The Oslo Affair

by CW Browning

  In the end, Evelyn had agreed, knowing that it was paramount that she get out of Sweden with her intelligence. She never mentioned the Soviet agent to Anna. Her new friend had enough to worry about with Herr Renner. The other one would just complicate things needlessly. After all, her Russian Comrade had never seen Anna. He was no threat to her.

  As they ran around the city gathering the supplies they needed to stage a performance for the SD, Anna had been a great help to her. She was able to procure almost everything Evelyn needed to change her appearance while Evelyn sent a telegram to Horace Manchester at the embassy and another one to Daniel Carew in Oslo. Then, while Evelyn was closeted in a restroom at the back of a cafe darkening her blonde hair until it was almost black, she went to purchase appropriate clothing. When she returned, Evelyn couldn’t have been happier. Everything the other woman had selected was perfect, right down to the black-rimmed spectacles she’d got for herself. In fact, Evelyn admitted now, she couldn’t have done it without Anna.

  “Here. Take this.”

  Lucas was back beside her, holding out a long, thick scarf. Evelyn looked at him in surprise.

  “I couldn’t!”

  “Yes, please do! I have two, and you need this more than I do. It’s long, so you can wrap it around your head, and it’s very warm. Take it.”

  “Thank you very much. It’s very kind of you!” She took it and began to wrap it around her neck and head. “You must let me give you some money for it!”

  “No, no. I don’t need money for it. Just think of me when you wear it and offer up a prayer for my safe return to our beloved France,” he said with a grin.

  Evelyn finished wrapping it around herself and sighed in relief. The heavy wool was very warm indeed, and it blocked the harsh wind from whipping down inside her coat.

  “Oh, that’s wonderful,” she breathed with a smile. “Thank you so much!”

  He nodded and grinned, then turned to leave again.

  “I have to get back to my station. Don’t stay out here too much longer. Even with that scarf, you’ll be frozen soon!”

  Evelyn nodded and turned to look at the coastline in the distance as Lucas left, her hands back in her pockets. Anna had to be on the train by now. She should be on her way back to Oslo, where she would once again be safe. Evelyn wished there was a way to know if she made it safely back, but she would have to wait until she reached England to know for sure. In the meantime, all she could do was hope and pray that everything had gone according to their hastily conceived plan.

  As the last stretch of coastline slid by, Evelyn finally turned away from the railing and turned to go inside. She had made it safely away. She could get something to eat and then go to her room and sleep in relative peace. Tomorrow would be soon enough to worry about how she was going to make it back to England.

  Tonight it was enough that she had escaped.

  Comrade Grigori strode through the lobby of The Strand, his face folded into a scowl. The Englishwoman was gone, and so was her companion. He’d followed the other woman to the station, where he watched as she joined the crowds of commuters. He’d been able to keep track of her easily enough until she went into the ladies’ washroom. While he waited for her to come out again, he had ample time to examine his options. He would follow her to the train in case the Englishwoman was waiting for her there, but he knew it was unlikely. The Englishwoman would have realized that the Germans would follow the other woman. In fact, that was probably the reasoning behind this whole trip to the station. The other woman was probably a decoy, distracting the SD agents while the Englishwoman made her escape by a different route. Unfortunately, he couldn’t take the chance that it wasn’t.

  And so he’d still been there when the dark-haired woman emerged from the washroom several minutes later. She had looked around cautiously, then moved quickly into the crowds. A few minutes later, they emerged onto a train platform just as the conductor was calling for the last passengers. She boarded the train alone, with no sign of the Englishwoman anywhere in sight.

  Grigori was ascending the stairs again when the tall SD agent from the hotel lobby had come tearing down them, a shorter man huffing to keep pace. The two hadn’t paid any attention to the other people on the stairs and certainly hadn’t noticed himself as they ran for the train. He’d gone to the top of the stairs and waited off to the side, watching. Not five minutes later, they were coming back and the tall one looked furious.

  A small smile pulled at his lips now, lightening the scowl as he strode, not to the lift, but to the stairwell. At least the Germans had come up empty-handed as well.

  Except he wasn’t empty-handed, he reminded himself as he started up the stairs. He may not have had to opportunity to question the British agent as he wanted, but he wasn’t returning to Moscow with nothing to show for his efforts. Moscow had sent him to find a traitor, and that was just what he’d done. He might not know how the Englishwoman had turned Comrade Niva, or even how she’d become acquainted with him, but now they knew who the leak was and could stop the flow.

  The frown returned. What bothered him was how Niva had managed to access some of the information that had been released to the British. Much of it he could have obtained easily, but some would have been impossible for him get his hands on.

  Grigori shook his head. He wished he could have interrogated the Englishwoman. She could have cleared up all these niggling little details that he knew would keep him awake for many nights to come.

  Reaching the third floor, he went down the corridor to his room and unlocked the door, stepping inside. The door closed behind him and he slid the bolt home, then turned to cross the sitting room to a window overlooking the harbor. The lights of the palace glittered across the water and he sighed in contentment. It was a beautiful view, even if the palace itself was symbolic of everything decadent and corrupt in the West. After enjoying the view for a moment, he turned to switch on the lamp on the desk and froze.

  “Good evening, Comrade Grigori,” Vladimir said calmly. He was seated in one of the armchairs with his legs crossed and his gloves laying across his knee. He’d unbuttoned his overcoat and looked completely at home. “You look well.”

  “As do you, Comrade Lyakhov.” Grigori found his voice and began to remove his gloves. “I had no idea you were in Stockholm.”

  Vladimir raised one eyebrow just a bit and a faint smile toyed with his lips.

  “Didn’t you?” he asked, watching as Grigori tossed his gloves on the table and began removing his coat. “I’d have thought Comrade Yakov would have told you. You do know he’s here, yes?”

  “Yes.” Grigori pulled off his coat and tossed it over the back of the love seat. “Please. Remove your coat and make yourself comfortable, my old friend. If you took the time to break into my room, you might as well take the time to remove your coat.”

  Vladimir smiled and stood up to shrug out of the heavy garment.

  “I’m afraid Yakov is getting sloppy in his aging years,” he said, carefully laying his coat over the back of his chair. “He’s not the ghost that he once was.”

  Grigori shot him a glance under his brows and walked to a long console on the other side of the room where a bottle of schnapps sat with two glasses.

  “No, he’s not,” he agreed. “When did you know he was there?”

  “The first night in Oslo.” Vladimir seated himself again. “It wasn’t until the third night that I realized you were there as well.”

  Grigori grunted and held up the bottle questioningly. “It’s not vodka, but it’s tolerable.”

  “Thank you.”

  He poured schnapps into both glasses and turned to carry them over to Vladimir, offering him a choice of glass. Vladimir took one and Grigori carried the other over to a chair and sat down.

  “It wasn’t anything personal, you understand,” he said, sitting back.

  “If I thought it was personal, we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” Vladimir replied dryly. “You would have dis
appeared in Norway.”

  That drew a smile from the other man and he chuckled.

  “You haven’t lost your fire, have you Vlad?”

  Vladimir held up his glass. “I hope I never will.”

  Grigori sipped his drink, then sighed and stretched his legs out. “Why are you here?”

  Vladimir looked at him, surprised. “Why, to help you catch a traitor, of course.”

  “And how do you propose to do that?”

  “I don’t propose anything. I have done it already.”

  Grigori frowned and stared hard at him. “What do you mean?”

  “You were in Gamla Stan this morning,” Vladimir said, crossing his legs again and sitting back comfortably. “You saw him with your own eyes. Comrade Niva met with a British agent. Now, unless he was authorized to do so by Moscow, I believe that’s grounds for treason, don’t you?”

  “You were there?” Grigori asked quickly. “How do you know this?”

  Vladimir shrugged. “Because I, also, have been trying to find the traitor in our midst.”

  “You?” Grigori scowled. “Impossible.”

  The smile that crossed Vladimir’s face was chilling. “Is it?”

  “I would have been informed.”

  “Would you?”

  Grigori stared at him for a long moment in silence, then sipped his drink. It was true that the left hand often did not know what the right was doing. It was like that in Moscow, especially when suspicion mounted within their own ranks. Vladimir could very well have been instructed to hunt for the traitor while he was going about his own work. Furthermore, Grigori would not be surprised to find that he had been told to observe Vladimir as a fail-safe.

  “We have no way of knowing that Comrade Niva arranged that meeting today,” he said finally. “We only have the evidence that he was in the same tavern as a British agent. We didn’t see them talking, unless you were inside. Were you inside?”

  Vladimir shook his head. “No. I was in the building across the street.”

  “There. Then all we have is that Niva was in the same place as a British agent. It is enough to allocate more manpower to watch him, but not enough to bring him back to Moscow. However, it will make Moscow happy that progress has been made.”

  Vladimir reached into his suit jacket and pulled a folded piece paper out of the pocket. Leaning forward, he tossed it onto the table between them.

  “Take a look at that, and then tell me if you don’t have enough to bring him in.”

  Grigori frowned and leaned forward to set his drink down and reach for the paper.

  “I retrieved that before it could be destroyed,” Vladimir continued, sitting back in his chair again.

  Grigori unfolded the paper and read the short, handwritten message, his face impassive.

  Instruct agent to meet at Den Gyldene Freden in Gamla Stan at eleven o’clock.

  “As you can see, it is handwritten. I believe you’ll find it matches Comrade Niva’s handwriting perfectly.”

  “Where did you get this?” Grigori finally asked.

  “Where the facilitator left it, in a trash receptacle across from the hotel where Niva is staying.”

  “And the facilitator?”

  “I never saw his face. He had his back to me. Niva passed him the paper in the street and continued into the hotel.” Vladimir shrugged. “I can tell you he is of medium height and was wearing a long, dark coat and a hat.”

  “Which is unhelpful.”

  “Precisely.”

  Grigori folded the paper and slid it into his pocket.

  “Do you know anything about this Englishwoman?” he asked. “Did you see her before this morning?”

  Vladimir sipped his drink, his eyes resting on Grigori’s face thoughtfully.

  “I would think you know more about her than I do at this point,” he said. “It’s unlike you not to observe an enemy agent when you have the chance.”

  Grigori was surprised into a short laugh.

  “You know me well, Vlad.”

  “I should. We’ve known each other for years.”

  “Ah, we’ve seen some things, haven’t we?” Grigori said with smile. “And we’ll see some more before this war is over.”

  “One can only hope.”

  “I have been observing her, yes. I haven’t learned very much, though. She doesn’t go about very much. Only to dinner, really. She seems to enjoy finer foods and wine, but she never indulges beyond what is reasonable. No vices that I’ve been able to ascertain. She keeps herself to herself, for the most part, which confuses me. She doesn’t display any of the usual traits of an agent that we’re used to seeing. It makes it very difficult.”

  “Have you found how she communicates with her contacts?” Vladimir asked after a moment.

  Grigori shook his head.

  “No. If she uses a facilitator, as you suggested, that could be why.”

  “I assumed it was Niva who insisted on that arrangement,” Vladimir said slowly, “but I suppose it could be her way of doing things. I wouldn’t have thought the English were that intelligent.”

  “They were intelligent enough to find and turn Niva,” Grigori muttered, getting up to refill his glass. He motioned to Vladimir’s, who shook his head. “I wish I knew how they did that.”

  “Perhaps they didn’t. Perhaps he approached them.”

  Grigori refilled his glass and turned from the sideboard, sipping it thoughtfully.

  “Perhaps.”

  “How did you find out about the Englishwoman, anyway?” Vladimir asked, tilting his head curiously. “I didn’t know about her until I saw her check into this hotel.”

  “The Nazis were kind enough to share the information,” Grigori said, going back to his chair. “For once, they appear to be right.”

  “The Abwehr?” Vladimir’s eyebrows soared into his forehead. “They’re useless!”

  “Yes, they are,” Grigori agreed with a nod. “It was the SD, I believe. One of Himmler’s black boots. They learned of her last year.”

  “Interesting. I wonder what they know of her.”

  Grigori scoffed. “Not much, I don’t think. They’re here, in Stockholm, and they managed to scare her right off.”

  “What? Here?”

  He nodded glumly. “Yes. They were in the hotel, spread out and watching her room and all the exits. The fools. Did they think she wouldn’t notice?”

  “They’re too arrogant to think anything,” Vladimir muttered. “I assume she’s gone?”

  “Yes, and so is her companion. I followed the other woman to the train station. That’s where I’ve just come from. She’s on her way back to Oslo, but there was no sign of the Englishwoman.”

  “And the Germans?”

  “Missed the train. At least they’re empty-handed as well.”

  Vladimir was quiet for a moment, then he looked over to his old friend and smiled slowly.

  “Ah, but you’re not empty-handed, comrade,” he said. “You have handwritten proof of Niva’s deceit, and you return to Moscow successful. You’ll undoubtedly get a promotion out of this.”

  Grigori grunted and looked across the table at Vladimir.

  “And you? I won’t forget my old comrade. Would you like a promotion?”

  “I’m quite willing to be guided by the ministry. You know I’ve never sought to advance.”

  “And yet you have. Consistently.” Grigori raised his glass to him. “To the future!”

  Vladimir raised his glass.

  “To the future!”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  London, England

  November 23, 1939

  Evelyn got out of the taxi and looked up at the familiar facade of the house on Brook Street. She didn’t think there would ever be a time when it looked more welcoming than it did right this minute. It stood tall and elegant over the street, like an old retainer waiting to be of service once again. She found comfort in the knowledge that the house had withstood several wars over the course o
f the years, and remained stoically solid through them all. With a deep sigh of contentment, she turned to take her bags from the driver as he pulled them out of the boot of the car.

  “ ’Ere ye are, miss,” he said cheerfully, his cockney accent rolling over her. “Do you need me to carry them up?”

  “No, that’s quite all right, thank you,” she said with a smile, passing him the fare. “I can manage.”

  She turned to go up the steps to the glossy black door, setting the bags down while she fished in her purse for the key. The taxi pulled away, the driver giving a friendly wave, and she smiled. It was nice to be back in England and to hear the welcoming accent of home. Even if it was from the East End, she thought with a grin.

  Pulling out the key, she unlocked the door and pushed it open, picking up her bags again. The Ainsworth House had been in her family longer than anyone cared to remember. It was their residence when they were in London for the season, and her father had used it during the rest of the year when he was working and couldn’t make the long trip back to Lancashire. Since his death, it had seen much less use, and would probably see even less as the war dragged on. The servants were at Ainsworth Manor with her mother and there were dust covers over the furniture, but she didn’t care. Evelyn closed the door and exhaled in relief.

  She was home.

  She dropped her bags in the long, wide hallway and looked around, an overwhelming sense of calm coming over her. She moved across the hallway to the first door on her left and opened it, stepping into the front drawing room. The chairs and sofas were covered with dust covers, as were the tables and the piano in the corner. Evelyn looked around slowly. She knew Robbie came to stay here when he was in London, but the drawing room looked as if it hadn’t been touched since the house was closed at the end of the summer. She walked over to the front window and opened the thick blackout curtains, staring out at Brook Street. She watched the traffic for a moment, enjoying the familiar sound of the busy London street.