Stattin Station

'If the Japs give him a good excuse he won't need to buy anyone off.' 'That is true, very true. But joining the war will be such a mistake. For America, for Germany, for everyone. The Soviets will be the only winners.'

'I expect Ribbentrop's pestering the Japs.'

'Yes, but to what end? The man's a complete fool - everyone knows that. Everyone but Hitler, apparently.'

Russell wondered how close they were sitting to a minion or a microphone, but didn't suppose it would matter. Goebbels would be delighted with Sullivan's description of his arch-enemy Ribbentrop. 'You think Ribbentrop might be encouraging the Japs to attack the Americans? That would be insane.'

Sullivan laughed. 'Wouldn't it? But I've heard some of his officials argue that such a move would keep the Americans off Germany's back, at least until the Russian campaign has been put to bed. The Americans will be so busy in the Pacific that they'll have to cut right back on their activities in the Atlantic, and on their support for the British and the Russians.'

'You don't buy it?'

Sullivan snorted. 'They haven't got a clue how powerful the American war economy will be. You know, before the war, everyone underestimated Hitler. Now it's the other way round.'

'You don't sound very optimistic.'

'I'm not.'

'So why do you carry on working for them?'

Sullivan smiled. 'A good question,' he almost whispered.

There was no sign of Goebbels at the Ministry of Propaganda, a sure sign that there was no real news. As usual, the overall tone of the press conference was friendlier than at the Foreign Ministry equivalent, but the answers offered to questions were no less vacuous for being politely put. There had been no fresh news from the Moscow Front for several days, Russell realised, which had to mean something. Were the Germans stuck? Had the Russians even managed to push them back? Or were the Germans still advancing? Russell wouldn't put it past Goebbels to store up a few days of small advances and add them all together for dramatic effect.

After wiring off his article he headed for the tram stop on Leipziger Strasse. The rain had finally stopped, but clouds still wreathed the city and the blackout was intense. The first tram was full to bursting, the second even fuller, and Russell decided that walking would be less stressful. In any case, he needed time to think, something he always did better in motion.

Sullivan's hint that he might turn on his masters had been interesting. Would those masters just wish him well - 'Here's your final pay cheque, see you after the war' - or would they get nasty? Russell suspected the latter, and Sullivan was bright enough not to expect any help from the US Consulate. Even if the Nazis surprised themselves and everyone else, he could hardly expect prodigal son treatment from the administration in Washington that he'd been paid to vilify. Refusal would be risky.

It usually was. Russell had hoped that Knieriem moving or dying would save him, at least temporarily, from saying no to Dallin, but some people were born selfish. He certainly had no intention of saying yes. Since his tete-a-tete with Giminich and his Gestapo stooge that morning, the idea of visiting anyone with the slightest connection to the German war effort was the last thing on his mind. The Americans would just have to whistle for their bomber intelligence. If the choice was between saying no to them and yes to a concentration camp, not much thought was required.

The Americans might even take no for an answer, which was more than he could say for the Germans. Giminich hadn't yet asked him for anything, but Russell had little doubt that he would. It was beginning to look as if an early American entry into the war, and an indefinite period of fraught internment, was the best of several poor futures staring him in the face. In that event the peculiar mix of national and political loyalties which had made him attractive to so many intelligence services would no longer be relevant - he would just be one more enemy alien, and proud of it.

But how many years would it be before he saw Effi and Paul again? If he ever did. People died in wars, civilians included. And if the British could drive Berliners to their shelters on a regular basis, imagine what the Yanks could do.

Effi was waiting for him, intent on eating out. 'We should celebrate your escape from the Gestapo's clutches,' she said, regretting her levity the moment she saw his expression. 'I'm sorry; was it bad?'

'No, not really.' He saw no reason to bring up Welland. 'Just another reminder of how thin the ice is. Where do you want to eat?'

'Let's try the Chinese. They're better at drowning out the taste of chemicals.'

'You're right. Let's go.'

As they walked down Uhlandstrasse he gave her a brief account of his interrogation that morning. She listened in silence, struck as usual by his knack for ordering information. 'They'll be back, won't they?' she said when he had finished.

'I'd be amazed if they weren't.'

On the Ku'damm a surprising number of people were out enjoying the newly clear sky, their phosphorescent badges reflecting in the still-wet pavements. Away to the west the yellow glow of a rising moon was silhouetting the stark lines of the Memorial Church.

The Chinese restaurant was fuller than usual, but a table was quickly found for such old and regular customers. There was nothing to drink but tea, and for once that seemed enough. Looking round, remembering the many times they had eaten there, with each other, with relatives and friends, Russell felt his spirits rising. In eight years together they had shared so much personal history - enough, surely, to carry them through the separation that the war was about to impose.

'Guess what part I got offered today?' Effi asked him.

'Magda Goebbels?'

'A manipulative Jewess married to an SS Captain.'

'Does he know she's Jewish?'

'Oh no.'

'Did you accept it?'

'Not yet. My first instinct was to brain the producer with the script. Or something heavier. But you, my darling, have taught me that every now and then - once in a very blue moon - it actually pays to think before opening one's mouth.'

'Is that what I've been teaching you?'

'Amongst other bad habits. And it seemed to me that this might be one of those times. Because the first thing that occurred to me was that if I didn't do the wretched film then someone else would, someone who wouldn't have my interest in sabotaging the whole disgusting project.'

Russell was unconvinced. 'Can a storyline like that be sabotaged? I mean, I know you could give this woman different layers of feeling and motivation, but in films like that doesn't the message come through in what happens, rather than in what the people are feeling?'

'Maybe. That's what I want to think about.'

'Okay, but I don't want to think that I've given birth to a monster. You, my darling, have taught me that every now and then - in fact, much of the time - it pays to go with your first instinct.'

'Have I really?' She placed a hand on one of his. 'We must be the best-balanced couple in Berlin by now.'

'Other than Magda and Joey.'

'Wash your mouth out.'

Aces low

The noon press conference at the Foreign Ministry saw Paul Schmidt replace his underling von Stumm, and Russell's first glimpse of the fat young Prussian as he made his confident entrance was enough to tell him that something bad had happened. Schmidt wasted no time in telling the assembled press corps what that was: Rostov - 'the gateway to the Caucasus' - had fallen to the Wehrmacht. A collective sigh was audible, the appreciation of Germany's allies mingled with the scarcely-concealed despair of the supposed neutrals. For the Caucasus, as Schmidt delighted in explaining at length, contained enough oil to keep the panzers and Stukas in almost perpetual motion. It was, he said, a crucial step on the road to inevitable victory.