Erika Holzer - Freedom Bridge

Houston paused to answer… and walked on. He could not trust his voice.

He was waiting outside when he next caught sight of Stepan, who had stopped to speak with Ernst Roeder, an East German photographer friend of his.

At roughly 6:00 P.M., with Nikita Khrushchev’s pseudo-tantrum still ringing in his ears, Air Force Captain Stepan Brodsky swallowed his fear as the two Mercedes-Benz limousines sped through the woods on a road bathed in moonlight. Ahead was Glienicker Bridge, spanning the Havel River that separated Communist East Germany and free West Berlin.

The moon had disappeared behind a cloud by the time the limousines, following one another like disconnected pieces of a caterpillar, reached an obstacle course of concrete barriers. After roughly 200 feet of zigzag maneuvering, the lead limo containing Paul Houston and Ernst Roeder entered a cobblestone square at the mouth of the bridge. The second limo, with an East German driver and Stepan Brodsky in the back seat, followed.

Both Mercedes stopped between two guard houses. One flew East Germany’s flag, the other the Soviet Union’s hammer and sickle.

From his rear seat, Houston stared at the suspension bridge that loomed just beyond the cobblestone square, Glienicker’s dull steel webbing looking shiny, almost festive, in the wash of floodlights.

Brodsky, seated behind his driver in the second car, looked to his left.

A red-and-white-striped border pole barred the way across the bridge. Three uniformed men stood nearby. A Soviet soldier. An East German Vopo. And an East German officer with white-blond hair…

Colonel Emil von Eyssen, chief of security at the Four-Power summit that had just ended in chaos .

With studied casualness and the air of a man who wanted a last-minute word with someone in the first limousine, Brodsky exited his vehicle and approached the open window.

“Hello… my friend. A cautionary word,” Brodsky said. “The guards are looking edgy tonight. Too many defections to the West lately.”

No fear in his voice. Brodsky knew, as he returned to his car, that Paul Houston would see it in his eyes.

Houston’s throat constricted, instantly sizing up the situation. He was dimly aware that Ernst Roeder was rolling down his window.

“I cannot resist taking advantage of the light from these obscene floodlights to get a shot of the verböten side of the bridge,” Roeder grumbled. “Since I prefer not to photograph through glass—”

“You know the regulations,” Houston answered automatically. “No photographs of bridges. No open windows on your side when the East German Volkpolisei check you—”

The Vopo… Damned if it wasn’t the anti-American bastard who hassled him every time he crossed Glienicker Bridge—so much so that he’d inquired about the man’s name. Two syllables. Began with a “B.” Berger, Brenner, Bruno—Bruno, that was it!

“No photographs, Ernst,” he whispered. Then: “Switch seats with me. Quickly!”

Still staring at the bridge, Houston calculated that it was roughly a hundred feet from the cobblestone square where they were parked to where the bridge itself began. He zeroed in on the bridge’s midpoint—and a large yellow sign facing him that spelled out the Communists’ claim on Stepan Brodsky’s life: DEUTSCHE DEMOKRATISCHE REPUBLIK .

Below the sign, like living exclamation points, stood two more East German guards.

The Vopo bent to his task, expecting Roeder’s East German ID card to be pressed against the window. He gaped. Not a West German. An American diplomat—and on the wrong side of the car, window rolled down, passport in his hand!

In the split second before Bruno’s surprise and annoyance shifted to anger, Houston took a deep drag on his cigarette and blew a cloud of smoke in the Vopo’s outthrust face.

Cursing, the Vopo snatched the passport out of Houston’s hand.

“Give it here, you sonofabitch,” Houston said. “Only the Soviets get to touch my passport.”

“Big shot American.” The Vopo clutched the passport to his chest.

“My passport,” Houston snapped. “Or do you intend to search this car? You have no authority. You wouldn’t dare,” he taunted.

“ I will search ,” Bruno snarled, underscoring each word as his hand moved toward his revolver.

“Out!” Houston ordered Roeder. And to his bewildered driver in the front seat, “Get out! Leave your door open with the motor running.”

Do it, Stepan. It’s now or never!

Stepan Brodsky, imposing in his Soviet Air Force officer’s uniform, strode over to the confrontation, a scowl on his face, an unmistakable what’s-going-on-here question in his eyes.

The Vopo hesitated, and then backed away, his eyes still locked on Brodsky’s uniform.

Houston’s heart was a heavy drumbeat in his chest as he watched Brodsky’s gamble play out during the next few seconds. Slide under the wheel of Houston’s limousine. Floor the accelerator.

Brodsky’s back slammed against the seat cushion. The Mercedes shot past a startled Soviet guard, smashing its way through the border pole. The vehicle’s speedometer soared.

Indifferent to the shriek of sirens assaulting his eardrums, Houston watched Colonel Emil von Eyssen race to the mouth of the bridge, megaphone in hand, as Brodsky gunned the powerful motor of the Mercedes.

When von Eyssen aimed the megaphone at some machine gun emplacements in the watchtowers, it seemed to Houston that he stopped breathing. He concentrated only on the trajectory of tracer bullets. They had reached out for the fleeing limousine but, so far, had harmlessly struck pavement and burst into sparks.

Every fiber of Houston’s being propelled the Mercedes forward across the bridge, willing it to go faster.

Bullets whipped over the top of the car. An East German guard at Glienicker’s midpoint collapsed into a soft pile.

“Get down!” von Eyssen screamed to no one and everyone, needing clear fields of fire.

Then: “ Feuern! ” Fire! roared von Eyssen’s megaphone-amplified voice.

“ Die Reifen! The tires!”

Von Eyssen’s voice carried over the ear-splitting sirens, the clatter of machine guns.

But the shooters in the watchtowers knew their job. Even as von Eyssen screamed the orders, a rear right tire blew apart, spewing rubber all over the blacktop. The Mercedes veered sharply to the left, rammed into that side of the bridge, bounced off, and swaying crazily, careened toward the opposite side, its left flank even more exposed to the line of fire.

Mere feet from the bridge’s midpoint, from West Berlin. You’re so damn close, Stepan.

Houston choked as a bright green tracer round connected with the Mercedes’ gas tank just as the car smashed into Glienicker Bridge’s unforgiving steel.

Gas-fueled flames engulfed the Mercedes and enveloped the steel bridge supports. The smell of burning rubber was overpowering.

Debris fell on the inert form of Stepan Brodsky. He had been thrown clear.

“ Feuer einstellen! ” Cease fire!

In the din of wailing sirens and the confusion of shouted orders, two men raced for the burning wreck, their footsteps swallowed by the engine of an East German patrol boat hovering beneath Glienicker Bridge.

Paul Houston got there just before Ernst Roeder.

Brodsky was crawling through spilled gasoline and his own blood.

His body was twisted like a piece of charred steel. One outstretched hand slowly reached for a small object that had spilled from his pocket. It was lying between him and the edge of the bridge a few inches away.

Brodsky slid forward on his chest, touched metal.