'That's trust.'
The Executive Director was already in the meeting room. 'Welcome to Langley'. He held his hand out in welcome.
When the introductions were complete, the Exec Director, the DDA, the DDI, Sorge and Nowak settled themselves round the small conference table.
'We have a new problem,' kicked off the Exec Director. 'The English operative who was guarding Trimmler has taken off. He's also taken an agent of ours with him. We believe as a possible hostage. A woman. We think they're still in New Orleans.'
'Why?' asked a concerned Sorge.
'I don't know yet. What about Goodenache?'
'He caught a flight to Frankfurt. Then he hired a car, but the car was found abandoned on the outskirts of Frankfurt. We are trying to find our missing scientist now.'
'Are the German authorities involved?'
'No. We have our own means.' Sorge saw the Exec Director look up, his eyebrows raised suddenly. 'We both have our methods. Even in an independent Germany. After all, it was the death of our people in these situations that has brought us together.'
The Exec Director shrugged. Bastard Russians still up to their old tricks. He ignored the pointed look the DDI was giving him. 'I thought it best if the Director of our operations in New Orleans gave you a run down of what has taken place up to now.'
He sat back and let the DDA give a full report, including the trip to the voodoo ceremony and all that followed. Sorge didn't stir, even when they mentioned the gruesome spectacle of Trimmler's arms folded in the sign of a swastika. 'We still aren't convinced that Trimmler's death has anything to do with the death of our agents. There's no definite link.'
'The situation might be clearer when I've finished.' Sorge looked round the table, saw their undisguised curiosity. 'In 1942, in Germany, we had a GRU network named the Rote Kapelle…'
'What's that?' asked the Exec Director.
'Red Orchestra. The Nazis called it that because we had radio operators we codenamed musicians. Their leader, the Chef, we called him, was Leopold Trepper. It was this group that radioed the warning of Operation Blue, the attack on Stalingrad.'
'Who was feeding you all this information in Germany?' asked the Exec Director.
'High ranking officials. Both in the military and in the government. They saw the damage Hitler was doing. They didn't disagree with his aims, only his methods. When they saw that the War could not be won, even as early as 1941, some of them opened up lines of communication with us and the British.'
'We didn't get that sort of stuff till late into 1944,' said the DDA.
'You weren't Europeans. We had centuries of contacts to fall back on. For all their bravery and resourcefulness, their information was often wasted, because Stalin didn't believe them. But then, he found it difficult to believe anyone. The Germans, with more sophisticated radio tracking equipment, started to track down the musicians. Even Trepper was captured and the Rote Kapelle was wound up at the end of 1942. Our information continued for a while, but it was of doubtful origin. Trepper was interrogated by the Gestapo and we believed he became a double agent, a lot of misinformation was received in Moscow.' Sorge leant across and finished his coffee before continuing. 'But we still needed information. The overall network with sources inside Germany was the Rote Drei.'
'The Red what?' said the Exec Director, pleased that he had deciphered the first word of the new codename.
'Three. The Red Three. Based in Switzerland and named after the three transmitters that they used. The most important source of information, from agents inside Germany, was from a group under Rudolf Roessler. His codename was Lucy and his network the Lucy ring. Roessler, or Lucy, was a Swiss intelligence officer of German extraction. He had many contacts in Germany. Lucy's four main contacts were Major General Oster who was the head of the Abwehr, Admiral Canaris who was later hanged for his part in the 1944 bomb plot, Carl Goehdeler who was leader of the official opposition to Hitler and Colonel Boetzel, the commanding officer of intelligence evaluation. There were others, but Lucy never disclosed any of them to us.'
'Even after the War?' asked the DDI.
'The Lucy ring was disbanded in 1943, after being responsible for some invaluable work. I won't go through all their successes, but it was substantial. The British were involved with them through us and it was their advanced work on breaking cyphers that enabled the ring to establish such a great record. But, the ring disbanded, once more because of Stalin's penchant for secrecy, after Moscow tried to bypass Roessler and go direct to his number two.'
'So where's the link?' interrupted the DDA, impatient as ever.
'It's important you understand the background,' said Sorge, not allowing the American to get under his skin. 'Nothing further came from the ring until the last few weeks of the War. With the Allies advancing on the eastern and western fronts, many high-ranking Germans were out to save their own necks. The Lucy ring was reactivated, this time without the knowledge of the British.'
'Or the Americans,' commented the Exec Director.
'I suggest you take that up with Comrade Stalin,' replied Sorge drily. 'It was an impressive list. They didn't just have knowledge. They also had wealth. In all forms. Art, cash, in every form possible. They used the ring because of their line into Switzerland. They wanted the security of the Swiss banks and the Russian Bear. One was dependent on the other.'
'So they bought immunity. While our boys were still getting killed,' snapped the DDI.
'As were ours,' snapped back Sorge. 'But your hands weren't that clean. You were bringing scientists and others into America just as we were. Scientists with Nazi records, scientists with a history of brutality, war criminals.'
'Gentleman, please,' said Nowak, ever the diplomat. 'Can we just stick to what we're here to discuss. Go on, Dimitri.'
Sorge was annoyed with himself, irritated that he had allowed the intelligence man to get under his skin. 'Of course,' he smiled back. 'We used the Lucy ring to carry out the deed. Many Germans, with their prizes, crossed safely into Switzerland. They came in cars, army lorries, even an aeroplane. Their riches were stored in the banks under private accounts and then they were brought through Czechoslovakia and East Germany into the Soviet Union.'
'All of them?' asked the DDA.
'Those who broke their word were hunted down.'
'And disposed of?'
'Some needed reminding that we expected them to honour their word.' It was a cold reminder of their world, of the business they traded in daily. 'We had a large colony of Nazis living in the Soviet Union. They weren't all scientists, in fact we had little use for most of them. They had their own estates and farms to the west of Moscow. They kept their secret identities and paid for it through their Swiss bank accounts. But they remained Germans, always dreaming of going back to the Fatherland one day.
'How many Nazis did you take to Russia after the War?'
'The Narodnyi Kommissariat Vnutrennikh Del, our People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs, was responsible for…'
'I never heard of them,' the DDA stopped him.
'NKVD,' explained the DDI patronisingly. 'Wiped out twenty million Russians for Stalin. That right?' he challenged Sorge.
'More. Thirty million. According to official sources,' Sorge riposted. 'A most efficient organisation.' That should shut them up. He felt the look of disbelief pass between the Exec Director and the DDA. The other just watched him, the mocking smile still on his lips. He would be the one Rostov had warned him to be wary of. He decided to wipe the smile off his face. 'Thirty thousand. That's how many East Germans we deported into the Soviet Union after the War.'
The DDI's smile disappeared. 'Thirty thousand Nazis? Jesus.'