5
1939
Thomas Macke was watching the Soviet Embassy in Berlin when Volodya Peshkov came out.
The Prussian secret police had been transformed into the new, more efficient Gestapo six years ago, but Commissar Macke was still in charge of the section that monitored traitors and subversives in the city of Berlin. The most dangerous of them were undoubtedly getting their orders from this building at 63–65 Unter den Linden. So Macke and his men watched everyone who went in and came out.
The embassy was an art deco fortress made of a white stone that painfully reflected the glare of the August sun. A pillared lantern stood watchful above the central block, and to either side the wings had rows of tall, narrow windows like guardsmen at attention.
Macke sat at a pavement cafe opposite. Berlin’s most elegant boulevard was busy with cars and bicycles; the women shopped in their summer dresses and hats; the men walked briskly by in suits or smart uniforms. It was hard to believe there were still German Communists. How could anyone possibly be against the Nazis? Germany was transformed. Hitler had wiped out unemployment – something no other European leader had achieved. Strikes and demonstrations were a distant memory of the bad old days. The police had no-nonsense powers to stamp out crime. The country was prospering: many families had a radio, and soon they would have people’s cars to drive on the new autobahns.
And that was not all. Germany was strong again. The military was well armed and powerful. In the last two years both Austria and Czechoslovakia had been absorbed into Greater Germany, which was now the dominant power in Europe. Mussolini’s Italy was allied with Germany in the Pact of Steel. Earlier this year Madrid had at last fallen to Franco’s rebels, and Spain now had a Fascist-friendly government. How could any German wish to undo all that and bring the country under the heel of the Bolsheviks?
In Macke’s eyes such people were scum, vermin, filth that had to be ruthlessly sought out and utterly destroyed. As he thought about them his face twisted into a scowl of anger, and he tapped his foot on the pavement as if preparing to stomp a Communist.
Then he saw Peshkov.
He was a young man in a blue serge suit, carrying a light coat over his arm as if expecting a change in the weather. His close-cropped hair and quick march indicated the army, despite his civilian clothes, and the way he scanned the street, deceptively casual but thorough, suggested either Red Army Intelligence or the NKVD, the Russian secret police.
Macke’s pulse quickened. He and his men knew everyone at the embassy by sight, of course. Their passport photographs were on file and the team watched them all the time. But he did not know much about Peshkov. The man was young – twenty-five, according to his file, Macke recalled – so he might be a junior staffer of no importance. Or he could be good at seeming unimportant.
Peshkov crossed Unter den Linden and walked towards where Macke sat, near the corner of Friedrich Strasse. As Peshkov came closer, Macke noted that the Russian was quite tall, with the build of an athlete. He had an alert look and an intense gaze.
Macke looked away, suddenly nervous. He picked up his cup and sipped the cold dregs of his coffee, partly covering his face. He did not want to meet those blue eyes.
Peshkov turned into Friedrich Strasse. Macke nodded to Reinhold Wagner, standing on the opposite corner, and Wagner followed Peshkov. Macke then got up from his table and followed Wagner.
Not everyone in Red Army Intelligence was a cloak-and-dagger spy, of course. They got most of their information legitimately, mainly by reading the German newspapers. They did not necessarily believe everything they read, but they took note of clues such as an advertisement by a gun factory needing to recruit ten skilled lathe operators. Furthermore, Russians were free to travel Germany and look around – unlike diplomats in the Soviet Union, who were not allowed to leave Moscow unescorted. The young man whom Macke and Wagner were now tailing might be the tame, newspaper-reading kind of intelligence gatherer: all that was required for such a job was fluent German and the ability to summarize.
They followed Peshkov past Macke’s brother’s restaurant. It was still called Bistro Robert, but it had a different clientele. Gone were the wealthy homosexuals, the Jewish businessmen with their mistresses, and the overpaid actresses calling for pink champagne. Such people kept their heads down nowadays, if they were not already in concentration camps. Some had left Germany – and good riddance, Macke thought, even if it did, unfortunately, mean that the restaurant no longer made much money.
He wondered idly what had become of the former owner, Robert von Ulrich. He vaguely remembered that the man had gone to England. Perhaps he had opened a restaurant for perverts there.
Peshkov went into a bar.
Wagner followed him in a minute or two later, while Macke watched the outside. It was a popular place. While Macke waited for Peshkov to reappear, he saw a soldier and a girl enter, and a couple of well-dressed women and an old man in a grubby coat come out and walk away. Then Wagner came out alone, looked directly at Macke, and spread his arms in a gesture of bewilderment.
Macke crossed the street. Wagner was distressed. ‘He’s not there!’
‘Did you look everywhere?’
‘Yes, including the toilets and the kitchen.’
‘Did you ask if anyone had gone out the back way?’
‘They said not.’
Wagner was scared with reason. This was the new Germany, and errors were no longer dealt with by a slap on
