PROLOGUE GUNSHOT FROM THE EAST

 

Potsdam, East Germany

Federal State of Brandenburg

June 15, 1977

Friday, 12:01 AM

 

At the ebbing of the year, two men stood on the east side of the Glienicke Bridge watching their counterparts at the west end in the American Sector of Berlin. The scent of old river wafted through the air, and along the bridge. A thin rain diffused the light from street lamps into star bursts through the muggy air. One of the men from the west shifted, brushing his foot along the edge of a cone-shaped beam of lamp-light glittering in a circle on the wet ground. His partner nodded to him toward the east. The American on the east side glanced up at the red aircraft warning light that blipped atop the bridge tower casting a dim pink hue in the mist. He removed his narrow-brimmed trilby and wiped his brow with a white handkerchief then returned it to his coat pocket. The American looked west, bounced on his toes, rounded back his shoulders and stood straight like a boy about to receive a trophy. He saw the headlights of a large dark sedan shimmered and flickered on the west side through his mizzly vision.

 

“Remember what I told you, no quick moves and keep your hands where I can see them,” said one of the east-side men to the American. The Russian, stationed in East Germany, was dressed in a black trench coat and a dull gray ushanka wool cap with wool ear muffs folded up.

 

The other, an American, grunted with acknowledgment. He wore khakis, white shirt and a brown leather jacket and the trilby. He raised his hands and took a step toward the west. He only wished to get this ordeal over. Finally, he spoke, “I’ve been listening to you for two long years Serge. Frankly, I hope to never hear your voice again.” The American glanced over to the Russian and remarked, “Why do you guys wear that goofy ushanka all the time? Even in this glum.”

 

“This is Germany, a cold can come anytime.”

 

“This is East Germany,” the American said. “Middle of June and you goofballs still wearing wool.” The American considered his “guide”. “Did I ever tell your Serge; you are a dead ringer for Brezhnev.”

 

The Russian glimpsed up at the American and frowned that deep bowed Slavic deceiving leer. “Your trilby is out of fashion.” He returned his gaze across the bridge and said: “I think it would be wise my friend, that we never meet again.”

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“Ah come on Serge you people never smile when you do something bad is about to happen. I bet your boy over there feels the same way. I reckon he ain’t grinning much either.”

\

The slightest of snarl broke the sullen expression and the Russian said, “Oh, I can assure you, he feels much, much worse. Let’s say, his welcome home party will not be ...um… as pleasant as yours.” The snarl became a full blow devilish grin.

 

“Still eating you own eh Serge?”

 

The American looked over his shoulder at the 1970 black Trabant. A boxy hollowed out relic was the East Germany's answer to the VW Beetle without the charm. The unimaginative body was made of a weird mix of plastic and wood and its engine was a two-stroke wheezer that struggled to deliver eighteen horsepower. A driver sat inside smoking a cigarette. “I figure you folk haven’t won many Le Mans with one of those. Hell, that thing would croak after twenty-four minutes, let alone twenty-four hours.”

 

The Russian reclaimed his frown, turned to his driver and nodded his head. The headlights on the black junker flashed once.

The car on the west end flashed back.

 

“We go now, my friend.”

 

The American huffed and took a step forward, the Russian fell in behind and kept a revolver in his prisoner’s back. “Move slowly American.”

“Keep your shirt on Serge.”

 

“Just keep moving American. Slow.”

 

The two men on the west side began moving toward the center of the Glienicke Bridge, too.

 

“So tell me American, what will you tell your friends of our hospitality? Good, yes?” The Russian asked.

 

“Bugger off Bolshevik. Your tourism board leaves something to be desired.”

 

“Ah yes, but you as well were a tour guide, were you not?”

 

“Military Liaison Mission and you know that Bolshevik.”

 

“Ha! Ha! Yes, a fancy name we all use for our spies, true American? Liaison Tour Guides.”

 

The American knew he was walking the same steps as American U-2 spy-plane pilot Francis Gary Powers and a detained American student, were exchanged on February 10, 1962, for Soviet Spy Colonel Rudolf Abel. It was the first of many prisoner exchanges on the Glienicke Bridge in the divided city of Berlin.

 

They had reached the quarter mark of the hanging bridge about the middle of the closest suspension arch. The American, focusing through the misty rain, struggled to see the figures heading toward them. He was half way home to the merge point where his brother would take him back to west and freedom.

 

“Silly Bolshevik. The MLM is supposed to be a conduit to establish better relations between east and west. My little vacation in your country has been so accommodating. What lovely surroundings and the gruel was the best I’ve ever had or the worse. I don’t know until I enjoyed your hospitality and comfy prison cell I’d never had gruel before.” The American rubbed together his calloused hands, even in the moist air, he could feel the rough skin. “Two years splitting logs in Perm Serge. Two years in a Gulag I still can’t pronounce. And nobody told me why.”

 

“We are a pleasant people when it comes to our guests. We have pride in such things,” the Russian said and paused. “My friend I agree you are associated with your MLM unit but you were not military. This gave us our suspicion.”

 

“Russians always have been a paranoid bunch. Soft underbelly and all that. Hell, arrest people for taking a crap at the wrong time.”

 

“How is it you say, paranoia is real if people are truly out to get you. A joke I think American, yes?”

 

“Ha! General Patton was right; Truman should have let him barrel on through to Moscow.”

 

“Yes and he then would suffer the same defeat as Napoleon and Hitler. This I’m sure of.”

 

“You didn’t know Patten.”

 

“You don’t know Russian resolve. Many tried, all failed my American friend.”

 

“Roosevelt was a fool to agree to Yalta and the artificial boundaries it created. We wouldn’t be in this Cold War mess.”

 

The Russian shrugged, “But here we are. A deal is a deal.”

 

“Deals can be broken.”

 

The two men walked along in silence for a moment and the American with a gun in his back squinted across the bridge and could see two men walking side by side.

 

“See there Bolshevik, we don’t point guns at the back of people we are setting free.”

 

“It’s only for your safety my friend. We came such a long way. I would be upset to see anything happen now.”

 

“Not to worry Serge, you old Bolshie, I’ve a ride waiting over there.”

 

The four met in the middle of the Glienicke Bridge at the white line painted to mark the east-west border where distinct political and social cultures collided. If the old pre-Socratic philosopher Zeno was to be taken literally, the sides could never meet. According to his paradoxical argument of the infinite divisibility of all numbers and, indeed, for all matter, arguing that to get to somewhere the traveler had to go halfway, then go halfway of the remainder, then half of the next, then half again and again and again for infinity. The traveler never gets to his destination. Absurd by empirical or sensory evidentiary standards but sound nonetheless, mathematically.

 

Get there they did, at least that’s what their eyes told them. Zeno would argue otherwise. The four men stood motionless for a brief moment like captains of two football teams meeting at midfield for the pre-game coin toss. The two American brothers beaming with joy of reunion, the two Russians stood grim and stoic, glaring at each other. One with fear, the other with loathing. Theirs’s was not a reunion. The Russian holstered his pistol, turned and looked up behind him.

 

Capt. Romanov had been an expert marksman for twenty years and a Soviet KGB assassin for fifteen of those years. He never missed. He squinted his left eye, looked through the scope and found his target. Adjusting for the rain and breeze, he squeezed the trigger on his Dragunov sniper rifle.

 

The American escorted from the east suddenly arched his back and his arm flew straight out from his side. He fell forward into the chest of his fellow American, his younger brother, who let him down slowly to the deck of the wet bridge. Confusion and shock filled his face.

 

“Jimmy! No God, no! Jimmy.” He looked up at the Russian escort and yelled, “You rotten murderous bastard! No!” He looked down at the dying man, “Jimmy.” Jimmy reached up and grasped both arms of his brother. Their driver ran up and knelt by the two.

 

“I just radioed for help.” The driver said.

 

“Hey! Squirt. Good to … to see you,” Jimmy whispered.

 

“Jimmy, my God … oh no, no.” He looked at the Russians that, by now, were standing side by side. The one that escorted Jimmy said something in Russian to the other and they both turned to leave.”

 

“You’ll going to pay for this you rotten bastard!” The younger brother hissed through teeth. “We made a deal. Our governments made a deal.” A rolling foam of nausea crawled up his esophagus. “Your evil form of government will fail! You hear me! Your government will fail!”

 

The two Russians continued to walk back to the east.

 

“Jimmy, come on man, don’t cash it in. Come on,” Jimmy’s brother held the dying man’s head in his lap.

 

Jimmy’s eye fluttered and he managed a smile. A trickled of blood seeped out of the corner of his mouth. “It’s okay Squirt. I made it … I made … it … home.”

 

“No! Damnit!” Jimmy’s younger brother muttered, rocked his brother like a mother with child. Come on God bring him through. Come on. Come on. God no.

 

His soul fell into a deep pit, he wished they were fishing in the creek back home. He began to sob, his head dropped in despair.

 

Jimmy struggled to say something, blood frothed from his mouth. He whispered through his red-stained teeth, “Slough of … Despond. You must flow … Follow,” Jimmy coughed and closed his eyes tightly and squeezed out tears. “Code…”

 

“Jimmy! Hang on!” The younger brother pleaded. He couldn’t swallow and had to fight back the urge to retch.

 

Jimmy’s breath became quick and short. With contorted face, skin rumpled around his eyes he managed to speak, “Codex of Cadmus. You … must … find … Coins of the Relmmmm.” He tried to speak again but the words were lost to history. Jimmy’s body went limp and his head rolled to the side.

 

Codex of Cadmus?

 

Coins of the Realm?

 

What the heck was that all about?

 

The younger man laid his brother’s hand across his abdomen and wiped closed Jimmy’s eyelids. Tears rolled down his younger brother’s cheeks as he sobbed. The brother looked through his watery eyes in the direction of the eastern headlights. He could see two figures walk in front of the car, the headlights blinked from passing legs. He could not see above the waist of the two Russians. The crying man looked down at his dead brother and heard a gunshot from the east.