Bridge of Spies
“It was a Saturday morning, and cold. The forecast was for snow and the rumors were keeping people in town. All the news bureaus had sent reporters to Checkpoint Charlie because it seemed the obvious place. But the forecast was wrong, and so were the rumors.
At about nine thirty a lone taxi cleared the last traffic lights in Wilmersdorf and headed west on Königstrasse, picking up speed. For a while it barreled through pristine woodland across a big, diamond-shaped island formed by the Wannsee and the river Havel. Then it crested a rise, descended for half a mile in a gradual left curve, and stopped at a traffic barrier. Beyond the barrier were a watchtower and a bridge—a solid span of green-painted steel girders across the Havel, bisected by a thin white line. Beyond the bridge was another watchtower and another barrier, beyond them a free-fire zone for the East German frontier police, and beyond that the wall—not the short section that divided the heart of Berlin but the long one that... sealed off the Allied sectors from the East.MoreLess
At about nine thirty a lone taxi cleared the last traffic lights in Wilmersdorf and headed west on Königstrasse, picking up speed. For a while it barreled through pristine woodland across a big, diamond-shaped island formed by the Wannsee and the river Havel. Then it crested a rise, descended for half a mile in a gradual left curve, and stopped at a traffic barrier. Beyond the barrier were a watchtower and a bridge—a solid span of green-painted steel girders across the Havel, bisected by a thin white line. Beyond the bridge was another watchtower and another barrier, beyond them a free-fire zone for the East German frontier police, and beyond that the wall—not the short section that divided the heart of Berlin but the long one that... sealed off the Allied sectors from the East.MoreLess
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