They were on the move now, bucketing over the broken cobbles, heading for the main road that would return them to the city. As the junction approached, the driver barely slowed, pulling the Mercedes into a savage turn. Bella heard the squeal of rubber as they hit the main road, and for a split second she glimpsed another car, Yuri’s, parked beneath a stand of trees. There were figures inside and it was beginning to move. Valentin, Bella realised, hadn’t seen it. So far, she’d pushed his hand away, but now she let him touch her. Anything, she told herself, anything to keep his attention.
They were moving fast now, Bella resisting the temptation to check for the car behind, the long throw of the headlights tugging them towards the city centre. More houses. Kerbside spaces cleared for tomorrow’s market stalls. Then the metallic gleam of the first tram tracks. At this time of night there was very little traffic, and while Valentin’s thick fingers were mercifully still, she tried to understand just what had brought him to Larissa’s door. Had they been betrayed? Had some enemy of Larissa’s, someone from the newspaper offices perhaps, someone she’d offended or upset, had this person known about the cottage, and lifted the phone, and made a call? Whatever the explanation, she knew it didn’t matter. The next face they’d see would be Kalb’s. And at that point, Larissa’s fate would be sealed.
Suddenly, at the next intersection, she recognised the ghostly remains of the Ginzburg Skyscraper. They were on Khreshchatyk now, still moving at speed, the wideness of the boulevard flanked by one bomb site after another. Then came a sudden turn to the left, and she had time to recognise the remains of the Continental Hotel before the big car began to lurch to the left and they rolled to a halt. The driver was cursing.
‘Fucking tyre,’ he swore in German.
‘How far?’
‘Five hundred metres.’
‘Just drive.’
The driver got back behind the wheel and stirred the engine into life. Slowly, they bumped over the cobblestones, and Bella could hear the metallic grinding of the tyre rim destroying itself.
‘Where are we going?’
‘The State Bank,’ Valentin laughed. ‘It’s a shit heap. You’d have been much better off in the Big House. Blame the fucking Russians, not us.’
She’d heard Yuri mention the State Bank, but she couldn’t remember why.
‘You’re working there? All of you?’
‘Sure. That’s where we do our business now.’
It wasn’t hard to spot the bank. Bella saw it coming a couple of intersections away, a tall, grey building, handsome windows, unusually intact for this area of the city. The driver nursed the Mercedes a little closer. Then, sixty metres away, he shook his head and came to a halt again.
‘Enough,’ he nodded at the street ahead. ‘We walk from here.’
Valentin grunted something Bella didn’t catch. The driver half turned and tossed him the keys before getting out to inspect the damaged wheel. Valentin manoeuvred his bulk out of the car and circled the boot, bending to unlock Bella’s door. As he did so, there came a blinding flash and the roar of an explosion, and, as the blast wave lifted the big car bodily and then slammed it down, Bella had the briefest glimpse of the pillars of the bank beginning to collapse. Valentin’s face at the window had gone.
Moments later, she became aware of another figure, young, pale, emerging from the clouds of dust. The gun in his hand was pointing down. Three bullets. She counted them. Bang-bang-bang. Then he wrenched the door open, and she found herself staring at the Russian. He pulled her out and gestured at the body at her feet. Valentin was sprawled on the cobblestones, three neat holes in his temple beneath the hair line, blood pooling around his head.
Bella stared down at him. The explosion had robbed her of everything. When she tried to speak, nothing came out.
The Russian had just put more bullets into the driver. Already, the street was alive with soldiers running towards what remained of the State Bank. None of them spared the Mercedes a second glance.
‘Larissa?’ Bella mumbled.
The Russian was already helping her out of the car. She’d had to struggle over the driver’s seat, protecting her plastered arm. Now she stared down at the two bodies, numbed by this torrent of unceasing violence.
‘Toropit’sya.’ The Russian was getting nervous. Come, he was saying. We need to go.
The three of them made their way against the tide of soldiers pouring down the street. One of them stopped and asked if they needed help. Bella shook her head. She was thinking straight, at last.
‘We were lucky,’ she muttered in German, gesturing back towards the bank. ‘We managed to get out.’
‘You’re SS?’
‘Ja. Clerical. Just a secretary.’
‘Fucking Ivans.’ The soldier ran on.
The car was parked on the side of the road. Bella recognised it at once. The Russian bent to the window, peering inside. Bella joined him.
‘Yuri?’
The Russian shook his head. ‘Gone,’ he said. ‘And the equipment, too.’
21
SATURDAY 27 SEPTEMBER 1941
With a little help from Lenahan, Moncrieff made it to lunch. Meals at Beaulieu were served in a big tent filled with long trestle tables covered in sheets. Food was cooked at a field kitchen behind the tent and the clatter of the generator made for shouted conversations. According to Lenahan, this was strictly a temporary arrangement, but Moncrieff waved his apology away. He rather liked the set-up. It reminded him of his early days in the Marines.
The tent was full, and while Lenahan fetched helpings of the day’s stew Moncrieff gazed around. There had been a number of occasions in his life when he’d been in danger of slipping his moorings but nothing to compare to this. At one moment, France. The next, rural England, with Ursula Barton suddenly at his bedside. And now here he was, surrounded by strangers, mainly men, mainly young, and most of them foreign. He had a good ear for languages, even with competition from the generator, and by the time Lenahan returned with the food he’d identified at least half a dozen.
‘French? German? Polish? Czech? Spanish? Dutch? Am I right?’
‘And more, buddy,’ Lenahan was juggling the plates of stew. ‘Try teaching these guys. My field is explosives. You have to get this stuff right. On a good day I’m looking at a bunch of crazy bums from all over Europe. Most of them speak a little English. Some of them don’t. And it’s those mothers you have to be very, very patient with. Maybe that’s why God invented sign language. You wire the detonator this way. Watch me. Do it. Then do it again, and again, and again. By the end of all that, the chances of blowing yourself up are down to fifty per cent. Some of them can live with odds like that.’ He shrugged. ‘Some don’t.’
Moncrieff smiled. The young American, with his manic energy and his cheerful despair, was making him feel better.
A stranger approached, accompanied by one of the sentries from the gate. Lenahan jumped to his feet.
‘Frank! Great to see you, buddy. They gave you a pass? Are they blind or is this your lucky day? This is Tam. He won’t get up but don’t take it personally. He’s also Scottish but that’s not his fault, either.’
Moncrieff was trying to struggle to his feet but Lenahan pushed him gently back down to his seat before setting off for more food.
‘The name’s Jennings.’ Moncrieff shook the proffered hand. ‘I don’t think surnames ever occur to our American friends. You are…?’
‘Moncrieff. Tam for short.’
Jennings sat down. He was small and poorly shaved. He wore the uniform of a Major in the Royal Engineers. He had a pair of glasses on a lanyard around his neck and a nervous habit of running his fingers through what remained of his greying hair. He said he’d been on the road for the best part of seven hours.
‘From? Am I allowed to ask?’
‘Sevenoaks. Lovely part of the country but never try to get anywhere in a hurry. The roads are atrocious, which must be one of the reasons our German friends haven’t invade
d. The bloody traffic jams would bring them to their knees. One wretched village after another. Happy days. Do they serve alcohol here?’
Lenahan had just returned with another plate of stew but Jennings despatched him at once in search of beer.
‘Make that three,’ he called. ‘One each. Halstead’s paying.’
‘Fort Halstead?’ Moncrieff was warming to this little man.
‘The very same. You know it?’
‘Of it. Your reputation goes before you. When all else fails, blow the enemy up.’
‘Exactly. My thoughts entirely, Moncrieff. Some of us argue that chemistry is a calling, a vocation. That’s a bit fancy for me. I’m still the kid in his raincoat on bonfire night. I just love all those bangs.’
Jennings, it turned out, had come to Beaulieu to deliver a series of guest lectures at Lenahan’s invitation. He’d done it before, with some success, and appeared to be entranced by the place.
‘It’s deeply refreshing, if I may say so. The quality’s a bit uneven and I’m sure some of these people are duds, or worse, but you can’t fault the thinking. Set Europe ablaze? Doesn’t that prospect fill you with joy?’
Lenahan was back with the beer. Jennings seized the nearest tankard. With apologies to Moncrieff, he needed to share some good news with his young host.
‘Kyiv, dear boy. I got word from our chaps in Moscow last night. The city’s in flames. It bloody worked.’
Lenahan wanted to know more. Jennings was more than happy to oblige. Dozens of targets, all of them carefully chosen, all of them full of Germans, and all of them blown to kingdom come with nothing more complicated than a wireless signal.
‘How many killed?’ Lenahan was eager for numbers.
‘Hundreds, thousands, zillions. The advance has ground to a halt. Hitler has had second thoughts and ordered a retreat. The Krauts will be back in Berlin by next weekend.’ Jennings broke off. ‘I jest, Moncrieff, but, believe me, it’s excellent news. A Ruski flew in and popped down to Halstead for a spot of technical advice and extra kit. Lovely little chap, name of Ilya. Ilya Glivenko. We had him round for supper and I think my wife fell in love with him. We did our best to help the Ruski, of course, but it turned out they’d got most of it right already. Impressive people. Think things through. Plucky, too. Not that they have much choice in the matter.’
‘This was when?’ Moncrieff wanted to know more.
‘Blowing up Kyiv?’
‘Meeting your Russian.’
‘Couple of weeks ago. I drove him up to Northolt and saw the little chap off, handed him over to a delightful woman who’d be taking over as Ilya’s escort.’
‘From whom?’
‘Me. They were heading off on the long route south. Gib. Cairo. I’m sure you know the score. This Russian thing has been a bit sudden for some of our chaps down the line. Ilya needed someone to smooth the way, take care of any problems en route, at least that’s what she told me.’
‘You talked to her?’
‘Briefly. She had fluent Russian. That’s what stuck in my mind. Bloody clever, says me. Amazing the talents this little country can lay its hands on.’
‘She had a name?’
‘Of course,’ he frowned. ‘Menzies? Know her, by any chance.’
‘Yes, I do,’ Moncrieff allowed himself a smile. ‘Her first name’s Isobel.’
‘You’re right. I dare say that makes you a lucky chap. She told me she was off to Moscow. Not looking forward to it at all.’
‘The city?’
‘Winter,’ he pulled a face. ‘And all those bloody Germans at her door.’
*
Bella was sitting in Schultz’s new office at the Museum of Lenin. There were armed guards outside on the street, and Wehrmacht – at Schultz’s insistence – were sending extra security. Earlier this morning, roused from nightmares she was still trying to forget, Bella had asked whether these precautions were really necessary. Neither she nor Larissa were planning to escape.
‘This is for your benefit, as well as ours.’ Schultz had sounded weary. ‘The SS have no sense of humour. The moment they decide that you blew up their headquarters is the moment they’ll come looking. We have to keep these bastards at arm’s length. No one needs complications. Least of all me.’
Schultz said he’d been on the phone for most of the morning. Word from the Military Governor’s office suggested that the bomb beneath the State Bank had killed most of the handful of staff who had just moved in.
‘I got the whole story from our Russian friend, the one we picked up. You want to know how they did it? Yuri knew where to find Krulak. He also knew one of the Russian agents in contact with the sappers. The sappers had just blown up the Big House. The SS needed to find somewhere else to nest but neither Yuri nor the Russian knew where. Yuri took what happened to you personally. He wanted to make Kalb pay.’
‘And Larissa?’
‘She’s another one on Kalb’s list. He wants to lay hands on her. Badly. She’s his trophy Yid. So, all Yuri needed to do was set Kalb’s dogs on her.’
‘How did he do that?’
‘There’s a phone number for the SS. It’s for snitches. Anyone can call and so Yuri picked up the phone. Larissa Krulak? An address? The SS couldn’t wait. And neither could Yuri. She was out in the country, as you know. Yuri knew which route they had to take on their way back, and after he dropped you he parked up and waited. He had the Russian with him to make contact with the sappers. All the sappers needed was the target.’
‘The State Bank.’
‘Exactly. There were three more tons of high explosive in the cellars. Last night, we understand the SS were in the process of checking. Too fucking late. Bam—’ Schultz drove his big fist into the palm of his other hand.
‘And Kalb?’
‘He wasn’t there.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘As sure as I can be,’ he nodded at one of the phones. ‘I had him on this morning. The man’s frothing at the mouth. You want a direct quote? He’s trying to get thirty-three thousand people in a line and he’s telling me none of them will stand still. These are Jews. Yids. Kalb’s got a day and a half to decide what to do with them all. I think he was trying to pick my brains but I’m here to win a war, not settle some private fucking debts. Thankfully, our tame Russian has given us a head start.’
‘He gave you the list of targets?’
‘We found it when we searched him. They’re all in code but we know which order these buildings went up in and from that we can work the rest out.’
‘How many?’
‘Hundreds. And that’s just his list. There may be others, but in the meantime we know where to start looking.’
‘And Yuri?’
‘They caught him last night. That was the real reason for Kalb’s phone call.’
*
Bella took the news back to Larissa. They’d been sleeping in the same room, Bella on the floor, Larissa on a sagging leather couch. Last night’s explosion, so close, coupled with the killings beside the car, had left their mark. Since the Russian had delivered them back to Schultz’s safe-keeping, she’d barely said a word.
Now, she was huddled in a corner of the couch, still wrapped in a single thin blanket. The force of the explosion had shattered part of the Mercedes’ windscreen and, with the aid of a pair of tweezers, Bella had spent half the night extracting tiny splinters of glass from her cheeks and forehead. She thought she’d got them all out. She’d been wrong.
‘Well?’ Larissa’s fingers were still mapping the damage on her face. Now and again, they stopped, probed, scratched, drew blood.
Bella explained how the SS had found the address.
‘Yuri told them?’
‘Yes. He wanted to kill Kalb.’
‘And did he?’
‘No.’
‘Was he injured?’
‘He was somewhere else. I don’t know where.’
‘And Yuri?’
‘They caught him.’
> ‘This is the SS? Kalb?’
‘The Germans. I don’t know precisely who. But Kalb’s got him now.’
Larissa nodded, said nothing, turned her face away. When Bella tried to comfort her, the older woman pushed her aside. She was still in shock. That was obvious.
Bella told her about the Russian who’d killed Valentin and the driver. Schultz was holding him somewhere, but the important work was already done.
‘Meaning?’
‘Schultz has a list of targets. He’s already organising the engineers to start defusing the bombs. The Russians did their best but now it’s just a question of time. I’m afraid it’s over, but thank God you’re still in one piece.’
‘Here, you mean?’ Larissa gestured bitterly at the pictures on the wall. Lenin arriving at the Finland Station. Lenin hoisted shoulder-high by a huge crowd. Lenin looking thoughtful beside a window. ‘These people helped themselves to our country, mine and Yuri’s.’ Larissa shook her head. ‘And now we have to deal with your German friends.’
*
The rest of the day crawled by. There were no more explosions. The two women remained in the museum. Twice, Larissa got up to try the door and on both occasions it was locked. Then, in mid-afternoon, Schultz appeared. He’d acquired a link of cold sausage and some bread from somewhere. With it came a china jug full of steaming black tea. So far, he said, Russian prisoners had been put to work at a dozen of the suspected sites and were unearthing antennae and receiving equipment. At three of the sites, he said, the antennae appeared to have been manufactured in England and he’d made a note of the markings. Coventry, Bella confirmed. Lots of factories. Lots of expertise.
‘This is the equipment you escorted from England?’
‘It must be. We’re allies now, remember. Friends for life.’
Schultz held her gaze. He wasn’t smiling.
Kyiv (Spoils of War) Page 22
