David Downing - Masaryk Station

‘I think I could manage one,’ Russell said. ‘So what brings you here?’

Crowell ignored the question. ‘How’s it going with Kuznakov?’ he wanted to know, as if Russell was doing the interrogating.

‘He’s eager to leave the Balkans behind. I don’t think we’ll get anything out of him until he feels he’s on safer ground.’ Russell found himself wondering which story Kuznakov would end up telling them, that the Red Army was ready and willing to attack, or that the threat was all in the Western powers’ imagination? Did Stalin want to scare the Americans, or provide them with a false sense of security? Not that it would be false-as his friend Strohm had pointed out, what country intent on moving its armies further west ripped up half the European railway network for reparations?

Crowell shrugged. ‘Ah well, I expect that’s what we’ll do then. But I have another job for you. It’s all been cleared with your control in Berlin, by the way. Nothing dangerous,’ Crowell added, mistaking the look on Russell’s face. ‘Just a bit of escort duty-what with the Italian elections, we’ve run out of manpower.’

‘I thought they’d been bought and paid for,’ Russell said dryly, and immediately wished he hadn’t. Not because it was untrue-the only real question was whether they’d used cash the Nazis had confiscated from their victims-but because he really had to rein himself in. Like Shchepkin had said, Russell knew he should offer at least the pretence of commitment.

He needn’t have worried in this instance as Crowell just ignored his comment. ‘There’s a Russian-Ukrainian actually, but he speaks Russian-who we’re taking out. Of Europe, that is. He’s being brought down from Salzburg to Udine on Saturday-you know where that is?’

Russell nodded.

‘Well, you’ll meet him there. But before you leave Trieste, you have to collect a visa for him.’ Crowell took a folded piece of paper from his pocket, which Russell opened. The name and address belonged to Father Kozniku-Draganovic’s man in Trieste.

‘The local forger?’ Russell asked flippantly. He was curious as to whether Crowell would come clean about the Rat Line.

‘No, the papers are official,’ was all the other man said.

Russell raised an eyebrow.

‘You don’t need to know,’ Crowell said shortly.

‘Okay.’

‘Just get to Udine, the Hotel Delle Alpi, and babysit the man for one night. Someone will collect him the following morning.’ Crowell reached for the briefcase beside his chair, and extracted a large envelope. ‘You’ll find a DP passport in there, some supportive papers, fifteen hundred US dollars for Father Kozniku, and some lira for your own expenses. When you pick up the visa, check the details against the passport, just in case someone fucked up. We’ve asked the Army for a jeep, but they haven’t got back to us yet. Someone’ll contact you.’

‘Who is he? Or do I call him Mr. X?’

‘His name is Maksym Palychko.’

‘That sounds vaguely familiar. And not in a good way.’

‘I’m told some of the tales about him have been exaggerated,’ Crowell said. ‘But that’s neither here nor there. He’ll be more use to us in America than he would be gumming up a tribunal or rotting in a Soviet grave. So our job is to get him there. Right?’

Russell nodded, and drained the last of his beer. The sun was still shining in a pure blue sky, the clouds all in his mind.

Later that evening, Russell was early for his appointment with Shchepkin. The Russian, when he arrived, had instructions for Russell-he would be meeting a Comrade Serov ahead of his trip to Belgrade. A note would be left at his hostel with the time and place.

Russell nodded his agreement, and asked Shchepkin if he’d heard of Maksym Palychko.

The Russian gave him a look. ‘What a name to drop on such a beautiful night.’

‘So who the hell was he? I know I’ve heard the name before, but I can’t remember where.’

‘He called himself a Ukrainian nationalist, and I expect he still does, even though most Ukrainians would be as happy to shoot him as I would. I don’t know exactly where he came from-somewhere in the western Ukraine-but as a young man he fought for the Whites in the Civil War, and in the ’20s he joined the group that became the OUN-the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists. They made no headway in the USSR, but they grew quite strong in Poland, and Palychko was one of the men who assassinated Pilsudski’s Interior Minister in, I can’t remember, was it 1934? He was caught, given the death penalty, but then reprieved-he was still in jail in Krakow when the Germans arrived. They released him, and he joined in the celebrations-several thousand Jews were tortured and murdered over the next few weeks. And he must have stood out, because the Nazis sent him to Gestapo school. When the Germans invaded us, the OUN went in with the einsatzgruppen , and did more than their share of the killing. They were expecting to be put in charge of Ukraine, but Hitler didn’t trust them that much, and those OUN leaders who complained were arrested. Not Palychko, though. He managed to stay on good terms with the Germans, mostly by selling them information about us and his former friends. He put together a small army of his own, and waged a parallel war against our partisans. You’ve heard of Lidice, Oradour?

‘Villages the Nazis destroyed?’

‘Along with their inhabitants. Everyone has heard of them,’ Shchepkin added, a rare hint of bitterness in his voice. ‘But Olyka, Mlinov, Grushvitsy, and at least ten others … no one in the West knows about them, but they were all villages accused of helping our partisans, and then destroyed by Palychko and his men. The OUN tortured and raped whenever the mood took them, and they left no one alive.

‘When the Nazis retreated, Palychko went with them, and somehow managed to disappear, though half the world was looking for him. Until this moment I assumed the Americans would feel honour-bound to hand a man like that over.’

Russell winced. ‘They don’t. I’m one link of the chain passing him out of Europe.’

They walked on in silence for several seconds.

‘I can tell you where …’ Russell began.

‘Don’t,’ Shchepkin interjected. ‘I don’t trust myself, and we can’t risk it. We’ll have to let him go, at least for the moment. But you must be careful. The Americans are hopeless at keeping secrets, and word may be out.’

‘Oh good,’ Russell murmured. Crowell, he remembered, had assured him there was ‘nothing dangerous’ involved in this particular job.

Effi arrived at the RIAS building on Winterfeldstrasse a few minutes early, which would have surprised most of her friends. She had taken the U-Bahn from Zoo, and her dress-one of her finest-had drawn several admiring glances on the train. ‘Why do you care what you look like,’ Rosa had asked with her usual maddening logic, ‘when it’s an audition for radio?’

Which was true enough, but the man conducting the audition-it was bound to be a man-wouldn’t be at the other end of a wireless connection.

His name was Alfred Henninger, and she assumed from his accent and fluency that he was an American of German descent. He was about forty, with short but untidy blond hair, and a habit of flexing his fingers as he spoke. ‘Have you done any radio?’ was his first question.

‘Never,’ Effi answered cheerfully.

‘But you’re willing?’

‘Eager, you might say. I really liked the outline and script you sent me.’

‘Oh, good. We have a name for it now: “The Islanders”. In a Soviet sea,’ he added in explanation.

‘I got it.’

‘Of course. I’m always spelling it out for the people back home-they don’t understand what it feels like here. Anyway … the part we have in mind for you is the portierfrau , Frau Dorfner. It’s not the most glamorous role, of course …’