Because, he told himself, he believed in Nikoladze's promise of retribution. Given that they were planning to kill him anyway, that particular threat was only designed to keep him on board, but they'd still be hell-bent on punishment if he left them in the lurch. The Soviets would own half the world in a month or so's time, and their assassins would be roaming the other half. It wouldn't be wise to antagonise them. Do the job and then get lost – that was the best of several poor options. Once the war was over, everyone would calm down a bit. He could promise to keep their secrets, and mention in passing that he'd arranged for their publication in the event of his sudden demise.
He couldn't read his watch either, but it must have been at least ten minutes since he fell to earth. He would give them another ten.
There was noise above, he realised – a low drone in the distance. For a moment he thought their plane must be circling, but soon realised his mistake. This sound was slowly filling the sky.
As if in reply, a beam of light reached into the sky. Others swiftly followed, like the lights going on in a theatre. The lowness of the clouds was visible now, so the bombers would be up above them. The gunners below had no more chance of seeing their prey than the bombardiers had of picking out targets. Either someone had got the weather forecast wrong or the Allies no longer cared where their bombs fell.
The invisible bombers seemed almost above him, perhaps a little to the north. The first flashes erupted away to the north-east, swiftly followed by a staccato series of distant explosions. Spandau, he guessed. And Siemenstadt. Industrial areas.
Over the next few minutes the line of flashes crept around to the east, heading for the city centre. He heard the booms of the flak guns, saw flashes of exploding shells through newly diaphanous clouds. But no blazing plane fell through the veil.
His twenty minutes were up, and there was still no sign of the others. It was, he decided with some reluctance, time to move on. With the bundled-up chute under one arm, he began working his way across the increasingly boggy field, hoping to find the first of two roads. On several occasions his second-hand boots – stolen by the NKVD from God knows who – sunk deep into patches of mire, and a misjudged leap across a small stream resulted in one waterlogged foot.
A line of trees loomed ahead, and perhaps marked the looked-for road. He was some thirty metres away when voices rose above the almost constant rumble of distant explosions. German voices. Russell sank to his haunches, thankful that what light there was, was ahead of him.
He could see them now, two male figures walking northward, one wheeling a bicycle. What were they doing out here after midnight?
'Spandau's catching it,' one of them said, with the tone of someone lamenting bad weather.
'Seed potatoes!' the other one exclaimed. 'That's what I forgot.'
'You can pick them up tomorrow,' his friend told him.
They walked on out of earshot, apparently heading for the cluster of roofs to the north, silhouetted by burning Spandau.
Bombers were still droning overhead.
He clambered in and out of a ditch that ran alongside the road, slipped across the narrow ribbon of tarmac, and slid down a small bank on the other side. The new field seemed even boggier, and the smell of shit grew steadily stronger as he worked his way across the waterlogged ground. The Soviet map of the area had placed a sewage farm slightly to the north-east of their intended route, so he was probably in the right area.
Above the horizon yellow-white flares crackled and danced in an almost orange sky. The word 'devilish' came to mind. He was walking towards hell.
If he was remembering the map correctly, another kilometre would bring him to a second, wider highway, which ran south from Seeburg towards Gross Glienicke and Kladow. The point, a kilometre south of Seeburg, where this road entered a sizable wood, had been chosen for the reunion of an accidentally scattered team.
It took him twenty minutes to reach the empty road, and another five to sight the dark wall of trees that lay ahead. A direct approach seemed unwise – there might be other locals about, and who knew what sort of strain the night's events had wrought on Kazankin's nerves – so he took the long way round, walking out across the adjoining field and entering the wood from the west, before working his way back to the rendezvous point.
But the only cracking twigs were the ones he stepped on, the only sounds of breathing the ones provided by his own lungs. There was no one there.
He settled down to wait. His watch told him it was almost one – they were supposed to have reached the Havelsee by one-thirty. There was no chance of that now, but he had always thought the timetable absurdly optimistic. Expecting to reach, search and get away from the Institute before a six o'clock sunrise had never been on.
He closed his eyes. His feet were wet and cold, and he was feeling his age. One war was enough for anyone. What had his generation done to deserve two?
The intensity of the bombing was lessening, and the sky above seemed empty of planes. It occurred to him that once the searchlights went off movement would again become difficult.
Noises away to his left jerked his eyes open. It sounded like footsteps coming his way. There were whispers, a louder rustle, a muttered curse. Three vague shadows moving between the tree trunks.
'Russell,' a voice hissed. It was Kazankin.
'I'm here,' he murmured, mostly to himself. 'This way,' he added, with rather more volume. It was hard to believe that anyone else would be skulking in this particular patch of forest.
Kazankin was the first to reach him, and his surprise at finding Russell was written on his face. He was holding a large canvas holdall in one hand, like a plumber with his tools.
'What happened?' Russell asked.
The Russian exhaled with unnecessary violence. 'Comrade Varennikov decided his chute was faulty,' he said coldly. 'By the time we got him through the door you were long gone. We landed on the other side of Seeburg.'
'I'm sorry,' Varennikov said, for what was probably the hundredth time. 'I panicked,' he explained to Russell. 'It was just…' His voice tailed off.
'We need to get going,' Kazankin said, looking at his watch.
'It's too late,' Russell told him. 'We're already an hour behind schedule, and we didn't have one to spare.'
He expected Kazankin to argue with him, but the Russian just looked at his watch again, as if hoping for a different time. 'So what do you suggest?' he asked when none was forthcoming.
'Get as close to the lake as we can tonight, lie low during the day, and then cross as soon as it looks safe tomorrow evening. That'll give you most of the night to ransack the Institute.'
'We still have time to get across the lake tonight.'
'Yes, but the Grunewald is popular with walkers. They'll be more chance of our being spotted on that side of the water.'
'You think the people of Berlin are still going for walks?'
It was a reasonable question, Russell realised. And he had no idea what the answer might be. 'I don't know,' he admitted.
'We'll go on,' Kazankin decided.
They crossed the road, and plunged into the wood on the other side. Kazankin took the lead, with Russell behind him, then Varennikov. Gusakovsky, carrying the inflatable dinghy, brought up the rear. They had hardly gone a hundred metres when the light suddenly dimmed. The searchlights were being turned off.
Their progress slowed, but Kazankin, as Russell reluctantly acknowledged, was good at picking a path. It only took them an hour to reach the wide and empty Spandau-Potsdam highway, and soon after two-thirty they emerged from the forest close to the road connecting Gatow to Gross Glienicke. They followed this for a while, and almost ran into trouble, hearing the raised voices of some approaching cyclists with barely enough time to find cover. The cyclists, who looked in the dark to be wearing Luftwaffe caps, had obviously been drinking, and were singing a rather ribald song about that organisation's beloved leader. They were presumably heading home to Gatow Airfield, which lay a couple of kilometres to the south.
If the airmen hadn't been singing, Russell thought, they would never have heard them in time.
Kazankin led them off the road and out across empty fields. There was no sign that these were being
