Page 490 of Edge of Eternity (The Century 3)

Then she passed him and moved to center stage. Some of the crowd recognized Lili and Karolin, others knew their names, and they roared a welcome. They went up to the microphones. They strummed a major chord, then together they launched into "This Land Is Your Land."

And the crowd went wild.

*

Bonn was a provincial town on the banks of the Rhine River. It was an unlikely choice for a national capital, and had been picked for precisely that reason, to symbolize its temporary nature, and the faith of the German people that one day Berlin would again be the capital of a reunited Germany. But that had been forty years ago, and Bonn was still the capital.

It was a boring place, but that suited Rebecca, for she worked too hard to have a social life, except when Fred Biro was in town.

She was busy. Her area of expertise was Eastern Europe, which was in the throes of a revolution whose end no one could see. Most days she had working lunches, but today she took a break. She left the Foreign Office and walked on her own to an inexpensive restaurant where she ordered her favorite dish, Himmel und Erde, heaven and earth, made of potatoes and apples with bacon.

While she was eating, Hans Hoffmann appeared.

Rebecca pushed back her chair and stood up. Her first thought was that he had come to kill her. She was on the point of screaming for help when she noticed the expression on his face. He looked defeated and sad. Her fear vanished: he was no longer dangerous.

"Please don't be afraid, I mean no harm," he sai

d.

She remained standing. "What do you want?"

"A few words. A minute or two, no more."

For a moment she wondered how he had managed to come from East to West Germany, then she realized that travel restrictions did not apply to senior officers in the secret police. They could do anything they liked. He had probably told his colleagues that he had an intelligence mission in Bonn. Perhaps he did.

The restaurant proprietor came over and said: "Is everything all right, Frau Held?"

Rebecca stared at Hans a moment longer. Then she said: "Yes, thank you, Gunther, I think it's okay." She sat down again and Hans sat opposite.

She picked up her fork and put it down again. She had lost her appetite. "A minute or two, then."

"Help me," he said.

She could hardly believe her ears. "What?" she said. "Help you?"

"It's all falling apart. I have to get out. The crowds laugh at me. I'm afraid they'll kill me."

"What on earth do you imagine I might do for you?"

"I need a place to stay, money, papers."

"Are you out of your mind? After all you've done to me and my family?"

"Don't you understand why I did those things?"

"Because you hate us!"

"Because I love you."

"Don't be ridiculous."

"I was assigned to spy on you and your family, yes. I dated you in order to get inside the house. But then something happened. I fell in love with you."

He had said this once before, on the day she escaped over the Wall. He really meant it. He was out of his mind, she decided. She began to feel scared again.

"I told no one of my feelings," he said, smiling nostalgically, as if he were recalling an innocent youthful romance rather than a wicked deception. "I pretended to be exploiting you and manipulating your feelings. But I really loved you. Then you said we should get married. I was in heaven! I had the perfect excuse to give my superiors."

He was living in a dream world, but was that not true of the entire East German ruling elite?

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