The White Rabbit of Sofia

Prelude

30th March, Vienna 1945

Clouds of dust settle, as a mass of a T34 judders as it plunders a way through a house near the city centre. Out of sight of the drunken Soviet soldiers, a slight and assured female figure grips a customised  FG-42 and a blackened leather dispatch case. Darting from wall to wall, trying with tears to not see the humilation of children running from a burnt out school shelter,  as the Soviet invasion gets out of control, the figure questions her own sanity.  The case contains a letter, one improbable to comphrehend, a letter from someone, known only to the now scattered SS  as the White Rabbit. The letter must reach Noto, Sicily before the Soviets realise what has just eluded the wiley agents of the feared NKVD.  The letter is unique in content and power, it's ramifactions must not come to fruition if those who are hunting the rabbit are to have their way. It will become coveted ...     

30th March, Sofia 1995

A young Austrian inteligence officer, Dietrich waits patiently for his wife Sabine,  to put her phone down in Salzburg. Grabbing a now lukewarm Americano, he settles down to read one of the older reports his handlers sent him to school up on. He reads,  a redacted paragraph, dated 1946, from London's SOE, that a figure known as the white rabbit had successfuly eluded Soviet forces during the end of the war and started a career in Sicily, doing the dirty washing for various warring families struggling for post war power in the rebuilding of Italy. 

The tale of the white rabbit had never been really examined thoroughly and it frustrated even the ever present KGB just before the collapse of the Berlin Wall. Inconvenient truths had now resurfaced in Sofia and the chatter showed  people were getting twitchy in Moscow and Sofia. Dietrich a reclusive young man at the best of times, wondered why exactly he and only he had this case history. 

To follow the story of 'Wechselhase' had it's charm, but Dietrich knew from his own preliminary experiences as a junior officer;  charming topics usually ended up as chaotic career ending disasters.  And so a tiresome forrage  of various libraries and normally inaccessible museum archives beckoned.  His report would be due in three weeks. Looking at his watch, 9pm,  he reached over to a now cold magherita pizza and took a few bites and trundled to the bedroom. He had to be up early tomorrow - visiting the Central archives, there he would meet the  assistant archivist Dimitrova and start wading into the material. The main aim was to trace down the varuous hiding places the rabbit had used. 

Dietrich was sure that the report was all about looking for something the rabbit had left behind. Dimitrova was a striking young brunette, thin, tall and mysterious. Although cold initially, she always had time for Dietrich. Apparently he appealed to her sense of duty and efficiency. Much to his surprise, Dimitrova was fluent in most Austrian dialects and had travelled outside Bulgaria on diplomatic missions as she called them. Dietrich wondered if this was a ruse for other activities, but he always kept his curiosity on a tight leash.  What Dietrich pondered is why look for a ghost when the ghost hunters had alread cleaned out all of the secret hideouts - or as he had read so many times in his collection of old fashioned detective novella's - it is the obvious, that is missed. Dimitrova had no clearance to read all the requests he had, but she did have the permissions to open the doors and with that she was very perceptive and forthright in her observations.  And with a bang of an old maroon Audi door, Dietrich was rudely awakened from his stupor. " Martin, we are going to be late, let's go. Here hold the coffees." Ruthlessly efficient as always Dimitrova drove them to the Ministry to get the keys signed for and to pick up  identity passes before they ran out.