Stattin Station by David Downing

massaged his forehead with his fingers. 'They take me up every day for questioning. Sometimes twice a day. Hours and hours of it.'
    'What do they think you know?'
    Welland's laugh was utterly devoid of humour. 'They don't think I know anything. The interrogations, the beatings - they don't have any purpose. They're just for fun.'
    Russell knew why he'd been offered this meeting , but what did it mean for Welland? They would assume that Russell would report the prisoner's condition to the Consulate, that there would be more and bigger protests. Was war between the two countries so close that they no longer cared? 'I'll let the Consulate know where you are,' he said. 'Are there any personal messages you want to send?' he asked.
    'My father, back in the States.'
    Russell took it his notebook. 'What's his address? What shall I tell him?'
    'That I'm alive. That I love him.'
    'And the address?'
    Welland told him, stretching out the words in such a way that Brooklyn sounded like another planet.
    After writing it all down, Russell looked up to find tears streaming down the young man's cheeks. 'They'll let you go soon,' he offered. 'They've made their point.'
    'You think so?' Welland retorted bitterly.
    Russell had rarely felt so helpless. He reached across and put a hand on the young man's shoulder. 'We'll get you out of here,' he promised, but the hollowness of his words was reflected in the other's despairing expression.
    'You'd better be quick,' Welland replied. He was still crying, and once the cell door had closed behind him Russell heard the young American begin to sob. The sound stayed with him as he walked up the stairs, and it was a struggle to keep his anger under control.
    Giminich was no longer there - his point made, he had left Leitmaritz to close out the demonstration.
    'You may tell the American Consulate that espionage charges are being prepared against Herr Welland,' the Hauptsturmfuhrer said. 'It does not pay to abuse the hospitality of the Reich,' he added with a pointed stare at Russell. 'Now you may go.'
    On his way back down to the main entrance, Russell tried to make sense of what had just happened. The visit to Welland had obviously been arranged to scare him, but to what end? Had all the stuff about Zembski and his communist past only been used to put him off guard, make him nervous? It was much more likely, he realised, that the Zembski business had brought his name to someone's attention, and that that someone had looked through his file and seen the possibility of using him against Canaris. If that was indeed what had happened, then going down to Neukolln in search of Zembski had been a serious mistake. Serving time as a cat's-paw of competing Nazi intelligence services was no one's idea of a good time.
    Outside it was raining again, more heavily this time, and Russell had neglected to bring an umbrella. His greatest need, though, was for a drink, and these days the most reliable sources of alcohol were the two foreign press clubs. Russell preferred the Foreign Office-sponsored club in the old Anglo-German Society building on Fasanenstrasse, but that was only a short walk from Effi's flat in the West End. The Propaganda Ministry version, by contrast, was just around the corner from the Gestapo, in the former Bleichroder Palace on Leipziger Platz.
    Arriving drenched, he left a message - 'still free' - at the studio number Effi had given him, then called Dallin at the Consulate. He passed on Welland's location, described his poor condition, and reported Leitmaritz's message. None of it seemed to interest the American very much. Either Dallin had too much else on his mind or Welland had pissed off his own Consulate almost as much as he'd pissed off the Nazis.
    Duty done, Russell headed for the bar. This was closed, but he managed to persuade one of Goebbels' minions that his future good health depended on an immediate brandy, and the heating in the club rooms soon dried him out. With no other journalists