The Matchmaker: A Spy in Berlin by Paul Vidich

Author:Paul Vidich
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2022-02-02T00:00:00+00:00

17

JUST OFF INSELSTRASSE

Anne knew that the best way to hide her surprise was to appear indifferent, and so she approached Jim Cooper from the opposite side of the street, wearing a headscarf and white-framed sunglasses. She walked right up to him, startling him. She thought him a comic figure standing by himself, trying to appear inconspicuous. November’s dusk had brought a light snow and an early winter. Flakes drifted, moving one way then another on the quiet street.

“I expected you,” she said, touching his coat in a familiar way to put him at ease. “I guess you had no trouble finding the address.”

Cooper was visibly startled. “Full of surprises, aren’t you? We need to get away from here.”

The two of them fell into step together, two people who had been strangers moments before, now a couple like couples everywhere, walking, casually engaged in conversation.

Cooper touched her elbow. “Keep walking.” He urged her along. “You were being watched,” he said.

“Really? I didn’t know.”

“Don’t look back. Keep walking.”

They had gone several blocks when Cooper glanced back, but spoke to her. “We’ll walk to the next corner, turn left quickly, and we’ll run. You’ll follow me. We’ll head for the first block on the right. There is a place to hide. Keep walking.”

Anne happened to glance back and she confirmed there were two suspicious men a few blocks behind. She looked at Cooper to judge what he knew, what he had surmised, and what she should withhold. “They followed you, not me,” she said.

Cooper pushed her forward. “Turn now. Run.”

Two weeks of shortening days brought a cold front that moved with vigor, but it hadn’t discouraged East Berliners who joined the daily demonstrations. Men and women in wool coats leaned into the light wind and blowing snow, holding hand-painted placards. Cooper and Anne moved past one tightly knotted group when he gave his order. Anne followed him, with a jogger’s stride.

Up ahead, by a small square, where the street divided into a V, a tense crowd was excitedly alive. Two opposing groups faced each other. Three beaten and bleeding protesters were sheltered in the arms of their sympathetic comrades. The person worst hurt was being carried to an ambulance parked on a side street. The crowd behind opened up to let the injured woman pass, calling out concern, and then directed their rage at the other group.

Three riot policemen whose cudgels had inflicted the injuries were now confronted by the taunting crowd. They wore the false confidence of frightened police retreating slowly. Fear in their eyes as the crowd shouted, “Shame on you.” The helmeted police were young men, too, likely schoolmates of the injured demonstrators they had been ordered to beat.

Wailing police sirens could be heard in the distance, which gave brief pause to the teenagers who held cobblestones they’d ripped from the street. They advanced on the three policemen like a wolf pack circling prey. People everywhere were a loose moving sea of humanity, shifting from one danger only to escape bloodied, and then to reassemble to engage another phalanx of shield-bearing riot police.

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