The Leader And The Damned (19 page)

Liquidate the Englishman.
..

In his apartment in faraway Lucerne, Rudolf Roessler blinked as he sat in front of the cupboard concealing his transceiver. He had the impression it was misty. He closed the flap, sealing off the machine and turned in his chair as he heard someone behind him.,

'Oh, it is you, Anna..'

'And who else would it be?' the tall brisk woman asked with a reassuring smile. 'Here is some coffee. And your glasses are steamed up. Give them to me..'

'He stood up, closed the door of the cupboard, holding a piece of paper in his hand as he followed her into the living room. Still in a daze, he sat down at a baize-covered table and sipped his coffee while Anna vigorously cleaned the spectacles.

'I still marvel at the information Woodpecker sends. Who can he be?' he wondered.

'Far better that we never know his identity - and fortunately we never will know. Here are your glasses - and why are you all sweaty? The night is cold.'

'Moscow sent me a message for Woodpecker. I transmitted it to him after receiving his latest data on the movement of the German Army - which I later re-transmitted to Cossack. The signal for Woodpecker from Cossack is in an unknown code - so I have no idea what I was sending..'

Anna frowned. This new development worried her but she must try not to show it. 'This is the first time we have had a signal from Moscow. We thought all the transmissions would be in the opposite direction from Woodpecker to Moscow..'

'Provision was made for it when we were in Berlin,' Roessler reminded her. 'Call-signs were agreed and so on. But it violates our arrangement with Swiss Military Intelligence. We gave them to understand it would be one-way traffic, so what do I do about this new signal? The Swiss may not like it..'

'You mean we should not pass on the message from Cossack to the Bureau Ha?'

'What would you do?' he asked, his manner that of an uncertain spaniel dog.

'Forget it,' she decided. 'Say nothing to the Bureau Ha '

'What would I do without you, Anna?'

'Worry all day long!'

'Where are you going?'

'To phone the Bureau Ha asking them to send a courier for the signal from Woodpecker.' She made a gesture of dismissal "before picking up the phone. 'I suggest you are out of the way when the courier arrives. Go get your beauty sleep!'

Snow was falling on the walls of the Kremlin. At two o'clock in the morning there was a hushed atmosphere inside the ancient citadel. Laventri Beria was busily polishing his pince-nez while he waited for the closed door at the end of the gloomy room to open. Beside him, General Zhukov, resplendent in uniform, stood and fidgeted irritably.

'Good evening, gentlemen. Or should it be good morning? It is after midnight and another eventful day lies before us. Let us not waste it..'

The speaker, Stalin, emerged from the shadows. It was a habit of the Generalissimo, Beria had observed, to sidle up to people unexpectedly. The small Georgian with the withered left arm and crafty eyes held another of those blasted pieces of paper in his right hand. A Woodpecker signal, Beria guessed. He hated networks over which he had no control.

`Your opinion of the contents, General,' Stalin requested. 'It again concerns the alleged German order of battle..'

Beria maintained an expressionless face, blinking behind his pince-nez. Let Zhukov be the target. Stalin was in one of his most dangerous moods. Soft- spoken, a cat-and-mouse approach. Zhukov read the signal and spoke his mind as always.

'This agent knows what he is talking about. The details of the German Army dispositions coincide exactly with my picture of the whole front. The other vital information about reserves is likely to be equally accurate. On the basis of this, I propose an attack before the thaw - we will catch them by surprise..'

'You guarantee a great victory?' Stalin queried, pulling at his moustache as he glanced sideways at the Soviet general.

'In war there can be no guarantees..'

'Then we wait a little longer - until we are certain of Woodpecker, certain he is not being manipulated..

'It would help me if I knew who in hell this Woodpecker is,' Zhukov burst out. 'And how many years will it take for us to be certain...?'

Beria held his breath. He was careful to look at neither man. Within sixty seconds Stalin might well order the arrest of Zhukov. There was a loaded pause, a pause punctuated by the slow tick of a two hundred-year-old long-case clock standing against the wall.

'I suggest you return to military headquarters,' Stalin remarked eventually with no emotion in his voice. 'And no attacks to be launched yet. Defensive measures only, as previously agreed.'

He waited until Zhukov had left the room and then invited his police chief to join him at the nearby table. Sitting down, he took out his pipe, lit it with great deliberation, and all the time his eyes studied Beria, who clasped the moist palms of his hands out of sight in his lap.

'One day, Beria, we shall have to cut these generals down to size. In the meantime we need them - to win the war. Increase the surveillance on Zhukov …'

In London at Ryder Street Colonel Browne pretended to be thinking aloud to get the reaction of his assistant. Whelby was locking away some files prior to venturing out into the night.

'There are people who wonder whether we should seek an accommodation with the Germans...'

Browne paused. 'By the way, did you get any encouragement along these lines from the other side when

you visited Madrid recently?'

'None whatsoever,' Whelby lied promptly.

'Just an idle thought...' Browne trailed off and nodded curtly as Whelby bade him goodnight with a hint of urgency.

It so happened that Whelby had a prearranged meeting with Savitsky for that evening. An agent always likes to have something to report. Whelby elevated Browne's chance remark into a decision of British policy.

'It appears Lindsay is a peace emissary of Churchill's, he said during their brief meeting. 'Browne tested out my reaction to the idea not two hours ago.

Arriving back at the Soviet Embassy, Savitsky again encoded the signal to Cossack personally and took it to the basement cipher room at Kensington Palace Gardens. Three hours later the decoded signal was read by Stalin, who 'consulted' Beria for the second time that night.

'The situation at Hitler's headquarters is getting confused,' Stalin commented as his henchmen read the message.

'Confused?' Beria queried.

'Confused,' emphasized Stalin 'In the same place we have Woodpecker - who. may prove to be our most valuable agent of the war. Then we have this Englishman - another trained spy, I suspect. I think he is pro-Nazi. Supposing that with his experience he detects Woodpecker? That must be prevented at all costs.'

'I agree,' Beria said loftily. 'There is an obvious solution..'

'We send Woodpecker a signal..'

Which is how the message to Woodpecker via Lucy came to be sent.

Liquidate the Englishman. He has Monday rendezvous with Allied agent at Frauenkirche...

Chapter Fifteen

'It is madness! I begged the Fuhrer to let me send guards to escort him at a discreet distance. He insisted on taking this walk alone in the forest with the Englishman!'

Martin Bormann could not keep still as he paced round Christa Lundt's hut. She sat stiffly on the chair nearest the door into the compound. It would be her escape route if the Reichsleiter attempted to engage her in sexual intercourse. Bormann continued his tirade.

'The Fuhrer's only protection is his dog, Blondi..' Sweating profusely, he paused and threw out one hand in a gesture of frustration. 'What do you think is going on out there in the forest?'

'The Fuhrer is delivering a monologue. The Wing Commander is listening. Nothing more alarming, I'm sure..'

Fifteen minutes earlier she had witnessed an extraordinary scene. Lindsay had been sitting on the sofa while they talked about the worsening atmosphere of tension as Hartmann and Gruber pursued their separate investigations.

The door had been thrown open and the Fuhrer stood motionless, his dog on a leash. Wearing his military great-coat and peaked cap, he had stared hard at them while Lindsay and Christa stood up. He then spoke abruptly.

'Get your coat on, Wing Commander. We must talk. We will walk in the forest where no one can overhear us..'

Stunned, Lindsay had donned his own coat and Russian-style fur hat, provided by Guensche, who seemed to have taken the Englishman under his protection. He followed the Fuhrer across the compound and through the first checkpoint.

Now they had passed through the three checkpoints. They strolled alongside each other across the broad track between the minefields in the depths of the snowbound pine forest. The cold was raw, damp and penetrating. The dense silence of the weird desolation closed round them as the Fuhrer talked.

'You say there is a peace party in London but they cannot overthrow Churchill yet. Is London crazy? What would happen should I fail in my great mission in the East? The Communist hordes would sweep across Europe. Great Britain and America would be confronted by an implacable enemy whose only purpose would be to destroy them. They would never again live in peace - even if the Soviets were compelled for a few years to accept some division of Europe, you would still never have freedom from fear - the fear that sooner or later the barbaric Communist Asiatics would grow so strong they would overwhelm you. Then a new Dark Age would descend on Europe. America would be isolated. It would be only a matter of time before the Communist plague swept east into China and Japan. I alone stand between the West and barbarism..'

'There are people in high places in London - and Washington - who see this,' Lindsay replied, his face turned to catch every flicker of expression on his companion's face, every intonation of the flow of words which tumbled out like a torrent.

'Then why, in the name of God, do they not act...?'

'As yet,' Lindsay interjected firmly, 'they do not have the power. A great German victory in the East would help..."

'That is coming! I tell you, that is coming!!' Hitler's voice rose and was not muffled even by the drifting fog. 'Wait only for the summer!!! The summer of '43 will turn the hinge of history.' His voice and manner changed abruptly. He spoke quietly, amiably. 'The Duke of Dunkeith, your uncle, sent you to me as an emissary of this peace party? I knew it intuitively as soon as I heard of your arrival.'

Hitler had answered his own question. Lindsay was learning rapidly. Volunteer as little as possible. The German leader had his own ideas and required only confirmation. So far, Lindsay had found him remarkably well-informed. Tugging at the leash to control the dog, the Fuhrer continued.

'I have definite peace proposals for you to present to Churchill and your other friends. In return for cessation of all hostilities between us I will withdraw all German troops from France, Belgium, Holland - the whole of occupied Western Europe. Then you leave me to finish off Stalin and his hideous creed. The Americans cannot operate without British help and the use of your island base..'

'Churchill himself might be interested in such proposals,' the Englishman replied. 'He himself is beginning to worry about just how far the Red Army might penetrate Europe..

'The proposals must be worked out in full detail. I will leave that to Ribbentrop. It's time he did something to earn his keep,' the Fuhrer commented sardonically. 'It's a pity Lord Halifax was sent off to Washington as Ambassador,' Hitler ruminated. 'He was one of the leaders, of the peace faction. Is that not so?'

'And to think,' Lindsay replied cautiously, 'that when Chamberlain was forced to resign, he first offered the premiership to this same Halifax. If you had had him to deal with after Dunkirk..'