barracks that served as their temporary home. They had done five drops that day, one in the pre-dawn twilight, three in daylight, and one as dusk shaded into night. The first had been the scariest, a long fall through gloom in which distances had been hard to measure, and only a serendipitous patch of bog had saved Russell's legs from the clumsiness of his landing. The last, darker drop had been easier, the various lights on the ground providing more of a yardstick for judgement, but there was no guarantee of similar assistance in the countryside west of Berlin. A moon might make things easier, but it would also render them more visible. Russell found himself hanging on to the thought that the Soviets really wanted this operation to succeed, and would not be dropping him to a likely death just for the fun of it.
Although he and Varennikov were physically shattered, a day spent falling from the heavens had left them both with an undeniable sense of exhilaration. It had also brought them together, as risk-sharing tended to do. Russell had expected the usual Soviet caution when it came to dealing with foreigners, but Varennikov had been friendly from the start, and now, tucking into a large pile of cabbage and potatoes in the otherwise empty canteen, he was eager to satisfy his curiosity about Russell. How had an American comrade ended up on this mission?
It occurred to Russell that the young scientist might had been primed to ask him questions, but somehow he didn't think so. And if he had, what did it matter? He gave Varennikov an edited version of the true story – his long career as a foreign correspondent in Germany before and during the war, his eventual escape with Soviet help, his time in America and Britain, his determination to rescue his wife and son in Berlin and his consequent arrival in Moscow. If only it had been that straightforward, he thought to himself in passing.
He expected questions about America and Britain, but Varennikov, like many Soviet citizens, seemed oblivious to the outside world. He also had a wife and son, and pulled two photographs from an inside pocket to prove it. 'This is Irina,' he said of the smiling chubby-faced blonde in one snapshot. 'And this is Yakov,' he added, offering another of a young boy gripping a large stuffed bear.
'Where are they?' Russell asked.
'In Gorki. That is where I work. My mother is there also. My father and brother were killed by the Nazis in 1941. In the Donbass, where my family comes from. My father and brother were both miners, and my father was a Party official. When the Germans came in 1941 anti-Party elements handed over the list of local Party members, and they were all shot.'
'I'm sorry.'
Varennikov shrugged. 'Most Soviet families have such stories to tell.'
'I know. Yours must have been proud of you. Doing the work you do.'
'My father was. He used to say that before the Revolution, the sons of miners had no chance of going to university, or of becoming scientists. All such jobs were taken by the sons of the bourgeoisie.' He gave Russell a smile. 'I was born the day after the Party seized power in 1917. So my father decided that my life should be like a chronicle of the better world that the Party was creating.'
It was Russell's turn to smile. 'And has your life gone well?'
Varennikov missed the hint of irony. 'Yes, I think so. There have been troubles, setbacks, but we are still going forward.'
'And were you always interested in atomic physics?'
'It's been the most interesting area of research since the mid-thirties, and I… well, I never really considered any other field. The possibilities are so enormous.'
'And what are you hoping to discover in Berlin?'
'More pieces of the puzzle. I don't know – there were so many brilliant German physicists before the war, and if they received enough government backing they should be ahead of us. But they probably didn't – the Nazis used to describe this whole field as 'Jewish physics'. Or the German scientists might have refused to work on a bomb, or worked on it without really trying. We don't know.'
'How powerful will these bombs be?' Russell asked, curious as to current Soviet thinking.
'There's no obvious limit, but large enough to destroy whole cities.'
'Dropping them sounds a dangerous business.'
Varennikov smiled. 'They'll be dropped from a great height, or attached to rockets. In theory, that is.'
'And in practice?'
'Oh, they won't actually be used. They'll act as a deterrent, a threat to possible invaders. If we had owned such a bomb in 1941 the Germans would never have dared to invade us. If every country has one, then no one will be able to invade anyone else. The atomic bomb is a weapon for peace, not war.'
'But…' Russell began, just as footsteps sounded behind him. The openness of their discussion might, he realised, be somewhat frowned upon in certain quarters.
Varennikov seemed unconcerned by such considerations.. 'And harnessing atomic power for peaceful purposes will transform the world,' he continued. 'Imagine unlimited, virtually free energy. Poverty will become a thing of the past.'
Colonel Nikoladze sat down beside the physicist.
'We're imagining a better world,' Russell told him.
'Don't let me stop you,' Nikoladze replied. He didn't care what they were talking about, Russell realised with a sinking heart. Varennikov could tell him that Stalin was partial to goats, and no one would protest. They hadn't even forbidden him from writing about the mission once the war was over. Why bother when he wouldn't be around?
'I hear it went well today,' Nikoladze said.
'We're still in one piece,' Russell agreed. 'When do we go?'
'We leave for Poland early tomorrow. And if all goes well, you'll be dropped over Germany early on Thursday.'
'Four of us?'
'Yes,' Nikoladze answered. 'The two of you, Major Kazankin who you've already met, and Lieutenant Gusakovsky.'
It seemed small for an invading army, but that was probably the point. If the Germans noticed them, it wouldn't matter if they were a thousand-strong – they still wouldn't get away with a single sheet of paper. But four men had a reasonable chance of passing unobserved. They could all get under one big bed if the situation demanded it. And the smaller the group, the better his own chances were of eventually cutting himself loose.
'The final offensive began this morning,' Nikoladze was saying. 'More than a million men are involved. Assuming all goes well Stavka hopes to announce the capture of Berlin on this coming Sunday – Lenin's birthday. So you'll have three days to complete your mission and remain undetected. An achievable target, I think.'
Later, back in the small two-bunk room they shared, Russell asked Varennikov where Nikoladze was from.
'He's from Georgia. Tiflis, I think.'
Georgians seemed to be running the Soviet Union, Russell thought. Stalin, Beria – Nikoladze would have powerful friends.
'He seems competent enough,' Varennikov said with a shrug.
'I'm sure he is. What made them select you from all the other scientists working on the project?'
'Several reasons, I think. I speak English well enough to talk with you, I speak and read a little German, and I know enough about the matter in hand to recognise anything new. There are other scientists with a much better grasp of German,' he added modestly, 'but their minds were too valuable to risk.'
There was no obvious let-up in the Soviet bombing of the German defences during the night, and the members of Paul's anti-tank unit saw little in the way of sleep. Roused bleary-eyed from the dugout shortly before dawn, and fully expecting a re-run of the previous day's all-out artillery bombardment, they were pleasantly surprised to find nothing more immediately threatening than a cold but beautiful sunrise. A steaming mug of ersatz coffee had rarely seemed so welcome.
The respite lasted several hours, the Soviet guns finally opening up, in deafening unison, on the stroke of 10 a.m. Low-flying aircraft were soon screaming overhead, shells and bombs exploding in the wood around them. For thirty long minutes they huddled in their trenches, knees drawn up against their tightened chests, praying that they didn't receive a direct hit. When a shell landed close enough to shake their ramparts, Paul fought off the temptation to risk climbing out in search of the new crater. Everyone knew that no two shells ever landed in the
