The Winter Agent

by Gareth Rubin

  Skorzeny nodded curtly. ‘Yes. I will get to the point. I will make you and your men comfortable. It will not be like this every day, but you will have good food and more space. In return, you must be a teacher.’

  ‘Teaching what?’ The pilot picked a slice of white cheese from a tray and bit into it.

  ‘English. Common English. Our translators have to hear your radio news programmes for reports of the war and they find it difficult to understand common American language. People who sound like you. Not people who sound like teachers.’ The sergeant tore into a fistful of beef without a word.

  ‘Sound like I do?’ The lieutenant smiled, placed the cheese on the plate and stood up. The guard behind him made to take hold of him, but Skorzeny waved him away. ‘You think I’m a fucking idiot? That I don’t know what you want to understand “common American language” for? What you’re listening in to?’ The American leaned over the table, scooped a handful of fruit salad from a bowl and smeared it into his mouth. ‘Obersturmbannführer,’ he said as he chewed, the mashed fruit cascading down his front, ‘go fuck yourself.’

  The guard leaped forward and smashed the butt of his pistol down on to the back of the lieutenant’s head and dragged him back, dropping him to the floor. The guard kicked him but was rewarded only with a sharp peal of laughter from the man.

  ‘Stop that,’ Skorzeny ordered the guard. The SS man stepped away.

  ‘There is nothing I can do for you,’ Skorzeny said irritably. ‘I made a good offer. It would be good for you and your men. Perhaps it would keep you all alive, and this is the answer you say to me. There is nothing I can do for you.’ He turned to the guard and spoke in German. ‘Just take …’

  The American sergeant spoke through a leg of chicken. ‘I’ll do it,’ he said without looking up. ‘I don’t care, I’ll do it.’ He continued gnawing at the bone.

  ‘Sergeant!’ the lieutenant shouted, pushing himself to his knees.

  ‘Take him out of here,’ Skorzeny ordered the guards with a thin smile. They lifted the pilot up, undid the metal handcuff that bound him to the chair and dragged him out of the room.

  ‘I’m ordering you –’ the lieutenant began. A blow to the stomach silenced him and then he was gone.

  ‘It don’t mean nothing,’ said the sergeant. ‘And I don’t believe you’ll give this to the other men, but I don’t care. You want to know how we speak? How we say goodbye? Sure, I’ll tell you. Sure. Listen to our newscasts? No, sir. I know what you really want. You’re listening in to our communications. Who’s going where. That’s pretty clear. But you see, I don’t care. I’ll do it. It’s not my war.’ He reached for the wine glass and refilled it from a decanter.

  Skorzeny smiled. ‘I am glad. We will take you to somewhere more comfortable. One of our own barracks. You will have your own room and will eat with our men. I cannot give you this’ – he swept his arm across the table – ‘but it will be the food I eat. My men eat. We can arrange for a woman if you want. We have places for that.’

  The sergeant reached for the bowl of fruit and bit into something soft. ‘Yes, I want that.’

  The two guards returned. ‘Take our friend here to Sommerfeld. He will know what to do.’ They saluted and led the American soldier away.

  Canaris took a seat at the table, viewing the debris from the American pilot’s brief defiance.

  ‘We expect the Allies to be at their most vulnerable four hours after they make land,’ Skorzeny told him. ‘Their communications will be stretched and they will be exhausted from fighting their way off the beaches but not yet relieved by a secondary infantry wave. When I consider them to be at their weakest I will signal for the commando units to engage. I will then personally command the Parade One deception units. We estimate two hours for the deception to reach peak effect, wiping out much of their armour and scattering the infantry.’

  ‘The strength of the assault units?’

  ‘Six thousand paratroopers; two thousand infantry; one panzer division; four fighter-bomber wings.’

  ‘The expected casualty rate?’ Canaris asked. ‘Theirs, not ours.’

  ‘From the deception wave, thirty per cent. From the assault wave, an additional forty per cent. The rest we can leave to run around the countryside and we’ll mop them up later with regular units. They won’t pose any danger to us.’

  ‘And casualties among our men?’

  ‘Ten per cent. They are itching to begin. Their names will be in the history books.’

  ‘No doubt.’

  ‘Is there any word on where the invasion is coming? Anything at all?’ Skorzeny asked.

  ‘Rumours. Nothing we can act upon.’

  ‘Damn it. Sitting around waiting.’

  There was silence as Canaris thought of the young, dirty buck sergeant who had been bribed with food to betray his country. How cheap the price. Canaris wondered if the man would ever come to regret it. He would have to return home one day – unless he wanted to live out his years in the Reich, of course, but that seemed unlikely.

  And Canaris wondered about Skorzeny too. A man of action, yes, but was his mind as sharp as his aim? If it was, he could be of use. For one thing, he would be party to information about Parade One that even the admiral would be kept from. The question was whether Skorzeny’s true loyalty was to Himmler, Hitler or the Fatherland – for the three were rarely one and the same.

  Hard men, such as Skorzeny, always believed they were impervious to persuasion, and that itself made them susceptible to it. He would have to be handled with caution, though, like a piece of machinery with sharp edges.

  ‘What about the pilot?’ Canaris asked. Skorzeny held his gaze, unblinking. ‘Yes, I presumed so.’

  ‘Why waste food on him?’ the paratrooper explained. Canaris went back to brooding. ‘My grandparents had a farm in Westphalia.’

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘When I was nine my grandfather took me to watch him kill a pig. He stuck it in the throat with his knife. It took more than a minute to die, running around its sty, trying to find a way out. I’ve never forgotten it.’

  ‘No, I don’t suppose you would. Are you suggesting that Parade One will have all the Allied troops responding in a similar fashion?’ Canaris asked.

  ‘I tell you so. I’ve seen crack troops fall apart when they don’t have strong leadership. This plan will turn them all into that pig.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘It’s true,’ Skorzeny confirmed. ‘Yes, we need good fortune too. But God has been behind us so far.’

  Canaris glanced at the table. ‘Even God can swap sides.’

  CHAPTER 16

  13 February 1944

  Delaney’s shoes trod softly as he approached the map room, the heart of the Cabinet War Rooms. The huge depictions of the globe that gave it its name filled every wall, portraying the movement of troops and materiel through the various theatres of war. Naval officers brooded over the speed and trajectory of their forces in Europe, Africa and the Far East. In the corner of the room, the Prime Minister sat spitting smoke from a cigar. He was in civilian dress this time: a three-piece suit with pinstripe trousers. It might have been dark blue, but the unnatural light rendered anything dark into black. Beside him was a nearly empty bottle of brandy.

  ‘Good morning, Major,’ he said gruffly.

  ‘Good morning, sir.’

  ‘I would offer you a cigar, but I don’t have many left. They’re from the president of Cuba, and Special Branch smoke one from each box just to make sure they’re not laced with strychnine. Damned impudence, if you ask me. No doubt they draw lots to be the lucky guinea pig. What do you have for me?’

  ‘We have located one of our agents whom we thought we had lost.’

  ‘Your demeanour suggests this tiding carries a mixed blessing.’

  ‘You might say, sir. Her service name is Charlotte. She was part of Beggar circuit.’

  The Prime Minister looked up. ‘Beggar, eh? Go on.’

  ‘We lost track of
her for a few days.’

  ‘And this disappearing act was not sanctioned?’

  ‘It was not.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And now she’s gone to ground again.’

  ‘She’s what? She’s gone to ground? They’re not cricket matches, Delaney. You can’t keep losing them and no real harm done. Well, what about her?’

  ‘She’s suspect. Maxime believes she’s Abwehr. He initially thought she had been inserted into Beggar to collapse the circuit, but now he’s not so sure. She’s given him some information.’

  Churchill chewed on his cigar for a few seconds. ‘Plot and counter-plot. Hmmm. Give me open battle any day,’ he said. ‘All right, go on.’

  ‘She said their spy over here has killed someone, an official.’

  ‘Does she know any more?’

  ‘No. No details. It sounds like she had it third-hand.’

  ‘But she wants us to know.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Well, that’s interesting, isn’t it?’ Churchill stared at his knuckles, deep in thought. ‘So if she’s Abwehr …’

  ‘Why is she trying to expose Parade? Yes. A very good question.’

  ‘And the answer, Delaney?’

  ‘I suspect she has a personal relationship with Maxime.’

  ‘Mixed loyalties?’

  ‘It could explain her behaviour.’

  Churchill rapped on the table. ‘Indeed it could. Indeed it could. And if that’s so, we must wonder, mustn’t we, what she has got out of him in return. What Canaris now has at his fingertips.’ Churchill’s voice darkened. ‘What the Austrian corporal knows.’

  ‘I think it would be limited.’ Churchill glanced at him over his glowing cigar and muttered something inaudible. ‘She might be useful to us,’ Delaney continued, ‘if she can somehow monitor what they’re saying in Berlin about Parade. If we can get it out of her.’

  ‘I see your point. Yes, that little insight would be rather useful. But I think that’s down to Maxime, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ There was a pause. ‘You want to know how much I trust her.’

  ‘I do,’ Churchill replied.

  ‘Not a great deal.’

  ‘No. No, you’re not a very trusting lot, are you? Still, I suppose that keeps you breathing.’ Churchill rose from the table and leaned against a low wooden cabinet, stretching his legs. ‘What about Maxime?’

  ‘I told him we were sending him back to recce the landing points. Sir, I …’

  ‘I know, I know. Your objections have been well noted.’ He went to the central map, which showed France. He was unsteady on his feet and Delaney suspected he had been up all night, powered by drink. ‘I’ve just had a war council with the Admiralty. They’re more worried about the weather than anything else. Strange, isn’t it? We’re playing a blindfold game of chess with our agents’ lives, and uppermost in their mind is whether it’s going to be a sunny day.’ With his forefinger, Churchill traced a rocky and wavering line from Normandy to Calais. His finger quivered as he reached the northern port. ‘Not even thirty miles from Dover,’ he said under his breath. ‘We could do it in two hours.’

  ‘They know that too, sir.’

  The Prime Minister peered closely at the narrow stretch of water that had secured Britain’s safety but which now acted as a barrier to France’s liberation. ‘Yes, they do. Hitler knows it well.’ He traced his finger along the coastline again. ‘I’ve had experience with marine landings,’ he mumbled. He stared at the port marked in red on the map then returned to his seat.

  ‘Sir, Maxime believes –’

  ‘Maxime, Maxime.’ Churchill undid his tie and threw it on the table beside him. He opened his collar and rubbed his neck. ‘This is a dirty business. I don’t like descending into the mud of it.’ Delaney had seen him drunk before, but never with this pang of self-loathing on display.

  ‘Neither do I, sir.’ He meant it. Because the operation engulfing them had been Delaney’s idea, but he often felt as Churchill did now.

  ‘No, I don’t suppose you do. But when the final clarion call sounds it will be my name at the bottom of the page. History will judge us both; yes, indeed. But it will judge me far harsher, Major. Far harsher.’ He lifted his glass but found it empty and dropped it back on the table, where it tipped over and rolled along the wood before falling to the floor and breaking, to leave needle-like shards in the worn carpet. Churchill muttered something to himself, a sentence growled under his breath.

  ‘Sir?’

  The Prime Minister thumped the table. ‘I said that, when we come to the end of this, there’s going to be a reckoning!’ he snarled. ‘Such a reckoning that the Devil himself takes fright.’

  When he was dismissed half an hour later Delaney headed out through a corridor of cream-painted bricks. As he was about to pass the final sentry post, Huw Evans of MI5 entered carrying a pair of hefty briefcases.

  ‘Going to see the old man?’ Delaney asked.

  Evans nodded. ‘What sort of a mood is he in?’

  ‘Dark.’

  ‘That’s all I need today. I’ve already had a damn curt enquiry from 6 asking what the hell’s happening with the Special Duties flights.’

  ‘Bloody RAF’s talking of diverting some of the pilots to other squadrons. Just when we need them the most,’ Delaney told him. ‘What the RAF fail to understand is that if they don’t let us do our job they’ll be coming up against every German fighter from here to Berlin on D-Day.’

  Evans nodded an agreement. ‘Is there anything you need from 6 in the Bordeaux area? They have a good source there now inside the Gestapo Hauptquartier.’

  ‘Bordeaux?’ SOE’s Bordeaux circuit, Scientist, had been one of the largest and most successful, until it had been infiltrated by a French collaborator. Most of its agents had been dragged to German concentration camps. ‘Nothing specific,’ Delaney said. ‘But an update on their working practices and personnel is always useful. We’re trying to re-establish a good network there.’

  ‘I’ll keep you in the loop on what they find out.’

  ‘I would appreciate that.’

  Reece and Sebastien shivered in the corner of a mechanic’s shop in a shabby part of Amiens. It was dark but before curfew and they were doing their best to avoid the tearing gusts that seemed to come directly from the Arctic.

  ‘Has your pianist kept monitoring that frequency?’ Reece asked.

  ‘He’s been glued to the set. He said he twice heard voices again and it sounded like those same ship names repeated over and over. After a minute of that each time he lost the signal. Hasn’t found it again. Any idea what it signifies?’

  ‘Not much.’ He kicked his feet to make the blood flow. ‘I’ve –’ He broke off at a sound outside, something scraping on the floor. Then a melody whistled by someone unseen. Reece recognized the tune: Le Chant des Partisans, the anthem of the Maquis.

  Sebastien responded with the same song and a man came slowly through the doorway.

  ‘Relax,’ the man said in French-accented English. ‘Relax, mon cher.’ He grinned.

  ‘This is Alain,’ said Sebastien. Alain took out a thin home-rolled cigarette and made to strike a match. ‘Better if you don’t – we don’t want the light,’ Sebastien admonished him.

  ‘Ah, don’t worry,’ Alain reiterated. ‘The sausage-eaters are all in their beds now.’

  Reece politely placed his hand on Alain’s. ‘We don’t all want to end up behind bars,’ he said.

  ‘You are too nervous, Englishman.’ But still he replaced the match in its box. He swapped to French. ‘Well, to our business this evening. I understand you want a little information from the prison.’

  ‘We do. Can you supply it?’

  ‘Can I supply it?’ he mused. ‘Can I supply it?’ He gazed at the two agents. ‘Yes, I can. But will I supply it? Well, that is another question.’

  Reece realized he was in a negotiation. ‘How can I convince you?’

  ‘I would say five
hundred francs would convince anyone,’ Alain replied. Reece grimaced at the words. He was used to dealing with resistants committed to liberating their country from the Germans or frightened civilians who just wanted to keep their heads down. Those who wanted to make money from the occupation were unwelcome acquaintances. ‘My brother is a Communist, but not me,’ he went on. ‘No, sir, I believe capitalism is the way to freedom.’

  Sebastien spoke up. ‘You know that we’re going to win the war soon. The invasion is coming. You’ll help us liberate France.’

  ‘And I wish you all the luck in the world. Really I do. But for now I want to be paid in cash, not in liberation.’ He shrugged genially.

  Reece took Sebastien to one side. It was clear that they would get nowhere with this man. ‘Do you have the money?’ he asked.

  ‘I can get it.’

  Alain called over to their backs. ‘And gentlemen, this is not a situation where you haggle over the price. It is five hundred francs.’

  ‘You’ll have it,’ Reece told him, returning.

  ‘Well, then I can tell you that your friend is still alive, in the prison.’ A wave of relief washed over Reece. Then there was still a chance to recover the information in the SS document and find the spy in London. ‘But not for long. They will be taking him somewhere else soon. They have big prison camps in Poland and Germany.’

  ‘How soon?’ Reece demanded urgently.

  ‘I wouldn’t be informed until the last minute. I just organize the staff rotas.’

  ‘You have to ask him what was in the photographs. He’ll understand what that means. And you have to write down exactly what he says.’

  ‘Ask him?’ Alain said, surprised. ‘I’m not asking him anything. I thought you just wanted to know his situation.’

  Reece took a hold of the man’s arm. ‘We need you to take him a message and bring us the reply.’

  ‘Are you mad?’ He tore his arm away. ‘You think I can just wander in and out of the fucking cells asking them questions? I can tell you if he’s still alive or where they’ve transferred him. I’m not going anywhere near him.’