“Have you heard of the massacre in the Katyn Forest?” asked Reichleitner.
“Of course.”
“I was part of the investigating team,” said Reichleitner.
“Then I’ve read your report,” I said, and explained the circumstances of my having been appointed FDR’s special representative. “Is that what you wanted to talk about?”
“No. Not directly, anyway. Something similar. Murder on a massive scale.”
“Well, that’s worth some cigarettes, at least.” I handed Reichleitner a cigarette and lit it, before tossing him the packet. Then we all sat down at the table as if we were about to play a game of cards.
“Your report was very thorough,” I told him. “For what it’s worth, I agreed with your conclusion. That, on this particular occasion at least, the German army was not responsible for mass murder.”
“Your German is very good,” said the major.
“It should be. My mother always read fairy tales to me in German.”
“Is she German?”
“Kind of. You know, the American kind.” I threaded my cigarette between my lips and sat back in my chair, my hands in the pockets of my trousers. “You were telling me a story yourself, weren’t you?”
“The suitcase you found when I was picked up,” Reichleitner said to Deakin. “Where is it, please?”
Deakin stood up and shouted through the judas hole. Reichleitner said nothing until the case was open on the table in front of him. It was empty.
“The clothes that were in here are at the laundry,” explained Deakin.
“Yes, I know. The lance corporal explained. Have you a pen-knife, please?”
This time Deakin hesitated.
Reichleitner shook his head and smiled. “It’s all right, Major. I give you my word as a German officer, I will not attack you with it.”
“We’ve already cut the lining,” said Deakin, handing over the knife he used on his pipe.
“It has a double lining,” said Reichleitner. He unfolded the blade of Deakin’s knife and levered it inside the leather lid. “Also, you have to know where to make the cut. This has been stitched in with very fine wire. With one cut you might remove the first lining, but not the leather underneath.”
It took Reichleitner several minutes to remove the leather lid of his suitcase. He laid it flat upon the desk and then opened it like a large portfolio to reveal a waterproof package containing several neat piles of paper and a small roll of photographs.
“Very clever,” said Deakin.
“No,” said Reichleitner. “You were careless, that’s all.” He made one pile of pages out of the several smaller ones and then pushed the documents toward me.
“After Katyn Forest,” he said, “this was the next investigation. Hardly as thorough, but just as shocking. It relates to a place in Russia called Beketovka. The largest POW camp for German soldiers captured at Stalingrad. The conditions described here apply in all Soviet POW camps for German soldiers. Except those for the SS. For the SS things are much worse. Please, read this file. Several men died to bring the information and these pictures out of Russia. I shan’t detain you with the precise figures now, gentlemen. Instead I shall merely give you one statistic. Of the two hundred fifty thousand Germans captured after the surrender at Stalingrad, about ninety percent are now dead from cold, starvation, neglect, or just plain murder. My mission here is simple. To deliver this file to your president with a question. If the deaths of twenty-seven thousand Poles are not enough for you to break off your alliance with the Soviet Union, then what about the deaths of two hundred and twenty-five thousand German prisoners?”
“Only four thousand Poles have been found. So far.”
“There were other graves,” said Reichleitner. “In truth we had no time to examine all of them. However, our intelligence sources in Russia have indicated that this may be only the tip of the iceberg. Of the million or more Poles deported in 1941, perhaps as many as a third of them are now dead, with many more unaccounted for in Soviet labor camps.”
“Bloody hell,” breathed Deakin. “You can’t be serious.”
“Had I not seen what I have seen, then I might have agreed with you, Major Deakin,” said Reichleitner. “Look, this is what I know. But what I suspect is much, much worse. There are terrible things that Germany has done, too. Dreadful things to the Jews in Eastern Europe. But we are your enemy. The Russians are your friends. Your allies. And if you do and say nothing of these things, you will be as bad as them, for you will be condoning what they have done.”
Deakin looked at me. “These figures he mentions, they’re impossible, surely.”
“I don’t think so.”
“But three hundred thousand Poles?”
“Men, women, and children,” said Reichleitner.
“It doesn’t bear thinking of.”
Reichleitner threw himself down on his bed. “Well, I have done my duty. Everything is explained in the file. I can tell you no more than you may read for yourselves.”
Deakin tapped the bowl of his pipe against the heel of his hand and, catching my eye, nodded.
“Actually there’s quite a lot you haven’t told us, Major,” he said. “Such as who sent you on this mission. And who you were to make contact with when you arrived in Cairo. You don’t expect us to believe that you were going to make your way to the American legation and hand this dossier over to the president in person. To whom were you intending to entrust this?”
“Good point,” I said.
“You might not be a spy yourself, but the person with whom you were supposed to make contact in Cairo almost certainly is.”
“I was sent on this mission by Reichsfuhrer Himmler,” admitted Reichleitner. “My orders were to check in to Shepheard’s Hotel posing as a Polish officer. I speak Polish and English. Better English than I led you to believe earlier. And I’m afraid that I was planning to do exactly as you have said. To deliver the dossier to the American legation. Number twenty-four Nabatat Street, is it not? Here in Garden City.”
Deakin threw a nod in my direction. “That’s the address, all right.”
“I was to place the dossier in a parcel marked for the attention of your American minister, Alexander Kirk. I had a covering letter addressed to Mr. Kirk, but I lost that when I bailed out, along with my Polish passport.”
“Very convenient,” said Deakin.
Reichleitner shrugged. “Can you think of a better way to deliver a dossier into the hands of the Americans than simply to hand it in at the legation? I know Cairo. I was often here before the war. So why would I need a contact? A contact might only have compromised me and my mission.”
“A contact might help you to escape from Egypt,” I suggested.
“That’s not so difficult, with money.”
“He had several hundred pounds on him when we picked him up,” explained Deakin.
“A ninety-minute train ride to Alexandria,” said Reichleitner. “Then a ship to Jaffa, in Palestine. From there it’s easy enough to get passage for Syria and then Turkey. I’m often in Ankara.”
“Nevertheless, I still think we will have to try you as a spy,” said Deakin.
“What?” Reichleitner leaped off the bed and pointed to the papers he had brought from Germany. “I came to bring you information, not to spy. What kind of spy brings papers and film with him? Answer me that?”
“These might be forgeries,” said Deakin. “Disinformation designed to drive a wedge between us and our Russian allies. We call that sabotage. Same as blowing up an oil refinery or an officers’ mess.”
“Sabotage? But that’s idiotic.”
Deakin collected the Beketovka papers from the table. “These will have to be evaluated. And if they don’t check out, you could find yourself facing a firing squad.”
The German closed his eyes and groaned. “But this is preposterous,” he said.
“Major Deakin,” I said, laying my hand on the German’s papers. “I wonder if I might be allowed to speak to Major Reichleitner alone for a moment? It’s all right. I don’t think the major will try to injure me, will you, Major?”