Mumbling something about needing the commode, he backtracked to the foyer and ran upstairs. He found a bathroom halfway down the hall and locked the door behind him. Moving to the sink, he washed his face with cold water, willing away the effects of the alcohol he’d drunk. He raised a hand in front of him, trying to hold it steady. Its reflection in the mirror betrayed a constant tremor, and suddenly, he could feel his heart pounding inside of his chest as if it were straining to break free of its mooring. He took several deep breaths and the palsy disappeared.Stand straighter, he told himself.Chin up. You’re in your element. Behind the lines in another man’s uniform. A Brandenburger.
And as he stared at his countenance, daring himself to accept this final challenge, he began setting forth his plan to reach Ringstrasse 2, Stalin’s private residence no more than five kilometers away, where this evening the Grand Marshal of the Soviet Union was entertaining Winston Churchill, Harry Truman, and their highest advisors. No doubt it was a fete of some opulence. Seyss had attended a similar dinner three years earlier, when Hitler had feted Mussolini in Berlin upon the latter’s daring escape from Gran Sasso and he knew that it would be a ritzy affair — vodka, caviar, music, the works. No one had an inferiority complex like the Bolshies. More importantly, he knew that security would not just be tight, it would be impossible. A formal guest list would exist and no matter the emergency no one not properly vetted would be admitted. An unknown American, therefore, would have no chance of gaining entry. The right Russian, though, might make it.
Seyss’s attention fell to his pocket, where he held between his fingers a firm piece of paper the size of a passport. Removing it, he read over the name and the unit designation. Colonel Ivan Truchin, Fifty-fifth Police Division NKVD. Born 2 August 1915, Stalingrad. For two months in the summer of forty-three, he’d posed as the great Truchin, defender of Stalingrad, parading up and down the streets of Minsk, offering the district commander his advice on the proper placement of artillery, tanks, and troops in defense of the coming German attack. He had come unannounced with neither orders nor adjutant, just an unquestioned confidence the equal of divine right. And they listened to his advice. Was it not the NKVD who, fearing the mass desertion during the battle for Stalingrad, lined up every platoon, every company, every battalion and shot every tenth man in the head to teach a stern but much needed lesson? If they don’t get you, we will. Was it not the NKVD who had liquidated the entire officer corps in the purges of thirty-six and thirty-seven. One million or two, who was counting? Was not Lavrenti Beria, chief of the NKVD, Stalin’s closest confidant? One ignored a colonel of the Soviet Secret Police at his peril — his very great peril.
So then, Truchin it would be.
He gave himself a final looking over in the mirror. “Live dangerously,” he whispered and, smiling grimly, left the bathroom. In the courtyard, he collared Sergeant Schneider, the chauffeur who’d driven them from Berlin.
“Get in the car,” he said. “I’ve got to get back to town. General Patton phoned. He needs me right away.”
Schneider was a bluff country boy from the mountains of Vermont, a “Green Mountain Raider”, he’d said proudly, who’d arrived in Germany only the month before. Not one to question an officer’s orders, he fired off a salute and opened the rear door. Seyss climbed in, settling into the wide leather banquette. When Schneider had guided the automobile out of the gates and onto Kaiserstrasse, he leaned forward and tapped him on the shoulder.
“Change of plan, sport. We’re headed to Stalin’s house. I’ve got a message for President Truman.”
Schneider beamed with excitement, his eyes darting to the rearview mirror. “But you’re a public affairs officer, aren’t you? I mean that’s what I heard you telling everyone on the way out.”
Apparently, Schneider listened as well as he talked.
“Don’t believe everything you hear,” said Seyss, with just the right mixture of pride and disinterest. “Ringstrasse 2. Know where it is? President’s waiting on me.”
“Yessir.” As Schneider accelerated the Buick along the winding road, Seyss peered from the window into the shadowy hills, searching for signs of increased security. He saw them immediately. Whole platoons of infantry resting to the side of the road. A sudden profusion of armored personnel carriers. A bounty of barbed wire strung at fifteen-foot intervals along the ground. They were getting close. Very close.
Cresting a rise, they came upon a guardhouse and a candy-striped pole barring the path. Three soldiers snapped to attention as an officer rushed from the temporary booth.
Seyss did not want him to speak with Sergeant Schneider. Flinging open the door, he leapt out of the car and intercepted the stocky man at the front bumper.
“Good evening, Colonel,” he said, spying the golden laurel that decorated the Russian officer’s epaulets and noting the blue stripe that indicated he was a member of the secret police. “My name is Gavin. Daniel Gavin. I have an urgent message for President Truman. Eyes only.”
“I’m sorry, Captain. No uninvited guests are permitted beyond this point. If you’d like I can phone and allow you to speak to one of your President’s security detachment. Perhaps Mr Cahill? If necessary, he can come and fetch you.”
The Russian gestured to the guardhouse and smiled obligingly. Black hair cut to a stubble, pronounced cheekbones, and a single bristly eyebrow forming an uninterrupted hedgerow above his eyes, he was every bit the Mongol warrior. But his English was flawless and unaccented. Delivered in an unctuous voice the product of Moscow’s finest diplomatic school, it was every bit as fluent as Seyss’s.
“That’s very kind of you,” said Seyss. “I take it you have a direct line?”
“This way.” Seyss followed him to the hut, but before the Colonel could pick up the phone, he leaned close and spoke to him in the earthy Russian of a native Georgian. “Evening,tovarich. I commend you on your English. Impeccable. I only wish you had the same control over your men. Are you aware that a mile back a few of them had a cozy little bonfire going just out of sight of the main road? You should see them, smoking American cigarettes and giggling like a bunch of maidens.”
Before the colonel could ask a question or voice his disagreement, Seyss handed him the identification card carrying Truchin’s name. As the colonel studied it, Seyss continued speaking. “I lost enough men at Stalingrad to give two shits about this petty bullshit. But humor me. Send a man back to clear it up, won’t you, Colonel…”
“Klimt.”
“General Vlassik wouldn’t be too happy to discover his men were loafing. ‘Tiger’ is one for discipline, isn’t he?”
Seyss handed Klimt the telephone. He could only pray that the information discussing Russian security measures in Patton’s dossier was correct, and that Vlassik was indeed the commanding officer. “Now. Please.”
A worried cast came over Klimt’s face. Dereliction of duty was punished with a bullet to the back of the neck for suspects and their commanding officers alike. The colonel dialed a number, then barked out some orders to send a patrol to Dingelstrasse double time. Hanging up, he retained a suspicious scowl that suggested he was only half won over. “May I inquire, Comrade General, what you are doing in an American uniform?”
Seyss lit a Lucky Strike and handed the colonel the pack. “Someone must tell Comrade Stalin what the American President is up to. With your English, I’m surprised you weren’t selected.”
Klimt chuckled as he took a cigarette. “Alas, no such luck.”
“And you, you’re from where? Kiev?”
Klimt brightened. “Yes, you’ve a good ear. I thought I got rid of my accent a long time ago.”