“Are you going to tell them of our meeting?”
“Of our meeting, yes. Your name, no. What we have talked about, no. You were a friendly officer who invited me home for a drink, and following our orders to make contacts with any friendly Englishman, I went to your home. I don’t know where it was. You talked on and on about Montgomery and I talked on and on about Timoshenko.”
“So how do you get them to withdraw you?”
“That’s no problem. I volunteer for more active duties. The mission is a privileged posting with a long, long waiting list. And the war won’t last much longer. Two years perhaps and then we’ll all have to pay the bill.”
“What bill is that?”
“The cost of the sacrifices, the price of victory. The Soviet Union having flexed its muscles and found that they work will be ready to advance on the world.”
“Which part of the world?”
Zagorsky stood up slowly, “Where can I get a taxi?”
“On the corner.” He paused. “You didn’t answer my question.”
Zagorsky picked up his white gloves and his cap and as he stood at the door he said quietly, “You know the answer, Josef, as well as I do. Not a part of the world. Just the world.”
36
When the war in Europe ended Shapiro was posted to 21 Army Group at its HQ in Bad Oynhausen. It was only a few months since the Soviet Union and Britain had been genuine allies, but by the end of 1945 the Red Army was deploying overwhelming forces of infantry and armoured divisions on their side of the Occupation Zone border.
Shapiro’s first task was to set up line-crossing operations into the Russian Zone of occupied Germany. Each line-crossing unit was run by a British intelligence officer but the line-crossers were Germans or German-speaking displaced persons. Where possible the crossers were sent to areas that they already knew well. The local hatred of the Red Army’s ruthless occupation made it easy to recruit local informants who could supply information on almost any aspect of the occupying forces.
It was in the summer of 1947 when Shapiro got a telephone call from the CO of 70 Field Security Unit in Hildesheim. Line-crossers worked both sides of the zone borders but the Russians had more difficulty in recruiting volunteers from a hostile population. From time to time Field Security Units picked up a line-crosser working for the Russians in the British Zone. A Russian line-crosser had been caught by a detachment of 70 FSU in Göttingen.
“Why are you calling me, Captain?”
“This chap we picked up refuses to talk except to you.”
“To me? Did he know my name?”
“Yes. He gave your name, your rank and he knew that you were at 21 AG headquarters in Bad Oynhausen.”
“Did he say why he wanted to talk to me?”
“No, sir.”
“What’s his name?”
“I don’t know. He won’t talk.”
“How do you know he’s working for the other side?”
“He was with a fellow who admitted under interrogation that he was a line-crosser. They both had the same type of forged papers.”
“What’s he like?”
“Mid-twenties, well-built, educated. We think he speaks English as well as German.”
“OK. I’ll come down in a couple of days. Where are you holding him?”
“In the local prison in Hildesheim.”
“OK. I’ll see you on Wednesday.”
It was a pleasant drive down to Hildesheim in the confiscated Mercedes. The old town itself was still largely rubble. For some strange reason or blunder the quiet medieval town had been almost completely wiped out by the US Air Force in the last few weeks of the war. Centuries-old buildings had been reduced to rubble and dust in less than an hour.
70 Field Security’s HQ was in a large house on the edge of the town and when Shapiro had been shown around he was offered a room where he could talk to the prisoner from the jail.
An hour later a young man was shown into the room by a sergeant who took off the handcuffs and left. Shapiro sat on the edge of the camp bed looking at the young man.
“What’s your name, young man?” he said in German.
“My field name is Lemke,” the young man said and to Shapiro’s surprise he spoke in Russian.
“Why do you want to speak to me?”
“I was told to speak to you.”
“By whom?”
“A man whose real name is Zagorsky. He uses other names but he told me to tell you his real name.”
There was a long pause before Shapiro spoke.
“Do you work for him?”
“No. He contacted me about a month ago. He gave me orders to cross the border in this area and to ask to speak to you.”
“You’d better tell me what it’s all about.”
“He told me to tell you that it was payment of a debt.”
“A debt. What debt?”
“I don’t know. He said to tell you about my family and you would understand.”
Shapiro pointed at a chair. “Sit down.” When the young man was sitting down Shapiro said, “OK. Tell me about your family.”
“I never knew about my family. All I can tell you is what Zagorsky told me.”
“Go on.”
“My mother was Polish, my father was English. They married in Moscow but went to work for the Party in Warsaw. Something happened and they fled to Berlin. My mother died a short time after and I was taken away by strangers. I was only two or three years old. I was put in an orphanage near Leningrad.” The young man shrugged. “That’s what he told me to tell you.”
Shapiro sat looking at his son, but all he could think of was Anna. He wished that he could tell her that the boy was safe. Tell her that his hair was as black as hers, his eyes as blue as his father’s and his fingers long and slender. And she would say that the boy’s firm mouth and strong jaw were all his. It had been twenty-four years since
