Leyla's Tale (Part Three)

     I stayed in Europe for several years after the war.  Many Hunters had been Nazis or Nazi sympathizers in their own countries.  They had to cover their tracks or change identities.  We Hidden Ones were not the only ones after them.  My quest took me back and form across the Iron Curtain.  I did some cross border smuggling too.  The black market paid well and I liked the challenge.  I tried to keep a low profile but it was only a matter of time before someone noticed.

     I had no ideological interest in the Cold War.  By 1960 I had seen most of Europe invaded at least once, many of them twice.  The Austria-Hungary and Ottoman empires had collapsed and most countries had undergone at least one major change of government.  The standoff between the Soviets and NATO was just another turn of the wheel of history.  The threat of nuclear war was the only real difference.

     I had no problem running packages for both sides, mainly British Intelligence and the KGB.  Of course as far as they knew I was just a young woman who illegally crossed borders a lot.  They all knew I was working both sides of the street but I was too useful to shut down.  And both sides paid well for my services.

      I suspected Alex Baker would be trouble when he contacted me.  In 1962 I was living on the outskirts of Hamburg, about 50 kilometers from the border with East Germany.  Different groups who wanted my services had different methods of contacting me.  It would have been awkward if certain people ran into each other.  Baker was British Intelligence but he used one of my black market contacts that he shouldn’t have known about.  Curiosity won out and I set up a meet at local café.

     Alex Baker was one of my regular British contacts.  He was in his late fifties and had been working in West Germany for many years.  He had known me long enough that he was probably starting to wonder why I still looked around twenty years old. 

     He shuffled wearily into the café and sat down across from me.  I ordered two coffees.  We sat silently until we had been served and the waiter moved away.  We sat sipping our coffees in silence. 

     “I want you to get me into East Germany,” he said finally.

     “I move packages, not people.”

     “Think of me as a large package.  I have papers for when I get there.  I just need your help getting over.  I’ll pay triple the usual fee.”

     “Don’t the British have a better way to get you there?”

     He paused then sighed.  “I’m defecting.  Obviously I can’t ask Her Majesty’s Government to help me leave.”

     I should have walked away right then.  The whole thing felt wrong.  Instead I took another sip of coffee.  “Convince me, Mr. Baker.  Besides the money, why should I take the risk of helping you?  I will have serious problems if British Intelligence finds out.”

     “After thirty-five years of faithful service, I’m still doing low level work.  I run a few operations and meet with people like you.  I should be station chief somewhere like Berlin. 

     “They’re going to fire me soon.  They know I’ve been skimming money from discretionary accounts.  Everyone does it.  But the people in London want to make an example out of me.  Don’t be greedy.  Besides, it’s one more old-timer out of the way.  Making room for one of the new breed.  These new people were still schoolboys when I was running agents in Nazi Germany.”

     He stopped abruptly, embarrassed by the vehemence of his words.  This is the most animated that I’ve ever seen Baker.  I finish my coffee and wait for him to continue.

     “I have information I can trade.  Maybe not enough for the KGB but the Stasi is interested.  They want to meet with me.”  I perked up at the mention of the East German state security organization.  Maybe I could use this to my advantage.  There were a few known Hunters in the Stasi.

     I still could have walked away.  Something was still off about the whole thing.  Getting close to anyone important in the Stasi was a long shot at best.  I could wait for a better opportunity.  My kind doesn’t have to grasp at the first slim hope offered.  We live for hundreds of years.  We can afford to be patient.  Maybe I had been around humans too long.

     “Meet me at this address in four days at noon,” I said, scribbling directions on a napkin.  “Be ready to leave immediately and have my payment.”

     I got up, handed him the note, and left.