The Winter Agent

by Gareth Rubin

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You see, sir, it’s the evening and you’re calling at people’s houses. And something happened in this street or nearby a few months back. So I’m just making sure you really do know people here.’

  Reece turned away. ‘I’ve had enough of this,’ he said, striding off.

  ‘Please wait, sir,’ the officer said, catching him and taking hold of his arm. ‘I would like to ask you a couple of questions.’

  ‘Get your hands off!’ Reece growled, pulling free. Then he felt the other officer grab him more strongly from behind. Without thinking, he broke the man’s hold and raised his forearm, ready to snap it into the first man’s windpipe, but caught himself just as his arm began to move. For a moment he had felt his arms bound and his face plunged into freezing water. He gasped for air as the officers pinned him to a wall and pulled his wrists behind his back.

  Huw Evans, standing back from an attic window, watched as the handcuffs were locked on Reece’s wrists.

  ‘Christ,’ he said. ‘Cut the transmission.’

  ‘What?’ the woman replied, looking up from the Morse key.

  ‘I said, cut the transmission. Now!’ She immediately tore away her headphones and turned off her set.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘We need to move. Pack up.’

  CHAPTER 26

  3 June 1944

  ‘I should have you damn well court-martialled,’ Delaney growled as Reece sat slumped and unshaven in the chair opposite, having been pulled from the police cells an hour earlier by a pair of Red Cap military policemen.

  ‘So why don’t you?’

  Delaney stabbed his forefinger on to a single sheet of paper and pushed it across the desk. It was a report from a radio listening station. ‘One of our posts monitors an SD station outside Berlin. At 8.15 p.m. last night it transmitted a code that means something like: “Why have you ceased transmission?” Eight fifteen happens to be just when the plods say you were starting a commotion in the street.’

  Reece felt a surge of elation. It was a weak connection, but a connection all the same. ‘It’s Erith, isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s possible. Don’t get your hopes up. We’ve searched all the houses in the surrounding streets. Nothing yet.’

  ‘Evans was on a train to Erith, after we saw Charlotte. From Charing Cross.’

  ‘And do you know if he got off there?’ Delaney asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then it’s probably coincidence. And not even much of that.’

  ‘He said he was getting another train …’

  ‘Maxime, I know Evans. I’ve known him for years. He’s got a full service record without any question marks over it. And 5’s dogs went through all their people as soon as you brought it to us that Parade existed. He’s clean.’

  Reece had to admit the evidence was thin. And yet …

  He shook the thought from his mind for now. They had a real lead to work with. ‘What about this SD station?’

  ‘It communicates with one in Paris. In Billancourt, to be precise. That’s an industrial area, right?’

  ‘Yes. In the west. Working class – a lot of factories.’

  ‘Well, the maps show a rue de l’Église there. The street’s mostly warehouses. We have one of them under surveillance and we’re sending a reconnaissance plane over right now. But we have to get in there. This op seems to be Parade’s poisonous offspring, so there might be something that leads us to him.’

  Reece stood and paced to the window. He understood the reason that lay behind this conversation. ‘You’re sending me back,’ he said.

  ‘I need you to infiltrate the location, find out anything that tells us what they’re planning or anything that could identify Parade.’ The river surge of emotions was chaotic: trepidation, yes, but heat at a chance to return to the Germans, in some form or another, what they had inflicted on him over the course of three days in Amiens. ‘Hélène and Thomas are back in Paris. She’s attached to Schoolmaster circuit. Thomas is unassigned. We’ll let him know you’re coming. Make contact and execute the op. Find out what you can, then Hélène can have it transmitted.’

  He thought of the previous day in the Cage. ‘How plausible is what Charlotte said about Canaris?’

  Delaney shuffled a few papers on his desk. ‘We’ve been in contact with the admiral for years.’ Reece was astonished, but betrayed little of it. And she was telling the truth. Blameless? No, she was far from blameless. But she had had a reason for what she had done. What he felt had no name, but relief flowed below its surface. ‘He wanted Hitler dead and buried as much as we did. He’s done us a few favours. I can’t go into too much detail, but he’s provided some first-rate intelligence about troop movements and German influence in neutral nations: Spain, Switzerland. Helped us know whom we can trust there, and whom we can’t.’

  ‘You believe her when she says Canaris inserted her into the circuit to keep tabs on our invasion plans, and she stole the photographs so he could trade them for immunity and a role in the post-war government?’

  ‘Just the sort of thing he would do. He has principles, but looking after himself seems to be high up the list. We have one of his anti-Nazi circle over here now, trying to make a deal.’

  ‘What sort of deal?’

  Delaney studied Reece. ‘They remove Hitler and his cadre and we leave Germany in possession of its conquered lands to the east. To act as a bulwark against Soviet expansion.’

  ‘Then her story fits.’ He wanted it to fit. ‘What reports do you have of Canaris now?’

  ‘It’s not looking good for him. The Reich Main Security Office has taken over. A pity for us.’

  ‘The deal Canaris’s man is offering – will you take it?’ Reece asked.

  ‘Not my decision. Thank God. Some people high up are considering it. They’re looking at what Europe might look like after the war is over – we can’t go from fighting Nazism to fighting Communism in a matter of weeks. That really would mean total collapse.’ He knitted his fingers together and rested his chin on them. ‘Total collapse,’ he muttered. ‘No wonder Winston’s a lush, with that sort of decision on his shoulders – sending armed men to death or glory is easy; trading innocent lives for security is far harder.’ He pursed his lips. ‘Enough of that. You’ll go to Paris.’

  ‘Send Charlotte with me.’

  Delaney pondered wordlessly for a minute. ‘Yes, all right. But watch her.’

  Carrying a canvas holdall, Huw Evans took the Underground to Bethnal Green in the East End, lifting his hat to two young women on their way back from a long factory shift. He had taken his wireless operator to a guest house in Bloomsbury, where a single, shabby room would be her world for a few days. Tonight he would be using an alternative means of communication.

  The Tube was stuffy with pipe smoke and warm bodies. It had been drizzling almost constantly, so the air was damp too. He was glad to get out of it and back to street level.

  In front of him was the York Hall public baths, a solid building of two storeys built twenty-odd years earlier. It was half an hour before closing time, so when he entered the entrance lobby he found only a bored-looking old woman crocheting baby clothes behind a desk. ‘One for the first-class baths, please,’ Evans told her, passing over a few coins. She counted them meticulously then handed over a small paper ticket and pointed him through.

  He passed into a deserted communal changing room, stripped down and took a brown bathrobe, wallet and shaving bag from his holdall, stowing the rest in a shabby wooden locker. The sign for the first-class baths was in a finer script than that for the second-class. There was a distinction even here, it seemed.

  Barefoot, he trod through into a large room filled with a deep, light blue pool reeking of ammonia. He padded around it, towards a pair of rooms set in the opposite wall. Steam was filtering out from the one on the left. The other would be the Russian sauna – dry heat. He checked inside this one first. It was empty of occupants. He moved on to the
steam room to his side. When he opened the door a wave of steam made his face burn a little. It was a room of substantial size, with pine benches and little puddles of warm water on the floor. Through the thin cloud he could see, at the end, two figures moving quickly apart. He walked towards them.

  As he got closer he could make out a thin man in his forties with sparse, damp hair sprawled across a bald pate. The other figure was a blond boy aged perhaps seventeen, drawing himself into a corner. ‘Get out,’ he said. The boy scrambled off his bench and ran out of the door. Water was dripping from the ceiling and running down white-tiled walls.

  The other man stood up. ‘That boy approached …’ His accent was a southern Irish lilt, but that of an educated man.

  ‘Shut up, Ryan, for Christ’s sake.’ The man stopped moving, and a look of shock swept across his face. ‘I couldn’t care less who you fuck.’ Regardless of what Evans said, the man, Ryan, gathered up what courage he had and began walking carefully towards the exit. Evans reached into his shaving bag and pulled out an old-fashioned cut-throat razor, which he opened out to show the long, curved blade. He blocked the other man’s path. ‘Don’t. Sit down there.’ He pointed with the razor to a bench in the middle of the room.

  This was already a disturbingly unpredictable moment for Evans, not knowing for certain how Ryan would react. He wasn’t happy about using the Fenians as a conduit for his communications with Berlin, but the supposedly neutral Irish favoured a Nazi victory over Britain and would secretly pass Berlin anything they could that would hasten such an outcome. Evans’s handlers in Berlin had pointed him to Ryan as the best contact if he needed to communicate outside his normal method. And the emergency method would make Berlin recognize the efforts he had gone to in order to send the information.

  Ryan’s lips trembled as if he were attempting to form words, but then he meekly acceded to the demand and sat on the bench, his arms wrapped around himself. Evans opened his wash bag once more and pulled out a small paper packet. He placed it gently on the bench. Ryan stared at it. ‘That’s right, you can pick it up,’ Evans told him. Ryan’s fingers went nervously to the package. ‘Open it.’ He still had the razor in his hand. Ryan opened the packet and pulled out three photographs. His eyebrows lifted as he stared at them in bare comprehension. ‘I want you to send these to Berlin.’

  Ryan stared up at Evans. ‘I … I don’t …’ he stammered. ‘I work at the Irish embassy. I …’

  ‘I don’t have time for this, Ryan. Send them to the SD.’

  Ryan stopped speaking and a smile broke out across his face. ‘Who are you? No, I understand. No names. What is this?’

  ‘Look at it.’

  Ryan looked more closely at the photographs. Two showed maps, and one was a document divided into two columns, marked ‘codeword’ and ‘clear’ – a list of codewords to be used during the coming beach landings: landing points, ships and regiments. If the Germans were monitoring the Allies’ radio signals, they could precisely follow the progress of the invasion and work out the weak points.

  ‘Sir,’ Ryan said happily, ‘this will do us a great service. Defeating the Brits –’

  ‘Be quiet. You think I’m doing this for your shitty little rebellion?’ He paused. ‘How many potatoes does it take to kill an Irishman?’ He waited. ‘None.’ He smirked, watching for a reaction. ‘Quite good, isn’t it?’ Colour rose in the seated man’s cheeks. ‘How long to get it to Berlin? Can you transmit?’

  ‘Transmit, no. But I can have it on an aeroplane to Dublin in the morning, I would say. I will have to find an excuse, but that’s …’ He saw the impatience in Evans’s face. ‘And they will take it straight to the German embassy. I expect it will take them no more than six hours to get it to their government. All in all, less than eighteen hours, I would say. Will you …’

  ‘Tell them that by the end of tomorrow Parade will have access to the full Order of Battle.’ The man’s eyes widened again. ‘Be here. Have a plane waiting and the German embassy ready to receive it.’

  ‘Yes, I will.’

  ‘And something else. Pass on a message: the SOE agent named Marc Reece will be paying a visit to Paris soon. Tell them to spare nothing to find him. Do you understand?’ The man nodded rapidly, his eyes fixed on the weapon still in Evans’s hand. ‘I said, do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, yes. I understand.’

  ‘Good. Don’t fuck this up.’ Parade lifted the razor very slightly. ‘Clear?’

  ‘Yes. Clear. It’s clear.’

  Evans eased the razor back down. Without another word, he left the bath house. He stopped outside to light a gasper. Truth be told, he couldn’t stand these absurd, sophomoric theatrics – he was hardly going to spread a minor diplomat’s arterial blood all over the walls and bring the police running, but it was probably necessary in order to tell this cowering little man and his Pope-fellating friends that Germany’s agent was committed right to the end. So they had better be committed too.

  He slowly looked back at the white building. The Irishman would be hurriedly dressing, repeating the messages over and over in his mind, making sure he didn’t forget a word, hoping this would bring triumph for the cause and fame for himself.

  And what will you do when we succeed, my Irish friend? You have sown the wind. Will your whole nation reap the whirlwind?

  CHAPTER 27

  4 June 1944

  ‘You two must be important,’ said a fat, leering lieutenant-commander as Reece and Charlotte climbed into the fast Motor Gun Boat in Plymouth harbour late the next morning. The rain was pouring down. ‘We had to be rerouted for this.’ He held out an oily hand for Charlotte as she stepped down on to the deck, barely visible in the dark. She politely ignored it. ‘Lots of funny business about right now. Seen them boats made outta cardboard in Dover harbour?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘To keep Jerry confused about when and where we’re coming, I heard.’ He looked to Reece for comment but gained none. Reece had had too much practice at keeping his mouth shut to reveal all to a minor naval officer. ‘All right, I know, I know.’ He looked out to sea. ‘Leading Hand!’ A young man came quickly from the rear of the boat. ‘Get our two guests a couple of oilskins. We don’t want them freezing on the way over. Some hot drinks too.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Reece said.

  ‘It won’t be a pleasure cruise – bloody tight storm out there,’ said the boat captain as he peered out to sea. ‘Ever been on an MGB?’

  ‘No.’

  Charlotte shook her head.

  ‘Well, we’re bloody quick. Like a rat up a drainpipe. We’ll be going twenty-five knots, so get below and hold on.’

  ‘Do you understand the mission objective?’ Reece asked. ‘If we see an enemy vessel, you are not to engage it. We have to lie low.’ This op was more important to Reece than any he had been on. Ten times a day he still felt the sting of how he had betrayed his fellow agents, the millions of men and women fighting the Reich, and his own years of sacrifice, when he had talked. This could reverse some of the shame and damage. It was a shot at redemption.

  ‘I’ve been in this game for a few years,’ the hefty captain replied. ‘I’ll get you there. By hook or by bloody crook.’ Reece understood that the man looked buffoonish but was determined to fulfil his duty.

  He and Charlotte went below and kept as warm as they could while the engines started up and drove them out into the open sea to bash through high grey waves. Bristling with weapons – cannons, machine guns and depth charges – the gun boat was heavy for its size, but the engines were powerful and busted the vessel through the water at a speed that would make it hard for any boats in the Kriegsmarine to catch.

  The straining motors made the metal floor thrum underfoot and their throats tasted the diesel fumes mixed with salt from the air. They were given hot tea and glasses of rum to keep out the cold.

  At a wooden table bolted to the floor, Reece took two RAF aerial reconnaissance photographs from a pocket in his backpack. Also withi
n were a set of lock picks, a camera, a pair of dark glasses, a small battery-powered microphone connected to an earpiece, two large glass phials containing powders – one red-brown, the other white – and a thin strip of metal about thirty centimetres long.

  ‘Delaney wanted us to make contact with Thomas, and then the three of us hit the warehouse. After that we RV with Hélène and she has the intelligence transmitted. But that’s a wrong move – it’s safer if I infiltrate alone. So we’ll go straight there and contact Thomas and Hélène afterwards,’ he said as the boat heaved and rolled. ‘The warehouse is on the riverfront in Billancourt. The Free French have scouted it for us. The building’s square – maybe fifty, sixty metres each side. Flat roof. Two storeys.’

  ‘Entry points into the compound?’

  ‘Single. The front gate, guarded by four uniformed soldiers. This post of theirs is raised a couple of metres off the ground.’ He pointed to a guard post. ‘Another guard makes rounds from time to time. The réseau had a peek in when the gates opened but saw nothing useful. The road itself is a bit of a backstreet.’

  He pointed it all out on the photographs, taken by a reconnaissance flight and passed on by Delaney. They showed the square warehouse surrounded by a high fence. On one side was a large courtyard. There was a normal-sized door into the warehouse, and next to it a very wide sliding door for vehicles.

  ‘Are you going over the fence?’

  ‘It’s too risky. Barbed wire, and the guards can see it from the front. But the French have found one way in that the guards can’t see from where they are.’ He tapped a point in the middle of the courtyard. ‘There’s a drain here for the run-off in the courtyard. It empties out into the Seine. The réseau checked the outlet and it’s wide enough to get through. But it’s barred.’

  ‘You’ll cut the bars?’

  ‘It would take an hour to saw through. I’ll have to use these.’ He held up the glass phials of powder. ‘Thermite. I just need you to distract the guards at the front. They’ll be bored and looking for any distraction.’ From a side pocket in his bag he took a pair of time pencils – SOE’s specialist detonators, which looked like innocuous small metal pipes – and two tennis balls. He opened a hidden split in the rubber to reveal what was inside. ‘They’re flares. Good for one minute. There’s an empty house opposite. Cover the flares in wet newspaper to get some smoke going. The timers are set to three minutes. Make sure you’re clear.’