Sam Eastland - Berlin Red

‘A distant relative of absinthe,’ said Fegelein. ‘They say that it opens the mind.’ He took a drink.

‘Is that what it’s doing to you?’

‘Unfortunately, not enough to help me translate this.’ Fegelein tossed the page of code on to the counter.

Ignoring the shudder of bombs, which had now begun exploding in the centre of Berlin, Hauer took the page and spread it out before him, pinning it to the table at each corner with his thumbs and index fingers. ‘Why come to me with this?’ he asked, studying the page as he spoke. ‘Why not bring it to the Reich Intelligence Service?’

‘Because I have a nasty suspicion that they might already know what it says.’

‘Then this is an internal investigation.’

‘That’s a good way to describe it.’

‘Well,’ said Hauer, ‘at first glance I would say this is a Goliath cipher.’

‘Goliath?’

Hauer sat back on his stool, releasing the pressure of his fingertips from the page. As he did so, the paper seemed to flinch as if it was in pain. ‘How much do you know about cryptography?’

‘Enough to know when I need help from you.’

‘The Goliath cipher is one of several codes used by the Allies,’ explained Hauer. ‘It was developed by the British in the first years of the war. Nowadays it is considered somewhat antiquated, although it’s still reliable and often used by agents who have been in the field a long time. Each message possesses its own branch code, without which it is virtually impossible to unravel the message.’

‘Well, where do they keep the branch code?’ asked Fegelein.

‘On a piece of silk,’ replied Hauer. ‘It’s about the size of a handkerchief and can be folded or crumpled into something the size of your little finger. Printed on the silk are dozens of little squares, each one containing the numbers for a separate branch code. As each one is used, the radio operator simply cuts it out of the handkerchief and destroys it with a match. Or else the whole patch of silk can simply be dissolved in a combination of vinegar and hot water.’

‘So,’ Fegelein muttered with a sigh, ‘without the silk, there is nothing to be done.’

A bomb exploded two blocks away. The lights flickered.

‘Not necessarily,’ answered Hauer.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Over the course of the war, the Abwehr amassed quite a collection of these silk sheets, either captured from agents who didn’t have time to destroy them before they were arrested or else from supply canisters dropped by the Allies over our territory, which we got to before the agents did. What we discovered was that some of these branch codes repeat and, by experimenting with various algorithms, we have been able to apply a variety of branch codes to messages we’ve intercepted. It doesn’t always work, but we have met with some success.’

‘And do you have those algorithms? Are you able to decipher this?’

‘The answer to both questions is maybe.’

‘You do have them, don’t you?’

‘Let’s put it this way, Herr Gruppenfuhrer. Admiral Canaris was not so naive as to think that even though his headquarters might be safe from enemy air raids, it was proof against the scheming of the SS.’

‘You mean that there are still Abwehr files out there some place?’

‘Yes,’ confirmed Hauer, ‘although you’ll never find them, and if you want my help with this you won’t even bother looking.’

‘Fine!’ Fegelein exclaimed irritably. ‘I don’t have time for that now, anyway.’ He reached across and tapped his finger against the page. ‘Decoding this is all that matters, and it’s got to be done now. Tonight.’

Hauer took one of the cardboard beer mats scattered across the counter, flipped it over and copied out the message with the stub of a pencil that he fished out of his pocket.

‘Why are you doing that?’ asked Fegelein.

‘It’s a standard precaution,’ replied Hauer. ‘If something happens to me, then you won’t lose the message, just the messenger.’

‘Abwehr logic,’ muttered Fegelein.

Hauer paused. ‘If you don’t like it, then you can find somebody else.’

‘No,’ said Fegelein, ‘you can do this however you want. Just get it done.’

‘I didn’t say for certain I could do it.’

‘I have great confidence that you will,’ said Fegelein, ‘because you know that I will pay you generously, and not in German currency which is about to become worthless.’

Now that Hauer had copied out the message, Fegelein took the original, folded it up and tucked into his chest pocket.

‘I know you’ll pay me,’ Hauer replied calmly, ‘right up until the day that you don’t need me any more. And then I will be dead.’

Fegelein raised his Pernod and clinked Hauer’s glass. ‘We’re both going to hell, my old friend,’ he said. ‘It’s only a question of when.’

When the raid was over, Hunyadi returned to the station and was pleased to find it still intact, although the concussion had blown in several windows. Men were sweeping up the jagged shards and Hunyadi sidestepped their brooms as he walked past.

Just outside his office, Frau Greipel was sitting at her desk, exactly as she had been before he left to meet Fegelein. Hunyadi wondered if she had even left the building during the raid.

‘You had a visitor,’ she said to the detective.

‘I think we all had visitors,’ replied Hunyadi, ‘although whether it was the Royal Air Force or the Americans I didn’t stop to find out.’

‘No, Inspector,’ said Frau Greipel. ‘I mean someone was here to see you, a man in an old-fashioned coat, just before the sirens went.’

‘What did he want?’

‘I wrote it down,’ she muttered, looking at the note pad on her desk. ‘He said it had something to do with a stream of diamonds, or a diamond stream. I’m not sure which, or even what he meant.’

For a moment, Hunyadi stopped breathing. ‘Who was he?’

‘I don’t know,’ she replied. ‘I’d never seen him before. He had a foreign accent. I didn’t recognise it.’

‘Did he identify himself?’ asked Hunyadi, his voice growing increasingly urgent.

‘Yes,’ she told him. ‘He said his name was Pekkala.’

Hunyadi’s eyes narrowed as he searched his mind for anyone he might have known by that name. There was only one man he had ever heard of named Pekkala, but Hunyadi seemed to recall that he had died years ago, swallowed up in the bloodbath of the Revolution. ‘What was he like?’ asked Hunyadi.

Frau Greipel described him as well as she could. She wanted to tell Hunyadi about the strange feeling she had experienced when the man had been standing in front of her, right where Hunyadi stood now. But she could not find the words to express herself, and anyway, it all seemed vague to her now, as if it had been part of a dream. Frau Greipel had worked with Inspector Hunyadi for many years and she knew he was not the kind of man who dealt in vagaries and dreams. What pleased Hunyadi were specifics, and of those she had nothing to offer, beyond the few details of Pekkala’s physical presence.

‘Did he say where I could contact him?’

To this, Frau Greipel only shook her head.

‘And when he left,’ asked Hunyadi, ‘did you see where he went? Please, Frau Greipel, this could be extremely important.’

‘The sirens were going. Everyone was heading to the shelters. I should think he went there, too.’

Hunyadi tried not to vent his frustration. Instead, he took a deep breath and rubbed his hands against his face, feeling the stubble on his cheeks. ‘Frau Greipel,’ he said, ‘I think we have both done enough for today.’

‘Yes, Inspector Hunyadi,’ she replied. ‘I do believe you’re right.’