by John Knoerle
We ankled out. Ambrose ran it down.
“She talked to all the girls. Not a one of them knows Horst whatzisname and nobody heard nuttin’ about any Yankee gunrunners.”
“She’s sure?”
“One hundred per cent.”
“That’s it then. Colonel Norwood’s a lying sack.” Ambrose shrugged. Aren’t they all?
“Seems like everyone and his uncle knew we were going to be at that loading dock in the Soviet Sector,” I said. “We were on the Lubyanka Express till Norwood rode to the rescue. And now we’re going to a meeting of a possible Soviet front organization with fake credentials. The NKVD might be there to greet us.”
“How they gonna know we’re comin’?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know shit from Shinola as you’ve pointed out many times.”
“I only count one.”
We stopped at a street corner. “I was in the war, funny boy. World War II, maybe you heard of it. It was horrible, bloody and everything in between. But it had one thing going for it. You knew who was on your side and who was not. This...”, I said gesturing around at the jumble of caved-in buildings hard by bustling cafes, “This is...”
“Bloody confusing?”
“Yes!” I said, shouted, abusing my parched brain casing. A young girl standing nearby clapped her hands to her ears in fright. We crossed the street. “Now let’s find some goddamn sausage before I die of hunger.”
Ambrose accompanied me down the sidewalk. “Got another question for ya Chief.”
“Okay.”
“If we know the Colonel’s a lying sack, why tell him? Why not keep it under our hat?”
The Irishman had a point. We had superior knowledge on the old queen.
“Because I need to know just how dirty he is,” I said after a moment. “If he’s peddling a little gossip to keep himself in fine wine and Darjeeling that’s one thing. If he’s a Soviet double agent it’s another.”
“And you think our little song and dance in front of a room full of people is going to tell you that?”
Once more with feeling. “I don’t know.”
-----
The plan was for me and Ambrose to crash Col. Norwood’s late night salon and tag team him about his ride to the rescue. How he knew to be there, the real story this time. I’d be the soft spoken diplomat, Ambrose the loudmouth Mick. The theory was that Norwood loved to hold court, prized his salon above all else and would fess up to a bit of fun-loving subterfuge with the Rooskies in order to make these embarrassing questions go away. The more polished his story, the less likely it was to be true.
That was the plan as Ambrose and I waded into a jam-packed jamboree that evening in the chalet on Ernststraße. We had to bide our time, wait for things to quiet down to a dull roar. The Colonel was in top form, working the crowd like a ringmaster, clad in a double breasted white dinner jacket and a necklace of beaded shells where the black tie should have been. The hooch and the groaning sideboard of good eats took their toll eventually.
People flopped down to sip and mumble. Ambrose and I did our song and dance.
The plan didn’t work out as planned. Col. Norwood purpled with rage at our impertinence and instructed Sedgewick to toss us down the stairs. Ambrose got his Irish up. Fisticuffs were about to commence when a wan young man spoke up.
“I was the one that Horst Schultouer told his secret to.”
I asked him what secret.
“He said that he was a freedom fighter. A freedom fighter who was meeting some arms merchants from America the next morning.”
I asked why Horst Schultouer would tell him that.
The young man got all kinds of embarrassed. “I believe he was trying to win my affections.”
I thanked him, apologized to the Colonel and pulled Ambrose down the long steep staircase. He wanted to know what the hell that was all about. He didn’t understand. I was surprised I did. I was a long, long way from Youngstown, Ohio.
“The young man is a male prostitute.”
Ambrose shook his head as we pushed through the front door. “Bloody wankin’ Anglicans.”
-----
We returned to the delivery truck, tails between our legs. “You drive,” I said, tossing Ambrose the keys. I wanted to think.
“Bloody shame, that,” said Ambrose with a tick of his head as we drove past the chalet and its brightly-lit Chinese lanterns. Raucous laughter spilled from upstairs windows opened to the warm night. I pictured Col. Norwood holding forth, sending up the bumbling Yanks.
“Feckin’ Brits are worthless in every way but one.”
“What’s that?”
“Roast beef. They were carvin’ up a rib roast back there, nice and bloody like. And I didn’t get a lick.”
“We’ve got a can of pea soup at home. Some Zwieback left.”
I was preoccupied, I didn’t intend my remark to be funny. I guess it was. Ambrose certainly thought so.
-----
Ambrose and I trudged up the three flights of stairs to our apartment with all the enthusiasm you’d expect of two humiliated men about to share a dinner of crackers and canned soup. I kept an eye out for the German boy, hoping to ask him why he ran away. But the hour was late and the stairs and corridors were empty.
“I’m all in,” said Ambrose when I keyed open the door.
“No soup?”
“Nah.”
Had I said good night this story may have had a different ending, but I eyed the brandy bottle on the coffee table. Four fingers left.
“Have a quick snort with me. I want to kick it around a minute.”
“Sure ‘nuff, Chief,” said Ambrose gamely, plopping down on the musty couch. I took the wobbly chair across from him.
“The brandy’s yours,” he said, pulling a sterling silver flask from inside his coat. “I’ll have a nip of Bushmills.” He unscrewed the flask and poured a dram in the cap. “Gift from me brothers on me 21st. Says so right here.” He showed me the engraving across the front.
“Very handsome.”
“They’re good lads.”
We clinked. The almost empty bottle to the silver flask. The brandy went down quick. I felt a pang of guilt for dragging Ambrose away from his family. Felt a pang of envy too, him with two brothers and me with none.
“I keep coming back to it, not sure why,” I said. “The difference between a traitor and a snitch.”
“Which is?”
“A snitch snitches for money or advantage. A traitor acts from conviction.”
“I dunno. People do all kinds of lousy things for money.”
“You’re right, no question. You and I robbed a bank. What did we do afterwards?”
Ambrose looked away. He didn’t like it that, now that we were semi-respectable espionage agents, I had dredged up our sordid past. “We ran like hell.”
“Yes we did. The person who ratted out the émigrés did not. He hung around and guided the NKVD to their moving targets over a period of many days. Which doesn’t sound like Herr Hilde to me. It’s not that he wouldn’t sell out innocents for money - he admitted the Blue Caps spared him because he told ‘em who gave him which document and why - but Hilde’s like a skiff, tacking with the winds. Winds that blew him from the Third Reich to the Soviets to the US of A. Hilde’s not a true believer. Lying to the us about a phony NKVD plot buys him nothing but a jail cell when it doesn’t come true.”
“You say something Chief?”
“You heard me. Shithead.”
Ambrose sniggered and poured himself another dram. “What if Hilde doesn’t know it’s a phony plot? Meant to keep us from backing this Committee. What if the NKVD didn’t tell him?”
“That’s the only way they would tell him.”
“What is?”
“The only way the NKVD would tell Hilde about the Committee is if it is a phony plot. So he could pass it along, as disinformation.”
“Okay, say the NKVD didn’t tell Hilde about the Committee. How’s he find out it
’s a front?”
I shrugged, I mumbled. “He’s a career intelligence officer, must have a few contacts left.”
“Whasamatter Chief? You look funny.”
“I just said something I should have known.”
“Whuzzat?”
“I said so he could pass it on. Hilde. Pass on the disinformation. Leonid pissed all over Hilde’s story about the Committee being a front, said it was a fairy tale that the NKVD told Hilde to recite to us.”
I hiked my eyebrows. Ambrose spun his hand.
“Why would Leonid assume - that the Soviets assumed - that Herr Hilde would have a chance to pass it on to us? Hilde was in Soviet custody.”
“You’re givin’ me a headache here Chief.”
“Hilde fell in our lap awful easy. You see what I’m saying?”
Ambrose mulled it over. “You’re sayin’ Leonid knew in advance that we’d bag Hilde?”
“Sure looks that way.”
“But how the hell did Leonid know that we’d meet Eva and she’d tell us where to bag Hilde?”
“I’m not saying Leonid knew how. Just that he knew or suspected that the NKVD wanted Hilde found.”
Ambrose sat up, eyes blazing. “You sayin’ Eva’s in on it?”
“No, not at all,” I replied with more conviction than I felt. Ambrose settled down. I changed the subject.
“Here’s another thing. Leonid told me that Lavrenty Beria, head of the Soviet secret police, had his mother under house arrest. That’s Beria’s pressure point. Leonid’s mother.”
Ambrose stretched out on the musty couch. “Piss poor hole card, you’re sayin’. An old woman. What happens when she croaks?”
“Yes. Correct. Very good. If Beria wanted a real hole card he would have taken Leonid’s wife.”
Ambrose nodded agreement and yawned.
“Plus...” Ambrose put his finger to his lips. I lowered my voice. “Plus, Leonid said Hilde’s story about the Committee to Free Berlin was a crock, yet he didn’t object to the CO sending us in.”
“Why should he?”
“Because he’s an arrogant little shit! An arrogant little shit whose superior knowledge had just been ignored. He should have bitched to the CO. But he didn’t. Not a groan, not a mumble.”
“We got any toothpicks?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Then how’m I s’posed to keep my eyes open?”
“Ha ha.”
“I get yer drift Chief. You think Hilde’s a snitch. You think Leonid’s a traitor. Now what do we do about it?”
“We find out if it’s true. Before we wander into that Committee meeting.”
“How?”
“I have no earthly idea.”
Ambrose rolled his eyes and shut his lids. His breathing grew heavy. I got up to make soup.
“Leonid’s wife fancies you,” said Ambrose with his eyes closed.
“She does?”
“At the reception, my first day on, we shot the breeze. Name’s Anna I think.” Ambrose yawned for a good ten seconds. “She fancies you.”
“I heard you the first time.”
“She does, I know it.”
“How so?”
Ambrose feigned sleep. I kicked the musty couch.
“The CO poked you in the back. You walked away. And her eyes followed you all the way out of the room.”
I struggled to dredge it up from the murky depths, conjured only a faded image. A pale slender woman who said little. And declined to shake my hand.
“You sure?” I said. But Ambrose was asleep.
Romancing another man’s wife is chancy under the best of circumstances. Romancing the wife of a Soviet agent who either was or wasn’t working our side of the fence and was doubtless paranoid in the extreme was - what would you say? Daunting? Risky? Nuts?
There is an old German saying, Frauen behalten die Geheimnisse. ‘Women keep the secrets.’ It never made much sense to me but maybe it’s different in the Old Country. We have a different saying stateside, about the three best ways to spread the word. Telegraph, telephone and tell-a-woman. Women know the secrets, let’s put it that way.
Anna would know if her husband was double dealing. It was up to me to find some way to pry it loose. Was I that charming and irresistible? Not so’s you’d notice. But I had a distinct advantage. If I had things right Anna was married to a cold fish whose sole passion was the advancement of the people’s revolutionary struggle against capitalist oppression of the workers. Unless she shared this passion Anna would be lonely. And bored.
Did she share his passion? Not likely. Fanatics are almost always male. Women know better somehow. Women know there’s more than one answer to every question.
Finding Leonid’s address was the next order of business. I wasn’t going to ask the CO and I didn’t picture tailing the little man home in a three ton truck. The only half-assed lead I could put my finger on was the café where I met him for the first time. Café Gestern. They knew him there, he probably lived nearby. The stern Grossmutter with the pulled back hair might oblige me for a fiver.
Fat chance. She hadn’t outlived the Nazi regime by disclosing privileged information at the drop of a fin. I would have to find another way.
Chapter Twenty-five
Ambrose and I slept in late the next morning. Almost blinded myself when I snapped open the blackout shades. We had two single beds in the small bedroom. A kid’s room, the boy and girl in the family photo. Where had the parents slept?
Ambrose buried his groggy head under a pillow. I padded to the kitchen and put a pot of water on the stove. Could I get away with combat hygiene? A shave and a pit wash over the sink? Or would I have to huddle under the rusty pipe that passed for a showerhead and shrink my gonads into raisins? Buck up, Schroeder. With any luck you’ve got a heavy date.
I did my patriotic duty. It was worse than I expected. Brutal, bone chilling. Two years previous I would have considered it a luxury to stand under cold running water and soap off the clay dust and oil smoke. Like most of America I had gone soft in a fat hurry.
-----
Ambrose and I walked the two miles to Café Gestern on Bundesalle just south of the Kurfürstendamm in the British Sector. The block was broken but unbowed, save for an array of brick buildings across the street. A National Socialist Institute of Something or Other that the Allies had taken particular care to blow to bits.
The entry bell tinkled merrily as Ambrose and I swept in at something o’clock in the late morning or early afternoon. The gas lights flickered low and smoky, the few patrons scattered, old, alone.
We parked our hind quarters at the petite bar. It had lace doilies for coasters. We angled around for the barkeep. No target acquisition, as the fly boys like to say. We had a plan. A plan that required the jolly bartender. Where the hell was he? I remembered him from my first visit. He reminded me of my Uncle Jorg, a beefy character with fleshy jowls that jiggled when he laughed.
I grew up with first generation Krauts. They came in two flavors. The melancholy Germans and the jolly-jolly Germans. The barkeep, like my Uncle Jorg, was a jolly-jolly German. Kind of guy who would sing the Schnitzelbank song at the drop of a hat and he’d drop the hat. When the barkeep was properly lubricated Ambrose and I would conclude that our pal Leonid wasn’t coming, worry that he hadn’t showed and wonder should we check on him? He lives right around the corner, doesn’t he? At which time the jolly barkeep would set us straight.
That was the plan. Unfortunately the jolly barkeep had the day off and his fill-in was a pinch-faced old geezer who did not imbibe. He did enjoy a smoke now and then. Camels were his preferred brand but he would make do with Lucky Strikes. Two packs.
-----
Leonid and Anna lived one block south and two blocks east, on Spirchenstraße. We found the building that the barkeep described. A big pearl gray stucco structure with a high arched entryway and large apartments with balconies that faced the street. The repairs had been extensive, nary a bullet
hole to be seen.
Ambrose and I camped in a doorway across the street, hoping to spot Anna coming or going and bump into her, accidental like. We burned half an afternoon that way. When the shadows of the western buildings crept halfway across the street I told Ambrose I was going in.
“You don’t know the apartment number.”
“I’ll think of something. Keep an eye out for Leonid. Waylay him if he shows.”
“What the feck does that mean? Waylay.”
“Delay, interrupt. Say you need to talk to him.”
“About what?”
“About...me. You’re worried about me.”
“Why?”
“Because...I don’t feckin’ know, that’s your lookout! Just don’t let him in that door.”
Ambrose didn’t take offense. Or didn’t show it. But I came to regret the rudeness of my remarks.
Chapter Twenty-six
There were twelve mail slots in the foyer of the pearl gray building on Spirchenstraße. Eleven of them had nameplates, none said Vitinov. The mailbox for apartment K was unmarked. I counted upward. Top floor, facing the street. That would be the one.
The glass paneled inner door to the lobby was locked. Jimmy it with my blade, or press the intercom button and try to talk my way in? Jimmy it. Too easy for Anna to say no to a disembodied voice.
I examined the cylinder lock in the lobby door. A pin and tumbler deadbolt. A Schlage, as in Walter Schlage, fellow Kraut American made good. Not what I wanted to see. I wouldn’t be jimmying the tongue out of the latch, not with a deadbolt.
I tried raking it, sticking the tip of my knife all the way to the back of the cylinder and yanking it out hard while twisting the door handle. It bounces the pins up. Sometimes you get lucky and they stay up.
Not this time, not with a ten pin Schlage. I had a full set of lock picks thoughtfully provided by the CO but it was late afternoon, residents would be returning, and tumbling this sumbitch would take some time. I could smash one of the glass door panels but Leonid would notice that when he came home. Time for plan Z.
