Winter of the World (Century Trilogy 2)

by Ken Follett

  Volodya said: ‘If I did, I certainly could not tell my girlfriend, no matter how crazy I am about her.’ Apart from anything else, it could get her shot, he thought, but he did not say it.

  The potato pancakes came and they began to eat. As always, Zoya tucked in hungrily. Volodya loved the relish with which she attacked food. But he did not much like the pancakes. ‘These potatoes taste suspiciously like turnips,’ he said.

  His father shot him a disapproving look.

  ‘Not that I’m complaining,’ Volodya added hastily.

  When they had finished, Zoya went to the ladies’ room. As soon as she was out of earshot, Volodya said: ‘We think the German summer offensive is imminent.’

  ‘I agree,’ said his father.

  ‘Are we ready?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Grigori, but he looked anxious.

  ‘They will attack in the south. They want the oilfields of the Caucasus.’

  Grigori shook his head. ‘They will come back to Moscow. It’s all that matters.’

  ‘Stalingrad is equally symbolic. It bears the name of our leader.’

  ‘Fuck symbolism. If they take Moscow, the war is over. If they don’t, they haven’t won, no matter what else they gain.’

  ‘You’re just guessing,’ Volodya said with irritation.

  ‘So are you.’

  ‘On the contrary, I have evidence.’ He looked around, but there was no one nearby. ‘The offensive is codenamed Case Blue. It will start on 28 June.’ He had learned that much from Werner Franck’s network of spies in Berlin. ‘And we found partial details in the briefcase of a German officer who crash-landed a reconnaissance plane near Kharkov.’

  ‘Officers on reconnaissance do not carry battle plans in briefcases,’ Grigori said. ‘Comrade Stalin thinks that was a ruse to deceive us, and I agree. The Germans want us to weaken our central front by sending forces south to deal with what will turn out to be no more than a diversion.’

  This was the problem with intelligence, Volodya thought with frustration. Even when you had the information, stubborn old men would believe what they wanted.

  He saw Zoya coming back, all eyes on her as she walked across the plaza. ‘What would convince you?’ he said to his father before she arrived.

  ‘More evidence.’

  ‘Such as?’

  Grigori thought for a moment, taking the question seriously. ‘Get me the battle plan.’

  Volodya sighed. Werner Franck had not yet succeeded in obtaining the document. ‘If I get it, will Stalin reconsider?’

  ‘If you get it, I’ll ask him to.’

  ‘It’s a deal,’ said Volodya.

  He was being rash. He had no idea how he was going achieve this. Werner, Heinrich, Lili, and the others already took horrendous risks. Yet he would have to put even more pressure on them.

  Zoya reached their table and Grigori stood up. They were going in three different directions, so they said goodbye.

  ‘I’ll see you tonight,’ Zoya said to Volodya.

  He kissed her. ‘I’ll be there at seven.’

  ‘Bring your toothbrush,’ she said.

  He walked away a happy man.

  (iv)

  A girl knows when her best friend has a secret. She may not know what the secret is, but she knows it is there, like an unidentifiable piece of furniture under a dust sheet. She realizes, from guarded and unforthcoming answers to innocent questions, that her friend is seeing someone she shouldn’t; she just doesn’t know the name, although she may guess that the forbidden lover is a married man, or a dark-skinned foreigner, or another woman. She admires that necklace, and knows from her friend’s muted reaction that it has shameful associations, though it may not be until years later that she discovers it was stolen from a senile grandmother’s jewel box.

  So Carla thought when she reflected on Frieda.

  Frieda had a secret, and it was connected with resistance to the Nazis. She might be deeply, criminally involved: perhaps she went through her brother Werner’s briefcase every night, copied secret papers, and handed the copies to a Russian spy. More likely it was not so dramatic: she probably helped print and distribute those illegal posters and leaflets that criticized the government.

  So Carla was going to tell Frieda about Joachim Koch. However, she did not immediately get a chance. Carla and Frieda were nurses in different departments of a large hospital, and had different rotas, so they did not necessarily meet every day.

  Meanwhile, Joachim came to the house daily for lessons. He made no more indiscreet revelations, but Maud continued to flirt with him. ‘You do realize that I’m almost forty years old?’ Carla heard her say one day, although she was in fact fifty-one. Joachim was completely infatuated. Maud was enjoying the power she still had to fascinate an attractive young man, albeit a very naive one. The thought crossed Carla’s mind that her mother might be developing deeper feelings for this boy with a fair moustache who looked a bit like the young Walter; but that seemed ridiculous.

  Joachim was desperate to please her, and soon brought news of her son. Erik was alive and well. ‘His unit is in the Ukraine,’ Joachim said. ‘That’s all I can tell you.’

  ‘I wish he could get leave to come home,’ Maud said wistfully.

  The young officer hesitated.

  She said: ‘A mother worries so much. If I could just see him, even for only a day, it would be such a comfort to me.’

  ‘I might be able to arrange that.’

  Maud pretended to be astonished. ‘Really? You’re that powerful?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I could try.’

  ‘Thank you for even trying.’ She kissed his hand.

  It was a week before Carla saw Frieda again. When she did, she told her all about Joachim Koch. She told the story as if simply retailing an interesting piece of news, but she felt sure Frieda would not regard it in that innocent light. ‘Just imagine,’ she said. ‘He told us the code name of the operation and the date of the attack!’ She waited to see how Frieda would respond.

  ‘He could be executed for that,’ Frieda said.

  ‘If we knew someone who could get in touch with Moscow, we might turn the course of the war,’ Carla went on, as if still talking about the gravity of Joachim’s crime.

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Frieda.

  That proved it. Frieda’s normal reaction to such a story would include expressions of surprise, lively interest, and further questions. Today she offered nothing but neutral phrases and noncommittal grunts. Carla went home and told her mother that her intuition had been correct.

  Next day at the hospital, Frieda appeared in Carla’s ward looking frantic. ‘I have to talk to you urgently,’ she said.

  Carla was changing a dressing for a young woman who had been badly burned in a munitions factory explosion. ‘Go to the cloakroom,’ she said. ‘I’ll be there as soon as I can.’

  Five minutes later she found Frieda in the little room, smoking by an open window. ‘What is it?’ she said.

  Frieda put out the cigarette. ‘It’s about your Lieutenant Koch.’

  ‘I thought so.’

  ‘You have to find out more from him.’

  ‘I have to? What are you talking about?’

  ‘He has access to the entire battle plan for Case Blue. We know something about it, but Moscow needs the details.’

  Frieda was making a bewildering set of assumptions, but Carla went along with it. ‘I can ask him . . .’

  ‘No. You have to make him bring you the battle plan.’

  ‘I’m not sure that’s possible. He’s not completely stupid. Don’t you think—’

  Frieda was not even listening. ‘Then you have to photograph it,’ she interrupted. She produced from the pocket of her uniform a stainless-steel box about the size of a pack of cigarettes, but longer and narrower. ‘This is a miniature camera specially designed for photographing documents.’ Carla noticed the name ‘Minox’ on the side. ‘You’ll get eleven pictures on one film. Here are three films.’
She brought out three cassettes, the shape of dumbbells but small enough to fit into the little camera. ‘This is how you load the film.’ Frieda demonstrated. ‘To take a picture, you look through this window. If you’re not sure, read this manual.’

  Carla had never known Frieda to be so domineering. ‘I really need to think about this.’

  ‘There’s no time. This is your raincoat, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  Frieda stuffed the camera, films and booklet into the pockets of the coat. She seemed relieved they were out of her hands. ‘I’ve got to go.’ She went to the door.

  ‘But, Frieda!’

  At last Frieda stopped and looked directly at Carla. ‘What?’

  ‘Well . . . you’re not behaving like a friend.’

  ‘This is more important.’

  ‘You’ve backed me into a corner.’

  ‘You created this situation when you told me about Joachim Koch. Don’t pretend you didn’t expect me to do something with the information.’

  It was true. Carla had triggered this emergency herself. But she had not envisaged things turning out this way. ‘What if he says no?’

  ‘Then you’ll probably be living under the Nazis for the rest of your life.’ Frieda went out.

  ‘Hell,’ said Carla.

  She stood alone in the cloakroom, thinking. She could not even get rid of the little camera without risk. It was in her raincoat, and she could hardly throw it into a hospital rubbish bin. She would have to leave the building with it in her pocket, and try to find a place where she could dispose of it secretly.

  But did she want to?

  It seemed unlikely that Koch, naive though he was, could be talked into smuggling a copy of a battle plan out of the War Ministry and bringing it to show his inamorata. However, if anyone could persuade him, Maud could.

  But Carla was scared. There would be no mercy for her if she were caught. She would be arrested and tortured. She thought of Rudi Rothmann, moaning in the agony of broken bones. She recalled her father after they released him, so brutally beaten that he had died. Her crime would be worse than theirs; her punishment correspondingly bestial. She would be executed, of course – but not for a long time.

  She told herself she was willing to risk that.

  What she could not accept was the danger that she would help kill her brother.

  He was there, on the Eastern Front, Joachim had confirmed it. He would be involved in Case Blue. If Carla enabled the Russians to win that battle, Erik could die as a result. She could not bear that.

  She went back to her work. She was distracted and made mistakes, but fortunately the doctors did not notice and the patients could not tell. When at last her shift ended, she hurried away. The camera was burning a hole in her pocket but she did not see a safe place to dump it.

  She wondered where Frieda had got it. Frieda had plenty of money, and could easily have bought it, though she would have had to come up with a story about why she needed such a thing. More likely she could have got it from the Russians before they closed their embassy a year ago.

  The camera was still in Carla’s coat pocket when she arrived home.

  There was no sound from the piano upstairs: Joachim was having his lesson later today. Her mother was sitting at the kitchen table. When Carla walked in, Maud beamed and said: ‘Look who’s here!’

  It was Erik.

  Carla stared at him. He was painfully thin, but apparently uninjured. His uniform was grimy and ripped, but he had washed his face and hands. He stood up and put his arms around her.

  She hugged him hard, careless of dirtying her spotless uniform. ‘You’re safe,’ she said. There was so little flesh on him that she could feel his bones, his ribs and hips and shoulders and spine, through the thin material.

  ‘Safe for the moment,’ he said.

  She released her hold. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Better than most.’

  ‘You weren’t wearing this flimsy uniform in the Russian winter?’

  ‘I stole a coat from a dead Russian.’

  She sat down at the table. Ada was there too. Erik said: ‘You were right. About the Nazis, I mean. You were right.’

  She was pleased, but not sure exactly what he meant. ‘In what way?’

  ‘They murder people. You told me that. Father told me, too, and Mother. I’m sorry I didn’t believe you. I’m sorry, Ada, that I didn’t believe they killed your poor little Kurt. I know better now.’

  This was a big reversal. Carla said: ‘What changed your mind?’

  ‘I saw them doing it, in Russia. They round up all the important people in town, because they must be Communists. And they get the Jews, too. Not just men, but women and children. And old people too frail to do anyone any harm.’ Tears were streaming down his face now. ‘Our regular soldiers don’t do it – there are special groups. They take the prisoners out of town. Sometimes there’s a quarry, or some other kind of pit. Or they make the younger ones dig a great hole. Then—’

  He choked up, but Carla had to hear him say it. ‘Then what?’

  ‘They do them twelve at a time. Six pairs. Sometimes the husbands and wives hold hands as they walk down the slope. The mothers carry the babies. The riflemen wait until the prisoners are in the right spot. Then they shoot.’ Erik wiped his tears with his dirty uniform sleeve. ‘Bang,’ he said.

  There was a long silence in the kitchen. Ada was crying. Carla was aghast. Only Maud was stony-faced.

  Eventually Erik blew his nose, then took out cigarettes. ‘I was surprised to get leave and a ticket home,’ he said.

  Carla said: ‘When do you have to go back?’

  ‘Tomorrow. I have only twenty-four hours here. All the same I’m the envy of all my comrades. They’d give anything for a day at home. Dr Weiss said I must have friends in high places.’

  ‘You do,’ said Maud. ‘Joachim Koch, a young lieutenant who works at the War Ministry and comes to me for piano lessons. I asked him to arrange leave for you.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘He’ll be here in a few minutes. He has grown fond of me – he’s in need of a mother figure, I think.’

  Mother, hell, Carla thought. There was nothing maternal about Maud’s relationship with Joachim.

  Maud went on: ‘He’s very innocent. He told us there’s going to be a new offensive on the Eastern Front starting on 28 June. He even mentioned the code name: Case Blue.’

  Erik said: ‘He’s going to get himself shot.’

  Carla said: ‘Joachim is not the only one who might be shot. I told someone what I learned. Now I’ve been asked to persuade Joachim, somehow, to get me the battle plan.’

  ‘Good God!’ Erik was rocked. ‘This is serious espionage – you’re in more danger than I am on the Eastern Front!’

  ‘Don’t worry, I can’t imagine Joachim would do it,’ Carla said.

  ‘Don’t be so sure,’ said Maud.

  They all looked at her.

  ‘He might do it for me,’ she said. ‘If I asked him the right way.’

  Erik said: ‘He’s that naive?’

  She looked defiant. ‘He’s in love with me.’

  ‘Oh.’ Erik was embarrassed at the idea of his mother being involved in a romance.

  Carla said: ‘All the same, we can’t do it.’

  Erik said: ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because if the Russians win the battle you might die!’

  ‘I’ll probably die anyway.’

  Carla heard her own voice rise in pitch agitatedly. ‘But we’d be helping the Russians kill you!’

  ‘I still want you to do it,’ Erik said fiercely. He looked down at the chequered oilcloth on the kitchen table, but what he was seeing was a thousand miles away.

  Carla felt torn. If he wanted her to . . . She said: ‘But why?’

  ‘I think of those people walking down the slope into the quarry, holding hands.’ His own hands on the table grasped each other hard enough to bruise. ‘I’ll risk my life, if we can put a stop to that. I
want to risk my life – I’ll feel better about myself, and my country, if I do. Please, Carla, if you can, send the Russians that battle plan.’

  Still she hesitated. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘I’m begging you.’

  ‘Then I will,’ said Carla.

  (v)

  Thomas Macke told his men – Wagner, Richter and Schneider – to be on their best behaviour. ‘Werner Franck is only a lieutenant, but he works for General Dorn. I want him to have the best possible impression of our team and our work. No swearing, no jokes, no eating, and no rough stuff unless it’s really necessary. If we catch a Communist spy, you can give him a good kicking. But if we fail, I don’t want you to pick on someone else just for fun.’ Normally he would turn a blind eye to that sort of thing. It all helped to keep people in fear of the displeasure of the Nazis. But Franck might be squeamish.

  Werner turned up punctually at Gestapo headquarters in Prinz Albrecht Strasse on his motorcycle. They all got into the surveillance van with the revolving aerial on the roof. With so much radio equipment inside it was cramped. Richter took the wheel and they drove around the city in the early evening, the favoured time for spies to send messages to the enemy.

  ‘Why is that, I wonder?’ said Werner.

  ‘Most spies have a regular job,’ Macke explained. ‘It’s part of their cover story. So they go to an office or a factory in the daytime.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Werner. ‘I never thought of that.’

  Macke was worried they might not pick up anything at all tonight. He was terrified that he would get the blame for the reverses the German army was suffering in Russia. He had done his best, but there were no prizes for effort in the Third Reich.

  It sometimes happened that the unit picked up no signals. On other occasions there would be two or three, and Macke would have to choose which to follow up and which to ignore. He felt sure there was more than one spy network in the city, and they probably did not know of each other’s existence. He was trying to do an impossible job with inadequate tools.

  They were near the Potsdamer Platz when they heard a signal. Macke recognized the characteristic sound. ‘That’s a pianist,’ he said with relief. At least he could prove to Werner that the equipment worked. Someone was broadcasting five-digit numbers, one after the other. ‘Soviet Intelligence uses a code in which pairs of numbers stand for letters,’ Macke explained to Werner. ‘So, for example, 11 might stand for A. Transmitting them in groups of five is just a convention.’