John Cheney - City of Spies

The next few seconds were a violent, frantic blur. Scharf was falling backwards, off-balance, but he bent his wrist inward and aimed another shot at Hans’ head. Hans moved just a fraction of a second early and felt his eardrum pop as the muzzle fired past his ear. Scharf tried to shove his knee hard into Hans’ groin as Hans fell on top of him, but he missed and the blow glanced off Hans’ side. Hans punched Scharf’s nose, sending blood streaming down his face. Scharf finally landed hard on his back, knocking the wind out of him. Hans took advantage of the fraction of a second he had to act and chopped hard at the gun with both hands until it went cartwheeling away out of reach.

Scharf swiveled upwards and to his right, bringing his left fist with the force of his whole body into the back of Hans’ head. He punched hard a second time, but Hans countered by driving his elbow into Scharf’s face. The blow met Scharf’s nose and broke it to the side, bending it in an ugly S-shape. Hans drove his elbow hard again, hitting Scharf in the throat, nearly crushing his Adam’s apple. Scharf used his left arm to grapple with Hans as he reached with his right arm for his hip coat pocket. He pulled out his telescopic cosh and retracted it with the flick of his wrist. Scharf struck wildly at Hans, hitting his hands and back. Hans tried to grab Scharf’s arm and arrest the cosh’s movement, but Scharf broke free. Just as he raised the cosh to swing it at Hans’ head, Hans dove away to his left. Scharf backhanded the cosh into the rear of Hans’ skull.

Suddenly Hans saw only stars and blackness.

Hans desperately reached for the last thing he saw—Scharf’s Makarov. He knew it was in the grass before him, and he clawed through the dirt and grass blades wildly until he grasped the cold steel. Hans’ vision hazily returned as he fixed the gun in his hand with his finger on the trigger. He swerved back on his elbows to see Scharf rising up at him with the cosh, a wild, blood-lust frenzy in his eyes. Scharf aimed for Hans’ temple—he meant to kill, and would have done so in a single stroke—but as he reared up to swing, Hans fired.

The bullet drove with ferocious accuracy through Scharf’s skull. For a moment, Scharf was frozen in a statuesque pose, his arm raised with the cosh held high. Blood started to trickle down his forehead. Scharf gasped in shock, then fell backward, collapsing to the ground in a heap. Hans prepared to fire a second time, but it was not necessary. Scharf convulsed twice in a death roll and was still.

For several seconds, adrenaline still coursed through Hans’ veins. It took him a moment to register that the threat was over. At first, he stared at Scharf’s body with a strange curiosity. A misshapen, lifeless shell was all that remained of the man who had nearly killed him. Hans could not believe this was the end of the man who had threatened to invade West Berlin and overthrow the GDR government.

The longer Hans looked at Scharf’s disfigured, beaten face, a wave of nausea overcame him. Hans turned away, looking toward the horizon where the rolling hills met a light-blue sky. He now felt the throbbing sharp pain in his left ear, accompanied by the hollow gauze of temporary deafness. There was also a stinging pain across the back of his head. Hans didn’t know it, but the blow from Scharf’s cosh had lacerated his scalp. Hans got to his knees slowly, trying to maintain balance. When he finally got to his feet, he looked around. The pasture was still empty, and they were now nearly three hundred feet from the road on a slight slope that led toward the forest.

Hans had little time. He glanced toward the sky for any sight of a helicopter. Not seeing one brought little comfort. With only one good ear to listen for the sounds of the blades and a throbbing pain in his head, Hans considered his senses incredibly unreliable. He turned back to Scharf’s body and decided to search it.

Avoiding looking at Scharf’s face, Hans rifled through the dead man’s pockets. He took the arrest warrant Scharf had shown him and noted it had been personally signed by the Minister of State Security. There was also a small scrap of paper in Scharf’s pocket with only a set of numbers written on it. By their order, Hans guessed it was a radio frequency. Hans took it, wondering if it could be important. The next paper he found was clearly significant. It read, in the specific language of East German military orders:

5.10.1985

Worthy Comrade General Thorwald!

You are hereby ordered, under the authority of the General Secretary and Chairman of the State Council of the German Democratic Republic, to carry out Operation STOSS, the invasion and occupation of West Berlin. The operation will commence on the 7th of October at 01.30 hours. You are to use secure communications to ensure all involved units, as outlined in the operational plans, are prepared and in place to begin at the aforementioned time. Furthermore, you will block all adversary communications beginning at 23.45 hours on the 6th of October. All units under your command are to be placed on high alert prior to the beginning of the operation, although secrecy is of the highest priority.

I send with you, comrade, the highest hopes for success!

Honecker’s signature, a simple E.H., was on the order, yet Hans knew it was a forgery. It looked, however, surprisingly authentic. More alarming was the fact that operations were indeed to begin tonight, with signal jamming on Allied communications to begin in less than eight hours. As discomforting as this news was, Hans was also contented. He no longer had a case of suppositions, dispatches, and tracking of movements to show to the Defense Minister. Here was definitive proof.

There was also an additional handwritten scrawl in the bottom right corner of the paper. It was only two letters: “BL.” Hans briefly scanned over the document one more time. There was no other indication as to what “BL” meant.

Hans folded all three papers and started to put them in his pocket. Only then did he notice he had smeared blood on them. Hans looked at his hands and saw they were spattered with Scharf’s blood. Hans wiped his hands on the ground and Scharf’s coat, then tried to clear the blood off of the papers. The best he could do was smudge the blood into an iodine-like bronzed stain. The words, at least, were still clearly legible.

The rhythmic sound of rotors sounded an immediate alarm. Hans grabbed Scharf’s Makarov and bolted. Judging that he could not make it back to the car, he headed downslope toward the forest for cover. Just as he plunged into the depths of the forest’s underbrush, the helicopter crested over the horizon. It buzzed over the pasture and took a predatory circle around the field. Then, the helicopter flew low to the ground, taking a closer look at Scharf’s body.

Hans held his breath, knowing he would be hunted as soon as the helicopter recognized Scharf. Suddenly, the helicopter’s nose raised, and like an animal on a scent trail, took a beeline toward the forest.

Hans ran, pushing deeper into the woods, running and slipping down the damp slope of ground. The helicopter hovered just above the treetops, its downdraft causing the forest canopy to sway and heave as if caught in an ocean current. A vortex of golden leaves swirled in the gale, and the top branches groaned and parted enough to give the helicopter pilot a glimpse of the forest floor. Hans had just reached the thickest growth, where the stout trees would not part so easily. Still, to ensure his safety, he quickly concealed himself in a camouflage of dead leaves on the ground.

The helicopter hovered over the area for several moments, and then moved on over the forest, continuing its search. Hans had little time to relax. As soon as the pulsing rhythm of the rotors abated, he heard the shouts of men. They too, seemed to be coming from the pasture, and Hans sensed the men had come up from the road and also seen Scharf’s body. They were too close for him to remain in his current hiding place. Hans looked toward the men, then toward his escape route—the forest in the opposite direction from the helicopter—and ran.