Free Stattin Station by David Downing

Knieriem's old house. There was no sign of life within, but one of the neighbours eventually emerged. Yes, she replied in response to his question, Herr Knieriem did still live there, but he always left very early for work.
    Russell walked back to the U-Bahn at Bismarckstrasse, and caught an eastbound train to Potsdamer Platz. Reaching street level he walked along the back of the FUrstenhof Hotel with the intention of turning into Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse. This route was cordoned off, and a group of Russian POWs were waiting under guard at the end of a side street. An unexploded bomb, Russell assumed. Someone had told him that POWs were used to defuse them.
    He retraced his steps and almost ran the longer route around the Air Ministry - it didn't pay to be late for a Gestapo summons. The grey five-storey megalith loomed into view, and as he approached the double doors rain began to fall. It seemed a poor omen.
    The reception area was little changed since his last summons in 1939, the usual mishmash of Greek columns, heavy Victorian curtains and Prussian bronzed eagles. The giant swastika had disappeared, replaced by a huge bulletin board bearing the Party's quotation of the week. The current incumbent was more long-winded than usual: 'Just as our ancestors did not receive the soil on which we stand today as a gift from heaven, but rather through hard work, so also today as well as in the future, our soil and with it our lives depend not on the grace of some other people, but only on the power of a successful sword.' The bracketed 'Words of our Fuhrer' was somewhat redundant.
    A Rottenfuhrer in Gestapo dress uniform sat alone behind the huge reception desk. Russell showed him the summons, and was asked politely enough to take one of the seats beneath a portrait of the uniformed Adolf. He did so, and told himself for the twentieth time that morning that there was nothing to worry about. None of his current activities were illegal. The Gestapo might frown on his attempts to find out what was happening to Berlin's Jews, but the Nazis were making no real secret of their persecutions and deportations, and gathering - as opposed to publishing such information could hardly be considered a crime. His links with American Intelligence were sanctioned by the Abwehr, a veritable pillar of the military establishment. As far as he could tell, he had done nothing illegal since 1939, and the Gestapo must have better things to do than investigate crimes that might or might not have been committed more than two years ago.
    So why did he feel like vacating his bowels? Because he had seen the corridor of grey cells that lay beneath this marble floor, and had actually visited Effi in one of them. Because he had been treated, for just a few minutes, to a world of screams and whimpers and even more ominous silence. Because he knew what the bastards were capable of. Because Zembski might be down there right now.
    Another five minutes passed before a second Rottenfuhrer arrived to lead him, via lift and several short corridors, to a door on the top floor. His escort knocked, received an invitation to enter, and gestured Russell to do so. There were two men inside, one seated in uniform, one standing in what seemed an expensively tailored suit. In most other respects they looked remarkably similar. Both were in their thirties, with greased blond hair swept back from their foreheads; they could have passed for contestants in a Heydrich look-alike contest, in the unlikely event that one was ever held. Neither would have won, however, since both lacked Nazi Germany's great unmentionable, Heydrich's classically Jewish nose.
    'I am Hauptsturmfuhrer Leitmaritz,' said the seated man, indicating the seat that he expected Russell to occupy. 'Of the Geheime Staatspolizei ,' he added formally.
    'Obersturmbannfuhrer Giminich,' the other man said in response to Russell's questioning look. 'Of the Sicherheitsdienst ,' he added, with what might have been interpreted as