Chapter 12
"We ... won't make it back ... will we?" Martha asked pessimistically as her own terrible loneliness suddenly closed in when she finished splinting Joe's leg, "It's eight miles back to that wall ... and then...."
"The hell we can't!" Joe said positively, gripping Erika's hand tightly to ward off the pain, and hoping he sounded convincing.
"Won't they discover ... find out we escaped from here?" Erika was doubtful too.
"We can put you on the floor in the back of the car," Martha tried to think for them, 'Then...."
"Hold it," Joe held up a cautioning finger and let go Erika's hand, "I've got to drive! It's the only way we can get through! And we're going to take Gherkov and DeLoach with us!"
"But darling, darling," Erika objected, kneeling real close into him, "You can't...."
"There's a lot I can't do," Joe cut in, squeezing her hand, "But I'll do the thinking and the driving ... after you girls get me in the seat. This won't be easy for you, but we'll make it. First, you'll get Junior here tied and gagged) then put him in the trunk with Anatovich. Then...."
The big ZIL chugged and puffed awkwardly at each stop light and halt sign as Joe learned to maneuver the foot pedals by using only one leg.
Joe was perspiring freely, his terrible tiredness and pain trying to force down his strength and make him quit, his eyes having trouble following the map through the ill-lighted, ill repaired streets of the East Sector. But he had been right about getting out of the warehouse area. The old guard had not even ventured a second look before saluting Gherkov's silhouette in the back seat, and opening the gate.
In front of them now, lay the foreboding wall of mortar, brick, regurgitated rubble and steel, which separates so symbolically the tight run Russian Sector from the affluent society of West Berlin.
It was 1:44 A. M.
"He ... he's dead!" Martha's tremulous voice broke the awkward stillness of the tense ride.
"What?" Joe asked, wincing as he jerked his head around to the back seat and activated a torn leg muscle with the bodily movement.
Gherkov's unconscious body had been placed between the two girls in compliance with Joe's plan. The bloody face had been wiped clear, and somehow they had been able to take turn supporting the foul smelling form of the critically injured KGB man. But now this. Could they carry through their plan with a corpse?
"His breathing ... it just stopped ... and his pulse is ... gone...," Martha sounded dazed.
"It makes no difference," Erika said bravely, taking a deep breath, "We can still do it. Maybe is better we don't worry now he wakes up to talk at wrong time."
"Martha? Are you all right? Can you make it?" Joe asked, new concern creeping up on him as he recoiled again the tight security on the Russian side of Checkpoint Charlie, the gizzag baffles that slowed anyone leaving down to five miles an hour.
"I guess ... it's them or us," Martha owed through tight lips, then tried to loosen up with one of those sick-joke idea that can hit in the midst of tragedy, "I've had some pretty dead dates before ... but this one's for real . ."
"Make it a good one, Martha. Here we go!" Joe alerted her as the lights of Charlie loomed into view.
"Push him over this way ... further," Martha asked Erika, then pulled her blouse open and unfastened her bra.
Joe shifted down to low when they approached the first set of labyrinthine baffles barely wide enough for a single vehicle to navigate. The built-up sides were made of thick boards almost the height of the car, and sunk deep into foundation runners of concrete.
Once inside the zigzag single lane, which led eventually to the West Berlin gate, a car's speed was forced to a near creep, and the Russians could throw heavy iron barriers across it at any of three points to assure that no one gunned through in a sudden escape attempt.
"We're ready, Joe," Erika assured him from the back, taking up her position.
"Wait! Look!" Martha let out a terrified yell, pointing toward the gate entrance, "Oh, my G -! They've caught us!"
Joe snapped his head around to the front and froze!
A column of Soviet troops were marching toward them, obliquing left and right in precision step through the zigzag lanes of the baffle, and emerging to come straight at them.
One soldier jumped out of ranks and placed himself squarely in front of the car, his rifle held across his chest diagonally.
Joe slammed on the brakes.
A Lieutenant ordered the troops to split in the middle, two lines of soldiers squeezing around each side of the car in the narrow approach to the barricade, virtually surrounding them in a show of armed strength against which they would be helpless.
"I'll kill some of them first...," Joe mumbled the threat, his hand tremblingly releasing the safety on his .45, "I'll make them pay for...."
"Wait, Joe!" Erika urged in a sharp whisper.
The marching men halted. The Russian officer barked an order. Both columns turned to face the car from either side. The Lieutenant broke the silence with another order. The soldiers unshouldered their rifles and brought them straight abreast in front. The officer stepped closer to the car.
"I'm not waiting ... it's them or us," Joe gritted his teeth and gripped the pistol tightly.
"I love you, Joe. No matter what ... I love you," Erika vowed, her hand grasping his shoulder.
The Lieutenant, stopped his advance. He barked another order, then snapped to attention. He immediately brought his hand up.
Joe pulled the gun to just below the level of the window.
The Lieutenant smiled slightly, then gave a snappy salute. The troops simultaneously righted their rifles to a present arms position. The Lieutenant yelled out two more orders. The troops faced to the rear. They marched off.
"The car! It was the ... the damn car!" Joe broke into a nervously relieved sweat, "Damn! Gherkov's a wheel ... and they were saluting his damn car!"
"Let ... let's go," Martha urged, adjusting their positions in the back seat again, "We're not through that wall yet."
Joe slipped the hand shift back into low and entered the labyrinth, glancing in the back seat and swallowing hard. Gherkov was a wheel. But even wheels had tried to run through to the West before.
"Remember now," Joe reminded, turning the big sedan around the next zig, "We go right through the MFs too ... unless they kick up a fuss. In that case, we'll have to play it by ear."
"Why ... why don't we just give over to the MP's?" Erika pulled her head around long enough to ask, "They're on our side ... aren't they?"
"If this car and Gherkov's corpse get apprehended officially in the West Sector, we've created an International incident," Joe tried to explain it away quickly, "Believe me, honey, my way's best ... if it works."
A shaft of bright light hit Joe in the face!
He slammed on the brakes!
A gate banged across in front of them and a guard jumped out from behind two slits on each side of the labyrinth wall.
"Commde Gherkov...," Joe forced a knowing smile as he pointed a thumb over his shoulder to the back seat, " ... Amerikanski...."
He knew no other Russian. He merely let the last word trail off, finishing the statement with a waving design of his hands to indicate pulchritudinous femininity. He held his breath for the reaction.
The Russian who had poked his head in the car by Joe, looked into the back seat, frowned, then broke slowly into a wide grin after surveying the scene.
Gherkov's big dead arms were wrapped around the slim backs of both girls. His head though, was leaning away from the guard, buried in the expansivenes of Martha's exposed breasts, while Erika cuddled close and ran her fingers through the back of his bushy crop of matted down hair.
"Da ... da," the Russian beamed proudly at his countryman's conquest of two such attractive American girls, then smiled at Joe again, "Sexy ... da!"
"Sexy," Joe agreed, tipping Anatovich's hat.
The three sets of iron gates in front of them raised simultaneously and the car eased through to the American side.
"Protocol . ... diplomatique...," Joe muttered in an affected accent to the young MP on the American side.
"Be my guest," the youth smiled, jotting down the license number routinely.
"I ... I think I ... faint...," Erika said, clapping her hand to her head and falling limp against the side of the car as they turned off into deserted Kochstrasse.
"Not yet, honey ... please," Joe begged, turning around, "We've got to ... owww!"
"Watch that leg!" Martha said, then broke the top off a little ammonia vial and pushed it over by Erika's nose, "Come on, snap out of it, honey. I may need this for Anatovich if he's still passed out."
"Pray he's not dead," Joe interjected.
"I'm ... all right," Erika said fuzzily, shaking her head, "But, Joe ... why we can't just take him to MP's?"
"I told you, Erika," Joe tried to explain again. "Technically speaking, we've commandeered a Russian vehicle, killed a Soviet KGB wheel, kidnapped one of their henchmen ... all in their own Sector. We keep DeLoach because he's an American ... and regardless of how we got him back, he's clearly inside the American Sector now. We turn he and his wife over to the authorities ... and pray they'll forget about what we did."
"But Gherkov and his chauffeur ... the car, they've go to go back," Martha broke in to finish it off as the Russian's body slumped grotesquely to the floor, "If they've got their own people and the car back, they can't put up a fuss without admitting what they did in the first place."
"Oh," Erika finally understood the whole thing.
"What if ... Anatovich refuses to drive back?" Martha's doubts came to the fore now as she opened the door to get out.
"I've got a good little persuader here," Joe patted his gun, "And we can watch him from the corner. Charlie's only about a block away."
"I know this kind of Russian," Erika recalled unpleasantly, "He never defect. He will go back. Only he will never understand why we don't kill him."
"He's through ... I saw him drive right through!" Martha reported jubilantly as she ran back to the sidewalk where Joe was sitting with Erika by DeLoach's unconscious form.
"Thank God!" Joe said, shifting his leg to ease the throbbing pain, "See if ... you can ... get us a cab. I ... I think ... I might faint...."