by Alex Gerlis
The officer nodded to some of his men and they went to the rear of the ambulance. Rolf could hear them opening the door. He and the officer stood silently watching, both smiling politely at the other.
‘Captain, can you come here please?’
The captain went to the back of the ambulance and Rolf could hear some movement and some muttering. When the captain eventually returned he indicated that Rolf should follow him to the other side of the road.
‘Who did you say that guy is?’
‘Hubert Leitner, sir. He’s a very important Austrian politician. He was opposed to the Nazis and has been hiding from them. I was sent to Vienna to rescue him and ensure he’d be on our side. That’s the British side… And the American one, of course.’
The captain eyed Rolf carefully and took his time to open a packet of cigarettes, offering one to Rolf before lighting one himself.
‘I’m afraid he’s dead pal.’
Chapter 29
Vienna, May 1945
Rolf was standing beside a pile of rubble on Franz-Josefs-Kai, his back to the Danube Canal, trying to keep a discreet eye on the large building that dominated the square in front of him.
It was Friday 4th May, a month to the day since he’d fled Vienna with Leitner and now he’d returned alone to the city. He was doing his best to appear inconspicuous: since his arrival in Vienna that morning he’d noticed how quickly Soviet troops press-ganged civilians – no matter how old or young – into clearing the roads and damaged buildings. The large building on Morzinplatz, once the home of the Vienna Gestapo, was now under new management – the new tenants either in plain clothes, not entirely unlike those worn by the Gestapo, or the distinctive dark khaki uniform and green caps of the NKVD regiment. He’d already walked around the building twice, making sure to keep a safe distance. If anywhere held the information he sought, it would be here.
Since the moment he’d been stopped by Captain Henry Steele and his unit from the 5th Infantry Regiment, Rolf had taken the view that his obligation to the British had been fulfilled: Leitner hadn’t fallen into Soviet hands. The elderly Austrian had died, the unit’s doctor had assured him, of natural causes. He’d delivered Leitner to the Allies and if Edgar and Remington-Barber wanted to argue about it, he could always point out that no one had said anything about him being alive when he did so.
Captain Steele was a friendly man, an intellectual with an interest in 19th century German poetry that Rolf didn’t share and an innate curiosity – scepticism even – about what exactly Rolf was up to. ‘Stay with us pal and we’ll put you in touch with British Military Intelligence: they’re further south now but we’ll sort something out.’
Rolf realised Captain Steele didn’t quite believe him, but knew the American had a war to fight and wasn’t going to spend too much of his time keeping what he clearly regarded as a slightly odd Austrian ambulance driver against his will. So after they buried Leitner in a nearby wood the Americans moved on. Rolf filled up the ambulance with some US Army fuel and headed for Vienna. He had a definite purpose in heading east, a journey into uncertainty and almost certainly into danger. Just over a year ago, in a safe house in Zürich, Basil Remington-Barber had introduced him to a German woman who, purely for the purposes of their forthcoming mission would act as his wife. To his surprise, he came to love her more than he thought possible and now his overriding purpose in life was to find her. He’d been devastated when he found out about the death of Frieda. He couldn’t imagine going through the same again and he was prepared to do anything to avoid that.
Rolf had his Gerd Schuster papers on him. If the Russians even suspected he was a British agent he wouldn’t leave the building alive. He knew he was taking an enormous risk, but entering the building was the only way of finding out what had happened to Katharina. He strode purposefully across Morzinplatz up to the main entrance, which was guarded by half a dozen NKVD troops. A one-star Mladshiy Leytenant asked him in German what his business was. ‘I escaped from the Nazis and have been in hiding,’ Rolf told him. ‘My wife was arrested by the Gestapo a month ago – we were in the resistance. I’ve come here to see if you’ve any news of her.’
The officer looked at him sceptically but took him through to a room just inside the entrance and told him to wait, which he did under the eyes of two guards with distinctive Siberian features. After half an hour, a two-star Leytenant appeared and Rolf repeated his story, adding more detail – how they’d lived in an apartment on Ungargasse and he’d worked at Bank Leu, and how both he and his wife had been working to undermine the Nazis… The Leytenant took a few notes and told him to wait. He returned an hour later and took him to a busy open office on the third floor, where a three-star NKVD Starshiy Leytenant asked him to repeat his story through an interpreter, a thin, sickly-looking woman with unusual tattoo of numbers on her forearm. It was noisy and the interpreter had to raise her voice for the Starshiy Leytenant to hear her. ‘He wants you to tell him the name of your wife again.’
‘Anna Schuster.’
‘Pardon? Please speak louder. Also, you should address him as comrade.’
‘Anna Schuster, comrade,’ he said loudly.
She repeated Anna’s name, almost having to shout it. Rolf noticed the Starshiy Leytenant now seemed distracted, looking beyond him. At the same time Rolf became aware of a presence behind him and the NKVD officer leapt to attention.
‘Kommissar General, Sir!’
As Rolf heard a voice say, ‘It’s alright comrade Starshiy Leytenant. Leave him to me: we’ll go into my office.’
Rolf turned around now to face a large man, his right arm in a sling. ‘Come with me,’ said Viktor in good German and a not altogether unfriendly voice.
***
Viktor had been minutes from death when he’d collapsed in Irma’s hallway after being shot by Rolf. Irma couldn’t shift him, but she could tell from the state of his shirt and the pool of blood forming beneath him how serious his injury was. He was deathly pale and his pulse very weak. She covered him with a blanket and ran down to an apartment on the second floor. She had to bang on the door for a few minutes before it opened, no more than an inch or two. ‘Frau Bock, you must fetch your husband immediately! There’s an emergency in my apartment.’
‘My husband is asleep – and he’s retired, you know that. He’s an old man.’
Irma shoved the door open, pushing a startled Frau Bock into the hall. Her husband was standing in the bedroom doorway, wrapping a dressing gown around himself. ‘Herr Doctor Bock, there’s a man dying upstairs,’ she said. ‘You must come up now. You’ll need to bring your medical bag with you.’
The elderly doctor worked on Viktor for two hours. With the help of Frau Bock they managed to get him on to Irma’s bed and eventually the doctor stabilised him. He took Irma into the lounge. ‘He’s been shot you know.’
‘I guessed,’ said Irma.
‘Who is he Irma? Is this dangerous?’
Irma had known the Bocks for many years, long enough to doubt they’d ever been Nazis. She calculated it was worth taking the risk to trust him, a decision emboldened by the sound of approaching Soviet gunfire.
‘All you need to know is that this man is certainly not a Nazi and nor is he German or Austrian. Saving his life could also save yours when the Soviets arrive.’
The doctor had raised his eyebrows, part in interest and part in fear: he understood. ‘He needs surgery to remove the bullet and a blood transfusion – he’s very ill.’
‘That’s impossible, we can’t move him.’
‘He looks like a strong man.’
‘He’s the strongest man I know.’
‘Well, he’s going to need to be.’
Doctor Bock remained with Viktor day and night for the next week as he slowly recovered his health. He managed to prevent him developing a fever, though he remained very ill. The fighting outside became so intense that none of them ventured out of the apartment block. On the 12th April it sounded as if they were
in the very eye of the battle: at one stage they heard the main entrance door to the apartment block crash open followed by a burst of gunfire. Irma allowed herself a peek out of the lounge window: the bodies of half a dozen German soldiers were strewn across the small square and she saw what she assumed were Red Army troops running along the side.
That night Irma lay next to Viktor on the bed: he was awake most of the time now, though still in pain. He held her in his arms, smiling tenderly at her and leaning over to kiss her on the forehead. She was surprised the apartment block was still standing. Even though the bedroom window was covered up they could still see the flashes of explosions. ‘We ought to tell the Bocks to go back to their apartment, they’ve been wonderful,’ she said.
‘No, they’ll be safer here, with me,’ said Viktor. ‘I’m afraid that some of our troops will behave very badly.’
By the following morning the fighting seemed to have abated in their area and, from what they could hear, the battle was now being fought over the Danube, to the east. That evening, the 13th, a silence descended upon the city, as if someone had flicked a switch. Viktor wrote a note in Russian that they attached to the door of the apartment and waited. For two days they heard nothing other than occasional shouting in the streets, sporadic gunfire and the odd explosion.
‘I’ll go out,’ announced Viktor.
‘Impossible,’ said Doctor Bock. ‘You’ll collapse before you reach the bottom of the stairs.’
So they agreed Frau Bock would go out with a letter. Irma had insisted it should be her, but Viktor was adamant. ‘You’re too young, too attractive,’ he whispered to her when the Bocks were out of the room.
‘There’ll be two types of troops out there,’ he told Frau Bock. ‘Regular Red Army and NKVD. Look for NKVD: they wear darker uniforms and the officers have dark-green caps. Give this letter to an officer.’
‘What does it say?’
‘It says I’m a senior Soviet officer who’s been badly injured and that you’re sheltering me in a nearby apartment. It also says they’ll need you to take them to me.’
‘Will they believe it?’
‘Let’s find out.’
Frau Bock only had to walk as far as Wiedner Hauptstrasse. The NKVD patrol looked amused as she handed the letter to the officer, who read it slowly. When one of the troops sidled up to Frau Bock and tried to put his hand inside her coat the officer shouted at him and the man sprang back. There were more barked instructions then Frau Bock was helped into a jeep and driven to the apartment.
They rushed Viktor to a hospital commandeered by the Red Army and two soldiers were left at Irma’s apartment to guard her and the Bocks. The NKVD officer even ensured food was brought to them.
Before going under anaesthetic, Viktor had insisted on speaking confidentially to the most senior NKVD officer around and a one-star Kommissar General was brought to his bedside. Anyone watching the hushed conversation would have observed how it began with the General adopting a superior air. By the end of it he was deferring to Viktor and nodding his head obediently.
Two days after the operation Viktor woke from a nap in his private room to find a familiar figure sitting alongside him. ‘The surgeons say you’re lucky to be alive,’ said Ilia Brodsky.
‘So are you, I’d imagine,’ said Viktor, gingerly pushing himself into a sitting position, still groggy and in pain.
‘I’m alright for the time being, Stalin still needs his Jews,’ the rabbi’s grandson laughed. ‘Apparently the bullet just missed something called the subclavian artery: if it’d hit it, I’d have been thinking about what posthumous decoration to recommend you for.’
‘Hero of the Soviet Union, I hope!’
Both men laughed before Brodsky adopted a more serious tone. Tell me everything.
Viktor explained how, acting on Brodsky’s instructions, he’d informed on Anna Schuster to the Gestapo then followed Rolf as he headed first to Ungargasse then to Obere Augartenstrasse in Leopoldstadt. You were right comrade; he did lead us to Leitner. Brodsky nodded; none of this was a surprise to him. Viktor told how he’d seen Leitner being taken into the ambulance and how he’d tried to stop it, but had been shot by Rolf.
‘I failed comrade, I’m sorry,’ said Viktor. ‘I’d no idea he had a gun.’
Brodsky waved away Viktor’s apology. ‘It was what – two weeks ago? If Leitner was with the British or the Americans by now then I think we’d have known about it’.
Viktor agreed. ‘They drove off into the battle comrade. I doubt they’d have got very far. With some luck they’ll both be dead; at least the other side won’t have him.’
‘Maybe, maybe… We have Vienna, so we can control Austria… But if Leitner turns up with the other side… That’ll all change.’ Brodsky shook his head: a prospect too terrible to even think about.
Brodsky stood up and patted Viktor affectionately on his left shoulder. ‘The doctors say you’ll be up and about in a couple of days. We’ve taken over the Gestapo headquarters at Morzinplatz: you go there and be my eyes and ears, alright? And congratulations by the way comrade: you’re going to be a three-star Kommissar General. I didn’t want anyone else in the NKVD outranking you in Vienna.’
***
Rolf followed Viktor to an elegantly furnished office overlooking the Danube Canal. Two NKVD guards had come with them but Viktor dismissed them, instructing them to bring coffee. ‘The Gestapo had a fine supply of real coffee: you look like you could do with some.’
Viktor said nothing as the guard served the drinks then sat behind the fine wooden desk and looked long and hard at Rolf.
‘What language shall we talk in?’
Rolf shrugged: he really wasn’t sure whether Viktor recognised him as the man who’d shot him.
‘I assume you don’t speak Russian?’ said Viktor. ‘Would you prefer to speak English or French maybe? My French is very good, my English less so. I have some other European languages too…’
‘German is fine,’ replied Rolf.
‘And now you’ll tell me your name and for whom you work.’
‘Gerd Schuster,’ said Rolf. ‘I have the necessary papers with me. I’m a Swiss citizen and work for Bank Leu here in Vienna, though whether that…’
Viktor was holding out his left arm in a ‘stop’ gesture.
‘Please, please, please… I know you work for British intelligence: I’ve seen you in Zürich and I know you were here in Vienna to find Hubert Leitner. I want to know everything: where Leitner is; your real name; who you work for; who your contacts are.’
‘I told you: my name’s Gerd Schuster and I work for Bank Leu. I actually work for them in Zürich but was posted here last year.’
‘Don’t think I’m a fool!’ The Russian sounded furious. He’d removed his switchblade knife from a pocket and was banging it on the desk. ‘Many people have found that a costly mistake to make. A month ago, you shot me. You nearly killed me, which means you attempted to murder a senior officer in Soviet Intelligence during the military operation to defeat the Nazis. I could have you shot now, no question about it. Or I could have you put on a plane to Moscow today and put on trial there. Or you can start telling me the truth. For instance, I know full well your real name is Rolf Eder: correct?’
Rolf remained silent but found himself nodding. He was unsure of what the current relationship was between the British and the Russians, even though they were meant to be on the same side. Certainly the Americans he’d met didn’t seem to trust the Russians very much, but maybe the British would be better disposed towards then.
‘Or maybe you’re a German agent, some clever ruse by the Nazis to leave spies behind after they were defeated?’
‘Of course not!’
‘How do I know that? Maybe that’s why you shot me.’
‘I’ve been working against the Nazis.’
‘Why should I believe that?’
‘Because my… wife, Anna… She was arrested by the Gestapo. It happened on the same day the Sovi
et Offensive began. If I was a Nazi spy I’d hardly have turned up here. I came to find out what happened to my wife.’
Viktor had flicked open his knife and was examining the tip of the blade. He continued to do so as he spoke. ‘I know.’
‘You know what?’
‘I know Anna Schuster was arrested by the Gestapo.’
‘And how would you know that?’
‘Because it was me who informed on her.’
Neither man blinked, neither man stopped looking at the other, neither spoke. It was almost as if during that period of absolute silence the sun dropped and Vienna went dark and silent.
‘You – you told the Gestapo about her?’
Viktor nodded, twirling the knife in his hand.
‘Why on earth…’
‘… So you’d lead me to Leitner.’
‘And why are you admitting all this to me?’
‘I told you. Because I told the Gestapo about her.’
***
Come back tomorrow morning. You’ll tell me what happened to Hubert Leitner and in return I’ll try to find out what happened to Anna Schuster. The Nazis destroyed some records before they left, but not many and certainly not the most recent ones. They’ll take time to track down, but I should know by tomorrow: but remember this – I’ll only tell you once you tell me the truth about Leitner.
Rolf had no choice but to agree. He walked through Innere Stadt to Bank Leu on Schubertring, but it was now little more than a bombed-out shell. He was stopped a couple of times by Red Army troops, but Viktor had given him a letter, allowing him free passage for 24 hours.
From Schubertring he carried on to Ungargasse. He found the spare key in its hiding place, taped to the top of the landing window frame. The apartment had been ransacked, no doubt in the Gestapo raid when they came for Katharina. All the drawers and cupboards had been emptied, the bed was on its side, clothes were strewn over the floor and a few cans of food rolled around in the kitchen. He moved a few things around and found to his amazement there was some hot water. He’d have a bath, change into clean clothes, eat and rest. He sank to his knees in the kitchen and began to sort out the mess, feeling if not exactly optimistic then that he was at least getting somewhere. As he bent down, he became aware of a presence behind him, light footsteps then a long shadow cast over the kitchen.