‘Why not go in with the Red Army?’ Russell asked. ‘Are a few days going to make any difference?’ He knew he was arguing against his own interests, but the more he understood of the Soviets’ reasoning the safer he would probably be.
‘They might,’ Shchepkin answered him, speaking for the first time. Even his voice seemed weaker than it had. ‘The Germans may well decide to destroy everything, and if they do not, the Americans probably will. Three weeks ago they tried their best to destroy the uranium production facility at Oranienburg from the air, and they may well decide to send in a ground team.’
‘I doubt there’s anything they need,’ Russell protested.
‘There isn’t,’ Shchepkin agreed. ‘But they don’t want us to get it.’
That sounded right to Russell. Hitler might still be breathing fire, but his two principal enemies were already getting ready for the next war.
‘You will guide the team from the drop zone to the Institute, and then on to Charlottenburg,’ Nikoladze continued. ‘You know the city. And you speak Russian – so you can help our scientist translate from the German.’
Russell idly wondered what the cost of refusal would be. Siberia, in all likelihood. Which was neither here nor there, because he didn’t intend to refuse. He could see several drawbacks to acceptance – in fact, the more he thought about it the more occurred to him. Berlin was probably going to be the most dangerous place on earth over the next few weeks, and the Americans would be seriously displeased with anyone who helped the Soviets to an atomic bomb. To top it all, the idea of jumping from a plane with only a sheet of silk to combat gravity was truly petrifying.
But what did all that matter if it gave him the chance to find Effi and Paul? ‘I assume we won’t be wearing uniforms,’ he said.
‘You will wear the uniforms the Nazis give their foreign labourers. Many were captured in East Prussia.’
That made sense. ‘And once I’ve guided the team to these two locations… where do we go then?’
‘The team will go to ground and wait for the Red Army.’
‘Where exactly?’
‘We are investigating several possibilities.’
‘Okay. But once the team is safely in hiding I assume I’ll be free to look for my family?’
‘Yes, but only then. I understand your concern for your family, but you can only leave the team when Major Kazankin agrees to your release. This is a military operation, and the usual rules apply. I’m sure I don’t need to remind you of the penalty for desertion.’
‘You don’t,’ Russell agreed. Nor did he doubt their ability to enforce it. The NKVD had a global reach, and peace or no peace, they would eventually hunt him down. And he could see how important this must be to them. If, as some experts claimed, the Soviets had sacrificed an eighth of their population to win this war, they hardly wanted to end it at the mercy of an American atomic monopoly. The stakes could hardly be higher.
‘So you accept,’ Nikoladze said, looking slightly more relaxed.
‘I do,’ Russell replied, glancing at Shchepkin. He seemed almost grateful.
‘Have you ever jumped from a plane?’ Kazankin asked. He had a deep voice, which somehow suited him down to the ground.
‘No,’ Russell admitted.
‘Your training will begin this afternoon,’ Nikoladze said.
‘But first a bath,’ Russell insisted.
Half an hour later, he was standing under a near-scalding downpour in the warders’ shower-room when a further drawback suggested itself. Regardless of success or failure, by the end of the operation he would know far too much about Soviet atomic progress – or the lack thereof – for them to ever consider letting him loose. The most likely culmination to his involvement was a quick bullet in the head from Kazankin. One more body on the streets of Berlin was unlikely to attract attention.
For the moment they needed him – Nikoladze had been visibly relieved when he’d agreed to join the team. Even knowing he wanted to reach Berlin, they had feared a refusal. Why? Because they still believed he was working for American intelligence, and a real American agent would hardly agree to help the Soviets gather atomic secrets. And on the off-chance that he was telling the truth, and no longer working for the Americans, they had brought along the only man whom he might conceivably trust. Yevgeny Shchepkin. Resurrected, dusted off, and asked to help them bring Russell on board.
They must want the German secrets very badly.
Dried and dressed in clothes collected from his hotel, he found the major waiting for him. ‘The car’s outside,’ the Russian said.
A thin young man with dark wavy hair and spectacles was waiting in the back. ‘Ilya Varennikov,’ he introduced himself.
‘The scientist,’ Kazankin growled.
For Effi and Rosa, Saturday was a day spent learning the ropes. The morning meal of wassersuppe and a few potato peelings served notice that yesterday’s dinner had not been a fluke, but, as Johanna wryly remarked, starvation seemed unlikely in the short time remaining. They were allowed exactly forty-five minutes of exercise, circling a small courtyard under a square of smoke-streaked sky, and were then left with nothing to do but wait another twelve hours for another bowl of wassersuppe.
Once one of the guards had been cajoled into sharpening Rosa’s only pencil, the girl seemed happy to draw, and Effi embarked on the task of learning as much as she could about their place of imprisonment. Johanna knew quite a lot, but residents of longer standing were more aware of how different the place had been only a few months earlier, and how it had changed in the meantime.
There were, it seemed, about a thousand Jews still resident in the hospital complex. As the nurse had told Effi, those living in the hospital proper – the half-Jews and quarter-Jews, the dreaded greifer – were the privileged ones. The atmosphere on that side of the barbed wire was said to be increasingly febrile, with much drinking, dancing and promiscuous coupling. The non-Jewish authorities, far from forbidding such activities, were avidly joining in. Everyone was fiddling while Berlin burned.
Still expecting a summons to interrogation, Effi sought information about her likely interrogator. SS Hauptscharführer Dobberke, as everyone seemed to agree, was a thug of the first order, but many of the same people seemed, almost despite themselves, to have a sneaking respect for the man. Yes, he did punish any serious rule-breaking with twenty-five lashes of his favourite whip, and yes, he would stick anyone lacking funds on a transport east with hardly a second thought, but he never exceeded the twenty-five, and once he had taken a bribe he always delivered his side of the bargain.
And not all the bribes were monetary. Dobberke loved the ladies, and was more than ready to stretch the rules in a woman prisoner’s favour if he received a favourable response to his overtures. Effi forced herself to consider the possibility – would she let the bastard fuck her if it improved her and Rosa’s chances of survival? She probably would, but doubted she’d be given the chance. Dobberke was said to like his flesh tender, and though she had become many things over the last four years, young wasn’t one of them.
The church bells were ringing as Paul, Neumaier, Hannes and Haaf walked into Diedersdorf that evening. A gesture of defiance, Paul guessed, in that no one was left to attend any services. The only show in town was at the village hall – a screening of the movie Kolberg, which rumour claimed had cost as much as a thousand new tanks. According to battalion some idiot from Personnel had delivered the tickets in his staff car, engine still running, eyes nervously scanning the eastern horizon and sky.