Masaryk Station (John Russell) (34 page)

Effi smiled at that. ‘I suppose so.’

‘So how are we going to approach your boss?’ Russell asked the Russian.

‘I’ll take it to him. But first we need copies—two, I think, one for me and one for you. Do you know where we could have them made?’

‘I could ask people I know in the industry,’ Effi said, ‘but if
someone gives me a name I’ll have no way of knowing how trustworthy the person is.’

Russell shook his head. ‘A professional job is out of the question. Copying something like this must be illegal, for a start. If we knew what equipment we needed, maybe we could borrow it. Even buy it, as a last resort.’

Effi had a realisation. ‘The people I got the projector from make most of their money from hiring out sex films. They’d need copies of their best earners, and they can’t be getting them from the studios. Not openly, anyway.’

‘You think they’re making their own?’

‘Or know someone with the right equipment who doesn’t ask questions. I’ll visit Muller Strasse in the morning.’

‘We both will,’ Russell decided. He turned to Shchepkin. ‘And once we have them, you’ll what? Knock on the bastard’s door?’

‘Why not? He doesn’t live in the Kremlin. He has a mansion on Kachalova Street, out near the Zoo.’

‘How appropriate.’

‘I shall tell him we have the original, and what we want in exchange for keeping it hidden—that he will allow my wife and daughter join me here in Berlin, promise to keep silent about your work for the Soviet Union, and guarantee that no retributive action be taken against member of your family. I’ll need a list,’ Shchepkin added.

Russell wasn’t sure about that, as giving Beria a list of who he cared about felt like asking for trouble. But then again … ‘The man’s not going to like being threatened,’ was all he said.

‘Of course not,’ Shchepkin agreed. ‘But he won’t let that get in his way. He needs what we’re offering; he doesn’t need what we want in return. Why should he refuse?’

Spite, Russell thought, but Shchepkin knew the man better than
he did. ‘In the long run? Can we trust him? Come to that, will he trust us?’

‘Trust doesn’t come into it. He has nothing to gain by coming after us, and everything to lose. And why would we release the film as long as he leaves us alone?’

‘You’re assuming everyone will act reasonably.’

‘Well, you and I will. And Beria may be a psychopath, but he’s not irrational.’

‘Is that good news or bad?’

‘For us, good,’ Shchepkin said, getting to his feet. ‘You must call me on the usual number the moment you have copies.’

‘And then you’ll head off to Moscow?’

‘Not directly. Provided you agree, I shall take the original somewhere else first. I think I know how to put it beyond even Beria’s reach.’

‘Do we need to know where?’

‘On the contrary. And I won’t want to know where you’ve hidden the other copy. To be brutally frank, our lives may depend on Beria being unable to discover both hiding places from either one of us.’ He didn’t use the word, but the prospect of torture hung in the air.

‘Makes sense,’ Russell agreed.

As Shchepkin turned to leave, Effi had a last question for him. ‘After what we’ve just seen, doesn’t the prospect of knocking on that man’s door and making him extremely angry frighten you?’

The Russian thought about it. ‘Yes and no,’ he said eventually. ‘But I’ve already had that conversation with John. I think he’ll grind his teeth and accept our terms. If I’m wrong, and I’m dragged off to a cell, he’ll also come after you. It won’t stop the film seeing the light of day, of course, but I’m sure he’d want to take you down with him.’

That evening, Rosa wanted to see another of Effi’s audition films. As they watched it in the darkened room, Russell kept seeing the
naked women entwined on the carpet, the one who was dead and the one who wasn’t, but might as well have been.

The shop on Muller Strasse was closed when they reached it the following morning, so the two of them set up a vigil in a café window across the street. Almost an hour went by, and they were beginning to give up hope, when the youth who had served Effi on her previous visit ambled into view on the opposite pavement, and inserted his key in the oversized padlock.

As they walked across the wide thoroughfare, Russell agreed that Effi should do the talking. And, if necessary, the charming.

The youth smiled when he saw her, and then made a valiant effort to hide his disappointment when he realised she wasn’t alone. ‘Is the projector outside?’ he asked.

‘No, I still have it at home. It’s fine. Look,’ Effi said, ‘you were very helpful the other day, and I was wondering … Well, given your line of business, I imagine you need more than one copy of your films?’

‘Yes,’ he said cautiously.

‘You see, my film—I’d like to make some copies of it. For directors I know. You understand?’

‘Yes, yes. I could do that for you.’

‘Do you make the copies yourself? You don’t use a professional setup?’

‘Nothing so grand. And yes, I make them myself. We … I … simply set up a camera alongside the projector, and film the film so to speak. On a white wall, of course.’

‘And that makes good copies?’ Russell asked with a disarming smile.

‘Good enough,’ the youth said. ‘They’re not
quite
as sharp, but you don’t lose much.’

‘Where do you do it?’ Effi asked.

‘In the basement.’

‘Ah. The reason I ask is that I don’t want any strangers to see what’s on the film, and so would it be possible for you to set up the equipment in the way that you said, show us how to operate it, and then leave us to make the copies ourselves?’

‘That’s not …’

‘We’d pay you well,’ Russell interjected.

‘How well?’

After five minutes of haggling they agreed a price. ‘I should have let you go in alone,’ Russell admitted once they’d left. ‘He knows how to deal with men.’

That evening they returned with the film, and followed the youth down a flight of stone steps to a whitewashed basement. The equipment was already set up. ‘It’s simple,’ their tutor explained, after pocketing the wad of dollars. ‘You just switch them both on, here and here. Adjust the focus with this if you need to, but you probably won’t. How long is it?’ he asked, as he threaded the film on to the sprockets.

‘Only twenty minutes or so,’ Effi told him.

‘Well after you’ve made the first copy, have a look at it. If there’s a problem, I’ll be upstairs. If not, make the second.’

They did as he told them. Neither wanted to see the film again, but occasional glances were enough to assure them that it was running to speed. Once the first copy had been made, Effi transferred it to the projector, and played the first couple of minutes. It wasn’t as crisp as the original, but in Russell’s opinion was good enough.

The second copy took them another half an hour, and when they finally emerged on to the pavement darkness was falling. As they waited on the U-Bahn platform Effi asked him where they would hide theirs.

‘I haven’t a clue,’ he told her. ‘Anywhere but Hanna’s vegetable patch, I suppose.’ That was where he’d buried the atomic research papers in 1945.

‘I suppose that
would
be the first place the Russians would look.’

After they emerged from the Zoo Station entrance, Russell stopped at a public telephone and rang the number in the Soviet sector which he used to contact Shchepkin. After the usual coded exchange, he hung up secure in the knowledge that a meeting was arranged for noon the next day.

‘So we’ve lit the fuse,’ Effi said, as they walked underneath the railway bridge on Hardenberg Strasse.

‘I guess we have.’ Thinking over Shchepkin’s warning, that a vengeful Beria might very well come after them, he decided that their one gun mightn’t be enough.

At noon the next day Russell waited for Shchepkin at the eastern end of the Tiergarten. It was the Russian’s favourite meeting place—like most of his compatriots he seemed to enjoy staring at the ruined Reichstag—but Russell found the whole setting profoundly depressing. He remembered the park when it was a lovely place for stroll, and the parliament wasn’t packed with Nazis.

Sitting on their usual bench, he wondered how Shchepkin would cover his tracks when he took the original film ‘beyond Beria’s reach’. Did the Russian have easy access to some office out in Karlshorst where the MGB manufactured false papers? Shchepkin’s position in that organisation was a complete mystery to Russell. He knew the Russian had been imprisoned for several months—maybe more—towards the end of the war, but he had never really found out why. All Shchepkin had said to him was that he’d ended up on the wrong side in some inter-party dispute, and been rehabilitated, at least in part, because of his suitability as Russell’s control. But he obviously
had other duties to perform, and other agents to supervise, so presumably someone in the Kremlin must like him.

Trusting Shchepkin was rather like stepping out into a river of unknown depth. And yet he did.

The list the Russian had asked for—of those whose untimely death would trigger the film’s release—was in Russell’s inside pocket. It hadn’t been easy to compile. Some names were obvious—Effi and Rosa, Zarah and Lothar, Thomas, Hanna and Lotte—but others were not. He hesitated before dragging Paul and Marisa into things, but the MGB knew he had a son, and would have no trouble finding him. At Effi’s insistence he included Bill Carnforth, although God only knew what the American would think if he knew his name had ended up on Beria’s desk. He wondered what Zarah had told her fiancé about his own past dealings with the Soviets. Not much, he suspected—her fears for Effi would keep her silent.

And there Russell had drawn the line. If Beria was still desperate to inflict punishment, he would have to settle for friends or very distant relations, and he would have to find them himself.

Shchepkin was walking towards him, white hair glinting in the sunlight. There was nothing distinctive about his appearance, Russell thought, nothing to indicate his nationality or line of work. He looked as much like a French businessman or German professor as he did a Soviet agent.

After taking possession of the reels in their brown paper parcel, Shchepkin seemed reluctant to leave.

‘So what’s the latest from Karlshorst?’ Russell asked.

‘You know about Sokolovsky’s letter.’

‘I think everyone in Berlin does.’

‘Well, today our man at the Control Council will be willing to discuss a compromise. And this afternoon, our man at the City
Council will announce the introduction of a new Soviet currency for all of Berlin.’

‘Keep them guessing, eh?’

‘Something like that.’

‘It won’t work. The Allies will just extend their currency to Berlin.’

‘Probably. And then the shutters will fall.’

‘And after that?’

Shchepkin shrugged. ‘By then, you and I may be past caring.’ He got wearily to his feet. ‘I won’t reach Moscow before Friday, so you have a few more carefree days. After that, watch out.’

‘We will.’

‘Have you hidden yours away?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Do it, but not too deep. It won’t be there long.’

‘Why not?’

Shchepkin smiled. ‘I’ll tell you that when I get back. Early next week, I hope.’

‘Good luck.’

The Russian nodded, and strolled off towards the Brandenburg Gate, leaving Russell to walk back across the park. He hadn’t yet hidden their copy of the film because he couldn’t decide where to hide it. There was no place of concealment in their small flat which would escape a thorough search, and leaving it in a station left-luggage locker would simply transfer the problem. In the old days he would have sent the ticket to himself at a
poste restante
, but with Berlin’s immediate future so uncertain—and the Soviets already wreaking havoc with the postal services—that course also seemed much too risky.

Burial was the obvious alternative, but where could he bury the damn thing? There was only an overlooked courtyard at Carmer
Strasse, and, as Russell had said to Effi the previous evening, he could hardly return to the scene of his earlier excavations in Thomas’s garden. Which only left the Grunewald. That evening, he thought. A long walk through the trees.

Carrying a spade was clearly not on, so he spent most of the afternoon trawling the local shops in vain for a digging implement he could carry under his jacket. In the end he settled for one of their serving spoons, on the dubious grounds that it was better than nothing.

After dinner with Effi and Rosa, he caught a 76 tram on Ku’damm, rode it to the end of the line, and then walked down Königs Allee to the old Hundekehle restaurant, where he and Paul had often shared a Saturday ice cream. Beyond it, the forest stretched several miles to the west, and several more to the north and the south. A haystack for his needle.

There were an annoying number of people on the paths, out enjoying the evening sunshine. And as he discovered a few minutes later, there was a surprisingly large band of optimists casting their flies out into the Grunewald See. He turned off into the trees on his right, and soon found the clearing where they’d often picnicked more than ten years before. While the children had played their games, he, Ilsa, Thomas and Hanna had sat and drunk wine and ridiculed the Nazis. Who had had the last laugh? he wondered.

There was no one there now, only dappled grass and branches swaying in the breeze. Russell walked around the edge of the clearing, looking for a suitable place. It couldn’t be too obvious, but he had to be able to find it again.

One tree with spreading overground roots seemed to be a good bet, and for several minutes he sat with his back to the trunk, listening and watching for the sounds of humans nearby. On such a lovely summer evening it was hard to believe that the city beyond the forest was under virtual siege.

When he was certain as he could be that no loving couple was likely to rise out of the nearby long grass, he went to work with his spoon, carefully scooping the earth out from between two roots. The soil was looser than he expected, and it didn’t take him long to excavate a foot-deep well for the tin. After laying it flat on the bottom, he re-filled the hole, and did what he could to disguise the fact that one had been dug. The sun had sunk behind the trees, and it was hard to see his handiwork, but he was fairly confident that no one would find the tin by accident.