Though not at the cost of a Yugoslav prison. Russell knew he needed some insurance.
Back in his room he wrote a short letter on Majestic stationery, which he signed and dated. A two-minute walk brought him to the central Post Office, where a pretty young clerk named Adrijana assured him that it would be delivered next morning.
It wasn’t much, but at least it was something.
Back at the hotel, he collected his room key, left his shadow in the lobby, and headed for the back exit which he’d scouted out the previous day, with precisely this eventuality in mind. It took him almost an hour to reach the address Youklis had given him, a crumbling block of flats in an industrial area close to the docks. He spotted no watchers on his first pass, and decided that further loitering would be counterproductive-in this sort of area any stranger was conspicuous.
The outer door was open, the lights inside not working. As far as he could see, there were four flats in each floor, which put Pograjac on the second. Third if your name was Youklis.
He started up the darkened stairwell, which was suffused with the smell of something rotten. If the leaders of the domestic opposition were all living in places like this, Tito had nothing to worry about.
A door opened on the first floor as he went past, and closed almost as quickly, offering the fleetest glimpse of a dark-eyed woman’s frightened face. There was no sign of life on the second, and the only numbered door was the one he wanted. He stood there listening for a few seconds, but all he could hear was a distant ship’s horn and the sound of his own breathing.
He knocked on the door.
It was opened almost instantly by a middle aged man in working clothes.
‘Zoran Pograjac?’ Russell asked.
The man nodded and gestured him in with a smile. Russell was barely across the threshold when two more men with guns emerged from adjoining rooms. As he took an instinctive step backwards, he felt another gun in his back.
One of the men in front of him said something in Serbo-Croat, which he assumed meant ‘you’re under arrest’.
‘Is there anything the matter?’ Annaliese asked Strohm, after a supper spent mostly in silence. ‘I feel like I’m living with someone who isn’t really here.’
‘I’m sorry. It’s work. I’ve had a difficult couple of days.’
‘Your old friend Stefan.’
He nodded. He couldn’t seem to shake it off. The day after seeing Utermann his boss had called him upstairs to congratulate him, which had only made him feel like shit. He kept telling himself that if he wanted an active role in the new socialist Germany he had to accept the occasional setback-omelettes and broken eggs, etc. And if he didn’t … well, that wasn’t an option. What else would he do with his life?
‘You said it was settled.’
‘It is. Let’s talk about something else.
‘Okay. Effi dropped in at the hospital today. She said someone told her the weekend trains to Werder were back to normal, and she suggested we take a trip out this Sunday. She says Rosa’s hardly ever been out in the country.’
‘That sounds like a good idea. Am I invited?’
She gave him a look. ‘You’re expected.’
He smiled, took her in his arms, and kissed her. ‘Let’s have an early night.’
‘All right,’ she said, hugging him tighter and resting her head on his shoulder. ‘But first I have something to tell you.’
She sounded nervous, he thought, which wasn’t like her. He gently pulled back to look her in the eyes.
‘I’m pregnant.’
He stared at her, shaking his head with wonder, feeling joy rise up through his chest.
‘You look pleased.’
‘Oh God, yes.’
‘Well, thank God for that!’
‘We’ll have to get married.’
‘We don’t have to.’
‘Will you marry me?’
Annaliese beamed at Strohm. ‘Of course I will.’
The interrogation started badly. There was no English speaker available, so the UDBA officer-Russell recognised the uniform-put his face a few inches from Russell’s and shouted at him in Serbo-Croat. When an English-speaker was found, and Russell was accused of consorting with the enemy, his response-that he could hardly consort with someone who wasn’t there-earned him a playful slap in the face which almost knocked him over. Wit, it seemed, was not appreciated.
Russell managed to look suitably cowed by the prospect of more violence-which didn’t stretch his acting ability-and things settled down a bit. His interrogator, who introduced himself as Colonel Milankovic, was a tall, prematurely grey Serb with an obvious bullet scar on his neck. He made a brief statement, which the interpreter, a much younger man with the scant beginnings of a beard, faithfully conveyed to Russell. His choices it seemed were two: the marble quarry on Naked Island-the good option-or execution as a spy.
‘I’m not a spy,’ Russell lied.
‘What other reason could you have for visiting a known enemy of the state?’
‘I didn’t know Pograjac was an enemy of the state,’ Russell said, choosing his words carefully. ‘I knew he was an opponent of the current government, and in my country journalists talk to members of the opposition. And that’s why I visited him. To ask him for an interview. As a journalist, not as a spy.’
Colonel Milankovic’s response seemed much longer than the eventual translation-‘we have only your word for that.’
He was then told that his hotel room was being searched, and that questioning would resume once the search team had reported.
‘They won’t find anything,’ Russell insisted. And they wouldn’t, unless they had put it there.
He was left to stew in the interview room. The door hadn’t been locked, but there was at least one guard outside, and there was nowhere he could run to. He didn’t even know where he was, having been brought there in the back of a windowless van. It had only taken about fifteen minutes, so he assumed he was still in Belgrade.
He paced up and down, rehearsing what he should and shouldn’t say, wondering how long it would take the Soviets and Americans to realise he’d gone missing, and whether they would or could do anything about it. He still had his insurance, but he wanted to be sure of exactly what he was being accused before revealing his only defence. Proving he wasn’t an American spy wouldn’t help that much if they thought he was working for Moscow.
His inquisitors returned. Something had been found in his hotel room-the list of Central Committee members.
He used the explanation Nedic had suggested, grateful that he’d resisted the temptation to write the code number down.
‘Ah,’ Milankovic said, with the air of a dog who’d just caught sight of a brand-new bone. Perhaps Mister Russell could recall the five-minute conversation he’d had with Comrade Nedic, behind the comrade’s house?
Russell decided not to ask how they knew about that-one slap a day was more than enough. ‘We were looking at the river,’ he said, trying to sound surprised.
‘Why?’
Russell shrugged. ‘Why not? It’s the Danube. It’s famous. I wanted to see it.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Why not? Why would I have a secret conversation with Comrade Nedic? He’s a friend of Moscow, isn’t he?
‘Is he?’
‘Well, he has that reputation. As you already know, he said nothing to confirm it.’
‘Inside the house.’
‘Or outside. Are you really accusing me of working for the Soviets?’
Milankovic smiled to himself. ‘No, Mister Russell, I’m accusing you of working for the Americans. Or perhaps the British. They are both sponsoring campaigns of terror against Yugoslavia, arming and funding former war criminals and sending them across the border on murder missions.’
‘I do know that. But I don’t work for either of them. I’m a journalist.’
Milankovic just looked at him.
‘I also know the details of a particular operation, which is either already underway or will be very soon.’