A Rose Remembered by Michael Phillips

Author:Michael Phillips
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rosetta
Published: 1994-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

63

Unscheduled Network Business

Sabina hoped Matthew would forgive her this one time.

She would get on with the business of being a properly obedient wife the moment they were married. But she had to make sure they lived long enough to see their wedding day. Right now the first priority was to get her father safely out of prison, and out of the DDR altogether.

If that meant going behind his back, well, it would have to be.

It wasn’t that she didn’t believe in Matthew’s plan.

But from all he’d told her about this fellow called Der Fuchs, she had formed a clear picture of the kind of man they were dealing with. She had run into his type frequently in her work. They abounded in the postwar Communist countries. Indeed, Communism seemed to breed them. Gustav was one, now this Schlaukopf—there were thousands—all working the corrupt system however they could for their own ends.

As genteel and guileless as her mother and father had raised her to be, she had learned not to trust the fox’s kind. One look in their eyes, one quick perusal of the hard and calculating expressions in their unfeeling faces, and she knew.

There was a time when she had hated herself for thinking such thoughts. She didn’t want to judge or think ill of anyone. But the years perhaps had caused a few calluses to grow over her heart as well. She prayed it wasn’t so.

There could be no denying she had grown wary. She had seen too much cruelty. If it took a more sober-minded outlook, even a cold mistrust—yes, she would call it that—to prevent these mercenaries of greed from hurting people she cared about and was committed to help, it was a flaw in her Christian character she was willing to put up with. She would talk to the Lord about it in the next life. For now, however, she would do all that lay in her power to guard against their schemes, even if it meant a potential conflict with her husband-to-be.

There was no way Matthew could possess the experience to know what manner of man he was dealing with. His years on the diplomatic front could not have prepared him as had hers in the network. A Westerner could not fully grasp what it was like on this side, under the black Communist cloud. As careful as he would be, and as skillfully as he had thought out every aspect of the plan, he could not adequately apprehend the constant danger of treachery.

Betrayal was always nearby in the DDR. When dealing with the kind of men whose eyes revealed cunning, avarice, and spiritual emptiness, Sabina had come to expect it.

Better to be disappointed and find out you were wrong than to endanger the lives of innocents.

Thus contemplating the ethics and justification for what she was about to do, Sabina drove into the small village of Grossbeeren south of Berlin.

She had never driven here alone, but had no difficulty finding the place. She parked Hermann’s Kelly-green Trabant, got out, and walked the circuitous route to the school.

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