Masaryk Station (John Russell) (24 page)

Feeling hungry, Russell walked into the first decent-looking restaurant he found on Národní. Anticipating a likely dearth of edible fare on his evening train, he ordered three courses and a bottle of expensive Moravian wine. The American taxpayers would have to fork up, which served them right for employing Winterman.

It was three P.M. by the time he got back to the Europa, which made packing and checking out a hurried affair, but the local clocks were only just striking the half-hour when he passed through the
National Museum’s front entrance, the usual distance ahead of his StB shadow. After handing his suitcase in at the cloakroom, he leisurely sauntered on into the first gallery, abruptly changing pace the moment he was out of sight. His tail, having lost him, would have no choice but to stay with his luggage.

He found the back entrance without much trouble, lingered a while to make sure he had thrown off the shadow, then started down Římskã. He could already see the dark-red awning, a splash of colour in the grey stone street. Or perhaps, the thought crossed his mind, a red rag to a bull.

At least this
treff
, as the Soviets called such meetings, was in a public place. If the UDBA officers had shot him dead at Pograjac’s lonely Belgrade apartment, the rest of the world would have been none the wiser.

Only two of the tables were occupied, one by a middle-aged man in a suit, the other by a young woman in a blue summer dress. Both had folded newspapers in front of them.

As instructed, Russell ordered a cup of Viennese coffee. He still felt full from lunch, and one sip was sufficient to deter any more.

A shadow crossed his table, and the girl was standing over him, holding out the paper and saying something in Czech. The stress in her voice was palpable, but then she didn’t have an MGB help number.

‘Dekuji,’
he said with a smile, using up most of his Czech vocabulary.

She nodded abruptly and walked out through the open door.

He carefully opened the paper, making sure that anything falling out would land in his lap. An envelope did.

Knowing it was out of sight, he let it lie there while making a show of refolding the paper and examining its front page. He only recognised a few of the words, but the picture featured a smiling Klement Gottwald, surrounded by eager young children. After a few
moments he held the paper up as if he was reading the bottom half, and slickly moved the envelope from lap to inside pocket.

It was time he got back to the museum. After digging out some coins for the tip, he headed for the street.

They were waiting on the pavement, two to the left and two to the right. He didn’t resist, but they insisted on frog-marching him to the paddy wagon and almost throwing him into the back. It was only when the door clanged shut that he realised the girl was there with him, tears already glistening on her cheeks. When he responded to her rapid-fire Czech with a shrug of incomprehension, she began to sob, and he took her in his arms.

The drive took fewer than five minutes, and they were separated on arrival in the cobbled courtyard. Russell was led down a flight of worn stone steps, past several cells of Thirty Years War vintage, and propelled through the empty door of the very last one. As he turned to protest, a fist rammed into his stomach, doubling him up and exposing the back of his neck to some sort of truncheon. This put him on his knees for a split second, before one boot tipped him over, and another took the wind from his chest. He was still laboriously trying to curl himself up when he heard the cell door slam.

After lying there for a few minutes, he painfully manoeuvred himself into a sitting position, up against the wall. He had no memory of their being taken, but watch, wallet and affidavits were gone. So too was his ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ card, the local MGB’s telephone number. He had taken the precaution of memorising it, but the recent assault had apparently scrambled his memory.

It was at least two hours before they came back for him. This time there was no violence, just more stone steps and cold efficiency. He reckoned the room he ended up in was on the third floor, but the lack of a window meant he couldn’t be sure. This lack was comforting, though—the Czechs were famous for their defenestrations.

The latest interrogator shared traits with several of his predecessors—a uniform pressed within an inch of its life, a fussy way with his hands, and a smugness quotient of around 200 percent. This one’s name was Colonel Hanzelka, and the only remaining question was whether or not he was also a sadist.

At least he spoke German. Russell wasted no time announcing his attachment to the MGB.

Hanzelka looked incredulous.

‘Telephone their Embassy,’ Russell told him. ‘Better still, call the number which is in the wallet your men took. It’s a direct line to the local MGB.’

The Colonel gave him one more look, then turned to a subordinate. Russell didn’t understand their interchange, but the subordinate’s subsequent exit boded well.

‘If you work for the MGB, why are you part of an American plot against this country?’ Hanzelka asked icily.

‘I don’t think the Soviets would thank me for telling you.’

‘The Soviets are our allies, not our masters, and this is not the Soviet Union. You would be well advised to remember that.’

Russell nodded. ‘As long as you’re happy keeping Moscow’s secrets, I’m happy to explain.’

That brought doubt to Hanzelka’s eyes, but he overrode it. ‘Please do.’

‘The Americans think I work for them. Occasionally I’m ordered to do something which strengthens their illusion.’

‘You are a double-agent?’ The Czech sounded surprised, though God only knew why.

‘Of course,’ Russell told him.

‘Well, well.’

The subordinate returned, and another exchange took place in Czech.

‘Comrade Rusikov is on his way,’ Hanzelka told Russell, who tried not to look too relieved. ‘Since we’re on the same side,’ the Colonel was saying, ‘you might as well tell me what you know about this operation.’

‘It looks like you know it all already.’

‘Most of it,’ Hanzelka conceded.

‘I was asked to collect some signed affidavits. Statements from people who witnessed Jan Masaryk’s murder.’

Hanzelka was smiling.

‘Fakes, I presume.’

‘How could they not be when Masaryk jumped?’

‘They were bait,’ Russell suggested.

‘Of course.’

They had probably rolled up half of Giminich’s organisation, Russell thought. Which felt strangely satisfying until he remembered the girl in the blue dress.

‘So, who was in charge of this operation?’ Hanzelka asked.

‘An Austrian named Volker Giminich.’

‘On his own?’

Russell was reluctant to name Winterman, who as far as he knew wasn’t a mass murderer. But neither did he want the Soviets to find out that he was keeping things from them. He opted for partial disclosure: ‘An American was in nominal charge, of course, but Giminich is running the show.’

‘He likes to do that,’ Hanzelka allowed.

‘You know him?’

‘He was based here during the war—one of Heydrich’s more zealous disciples.’

Russell wondered whether to reveal his own previous acquaintance with Giminich, and decided against it. His earlier visits to Czechoslovakia seemed like a can of worms best left unopened—he
had no idea what had happened to the Czechs he had been involved with in 1939 and 1941, or whose side they might now be on. ‘The Americans have some strange allies,’ was all he said.

‘ “Strange” is not the word I would use to describe Volker Giminich.’

‘You know him better than I do,’ Russell said, realising it must be true. This Czech had a personal score to settle.

Rusikov’s arrival spared him the details. The MGB officer gave Hanzelka a warm handshake, and Russell something more perfunctory. For the next few minutes the conversation was conducted in Czech.

‘You will take the affidavits to Vienna as planned,’ Rusikov told Russell eventually.

He looked suitably surprised.

‘They won’t stand close scrutiny,’ Rusikov explained. ‘If the Americans publish them, we will have no trouble proving they are forgeries. People will assume one of two things, that the Americans forged them themselves, or that they were duped by their own supporters here in Prague.’

‘Okay, I’ll take them.’

‘You realise that Giminich must not know that any of his people have been arrested,’ Rusikov went on. ‘Some have already been turned, and we hope to entice him close to the border—so a snatch squad can bring him back here for trial.’

‘I understand,’ Russell said. And he did. Put Giminich in a Prague courtroom, and the new Czech authorities would be able to draw damning connections between Nazi war crimes, American spies, and the regime’s current domestic opponents. A real political bonanza.

The Soviets were so much better at this stuff than the Americans. If they had a cause worth fighting for they’d be damn near invincible.

‘You can still catch the night train,’ Hanzelka was telling him. ‘The lieutenant here’—he indicated the young man who had just arrived with Russell’s suitcase—‘;will take you to the station and make the arrangements.’

As they emerged on to Bartolomejská, where a car was waiting, Russell glanced back at the building. It seemed utterly anonymous; the grey walls and shuttered windows were a highly effective mask. Somewhere in the basement the girl in the blue dress would still be crying.

The lieutenant said nothing on their drive, but proved singularly efficient when it came to securing him a private sleeping compartment. Russell had concluded that he only spoke Czech, but at the carriage door the young man wished him ‘a safe journey, Comrade’, before striding almost jauntily back down the platform.

The train set off on time, its large locomotive convulsively blowing off steam. There was, Russell discovered, no restaurant or bar on board, so he spent the next fifteen minutes by an open window, enjoying the warm air on his face, gazing out at the dark countryside. Dark in more ways than one, he thought. He wouldn’t come this way again in a hurry.

Considering the terrible state of the track, sleep came quite easily, and when he finally woke they weren’t much more than an hour from Vienna. It was still only seven A.M. when he finished his breakfast in the Nordbahnhof buffet, so he took a taxi to Josefstadt, and sat enjoying the morning sunshine in a small park not far from the house on Florianigasse. He resisted the temptation to read the affidavits—if and when they blew up in Winterman’s face, he wanted the man to remember that the envelope had been sealed.

He knocked on the CIA’s door at nine A.M., and was surprised to find both Winterman and Giminich already at work. They were excited by the affidavits, and appreciative of his efforts, which at least
made a change. They asked very few questions—their operation had gone according to plan, which was only to be expected. And no, there was nothing to detain him further. With the help of the duty officer downstairs he should be back in Berlin by evening.

As it turned out, that day’s flights were already full, but Russell was happy to spend another day in Vienna—his Rat Line story needed a few hours’ work, and it would be safer to send it on from there—Berlin’s channels of communication were less reliable and much less discreet. At the American Press Club he commandeered a typewriter, and spent most of the rest of the day turning his notes into a series of three articles that would, he hoped, embarrass the hell out of any institution with a moral compass. Whether the State Department and Vatican qualified as such was another matter.

After sending it all off to Solly Bernstein in London, Russell walked around to the Press Club. There he found an abandoned London
Times
, in which he learnt that the Nationalists had won the previous week’s election in South Africa. From earlier reports he knew that these were people who believed in keeping the country’s races apart, and
apartheid
was apparently the name of their creed, the Afrikaans for ‘separate development’. This was post-war progress, he thought—from Aryans murdering Jews to Aryans merely enslaving Negroes. And all in three short years!

After dinner in a local restaurant he walked over to the Central Exchange and purchased another illicit telephone call to Berlin. ‘I’ll be back tomorrow,’ he told Effi. ‘The flight from Frankfurt should reach Tempelhof around four, give or take an hour or so.’

Effi’s ‘thank God’ was a little too heartfelt.

‘What’s happened?’

‘Nothing. Not yet, anyway. Someone turned up at the door and suggested that Rosa’s adoption might not be legal.’

‘Who? When?’

‘Yesterday. He said he was from City Hall, and he probably was, but the Russians must be behind it. Thinking it over, I feel sure they’re just trying it on, but at the time I felt almost hysterical.’

‘I can see why.’

‘Well, I’m glad you’ll be back tomorrow. I’ll come to the airport.’

She sounded calm enough, but Russell could hear the tension in her tone. Next morning, as his military flight droned its way across Bavaria, he found himself willing the pilot to step on the gas, as if some inner voice was warning him that their time was finally running out.

Merzhanov

B
erlin from the air was more of a shock than Russell expected—either three months away had blunted his memory, or he’d just grown accustomed to cities that didn’t look like some fantastic giant had repeatedly hit them with an outsize hammer. There were signs of rebuilding, but they still seemed far too few for the time that had passed. One thing was certain—if the Führer suddenly emerged from hiding, he would recognise the place.

Effi was waiting at the terminal doors, lovely as ever, eyes full of worry. Before taking the U-Bahn home they went for a walk in nearby Viktoria Park, where in pre-war days they’d often enjoyed the panoramic view from the top of the Kreuzberg. This time they eschewed the climb, circling the base of the hill as they discussed the latest Soviet behaviour.

‘You and Shchepkin can fix this, can’t you?’ Effi half-asked, half-pleaded.