Prague, Safe House in Stare Mesto
October 20, 1943, 1100 hours
Marya was staying in a safe house located over a market that overlooked Staromestske namesti, Old Town Square, in the heart of Prague. The market was an information gathering point for the Czech resistance, obtaining information from some of the farmers that would bring their produce to the market. She had been in Prague for the past two days, using the time to formulate her plans to deceive Count von Waffenschmidt. She knew that part of the plan must be to direct his suspicions onto her – it was dangerous, but she had the confidence that she could not only lead him away from the true source of the information leaks from the German General Staff, but also avoid getting herself into trouble. She had confidence in her ability to pull it off. After all, she had done it before.
She was sitting on a crate in front of the market, looking out into the square with a view of the astronomical clock on the Staromìstská radnice, the Old Town Hall building. As a cover for her presence, she was the niece of the proprietor and had come for a visit from her home a nearby village. This allowed her the freedom to appear in public and even to get out and see some of the city. The past two days had been enjoyable – it had been years since she had been to Prague.
So now she sat, deep in thought. To passers-by she appeared to be a bored vendor, waiting for someone to stop and buy her produce. But in reality, her mind was in a place far away, and a time not long past.
After the night she had spent with Vladimir in Lubicz, they had spent most of their quiet time on the journey back to Russia talking. The floodgates had been opened that night, and Marya had felt her true self come pouring out. She reveled in the opportunity to just talk to someone who had no expectations of her; who only wanted her to be herself. She had bottled up the person that she was for so long, that it almost felt like she was living again for the first time. For those few weeks, Svetlana was allowed to emerge, if only after the day's traveling was through.
At first she had been embarrassed for breaking down in front of Vladimir. But that first night, as she sat crying and feeling sorry for herself for what she had sacrificed, Vladimir had simply sat there, holding her hand silently, letting her release the pent up emotion. She had found that very comforting.
And through those weeks of travel, Vladimir had also convinced her that she had been wrong – she didn't have to give up herself, to stop being Svetlana, in order to do her job, to be Marya. It was perfectly fine, he had said, to be both. Being Svetlana did not necessarily mean that she had to give up being Marya. There was a time and a place for both. She could still remember Vladimir's words...
In your kind of work, you must keep your real self bottled up inside most of the time. But if you cannot let your self emerge occasionally, if you have nobody to share that with, then the person that you are will fade away forever, Tovarish Marya.
Vladimir had offered to be the person, in spite of how she had treated him when they first met. He had forgiven her for telling Hochstetter about him, even before Hochstetter's men took him away. Later, he had reached into her soul and found the Svetlana that she had hidden away when she was still a youth and coaxed it out, simply by saying those words. And he wanted nothing from her in return but her friendship.
Marya's thoughts were interrupted as an SS Captain stopped, looked over the produce that was on display in front of the market and picked up an apple. She smiled at him as he started to walk away. He didn't offer to pay for the apple, and she knew that if she insisted, there could be trouble for the market proprietor. The SS Captain nodded to her as he walked away, taking bites from the apple.
Before Marya could return to her thoughts, the clock in the square began tolling the noon hour. From where she was sitting, she could see the procession of apostles appearing in the windows above the clock face and hear the bones of the skeleton of Death rattle with each toll of the bell.
While the bell was tolling, an old farmer plodded up to the market, carrying a fully loaded sack over his hunched shoulder. Marya recognized him as the resistance agent that would receive the information she needed. Before arriving in Prague, she had stopped to meet with Jack, her contact in Leipzig. Jack was Major Josef Freitag, of the Leipzig Gestapo. She had needed him to contact Michael in Berlin to find out the whereabouts of von Waffenschmidt and where he was in his investigation. She did not want to risk a trip to Berlin herself, as she wanted to remain out of sight until she had her plan worked out. Since Michael was Major Kurt Wagner of the Abwehr, his job was intelligence, and he would be able to get this information for her.
The old man walked up to Marya and said, "I have sugar beets here, picked by my granddaughter this morning." Marya nodded, the man was telling her that he had received a message for her over the radio.
"Come inside," she replied. "My uncle will be glad to look at them."
She followed the old man into the market and over to the counter where the proprietor was standing. He took the sack from the old man and nodded towards Marya. The man reached into the sack, grabbing one of the beets from the top.
He handed the beet to Marya and said, "These are very good. Here, I give this one to the pretty woman to enjoy."
Marya took the beet and nodded, "Thank you, kind sir," she replied.
The proprietor quickly looked over the contents of the sack and said, "Yes, these look very good." He looked at Marya and motioned her towards the back of the market with his eyes. He was telling her that it was all right for her to use the back room of the market to read the message. Marya left the two men to conduct their business, which she knew was a formality. The beets would be bought and the price paid to the farmer would be good. The two men were part of the same resistance group.
Marya went to the back room and examined the beet. It had been cut in such a way to allow it to be hollowed out so that the message could be put inside. The cut part could then be fitted back in, leaving no visible trace of the cut. Marya found the plug and pried it out with a knife. Inside was a small wooden box containing a piece of paper that read:
Currently von W with Himmler. To be in Berlin on 31 Oct. Secret plans, trap to catch leak. Ears on General Staff. Important, contact must be warned. Needs exercise caution with voice. Will notify Center. SD no information, von W working alone, but suspects M. General Staff still at Wolf. No plans to move at this time.
After reading the message, Marya threw it into the burning stove along with the wooden box to avoid having it fall into the wrong hands. Then to hide the delivery method, she peeled and sliced the sugar beet, put it in the pot containing soup that was bubbling away on the stove.
When she returned to the front of the market, the old man was gone. "I have put the beet in the soup," she told the proprietor. "The man was right, it was good quality." The proprietor nodded his understanding. He knew she had gotten the information she was waiting for.
Marya returned to the outside of the market and sat again on the crate, staring into the square. Now that she had the information, what was she going to do? Michael will take care of notifying the Center about von Waffenschmidt's monitoring of the General Staff personnel. If their leak attempted to use the radio to transmit the plans, he could be caught. Their leak would have to be careful. The Center would take care of alerting their agents already in Rastenburg, who were in minimal contact with their leak.
She was glad that she had recommended that Vladimir be stationed at Rastenburg. With the situation becoming more tightly scrutinized, she was happy to have someone in charge that had been in that situation before. Vladimir, being part of Hogan's outfit, would know how to be careful.
Marya now had to devise a plan to lure von Waffenschmidt away from the true source of the leak. She had almost two weeks before he would be in Berlin. Hearing that von Waffenschmidt was working alone was not a surprise. He wanted to get all the credit for stopping the leak.
Hearing that he already suspected her was a pleasant surprise. Marya smiled to herself. She could use his egotism against him. It would take some time to set up properly, but she knew just how she was going to do it.