Erika Holzer - Freedom Bridge

“So it’s on to the Dorf family’s warehouse,” Albert said cheerfully.

“Hold on a minute,” Kiril said, following Albert and his brothers out the front door. “I just thought of something—”

The door swung shut.

Brenner headed for the stairway leading to the bedrooms.

Adrienne put out a hand to stop him. “You’ve been acting like a snob ever since we got here, Kurt.”

“Don’t lecture me,” he snapped.

“Even Mrs. Zind, who doesn’t speak English, is nervous just being in the same room. Your attitude jumps the language barrier like an Olympic pole vaulter,” she said coldly. “Can’t you show a little gratitude?”

“I thanked the older brother for what they’re all doing.”

“I know the German word for ‘thank you’. You said it once, maybe twice. The point is how you said it. Like a condescending employer to the hired help. And by the way, the older brother has a name. It’s Albert.”

“You’re coming unstrung.”

“And you’re in denial. If the accommodations here are too modest, you can always return to that affluent Brenner hotel suite in East Berlin.”

“You have an irritating sense of humor.”

“And you have a callous side to your nature that’s even worse than I suspected. You can be affable to people in New York who, if you needed them, would slam their collective doors in your face. Yet you’re barely civil to a family who took us in without question and are trying, at great personal risk, to save our lives.”

“I think you’re enjoying this little melodrama, Adrienne,” he said slowly. “It’s just your style. All these people you can feel sorry for and identify with.”

“It’s maddening how your mood shifts. You seemed so different when things fell apart in East Berlin while we listened to Anna—”

“Are you serious? I didn’t defect. So what does she do? Unload on our family history! If it weren’t for her, I’d have been home by now.”

Adrienne plunged ahead. “Maybe not. Aleksei Andreyev had no intention of releasing you. But he was so stunned by Anna’s revelation that he was caught off guard. That gave you and Kiril time to disarm and disable Andreyev and his so-called shadow. The way the two of you worked together in perfect harmony…”

She looked away for a moment. “For the first time,” she said softly, “I sensed—”

“What, that we were brothers? Don’t remind me,” Brenner said with an expression of distaste just as Kiril walked back inside.

“You shouldn’t have come to Kurt’s rescue, Kiril,” Adrienne said. “You sacrificed your freedom for the bastard and he resents you for it.”

“You’re wrong. I don’t believe in sacrifice,” Kiril said evenly. “I did it for Anna. I’d never have taken the risk if I hadn’t thought we had a decent chance of escaping. We still do.”

“And if they catch you now, what will it mean, a labor camp? A firing squad?”

He didn’t answer.

“A firing squad,” she said, closing her eyes in a vain effort to hold back the tears. She reached for him and drew him into her arms.

“You’re still my wife, damn you,” Brenner hissed, fury in his eyes. “‘My place is with my husband,’” he mimicked. “That’s the noble little sentiment you shared with that mob of journalists when you and this—this stand-in—were about to return to East Berlin.”

“I was stalling for time.”

“Are you forgetting about the night when you were cold and I—”

“That was rape.”

“It may have started out that way,” he admitted, “but that’s not the way it ended. Or am I being too crude?”

Resisting the impulse to slap the smugness off his face, she said, “I’m not crude enough to tell you why it ended the way it did. Just so you know, Kurt, I’m locking you out of the room we’ve been sharing for appearance’s sake so that your ‘stand - in’ and I can go to bed.”

Turning their backs on him, she and Kiril walked upstairs hand in hand.

It was Tuesday evening. Everyone sat at the kitchen table while Albert and his brothers pored over a large topographical map of Potsdam and the surrounding area.

Gunther pointed to what looked like a small earthen bowl about 200 meters across and surrounded by a heavily treed area. The hint of a dirt trail ran to the bowl from the blacktop road about a mile away. The blacktop led to the Havel River. Glienicker Bridge was a half-mile beyond.

“What are we looking at?” Kiril asked.

“An old cobalt mine,” Erich said. “Been closed for years ever since the war. It was owned by the British.”

“The Brits left all their equipment there,” Gunther said. “Then our Soviet comrades carted most of it off it to Mother Russia in 1946.”

“We have a new plan,” Albert announced, “but we’ll need an additional day. We’ll hide the three of you in the mine until we’re ready to move on it.”

“So what’s new about your plan?” Brenner said impatiently.

“Yesterday I had battery trouble. Back at the yard last night I saw that a fan belt was loose.”

He looked at Adrienne. “The fan belt drives the generator, which, in turn, charges the battery.”

She nodded.

“I tightened the belt last night so there’d be no problem with the battery today,” Albert continued. “Tomorrow—Wednesday—the Vopo who drives us on and off the bridge returns to work. I have an okay relationship with him. I’ll have already picked up the bridge supports at the yard. The Vopo will remember the fan belt problem we had last Monday. I mention that I had the same problem again on Tuesday but the battery seems all right now. I’ll check it again later, I tell him. I have all day.”

Albert paused. “When no one’s looking,” he said grimly, “I open the hood and disconnect the fan belt. Sometime earlier that day, Gunther will have put a metal bar under a front tire. There should be enough leftover juice in the battery to start the truck—which means we’ll immediately run over the metal bar. My Vopo driver will stop short. Can’t be too careful. After all, there are tools lying all over the bridge. If we risk a flat tire, the truck would have to stay parked on the bridge all night. Can’t have that! I’ll have to look under the tire. But I won’t until Bruno turns off the engine. I get out of the truck, return with the bar. The Vopo pushes the ignition. Nothing. Engine won’t start. Now I look at the fan belt. Disconnected—imagine that! Needs a special pry-bar to be reinstalled, but I can’t get one until early tomorrow morning. Can’t recharge the battery until then.”

“I love this part,” Erich said. “Bruno goes into panic mode. What, and leave the truck on the bridge until tomorrow? My superiors would never allow it!”

“So we mobilize guards and crew members to push the truck on the slight downward slope of the bridge and into the cobblestone square,” Albert said, picking up the thread. “The guards return to their posts in the middle of the bridge. The crew lines up for headcount. The East German and Soviet guards rush out of their guard houses. Can’t leave the truck blocking the mouth of the bridge—blocking most of it, anyway. So they find some chains and use their cars to tow the truck behind the East German guard house.”

“We’re back to a bunch of ‘maybes,’ are we?” Brenner said with disdain. “ Maybe you’ll be able to disconnect the fan belt. Maybe you’ll get the driver to stop so you can get under the truck. Maybe someone in charge will be unwilling to leave the truck on the bridge overnight. Maybe some men will push it downhill. Maybe they’ll have chains. Maybe the truck can be towed around the corner in back of the East German guardhouse.”