Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
With uncanny precision the black Mercedes roared through the eerie night.
The narrow, half-paved back roads through the Brandenburger Wald southeast of the city scarcely widened in some spots beyond the breadth of the vehicle itself. But the man at the wheel had driven this route before. Though more than sixteen hundred kilometers separated him from his home, he still considered Poland and the DDR his turf. Galanov knew all the escape routes like the back of his hand.
He had been tracking the moves of the network for two weeks now — from eastern Poland, across the border near Eisenhuttenstadt, and finally here — to the moment of final showdown. He knew they considered their present charge an important one. No old woman wanting to see loved ones in the West, no idealistic student hoping for a so-called better life. This time they had a big fish in tow. The biggest! Their own leader — the man who had set up Das Christliche Netzwerk years ago in the early Brezhnev days. And he, Galanov, stood ready to drop the net over his arch rival who had evaded the rest of the KGB for more than fifteen years!
For this confrontation his superior had sent him west three weeks ago with his own personal vendetta against the Christian leader hanging in the balance.
"You get him, Galanov, do you hear me?" he could still hear the furious voice shouting across the cornfield. "I want him! Don't show your face again if you return empty-handed!"
A quick glance back revealed Leonid Bolotnikov, the top agent of the empire, pistol in hand, standing over the dead peasant's body, fist lifted in rage, as the three men they'd trailed half the night disappeared into the surrounding wood.
Minutes later the revving of an automobile engine sounded through the trees. They had been outmaneuvered. A night of pursuit lost! Even as the escape vehicle sped away and the sound faded into the distance, in his ears echoed further angry shouts from his director. "After him! Don't let him get to Berlin, or you'll rot in Siberia!"
The kingpin of the underground network — the man they called Der Prophet — had eluded them, for the present.
Within an hour of the failed capture, a car bearing Galanov careened recklessly southwest toward Minsk. He had crossed into Poland early the next afternoon, and reestablished contacts in Warsaw that night. It had taken several days to sniff out the cooled trail of Dos Netzwerk's moves. But once he had picked up the unmistakable clues of their presence, everything confirmed that indeed his quarry was close to his grasp. He had smelled the urgency in their movements immediately. After questioning his own operatives, he knew that only hours ahead of him they were passing Der Prophet from hand to hand along the very underground circuit that the fugitive himself had established.
And steadily Galanov drew closer.
This time no hole in the system would allow the man to escape. He would ensnare him! No screwups! Tonight destiny would shine its face upon him. He would deliver the hated and troublesome apostle into the hand of his chief. No one would get out — especially not the so-called Prophet. Galanov would kill if he had to. But he would not let the man into the West.
His headlamps danced about, sending luminescent beams into the thick clumps of pines bordering the way on each side. Like menacing eyes probing the blackness, with every bend and twist of the road they sought their prey with fiendish divination
Behind the wheel, his foot nearly to the floor, sat the latter-day Saul who considered himself guardian of the reputation of the Committee of State Security, otherwise known as the KGB. Even as the lights of his car glared into the night, his own eyes glistened with the evil fire of their dark intent. If only he could do what the KGB chief himself had failed at! Promotion would be his. Perhaps a position in the Kremlin — maybe as Bolotnikov's top assistant or some other high post in Chairman Chernenko's government.
It won't be long now, he thought as the automobile raced along. No other noise sounded for miles. The night remained empty and black. Respectable people had taken to their beds hours ago. In this region so close to the border nothing but trouble could come to one caught abroad after midnight.
CHAPTER 2
In another part of the same district of Brandenburg, two darkly clad individuals hastened along. They had left Fürstenwalde by foot, walking some three kilometers to a solitary barn far removed from any human abode in the middle of one of the collective's expansive wheat fields.
The man in front puffed from the effort, for they strode with long and quickly paced steps. He baked bread and rolls and sweets for the village by day, and in truth carried a few kilograms more than was good for him. By night he did the network's business and did it bravely in spite of the exertion — and the hazards.
Behind him followed a tall, strongly built man of some forty-five years, though darkness rendered certainty of age difficult. Herr Brotbacker had heard of Der Prophet and had even picked up vague rumors that hard times had befallen the Russian patriarch. A plan was said to be in place to get him out, but as to specifics no one in any of the neighboring fellowships knew anything. He had no idea that the man he now led across the grainfields to Brother Herman's old deserted barn was none other than he who had smuggled behind the Curtain the very Bible the baker so treasured, stashed in his small apartment under the bed where his wife now slept.
Neither man had spoken since leaving the lights of town.
Finding their way inside the structure of the barn, now decaying from disuse under East Germany's communal farming system, the German bread-maker assisted his silent Russian brother aboard an aging wooden wagon, already hitched to a sturdy plow horse. Still without sound of human voice to disturb the sleeping night, he walked across the packed dirt floor and opened the large door, kept well oiled and thus without so much as a creak in spite of its age. Farmer Herman, already waiting atop the wagon with leather reins in hand, clicked his tongue, urging his faithful equine collaborator into motion. The baker closed the door behind them. As the clomping footfall of the horse and the groan of the wagon's wheels faded across the field, he began the walk back to town. He would be able to catch about two hours' sleep before the morning ovens and loaves demanded his attention. Now the mysterious traveler bounced slowly along in the hands of the farmer, who would pass him on at the next rendezvous point to someone neither Brotbacker nor Herman had ever met.
Thus did Das Christliche Netzwerk operate. No one knew much. Words remained as few as possible. A look, a brief smile, the scantest of necessary instructions, perhaps a parting nod. Carrying on the work remained the vital imperative — preserving the chain, keeping strong its links, protecting God's people. The less each knew of what his brothers and sisters of the underground did, the safer for all. The last decade and a half had brought welcome change and eased restrictions since the days of Khrushchev and Brezhnev. But lives still could be lost. Shootings occurred at the wall with continued regularity. Caution remained a matter of life and death.
Two and a half hours later, the lone pilgrim, a stranger in the hands of his brothers, weary now from night after night of intermittent and tedious travel, having slept but fitfully in the back of the wagon before being passed along again several times from one silent accomplice to the next, approached a small clearing in the wood where two dirt roads intersected.
A faint flicker of light shone through the darkness, then disappeared. It was the sign by which the man who had the sojourner in tow — neither baker nor farmer this time, but in fact a converted local Communist official attached to the constabulary — knew that his leg of the clandestine itinerary had come to an end. He had never seen the face behind the brief flash of light, nor would he — for the protection of all. At this juncture came the final hand-off, and vulnerability mounted the closer they came to the border.
"Come with me — quickly." From behind the tiny penlight, a hand reached across through the night to clutch that of the nomadic evangelist, who noticed that two persons had come to meet him. The second, slighter of build and shorter of stature, stood a little behind the man who had spoken. The man's daughter, fifteen and already active in the network's activities for years, had begged to accompany him.
The official turned to retrace his steps to his own home, while the man of God continued with the other and his daughter. He heard but a few words more and did not hesitate in his return through the trees. They were on their own now. God be with them, he silently breathed.
"Make haste," whispered the voice to the refugee. "We must get you to the safehouse in the city before dawn."
With that, the three hurried the pace of their steps, father and daughter leading the man for whose escape already so many had risked so much.
CHAPTER 3
An hour and twenty minutes later, father, daughter, and prophet exited the cover of trees through which their path had taken them. The first gray hints of dawn made the horizon faintly visible in the east, though the protection of darkness still covered them.
They were close now!
Safety lay but twenty minutes further. The contact who would guide them to the city probably already crouched in wait someplace on the opposite side of the large field they had just entered.
In the distance the sound of a car's engine came into hearing.
Indistinct at first, gradually it loudened. The leader of the trio stopped briefly, listened, then quickened his pace. The automobile bore in their direction — and fast. It probably meant nothing. They must make every second count nonetheless. If nothing else, the approaching car signaled that the end of their cloak of night came nearer every second.
The huge car rounded a curve, and suddenly headlights blazed above them in the air.
The small band broke into full flight across the barren pastureland. No hope of cover lay anywhere. At the far end, a solitary figure had risen from a hollow and now stood helpless, watching in mute agony as the most feared of all nightmares played itself out before him. Silently he prayed, tears rising in his eyes.
The three fugitives sprinted courageously, measuring half the distance to him. But it was too late. Their persecutor had spotted them, and the enormous Mercedes rumbled over the flat dirt, bouncing high over the ruts with the wild fearlessness of an army tank, spotlighting the fleeing forms ahead of it in naked exposure of their helplessness.
Another ten seconds — the chase took no longer. The revving engine screamed by them, then sputtered into silence as the machine skidded a half-circular arc in front of the tiny company. It cut them off, sending a choking cloud of gritty dust all about, momentarily dimming the headlamps. Even before the Mercedes came to its final stop, its door flew open and the driver burst out onto the turf, automatic pistol brandished, eyes aglow in the intoxication of at long last outwitting the Christians he despised.
A silence, pregnant with supressed passions, followed. Only the laboring lungs of the three renegades broke the stillness of the dusty air. They stood as still as statues while their adversary inspected them from head to toe.
Slowly, a cunning smile spread over his face.
"So, Rostovchev," he said at length, speaking in Russian, "it is you they call Der Prophet. I suspected as much."
"We meet again, Comrade Galanov," replied the tallest of the three. He did not return the smile, yet his tone hinted nowhere of hatred. It was the first time the East German and his daughter had heard the voice of the man they had been attempting to lead to safety.
"Under less than pleasant circumstances for you, I must say," replied the agent, punctuating his words with a wave of his gun. The smile, still on his face, gave evidence that he enjoyed this moment of his triumph.
"Danger comes with walking as a Christian."
"Bah! And foolishness along with it!" The smile vanished.
"In the eyes of the world, I suppose, it must look that way."
"Always preaching, eh, Dmitri?" rejoined the other sarcastically. "Well, no matter," he added. "It would seem I have you checkmated at last. My chief will be pleased to see you again."
"I doubt Leonid Bolotnikov is capable of feeling pleasure," replied the one called Rostovchev. "Hatred too thoroughly consumes him. Though no doubt seeing me dead would give him an evil kind of satisfaction."
"I am sure it will."
"And you as well?"
"Let's just say that I shall provide it for him."
A momentary pause followed.
"Tell me, Andrassy," said Rostovchev, "when did you take up the KGB's cause again? I understood you had gone to work for the British."
A huge laugh bellowed from Galanov's throat. It revealed glistening white teeth in a face that under any other circumstances would have been considered well sculpted. But the traitorous glare of his eyes undid the attraction. Even the most cursory of glances confirmed this man as one to stay away from. On his head shone a thick crop of healthy, red-orange hair, rumpled and unkempt from his frenzied night behind the wheel.
"The British!" he repeated, still laughing. "Morons every one! Ja, ja, Comrade Prophet, they think I work for them, because I turn over something insignificant every couple of months. Fools — they're the easiest of all to double-deal in this game!"
"So you're still a KGB man at heart."
"I am a Russian."
"Can't say I'm surprised."
"Bolotnikov pays better than the British too," said Galanov, chuckling again.
"You really ought to give our side a try, Andrassy."
"You're as Russian as I."
"I meant our Christian side," he said, staring deeply into the agent's eyes with a heart full of compassion.
The other hesitated a moment, returning the stare, then seemed to shake himself free from its spell. "Bah!" he snapped.
"You just might find that there's more to what we believe than —"
"None of your sermons!" snapped the KGB agent.
"It's about life, Andrassy. Nothing but death results from the tangled game you play."
"Shut up, Rostovchev!"
"It's you I'm concerned for, Andrassy. I only wanted to say —"
"Enough of this ridiculous drivel!" interrupted Galanov again. "Death will result, just as you say — yours!"
"Whether I live or die is in His hands."
"We've wasted enough time pretending as friends!" retorted Galanov with disdain. "You know how it works, Rostovchev. Into the car, and your two spying friends with you. It'll be the firing squad for you, the gulag for them!"
"Please. These two are innocent of any crime. They are Germans. Let them go."
Again Galanov laughed. "Let them go free — so they can continue helping our enemies escape into West Berlin!"
"Christians are not your enemy," said the evangelist sadly.
"What kind of fool do you take me for? Bolotnikov would shoot me if I returned to tell him a wave of compassion had come over me and I had let the kingpin of Das Netzwerk go free. Now come, all three of you — into the car!"
Dmitri Rostovchev slowly began to make his way forward in the glare of the headlights. As he did, the East German who had remained silent thus far spoke hurriedly to his daughter, hoping the KGB agent would have difficulty hearing their soft voices.
"Geh, Tochter!" he said. "Schnell — mit dem Prophet. Ein Mann wartet dahinten im Feld. Lauf, Tochter!"
The girl hesitated. "Nein, Papa — du musst auch mit," she replied in a pleading voice.
"Ich folge," he answered. "It is still dark enough. In a few paces you will be out of sight. Run to the man waiting on the other side of the field!"
Suddenly he lurched forward in front of the prophet. Before the surprised man of God knew what was happening, he found himself shoved with strong arms into the darkness, away from the two beams of the Mercedes.
"Geh, Tochter!" he cried. "Take him and run!"
Without further hesitation, the girl obeyed, gripping the hand of Rostovchev and yanking him after her.
"Stop!" cried Galanov, hardly aware of what had happened until it was too late. His eyes had grown accustomed to the visibility provided by the lights of his car. All at once he realized he could see only the ridiculous German standing there. Dmitri and the girl had disappeared!
He advanced in a rage, crying out for them to stop. "Don't make me shoot, Rostovchev!" he shouted. "You only make it harder on your —"
But further words did not come from his lips. With unexpected swiftness the German sprang forward with a powerful lunge and threw himself upon the KGB agent, knocking him to the ground.
Momentarily stunned by the assault, Galanov crawled to his knees, then sought his gun in the dirt. The next instant a punishing kick from the German's boot sent the pistol across the ground. Galanov screamed in pain, cursing with vehement anger.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Depths of Destiny"
by .
Copyright © 1992 Michael Phillips.
Excerpted by permission of RosettaBooks.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
