Stattin Station

Improvisations

Russell told Thomas the story at lunch next day, although not before checking the underside of their tables and chairs for listening devices. The ceilings in the Russischer Hof dining rooms were exceptionally high, so the chandeliers at least were free of bugs.

'I'm amazed that I didn't slug him,' he told Thomas. 'I don't know what stopped me. When he punched Effi in the breast... But I'm glad that I didn't, because God knows what would have happened. I'd have been flattened by his friends, and Effi would have joined in and probably been flattened too. And the two Jewish girls might have been caught and arrested and put on the next train out.'

'You said it was Effi who blew up first.'

'Yes, but I'm usually there to calm things down, not make them worse.'

'That would seem to work better than the two of you egging each other on,' Thomas said with a wry smile. 'Still, it doesn't look like you'll be around for much longer.'

'What have you heard?'

'Oh, nothing specific. Only the usual sources,' he added, meaning the BBC. 'It just looks like things are coming to a head.'

'Hitler might distance himself from a Japanese attack. After all, what would he gain from joining them? There's no way he could help them fight the Americans, but if he keeps out of it, the Americans might reward him by moving most of their forces from the Atlantic to the Pacific.'

'That makes perfect sense,' Thomas agreed, 'but does it sound like our Fuhrer?'

'Perhaps not,' Russell admitted. 'I've been doing a lot of straw-clutching lately.'

'Who isn't?'

His friend was looking noticeably older, Russell thought. The wrinkles around his eyes and the grey in his hair were both spreading. The strain of having a son at the front must be bad enough, without the need to fight an endless rearguard action against the Gestapo in defence of his Jewish workers. 'No word from Joachim?' he asked.

'Oh yes, I meant to tell you. There was a letter yesterday. Just a few words - no specific news. But he's all right. Or at least he was a few days ago.'

'Hanna must be relieved. '

'Yes, of course. Though it gives her more space to worry about Lotte. Our daughter has suddenly decided, for reasons that neither of us can even begin to fathom, to become an exemplary - and I do mean exemplary - member of the Bund Deutscher Madel. Three weeks ago she was a normal healthy sixteen-year-old, interested in boys and clothes and film stars. Now she has his picture over her bed. I mean, I suppose it's harmless enough, at least for a while; but why, for God's sake? It's as if some malign spirit has taken over the poor girl's brain.'

'At least the Gestapo won't be coming for her,' Russell said.

Thomas laughed. 'There is that.'

'And did you sort out Monday's difficulty?'

'Yes, but they'll be back. It's like building sandcastles - sooner or later the tide rolls over them. Unless there's some basic change of heart, my Jews will be sent away to whatever horrors are waiting for them. And what could provoke one? I sometimes wonder which would be better for the Jews - a quick victory in the East or a bloody stalemate that lasts for years. Victory might endow our leaders with a little magnanimity, whereas defeat would probably make them even nastier. So here I am,' he concluded, raising his glass in mock salute, 'longing for total victory.'

'No one finds a cloud in a silver lining better than you do,' Russell agreed.

They were halfway through dessert - an applecake seriously lacking in apple - when the waiter came round warning the diners that the broadcast was about to begin. He had hardly disappeared when inspirational music began pouring from the speakers.

'Ribbentrop's speech,' Russell remembered. 'Into every life...'

They were onto their ersatz coffees by the time the Foreign Minister began his peroration. Continuing their own conversation proved impossible. 'It's impossible to tune him out,' Thomas said. 'I've actually been thinking about him lately...'

'Why, for God's sake?'

'I've come to see him as the essential Nazi. The absolute distillation of Naziness. And that's why you can't get away from his voice - it's as if the whole system is doing the talking.'

'I would have thought the Fuhrer would take the starring role.'

'He would, he would. No, Ribbentrop isn't a star, much though he'd like to be. He's the Nazi everyman. He loves himself to death, he's not very clever but he thinks he is, he prides himself on his logic and reeks of prejudice, and above all he's crushingly boring.'

'After the war you should write his biography.'

Thomas's laugh was cut short by something he saw over Russell's shoulder. 'Behave,' he whispered, and rose from his chair, hand outstretched. Russell turned to see a tall, greying man with a chiselled face in the uniform of an SS Gruppenfuhrer.

Thomas introduced them, and invited the Gruppenfuhrer to share their table. Much to Russell's relief, the man was with his own party. Russell listened as the other two made arrangements for an afternoon's sailing on the Havel, Ribbentrop's voice droning away behind them.

'It was good to meet you, Herr Russell,' the Gruppenfuhrer said, shaking his hand again. 'You are not a sailor like your brother-in-law?'

'No, but I can see the attraction.'

'You must join us one weekend. Perhaps in the spring when the weather is kinder.'

'Perhaps,' Russell agreed with a smile. He watched the man walk back to his table, where two other black-uniformed officers were waiting for him. 'What powerful friends you have,' he murmured.

'I'll probably be needing them,' Thomas replied. 'Believe it or not, once you get that man out of his uniform and onto a boat he's a decent enough chap.'

'Some of them are.'

'Not that it matters much,' Thomas said. 'Decent or not, the lever that works is self-interest. And since things started looking iffy in Russia, people like the Gruppenfuhrer have started worrying about the world after the war. They're still not expecting defeat, mind you, but they do sense the possibility, and they're looking for some sort of insurance. Being nice to people like me, who've never had anything to do with the Nazis, is one way they can keep a foot in the other camp. Just in case.'

'And that gives you names to wave at the Gestapo.'

'It does. I don't like most of these people, in or out of uniform, but being nice to them doesn't exactly cost me anything.' He looked at his watch. 'I'd better be getting back. I doubt they'll visit us again this week, but I like to be on hand.'

As they stood on the steps outside prior to parting, Thomas looked up at the clear blue sky. 'The English will be back tonight,' he predicted. 'They won't miss the chance of embarrassing Ribbentrop while his guests are in town.'

Thomas headed for the U-Bahn at Friedrichstrasse Station, while Russell went towards Unter de Linden and the Adlon. Ribbentrop's voice rose and fell with each loudspeaker he passed, like ripples of an intermittent headache. Until only a year or so ago people had gathered beside speakers at moments like these, but nowadays they just hurried by, as if the voice was driving them onwards. In the Adlon bar there was no escape, and people were simply shouting above the speech. Russell talked to a couple of his Swedish colleagues, who confirmed his opinion that no other news would be allowed to challenge the Foreign Minister's speech that day. Since he had the entire text in his pocket - copies had been handed out at the noon press conference - there seemed little point in waiting around. He sat himself down at a vacant table and wrote a simple summary of the speech interspersed with ample quotes. An honest evaluation would not be allowed, but should in any case be superfluous. If Russell's readers on the other side of the Atlantic were dim enough to take Ribbentrop's fantasies seriously then he could only wish them a speedy recovery.

His job as a Berlin correspondent was over, he decided. Some time in the next few days he should take the trouble to resign.

Other work beckoned. He stopped off at the Abwehr headquarters on his way home, and was taken straight to Canaris's office. The Admiral seemed slightly surprised that he was willing to visit Prague, a reaction which set faint alarm bells ringing in his mind. Russell told himself it was only Canaris's diffident manner, and chose to ignore them. The arrangements for his meeting with Johann Grashof had still not been finalised, and he was told to see Piekenbrock on Monday morning, prior to catching the overnight train. The promise of air travel was unfortunately rescinded - the Luftwaffe had nothing to spare.

Arriving home before dark, he found Effi memorising her GPU lines, and an unusually aromatic casserole simmering on the stove. 'It's nearly the end of the month, so I went mad with our ration coupons,' she explained. And there was a message from the American Consulate. 'A man named Kenyon wants to see you tomorrow, at ten if you can make it. He said it was about contingencies,' she added. 'Whatever that means.'

Russell had no idea. He had met Kenyon a couple of times: once at the American Consulate in Prague in the summer of 1939, and again a few months later after the diplomat's transfer to Berlin. As far as Russell knew, the man had nothing to do with American intelligence, although that might have changed. Or perhaps Dallin had asked for Kenyon's help in persuading Russell to contact the Air Ministry official Franz Knieriem. If so, he'd been wasting his time.

They did, however, have excellent coffee at the Consulate. After ringing and leaving a message for Kenyon that he'd see him the following morning, Russell decided to phone his son. Paul seemed happy to talk for a change, albeit mostly about his growing proficiency with guns. That Saturday, it turned out, he was taking part in a Hitlerjugend shooting tournament, and wouldn't be able to see his father. Russell was surprised and upset by the momentary sense of relief this news caused, and almost welcomed the more lasting feelings of guilt which swiftly followed.

Effi, he decided, had heard enough of his agonising in recent days. 'Are you still feeling okay about that script?' he asked.

'It's wonderful,' she said. 'It's a comedy, and either no one's noticed or no one dares to say so. My only worry is that fifty years from now people will think I was taking it seriously. I was thinking - you know those people who dig deep holes in the ground and bury a box of typical things with the date...'

'Time capsules.'

'That's it. Well, I thought I could bury this script with my comments on it.'

'Why not? Let's just hope there are no Nazis around in fifty years to dig it up, particularly if we're still here and the film's become a classic.' She stuck her tongue out at him.

'I don't think you ever told me the storyline.'

'I did, but you were half asleep at the time.'

'Tell me again.'

'All right. I am Olga...'

'A Russian.'

'A White Russian. I think they must be further up the race table. Anyway, my parents were killed by the GPU...'

'Which has been the NKVD for almost ten years.'

'That sounds like the sort of detail the writers would have missed. But stop interrupting.'

'Okay.'

'Whatever they're called, they killed my parents. Or one of them did, and I've joined the organisation with the secret intention of tracking him down. I'm also an amazing violinist, by the way, and as the film begins I'm in Riga to give a recital for the International Women's League. I'm in mid-performance when some old man in the audience starts shouting that the League is financed by Jewish interests in Moscow. His proof is that a top GPU agent named Bokscha is also in Riga. Get it? Jews and Bolsheviks hand in glove!

'It gets less subtle as it goes on,' she went on. 'Needless to say, Bokscha is the man who killed my parents. He falls in love with me of course, and we roam around Europe with him organising sabotage and murders on the Kremlin's behalf and me waiting for the perfect moment to betray him. All his meetings are in the same dark cellar, which has portraits of Lenin and Stalin on the walls. The people he's plotting with are almost always Jews, and they laugh a lot together about how stupid and vulnerable everyone else is. Do you detect a theme here? Oh, and there's a sub-plot about this Latvian couple whom I befriend. They're forced to spy for the Soviets, and eventually end up imprisoned in Rotterdam, purely, as far as I can see, so that they can be set free by our invading army. By this time Bokscha and I are both dead. First I tell Moscow that he's a traitor and get him shot, and then I admit to joining the GPU under false pretences and get myself shot. Clever, eh?

'I see what you mean about a lack of subtlety.'

'It's complete nonsense from beginning to end, and I can hardly wait to start shooting.'

'Monday, yes?' Russell asked, dipping a spoon into the casserole.

'Yes.'

'Any location stuff?'

'All indoors for the first few weeks. Mostly the cellar, in fact.'

Russell laughed. 'This is ready,' he said, taking the casserole off the stove.

They were still eating when the air raid warning sounded, and Effi insisted on clearing her plate before they walked to the local shelter. This was a very different type of district to the one where the Blumenthals lived, and the local warden was as obsequious as theirs had been officious. Most of the adults had pained expressions on their faces, as if they found it hard to believe that such inconvenience was really necessary. Their children were better behaved than their Wedding counterparts, but seemed to laugh a lot less. It was after midnight before the all-clear sounded, freeing them all to grumble their way back up to the street.

On Thursday morning, Russell's tram downtown passed evidence of the previous night's raid, the wreck of a three-storey building like a broken tooth in an otherwise healthy row, roofless and gutted, surrounded by shards of broken glass. A few wisps of smoke were still rising from the ruin, and a sizable crowd was gathered outside, watching as the civil engineers made the neighbouring buildings safe. It was a sign of how little impact the RAF campaign was having, Russell thought, that one bombed house could still attract so much interest.

He had not been inside the American Consulate for several months, and was struck by how empty it seemed. Now that voluntary emigration was forbidden, the long Jewish queues had disappeared, and with Germany and the US fighting an undeclared war in the Atlantic the Consulate's diplomatic business had shrunk to almost nothing. Many diplomats had presumably been sent home.

Russell could smell the coffee as he waited for Joseph Kenyon, but that was the closest he got. The young bespectacled diplomat came down the stairs in his overcoat, and ushered his visitor back out onto the street. 'We keep finding new microphones,' he explained, 'so these days we just use the building for keeping warm. All our business is done outdoors.'

They walked up to the Spree, which at least made a change from the

Tiergarten. The sun was out, but the brisk wind sweeping in from the east more than cancelled it out, and both men were soon rubbing their gloved hands and hugging themselves to retain a little warmth. They followed the river to the left, walking past the Reichstag and around the long bend opposite Lehrter Station. Kenyon seemed hesitant about raising whatever it was he had in mind, so Russell asked him if he had any inside dope about the negotiations with Japan.

'Off the record?'

Russell nodded.

'There are no real negotiations. Tokyo wants more than Washington can give, and vice versa. Sooner or later the balloon will go up, probably sooner. I don't know this for certain, but I imagine Washington is playing for time, because with each month that goes by our re-armament programme makes us a little stronger and the economic embargo makes them a little weaker. They know this as well as we do, of course, and I don't think they'll wait for long. I expect an attack before Christmas.'

'But on whom?'

'That's the big question. If oil's as big a problem for them as we think it is, they have to attack the Dutch East Indies - it's the only source within reach. And if they attack the Dutch they're bound to attack the British - you can't expect to take Sumatra without taking Singapore first. Which raises the big question - could they afford to leave us alone in the Philippines, knowing that we could cut their new oil lifeline any time we chose? I don't think so. They'll have to go for us as well.'

Russell thought about it. Most of what Kenyon had just said seemed like common sense, although he still couldn't quite believe that the Japanese would be foolhardy enough to attack America. But then maybe countries in desperate corners really did behave like men in similar plights - they just lashed out and hoped for the best.

'How well do you know Patrick Sullivan?' Kenyon asked him out of the blue.

'Not well. We're not exactly political allies. I must have spoken to him about half a dozen times since the war began. I actually had a conversation with him last week.'

'He said.' Kenyon pulled a packet of Chesterfields from his pocket. 'You don't, do you?' he asked.

'No.'

Kenyon lit his cigarette with a silver lighter, took a deep drag, and exhaled with obvious pleasure. 'It's Sullivan I want to talk to you about. Off the record, of course.'

'Of course,' Russell echoed, curious as to what was coming.

'The man's had a change of heart. Or at least that's the way he put it.' Kenyon smiled inwardly. 'I guess he's suddenly realised which way the wind is blowing.'

'He's very pessimistic about the war in the East.'

'Exactly. If the Soviets survive this winter and we come in, then Hitler is finished. It might take years, but the end result won't be in doubt.'

'Let's hope,' Russell concurred. They must have walked about one and a half kilometres by this time, and were skirting the northern edge of the Tiergarten. Across the river a leaning pillar of smoke from the Lehrter Station goods yard was rising above the massive Customs and Excise building.

Kenyon tapped off his ash. 'You know that some American corporations are still doing a lot of business with Germany?'

'You mean like Ford, working through their German subsidiaries?'

'Ford, Standard Oil, GM, even Coca Cola. It's a long list, and there are also the American subsidiaries of German corporations like IG Farben. Some of these links are downright crucial to the German war effort. Without Ford trucks they'd be a hell of a lot further from Moscow.'

'But none of it's illegal, right?

'At the moment. But Sullivan claims that several of these corporations have made secret arrangements for business as usual even after we enter the war. Which would be treason in most people's eyes. It certainly would in mine,' Kenyon added, grinding out his cigarette. 'And Sullivan says he has proof.'

'What does he want in return?' Russell asked.

'He wants to go home to Chicago, with enough money for a nice house and immunity from any future prosecution.'

'Why should he need that? He hasn't done anything illegal, has he?' Kenyon shrugged. 'Probably not. But whether American Jews will see it that way is another matter. I can see why he'd like some insurance.'

'So where do I come in?'

'He wants you to act as a go-between. He doesn't trust us; he thinks we'll just take his proof and throw him back out to the wolves.'

'Would you?'

Kenyon shrugged. 'We might. He hasn't exactly endeared himself to anyone at the Consulate.'

'Okay, so why me?'

'He likes you for some reason.'

'I'm probably the only American journalist left who doesn't leave a room the moment he walks into it. So how's this supposed to work?'

'He wants to meet you and show you his proof. You'll then report back to us, and verify that he's got what he says he's got. But he'll still have the documents we would need for court cases back in DC.'

'But he'll have to hand them over at some point.'

'Not until he's on the ship, he says, though as far as I can see there'd be nothing to stop us taking them then and dumping him back on the quayside. Maybe he has something else up his sleeve. Perhaps he thinks using a journalist as a go-between will shame the US Government into keeping its part of the bargain.'

'He has a higher regard for the power of the press than I do, then.'

Kenyon smiled, and lit another Chesterfield. Ahead of them, a Stadtbahn train rattled over the river, slowing as it approached Bellevue Station. 'So will you meet him?'

'Why not?' It sounded like a story, and Kenyon could hardly insist that Russell's conversation with Sullivan was off the record. 'Where and when?'

'The buffet at Stettin Station. Saturday at noon.'

Russell was about to object when he remembered that he wasn't seeing Paul. 'Fine,' he said.

They turned back. It had growing noticeably colder in the last hour, and they upped their pace, chatting as they walked about the situations in Russia and the Balkans, and the wildly conflicting reports from the battlefield in North Africa. Russell liked the way Kenyon's mind worked. Unlike most American diplomats of his acquaintance, Kenyon was not burdened by a sense of inherent American superiority. He was doubtless proud of his country, but had no difficulty accepting that other men could be equally proud of theirs, and for equally valid reasons. He would make a good academic, Russell thought, particularly with the worldly experience he had now accumulated.

He asked Kenyon if he had any recent news from Prague, without mentioning his own forthcoming visit.

Kenyon had none, but couldn't resist inserting an aside about the Reichsprotektor - 'of all the people I could imagine running a country, Reinhard Heydrich is far and away the most frightening.'

As they walked across Unter den Linden towards the Consulate, Russell asked if Scott Dallin was in that morning. 'I just need a few minutes, ten at most.' Kenyon didn't know, but went in to find out. A couple of minutes later Dallin appeared, well wrapped for the cold.

They strode up one side of Unter den Linden as far as Friedrichstrasse, then back along the other side. Russell told Dallin about the Abwehr's offer to install him in Switzerland and, after some hesitation, decided to also come clean about the job Canaris wanted doing in Prague. Everyone seemed to be mentioning insurance that morning, and he thought Dallin knowing about Prague might provide him with some; against what, he wasn't too clear, but if Effi came to the Consulate to report his non-return it would be nice if someone there had a clue as to what she was talking about.

Dallin was clearly struck by the potential importance of the Swiss arrangement, but not so much that he forgot to press Russell on the 'other business'.

For a second or so Russell wondered what he was referring to, then remembered Franz Knieriem. 'No, not yet,' he said as non-committally as he could manage.

'It is important,' Dallin insisted.

'I know,' Russell said disingenuously. Even if it was, which he seriously doubted, ensuring his own survival seemed rather more important.

Thirty minutes later he was climbing the Foreign Ministry stairs. He had decided that morning that he would at least attend the press conferences, and save himself some money on newspapers.

The first item on Schmidt's agenda was the Fuhrer's return. All that day Hitler would be receiving a long line of foreign ministers at the Chancellery: those from Finland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Denmark... Schmidt rolled his tongue around each country's name as if he wished to eat it. Well, the army had already had done that. Russell wondered whether Hitler had the same speech for each of them. That, of course, would depend on his noticing when one man left and another arrived.

More ominously, Istra had fallen. Russell had visited the town's New Jerusalem Monastery with Ilse in 1924, only a few days after their first meeting in the international comrades' dormitory. On that summer day the drive from Moscow in an old Ford taxi had taken them about two hours. How long would it take a Panzer IV in late November?

After lunch at the Adlon he hunkered down in the bar to write what he hoped was a cry of alarm - a map-in-prose of the rolling forested countryside outside the Soviet capital and the battles now engulfing it. He wanted his readers to hear the Kremlin bells ringing out across Red Square, summoning the last defenders to man the last ditches, as they had done in centuries past when other barbarians were at the gates. He wanted Americans to feel how close to the edge their world was inching.

Once finished he sent it off, confident that the Nazis censors would see nothing more than a simple paean to their coming victory. Effi was out at the cinema with Zarah, so he decided to stay for the Promi press conference, walking down Wilhelmstrasse, only slightly inebriated, as dusk fell. Goebbels was elsewhere, his minions as lacklustre as ever, and the guest speaker - an IG Farben manager with a speech defect - was unable to convince anyone that recent synthetic rubber breakthroughs would decide the war.

After visiting both press clubs in a vain search for a game of poker, he reluctantly headed home. His coat was only half off when the telephone rang.

'Klaus, there's a game tonight,' the familiar voice intoned. 'Number 21, at -' he paused, and Russell could almost see him checking his watch '- at eight-thirty.'

He put down the phone, got out his S-Bahn map and counted the stations off. The twenty-first station running clockwise from Wedding was Westkreuz - which was only two stops west of Savignyplatz on the Stadtbahn. He probably had plenty of time, but with each week that passed the trains seemed less reliable. He should probably leave immediately.

He had not gone a hundred metres down Carmerstrasse when he heard footfalls behind him. Glancing back over his shoulder he could just make out two human shapes walking behind him, some twenty metres away. He slowed, stopped, and bent to re-tie a shoelace, feeling faintly ridiculous at resorting to such an obvious stratagem. The two men kept coming, as of course they had to - stratagems became obvious because they worked. Once they were twenty metres ahead of him, Russell began walking again, keeping the distance between them until they reached Savignyplatz. When his potential tails turned right onto Kant Strasse he watched until the darkness swallowed them, then crossed the square and climbed the stairs to the elevated station. He was getting paranoid, he thought. One thing you could say for the blackout - it made the Gestapo's job much more difficult, particularly at this time of the year, when there were only nine hours of daylight. During the other fifteen hours of the day Berlin was cloaked in the sort of darkness that only burglars and rapists loved. Any sort of mobile surveillance was practically impossible.

He waited on the elevated platform at Savignyplatz for the best part of half an hour, hunched up against the bitter cold, trying to remember which stars were which in the firmament above. It was a struggle getting aboard the train when it came, and he spent the next six minutes with a tall soldier's elbow pressing into his neck. Westkreuz was the two-level station where the Stadtbahn and national lines crossed over the Ringbahn, and numerous travellers changing lines were busily bumping into each other in the starlit gloom. Russell went downstairs and up again, just in case. It then took him several minutes to find the street exit, and several more to be absolutely sure that Strohm was not lurking in one of the darker corners.

He settled down to wait, and five minutes later a Ringbahn train pulled in below. Strohm appeared a minute or so later, walking past Russell without a word, but discreetly tugging at his sleeve. Once outside, he walked a short distance down the dark road and stopped. 'We'll wait for a few minutes and go back in,' he said. 'There's nothing for you to see tonight, and the end of a platform's as good a place as any for talking.'

His voice sounded unusually flat, Russell noticed. Bad news was coming.

They walked to the furthest end of the eastbound Stadtbahn platform, where a large swathe of Berlin spread darkly away from them under the starry sky. 'The train that left last Monday was scheduled for Riga,' Strohm said quietly. He expelled a small blue cloud of warm breath. 'They're building a new concentration camp there with a capacity of 25,000.'

It crossed Russell's mind that many football stadiums were smaller.

On the platform opposite an embracing couple were silhouetted against the southern horizon.

'But it's not ready,' Strohm went on. 'The Jews were taken off at Kovno in Lithuania, and taken to one of the old Czarist forts on the outskirts.

That was on Saturday. On Sunday a second trainload of Jews arrived from Frankfurt, on Monday a third from Munich. On Tuesday all three thousand were taken out and shot.'

Russell closed his eyes. 'Why?' he asked. 'On whose orders?' One mental picture of Leonore Blumenthal's Aunt Trudi, in front of a mirror, smiling as she adjusted her hat, gave way to another, of the same woman standing beside a freshly-dug pit, with trembling lips and untidy grey hair.

'We're not certain,' Strohm replied, 'but the decision was probably taken locally. We think that the authorities in Kovno were just told to look after their unexpected guests in whatever way they deemed appropriate.'

A steam locomotive was approaching on the fast line, the sound of its passage rapidly increasing in volume. It hurried through the station, pulling a long line of efficiently darkened carriages, an orange glow seeping from the roughly blacked-out cab.

'So they just killed them,' Russell said, once the noise had sufficiently abated.

'That's what they've been doing in Russia,' Strohm said. 'The fact that these were German Jews doesn't seem to have made any difference.'

'But it doesn't seem as if there was a pre-arranged plan to murder them,' Russell said, as much to himself as Strohm. 'And that does make a difference. If the Riga camp's ready when the next trains are sent, then presumably the Jews will end up there. Why would they be building it otherwise?'

'Perhaps,' Strohm agreed.

He didn't sound convinced, and Russell could hardly blame him. He asked if the leaders of Berlin's Jewish community had been told.

'They will be, if they haven't been already. But they often refuse to believe such news. Some of them at least. They thank us kindly for the information, but you can see it in their eyes. It doesn't surprise me. Knowing that something bad is about to happen is only useful when there's something you can do to avert it.'

'Are any more trains scheduled?'

'Not at the moment. There are none available.' Strohm smiled for the first time. 'The train that took the Jews to Kovno was commandeered in Warsaw by the Quartermasters.'

'Well I suppose that's good news.'

'That and the damage the Soviet partisans are doing to our trains in Russia. There's one thing I have for you: a driver who's willing to talk about what he's seen in the East. He was badly injured several weeks ago in a partisan attack, and now he's convalescing at home. Are you interested?' 'Of course.'

'His name is Walter Meltza. His address is Flat 6, Spanheimstrasse 7. It's near the Plumpe, the Hertha ground. You know where that is?'

'Does the Fuhrer like vegetables?'

Strohm smiled again. 'One day we must have a talk about football, and which is the best Berlin team to support. Have you memorised the address?'

'Yes.'

'Please be careful, for everyone's sake. Only visit after dark. I'll make sure he knows you are coming.'

'At the end of next week,' Russell suggested. He had Sullivan and the Admiral's message to deal with over the next few days.

A local train could be heard approaching from the west. 'I'll tell him.'

They shook hands, and Strohm faded into the darkness as the thin blue headlight glided into the station. This train was almost empty, not to mention strewn with copies of the same leaflet. 'War with America?' was the bold headline, but reading the small print beneath was impossible in the negligible light, and he stuffed the leaflet in his pocket. The war might be European, he thought, but all eyes were now on America. It occurred to him that his own day had revolved around four Americans - Kenyon, Sullivan, Dallin and Strohm. And four more different Americans were hard to imagine: a cosmopolitan diplomat, an ex-actor turned Nazi, a would-be spymaster from California and an essentially German communist. Not to mention himself, the American who had only ever spent six weeks in his supposed homeland. Yet here they all were in Berlin, waiting with their eighty million German hosts for their government in Washington to take the plunge, with or without a Japanese push.

The train pulled in to Savignyplatz station. There were a few signs of movement in the square, but it had an empty sound, as if the residents had already tucked themselves away for the night. Walking up Carmerstrasse, he found himself thinking about the Blumenthals. If they didn't already know, should he tell them? How would it help them to know?

He would ask Effi, he decided, as he climbed the stairs to her apartment. She was lying on the sofa, a script laid flat across her stomach, stretching her arms in the air. 'I heard the outside door,' she said. 'Where've you been?'

'Meeting my railwayman. He had...'

The swelling of sirens interrupted him.

'Oh, not again,' Effi lamented. 'I need some sleep!'

She was still sleeping when Russell left the next morning. Either the raid had been protracted, or those in charge of the all-clear had inadvertently dropped off, because it hadn't sounded until a quarter past four. Two possible chains of circumstance that any local Sherlock Holmes could have deduced from the bleary eyes of his fellow passengers on the Route 30 tram.

Russell remembered how quickly Paul had fallen in love with Holmes and Watson. How old had he been? Nine? Ten? One day at the Funkturm they had invented German equivalents - Siegfried Helmer and Doctor Weindling. They lived at Kurfurstendamm 221, over an actual tobacco shop.

How would Paul react if he told him what had happened in Kovno? He had told Effi on their way back home from the shelter, and she had not wanted to believe it. She had, but only after desperately searching through the facts for a more acceptable interpretation. Paul would simply deny it. His father's source must be mistaken, or simply inspired by hatred of the Reich.

And Russell was almost glad that Paul would think that way, because denial was infinitely preferable to acceptance.

His tram ground to a halt in the shadow of the Brandenburg Gate. The sky was mostly clear, but was expected to cloud over in the afternoon and thereby offer Berliners some respite from the attentions of the RAF. That was the good news. The bad was that Effi had accepted an invitation for dinner at her sister's house for them both. The food might be good, but only until Zarah cooked it; and sharing several hours with her punctilious Nazi husband was hardly Russell's idea of an enjoyable Friday evening, even in war-time Berlin. In fact, now that he thought about it, the turn in the weather was somewhat unfortunate. An air raid might have shortened the torment.

Neither newspaper nor coffee improved his mood. The latter seemed worse than ever, a cold brown soup that bore no relation to the real thing, and the former was full of self-congratulatory coverage of the recently-concluded, so-called conference. Volkischer Beobachter readers were invited to imagine a world in which England rather than Germany had enjoyed two years of victories: 'Instead of being able to face the world united, having as its centre a Reich immeasurably greater in power and potentialities, Europe would now be split into fragments consisting of nothing more than a small heap of non-organic separated parts...'

'Let's hear it for small heaps,' Russell murmured to himself. A long article in the same paper revealed the 'secret last testament' of Tsar Peter the Great, a template for expansionism which the Bolsheviks had taken for their own. The journalists concerned seemed unaware that the testament in question had been revealed as a forgery more than thirty years before.

After attending two press conferences and writing one uninspired article, he met Effi at the Zoo Station buffet. Zarah and Jens Biesinger lived on the border of Grunewald and Schmargendorf, a kilometre or so east of his son Paul's home. It was an important kilometre in social terms, and the Biesinger house, though ample in size for a family of three, was considerably less spacious than the small mansion which Matthias Gehrts had inherited from his industrialist father. There were also, as Russell had noticed on previous visits to collect Effi, many more swastikas waving in the less leafy street.

The promised cloud cover had arrived, deepening the blackout, and they stepped down from their tram into a river of dancing blue lights, as phosphorescent-badged Berliners crowded the pavements on their way home from work. Effi remembered one of her soldiers in the Elisabeth Hospital describing Russian skies awash with coloured flares. She tightened her grip on Russell's arm. 'John, be nice this evening.'

'I'm always nice.'

'Who are you talking to? I'm serious. Zarah's not doing well at the moment, and from everything she says I don't think Jens can be either.' 'I thought he'd been promoted.'

'He has. But I don't think... This is the street, isn't it?'

'It's Karlsbaderstrasse,' a passing voice in the dark said helpfully.

'Thank you.'

'You were saying?' Russell said, once they'd found the white kerb.

'Zarah says he's drinking more than he used to.'

'That wouldn't be difficult. The last time I came to dinner here the wine was in thimbles.'

'That was years ago. And I thought you promised to be nice.'

'I am. I will be. But what problems do they have? A Party favourite with a prestige job and a wife who doesn't have to work. Is Lothar okay?'

'It's not that simple,' Effi retorted. Sometimes she wondered how someone so intelligent could also be so obtuse.

'Is Lothar okay?' Russell asked again 'He's fine,' Effi replied. 'A bit strange perhaps, but fine.'

'Strange how?' Two years ago Zarah and Jens had been worried that their child was mentally sub-normal, not something they wanted to publicise given the Party's attitude to handicapped people of any age or type. Russell had escorted Zarah and the boy to London for a clandestine assessment. Lothar, it turned out, was just a little disconnected from the rest of humanity. There was nothing to worry about.

'Oh, I don't know,' Effi said. 'Just little things. One of Jens's sisters bought him a stunning set of toy soldiers for his birthday, and he just refused to play with them. Wouldn't say why, just put them back in their box and left them there.'

'Sounds very sensible to me.'

'You wouldn't say that if it was Paul. Remember how overjoyed he was when Thomas bought him that set of dead soldiers. He went on and on about how realistic they were.'

'True,' Russell conceded. He didn't want to talk about Paul.

'Lothar says the strangest things sometimes,' Effi went on. 'He asked me the other day whether pretending to be other people at work made me confused when I wasn't. It's not an unreasonable question, but from a six year-old?'

'I see what you mean.'

They were almost there. Effi pulled them to a halt at the gate, and put her hands on his shoulders. 'It hurts me that Zarah and I aren't as close as we used to be. This war will end one day, and I want to still have a sister when it does.' She stared him in the eye, making sure he understood her. 'We may not like how they think or what Jens does, but they're part of our family.'

'I get it,' Russell said. He did.

It was Lothar who answered the door, smiling happily at Effi and earnestly shaking hands with Russell. Zarah appeared, looking much the same as ever, a full-figured woman with wavy chestnut hair which now hung past her shoulder. She gave him a bigger smile than he expected, and kissed him warmly on the cheek. Jens emerged last. He looked at least five years older than he had in 1939, although much-thinned hair perhaps exaggerated the effect. He was out of uniform for once, unless the enamel swastika in his lapel could be counted as such.

A surprisingly wonderful smell was coming from the kitchen. Perhaps the quality of the ingredients had transcended the quality of the cook, Russell thought unkindly.

Jens seemed eager to get them drinking, and appeared slightly disappointed when Lothar commandeered both guests for a look at his latest acquisition - an atlas of world animals. He had the book open at a map of the Soviet Union, a double-page spread full of wolves, black bears and Siberian tigers. The Red Army and Wehrmacht were nowhere to be seen.

With Zarah announcing that dinner was fifteen minutes away, Effi took Lothar upstairs for a bedtime story and Russell was able to oblige Jens's desire to share his excellent wine. The two of them swapped opinions on the military news from Africa - a safe option in that neither had any real idea what was happening - and Russell offered a vaguely optimistic view of events in the East, which he assumed would please his host. All he got was a frown. 'We must hope for the best,' was all Jens would say.

This was a surprise, and made Russell want to dig deeper. What did Jens know that Dr Schmidt and Dr Goebbels did not?

Effi's reappearance prevented it. 'Lothar is ready for his goodnight kiss,' she told her brother-in-law. 'How's it going?' she asked Russell once Jens had disappeared up the stairs.

'Splendidly,' he told her.

She disappeared into the kitchen, leaving him to stare at the framed Fuhrer above the mantelpiece. 'How's your war going?' Russell muttered at him. 'As well as you hoped, or are the cracks beginning to show?'

'Second sign of madness,' Effi said at his shoulder.

'What's the first?'

'Talking to portraits of Goering. It's time to sit down.'

They went through into the dining room. Zarah had lit candles, but resisted Effi's suggestion that they turn off the lights - 'There's too much darkness these days.' Jens returned and topped up their glasses - his, Russell noticed, was already empty. He and Effi shared knowing glances.

The food - a sausage casserole with unmistakably real sausage - was excellent, and Russell said so.

'You needn't sound so surprised,' Zarah told him with a nervous smile.

'I'm not,' Russell protested, but he did wonder whether their hosts knew how few people in Berlin would be enjoying a dinner as good as this. He knew better than to ask, though.

'These days any good meal is a surprise,' Effi interjected diplomatically.

As they ate, the conversation meandered through the current Berlin topics - the sudden shortage of shoes, the irritating air raids, the recent avalanche of leaflets criticising the government, the errant behaviour of youth. 'Two boys were caught throwing stones at the trains last week,' Zarah said. 'Near Halensee Station, I think it was. They were on their way home from a Hitlerjugend meeting.'

Jens said little, and even then only when his wife appealed to him directly. He seemed distracted, Russell thought. He was drinking steadily, and had sunk well over a bottle of wine before they turned to the brandy.

'How's work?' Russell asked, more out of politeness than from any hope of learning anything useful.

'Hard,' Jens said, and smiled rather bleakly. 'Hard,' he echoed himself. 'Just between us,' he said, waving a hand to embrace them all, 'the job is becoming impossible.'

Russell couldn't resist asking: 'Which job?'

'Feeding everyone,' Jens said simply. 'In peacetime it was a challenge, but one we could meet. In wartime - well, you can imagine. There are fewer men available for farm work, so production has suffered...'

'Aren't there enough Land Girls?' his wife asked.

'A lot of them are getting married just to avoid farm work,' Effi offered.

'We can feed our cities and countryside,' Jens went on, as if no one else had spoken. 'But the Wehrmacht is more of a problem. We now have almost four million soldiers and half a million horses to feed, and most of them are more than eight hundred kilometres from the old borders of the Reich.'

'And there aren't enough trains,' Russell murmured. He was, he realised, about to learn something.

'Exactly. So they must live off the Russian countryside. They will consume the agricultural surplus that used to feed the Russian towns.' 'And the Russian towns?' Effi asked.

'As I said, it is hard. We must be hard.'

He looked anything but, Russell thought. In fact, he might be imagining it, but there seemed to be a glint of tears in Jens's eyes.

There was a sudden silence around the table.

Russell thought through the implications. Most of the Russian peasantry would survive - they'd been hiding food from invaders and governments since time began. The towns would indeed suffer, but not as badly as the millions of Soviet prisoners. What would they be fed with? And then there were the Jews, trainload after trainload travelling east, into this man-made famine. What would they eat? They wouldn't.

'You can only do your best,' Zarah was telling her husband.

He looked furious, but only for an instant. 'Of course. The men at the front are the ones who really suffer. I just work in an office.' He got up. 'Excuse me for a moment. I thought I heard Lothar.'

'He worries about the boy,' Zarah said.

He should worry about himself, Effi thought. He was as close to a breakdown as any of her soldiers in their hospital beds. 'He's a good father,' was all she said.

'That's something, isn't it?' Zarah replied. 'I was thinking the other day - so many boys are going to be without their fathers when all this is over.'

There was no air raid that night, but Russell was woken by the sound of Effi crying. He found her wrapped in her old fur coat, curled up on the sofa with her knees up under her chin. 'I'm sorry,' she sobbed. 'I didn't want to wake you.'

He took her in his arms, and asked what the matter was.

'It just gets worse and worse,' she said.

He knew what she meant.