Winter of the World

She was a girl they had both dated at different times in the past. Volodya had now recruited her, and she had learned to encode and decode messages in the Red Army Intelligence cipher. Of course Volodya would not tell Werner that. ‘I haven’t seen her for a while,’ he lied. ‘How about you?’

Werner shook his head. ‘Someone else has won my heart.’ He seemed bashful. Perhaps he was embarrassed about belying his playboy reputation. ‘Anyway, why did you want to see me?’

‘We have received devastating information,’ Volodya said. ‘News that will change the course of history – if it is true.’

Werner looked sceptical.

Volodya went on: ‘A source has told us that Germany will invade the Soviet Union in June.’ He thrilled again as he said it. It was a huge triumph for Red Army Intelligence, and a terrible threat to the USSR.

Werner pushed a lock of hair out of his eyes in a gesture that probably made girls’ hearts beat faster. He said: ‘A reliable source?’

It was a journalist in Tokyo who was in the confidence of the German ambassador there, but was in fact a secret Communist. Everything he had said so far had turned out to be true. But Volodya could not tell Werner that. ‘Reliable,’ he said.

‘So you believe it?’

Volodya hesitated. That was the problem. Stalin did not believe it. He thought it was Allied disinformation intended to sow mistrust between himself and Hitler. Stalin’s scepticism about this intelligence coup had devastated Volodya’s superiors, souring their jubilation. ‘We seek verification,’ he said.

Werner looked around at the trees in the graveyard coming into leaf. ‘I hope to God it’s true,’ he said with sudden savagery. ‘It will finish the damned Nazis.’

‘Yes,’ said Volodya. ‘If the Red Army is prepared.’

Werner was surprised. ‘Are you not prepared?’

Once again Volodya was not able to tell Werner the whole truth. Stalin believed the Germans would not attack before they had defeated the British, fearing a war on two fronts. While Britain continued to defy Germany, the Soviet Union was safe, he thought. In consequence the Red Army was nowhere near prepared for a German invasion.

‘We will be prepared,’ Volodya said, ‘if you can get me verification of the invasion plan.’

He could not help enjoying a moment of self-importance. His spy could be the key.

Werner said: ‘Unfortunately, I can’t help you.’

Volodya frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I can’t get verification, or otherwise, of this information, nor can I get you anything else. I’m about to be fired from my job at the Air Ministry. I’ll probably be posted to France – or, if your intelligence is correct, sent to invade the Soviet Union.’

Volodya was horrified. Werner was his best spy. It was Werner’s information that had won Volodya promotion to captain. He found he could hardly breathe. With an effort he said: ‘What the hell happened?’

‘My brother died in a home for the handicapped, and the same thing happened to my girlfriend’s godson; and we’re asking too many questions.’

‘Why would you be demoted for that?’

‘The Nazis are killing off handicapped people, but it’s a secret programme.’

Volodya was momentarily diverted from his mission. ‘What? They just murder them?’

‘So it seems. We don’t know the details yet. But if they had nothing to hide they wouldn’t have punished me – and others – for asking questions.’

‘How old was your brother?’

‘Fifteen.’

‘God! Still a child!’

‘They’re not going to get away with it. I refuse to shut up.’

They stopped in front of the tomb of Manfred von Richthofen, the air ace. It was a huge slab, six feet high and twice as wide. On it was carved, in elegant capital letters, the single word RICHTHOFEN. Volodya always found its simplicity moving.

He tried to recover his composure. He told himself that the Soviet secret police murdered people, after all, especially anyone suspected of disloyalty. The head of the NKVD, Lavrentiy Beria, was a torturer whose favourite trick was to have his men pull a couple of pretty girls off the street for him to rape as his evening’s entertainment, according to rumour. But the thought that Communists could be as bestial as Nazis was no consolation. One day, he reminded himself, the Soviets would get rid of Beria and his kind, then they could begin to build true Communism. Meanwhile, the priority was to defeat the Nazis.

They came to the canal wall and stood there, watching a barge make its slow progress along the waterway, belching oily black smoke. Volodya mulled over Werner’s alarming confession. ‘What would happen if you stopped investigating these deaths of handicapped children?’ he asked.

‘I’d lose my girlfriend,’ Werner said. ‘She’s as angry about it as I am.’

Volodya was struck by the scary thought that Werner might reveal the truth to his girlfriend. ‘You certainly couldn’t tell her the real reason for your change of mind,’ he said emphatically.

Werner looked stricken, but he did not argue.