something very hard delivered a tremendous blow across his stomach. As he doubled over, a second blow in the back sent him crashing to the floor. Once, twice, feet thudded into his front and back, torch-light dancing above. A kick in the groin hurt like hell, and curled him into a foetus-like ball, arms clasped together to protect his face and head. He tried to shout out, but his lungs could only manage a rasp.
The blows had stopped, but a heavy foot planted on his stomach was pinning him down. He tried opening his eyes, but the beam of light - a torch, he assumed - was shining right in his face, and the figures above him were only flickering shadows. He felt one draw nearer, and a gloved hand dragged one arm away from his head. Something cold and metallic was rammed into his ear. The barrel of a pistol.
He could smell beer on the breath of the man who held it.
'Finish him off,' someone said.
'My pleasure,' the man holding the gun murmured.
Russell felt the flow of warm piss inside his pants as the trigger clicked on an empty chamber.
'Just kidding,' the man said. 'But next time...well, now you know how easy it would be. We can always find you. Here or on Carmerstrasse.'
The torch shifted away from Russell's face. Blinking through the after-lights he could see it illuminating the framed poster for Effi's first major film. 'She could be on her way to Ravensbruck tomorrow,' the voice said. 'But they'd hold her in Columbiahaus until the next shipment. How many men do we have there?'
'Around forty,' one of his friends said.
'They'd be queuing up, wouldn't they? They'd all want to fuck a film star.' The torch was back in Russell's eyes. 'You do understand?' beer-breath said, increasing the pressure of the gun barrel.
Russell managed a rasping 'yes'.
'I think he's got the message,' the second voice said.
'You can smell it,' a third man said.
Suddenly foot and gun barrel were gone, the torch switched off. Darkness gave way to dim light as his assailants tramped out of the apartment, then fell once more as the door shut behind them.
Russell lay there, tentatively shifting his body. The pain in his groin was beginning to subside, leaving more space for the one in his kidneys, but nothing seemed to be broken. He lay there in his sodden trousers, remembering the last time he had pissed himself in fear, walking towards the German lines as mates on either side of him literally lost their heads.
His eyes were adjusting now, making the most of what light there was from the city outside. He painfully worked his way across the floor to the nearest armchair, and levered himself up so his back was against one side. A warning, he thought. His visitors had been told to hurt him but leave no visible marks. To scare the shit out of him.
They'd succeeded.
He sat there for a while, then clambered laboriously to his feet. The standard lamp responded to its switch, revealing an apparently untouched room. The two extracted light bulbs had been left on the table.
Russell swapped his clothes for a dressing-gown and walked down to the bathroom he shared with three other tenants. The red patches on his body would doubtless turn blue over the next few days, but he avoided his own face in the mirror, frightened of what he might find. Back in the flat, he lowered himself onto the bed and turned out the light. Sleep came more easily than he expected, just as it had in the trenches.
He woke much earlier than he wanted to, and sat at his window for the better part of an hour listening to the city stir. His body ached in the expected places, and movement was still painful, but at least there was no blood in his piss. At around a quarter to seven he ran himself a deep hot bath, and lay soaking until a fellow tenant began banging on the door.
Back in the apartment, he wondered how he should dress for his eleven o'clock appointment. A suit and tie seemed called for - the Heydrichs of this world liked a smart appearance. He chose the dark blue, took time to polish his shoes, and then spent another five minutes at the sink scraping the polish off his fingers. A look in the wardrobe mirror proved less than reassuring - the outfit was all right, but his hair was slightly over-length by SS standards, and the dark circles underneath his eyes suggested debauchery or worse. 'You don't look a day over fifty,' he mumbled at his reflection. 'Pity you're only forty-two.'
During his coffee and rolls in the Cafe Kranzler, an altercation broke out on the other side of the intersection: a tram-driver was leaning from his cab window and shouting at a brown-shirted team of flag-hangers, all of whom seemed blissfully unaware that their truck was blocking the rails, or that the occupants of the Cafe Kranzler's pavement seats were watching them with interest. One of the Brownshirts walked across to the tram, shouting as he went, whereupon the driver climbed down onto the road. His wide shoulders and impressive height - around two metres of it - clearly gave the storm trooper pause for thought. The driver, aware of the wider audience, seized his chance to show his flair for mime. These are rails, his arms seemed to say, and this thing here - the tram - could only run on rails. Their truck was slewed right across them. Conclusion - they had to move the damn thing!
There was a spattering of applause from the Cafe Kranzler clientele. The storm trooper spun round, face twisted in anger, but decided with obvious reluctance against arresting everyone in sight. He turned away from the crowd and ordered his underlings to move the truck. When one of these disconsolately raised an unhung flag, he was treated to a loud burst of abuse. The truck was moved; the tram squealed through the intersection and disappeared. The breakfasters went back to their newspapers.
Russell sipped at his coffee and wondered what to do about the previous night's visit. Should he bring it up at his meeting with Hauptsturmfuhrer Hirth? What would be the point? If the man denied SD involvement Russell had no way of proving otherwise. And if, as seemed more likely, the bastard cheerfully admitted complicity, there was no way Russell could threaten him, not when Effi's life was at stake. Better to say nothing, he told himself. Let them see that he took their warning seriously. Which he did.
A young man at the next table left a tip and walked off down the street, abandoning his copy of the
One other story caught his eye. A German Jew and his non-Jewish girlfriend had broken the race laws by getting married, and had evaded prosecution by moving to Carlsbad in what was then Czechoslovakia. After the Munich crisis of September 1938 they had moved on to the capital Prague, intent on emigration. They had, however, still been there when Hitler invaded in March. Arrested a few days later, they had now been sentenced to two and two and a half years respectively, for the crime of 'racial disgrace.' Russell wondered whether Freya Hahnemann had married Wilhelm Isendahl, as her parents feared she had. If everything went well today - and please let it! - then tomorrow he would find the time to check out the address they had given him.
At ten-forty Russell moved the car down to Leipziger Strasse, sat fretting for another ten minutes, and then walked across to Wilhelmstrasse. Number 102 looked better than it had on his last visit. In January the garden behind the street facade had been streaked with snow, the trees lifeless, the grey building sunk beneath a grey sky. Now the birch leaves rustled in the summer breeze, and roses bloomed around a perfectly coiffured lawn. Heydrich had obviously had the mower out.
The receptionist was a buxom blonde off the assembly line, the poster bearing this week's official Party slogan - 'Let that which must die sink and rot. What has strength and light will rise and blaze' - took pride of place on the wall behind her. Russell stared at them both for a while, then decided a visit to the men's room was in order. This, needless to say, was spotless. If the SS had restricted their activities to the design and maintenance of toilets, the world would have been a cleaner and better place.
Get it out of your system, he told himself. When the moment comes, don't be a smart alec. Just listen, nod, smile.
Back in reception, a baby-faced Sturmmann was waiting to escort him to Room 47.
Hauptsturmfuhrer Hirth, as Russell soon discovered, bore more than a passing resemblance to Stalin, at least from the neck up. He had the same cropped hair, thick moustache and cratered cheeks, but clearly spent fewer hours in the gym than some of his SS buddies. All SS men creaked when they moved - the sound of stretching leather belts - but Hirth creaked more than most. Girth would have been a better name.
He looked up, creaking as he did so, and flicked a hand towards the chair facing his desk. There was, Russell
