The Hidden Target
Authors: Helen MacInnes
ALSO BY HELEN MacINNES
AND AVAILABLE FROM TITAN BOOKS
Pray for a Brave Heart
Above Suspicion
Assignment in Brittany
North From Rome
Decision at Delphi
The Venetian Affair
The Salzburg Connection
Message from Málaga
While We Still Live
The Double Image
Neither Five Nor Three
Horizon
Snare of the Hunter
Agent in Place
Ride a Pale Horse
Prelude to Terror
I and My True Love
(October 2013)
Cloak of Darkness
(November 2013)
Rest and Be Thankful
(December 2013)
Friends and Lovers
(January 2014)
Home is the Hunter
(February 2014)
MacINNES
THE HIDDEN TARGET
TITAN BOOKS
The Hidden Target
Print edition ISBN: 9781781163399
E-book edition ISBN: 9781781164426
Published by Titan Books
A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd
144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP
First edition: September 2013
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
Copyright © 1980, 2013 by Helen MacInnes. All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
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To
Sir William Stephenson
—a man well named Intrepid —
with admiration and affection
1
The church lay in the heart of the city. It was old, a thousand years old, his fellow workers at the bookstore had told him. And kept telling him, as if to impress the newcomer that Essen wasn’t merely a West German town surrounded by coal mines: no more blast furnaces or steelworks since the war; modern factories, fine shops, a handsome art gallery, pleasant suburbs. Yes, they had assured him, he would find life agreeable here. In turn, he had assured them it would be most agreeable. How easy it was to be accepted, he thought as he approached the main entrance of the church, if you smiled and nodded. Criticism jarred, rousing animosities, even curiosity about any offbeat character who didn’t fit in. If there was one success in the eight months he had spent in this industrial town, it was that he had fitted in. To his acquaintances, he was simply Kurt Leitner, a quiet, unassuming, undemanding young man, totally unremarkable. Dull? He hoped so. It had spared him from parties and overfriendly interest.
Leitner stepped into the church, cold grey dimness towering around him, glitter from the far-off altar to lighten the gloom, stillness broken by the slow shuffle of tourists’ feet now entering the Gothic hall that formed the nave. Their guide’s hushed voice droned on: that part tenth century, this part thirteenth, this built by so-and-so, that added by whoosis; notice the pulpit, the chancel, the narthex; all tributes of centuries past. The monotone faded into a murmur; the shuffles merged into silence. Leitner’s eyes, accustomed now to the shadows, were fixed on the third massive pillar to the right of the nave. Slowly, with total unconcern, he moved into the aisle and approached the carved stone column. Theo wasn’t visible from this angle, but Theo would be there. As usual, Theo would have arrived early and given himself time for a leisurely stroll around the church, studying the people in prayer or contemplation before the altar, checking the group gathered at a side chapel for some remembrance. Theo was thorough. Caution and care were his professional mark.
And Theo was there, a prosperous bourgeois in his dark suit blending with the pillar against which one shoulder rested. A man in his fifties perhaps, of medium height, with brindled hair cut short and a smooth white face. He glanced at Leitner, and gave an almost imperceptible nod of approval, not only for Leitner’s casual approach, but also for his sombre grey jacket and dark shirt. Then the two men, vague shadows in this unlit area of the church, faced the pillar ahead of them: two strangers lost in quiet reverence.
Leitner waited. Theo would set the pace. This was an emergency. No doubt about that. The signal for it had been simple, planned long in advance. “If ever I call you—before you leave for work—about your family in Munich,” Theo had said when Leitner was being installed in Essen, “that will be the sign. We’ll meet in the Minster seven minutes after the bookstore shuts down for lunch. When is that?” Leitner had answered, “Twelve thirty. But I could be delayed. I’m the junior clerk.” There could be a dilatory customer to ease out of the shop before he closed it. “Then,” Theo had replied, “we’ll make it twelve forty-five—the third pillar to your right as you enter. One early-morning ’phone call and you’ll be there.” The call had come this morning. A brief, innocent talk with “Uncle Ernst” about Leitner’s mythical father in Munich, who had slipped and broken his thigh. Simple. That was the way Theo liked it. Ultraclever voice codes or notes that had to be deciphered were something that could arouse suspicion if they were overheard or intercepted. Keep it natural, was his dictum.
Now, he stayed silent for a full minute: two strangers didn’t start talking as soon as they had met. And then, as if making a remark about the church, even gesturing briefly towards a distant sculpture on which his eyes were fixed, he said in his low voice, “You do not travel to Frankfurt next week. You do not fly to London as planned. Instead, you leave tonight. Nine o’clock. By truck. From Leopold’s.”
Leitner nodded. He knew the place. It was one of the smaller machine shops on the outskirts of town. There was worry in his eyes. What had gone wrong? He did not pose the question. Theo would tell him if he needed to know.
“You’ll travel light. The night dispatcher at Leopold’s is reliable. Leave your motorcycle and extra baggage with him. We’ll have them picked up within the hour. The driver of the truck will give us no trouble. It will be a safe journey. And short. You will be dropped off the truck at Duisburg.”
Shock stiffened Leitner’s spine, but his brief stare at the placid face beside him was its only evidence. Duisburg, on the Rhine, the largest inland port in Europe, with its twenty basins, vast stretches of silos and warehouses, oil storage tanks; Duisburg, the target his people had been aiming at for more than a year, long before they drifted quietly into Essen. It was a convenient half hour away by car or motorbike. Careful infiltration, well-directed sabotage, and the storage tanks, with their 178 million gallons of oil, could add considerable colour to the background of red smoke from the Ruhr’s blazing blast furnaces. “Tonight in Duisburg,” he reminded Theo, his voice equally low, “we had planned some fireworks.”
“We’ve postponed them.”
This time Leitner’s stare was long-lasting, challenging. All those preparations, all that work we put into the plan, the risks, the dangers... “I’ve got Section Two all set up in Duisburg. Section One in Essen is ready. They co-operate well. They—”
“We have an informer among us.” Theo’s face was expressionless.
“In Section Two?”
“No.”
“Section One?” The section I organised and led for the last five years... Leitner’s disbelief turned to alarm, even into a moment of panic. Quickly, with an effort, he repressed all emotion. “It’s definite?”
“Quite definite. The police raided the Friederikenstrasse apartment at midnight and arrested Ferdi and Willy, your radio experts. They also found weapons. Amalie wasn’t there, or Berthe.”
“They had dates last night, picking up some information from a couple of army sergeants. Who is the—”
Theo signalled for silence, moved aside.
Leitner waited, head bowed. The disaster wasn’t complete: the communications unit was destroyed, but they could be replaced. Not like Marco, with his assistant, Karl, installed in the Rüttenscheid area: Marco was the specialist, the expert in demolition. The other three members of Section One, with part-time jobs as hairdresser, drugstore clerk, bus driver, shared quarters in Töpferstrasse. He, himself, had his own place, a rented room within walking distance of the bookstore. None of the others, not even Marco, had visited it, or even knew where it was or where he worked. To them, old comrade Marco excepted, he was Erik, possibly a courier, a trusted go-between. His instructions were conveyed by public ’phone; meeting, only when necessary, took the form of a beer party in the apartment on Töpferstrasse. And there he had guarded himself by staying in the background, appearing to be a minor cog in this well-designed machine, listening to Marco giving out the orders Leitner had passed to him on the previous evening when they had met in the anonymity of Gruga Park.
As for Theo, their bankroll, their supplier of forged papers— passports, identity cards, licences—their arranger of reservations on planes, their adviser and controller, none of the others, not even Marco, had ever seen him; and only Marco knew the code name Theo. But even with Marco, Kurt Leitner had kept silent about his secret encounters with Theo. He didn’t allow himself too much speculation, either, about Theo. Yet some things were fairly obvious if you thought hard about them. Theo must run a tourist agency, hence his expertise in travel arrangements. His office could be in neighbouring Düsseldorf. (He had, quite abruptly, refused Leitner’s plan for an operation in that city, tempting as it was as the financial and administrative centre of the major Ruhr industries.) But where Theo’s supply of money came from, or what vast intelligence source supported him with world-wide information and contacts, these were matters best left unquestioned. They existed. That was enough.
Theo was still a few paces away, seemingly studying the nave of the church. He had been quick to notice the three wandering visitors who were exploring this aisle. But they had found nothing of interest in its unlighted alcoves and walked on, paying little attention to the young man in the shadows, his head bowed, his eyes covered by his hand as if in prayer. Theo returned to stand close again, and Leitner could drop both his hand and his far-ranging thoughts. He asked the question that had been bottled up for those last three interminable minutes. “Who is the informer?”
“Amalie.”
“Amalie?” Recruited by Willy in Milan where she had headed out of West Berlin when the remnants of the Baader-Meinhof group were scattering. She had been one of its minor members, but dedicated and intense. At first, she had been doubtful about returning to West Germany, but Willy had persuaded her. Checked and double-checked, her credentials were good. And Willy kept her close to him. “That little whore—” began Leitner, and was silenced by a restraining hand on his arm. Checked and double-checked. By Theo, too. Nothing escaped his oversight. Except this bitch.
“We’ll take care of her. And of Willy,” Theo said grimly.
Leitner nodded. He had liked Willy, trustworthy, indefatigable, always willing. Too willing, as it had turned out, with a pretty little blonde called Amalie. “Who is she working for? The CIA?”