A Young Man's Game by Paul Blake

Author:Paul Blake [Blake, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781077436657
Published: 2019-07-16T22:00:00+00:00

18

Alec's heart started to race. Shit, they’re too close. I was hoping for more of a lead. They’ll outrun us for sure. He looked ahead and saw the yellow tram pull up to the Friedrichstraße tram stop.

‘Quick Claudia, the tram.’

They ran, still holding hands, to reach the doors before they closed, and the tram would move on. Only ten metres, but several people were getting off blocking the doors. Alec pushed his way on to the tram, past startled tourists with their backpacks, he dragged Claudia with him. His usual deference on public transport long forgotten. The doors closed behind them as they sat in one of the vacant pairs of seats on the far side of the tram. The tram silently moved off, Alec looked to his right and saw the Police officers on the pavement run past the tram stop looking further down Friedrichstraße for their quarry. The tram turned left onto Dorotheenstraße and Alec, and Claudia breathed deeply. Alec kissed Claudia on the lips.

‘That was exciting,’ he said.

His relief was short-lived when he saw on the electronic journey map that there was only one stop before the tram would loop back and reverse its journey and return to Friedrichstraße. He pressed the bell for the tram to stop at Universitätsstraße.

‘We have to clear this area quick it’ll be flooded by police soon, and no doubt the Russians will be listening to the police channels too,’ Alec said. ‘Okay, if we turn on to Universitätsstraße and then cross Unter den Linden to Behrenstraße that’ll take us to the south side of the embassy. If we need to we can keep heading south and make our way around, Französische Straße has plenty of places we can hide, like that shopping mall there.’ ‘Galeries Lafayette? You could buy me a ring!’ Claudia laughed.

‘Not a hope in hell, my love.’ Alec said gently. He added a wink when he saw her face drop. ‘Let’s get to the embassy safe before you start making wedding plans and choosing colour schemes.’

The tram stopped just before the junction with Universitätsstraße, and they got off. Holding hands, they turned right on to Universitätsstraße, they walked along the Department of Social Sciences building on the right-hand side down to Unter den Linden. Alec thought he could hear the faint sound of police sirens coming from where they had been. Within a minute Alec and Claudia came to the wide thoroughfare of Unter den Linden, the Humboldt University of Berlin behind them to the left. They crossed the road quickly, stopping in the central reservation alongside the tall bronze statue of Frederick the Great of Prussia on horseback and waited for a break in the traffic. To their left, they could see the tourist hotspots of the Berliner Dom and the Fernsehturm in the skyline. When the traffic was clear they crossed to the other side and instead of heading west towards the Wilhelmstraße and the embassy, they turned east, and then south when they reached Bebelplatz, the large square infamous for being the site of one of the Nazi book burning ceremonies in 1933.

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