Leaving Berlin by Joseph Kanon Read Free Book Online Page A

Mann?”
    Willy turned. “What are you asking?”
    “I don’t know. Cultural Officer. Why? How is that useful?”
    “Let me explain something to you. We got a couple of wars going on here right now. Not just the airlift. Dymshits runs the propaganda one and he’s doing all right. The Soviets think they’ve got the moral high ground. Don’t ask me how. They come in here and rape everything in sight and they’re supposed to be the heroes. The first victims.The ones the Nazis hated before they hated anybody else. But they won. Not us, them. We’re just passing out candy bars in France. And now we’re the ones getting into bed with old Nazis. On the radio anyway. And anywhere else they can twist a knife in. Old Nazis—is that the future you want? Or the Soviet model? A fresh Socialist start. Of course the Soviets used the Nazis too—who the fuck else was there?—but somehow that never comes out, just ours.”
    “That’s what you want me to do? Find out if they’ve got Nazis in the Kulturbund?”
    “Sure. If they do,” Willy said, looking away.
    “What else?”
    “What did Campbell tell you?”
    “Whatever I could pick up. I still don’t see the point, but never mind. I’m here.”
    Willy headed the car back toward the Tiergarten, then slowed to a stop, idling by the curb.
    “Look, Campbell told me about it. Those fucks on the committee. Reds under every bed. If they knew what the Soviets were really up to— So we got you by the short and curlies. Sometimes that’s the way it happens. But, like you say, you’re here. You’re going to meet a lot of people. I want to know who might be—open to a little business.”
    “This business.”
    Willy nodded. “Maybe the future doesn’t look as bright as it used to. Maybe somebody’s beginning to wonder, maybe he needs a little money. I want to know. That’s the point.”
    “All right,” Alex said quietly.
    “Next, don’t get yourself killed.”
    Alex looked at him. “I thought I was just collecting a little gossip.”
    “The Russians don’t see it that way. It’s Dodge City here. You want to watch your back. Everywhere. The sectors don’t mean anything. They think it’s all theirs. People disappear—broad daylight, they just grab them—and we complain and they say they don’t knowwhat we’re talking about. People get killed too. It’s a dangerous place for amateurs. I didn’t ask for this, you know? Civilian, first time out. But Campbell said you’d be okay. Said you were motivated.” Holding onto the word.
    “That’s one way of putting it. If you’re a shit like Campbell.”
    Willy leaned back, surprised, then smiled. “Yeah. Well. It’s a shitty business.”
    Alex looked over. “What else? You didn’t get me out my first morning to tell me to keep my ears open. Something came up, you said.”
    Willy stared back for a second. “Good. You listen. That’s something you can’t—”
    “What came up?”
    “Pay dirt. For you. You’ve been promoted.”
    “To what?”
    “You’re a protected source now. Not just an information source.”
    “Protected.”
    “It means nobody at BOB knows about you.”
    “Except you.”
    “Except me. So there’s less risk if there’s a leak. BOB knows I’ve got a protected source in the East, but not who.”
    “Why?”
    “Remember you asked us to run a trace on some friends of yours?”
    “And nothing came up.”
    “That’s because they got married. New names. Then one of them popped up in a CROWCASS file, with a cross-ref to the maiden name. Elsbeth von Bernuth. Now Frau Mutter. Frau Doctor Mutter.”
    “Why was she in a CROWCASS file?”
    “He was. Doctor in the Wehrmacht. That automatically gets you a file.”
    “What’s he supposed to have done?”
    “Nothing. For the Wehrmacht. Just patch up the troops, what you’d expect. Before the Wehrmacht’s a little different. He was knocking off people in mental homes. The euthanasia program, to keep the Aryan bloodlines pure. No more