The Winter Agent

by Gareth Rubin

  He watched as her eyes flicked to the stairwell and back to him. ‘You’re a fool for coming here.’ She backed out of the room, taking the key from the lock.

  A glimmer of strange, unexpected hope rose in his breast. Could she really be leaving him? It could be some sort of trick. She took another step towards the stairs.

  Then something made them both stop. It was a sound from the street: the noise of cars arriving at speed through water-filled ruts and their doors being flung open. Charlotte rushed to the window and stared out. ‘Klaussmann,’ she said under her breath.

  Klaussmann. He had tracked Reece like an animal.

  Reece could hurl himself at Charlotte and take a bullet but hope he could still wrestle the pistol from her grip. He would never be able to fight his way out – the Gestapo would have the house surrounded within seconds – but he could try to take one or two of them with him and then end his own life with the gun. A thousand men were dying each day in Italy, Africa and the Far East, and few of them had volunteered, as he had. He crouched, readying himself.

  ‘Out there!’ she shouted. He didn’t understand. Then he followed the line of her pistol. She was pointing to the landing, where a window in the rear wall of the house let grey light filter down the stairs. ‘The window. Move!’ She levelled the semi-automatic at him once more. ‘Or I’ll shoot you myself.’

  He rushed for the window, seemingly reaching it in a single heartbeat. The sound of splintering wood told him the solid front door was being kicked in. He grabbed the bottom of the window and heaved it up, allowing a blast of cold air and needle-like rain to prick the skin of his cheeks.

  What was in her mind, the weave of her strategy as she wrenched him away from Klaussmann’s grip, was a mystery. And that made her almost as dangerous as if she were handing him over.

  Without looking back, he pulled himself through the opening, instantly feeling the rain soaking him through and adding to his weight. A few metres below, he saw, three men had guns trained on the kitchen door. Black hats protected them from the cascading weather but, for now, also hid him from their gaze.

  ‘Up!’ she hissed, pushing him. ‘The roof!’ He stared up and felt a gush of cold, harsh water pouring into his eyes. Another sound told him that the front door had caved in. He grabbed the iron drainpipe on the side of the house and swung around it, scrabbling for footholds, his feet kicking at the bricks.

  ‘Search it!’ he heard a voice shout in German from inside the building. He pulled himself upwards towards the edge of a flat roof, one hand bracing him to the drainpipe and the other stretching up as far as it would reach. He heard scrabbling behind him. It had to be her, but he couldn’t take the time to check as his feet found a shallow ridge of bricks and he grasped for the lip of the roof.

  The clouds above were so black and thick it was like night. He glanced down. A white flash right across the sky lit her face as pale as the dead.

  He tried once more to gain the roof. The sky churned with sound as his fingers rose higher and higher through the torrent, water running down his sleeve on to his chest, but he couldn’t quite reach.

  ‘Up there!’ a man shouted. A clean-shaven face stared up from the ground. The muzzle of a gun followed.

  Reece had no choice. He kicked with his feet and launched himself upwards as best he could. It was a choice between the hopeless action and certain capture by the men below. He lifted into the air, springing from the shallow ridge. And his hands caught on crumbling, soaking brick.

  He swung up, trying to find some foothold on the sheer surface. ‘Halt!’ he heard. A volley of shots erupted through the rain.

  For the last time, he kicked up, and this time his foot found a notch in the brickwork, just enough to propel himself over the lip of the roof. As another sheet of lightning lit the scene, pain shot through his muscles.

  ‘Maxime!’ he heard Charlotte shout. Another bullet tore past him, shattering one of the cheap bricks into fragments.

  He dropped down on to his front and looked over to where she was, on the ridge of bricks beside the window, holding on to the iron pipe.

  He had no idea who she was. He could leave her now and run – somehow, somewhere. And he would more likely survive without her. He could leave her to face whatever punishment her German handlers would place before her – it would be a sort of bestial justice, he told himself. Another bolt of lightning lit the world like a flashbulb, flattening it, robbing everything of depth and nuance.

  He thrust his hand down. She grabbed it and he pulled as she scrabbled upwards. Another bullet sped past, but a crash of clouds overhead drowned the sound. She hung from him until her feet found the bricks and she dragged herself, like he had, over the edge of the roof.

  They lay there for a second before jumping up to face each other. He needed to know if he had saved her only for her to turn him in, or if they were going to run together. Her white-handled gun levelled at him once more.

  ‘I will shoot you if I have to!’ she shouted through the rain. He knew that was true. Whatever her game or strategy, she was playing it to the end. He would have to bide his time before he could join it or turn it on her. He opened his hands to show he had no weapon. ‘Break the drainpipe. Quick.’

  He went to the pipe and kicked it again and again, but it was solid iron and the bracket held. He looked over the edge. A man was climbing out of the window, reaching for the drainpipe. Reece threw down a loose chunk of cement. ‘We have to go!’

  ‘You first.’ She kept the pistol pointed at him. The garden below now held two Gestapo men, and in front of the house he made out three black cars and an officer in SS uniform loudly barking orders at an underling. Reece didn’t need to see his face to know that it was Klaussmann. There was no way down. The only way was across the rooftops. ‘Do it,’ she said.

  He charged towards the next house. It was one of a line of five or six, with two-metre gaps between their roofs. As he ran he listened for her footsteps to say she was coming after him, but the cascading water made it impossible to hear. As he reached the edge of the building he lifted his feet and burst over the gap. He was in the air, willing himself forward.

  And then a thud as his feet found the solid surface. He skidded, unused to the action, falling to his knees. The sound of another impact behind him made him whirl around to see she was with him still, crumpling to her knees but immediately righting herself and training the pistol on him. Whatever the game, she was risking herself and she had bound him into it. For a moment he thought of dropping from the building to the ground or leaping for the branches of a tree – something so risky she would never dare follow. But until he knew she meant to kill him he was safer running with her than from her.

  ‘Keep going!’ she yelled.

  He was about to sprint away towards the next roof, but a dark movement some distance behind her made him stop. A figure was rising up and over the edge of the roof of her house. ‘They’re coming!’ he shouted. She glanced over her shoulder.

  He ran and jumped again, this time landing without stumbling. She did the same. He chanced a look back and saw the Gestapo officer standing on the edge of the first roof, seemingly deterred by the jump. Instead the German pulled a gun from his pocket but if there was a shot it was swallowed by the thunder.

  They ran and jumped again. And again and again, until they reached the end of the street, where it met the main road.

  At the final house some sort of solid workshop or garage abutted the building and they dropped on to it, landing softly and rolling on to their sides as they had been trained for parachute drops. They clambered down to the sodden earth and pressed into the wall, gasping for air, sucking in rain, feeling it trickle down their throats. Reece chanced a look around the side of the building, back into the street they had just left. It was worse than he had expected. Ten or twelve men, guns in their hands, were coming towards them. Then he spotted something. A possible route away that the Germans wouldn’t see they had taken.

  ‘T
here!’ he said, pointing to a manhole cover at the edge of the road that didn’t quite fit the hole in which it had been placed. She spun around and covered him with her gun. His fingers, frozen with the cold, barely worked as he prised then wrenched the metal upwards. It lifted aside to reveal a ladder built into the brick walls of the sewer. He dropped into it, landing waist deep in water and filth. The pipe was just high enough to stand up in.

  The sudden expulsion of the glimmer of light above him told him she had followed him. She dragged the steel cover back into place and they were in utter darkness. He heard her scrabbling down the ladder to the bottom. He didn’t know if the gun was still in her hand. Then the only sound was the lapping of the filthy water around them and their own breath.

  ‘Where do we go?’ she asked.

  He reached into his jacket pocket and found a box of matches. He managed to pull one out and tried to light it. It flicked across what he thought was the striking surface, but there was no spark. It must be too damp. He tried again, but he could tell the thin match had snapped in the middle. He cast it aside and tried with another. Then another.

  ‘We can’t wait. Come this way.’ He put his hands out and felt for the wall, his legs swishing through the waste. As he lifted one, the current nearly toppled him and he fell against the side. ‘Be careful,’ he said. His voice echoed until it drifted off into the tunnel and he glanced upwards: the manhole cover wasn’t moving so they seemed to be safe. He felt his way along the wall, with no idea where they were heading. They walked on for a few slow paces. ‘Who are you working for?’ he asked, hardly expecting an answer. There was silence but for the sound of their own movement through the water. ‘Do you have the photos? Where –’

  ‘You’re in no position to ask. I still have the gun.’

  ‘Go to hell,’ he muttered. He calculated that if she were going to kill him she would have done it by now.

  ‘You think I’m a traitor.’ And then her voice again. ‘It wasn’t me who betrayed the circuit.’

  ‘What?’ he exclaimed, incredulous. He stared back to the void where her words had come from.

  ‘It wasn’t me.’

  ‘Then who?’

  ‘Germany has a spy in London.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Do you?’ She paused. ‘Do you know that he is watching you? You, Maxime. He wants you caught. He told the Gestapo about the op so that you would be taken.’

  ‘You’re lying!’

  ‘Why would I lie now? Like this. The pistol is in my hand, not yours.’

  Reece had informed London of the raid on the prison transport. Parade could well have found out from a source in London, not in Beggar, and then passed the information to the Germans. Maybe there was no traitor in the circuit after all. But he was far from convinced by her words.

  ‘What does he know about me?’

  ‘I don’t know. I only know that he has been watching you.’

  Did he know about the recces to the beaches of Normandy and Calais? That was the secret Reece could reveal to no one. ‘Tell me who he is. Tell me what he’s planning.’

  He heard her breathing hard. ‘He’s SD. Whatever he knows about you, it wasn’t from me.’

  He wracked his mind. Why would she lead him away from the Gestapo rather than put three rounds in his chest and hand him over if this weren’t true? And if Parade were SD, her readiness to expose him pointed to her being of one of the rival intelligence services. The escape from the Gestapo ruled them out. ‘So you’re Abwehr.’ She made no reaction. He experienced a flicker of satisfaction. Knowing who she worked for was a first step towards knowing her. ‘What do you know about his op?’

  ‘I know they need two things to execute it: your army Order of Battle, and where you’re going to invade. Parade can give them the Order of Battle, but not the location.’

  That meant there was still hope to destroy Parade’s op.

  ‘Who is he? What’s his cover identity?’ Reece heard his voice echoing. ‘Charlotte. Tell me how to find him. Do what’s right.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You know something!’ His words bounced all around them. He heard his own frustration, the anger barely contained within it. ‘You must know something.’

  There was a long silence, then the answer came through the dark like a whisper from an unseen spirit. ‘I know he’s killed someone.’

  ‘Who?’

  He could no longer hear her body plunging through the water. ‘A British official, a man who found him transmitting.’

  ‘A policeman? MI5?’ It was something, a scent to follow. A way to recover Reece’s mission, and the last two years of his life, from catastrophe.

  Her voice was quiet, as if it were coming from a long way away. ‘I don’t know. It was his last sked, but I can’t say when that was.’

  ‘Who told you about him?’

  ‘The people I work for. Don’t ask me about them. I won’t tell you.’ He believed her. ‘Be careful, Maxime. Parade has a source tracking you. You can’t trust anyone.’

  ‘Where are the photographs?’ She didn’t answer. ‘They could lead us to him. Do you still have them?’ Still no answer. ‘If you have them, tell me.’ He went back towards her and put his hands out, feeling through the dark, but he couldn’t find her. And then he realized it was because she wasn’t there. ‘Charlotte!’ he cried.

  In the distance there was a flicker of light. A spark. The spark became a flame in her hand from a gold-glinting lighter. She was at a crossroads in the pipes. He saw her eyes lit by the flame.

  ‘You’re not the first I’ve lied to, Maxime. I don’t have a choice now.’

  He didn’t doubt that she had lied to him and to others many times. ‘You do. We can get you out.’

  ‘Your faith. You always had faith, Maxime. I have none. No. It goes round and round like the hand of a clock. Until someone smashes it to pieces.’ He began to walk towards her. She snapped down the lid of the lighter in her hand and the blackness enveloped them once more like a shroud. ‘Stay away.’ And the sound of her movement became distant.

  He waded on to where he had last seen her and rounded the corner, but it was all darkness. He berated himself for rushing in without watching her for long enough to know her strategy. His idiocy had let those vital photographs disappear with her.

  How could he salvage something from the situation? He thought quickly. First, he had to let SOE know about her. And from then on, there was only one option left, hard as it might be. The pictures of the Parade One document were gone, but Luc had seen them. He might have seen something in them that could lead them to Parade and the op he had set up. Somehow, he had to get a message into and out of Amiens prison. He waded away in the impenetrable dark, searching for a way out.

  Wilhelm Canaris looked out of a second-floor window on to a wide street of old houses. Charming little Bayreuth, where the proto-National Socialist Wagner had staged his epic performances. Canaris had never been one for the bombastic tradition and had, if truth be told, preferred the work of Slavic composers. That was not something he would be mentioning in front of the Führer. He lowered his gaze and returned his attention to the room. It was ornate beyond compare: gilt-edged mirrors lined the long far wall, an emerald-green harpsichord reputedly played by Bach stood in the corner, but what dominated the room was the long table covered in silver dishes of food. Those brief patches not sporting poultry or game were decked with crystal vases of flowers. Canaris wrinkled his nose at the lack of subtlety. They might as well have had a couple of whores set up in the corner.

  There was an unpleasant noise too. It was the noise of dirty, starving men with poor table manners stuffing any and all the food they could down their necks. Canaris masked his disapproval as he watched them: two men, each with one hand free and one cuffed to the chairs upon which they perched as they reached for the meat and wine. They wore unclean uniforms of American airmen, a lieutenant and a buck sergeant. Behind them were two Waffen-SS guards, and sittin
g opposite was Otto Skorzeny, the hero-paratrooper chosen to see Operation Parade One through to its ground-shaking and bitter conclusion. He had red wine in his glass and a thick cut of pork on his plate, but both remained untouched. The American sergeant kept staring at the long, deep scar that ran from the left side of Skorzeny’s mouth almost to his ear, a badge of honour from his Vienna university duelling club.

  ‘It is how long since you had good food?’ Skorzeny asked in heavily accented English. The two men just looked bemused at the question. ‘Years?’

  ‘Years,’ confirmed the American officer. The NCO to his side just glanced at him and went back to tearing meat from a chicken leg with his teeth.

  ‘I am sorry that is the fact.’

  ‘Not as sorry as I am,’ muttered the lieutenant.

  ‘What is the food like where you are? I have never been in one of those camps.’

  The American looked sceptical. ‘Like shit,’ he replied. ‘Like eating shit.’ Skorzeny smiled genially. Canaris went back to the window. Of course, Parade One was a form of warfare, but he wasn’t delighted at the prospect of mixing it with conventional soldiers. ‘You want to swap places?’ said the American officer.

  Skorzeny almost laughed. Canaris was well aware that he enjoyed the limelight and public adulation that his daring rescue of Mussolini from house arrest had brought him. He also clearly enjoyed lording it over captured foreign troops. ‘I do not think that.’

  The lieutenant spluttered on some food and washed it down with thick red wine. The sergeant said nothing but seemed to be following the conversation keenly.

  ‘Lieutenant, I am more old than you. I have been in this war from the beginning. I know what it is to be hungry and to want a bath and clothes.’ The lieutenant looked down at his soiled jacket. ‘I can give you this. Your men this. From one officer to another officer.’

  The American drained his glass and set it down on the table. ‘Sir, we are both officers. You’re right about that. But before I was a pilot I was on Wall Street, and I knew when someone was about to offer me a deal.’