‘Herr Russell,’ Giminich said, offering his hand.
‘You’ve got be joking.’
Giminich was unperturbed. ‘I understand,’ he said, in such a way that he seemed to be apologising for Russell’s lack of manners.
‘Let’s not beat about the bush,’ Winterman said. ‘We all know that you two were enemies once, but that war is over now. And Volker here is a key player in our Czechoslovak game plan.’
Volker? Russell thought. During their last encounter in Prague, ‘Volker’ had casually ordered the shooting of ten hostages. The reason for their both being in the Czech capital had been Giminich’s command of an elaborate SD sting operation against Admiral Canaris’s Abwehr, for which Russell had then been working.
‘What do you know about Masaryk’s death?’ Winterman was asking.
‘Father or son?’ Russell asked, just to be difficult.
‘Jan Masaryk, the son,’ Winterman patiently explained. ‘He was Czech Foreign Minister until someone threw him out the window of his official residence. He was the only non-communist with a popular following in the government, so they got rid of him, and told the world he’d committed suicide.’
‘Maybe he did,’ Russell suggested, although he didn’t believe it for a minute. ‘There wasn’t much of a future for him in a communist Czechoslovakia.’
‘He was killed,’ Winterman insisted, ‘and some of Volker’s people in Prague have been gathering the evidence. Three affidavits signed by men who were in the building at the time, or saw the crime scene straight afterwards. We need you to bring them out.’
More deja vu, Russell thought. ‘Wouldn’t it be simpler to forge them?’ he asked.
Giminich smiled at that, but Winterman seemed faintly outraged. ‘These men have risked their lives for these documents,’ he said sternly.
‘You mean you’ve risked their lives.’
Winterman wouldn’t rise to the bait. ‘We’re not holding a gun to anyone’s head. These men are Czech patriots-they want the Russians and their commie stooges out.’
Russell felt like pointing out that the Czech communists had won post-war elections fair and square, but debating democratic values with men who had just bought an election in Italy seemed a waste of energy.
‘You’re writing a story on Czech popular culture for our magazine,’ Winterman went on.
‘Your magazine?’
‘We’ve just started one. It’s called The Lampadary-do you what that means?’
‘A bearer of light?’
‘That’s what we are. We’ve arranged for you to interview a filmmaker, a poet, and a conductor. All have leftist views, and the commie authorities are only too happy to have you talk to them-it’ll be great propaganda for them.’
‘And at some point during your stay,’ Giminich interjected, ‘you’ll be contacted by one of our people, and given the arrangements for collecting the affidavits.’
Russell nodded. In each of his last three trips to Prague, his life had hung by a thread, and this visit seemed set to continue the pattern. ‘And if at any point I smell a rat, then I just walk away?’
‘There’s no reason to think that any of my people in Prague have been turned,’ Giminich said.
‘But if it looks as if they have?’ Russell asked Winterman.
‘Well it obviously won’t help us to have the documents seized and you arrested, ‘Winterman conceded.
‘That’s all I wanted to hear.’
‘I’m not done. We won’t get anywhere being over-cautious. This is important stuff, worth a few risks.’
‘Why?’ Russell wasn’t to know. ‘I mean, why is so important? How will these affidavits help? I wasn’t joking when I said you might as well forge them, because the Soviets will certainly claim that you’ve done so, whether you have or not.’
Winterman smiled for the first time. ‘I can see where your reputation comes from,’ he told Russell.
‘For being perceptive?’
‘For being a pain in the arse. Now you have your instructions-Volker will fill you in on the details. We’ve found you a bed at the American Press Club-you know where that is?’
Russell nodded.
‘You’re travelling tomorrow, staying the weekend, coming back on Monday. With the affidavits. Right?’
‘I’ll do my humble best.’
Winterman wished him gone with a gesture, and went back to the file on his desk. Giminich ushered Russell down the corridor to a smaller office with the same brick view. The framed photograph of Patton on the wall was probably reversible, Russell thought. But who was on the back-Heydrich or Hitler?
‘Ironic, us meeting again like this,’ Giminich observed.
‘Ironic?’
‘Once we were enemies, and now we are on the same side,’ Giminich explained.
‘That’s tragedy, not irony,’ Russell told him. ‘Now give me the boring details-who, where, when. The usual preposterous password.’
The German’s eyes narrowed for a second, but the smile was soon back in place. The man had learned to control his temper on his journey from Nazi to American buddy. He had probably needed to.
Walking back towards the Press Club half an hour later, Russell found himself passing one of Vienna’s more famous hotels, and went in to ask whether, by some miraculous chance, the old telephone connection between Vienna and Berlin was operational again.
‘If you pick the right place,’ the desk clerk told him mysteriously. The lines were still officially out of use, but private calls could be arranged for a price.
Half an hour later Russell was ensconced in a what felt like a large cupboard somewhere deep in the bowels of the Central Exchange, twenty dollars lighter, and standing on a carpet of cigarette stubs. Someone was doing good business.
The telephone looked as if it had only just been screwed to the wall, but dialling their Berlin number elicited a ringing tone.
Rosa answered.
‘Rosa, it’s me, Papa.’ Russell still felt strange using that name, but she had settled on it, and Effi had told him not to discourage her.
‘Are you in Trieste? I didn’t know you could phone from there.’
‘I’m in Vienna. I should be home in a few days. Maybe Wednesday.’
‘Oh good. Do you want to tell Mama?’
‘Yes, sweetheart.’
He could hear them talking, then Effi came on. ‘In a few days?’
‘Yes, thank God.’
‘What changed their minds?’
‘Oh, this and that.’ He didn’t want to tell her about the bombing over the phone. ‘I’m off to Prague tomorrow, and I wanted you know that. I don’t really think there’s anything to worry about, but just in case. If by any chance I do disappear, then Shchepkin will eventually come looking. Tell him where I went, and he’ll ride to my rescue. Okay?’
‘Not really, but I’m used to it by now. I don’t suppose you’ll have time to look up Lisa’s daughter?’
‘I don’t know. Do you have an address?’
‘I’ll get it.’
He could hear them talking again, hear something drop. His home, he thought. He would soon be back there.
‘I just found it in the rubbish,’ Effi said. ‘She’s in Kolin.’
‘I remembered that.’
‘Seventeen Karlova Street.’
Russell wrote it down. ‘If I get the chance,’ he promised. ‘Is everything okay with you two?’
‘We’re fine. The sun was even shining today.’
‘I’ll see you next week. I love you.’
‘And I love you, too. I can’t wait.’
Which had to be worth more than twenty dollars, he thought. Twenty million perhaps.
His good mood lasted most of the evening, and it wasn’t until he was lying in bed at the press club that an unfortunate thought occurred to him. He was assuming that the Americans had forgiven Giminich his crimes in exchange for his anti-communist contacts in Prague, but what if the Austrian had kept his new allies in ignorance of some misdeeds? He might be worried that Russell would betray him. Giminich might even be worried enough to sabotage his own mission, and get Russell himself locked away.
His first stop in Prague, Russell decided, would be the Soviet Embassy; he needed one of those ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ cards that he’d mentioned to Shchepkin. When it came to the Czechoslovak police, he would just have to trust that these days they were playing by Soviet rules.