Masaryk Station (John Russell) (39 page)

Ströhm ordered another beer and read the Resolution through again, seeking even the faintest echo of the movement he had joined and served. There was none. It was the work of bullies looking after their own.

He was tempted to get really drunk, but told himself not to be so pathetic. Ströhm knew he needed to be strong, to look the truth in the face without anger or self-pity. He needed to talk to someone.

His first thought was Trenkel, whom he knew shared much the same doubts, but what was the point of talking to a mirror? John Russell would be better, Ströhm decided. Russell had left the Party a long time ago, but he understood why others had stayed.

Ströhm walked out to the wretched car, glad for once that he
didn’t have to walk, and clambered in behind the wheel. He felt sober enough to drive.

Ten minutes later he pulled up outside the building on Carmer Strasse. Darkness was beginning to fall, and he wondered if it was too late for a visit—he should have called them first. But the living-room curtains were rimmed with light, suggesting they hadn’t yet gone to bed. And it wasn’t that often that a friend mislaid his purpose in life. They would make allowances.

He ascended the stairs and knocked on the door to their apartment.

No one came to answer.

Ströhm heard nothing when he put his ear to the door, but perhaps they were in the other room. After some hesitation he tried again.

This time there were footsteps.

The door half-opened, revealing Effi. He was still smiling apologetically when she said, ‘I’m sorry, Kurt, but I can’t talk to you now,’ and firmly closed it in his face.

He stared at the door. Kurt? Had she been drinking too?

Ströhm raised his hand to knock again, then let it fall. After standing there for a few moments, he walked downstairs and climbed back into his car. Something was wrong, he thought. But what?

As he turned to look up at the flat, a curtain twitched. Someone was making sure he went.

He obliged whomever it was, driving down to Steinplatz and around the triangular block, pulling over on Kant Strasse where he couldn’t be seen from the flat. Lighting a cigarette, he wondered whether to call the police.

Ku’damm was still busy as Russell drove back towards Carmer Strasse. He’d been running through options since leaving the
Grunewald, but still hadn’t found one that seemed at all promising. The moment he stepped through the apartment door without his escort he would be putting the others’ lives at risk. The other Russian might just open fire, with God only knew what results; but if the guard’s gun was already at Rosa or Effi’s head, he’d have no need to gamble. The threat would force Russell to drop his gun, and they could all be shot with impunity.

But sooner or later he had to go through that door. He needed a diversion of some sort, but short of shouting ‘fire’ and hoping for the best, he couldn’t think of one.

Driving around Savigny Platz he wondered where he should stop. Since it no longer mattered who saw the car, the Russian inside would expect him to leave it out front, but he didn’t want to advertise his return until he knew what he meant to do. He couldn’t leave it too long—that would make the Russian nervous—but he had to have some sort of plan.

There was a Horch 851 in the old spot, another Soviet favourite. Had the man in the flat been joined by colleagues? And, if so, what chance did he have of saving Effi and Rosa?

As Russell eased past the other car, he saw there was someone behind the wheel.

It was Gerhard Ströhm, staring straight back at him.

What was he doing there? Russell wondered, as he pulled the Maybach over. Surely Ströhm couldn’t be with the Russians.

He watched Ströhm get out of his car, walk forward, open the passenger door to Russell’s car, and plunk himself down in the adjacent seat.

‘I’ve just been up to your flat,’ Ströhm said.

Russell’s heart missed a beat. ‘And?’

‘Effi opened the door, called me Kurt, and shut it again.’ He looked enquiringly at Russell.

‘Ah.’ He had to tell Ströhm something, but what? The truth? Russell had always liked the man—they’d become good friends over the last couple of years—but Ströhm was still a high-ranking KPD functionary, part of the new establishment.

Russell decided he would say that he and Effi had just had a row, and she was in a bad mood.

He turned to Ströhm, opened his mouth, and then closed it again. To hell with it, he thought. This man had gone way out on a limb for him in 1941, and again in 1945. If he couldn’t trust Ströhm, then what was the point?

‘When Effi opened the door to you,’ Russell told him, ‘there was a Russian in the other room holding Rosa at gunpoint.’

Ströhm blinked. ‘Why?’

‘There were two of them waiting in the flat when we got back a couple of hours ago. They want something from me. This,’ he added, pulling the tin box out from under his seat. ‘It’s a reel of film. I’d buried it in the Grunewald, and the other Russian drove me out to dig it up.’

‘What’s on it?’

‘You don’t want to know.’ He doubted that Ströhm would be brushed off so easily, but his friend had an even more pertinent question.

‘Where’s the other Russian?’

‘In the boot.’

Ströhm almost burst out laughing. It wasn’t the slightest bit funny of course, but he’d been harbouring homicidal thoughts about the Soviets for most of the day. ‘MGB, I presume?’

‘GRU, I think, actually. But right now it doesn’t seem to matter that much.’

‘No. Well, the obvious thing to do is call the police.’

Ströhm sounded as unconvinced by that idea as Russell was.

‘There are problems with that idea.’

‘The man in the boot.’

‘Apart from him, unfortunately. Look, Gerhard, with that bastard holding Effi and Rosa I don’t have time to explain what this is all about. I do know that the police would worry a lot more about the consequences of killing a Russian official than they would about Effi and Rosa’s safety.’

‘I do have some influence.’

‘I know, but anything like that would take an age, and Ivan up there is already wondering why his buddy and I are taking so long. Help me think up some sort of diversion.’

‘Use me.’

‘What?’

‘I’ll go up there and force my way in. He’s not going to shoot a candidate member of the KPD Central Committee.’

‘They planned to kill us all once they had the film. I’m sure he’d apologise profusely after killing you, but that would be the only difference.’

‘He won’t shoot me out of hand,’ Ströhm insisted. ‘Not if he thinks I’m there on Party business. He’ll wait for his partner before taking a decision like that.’

‘I’m not convinced.’

‘What else do you have?’

Russell tapped his fingers on either side of the steering wheel. ‘Nothing,’ he admitted.

‘Well, then.’

‘What’s your reason for turning up?’

‘The last time I talked to Effi, she was being pressured by the Soviet culture people. I could be an emissary from Tulpanov.’

Russell had a sudden inspiration. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I have a better idea. One that should save Rosa.’

Up in the flat, the Russian was still staring at Effi and Rosa through his veil of cigarette smoke. His partner had been gone for almost two hours now, but he didn’t seem concerned. Rosa had stopped crying, and was simply hugging her mother as tightly as she could, her blonde head pressed against Effi’s chest.

When the knock sounded on the door, the guard gestured Effi to answer it, and moved himself behind the sofa, his gun at Rosa’s neck.

As Effi opened the door, Ströhm breezily forced his way past her, talking in Russian. ‘Comrade,’ he said, ‘I know you’re in there.’

The Russian’s gun was pointing straight at him, and for a moment Ströhm thought he would shoot. ‘Our kommissariats have reached a mutual decision,’ he added quickly.

‘What kommissariat? Who are you?’

‘I’m sorry. My name is Ströhm. KPD Central Committee. And K-5 of course, though it doesn’t say that on my papers. May I?’ He reached in a hand before the Russian could say no, and brought out his Party accreditations.

The Russian studied the papers without moving his aim. ‘So this is who you are. What are you doing here?’

‘I’m here for the girl.’

‘The girl?’

‘You do know who she is?’

The Russian looked blank.

‘This is the girl who drew the famous picture of the Red Army soldier on Bismarck Strasse. You must know it.’

‘Of course.’

‘Well your culture people have plans for her. And your department has agreed that she be spared.’

‘We were told no witnesses.’

‘She’ll be in Moscow, so that won’t matter.’ He reached into his pocket for cigarettes, and offered one to the Russian. ‘I thought there were two of you.’

‘My partner will be back soon. He will decide about the girl.’

Rosa was staring at Ströhm as if he’d gone mad, and he suddenly realised that she might use his name. He leaned forward and ruffled her hair. ‘Pretend you don’t know me,’ he said in German. ‘I told her she has nothing to fear,’ he told the Russian in his language.

‘We shall see.’

‘You said your colleague wouldn’t be long,’ Ströhm said, checking his watch. In two minutes Russell would be at the door. With the Russian happy to wait in silence, he counted out sixty seconds, then abruptly strode across the room, winking at Effi once his back was turned to the enemy. He peeled back the edge of a curtain, and looked out.

‘They’re here,’ he said over the Russian’s angry insistence that he come away from the window. ‘Let me take the girl in the other room,’ Ströhm pleaded. ‘If she sees you kill them she’ll be harder to handle.’

‘All right,’ the Russian agreed. For all his sangfroid, he was obviously relieved that his partner was back.

Ströhm took Rosa by the hand, gave her a reassuring smile, and ushered her through the bedroom door. ‘Stay in there,’ he said gently, and shut it behind her.

It was almost too late. Turning back to the room, he heard the key click in the apartment door, and as the Russian reached, almost casually, for Effi’s arm, Ströhm bundled into her back. They were both still falling when the silenced gun coughed, and the sound of their bodies hitting the floor found an echo a few seconds later.

The Russian was seated on the floor, his back against the sofa, his legs splayed out in front of him, a bullet hole in his chest. He
wheezed, grimaced, and somehow seemed to settle, like a puppet whose strings had been dropped.

Effi got to her feet, took one look at the dead Russian, and went through to the bedroom to comfort Rosa.

‘What are you going to do with him?’ Ströhm asked Russell after a few moments’ silence. ‘Him and his partner.’

Russell put down the pistol and ran a hand through his hair. ‘While you were doing your K-5 impression I was wondering exactly that, and I did come up with one idea. I have no right to ask you this—you’ve done more than enough already—but …’

‘How can I help?’

‘Well, I need to dump them somewhere in their car. It has to look like an accident, or we’ll be getting more visits like this one. If you bring your car along, you can give me a lift back.’

‘Okay, but won’t the bullets be a giveaway?’

‘They’ll have to come out.’

Ströhm went to the window to look at the street. ‘When do you think we should leave?’

‘The sooner the better. The place I have in mind is up in the British sector, and they don’t do night patrols any more. But let me tell Effi what’s we’re doing.’

‘Give me the keys and I’ll bring the Russians’ car around,’ Ströhm offered.

In the other room Effi was sat on the bed, Rosa’s head on her shoulder.

‘It’s all over, sweetheart,’ Russell said, leaning over to kiss the child on the forehead. ‘He can’t hurt you and Effi now.’

‘Is he dead?’ she whispered.

‘He is. It was him or us, I’m afraid.’

‘I’m glad,’ Rosa said.

‘What about the body?’ Effi asked.

‘Gerhard and I will take it away. Are you okay?’

‘Yes, I suppose so. Be careful.’

‘Aren’t I always?’

One thing about their building, as Russell and Effi knew from previous complaints, was that they were always the last ones to bed. The two men carried the corpse down through the silent stairwell, and once Ströhm had signalled the all-clear, Russell dragged it out to the street. Fitting another body into the boot wasn’t easy, but between them they managed somehow. There was always the chance that someone one had seen their struggle from a window, but the street lighting was poor, and Berliners weren’t as conscientious about reporting wrong-doing as they had been at one time. Either they’d seen too much of it, or their trust in authority was at a very low ebb. Both, most likely.

‘Where are we going?’ Ströhm asked.

Russell told him.

‘Okay. I’ll get my car and follow you.’

‘If I didn’t know better,’ Russell said wryly, ‘I’d say you were almost enjoying yourself.’

‘I might be now,’ Ströhm admitted, ‘but I wouldn’t want to go through those ten minutes again.’ As he walked to the Party car, he asked himself why he had actually risked his life. Several reasons came to mind—too much alcohol, his fury with the Russians, loyalty to a friend. But what mattered now was that he’d got away with it.