“Her brother is a scientist in tube alloys at Oxford. He has helped us in the past,” Evdokia said.
She looked out the window at the frosty garden of the Soviet Legation.
“She could be a plant,” Vladimir Petrov said, sitting at his desk. “It could all be disinformation.”
As NKVD chief in Stockholm, his job was to look at all the possibilities and to second guess his people. No one had his ear. He was a shrewd operator and a bad decision could instantly ruin his career. Evdokia was smart and sometimes saw opportunities when he did not.
“Faye is no fool, Vladimir. I don’t understand why they are doing a mock-up Abwehr document on Soviet airplane production. They have the resources in London to fake any kind of documentation. This is MI6 in Stockholm, winging it. They had to ask a bunch of amateurs at SOE to help them.”
“You’re right, it does look odd.”
“Something is going on with Peter Faye, and the Finns are behind it. You need to inform Moscow.”
“So what happened last night? Did you find anything in the ambassador’s office?” Evdokia asked.
“We went through Kollontai’s desk and opened her safe. She has no secret correspondence. The woman’s a saint. They won’t be happy in Moscow. They’ve been trying to arrest her for years.”
“I like her, Vladimir, and so do you, but this is not good news for us.”
“What can we do?” Vladimir asked. “We have nothing.”
Evdokia thought about Kollontai’s extraordinary career as a colleague of Lenin and one of the few among the old guard Stalin allowed to grow old in peace. Her husband Dybenko had been shot in 1936 on a charge of being a Trotskyist. Now their job was to find anything of a compromising nature that their NKVD bosses could use against her.
“I don’t know,” Evdokia said, “but we need to find something fast or they may send us back to Moscow.”
Vladimir took a cigarette case from his pocket and stood up. He gave his wife a cigarette, and they both lit up. They stood in silence, smoking as they looked out at the snow. The Petrovs were a loving couple, inseparable, but they worked for a frightening secret organization involved in kidnapping and assassination.
“I like it here in Stockholm, Vladimir. I don’t want to go home,” Evdokia said.
“So do I, my dear, so do I.”
“It would be a disgrace.”
“I’ve got a surprise for you, Bernie,” Peter said.
Bernie looked up from the mundane task of pasting Legation staff photo IDs into document holders. Peter put the Rugby Music Society letter on the table next to him. Bernie carefully wiped his hands before picking it up and reading it.
“Crikey!” he exclaimed, getting up from his chair and hugging Peter. “They’re givin’ him the bleedin’ Nobel prize!”
Peter grinned, surprised by Bernie’s uncharacteristic display of emotion.
“Thank you.”
“It was Bridget’s idea,” Peter said. “It clearly states that Aksell has to go to England to accept it.”
“This is incredible. You must have put on a hell of a good show to get them to play along. The minister can’t ignore this. They’ll have to release him.”
“It does look good, doesn’t it?”
“I want to give you something, guv. I have a diamond, a nice one,” Bernie said. “Sabrina’s brother can have it mounted for you. You can give it to Bridget when you ask her to marry you.”
Peter looked confused.
“Everybody knows,” Bernie grinned. “We see you around town together. Bridget’s in love with you, mate. Take it from me, she’s over the moon since you arrived.”
“I don’t know whether I can accept it.”
“Don’t be daft, of course you can. It’s for Bridget.”
An elderly woman entered the wood-panelled library and put a coffee tray on the desk between Count Bernadotte and Anders Berger. Neither man looked up, engrossed as they were in their lists of missing people. The two men were busy working late in an office at the Swedish Red Cross.
“I’m off, sir,” the secretary said. “I want to get home before the storm.”
“Thanks, Rose,” Bernadotte looked up. “Take care. Lock the door on your way out.”
“I have the lists,” Anders said, “but there are still around 700 people missing. Who gave you these names?”
“Arne Berge, the priest at Neuengamme, came up with some of them. Others came from Conrad Vogt-Svendsen and Johan Hjort.”
“So we need to put all the names together on one list with their last known location. Right?”
“Yes.”
“Britta and I can do this at home, sir.”
“We must hurry, Anders. Word is out that the Russians will be in Berlin in a few weeks, and then the conditions in the camps will deteriorate rapidly.”
“I will have it for you by tomorrow, sir,” Anders said. “We will work on it all night. So let’s check first for the surnames that appear on more than one list.”
“Very good,” Bernadotte said. “Thanks, Anders, for your help.”
“It’s a pleasure, sir.”
Peter left the British Legation building after work and crossed the street to catch a tramway as the snowstorm struck the city. Wind blasted in off the Baltic Sea and snow swirled around the streets, reducing visibility. He caught a tram heading west and didn’t notice a car following the tram at a distance. After a short ride, he got off and walked several blocks through the storm to his flat.
Peter reacted far too late. He had just stepped into the entryway of his apartment building when he found himself staring into the muzzle of a Tokarev pistol. The man holding it said nothing, just motioned for Peter to follow his partner to their car. Even without the weapon, there would have been little point in resisting. Both men were obviously Russian and, if they had wanted to kill him, they already would have done it.
Still, it was embarrassing. Peter had made the classic mistake of falling into a routine, leaving the Legation at the usual time by the same door and then taking the same tram back to his flat. He’d become complacent, unaware of his surroundings, and had blundered into an ambush. He was disgusted with himself.
One of the thugs opened the back door of the car and the other pushed him inside. Peter wasn’t terribly surprised to find Evdokia Petrov waiting for him.
“Mr Faye. It’s a pleasure to see you again.”
“Aren’t we being a little bit melodramatic, Mrs Petrov?” Peter said, unamused. “You could have just called my office and made an appointment.”