The sky was a dirty gray-white, like a bedsheet that hadn't been washed in years.
A black Mercedes-Benz W126 armored sedan rolled to a stop before the roadblock.
Behind it, a gray, unmarked Volkswagen van followed. Its windows were blacked out with explosion-proof film. Four S.A. Security Department agents sat inside, eyes locked on every moving target through the gaps in the glass.
By the roadside stood the famous white sign, the Cold War mantra printed in English, Russian, French, and German:
YOU ARE LEAVING THE AMERICAN SECTOR
"We're going across," Fujita Tsuyoshi said from the passenger seat. He didn't turn around, but his right hand quietly unbuttoned his suit jacket and rested on the holster at his waist.
In the back, Satsuki set down the English newspaper she'd been reading.
It was a copy of Time she'd picked up in West Berlin last night. Gorbachev's face stared out from the cover.
"Throw it away," Satsuki said, handing the paper to Fujita.
"They don't need news over there. And they don't need the truth."
Fujita rolled down the window and dropped the newspaper into a trash can.
Hans von Schneider sat beside Satsuki, fidgeting with his tie. His face was pale. His eyes kept darting around.
"Miss Saionji, please check your passport holder," Hans said, his voice dry. "Make sure there are no West German marks or banned books. Those East German border guards are rabid. They'll hold you all day over half a pack of cigarettes."
As a descendant of Prussian nobility, Hans had a visceral distaste for the other side of the Wall.
"Don't worry," Satsuki said, smoothing her skirt.
"I only brought what they like most."
The car eased forward into the labyrinth of barbed wire, concrete barriers, and sandbags.
Checkpoint Charlie.
Two East German soldiers in grass-green uniforms stepped in front of the car with AK-47s slung over their shoulders. A muzzled German Shepherd strained at its leash beside them.
One soldier knocked on the window.
Fujita rolled down the glass and handed over three passports.
The soldier took them. His eyes swept over the three faces in the car like a cold searchlight.
"Out. Inspection," he ordered in clipped German. The second soldier crouched with a long-handled mirror, checking under the car for hidden compartments.
Satsuki opened the door.
The air changed instantly.
The scent of West Berlin coffee and exhaust was gone.
In its place: a stale, sour tang, like scorched earth.
Lignite.
East Germany's main fuel source. The sulfur dioxide from burning that low-grade coal clung to the city like grease you couldn't wash off.
"Is this the smell of Red?" Satsuki murmured, standing on the concrete. She looked toward the watchtower. Its searchlights burned even in daylight, staring at the no-man's-land.
Behind her, the four security agents exited the van. They didn't approach her. They fanned out around the car, backs to their employer, forming a human wall.
"Exchange," the East German officer said through the booth window, shoving a slip of paper out.
Mandatory exchange. Zwangsumtausch.
Every Westerner entering East Germany had to swap 25 West German marks for 25 East German marks at a 1:1 rate.
On the black market, the rate was 1:10, or worse. This wasn't just robbery. It was a ritual humiliation.
Satsuki pulled a crisp hundred-mark note from her handbag and passed it through.
The officer took it, counted out a stack of East German marks with Marx's portrait, and pushed them back. The bills felt like construction paper and reeked of ink. Toy money.
Satsuki didn't bother looking at them. She stuffed the stack into her trench coat pocket.
"Let's go."
The barrier lifted.
The Mercedes rolled over the final speed bump.
The world split in half.
Seconds ago: neon, Marlboro billboards, kids in jeans laughing.
Now, only gray remained — the sky was gray, the buildings were gray, and the streets were gray.
The road was pitted. The Mercedes's suspension thudded dully.
"Chug, chug, chug…"
A noise like a tractor came from up ahead.
A pale blue Trabant struggled up a slope, its plastic body rattling. Blue smoke belched from the exhaust.
Satsuki watched it.
The driver wore gray-blue coveralls. His face was worn thin. He glanced at the gleaming black S-Class, his eyes empty. Numb.
"Hans," Satsuki said, looking away.
"Wh-what is it?"
"Look at these buildings."
They passed Unter den Linden. The grand Prussian-era facades still stood, but the plaster was peeling. Faint bullet holes pocked the walls. Paint flaked off the window frames.
Satsuki tapped the leather armrest lightly.
"Don't you think they're just distressed assets waiting to be acquired?"
Hans paused, then gave a bitter smile.
"You really… see business everywhere."
"Business is everywhere."
The convoy moved through the city center and stopped by an open square.
Alexanderplatz.
The TV tower speared the clouds like a needle through the sky. The World Clock turned slowly, displaying times that meant nothing here.
"It's just ahead," Hans said, pointing to a building on the corner.
A huge neon sign hung there. Even in daylight, its crude Soviet style was obvious.
Café Moskau.
"Get out," Satsuki said.
The four bodyguards exited first, securing the perimeter. Fujita opened her door and held up a black umbrella. It wasn't raining. It was a statement. And a shield.
The square was sparse. Pedestrians wore identical jackets and walked fast. No one lingered. No one made eye contact with the intimidating foreigners.
Satsuki walked into the café.
The décor was frozen in the 1950s. Heavy red velvet curtains. Crystal chandeliers. Waiters in white aprons with faces like prison guards.
A man sat alone at a corner table.
He wore a worn corduroy suit with mismatched patches on the elbows. Thick-rimmed glasses, the arms wrapped in tape, sat on his nose. Years of cheap tobacco had stained his fingers yellow.
He looked like a broke middle-school teacher.
But his hand clamped a battered leather briefcase to the table like it held his life.
Dr. Klaus Weber.
Senior optical engineer at Carl Zeiss Jena.
When he saw Hans and Satsuki, Weber shot to his feet. The chair screeched against the floor. He glanced around, fear plain in his eyes.
"Sit down, Dr. Weber," Hans said, stepping in to block the window's view.
"It's safe here."
Weber swallowed and sat. His gaze landed on Satsuki. He clearly couldn't believe this doll-like girl was the buyer.
"Would you like something to drink?" Satsuki asked as she sat across from him and removed her gloves.
"I… no need…"
"Two coffees," Satsuki told the waiter who appeared.
The waiter scribbled it down and left.
"Dr. Weber," Satsuki said, skipping pleasantries.
"I heard last month's wages at the Jena plant were paid in canned goods?"
Weber flushed. It was humiliating. It was also true.
"These are temporary difficulties…" he stammered. "The state is making adjustments…"
"The state doesn't have time for you," Satsuki cut in.
"The Soviets are busy. And Honecker is still dreaming."
She pulled a photo from her handbag and slid it across the table.
It showed Nikon's latest lithography machine.
"The Japanese are already building these," she said. "While you're still grinding lenses by hand."
Weber stared at the photo. Longing and despair fought in his eyes—the look of an engineer seeing the future, and knowing he's been locked out of it.
"I… I cannot sell state secrets," Weber said, his voice shaking. "If you want blueprints, I don't have them. Those are in safes. The Stasi watches them."
The waiter returned with the coffee.
The cup was chipped. The black liquid smelled like burnt wheat.
Satsuki picked it up but didn't drink. She just felt the faint heat through the ceramic.
"You misunderstand, Doctor." She set the cup down. The liquid sloshed.
"I don't want blueprints. Those blueprints are ten years behind the West."
"Then what do you want?"
"I want you," Satsuki said softly. Her voice cut through the café's noise.
"I want the hands that can grind the most precise lenses in the world."
"I want the mind that can still design top-tier optics with obsolete equipment."
Weber froze.
"I…"
"I know what you're afraid of."
Satsuki pulled out the stack of East German marks she'd exchanged. Several thousand.
She tossed it onto the table like scrap paper.
"This will buy you a Trabant. Or a ton of coal."
Weber stared at the money. His breathing quickened.
"But this is just the deposit," Satsuki said.
She leaned forward, holding his murky eyes with her own.
"I've opened an account for you at a bank in Zurich. There's one hundred thousand U.S. dollars in it."
"If you nod."
"Within three months, I'll get you and your family out. Not to West Germany. To Tokyo."
"There, you'll have the most advanced lab you've ever seen. Unlimited budget."
"You won't grind glass for a few marks' allowance anymore. You'll build eyes that can see atomic structures."
Weber's hand gripped his briefcase handle. His fingers trembled.
The offer was everything.
Freedom. Dignity. The stage every scientist dreams of.
"But… the Stasi…" He glanced toward the window, terrified.
A green-and-white Wartburg police car rolled slowly past the square, lights flashing in the gray haze.
Weber flinched and knocked over his coffee.
Brown liquid spread across the stained tablecloth and dripped to the floor.
"Don't worry," Satsuki said. She pulled out a handkerchief and covered the spill. The pure white silk turned black instantly.
"The Wall is already crumbling."
She stood, watching the police car disappear down the street.
"When the first brick falls, no one will remember where one engineer went."
She nodded to Fujita.
He stepped forward and pressed a slip of paper with a phone number into Weber's palm.
"When you've decided, call this number," Satsuki said.
"Don't make me wait too long, Doctor. Berlin winters are very cold."
The door opened.
Cold wind smelling of coal smoke blew in.
Weber sat frozen, clutching the note. He looked at the blackened handkerchief, then at the stack of East German marks on the table.
In the distance, the World Clock kept turning.
But for him, time—the time that had been dead for forty years—started ticking again.
Satsuki walked out of the café.
A fine drizzle began to fall.
"Ma'am, we're being watched," a bodyguard murmured through the earpiece.
"Ignore them," Satsuki said as she got in the car.
"They're just gatekeepers guarding a grave."
The Mercedes pulled away, tires hissing over wet cobblestones, heading back toward Checkpoint Charlie.
In the rearview mirror, the TV tower blurred in the rain.
Like a giant about to fall, it stood alone in the gray mist.