‘That’s ridiculous…’
‘Ridiculous?’ Ramanichev exclaimed, raising his voice for the first time. ‘Ridiculous that you should work for American intelligence? Wasn’t that who you were working for in Prague in 1939?’
‘Yes, but..’
‘And did you not act as a contact between German military intelligence and the American Embassy in 1940 and 1941?’
‘Yes…’
‘But you expect me to believe that the moment you escaped from Germany – and chose to go to America – you also stopped working for American intelligence?’
‘That’s what happened. It’s the truth. Just like Ike’s letter is the truth, and the reasons I gave you for coming here. The Americans have no plans for taking Berlin.’
Ramanichev shook his head. ‘On the contrary. Over the last two weeks three Allied airborne divisions have been making the necessary preparations.’
‘I don’t believe it,’ was all Russell could say.
‘According to our information, the British 1st, US 101st and US 82nd airborne divisions have orders to seize Oranienburg, Gatow and Tempelhof airfields.’
‘That’ll be a contingency plan,’ Russell argued. ‘They’ll have dropped it by now.’
‘Our information is up-to-date, Mr Russell.’
‘Yes, but from whom? I doubt if anyone’s bothered to tell the airborne troops that they’re not going.’
Ramanichev sighed. ‘Your lies get less and less convincing. I should inform you that under Soviet law any foreigner caught disseminating false information is deemed guilty of espionage. Those convicted are usually executed.’ He carefully closed the file, and looked at his watch. ‘Before we meet again, I would recommend that you consider your position very carefully. In view of your past services to the Soviet Union – no matter how marginal these might have been – that sentence might be commuted. But a full confession will be necessary. We shall want to know exactly what your orders were, who you received them from, and who your contacts are here in Moscow.’
He reached forward and restored the light to its original position, got to his feet, and strode from the room. Russell was escorted back to his cell by the same pair of guards, along the same labyrinthine route. Slumping onto his bed, the clang of the closing door still echoing around the walls, he was ready to admit it. He felt frightened.
It had been dark for more than an hour, and Effi was mentally preparing for the sirens and their evening trip down to the shelter, when the now-familiar knock sounded on the apartment door. Ali had gone to Fritz’s that morning, and Rosa was playing one of the patience games her mother had taught her by the light of a precious candle.
The moment Effi saw Erik Aslund’s face, she knew it was bad news.
‘We’ve heard from Lübeck,’ he said without ado. ‘The men you took to the train – they’ve all been caught. They were already on the ship, believing they’d escaped. And then the Gestapo swarmed aboard.’
‘But that doesn’t make sense,’ Effi protested. ‘If they knew the men were on the train, then why wait until they were on the boat?’
‘We don’t know. Maybe they wanted to put pressure on the Swedish government. Or perhaps they had a tip-off from someone in Lübeck. One of the sailors even – not all my countrymen are against the Nazis. It doesn’t matter now. The point is, they’re in custody, and you told me that one of the Jews had stayed here. Our contact in Lübeck says that they’re being brought to Berlin for questioning, so this place should be safe overnight. But no longer than that. You must leave in the morning. I’ll try and find somewhere, but…’
‘Don’t bother,’ Effi interrupted. She had spent a good many sleepless nights anticipating this turn of events, and knew exactly what she intended to do. ‘We’ll get a train east, to Fürstenwalde or Müncheberg, somewhere like that, and then return as refugees. There are thousands arriving in Berlin, and half of them have lost their papers. I’ll just make up a sob story, and we’ll have new identities. I used to be an actress,’ she added in response to Aslund’s doubtful look. ‘Quite a good one.’
‘I’m not surprised,’ he said, smiling for the first time.
‘How will I get in touch again?’ she asked.
‘You won’t,’ he said after a moment’s hesitation. ‘It can’t be long now, and I think we must all keep our heads down and hope for the best. And meet again in better times.’
She gave him a hug, and let him out the door. As she pushed it shut behind him Effi remembered that she was meeting her sister Zarah on Friday. With any luck they would be back by then.
‘You won’t leave me?’ a small voice asked from across the room.
‘No, of course not,’ Effi said, walking across to embrace her. ‘We’ll go together.’
‘On a train?’
‘Yes.’
‘I used to hear them from our shed, but I’ve never been on one.’
Russell woke to the sound of a scream, but it was not repeated, leaving him unsure whether or not he had dreamed it. He felt as if he had only slept for a couple of hours, and fitfully at that. Each time he had tried to still his mind with thoughts of something pleasant, Vera Lynn’s ‘We’ll Meet Again’ had started up inside his head, until he cried out loud in frustration.
Breakfast arrived through the lower flap in the door, a meal as enticing as the one before it, and the one before that. But this time he actually felt hungry, and the soup tasted slightly better than it looked. What was in it was hard to tell, but whatever it was, his stomach was unimpressed, and he was soon getting used to the stench of his own waste.
Several hours went by, and his only visitor was another prisoner, who transferred the contents of his bucket into a larger receptacle. Russell thanked the man, and received a disbelieving look in return. The smell showed no sign of fading.
He had half expected another session with Colonel Ramanichev, and felt absurdly aggrieved at being ignored. Get a grip, he told himself. This could go on for months, or even years. They had no reason for haste – on the contrary, the longer they left him the weaker he would be. He could lie there for ever, turning soup into shit and letting the same stupid song drive him slowly nuts.
Staring at the wall, he resisted the temptation to start scratching off days. Some clichés should be avoided.
He wondered if his sudden disappearance had been noticed. His fellow journalists at the Metropol might be wondering where he had got to, if they hadn’t already been fed some story. Kenyon would eventually realise he was missing, and would certainly question the Soviet authorities. But would the American diplomat be able to push matters any further than that? The politicians in Washington were not going to put their relationship with the Soviets at risk for one difficult journalist, not at this juncture.
He went through what Ramanichev had said on the previous day. He had to admit it – if you examined his story from the Soviet perspective, it did seem a trifle suspicious. Write to Stalin forgoing Berlin, and then send him a journalist who was desperate to reach Hitler’s capital – as neat a way of confirming the original message as could be imagined. Over the previous seven years Russell had met so-called intelligence people from most of the warring countries – British, American, Soviet, German – and they had all delighted in tricks like that. The fact that he was telling the truth was completely beside the point – Ramanichev couldn’t afford to believe him.
So what would happen? Would they put him on trial? Only if he confessed – there was no way they would give him a public platform to protest his innocence. But what could he confess to? Foolish but innocent contacts with Soviet traitors? Shchepkin was probably dead, and Russell realised, rather to his own surprise, that even betraying the Russian’s memory was hard to contemplate.