Authors: Derek Robinson
Luis strode in a scowling silence, purposely treading on the cracks between the paving stones at every pace.
They all think they're so fucking clever,
he told himself savagely.
If they're so fucking clever how come I was the one who got the Iron fucking Cross?
“Listen,” Freddy said, and stopped.
A rich and vibrant rumble had undercut the roar of the traffic.
The clear blue sky itself seemed to tremble with the distant arrival of mighty machinery. Formation after formation of high-flying bombers, shining like a collection of tiny silverware, followed each other, impeccably aligned, apparently unhurried, as if they owned all of space.
“Fortresses,” Freddy said. “Off to bomb France, by the look of it. Or Belgium.”
Luis grunted.
“Better than raiding Germany, anyway,” Freddy said. “The Americans have been taking heavy losses over Germany. Imagine one in ten of those planes getting shot down. One in five, even. Pretty grim.”
“Come on,” Luis said. “I'm hungry.”
At five-twenty he telephoned Freddy on the direct line from the flat to Double-Cross headquarters. “Come and get it,” he said, and hung up.
Julie, working at the same desk, recognized the voice. “Remember to touch the hem of his garment,” she said.
Luis was drinking neat gin out of a cup. A small pile of handwritten yellow pages lay on a coffee table but Freddy knew better than to touch them. “One problem,” Luis said, “two solutions. That's the answer. They can't have what they want so we gently fend them off with one hand while we give them something they didn't know they wanted with the other hand.” He walked away and stretched out on the sofa.
Freddy read the pages. They began with a long, tedious, convincing analysis of the extraordinary difficulty of predicting Bomber Command's targets. Security was labyrinthine: at each stageâfrom squadron, to wing, to group, to Commandâthere were double-checks and triple-checks on all personnel. Nothing went by radio or land-line. Everything went by dispatch rider. And so on and so on. The
Abwehr
should not think their signal came as a surprise to Eldorado. Eldorado had been laboring at the problem for months. At least one potential sub-agent had been lost in the process, arrested, almost certainly executed. That was the security aspect. Then there was the weather. Targets were altered at the last minute, sometimes when the bombers were actually airborne. Furthermore â¦
And after furthermore, nevertheless. Nevertheless, the
Abwehr
could rest assured that Eldorado had now redoubled his efforts to get this most vital military intelligence. This reassurance occupied a very earnest, very tedious page.
Then came the giant lollipop.
Freddy read:
US 8th Air Force has formed a separate unit called OWCH (which stands for One-Way Cargo of High-explosive) to use B-17 Flying Fortress bombers which have become non-operational from damage received (either from enemy defenses or from landing accidents, collisions, etc.) as unmanned, radio-controlled “suicide” bombers.
OWCH aircraft are repaired sufficiently to allow them to fly with what American bombardiers call “wall-to-wall bombloads” plus enough fuel to reach the target. Each bomber is flown off the airfield by an expert pilot who climbs to five thousand feet and bales out. A master aircraft then controls the OWCH bomber by VHF radio, steers it to the target city and directs it to crash on the target site.
With no crew, no guns, in fact no equipment except its radio, and a light fuel-load, the OWCH machine can carry a great weight of explosive. Some sources claim a maximum of 20 tons of high explosive.
First reports of this development were discounted because it appeared that any OWCH bomber must be highly vulnerable to attack by virtue of its slow speed and inability to maneuver or defend itself. However, this is to overlook three factors:
(1) The OWCH raid may be by night.
(2) By night or day, the OWCH bomber can be steered through thick cloud by the master aircraft flying high above the cloud (probably an RAF Mosquito).
(3) Any German fighter close enough to destroy an OWCH raider would almost certainly destroy itself in the consequent explosion.
There was another page of extra details about the use of rockets or tows to assist takeoff, the tactics of putting the OWCH bomber into a vertical dive over the target, and so on. Freddy took them in at a glance and said: “Splendid. First-rate. Top marks.”
“You see, it occurred to me ⦔ Luis turned on to his side and propped his head. He might have been a tutor reviewing an undergraduate's essay, if their ages had been reversed. “The Americans are losing ten or twenty Fortresses per raid anyway. They lose new planes with small bomb-loads because the thing has to carry a crew and the crew wants to come home. My way, the Americans lose the same number of tired old wrecks and they hit the target very accurately with five or six times the weight of bombs.”
“And nobody gets killed.”
“Nobody on our side, certainly.”
“Should give the
Abwehr
something to occupy their minds.” Freddy
tucked the pages in an inside pocket and wandered over to the window. “Very well done. You must be jolly pleased ⦠My goodness, doesn't the park look lovely from up here?” Luis said nothing. After a while Freddy came back. “You seem to be pretty well settled in. If there's ever anything you need ⦔ He looked at his watch. “My goodness,” he muttered.
Luis had not moved. He seemed to be looking into the next room, or perhaps the next street. I don't miss her, you know,' he said. “Not in the slightest.”
“Oh well.” That sounded inadequate. “These things happen,” Freddy said. “That wasn't much better. I suppose I'd better be going.”
“The whole thing was a colossal mistake,” Luis said. “It's much better to be completely free.” But when Freddy let himself out, and glanced back, Luis still hadn't moved. So much for freedom.
The Allies' intelligence agencies read all the German newspapers they could get, and the German intelligence agencies read all the British newspapers they could get. Both sides used neutral countries as go-betweens. In the case of the
Glasgow Herald
it was Sweden, and the system worked so smoothly that General Oster was reading Laszlo's message in the personal column of the classified advertising only two days after the paper was printed.
Admiral Canaris was at Rastenburg along with the Heads of Staff, waiting to be called into a conference with the Fuehrer. Oster got him on the phone. “Garlic is off the menu, sir,” he reported. “Permanently.”
“Well, I always thought it was over-rated. Thank you for calling.”
Oster sent for Christian and showed him the message. “âKing' is me and âAce' is our little Spanish thug,” he explained, “and that's the signal for success. It's the only signal I gave him, so he couldn't get it wrong. He was hopeless with the radio; quite useless. He has a tiny, tiny brain. Well, you've seen him; you know. He's like a dung-beetle. Give him a ball of shit and tell him to keep rolling it and he's happy but don't confuse him with alternatives. Frankly I never thought he'd roll his ball all the way to Glasgow.”
“He didn't cut a very impressive figure at Brest, did he, sir? But then ⦠I suppose we don't want our agents to look impressive.”
Oster wasn't listening. “Tell Madrid,” he ordered. “He was their
man, they've a right to know. I bet it makes their day.” Christian turned to go but Oster hadn't finished. “Don't bother to tell the SD, let the bastards find out for themselves. No more garlic in their goulash!” He rubbed his hands and laughed; he was like a racehorse owner with a winner at long odds. “Come on, this deserves a drink,” he said. “Champagne!” he shouted at his secretary. “And ask Domenik to come and join us!”
While the bottles were being opened Christian slipped out to send the signal to Madrid. When he came back a real party was developing: Oster had invited his colleagues from nearby offices plus all the bright young assistants and pretty secretaries who could be spared. Corks bounced off the ceiling. “D'you know,” Oster confided in Christian, “I didn't appreciate just how worried I was until I stopped worrying half an hour ago. Garlic could have destroyed Eldorado, d'you realize that?”
“Indeed I do, sir. I was the one who exposed Garlic.”
“Course you did. Brilliant work, brilliant.”
“I launched Eldorado, too, sir, so I'm more than happy he's still our top agent.” Christian felt a twinge of unease and rapidly drowned it in champagne.
“Worth two panzer divisions,” Oster said. “Maybe three. Now you see why we can't let you go, Christian? You're invaluable. Indispensable!” He moved away.
Christian found a bottle and refilled his glass. Somebody's secretary bobbed up, giggling, beside him and he topped up her glass. “Thank you, kind sir,” she said. “Is this your party? What are we celebrating?”
“Hitler's birthday.”
“Oh.” She sipped and thought. “Didn't we do that in April?”
“Then we're celebrating the fact that it's not Hitler's birthday.”
She gave him a startled glance and sidled away.
That was a damned unpatriotic thing to say,
he thought angrily.
Why in God's name did you say that?
He looked around and saw Domenik watching him.
They met in a quiet corner. “Why aren't you cheering like everyone else?” Domenik asked.
“I don't know. I suppose it's because now we've eliminated Garlic there's even less for me to do here.”
“I wouldn't agree. It could be that there is a great deal for you to do.” Domenik tested a balcony door and found that it opened. “D'you mind? It's getting a bit stuffy.” They went outside and leaned on the
railing. Five flights below, a trolley-car went grinding by, dragging long sparks from its overhead cable. The light was murky; the air smelt of overdue thunder. A gusty breeze kept tossing a bit of litter like a boy in a blanket, until eventually the scrap of paper whirled higher and higher and went above the two men.
“You said the other day that you were ready to give your life,” Domenik said.
“Yes. I'm not ready to throw it away, but ⦔
“But if it ⦠what shall we say? ⦠pays a big enough dividend, then you'd contemplate pretty well anything.”
“Certainly.” Christian flinched at a flicker of headache.
“To take an extreme example, there wouldn't be much point in getting yourself killed on the Russian Front. All loss, no profit.”
“That depends.”
“Anyway, you said you're not interested in honors or fame.”
“That's true. I don't give a damn, as long ⦔ Christian made himself look up. If he looked down at the street his senses began, very slowly, to riot.
“As long as you have a chance to serve the German people,” Domenik suggested.
“Yes.” Christian felt the sting of salt in his eyes, and touched his brow, and found it wet with sweat. Something was going very wrong with him. “Look here,” he said, “I don't know ⦔ But now his brain refused to finish the sentence. He didn't know what it was he didn't know.
“Let me explain,” Domenik said. “One man started this war. Am I right?” Christian nodded, too dazed to argue. “Well, one man can end it too,” Domenik said, “if he's prepared to end himself at the same time. The question is, are you the man?”
Christian struggled with the question. “Why me?” he asked.
Domenik answered but his words were just noise. Christian knew he was going to fall down. His whole brain seemed to be packed with pressures and vacuums which were spinning against and through each other like some phantom gyroscope.
“Look,” he said. He pointed over Domenik's shoulder at the blackened sky where a slash of lightning had scribbled the eternal answer to all questions, if only he could read the writing.
Domenik turned, but the flash had died. He turned back just in time to catch Christian as he fell. “Oh, shit,” Domenik said. The thunder arrived with a self-satisfied crump, too late as usual.
*
Julie Conroy was listening to Glenn Miller on the radio and eating baked beans out of the tin when Freddy tapped on her door and she shouted for him to come in. He had that gentle let's-all-be-friends smile she had come to know so well. “You'll never guess who wants to talk to you,” he said, and knew at once he had made a bad mistake.
“Funny you should say that,” she said. Miller died, smiling. “I've been wondering what great quality men have besides selfishness. Now I know. It's clumsiness, isn't it? There was a time when I used to find it, I don't know, charming I suppose. Touching, in a gauche and masculine way. Not anymore.”
“Look ⦔ Freddy began.
“Luis's idea of affection is to trip over his own emotional feet and just accidentally rip your dress off as he falls. That is, if he's feeling horny. Why has it taken me so long to see through him? He's a selfish, clumsy bum, period. I may be a dumb broad but I'm not that dumb, not any longer.”
“My fault,” Freddy said quickly. “This has nothing at all to do with Luis. I do apologize. It's about agent Matchbox, the girl called Stephanie Schmidt. She wants to talk to you.”
“Oh, for God's sake ⦔ Julie ate the last bean, went into the kitchen, threw the tin into the bin. “Why me?” she called.
Freddy looked amiably baffled. “Beats me. But she won't talk to anyone else, so ⦠Would you mind awfully?”
Stephanie Schmidt was locked in a simple, almost spartan room with beige walls and no windows and every piece of furniture bolted to the floor. She was wearing a gray boilersuit that zipped up the front. It was far too big for her, and the sleeves and trouser-legs were doubled back; this made her look more girlish than she was. The first thing she wanted to know was whether or not Julie was married to Luis.