At the BOB HQ Russell found a yawning John Eustis in the canteen, and laid the fictional report in front of him. After skimming his way through the first few pages, Eustis suddenly pulled up short, and went back to the beginning. ‘Have you told Johannsen?’ was the first thing he asked after reading it properly.
‘I thought we’d get it all wrapped up and tied with a ribbon,’ Russell told him. ‘Get ourselves some brownie points.’
‘They wouldn’t hurt. I expect my new girl’s father is checking me out as we speak.’
‘Well then, let’s get Merzhanov back up.’
The hours that followed-around eighteen of them spread over two and a half days-were some of the most exhausting Russell had ever endured. Having turned Shchepkin’s breakdown of the MGB operation in Karlshorst into a series of individual profiles, he now had to cope with Eustis’s supplementary questions, a process which demanded almost instant creativity. In the time that Merzhanov took to answer Russell’s mostly footling questions-ones which bore no relation to those that Eustis thought were being translated for him-he had to think up answers for Eustis, mixing fiction with a few odd facts that he had wisely withheld from the written report. So Eustis would ask about one Russian’s apparent ascendancy over another, Russell would translate this as a question about Merzhanov’s army training, and then turn the Russian’s description of a Soviet boot camp into a probable consequence of the recent Soviet intelligence reorganisations, which he knew about from Shchepkin’s endless complaints.
Eustis never suspected a thing-he was, thank God, so used to their way of working together-but Merzhanov became increasingly baffled by the Americans’ apparently bottomless appetite for irrelevant details of his earlier life, and clearly puzzled by some of the unfamiliar Russian names which cropped up in Russell’s English translations. By Wednesday morning Russell was silently praying for his colleague to run out of questions.
He did so soon after eleven A.M., which gave them the rest of the morning to polish their report, before presenting it to Johannsen early that afternoon. Their boss was sparing in his praise-why hadn’t they told him straight away about the MGB plants in Frankfurt? — but Russell suspected he was more pleased than he let on. The three of them were all CIC veterans, and Johannsen would make damn sure their new CIA bosses were aware of that fact.
That however was the end of the good news. When Russell asked permission to move Merzhanov on, he was told ‘not yet’-Johannsen thought the Frankfurt base would want to ask some questions of their own once they heard about the plants. As for sending Merzhanov and ‘his wife’ down the Rat Line, BOB simply couldn’t afford it-the quarterly budget had all been spent. And if all that wasn’t enough, Johannsen let slip that Don Stafford, the base’s other Russian speaker, was already back in Berlin.
‘But not working this week?’ Russell said, barely managing to keep the anxiety out of his voice.
‘Oh he’s working. He’s on Claptrap and the cleaners for the next few days.’
By the time he met Shchepkin, Russell’s panic had subsided. Before leaving the Fohrenweg building he had heard from Johannsen that Frankfurt would be on the line next morning, and that once their questions had been answered Merzhanov would be allowed to leave Berlin. Which left Stafford and the money as the next hurdles to overcome. Since Stafford was out in Steglitz dealing with Claptrap he shouldn’t present any immediate problem, but the lack of money certainly did. Russell and Effi didn’t have $3,000, and he very much doubted whether Thomas did either.
‘I thought you told me that only some people paid for this Croat’s services,’ Shchepkin said, once the problem had been broached.
‘Only Catholics travel free,’ Russell told him. ‘And they’re mostly fellow Croats or OUN Ukrainians like Palychko.’
‘Couldn’t you pass Merzhanov and his girlfriend off as Ukrainians?’
Russell beamed at Shchepkin. ‘Why not? I could even have him tattooed.’
He got back home to find that the Czech Embassy had welcomed Effi with open arms. ‘They could hardly believe it when I told them I wanted to visit Cisar, with a view to working with him-one official gave me heartfelt speech about how few foreigners appreciated Czech culture, and another wittered on about how international socialism moves in mysterious ways. Or something like that. Anyway, you just have to go in and sign something, and you can pick up both our visas.’
‘Your friend Lisa should have been so lucky.’
‘Don’t. When I saw her off this morning she looked like death.’
‘Well I don’t know about international socialism, but something must move in mysterious ways-if she hadn’t come to see you we’d never have got the papers in time for next Wednesday.’
Next morning, Russell entered the building on Fohrenweg with some trepidation. Had some evil genie persuaded Johannsen to change his mind and switch Russell’s duties with Stafford’s? But there was only Eustis in the room below, and when the telephone call came through from Frankfurt it was Russell doing the interpreting. The man at the other end seemed barely interested in what Merzhanov knew-the two plants had been arrested, and doubtless offered a much more immediate source of intelligence. Once he had elicited a few extra nuggets of fictional information the Frankfurt agent was happy to flaunt his laurels. ‘You people should leave this stuff to the professionals,’ he said in parting, only slightly in jest.
Russell went up to Johannsen’s office. ‘So can I move him now?’
‘Where to? I told you-we’re out of money.’
‘I’ll take him down to Salzburg, pass him and his wife off as Ukrainians.’
Johannsen smiled, but shook his head. ‘I need you here.’
‘Why? You’ve got Stafford back now.’
Johannsen did a double-take. ‘I assumed you knew. He was found dead outside his billet last night. Someone after a few cigarettes, it looks like.’
‘Shit.’ Russell took a deep breath. He wanted to ask for details, but didn’t trust his voice. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry about that, but Merzhanov’s given us a lot, and he’ll be just as dead if we don’t get him out of the city. And I promised him safety, or he wouldn’t have given us anything. I’ll only be gone for the weekend.’
Johannsen sighed. ‘Oh, all right. But be here Monday morning.’
‘I will.’ Russell got up to leave, and only stopped himself when halfway through the door. He had to know. ‘Was Stafford single?’
‘A wife and two children,’ Johannsen told him. ‘I’ll be writing the letter this evening.’
Gerhard Strohm sat at his desk, feeling disinclined to begin his day’s work. He had always been a conscientious worker, and still completed each task with exemplary efficiency, but the symposium on Rugen Island had stripped the process of any remaining joy. Annaliese had noticed the change on his return, and since that day he had tried to be cheerful at home, a far from impossible task now that the swell of her belly offered growing proof of their child-to-be. But at work he made less of an effort, despite the looks from his fellow-workers. He was in an ideological sulk, and no matter how often he resolved to shake himself out of it, somehow it persisted.
The nature of his current work did nothing to help. Everyone at the office knew the crisis was upon them-it was their job to make it tangible-but the starting gun had still not been fired. Breaking the rail link between Berlin and the Western zones wasn’t exactly difficult as all it required was a red signal at either end of the tracks that traversed the Soviet zone. But if Stalin had really decided on such a drastic step, he hadn’t yet told his German comrades.
Merely slowing things down was more complicated, particularly if you wanted to pretend that the slow-down wasn’t deliberate, and even more so if you weren’t sure what you wanted the other side to believe. And the Soviets kept changing their minds, first insisting that ‘technical difficulties’ be blamed for interruptions in the rail service, then claiming that they’d limited interzonal traffic in order to protect the local economy from the contagion of Western currency reform. And while one moment stressing that such measures were temporary, at others they strongly implied that only a change in Western behaviour could guarantee a restoration of the status quo. It sometimes seemed as if the Soviets were playing with the Western allies, but Strohm had the sneaking suspicion that they were simply incapable of reaching a decision.