Chapter 6: Good Fences Make Good Neighbors

He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."
--Robert Frost, "Mending Wall"

Saturday, December 9, 1989
2:03 P.M.
East Berlin
Humboldt University

Turning another page in Amanda's guidebook, Lee sighed as he began to read about the Brandenburg Gate for the third time. At least it was warmer than it had been the past couple of days, but it was still too cold to be comfortably sitting on a concrete bench for half an hour. Still, he knew he had to give Yannah at least an hour to show before giving up.

The local Agency office had been checking out her story over the past couple of days, and there did seem to be some truth to it. Erik Jaeger was still stationed in West Berlin, and he verified rumors that some members of the old guard were determined to stop reunification before it got started, and that Yannah might well be in danger. Lee still didn't understand why the danger was so great that she couldn't pass through the checkpoints that were now basically a formality. But whatever else she might have been, she was certainly a good agent, in no small part because of her caution.

He felt a prickling at the back of his neck as he noticed out of the corner of his eye that someone was approaching from his left side. He didn't have to turn his head to notice the scent of jasmine floating his way, and he took a deep breath to steady his nerves as the person sat on the opposite end of his bench. 'Come on, Stetson, it's just another contact to make. Just say the words,' he told himself. He turned his head as he asked in German, "Pardon me, ma'am, but could you tell me what that building across from us is?"

"It is called the Neue Wache," came the same throaty voice he remembered, speaking in English. Blue eyes turned to meet his, from a familiar face nestled deep inside a fur-lined hood. He was struck by the wave of emotions rolling through him at seeing her again, starting and ending with anger. "The New Guardhouse," Yannah continued, her eyes watchful as they flickered towards the honor guard patrolling the building in question.

"What does it guard?" he asked automatically, hands clenching the guidebook he still held. Despite everything he told Amanda, he wasn't entirely sure he could do this. He was half expecting Yannah to signal to the soldiers across the courtyard. Here in the middle of the Humboldt University campus, nearly empty on a cold Saturday afternoon, there would be few people to see him being dragged away. Amanda was here, but she was on the opposite side of the courtyard, underneath the portico of the main classroom building. He restrained a sigh and tried to focus. How was he supposed to trust Yannah enough to work with her if he couldn't trust her enough to do a simple meet?

"It is a memorial," she replied, meeting his gaze again. There were a few lines at the corners of her eyes that he didn't remember, but she was still beautiful. Probably still able to seduce foreign agents without any effort. "A memorial for the victims of the National Socialists. The victims of fascism and militarism."

One more exchange remained, though he didn't know why it was necessary. He knew this was Yannah Alberts, and he was sure she knew him as well. But the little voice in the back of his head that he had come to think of as his Amanda voice was warning him to cool down, and completing the code words was a good way to stall until he could get his mind back on business. "I was told it was a memorial for the victims of World War I."

She looked him up and down, obviously taking in his tense shoulders and clenched hands. "Times change. Nations must change along with them." Then she added, "That is why we are here, isn't it?"

He tore his gaze away from her to stare across the plaza. "I'm here because I was ordered to be," he muttered. Then, louder, "There certainly is a lot of change going on around here. I wonder if that's true of the people as well as the place."

He felt her gaze still on him. "Who knows," she said softly. "Perhaps soon this will become a memorial to the victims of Communism as well."

"Like Pyotr Travnik and Dmitri Sikorski?" he snapped before he could help himself.

He wanted to keep from looking at her, but when she remained silent, he had to turn his head. He didn't expect the puzzled expression on her face. She gazed at him for a moment longer before replying, "Sometimes men make the wrong choices, Lee. Perhaps they are victims of no one other than themselves."

His eyes narrowed. How dare she cast his past mistake up to him like that? "How can you say that?" He leaned towards her. "You insist I'm the only one you can trust, lure me back to Berlin, and then insult me like that? What kind of game are you playing here?"

She drew back a little, and he still saw confusion in her eyes. "Travnik and Sikorski made the wrong choices, not you. I am sorry you were caught in the middle, but I did the best I could do under the circumstances. They had to be stopped."

"What are you talking about, Yannah? If you had to stop Travnik from defecting, weren't there easier ways to do it than waiting till the last minute, when we were almost out? Couldn't you have left me out of it? Or was I just a convenient bonus to get your colleague back?" Finally, he was getting the chance to ask the questions he had been pushing aside for ten years, and he was amazed at how calm he was. Well, except for his clenched jaw, and his hands still in fists in his lap. Anyone watching them would have no difficulty figuring out he wasn't the confused tourist he was supposed to be. He made himself draw a deep breath and lean back against the bench, not breaking eye contact as he waited for her reply.

"Stop him from defecting?" she asked incredulously. "What do you -- " She searched his eyes. A few seconds passed as Lee met her gaze, not bothering to hide the anger that had risen again. Her eyes slowly widened, and she looked as though a light had just gone on in her head. She made a move as if to reach for him, then collected herself. "You don't know, do you? Why Travnik was defecting through Berlin, why he requested your help?" She shook her head, looking bewildered. "And you still came, thinking that I . . ."

"Why *Travnik* requested my help?" he asked, confused. "I thought it was you." Something was very strange about this, and he watched Yannah even more closely, trying to determine if she was telling him the truth.

She shook her head, impatiently tucking back the long hair escaping from her hood. "I requested you because he did. I didn't find out why until it was too late, and then all I could do to save you was turn you in. Lee, I thought you knew. Travnik was still with the KGB, working with Sikorski to capture a top American agent and take him back to Moscow. You would have never made it out of East Berlin alive if I had not set the border patrol on you. I do regret the Soviets were killed before I had a chance to interrogate them, but--"

"What?" Lee's mind was spinning, and the questions tumbled out of his mouth. "Hold on. Why me, back then? Why the elaborate setup? Why not just snatch someone off the street in Washington? And why would the East Germans care whether I was packed off to Moscow or not?"

His rapid-fire questioning would have made Amanda proud. Yannah was still staring at him, but he had the feeling it didn't have anything to do with his burst of questions. "You still came," she repeated as she reached out to touch his hand. Her fingers caressed his gloved hand for a moment, then paused at the bump on the third finger. Her eyebrows lifted in a question, and when he gave a single nod, she withdrew her hand, a hint of regret in her eyes.

He held her gaze for a moment longer before looking down to stare blankly at the guidebook still open in his hands. Could what she said have been true? Could the attempted defection have been nothing more than a kidnap plot? Had he really been so valuable to the Russians so long ago? "Can you answer my questions, Yannah?" he asked, a little more gently.

Looking up, he saw a rueful smile on her lips. "I would suggest we find someplace a little warmer and more private to . . . talk, but I believe someone might not be too pleased with that idea." Her gaze flickered downwards to the unseen ring on his finger.

The corner of his mouth turned up, and he glanced at the figure huddling in the doorway of the building across the courtyard before returning his gaze to the woman before him. "Travnik," he quietly insisted. "And the trade. Why?"

"Because Moscow wanted you, Scarecrow, or anyone as good as you that they could get their hands on. Because it's easier to transport someone a few hundred miles through friendly territory than to fly them across an ocean. Once you had been captured, the East Germans wanted our own agent back, and we wouldn't have agreed to hand you over to Moscow and miss the opportunity for a trade. That was why the transfer took place where it did; we wanted to show the Soviets we were not their puppets, but had our own goals and objectives to meet."

"And the extra information Travnik was supposed to pick up in East Berlin?" He never figured out that part of the puzzle ten years ago, and he certainly hadn't spent much time considering it since. Could Yannah's story really be true? Why had he never heard this before?

"It was information from Sikorski, details about *their* plan. Lee, I swear to you, I did not know until you left my apartment that night who he was and what he was going to do. And then the only thing I could do to guarantee your safety was to have you captured."

"And what did my safety matter to you?"

"I think you know that." She looked deeply into his eyes. "I think you know how hard it was to stand there and hold you prisoner when hours before we had been making love."

He briefly closed his eyes, letting himself remember for the first time in years. He had really fallen for her in just a few days, fallen hard, and the shock of her betrayal had actually hurt more personally than professionally. He couldn't keep the harshness out of his voice as he answered, "It didn't look that hard at all from where I was standing."

She looked upward, tracking the flight of a sparrow above the deserted campus. "My skills as an actress have never been in doubt," she said finally. "They have kept me alive for many years." Then she looked at him intensely, the wind whipping loose strands of hair around her face. "But that was the only time I ever acted around you."

Silence fell. Lee looked back down at his guidebook, idly flipping through the pages. He must be getting old -- absorbing this much information in so short a time never used to give him any trouble. Maybe assimilating the information with what he already knew, or thought he already knew, was the problem. Suddenly a lot of things would make sense, if he let himself think about them. He'd refused to think about Berlin and Yannah for so many years now, it was hard to dig out the memories from where they were buried.

Abruptly he snapped the book shut. "Monday at five, after sunset. You'll go to 18 Ruppiner Strasse, the red brick building on the left between the last cross-street and the Wall. It's a music shop that will be closed for the night, but the back entrance will be open off the alley. Go inside and wait for me there."

There was a pause. Then, "You do know where that is?" she asked in an odd tone.

Lee reluctantly met her eyes. "Yes, I do." When Jaeger had given him the instructions to pass on to Yannah he'd had to force himself, yet again, not to dwell on the past. "Two doors down, isn't it?" Two doors down from the last place he had attempted to escape under the Wall, from where this woman had betrayed him. Or where she had saved his life.

She gave a slow nod. "History will not repeat itself, Scarecrow. You have my word."

"We'll see, won't we." He was proud of himself for keeping the cynicism out of his voice. If what Yannah said was true, then how different things might have been! If he'd known why she did what she did, had had even the slightest hint . . .

Lee shook his head. He had never been one for dwelling on what might have been. He gave Yannah a short nod, rose to his feet and headed towards Amanda without a backwards glance.

Friday, December 18, 1981
7:17 A.M.
Checkpoint Charlie
East Berlin side

It was the first time during Lee's visit to East Germany it had been bright enough to see anything at seven in the morning. The reason was the bank of searchlights glaring down from the guardtowers above, illuminating the checkpoint area as well as the sun would. The East Germans were taking no chances about this transfer.

He supposed he should be flattered. After all, they were closing down the major border checkpoint for foreigners between East and West Berlin in order for one particular American to make that crossing. Once he realized they were, in fact, going to let him go, and the trade was happening so quickly, he was expecting a quiet transfer at one of the checkpoints reserved for Berlin residents. Not a public display at the closest point of contact between West and East.

The car he was riding in slowed to a stop just short of the first set of gates, and the driver turned off the ignition. Without speaking, both of the soldiers in the front seat turned to face him, pistols trained on his head and chest, as the third man bent down to remove the cuffs from around his ankles. Lee had barely spoken to any East Germans, as a matter of fact, since arriving at the prison two nights ago. They contacted Washington with surprising swiftness, considering the kind of information they could have tried to get out of the Scarecrow. They probably wanted their colleague back as soon as possible. Whatever the reason, Lee wasn't complaining. The sooner he got back to the States, the sooner he could start trying to forget about this whole mission.

Nor had he seen Yannah since leaving the basement on Schoenholzer Strasse, though that was just as well. The anger that boiled up in him every time he thought of her would have made it difficult to see her without trying to wrap his hands around her elegant throat. That wouldn't go over too well with the Stasi, he was sure. Staring straight ahead out the front windshield, he didn't move a muscle as his feet were freed. Then the man on the passenger side climbed out and opened Lee's door. With his hands still bound behind him, he struggled out of the car and straightened up.

It took his eyes a few seconds to adjust to the bright lights assaulting him, but once he did, he realized he couldn't see a thing beyond the second set of gates. He knew the American guard booth was only a few yards beyond; he'd driven past it five times now. He suddenly wondered what had happened to the guard he had seen jump the barbed wire. Probably still being debriefed in West Berlin somewhere. Squinting, he thought he could make out a few figures approaching from the American side. A gun barrel in his back prodded him forward, and he started walking.

He had been informed in precise terms what was going to happen this morning by the same man who had nearly watched him die Wednesday night. Lee would walk forward, alone, as would Peter Rademacher, his East German counterpart. The Americans would be waiting on their side of the border, the East Germans on theirs. At any sign of trouble, including but not limited to any attempt to keep Rademacher on the Western side, the border guards would not hesitate to shoot Lee and anyone else trespassing on GDR soil. The halfway point would be exactly at the second set of gates, at the edge of what he could now see. If all went well, in about five minutes it would all be over. If all didn't go well, it would be over for him even sooner.

Conscious of what must have been several dozen firearms of various sizes pointed at his back, Lee stepped forward. He wished he could shade his eyes, but his captors had insisted his hands stay restrained. The searchlights made it surprisingly warm for a December morning, and he felt a drop of sweat running down past his temple. Fighting the urge to try and rub his shoulder against his cheek to catch the trickle, he continued forward.

It seemed like an eternity, but it was probably only about twenty seconds before he was close enough to make out Rademacher's features. The East German was watching Lee, his hands unrestrained but near to his sides. No doubt he had been warned by the Americans not to interfere, if perhaps not in such threatening terms. After a few more steps, Lee could clearly see the slight smile on the other man's face. Disgusted with himself for being the one responsible for this exchange, he looked straight ahead, at the American soldiers now a couple of dozen yards away. He passed through the narrow gate, Rademacher walking through another opening a few meters to his right. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw more East German soldiers watching him from inside the guardhouse to his left.

Once the agents had passed each other, both quickened their steps. Lee was reaching the edge of the searchlights' glare, and he could more clearly make out the ten or so Army soldiers lined up across the road, rifles pointed past him and at Rademacher's retreating back. A few seconds later, he had passed between their ranks and was standing still, one sergeant coming forward with a penknife to sever the ropes around his wrists. He shook his hands free and gave the man a word of thanks.

"Stetson." Stan Andrews strode forward, one hand extended to place on his shoulder. "You all right, son?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." Lee shrugged off the station chief's hand and turned his gaze away. He was more than ready to get out of there. Behind him, he could hear the clatter of rifles as the soldiers stood down, and farther back, the roar of the Stasi vehicle starting up to carry Rademacher farther into East Berlin.

"All right," came Stan's reply. He hesitated, then went on, "We've got a medic here in case you need someone to take a look at you."

"I said I was fine," he snapped back. He could use a shower and a shave, and the cut on his cheek probably didn't look too good, but that was all. He suddenly felt aware of all of the eyes on him. Did they all know this was his fault? That Yannah's sardonic assessment of which part of his body had been doing the thinking the past week was correct? He kept his eyes on the ground, fighting the urge to sweep a scorching gaze around at all of the onlookers.

"All right," Andrews repeated, the Southern drawl retreating as he took on a more businesslike tone. "We've got a car here to take you back to your hotel to get cleaned up, but then I'm afraid we'll need to do a bit of debriefing after that."

"When did you find Sikorski?" He had to know that before anything else.

"About midnight Thursday. You were nearly two hours late, and we had to send out a few agents even though Sikorski had insisted he be the only one onsite. We found him just outside the West German entrance, shot through the head. Guess that's another exit route we have to cross off the maps. We're lucky they weren't lying in wait for us as well."

Lee slowly raised his head. To his surprise, no one else except Stan was looking at him. Maybe they didn't want to waste their time staring at such a poor excuse for an agent. And here he had come to West Berlin because he was supposedly one of the best. "I'll take full responsibility, Stan. I know I've cost you more than one Russian defector here."

Andrews shook his head. "Lee, we work as a team here. Now, I don't know exactly what happened Wednesday night, but I think you're being harder on yourself than I or anyone else at the Agency would be."

"Just wait till Dirk Fredericks gets a hold of me," Lee muttered.

He looked over in time to see Andrews quirk a corner of his mouth. "That's as it may be, son. True, there's gonna be a lot of fallout from this one, but it's not all on your head. Why was Jaeger so wrong about trusting Alberts? He was stalking around with a black cloud over his head all day, muttering about her and why he should have known better. And why weren't any of the warning signals in place? It's going to take a while to sort this one out."

Lee shrugged one shoulder. The station chief could talk all he wanted, but he knew where the blame really lay. He'd been so desperate to get over Eva that he'd fallen all over Yannah without thinking. A double agent could always turn again. Now two men were dead and an important source of information was lost to the other side. Once he told the whole story, he'd be lucky to get out of this one with his clearance and status intact. "Can we get going?"

"Sure." Andrews clapped him on the back and gestured towards the car. "Let's go."

Stan being so understanding actually made things worse. Lee wanted to be yelled at, wanted someone to scream at him besides the voice in his head. He wanted to shout that it was all his fault: if he'd been doing his job, Yannah Alberts wouldn't have played him for such a fool. Instead, he quietly followed the older man to the black sedan and climbed in the front seat.

They pulled away from Checkpoint Charlie and turned onto the first cross street, heading towards the center of West Berlin. Looking out the window, Lee caught glimpses of the Wall between buildings. He closed his eyes and leaned back against the seat. When this was over, and he was out of West Berlin, he was never coming back here. Never.