Free Dr Berlin by Francis Bennett Page B

journals, listened to reports of his fellow engineers who had been to see the V2 factory in Peenemunde, spent hours poring over the spoils with which they returned, and later more hours in conversation with German scientists who had been brought to Moscow to work on the development of Soviet rockets. He settled back into the work he had begun before the war, the task of designing spacecraft that would eventually take a man to the moon and beyond.
    His disfigured hands provided long moments of anxiety for the authorities. Radin was now vulnerable because his disability made him an identifiable target for the enemies of the state. Members of the Space Administration Committee feared that he would become a magnet for American agents, that in a desperate effort to reduce the Soviet lead over US technology, they might kidnap or even kill him. Soviet doctors, they learned, could not disguise what had happened to him because they had no cure for the damage he had suffered. The man whose genius was now recognised had to be kept out of sight, the Committee instructed. In the interests of his own safety, they argued, he was to become invisible.
    The executive action to remove the evidence of hisexistence was carried out with clinical efficiency on instructions from the Kremlin. Radin was deprived of a home address, a telephone number and any official place of work. There was no longer any record that he had ever been born, that he married and had children or that he was divorced. His name could no longer be found on internal memoranda, on the circulation list of the minutes of meetings, even on the door of his office. There was no record of his conviction and sentence or of his incarceration. He was forbidden to travel abroad for conferences. His photograph was removed from all newspaper archives so it could never be reproduced. There was no reference to him in any edition of the Soviet Encyclopedia. He was not allowed to appear at any public event, nor to receive public recognition for any of his exploits. When he was awarded the Order of Lenin, the medal was presented to him at a secret ceremony in his office, with only two of his senior staff present, and they were sworn to secrecy. In the Kremlin, in the state-owned military-industrial organisations that built spacecraft and missiles and at Baikonur, the secret cosmodrome where Radin’s energy and vision directed the space programme, he was known only as ‘the Chief Designer’.
    If within the Soviet Union Viktor Radin had become invisible, in the West his reputation, based on his invisibility, outgrew even his considerable success.
    *
    Why is he experiencing pain again now, when he has felt nothing in his hands for years? Why, when he closes his eyes, can he see the face of his interrogator and hear his harsh voice shouting at him? He can even smell the sour sweat on his body and his foul breath. Why is this event from so long ago suddenly so close?
    At that moment he has the sense that his hands have been touched, that they are no longer burning. They feel as if they have been plunged into ice-cold water. The feeling of coolness and the strength have been restored. He looks at hishands. They are again as they once were, white, with long fingers and well-manicured nails. A transformation has taken place. He has been healed. A calm descends on him as his memory drains into the distance. From somewhere in the room he hears a voice calling softly, Viktor, Viktor.
    It sounds like his mother but it can’t be. He hasn’t seen her since she died years ago. How can she be here with him now? He turns towards the voice, and there she is, standing by his bed in her familiar grey apron, a thin, worn figure, her white hair in a bun, smiling at him.
    Viktor, Viktor, she is saying. Her hands are outstretched in greeting. He knows that it is her touch that has healed him.
    Mother, Mother. Is that smiling young man next to her his dear son, Kyrill? Kyrill. Is that you?
    As he reaches towards