by Philip Kerr
Oster froze as he heard the muffled sound of Russian voices. At the same time, he saw, in close-up, Shkvarzev’s hand tightening on his submachine gun. The German could hardly blame him for not wanting to be taken alive. A particularly harsh fate was said to await all of Vlasov’s Zeppelin volunteers: something special devised by Beria himself, at Stalin’s express order. Oster didn’t much care if Churchill and Roosevelt survived the explosion, but the prospect of killing Stalin was something else again. There wasn’t a German on the eastern front who wouldn’t have risked his life for a chance to kill Stalin. Lots of Oster’s friends and even one or two relatives had been in Stalingrad and were now dead—or worse, in Soviet POW camps. Stalin’s assassination was something any German officer would be proud of.
The plan was almost too straightforward. Every morning two Iranians set off with a water cart from the U.S. embassy and traveled some two miles across the city to the British embassy to fill a Furphy with pure water. With some of the British gold sovereigns Oster had brought from Vinnica, it was a simple matter to buy off the two Iranians. On Tuesday morning, Oster and Shkvarzev, disguised as locals, would drive two Furphys onto the grounds of the embassy. If they were asked about having two, Oster would tell the British that more water was required because of the visit of President Roosevelt’s delegation. According to the two water carriers bribed by Ebtehaj, the British water supply appeared underneath the roof of the embassy building in an ornamental dome with honeycomb tracery and a pool of water tiled in blue—what the French called a rond-point. The rond-point appeared on the other side of the embassy’s kitchen wall. The harness of the Furphy carrying the bomb would be disabled, necessitating its temporary abandonment. The bomb would then be armed using a cheap Westclox “Big Ben” alarm clock—which to Oster seemed only appropriate—an Eveready B103 radio battery, an electrical blasting cap, and three pounds of plastic explosive. Oster and Shkvarzev would then leave the embassy with one Furphy filled with water and, having left the second Furphy behind, the two men would use both cart horses and ride fifteen miles to Kan, where Ebtehaj would be waiting with a truck-load of roasted pistachios. They would then make the 400-mile journey to the Turkish border. By the time the bomb went off, Oster hoped to be in a neutral country.
Oster thought that if the plan did have a fault, it was that it seemed too simple. He spoke some Persian, and a little English, and since neither he nor Shkvarzev had washed or shaved since their arrival in Iran, he didn’t doubt that in the right clothes they could easily pass for locals. At least as far as the British were concerned. If all went to plan, they would arm the bomb at around nine A.M. and, twelve hours later, just as Churchill’s birthday guests were sitting down to dinner, it would go off. And while Oster did not think this would win the war, it would be enough to force an armistice. That had to be worth any amount of risk.
Oster finally heard Jomat shout that the Russians had left and, breathing a sigh of relief, he and the others began to struggle out from under the pistachios. He did not think that they would be so lucky again. With forty-eight hours still to go before he and Shkvarzev could put their plan into action, it was going to be all they could do to keep their nerve and sit it out.
0800 HOURS
THE AMIRABAD U.S. Army base was close to the Gale Morghe Airport, yet despite the noise of American C-54s arriving throughout the night, carrying matériel for the Russian war effort, I slept extremely well. This was easy. I had a proper bed, instead of a wooden pallet next to an open slops bucket. And the door of my room had a key I was allowed to keep. Like most army camps, the accommodations and facilities at Amirabad were basic. That was just fine with me, too. After three nights as the guest of the Cairo police, the camp felt like the Plaza. I saw a couple of army football teams practicing their plays on a field of mud. But there was little time to see if they were any good. Not that I cared very much either way. I wouldn’t have known a good football team from the choir at the Mount Zion United Methodist Church. After a hurried breakfast of coffee and scrambled eggs, a jeep took Bohlen and me not to the American legation, as before, but to the Russian embassy.
Beyond its heavily guarded exterior walls, the main part of the embassy was a square building of light-brown stone set in a small park. On its front was a handsome portico with white Doric columns and, behind these, six arched French windows. In the distance I saw fountains, a small lake, and several other villas, one of them now occupied by Stalin and Molotov, his foreign commissar, and all of them closely guarded by yet more Russian troops armed with submachine guns.
The president was already in official residence in the main building, having been smuggled into the embassy in the early hours of the morning. But as far as most people other than the Joint Chiefs and the Secret Service knew, he was still at the American legation. Bohlen and I found Roosevelt seated alongside Hopkins, who was perched on the edge of a two-seater leather sofa in a small drawing room at the back of the residence.
On the floor was a new Persian rug with a peacock motif that matched the light blue curtains; behind the president’s shoulder was an ornate table lamp and, to the side, a huge oil-fired radiator. Clearly the Russians had tried to make Roosevelt comfortable, but the general effect was as if the interior decorator had been Joseph Stalin himself.
Reilly came into the room, closing the door behind him.
“Marshall and Arnold?” asked Roosevelt.
“No, sir,” said Reilly.
“Churchill?”
Reilly shook his head.
“Fuck,” said Roosevelt. “Fuck! . . . So who are we waiting for?”
“Admiral Leahy, sir.”
Roosevelt caught sight of Bohlen and me and motioned us to sit.
I saw that Hopkins had Reichleitner’s Beketovka File on his lap. He patted the file. “Explosive stuff,” he said to me as Roosevelt began to curse Generals Marshall and Arnold yet again. “But I’m sure you’ll understand why we can’t act on any of this.”
I nodded. In truth I had seen this coming.
“Not right now. For the same reason we couldn’t do anything about the Katyn Forest massacre.”
And then he handed the file back to me.
The door opened again and Leahy came into the room, followed closely by Agent Pawlikowski, who took up a position of vigilance between me and the door. To my left, I had a pretty good view of the president. And to my right, I had an equally good view of Pawlikowski, which was how I came to notice that one of his jacket’s three buttons was different from the other two.
I looked away so as not to arouse suspicion. When I looked back again, I knew there could be no doubt about it. The button was plain black, whereas the other two looked like tortoise-shell. The original button was missing. But was it the same as the one I had seen on the floor in Elena’s bedroom? It was hard to be sure.
“Thanks for coming, Bill,” Roosevelt said to Leahy. “Well, it looks like this is it.”
“Yes, sir, it does,” said Leahy.
“Any last reservations?”
“No, sir,” said Leahy. “What about Winston?”
Roosevelt shook his head bitterly.
“Stubborn old bastard,” said Leahy.
“Fuck him,” shrugged Hopkins. “We don’t need him for this. In fact, it’s probably best he’s not here. Besides, in the long run, he’ll come around. You’ll see. He has no choice but to do what we do. Any other position would be untenable.”
“I sure hope you’re right,” said Roosevelt.
There was a moment or two of silence, during which time I sought another look at Pawlikowski. It was much cooler in Teheran than in Cairo, but I couldn’t help but notice that the Secret Service agent was sweating heavily. He mopped his brow with a handkerchief several times, and as he raised his arm I caught sight of the .45-caliber automatic in the shoulder holster beneath his jacket. Then he caught me looking at him.
“I couldn’t bum a cigarette off you, could I?” I asked him. “I left mine back at Amirabad.�
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Pawlikowksi said nothing, just dipped his hand into his coat pocket and took out a pack of Kools. He knocked one out for me and then lit it.
“Thanks.” I was now quite certain Pawlikowski was my man. And who better than a Polish-American to assassinate Stalin? But even as I pictured Pawlikowski in the radio room at Elena’s house, I heard Roosevelt speaking to me.
“With Churchill and two of my Joint Chiefs sulking in their tents, I can’t afford any more losses in this negotiating team. Not now. And especially not you boys. You are my ears and my voice. Without you, this would be over before it even got started. So whatever happens, I want both of you to make a personal promise that you won’t duck out on me. I want your word that you’ll see this through, no matter how repugnant you might find your duties as translators. Especially you, Willard, since the major part of what happens today is going to fall on your shoulders. And I must also apologize for keeping you both in the dark. But here’s the thing. If we get this morning right, I believe the world will thank us. But if we screw up, it’ll be the dirtiest secret in the history of this conflict. Perhaps of all time.”
“I won’t desert you, Mr. President,” I said, still wondering what the hell this was all about. “You have my word on it.”
“Mine, too, sir,” said Bohlen.
Roosevelt nodded and then spun his chair into action. “All right. Let’s do this.”
Pawlikowski leaped to open the door for his boss, but instead of turning toward the main door of the residence, Roosevelt propelled himself toward the end of the corridor, where Mike Reilly was already grappling with a heavy steel door. I followed the president’s small party through it and down a long slope. It felt as if we were going into a bomb shelter.
Pawlikowski caught up with me and we walked down the corridor. I thought to tell him that I was on to him, if only as a deterrent, but he suddenly accelerated forward to open another door that led into yet another corridor, this one level and almost fifty yards long. It was well lit and seemed recently constructed.
We reached a third door, this one guarded by two uniformed NKVD who, seeing the president, came to attention smartly, the heels of their jackboots clicking loudly. Then one of them turned and knocked three times. The door swung open slowly, and Pawlikowski and Reilly led our small party into the vast round room that lay beyond.
There were no windows inside that room, which was as big as a tennis court and lit by an enormous brass light that hung over a Camelot-sized round table with a green baize cover.
Around the table were two rings of chairs: the inner ring, fifteen ornate mahogany chairs upholstered in a Persian-patterned silk; the outer ring, twelve smaller chairs, on each of which lay a notepad and a pencil. The room itself was guarded by ten NKVD men positioned at regular intervals around the tapestry-covered walls, stoic and unmoving, like so many suits of armor. Roosevelt’s Secret Service agents took up positions between the NKVD guards along the same circular wall.
Sixty seconds later, I hardly noticed any of this. Sixty seconds later I hardly noticed Stalin, or Molotov, or Beria, or Voroshilov, his Red Army field marshal. Sixty seconds later, even Pawlikowski was forgotten. Sixty seconds later, as I stared openmouthed at the man coming through a door on the opposite side of the chamber, and then at the others who accompanied him, I wouldn’t have noticed if Betty Grable had climbed onto my lap and stripped down to her ankle-strap platforms.
In any other circumstances I might have assumed it was a joke. Except that the man was now advancing on Roosevelt with an outstretched hand, wearing a smile on his face as if he were actually pleased to see the president of a country on which he had personally declared war.
The man was Adolf Hitler.
0830 HOURS
“JESUS CHRIST,” I muttered.
“Get a grip on yourself,” Roosevelt murmured and then shook the outstretched hand in front of him. Acting almost automatically, I started to translate Hitler’s first words to the president. It was all now quite clear: how it was that Harry Hopkins and Donovan could have been so adamant that the Germans were not planning to assassinate the Big Three at Teheran, for example; and why Churchill, and very likely Marshall and Arnold, too, were “sulking in their tents.”
Not the very least of what I now understood quite clearly was why Roosevelt had asked me along in the first place, for of course he needed a fluent speaker of German who had also demonstrated himself to be what the president had called “a Realpolitiker,” someone who was prepared to keep his mouth shut for the sake of some supposed greater good. That “greater good” was now all too apparent to me: Roosevelt and Stalin intended talking peace with the Führer.
“The British prime minister is not here,” said Hitler, whose speaking voice was much softer than the one I knew from German radio broadcasts. “Am I to assume that he will not be joining us?”
“I’m afraid not,” said Roosevelt. “At least not for the present.”
“A great pity,” said Hitler. “I should like to have met him.”
“There may yet be an opportunity for that, Herr Hitler,” said Roosevelt. “Let us hope so, anyway.”
Hitler glanced around as his own translator appeared behind his shoulder to interpret the president’s words. It was my chance to take another quick look around the room, just in time to see Molotov shaking hands with von Ribbentrop, Stalin speaking to Harry Hopkins through Bohlen, and the various plainclothes SS men grouped around Himmler, who was smiling broadly as if delighted that things were off to a reasonably amicable start.
“Your Mr. Cordell Hull has asked me to assure you that he is quite well,” said Hitler. “And that he is being well looked after. Also the Russian commissar of foreign trade, Mr. Mikoyan.”
I made the translation, and seeing me frown while I spoke, Roosevelt thought to provide me with a short explanation of what the Führer had just said: “Cordell Hull is in Berlin,” he told me. “As a hostage for the Führer’s safe return home.”
Everything seemed to be falling into place now—even the reason the secretary of state had not been invited to the Big Three.
Hitler walked over to Stalin, who was a little shorter than Hitler and resembled a small, tubby bear. All the pictures I had seen of Stalin had created the illusion of a much taller man, and I guessed that these must have been taken from a lower level. When Stalin lit a cigarette, I also noticed his left arm was lame and slightly deformed, like the kaiser’s.
“Will you be all right, Willard?” Roosevelt said, and I guessed he was referring to my Jewishness more than anything else.
“Yes, Mr. President, I’m fine.”
Seeing his opportunity, Himmler moved smartly forward and, still smiling broadly, dipped his head, and then, relaxing somewhat, offered the president his hand. He was wearing a suit, with a silk shirt and tie and a pair of handsome gold cuff links that flashed like alarm signals under the room’s bright lights.
“I believe you are the principal architect of these negotiations,” said Roosevelt.
“I have only tried to make all parties see the sense of what is to be attempted here this morning.” The Reichsführer-SS spoke pompously and with one eye always on Hitler. “And I sincerely believe that this war can be ended before Christmas.”
“Let’s hope so,” said Roosevelt. “Let’s hope so.”
The representatives of Russia, the United States, and Nazi Germany and their advisers seated themselves around the big green table. As host, it fell to Stalin to initiate the proceedings. With Bohlen translating, I was able to catch my breath and reflect on what was happening. That the Russians had managed to keep Hitler’s arrival in Teheran a secret was almost as amazing as the fact that Hitler should have ever come at all. And already I had decided that if the talks did, for some reason, fail, Roosevelt’s reputation was probably safe, for surely no one would believe that such a thing could ever have taken place.
Of the two dictators seated at the table, Stalin seemed the less attractive, and not because I
could understand no Russian. He had a cold, crafty, almost corpselike face, and when the yellowish eyes flickered on me and he smiled to reveal his teeth, broken and stained with nicotine, it was all too easy to imagine him as a modern Ivan the Terrible, sending men, women, and children off to their deaths without mussing a hair. At the same time, his mind seemed sharper than Hitler’s, and he spoke well and without notes:
“We are sitting around this table for the first time with but one object in mind,” he said. “The ending of this war. It is my sincere belief that we shall do everything at this conference to make due use, within the framework of our cooperation, of the power and authority that our peoples have vested in us.”
Stalin nodded at Roosevelt, who removed his pince-nez and, using it to emphasize his opening remarks, began to speak: “I should like to welcome Herr Hitler into this circle,” said the president. “In past meetings between Britain and the United States, it has been our habit to publish nothing, but to speak our minds very freely. And I do urge each one of us all to speak as freely as he wishes on the basis of the good faith that has already been demonstrated by our presence in this room. Nevertheless, if any one of us does not want to talk about any particular subject, we do not have to do so.” Roosevelt leaned back in his wheelchair and waited for von Ribbentrop, who spoke excellent English, to finish the translation.
Hitler nodded and folded his arms across his chest. For a moment he was silent and only Stalin, filling his pipe from torn-up Russian Belomor cigarettes, seemed oblivious to the effect the Führer’s pause was having on the room. When Hitler started to speak, I realized, with some amusement, that the Führer had been trying to finish the PEZ mint he was sucking before saying anything.
“Thank you, Marshal Stalin and Mr. President. I should like to have offered my thanks to Mr. Churchill, too; however, since it is my belief that the three countries in this room represent the greatest concentration of worldly power that has ever been seen in the history of mankind, I also believe that we three alone have the potential to shorten the war, and that peace lies in our collective hands. Providence favors men who know how to use the opportunities fate has given them. This is such an opportunity, and to those who might criticize us for taking it, I would say that the notions of what is proper in war and peace have little to do with political reality. Morality has no place at the negotiating table, and the only truths we need recognize are the truths of pragmatism and expediency.”
