by Ben Pastor
Lattmann sat on a stack of boxes dangling his legs. When Bora was done with his phone call he gave him a thoughtful look. “It’s a lucky thing Mayr is in the political doghouse. If he weren’t he’d have your ass for doing what you just did.”
“As it is, he’ll be grateful I didn’t sic the State Police on him. He’s involved in this by association, whether he knew it or not. All I actually got out of him is that Weller may be open to blackmail. Under blackmail you’re prone to do anything. If you ‘lost your nerve’ besides, and hanker to go home, you can be manoeuvred.”
“By whom? Not the Central Security Office!”
“Why ‘Not the Central Security Office’? Weller was given security clearance, wasn’t he? Mantau isn’t told everything that goes on.”
“No more than you or I are told on our side. And if they wanted to deprive us of Khan by wiping him out, why would they kill Platonov too?”
Bora washed down the vodka with a long drink of water from his canteen. “Thanks for helping, Bruno. I have to get going. This is in hope they didn’t monitor the conversation, because I’m likely to be preceded by the SS to Kiev. Whatever role they play in this story, I wouldn’t give a fig for Weller’s life then.” He turned back from the door. “Wait. That gives me an idea. It’s better if they know we know, just in case: it’ll keep them from doing something blatantly stupid. Get me Mantau in any way you can.”
It was fortuitous that Lattmann found the Gestapo officer at the same radio frequency, given that Sonderkommando 4a was branching out and redeploying those days.
Mantau’s comment at Bora’s news came quick and sour. “Should I be impressed, Major? Of course you know who the man really is: you sent him.”
“For God’s sake, I did not send him. And if we don’t act quickly, he’ll be leaving Ukraine tomorrow morning.”
More explanation had to follow before Mantau grasped the urgency of the situation. “What time is the train departing Kiev, and from which station exactly?” he asked then. “Our people there can detain the locomotive at the platform if necessary, even if it’s a troop transport.”
The boast was welcome, for a change. “You do that, Hauptsturmführer. The Vinnitsa–Konotop train is expected to leave at 11 a.m. from Kiev’s Central Station. With a bit of luck, by that time I’ll be in town myself.”
Lattmann’s wiry crew cut was beaded with sweat. He let his teeth clack around the pipe shaft while Bora, standing on the doorstep, put on his prize Ray-Bans against the merciless low sun and prepared to drive away. “I hope you know what you’re doing, Martin.”
“I don’t. I’ll have to figure it out as I go along. If Weller was present when both generals died, he’s likely to be the sole executioner. His timely disappearance en route to a sudden assignment, the circumstance of his false documents… too elaborate: it smacks of a larger plan. You’re right; it may be too large for me to handle. But what choice do I have? They expect me to solve this at headquarters, and I can’t let too many people in on it.”
“If Weller is your man, for whatever reason and at whomever’s orders he’s being shipped to Germany, he didn’t believe for a moment that he was accidentally bumped from Sunday’s train. He’s aware he may be under watch. We monitored no calls from Hospital 169 to him, but I wouldn’t count on Weller waiting for the next transport at his regular billet, for example. And Kiev’s a big place.”
“Who is head of police in Kiev?”
“Major Stunde of the Schupo. I think there’s a Captain Pfahl heading the Ukrainian auxiliary units.”
“Since all those en route to Germany from Kiev are temporarily housed in the Solomenka district, this reduces the playing field. Let’s hope police units aren’t too obvious, not to speak of the local auxiliaries: we don’t want to spook Weller. How much discretion does your friend at the Kiev Branch Office have?”
“Enough to keep an eye on departing trains, but at Solomenka it’ll have to be Schupo or Gestapo. You’re off? Hey – wait a second, you didn’t say a word on how the patrolling went!”
Bora smiled a little. “Ivan played Leonidas to my Immortals. But they didn’t expect us, and it’s just the beginning.”
In the afterglow, towering clouds fanned into tumultuous, hammer-shaped heads across the western sky, a promise of thunderstorms down Kiev’s way. In the basic but reliable GAZ vehicle Bora covered the thirty-something kilometres from Borovoye to Kharkov only to find von Salomon, who was to debrief him, reclining in his chair with a wet towel over his eyes. “It’ll have to wait until the morning, Major, as we’re flying to the ceremony.”
Bora saluted sarcastically, and left the office. Had he known this he’d have spent the night at Merefa, where it was now too dark to travel. A fortunate intuition had made him take along to Borovoye his change, best uniform, medals, all he needed for the trip to Kiev, on his way to Operation Thermopylae. So he had everything with him, and prepared himself to settle for any horizontal surface at headquarters (even the floor would do) to sleep. He was actually exhausted, “running on fumes”, as he’d later note in his diary; a wooden bench in the hallway seemed luxurious enough to lie down on, even though he couldn’t stretch his full length, and in the morning he discovered he’d fallen off it without even waking up.
THURSDAY 27 MAY
The Kiev-bound officers were expected at the Kharkov Aerodrome in time to leave at 6 a.m. on a Ju-52 that had seen better days. Bora’s travel companions included Lieutenant Colonel von Salomon representing ID 161, two members of the 7th Panzer about to receive the German Cross in Gold at the same ceremony, and a major general being repatriated for health reasons. Fighters due to escort the transport plane waited on the runway, their pilots drinking coffee and playing with small hairy dogs.
As they idled near the aircraft, a tense von Salomon enquired about the weather in Kiev. “Oh, I think there’s a thunderstorm between here and there, Herr Oberstleutnant,” answered the co-pilot light-heartedly. “We’ll dance a bit.” Bora recognized the amused contempt towards landlubbers on the part of one who loves to fly, because it was also Peter’s.
Bora didn’t care about the weather. He did worry about the timing, though. While not as old as the one Bentivegni had flown in weeks earlier, the Junkers (formerly a glider tug in Crete, as its nose art went to prove) could take up to three hours to cover the distance to Kiev. Besides, the major general and his recurring ulcer were running late, and while everyone else in the group felt no hurry because the ceremony was scheduled for “16.00 hours sharp”, Bora grew silently anxious about catching Weller before the Vinnitsa train pulled in at Kiev Central. Still they waited. The fighter pilots had time to go back to the grassy edge of the runway and toss sticks for their dogs to catch; the westerly thunderheads mounted and spread into an unhealthy-looking rampart, in a repeat of the day Bentivegni had been delayed on the way to Kharkov. Bora fidgeted, trying not to show his discomfort. Not that anyone was paying attention to him: the award recipients beamed in anticipation; pilot and co-pilot stood around chewing on unlit cigars; von Salomon drank from a metal flask too small to contain water.
As God willed, the major general came in at 6.30 a.m., riding to the runway in a staff car black and slick like a whale calf. With him arrived his aide, an excess of luggage and boxed souvenirs, plus a case of first-rate vodka (“That’ll do wonders for his ulcer,” Bora overheard the pilot comment under his breath). The general distributed fine cigars to the officers – two each to those about to be honoured – and climbed the short ladder into the plane. While the escort fighters taxied into position and prepared to take off one after the other, the rest of the passengers reached their seats. Bora, in watchful Abwehr fashion, was the last to climb on board, and seized the moment to hand his cigars to the young airman waiting to remove the ladder.
It turned out that von Solomon didn’t like air travel. The decision to schedule the debriefing today was an excuse to distract himself during the bumpy flight. The moment they gained altitude, the elderly pla
ne began to oblige the co-pilot by “dancing”. More than once it hit air pockets and dropped for a few interminable seconds, which turned the colonel’s knuckles white on the armrests. Bora did all he could not to check his wristwatch, to avoid giving the impression that he, too, feared flying.
With contrary winds, the Junkers came in sight of sunny Kiev four hours later, having made a wide deviation to avoid the worst of the thunderstorm, and circled over the city before the pilot felt comfortable to approach the Borispol landing field from the west. Fifteen minutes more and it would be 11 a.m., the time when the Vinnitsa train was due to leave Kiew Hauptbahnhof. Bora could only rely on the Gestapo’s ability (or willingness) to block it at the platform, as Mantau had promised. Under the plane drifted the north-western suburbs of the city, battered by the 1941 battle; the empty fields and scarred upheaval of the ravine by the deserted Jewish cemetery rolled by, as did other graveyards and parks. As they flew low over the Dnieper, Bora saw people basking on the island’s river beach, a sign that even in a city largely depopulated and under severe German administration life went on somehow. Girls in bright bathing suits lay on the shingle, German soldiers in black shorts lazing by their side. Even in his preoccupied mindset, Bora felt a sting of foreknowledge and envious regret: Dikta and I will never be like that; there’s nothing like it in store for us.
Borispol actually lay at least forty-five minutes from Kiev, on the east bank of the Dnieper, and they would have to drive downtown. The worst news was that the cars expected to pick up the officers were not at the airfield. Not even an angry tiff on the part of the major general (himself in no special hurry, but generals aren’t made to wait) changed the truth of the matter. It was now past eleven. The escort fighters did a flyover and nosed back towards the storm. There would be no air protection for those returning to Kharkov the day after now that the highest-ranking passenger had been safely deposited in Kiev.
Upon discovering that official transportation was lacking, Bora tried to find other means by which he could reach the city. Whether they suspected he was acting on the general’s behalf or not, the airfield folks were not sympathetic. No one could spare a vehicle or the fuel to make it go. Bora seethed and tried to keep calm at the same time. If the Gestapo did its part in Kiev, they might be holding up the train’s departure, although it was unlikely they could delay at will troops bound for deployment. And he couldn’t swear by Mantau’s brag or promises, which heightened his anxiety.
Finally, at 11.28 a.m., the passengers were able to pile up inside a pre-Purge Soviet GAZ-03 staff bus and start for the city. Masonry and rail bridges being destroyed, they crossed the Dnieper over a pontoon bridge. Beyond, the high wooded cliff where Old Kiev stood with its surviving cupolas and sunlit spires resembled a storybook island, although Bora knew all too well the evidence of war behind it. The award ceremony’s lead, General Kempf, would be landing with Peter about now. Flying by choice in an inconspicuous Henschel reconnaissance plane, capable of covering the distance from Poltava to Kiev in an hour, he’d selected the Gostomel airstrip, north of the city and closer to it.
Bora’s group was bound for a hotel in what had been the banking and mercantile district before the Revolution, when it had been called the Europa. Near a riverside park formerly known as Proletarsky, and Merchant’s Park at the turn of the century, the establishment presented the advantages of being downtown but easily reached from Gostomel, and at the farthest end of Kiev’s demolished Kreshchatyk Street. Even so, the major general made his own billeting arrangements. He had stayed away from Russian hotels ever since the day in 1941 when the Reds blew up a square mile of officers’ lodgings on Kreshchatyk, now appropriately called Eichhornstrasse after the Prussian commander assassinated in Kiev in World War I.
12.15 p.m. Bora literally dropped his scant luggage in the lobby and commandeered the GAZ-03 to Kiev Central Station, a good three kilometres of zigzags across aged French-looking boulevards and blocks of modern housing reduced to rubble. Vegetables grew in the flowerbeds, drinking places for the troops opened at every street corner, cement pillboxes and consignment stores alternated with bolted doorways and broken windows; a babel of street signs in German pointed to headquarters, hospitals, theatres. Bora urged the driver to go faster than he realistically could.
“We’re getting there, Herr Major.”
In peacetime Kiev Central, with its exotic tent-like central body, had represented the best and worst of Ukrainian Baroque. It had been added on to throughout the years, and now it also showed the wear and tear of seven hundred days of war. It read, starkly black on its masonry, KIEW HBF.
Hurrying inside, Bora saw no sign of a train on the rails and conceded he’d got there far too late. After all, it was nearly half past noon. Soldiers with dogs on leashes patrolled the platform, a usual sight; he recognized the Hungarian military police and – for all of their plain clothes – Gestapo operatives as well. Obviously they hadn’t kept the troop transport from leaving. Had they at least detained Arnim Weller? He struggled not to give in to his frustration as he walked to the stationmaster’s office.
The reply from the German official heartened him at once. Due to a “technical glitch” (this usually meant trouble on the line because of partisan activity), the train from Vinnitsa was travelling with a two-hour delay. It was now expected to reach Kiev at 1 p.m. and depart half an hour later. Bora also learnt that passengers due to reach Germany would have to get off the train at the junction before Konotop, where the line intersected the railroad to Gomel–Bobruisk–Minsk–Vilna–Kovno–Königsberg.
It was a welcome breather. Bora stepped out of the office and was at once acutely aware of all that surrounded him – temperature, sounds, odours – because the game was still on. He approached a Gestapo plain-clothes man, who didn’t expect to be recognized in his Ukrainian labourer garb and reacted sourly. He changed his tune after Bora had identified himself and his errand. Yes, he said, those due for repatriation were still in the waiting room. “They came in time to catch the 11.00 train. Given the delay, some of them could have decided to leave the station and return later. We had orders, so we kept them here. There are thirty-two of them, from Army Groups South and Centre. We were given two names to look out for: Weller and Lutz, but the man isn’t here. There’s a chance he heard there’d be a delay and he’ll be arriving for the 13.00 departure.”
Bora inhaled deeply to keep from losing hope again. In the air there was an odour of boiled sausage, warm metal roofs, peeling paint. Scraggy weeds grew out of the ballast between the tracks. The Solomenka district wasn’t far from here. On his stepfather’s 1918 map, which he carried among his many charts, it looked like a built-in outgrowth of the railroad in a green area bounded by a graveyard and the barracks of the military schools. A settlement on its way to becoming a city neighbourhood, Sichnyevka was its name now, but they all called it by the old name out of habit.
First, however, he had better talk to those in the waiting room. There at a glance he’d had confirmation that Weller was not sitting among them. Asked about him, those who’d shared the same housing with the medic had little to say: on the silent side, kept to himself. They assumed that for whatever reason he hadn’t yet reached the station, he’d arrive as the time of departure drew close. Bora had his doubts. The Gestapo plain-clothes man was right: no home-bound soldier – and especially not Weller – would risk missing a train by not being at the station well in advance, as you never know where and how the next one will arrive in wartime.
Across the tracks, a handful of former settlements (Solomenka, First of May, Olexandrovskaya Sloboda) flanked a long road that went to die in the fields four or five kilometres away. The workers’ housing across from the Hungarian barracks, now a dormitory for transiting servicemen, was run by garrison administration non-coms. There Bora heard that Master Sergeant Weller had reported in the night before, as he’d done on previous nights. He’d left at 8 a.m., on foot like the others due to take today’s transport for Germany.
“Did they all leave so early? The train wouldn’t start out before eleven.”
“No, sir. Some waited until 09.00 before heading for the station. At most. Anxious as they all were to get home, Herr Major, none wanted to risk missing the transport. And Master Sergeant Weller had been left behind on Sunday, so you know he’d make sure he was there on time.”