The Serpent's Egg

by JJ Toner

  “In that case, I’m with you.”

  Adam looked surprised by the obvious sincerity in this remark. It surprised Max just as much. Up to that point, he had been half-inclined to complete the task handed to him by Framzl, the Gestapo man. He realized that he was now fully committed to the cause of the Red Orchestra. Framzl would have to whistle for the information he wanted. Nervously, Max’s tongue sought out the false tooth in his mouth and his fingers clutched the cigarette lighter in his pants pocket.

  Anna returned looking pale and complaining of a headache. Max thanked the ambassador, and they left the party early.

  #

  As Arvid and Mildred Harnack were leaving the embassy, First Secretary Donald Heath handed Arvid a sealed envelope, marked ‘Personal.’ “Wait until you get home before reading it, Sport. Okay?”

  Arvid knew it must be bad news. As soon as he got home, he tore it open.

  My dear friend,

  This is to inform you that, as a consequence of the actions of November 9, the State Department in Washington has decided to reduce its embassy staff in Berlin to a minimum. I am to be sent to Latin America, the location to be decided shortly.

  Sincere apologies for this letter. I would have much preferred to give you the news in person, but I fear I would not have been up to the task.

  I wish you well for the future of your endeavors and for your personal happiness.

  Louise has asked me to convey her regrets to your beautiful wife, Mildred. I think our two wives have formed an association every bit as close as that between their husbands over the past 11 months.

  I hope we will be able to keep in touch by correspondence and that we will meet again when the coming storm has passed and order in Europe restored.

  Your good friend,

  Donald.

  Arvid read the letter again from the top, looking for a crumb of comfort, a hint of a possible reprieve. He found none. He was about to lose his most valuable contact, the only contact he had with a western power, and the one foreign contact that he trusted implicitly. Henceforth, the only remaining outlet for intelligence was Alexander Korotkov, his NKVD contact at the Soviet Embassy. Ideologically, he was in tune with Korotkov, but he never really trusted Joseph Stalin or his spymasters in the Kremlin.

  Chapter 31

  December 1938

  A couple of weeks after the embassy party, on the second Saturday of December, Max received a call to attend a choir rehearsal at St. Angar’s Church. He made the trip across the city by tram to the church at Klopstockstrasss. A turbulent overcast autumn had given way to a calm, cloudless winter. The sporadic warm and wet breezes of November had turned into blasts from the Arctic, and all over the city icy tram rails sparkled in the weak sunshine. Only the bravest souls ventured out on bicycles.

  The church was busy with parishioners coming and going in and out of the two confessional boxes in continuous streams. Max took a seat in a pew at the back of the church and waited. He was not Catholic and had no time for the notion of sharing one’s sins and peccadillos with a pastor, but he was impressed by the apparent change in demeanor of the people as they went through the ritual. Each penitent seemed to go into the box with furrowed brow, weighed down by their troubles and each emerged in noticeably brighter spirits. Perhaps it was his imagination.

  As the crowd thinned, someone took a seat on the bench beside Max. He glanced at the new arrival – a tall, gaunt man of about 40 years, wearing a bulky overcoat like Vigo’s and heavy horn-rimmed glasses on an elf-like nose.

  As the last stragglers emerged from the confessionals to kneel in prayer before leaving the church, the stranger handed Max an identity card carrying the name Gunther Schlurr, occupation: Pastor. He couldn’t fault the document. It looked genuine. He whispered, “Is this your work? It’s very good.”

  “Yes, Comrade. I’m glad you like it,” the man whispered back. His accent was difficult to place, difficult to understand. “I’ll have the rest of your papers ready in time for your trip.”

  “What trip?”

  “Vigo will tell you all about it later.”

  Max thanked the thin man. “What should I call you?”

  “You could use my name. Everyone calls me Peter Riese.”

  Vigo stepped from the box and headed for the vestry. Riese and Max followed him. Inside the vestry, Riese took off his overcoat. It was equipped with deep pockets just like Vigo’s, and the pockets were full of leaflets. Vigo and Riese set about removing these, placing them in a neat pile on a counter top.

  Riese was as thin as a pencil. The 3-piece suit that he was wearing bore all the signs of having been crudely extended from a smaller garment. The sleeves and the legs of the trousers were too short, the waistcoat, a loose fit showing signs of familiarity with an ample paunch. The ensemble was topped off with a blue and black tie held in place with a gold tiepin in the shape of a swastika.

  Once his overcoat was relieved of its cargo, Riese put it back on. He bid them good day and left.

  #

  “Where is he from?” Max asked Vigo. “He didn’t sound German.”

  “He’s Swiss-German, from Zurich.”

  Vigo handed Max a list of 17 names and addresses. Then he spread a map of Berlin on the table and took Max through all 17 of his drops, starting and ending at the church. “You need to be sure that you have the right house and the right person at each stop. You understand how disastrous it would be to make a mistake?”

  “I understand.”

  Vigo pulled a dark shirt, cassock and trousers from the wardrobe. “Put these on.”

  “You’re not serious.”

  “Yes, I’m serious. It’s a perfect disguise.”

  Carrying his fresh identity card, pastor Gunther Schlurr set out on his delivery run. The priestly vestments weren’t a bad fit, but the coarse material scratched his skin and the dog collar interfered with his Adam’s apple when he swallowed.

  After no more than a few meters, Max was sweating under the weight of the cassock. Vigo’s overcoat with its deep internal pockets added to his distress.

  All 17 drops went like clockwork. At the end of the route, he stumbled into the vestry, threw off the coat, the cassock and the dog collar and let his skin breathe for a few moments before getting back into his own clothes.

  Vigo gave him a glass of cold water. Max gulped it down.

  Max stood. Slipping a hand in his pocket, he wrapped his fingers around his father’s cigarette lighter. He was eager to get home and switch back to his real identity. Every minute masquerading as pastor Gunther Schlurr made him anxious.

  “Before you go,” said Vigo, “I’ve been asked to take a message to our friends in exile in Brussels for transmission to Moscow. And they want me to take you with me.”

  The trip that Riese had mentioned.

  “How soon? My boss is not happy about the number of days I’ve taken recently from my annual leave entitlement, and I have to save up as much leave as I can for my wedding. It could be difficult to take any more time off.”

  “This will be a weekend trip. We travel out on Saturday and return on Sunday. You won’t lose any work time.”

  Anna’s not going to like that, thought Max. “Which Saturday are we talking about?”

  “The first Saturday in January.”

  #

  He told Anna that his boss, Herr Schnerpf, was sending him on a trip to Brussels early in January. He hated telling her a lie, but to tell her the truth would place her in danger from the Gestapo.

  Anna was less than enthusiastic about the prospect of spending an entire weekend alone.

  “I’ll make it up to you,” he said. “I’ll buy you a gift in Belgium.”

  Finding a hiding place for the identity card presented a challenge. After some thought, he put it on top of the wardrobe under Das Kapital. Anna was scared of the book. She’d be unlikely to move it.

  Chapter 32

  December 1938

  Two months to the day after his first visi
t to the food court, Jürgen returned. He sat at the same table as before – alone, this time – and Anna took his order. She did her best to moderate her beaming smile, but without much success. It was such an integral part of her routine.

  As she placed his food on the table, he returned her smile. “What time do you leave work?”

  She avoided his deep blue eyes. “Can I get you anything else, sir?”

  “Call me by my name. I’m Jürgen, remember.”

  She looked up and his eyes captured hers. “We are not allowed to fraternize with the customers, sir.”

  She asked Ebba to attend to him when it was time for Jürgen to pay his bill.

  “You find him attractive, this Jürgen?”

  “No, he’s creepy, but have you seen his eyes? They’re magnetic, and so difficult to avoid.”

  Ebba smiled. “I noticed his eyes.”

  They left the building together. Ebba said goodnight to Anna and went left, Anna turned right, rounded a corner, and found Jürgen leaning against a wall, waiting for her. He fell into step beside her. “I’ll walk you home. Where do you live?”

  A shiver of fear ran up her spine. She didn’t want this Jürgen to know where she lived.

  She gave him a weak smile. “There’s no need. I’m not going home. I’m meeting someone at a Brauhaus.”

  “Who? Your boyfriend, Max-Christian?”

  Another, more serious shiver of fear ran through her whole body. “How do you know my boyfriend’s name?”

  He cupped her elbow. “I’ll walk with you to the Brauhaus. I’ll explain along the way.”

  Jürgen seemed to know where they were going, and as he steered her along she realized he was heading to Max’s favorite Brauhaus in Paulusstrasss.

  He reached into a jacket pocket and flashed a bronze disc. “I’m with the Gestapo investigation department. We know that your boyfriend is mixed up with the Communists.” She shook her head and would have objected but he said, “The Communists have been printing anti-German literature. We are aware of that and of Max’s involvement. We are also aware of other subversive activities, much more serious, that Max may have been involved with. You will help me to uncover these activities. You will keep your eyes and ears open and let me know when you hear anything that may be of interest to me.” He pressed a card into her hand. “This telephone number is attended day and night. As soon as you have anything of interest, no matter how small, ring this number.”

  “I’m sorry, Herr Jürgen. I know nothing of these matters.”

  “Let me be clear. There are men in Gestapo headquarters who would use other methods to obtain this information, men who are trained to beat the information from your boyfriend with ax handles. If you are unwilling to help me then I will not be able to keep Max from those men. Do you understand?”

  #

  Max made his scheduled trip to his mother’s house on Saturday December 24. Christmas Eve. She opened the door and let him in to a cold, dark house completely lacking any seasonal decorations – no tree, no Adventskranz candles, no lights, no color of any kind. He was alarmed. He had never known a Christmas that his mother had failed to celebrate in some way.

  On his way in to the parlor, he tripped over a pair of boots. He recognized his father’s boots, covered in fresh mud.

  “Are you all right, Mother? You do know it’s Christmas?”

  He got no answer. His mother sat on the sofa, looking unusually downcast. Her demeanor, her clothes and general appearance suggested she was going through one of the infrequent bouts of depression that punctuated her life.

  He offered her a couple of gifts – a headscarf and some bath salts that Anna had picked out for her. She flapped her hands impatiently. He put the gifts on top of the piano beside the picture of his father, taking a moment to peer at the picture, a faded sepia image of a stern-looking soldier in uniform.

  He took his seat on the piano stool. “What have you been reading, Mother?” While waiting for a reply, Max was struck by a feeling of guilt. Could she be lonely? She’d never shown signs of loneliness before. “You should come to Berlin and spend some time with Anna and me in our apartment. We can make up a bed for you.”

  “You don’t have to keep visiting, you know.” His mother spoke quietly, as if suppressing an urge to scream.

  “I like visiting, Mother, and it is Christmas.”

  “You have your own lives to lead. I don’t want to be a burden to you.”

  “You’re not a burden, Mother. I just wish you’d get a telephone so that I can talk to you more often.”

  On the way home on the autobus he reran the conversation in his head looking for clues to his mother’s impenetrable mental state. Then his mind turned to the muddy boots in the hall. Had she taken to wearing his father’s boots? In the garden, perhaps?

  Chapter 33

  December 1938

  The Joint Forces Contingency Committee was in session on the third floor of the War Office. Seven men sat around the table. All seven were smoking, and the air was thick with smoke. Six of the seven were in uniform. The seventh wore an understated pinstripe.

  At the head of the table, Air Commodore Frank Scott spoke in a sonorous tone. “A few of you have read the Assistant Director’s report on the Soviet Question, but I will ask him to take us through the main points. Briefly.”

  The Assistant Director of Military Intelligence, Sidney Blenkinsop-Smythe, or B-S as he was universally known, got to his feet. “Thank you, Air Commodore. Since the last meeting I have had a team working on an evaluation of the various possibilities with regard to the likely disposition of the Soviet Union in the event of a war with Germany. My report analyses each possible outcome and assigns a statistical probability to each. However, please be aware that this is far from an exact science. In the final analysis, the actual outcome will be decided by the actions of Hitler to the West and the Japanese to the East. But the most significant factor, the one that we cannot measure with any degree of certainty, is the mind of Joseph Stalin. Stalin’s is an erratic, mercurial personality, an impossible man to predict at the best of times. All we can do is weigh up the plusses and minuses of each possible outcome, viewed through the prism of military strategy and see what emerges.”

  The Air Commodore glanced at his watch.

  “First, we must consider how Germany and the Soviet Union will interact. Here we are faced with not one, but two unpredictable personalities, for Hitler has proven just as imponderable as Stalin. From Hitler’s speeches and the tone of his book, Mein Kampf, we know that he is intractably opposed to what he terms ‘Bolshevism.’ He hates Communism and has vowed to eliminate these two evils – as he sees them – from the face of the earth. We may assume that Stalin is just as antagonistic towards Fascism. However, the notion that either will attack the other is unthinkable. Each would have too much to lose. If Hitler starts a war in Europe, which, as we all know, is more than likely, we may expect the Soviets to remain neutral, at least until the final outcome has been decided. At that stage, we expect the Soviets to make land grabs in some of the smaller countries in Eastern Europe.

  The Air Commodore caught B-S’s eye and tapped his watch.

  “We must consider the position of the Japanese. It seems likely that they would invade Russian territory from the east at the earliest opportunity after the commencement of a European war. This would keep the Soviets busy for a protracted period and keep them out of our hair, so to speak.”

  “If you could wind up…” said the Air Commodore.

  “So there you have it. A Japanese invasion of the Soviet Union is the most likely outcome with a probability of 85%. The invasion of Germany by the Soviets is unlikely, say 10%, and an invasion of Soviet territory by Germany has a probability of less than 2%.”

  One of the Committee members raised his hand. “Have you analyzed what might happen if the Japanese don’t invade from the East?”

  “Yes. In that case we can expect the Soviets to invade Germany soon after the start of
the war, probably through Finland and/or the Baltic States, with an 80% probability. They may react immediately to the expected invasion of Poland by a repulsing move to drive the Germans back out of Poland. My analysts have given that a 75% probability. Remember that Stalin regards Poland as an integral part of the Communist bloc.”

  “Thank you, Director. You will circulate the report among the members here?”

  “As you wish, Air Commodore. I would ask everyone to treat it as top secret.”

  Chapter 34

  January 1939

  On the Wednesday before his trip to Belgium Max received a telephone call at work. A voice he didn’t recognize told him he should call in to the dentist’s surgery after work.

  The tram journey passed in a daze as his trepidation took hold.

  Dr. Himpel was waiting for him, and so was Peter Riese, the stick insect from Zurich in the ill-fitting 3-piece suit. Riese handed Max a packet containing a set of papers – passport, Party membership and travel permit all in the name Gunther Schlurr.

  Max flicked through them. They were impeccable forgeries, dog-eared, worn, and grubby as if they’d been in use for years. He thanked the forger, and Riese left the surgery, leaving Max to the tender mercies of the dentist.

  “Hop up on the chair. I have something for you.”

  Max sat in the chair.

  “Open wide.” Dr. Himpel checked the cavity he’d previously created. “How does it feel?”

  “Sore.”

  “It will be tender for a few week more, but it’s healing nicely. Now open wide again. This won’t take a moment.”