Stattin Station

'I am Hauptsturmfuhrer Leitmaritz,' said the seated man, indicating the seat that he expected Russell to occupy. 'Of the Geheime Staatspolizei,' he added formally.

'Obersturmbannfuhrer Giminich,' the other man said in response to Russell's questioning look. 'Of the Sicherheitsdienst,' he added, with what might have been interpreted as a malicious smile.

Happy days are here again, Russell thought to himself. 'So how can I help you?' he asked pleasantly.

'By answering a few questions,' the Hauptsturmfuhrer said shortly. He was peering short-sightedly at the document in front of him, and Russell would have bet money there were spectacles in his desk drawer. Over the man's shoulder he could see a veil of smoke over Anhalter Station half-masking the distant Kreuzberg. The rain must have stopped.

'You told a Gestapo officer at the Zembski photographic studio that you had not been there since the beginning of the war.'

'That is correct,' Russell replied.

'And your reason for going there this week was to have a photograph of your son enlarged?'

'Yes.' Obersturmbannfuhrer Giminich was now pacing to and fro behind Russell's chair. A tried and tested tactic of intimidation, Russell thought. It worked.

'Did you ever meet with Herr Zembski socially? A drink, perhaps.'

'No, it was a purely professional relationship.'

''Was'?' Giminich asked. 'Have you any reason to think that Zembski is dead?'

'None at all. The Gestapo officer at the studio told me he had gone out of business and returned to Silesia. So our professional relationship is presumably over.'

'The officer was mistaken,' Leitmaritz continued. 'Zembski has been arrested.'

'For what?'

'For activities detrimental to the state.'

'That could mean a lot of things. What sort of activities?'

'That will be revealed in due course.'

'At his trial?'

'Perhaps.'

'Do you have a date for that?'

'Not as yet.' The Hauptsturmfuhrer was showing signs of getting flustered, but not Giminich. 'You did have at least one other thing in common with Herr Zembski,' he said from somewhere behind Russell's head. 'You were both communists.'

Russell tried to look surprised. 'I had no idea Zembski was a communist. Is that what all this is about? As I'm sure you know, I left the Communist Party in 1927.' He was surer than ever that Zembski was dead, and increasingly convinced that something had turned up in their search of the studio that made them suspicious of himself. But what? The only thing he could think of was Tyler McKinley's passport photograph, which Zembski should have destroyed after replacing it with Russell's. But even if that had turned up, it wouldn't prove anything. The doctored passport had long since disintegrated in the Landwehrkanal, and Tyler might have visited Zembski himself. The men interrogating him had a lot of suspicious connections, Russell realised, but nothing to tie them together. And they were hoping that he might inadvertently provide one. This was a fishing expedition, pure and simple.

The sense of relief lasted only a few seconds. 'We also wish to talk to you about your work for the Abwehr,' Giminich said.

Russell had the feeling he'd been ambushed. 'I would need official authorisation to discuss that,' was all he could think to say.

He needn't have bothered. 'You have to admit it's a rather strange situation - an Englishman with an American passport working for German military intelligence,' Giminich said. Leitmaritz was now just sitting back in his chair watching.

'I suppose it is,' Russell agreed. 'But it was your organisation which - I suppose 'persuaded' is the most appropriate word among friends - which persuaded me to do some intelligence work for the Reich, and which then passed me over to the Abwehr. With, I might add, many thanks for my services.'

'True, but your work for the Sicherheitsdienst involved operations against the Soviet Union, which I presume - despite your youthful involvement in the communist movement - you now consider our common enemy. Your work for the Abwehr must involve you in business relating to England and America, enemies of the Reich but not, presumably, enemies of yours. A conflict of interest, no?'

'My work for the Abwehr does not require me to take sides.'

'How can that be?'

'I translate newspaper articles. Hopefully the clearer the idea each side has of the other's intentions and needs, the sooner we can bring this war to an end.'

Giminich snorted. 'You consider that not taking sides? You think that peace is what Germans are hungering for? In the end perhaps, but only after victory. A premature peace could only help our enemies.'

'I cannot see how governments misunderstanding each other helps anyone.'

'That is the Abwehr view?'

'That is my view,' Russell said, with a sudden realisation of where all this was heading.

'And these are your only duties?'

Russell paused, wondering whether fuller disclosure or clamming up might prove the wiser option. Given the effect clamming up had on such people's blood pressure, and the probability that they already knew about his meetings with Dallin, he opted for a qualified version of the former. 'I sometimes act as a courier for Admiral Canaris.'

'Ah,' Giminich said, as if they were finally getting somewhere. 'Between the Admiral and who else?'

Russell shook his head sadly. 'I'm afraid you'll have to ask him that. I'm not at liberty to share such knowledge.'

'We are all on the same side,' Giminich insisted.

'Even so. I would need the Admiral's permission to share such information with you.'

There was a prolonged silence behind him, as Giminich weighed up the pros and cons of applying other, more painful, forms of pressure. Or so Russell feared. The pros were obvious, the cons hard to calculate for anyone not versed in the intricacies of Heydrich's long duel with Canaris for overall control of German intelligence. Russell sincerely hoped that Giminich was not intending to use his incarceration as a declaration of war.

'Your loyalty does you credit,' Giminich said stiffly, moving out from behind the chair, and over to the window. 'Would you like to see George Welland?' he asked over his shoulder.

'Of course,' Russell said automatically, his mind scrambling in search of an explanation for this sudden turn in the conversation. George Welland was one of the younger American journalists, a New Yorker who had grown increasingly disgusted with his Nazi hosts. He had said so often and publicly, been warned, and said so again. His final crime had been to smuggle out a story about the little-known farm in Bavaria which supplied Hitler - and only Hitler - with a constant supply of fresh vegetables. Welland's American editors had compounded this folly by attaching his by-line to the printed article, and two days later the Gestapo had been waiting at the Promi doors when the journalists were let out. Welland had not been heard of since.

Russell neither knew nor liked the young man very much, but found it hard to fault his choice of enemies.

'He's in the basement,' Giminich said - a simple enough statement, but one which did little for Russell's peace of mind. The last time he had been down there was in the summer of 1939, and on that occasion he had been visiting Effi. Then too, someone upstairs had been trying to make a point.

A Rottenfuhrer was summoned to take him down, carpet giving way to stone as they burrowed deeper. The final corridor had not changed in two years and Welland, it transpired, was locked in Effi's old cell. Hardly a coincidence, Russell guessed.

The young American was sitting on a wooden bunk. One eye was a mess of dried blood but there were no other obvious bruises. He didn't seem surprised to see Russell, and the look he gave him with the one good eye seemed more resentful than relieved. He offered a hand to shake, without getting up. Even lifting the arm made him