Page 495 of Edge of Eternity (The Century 3)

*

On the eastern side, the people around Lili were chanting: "Let us go! Let us go!"

From the west side of the checkpoint came an answering chant: "Come! Come! Come!"

The crowd had inched closer to the guards, minute by minute, until now they were within touching distance of the gates, and the guards had retreated inside the compound.

Behind Lili a throng of tens of thousands, and a line of cars, stretched along Friedrich Strasse farther than she could see.

Everyone knew the situation was dangerously unstable. Lili feared the guards would just start firing into the crowd. They did not have enough ammunition to protect themselves from ten thousand angry people. But what else could they do?

In the next instant, Lili found out.

Suddenly an officer appeared and shouted: "Alles auf!"

All the gates swung open at once.

A roar went up from the waiting crowd, and they surged forward. Lili struggled to stay near her family as everyone flooded through the pedestrian and vehicle gateways. Running, stumbling, shouting and screaming for joy, they passed through the compound. The gates on the far side were also open. They surged through, and East met West.

People were weeping, hugging, and kissing. The waiting crowd had bunches of flowers and bottles of champagne. The noise of rejoicing was deafening.

Lili looked around. Her parents were close behind her. Karolin was just in front. She said: "I wonder where Walli and Rebecca are?"

*

Evie Williams's return to America was a triumph. She got a standing ovation on the first night of A Doll's House on Broadway. Ibsen's bleak, introspective drama was perfect for the brooding intensity of her best acting.

When at last the audience tired of applauding and left the theater Dave, Beep, and their sixteen-year-old son, John Lee, made their way backstage to join the crowd of admirers. Evie's dressing room was full of people and flowers, and there were several bottles of champagne on ice. But, strangely, the people were silent and the champagne was unopened.

There was a TV set in one corner, and most of the cast were crowded around it, silent, watching the news from Berlin.

Dave said: "What is it? What's happening?"

*

Cam was in his office at Langley with Tim Tedder, watching television and drinking Scotch. Jasper Murray was on the screen, live from Berlin, yelling excitedly: "The gates are open and the East Germans are coming! They're flooding through in their hundreds, in their thousands! This is a historic day! The Berlin Wall has fallen down!"

Cam muted the sound. "Would you believe it?"

Tedder held up his glass in a toast. "The end of Communism."

"It's what we've been working toward all these years," said Cam.

Tedder shook his head skeptically. "Everything we did was completely ineffective. Despite all our efforts Vietnam, Cuba, and Nicaragua became Communist countries. Look at other places where we tried to prevent Communism: Iran, Guatemala, Chile, Cambodia, Laos . . . None of them does us much credit. And now Eastern Europe is abandoning Communism with no help from us."

"All the same we should think of a way to take the credit. Or let the president take it, at least."

"Bush has been in office less than a year, and he's been behind the curve all along," Tim said. "He can't claim to have caused this: if anything, he tried to slow it down."

"Reagan, maybe?" Cam mused.

"Be sensible," said Tedder. "Reagan didn't do this. Gorbachev did it. Him and the price of oil. And the fact that Communism never really worked anyway."

"What about Star Wars?"

"A weapons system that was never going to get beyond the science fiction stage, as everyone knew, including the Soviets."

"Reagan made that speech, though. 'Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.' Remember?"

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