Lehrter Station

by David Downing

  The man brought the muzzle level with Russell’s head and seemed inclined to pull the trigger. One blast of a locomotive whistle would certainly drown out the noise.

  ‘All right,’ Russell agreed. The man smiled, and gestured him into the trunk. He was about thirty, Russell guessed, with a long scar on the back of his gun hand and what looked like ancient burns down one side of his face. A veteran of something nasty.

  Russell took his time getting into the trunk, and was still arranging his body to fit the space when the lid slammed down, plunging him into darkness. A few more seconds and the car lurched into motion, running straight for a while and then taking what seemed a right turn, presumably onto Gartenstrasse. Maybe they’d be stopped at a military checkpoint, Russell thought – there were few enough cars on the road. If so, he’d make a racket that no one could ignore.

  ‘Johann’s buried there,’ Scarred Man said as they took another turn. They must be on the street which bisected Wedding cemetery.

  ‘He was an unlucky bastard,’ the other man said. It was the first Russell had heard his voice, which sounded unusually shrill.

  He had no trouble hearing their conversation – the trunk’s inner wall was much thinner than the outer. He wondered if they realised he could hear them, and whether they would care.

  They’d been silent for several minutes when Shrill Voice came out with a question: ‘When are you going to do it – when we get to the factory?’

  Scarred Man’s laugh was derisive. ‘We’d have to carry the body, wouldn’t we? I’ll wait until Kyritz Wood.’

  ‘I see what you mean.’

  So did Russell, who suddenly felt cold all over. And his bowels were feeling loose – it was Ypres all over again.

  They were going to kill him. Why? It had to be Rudolf Geruschke, but why? All he’d done was take an interest in an old friend. He hadn’t even kicked up a real fuss. Not yet anyway, and certainly not with Geruschke. So why?

  And then he realised. He had turned up at the man’s nightclub. He hadn’t even heard of Geruschke until that evening, let alone known of his connection with Kuzorra. But Geruschke didn’t know that. And someone – Irma most likely – must have told him that Russell was a journalist.

  Even so.

  How had they known where to find him? Had someone at Camp Cyclop put in a call, and told them he was heading back into town?

  But what the hell did that matter? They had found him, and now they were going to kill him. In Kyritz Wood, wherever the hell that was. But first they would stop at a factory. He might get a chance there. If they ever let him out of the trunk.

  He had a sudden memory of the Saint in similar circumstances. The Saint in New York was the book, one of Paul’s childhood favourites. Two of Dutch Kuhlmann’s hoodlums had driven the Saint to a wood in New Jersey – it was amazing how much he remembered of the story. The Saint got away of course, but only because the love interest showed up in the nick of time to distract his would-be killers.

  That wouldn’t happen this time. No one else knew where was. No one except Geruschke.

  How far had they gone? He couldn’t see his watch, but reckoned they’d been driving about twenty-five minutes. They were still in the city.

  He’d been dicing with disaster for six years now, but the thought of surviving the best that Hitler and Stalin could throw at him, and then falling victim to some jumped-up profiteer, was more than a little galling.

  And they would bury him in the wood, he realised. From Effi’s point of view, he would simply have vanished. She might guess who was responsible for his disappearance, but she could never be sure, of either his death or his probable killer. At the very least, he had to find some way of reporting his own demise. A message of some sort.

  Searching his pockets he realised how much of a rush he’d left in that morning. His pen was still on Thomas’s desk. Some reporter.

  His abductors were conversing again. He could hardly credit it – they were not only talking football, but both seemed to be fellow-Hertha supporters.

  The car made another turn, and was suddenly bumping over less even ground. Had they reached the factory?

  He told himself he had to be ready, to take a chance if it came, to make himself one if none did. Easy words. The phrase ‘hanging by a thread’ had never carried more weight. He needed some sort of plan, but his mind was a raging blank.

  The car stopped, bouncing a little as the two men got out. The lid of the trunk lifted up, revealing a row of far-away skylights. ‘Raus,’ the gunman said. ‘Out,’ he added in translation, looking pleased with himself.

  They had no idea he spoke German, Russell realised – they’d been ordered to kill an American, and had made the assumption that he only spoke English. Was there any way of using the mistake against them? He couldn’t think of one.

  Back on his feet, he felt more than a little unsteady. If he tried to run he’d only get about two metres. Not that there was anywhere to run to. Shrill Voice was sliding shut the door they’d come through, and there was no other obvious exit.

  The car had drawn up in one of four loading docks, and a lorry with US Army markings occupied another. Crates and other containers were stacked along the side walls of the platform, and a long, glassed-in office space lined the back.

  Scarred Man gestured him towards the open rear of the lorry.

  ‘I need a piss before we go,’ Shrill Voice told his partner.

  ‘Okay.’

  Shrill Voice was halfway to the office when a telephone started to ring. ‘Should I answer it?’ he shouted back.

  Scarface grimaced. ‘I suppose so.’

  Russell could hear the high-pitched voice from thirty metres away, but not what was being said. Was this the moment to throw himself at the other man? If the bastard had any reflexes at all, he would empty the gun before Russell reached him, but would there be a better chance?

  There might.

  There might not.

  And Shrill Voice was on his way back. ‘Change of plan,’ he told his partner, three short words that almost caused Russell’s heart to explode. ‘We’ve got to take him back to town.’

  ‘And do what with him?’

  ‘Let him go.’

  ‘What! Why for fuck’s sake? That’s another hour’s driving. We won’t get back from Rostock until God knows when.’

  ‘He didn’t give me his reasons,’ Shrill Voice said sarcastically.

  ‘Why didn’t you say we’d already killed him?’

  ‘I didn’t think of it.’

  Scarred Man looked angrily at Russell. ‘Well, it’s too late now.’ He waved the gun towards the Mercedes. ‘I thought the fucking phone was out of order,’ he added, apparently to himself.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Russell asked in English, as if he had no idea.

  Scarred Man lifted his gun, and for a second Russell thought he might use it. But the man just shook his head. ‘You one lucky bozo,’ he said in English, a quote no doubt from a Hollywood movie.

  Russell climbed back into the trunk, trying to look bemused. Once the lid was down it was all he could do not to cry out with joy. He felt almost hysterical. If the phone had rung ten minutes later – or if some sweetheart of a Telefunken engineer hadn’t got their line working – he’d been halfway to Kyritz Wood. Some day he’d have to drive out there. The place he hadn’t been shot and buried.

  He couldn’t remember a nicer trip in a trunk.

  The return journey seemed shorter, but that didn’t surprise him. When the car eventually stopped, there was a long wait before the trunk was opened. Clambering out, he discovered why – they were parked at the side of the Chaussee, in the middle of the Tiergarten. His abductors had been waiting for an empty road.

  He thought he should say something, but couldn’t think what, so he just started walking. He heard the slam of the door, and the purr of the motor as the Mercedes pulled away. He felt like falling to his knees and kissing the bare earth, but wasn’t sure how he’d ever get
back to his feet.

  A last game of chess

  Russell was still wondering why as he worked his way round the flak towers and down past the Zoo. Why had Geruschke – or someone else – decided he needed killing? And what had changed his mind?

  He was waiting for a bus on the Ku’damm when he remembered Fritsche’s young colleague. Luders might have useful things to say about the way these people operated, and Fritsche should have his address. The café he used as an office was only a short walk away.

  Fritsche was sitting in his usual seat, hands resting intertwined on the table, staring into space. He looked up with a jerk when Russell loomed over him, and the momentary flash of fear was hard to miss.

  ‘Has something happened?’ Russell asked.

  ‘It’s Luders. He was beaten up in the street last night. Badly. An arm and a leg broken. He’s in the hospital.’

  ‘Christ. Does he know who it was?’

  ‘No, but he can guess.’

  ‘Has he – has anyone – brought the police in?’

  Fritsche managed a wan smile. ‘The hospital doctor insisted, but he needn’t have bothered. There’s nothing to go on, and even if there was…’ He shrugged.

  ‘How is he?’

  ‘In a lot of pain. They’re low on morphine at the Elisabeth – only the very worst cases are given any. Half the ward seemed to be screaming when I went in this morning – it sounded like the end of a battle.’ Fritsch seemed to take in Russell’s appearance for the first time. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost yourself.’

  ‘My own.’ He told Fritsche what had had happened that morning: the news of Kuzorra’s death, his own abduction and unlikely reprieve.

  Fritsch shook his head in wonder. ‘Someone up there likes you. But the men who took you – they sound like American gangsters. They take people for “rides”, don’t they?’

  ‘So did the Gestapo.’

  ‘True. So who have you annoyed?’ Fritsche wondered out loud.

  Russell felt reluctant to name him. ‘The same bastard as Luders, I think. Maybe I should go and see the boy in hospital, compare notes.’

  Fritsche grunted. ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea. If anyone’s watching it’ll look like a council of war, and Luders can’t even sit up in bed, let alone defend himself. Once he’s back on his feet I’m sure the young idiot will be happy to join forces. The two of you can sign a mutual suicide pact.’

  ‘I’d rather not.’

  ‘Good. Walk away, that’s my advice. Situations like this, all sorts of diseases are bound to be rife. And there’s precious little you can do about it until the situation changes. As long as you have a black market you’ll have people like Rudolf Geruschke. Once it disappears, so will he.’

  ‘And in the meantime?’

  ‘In the meantime, we live with the guilt of watching better men go down in flames.’

  Russell admired the clarity, but not the world-view.

  Back on the pavement, he found his knees were still shaky, and spent a few moments leaning against a convenient lamp post, wondering what to do next. Was there any point in going to the police or the occupation authorities? The pair who’d marched him out of the station were probably genuine soldiers, but was it worth looking for them? There were upward of ten thousand British troops in Berlin, and even if he found this particular duo it would only be his word against theirs.

  There was certainly no point in openly declaring war on Geruschke – the man would hang him out for the crows. But he couldn’t just let him get away with it – he owed Kuzorra too much for that. He would stay out of the ring for a while, let Geruschke believe he’d been scared – not difficult, that – and then, very quietly and carefully, start amassing evidence. It might take a while, but he and maybe Luders would take the bastard down with good old-fashioned journalism.

  A communal canteen offered itself, and he exchanged some ration stamps for a bowl of surprisingly tasty vegetable soup. ‘I’m alive,’ he told his reflection in the washroom mirror. ‘But Kuzorra isn’t,’ the reflection retorted.

  A bus dropped him off on Dahlem’s Kronprinzenallee, and he walked back through the suburban streets to Thomas’s house, eyes peeled for any sign that he was being followed. Berlin felt less safe than it had that morning.

  Once home, he shut himself up in his and Effi’s room. Feeling suddenly cold, he lay down under the blankets. He began to shiver, and realised that the shock was wearing off. An hour later, when Effi came in, he was more or less recovered, but she immediately knew that something had happened.

  She listened aghast as he told her what. ‘And this was the man who had Kuzorra killed?’ she asked, after holding him tight for a minute or more.

  ‘I don’t know for certain. It could have been someone with a personal grudge that we don’t know about – Kuzorra must have made enough enemies in his years at the Alex. But Geruschke was the one he was after.’

  ‘And you weren’t?’

  ‘No, I just visited Kuzorra. All I can think is, I went to the Honey Trap before I knew Kuzorra had been arrested – I was looking for Otto, but Geruschke might think that was a cover story, that I was already investigating him when I heard about Kuzorra, and that I went to see Kuzorra because I hoped he could tell me more. So first he killed Kuzorra and then he came for me.’

  ‘But changed his mind,’ Effi said doubtfully.

  ‘Yes. It doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘Perhaps they were only trying to scare you,’ she suggested hopefully.

  ‘If they were, it worked. But no, they were really annoyed when someone told them to bring me back.’

  ‘Were they wearing masks or anything? Would you know them again?’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘The police could watch the nightclub for them.’

  Russell shook his head. ‘The police are a broken reed at the moment. Even if they wanted to help, I don’t think there’s anything they could do. I think my best bet is to lay low for a while.’

  She gave him a who-are-you-kidding look. ‘Really?’

  ‘For a while – yes, really. I’m sure Kuzorra wouldn’t want me to throw myself on his pyre.’

  ‘No, he wouldn’t. And if you change your mind I want to hear about it before you do anything risky, all right?

  ‘Okay,’ Russell said, taking her into his arms. They held each other so tightly that the phrase ‘like there’s no tomorrow’ popped into his head. ‘So what have you been doing?’ he eventually asked her.

  ‘Rushing around. We’re actually starting filming tomorrow. At Babelsberg, believe it or not.’

  ‘That’s great.’

  ‘Yes, yes it is.’ She heard the lack of conviction in her own voice, and wondered why that was. It was wonderful to be in at the beginning of something so important. She was so lucky. She’d had an extraordinary life, with and without him. But now she wanted something else for the two of them, something that seemed more impossible each day – an ordinary life.

  ‘But?’ he asked.

  She shook her head. ‘John, what are we going to do?’

  ‘I don’t know. Something’ll come up – it always has.’

  There was a knock on the door. It was Thomas, come to tell Russell that he had a visitor.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘A British soldier.’

  ‘I’ll come down.’

  Frau Niebel was guarding the hall, the visitor still poised on the stoop. He was wearing a Jewish Brigade uniform. ‘You are John Russell?’ he asked in English. ‘Wilhelm Isendahl gave me your name and address, and since I was leaving Berlin this evening, I thought I would take a chance on finding you at home.’

  ‘I’m glad you did. Please, come in.’

  The visitor watched Frau Niebel scuttle away. ‘Is there somewhere private we can talk?’

  ‘Use my study,’ Thomas suggested.

  Russell ushered the man in and shut the door behind them.

  ‘My name is Hersch,’ the man began. He was about thirty,
Russell guessed, with deeply tanned skin and dark, almost racoon-like eyes. ‘As you can see, I’m an officer in the British Army’ – he allowed himself a wry smile – ‘but I’m here on behalf of the Haganah. I assume you know who we are?’

  ‘The defence force of the Palestinian Jews.’

  ‘Yes. And you, I believe, have proved yourself a friend of the Jews.’

  It seemed easiest just to nod.

  ‘We have a proposition for you. You know about the flight route to Palestine?’

  ‘Isendahl gave me a primer.’

  ‘Would you like to write about it?’

  ‘Very much, but why would you want the publicity?’

  Hersch smiled for the first time, and looked about ten years younger. ‘To give the survivors hope. To encourage them to join us. To tell the world that the Jews have seized control of their own lives, and that we’re no longer willing to submit.’

  ‘All good reasons. But won’t you also be making it easier for the authorities to stop you?’

  ‘We will expect you to keep some secrets, to change the names of people and places.’

  ‘I can do that.’

  ‘Then I think we have a deal.’ He reached inside his tunic pocket for a crumpled piece of paper, and handed it across. ‘You must reach Vienna by Monday if you want to be sure of joining the next group. If you arrive any later, then you may have to wait for the one after that. If you contact that person at that address, then everything will be arranged for you.’

  * * *

  It was almost light next morning when he watched Effi walk out to the waiting single-decker. According to her, the Russians had provided the vehicle to carry the film cast and crew to and fro, but Russell recognised the familiar outline of an American school bus. It chugged off down the otherwise silent street, spewing dark clouds of exhaust into the grey dawn.

  No one seemed to be watching the house, neither then nor later, when he walked to the Press Club for an American breakfast. He picked up his allowance of cigarettes before leaving, and handed out a few to the ferallooking urchins who loitered outside the gates. The first word of the ‘No Germans Allowed’ sign had been obliterated with a wodge of something brown.