The Winter Agent

by Gareth Rubin

  CHAPTER 3

  German counter-espionage

  Special gangs are being used for the more unsavoury types of CE work, e.g. as thugs seizing suspects for the Gestapo, contacts for hotels, brothels, etc., as well as general spying for the SD. They are mobile, subsist largely on the proceeds of private property they have raided and are recruited from amongst the lowest social types and criminals.

  A grey Mercedes slid along the darkened road. The sound of the tyres spraying through puddles was drowned out by the air raid sirens. A slim man in the back of the car, aged somewhere between mid-fifties and mid-sixties, gazed up at the sky and at the searchlight beams that were producing a score of false moons. The raids, those that Göring had promised would never touch Berlin, had become almost mundane now. A nightly falling of buildings and rising numbers of the dead. An oaf, Göring. The very definition of a man promoted beyond his abilities.

  ‘Admiral?’

  ‘A little further on, thank you,’ the man replied. He kept his eyes on the purple sky with those milky beams rolling back and forth on clouds, searching for Allied aircraft. Four years ago the RAF had been on the verge of total collapse. Now they came soaring over, night after night, like crows. ‘Just there, by the gate.’ His voice was quiet and contained. Perhaps the obvious lisp necessitated a considered enunciation. More likely it was just the character of the man.

  The car came to a smooth halt and the driver applied a creaking handbrake. Admiral Canaris waited for a minute, watching the drizzle on his window. Then he opened the door and hauled himself out. The weather did nothing good for his joints.

  Brooding a little, his eyes cast down so that the rain collected in his white eyebrows, he walked slowly through the gateway into the Tiergarten.

  He didn’t pause for the weather and he certainly didn’t pause when an authoritative and angry voice called over from the road demanding to know who he was. Some policeman. The driver would intercept the man and show him an identification card to make him instantly shut up.

  The Tiergarten was bare these days. Occasional blades of grass, a few bushes with leaves, mostly just the skeletons of trees. His shoes sank a little into the earth as he made his way across the lawn towards a path that led deeper into it. In the dark, he knew the way by touch. The slightest glow of light came only from the searchlights overhead, bouncing off the bottom of clouds.

  He found the path and turned along it, between banks of trees, wooden huts, an abandoned food kiosk. There was movement here and there among the branches – even the birds had been accustomed to the sirens – and he strode thoughtfully on until he came to the first of a set of huge and ornate buildings built decades earlier. Officially, the zoological gardens were still open for the children of Berlin to gawp at the exotic creatures and throw grit and stones to gain their attention; indeed, the large-scale destruction of the exterior wall had made it free for any who wanted to pick their way through the rubble. But an air raid of 1943 had broken apart most of the buildings, either killing their residents or setting them free to charge along the streets until trapped or killed by police. It had been a moment that threatened blood-madness in a city built on the promise of order.

  He passed the alligator house, now just a shell surrounding a stagnant concrete pool, the reptiles having died under those Allied bombs. For a moment he stopped to appreciate what was left of the nearby elephant enclosure, once elegantly designed to look like a golden Siamese temple, with four bulging towers at its corners. Within was a pen formed of thick iron bars, built to withstand a charge from the largest beast. A hulking silhouette shuffling from one side to another showed Canaris that one solitary animal would be waiting out the war here, so long as it didn’t starve first.

  He moved on through the desolate lanes of the zoo, occasionally catching sight of a lonely nocturnal creature, until he found another structure, this one built for humans, its doorways empty. The genteel Yellow Veranda, enclosed by expanses of iron-framed windows, was where he had once dined in the Sunday sun with his wife when they were first courting. But time had changed the veranda as much as it had changed him and there were no cloths or flowers on the tables now. Indeed, there was only one table upright. It had been set in the middle of the stone floor and dusted roughly clean. A man sat at it, the tip of his cigarette shimmering red.

  ‘Admiral.’

  Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, chief of the Abwehr, the military’s intelligence service, sat down in a heavy wooden seat and looked out through the line of windows. The glass was filthy. No one had looked through it for years. He cleared his throat. ‘The SS. The SS have something,’ he said.

  ‘What do they have?’

  ‘A man.’ He adjusted his jacket.

  ‘I take it he’s important.’

  ‘He does appear so,’ Canaris replied, peering up to the roof. Birds were nesting in the rafters. The whole of man’s built environment was returning to the wild. ‘For what is coming. The invasion. For how we prepare.’ The young man waited for him to continue. ‘D-Day will happen this year. And I would put our chances of repelling it at sixty–forty.’

  ‘No better?’

  ‘Our entrenched positions against their speed and numbers. No Blitzkrieg this time. Hand to hand.’ The sirens seemed distant now, muffled by the dirty glass. ‘If it fails, I doubt they will try again for years, possibly never.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Earlier today I had a meeting with the Führer. Himmler was there. It turns out the SS has a source in London. He’s well placed. Within the British intelligence apparatus.’ He didn’t bother to cover his contempt for Himmler’s name. After all, Himmler hadn’t attempted to hide his smirk when Hitler had revealed how effective the SS’s intelligence-gathering wing, the SD, had been in placing and cultivating their new agent. The venerable Abwehr, which had existed long before National Socialism and retained its independence from the Party, looked down on their SS rivals as upstart street thugs. What made the rivalry more pointed was that the SS’s numerous recent successes had shown up the Abwehr’s lack of them. Himmler had personally passed the SD’s information to Hitler, keeping much of it from Canaris. Indeed, the admiral found himself increasingly shut out from the most critical decisions.

  ‘How well placed?’

  Canaris considered. ‘I can’t say precisely, but with the kind of access that could reset the scales.’ Himmler had enjoyed dangling it in front of Canaris, knowing that the little glimpse would infuriate the spy chief. The trait that Hitler and Himmler most closely shared was their puerile joy in demonstrating themselves to be more successful in military matters than the Prussian aristocrats bred for the mess room.

  ‘Has his information been tested?’ the younger man asked, blowing a plume of smoke from his nose.

  ‘Of course. It tallies with what our existing agents in Britain have told us, although their information was far thinner.’

  ‘And do we have this man’s name?’

  ‘Only his service name: Parade.’ Canaris knew no more, and that irked him.

  ‘What material has he sent?’

  ‘So far, primarily intelligence about British troop and naval movements; some about their agents in France. But he has promised’ – he hesitated – ‘more.’ The young man looked intrigued. Canaris ignored him and stared at a monstrous building a hundred metres away, lifting high above the tallest trees. A six-storey castle made of concrete and iron, complete with octagonal towers at each corner, the Flak Tower rose from within the zoo. Its four huge twenty-five-tonne guns pointed at the sky ready to blast whole armadas to the earth. A military defence, for sure, but also a psychological one to tell the people of Berlin that the enemy would never populate their sky.

  ‘So this …’

  ‘Rommel is going out of his mind with frustration. His troops are too thinly stretched along the Atlantic Wall – the panzer divisions could take days to arrive if the Allies attack in the right place.’ He paused for a moment. ‘It seems Parade has gained a few frag
ments of the Allied planning for D-Day, important information about their command and communications structure, and their naval Order of Battle. Not yet the date – that won’t be decided until nearer the time anyway, dependent as it is on the weather – but planning for the formation of their bridgehead. There seems to be a chink in their defences and Parade himself has suggested how we could exploit it with a highly specialized operation. Himmler is quite taken with the idea.’ He removed his spectacles and cleaned them with a handkerchief from his pocket. ‘Operation Parade One does, however, require two pieces of intelligence in order to execute it. We need to know certain details of their army Order of Battle and whether the landings are coming in Normandy or Calais.’

  ‘He thinks he can obtain that?’

  Canaris replaced his spectacles. ‘The Allies have gone to great lengths to compartmentalize access to such knowledge. It’s released only as and when strictly necessary. Parade will be able to see the Order of Battle as soon as the invasion force leaves port and he promises to transmit it to us immediately. For once, I don’t think the importance of this man is idle boasting on the part of the Reichsführer.’ Himmler had asserted that Parade would be the fulcrum upon which the Allied invasion would turn: a claim transparently intended to support his bid to become heir to the Führer himself, whose health was beginning to fail – but Canaris had to admit that if this man fulfilled his promise, the weight of the battle would be with Germany. Canaris had long ago suppressed any professional arrogance, and yet he felt slighted that the fool Himmler had gained such a golden prize.

  ‘Impressive.’

  Canaris made a non-committal gesture. ‘Regarding the landing locations, however, he is not confident of securing that information. We will have to look elsewhere for it – and we will need it well in advance of the Allied flotilla departing in order to execute Parade One.’ He lost himself for a moment, brooding on where they could obtain such intelligence. There were other agents, of course, but none had much hope of gaining the information. On current indications, at very best, the German high command would be making an educated guess based on scraps of information. No, they needed something concrete. And despite all the resources of the Reich poured into it, they were no closer to finding such a source of that information.

  ‘Do we know any more about Parade?’ the young man asked as his cigarette burned down. ‘How he gathers his information?’

  ‘Indirectly, it seems. Himmler was quite inordinately pleased to inform me that Parade has developed a handful of sub-agents in useful places: one in the Admiralty, one in SOE, I believe. There may be others elsewhere, although, personally, I wouldn’t count on it.’

  ‘Quite a feat.’

  ‘Yes, but a plausible one for a man with talent. The Abwehr has had some success infiltrating our own agents in the same places. Not as much as I would have hoped, but some.’ He watched a dark bird flit through the trees. ‘The Reich has been on the back foot for the past year, despite what Goebbels would have us believe, but the access that Parade has could turn that around and give us momentum again. I want this man working for us, not Himmler.’

  ‘I see. And what is Parade One?’

  Canaris rubbed his hands slowly together, as if attempting to rub the stain of Himmler’s sweat from his hands. ‘A deception operation. Himmler has made all sorts of promises about its ability to destroy the invasion from within. He’s an arrogant child. But this operation – ambitious as it is – could be … effective.’ He thought for a moment, mulling the strange draw that the Reichsführer had for Hitler.

  ‘My job will be easier if I know about the op.’

  ‘In time. I don’t have all the details myself yet, and I’m a cautious man.’ He pictured Parade One in action: a form of warfare ready to cut through the Allies, as the Blitzkrieg had. The Allied troops in disarray, a rout drowning in a red-soaked tide.

  The young man blew a line of smoke into the dark before stubbing his cigarette out on the tabletop. ‘I take it, Admiral, there is a reason for you telling me this at this precise juncture?’

  ‘There is. Parade is what the SD have gained.’

  ‘Is there also something they have lost?’

  ‘Yes, there is.’

  ‘Careless of them.’

  Canaris watched the final, tarry smoke from the cigarette drift away. ‘Quite. The SS had a Hauptsturmführer working on the operational details for Parade One. He went on a binge with some French girl two days ago and now suspects his notes were examined – photographed or otherwise copied, presumably.’

  ‘A hell of a hangover.’

  ‘Indeed. The document is based on information from Parade, and it is possible that there are details that could help us identify him. Either way, if the document gets to London, the information in it would make the British aware the Reich has a source among them. And that will change things. We need to acquire the document before our British or American friends do.’

  ‘I understand. What about the girl?’

  ‘No trace so far,’ Canaris informed him.

  ‘And the Hauptsturmführer?’

  ‘On his way to a less comfortable war on the Eastern Front.’

  ‘He got off lightly.’

  ‘That is probably true.’

  The silhouettes of men atop the Flak Tower could be seen scurrying between the immense guns. Canaris could hear the rumbling of aircraft engines overhead now. He waited.

  ‘How does Parade communicate with Berlin?’

  ‘Wireless set.’

  ‘Anything of his age or background?’

  ‘Nothing more.’

  A massed formation of fighter-bombers appeared over the rooftops and, within moments, the Flak Tower opened up, its guns drowning out the approaching aircraft. ‘How is the Führer?’ the young man asked.

  Canaris checked the time on his wristwatch. ‘The Führer is as the Führer always is.’

  ‘That is reassuring.’

  One of the planes spun away and fell into the distant darkness, but the loss did nothing to prevent a score of flashes on the horizon and thudding explosions that shook the flagstones of the Yellow Veranda. The bombs fell closer and human voices cried out as the side of a nearby building crumbled to the ground. ‘The Reich has had its summer,’ said Canaris. ‘Parade will be our agent for the winter.’

  CHAPTER 4

  As he rode away from the bar, Reece replayed the encounter with the Gestapo. Could the French collaborator who had grabbed Luc have detected a foreign tone in Reece’s accent? He trusted not. It was quite natural anyway, the product of his itinerant childhood.

  Reece’s New Yorker father had moved to Paris before the Great War, as an art dealer in love with the belle époque and an Englishwoman who had run away to escape her stifling family. Reece had been born a week before the first time the Germans had rolled across the French border – well, the first time for a generation – and had been immediately plucked up and taken to Manhattan to spend the first eleven years of his life there. He had spent his childhood on Broadway, watching the theatres brighten the night sky and frightening his mother on the most hair-raising rides at Coney Island.

  They had all returned to Paris when his parents proved unable to resist it in the twenties. Five years later he had been sent to his father’s old school in New Hampshire, where science bored and languages engrossed him. While there, he had developed a fondness for sailing, a pastime he kept up during a degree in the history of art in London, and a few subsequent years writing for art magazines with minimal readerships. When war broke out he had volunteered for the Royal Navy, his knowledge of France and the French and German languages assigning him to the Intelligence section.

  There he had seen the weakness of the German navy compared to that of seagoing Britain, but he hadn’t shared the confidence of his brother naval officers that this meant the Germans had lost before the fighting had even begun. He had heard of the size of the Luftwaffe and Wehrmacht mechanized forces and realized that this war, unli
ke the last, would be built on speed in the air and on the ground. To his enduring anger, he had witnessed his expectation become a searing reality first-hand at Dunkirk, as thousands had drowned or been shot to pieces in the saltwater.

  ‘The beginning of the end,’ one of his comrades had said.

  ‘We’ll find another way,’ he had replied.

  Back in London, he had decided to fight for Paris, the city where he had first kissed a girl, first had his face slapped by another, first put on a suit. And so, in the summer of 1942 he had put his name forward for MI6. But when the call came, it wasn’t from them but from a new service, one that Churchill had personally instructed to ‘set Europe ablaze’. Reece had joined the Special Operations Executive without a second thought. In those days, hardly anyone harboured second thoughts.

  It was during training that he had met Charlotte.

  ‘Are you here for the course?’

  She had been walking, a peach-coloured suitcase in her hand, up the lane from a station in rural Hampshire. He was in a small sports car that a friend had lent him and he recognized her immediately as someone touched by the Parisian artistic demi-monde. She wasn’t one of the Surrealist artists railing against the dead ways of the older generation, though; she had the air of one who stood aside at parties and watched. He saw it in the way she turned her whole body to face him and the black pillbox hat with a half-veil she wore, as if she were in mourning.

  Also, she answered him in French.

  ‘If this is to test my discretion, you are not subtle,’ she said.

  ‘No test. A lift?’

  She placed her case on the rear shelf, climbed into the front and said nothing more, watching the countryside as it passed, not looking at him for the ten minutes it took to arrive at Beaulieu, the large country house officially known as station STS31 but known sardonically to the agents as the Finishing School.

  At the gates, an army guard checked their documents. ‘Why have you arrived together?’ he asked.