Chapter One
Evony
East Berlin, 1963
He’s hunting me, and there’s nowhere to run. Every labored breath feels like I’m drawing shards of ice into my lungs. I stare up and down the dark, unfamiliar street, vapor billowing in front of my face. Around me are apartment blocks, lights burning in living room windows—families sitting up to read or listen to the radio. If I batter on their doors and plead for them to hide me I’ll only be putting them in danger. I hurry past a call box on a corner, the telephone inside lit by a neon bulb, but I don’t go in and lift the handset. I have no one to call who can save me. All my friends are arrested or dead, and the Volkspolizei will not help.
They’ll only turn me over to him.
A sob rises in my throat as I remember the crack-crack of rifle fire and the screams of the panicked and dying; the sight of Ana lifting a shaking arm to aim a pistol at him, and then him raising his own gun, cool and implacable, to shoot her between the eyes. No matter that she was a citizen, not a soldier. No matter that she was outnumbered, losing, scared out of her wits and would have put the gun down if he’d only told her to.
And Dad, what has happened to Dad? Is he dead? Will I ever see him again?
I shake from cold and fear, the glacial chill biting through my thin coat. Turning into the street on my left I skid on the icy concrete and go down, my right knee cracking painfully against the pavement. I do sob now, from agony and futility. He’s going to get me just like he got Ana and everyone else in our group. There’s nowhere to run, nowhere that he won’t find me, and no border that I can cross without being gunned down. But I lever myself up, limping onward, tears tracking icy ribbons down my face. You have no choice but to run when you’re being hunted by der Mitternachtsjäger, the Midnight Hunter, the most feared man in East Berlin.
His name is Oberstleutnant Reinhardt Volker of the Ministry for State Security. If he catches you at night you don’t go to the Stasi prison. He claims you as his special prize and you’re never seen again. There are whispers of shallow graves. Secret dungeons. Furnaces filled with bones. The furnace is especially terrifying. I’ve seen the photograph of der Mitternachtsjäger as a young army captain of twenty-two, standing in front of the swastika flag, an eagle emblazoned on his jacket. He’ll have learned a trick or two about making people disappear during the war.
I’ve glimpsed Volker several times striding through the streets of the city, a heraldic lion of a man, tall and striking in his olive green Stasi uniform and high black boots, a peaked cap covering his dark blond hair. People scurry out of his way when he marches by, usually at the head of a detachment of border guards. From his height of six-feet-five he ignores the populace, his expression aloof, intent elsewhere.
Unless someone makes a mistake and draws his attention.
Unless that cold, calculating mind senses there’s a traitor nearby.
Then his gray eyes sharpen and his nostrils flare, as if he’s scenting treason. As if he knows what’s in your secret heart. That’s why he’s called hunter. That’s why no one escapes Oberstleutnant Volker.
I think I hear footsteps behind me and look over my shoulder as I turn another corner. If I can get out into the countryside maybe I can shelter in a barn for the night. In the morning I might get lucky and find some sympathetic soul who will give me food and maybe some work. They could have contacts who can help me change my identity, even disappear to the West. Our group can’t have been the only one trying to get out. If I can just—
A heavy, black-gloved hand falls onto my wrist and tightens like a manacle. I watch in horror as a tall figure steps out of the shadows, moonlight glinting on the silver epaulettes of his double-breasted coat. A silky, self-satisfied voice murmurs, “Guten Abend, Fräulein Daumler. You are out very late.”
I recognize the aquiline nose and clean-shaven jaw of der Mitternachtsjäger and fear threads me like a needle. He glances at his wristwatch and smiles a cold, cruel smile. “Why, I see it’s nearly midnight.”
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Also by Brianna Hale
There’s nothing Brianna Hale likes more than a large, stern alpha male with a super-protective and caring streak, and when she’s not writing about them she can usually be found with a book, a cocktail, planning her next trip to a beautiful location or attending the theatre. She believes that pink and empowerment aren’t mutually exclusive, and everyday adventures are possible. Brianna lives in London.
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