A Single Spy

by William Christie

  Then Alexsi gave an exasperated sigh and got into the back of the automobile. One Gestapo man beside him and the other in the front seat next to the driver.

  It was a short drive to Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse. Alexsi thought he really had no right to be upset. It had been a good run. He’d actually lasted much longer than he thought he would when he was a frightened teenager on the Munich Station platform.

  He considered the cyanide capsule. Abwehr issue. He had never carried it in Iran, but back in Germany he’d sewn it into the sleeve of his uniform jacket. Raise his hand to scratch his nose, tear the seam open with his teeth, and it would be all over. He looked out the window at gray Berlin and thought about sunny Iran. And, for the first time in years, Azerbaijan.

  But these Gestapo hadn’t even searched him for weapons. Alexsi knew, eventually, there would come a situation he couldn’t talk his way out of. But it wasn’t absolutely clear that moment had arrived.

  They drove through the same gate, to the same courtyard. Alexsi decided that if they began making their way through that ground floor to the interrogation rooms it would be time to think about cyanide.

  They passed through the doors and inside. The guard at the desk glared at Alexsi in his army uniform. His escorts did not sign in. They stood there as the guard unlocked the iron door, as if they were expected.

  There was that next iron door, just beyond the stairs. Alexsi felt his sleeve to be sure the cyanide capsule was still there. It was.

  But the Gestapo nudged him up the stairs instead. Alexsi relaxed a bit. So it wasn’t the cellars right away. He had at least a bit of room to maneuver.

  They kept climbing.

  And stopped at a floor with another guard behind a desk. The placard on the wall read: AMT VI, AUSLAND-SD.

  Now Alexsi relaxed a bit more. SD Foreign Intelligence. Abwehr’s rival. Not Amt IV, Gestapo.

  His escorts sailed by the guard without even giving him a second glance.

  Alexsi’s boots tapped down the marble hallway. They halted before a large and richly carved wooden door. The placard on the wall to the right read, in Gothic script, Oberführer-SS Walter Schellenberg. Chief, Amt VI.

  Inside an SS adjutant sat behind a desk, a major. He was on the telephone. He clapped a hand over the mouthpiece and said, “Captain Shultz?”

  Alexsi popped his heels together and gave the Hitler salute. “Heil Hitler!”

  The adjutant raised his hand in return, and to do that had to switch the phone in his hand and press it against his chest. “Heil Hitler.” He gestured toward an open chair. “Kindly take a seat. General Schellenberg will see you momentarily.” He gave the two Gestapo men a look. They nodded and went out the door.

  The sun might not exactly be shining, but Alexsi no longer felt it was raining on him.

  Schellenberg himself? That would be quite something. On the level of meeting Canaris for the first time. Deputy chief of the SD. Answered only to Reinhard Heydrich, who answered only to Himmler. And now Heydrich was dead, killed by Czech partisans. Remembering his time in Czechoslovakia, Alexsi thought, of course the assassins had to parachute in from London because they couldn’t find any local Czechs willing to pick up a gun. Now Schellenberg answered only to Himmler, whose personal aide he had been. The Nazis’ longtime dirty-tricks man. He’d made his reputation right after the war began when he lured a couple of British secret service men to a meeting in Holland, kidnapped them, and dragged them across the border to Germany. And unlike the Communist hard case Alexsi had met in the basement here, the much more sensible Englishmen only had to be threatened with being hung from the ceiling before they coughed up every existing British network in Europe.

  The phone buzzed. The adjutant picked it up and said, “At once, sir.” He turned to Alexsi and said, “You will go in.”

  The office was bigger than Canaris’s. And much better furnished. Alexsi came to attention in front of the desk, thrust out his right arm, and barked, “Heil Hitler!”

  Walter Schellenberg was quite nearly as good-looking as a film star. Only in his early thirties, he was wearing his SS brigadier’s uniform. With a gleaming smile he came around the enormous desk to shake Alexsi’s hand.

  Alexsi took that as a good sign. Schellenberg’s desk was notorious. Supposedly armored in steel, with built-in automatic guns he could deploy at the touch of a button to wipe out anyone in front of it. True or not, it was the sort of Hollywood melodrama everyone expected from the SS.

  “Captain Shultz,” he exclaimed, pumping Alexsi’s hand. “Come, sit.”

  Schellenberg grasped his elbow and led him over to the circle of sofa, coffee table, and padded chairs on the other side of the room.

  Alexsi tensely took a seat. Unlike Heydrich, the Teutonic Nazi ideal, now in Nazi Valhalla, Schellenberg was dark and fine-featured.

  “So, Shultz,” he began. “For nearly two years now you’ve run the Near East Desk at Abwehr I here in Berlin, yes?”

  “That is correct, General,” Alexsi said slowly and cautiously.

  “You have all the information on the area at your fingertips, so to speak?”

  With Schellenberg theatrically waving two sets of fingertips at him, and it being more of a statement than a question, Alexsi only nodded.

  “That isn’t what I want to talk about.” Schellenberg had dropped his voice to a confiding tone, as if he were imparting a secret. He leaned over the coffee table and picked up a thick file. Alexsi recognized it as his Iran report.

  “I must say this reads like the finest adventure story,” Schellenberg announced, slapping the pages enthusiastically. “I took it home and it kept me awake half the night. And I said to myself: I must meet this man.”

  Alexsi decided to take the risk. “I would have been pleased to present myself, General, at your convenience.”

  Schellenberg laughed appreciatively at that. “My boys gave you a start, eh? Let’s just say I didn’t wish to call the switchboard over at Abwehr headquarters and invite Captain Shultz over to Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse.”

  Alexsi nodded politely. No need to remind himself that this was a clever, slippery fellow. A lawyer, after all.

  Abandoning that line of discussion, Schellenberg shook the report in front of Alexsi’s eyes and tossed it back onto the table. “Do you know the key to what I read here, Shultz? Local knowledge. And an agent who not only knows how to keep his eyes open, but is creative enough to remember that he is a spy and not some news reporter.” He threw himself back onto the sofa and spread his arms out on the cushions. “This is our problem. Other than yourself, our operations in Iran have come to naught. I tell you this confidentially, of course.”

  “Of course, General.”

  “My high-ranking people meet with pro-German princes in restaurants, like newsmen, and no wonder they are instantly scooped up by the British and Russians. While you are producing brilliant, timely information. Doing business with their wives and no one suspects you in the least.”

  Alexsi’s face must have given him away on that, because Schellenberg laughed. “Oh, yes. We had information from other sources in Iran. Who had no idea you were one of us. This Swiss businessman who knows everyone, every woman of influence in Iran tells him everything. And is suspected only of being nefarious. The people who don’t owe you money or favors are making money in business with you. Brilliant! Not to mention that your operations even return us a profit in foreign currency, which considering what our other agents cost is worth another promotion at least.” Schellenberg’s eyes were twinkling. “Tell me, Shultz, how are these Persian women?”

  “Like champagne shaken in the bottle, sir,” Alexsi told him. “Everything looks calm. But release the cork…” He made an eruptive motion with both hands.

  Schellenberg delightedly slapped the back of the couch. “Fantastic! But more’s the point, when the Allies roll in, as you informed us far in advance—well done, by the way—you don’t stay there comfortably screwing your way across Teheran. You follow your orders a
nd head out to the tribes like a good officer. And win yourself this.” He pointed to the Iron Cross First Class pinned to Alexsi’s left breast pocket. “It should have been a Knight’s Cross, but unfortunately you had no German witnesses. But it was no trouble correlating the details of your report with our intercepts of British army wireless traffic in Iran. You stung them very badly.”

  Other than the fact that his heroic achievement was the result of a series of horrible mistakes, Alexsi had accurately recounted the details of both the ambush and his escape. His original thought that the Germans would be the only ones pleased turned out to be correct. A medal and promotion to captain as the reward for a fiasco. He’d been comfortably sitting behind a desk in Abwehr headquarters ever since.

  “I have other people with the Iranian tribes,” Schellenberg confided. “They take our gold and sit on their asses. And when the gold runs out sell us to the British. While virtually every casualty the British suffered in their walkover invasion was caused by you, personally. And you successfully escape. Why?”

  Even if that wasn’t a rhetorical question, Alexsi wasn’t about to answer it.

  “We have people who know how to shoot and blow things up, good soldiers, but they have no flair as agents,” said Schellenberg. “We recruit people who speak the language, which is necessary, but they lack the resourcefulness of first-class agents. As soon as you joined the tribe you made sure you developed your sources, however treacherous they proved to be. You kept your eyes open and your ear to the ground, and so were able to get out in time.”

  “Unfortunately, as soon as I joined the Lur my radio fell under their control,” Alexsi said. “Otherwise I might have been able to remain active.”

  “It would have been an empty gesture, I assure you,” said Schellenberg. “It is the downfall of our operations.” He leaned forward and struck his hand on the coffee table. “Lack of support! We have a few people doing brilliant work, amongst countless dross, but they wither on the vine for lack of support.” He smiled across the coffee table. “I have forgotten my manners in my enthusiasm. May I offer you something? Coffee? Tea?”

  “No, thank you, sir,” Alexsi replied dutifully. Schellenberg had covered him in honey. Now, was he about to be eaten?

  “As you wish,” said Schellenberg. He unfolded a large-scale map of Iran and spread it across the coffee table. “Now, while I have you captive here, perhaps you would be so good as to answer a few questions I have about Iran?”

  “Of course, General,” Alexsi replied. As if he had any choice.

  For nearly four hours Schellenberg interrogated him about Teheran, its geography, and finally the tribes and the border. At first Alexsi thought it was to try to trip him up on his story. But no. It became clear, despite his careful circumspection, that Schellenberg had something up his sleeve.

  Finally the general refolded the map. “I think this is all I need for now. But I’ll tell you what. Come see me tomorrow, at this same time.” He offered up that honey smile. “I don’t think I need to send a vehicle for you again, do I?”

  “No, General,” Alexsi replied.

  “Thank you again, Shultz. Most enjoyable. Oh, and you will keep our meeting confidential, won’t you? Especially from Abwehr.”

  It was perhaps the nicest death threat Alexsi had ever received. “Yes, sir.”

  They shook hands, and Alexsi saluted again. “Heil Hitler!”

  “Heil Hitler,” said Schellenberg. He waited until Alexsi was nearly to the door when he added, “Oh, Shultz?”

  Alexsi turned about. “Yes, General?”

  “That Swiss identity of yours. Is it still good?”

  Alexsi doubted it. But with his connections another passport wouldn’t be hard to find in Teheran, and he didn’t want to close off any options. Berlin was far away from the war now, but who knew what another year might bring? So he let his Russian instinct for what people wanted to hear reply, “Yes, General.”

  And then once he was outside the office and walking down the corridor a free man, wondered just what he had done. Because if he knew nothing else, it was the difference between a briefing and an employment interview.

  50

  1943 Berlin

  Uncle Hans was drinking too much. The maid made a point of telling him. Another new one. Elke was gone; presumably the love affair had ended badly. That’s what happened when you fucked your employer, Alexsi thought. You either became the new wife, or the former maid.

  She was right, at least. The after-dinner brandies were about twice the size they had been. After the surrender at Stalingrad everyone who knew what was going on had taken to drink. If the Russians lost a half million men in a single battle they could just grab the country by the heels and shake out half a million more. When Germany lost that many it was the beginning of the end. You could always tell how bad it was when the radio started bleating about new weapons and ultimate victory.

  “I’m sorry I can’t offer you a cigar, my boy,” Hans said. “The good ones have grown scarce, and what’s available isn’t worth putting into your mouth.”

  “I will most likely be leaving soon, Uncle.”

  Hans took that news with more concern than Alexsi would have imagined. “Reassignment?” he asked. And then a pregnant pause. “The eastern front?”

  “Another mission,” Alexsi said.

  “You can tell me nothing more?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Hans slumped down in his chair and made a bitter little laugh. “Even if you were in Switzerland again, I have nothing to give you. And I doubt the Swiss are all that eager for Reichsmarks these days. They are a very practical people.”

  Alexsi said nothing. He watched his uncle in the firelight.

  Hans Shultz drank off his brandy and refilled the snifter from the crystal decanter. Now he kept it on the table beside him so he would not have to get up. Another loosening of his old disciplines. “At least until the Allies invade France we will have good brandy.”

  Alexsi just sat there, and for some reason his uncle found it hard to bear this night. Hans Shultz seemed to retreat to his own sullen thoughts, until finally it erupted out of him. “I will need to send a message to Moscow.”

  Alexsi wasn’t sure he’d heard that correctly. “I’m sorry, Uncle?”

  “A message to Moscow. To offer my services.”

  Without a lifetime’s experience in keeping his countenance, Alexsi most certainly would have lost it then. His first impulse was to begin shouting treason, but he dismissed that as cheaply theatrical. Instead he said quietly, “How will you do that, Uncle?”

  Hans Shultz just looked at him as he would an idiot. “I will not. You will.”

  And then even quieter. “And how will I do it, Uncle?”

  The entire brandy went down. “There is no reason to play the fool with me any longer. Because as you know, I myself am no fool.”

  Alexsi knew it was just an optical illusion, but Hans’s eyes looked blood-red in the firelight. “I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Hans Shultz laughed that same bitter laugh again. “‘Honestly.’ What a word!” He filled his glass again. “Do you think, can you even think, that when I begged and pleaded with the Communists to allow my nephew out of Russia, I thought for a moment, a single moment, that they would not send a trained intelligence officer?” Now the drunken glare was harsh. “Are you even my nephew?”

  The same quiet, even tone. “Of course I am your nephew, Uncle. You have had too much to drink.”

  A defiant slug from the brandy snifter. “Not enough. Not by half. Don’t play the comedian with me. You are a Russian spy. No one knows it better than I. I helped you, and now Moscow will have to reward me. Tell them I am at their service. Tell them, damn you!”

  It was a very, very dangerous moment. And not just because the man was very drunk. A whole alternate universe yawned up before Alexsi, once cloudy but now as clear as day. And he regarded it in awe, perfect awe at the game everyone had
been playing.

  So all along Hans Shultz intended him as insurance in case Germany lost another world war. After all, the man had created a new legend from a dead German cousin even better than the NKVD could have. And at every step smoothed his way, easing him into the army and then Abwehr. Placing him in the perfect position to steal secrets. Running him like an intelligence officer himself. Even removing enemies like Ressler from his path. But now his life rested on a razor’s edge. Yes, Hans was most likely looking to feather his nest with Moscow in case the Red Army turned what was left of the Third Reich into the German Soviet Socialist Republic. And, truthfully, they would want a man of his talents and lack of scruples. They would make use of him. He wouldn’t be living half as well, but he would still be living better than everyone else.

  But if Alexsi revealed himself, then he would be handing Hans a powerful card to play if he ever found himself in trouble with the Gestapo. Here, gentlemen, in exchange for my life I will give you a Soviet intelligence officer inside the Abwehr. Probably he had always been prepared to trade his Russian nephew away in case of emergency.

  And, in the end, it was Comrade Yakushev standing by his shoulder who made up his mind. Alexsi could still hear the dead man’s voice. Unlike in melodramas, there is no moment when an agent can reveal or even allude to his true identity to anyone who is not already aware of it. It is inevitably fatal, and regardless of the circumstance there is always a way out if you keep your wits.

  So after all this, the time had come for Alexsi to play his own card. He stood up, in order to make his own German-style statement. “Uncle, out of my love, and my gratitude, and my loyalty to you I will consider that this conversation never took place.” And then he added, “If you wish to offer your services to the Russians then I suggest you wait patiently until they arrive in Berlin.”

  He walked out. Out of the room. Out of the house. He thought he had acted the German officer prig well enough, but he still had to get out. And he couldn’t go back. He would have to find some military quarters.

  He snatched up his greatcoat and closed the door behind him. The night was overcast from rain. He needed to walk. He picked his way carefully down the blacked-out streets.