title: What Happened in the Middle of the Night?
author:  John Syrbu 
description: <span><span> </span>Since he was a kid, Karl Lonngren has wondered what happens</span><span>during the middle of the night. As an Emeritus Professor of</span><span>Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Iowa, Karl</span><span>finally decided to write about it in the form of this story. Karl joined</span><span></span><span>with his friend John Syrbu, an author, illustrator and dentist to</span><span>complete <i>What happened in the middle of the night?</i></span>
zlib_text: A SMALL TOWN IN GERMANY
  
  John le Carré
  
    
    
    
    
  
  PROLOGUE
  
  The Hunter and the Hunted
  
  Ten minutes to midnight: a pious Friday in May and a fine river mist lying in
  the market square. Bonn was a Balkan city, stained and secret, drawn over with
  tramwire. Bonn was a dark house where someone had died, a house draped in
  Catholic black and guarded by policemen. Their leather coats glistened in the
  lamplight, the black flags hung over them like birds. It was as if all but
  they had heard the alarm and fled. Now a car, nowa pedestrian hurried past,
  and the silence followed like a wake. A tram sounded, but far away. In the
  grocer's shop, from a pyramid of tins, the handwritten notice advertised the
  emergency: 'Lay in your store now!' Among the crumbs, marzipan pigs like
  hairless mice proclaimed the forgotten Saint's Day.
  
  Only the posters spoke. From trees and lanterns they fought their futile war,
  each at the same height as if that were the regulation; they were printed in
  radiant paint, mo