He u-turned the lorry at the intersection with Rauch-Strasse and pulled up behind the fake ambulance. As he climbed down there was a loud screech from inside the Zoo.
'The animals don't like the darkness,' Wilhelm said, materialising out of it. He had managed to get himself an armband, and so, Russell discovered, had Max and Erich. And in this light Freya's uniform looked very convincing. After introducing Effi to the others as Magda, Russell said as much.
'We fooled one policeman already,' Wilhelm said. 'He came past about ten minutes ago, and wanted to know what we were doing here. I told him we were waiting for our commander, that he'd brought his son on the first call-out and was dropping him off at home between air raids. He believed me, thank God. I didn't want to shoot him.'
'You have a gun?'
'Of course.'
Russell didn't know what to say. He could hardly blame the man, but... 'Only in the last resort,' he insisted.
'Of course.'
Russell handed him the two spare number plates and a screwdriver, and held the torch as Wilhelm swapped them with the ones on the van. Once that was done, he addressed the assembled company, feeling like a gang- leader in a bad Hollywood film. 'All right. So we know what we're doing. We set off when the next raid begins, or at eleven if it still hasn't started. Max and Erich will come with me, Magda will travel in the ambulance with Wilhelm and Freya. No second names - the less we know about each other the better.'
They had less time to wait than Russell expected. Shortly before ten o'clock the roar of aeroplane engines brought forth the sirens, and these in their turn triggered a cacophony of screams, mewls and roars from the occupants of the neighbouring Zoo. Seconds later the flash of anti-aircraft fire from a nearby roof caused even more consternation, and Russell was convinced he heard the trumpeting of an elephant. As another volley of skybound blanks threw spasms of light across the road and canal they moved off in convoy, the lorry leading the way.
It was little more than a kilometre to the top end of Eisenacher Strasse, but the lack of lighting restricted their pace to a near crawl, and Russell had to circle Lutzow-Platz twice before he found the right exit. Once on Eisenacher Strasse it was a matter of judging distance, and trying to recognize familiar landmarks. Russell was beginning to worry that he had come too far when he spotted the sawtooth roof of the bookbinding factory.
He pulled up alongside the row of houses opposite and climbed down, just as a flight of planes flew noisily over. In the silence that followed faint voices and music were audible, and as his eyes grew more accustomed to the darkness he saw cracks of light where windows must be. The slitted beam of his torch revealed the number of the building in front of him. It was 403.
There was no noise from within, which seemed like good news. He walked round the corner of the building and found an empty space where the cars had stood. That
The others had gathered on the pavement, and the combined light of their muted torches created a pocket of half-light. A collective halo, Russell thought. How fitting.
He walked up the steps to the front door and used the brass door-knocker, loud enough, or so he hoped, to bring a reaction without rousing the curiosity of the whole street.
No one answered.
He banged again, louder this time. Beside him, Effi looked anxious.
This time there was a response. Footsteps inside, the click of a bolt being drawn back, a spillage of light as the door edged open.
Russell shoved his way through, causing a cry of consternation from within. Effi and Wilhelm followed. 'Air Raid Protection,' Russell barked at the man who was struggling back to his feet. 'This house has been bombed. I want everybody out. Now.'
'That's not possible,' the man said, but there was a welcome lack of certainty in his tone. Thin, balding and bespectacled, he was wearing a bizarre mixture of clothes, a civilian shirt and tie with police trousers and boots. 'You do know that this is SS property?' he almost pleaded.
'I don't care whose it is,' Russell told him. 'Targets are chosen at random, and it's a criminal offence to obstruct an Air Raid Protection unit in the course of its duties. Now, what is your name?
It was Sternkopf.
'Well, Herr Sternkopf, how many people are there in this house?'
'Four. Five including me.'
'How many women?'
'Four.'
Russell breathed an inner sigh of relief. 'Get the other lads,' he told Wilhelm. They had decided beforehand that the two of them would deal with any outside interference while Max and Erich searched the house.
'I must telephone Standartenfuhrer Grundel,' Sternkopf was saying.
Russell rounded on him. 'Herr Sternkopf, this is a serious exercise. If British bombers do attack Berlin there'll be no time to make telephone calls. Now please, this way.'
Sternkopf hesitated, but only for a second, as Russell escorted him outside. Max and Erich, who passed them on the steps, had already laid out the half-dozen stretchers which Wilhelm had borrowed from one of the few remaining Jewish clinics in Friedrichshain.
'Lie down on one of these,' Russell ordered. Sternkopf did so, and Freya hung a home-made placard around his neck that bore the words 'severe head injury'. She then squeezed some of the fake blood that Effi had borrowed from the studio onto the side of his head. 'It has to be realistic,' Russell told him sternly. 'Please moan as if you are in real pain.'
The front door opened again, spilling light across the pavement, and Russell saw Sternkopf staring at him, as if keen to remember what he looked like. 'Let's get him in the ambulance,' he told Wilhelm. 'It'll make it harder for him to remember our faces,' he added in a whisper.
They lifted him in, reminded him to moan, and shut the ambulance door. On the pavement, two young women were being told to lie down on stretchers. As far as Russell could make out in the gloom, both were young, dark and quite probably Jewish, but neither matched his picture of Miriam Rosenfeld. Both were wide-eyed with fright, and Effi was kneeling beside them, asking their names and quietly explaining that they were involved in an ARP exercise. She and Freya had insisted that telling the girls what was really happening would be more likely to panic than reassure them.
The street remained empty, the darkness occasionally breached by the distant flash of anti-aircraft batteries. Wilhelm's friends reappeared with another dark-haired girl. This one looked about fifteen. She clung to Erich with one hand, and held the neckline of her nightdress up against her throat with the other. 'This is Rachel,' Max said. 'We can't find anyone else.'
'The man said four,' Russell reminded him. He was damned if he was going to come this far and not find Miriam.
'Let me ask Ursel and Inge,' Effi said, and hurried across to the two girls on their stretchers. She returned a few moments later. Miriam's room was on the second floor, at the back.
'I'll go,' Russell told Wilhelm, and headed up the steps.
Inside, the doors were all hanging open. There was a big bed in Miriam's room, but no sign of the girl herself. Russell was looking under the bed when he heard the faintest of whimpers.
She was cowering in a cupboard, knees pulled up against her chin. 'Miriam,' he said, touching her shoulder as gently as he could, and she jerked back as if he'd given her an electric shock. 'Miriam, I'm here to take you away from this place. I've come from your mother and father. From Wartha. They're worried about you.'
She lifted her head and examined his face with a small child's eyes.
'Come,' Russell said gently. 'We must go.'
She wouldn't allow him to help her out of the cupboard, pushing his hand away with a sharp intake of breath. She extricated herself and stood looking at him, dressed in a long white nightgown which accentuated her black hair and olive skin.
He took a robe, and handed it to her. 'You'll need this outside.'
She put it on, and looked at him again, as if awaiting another instruction.
'Let's go downstairs,' he said, and, after only a slight hesitation, she accepted his invitation to walk down ahead of him. Outside she shied away from Wilhelm's helpful arm, but meekly laid down on one of the remaining
