Stattin Station jr-3

by David Downing

  Effi, he decided, had heard enough of his agonising in recent days. 'Are you still feeling okay about that script?' he asked.

  'It's wonderful,' she said. 'It's a comedy, and either no one's noticed or no one dares to say so. My only worry is that fifty years from now people will think I was taking it seriously. I was thinking - you know those people who dig deep holes in the ground and bury a box of typical things with the date...'

  'Time capsules.'

  'That's it. Well, I thought I could bury this script with my comments on it.'

  'Why not? Let's just hope there are no Nazis around in fifty years to dig it up, particularly if we're still here and the film's become a classic.' She stuck her tongue out at him.

  'I don't think you ever told me the storyline.'

  'I did, but you were half asleep at the time.'

  'Tell me again.'

  'All right. I am Olga...'

  'A Russian.'

  'A White Russian. I think they must be further up the race table. Anyway, my parents were killed by the GPU...'

  'Which has been the NKVD for almost ten years.'

  'That sounds like the sort of detail the writers would have missed. But stop interrupting.'

  'Okay.'

  'Whatever they're called, they killed my parents. Or one of them did, and I've joined the organisation with the secret intention of tracking him down. I'm also an amazing violinist, by the way, and as the film begins I'm in Riga to give a recital for the International Women's League. I'm in mid-performance when some old man in the audience starts shouting that the League is financed by Jewish interests in Moscow. His proof is that a top GPU agent named Bokscha is also in Riga. Get it? Jews and Bolsheviks hand in glove!

  'It gets less subtle as it goes on,' she went on. 'Needless to say, Bokscha is the man who killed my parents. He falls in love with me of course, and we roam around Europe with him organising sabotage and murders on the Kremlin's behalf and me waiting for the perfect moment to betray him. All his meetings are in the same dark cellar, which has portraits of Lenin and Stalin on the walls. The people he's plotting with are almost always Jews, and they laugh a lot together about how stupid and vulnerable everyone else is. Do you detect a theme here? Oh, and there's a sub-plot about this Latvian couple whom I befriend. They're forced to spy for the Soviets, and eventually end up imprisoned in Rotterdam, purely, as far as I can see, so that they can be set free by our invading army. By this time Bokscha and I are both dead. First I tell Moscow that he's a traitor and get him shot, and then I admit to joining the GPU under false pretences and get myself shot. Clever, eh?

  'I see what you mean about a lack of subtlety.'

  'It's complete nonsense from beginning to end, and I can hardly wait to start shooting.'

  'Monday, yes?' Russell asked, dipping a spoon into the casserole.

  'Yes.'

  'Any location stuff?'

  'All indoors for the first few weeks. Mostly the cellar, in fact.'

  Russell laughed. 'This is ready,' he said, taking the casserole off the stove.

  They were still eating when the air raid warning sounded, and Effi insisted on clearing her plate before they walked to the local shelter. This was a very different type of district to the one where the Blumenthals lived, and the local warden was as obsequious as theirs had been officious. Most of the adults had pained expressions on their faces, as if they found it hard to believe that such inconvenience was really necessary. Their children were better behaved than their Wedding counterparts, but seemed to laugh a lot less. It was after midnight before the all-clear sounded, freeing them all to grumble their way back up to the street.

  On Thursday morning, Russell's tram downtown passed evidence of the previous night's raid, the wreck of a three-storey building like a broken tooth in an otherwise healthy row, roofless and gutted, surrounded by shards of broken glass. A few wisps of smoke were still rising from the ruin, and a sizable crowd was gathered outside, watching as the civil engineers made the neighbouring buildings safe. It was a sign of how little impact the RAF campaign was having, Russell thought, that one bombed house could still attract so much interest.

  He had not been inside the American Consulate for several months, and was struck by how empty it seemed. Now that voluntary emigration was forbidden, the long Jewish queues had disappeared, and with Germany and the US fighting an undeclared war in the Atlantic the Consulate's diplomatic business had shrunk to almost nothing. Many diplomats had presumably been sent home.

  Russell could smell the coffee as he waited for Joseph Kenyon, but that was the closest he got. The young bespectacled diplomat came down the stairs in his overcoat, and ushered his visitor back out onto the street. 'We keep finding new microphones,' he explained, 'so these days we just use the building for keeping warm. All our business is done outdoors.'

  They walked up to the Spree, which at least made a change from the

  Tiergarten. The sun was out, but the brisk wind sweeping in from the east more than cancelled it out, and both men were soon rubbing their gloved hands and hugging themselves to retain a little warmth. They followed the river to the left, walking past the Reichstag and around the long bend opposite Lehrter Station. Kenyon seemed hesitant about raising whatever it was he had in mind, so Russell asked him if he had any inside dope about the negotiations with Japan.

  'Off the record?'

  Russell nodded.

  'There are no real negotiations. Tokyo wants more than Washington can give, and vice versa. Sooner or later the balloon will go up, probably sooner. I don't know this for certain, but I imagine Washington is playing for time, because with each month that goes by our re-armament programme makes us a little stronger and the economic embargo makes them a little weaker. They know this as well as we do, of course, and I don't think they'll wait for long. I expect an attack before Christmas.'

  'But on whom?'

  'That's the big question. If oil's as big a problem for them as we think it is, they have to attack the Dutch East Indies - it's the only source within reach. And if they attack the Dutch they're bound to attack the British - you can't expect to take Sumatra without taking Singapore first. Which raises the big question - could they afford to leave us alone in the Philippines, knowing that we could cut their new oil lifeline any time we chose? I don't think so. They'll have to go for us as well.'

  Russell thought about it. Most of what Kenyon had just said seemed like common sense, although he still couldn't quite believe that the Japanese would be foolhardy enough to attack America. But then maybe countries in desperate corners really did behave like men in similar plights - they just lashed out and hoped for the best.

  'How well do you know Patrick Sullivan?' Kenyon asked him out of the blue.

  'Not well. We're not exactly political allies. I must have spoken to him about half a dozen times since the war began. I actually had a conversation with him last week.'

  'He said.' Kenyon pulled a packet of Chesterfields from his pocket. 'You don't, do you?' he asked.

  'No.'

  Kenyon lit his cigarette with a silver lighter, took a deep drag, and exhaled with obvious pleasure. 'It's Sullivan I want to talk to you about. Off the record, of course.'

  'Of course,' Russell echoed, curious as to what was coming.

  'The man's had a change of heart. Or at least that's the way he put it.' Kenyon smiled inwardly. 'I guess he's suddenly realised which way the wind is blowing.'

  'He's very pessimistic about the war in the East.'

  'Exactly. If the Soviets survive this winter and we come in, then Hitler is finished. It might take years, but the end result won't be in doubt.'

  'Let's hope,' Russell concurred. They must have walked about one and a half kilometres by this time, and were skirting the northern edge of the Tiergarten. Across the river a leaning pillar of smoke from the Lehrter Station goods yard was rising above the massive Customs and Excise building.

  Kenyon tapped off his ash. 'You know that some American corpo
rations are still doing a lot of business with Germany?'

  'You mean like Ford, working through their German subsidiaries?'

  'Ford, Standard Oil, GM, even Coca Cola. It's a long list, and there are also the American subsidiaries of German corporations like IG Farben. Some of these links are downright crucial to the German war effort. Without Ford trucks they'd be a hell of a lot further from Moscow.'

  'But none of it's illegal, right?

  'At the moment. But Sullivan claims that several of these corporations have made secret arrangements for business as usual even after we enter the war. Which would be treason in most people's eyes. It certainly would in mine,' Kenyon added, grinding out his cigarette. 'And Sullivan says he has proof.'

  'What does he want in return?' Russell asked.

  'He wants to go home to Chicago, with enough money for a nice house and immunity from any future prosecution.'

  'Why should he need that? He hasn't done anything illegal, has he?' Kenyon shrugged. 'Probably not. But whether American Jews will see it that way is another matter. I can see why he'd like some insurance.'

  'So where do I come in?'

  'He wants you to act as a go-between. He doesn't trust us; he thinks we'll just take his proof and throw him back out to the wolves.'

  'Would you?'

  Kenyon shrugged. 'We might. He hasn't exactly endeared himself to anyone at the Consulate.'

  'Okay, so why me?'

  'He likes you for some reason.'

  'I'm probably the only American journalist left who doesn't leave a room the moment he walks into it. So how's this supposed to work?'

  'He wants to meet you and show you his proof. You'll then report back to us, and verify that he's got what he says he's got. But he'll still have the documents we would need for court cases back in DC.'

  'But he'll have to hand them over at some point.'

  'Not until he's on the ship, he says, though as far as I can see there'd be nothing to stop us taking them then and dumping him back on the quayside. Maybe he has something else up his sleeve. Perhaps he thinks using a journalist as a go-between will shame the US Government into keeping its part of the bargain.'

  'He has a higher regard for the power of the press than I do, then.'

  Kenyon smiled, and lit another Chesterfield. Ahead of them, a Stadtbahn train rattled over the river, slowing as it approached Bellevue Station. 'So will you meet him?'

  'Why not?' It sounded like a story, and Kenyon could hardly insist that Russell's conversation with Sullivan was off the record. 'Where and when?'

  'The buffet at Stettin Station. Saturday at noon.'

  Russell was about to object when he remembered that he wasn't seeing Paul. 'Fine,' he said.

  They turned back. It had growing noticeably colder in the last hour, and they upped their pace, chatting as they walked about the situations in Russia and the Balkans, and the wildly conflicting reports from the battlefield in North Africa. Russell liked the way Kenyon's mind worked. Unlike most American diplomats of his acquaintance, Kenyon was not burdened by a sense of inherent American superiority. He was doubtless proud of his country, but had no difficulty accepting that other men could be equally proud of theirs, and for equally valid reasons. He would make a good academic, Russell thought, particularly with the worldly experience he had now accumulated.

  He asked Kenyon if he had any recent news from Prague, without mentioning his own forthcoming visit.

  Kenyon had none, but couldn't resist inserting an aside about the Reichsprotektor - 'of all the people I could imagine running a country, Reinhard Heydrich is far and away the most frightening.'

  As they walked across Unter den Linden towards the Consulate, Russell asked if Scott Dallin was in that morning. 'I just need a few minutes, ten at most.' Kenyon didn't know, but went in to find out. A couple of minutes later Dallin appeared, well wrapped for the cold.

  They strode up one side of Unter den Linden as far as Friedrichstrasse, then back along the other side. Russell told Dallin about the Abwehr's offer to install him in Switzerland and, after some hesitation, decided to also come clean about the job Canaris wanted doing in Prague. Everyone seemed to be mentioning insurance that morning, and he thought Dallin knowing about Prague might provide him with some; against what, he wasn't too clear, but if Effi came to the Consulate to report his non-return it would be nice if someone there had a clue as to what she was talking about.

  Dallin was clearly struck by the potential importance of the Swiss arrangement, but not so much that he forgot to press Russell on the 'other business'.

  For a second or so Russell wondered what he was referring to, then remembered Franz Knieriem. 'No, not yet,' he said as non-committally as he could manage.

  'It is important,' Dallin insisted.

  'I know,' Russell said disingenuously. Even if it was, which he seriously doubted, ensuring his own survival seemed rather more important.

  Thirty minutes later he was climbing the Foreign Ministry stairs. He had decided that morning that he would at least attend the press conferences, and save himself some money on newspapers.

  The first item on Schmidt's agenda was the Fuhrer's return. All that day Hitler would be receiving a long line of foreign ministers at the Chancellery: those from Finland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Denmark... Schmidt rolled his tongue around each country's name as if he wished to eat it. Well, the army had already had done that. Russell wondered whether Hitler had the same speech for each of them. That, of course, would depend on his noticing when one man left and another arrived.

  More ominously, Istra had fallen. Russell had visited the town's New Jerusalem Monastery with Ilse in 1924, only a few days after their first meeting in the international comrades' dormitory. On that summer day the drive from Moscow in an old Ford taxi had taken them about two hours. How long would it take a Panzer IV in late November?

  After lunch at the Adlon he hunkered down in the bar to write what he hoped was a cry of alarm - a map-in-prose of the rolling forested countryside outside the Soviet capital and the battles now engulfing it. He wanted his readers to hear the Kremlin bells ringing out across Red Square, summoning the last defenders to man the last ditches, as they had done in centuries past when other barbarians were at the gates. He wanted Americans to feel how close to the edge their world was inching.

  Once finished he sent it off, confident that the Nazis censors would see nothing more than a simple paean to their coming victory. Effi was out at the cinema with Zarah, so he decided to stay for the Promi press conference, walking down Wilhelmstrasse, only slightly inebriated, as dusk fell. Goebbels was elsewhere, his minions as lacklustre as ever, and the guest speaker - an IG Farben manager with a speech defect - was unable to convince anyone that recent synthetic rubber breakthroughs would decide the war.

  After visiting both press clubs in a vain search for a game of poker, he reluctantly headed home. His coat was only half off when the telephone rang.

  'Klaus, there's a game tonight,' the familiar voice intoned. 'Number 21, at -' he paused, and Russell could almost see him checking his watch '- at eight-thirty.'

  He put down the phone, got out his S-Bahn map and counted the stations off. The twenty-first station running clockwise from Wedding was Westkreuz - which was only two stops west of Savignyplatz on the Stadtbahn. He probably had plenty of time, but with each week that passed the trains seemed less reliable. He should probably leave immediately.

  He had not gone a hundred metres down Carmerstrasse when he heard footfalls behind him. Glancing back over his shoulder he could just make out two human shapes walking behind him, some twenty metres away. He slowed, stopped, and bent to re-tie a shoelace, feeling faintly ridiculous at resorting to such an obvious stratagem. The two men kept coming, as of course they had to - stratagems became obvious because they worked. Once they were twenty metres ahead of him, Russell began walking again, keeping the distance between them until they reached Savignyplatz. When his potential tails turned right onto Kant Stras
se he watched until the darkness swallowed them, then crossed the square and climbed the stairs to the elevated station. He was getting paranoid, he thought. One thing you could say for the blackout - it made the Gestapo's job much more difficult, particularly at this time of the year, when there were only nine hours of daylight. During the other fifteen hours of the day Berlin was cloaked in the sort of darkness that only burglars and rapists loved. Any sort of mobile surveillance was practically impossible.

  He waited on the elevated platform at Savignyplatz for the best part of half an hour, hunched up against the bitter cold, trying to remember which stars were which in the firmament above. It was a struggle getting aboard the train when it came, and he spent the next six minutes with a tall soldier's elbow pressing into his neck. Westkreuz was the two-level station where the Stadtbahn and national lines crossed over the Ringbahn, and numerous travellers changing lines were busily bumping into each other in the starlit gloom. Russell went downstairs and up again, just in case. It then took him several minutes to find the street exit, and several more to be absolutely sure that Strohm was not lurking in one of the darker corners.

  He settled down to wait, and five minutes later a Ringbahn train pulled in below. Strohm appeared a minute or so later, walking past Russell without a word, but discreetly tugging at his sleeve. Once outside, he walked a short distance down the dark road and stopped. 'We'll wait for a few minutes and go back in,' he said. 'There's nothing for you to see tonight, and the end of a platform's as good a place as any for talking.'

  His voice sounded unusually flat, Russell noticed. Bad news was coming.

  They walked to the furthest end of the eastbound Stadtbahn platform, where a large swathe of Berlin spread darkly away from them under the starry sky. 'The train that left last Monday was scheduled for Riga,' Strohm said quietly. He expelled a small blue cloud of warm breath. 'They're building a new concentration camp there with a capacity of 25,000.'