to this particular murder, but there had to be some way of bringing the bastard down.
He and Robier thanked the still nervous major and talked things over on the Wittenau platform. The Frenchman said he’d try and dig a little deeper into the circumstances surrounding the original arrest, but warned Russell not to expect too much. ‘I know what the line will be — Kuzorra was about to be handed over when he fell victim to some deranged fellow prisoner. Who could we find to prove otherwise?’
Robier got off at Wedding, leaving Russell to travel the last lap alone. As he walked across the Stettin Station concourse he noticed two British military policemen — ‘Red Caps’ they were called — striding towards him.
‘John Russell?’ the shorter of the two asked him.
‘Yes.’
‘Come this way please?’ the man said, shepherding Russell with one arm towards a nearby archway. The other man was at his other shoulder, funnelling him towards the same objective.
Russell went where he was told. ‘What’s this about?’
They were through the archway now, in a part of the station that Russell remembered had once been used by taxis. Now it was empty, save for two men in civilian clothes and a scruffy-looking two-seater Mercedes with its trunk wide open.
‘He’s all yours,’ the shorter MP told the two men, one of whom, almost casually, slid a revolver out of his pocket.
Russell realised why the car’s trunk was open.
‘In’ the man said in English, confirming his guess. The MPs had vanished.
‘No,’ Russell said, playing for time. He could hear other people close by — surely someone else would come through the archway. Or were the MPs making sure that they didn’t?
The man brought the muzzle level with Russell’s head and seemed inclined to pull the trigger. One blast of a locomotive whistle would certainly drown out the noise.
‘All right,’ Russell agreed. The man smiled, and gestured him into the trunk. He was about thirty, Russell guessed, with a long scar on the back of his gun hand and what looked like ancient burns down one side of his face. A veteran of something nasty.
Russell took his time getting into the trunk, and was still arranging his body to fit the space when the lid slammed down, plunging him into darkness. A few more seconds and the car lurched into motion, running straight for a while and then taking what seemed a right turn, presumably onto Gartenstrasse. Maybe they’d be stopped at a military checkpoint, Russell thought — there were few enough cars on the road. If so, he’d make a racket that no one could ignore.
‘Johann’s buried there,’ Scarred Man said as they took another turn. They must be on the street which bisected Wedding cemetery.
‘He was an unlucky bastard,’ the other man said. It was the first Russell had heard his voice, which sounded unusually shrill.
He had no trouble hearing their conversation — the trunk’s inner wall was much thinner than the outer. He wondered if they realised he could hear them, and whether they would care.
They’d been silent for several minutes when Shrill Voice came out with a question: ‘When are you going to do it — when we get to the factory?’
Scarred Man’s laugh was derisive. ‘We’d have to carry the body, wouldn’t we? I’ll wait until Kyritz Wood.’
‘I see what you mean.’
So did Russell, who suddenly felt cold all over. And his bowels were feeling loose — it was Ypres all over again.
They were going to kill him. Why? It had to be Rudolf Geruschke, but why? All he’d done was take an interest in an old friend. He hadn’t even kicked up a real fuss. Not yet anyway, and certainly not with Geruschke. So why?
And then he realised. He had turned up at the man’s nightclub. He hadn’t even heard of Geruschke until that evening, let alone known of his connection with Kuzorra. But Geruschke didn’t know that. And someone — Irma most likely — must have told him that Russell was a journalist.
Even so.
How had they known where to find him? Had someone at Camp Cyclop put in a call, and told them he was heading back into town?
But what the hell did that matter? They had found him, and now they were going to kill him. In Kyritz Wood, wherever the hell that was. But first they would stop at a factory. He might get a chance there. If they ever let him out of the trunk.
He had a sudden memory of the Saint in similar circumstances. The Saint in New York was the book, one of Paul’s childhood favourites. Two of Dutch Kuhlmann’s hoodlums had driven the Saint to a wood in New Jersey — it was amazing how much he remembered of the story. The Saint got away of course, but only because the love interest showed up in the nick of time to distract his would-be killers.
That wouldn’t happen this time. No one else knew where was. No one except Geruschke.
How far had they gone? He couldn’t see his watch, but reckoned they’d been driving about twenty-five minutes. They were still in the city.
He’d been dicing with disaster for six years now, but the thought of surviving the best that Hitler and Stalin could throw at him, and then falling victim to some jumped-up profiteer, was more than a little galling.
And they would bury him in the wood, he realised. From Effi’s point of view, he would simply have vanished. She might guess who was responsible for his disappearance, but she could never be sure, of either his death or his probable killer. At the very least, he had to find some way of reporting his own demise. A message of some sort.
Searching his pockets he realised how much of a rush he’d left in that morning. His pen was still on Thomas’s desk. Some reporter.
His abductors were conversing again. He could hardly credit it — they were not only talking football, but both seemed to be fellow-Hertha supporters.
The car made another turn, and was suddenly bumping over less even ground. Had they reached the factory?
He told himself he had to be ready, to take a chance if it came, to make himself one if none did. Easy words. The phrase ‘hanging by a thread’ had never carried more weight. He needed some sort of plan, but his mind was a raging blank.
The car stopped, bouncing a little as the two men got out. The lid of the trunk lifted up, revealing a row of far-away skylights. ‘Raus,’ the gunman said. ‘Out,’ he added in translation, looking pleased with himself.
They had no idea he spoke German, Russell realised — they’d been ordered to kill an American, and had made the assumption that he only spoke English. Was there any way of using the mistake against them? He couldn’t think of one.
Back on his feet, he felt more than a little unsteady. If he tried to run he’d only get about two metres. Not that there was anywhere to run to. Shrill Voice was sliding shut the door they’d come through, and there was no other obvious exit.
The car had drawn up in one of four loading docks, and a lorry with US Army markings occupied another. Crates and other containers were stacked along the side walls of the platform, and a long, glassed-in office space lined the back.
Scarred Man gestured him towards the open rear of the lorry.
‘I need a piss before we go,’ Shrill Voice told his partner.
‘Okay.’
Shrill Voice was halfway to the office when a telephone started to ring. ‘Should I answer it?’ he shouted back.
Scarface grimaced. ‘I suppose so.’
Russell could hear the high-pitched voice from thirty metres away, but not what was being said. Was this the moment to throw himself at the other man? If the bastard had any reflexes at all, he would empty the gun before Russell reached him, but would there be a better chance?
There might.
