A Single Spy

by William Christie

  The ladder shook, and creaked, but at least gravity was doing most of the work for him. Gaining confidence, Alexsi lightened his grip and let himself slide down faster. It was going well, but what he couldn’t see in the darkness was that whoever had installed it had bolted a few sections of ladder practically touching the large tubular metal rain gutter.

  As he sped down, the ladder took an exciting swerve to the right and Alexsi’s foot slid into the ever-narrowing space between the ladder and gutter and jammed tight. Alexsi yelped in pain as his right foot stopped. The rest of him, however, kept going down. He lost his grip on the ladder with his right hand, then his left, then he was upside down. By the time he was able to grab a rung he was facedown, his right leg was bent up around his buttocks, and it felt like his foot was about to snap completely off.

  He couldn’t move. His foot was stuck tight. So this was how it was going to end. Trapped by his own hand and dangling upside down from the side of a building, like a bat.

  But after that moment of despair Alexsi gathered himself and with all his weight on his hands pushed two rungs back up the ladder and kicked up. But he couldn’t dislodge his foot. The blood was rushing to his head. He locked his arms against the ladder and tried to push the right foot out with his left. Still stuck. Losing patience, he kicked brutally at the stuck foot with his left one, and it popped out.

  Alexsi let his legs drop until he was right side up again. His vision grayed out as the blood redistributed itself from his head. As soon as he was sure he was going to remain conscious, he tested his right foot on the ladder to see if it was broken. It hurt when he put his weight on it, but it didn’t seem broken.

  He was running out of time. He let himself slide again, but slower now.

  The ladder stopped about four meters from the ground. Alexsi hung from the last rung, and let go. He dropped to the sidewalk, trying to land mainly on his good left foot. A man carrying a briefcase was looking at him with his mouth open. “Is there a fire up there?”

  “Yes, there is,” Alexsi said quickly. “You go that way and find a fire alarm,” he added, pointing. “I’ll go this way.”

  The man dashed off. Alexsi popped his collar up around his ears and quickly blended himself into the pedestrian foot traffic. He was limping, but his right foot felt better the more he used it. Across the street, and then the next one. And he was finally clear of the search box and could relax a bit. That would have made quite the heroic obituary. Died due to a poorly installed fire escape while fulfilling his internationalist duty.

  He walked steadily for two kilometers, zigzagging through the streets, and only then stopped at a café for some tea, a buttered roll, and a new vantage point. Making a much-needed visit to the toilet, he realized with horror that he still had the coded message stuffed in his shirt. He tore it up and flushed it.

  When his nerves finally settled down, he took stock. They could sweep the pieces of his radio off the street, but they already knew there was a radio and they already knew the frequency. Any fingerprints would not have survived the rain. They had his cap, but all that would tell them was his hat size. Fingerprints from the room? How many different people’s fingerprints were in a hotel room? And he’d worn gloves except when he was transmitting. He should be all right, though it had been close.

  It had to have been pure chance. Or they were already in the area looking for another transmitting radio. Bad luck.

  All thanks to Yakushev, though. Alexsi knew that without the old bastard’s training he would have been standing there frozen when the hotel door opened, wondering how they’d gotten him.

  He seemed to be free and clear, so he paid his bill and began a circuitous route back to the cemetery.

  But on the next block over a car was creeping along slowly, floating surveillance searching the streets at random. Alexsi might not have on his postal cap and eye patch, but he was still wearing the same clothing.

  Not letting the beaters goad him into running, he ducked into the first shop he came across. It was a pharmacy in the American style, with bright signs and a chrome and marble counter serving ice cream and sweet drinks along with prescriptions. Full of customers and chattering teenagers. He tried to push his way through them.

  “What are you doing?” someone demanded.

  Alexsi doubled over. “Going to be sick. So sorry. Have to vomit.”

  Like magic the crowd parted. Someone grabbed his arm and pulled him past the counter. Alexsi held his hand over his mouth, still bent over. “Sick, have to vomit.”

  In an instant he was in the back room. It was like the children’s game of being slung hand to hand on the run. The only thing they wanted less than you sicking up all over the toilet they had to clean was you sicking up all over the floor they had to clean.

  Seconds later he was pushed through a door and out in the alley behind the store. With a loud retching sound, Alexsi leaned over the nearest trash bin, waving them away. Which was fine, because they didn’t want to watch it anyway. The door slammed shut.

  That sound was like a starting gun going off. Ignoring the pain in his right foot, Alexsi sprinted down the alley and over a fence that blocked one end.

  His luck held, because he emerged from the other side just as a streetcar was passing by. He ran for it and jumped aboard.

  “You’re not supposed to do that when it’s moving,” the German woman ticket taker lectured him sternly.

  “I know,” Alexsi said, offering her his warmest smile along with the fare. “I’m sorry. I’m just so late.”

  But having delivered her lecture, she was done with him.

  Alexsi rode the streetcar until everyone who had been on it got off. He changed lines twice, and once more gradually made his way back to the cemetery and his uniform.

  His uncle was still up when he came in, drinking by the fire.

  “A filthy night out there,” Hans Shultz observed. “You look the worse for wear.”

  “I feel the worse for wear, Uncle,” Alexsi replied. “I really should stay home on weeknights.”

  “Nonsense, my boy. You only live once.”

  33

  1940 Berlin

  That next morning at Abwehr headquarters Alexsi reflected on the truth of it. You had to have training in order to act normal. Otherwise after his close shave he’d be searching every face he came across, wondering if they suspected him. He wondered how many spies went mad from paranoia.

  Amid the clacking of typewriters and the cigarette smoke and the coughing and humming and talking on the telephones, he wedged himself into the small corner desk he’d been given, of course the one nobody else wanted, and read through the stacks of messages and reports from Iran. What was amazing to him was that the Abwehr people inside the country seemed to have absolutely no idea at all about the country.

  Typical Europeans. They drank in the European clubs with other Europeans, and played tennis with other Europeans and Westernized Iranians. The agents they recruited were either those same Iranian government officials who spoke their language and were happy to take their money in exchange for the latest palace gossip, or cab drivers and servants probably recruited by their own drivers and servants. Most likely relatives of their drivers and servants, Alexsi thought, knowing how it was done.

  The office din was broken by a harsh voice demanding, “Shultz?”

  Alexsi rolled his chair around slowly. Standing in the doorway was a captain with the twin lightning bolt runes of the SS on the right collar of his gray uniform jacket, and the diamond SD patch of the SS Security Service on his lower left sleeve. At his side was a ferocious-looking Alsatian dog. Incredibly enough, he had a whip, an actual stock whip looped around his left wrist.

  Alexsi took a deep breath and fought the urge to launch himself out the nearest window. He’d learned his lesson from the library in Baku—this time he was certain his chair was heavy enough to break it. “Yes?”

  “I need you at once.” The Hauptsturmführer tapped one boot against the ot
her, and the dog growled as if on cue.

  The female clerk next to Alexsi was practically standing on her desk. But Alexsi felt much better now that he’d mastered that first artillery shot of panic. If he was going to be arrested it wouldn’t be by a single SS man, even with a dog. And there would be a drawn pistol, not a whip. He whistled lightly through his teeth, and the dog’s ears perked up. He stared into the dog’s eyes, looked away for a moment, then stared again. He pointed his finger between the dog’s eyes; the dog visibly relaxed, and his ears twitched. Alexsi pointed his finger down at his feet and the dog walked up slowly, nearly stampeding everyone else in the office who was in his path, sniffed Alexsi’s hand, and sat down placidly.

  Alexsi slipped a hand under the dog’s chin and then rubbed his ears. Nothing compared to the half-wild farm dogs on the kolkhoz, not to mention the animals the Shahsavan kept for killing jackals threatening their stock. “Who’s a sweet boy, then?” he asked the shepherd.

  The SD man gave Alexsi an adversarial smile and tapped the whip against his leg as if he’d like nothing better than to use it. “I’m Captain Ressler.”

  Alexsi was still petting the dog. Who was now rolled on the floor getting his belly rubbed. “You said something about needing me?”

  “I understand you speak Russian?”

  “I do,” Alexsi replied.

  “I need an immediate translation of an important document.”

  “What you’re saying is, you’d like me to interrupt my work and take a look at your document, as a personal favor.”

  Alexsi watched as the SS man considered all his options before finally replying, ever so grudgingly, “Yes.”

  “Fine. Let’s see it.”

  “Come to my office.”

  Alexsi decided to give him that victory. He stood up and followed the captain out the door, whistling for the dog, who fell in at his heels. “A fine animal,” he said, as they walked down the hallway.

  Captain Ressler just glanced back at the dog with the same expression he would give a traitor to the Fatherland.

  They ended up in the wing housing Abwehr III, Counterespionage. Which put Alexsi even more on his guard than he had been already. And made him regret humiliating the captain. Slightly.

  In the office were two obvious Gestapo men, in civilian clothes. And an army captain and a major. As he came through the door they all looked at him with the suspicious eyes of policemen.

  Captain Ressler handed Alexsi a document in a clear acetate sleeve.

  “Why didn’t you have the Eastern section translate it for you?” Alexsi asked.

  “They claim they’re too busy,” Ressler said.

  Preparing for the invasion, Alexsi thought. Perhaps he could use this somehow as an excuse to drop in on them. There would probably be maps up on their walls. He looked down at the paper in the sleeve. It was handwritten, in the Cyrillic alphabet. And the paper was stained and crumpled, as if it had been fished from the garbage. “It’s a shopping list,” he said. And then, with all of them looking over his shoulder, he pointed to each line. “Sausage. Margarine. Bread. Meat, with a question mark. Vegetables, canned, and another question mark. Soap. Laundry soap. Toilet paper. And then on the right, next to each item, what looks like the number of ration allowances this person has available to use. That’s it, I’m afraid.”

  “What do you make of it?” Captain Ressler asked, quite mildly Alexsi thought.

  “It doesn’t seem like any kind of code to me,” Alexsi said. “Though I’m certainly not as experienced as you gentlemen.”

  “We don’t think it’s code, either,” Captain Ressler said. “Anything else off the top of your head?”

  “Did this come from Berlin?” Alexsi asked.

  They all looked at each other, as if they weren’t sure whether or not to answer. Then one of the Gestapo men said, grudgingly, “Yes.”

  “I would say it’s from someone more comfortable thinking in Russian than German,” said Alexsi. Now there was a lesson for you. “So the question, it would seem, is whether the person who wrote it admits to being Russian, or claims not to be?”

  They all looked at each other again. Finally Captain Ressler said, “His papers say he is not.”

  “Then that’s certainly a counterespionage matter,” said Alexsi.

  Captain Ressler sat down atop the edge of a desk and tapped the handle of his whip against the wood. “What would you do next, Lieutenant Shultz? If you were us, that is.”

  Alexsi ignored the little mocking smile. “If you have this, you’re already suspicious. I’m assuming it came from his trash. So you must be following him.”

  “Should we search his apartment?” said Ressler.

  “You might as well arrest him and then search his apartment,” Alexsi replied. “Otherwise, if he has any brains at all as soon as he comes home and sees the neighbors’ faces he’ll be off and running like a rabbit.”

  “How would you like to come work with us?” Ressler said. “I can arrange it.”

  “Thanks, but no,” said Alexsi. “I’ll stick to Abwehr I.”

  “What does Canaris have you doing?” Ressler asked.

  Alexsi just stared back at him.

  Ressler laughed. “Well what do you know?” he said to the others. “There is one person in this building who has some respect for security.”

  “Anything else I can do for you?” said Alexsi, handing back the acetate.

  “At least let us offer you a coffee,” said Ressler. “You’d think us ungrateful swine otherwise.”

  Alexsi made a gesture of acquiescence.

  Without moving from the desk, Ressler bellowed through the open door, loud enough to wake the dead, “Six coffees!”

  A secretary who looked like she was bearing burdens more heavy than a tray of cups came through the door.

  “How do you take yours, Shultz?” Ressler asked.

  “Black,” said Alexsi.

  When they were all sitting back with their cups, Ressler said, “So how did you come to learn Russian?”

  Alexsi heard Yakushev’s voice in his head. There is no such thing as an innocent question. “I had a Russian nanny when I was a child.”

  “Ah,” said Ressler. “They say it’s easier to learn a language when you’re young. And you kept up with it.”

  “My uncle is a diplomat,” said Alexsi. “He always encouraged me to learn languages.”

  “Nice to have such advantages,” said Ressler. “No doubt you will have a bright career in diplomacy after the war.”

  Alexsi ignored the jab. “Who can say? Some people pick up languages easily.”

  “Ah, yes, I hear it’s all in the ear,” said Ressler. “Like music. Alas, I have no musical ability. And nothing but poor schoolboy French.”

  “I shouldn’t worry about it,” said Alexsi. “I’m sure the French will all be speaking German soon.”

  Everyone in the room laughed at that. Except Ressler.

  “And you come from the Third Infantry Division, eh?” said Ressler. “I hear they’re going mechanized.”

  “My apologies,” said Alexsi. “I know nothing about you.”

  “Oh, just another former policeman,” said Ressler, waving expansively to take in the others in the room.

  Alexsi sipped his coffee.

  “I like this fellow,” Ressler announced. “He listens to everything but doesn’t run off at the mouth. You push him and he doesn’t get angry, he just pushes back. Even Gunnar tried to give him the business”—he gestured toward the Alsatian snoring under a nearby desk—“and now he’s practically his slave.”

  Alexsi finished his coffee and set the cup and saucer down. “I’m glad I was able to help out,” he said, standing. “But I have to get back to work.”

  “A cup of coffee seems like such poor thanks,” said Ressler. “Come out on the town tonight. As my guest.”

  “That’s really not necessary,” Alexsi replied, warning sirens screaming in his brain.

  “Please,”
said Ressler, in a tone that was not really a request. “It would be a comradely gesture.”

  Instinct told Alexsi not to push back too hard at that. “Very well.”

  “Excellent,” said Ressler, smiling now. “I will collect you at the end of the day.”

  34

  1940 Berlin

  The two naked girls grappled each other with practiced efficiency. Smeared with sticky brown mud, you could hardly tell they were naked. Which for Alexsi would have been the whole point. But for the rest of the men in the audience it seemed to be the mud and the combat. They were roaring as if it were the Roman arena and they expected to see only the winner survive. The girls, on the other hand, were like professional dancers who were being careful not to crush each other’s toes.

  The walls were the scarlet he’d been waiting a long time to see. The band in the corner had faces only slightly less red, and looked as if they were about to burst from their threadbare tuxedos. He had yet to see a thin German musician. The girls were conducting their business in a swirling shallow tank of viscous mud in the center of the room, with the tables arranged all around it. They had been preceded by the world’s worst comedian, his face actually in white greasepaint like a clown, as if to signal that you really ought to laugh. At least it hid the sweat of desperation, Alexsi thought. The comedian had been preceded by the world’s worst magician, who was still running around the periphery of the club trying to net one of his white doves who had made a mad break for freedom. Now that had actually been funny. It was all so appalling he couldn’t wait to see what came next.

  The waitress came in and set down the tray of beer mugs. Stacking up the empties, she shot a sideways glance at Alexsi’s mug, down only an inch of beer, and then went over to him. He subtly shook his head, and she took away the full one that would have been his.