Hitler's peace

XXI

In its southern part, the streets of Teheran were narrow and tortuous; in the northern part, there were broad avenues. Misbah Ebtehaj, the wrestler who was acting as North Team’s guide and translator, said that much of the character of the city had been destroyed by the previous shah. But North Team’s commander, Captain Oster, thought that Reza Shah’s modernization could hardly have altered the fact that it was not a good location for a city. The nearest river was forty kilometers away, which meant that potable water was always in short supply. Two of Oster’s men were already sick from drinking the local water.

It was cold, too, much colder than they had expected, which Oster felt Berlin ought to have known about, given that Shimran, the northern part of Teheran, was built on the slopes of a mountain more than 5,600 meters high. But apart from a lack of warm clothing, everything had gone as planned.

North Team had parachuted into the remote foothills of the Alborz Mountains, northeast of Qazvin, where they had been met on the ground by Kashgai tribesmen, the backbone of the local resistance movement to the joint British and Soviet rule of Iran. The team had spent the first night in the countryside, hiding in a castle fortress that had once been the mountain hideaway of the Hashishiyun, an ancient Ismaili sect that was better known in the West as the Assassins. It seemed appropriate, Oster thought, more so when he considered that the business of the Kashgai, most of whom smoked hashish at all times of the day, was morphine. The Kashgai had seemed genuinely delighted with the weapons, the gold, and the golden pistols that North Team had brought with them from the Ukraine. Oster thought they were a fearsome, shifty lot, and on that first night, in the ruins of the fortress, he had half expected to wake up and find his throat being cut by one of these murderous-looking and intoxicated tribesmen. He had slept fitfully, with his hand holding a Mauser pistol underneath the knapsack he used as a pillow. It was hard to believe that these men, dressed like Ali Baba’s forty thieves, could have found any common cause with Nazi Germany.

Ebtehaj, huge and bearded, with the shoulders of a bear and smelling strongly of liniment, and forever feeding a string of prayer beads through his rope-thick fingers, told Oster how it was that the Kashgai were helping him and his troops. It was the day after their arrival, and after a two-hour hike through the hills the team had rendezvoused with the two trucks that would take them on the next stage of their journey, a drive of more than a hundred kilometers southwest into Teheran.

“It’s not that we’re for Germany,” he explained, “so much as that we’re against the British and the Russians. Germany has no history of interference in Persia. But for these two it is a game about who will control our oil. The British have been here since the last war. But they came in greater force in 1941, to protect Russia’s ass. They deposed the shah, sent him into exile, and made his son, Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, their puppet. The German embassy was closed. All pro-German Persians were arrested and imprisoned without trial in Sultanabad, including the prime minister. But the real leader of the opposition, Habibullah Nobakht, managed to get away somehow, and now he makes war on truck convoys.

“You see, Captain, Persia is a most independent country. Yes, it is true, the country has been invaded many times. But the invader always came, looted, and then left. It was worth no one’s while to stay here. What would they stay for? Persia is a desert country. But that was before oil, of course, and before Russia realized she had a back door through which she might be supplied by the Americans. Which is how you find us now.

“The British and the Russians tell us that they will not interfere in Persia after the war, but they rule their respective zones like independent provinces in their empires. The Russians make us their cesspit, sending us all their Polish prisoners and their Jews. Never have so many people come to Persia. Maybe a quarter of a million people. And these Poles, they bring all sorts of diseases. All sorts of problems. Why send them here? If Poland is Russia’s ally then why not keep them in Russia? They are Slavs, not Persians. But no one listens.” The wrestler laughed. “All right, so we can fix that, yes? We will kill Stalin, Churchill, and Roosevelt, and maybe they will leave us alone. Then we will kill all the Poles. Only then will Persia be good for Persians.”

The trucks had brought North Team to Teheran’s bazaar, a city within a city, a labyrinth of streets and alleys. Each street specialized in selling a particular commodity, and the wrestler took them to the carpet street, where he had arranged for them to stay in a disused rug factory. Still full of rugs, it proved quite comfortable. Food was brought to them. Their first hot meal in Iran consisted of bread and a soupy stew called dizi, and tea was served from a samovar that made Oster’s Ukrainians feel entirely at home. This was just as well, for Ebtehaj told Oster that, in his opinion, it had been a mistake for Berlin to send Ukrainians on this mission. His Kashgai brothers were half inclined to think of them as Russians, and it took Oster some time to convince the wrestler that Ukrainians were not only different from Russians but that they also had more reason to hate the Russians than anyone.

On Wednesday morning the wrestler took Oster to the main entrance to the bazaar, where they were to meet one of the German agents in Teheran. Oster wore a dark suit and a cap. Since most of the men in the city wore European-style trousers, short coats, and Pahlavi hats, he didn’t look out of place. Oster knew very little about his contact, Lothar Schoellhorn, other than that he had once run a boxing academy in Berlin and, for a while before his posting to Persia, had acted as an assassin for the Abwehr. Oster had half expected to meet a thug, but instead he found himself with a man of considerable learning and culture who held strong views on his adopted city. From the bazaar gate, the three men walked north, up Ferdosi Street in the direction of the British embassy.

“It’s a disappointing place, Teheran,” said Schoellhorn. “From an architectural point of view, at least. The modern part is rather French, and, as a result, somewhat pretentious. Like a poor man’s version of the Champs-Elysees. Even the Mejlis-that’s the Iranian Parliament-is not all that distinguished. Only the bazaar retains something of the old, absolutely Oriental Teheran. Everything else has been modernized into mediocrity, I’m afraid. There’s the odd mosque, of course. But that’s about all.

“In winter it’s much too cold, and in summer it’s much too hot, and for this reason, the British and the Americans each maintain two embassies. Right now the British are in their winter embassy, which you shall see presently. It’s a rather ramshackle building that was constructed, poorly, by the Indian Public Works Department many years ago. Trusting Persians as little as they do, the British still maintain a small escort of Indian infantry for the ambassador’s protection. Here, and at the summer embassy in Gulheh.” Schoellhorn smiled. “It wouldn’t do to attack the wrong embassy.”

Oster glanced around, nervous that someone might overhear.

“Oh, there’s nothing to worry about, my friend. It’s true, the city is crawling with NKVD agents, but frankly a blind man could see them coming. None of them speak Farsi, and even in their zone of occupation to the north of the city, they employ no Persian police or gendarmerie. Which makes them less than effective. Elsewhere, law and order are the province of the British and the Americans. We shall have to be a little careful of the British, I think. But the Americans are wholly ignorant of the Persians and only manage to keep order by virtue of the fact that they are not yet as hated as the Russians or the British. The fellow in charge of the American police, a general named Schwarzkopf, used to narrate a popular cops-and-robbers program on radio-can you believe it? This same Schwarzkopf was the Dummkopf who led the investigation into the Lindbergh kidnapping case, and you will perhaps recall what a mess was made there-and how a German was framed for the child’s murder.”

Schoellhorn slowed a little as they came in sight of a large barrier covered in barbed wire that prevented further progress. Behind the barrier were two armored cars and several Indian troops wearing British uniforms.

“Beyond the barrier and those trees are the British and the Russian embassies,” said Schoellhorn. “They are separated by a narrow side street, but in the wall of the British legation is a narrow wicker gate where a sentry is usually posted at night and which presents your best point of entry. A map of the British compound will be provided, but on the other side of the wall you will find lots of trees and bushes which will provide ample opportunity for cover. There’s a long balustraded verandah on the eastern part of the legation compound, and very likely the Big Three will be immediately behind the French windows. To the west are stables and outhouses accommodating not horses but troops guarding the legation. As I said, they’re Indians mostly. Or, to be more precise, Sikhs. They’re courageous enough, no question. But I gather they’re none too fond of bombardment, or so a friend of mine in the British Public Relations Bureau here in Teheran would have me believe. There was a bomb blast in the city a few months ago and the Sikhs legged it, I’m told. The minute our bombers drop their ordnance, they’ll probably make a run for it.”

“What about the Russian legation?” asked Oster.

“Crawling with Popovs. One in every tree. Even the waiters are NKVD. Floodlights, dogs, machine-gun nests. The building has just been subject to an extensive renovation. A new air-raid bunker, it seems.” Schoellhorn lit a cigarette. “No, it’s just as well your target is the British legation. From the look of things, I doubt Churchill even considers the possibility that he might be assassinated. Still, there’s one thing about the British legation that makes it the safest place in Teheran.”

“Oh? And what’s that?”

“The water. The British pipe in water from a pure source in the hills to the north. They even sell it to the Russians. It even crossed my mind that you should make this part of your plan. You see, every morning a Russian and an American water cart turn up for their water. But then again, you’d hardly want to be inside the legation walls if and when the Luftwaffe start to bomb the place.”

“Good point,” grinned Oster. “Besides, if we do manage to kill the Big Three, it won’t be water I’m drinking, but champagne. Eh, Ebtehaj?”

The wrestler gave an obsequious little bow. “Regrettably, alcohol is not permitted to Muslims,” he said.

Oster smiled politely and stared beyond the wrestler’s sturdy shoulder at the purple screen of snow-capped mountains that lay behind the city. It would not be easy getting out of Teheran after an assassination, he reflected, and suddenly Oster felt a very long way from home.

They returned to the bazaar, where, among the mosques, the crowds of people and the shops, Ebtehaj seemed to relax a little. The variety of things for sale astonished Oster: copper, book-bindings, flags, haberdashery, saddles, tin, knives, woodwork, and carpets. Once or twice he stopped to have a look at something, reasoning that not to look at all might invite suspicion. There was even a moment to enjoy a coffee at the Cafe Ferdosi, so that by the time they returned to the rug factory, Oster was feeling slightly more well-disposed toward Persia and the Persians. This feeling did not last long. As soon as the three men entered the factory, one of the Kashgai tribesmen walked quickly up to Ebtehaj and said something that left the wrestler looking very worried.

“What’s wrong?” Oster asked Schoellhorn.

“It seems that we have caught a spy,” said the German.

In the back of the factory, seated on the floor and tied to an old loom by bunches of carpet thread, was a frightened-looking man wearing Western-style clothes.

“Who is he?” asked Oster.

Untersturmfuhrers Schnabel and Shkvarzev turned away from the prisoner to answer.

“Says he’s a Pole, sir,” said Schnabel. “And that he came here looking for a carpet. There’s plenty of cash in his pocket to buy one. But he also had this.” Schnabel showed Oster a semiautomatic pistol.

“It’s a Tokarev TT,” said Shkvarzev, removing a cigarette from the corner of his unshaven mouth. “Russian-made. But here’s the thing.” He took the pistol from Schnabel, dropped the magazine out of the Tokarev’s grip, and thumbed one of the bullets onto his palm for Oster’s close inspection. “It’s Mauser ammunition. German-made, and flat-nosed, too. Filed down, so that it makes a bigger hole on impact. To make identification of the victim harder. It’s standard SMERSH procedure.”

“SMERSH?” frowned Schoellhorn. “What’s that?”

“It’s a Russian acronym,” explained Shkvarzev. “It means ‘death to spies.’ SMERSH is the counterintelligence wing of the NKVD and Stalin’s personal assassination squad.”

Oster sighed and looked at Schoellhorn and Mehdizadeh. “We’ll need to find somewhere else to stay. Can you organize it?”

“That won’t be easy,” said Mehdizadeh. “It took a while just to find this place. But I’ll see what I can do,” he said, leaving.

“What shall we do with him?” Schnabel asked, pointing to the prisoner.

“There’s no time to interrogate him properly,” Oster said. “We’ll just have to kill him and leave him here.”

“On the contrary.” Shkvarzev was grinning. “There’s plenty of time to interrogate him. Properly, improperly, it’s all the same in the end. In five minutes I can have this fellow confess to the murder of Trotsky, if that’s what you want.”

Oster disliked torture, but he knew that there was no other way to be sure about what the Russians were already aware of. “All right,” he told Shkvarzev. “Do it. Just don’t make a meal of it.”

The carpets that had been crafted in the factory were made of wool, by hand. The finished product was usually laid out on the floor, and any bumps or small imperfections flattened out with a heavy iron filled with coals from the fire. As soon as the SMERSH agent saw that the Ukrainians intended to use the hot iron on his bare feet, he started to offer information. For a moment, Shkvarzev’s men seemed a little disappointed that they were not going to have the opportunity of inflicting pain on a hated enemy.

“Yes, yes, all right, I’ll tell you everything,” blathered the man. “I was snooping around the bazaar, hoping to find out something. Everyone in Teheran knows that this is where the resistance is centered, so I figured it might be a good place to look for you.”

“What do you mean, ‘look for us’?” demanded Oster.

“You’re the German parachute team. One of your Kashgai tribesmen came to the SMERSH building on Syroos Street and told us that two teams of SS had landed somewhere outside the city. For the Big Three Conference. He sold us the information. We’ve already picked up one team, near the radar installation at the airport. And it’s only a matter of time before you are arrested, too.”

“Get on the radio right away,” Oster told Schnabel. “See if you can raise von Holten-Pflug, if it’s not already too late. And better keep it short, just in case they’re trying to get a radio fix on us.”

“Who’s your boss?” asked Shkvarzev.

“Colonel Andrei Mikhalovits. At least he was — now there’s a new fellow in charge. A Jew from Kiev. Brigadier General Mikhail Moisseevich Melamed.”

“I know him,” grunted Shkvarzev. “He’s a state security commissar, third class, and the most hated NKVD officer in the Red Army.”

“That’s him,” declared the prisoner. “Of course, who knows who’ll be in charge by the end of the week. Beria’s deputy, General Merkulov, is arriving tomorrow. And then his secretary, Stepan Mamulov. Beria himself will be coming here, too, for all I know.”

“How many NKVD are in Teheran right now?” asked Shkvarzev.

“At least a couple hundred. And we’ve had about three thousand extra Red Army troops since the end of October. Commanded by Krulev.”

“Any other officers you know of?”

“Arkadiev, the Soviet commissar of state security. And General Avramov, from the Near Eastern Area Office. They came here to round up the remaining pro-German suspects. About three hundred Poles. Most of them first arrested in Poland.” To which he added, matter-of-factly, “They were shot. In the Russian barracks to the north of the city, in Meshed.”

“What was the name of the Kashgai tribesman who told you about the German parachute team landing in Iran?” asked Oster, speaking Russian.

“I don’t know.” The prisoner yelped as one of the Ukrainians pressed the hot iron against the sole of his left foot momentarily. “Yes, all right, I do. His name is Mehdizah.”

Schoellhorn swore loudly. “Mehdizah is another wrestler!” he said. “He was supposed to be looking after South Team.”

“What about our wrestler?” asked Oster. “Herr Ebtehaj. Maybe he’s in this, too. Maybe he tipped off our friend from SMERSH here. Maybe he’s going to come back here with the Red Army.”

“No.” Schoellhorn shook his head. “He could have betrayed us many times already. So why didn’t he?”

“If I may say so,” Oster said carefully, “all of this is a very long way from the picture you were painting earlier today. How a blind man can spot an NKVD agent.”

“Are you suggesting I’m a traitor, too?” said Schoellhorn.

“I don’t know what I’m suggesting. Christ, what a mess.” He removed his broom-handle Mauser from the holster inside his jacket and began to screw a silencer onto the end of the barrel. “I just wish that bastard Schellenberg was here to see this. It would be the last thing he would see, I can promise you that.”

Oster stood in front of the prisoner, the now silenced pistol still pointed at the floor and parallel with his trouser leg.

“I told you everything I know,” the Pole said, swallowing.

Oster smiled sadly and then shot the man three times in the head and face.

Shkvarzev nodded his approval. He had been wondering what the German captain was made of, how much stomach he had for killing, and now he knew. It was one thing to shoot a man in a fire-fight, with a rifle or a machine gun; but it was quite another to kill him in cold blood, as he looked you in the eye. This German was all right, he could see that now, and as Oster made the Mauser safe and unscrewed the silencer, Shkvarzev lit a cigarette and handed it to him.

“Thanks,” Oster said and, placing the cigarette between his lips, drew on it deeply as he holstered his pistol again. “Did you get through to South Team?” he asked Schnabel.

“No, sir. I don’t seem to be able to raise them at all. But I did receive a message from Berlin. We’re scrubbed.”

“What?” Oster’s face collapsed into fury. “Ask for confirmation.”

“I already did.”

Shkvarzev sighed. “So that’s that, then,” he said. “We’re scrubbed.”

“Like hell we are,” said Oster. “I didn’t come all this way to do fuck-all. If I’m going to die in a Soviet labor camp, it’ll be for a damn good reason.” He took a long drag on the cigarette and then flicked it at the dead man’s head. “How do the rest of you feel about that?”

Shkvarzev hardly had to glance at his men. “The same way as you. There’s nothing we wouldn’t do for a chance to kill Stalin. Nothing.”

“But without those Junkers bombers,” said Schoellhorn. “And the South Team. What can you do?”

“Perhaps none of that matters,” murmured Oster.

“How do you mean?” asked Schoellhorn.

“Maybe I like your plan better.”

“My plan?”

“We’re too many and not enough,” said Oster. “That’s the trouble with Schellenberg’s plan. Too many not to be noticed before next Tuesday. And not enough to deal with three thousand fucking Russians. But a couple of men with a water cart could do the job. You can put anything in a water cart. Machine guns. A bomb.” Oster looked at Shkvarzev. “What would we need to make a decent-sized bomb, Shkvarzev?”

“Now you’re talking.” The Ukrainian lit a cigarette for himself and thought out loud. “Some sort of nitrogen fertilizer, rich in nitric acid,” he said. “A nitrating agent to make a glycerine compound with the nitric acid-sugar, sawdust, lard, indigo, cork are all commonly obtained nitrating agents. A few grenades, some mercury, and some ethyl alcohol to make a reliable detonator. And an alarm clock and some batteries, on the assumption you don’t want to be around when the thing goes off.”

“Could you make such a bomb?”

Shkvarzev spat on the floor and then smiled. “Child’s play.”

“Then that’s settled. As soon as we get to another safe house I want you to start building a bloody big bomb.”