Whisper For The Reaper, Jack Gatland [good books for high schoolers txt] 📗

me at my word,’ he said. ‘You knew I wasn’t lying. Or, at worst, you trusted me enough to believe that even if I was lying, there was a reason.’

Karl didn’t reply. Instead, he made a curt nod at this.

‘So, in return, I’d like you to tell me the truth. And know that no matter what, that if there is a reason for you to lie, I trust you enough to understand that.’

‘I see,’ Karl wore the expression of a man who really didn’t see.

‘What was your job in Berlin before the wall came down?’ Declan asked.

Karl stopped, as if frozen, the bottle of beer halfway to his mouth.

‘I was a mechanic,’ he eventually whispered. ‘I have said this already.’

‘Let me rephrase that,’ Declan replied carefully. ‘I might not have explained it correctly. What was your job in Berlin before the wall came down, Mister Meier?’

To his credit, Karl didn’t bluff his way out of this, or stammer that there was some kind of mistake. Instead he nodded, placed the bottle down onto the table and looked directly at Declan.

‘Your father’s notes?’ he asked. Declan shook his head.

‘Helen Mirren.’

‘Women. They will be the death of me,’ Karl replied calmly. ‘Yes, my name was Meier. And yes, I was, as you probably already know, a Grenztruppen, a border guard on the Eastern side of the Berlin Wall.’

‘Why lie about this?’ Declan sipped at his drink as he observed Karl. Karl shrugged.

‘This was the end of the eighties,’ he explained. ‘Less than forty-five years since the Second World War. My father had been a German soldier during the war. He was young, and even though he did not follow the teachings of Hitler, it did not matter as they conscripted all Germans. However, he was a soldier, and thus became called Nazi. After the war, there were trials.’

‘Nuremberg.’

Karl nodded at this. ‘Many soldiers were arrested, charged with terrible crimes. All of them had the same excuse. I was just following orders.’

‘And how does this relate to you?’

‘I too was just following orders. And my orders were to stop people escaping from East Germany to West Germany. I patrolled the Bernauer Strasse section; if you have visited the Berlin Wall memorial, you see that they have kept a section just as it was back then, showing the two walls and the kill zone between. There is a watchtower there. I was in that, and several nearby.’

Declan nodded. He had indeed seen that section of wall before.

‘I was led by a Hauptmann, a Captain in the Grenztruppen by the name of Wilhelm Müller,’ Karl continued. ‘He was a monster of a man and followed the GDP orders to shoot at fugitives with great happiness. In fact, he would walk the land between walls slowly, listening, feeling vibrations, from where the tunnels were being built. Then, he would mark a line in the sand where he believed the tunnel was, and then order us to machine gun the line. Tunnels were very close to the surface sometimes, and occasionally bullets would get through, injuring builders. And when he was not doing that, he was tempting dissidents to run, convincing them of weaknesses in the wall, so that when they attempted, we would shoot them.’

He took a swing of ale.

‘He claimed it was all by chance though, and he would flip a coin. An East German Mark. If it landed number side up? They would survive, and Müller would let them try for freedom. If it came up on the other side though, then they would be killed.’

‘So he claimed the universe was killing them, not him?’ Declan shook his head. ‘Hell of a guy.’

‘A liar,’ Karl added. ‘One of the other guards told me once that Müller dropped the coin once, when tossing it. When the guard picked it up, Müller snatched it back angrily before he could look at it. But he’d see enough. He’d seen that the coin had two sides the same. What you would call ‘tails’. He would show a coin, make this big speech about chance and destiny, and then palm it for one that gave him the outcome he needed. That way he looked like he wasn’t consciously deciding to kill, when at all times he was.’

They sat silently for a moment.

‘Movies make it seem like crossing the wall is simple,’ Karl added. ‘It is just two walls, after all. Not even that high. But hundreds of people died trying. And they hated our unit for what Müller did.’

‘You expected another Nuremberg after the fall?’ Declan asked. Karl nodded.

‘Müller was known. He had his own nickname, The Reaper. And as such they named us The Reapers,’ he said, looking at the bottle as he spoke, not seeing Declan flinch at the name. ‘When the wall came down, we knew they would come for him. For us. I wanted to leave too, as I hated what I had done. I had a passion, repairing cars, and decided that I would start a new life somewhere far away. But Grenztruppen didn’t find it easy to do that. I had to create a completely new identity.’

‘Why did you pick Schnitter?’ Declan asked. Karl chuckled.

‘It was not of my choice,’ he replied. ‘Hauptmann Müller heard I was trying to leave, to escape, and came to me. He said that for a year’s salary, he would create a new life for me. He had a friend, an Oberst in the Stasi who could do this. I agreed, I paid the money, everything I owned to do this. And in return, he names me ‘Reaper’. A reminder that I will always owe him for my new life.’

Declan nodded. He didn’t know what he would have done if placed in the same situation.

‘You think I am the Red Reaper,’ Karl continued. ‘I can see how you would consider that. Especially with the image.’

‘What do you mean?’ this threw Declan. Karl’s eyes widened in surprise.

‘I thought you knew?’ he replied. ‘The image, the man with the hat,