They turned into Lippehner Strasse. Halsey hadn’t said a word since they started walking, but Russell could almost feel the young man’s eagerness. The glitter in his eyes suggested something more, and Russell found himself wondering whether Dallin’s favourite had been sampling the cocaine now readily available on Berlin’s black market.
There didn’t seem much point in asking.
They stopped outside Schreier’s building, and waited for Vinny and George to catch up. Staring across the street, Russell thought he saw movement in the ruins, but couldn’t be sure. Maybe his informer had put two and two together, and come to see the show.
The four of them went in through the front door. There were no working lamps in the hall or on the stairs, but enough light was seeping round the edges of doors to offer a modicum of visibility. The building smelled of cabbage, sweat and human waste, like most of the rest of Berlin. Music was playing somewhere up above — the sort of sultry jazz that Goebbels had found so repellent.
The stairs creaked alarmingly, causing Russell to wonder whether the house was as solid as it looked. According to Annaliese, half the people arriving at emergency rooms were the victims of collapsing walls, floors and staircases. The other half were simply starving.
They reached the third floor without mishap. A ribbon of light shone under Schreier’s door, and the music was playing behind it.
‘You knock,’ Halsey told Russell in an exaggerated whisper. ‘Pretend to be a resident complaining about the music. We need to know the situation — where Schreier is, where the Russians have their guns. Okay?’
Russell felt like asking ‘why me?’ but unfortunately knew the answer — none of the others spoke German. He waited until they had disappeared up the stairs, took a deep breath, and knocked.
The music abruptly ceased.
‘Who is it?’ a voice asked in Russian.
‘Herr Hirth,’ Russell improvised. Hauptsturmfuhrer Hirth had been his SS spymaster in the good old days.
There was no reply.
He knocked again and took a quick step sideways, just in case. Drunken Russians had a habit of shooting doors which annoyed them.
These two proved to be sober. The uniformed man who opened the door was holding a machine pistol half aloft, like someone intent on starting a race. Another slightly older man was sitting at a chessboard on the other side of the room. Both sported the pale blue shoulder insignia of the NKVD.
They looked confused, as if they’d been expecting someone else.
‘Herr Schreier?’ Russell said tentatively.
The Russian at the table leant back in his chair and called into the adjoining room. A few seconds later a tall thin German emerged, and gave Russell an enquiring look.
The complaining resident act seemed unconvincing, but he couldn’t think of anything else. ‘I was just wondering if you could turn the music down,’ he said. ‘My wife is sick, and she needs her sleep.’
Schreier walked across to the radio and mimed Russell’s request to the watching guards, both of whom smiled their assent. The one who had answered the door was still holding the machine pistol, but its barrel was now pointed at the floor. The other man’s gun was sitting on the table, beside a clutch of sacrificed pawns.
Russell made gestures of thanks and withdrew. The door closed behind him, and the music resumed at a lower volume. An accommodating NKVD — what next?
Halsey was waiting a few steps up.
Russell reported what he’d seen, and watched with alarm as Halsey screwed the silencer onto his gun. Vinny was taking position on the flight of stairs below, George holding his on the flight above.
It occurred to Russell that Halsey might not know that they were expected. ‘You won’t need to use that…’
‘I will,’ Halsey contradicted him, and the look in his eyes told Russell much more than he wanted to know.
The young American slipped away down the stairs and applied his own fist to Schreier’s door. When it opened seconds later a few Russian words were abruptly cut off by the ‘phhhtt’ of the silenced revolver. There was a sound of tumbling furniture, another ‘phhhtt’, a cry of fear.
Halsey had disappeared into the apartment, and Russell reluctantly followed. The younger Russian was lying on the ragged carpet behind the door, a bloody hole where his left eye had been. His comrade was on the ground behind the table. As he struggled to get up, Halsey administered the coup de grace, a bullet in the back of the head. He was clearly a fan of the NKVD.
Russell was aghast, and obviously showed it.
‘What did you think we were going to do?’ Halsey asked. ‘Tie them to chairs?
Something like that, Russell thought. He looked from one corpse to the other. Another two families in mourning. He hoped that neither were Nemedin favourites.
Schreier also looked in shock. ‘Tell him he’s coming with us,’ Halsey told Russell.
He did so.
Schreier didn’t look eager, which was hardly surprising. ‘Where are you taking me?’ he asked in a tremulous voice.
‘To the American sector,’ Russell told him.
Schreier shook his head, more in disbelief than refusal.
‘Get whatever you want to take,’ Russell said. ‘You won’t be coming back.’
The German went into the bedroom, and reappeared moments later with a framed photograph of a woman. ‘My late wife,’ he explained.
A horn sounded in the street below.
‘Who the fuck’s that?’ Halsey asked, heading for the window. He peeled the curtain back a few inches and looked down. ‘It’s two Ivans in a jeep. An American jeep,’ he added, as if that made their appearance even less welcome.
‘The changing of the guard,’ Russell guessed. He’d forgotten to tell Halsey about the horn routine, and there didn’t seem much point now.
‘It looks like we won’t need the U-Bahn,’ Halsey said. ‘We’ll wait for them to come up, then take the jeep.’ He walked to the door and softly called the other two in. They hardly looked at the two corpses.
‘What if they don’t come up?’ Russell asked. He didn’t want two more Russians to die, but short of shooting Halsey could see no way around it. ‘They won’t want to leave the jeep unattended, so they’ll probably wait for these two to come down.’
Halsey smiled. ‘Then I guess we’ll have to take their places.’
A hail of bullets was about right. ‘How many Russians are you going to kill?’ Russell asked. ‘I thought Dallin sent us to fetch Schreier, not start World War Three.’
The horn sounded again, a touch more impatiently.
‘Well they’re down there, we’re up here, and we have to get past them somehow. Have you got a better idea?’
‘Yes. You three take Schreier down to the ground floor, and find somewhere out of sight. I’ll lean out of the window, tell them there’s a problem, and that I need them up here.’
‘Do you speak Russian as well?’ Halsey asked. It was almost an accusation.
‘Enough.’
‘Hmm. What if only one of them comes?’
‘Then you’ll have one less to deal with.’ And one life saved was better than none, Russell thought but didn’t say.
‘And what’ll you do?’
‘Once they start up I’ll head down a flight or two, and stay out of sight until they’ve gone past.’
Halsey nodded. ‘Okay. Give us a couple of minutes.’ He took one last look at his victims and led the others out through the door, Vinny and George clutching their guns, Schreier his photograph.
Russell was still wondering about the jeep. They’d be more exposed above ground, but it would certainly be quicker than walking to the nearest U-Bahn and waiting for a train. They’d be out of the Soviet sector in fifteen minutes, provided they weren’t stopped.
He found himself looking at the dead Russians again. How were the American authorities going to explain this? He supposed they could simply deny all knowledge, but who else would have a motive for snatching S
chreier and killing two NKVD men? Schreier himself was the only credible scapegoat, and if the Americans blamed him they could hardly put him to work in one of their laboratories. Or not without giving him a new identity.
The two minutes were up. He reached for the window latch just as the horn sounded again, and after a struggle managed to disengage it. He stuck out his head just as a Russian stepped out of the jeep. ‘You must come up,’ he shouted down, hoping that an unfamiliar voice wouldn’t alert them. ‘There’s a problem. I’ll need you both,’ he added, then swiftly withdrew his head.
Please, he silently advised them, save your lives.
He closed the door behind him and hurried down the stairs, alert for the sound of feet below. Reaching the first floor, he ducked back along the passageway that led to the flats at the rear, and was just flattening himself against a wall when torchlight flickered across the ceiling. The Russians were lighting their own way up.
There were footfalls on the stairs now, so the others had not been spotted. And there were — thank the Lord — two pairs of feet ascending. Russell crouched in the darkness, and prayed no beam would shine his way.
It played on the walls in front of him, but then vanished upwards along with the feet. He waited until these reached the next landing, then descended, as swiftly and quietly as he could, to the ground floor, door and street.
The others were already on board, with Halsey and George sandwiching Schreier in the back, and Vinny at the wheel. Russell scrambled into the empty front seat, wondering why Halsey had forsaken the honour. He soon found out. The engine burst into life, and Vinny accelerated off down Lippehner Strasse, shouting ‘which way?’ at him over the roar of the motor.
‘Left,’ he said automatically as they roared up towards the intersection with Greifswalder Strasse. Which was the best way to go? The American sector was closest, but how would they get across the Spree? When he’d walked to that stretch of the river the other day, all the bridges had still been down. The simplest route was straight along Neue Konigstrasse to Alexanderplatz, crossing the Spree and Spreekanal by the Old City bridges — he knew that they were open. Then down Unter den Linden to the Brandenburg Gate, where the British zone began. The British might stop them and make a fuss, but they wouldn’t shoot anybody.
Neue Konigstrasse was almost empty, a late night tram brimming with passengers striking sparks in the other direction.
A nasty thought occurred to Russell. He turned to Schreier, and asked him in German whether there’d been a telephone in the apartment.
‘Yes.’
‘Was it working?’
‘Sometimes.’
‘There was a telephone,’ Russell told Halsey, in response to the latter’s quizzical look.
They were passing between the remains of the Statistical and Tax Offices, Vinny driving the jeep at a steady forty as they approached the brighter lights of Alexanderplatz. Back in the spring Russell had done a day’s involuntary labour on this stretch of road, helping dig gun emplacements for the defence of the city.
After Neue Konigstrasse, Alexanderplatz and the streets leading into it seemed almost brimming with life. Several strands of music were audible and the square itself was awash with people. Some of the men looked German, but most were wearing uniforms, and clinging on to a local girl. Judging by the high-pitched screams of delight, almost everyone was drunk, and the only thing waved at their passing jeep was a clearly empty bottle.
They swung round under the Stadtbahn bridge, drove down Konigstrasse’s rubble-lined canyon, and crossed the Spree on the makeshift replacement for the old Kurfursten Bridge. On the other side of the Schloss the Christmas fair in the Lustgarten offered a second oasis of life and light, the carousels gaily circling against a backdrop of ruptured stone.
Another makeshift bridge and they were slaloming down Unter den Linden, twisting this way and that through the gathered piles of rubble. A mile in the distance, the silhouette of the Brandenburg gate was hardening against the night sky. As they crossed the almost deserted Friedrichstrasse, Russell began to believe they would make it.
His confidence was short-lived. There was something up ahead, something involving movement and vehicles, between Pariserplatz and the site of the vanished Adlon Hotel. Was it a checkpoint, or just some Soviet unit doing God knows what? He could see a brazier aflame by the side of the road, several soldiers warming their hands. Two jeeps and a truck were lined up beyond.
An officer had noticed them coming, and was striding out into the road, clearly intent on pulling them over.
Russell took in the scene. The brazier suggested the Russians had been here for a while, and there was no sign that they were expecting a gang of murderous American abductors — none of the soldiers were taking cover or reaching for rifles. ‘It’s just a routine check,’ Russell told Halsey. ‘Let me handle it.’
They were about a hundred metres away now, and Vinny’s foot was easing down on the brake.
‘No,’ Halsey said suddenly. ‘Don’t stop. Drive on through.’
There was no time to argue the pros and cons. Vinny did the best job he could, slowing down enough to lull the Soviet officer into a false sense of security, then ramming his foot through the accelerator. The Russian jumped aside a second too late, and cried out in pain as the wing struck his trailing leg.
The soldiers were lunging for their rifles now, and Russell hunched himself down in his seat, waiting for the first whining bullet, blessing the fate which had put him in front. It seemed an age, but then there was a sudden volley of shots, and a cry of pain from behind him. They were crossing Pariserplatz now — another hundred metres and they’d be in the British sector.
More single shots rang out, and then a burst of automatic fire. A spray of liquid bathed the back of Russell’s neck, and something heavy dropped onto his shoulder. He felt the slight shift of light as they ran under the Brandenburg Gate and into the Tiergarten. The shooting had stopped.
Vinnie pulled the jeep to a halt a few hundred metres down the Chaussee, and helped Russell get out from under the body. Halsey had taken a bullet through the nose, and bits of his brain were everywhere.
Schreier was dead as well, still clutching his photograph. He had taken two bullets in the centre of the back.
A heartfelt ‘fuck’ was Vinny’s comment on the situation. He lit a cigarette and stood there gazing out across the darkened Tiergarten.
George just shrugged, like he’d seen it all before.
Looking at the dead Halsey, Russell realised he couldn’t care less. Which was a sobering thought.
The face in the cab
Russell stared out at the city below. It was probably Leipzig, which from this height looked deceptively intact. He remembered Goebbels going there and giving one of his pep talks, spouting off amidst suitably Wagnerian ruins. Victory or Siberia! It hadn’t taken a genius to work that one out, even then.
He still felt worried about leaving Effi, despite all her protestations. In the war she’d learned to take care of herself — that was what she’d told him. And he knew it was true, up to a point; these days she took time to consider, rather than jump straight in. But there were a lot of careful people pushing up daisies.
The plane lurched again, and he told himself he’d be better advised worrying about his own safety. The way the DC3 rattled, it was easy to imagine the plane shaking itself to pieces on the ground, let alone in the winds now raging over Germany. The Soviet fighters which had shadowed the early part of the American flight had long since scurried back to base.
Their pilot announced that they were crossing the zonal border, and the turbulence abruptly vanished, as if it had been a Russian trick. Or perhaps the Americans had found a way of calming the winds. They had to be good at something.
He closed his eyes and re-ran his last meeting with Scott Dallin. The American had been furious. A dead chemist, a dead operative, the Soviets already raising merry hell with his superiors. All of which had been bad enough, but what a
pparently galled him most was the fact that he couldn’t blame Russell. Vinny and George had obviously corroborated his own version of the events, and correctly identified Halsey as the author of his own demise.
‘I think you’ll find he was on something,’ Russell had told Dallin. ‘If you bother to look.’
‘On something,’ Dallin had echoed, as if Russell had chosen the wrong preposition.
‘Drugs. Uppers of some sort. Cocaine would be my guess. You can get it at any nightclub.’
‘We should close them all down.’
Russell had let that pass — if Dallin had his way, he’d have razed what was left of the city. His hero was probably Tamerlane. He had never bothered with occupations.
He smiled at the thought. At least Dallin had raised no objection to his trip. On the contrary, he had seemed only too pleased to have him out of the way.
Russell wondered how the Americans would placate the Soviets. By giving them Halsey’s head on a plate, most likely. Metaphorically speaking. If the boy had parents they were in for a shock. Death and disgrace.
He closed his eyes again, and let the throb of the engines lull him to sleep. He was only expecting a nap, but when he finally woke more Soviet fighters were riding shotgun on either side of the Dakota, patrolling the skies above their Austrian occupation zone.
Half an hour later they were down, and taxiing to a halt outside the Schwechat Airport terminal building. Austria and Vienna, like Germany and Berlin, had been divided into four occupation zones, and Schwechat had fallen inside the capital’s British sector, but civilian planes of all four powers were using the runway and other facilities.
The entry formalities were just that, and Russell’s progress was only halted by the lack of a taxi or bus. On Sundays, it seemed, arriving civilians were expected to walk the eight kilometres to the city centre, and it was more than an hour before he managed to cadge a lift in a British Army jeep.
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