Berlin Encounter Read Online Free Page B

close inspection, but it would probably do.
    He returned to the truck and his breakfast, standard fare for that region—chicory coffee, hard cheese, day-old bread, a couple of wizened apples. As he ate, Jake inspected himself in the truck’s cracked side mirror. What he saw made him grin with satisfaction.
    The clothes matched the truck’s new identity, that of a small-time trader. Jake’s cheap black-leather jacket crinkled and squeaked with each movement. His black turtleneck and dark shapeless trousers were matched by his three-day growth and a haircut which had raised shrieks of dismay from Sally the day he had brought it home. He looked shrewd, hard, tired, and thoroughly dishonest.
    The truck looked in wretched shape, at least unless someone did a careful inspection under the hood. The sides were scarred and weather-beaten, the canvas top so patched that it was hard to tell what the original color had been, the front end battered to a paintless pulp. It looked like a thousand other trucks trundling through Germany’s war-ravaged landscape, dregs discarded by retreating armies, scarred by thousands of hard-fought miles.
    But the muddy tires were the best that money could buy, the tank three times normal size, the suspension perfect. The gears meshed like a Swiss watch, and the well-muffled motor was tuned and tightened until it could easily push the truck to over a hundred miles an hour, even in four-wheel drive.
    Not to mention the fact that spaced over the truck’s frame were two secret compartments designed to escape even the most careful of inspections.
    As Jake repacked his meager utensils, he gave a passing thought to the British pilot. The man had been ordered to round up four of their remaining operatives, people considered to be in the worst danger of being resettled and lost forever. He had more than nine hundred kilometers to cover behind Soviet lines, with the Russian army patrols constantly on the move. Jake did not envy him the challenge.
    As he started the engine and pulled out the compass concealed beneath the dash, Jake had a fleeting image of the pilot thinking the same thing about Jake’s assignment.

Chapter Four
    The journey to Rostock went so well that Jake found himself mildly disappointed.
    Their landing zone had turned out to be a thin strip of farmland separating the dangerously sandy Baltic shoreline from the hilly forests and industrial towns of inner Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. Jake trundled down an empty brick-and-mud country lane with a carefully battered road map in his lap. The rain had lessened with the dawn, and the wind had freshened to gusty squalls.
    He drove slowly, looking for what should be the turnoff to Rostock. Jake squinted down at the map, felt the dismay of a lost traveler. He had a fleeting image of perhaps wandering along some uncharted road, the glider having been set free a thousand miles off course and depositing them in a land so far from where he was supposed to be that the map was utterly useless.
    Then in the distance he spotted a great metal crane, the sort used for unloading ships, and suddenly the map came into focus. The road was identified, his target pinpointed. A few miles later he crossed a rise, and the port of Rostock spread out beneath him.
    The harbor was a mere shadow of its former self. Four of the five giant loading cranes had been reduced to hulks of steel and slag. Of the dozen port buildings, none had their roofs intact, three had been totally destroyed, and another four were so pitted and scarred that he could watch men moving the pallets about inside. Roads and rails surrounding the port were studded with shell holes. The ships waiting patiently at dockside appeared to be in equally bad shape. Jake spent a long moment inspecting the scene, then gunned his motor and drove on.
    His way took him down and around the city’s western side, skirting the main roads and most activity. Still, what he saw depressed him. Little repair work appeared to be