Page 49 of Edge of Eternity (The Century 3)

The president said: "It's true, Bob. George here got us out of a tight situation."

George said: "I wanted to make sure we didn't lose their support for the reelection campaign."

Bobby looked blank for a moment, taking it in. "So," he said, "you told them I wanted to talk to them, just as a way of keeping them out of the presidential photographs."

"Yes," said George.

The president said: "That was quick thinking."

Bobby's face changed. After a moment he started to laugh. His brother joined in, then the other men in the room followed suit.

Bobby put his arm around George's shoulders.

George still felt shaky. He had feared he would be fired.

Bobby said: "Georgie boy, you're one of us!"

George realized he had been accepted into the inner circle. He slumped with relief.

He was not as proud as he might have been. He had carried out a shabby little deception, and helped the president to pander to racial prejudice. He wanted to wash his hands.

Then he saw the look of rage on Dennis Wilson's face, and he felt better.

CHAPTER TEN

That August, Rebecca was summoned to secret police headquarters for a second time.

She wondered fearfully what the Stasi wanted now. They had already ruined her life. She had been tricked into a sham marriage, and now she could not get a job, no doubt because they were ordering schools not to hire her. What else could they do to her? Surely they could not put her in jail just because she had been their victim?

But they could do anything they liked.

She took the bus across town on a hot Berlin day. The new headquarters building was as ugly as the organization it represented, a rectilinear concrete box for people whose minds were all straight edges. Once again she was escorted up in the lift and along the sickly-yellow corridors, but this time she was taken to a different office. Waiting for her there she found her husband, Hans. When she saw him, her fear was displaced by even stronger rage. Even though he had the power to hurt her, she was too angry to kowtow to him.

He was wearing a new blue-gray suit that she had not seen before. He had a large room with two windows and new modern furniture: he was more senior than she had thought.

Needing time to gather her wits, she said: "I was expecting to see Sergeant Scholz."

Hans looked away. "He was not suita

ble for security work."

Rebecca could see that Hans was hiding something. Presumably Scholz had been fired, or perhaps demoted to the traffic police. "I suppose he made a mistake in interviewing me here, rather than at the local police station."

"He should not have interviewed you at all. Sit there." He pointed to a chair in front of his big, ugly desk.

The chair was made of metal tubing and hard orange plastic--designed to make his victims even more uncomfortable, Rebecca guessed. Her suppressed fury gave her the strength to defy him. Instead of sitting, she went to the window and looked out over the car park. "You wasted your time, didn't you?" she said. "You went to all that trouble to watch my family, and you didn't find a single spy or saboteur." She turned to look at him. "Your bosses must be angry with you."

"On the contrary," he said. "This is considered one of the most successful operations the Stasi has ever conducted."

Rebecca could not imagine how that could be possible. "You can't have learned anything very interesting."

"My team has produced a chart showing every Social Democrat in East Germany, and the links between them," he said proudly. "And the key information was obtained in your house. Your parents know all the most important reactionaries, and many came to visit."

Rebecca frowned. It was true that most of the people who came to the house were former Social Democrats: that was only natural. "But they're just friends," she said.

Hans let out a mocking hoot of laughter. "Just friends!" he jeered. "Please, I know you think we're not very bright--you said so, many times, when I was living with you--but we're not completely brainless."

It occurred to Rebecca that Hans and all secret policemen were obliged to believe--or at least, to pretend to believe--in fantastic conspiracies against the government. Otherwise their work was a waste of time. So Hans had constructed an imaginary network of Social Democrats based on the Franck family house, all plotting to bring down the Communist government.

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