Sam Eastland - Berlin Red

What mattered now was not the list itself, but the fact that it had never left the bunker. And yet, here was Der Chef, reading it off word for word.

‘The spy is here among us!’ Hitler muttered hoarsely.

Misch had, by now, returned from his cigarette break and was busy sucking on a mint in order to hide the odour of smoke on his breath. Hitler could not stand the smell of tobacco.

Hitler turned in his chair and eyed the man. ‘He’s here!’ he whispered.

Misch stared at him blankly. Is he talking about me, wondered the sergeant. Is he seeing ghosts? Has he finally gone out of his mind?

Hitler had hooked his left knee around the leg of the table in order to stop the incessant trembling of his calf muscle. Now he untangled himself from his chair and rose to his feet. Just as he was handing the headphones to Misch, he spotted the message form which Zeltner had filled out the night before. ‘What is this?’ he asked.

‘Something that came last night from a certain General Hagemann,’ Misch explained hastily. ‘I was going to give it to you.’

Hitler fished out a pair of reading glasses. Shakily, he perched them on his nose. Then he picked up the form. ‘Diamond Stream,’ he said. Then he glanced at Misch. ‘Are you sure this is correct?’

‘The message came through on Zeltner’s shift,’ Misch explained nervously. ‘I doubt there has been a mistake.’

Hitler folded up the message form and tucked it away in his pocket. ‘Bring me General Hagemann,’ he commanded softly.

10 April 1945Message from Major Clarke, via SOE relay station 53a, Grenton Underwood, to ‘Christophe’:

Urgent. Supersedes all other work. Acquire plans for diamond stream device. Message from ‘Christophe’ to Major Clarke:

What is diamond stream? Major Clarke to ‘Christophe’:

Unknown as yet. Believed to be of extreme importance. Will need photographs. Can you deliver? Message from ‘Christophe’ to Major Clarke:

Can attempt. Usual channels for developing and transport of film no longer function due to bombing raids. Will require extraction if successful. Major Clarke to ‘Christophe’:

Arranging for extraction. Send word when you have results.

The sun had just risen above the onion-shaped domes of St Basil’s Cathedral when Major Kirov and Pekkala arrived at the Kremlin.

Escorting them to their destination was Stalin’s personal secretary, a short and irritable man named Poskrebychev. Although he held no rank or badge of office, Poskrebychev was nevertheless one of the most powerful men in the country. Anyone who desired an audience with the Boss had first to go through Stalin’s outer office, where Poskrebychev ruled over a dreary cubicle of filing cabinets, a chair, a telephone and an intercom which sat like a big black toad upon Poskrebychev’s desk.

After showing visitors into Stalin’s room, Poskrebychev always departed, closing the double doors behind him with a dance-like movement that resembled a courtier’s bow.

Poskrebychev never attended these meetings but, returning to his desk, he would invariably switch on the intercom and eavesdrop on the conversation. He was able to do this without arousing suspicion because, although a small red light switched to green whenever the intercom was in use, Poskrebychev, after hours of fiddling with the machine, had discovered that, if the intercom button was only half switched, the red light would stay on and he could still hear every word of what was said.

This malfunction of technology was the true source of Poskrebychev’s power, although it did not come without a price. Often, lying in bed at night in the flat he shared with his mother, Poskrebychev would twitch and shudder as the vastness of the treacheries and horrors which Stalin had conjured into being echoed from the rafters of his skull.

‘He has another visitor,’ Poskrebychev whispered to Pekkala as they reached the door to Stalin’s office. ‘Some teacher or other. A strange bird if ever I saw one!’

Pekkala nodded thanks.

The doors were opened.

The two men walked into the room and Poskrebychev, with his usual dramatic flourish, closed the door behind them.

Stalin sat behind his desk. As usual, the heavy curtains were drawn. The room smelled of beeswax polish and of the fifty cigarettes that Stalin smoked each day.

Standing at the far end of the room, where he had been admiring the portrait of Lenin on the wall, was a man in a tweed jacket and grey flannel trousers. He turned as Pekkala walked in and bowed his head sharply in greeting. The man had a thick crop of grey hair and a matching grey moustache. His eyes, a cold, cornflower blue, betrayed the falseness of his smile.

He is no Russian, thought Pekkala.

Confirming Pekkala’s suspicion, Stalin introduced him as Deacon Swift, a member of the British Trade Commission. ‘But of course,’ added Stalin, ‘we all know that is a lie.’

The smile on Swift’s face quickly faded. ‘I wouldn’t call it that, exactly,’ he said.

‘Whatever your role with the Trade Commission,’ continued Stalin, ‘you are also a member of British Intelligence, a post you have held for many years, in Egypt, in Rome and now here, in Moscow.’ Stalin glanced across at the Englishman. ‘Am I leaving anything out?’

‘No,’ admitted Swift, ‘except perhaps the reason for my visit.’

Stalin gestured towards Pekkala. ‘By all means attend to your business.’

Swift drew in a deep breath. ‘Inspector Pekkala,’ he began, ‘I have been sent here by His Majesty’s Government on a matter of great importance. You see, we might soon need your help in retrieving one of our agents from Berlin.’

‘I imagine you have several agents in Berlin,’ said Pekkala.

Swift nodded cautiously. ‘That is altogether likely, yes.’

‘Then what makes this one so special?’

‘This is someone we felt might be of particular significance to you,’ explained Swift.

‘And why is that?’

‘The agent, whose code name is Christophe, has been supplying us with snippets of propaganda.’

‘Snippets?’ asked Pekkala.

‘Oh,’ Swift let the word drag out, ‘nothing of great importance, really. Just the odd detail here and there about goings-on among the German High Command, which we then cycle back into our radio broadcasts throughout the liberated territories. Of course, the Germans listen to these broadcasts, too. It lets them know we have our eye on them.’

‘So far,’ remarked Pekkala, ‘I have not heard anything that might be of significance to me.’

‘The thing is,’ explained Swift, ‘this person is known to you.’

Pekkala narrowed his eyes in confusion. ‘I don’t know any British agents, and no one at all named Christophe.’

‘Ah!’ Swift raised one finger in the air. ‘But you do, Inspector, whether you realise it or not. Christophe is the code name for a woman named Lilya Simonova.’

Pekkala’s heart stumbled in his chest. Instinctively, he reached into his pocket, rough fingertips brushing across the crackled surface of the only photo that had ever been taken of the two of them together.

‘When was the last time you saw her?’ asked Swift.

It had been in Petrograd in the last week of February, 1917.

Entire army regiments – the Volhynian, the Semyonovsky, the Preobrazhensky – had mutinied. Many of the officers had already been shot. The clattering of machine-gun fire sounded from the Liteiny Prospekt. Along with the army, striking factory workers and sailors from the fortress island of Kronstadt began systematically looting the shops. They stormed the offices of the Petrograd Police and destroyed the Register of Criminals.

The Tsar had finally been persuaded to send in a troop of Cossacks to fight against the revolutionaries, but the decision came too late. Seeing that the Revolution was gaining momentum, the Cossacks themselves had rebelled against the government. Now they were roaming the streets of the city, beating or killing anyone who showed any signs of resistance.