was taking position on the flight of stairs below, George holding his on the flight above.
It occurred to Russell that Halsey might not know that they were expected. ‘You won’t need to use that…’
‘I will,’ Halsey contradicted him, and the look in his eyes told Russell much more than he wanted to know.
The young American slipped away down the stairs and applied his own fist to Schreier’s door. When it opened seconds later a few Russian words were abruptly cut off by the ‘phhhtt’ of the silenced revolver. There was a sound of tumbling furniture, another ‘phhhtt’, a cry of fear.
Halsey had disappeared into the apartment, and Russell reluctantly followed. The younger Russian was lying on the ragged carpet behind the door, a bloody hole where his left eye had been. His comrade was on the ground behind the table. As he struggled to get up, Halsey administered the coup de grace, a bullet in the back of the head. He was clearly a fan of the NKVD.
Russell was aghast, and obviously showed it.
‘What did you think we were going to do?’ Halsey asked. ‘Tie them to chairs?
Something like that, Russell thought. He looked from one corpse to the other. Another two families in mourning. He hoped that neither were Nemedin favourites.
Schreier also looked in shock. ‘Tell him he’s coming with us,’ Halsey told Russell.
He did so.
Schreier didn’t look eager, which was hardly surprising. ‘Where are you taking me?’ he asked in a tremulous voice.
‘To the American sector,’ Russell told him.
Schreier shook his head, more in disbelief than refusal.
‘Get whatever you want to take,’ Russell said. ‘You won’t be coming back.’
The German went into the bedroom, and reappeared moments later with a framed photograph of a woman. ‘My late wife,’ he explained.
A horn sounded in the street below.
‘Who the fuck’s that?’ Halsey asked, heading for the window. He peeled the curtain back a few inches and looked down. ‘It’s two Ivans in a jeep. An American jeep,’ he added, as if that made their appearance even less welcome.
‘The changing of the guard,’ Russell guessed. He’d forgotten to tell Halsey about the horn routine, and there didn’t seem much point now.
‘It looks like we won’t need the U-Bahn,’ Halsey said. ‘We’ll wait for them to come up, then take the jeep.’ He walked to the door and softly called the other two in. They hardly looked at the two corpses.
‘What if they don’t come up?’ Russell asked. He didn’t want two more Russians to die, but short of shooting Halsey could see no way around it. ‘They won’t want to leave the jeep unattended, so they’ll probably wait for these two to come down.’
Halsey smiled. ‘Then I guess we’ll have to take their places.’
A hail of bullets was about right. ‘How many Russians are you going to kill?’ Russell asked. ‘I thought Dallin sent us to fetch Schreier, not start World War Three.’
The horn sounded again, a touch more impatiently.
‘Well they’re down there, we’re up here, and we have to get past them somehow. Have you got a better idea?’
‘Yes. You three take Schreier down to the ground floor, and find somewhere out of sight. I’ll lean out of the window, tell them there’s a problem, and that I need them up here.’
‘Do you speak Russian as well?’ Halsey asked. It was almost an accusation.
‘Enough.’
‘Hmm. What if only one of them comes?’
‘Then you’ll have one less to deal with.’ And one life saved was better than none, Russell thought but didn’t say.
‘And what’ll you do?’
‘Once they start up I’ll head down a flight or two, and stay out of sight until they’ve gone past.’
Halsey nodded. ‘Okay. Give us a couple of minutes.’ He took one last look at his victims and led the others out through the door, Vinny and George clutching their guns, Schreier his photograph.
Russell was still wondering about the jeep. They’d be more exposed above ground, but it would certainly be quicker than walking to the nearest U-Bahn and waiting for a train. They’d be out of the Soviet sector in fifteen minutes, provided they weren’t stopped.
He found himself looking at the dead Russians again. How were the American authorities going to explain this? He supposed they could simply deny all knowledge, but who else would have a motive for snatching Schreier and killing two NKVD men? Schreier himself was the only credible scapegoat, and if the Americans blamed him they could hardly put him to work in one of their laboratories. Or not without giving him a new identity.
The two minutes were up. He reached for the window latch just as the horn sounded again, and after a struggle managed to disengage it. He stuck out his head just as a Russian stepped out of the jeep. ‘You must come up,’ he shouted down, hoping that an unfamiliar voice wouldn’t alert them. ‘There’s a problem. I’ll need you both,’ he added, then swiftly withdrew his head.
Please, he silently advised them, save your lives.
He closed the door behind him and hurried down the stairs, alert for the sound of feet below. Reaching the first floor, he ducked back along the passageway that led to the flats at the rear, and was just flattening himself against a wall when torchlight flickered across the ceiling. The Russians were lighting their own way up.
There were footfalls on the stairs now, so the others had not been spotted. And there were — thank the Lord — two pairs of feet ascending. Russell crouched in the darkness, and prayed no beam would shine his way.
It played on the walls in front of him, but then vanished upwards along with the feet. He waited until these reached the next landing, then descended, as swiftly and quietly as he could, to the ground floor, door and street.
The others were already on board, with Halsey and George sandwiching Schreier in the back, and Vinny at the wheel. Russell scrambled into the empty front seat, wondering why Halsey had forsaken the honour. He soon found out. The engine burst into life, and Vinny accelerated off down Lippehner Strasse, shouting ‘which way?’ at him over the roar of the motor.
‘Left,’ he said automatically as they roared up towards the intersection with Greifswalder Strasse. Which was the best way to go? The American sector was closest, but how would they get across the Spree? When he’d walked to that stretch of the river the other day, all the bridges had still been down. The simplest route was straight along Neue Konigstrasse to Alexanderplatz, crossing the Spree and Spreekanal by the Old City bridges — he knew that they were open. Then down Unter den Linden to the Brandenburg Gate, where the British zone began. The British might stop them and make a fuss, but they wouldn’t shoot anybody.
Neue Konigstrasse was almost empty, a late night tram brimming with passengers striking sparks in the other direction.
A nasty thought occurred to Russell. He turned to Schreier, and asked him in German whether there’d been a telephone in the apartment.
‘Yes.’
‘Was it working?’
‘Sometimes.’
‘There was a telephone,’ Russell told Halsey, in response to the latter’s quizzical look.
They were passing between the remains of the Statistical and Tax Offices, Vinny driving the jeep at a steady forty as they approached the brighter lights of Alexanderplatz. Back in the spring Russell had done a day’s involuntary labour on this stretch of road, helping dig gun emplacements for the defence of the city.
After Neue Konigstrasse, Alexanderplatz and the streets leading into it seemed almost brimming with life. Several strands of music were audible and the square itself was awash with people. Some of the men looked German, but most were wearing uniforms, and clinging on to a local girl. Judging by the high-pitched screams of delight, almost everyone was drunk, and the only thing waved at their passing jeep was a clearly empty bottle.
They swung round under the Stadtbahn bridge, drove down Konigstrasse’s rubble-lined canyon, and crossed
