The Winter Agent

by Gareth Rubin

  ‘No, thank you, sir,’ she sighed, passing on.

  ‘You did well to offer,’ Klaussmann informed his assistant. ‘We must maintain relations as well as we can with the population. Do you want to stay in France?’

  ‘I like it here, sir.’

  ‘Yes, it’s a pleasant posting. Better than Kiev, at any rate. I can help you remain.’

  ‘Thank you, Herr Sturmbannführer.’

  Klaussmann appreciated the formality. And he was looking forward to continuing to mould Schmidt into a good officer. It would be a point of pride.

  On the other side of the entrance hall, Reece walked through the station’s double doors, clutching his backup set of identity papers. They identified him as a boat mechanic named Maurice Vert from Caen in Normandy and were the ones he had used to gain access to the Atlantic ports for his previous reconnaissance mission.

  The snow was beginning to come down in earnest, whipping around him and settling on the ground. He had a cheap purple scarf wrapped around his face as protection and he bound it tighter as he felt his jaw becoming numb. It must have been ten degrees below zero on the centigrade scale – so cold that his lungs struggled. It seemed to him that ice crystals were forming within them in sympathy with the air outside. He was tired, too, after the previous night and could have gone to sleep, blanketed by the falling white dust.

  He pondered the day ahead of him: back to Paris to find Charlotte. To help her evade the Germans or to track her down like quarry? He couldn’t tell. He wanted to find her hiding from the Gestapo, but if it turned out that she was a German parasite, he would have to swallow down the vestiges of his feelings for her and treat her as he would any other collabo.

  He approached the doorway to the platforms. Two SS troopers were checking identity papers as people filtered through. Reece was confident his sallow skin and the bags under his eyes would appear to be no more than the effects of overwork and poor nutrition, rather than anything that should arouse suspicion.

  ‘Papers.’ Reece handed them over. The German, who looked no more than seventeen, examined them closely, rubbed the paper between his finger and thumb and looked at Reece.

  ‘Sir, that’s my train,’ Reece said, huffing warm breath into his cupped hands and pointing to the locomotive arriving on the platform just a few metres away. He did his best to look politely put out.

  The man glanced over his shoulder at the train. ‘All right.’ He handed back the identity card and pushed Reece towards the platform. The arrogance was the only thing left of teenage childhood, Reece understood.

  As he stepped out on to the platform a welcome thought crept into Reece’s mind: that his luck might hold at least until he got to Paris.

  He also knew such thoughts were the quickest route to getting killed.

  He hurried towards where the locomotive was waiting, like a giant black dog. People were spilling in and out of the carriages: old men, thin girls; a few throwing their arms around people waiting for them. Many looked like walking mounds of clothing, wearing layer after layer against the cold. They were all moving, shuffling around to generate a bit of warmth in their limbs, producing a strange tide-like motion along the platform. And then two figures caught Reece’s eye: a tall SS major and a younger man in a Gestapo leather greatcoat speaking to a French policeman on the platform. The policeman looked surly but nodded at whatever he had been told.

  Reece stared at the face of the officer in SS uniform and a flash of recognition appeared in his mind. He stopped dead.

  Reece had done his best to disguise himself, wrapping the scarf around his face, but it had been only three days since Sturmbannführer-SS Klaussmann had entered the Lapin Agile bar in Montmartre and looked him straight in the eye before dragging Luc away. Three days for a memory to fade, for the photograph to turn blank in the sun. It wouldn’t be enough to blot out the memory of a Gestapo officer who had spent years tracking faces. Reece’s mind tumbled with thoughts of escape, but he kept his nerve. The only weapon he had was the knife on the underside of his lapel, and panic would send him to the gallows.

  Klaussmann glanced at Reece. His eyes ranged up and down Reece’s dirty clothes as if they were an identity card offering a second story on the owner. Reece felt the scrutiny and steeled himself to run; if he saw any recognition in the man’s expression, he could bolt across the tracks and scale the fence before the Germans could move on him. But although he would have the start, he would also have to weave, to avoid any bullets.

  And yet Klaussmann immediately returned his attention to the policeman and didn’t look back. Reece waited, watching. More passengers scurried through. Still nothing. He risked sauntering away a few paces to buy a newspaper from a stand and casually walking past the two Gestapo officers, all the time ready to make a dash for it.

  ‘… to that tabac,’ he heard Klaussmann tell his assistant in German. Reece tensed. They were talking about him. They had to be. They may not have recognized him, but they were surely looking for him. If they knew where he worked, they must know his name. And if so, had they somehow also found his photograph? That would make the danger ten times worse, and no doubt they would insist on all men removing scarves from their faces.

  He looked to the brick wall, plastered with a list in Gothic script of the Resistance members who had been executed that week, along with the photographs of others who were being sought. Money was on offer to anyone who could locate these men and women who had slipped away. He couldn’t help but think of what the Germans would do to him if they caught him.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ replied the junior officer.

  The station guard blew his whistle as a warning that the train would soon be moving. It would be the best way to get away from Klaussmann – turning around and leaving the platform would bring more attention. Reece therefore walked briskly towards the closest carriage. He climbed through the door into the narrow corridor and into an empty compartment. From where he sat, he could just make out Klaussmann and his assistant, apparently giving the policeman some final instructions, before striding away out of Reece’s sight. He relaxed into his seat and checked out the other window. Just the fence and a white sky.

  And then there was movement on the platform. Klaussmann had returned. He and his junior were making their way straight for Reece’s car. The train was beginning to move now. Reece jumped up. He had to decide: he could leap out, but that would only attract the Gestapo officer’s attention. He would have to run for it if he did that. No, it was suicide. Klaussmann’s hand was pulling open the door. He would have to brazen it out.

  Klaussmann hauled himself into the corridor, followed by the other Gestapo officer. They nodded politely at Reece. ‘Excuse me, gentlemen,’ he muttered, and got up to leave, as if offering them the compartment to themselves.

  ‘No, no, stay,’ Klaussmann replied, motioning for him to retake his seat.

  Reluctantly, Reece did as he was bid, smiling in thanks.

  He berated himself for not somehow avoiding this needless, pointless danger. Even the simple proximity to Gestapo officers made his skin bristle with loathing.

  The two Germans removed their coats before sitting, showing no sign of recognizing him. And then Klaussmann’s gaze fell to the scarf wrapped around Reece’s face and his brow furrowed. A pang of worry grabbed the British agent, but he had no choice. Gingerly, he removed the scarf.

  ‘I would prefer our own men on the gate,’ Klaussmann told Schmidt, ignoring the Frenchman and turning to peer through the window at the SS troopers.

  ‘I’m sure they will do their best, Herr Sturmbannführer.’

  ‘One’s best is no help if it doesn’t get the job done.’

  It was a testing time. Things were tense in the service – not just in France but in Germany too. Thousands of Gestapo and SS officers had returned beaten and frostbitten from the Eastern Front, driven back by the brutish Slavs, and many of them held a grudge against their brother officers who had been stationed nowhere more dangerous than Brusse
ls. They would have dearly loved to supplant any man seen as failing in his job. Everyone could feel invasion in the air and only fools believed that the Allies would have no hope of success – already there were rumours of senior Party members spiriting away plunder to Swiss bank accounts and setting up escape lines to Argentina or Brazil. Like dogs when all the food has gone, they were beginning to watch each other, marking out the weak to be sacrificed when the time came.

  All of that made the soil rich for suspicion between the services too. The Gestapo and SD may have been spiritual allies, but still they competed for the patronage of Himmler and that bred the rivalry of brothers born a year apart. Indeed, possibly the single line on which their interests coincided was an intense distrust of the Abwehr. There had long been suspicions that Admiral Canaris harboured anti-National Socialist beliefs – and he had a lisp that made him sound just like a queer, they said. Yes, Canaris was too slippery, too inscrutable. Thankfully, the Führer’s hand was on Himmler’s shoulder. There would be a reckoning soon, and the Reichsführer-SS would undoubtedly triumph.

  The train took them out into the countryside, through a dense, skeletal forest rapidly turning white. On the opposite track a massive machine passed them, travelling in the other direction. Like a skyscraper turned on its side and with a giant pipe piercing the sky, the railway gun – artillery powerful enough to shoot huge mortar shells right across the Channel – seemed like a sleeping metal beast.

  A few minutes later they drew into a small town. The snow outside the window formed a blurring, rushing sheet. The wind had picked up too, whistling and forcing its way through every nook and hole in the sides of the carriage.

  Klaussmann crossed his arms for warmth and his eye fell on the dirty Frenchman in front of him, laboriously reading the words of a newspaper. A typical workman, probably. Klaussmann wondered, in fact, if the man could be of use – a different perspective. There would be little things that he understood about France and French life that would pass a Prussian Gestapo officer by. It could be instructive to Schmidt as well as himself.

  ‘Sir,’ he began. Reece looked up. ‘I am Sturmbannführer-SS Klaussmann. Schmidt here and I were just remarking on the beauty of your country.’ Reece didn’t move. ‘And not to mention the beauty and elegance of your maids. They are so – what is the word that you use? Elegante.’

  ‘That is the word, sir,’ Reece replied.

  ‘Even in Germany we read poetry about it.’

  ‘I don’t read books, sir.’

  ‘No, no. Of course. You are a working man.’

  ‘I fix boats.’ Reece looked attentive.

  Klaussmann decided the man was a simpleton. The train halted and a few people pulled themselves into the carriages. ‘Working with your hands,’ Klaussmann said, directing the words at Schmidt, almost as a rebuke to the junior officer. ‘Do you know Amiens well?’

  Reece looked uncomfortable. ‘I am sorry, I am not from the city.’

  ‘No? It seems to me a pleasant town.’ A young woman entered the carriage from the corridor. She was looking down at the ticket in her hand as she slid the door open on squealing hinges. The noise made her look up sharply and she caught her breath as she spotted the two Gestapo officers. She began to withdraw, but Klaussmann stopped her. ‘No, no, miss, do come in. Please. There’s a place free for you just there.’ He pointed to the seat beside Reece. She hesitated. She was dressed up for a day out, with a pink hat and gloves, trying to keep up the travel standards of the previous generation. She carried a matching pink case with copper-encased corners that was damp with melting snow.

  ‘There are other …’ she stuttered, looking out into the corridor, carpeted with the slushy footprints of those who had tramped along it.

  ‘I wouldn’t hear of it. Please.’ He motioned his hand to the seat. Reluctantly, she entered the carriage.

  Reece and Schmidt both rose to take her case from her and place it in the overhead rack. Schmidt was about to say something, but Klaussmann gently tugged him back down into his seat. ‘It’s only natural that she would like one of her gallant countrymen to aid her,’ he said, chuckling genially. ‘We must remember our place in this country.’

  ‘You are our guests, sir,’ Reece said, lifting the case.

  The train jerked violently. It could have been a set of points, but Klaussmann suspected they had, in fact, shaken over a spot where one of the réseaux had blown the tracks, necessitating a rushed repair-job. The motion knocked Reece against the young woman. And that was when Klaussmann noticed something about the Frenchman, something that fell into place.

  Reece saw Klaussmann’s eyes narrow. ‘I’m sorry, miss, my fault,’ he said, sliding the case into the rack above them. The girl, too, looked concerned for some reason that Reece couldn’t see. Was it the presence of the two Gestapo officers?

  ‘Do you know,’ Klaussmann began, stretching back into his seat, ‘I have heard your countrymen speak so highly of your national cuisine that I am in a permanent state of hunger.’ Reece watched him pull a small leather-bound notebook and pen from his breast pocket, scribble something upon a page, tear it out and give it to his junior officer. ‘Take this to the dining carriage. Make sure it’s prepared like I ask. I can’t stand undercooked chicken.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ He got up and left.

  ‘Now, sir, miss,’ Klaussmann said, addressing Reece and the girl. ‘I have a confession to make. You may have heard terrible stories about the men of my nation and our stern ways, but I must say that we have the hearts of romantics when it comes to the countryside. Just look at this,’ he said, wafting his left hand towards the stark fields and twisted, naked trees that were speeding past. ‘Look at that fine old church. Its tower has stood for five hundred years. That village.’

  Reece followed the pointed index finger. He could barely see through the snow now; it was like looking through a moving and wailing gauze of brilliant white. But there was something strange about Klaussmann’s insistence. He didn’t trust it for an instant. And then he noticed a different movement: a twitching in Klaussmann’s other hand. The tips of the fingers seemed to be itching for the gun holster strapped to his waist.

  Reece’s nerves sharpened, watching for more. And in the spectral window reflection he caught sight of the SS officer’s eyes. He wasn’t looking at the church or the village, he was watching Reece.

  In an instant Reece saw what had set this fat Boche oaf’s heart beating: a spreading dark, painful patch on Reece’s shoulder. The stitches on the bullet wound had opened when he fell against the girl and he hadn’t noticed.

  He jumped up. Immediately, Klaussmann went for his Luger. The girl screamed. Reece knew there would be a second before the barrel was pointing at him. At this distance, he couldn’t miss. Reece’s only choice was surrender or a bullet. But he couldn’t let himself be taken to undergo the interrogation in which he could spill so many secrets, even landing his fellow agents in the Gestapo’s hands. He was ready to throw himself into the course of the round rather than that. He just wanted it to be quick.

  And yet, another second, and the gun wasn’t in Klaussmann’s hand. The Gestapo officer was overweight, clearly unused to combat, and he was fumbling with the holster clasp. Reece saw a chance and grabbed hold of Klaussmann’s thick wrist, trapping his hand on the fastening. They fought, muscle against muscle. Reece strained, overstretched, to keep his opponent from drawing. Klaussmann tried to throw him off, twisting away, but Reece was younger and stronger and used his weight to pin the German to the seat. He held the other man’s hand in place, refusing to let the gun emerge. If he could wrench Klaussmann’s arm away and draw the Luger himself, he could put a bullet in him and get free.

  But then the Gestapo officer seemed to have a burst of strength and his elbow cracked into Reece’s cheekbone, knocking him back. The motion of the train overbalanced him and he fell back on to the seat. In a moment the gun was in Klaussmann’s hand and pointing at Reece’s chest. Reece froze.

  ‘H
alt!’ There was no triumph in Klaussmann’s eyes, only grim determination. His voice steadied. ‘Don’t move.’ It was the moment Reece had expected since he saw the Germans on the platform. Klaussmann had him cold. Now he wouldn’t have even a quick death. If Klaussmann wanted him alive – barely, with a bullet in his gut – he had him. Reece could almost feel the shackles snaking around his wrists, the cosh breaking his bones. He clutched for the L-pill disguised as a jacket button, ready to rip it from its threads and crush it between his teeth, robbing the Reich of its prize. Death would be painful, but swift, they had told him. Better than the agonies of torture in the Gestapo cells. His fingers found the small rubber-encased glass phial and subtly snapped it from the fabric. Klaussmann noticed the action and readied to fire. ‘Stop.’

  And then, out of the corner of his eye, Reece saw sharp, speedy movement. The girl had pulled her case down from the overhead rack and was swinging it hard at Klaussmann. She missed, and its copper-tipped corner smashed through the window, letting a flurry of snow blow into the compartment and scattering a rain of glass fragments to the floor. But the movement pulled her into Klaussmann’s line of sight, forcing him to try to push her aside.

  At the same moment, Schmidt pulled open the door, flanked by two soldiers with MG 42 Spandau sub-machine guns. It was clear that the note Klaussmann had written had been nothing to do with food and everything to do with going for reserves. Reece was caught between the two, but suddenly there was an exit. It was barred, but it was a route to freedom.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ he said emolliently, releasing the suicide capsule and jumping up with his arms open, hoping to buy a second to find a way out. Amazement at the scene flashed across Schmidt’s face.

  The confusion offering Reece a glimpse of escape, his hand snatched his lapel knife from its thin sheath and levelled it. For a single heartbeat, he looked into Schmidt’s eyes, seeing nothing but bewilderment. Behind Schmidt, the two soldiers lifted their weapons. Reece did the same, pointing the arrow-like tip of his blade at Schmidt’s neck. And as everything seemed to slow in time, he threw himself forward.