Dallin’s office was high at the back, with a distant view of the Grunewald. The Californian had grown a moustache since Russell had last seen him, and the golden-brown hair was long enough to flaunt its waves. The visual effect was Gatsby-ish, but this son of privilege had none of that character’s easy charm. ‘Where have you been?’ was his first irritated question.
‘I’ve been waiting for your call,’ Russell replied, taking the unoffered seat in front of the other man’s desk. ‘I left a number and address downstairs.’
Dallin grasped his nose between two fingers and sighed. ‘I never received them. But…’ He brought both palms down on his desk. ‘Let’s get on with it.’ He gave Russell a cold look. ‘You can probably imagine how I felt when London told me they were sending you.’
‘Relieved? Ecstatic?’
Dallin grunted. ‘You haven’t changed. So, please, let’s start from the beginning. Give me one good reason why I should believe the story you told Lindenberg.’
‘He did.’
‘He’s in London, and he doesn’t know you like I do. You used to be a communist, you flirted with the Nazis. You even worked for us to buy yourself a US passport. Is there any intelligence organisation you haven’t worked for?’
‘The Japanese. Look, Colonel, I never, as you put it, flirted with the Nazis — every dealing I ever had with the bastards was a matter of necessity. I did used to be a communist, but so did a lot of other people back then. And there are a lot of honourable men still out there who call themselves communists — most of them were fighting Hitler long before Pearl Harbour. But I left the Party almost twenty years ago, mostly because I didn’t like what was happening in Russia then, and now it’s ten times worse. I’m sure you and I have our differences, but we’re on the same side now.’
Dallin looked less than convinced. ‘So what made the Soviets think you would work for them?’
‘I promised them I would. They had my son in a POW camp, and in return for his release I said I would spy for them. I had no choice if I ever wanted to see him again.’
Dallin steepled his hands as he considered this. ‘All right,’ he said finally, with almost palpable reluctance.
They really were desperate, Russell thought. Dallin had been told to enlist him, and was either letting off steam or trying to convince himself that he had nothing to lose. Probably both. The American would give Russell enough rope to either hang himself or tie the Soviets in knots. A win-win situation.
‘So have you been in contact with the Russians?’ Dallin asked.
‘Yes. I saw Shchepkin the other day. He’s my Soviet contact.’
‘How do you spell that,’ Dallin asked, reaching for his fountain pen. Like Russell’s old boss in Heydrich’s Sicherheitsdienst, he favoured green ink.
He repeated the name. ‘Anyway, the NKVD wants me to check out several high-ranking German comrades. I’ve seen one already. His name’s Gerhard Strohm — he was a member of the communist underground during the war, and I knew him slightly back in ’41. He was actually born in America, but he’s lived here since he was about thirteen. He’s very disillusioned with the Soviets. And I think he might be recruitable in the long term. I’ve found out he’ll be voted onto the KPD Central Committee next spring, so he’d be an excellent asset.’
‘That sounds promising,’ Dallin said, placing his hands behind his head. He seemed pleasantly surprised, but was doing his best not to show it.
‘It is,’ Russell agreed. ‘And from what Strohm told me, there are a quite a few others. The Russians are supporting the German communists who spent the war in Moscow, and they’re not giving the ones who stayed in Germany a look-in. The second group are really ticked off. So there’s quite an opportunity for us.’
‘That sounds good.’
‘And there’s another friend who could be very useful, but I’ve run into a problem with him. His name’s Uwe Kuzorra,’ Russell went on, watching in vain for any sign that the name was familiar. ‘He used to be a detective in the criminal police, and he owes me a few favours. But the French have arrested him for some reason or other, and they won’t let me visit him. A French friend looked into the matter for me, and he says that we asked for him to be arrested.’
‘We?’
‘It was an American request.’
‘It didn’t come from this department.’
‘I didn’t think it did. But could you look into it? He’s not a Nazi. Never was — he actually resigned from the Kripo when the Nazis took over, and set up as a private eye. He only rejoined the police after his wife died, when they were really short of men; he was never in the Gestapo. He could be very useful to us both. He knows Berlin better than anyone I know, and he doesn’t like the Russians.’
Dallin reached for the phone on his desk. ‘You’d better wait outside,’ he said, almost apologetically. Noting the marked change in attitude, Russell closed the door behind him. The way to a spy chief’s heart was clearly to offer him spies.
He could hear Dallin’s tone through the door, and there was no mistaking the rising anger. Call seemed to follow call, and the voice grew harder, more insistent. Finally Russell was summoned back in.
‘I can’t get a straight answer from anyone,’ Dallin told him. ‘No one admits to knowing your friend, let alone demanding his arrest. In the end, I just cut through the crap and phoned the French. You can visit the man on Saturday. 11 a.m., out at their army camp. You know where that is?’
‘Roughly. That’s great, thanks. Just one more thing’, he added, thinking that he might as well push his luck. He explained about Effi, and the problems she was having with other invisible Americans. ‘They promised me in London that she’d be able to work,’ he told Dallin, neglecting to mention that ‘they’ were the Soviets. ‘She’s a heroine of the resistance, for God’s sake — you’d think whoever it is would have some real Nazis to chase. If you could have a word with whoever’s responsible, I’d take it as a personal favour.’
‘I can’t promise anything,’ Dallin said, ‘but I’ll look into it.’ He got up to shake hands. There was, Russell thought, almost a smile on the American’s face.
They had arranged to meet Esther Rosenfeld just inside the main entrance to the Elisabeth Hospital. Effi had last seen the complex in 1941, when she’d been one of the famous names invited to cheer up the wounded. The last four years of bombs and shells had rendered it almost unrecognisable. Now parts of buildings were supported by iron and wooden struts, with temporary shelters nestling in between.
Esther was waiting for them. ‘He’s not so good this evening,’ she said, ‘but I’m sure he’ll be pleased to see you.’ She led them down a long corridor, across an open space to another building, and up a flight of stairs. Effi suddenly knew where she was — they were passing the office where she and Annaliese Huiskes had often shared a bottle of hospital-brewed alcohol. She wondered what had happened to the blonde nurse. The last time Effi saw her, Annaliese was driving off down Bismarckstrasse in the car they had both ‘borrowed’, hoping to escape the Russians’ pincers as they closed around Berlin.
They passed through one ward and entered another. Leon Rosenfeld was in the penultimate bed, lying on his back with a blank expression in his eyes. He seemed smaller than Russell remembered, and much older — he couldn’t be much more than fifty, but he looked about seventy. The marks of the beating he’d received in Silesia were still visible, but only just.
Esther took his hand, and told him who they were. ‘This is John Russell,’ she said. ‘Remember he stayed at the farm?’
There was a slight flicker in the eyes, and a look, both hopeful and dumb, that reminded Russell of the dog he’d had as a child.
‘And this is his wife Effi,’ Esther was saying. ‘They both helped rescue Miriam.’
The eyes found Effi, a slight smile creasing the lips. And then the eyes closed, and he winced as if in pain. ‘Thank you,’ he whispered.
After sitting in silence for a couple of minutes, it became obvious that Leon had fallen asleep. ‘He’s not so good in the evenings,’ Esther said again. ‘He’s much livelier in the mornings.’