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Red Right Hand: OCTOBER 21, 1979
*He is not a secret agent. Not at all.

 

OCTOBER 21, 1979

I had been tailing this East German agent for three weeks. At times I was sure he was on to me, like when lost me on Kurfürstenstrasse near the Hotel Berlin only for me to pick him up again outside the Bauhaus-Archiv.

I became adept at front-tailing him. A technique we developed in the "special service" of keeping tabs on a vehicle by driving in front of it. Risky, but it throws off suspicion. He could easily lose me with an unexpected turn but he suspects nothing, it seems. He never takes that turn. I'd know why soon enough.

In my rearview, I saw him eyeing a beergarten off Marburger Str and I beat him to it. We practically shared a Würzberger together, were it not for the room full of soccer fans celebrating a 5-1 win for the national team over Wales.

It wasn't until I tailed him out to Tegeler Forst and I took this photo (and he took a remarkably similar one) that I realized wasn't as good as I thought, and neither was he. We were assigned to follow each other. We've circled West Berlin for two months like a cat chasing its tail (no pun intended). I won't speculate which of us was the pussy in this scenario.

To this day, we still laugh about it over brats.
©2024 Michael Patrick Sullivan
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