Puzzle People (9781613280126) Read Free Page A

around and realized she was right. The train did seem to be building speed, but how could this woman know they should be slowing down? She wasn’t the conductor.
    Still, the woman sounded confident. “We should be slowing down. I’m sure of it, Harry.”
    “Do you think so, dear?” There was a note of resignation in Harry’s voice, as if it was no use to doubt her.
    Peter noticed that the man across the aisle—the one with the newspaper—had become fidgety. He looked up from his crossword puzzle, raised himself slightly from his seat, and peered around the train. Then he let his newspaper drop from his lap, leaned over, and looked out the window.
    At that moment, the conductor entered the car and bellowed, “Albrechtshof! Next stop: Albrechtshof!”
    “But we’re not slowing down,” the woman said to the conductor, even more loudly.
    “What’s that?”
    “We’re picking up speed.”
    The conductor leaned over and stared out one of the windows. Shadows of telephone poles whipped by in the dark.
    “I think you’re right,” the conductor said. Suddenly, as if someone had flipped a switch, the tension level in the train went up. The car was filled with about twenty passengers, and many of them started peering out the windows.
    The train hurtled into the night, gaining even more speed.
    “What’s happening here?” the crossword-puzzle man demanded as he leaped to his feet.
    “I don’t know, comrade.” The conductor yanked on the emergency cord, but nothing happened. He glanced out the window and then looked at his watch. Something was terribly wrong. Streaks of light flew by the window at increasing speeds.
    Peter stood to his feet and noticed that a family in the corner of the car had their heads bowed. Were they praying? The baby in the mother’s arms began to cry, and she tried to shush him. By this time, it was obvious to everyone that the train was not going to stop in Albrechtshof—the last station before the border, the last station before West Berlin.
    Suddenly, a young couple with a three-year-old boy threw themselves to the floor, and several other passengers followed in quick succession, as if their actions had been finely coordinated. This left Peter and others, including the conductor and crossword-puzzle man, staring at them in bewilderment. Half of the people in the car seemed to know something that they didn’t.
    It suddenly dawned on Peter what was about to happen, and he too hurled himself to the floor of the train. Just in time. Seconds later, the windows shattered like ice.

    Katarina heard another gunshot as she made a screeching turn around the first barrier. This time she heard the bullet pass, a tearing sound, as if the air was being ripped like paper.
    Sharply turning right, she shot around the back of the first barrier, getting ready for the next turn. The maze of barriers allowed room for only one car, so her greatest fear—besides the bullets—was encountering another car coming toward her from the West. If that happened, she wouldn’t make it.
    Taking a left around the next barrier, she nearly lost control of the car as the back end skidded on the slick pavement and missed hitting the barrier by inches. Another gunshot rang out, but the barriers provided cover. She took a hard right, and this time the back end of the Sprite clipped the barrier as it fishtailed. She brought the car under control and then swerved wildly around the final barrier, tires screeching, engine roaring.
    Beyond the barriers was a large, heavy horizontal bar—a boom, like a gate at a train crossing, only stronger. Katarina prayed that the Austin-Healey Sprite was low enough to do this. Accelerating, she kept her eyes fixed on the bar, waiting for just the right moment. She had to time this precisely. If she ducked too late, she would be decapitated. The car rushed toward the bar, picking up speed. There was no stopping.
    Now! Katarina ducked a split second before the car raced beneath the bar,