John Cheney - City of Spies

“They’re not going to know,” Koch exclaimed.

“You have to stop them, Comrade Sergeant!” Loeffler ordered.

Koch’s mind raced. By now, the trains could almost be in West Berlin. There was no hope of physically catching the trains; he had no vehicle to go along the tracks after them. Koch ordered the private to phone S-Bahn Central Control. He hoped they would be able to halt the trains, but the phone rang unanswered.

There was only one option left, and it did not appeal to Koch: he would have to go down the tunnel and shut down the next electrical substation powering the train. He knew that power to the third rail was sent between substations along the tracks, and that to reach the section where the two trains would be now, he had to switch off a breaker that lay at the substation fifty meters down the tunnel.

Koch couldn’t afford to hesitate. He grabbed a flashlight and a crowbar and headed for the thick door between his bunker and the platform.

“What are you doing?” the private asked, amazed.

“No time to explain. Call back S-Bahn control. Keep calling until they answer. Tell them to shut off all power to this line. Then call back Comrade Captain Loeffler and tell him to send as many units as he can to round up those soldiers.”

“Where are you going?”

Koch jumped off the platform onto the tracks, his unease growing. “I’m going to stop a train.”

Thorwald had gone ten minutes without any contact with his troops. At this crucial juncture, he had no idea if the attack had begun. At worst, the attack had gone forward in an uncoordinated, uneven front. Some units might have proceeded, given their last orders, while others waited for permission to proceed. Indeed, the engineers who were to breach the border defenses and create an avenue for the motorized units were to wait until Thorwald’s signal, while the paratrooper and S-Bahn units would proceed as scheduled. Thorwald knew this would spell disaster, and not knowing how the plan was progressing made him sick. Just then, he heard the sound of a helicopter approaching.

To Thorwald, it was the chimes of doom.

“No!” he growled. “No! No!” Thorwald drew his sidearm and walked out of the living room. Searching for a room in which to barricade himself, he headed down the hallway.

A blinding flash shook the house and smoke began to fill the rooms. The generals and radio operators scattered, but quickly became disoriented in the suffocating smoke.

Thorwald found himself cornered in an alcove. Though the smoke had not yet reached it, there was nowhere to turn. In horror and confusion, Thorwald saw the form of a hideous insect-like creature emerge from the mist—its head was gray and smooth, its eyes wide, and it had a long, tubular nose.

Thorwald raised his gun to fire, but heard a muffled voice order: “Drop it, Thorwald! Drop it!” He looked down and saw the muzzle of an AK-47. As the form emerged from the smoke, Thorwald recognized a soldier in a gas mask. The Minister’s commandos had stormed the headquarters.

Within seconds, each of the commanding officers and radio operators were rounded up and taken prisoner. Thorwald and the most senior generals were loaded into the helicopter, while the others were placed in the back of a truck.

As the helicopter lifted off for Strausberg, Thorwald lowered his head in shame. His operation was truly doomed.

Hans turned up Otto-Grotewohlstrasse, passing two columns of Soviet T-72 tanks lining the road. Hans noticed the red Soviet insignia on the tanks, and two thoughts briefly flickered through his mind: had Scharf and Thorwald really enlisted Soviet aid, or was this a false-flag operation? And second, how had they gotten this close to the border without already provoking an incident? He could only hope the Minister’s orders were going forward and the invasion would be halted, but there was nothing he could do now.

One of the tanks fired up its engine, shooting a plume of exhaust out the back of the vehicle. The tank suddenly swerved into the middle of the road, directly ahead of Hans. Hans braked as he pulled the motorcycle into a sharp turn, trying to veer out of the way and avoid colliding with the behemoth. Then, when he had stopped in time, Hans gunned the engine and zipped through a narrow space between the tank and another on the other side of the road. When Hans was clear, he looked back and saw all of the tanks were now moving. Most simply backtracked, but others followed the first tank and were turning around. They were pulling back.

Sergeant Koch headed down the dark subway tunnel, his flashlight barely illuminating the darkness before him. There were occasional safety lights spaced along the walls of the tunnel, but these did little to dispel the gloom. The greater danger lay at his feet. Koch had to move fast through the tunnel, but the railroad tracks were full of uneven patches where he could catch his foot and trip. Koch held the flashlight mainly on the tracks so he could find his way. At first he feared tripping and falling into the deadly electrified third rail, but then another horrifying thought came to mind: what if yet another train came down the tracks toward him? But Koch was already committed—he would have to press on.

He ran fifty meters down the tracks before he came to a railing and a small set of stairs. Koch climbed up and found himself in a small concrete alcove, where three large metal boxes contained the circuit breakers for the rail lines. He knew exactly where to go to find the breakers that serviced this stretch of the rails; in his many years at this post he had often escorted maintenance workers who had come down to work on them. But he had no formal training on the electrical equipment himself. Now, as he looked at the large gray electric boxes, he bemoaned the fact that he never needed to know, until now.

Koch had no idea where to start. He picked one box at random, and set the edge of his crowbar against the lock. Using the butt of his flashlight as a hammer, he broke the lock off and opened the box. There were several rows of circuit breakers, but the numbering system was too technical for him to grasp. He turned to the next box, breaking off the lock, then the third, so that the doors to each of the circuit breakers were now open. None of the panels indicated the exact switches that powered this section of rails.

Koch took a deep breath and reached for a panel at random. I hope I’m not the only one who gets killed in this mess, fooling around with electrical circuits of all things , he thought. Then he shook his head. Stupid. If you don’t succeed, plenty of people will die . Koch began to switch the breakers, using a process of trial and error.

For a moment, several of the lights in the tunnel were extinguished, but the electric buzz of the tracks remained. Koch reset that switch, turning the lights back on. Then he looked to the bottom of each panel, where two large handles were inlaid. Shrugging, Koch grabbed each handle and pulled the switches.

A loud click reverberated through the tunnel as all of the lights went out. Koch listened in the dark for the buzz of the rails, but that was now gone too. Could he have succeeded? By now the trains would be very close to the first station in West Berlin.

Just then, a series of flickering lights came from down the tunnel behind him. Koch turned to see a dozen flashlight bulbs waving wildly in the darkness like fireflies. Seconds later, a group of soldiers came into view. It was Captain Loeffler with the first group of reinforcements Koch had requested.

Koch smiled, feeling much more at ease now that he had company in the dark tunnel. Together, they ran down the tracks until they saw the back of one of the train cars loom up out of the darkness. The train was indeed still, but what about the soldiers? Koch tensed, knowing that their flashlights made his group an easy target. If these were rogue soldiers, would they turn on their own men?