‘Where is it?’
‘If I tell you, what’s to stop you killing us, too?’
‘If you give us the film, why would we do that?’
He was almost certainly lying, but as Russell had noticed in a similar situation three years earlier, hope really did spring eternal. And sometimes with reason.
The Russian added a real stick to his dubious carrot: ‘But if you don’t tell us where it is, I shall hurt your wife or daughter. And if that doesn’t convince you, then I shall kill one of them.’
As Russell looked at Effi and Rosa, it felt like ice was forming in his brain. ‘I buried it in the forest,’ he told the Russian.
‘Which one?’
‘The Grunewald,’ he said, noting the flicker in Effi’s eyes as she caught the word.
‘We will go there at once. My comrade will stay with the woman and girl as a guarantee of your behaviour.’
‘Can I explain that to them?’
‘Tell them to do as he says.’
Russell explained the situation to Effi, trying not to scare Rosa any more than she already was. There was no point in telling Effi to take any chance that arose-she would know that already-and for all he knew one of the Russians understood German.
Effi squeezed his hand and gave him an unconvincing smile. The thought that he might never see her again seemed utterly ridiculous.
As he and the Russian walked down the stairs, Russell tried to think through the implications. The GRU wanted the tape to use against Beria, but they wouldn’t want the world to know about it-only the West would gain from that. This was both good news and bad news. Good because the Americans would remain in the dark; bad because any Westerners who knew about the film would need to be silenced.
The bad news seemed to render the good news redundant.
The car, a Maybach SW42, was around the corner. ‘You drive,’ the Russian said.
It wasn’t a car he’d driven before, but after grinding his way down to Ku’damm, he finally got the hang of the gear stick. The boulevard was busy, and when a red light held them halfway down, he thought about leaning his head out of the window, and telling the world he was being abducted. What would the Russian do-shoot him?
He probably would. And then shove the body on to the street and drive off. There would be plenty of witnesses, but none would lift a finger to help Russell, any more than they had in the ’30s, when the brownshirts had picked on some hapless Jew.
And what was the point of fighting back now? Effi and Rosa should be safe until the Russians had the film in their hands. It was better to wait, and take the chance he’d planned for.
He drove on, half-blinded by the setting sun, crossing the Ringbahn by Halensee Station, and following the winding Konigs Allee to the Grunewald’s eastern perimeter. Private vehicles weren’t permitted beyond the lightless Hundekehle Restaurant, but Russell drove on down the access road. There seemed little chance of their being challenged at this hour, and he had reasons of his own for not wanting too long a walk after he had dug up the film.
They only passed one couple, who gave them a dirty look but kept on walking. The twosome had taken them for warmer bruder, Russell thought, men who were out for an illegal fuck in the forest.
A minute or so later he brought the car to a halt. As far as he could tell in the fading light, they’d reached the nearest point on the road to where he’d buried the film.
They both got out.
‘How far is it?’ the Russian asked.
‘A few minutes. No more.’
They started walking, Russell showing the way. Under the eaves it was darker still, but he found the clearing without any problem. ‘It’s over here,’ he said, walking towards the tree.
‘Where?’
‘Here,’ Russell told him, sinking to his knees. This was the moment he feared, when the Russian might order him aside and do the digging himself.
He didn’t.
Russell took his time scooping out the still-loose earth with his hands, and just as his questing fingers made contact with metal, the Russian leaned over his shoulder to see what was happening.
‘You’re in my light,’ Russell told him.
‘Well, hurry up,’ the Russian said, stepping back a pace.
Uttering a short and very silent prayer that internment hadn’t disabled the gun, Russell curved his hand around the grip, inserted one finger ahead of the trigger, and jerking it free of its temporary grave, opened fire at point-blank range.
The crack echoed through the forest, scattering loudly cawing birds up into the night sky.
The Russian was still moving, whimpering softly. The eyes looking up at Russell were those of a small boy.
He raised the gun, steeled his heart, and fired again.
When the door closed behind Russell and his escort, Effi’s first impulse was to have a good weep. But Rosa had beaten her to it-Effi’s daughter was sobbing in eerie silence, the way her real mother had taught her, when they lived in a Christian friend’s garden shed, and the Gestapo’s main hobby was seeking out hidden Jews.
She took the girl in her arms and tried to hide the hatred she was felt for their Russian guard. After drawing the curtains he had sat down opposite them, lit a cigarette, and held them in his gaze. His narrow eyes made Effi think of Mongols, and cruelty, but so far at least he’d shown no sign of murdering them.
Effi told herself there was no reason for despair, not yet anyway. When Russell had told her about his brainstorm-the death-camp escapee’s advice and the gun he’d buried with the film-she’d thought it all a touch absurd, but it might well save their lives. It would be almost dark by the time they reached the Grunewald, which would surely improve his chances. She had to believe he’d come back.
What would happen when he did? What would he do? Just knock on the door and shoot this staring Russian when he opened it?
But she didn’t think the Russian would be so obliging. Either he and his partner would have a signature knock, like she and Ali had had in the war; or he’d wait to hear the other man’s voice.
And if he didn’t hear it, then what? He would probably assume it was a friend or a neighbour who had knocked, and send her to answer it. And he would hold on to Rosa just in case. If Russell just burst in shooting, the girl might be killed in the crossfire.
But Russell would already have worked all that out, Effi knew. The reason he’d taken the death-camp escapee’s advice to heart so readily was that it chimed so well with his own way of doing things.
So, what would he do? And how could she help them all survive it?
It had taken Strohm until late afternoon to get his hands on the full text of the Cominform Resolution, and after leaving work he stopped at a bar on Potsdamer Strasse to read the whole thing through. His sense of outrage increased as he did so. The Yugoslavs were accused of ‘left deviationism’ one moment, and then ‘supporting capitalist elements’-a rightist deviation-the next. The Yugoslavs were criticised for their ‘hostile attitude to the Soviet Union’, when everyone knew they had bent over backwards in praise of Stalin; and for creating a ‘military bureaucratic system’, which was too ironic to be true. Strohm didn’t see how anyone could believe such rubbish. But all the East European parties, including his own, had put their signatures to the Resolution and its principal demand, that the current Yugoslav leadership either change course or face instant removal.
Strohm ordered another beer and read the Resolution through again, seeking even the faintest echo of the movement he had joined and served. There was none. It was the work of bullies looking after their own.
He was tempted to get really drunk, but told himself not to be so pathetic. Strohm knew he needed to be strong, to look the truth in the face without anger or self-pity. He needed to talk to someone.
His first thought was Trenkel, whom he knew shared much the same doubts, but what was the point of talking to a mirror? John Russell would be better, Strohm decided. Russell had left the Party a long time ago, but he understood why others had stayed.