He was a very plain-looking fellow with wispy grey hair, drooping eyelids over small eyes of a quiet indistinct colour. He had bushy eyebrows, thin lips and a pallid
complexion. His handshake was limp and he spoke in uneven metre, quick bursts of energetic monologue and then a silence as though he constantly needed to recharge before the next burst. I found him
hard work, but then, as he drank more, he relaxed and became surprisingly good company, and especially interested in life at Cambridge. He had been only once a few years before the war and retained
fond memories of the place.
The two of us ended up back at my hotel room where we cracked open a bottle of vodka and carried on talking and drinking well into the small hours. He finally made his exit
about four o’clock and we agreed to meet up for coffee at eleven as I was not expected at the trade department until after lunch.
I passed out in my only suit and woke at nine to find I had vomited down the front. I felt so bad I was convinced I would never walk again, but twenty minutes under a cold
shower and I started to come round. I cleaned the jacket of my suit with soap and water knowing that there was no laundry service at the hotel. I managed to make a half-decent job of it, changed my
shirt and went for a brisk walk around Red Square hoping that the sub-zero temperatures and some air would do something for my hangover. Arriving early at the prearranged venue – a cafe close
to Red Square – I ordered a pot of extra strong coffee, and after two cups I began to feel almost human again.
Grenyov’s first reaction when he saw me was to laugh. ‘Ah! Perhaps vodka is not your drink, Michael!’
I groaned and watched him pull up a chair and order more coffee from the waiter.
I had time to think about the previous night as I had trudged through the snow edging Red Square, and without further ado I said to Grenyov: ‘So, tell me, Dimitri, what
is all this about?’
He gave me a puzzled look that slipped into a friendly smile. ‘I’ve been too obvious?’ He took a deep breath and thanked the waiter as the man placed a fresh
pot on the table. ‘I have been asked to talk to you and get to know you . . . Not,’ he added quickly, ‘that it hasn’t been a pleasure, Michael. I find your company genuinely
stimulating.’
‘Oh, good,’ I said, my tone a little brittle. ‘Obviously your engagement with me was sanctioned. What puzzles me is why?’
‘We each have an association with Cambridge . . . beyond Trinity being your alma mater,’ Grenyov said, glancing around.
‘I see.’
‘I indicated last night that my work lies within the domain of particle physics. I should now say that it is actually a project first begun by Einstein years ago; work
he started with a German scientist called Johannes Kessler . . . You look a little startled,’ Grenyov said and drained his coffee cup.
‘I have heard about Einstein’s experiments in the United States before the war. You are talking about those, yes?’
Grenyov nodded and refilled his cup.
I checked the tables near us. Closest was a young couple who were clearly only interested in each other. Behind the scientist, a single woman, middle-aged, soberly dressed,
sat reading a book. ‘I was led to believe the Kessler Document was lost.’
Grenyov winked. ‘It was lost . . . to the British and the Americans at least. The Nazis got hold of it. But it wasn’t easy for them. After a fight they boarded the
British ship.’
‘SS
Freedom
?’
‘Yes . . . you know a little of the story?’
‘A little.’
‘The crew were killed and the vessel towed back to Ifnl in Morocco a then-secret naval base the Germans built in the mid-thirties.’
‘This is some two years before the war began.’
‘Which illustrates the value the Germans placed on finding the document.’
‘So what happened then?’
‘They stripped the ship to its bare bones like hyenas on the savannah. They eventually found the document inside a redundant part of a cooling system.’
I shook my head in disbelief. It seemed extraordinary that anyone would go to such lengths over a scientific document. ‘So,’ I said, ‘having gone to so much
effort I assume the Germans tried to make something practical from the theoretical physics; tried to understand what Einstein’s contribution would have been.’
‘That’s precisely right. They constructed a dedicated research facility in occupied Poland, a place called Legnica. A very good scientist, Herman Gottleib from the
University of Berlin, was put in charge and some of the best particle physicists in Germany were recruited. I’ve no idea how much money was thrown at the project, but it would have been
considerable – at least until other demands on the Reich’s science budget cut the effort. Whatever the cost though, they got nowhere.’
‘Only one Einstein, I guess.’
‘Yes and no. Einstein is a consummate genius, of course, but there are many other great minds in his wake.’
For a second, Grenyov looked a little affronted and I realized that beneath the affable persona, the Russian had an indelible self-respect and a clear awareness of his
considerable ability and achievements.
‘Do you have any idea what the document contained? What the Germans were trying to do? What Einstein was trying to do, come to that?’
He leaned in towards me across the table. ‘Of course I do, Michael. Surely, your memory is not that short.’
I must have looked very confused because Grenyov grinned.
‘It was just over four years ago when the Red Army occupied Poland. The army took the researchers at Legnica by surprise. The scientists had little time to destroy their
files – the work of almost seven years.’
‘And you have continued with the work?’
‘Yes. I was appointed head of the project in January 1946.’
I said nothing for several moments, just studied Grenyov’s strange face.
‘Very well, I can accept all this. Indeed, it makes perfect sense. So maybe it’s time you actually told me what has occupied Einstein, the Germans and yourself for
so many years?’
‘Two words,’ Grenyov said. ‘Defensive shield.’
I repeated the words back to him. My expression must have been one of blank incomprehension because Grenyov began to explain straight away.
‘Imagine if a nation at war had the ability to fit a device to its ships, tanks and aircraft that could repel any weapon thrown at it. Imagine a ship being attacked by a
more powerful vessel that launches torpedoes and shells that all come bouncing back at the attacker. It would be useful, no?’
‘But how could that be possible?’ I said.
‘You are familiar with the idea of trying to unify Einstein’s theory of relativity with quantum mechanics?’
‘I left university before the war,’ I responded. ‘I’ve tried to keep up with new work, but it’s . . .’
‘Yes, yes, I understand. Well a refresher then.’ Grenyov looked at his empty cup, buying a little time to phrase properly what he had to say. He topped up his cup
with the last of the coffee. ‘So . . .’ He had his hands out, palms up. ‘On the one hand we have relativity – Einstein’s great discovery.’ He moved his left hand
up and down as though weighing a fruit. ‘This deals exclusively with phenomena on the large scale – solar systems, galaxies, the speed of light, etc.’ He raised a questioning
eyebrow.
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘Then on the other we have quantum mechanics.’ And he mirrored the earlier action with his right hand. ‘This deals with only the very small scale – at
the level of atoms and sub-nuclear particles.’
‘Right.’
‘For years now physicists have tried to find a way to combine the two, to create what they call a unified theory. Einstein first postulated the notion back in 1916. More
recently my countryman . . .’ Grenyov leaned forward and lowered his voice to a whisper ‘. . . Matvey Petrovich Bronstein, who was executed on the orders of our great ruler about ten
years ago, tried to quantify the idea. He wrote a landmark paper on the subject published in
Physikalische Dummheiten.
Bronstein’s work is banned and must never be mentioned, so in
all my studies based on the materials from Legnica I was unable to refer to Bronstein’s ideas and constantly forced to backtrack.’ With a pained expression, he leaned back in his
chair.
‘Anyway, I digress. Einstein has been trying to further the idea of unifying relativity and quantum mechanics for over thirty years now. Back in 1935 he was approached
by two US naval scientists who had followed the great man’s ideas and asked him if there was any way to harness his latest theories as a weapon of war.’
‘That’s surprising,’ I commented.
‘Indeed. As you know Einstein is a militant pacifist, if you will excuse the oxymoron.’ He laughed for a moment then leaned forward once more. ‘Apparently,
he was on the point of throwing the men out of his office when he suddenly stopped and said: “Would a defensive device help?”’
It was my turn to laugh. ‘Wonderful!’
‘Yes. I have a friend of a friend who knows Einstein, and according to him Einstein has often said that he would like to make a machine that neutralized weapons and
therefore saved lives. He believed this could be done by harnessing what he called “quantum gravity”. It is clear this interest began after the visit by the navy scientists, and from
sources close to the man, he thought about little else for the next few years, a fascination that came to its climax in 1937 with his experiments to create a protective shield.’
‘He really did try it then?’
‘Oh yes. I know that for a fact. The Americans have done everything they can to hush up the experiments, but information has leaked out. It seems certain Einstein and
his team conducted at least one experiment early in 1937, but it went wrong so disastrously that they did not try again. Well at least that is what we thought at first.’
‘We?’ I said.
‘The NKVD.’
‘Russian Intelligence? OK, so what do you think now?’
‘We still think only one test was conducted, but it wasn’t just because it went terribly wrong; it was also because Einstein couldn’t solve the problems it
presented alone.’
‘And that’s where the Kessler Document came in?’
‘Yes. I have learned that Einstein and Kessler worked together on a form of unified theory. They knew each other back in the early thirties and spent some time together
in Cambridge when Einstein was in transit – an émigré from Nazi Germany – on his way to live in the United States. The Kessler Document turns out to be part of the key to
explaining what went wrong with Einstein’s test and how to set it up in a better way.’
‘Part?’
Grenyov sighed heavily. ‘What the Germans retrieved and we . . . inherited, was encoded. Some of the Nazis’ best brains spent years trying to crack the code. They
made little headway, just scratching the surface of what they thought the two scientists had been visualizing. They blended these clues with cutting-edge knowledge of quantum mechanics and
expansions of Einstein’s theory of relativity. The Germans did their best, but failed utterly.’
‘And you, my friend,’ I said. ‘You have fared better?’
He shook his head, his shoulders slumping a little. ‘Some progress has been made. We have approached things from a number of different angles. It is a shame we have no
access to the work of Bronstein, the Russian scientist I mentioned earlier. But what we need is the same thing the Germans were searching for, the cipher for the code Einstein and Kessler
used.’ He gave me an earnest look. ‘That is where you come in, Michael.’
I nodded, absorbing the incredible tale Grenyov had unfolded over a few cups of coffee. ‘I see,’ I said quietly. ‘Well, I will try.’
‘You have a totally different set of possible leads,’ he went on. ‘We need a fresh approach. I cannot impress upon you just how important this
is.’
‘You do not need to, Dimitri. I do understand. Do you have any information on the cipher? Anything at all?’
‘As far as I’m aware the Germans made little effort to find it. The war itself diverted attention and resources, but it was also a matter of arrogance I think.
They wanted to crack the problem themselves and had no faith in finding where the cipher had gone or what form it may have taken. They set their minds to cracking the code.’
‘But you have obtained some new information?’ I gave him a searching look.
‘You are a very astute young man, Michael. It is only a vague lead; the NKVD again. They learned that, as a security measure, the British got Kessler to encode the
document and send it to England via a totally different route to the cipher. The document was hidden on SS
Freedom
, while the cipher was sent to the United States some other
way.’
‘Clever.’
‘Yes, annoyingly so.’ Grenyov produced a wan smile. ‘The NKVD have gone through every archive to see if the Nazis did try to get their hands on the cipher
early on, but they’ve drawn almost a complete blank.’
‘Almost?’
‘One reference has been unearthed in a file from Himmler’s private office. An encoded message linked with Kessler’s people smuggling out the material to
England in the spring of 1937. The code the courier had used was a relatively simple one and Wehrmacht Supreme Command cracked it quickly. It was a brief message that made reference to the Kessler
Document. It stated that it would be encoded and the cipher sent separately. A single word had been highlighted by one of Himmler’s staff, a word that must have held some special relevance.
The word was: “Pioneer”.’