Robert Ludlum's The Utopia Experiment by Kyle Mills

Author:Kyle Mills
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781455572335
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2013-03-25T16:00:00+00:00

39

Berlin

Germany

IT WAS A PART OF BERLIN that Smith had never been to—old warehouses and dirty streets lit by security lights that came to life as their car drifted by. Randi, on the other hand, seemed to know where she was going, so he leaned back and closed his eyes.

The car came to a stop and he jerked upright, not sure if he’d been asleep or not. “Are we there?”

“It’s about three blocks west,” Randi said. “I didn’t want to park right out front.”

She hadn’t provided a great deal of detail on who they were going to see, only that the man’s name was Johannes and that he might have some records they would find useful.

When Smith stepped out, though, the area didn’t look terribly promising. She’d parked in front of a boarded-up building and it was dark enough that he stumbled a bit as he jogged up alongside her.

“I thought they moved the Stasi Records Office over by Checkpoint Charlie,” Smith said as they continued along the empty street. The frigid wind was funneling between the buildings and through his light jacket, but at least the forecasted downpour hadn’t materialized.

“Johannes doesn’t exactly work for the BStU,” she said using the German acronym. “He’s more of a private consultant.”

The euphemism was classic CIA—entirely ambiguous, yet vaguely official sounding.

“Private consultant,” Smith muttered. “More likely former Stasi.”

“Why devolve into labels?” she responded with a wry smile. “Aren’t we all just people in the end?”

“Christ…”

East Germany’s secret police had the dubious honor of being the most paranoid organization in history. At its peak, it had employed over a hundred thousand people to watch over a population of only sixteen million. According to some calculations, spying on its own citizens had been East Germany’s largest industry.

When it became clear that the wall was coming down, the Stasi started shoveling their literally billions of pages of documents into shredders and incinerators. And when those broke down, they cut them up. And when they ran out of scissors, they ripped them by hand. Eventually, the country’s citizens figured out what was happening and began storming the Stasi buildings, taking control of the records and keeping any more from being destroyed. Now they were housed on the BStU’s endless expanse of shelves, waiting to be organized, deciphered, and disseminated.

The building they finally came to looked as abandoned as the one they’d parked next to. A rap on a steel portal that looked like navy surplus, though, caused an immediate reaction. A bulb hidden in the jamb came to life and lit their faces for a moment before the door opened and they were motioned inside.

“I’m Konrad,” the young man said, glancing out at the empty street before closing them in with the throw of a heavy deadbolt. “Johannes’s assistant.”

Smith and Randi nodded politely but declined to introduce themselves. It seemed to be a custom that the German was used to and he led them down a narrow corridor to a much more modern-looking door—this one complete with a retinal scanner and keypad that he made use of.

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