Stattin Station

Betrayals on offer

'Lunch at the Adlon?' Ralph Morrison asked, as he and Russell reached the pavement outside the Foreign Ministry. It was a miserable day, a thin mist of rain hanging in the air.

'Why not?' These days most Americans were persona non grata in most of Berlin, but the Adlon Hotel remained a welcome exception.

'Another hour I'll never get back,' Morrison complained, as they walked up Wilhelmstrasse. 'I even found myself missing that bastard Schmidt this morning. At least he lies with some panache. That idiot Stumm, well, what can you say?'

'If they really have taken Kerch, that's bad news,' Russell said. 'Puts them too damn close to the Caucasus oilfields.'

'I know.'

'Did you get any more on Udet? None of my contacts would tell me anything.'

'Oh yes. He shot himself all right. And left a note blaming Goering - "Oh Iron Man, why have you deserted me?" or some such rubbish. Why do fighter aces never grow up?'

They reached the Adlon entrance and walked through to the restaurant. Gestapo technicians had invaded the hotel a few months earlier and planted hidden microphones everywhere, but over the intervening weeks most had been discovered by the staff, and the guests discreetly warned. Morrison and Russell headed for an area of the large room that was generally considered safe. There was no chandelier directly above their table, and the latter's underside was clear.

Russell had got to know Morrison quite well since his arrival some six months before, as Jack Slaney's replacement. A burly Mid-Westerner in his mid-thirties, Morrison had arrived knowing little about Germany, but he had inherited most of Slaney's excellent sources, and proved a quick learner. If he sometimes appeared even more cynical than his predecessor, that was probably because reporting from Berlin no longer bore any relation to traditional journalism.

The ritual with scissors and ration tickets completed, the two men sipped at what passed for beers in Hitler's triumphant capital. 'I did pick up another story in my trawling,' Russell admitted. 'I was talking to a German friend this morning, a journalist. Apparently the editors of all the big city dailies were called in to Promi yesterday, and told to lay off the winter clothing story. The official line is that it's all waiting at the railheads for distribution, but the trains are in chaos so who knows when they'll get there, and they're worried that the troops will write home and tell their families that nothing's arrived and they're all freezing to death. So no one's supposed to mention the subject, and there's a complete ban on pictures of soldiers in their summer uniforms.' Russell laughed. 'Photographers have been sending back too many pictures of Red Army men in thick coats guarded by shivering Germans in denim.'

Morrison shook his head in amazement. 'Have they really been that incompetent?'

'You bet. The astonishing thing is that they're still advancing. Stalin must be matching them balls-up for balls-up.'

Their lunch arrived, boiled cabbage and potatoes with a few suspicious-looking pieces of sausage. If this was what the Adlon was serving, God help the rest of the Reich.

'The thing about the Nazis,' Russell went on, 'is that everything's short term. They gabble on about thousand-year Reichs but they don't do any real planning. There's a fascinating article in the Frankfurter Zeitung this morning about the importance of infantry in the Russian campaign. Well, it's not fascinating in itself, but the fact of it is. An article like that would have been inconceivable a couple of months ago - all anyone wanted to talk about were the panzers and the Luftwaffe. Short-term weapons, weapons that win quickly, blitzkrieg. And I think that whoever wrote that article has realised that blitzkrieg has failed in Russia, that only the infantry can win it for them now.'

'Do they have the infantry?'

Russell shrugged. 'My guess would be not, but that may be wishful thinking.'

As he ate, another likely consequence of the German emphasis on tanks and tank-supportive planes occurred to him. If German production had all been geared to blitzkrieg over the last few years, there was no chance of Hitler having a fleet of long-range bombers up his sleeve. Russell could understand why Dallin and his Washington bosses were worried: their country was accustomed to immunity from such threats, and the appearance of German bombers in the skies above Manhattan would certainly wreak havoc in the American psyche. But there was no substance to this particular piece of paranoia, and nothing to be gained from his seeking out Franz Knieriem.

Nothing for the Americans, that was. He might earn himself a few points by showing willing. He could at least find out whether the man was still living at the same address - there was no risk in that. And there was always the chance that Knieriem had moved, which would give him grounds for further procrastination. If his luck was really in, the address was now a bomb site.

The slivers of sausage actually tasted quite good, unlike the cabbage and potatoes which tasted of salt and little else.

A waiter materialised at his elbow. 'A call for you, sir,' he said. 'In reception.'

It was his ex-wife Ilse. 'You always told me I could reach you there,' she said, 'but I never quite believed it.'

'Now you know.'

'It's Paul,' she told him. 'He's said something he shouldn't have at school, and...'

'What did he say?'

'I don't know. I'll find out when he gets home. But they want to see his parents, and Matthias is in Hannover.' Paul's stepfather, a thoroughly respectable German businessman, usually acted in loco parentis where the authorities were concerned. 'I'd rather not go alone,' Ilse added.

'What time?' Russell asked.

'Six o'clock. Say half past five here.'

'I'll be there.'

'Thanks.'

Russell replaced the earpiece. Another missed press conference performance at Promi, he thought. Another silver lining. But what about the cloud - what had Paul been saying?

Russell left plenty of time for the endless ride out to Grunewald, but one tram broke down and the driver of the next seemed unwilling to risk a speed of more than ten kilometres an hour. Getting round the city grew more frustrating by the day, except for those with the right connections. Arriving ten minutes late at the Gehrts' house, he found Matthias's Horch staring out of an open garage door, its numberplate adorned with the priceless red square which allowed its owner the luxury of continuing use. Russell felt like unscrewing the numberplate there and then, but a written permit was also required.

Ilse opened the door before he had time to ring the bell. She looked worried.

'Well?' Russell asked. 'What's it all about?'

'Two jokes, and one was about Hitler. Paul should know better.'

'Where is he?'

'In his room.'

Russell climbed the stairs, wondering what sort of reception he was going to get. Over the last few months his fourteen-year-old son had seemed increasingly exasperated with him, as if Russell just didn't get it - whatever it was. Ilse thought it age-related, but the boy didn't seem to behave the same way with her or his stepfather, and Russell knew that his being English, and the complications which that had necessarily caused in Paul's German life, had more than a little to do with their recent difficulties. But there was nothing Russell could do about that. 'It's like your snoring,' Effi had told him when they talked about it. 'I want to murder you, and knowing you can't help it makes it even worse. I can't even blame you.'

He crossed the large landing, and put his head around Paul's half-open door. His son was doing his homework, tracing one of the maps in his Stieler's Atlas. 'Another fine mess you've got yourself into,' Russell observed. Paul loved Laurel and Hardy.

'What are you doing here?' Paul exclaimed. 'If you go to the school, it'll makes things worse.'

Russell sat down on the bed. 'They know you have an English father, Paul. It won't be news.'

'Yes, but...'

'What were the jokes?'

'They were just jokes.'

'Jokes are sometimes important.'

'Well I can't see that these two were. All right, I'll tell you. Describe the perfect German.' Russell had heard this one, but let Paul supply the punchline - 'Someone blond as Hitler, slim as Goering and tall as Goebbels.'

Russell smiled. 'You forgot clever as Ley and sane as Hess. What was the other?'

'One man says: "When the war's over I'm going to do a bicycle tour of the Reich." His friend replies: "So what will you do after lunch?"'

Russell laughed. 'That's a good one.'

'Yes, but it's just a silly joke. I don't really think we'll lose the war. It's just a joke.'

'They'll call it defeatism. And the first joke - these people take their racial stereotypes seriously. And they don't like being mocked.'

'But everyone tells jokes like those.'

'I know.'

'John, we have to go,' Ilse called from downstairs.

'Coming,' he shouted back. As he got up he noticed the picture of Udet on the wall, alongside Molders and the U-boat ace Gunther Prien. 'It was sad what happened to Udet,' he said.

Paul looked at him disbelievingly. 'You didn't like him.'

Russell had no memory of saying so to his son, but he probably had. 'He was a wonderful pilot,' he said weakly.

'I want to see the funeral march on Saturday,' Paul insisted.

'Fine,' Russell agreed. 'I'll check the route.'

He kissed his son's head, and went back down to Ilse. 'We just nod our heads and look humble,' she told him as they started down the street towards the school. 'No arguments, no smart replies. And no jokes.'

'You'll be saying he gets it from me next.'

'Well he does, doesn't he? But I'm not blaming you. I like it that he doesn't believe most of what they tell him.'

'What does Matthias think?'

'He's angry. But then these days he's angry about anything that reminds him of the government we've got. He'd rather just wake up when it's all over.'

It was the first time Russell had ever heard his ex-wife criticise her current husband, and he felt rather ashamed of enjoying the moment.

They walked through the school doors and down the corridor to Paul's classroom, where his teacher, a grey-haired man in his fifties or sixties, was marking a pile of exercise books. A large map of the western Soviet Union adorned one wall, complete with arrows depicting German advances. Russell wondered if the teacher knew that he and Ilse had met in Moscow, two young and eager communists out to change the world. No jokes, he reminded himself.

The teacher's name was Weber. He proved stern and apparently humourless, but also surprisingly reasonable. It turned out that one boy had repeated Paul's jokes to his own parents, and the father had turned up at the school in a rage that morning. The boy had not named Paul as the source, but once the matter had been discussed in class, Paul had privately informed Herr Weber of his guilt. The teacher had no intention of divulging Paul's name to the complaining parent, a man, he implied, who was somewhat over-zealous in ideological matters. Paul had an excellent record in the Jungvolk, Herr Weber went on, and had started out well in the Hitlerjugend, but, like many spirited boys of his age, he clearly felt the urge to test the boundaries of what was permissible. Which was all perfectly normal. But in days like these, such testing could have disproportionate consequences, and it was highly advisable for both teachers and parents to clarify those boundaries wherever they could.

Ilse and Russell agreed that it was.

Herr Weber gave them one wintry smile, and thanked them for coming in.

It was gone seven when Russell reached the Halensee Ringbahn station, and dense layers of cloud hid the moon and stars, promising one of the deeper blackouts. Accidents were common on the S-Bahn in such conditions, with passengers opening doors and stepping out onto what they mistakenly hoped was a platform.

Russell got off to change at Westkreuz, and stood on the Stadtbahn platform in the near complete darkness for what seemed like ages, listening to the murmur of invisible people and watching the patchwork of glows as passengers on the opposite platform dragged on their cigarettes. He would be arriving late at the Blumenthals, not that it mattered Jews were not allowed out after 8pm, which certainly simplified the task of finding them at home. Especially now that their telephones had all been disconnected.

The Blumenthals were one of several Jewish families that he - and often Effi as well - visited on a fairly regular basis. At first this had been work-inspired, part of Russell's attempt to keep track of what was happening to Berlin's Jewish community as the war went on. It quickly became clear that they could also help in many ways, some small, others increasingly significant. Ration tickets could be passed on, and news of the outside world did something to lessen the sense of helplessness and isolation which many Jews now felt. There was also the sense, for him and for Effi, that they were keeping the doors of their own world open, refusing to be trapped in what a German colleague had once called 'the majority ghetto'. And some of the Jews had become friends, insofar as true friendship was possible in such artificially skewed relationships.

A train finally rattled in behind its thin blue light, and Russell had no trouble finding a seat in a barely-lit carriage. Several Jews were standing together at one end of the carriage, presumably on their way home from a ten-hour shift at Siemens. They were not talking to each other, and he could almost feel their determination not to be noticed.

Leaving Borse Station, he picked a path up the wide Oranienburgerstrasse with the help of the whitened kerbs and an occasional tram. The Blumenthals - Martin, Leonore and their daughter Ali - had a small two-room apartment in one of the narrow streets behind the burnt-out ruins of the New Synagogue. This was reasonably spacious by current standards, but something of a come-down for the family, who had once owned a large house in Grunewald and several shops selling musical scores and instruments. Martin now worked in a factory out near the Central Stockyards, cutting and treating railway sleepers. He was the same age as the century, a year younger than Russell, but he looked considerably older. Hook-nosed and with protuberant lips, he looked like a caricature Der Sturmer Jew; by contrast, his wife Leonore was simply dark-haired and petite, while his seventeen year-old daughter Ali, with her fair hair and green eyes, could have passed an audition for Tristan's Isolde.

Leonore answered the door, apprehension shifting to relief when she saw who it was. Martin leapt up to offer his right hand, his left clutching the copy of Faust he seemed to be forever reading. 'Come in, come in,' he urged. 'It's good to see you. I'm fed up with talking to other Jews - their only topic of conversation is themselves, and how terrible everything is.'

'Everything is terrible,' Russell said, refusing Leonore's armchair and sitting himself down at the table. As if to prove his point, she picked up the coat she'd obviously been working on and continued with her task of re-attaching a yellow star.

'Yes, but it serves no purpose to talk of nothing else. Everything passes, even these... gentlemen. America will enter the war, and that will be that. It's strange - the last war they entered, I was a boy shooting at them. This time I shall invite every last one of them around for dinner.'

Russell laughed. 'I think Leonore might have something to say about that.'

'Chance would be a fine thing,' Leonore said. She was upset about something, Russell thought.

'It will happen,' Martin insisted. 'Tell me, what's the news? Since they took our radios away we have no idea what's actually happening.'

Russell gave him the edited version, as seen from London and Washington - the Russian war in the balance, the looming breakdown in Japanese-American relations.

'Surely the Japanese won't attack America?' Martin mused. 'How could they hope to win such a war?'

'Most people think they'll attack the British and the Dutch, and hope that the Americans stay out,' Russell told him.

They went over the Japanese options until even Martin's curiosity was exhausted. 'Where's Ali?' Russell asked Leonore, seizing his chance. It was Ali who had introduced him to her parents, after Thomas had taken her on as a bookkeeper at his Treptow factory.

'At the cinema,' Leonore admitted.

'Without her star,' Martin added proudly.

'Without her star,' Leonore echoed. 'My Aunt Trudi was taken,' she went on. 'I think you met her once. She lived in Wedding on her own, insisted on it, and her health's been good for a woman over seventy. She got the notification last week, and she left the day before yesterday as far as we know. I wanted to see her off, but she refused; she said she didn't want a big fuss, but I think she was afraid they'd take me too.'

'A train did leave the night before last,' Russell said, but thought better of admitting that he'd watched it go.

'Then she's gone.'

'Many things are terrible,' Martin said, 'but not everything. Frau Thadden, the woman upstairs, is a real friend to us - she doesn't think any less of us because we are Jews. And a few nights ago a policeman banged on our door. We feared the worst, but he wanted to tell us to pull our blackout curtain tighter - some light was showing. If some of his colleagues saw it, he said, then we'd be in trouble, and he didn't want that. You see,' he said, turning to his wife, 'there are many good Germans.'

'I know there are,' she said. 'But Aunt Trudi is still gone.'

Seeing his stricken expression, she relented, and gave him a wonderful smile. After all, Russell realised, the heart that clutched at straws was the heart she'd fallen in love with.

'Have any of your friends heard any more from those who've been sent East?' he asked.

'Yes,' Leonore said. 'Two of them. I wrote it down as you asked,' she added, taking down a recipe book. 'It seemed a good hiding place,' she explained, leafing through the pages. 'Here we are. Two letters from Lodz. One from someone's uncle who left on October 17th, the other from an old friend who left on the 25th. Both said they were fine, and not to worry about them.'

'And they were in the right handwriting?'

'Yes, I asked.'

'Well, that's good news,' Russell thought aloud.

'Better than it might be,' Leonore agreed absent-mindedly. 'This sounds like Ali,' she said, relief in her voice, and a few seconds later the seventeen year-old let herself into the flat. She was pleased to see Russell, but clearly disappointed that he hadn't brought Effi. 'She's just finishing a film,' Russell started to say, only to be interrupted by the rising whine of the air raid sirens.

Martin looked at his watch. 'They're early tonight,' he complained. 'Let's ignore it for once,' he added, without conviction. Leonore was already reaching for her overcoat, and Ali was pulling her jacket with the star out of her bag. Martin picked up the suitcase that was already packed for such eventualities, and they all tramped down the stairs. Outside, a barely visible procession was heading down the street towards the shelter. Looking up at an impenetrable sky Russell reckoned the RAF needed better weather forecasters - the chances of hitting anything relevant on a night like this had to be zero.

The Jews had been allocated their own segregated area at one end of the basement shelter, about a sixth of the space for almost half of those present. Russell ignored the local block warden's direction and joined them, almost hoping for a row. The warden restricted himself to a nasty look, and went back to ticking off arrivals on a long list.

The shelter itself reflected the poverty of the neighbourhood. Old wooden benches lined the sandbagged walls, along with a few double-decker cots for the children. The ceiling had been recently reinforced with new beams, but the provision of fire extinguishers and pick-axes showed a lack of confidence in the cellar's ability to survive a building collapse. A couple of tables, several kerosene lanterns and a single pail of water completed the inventory.

All around Russell, families were settling in, mothers putting their youngest to bed and entreating their older siblings to entertain themselves as quietly as possible with whatever toys had been brought. Those adults spared the responsibilities of childcare were taking out books, shuffling cards or, in several cases, staring forlornly into space. His list apparently complete, the block warden was working the lever on the air suction pump, and staring malevolently at Russell. Look at me, his expression seemed to say, expelling the stench of the Jews and sucking in good German air.

Russell gave him a big smile, and went back to people he cared about. Ali was giving two young Jewish girls a lesson in how to play skat, while her mother just sat with her back to the wall, eyes closed. Martin, as usual, was eager to talk about how the war was going, and how soon it might end. After about ten minutes the flak opened up, first the loud cracks of those on roofs in the nearby government districts, then the deep boom of those in the huge flak towers. There were two of the latter - the old one in the Tiergarten and the recently completed monstrosity in Friedrichshain Park - and by Russell's reckoning their current shelter was halfway between them. As safe as it got, at least when the sky was clear; on a night like this it probably didn't matter - both gunners below and bombers above would be aiming blind.

The guns fell silent after forty-five minutes, and the all-clear sounded fifteen minutes after that. Children were woken or carried home sleeping, card games abandoned and bags re-packed. Russell said goodnight to the Blumenthals and walked briskly down to Oranienburger Strasse. Searchlights were still nervously scanning the clouds, casting a dull yellow glow across the city, and for once he could see where he was going.

The last ones went out as he reached Borse Station, returning Berlin to its customary gloom. From the elevated Stadtbahn platform only one fire was visible, a kilometre or more to the north-west, somewhere close to Stettin Station. It seemed pathetic change for so much expenditure of effort and fuel, not to mention the sundry lives that had inevitably been lost - one or two plane crews perhaps, a handful of Berliners killed by bombs or falling shrapnel, the rising number of rape-murders committed under cover of the blackout.

It was almost midnight when he reached home, and Effi, as expected, was asleep. Less predictably, she had left a note asking him to wake her. And when he saw the communication which lay underneath it, he understood why. The Gestapo wanted to see him. At their Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse headquarters. In just over ten hours time.

He walked into the bedroom, sat down on the bed and shook her gently by the shoulder. 'You wanted me to wake you.'

'Yes,' she said sleepily. 'The note. Do you know what it's about?'

'Probably my visit to Zembski's studio. I don't think there's anything to worry about. If it was anything serious they would have waited for me.' 'That's what I hoped. Give me a kiss.'

He did so.

'And come to bed.'

He got undressed and climbed in, expecting that she'd gone back to sleep. But she hadn't.

The sky was still leaden on the following morning. Russell spent twenty minutes vainly searching for a particular jacket, then ate a desultory breakfast at the Zoo Station buffet. After a five-minute journey on the U-Bahn had brought him to Bismarckstrasse, he walked through several backstreets to Knieriem's old house. There was no sign of life within, but one of the neighbours eventually emerged. Yes, she replied in response to his question, Herr Knieriem did still live there, but he always left very early for work.

Russell walked back to the U-Bahn at Bismarckstrasse, and caught an eastbound train to Potsdamer Platz. Reaching street level he walked along the back of the FUrstenhof Hotel with the intention of turning into Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse. This route was cordoned off, and a group of Russian POWs were waiting under guard at the end of a side street. An unexploded bomb, Russell assumed. Someone had told him that POWs were used to defuse them.

He retraced his steps and almost ran the longer route around the Air Ministry - it didn't pay to be late for a Gestapo summons. The grey five-storey megalith loomed into view, and as he approached the double doors rain began to fall. It seemed a poor omen.

The reception area was little changed since his last summons in 1939, the usual mishmash of Greek columns, heavy Victorian curtains and Prussian bronzed eagles. The giant swastika had disappeared, replaced by a huge bulletin board bearing the Party's quotation of the week. The current incumbent was more long-winded than usual: 'Just as our ancestors did not receive the soil on which we stand today as a gift from heaven, but rather through hard work, so also today as well as in the future, our soil and with it our lives depend not on the grace of some other people, but only on the power of a successful sword.' The bracketed 'Words of our Fuhrer' was somewhat redundant.

A Rottenfuhrer in Gestapo dress uniform sat alone behind the huge reception desk. Russell showed him the summons, and was asked politely enough to take one of the seats beneath a portrait of the uniformed Adolf. He did so, and told himself for the twentieth time that morning that there was nothing to worry about. None of his current activities were illegal. The Gestapo might frown on his attempts to find out what was happening to Berlin's Jews, but the Nazis were making no real secret of their persecutions and deportations, and gathering - as opposed to publishing such information could hardly be considered a crime. His links with American Intelligence were sanctioned by the Abwehr, a veritable pillar of the military establishment. As far as he could tell, he had done nothing illegal since 1939, and the Gestapo must have better things to do than investigate crimes that might or might not have been committed more than two years ago.

So why did he feel like vacating his bowels? Because he had seen the corridor of grey cells that lay beneath this marble floor, and had actually visited Effi in one of them. Because he had been treated, for just a few minutes, to a world of screams and whimpers and even more ominous silence. Because he knew what the bastards were capable of. Because Zembski might be down there right now.

Another five minutes passed before a second Rottenfuhrer arrived to lead him, via lift and several short corridors, to a door on the top floor. His escort knocked, received an invitation to enter, and gestured Russell to do so. There were two men inside, one seated in uniform, one standing in what seemed an expensively tailored suit. In most other respects they looked remarkably similar. Both were in their thirties, with greased blond hair swept back from their foreheads; they could have passed for contestants in a Heydrich look-alike contest, in the unlikely event that one was ever held. Neither would have won, however, since both lacked Nazi Germany's great unmentionable, Heydrich's classically Jewish nose.

'I am Hauptsturmfuhrer Leitmaritz,' said the seated man, indicating the seat that he expected Russell to occupy. 'Of the Geheime Staatspolizei,' he added formally.

'Obersturmbannfuhrer Giminich,' the other man said in response to Russell's questioning look. 'Of the Sicherheitsdienst,' he added, with what might have been interpreted as a malicious smile.

Happy days are here again, Russell thought to himself. 'So how can I help you?' he asked pleasantly.

'By answering a few questions,' the Hauptsturmfuhrer said shortly. He was peering short-sightedly at the document in front of him, and Russell would have bet money there were spectacles in his desk drawer. Over the man's shoulder he could see a veil of smoke over Anhalter Station half-masking the distant Kreuzberg. The rain must have stopped.

'You told a Gestapo officer at the Zembski photographic studio that you had not been there since the beginning of the war.'

'That is correct,' Russell replied.

'And your reason for going there this week was to have a photograph of your son enlarged?'

'Yes.' Obersturmbannfuhrer Giminich was now pacing to and fro behind Russell's chair. A tried and tested tactic of intimidation, Russell thought. It worked.

'Did you ever meet with Herr Zembski socially? A drink, perhaps.'

'No, it was a purely professional relationship.'

'"Was"?' Giminich asked. 'Have you any reason to think that Zembski is dead?'

'None at all. The Gestapo officer at the studio told me he had gone out of business and returned to Silesia. So our professional relationship is presumably over.'

'The officer was mistaken,' Leitmaritz continued. 'Zembski has been arrested.'

'For what?'

'For activities detrimental to the state.'

'That could mean a lot of things. What sort of activities?'

'That will be revealed in due course.'

'At his trial?'

'Perhaps.'

'Do you have a date for that?'

'Not as yet.' The Hauptsturmfuhrer was showing signs of getting flustered, but not Giminich. 'You did have at least one other thing in common with Herr Zembski,' he said from somewhere behind Russell's head. 'You were both communists.'

Russell tried to look surprised. 'I had no idea Zembski was a communist. Is that what all this is about? As I'm sure you know, I left the Communist Party in 1927.' He was surer than ever that Zembski was dead, and increasingly convinced that something had turned up in their search of the studio that made them suspicious of himself. But what? The only thing he could think of was Tyler McKinley's passport photograph, which Zembski should have destroyed after replacing it with Russell's. But even if that had turned up, it wouldn't prove anything. The doctored passport had long since disintegrated in the Landwehrkanal, and Tyler might have visited Zembski himself. The men interrogating him had a lot of suspicious connections, Russell realised, but nothing to tie them together. And they were hoping that he might inadvertently provide one. This was a fishing expedition, pure and simple.

The sense of relief lasted only a few seconds. 'We also wish to talk to you about your work for the Abwehr,' Giminich said.

Russell had the feeling he'd been ambushed. 'I would need official authorisation to discuss that,' was all he could think to say.

He needn't have bothered. 'You have to admit it's a rather strange situation - an Englishman with an American passport working for German military intelligence,' Giminich said. Leitmaritz was now just sitting back in his chair watching.

'I suppose it is,' Russell agreed. 'But it was your organisation which - I suppose "persuaded" is the most appropriate word among friends - which persuaded me to do some intelligence work for the Reich, and which then passed me over to the Abwehr. With, I might add, many thanks for my services.'

'True, but your work for the Sicherheitsdienst involved operations against the Soviet Union, which I presume - despite your youthful involvement in the communist movement - you now consider our common enemy. Your work for the Abwehr must involve you in business relating to England and America, enemies of the Reich but not, presumably, enemies of yours. A conflict of interest, no?'

'My work for the Abwehr does not require me to take sides.'

'How can that be?'

'I translate newspaper articles. Hopefully the clearer the idea each side has of the other's intentions and needs, the sooner we can bring this war to an end.'

Giminich snorted. 'You consider that not taking sides? You think that peace is what Germans are hungering for? In the end perhaps, but only after victory. A premature peace could only help our enemies.'

'I cannot see how governments misunderstanding each other helps anyone.'

'That is the Abwehr view?'

'That is my view,' Russell said, with a sudden realisation of where all this was heading.

'And these are your only duties?'

Russell paused, wondering whether fuller disclosure or clamming up might prove the wiser option. Given the effect clamming up had on such people's blood pressure, and the probability that they already knew about his meetings with Dallin, he opted for a qualified version of the former. 'I sometimes act as a courier for Admiral Canaris.'

'Ah,' Giminich said, as if they were finally getting somewhere. 'Between the Admiral and who else?'

Russell shook his head sadly. 'I'm afraid you'll have to ask him that. I'm not at liberty to share such knowledge.'

'We are all on the same side,' Giminich insisted.

'Even so. I would need the Admiral's permission to share such information with you.'

There was a prolonged silence behind him, as Giminich weighed up the pros and cons of applying other, more painful, forms of pressure. Or so Russell feared. The pros were obvious, the cons hard to calculate for anyone not versed in the intricacies of Heydrich's long duel with Canaris for overall control of German intelligence. Russell sincerely hoped that Giminich was not intending to use his incarceration as a declaration of war.

'Your loyalty does you credit,' Giminich said stiffly, moving out from behind the chair, and over to the window. 'Would you like to see George Welland?' he asked over his shoulder.

'Of course,' Russell said automatically, his mind scrambling in search of an explanation for this sudden turn in the conversation. George Welland was one of the younger American journalists, a New Yorker who had grown increasingly disgusted with his Nazi hosts. He had said so often and publicly, been warned, and said so again. His final crime had been to smuggle out a story about the little-known farm in Bavaria which supplied Hitler - and only Hitler - with a constant supply of fresh vegetables. Welland's American editors had compounded this folly by attaching his by-line to the printed article, and two days later the Gestapo had been waiting at the Promi doors when the journalists were let out. Welland had not been heard of since.

Russell neither knew nor liked the young man very much, but found it hard to fault his choice of enemies.

'He's in the basement,' Giminich said - a simple enough statement, but one which did little for Russell's peace of mind. The last time he had been down there was in the summer of 1939, and on that occasion he had been visiting Effi. Then too, someone upstairs had been trying to make a point.

A Rottenfuhrer was summoned to take him down, carpet giving way to stone as they burrowed deeper. The final corridor had not changed in two years and Welland, it transpired, was locked in Effi's old cell. Hardly a coincidence, Russell guessed.

The young American was sitting on a wooden bunk. One eye was a mess of dried blood but there were no other obvious bruises. He didn't seem surprised to see Russell, and the look he gave him with the one good eye seemed more resentful than relieved. He offered a hand to shake, without getting up. Even lifting the arm made him wince.

'How are you doing?' Russell asked unnecessarily.

'Not well,' Welland said shortly.

'I can see that. Look, I was upstairs, and they asked if I wanted to see you, so of course I said yes. The Gestapo have refused to give out any information since they arrested you. The Consulate's been trying to kick up a fuss, but they couldn't even find out where you were being held. Have you been here the whole time?

'Yes, I must have been.' He massaged his forehead with his fingers. 'They take me up every day for questioning. Sometimes twice a day. Hours and hours of it.'

'What do they think you know?'

Welland's laugh was utterly devoid of humour. 'They don't think I know anything. The interrogations, the beatings - they don't have any purpose. They're just for fun.'

Russell knew why he'd been offered this meeting , but what did it mean for Welland? They would assume that Russell would report the prisoner's condition to the Consulate, that there would be more and bigger protests. Was war between the two countries so close that they no longer cared? 'I'll let the Consulate know where you are,' he said. 'Are there any personal messages you want to send?' he asked.

'My father, back in the States.'

Russell took it his notebook. 'What's his address? What shall I tell him?'

'That I'm alive. That I love him.'

'And the address?'

Welland told him, stretching out the words in such a way that Brooklyn sounded like another planet.

After writing it all down, Russell looked up to find tears streaming down the young man's cheeks. 'They'll let you go soon,' he offered. 'They've made their point.'

'You think so?' Welland retorted bitterly.

Russell had rarely felt so helpless. He reached across and put a hand on the young man's shoulder. 'We'll get you out of here,' he promised, but the hollowness of his words was reflected in the other's despairing expression.

'You'd better be quick,' Welland replied. He was still crying, and once the cell door had closed behind him Russell heard the young American begin to sob. The sound stayed with him as he walked up the stairs, and it was a struggle to keep his anger under control.

Giminich was no longer there - his point made, he had left Leitmaritz to close out the demonstration.

'You may tell the American Consulate that espionage charges are being prepared against Herr Welland,' the Hauptsturmfuhrer said. 'It does not pay to abuse the hospitality of the Reich,' he added with a pointed stare at Russell. 'Now you may go.'

On his way back down to the main entrance, Russell tried to make sense of what had just happened. The visit to Welland had obviously been arranged to scare him, but to what end? Had all the stuff about Zembski and his communist past only been used to put him off guard, make him nervous? It was much more likely, he realised, that the Zembski business had brought his name to someone's attention, and that that someone had looked through his file and seen the possibility of using him against Canaris. If that was indeed what had happened, then going down to Neukolln in search of Zembski had been a serious mistake. Serving time as a cat's-paw of competing Nazi intelligence services was no one's idea of a good time.

Outside it was raining again, more heavily this time, and Russell had neglected to bring an umbrella. His greatest need, though, was for a drink, and these days the most reliable sources of alcohol were the two foreign press clubs. Russell preferred the Foreign Office-sponsored club in the old Anglo-German Society building on Fasanenstrasse, but that was only a short walk from Effi's flat in the West End. The Propaganda Ministry version, by contrast, was just around the corner from the Gestapo, in the former Bleichroder Palace on Leipziger Platz.

Arriving drenched, he left a message - 'still free' - at the studio number Effi had given him, then called Dallin at the Consulate. He passed on Welland's location, described his poor condition, and reported Leitmaritz's message. None of it seemed to interest the American very much. Either Dallin had too much else on his mind or Welland had pissed off his own Consulate almost as much as he'd pissed off the Nazis.

Duty done, Russell headed for the bar. This was closed, but he managed to persuade one of Goebbels' minions that his future good health depended on an immediate brandy, and the heating in the club rooms soon dried him out. With no other journalists around, he had his pick of the foreign newspapers, and spent a couple of hours wading through them. Their assessments of Germany's military prospects were generally less rosy than those of the Nazi press, but the difference was much less dramatic than Russell had hoped for. It seemed as if everything, and particularly Moscow, was still up for grabs.

The rain was beating against the windows, trams splashing their way through one large puddle in the corner of Leipziger Platz. He would give Ribbentrop's press conference a miss, he thought, and lunch where he was. There was plenty of paper, and it was time he produced some copy. He decided to take the official German briefings as gospel, and share his hosts' belief that the capture of Moscow was imminent. Who knew - it might get the Americans off their backsides.

After writing a first draft he brooded awhile on what Giminich might be planning, before abruptly deciding that second-guessing Obersturmbannfuhrers was only likely to make one anxious. Once Ribbentrop's press conference was over the Press Club would rapidly fill with correspondents in search of lunch, and with pleasant odours already drifting up from the kitchens, he headed for the dining-room. A couple of Ministry officials were already there, sitting at different tables with nothing in front of them, waiting for conversations to influence or report on. Goebbels was a thorough bastard in both meanings of the phrase.

Welland's other colleagues received the news of his sighting with resigned shrugs. There was nothing any of them could do to help him, or anyone else foolish or unfortunate enough to end up in the basements of the Gestapo.

Effi sat on the sofa in Ansgar Marssolek's enormous office, watching the producer rummage through an overfull in-tray for whatever it was he was looking for. Outside it was raining in earnest, lakes forming in the empty car lot and torrents gushing from the down-pipes on either end of the sound stage opposite. Two actors in eighteenth-century costume were leaning on either jamb of an open doorway, both smoking cigarettes and staring out mournfully.

She had known of Marssolek for a long time, but had never met him before. Before the Nazis seized their industry by the throat, he had been known as a producer of interesting films, but these days, reduced like the rest of them to the effective status of a state employee, he was best known as one of Goebbels' more reliable disciples. He could be relied upon to get a film made, on time and on message.

'Have you worked with Karl Lautmann?' he asked, still searching, glasses perched precariously on the end of his nose.

'Yes. I did Mother with him a couple of years ago.'

'Of course. I remember now. That must be why he wants you.'

'For what?'

'Ah, here it is,' Marssolek exclaimed, gingerly extracting a script from a teetering pile. 'The working title is "Betrayal", but we need something better.' He came out from behind his desk and joined her on the sofa, the script resting across his thighs. 'My dear, there's one I thing I have to tell you before we proceed. And this comes from the Minister Goebbels himself. Given the nature of this particular role, you are under no professional obligation to accept it.'

A child-molester was her first thought.

'We want you to play a Jewess,' Marssolek said apologetically.

She paused before replying. 'Why me?'

'Well, there are two reasons. Forgive me, my dear, but you have the right skin tone and hair colour. And it has to be admitted that some Jewesses are, like you, exceptionally beautiful. Secondly, you are a wonderful actress, and this will be a very difficult part to play. One that has to be performed just right. And Lautmann is convinced you could do it justice.'

She felt both repelled and intrigued. 'Tell me the story.'

'It's still in the formative stage - you have GPU to do first, and this other film won't start shooting until at least February. Yours is one of the two central characters - your husband will be the other, and he hasn't been cast yet. He's an SS Standartenfuhrer. The film begins with the two of you meeting. You are beautiful and full of life, and neither he nor the audience has any idea that you're Jewish. He takes to you immediately, and so do his friends. You seduce him - though it doesn't become clear until later how manipulative you have been - and get pregnant. He almost begs you to marry him, and the child is born. The years go by - the film starts in 1933, by the way - and you're enjoying the high life to the full, in fact rather too much for his taste, but he's still willing to forgive you almost anything. He dotes on his son, or at least wants to - there's something wrong there, but the only reason he can think of is that he's away so much on the Fuhrer's business, preparing for the war in the East. In the meantime you use his absences to conduct affairs with other men. And then, out of the blue, someone from your past turns up, a Jew who demands money for not exposing you. Twice you get the money from your husband, telling him it's for other things, but on the third occasion he refuses, suspecting, wrongly as it turns out, that you're having an affair. The Jew then goes to him, tells him he's married to a Jewess and has a mischling son, and demands money for not disgracing him. Your husband gives him the money, and of course realises what's been happening. The whole history of your relationship suddenly makes sense - the distance he feels from his son, your inveterate flirting and love of material things. The writers haven't decided how it ends. You'll have to die, of course. Either the husband will kill you in a fit of rage, or you'll die in a suitably appropriate accident.'

Effi was almost lost for words. 'What happens to the mischling child?'

'The writers haven't decided, but they're leaning towards killing him in the same accident.'

Effi raised one hand, fingers splayed. 'I can't do a film like this,' she almost shouted.

He was all sympathy. 'I understand. As I said at the beginning - you don't have to take this part. We do appreciate how risky it would be for you.'

Risky? Oh God, she thought, he was worried that playing the part would damage her career, that the great German public would see her as a Jew, and assume she really was one. What greater sacrifice could anyone make for their art?

She placed a hand over his. 'I'm sorry,' she said. 'I know I must think of the wider picture. Of my country. Let me have some time to think this through.'

'Of course, my dear,' Marssolek agreed. 'But I do hope you will do it.' Russell finished his article around four. With an hour and a half to wait before the afternoon press conference at Promi, another visit to the bar seemed in order.

It was crowded with correspondents who had made the same calculation, and there was only one available seat - opposite Patrick Sullivan at one of the tables for two. Russell hesitated, but decided what the hell - of all the American nationals who staffed Goebbels' USA Zone, Sullivan was probably the least offensive.

Since long before the war Radio Berlin had been broadcasting Goebbels' messages across the world from its transmitter at Zeesen, some thirty kilometres south of the city. The stars of the 'USA Zone' were the small collection of American nationals who provided their countrymen and women across the Atlantic with a German's-eye view of the world. At present, if Russell remembered correctly, there were six of them, four men and two women. He knew them all by sight, but like all the real American correspondents - and most of the neutrals - he avoided them whenever possible. All but Sullivan were Americans of German ancestry, and their betrayal, if that was indeed what their activities amounted to, seemed at least understandable. But listening, as he occasionally did, to their broadcasts, Russell felt an instinctive revulsion. They made the obvious points - why, for example, should Americans join sides with the oppressive British Empire against a Germany merely seeking its own rightful place in the world? - but that was about all. Their arguments were usually glib, their humour always cheap, their eagerness to jump on Hitler's anti-Semitic bandwagon downright inexcusable.

Sullivan was different. His ancestry was Irish-American, but his support for the Nazis had little or nothing to do with any traditional Irish hatred of the English. His hate figure was Franklin Delano Roosevelt, whom he saw as the father of the appalling socialist New Deal, and whom he considered an inveterate warmonger. Sullivan saw himself as an ally of those great Americans - men like Henry Ford, J. Edgar Hoover and Charles Lindbergh - who were desperate to keep their country out of the war, particularly now that Germany was doing civilisation's work in the East, subduing the Bolshevik monster.

He had been a small-time Hollywood actor in his twenties and a pulp novelist in his thirties, but despite his lack of journalistic training he had a good eye for a story. He had a regular Saturday spot which he filled with word-pictures of ordinary German life that stressed how well everything was going. The last time Russell had listened to him, Sullivan had been telling Americans how good the food still was in Berlin, and how useful his cigarette ration could be when it came to attracting young frauleins. But Sullivan was far from stupid, and Russell found himself wondering whether he was beginning to have second thoughts about tying his future to the Nazi cause.

Sullivan, as he soon discovered, was more than a little drunk. Though well into middle-age, with thin brown hair greying and receding at the temples, he still conveyed an impression of substance. The pugnacious jaw looked ready for a fight; the restlessly intelligent eyes seemed more than capable of choosing the right opponents. On the last few occasions that they had met, Sullivan had been particularly friendly, and Russell had wondered whether his work for the Abwehr had somehow reached the American's ears. On this occasion too Sullivan's eyes lit up at his approach, and not for the first time Russell found himself wondering about his own post-war reputation. In reality, he had done nothing to help Nazi Germany and several things to impede it, but the number of people who could actually testify to that fact were decidedly thin on the ground. If all of them dropped dead before the war's end he would have some difficult explaining to do.

'How's it going, comrade?' Sullivan asked as he sat down.

'Not so bad. And you?'

'Fine, fine,' he said distractedly, as the waiter loomed over them. 'What can I get you?'

'Whatever beer they have.'

'Okay. And another whisky for me,' he told the waiter. 'Who knows when they'll get another shipment?' he confided to Russell.

'Maybe the war will be over in the New Year,' Russell suggested. 'Moscow before Christmas, a surrender in January?'

Sullivan didn't look convinced. 'Maybe. We can only hope.' He leaned forward. 'Should have been there already, if the truth were known. Those idiots in Rosenberg's department have buggered the whole thing up. If they'd marched in and set up an independent Ukraine straight away... well, it would all have been over weeks ago. Such a wasted opportunity.'

'It's not irretrievable, is it?'

'I don't know, old man. If Roosevelt can buy enough support in Congress to bring us in...'

'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.'