'Not that lucky. Canaris made the Swiss arrangement conditional on my delivering the message.'
'So that's off,' she said, failing to hide her disappointment.
'Not necessarily,' Russell told her. 'I have another idea.'
At ten the following morning he was ringing the doorbell at the American Consulate. A sprinkling of snow had fallen overnight, and both Kenyon and Dallin were waiting in Russian-style overcoats. The three of them walked across Pariser Platz, past the Brandenburg Gate and into the festive-looking Tiergarten.
'Any news?' Russell asked, as three fighters flew past a half-kilometre or so to the north. The BBC news of the previous evening had reported 'rising tension' in the Far East, but nothing more specific.
'No,' Kenyon told him, pausing to light one of his cigarettes. 'But we're still thinking days rather than weeks.'
'What about you,' Dallin asked. 'Have you seen Knieriem yet?'
'I tried,' Russell lied. 'I went round to his house last night, and there were two official cars outside. I think Herr Knieriem has thrown in his lot with the Nazis.'
'That doesn't necessarily follow,' Dallin insisted. 'He could be...'
'I know he could,' Russell interjected. 'But it didn't seem like the right moment to find out.'
They all fell silent as a well-wrapped nanny walked by with her two charges, one still in a pram, the other clasping a snowball and clearly itching to throw it.
'So when are you going back?' Dallin asked, looking warily over his shoulder.
'Maybe tonight, but that's not what I wanted to see you about.' He stopped and turned to Kenyon. 'I think I may know where those documents are, the ones Sullivan was going to give us.'
'Where?' Kenyon asked, his eyes lighting up.
Russell ignored the question and turned to Dallin. 'But I need something from you in exchange,' he told the Intelligence man. 'Remember the idea of setting me up in Switzerland as a channel between you and the Abwehr, and the job I was supposed to do in Prague for Canaris as proof of my usefulness and loyalty? Well, the SD torpedoed the job, and Canaris is probably less fond of me than he was. So I need you to push my case from your end, tell Canaris how useful it would be for you and him to have me there in Switzerland.'
Kenyon was smiling, Dallin frowning and shaking his head. 'I can't do a deal like that,' the latter said.
'Of course you can. You liked the idea when I first told you about it, and it's in your government's interest - a channel to the Abwehr would be useful, particularly if Canaris falls out even further with Heydrich. And it's in the Admiral's interests too. All you have to do is insist that I'm the man you want as the go-between. Put it in writing, and I'll deliver it. What could that cost you?'
'And when do you think you can recover Sullivan's papers?' Kenyon asked. Away in the distance a train was rumbling across the Spree bridge outside Bellevue Station.
Russell worked through a mental timetable. 'Saturday,' he suggested. 'Maybe Sunday.'
'I don't know,' Dallin said stubbornly.
As Russell had hoped, the senior diplomat was not about to be denied. 'We'll work something out,' Kenyon assured him.
Dropping in at the Adlon to check for messages, Russell found most of the foreign press corps strewn around the bar like passengers waiting for a train. Some had even taken the precaution of bringing small suitcases with them, just in case. Several were enjoying a late and decidedly alcoholic breakfast.
Around eleven forty-five they set off
The briefing concluded in the traditional way, with one of the Americans asking a question that the Germans either wouldn't or couldn't answer. 'Would the spokesman like to comment on Turkey's decision to accept lend- lease aid from the United States?' Ralph Morrison asked. Von Stumm looked at the table, said for the hundredth time that year that this particular question was 'not worthy of an answer', and made the usual abrupt exit, sucking minions into his wake as he swept from the chamber. There was a brief and thoroughly sarcastic ripple of applause.
The press corps adjourned to the Press Club for a long and highly alcoholic lunch, before attending their second circus of the day at Goebbels' Big Top. One of the Americans was leaving for Switzerland soon thereafter, and a farewell party had been planned for the station platform. Russell didn't know the man well, but joined his drunken colleagues in their stumbling progress to the nearby Potsdam Station. Out on the platform, the party turned into a multinational singsong, with a fine rendition of 'Lili Marlene' sandwiched between equally melodic takes on 'Swanee River' and 'Pennies from Heaven'. Several colleagues had come armed with rolls containing real sausage for the traveller, and insisted that their later consumption be suitably ostentatious - if at all possible, sizable chunks of meat should be casually jettisoned in front of watching Germans.
The whistles finally blew, and as the train moved off into the darkness the journalists all waved white handkerchiefs at their departing colleague. It was quite ridiculous, and annoyingly moving.
After sobering himself up with a strong and thoroughly disgusting coffee at the station buffet, Russell descended the steps to the U-Bahn platforms. The normal rush hours were over, but the trains were still packed, and he stood all the way to Alexander Platz, where he changed lines. The Gesundbrunnen train was almost as full, but a seat opened up after a couple of stops. He was tired, he realised, both physically and mentally. Tired of waiting for some sort of axe to fall.
Emerging from the U-Bahn terminus, he turned down Behmstrasse. Ahead of him, the dark rectangle of Hertha's Plumpe Stadium was dimly silhouetted against the clear night sky. The locomotive driver Walter Metza lived a couple of streets to the north, in one of the old apartment blocks that housed many of the local Reichsbahn workers, and Russell found the street without much difficulty. This was not the sort of area the Gestapo would visit on foot, but for Metza's sake Russell was careful to make sure that he wasn't being followed.
The woman who answered the door was initially suspicious, but managed a thin smile of welcome when he explained who he was, and swiftly ushered him inside. She was a tallish blonde in her early thirties, with one of those plain faces that would sometimes slip into beauty. As she shut the door Russell noticed a Reichspost cap hanging behind it.
'I'm his wife,' she said, squeezing past him. 'Ute.' She opened another door. 'Walter's in here.'
Metza was in an armchair, with one heavily strapped leg resting on a cushioned upright chair. The left side of his face was a mass of healing lesions, and the hair on that side of his head was still growing back. He was at least ten years older than his wife, but the two young girls examining Russell with great curiosity clearly belonged to both of them - the older one looked like him, the younger one like her. The wife quickly shooed the two girls into the other room and shut the door behind the three of them.
Russell explained who he was, who he worked for, and how he was trying to build up a picture of what was really happening in Russia before the outbreak of German-American hostilities caused his deportation. Metza nodded his understanding, and asked for reassurance that his name would not be mentioned.
'No. And I'll make damn sure that no one could deduce my source from reading the story.'
'Then fire away.'
Russell began running through the questions he had prepared. The driver answered them in a slow but confident voice, often thinking for several moments before speaking. He was, Russell guessed, one of the many workers who had benefited from the KPD's sponsorship of adult education classes in the late 1920s.
Metza had mostly been employed on the main line to Moscow through Brest, Minsk and Smolensk, which, as Russell knew, was the principal supply route for Army Group Centre. The whole line had needed re-gauging for German locomotives and rolling stock, the driver explained, and most of it had been. The continued use of Russian locomotives and rolling stock complicated matters, but those problems were proving surmountable. Others were not. Every Reichsbahn district manager in Germany had volunteered his worst workers for service in the East, and Reichsbahn equipment had proved utterly inadequate for the conditions. 'The Soviets have their steam pipes inside the boiler on their locomotives, so that they do not freeze up,' Metza explained. 'Ours are outside, and of course they do. And that's just one of the differences. Their tenders carry more water, so their water towers are further apart, too far apart for ours. There are so many problems like that. Our trains are just not built for Russian
