The Leader And The Damned (69 page)

'As you know, Sergeant, I've phoned Cairo. I'm expecting an urgent reply from London via Grey Pillars I must wait for that call to come through, so I'll catch you up. I need transport and a driver. Now don't fuss, I'll be there in time for the plane to take off. You don't make all that speed with an armoured car in the convoy...'

'You'll get a jeep — an open jeep with no protection,' Mulligan had snapped. 'It's all the transport I can spare. And a driver...'

'A jeep will be fine. That way we're bound to catch you up...'

'Please yourself. The plane departs on schedule. It's not waiting for anyone — not even you...'

Whelby had waited in the office, watching the four passengers climb into the staff car. Lindsay, Paco,

Reader and Hartmann in the back, two again on the. flap seats. No one beside Mulligan in the 'dead man's' seat. He saw the armoured car trundle away through the exit.

There were other watchers. From windows in the building enclosing the compound, men off-duty stood staring as the convoy left. Officially no one except Mulligan and the participants in the convoy knew its destination. But the grapevine inside a barracks is sensitive. The staring faces were quite motionless and there was an air of depression.

After waiting for the hundred yard gap to open up, Mulligan drove the staff car forward. Whelby stood perfectly still, aware of the clerk sitting at a desk behind him. The staff car disappeared beyond the gateway and Whelby forced himself to maintain his cool stance.

The motorcyclists had just left when a jeep drove at speed through the still-open gateway, braked savagely and turned a half-circle in the middle of the compound, sending up a cloud of dust. The driver dismounted and came over to where Whelby waited.

'Corporal Haskins reporting for duty. Mr Standish?'

'That's correct...'

The jeep Mulligan had summoned over the 'phone had arrived far more swiftly than Whelby had anticipated. He glanced towards the silent 'phone on the desk for effect.

'Ready when you are, sir!' the freckle-faced Haskins said cheerfully. 'And I know your destination.'

'Better take the weight off your feet, Corporal. Don't hesitate to smoke a cigarette while you wait. I'm hanging on for a call from Cairo.'

'That's good of you, sir,' Haskins replied and winked at the clerk as he sat down and took out his pack. Mulligan banned smoking anywhere in his vicinity. He thought Standish seemed a good sort, but this was always the impression Whelby created on subordinates. He was thinking of Vlacek's warning.

'Whatever you do, don't travel back with them to Lydda...'

'At last we're on our way to London,' said Paco joyfully. 'I can't wait to get there. I'm in seventh heaven...'

Her mood did something to lighten the rather quiet atmosphere inside the staff car. She occupied one of the rear seats facing Hartmann perched on a flap. Beside her Lindsay sat silent with Reader opposite. He was suffering from a mild relapse of the glandular fever. Hartmann put a hand towards his side pocket, withdrew it. The gesture was very familiar to Paco by now.

`Go on,' she encouraged him cheerfully. 'Light up your pipe.'

'There's not much air...'

'You are allowed the pipe before we get to Lydda. It's such a lovely morning.

She lowered the window on her side. The sun was shining out of a clear blue sky. Not a cloud in sight. Hartmann smiled his gratitude, took out the pipe and began filling it...'

'Where's Whelby?' Lindsay said suddenly.

He sat bolt upright. In the rush of their departure he had not realized the Englishman was missing. Alarm showed in his expression. He slid back the glass partition separating them from Mulligan and repeated the question.

'Following us in a jeep,' the sergeant called back laconically. 'Something about expecting a call from Cairo. Told him I'm not holding the flight so it's up to him...'

'I see. Lindsay replied slowly.

'Stop fretting, do!'

Paco clasped her arm inside his and hugged him.

Hartmann watched her with pleasure. She had never looked younger, her eyes sparkling, her manner displaying that extraordinary animation which had manifested itself ever since they had landed at Benina. He sucked contentedly at his pipe as the staff car began the long, winding descent to Lydda.

The nondescript civilian mending an apparent puncture to his cycle near the barracks had watched the staff car leave. He waited a few more minutes and then cycled off a short distance to a 'phone box. The number he asked for answered immediately.

'Danny here,' said the cyclist.

'Moshe speaking. Well?'

'The consignment is on its way.'

'Did they pack everything? Nothing missing?' Moshe asked.

'Nothing. I counted the items myself.'

'Good. So now you can arrange the next delivery.

The cyclist put down the phone. The next delivery was planned for tomorrow. Danny would cycle back to his hideout and wait for the 'phone call the following morning, the call which would tell him where to pick up the secret hoard of guns — and that would only come when the news appeared in the papers and over the radio.

Inside an old house on the edge of the city close by the road to Lydda, Moshe hurried to his motorcycle concealed in a shed. He had to hide the machine again after he arrived before he got into position.

In the turret of his armoured car Corporal Wilson's eyes were everywhere as his vehicle continued the descent. He was searching for the slightest sign of movement. The armoured car moved at the head of the convoy as protection against mines being laid in the road overnight. The weight of the vehicle would detonate any impact mine, guaranteeing safe passage for the staff car driving one hundred yards behind.

If the road were safe for the armoured car, then it was safe for the lighter-weight staff car. No other form of attack would be risked with the armoured car equipped with its machine-gun so close. The convoy proceeded on down the hill. Another two miles and they would reach Lydda Airport.

Moshe was concealed behind the same group of rocks he had used to watch the Dakota landing the previous day. But this time he was facing in the opposite direction, his field-glasses aimed uphill at a point where the road turned sharply.

Moshe considered himself a patriot. All that mattered was the establishment of the state of Israel. The British were enemies as were the Arabs. And the most valuable currency in his eyes to help buy them their homeland was guns. He would do anything to obtain more guns - whatever the source.

He saw the armoured car come into view, the soldier perched... in his turret swivelling his head from side to side. Moshe froze. The armoured car continued on down the hill. The staff car came into view.

Through his powerful glasses Moshe was able to see the passengers inside the car. Lindsay was in the back close to the window on his side. Beyond he had a glimpse of a girl with blonde hair. He mentally shrugged. How many Jewish girls had died in Europe?

Carefully removing his glasses which had been looped round his neck, he shoved them into his pocket. Without taking his eyes off the staff car, he felt for the plunger handle; grasped it with both gloved hands. A stunted tree by the roadside showed where the huge mine had been buried overnight. They had even re-surfaced the road, covering the new section by smearing dust over it. A cable led from the mine up the hill-slope to the detonating mechanism. The armoured car had ruled out the use of an impact mine.

The staff car reached the stunted tree. Moshe rammed down the plunger with all his strength. The road erupted.

The framework of the staff car was shattered. They heard the tremendous roar of the mine detonating down at Lydda Airport. Appalled, Corporal Wilson jerked his head. round. He took a split-second look, lowered his head and pulled down the lid.

Relics of the car were hurled into the sunlit air, showered on the closed lid of the armoured car like shrapnel. Later a twisted, burned-out remnant of the staff car's chassis was found in a nearby field. The diameter of the huge crater torn in the road was nine feet across. There were no survivors.

Once the shrapnel-like clatter ceased Wilson whipped back the lid and gazed backwards. The staff car had vanished, disintegrated in the terrible explosion. There are no graves for Lindsay, Paco, Major Len Reader, Major Gustav Hartmann or Sergeant Mulligan. They never found enough of the bodies to make burial worthwhile. A quiet memorial service was later held inside the privacy of the police barracks.

Arriving half an hour later in the jeep, Whelby was driven off the road to avoid the cratered zone. Ambulance men gazed helplessly at the carnage. Whelby spoke briefly to Wilson who was still in a state of shock.

'Obviously another Jewish outrage. The fortunes of war. Tell the press when they get here. I've got a plane waiting for me at Lydda, so I'll push off...'

At the airfield Jock Carson, who had gone ahead to check the plane, was waiting for him. Whelby shook his head and boarded the Dakota without a word. Carson, who would have given anything to drive back to the scene of the disaster, followed him. He had just received an urgent signal from Grey Pillars ordering him to return to Egypt at the earliest possible moment. Within minutes the machine was airborne for Cairo.

After hearing the news over the radio the following morning, a brief reference to a military staff car being blown to pieces on the road to Lydda, Aaron Stein called the number at Grey Pillars given to him by Lindsay. He asked to speak to Lieutenant Jock Carson of Section 3.

'There is no one here of that name,' the operator informed him. 'Who is calling.

'But there must be,' Stein insisted. 'Lieutenant Jock...'

'I said we have no one here of that name.
Who
is calling...'

Stein, frightened by this strange development, put down the 'phone and looked at his brother, then glanced towards the wall-safe.

'What are we going to do with the envelope? Carson doesn't exist...'

'Leave it there and mind our own business. These are troubled days,' answered David.

They had no way of knowing that as soon as he reached GHQ the previous day Carson had found waiting for him an urgent, immediate posting to Burma. When Stein called, he was already aboard a plane halfway to India. Army Records show a Colonel Carson of Military Intelligence was later killed in Burma.

Part Four

Woodpecker: Der Specht

Chapter Forty-Four

Christ-Rose.

Watch on the Rhine.

These were the first two code-names which Hitler chose for the secret offensive to be launched against the Western Allies through the defiles and forests of the Ardennes.

But this was not May 1940 when the massive Ardennes breakthrough at Sedan across the Meuse had heralded the defeat of the BEF and the destruction of the great French Army - all based on a plan the Rihrer of those days had worked on and approved himself.

Autumn Fog.

This was the final code-name chosen for the new Ardennes operation by the German Army. And the date was 11 December 1944. The Allies had landed in Western Europe on 6 June and were now close to the Rhine. In the East the Red Army was sweeping ever westward across the Balkans and central Europe. And always the advances had been made with prior knowledge of just where the opposing German troops were, on information supplied by Woodpecker and transmitted via Lucy in Lucerne to Stalin.

'Autumn Fog is crazy,' Jodl confided to Keitel in the dining-car as the Fuhrer's train,
Amerika
, approached Hitler's temporary headquarters in the West.

'Possibly, but why?' enquired the stiff-necked Keitel.

'I remember his exact words in April 1940 when he rejected the idea of reviving the First World War strategy. He said, "This is just the old Schlieffen Plan - you won't get away with that twice running...” Now he's committing the same error himself. Autumn Fog is a repeat performance of his brilliant strategic plan when we were here in 1940..

'Maybe you'd like to voice your objections to this chap,' suggested Keitel as Martin Bormann entered the coach.

The Reichsleiter, self-confident as always, despite his dwarf-like stature, strutted through the coach, his eyes flickering over every passenger in the dining-car as though he might still detect the traitor Hitler was always convinced was buried among those closest to him.