back of a chair.

A clock on one of the shelves reminded him that Galya was due any time now.

Removing his dark glasses, he examined his left eye in a mirror. The redness was almost gone. He had passed inspection this morning. But he might not be so lucky if he didn’t remember to keep after it once every hour, when possible, until people stopped asking questions.

After packing only what he’d need, he opened a small bottle, and stuck the eyedropper in. With the odor of lemon pulling at his nostrils, he put a few drops of lemon juice in his left eye and held his breath against the sting.

He felt his scalp gingerly—still raw from the chemicals and repeated rinsing.  But a mirror check drew a tight smile. His hair was just a touch darker than his natural color brown. Galya was the only one who might notice—unlikely in the dim light of a lamp.  He turned off the overhead.

On his way home he had stopped off at the hospital and retrieved his cigarette lighter. Dropping it into his jacket pocket, he sat down to wait.

At the familiar tap-tap on the door, he called out, “It’s unlocked.”

Galya came in. “I won’t stay long,” she said, eyeing his small open suitcase. “You must have so much to do. Not much to pack, is there?” she observed with a tinge of bitterness. “I know there’s more to life than stylish clothes and beautiful jewelry,” she said bleakly, “but even so . . .”

He tuned out, not wanting to be a complicit enabler when it came to Galya’s obsessive need for pretty things. Not when she should be lashing out at the apparatchiks who blocked, not just a fun trip to Canada, but freedom to do whatever she wanted with her life.

“—hurts the most when I go to the cinema,” she was saying. “At first I’m captivated by the glamorous heroine—her clothes, her jewelry, even her high-heeled shoes! The next thing I notice is how
casual
she is about her wardrobe. And then I glance at the only semi-decent item I own—a black dress that’s four years old and stylish as a muddy overshoe . . .”

“Never mind,” he said gently, touching her cheek. Knowing how vulnerable she was because she had never fully grasped that the luxuries she wanted were symbolic of a much wider principle . . . her right to be free. “Don’t give up, Galya,” he told her. “One day you’ll have some of the things you want.”

Kiril sounds so solemn . . .

She leaned forward to kiss him. “Call me soon as you get back?”

“You know I will,” he said, hating the lie on his tongue.

“Know what I
think?” she teased. “I think you’ve contracted a bad case of first-trip-out-of-the-country-itis. I’m told it has a very
sobering effect on its victims.”

“An apt diagnosis, Nurse Barkova. Shall we drink to it?”

“Can’t. I’m late for an appointment.”

She gave him a quick hug and was out the door.

* * *

Galya hurried inside the Metro station and headed for a row of wooden telephone booths along one wall, stopping outside a vacant one to dip into her full change-purse for a two-kopeck coin. Ignoring the envious glance of the woman behind her, Galya snapped the purse shut. This was one shortage, at least, that no longer affected her. Not for the last two years, anyway.

She shut herself in the narrow booth and waited for her call to be put through, conscious of two competing rhythms—the tapping of her fingertips against the telephone base and the ticking of her wristwatch.

She touched the tiny face of the watch, the elegant gold band. Beautiful. She shouldn’t have worn it. If Kiril had noticed . . . But he hadn’t. By the time he got back from his trip, she’d have a good story to explain it.

“Yes?” The voice on the other end of the line was typically impatient.

“It’s Galina Barkova.”

“Ah, yes. What have you to report?”

“Nothing really.”

“Comrade Barkova.” The voice was patronizing now. “I don’t expect you to uncover some dire plot to overthrow the Kremlin. Your assignment is to observe much subtler things. An unguarded remark here. An antisocial view there. An overall state of mind. Incidentally, how
is
Kiril’s state of mind these days? Are his spirits unnaturally low since the death of Stepan Brodsky? Has his behavior altered significantly in any way?”

“Not really.”

“What about his upcoming sojourn to East Berlin in a few days? Is he looking forward to it?”

“I think so, yes. He didn’t really say
.
He just . . .”

“He just
what
?” Alexei snapped, going into alert.

She felt trapped by the tight embrace of the phone booth. By the ticking of the watch as it counted off the seconds.

“When I got up to leave, Kiril seemed so—I don’t know, solemn.”

As if he never expected to see me again.

“Oh, that.” Aleksei chuckled. “You are an attractive young woman, Galina Barkova—my most charming agent by far. To be parted from you for even half a week could upset any red-blooded man. Shall we see that Kiril is not upset for long?”

“I don’t understand.”

“How would you like to go to East Berlin with our Dr. Andreyev?”

“But I have no papers, no money, no exit permit,” Galya stammered. “I don’t even have proper clothes.”

“Details, my dear. I’ll see to them.”

“What shall I tell Kiril?”

“I’ll take care of it. Maybe I’ll set something up so Kiril can assist Dr. Brenner in some medical capacity. That way he’d need a nurse he’s used to working with—namely, you.”

She bit her lip. “What will I
really
have to do, Colonel?” she said cautiously.

“No more than what you’ve been doing for the past two years. Keep an eye on him. Others will be watching as well, but there are things a woman can sense more easily than a man. And I promise you, Galina, do a conscientious job, and you’ll be amply rewarded. I’ve been thinking about a private flat. It could prove useful to me if you had a place of your own.”

She closed her eyes, thinking of her roommates . . . someone’s eyes always looking, someone’s ears always listening. She said shakily, “You’re
sure
nothing bad will happen to Kiril?”

“It’s touching, your concern for his welfare. But don’t lose sight of the fact that his welfare is
precisely
what you’ll be protecting. Remember what I told you at the start of our little joint venture? Some men have to be protected from other men. But men like my brother must be protected from themselves.”