Soon after six P.M. Strohm reached Chemnitz, where Marohn had suggested he spend the night. He found the local Party office easily enough, and was given a room reserved for official guests in the nearby hotel. The owner was too sycophantic for words, but both dinner and room were more than adequate. After eating he went upstairs, and read until his eyelids began to droop. As he drifted into sleep, he wondered what the next day would bring, what challenge to his conscience awaited him in Aue.
Russell woke with a start on Saturday morning, not knowing where he was. He’d been walking down a snow-covered street, with shadows lurking in every doorway, but here was Effi making gentle snuffling noises in her sleep.
Shchepkin should be in Moscow, he thought. He would probably be seeing Beria that day. Russell didn’t need to imagine the rage on the Georgian’s face when he heard what Shchepkin had to tell him-he’d seen it in the film.
From now until Tuesday, these were the dangerous days. Shchepkin would tell Beria that if he wasn’t back in Berlin by then, Russell would make his copy available to the Americans. And as Shchepkin had said, the sensible thing for Beria to do was accept the deal on offer, and for him to get used to the idea that at least one other recording of him committing murder was hidden out of reach. But would Beria be able to do this? Or would he hold on to Shchepkin, and gamble on scooping Russell up by Tuesday? In that case Beria would assume that once everyone was safely ensconced in the Lyubyanka, eliciting the location of the films would not present too great a problem. And in this he was certainly right.
Russell slipped out of bed, walked across to the window, and lifted the edge of the curtain. Since he wasn’t expecting to see anything, the car standing by the opposite kerb a little way down the street came as something of a shock. Especially as there didn’t appear to be anyone in it.
Were they already in the house, coming up the stairs?
He walked quickly through to the other room, checked that the bolts were drawn on the apartment door, and put his ear to the wood. If there was anyone out there, they were very quiet.
He went back to take another look at the car, only to find it was gone. A false alarm, he thought, but as someone wise once said, a false alarm was only a real one waiting to happen.
He woke Effi. ‘You know we talked about going away for the weekend? Well, I think we should.’
‘Why, what’s happened?’
‘Nothing yet. But it’s the safe thing to do.’
‘Okay, but where?’
‘You remember that hotel on Havelsee we stayed at, back when we were young?’
‘The one we never left. The bed we never left.’
‘That one.’
‘I can’t imagine it’s still there.’
‘The bed or the hotel?’
‘The hotel.’
‘It is. I called them yesterday, and they said they had some rooms. As long as we paid in dollars.’
‘Okay, so when do we leave?’
‘The sooner the better.’
Effi went in to wake Rosa, and found her getting dressed. ‘Sweetheart, we’re all going away for the weekend.’
Rosa’s face lit up. ‘Where to?’
‘The Havelsee. There’s a hotel we know. So pack up your drawing stuff and a book to read.’
She went back to Russell. ‘We have to tell Zarah. And Thomas.’
‘Tell them what?’
‘I don’t know. Something. If Beria’s people do come looking for us, the first places they’ll try when they draw a blank here are Zarah’s and Thomas’s. We have to give them some kind of warning.’
‘You’re right,’ Russell agreed reluctantly. ‘But don’t scare the life out of Zarah, or we’ll never get away.’
‘So what do I tell her? It’s okay to worry, but not too much?’
Russell grinned. ‘Just tell her that’s there probably nothing to worry about, but to keep her eyes open, just in case. And tell her not to let any strangers into the flat.’
They made the calls. Zarah, as predicted, was upset, and angry at Effi for making her so. Thomas was his usual stoic self: ‘If I understand you right, you’re not going to tell me where you’re going, and you don’t want me to tell anyone else.’
Fifteen minutes later they were carrying their bags down the stairs. If they’d forgotten something crucial, at least it wasn’t the gun that Russell had bought in Wedding the previous day, as that was in his pocket.
The street outside was blissfully empty, the walk to the station free of alarms, false or otherwise. But Rosa knew there was something up. ‘This feels like an adventure,’ she said as they climbed the stairs to the platform.
Aue was an hour’s drive southwest from Chemnitz, but Strohm had only been going ten minutes when the first checkpoint appeared. There were no signs to say so, but he was clearly passing into territory the Soviets considered their own. After his credentials had been examined with almost painful thoroughness, he was given explicit instructions on where to report in Aue, and strongly warned against leaving his present road for any reason at all. As he drove on through the pleasant Saxon hills, the Erzegebirge looming on the southern horizon, Strohm wondered what terrible secrets might lurk down the various turnings.
Aue sat in the mouth of a valley, a much smaller town than Chemnitz, but with more sense of bustle. At the Soviet Military Administration office on the town’s main street, the MGB officer that Marohn had mentioned-a Major Abakumov-was waiting for him. The Russian greeted him politely enough, but he was clearly impatient.
‘So what exactly is the problem?’ Strohm asked.
‘You do not know?!’
‘Not the details, no,’ Strohm said calmly.
‘The problem is that your railwaymen have been making difficulties. And they are now threatening a strike!’
‘Why?’
‘They say that working with uranium is too dangerous, that some men have developed serious illnesses because of their proximity to the ore.’
‘Are they right?’
Abakumov shrugged. ‘Such work is not pleasant, of course it isn’t. But needs must. The Soviet Union needs this uranium, for reasons that I’m sure you know. And we won’t tolerate this sabotage.’
‘What would you like me to do?’
‘Put a stop to it. How do you do it is your concern, but feel free to tell the comrades that if they won’t listen to you, they’ll have to listen to me. If we have to arrest every last one of them, and draft in replacements, then we will.’
They were, Strohm realised, determined to get the uranium.
‘The chief troublemaker is a man named Pieck,’ Abakumov was saying. ‘Do you know him?’
‘Only by reputation. He was a resistance leader in this area.’
Abakumov wasn’t impressed. ‘That war is over. It’s time he realised that another struggle-one every bit as crucial-is now underway. We have one hundred-thousand workers in this area, all busy taking uranium from the ground, and we won’t have their efforts brought to nothing by a few cowardly railwaymen.’
Strohm ignored the insult. ‘If you tell me where to find Pieck, I’ll go and talk to him now.’
‘Down by the station. The union offices are in the yard.’
Strohm considered leaving his car outside the Russian HQ-if it didn’t impress them, it would certainly alienate Pieck-but what was the point in pretending? He was the Man from Berlin, come to scold them back into line.
Manfred Pieck was alone in his office. He was a man of around Strohm’s own age, with a shock of dark brown hair and watchful grey eyes behind small spectacles. He listened patiently to Strohm’s explanation of his presence, merely sighing with obvious frustration at a couple of points. ‘I saw you drive up,’ he said eventually. ‘If you’ll take us both out, I can show you what’s going on.’