A Question of Time Read online

  A QUESTION OF TIME

  THE SNAKE EATER CHRONICLES 1

  JAMES STEJSKAL

  Published in the United States of America and Great Britain in 2020 by

  CASEMATE PUBLISHERS

  1950 Lawrence Road, Havertown, PA 19083, USA

  and

  The Old Music Hall, 106–108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JE, UK

  Copyright 2020 © James Stejskal

  Hardcover Edition: ISBN 978-1-61200-903-2

  Digital Edition: ISBN 978-1-61200-916-2

  Kindle Edition: Mobi ISBN 978-1-61200-916-2

  A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the publisher in writing.

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  Note:

  This is a book of fiction. Mentions of historical events, real persons or places are used fictitiously. All other names, places, and events are entirely imaginary.

  The story recounted is not true, no matter how similar it may be to real events. To the Federales who peruse these pages, please bear in mind that the incidents, events, and vague recollections recounted herein are imaginary and thus do not merit an indictment in any form or fashion.

  Any of my friends and comrades who think they are represented in this story are sadly mistaken. In any event, the real story is far too bizarre to be told.

  “What’s a snake-eater, Daddy?”

  “It’s a funny name they call us, Precious.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we kill snakes and eat them.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, but only the bad ones.”

  —overheard at Fort Bragg Child Day Care

  OCCUPIED BERLIN

  180 kilometers behind the Iron Curtain inside Communist East Germany

  Berlin 1979

  From 1945 until 1990, Berlin was the focal point of a Cold War that was anything but. It is only in retrospect that those of us who served can realize how very close to the precipice we actually came.

  It all began after World War II when the conquerors of Nazi Germany split the country into two zones they called the West and the East. The western zone became the Federal Republic of Germany, protected by the armies of the United States, the United Kingdom, and France. The eastern zone became the communist German Democratic Republic, the GDR, under the control of Mother Russia, aka the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Nearly one million soldiers of the Group of Soviet Forces Germany were stationed in the GDR.

  The conquerors themselves then became enemies. Tensions rose between the Allies and the USSR and its satellites. It was a time when a “lost” reconnaissance pilot or the delivery of missiles to a Third World country could nearly launch thermo-nuclear war.

  Those tensions were often at their highest in Berlin, the former capital of Germany. Lying deep inside East Germany behind the border Winston Churchill named the “Iron Curtain,” Berlin was occupied as well—by Soviets in the eastern half and American, British, and French troops in the western. By 1963, the city of Berlin was divided by over 100 kilometers of concrete wall with watch towers and searchlights, guarded by thousands of East German soldiers with Kalashnikovs.

  Two competing theories of world domination met there. It was the front line of an existential struggle between communism and capitalism; a hot spot left over from a war that never ended, a tinderbox that might start a new conflict or be consumed by it.

  In 1979, there was an uneasy acceptance of the status quo, but behind the scenes a chess game was being played by two rival nations—a game that could end with the deadliest of consequences.

  If you have to earn a living... and the price they make you pay is loyalty, be a double agent—and never let either of the two sides know your real name.

  —Graham Greene

  1

  The building loomed in the night, a monotonous gray structure like every other building in East Berlin. It stood out only by virtue of being older and more derelict than the others. Situated in the northern part of the Pankow district on the edge of the city, the apartment block lay in an area that had escaped most of the bombing and ground combat thirty-some years before. While newer Sovietinspired structures towered over the center of the city, the buildings in the rest of the East had barely been updated or repaired since the war.

  Inside, three athletic young men in black leather jackets, their faces strained in concentration, crept up the stairwell wearing their quietest rubber-soled shoes, trying hard to avoid the squeaking floorboards that squeaked anyway. Small dim lights barely illuminated the dingy vertical tunnel with its walls that had not been painted since anyone could remember. Each of the men had an ugly little pistol, a Russian Makarov, out and aimed generally upwards. Every door they passed led to an apartment that was home to a socialist worker’s family. Every door was identical; only the numbers changed.

  Reaching the bottom of the stairs leading to the next level, the first man raised his hand and the column stopped. He grasped the rail around the stairwell; it creaked and wobbled, rotted from age and neglect. Releasing his handhold, he involuntarily edged away from the shaft and closer to the wall.

  A fourth man came forward. Bruno Großmann was older than his team of shooters, a prosperous-looking man, portly in a long wool overcoat, who up to that moment had been shadowing the three men with guns at a distance.

  He looked up and whispered, “505, on the next floor.”

  The column continued up the stairs even more slowly than before. Reaching the door marked 505, they came to a halt and positioned themselves on either side of its frame. Großmann came forward once again and inspected the entryway. He pondered announcing that the police had arrived but then decided that quicker action was needed. He stepped back and motioned for the third man to come forward with the sledgehammer he was holding in his free hand. Holstering his pistol, Number Three took the heavy tool in both hands as his partners moved back slightly, ready to pounce forward once the door was open. Number Three looked at the boss and waited.

  Großmann nodded to the man in a silent command.

  Number Three swung the sledge as hard as he could; too hard in fact. It struck the door jamb and bounced off at an angle, sending splinters of wood flying through the air but with no visible effect on opening the portal.

  “Damn it! Again!” All pretense of stealth had vanished.

  The sledge struck home on the second try. The handle imploded as the door flew open. Number Three dropped the tool and pulled out his pistol as Number One scrambled past him into the front room.

  “Staatssicherheit, keine Bewegung!” State Security, don’t move!

  Number One couldn’t see a thing. He had no flashlight and it was pitch black in the apartment. He was followed by his comrades, one of whom hit the light switch just in time to see a half-naked man standing in the corner, leveling a pistol at them.

  All three Makarov pistols fired simultaneously. The man, perforated cleanly by a hail of bullets, slumped against the wall and slid to the floor, painting a shiny dark-red trail on the faded wallpaper. Großmann came in at last and walked over to the body. He leaned down a
nd picked up a piece of blackened wood carved to look vaguely like a weapon.

  “Crap,” he said in a barely audible voice. Then he commanded, “Search this place. Tear it apart. You’re looking for papers, film, cameras, anything. And don’t forget to check the food!”

  Großmann turned and walked into the hallway. A second team of men were coming up the stairs. One was carrying a litter for the body. Großmann didn’t normally come out on missions like this one, but its sensitivity and implications were such that he had decided he couldn’t afford to entrust it to any other officer in his section. He pulled out a cigarette, lit it, and stood peering down the stairwell contemplating the situation. Holding his cigarette in between his forefinger and thumb, one of Großmann’s many affectations, he looked like a Prussian army officer.

  He started to walk down the stairs. On the next landing a door opened a crack and a resident dared to peer out at the disturbance. Großmann glared back at the eyes staring out at him and the door quickly shut. He had already arranged for a team to warn each inhabitant and tell them to keep their mouths closed about the incident or go to jail. No one would talk, of that he was sure.

  A cold fury welled up inside Großmann. His quarry had escaped him. He surmised the suspect was clever and doubted that he had left any evidence. The noise coming from the apartment was that of a frustrated search that would yield nothing, otherwise he would have heard a pause and then a victorious cry signaling that something, some clue had been found. The dead man was an employee of the S-Bahn, the cross-city railway. It was only thanks to a KGB tip that Großmann also knew he was the communications link—the cut-out—between an agent handler in the West and a more important spy in the East.

  Großmann was troubled by the man. Most of all, why was he ready to die? He must have been totally committed to his cause. Based on the information he had, Großmann was convinced the man was guilty but tonight he had managed to elude East German justice for eternity. In any event, his choice was not stupid: death was far easier than the pain he would have experienced at Bautzen. Most traitors never returned from that deservedly notorious Stasi prison. His death made Großmann’s job more difficult, but not impossible. It was personal now: he was getting closer to the traitor and would bring him down once and for all.

  I will find you. It’s only a matter of time.

  2

  Master Sergeant Kimball “Kim” Becker concentrated on the night scene in front of him. This part of the French Sector of Berlin was quiet. That was not unusual. On the other side of the 12-foot high wall, the East German Border Command of the National People’s Army—the NVA— had made it a showcase of impenetrability: high walls, bright sodium-vapor lights, three rows of barbed-wire fences, dog runs, towers every 150 meters, and signs which threatened death to those who tried to enter. Ironically, because the East Germans thought the area secure, it wasn’t, especially for those wishing to break into the country rather than escape from it. The sections of the Wall that were heavily defended and had the deepest security on the surface were in fact the easiest to cross through because no one thought anyone would be crazy enough to actually try. Surprisingly, if one searched long enough, there were always weak points. The areas that appeared to have limited security were more dangerous as one could not always ascertain where the actual security belt was.

  Becker could see the so-called “death strip” directly to his front, a 15-meter-wide, well-groomed sand trap without the golfers. Then came a paved road and three barbed-wire fences. Contrary to popular belief, the East Germans didn’t employ anti-personnel mines around Berlin; they only used those on the frontier with the Federal Republic of Germany. Here they just used assault rifles to kill their prey—their fellow citizens of the German Democratic Republic.

  Behind Becker was a dark glade of pine trees, a strip of quiet isolation that separated the barrier from the busy, capitalist city of Berlin (West). Few Berliners came here. It was a forbidden area and not many wanted to be reminded that they were living in a bubble surrounded by a communist horde. The East German side was quiet as well. Beyond the Wall and a line of trees, it was a rural area, pastureland with a few homes and small military outposts.

  Why on Earth would anyone want to sneak into East Germany?

  Why indeed?

  Becker and the four men with him on the West Berlin side of the Wall knew the answer, but presently they were occupied with observing the frontier. They had been here many times before, collecting data, watching the guard procedures, learning everything possible in preparation for this mission. Alone or in pairs, they had walked sections of the border at all hours of the day and night, avoiding being seen by the NVA guards on the other side and eluding the West Berlin Police who tried to keep inquisitive children, troublemaking teenagers, and smugglers away from the Wall.

  Becker and his team didn’t need permission to be in the area, but they didn’t want to advertise their presence either. The name of the game was to get ready for a possible war with the Soviet Union and their plans were of concern only to themselves. In this case, even the US Commander of Berlin was unaware of what was about to happen. Beyond Becker’s immediate commander, only the commanders of Special Operations Task Force Europe, US European Command, and the Chief of Berlin Base, the head “spook” in town, knew what was going on.

  Becker knew—from his training and from thirteen years of military experience, two of them in Berlin—that every security force had a schedule. No matter how professional and well trained, after months and years on the job certain things became routine and comfortable. The East Germans had been at this for over fifteen years and had developed more than their share of routines. Only the upper echelons of the Border Guard Command were professional soldiers, but they had grown into the patterns of an ultimate security state ruled by schedules, orders, and regulations. The guards who patrolled or manned the towers were conscripts who had no idea of the bigger picture. As well as surveilling the common folk, they watched each other to make sure no one tried to escape. If someone successfully made it across the frontier, the guards were punished. But, every once in a while, they stopped or shot some disgruntled person who decided they’d had enough of life in the socialist Workers’ and Peasants’ Paradise and tried to make it across the barrier into the West. Those that did stop an escape got a medal. Most escapes, whether successful or not, occurred on the inner-city border between East and West Berlin, not the outer border between East Germany and West Berlin. That part of the Wall was harder to get close to and most of those attempts failed.

  This section had tall concrete observation towers and occasionally dogs. But Becker knew the towers were not always manned and tonight the one directly in front of him looked empty. It was also in a depression that obscured its base from the view of the neighboring towers on its flanks. All they had to worry about were the periodic mobile patrols and the trucks carrying relief guards that passed by on the perimeter road like clockwork.

  Becker watched the tower intently to confirm it was empty. There was no movement inside, no signs of occupation. Through the glare of the lights, bats swooped down to devour the insects that had made the mistake of being attracted to light. It was very still.

  “Truck coming from the south,” Fred Lindt, on the right flank, whispered. Becker had also posted two-man observer teams at other sections of the Wall about 2 kilometers away to the north and south of his position and they were feeding Fred information by encrypted VHF radio.

  He peered through binoculars and then lowered them as the headlights came into view on the East German access road. The team watched it approach and pass by without stopping before it disappeared around a bend in the road.

  “Right on time. We’ve got fifteen minutes, let’s go,” Becker said, as he checked his watch.

  At the same time, 10 kilometers to the northeast, another small two-man cell of Becker’s team were at work next to the Wall. They began pummeling the East German guard dogs with smooth round stones fired from high
-powered wrist-rocket slingshots. The shepherds began to bark loudly in their pen. Several more stones sailed into their enclosure to keep them agitated. The noise brought the guards to the windows. Their next move would be a telephone call to the operations center, serving to focus the security force’s attention on that section of the frontier. The guards had to climb down from their tower and patrol their section on foot to see what had aroused the dogs’ attention. The Americans and their slingshots on the other side of the wall had long since disappeared.

  Back at Becker’s position, a steel door in the Wall opened quietly onto the death strip and he led two men across the sand into East Germany. Dressed in dirty NVA camouflage uniforms, with small backpacks and carrying a couple of long, rake-like tools, they were hard to spot as they trotted across the gray sand in the semi-darkness. The door was one of many installed by the Stasi—the East German security service—to facilitate their own clandestine trips into West Berlin. It was a curious thing. The existence of the doors was known to both sides but for some reason the East Germans didn’t expect they would be used to enter their territory.

  No one in their right mind wants to break into East Germany.

  The doors were fitted with high-security locks, but these were an easily surmountable obstacle for Becker’s team. As to his sanity, Becker simply shrugged that assessment off.

  Being crazy doesn’t make you stupid.

  They reached the tower and Stefan Mann went straight to an electrical connection box at its base. While Becker and Logan Finch crouched at the base of the tower and watched the road for any surprises, Mann worked the lock. Once he popped the door open, he pulled a small device from his bag and placed it against the back wall of the box behind the wire bundles. The device contained an induction loop that collected all East German communications made over the telephone cables. Once that was installed, he attached its wires to the power, grounded another, and ensured the transmission antenna was clear but well hidden. Finished, he closed the door and relocked it. That was the signal for the next phase to begin.