by Ken Follett
A black curtain divided the room in two. Macke drew it back to show eight hooks attached to an iron girder that ran across the ceiling.
Werner said: ‘For hanging?’
Macke nodded.
There was also a wooden table with straps for holding someone down. At one end of the table was a high device of distinctive shape. On the floor was a heavy basket.
The young lieutenant was pale. ‘A guillotine,’ he said.
‘Exactly,’ said Macke. He looked at his watch. ‘We shan’t be kept waiting long.’
More men filed into the room. Several nodded in a familiar way to Macke. Speaking quietly into Werner’s ear, Macke said: ‘Regulations demand that the judges, the court officers, the prison governor and the chaplain all attend.’
Werner swallowed. He was not liking this, Macke could see.
He was not meant to. Macke’s motive in bringing him here had nothing to do with impressing General Dorn. Macke was worried about Werner. There was something about him that did not ring true.
Werner worked for Dorn; that was not in question. He had accompanied Dorn on a visit to Gestapo headquarters, and subsequently Dorn had written a note saying that the Berlin counter-espionage effort was most impressive, and mentioning Macke by name. For weeks afterwards Macke had walked around in a miasma of warm pride.
But Macke could not forget Werner’s behaviour on that evening, nearly a year ago now, when they had almost caught a spy in a disused fur coat factory near the East Station. Werner had panicked – or had he? Accidentally or otherwise, he had given the pianist enough warning to get away. Macke could not shake the suspicion that the panic had been an act, and Werner had, in fact, been coolly and deliberately sounding the alarm.
Macke did not quite have the nerve to arrest and torture Werner. It could be done, of course, but Dorn might well kick up a fuss, and then Macke would be questioned. His boss, Superintendent Kringelein, who did not much like him, would ask what hard evidence he had against Werner – and he had none.
But this ought to reveal the truth.
The door opened again, and two prison guards entered on either side of a young woman called Lili Markgraf.
He heard Werner gasp. ‘What’s the matter?’ Macke asked.
Werner said: ‘You didn’t tell me it was going to be a girl.’
‘Do you know her?’
‘No.’
Lili was twenty-two, Macke knew, though she looked younger. Her fair hair had been cut this morning, and it was now as short as a man’s. She was limping, and walked bent over as if she had an abdominal injury. She wore a plain blue dress of heavy cotton with no collar, just a round neckline. Her eyes were red with crying. The guards held her arms firmly, not taking any chances.
‘This woman was denounced by a relative who found a code book hidden in her room,’ Macke said. ‘The five-digit Russian code.’
‘Why is she walking like that?’
‘The effects of interrogation. But we didn’t get anything from her.’
Werner’s face was impassive. ‘What a shame,’ he said. ‘She might have led us to other spies.’
Macke saw no sign that he was faking. ‘She knew her associate only as Heinrich – no last name – and he may have used a pseudonym anyway. I find we rarely profit by arresting women – they don’t know enough.’
‘But at least you have her code book.’
‘For what it’s worth. They change the key word regularly, so we still face a challenge in decrypting their signals.’
‘Pity.’
One of the men cleared his throat and spoke loudly enough for everyone to hear. He said he was the President of the Court, then read out the death sentence.
The guards walked Lili to the wooden table. They gave her the chance of lying on it voluntarily, but she took a step backwards, so they picked her up forcibly. She did not struggle. They laid her face down and strapped her in.
The chaplain began a prayer.
Lili began to plead. ‘No, no,’ she said, without raising her voice. ‘No, please, let me go. Let me go.’ She spoke coherently, as if she were merely asking someone for a favour.
The man in the top hat looked at the president, who shook his head and said: ‘Not yet. The prayer must be finished.’
Lili’s voice rose in pitch and urgency. ‘I don’t want to die! I’m afraid to die! Don’t do this to me, please!’
The executioner looked again at the court president. This time the president just ignored him.
Macke studied Werner. He looked sick, but so did everybody else in the room. As a test, this was not really working. Werner’s reaction showed that he was sensitive, not that he was a traitor. Macke might have to think of something else.
Lili began to scream.
Even Macke felt impatient.
The pastor hurried through the rest of the prayer.
When he said ‘Amen’ she stopped screaming, as if she knew it was all over.
The president gave the nod.
The executioner moved a lever, and the weighted blade fell.
It made a whispering sound as it sliced through Lili’s pale neck. Her short-cropped head fell forward and there was a gush of blood. The head hit the basket with a loud thump that seemed to resound in the room.
Absurdly, Macke wondered if the head felt any pain.
(iii)
Carla bumped into Colonel Beck in the hospital corridor. He was in uniform. She looked at him in sudden fear. Ever since he had been discharged, she had lived every day in fear that he had betrayed her, and the Gestapo were on their way.
But he smiled and said: ‘I came back for a check-up with Dr Ernst.’
Was that all? Had he forgotten their conversation? Was he pretending to have forgotten it? Was there a black Gestapo Mercedes waiting outside?
Beck was carrying a green hospital file folder.
A cancer specialist in a white coat approached. As he went by, Carla said brightly to Beck: ‘How are things?’
‘I’m as fit as I’m ever going to be. I’ll never lead a battalion into battle again, but aside from athletics I can lead a normal life.’
‘I’m glad to hear that.’
People kept walking by. Carla feared Beck would never get the chance to say anything to her privately.
But he remained unruffled. ‘I’d just like to thank you for your kindness and professionalism.’
‘You’re welcome.’
‘Goodbye, Sister.’
‘Goodbye, Colonel.’
When Beck left, Carla was holding the file folder.
She walked briskly to the nurses’ cloakroom. It was empty. She stood with her heel firmly wedged against the door so no one could come in.
Inside the folder was a large envelope made of the cheap buff-coloured paper used in offices everywhere. Carla opened the envelope. It contained several typewritten sheets. She looked at the first without removing it from the envelope. It was headed:
OPERATIONAL ORDER NO. 6
CODE ZITADELLE
It was the battle plan for the summer offensive on the Eastern Front. Her heart raced. This was gold dust.
She had to pass the envelope to Frieda. Unfortunately, Frieda was not working at the hospital today: it was her day off. Carla considered leaving the hospital right away, in the middle of her shift, and going to Frieda’s house; but she swiftly rejected that idea. Better to behave normally, not to attract attention.
She slipped the envelope into the shoulder bag hanging on her coat hook. She covered it with the blue-and-gold silk scarf that she always carried for hiding things. She stood still for a few moments, letting her breathing return to normal. Then she went back to the ward.
She worked the rest of her shift as best she could, then she put on her coat, left the hospital, and walked to the station. Passing a bomb site, she saw graffiti on the remains of the building. A defiant patriot had written: ‘Our walls might break, but not our hearts.’ But someone else had ironically quoted Hitler’s 1933
election slogan: ‘Give me four years, and you will not recognize Germany.’
She bought a ticket to the Zoo.
On the train she felt like an alien. All the other passengers were loyal Germans, and she was the one with secrets in her bag to betray to Moscow. She did not like the feeling. No one looked at her, but that only made her think they were all deliberately avoiding her eye. She could hardly wait to hand over the envelope to Frieda.
The Zoo Station was on the edge of the Tiergarten. The trees were dwarfed, now, by a huge flak tower. One of three in Berlin, this square concrete block was more than 100 feet high. At the corners of the roof were four giant 128mm anti-aircraft guns weighing 25 tons each. The raw concrete was painted green in a hopelessly optimistic attempt to make the monstrosity less of an eyesore in the park.
Ugly though it was, Berliners loved it. When the bombs were falling, its thunder reassured them that someone was shooting back.
Still in a state of high tension, Carla walked from the station to Frieda’s house. It was mid-afternoon, so the Franck parents would probably be out, Ludi at his factory and Monika seeing a friend, possibly Carla’s mother. Werner’s motorcycle was parked on the drive.
The manservant opened the door. ‘Miss Frieda is out, but she won’t be long,’ he said. ‘She went to KaDeWe to buy gloves. Mr Werner is in bed with a heavy cold.’
‘I’ll wait for Frieda in her room, as usual.’
Carla took off her coat and went upstairs, still carrying her bag. In Frieda’s room she kicked off her shoes and lay on the bed to read the battle plan for Operation Zitadelle. She was as stressed as an overwound clock, but she would feel better when she had given the purloined document to someone else.
From the next room she heard the sound of sobbing.
She was surprised. That was Werner’s room. Carla found it hard to imagine the suave playboy in tears.
But the sound definitely came from a man, and he seemed to be trying and failing to suppress his grief.
Against her will, Carla felt pity. She told herself that some feisty woman had thrown Werner over, probably for very good reasons. But she could not help responding to the real distress she was hearing.
She got off the bed, put the battle plan back in her bag, and stepped outside.
She listened at Werner’s door. She could hear it even more clearly. She was too soft-hearted to ignore it. She opened the door and went in.
Werner was sitting on the edge of the bed, head in hands. When he heard the door he looked up, startled. His face was red with emotion and wet with tears. His tie was pulled down and his collar undone. He looked at Carla with misery in his eyes. He was bowled over, devastated, and too wretched to care who knew it.
Carla could not pretend to be heartless. ‘What is it?’ she said.
‘I can’t do this any more,’ he said.
She closed the door behind her. ‘What happened?’
‘They cut off Lili Markgraf’s head – and I had to watch.’
Carla stared open-mouthed. ‘What on earth are you talking about?’
‘She was twenty-two.’ He took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his face. ‘You’re already in danger, but if I tell you this it will be a lot worse.’
Her mind was full of amazing surmises. ‘I think I can guess, but tell me,’ she said.
He nodded. ‘You’ll figure it out soon, anyway. Lili helped Heinrich broadcast to Moscow. It’s much quicker if someone reads you the code groups. And the faster you go, the less likely you are to be caught. But Lili’s cousin stayed at the apartment for a few days and found her code books. Nazi bitch.’
His words confirmed her astonishing suspicions. ‘You know about the spying?’
He looked at her with an ironic smile. ‘I’m in charge of it.’
‘Good God!’
‘That’s why I had to drop the whole business of the murdered children. Moscow ordered me to. And they were right. If I’d lost my job at the Air Ministry I would have had no access to secret papers, nor to other people who could bring me secrets.’
She needed to sit down. She perched on the edge of the bed beside him. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘We work on the assumption that everyone talks under torture. Knowing nothing, you can’t betray others. Poor Lili was tortured, but she only knew Volodya, who’s back in Moscow now, and Heinrich, and she never knew Heinrich’s second name or anything else about him.’
Carla was chilled to the bone. Everyone talks under torture.
Werner finished: I’m sorry I’ve told you, but after seeing me like this you were on the point of guessing it all anyway.’
‘So I’ve completely misjudged you.’
‘Not your fault. I deliberately misled you.’
‘I feel a fool just the same. I’ve despised you for two years.’
‘All the while I was desperate to explain to you.’
She put her arm around him.
He took her other hand and kissed it. ‘Can you forgive me?’
She was not sure how she felt, but she did not want to reject him when he was so down, so she said: ‘Yes, of course.’
‘Poor Lili,’ he said. His voice fell to a whisper. ‘She had been so badly beaten, she could hardly walk to the guillotine. Yet she begged for life, right up to the end.’
‘How come you were there?’
‘I’ve befriended a Gestapo man, Inspector Thomas Macke. He took me.’
‘Macke? I remember him – he arrested my father.’ She vividly recalled a round-faced man with a small black moustache, and she experienced again her rage at the arrogant power Macke had to take her father away, and her grief when he died of the injuries he suffered at Macke’s hands.
‘I think he suspects me, and taking me to the execution was a test. Perhaps he thought I might lose my self-control and try to intervene. Anyway, I think I passed the test.’
‘But if you were arrested . . .’
Werner nodded. ‘Everyone talks under torture.’
‘And you know everything.’
‘Every agent, every code . . . The only thing I don’t know is where they broadcast from. I leave it up to them to pick the locations, and they don’t tell me.’
They held hands in silence. After a while, Carla said: ‘I came to give it to Frieda, but I might as well give it to you.’
‘Give what?’
‘The battle plan for Operation Zitadelle.’
Werner was electrified. ‘But I’ve been trying to put my hands on that for weeks! Where did you get it?’
‘From an officer on the General Staff. Perhaps I shouldn’t say his name.’
‘Quite right, don’t tell me. But is it authentic?’
‘You’d better take a look.’ She went to Frieda’s room and returned with the buff envelope. It had never occurred to her that the document might not be genuine. ‘It looks all right to me, but what do I know?’
He took out the typewritten sheets. After a minute he said: ‘This is the real thing. Fantastic!’
‘I’m so glad.’
He stood up. ‘I have to take this to Heinrich right away. We must get this encrypted and broadcast tonight.’
Carla felt disappointed that their moment of intimacy was over so soon, though she could not have said what she had been expecting. She followed him through the door. She picked up her bag from Frieda’s room and went downstairs.
With his hand on the front door, Werner said: ‘I’m so glad we’re friends again.’
‘Me, too.’
‘Do you think we’ll be able to forget this period of estrangement?’
She did not know what he was trying to say. Did he want to be her lover again – or was he telling her that was out of the question? ‘I think we can put it behind us,’ she said neutrally.
‘Good.’ He bent and kissed her lips very quickly. Then he opened the door.
They left the house together, and he climbed on his motorcycle.
Carla walked down the driveway
to the street and headed for the station. A moment later, Werner drove past her with a honk and a wave.
Now that she was alone, she could begin to think about his revelation. How did she feel? For two years she had hated him. But in that time she had not had a serious boyfriend. Had she remained in love with him all along? At a minimum she had retained, in her heart of hearts, a fondness for him despite everything. Today, when she heard him in such distress, her hostility had melted away. Now she felt a glow of affection.
Did she love him still?
She did not know.
(iv)
Macke sat in the rear seat of the black Mercedes with Werner beside him. Around Macke’s neck was a bag like a school satchel, except that he wore it in front instead of behind. It was small enough to be covered by a buttoned overcoat. A thin wire ran from the bag to a small earphone. ‘It’s the latest thing,’ Macke said. ‘As you get closer to the broadcaster, the sound gets louder.’
Werner said: ‘More discreet than a van with a big aerial on its roof.’
‘We have to use both – the van to discover the general area, and this to pinpoint the exact location.’
Macke was in trouble. Operation Zitadelle had been a catastrophe. Even before the offensive opened, the Red Army had attacked the airfields where the Luftwaffe were assembling. Zitadelle had been called off after a week, but even that was too late to prevent irreparable damage to the German army.
Germany’s leaders were always quick to blame Jewish-Bolshevik conspirators whenever things went wrong, but in this case they were right. The Red Army had appeared to know the entire battle plan in advance. And that, according to Superintendent Kringelein, was Thomas Macke’s fault. He was head of counter-espionage for the city of Berlin. His career was on the line. He faced dismissal and worse.
His only hope now was a tremendous coup, a massive operation to round up the spies who were undermining the German war effort. So tonight he had set a trap for Werner Franck.
If Franck turned out to be innocent, he did not know what he would do.
In the front seat of the car, a walkie-talkie crackled. Macke’s pulse quickened. The driver picked up the handset. ‘Wagner here.’ He started the engine. ‘We’re on our way,’ he said. ‘Over and out.’
