by James Hume
‘Sure.’ He took some notes. ‘And the delay gives us a chance to find out more about this company, and get a better idea of the layout of the mansion house. At the moment we think it’s offices on the ground floor, residence on the first floor, and bedrooms on the second and third floors, but I’d like to confirm that if we can. We’ll also put a tail on Timmermann, so we know what he’s up to.’
‘Okay, great. And once we have him, we could try him here, or in the UK. We should check that with Montgomery.’
‘Not a problem. I’ll check with Monty. If you want, we can fly Timmermann from RAF Güttersloh, not far from here. Planes go back and forward to England all the time.’
‘Good.’ Sandra smiled at him, and stood up. ‘Can we go and have a look at this place before it gets dark? Get a feel for it?’
They got into Conway’s car and drove through the town. A pretty enough place, thought Sandra. Conway eased back as he passed the GT buildings. Sandra studied them. ‘Okay, that’s fine, Major.’
Back in the office, Sandra picked up the aerial photograph of the buildings. ‘It doesn’t look too easy to monitor the mansion house. Is this open parkland to the west?’
Conway nodded. ‘Yeah, it’s part of the main spa park.’
‘Mmm. We often dig up pavements and put in our people as pretend electricity board or gas board engineers to observe properties. Could you do that here?’
He thought for a moment. ‘Don’t think so. There’s a huge amount of hostility towards us from the local population. I’m on Monty’s leadership council, and we believe they have hidden hierarchies in operation, and people report everything we do. We don’t know who we can trust. We tiptoe around, trying to keep everyone onside as much as we can, but it’s not easy, since we don’t have enough German speakers.
‘And now the Allied Control Council’s about to launch a big denazification programme to clean out the swastika and Nazi influence from the German culture, economy, justiciary and politics. I mean, it sounds great, and the Americans have gone big on it, but Monty wants to push back. He sees it as just a huge bureaucratic exercise, and he hates bureaucracy.
‘They plan to assess the whole German population, and place them into one of five categories of involvement with the Nazis – Major Offenders, Offenders, Lesser Offenders, Followers and Exonerated – with reduced levels of sanctions as you go down the groups. Major Offenders could be hanged or thrown in prison with hard labour. But how the hell do you decide which group to put a person in, and then gather the evidence to support it?
‘We’ve over twenty million Germans in the British Zone, and our initial checks show at least half of them involved with the Nazis in some capacity. But that hides the real story. In some sectors it’s much more. For example, over ninety percent of lawyers and company owners and operators had direct links to the Nazis. So Monty’s asking how the hell can you wipe out that lot and still have a functioning judiciary and economy? It’s just nonsense.
‘And London wants us to get the economy of the British Zone up to self sufficiency as fast as possible, to avoid another burden on the hard-pressed British taxpayers. So, it’s difficult to balance all these conflicting goals in a way that’s sensible and safe.’
Sandra thought for a moment. She’d obviously hit a nerve. ‘So, does that mean you can’t use local police either?’
Conway shook his head. ‘No. We assume the local Germans, police or otherwise, only want to help their compatriots, not us. For this raid, I’ll use Commando units from Bielefeld, about twenty miles away. We have a few Polish soldiers there who can speak German.’
Sandra nodded. ‘Right, we’ll leave that in your expert hands, Major. Oh, one other thing, while I remember. The Home Secretary suggested, half in fun, whole in earnest, that we drop the manufacturing equipment in the Channel on the way back to the UK. Now, we obviously don’t want to drag it that far. Could we drop it into a large, deep lake near here?’
‘Yeah. No problem. We’ll do that okay.’ He took a note.
‘Good. So, we meet back here tomorrow morning for half an hour before we head back to Amsterdam?’
Bill nodded. He then discovered Conway stayed at the same hotel. ‘Why don’t we meet up for drinks and dinner at six?’ he suggested. ‘On us, of course.’
Bill kept the chat light-hearted during the meal – in full mine-host style – and encouraged Conway to tell them about some of his experiences on Commando raids.
When the conversation turned to cricket, Sandra excused herself and headed for bed. She thought about the events of the day. While it had certainly been tough to win the war, it sounded just as tough to win the peace.
***
Next morning, they met Conway again. ‘How did it go last night, Bob?’ Sandra asked.
Conway nodded. ‘Pretty good. Because I can’t use any locals, I took a REME unit with me to check on the electrics.’
Sandra frowned. ‘REME? What’s that?’
‘Oh, sorry. They’re the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers. We’ve got several of their units at Bielefeld. They’re good chaps. I wanted to check how we cut the power to the mansion house for the raid. Most houses in Germany have their utility meters in a small panel near their front door, and this one has too. We think the main isolator switch sits in a cupboard behind the panel.
‘So, it means we’ll have three points of entry.’ He pointed to the aerial photo of the house. ‘We’ll have a special team go in here at the front door – we’ll cut out the glass panel – and get the power off. Another team will enter via the factory pretty much the same way at its front door to neutralise the night watchman and isolate the electrics. That’ll give us access to the ground floor of the house via this corridor link. We’ll have our main team enter the house at first floor level from this roof garden, by cutting the glass in the French windows here. We can then quickly get to the bedroom floors, and neutralise within five seconds.
‘None of the doors or locks present a problem. There’s an alarm box on the outside of the mansion house, so we’ll neutralise that in advance with some goo. I’m more concerned about an array of radio aerials at the north end of the house just here.’ He pointed to the photo. ‘You can’t see them from the street, and they’re not obvious in the photo, but they’re this series of points here. Maybe they communicate with the network by radio? We’ll check it discreetly with some Signals chaps. That’s where we’re at now.’
‘Great,’ Sandra said. ‘Just to clarify. What do you mean by neutralising people?’
He laughed. ‘Oh, I just mean render them useless – cuffed hands and legs, gagged and hooded – so they can’t set off an alarm or communicate.’
Sandra nodded. ‘Okay. Now, I need to arrest the mister big, so where do we fit in?’
‘Right. We’d want to keep you two safe, so I suggest you come in behind the team through the factory. By the time you get into the house through this corridor link, we should have the whole place secure.’
Sandra took a note. ‘Fine. We’ll do that. It’s also maybe worth noting some of the problems we met with these people when we raided them a couple of years ago,’ She went on to describe how they overcame panic buttons and booby traps
Conway noted the points. ‘Okay, we’ll check for them.’
Sandra smiled. ‘Sounds like a good operation, though.’
‘Yeah, we’ve a bit of work to do on the details. I want every man to know exactly what he has to do on the night, so we’ll organise that over the next couple of weeks. We’ll keep in touch with you as we go.’
‘Fine.’ They exchanged phone numbers, and Sandra and Bill prepared to leave.
In the car, as they headed towards Holland, Bill turned to Sandra. ‘Jesus, it’s exciting. Part of a real Commando raid, huh?’
‘Yeah.’ She began to think of what could go wrong, but trusted Conway would deal with anything unexpected. Bill was right, though. It might not be a re-run of the famous raid on Saint Nazaire, but still a signifi
cant raid for peacetime.
***
They arrived in Amsterdam by mid-afternoon and called Guus Mulder. He invited them round to his office for an update.
‘Let’s clear off the easy one first,’ he said. ‘We’ve now established the pattern of visitors to the GT Pharma office at Keizersgracht. We photograph each one as they arrive and depart. They seem to spend about an hour inside. We radio telegraph the photo to Schiphol and the team there get his name and date of birth as he goes through passport control. Everyone is photographed at passport control anyway, so we end up with a record like this.’ He pulled a page from his file and passed it over. It had the name and date of birth of the visitor at the top, and four photographs of him, with the date and time listed.
Sandra studied the pictures. ‘That’s great, Guus.’
‘We don’t have their GB code number at the moment. We’ll get that from next week because we know from our phone tap when each code number’s scheduled to visit. At the moment, GB27’s the highest code number to call, so they’re well established.’
Gosh, twenty-seven, thought Sandra. This could involve every regional SB unit. She needed to see Burnett quickly.
Mulder went on, ‘We assume the visitors we don’t see at Schiphol are local, French or Belgian, and travel by train. We’ll gradually get their code numbers from next week, and we’re very interested in the local ones. When do you plan to lift the brain?’
Sandra checked her notes. ‘We plan to lift the head of the German operation and the head of the UK distribution network at two o’clock UK time on the morning of Sunday, 20th January. That then gives us four hours to confirm the names and addresses of the UK legs, and lift all of them at six o’clock. If we know any of the legs before then, we’ll lift them at two UK time as well. Why do you ask?’
‘I’ve had another informal update meeting with our Minister. He’s happy that we’ve proved a link between the Keizersgracht address and the UK distributors. If we can also prove a link to the German base, and if you have a sound legal basis for the raids on the UK and German addresses, then he’d cooperate with you and sanction a raid on the Keizersgracht property at the same time, to take down the whole chain. He suggests your Minister calls him to discuss the matter.’
Sandra glanced at Bill. ‘Wow. That’s fantastic. What do you think, Bill?’
Bill nodded. ‘I’ll try to see our Minister tomorrow, but I’m sure he’ll be delighted at the offer. Can you give me the contact details, Guus?’
‘Yes.’ He passed a one page document to Bill.
‘Okay, thanks. Leave that one with me.’
Sandra picked up the photos again. The man looked like any other businessman. Nothing distinctive, except maybe for the case. What motivated him? Opportunity? Money? He wasn’t breaking any law, of course. She’d have to change that to get the Dutch support. ‘Can I keep this?’ she asked.
Mulder nodded. ‘Sure. We plan to radio telegraph all of the photos so far to you tomorrow, and then, each morning, to send the photos from the previous day. That should give you the best chance to get their addresses from passport records. Okay?’
Sandra nodded. ‘Yeah, that’s great.’
‘Good. Let me get Margreet. She might have something for you on the flower shop front.’ He got up and left the room.
Sandra glanced at Bill. ‘Could we fly back tonight, Bill? I’d like to see Dave and Malcolm in the morning, and get an update on the legal front.’
‘I’ll phone the office and see what we can do.’ He rose and left the room.
She examined the photo. Twenty-seven like that – maybe more by the time of the raid. Just like Aquila night all over again.
Guus came back into the room with Margreet. The women shook hands. Margreet came round to the same side of the table as Sandra and opened her file. ‘Well, it’s taken a bit of effort,’ Margreet said, ‘but we’ve got something for you. Let me take you through it.
‘Lotte van der Huizen called us Tuesday evening to let us know she had two weddings – both in May 1940 – where she’d used that combination of flowers for the table arrangements. She gave us the brides’ addresses, and our team found them. One of the brides remembered a guest asked her about the ranunculus. She’d never heard of it before and it stuck with her.
‘The guest was a girl on her husband’s guest list, a colleague at Philips. Her name’s Annika Martens.’ She pulled a photo from her file that showed the bridegroom with two couples to his left and one couple to his right. ‘The Philips group at the wedding. Annika Martens is the girl to the right of the groom – and that’s her partner on the extreme right of the picture. The bride’s mother dug out the guest list and got the partner’s name as Cian Connolly – spelt C-I-A-N, pronounced Kee-in. She thought he was Irish. Our photo boys have worked their magic, and we have photographs here of just the two of them.’
Sandra examined a photo of the couple – a pretty blonde girl and a good-looking young man, both with wide smiles. She pulled out the picture of the fair-haired man from her bag. The same man – a bit younger – but definitely him.
Margreet went on. ‘The bride’s mother had an address for her in Eindhoven, and we sent a team there. But they’d moved to Amsterdam about two years ago – she’d got promoted with Philips. Neighbours said the man travelled a lot – no one knew his job – and the girl had a great personality.
‘Philips gave us her last known address in Amsterdam – she resigned from her job about four months ago to travel with her husband – though we can find no trace of a marriage. No one’s seen them for weeks. Our team ‘entered’ their flat and had a look round. Didn’t find anything of interest, except we picked up prints from them both. The man’s prints exactly match the prints you gave us on Tuesday. It’s the same man – a hundred percent.’ She passed Sandra a copy of their prints.
Sandra smiled. ‘Brilliant work. And done so quickly.’
‘Thanks. None of the neighbours know where they’ve gone. They don’t own a car, so we can’t trace them from that. We have no record of them leaving the country, though they could have false papers, of course. At the moment, they’ve disappeared. We’ll keep a watch on the flat and pick them up if they return. That’s the best we can do.’
‘That’s great, Margreet. We really appreciate all your work. We can build on it, and hopefully work out where they’ve gone. Thank you all so much.’
‘You’re welcome.’
Bill came back into the room. ‘Right, Sandra, I’ve changed our arrangements. We’re now on the seven o’clock flight to London. We’re also booked in at the Charing Cross Hotel for tonight. In the morning, I have an early slot with the HS and you have a nine o’clock slot with Dave and Malcolm. Dave’s only available till ten-thirty, but I’ll try and join you by nine-thirty latest.’
Sandra took a note. ‘Okay, sounds fine.’ They packed their bags and shook hands with Guus and Margreet. ‘Thanks for everything.’
At Schiphol, she looked for the cameras at passport control, but couldn’t see them. As they walked up the concourse towards the gate, she felt very comfortable with Bill. She could easily slip her arm through his. But she resisted it. Their relationship had to stay professional.
They sat in the long rows of seats at the gate. Bill leaned over to her and whispered, ‘Have a look at the man in the opposite row five seats to the right.’
She let her eyes wander along the people opposite. The man looked like just another traveller, in a gabardine and hat, reading a book, but with a GT Pharma case between his feet. She leaned back in her seat with eyes half closed and watched him. She wanted to send him a thought bubble like they did in cartoons. ‘Enjoy it while you can, matey, because if everything goes to plan, you’ll be behind bars in six weeks’
***
In the morning, Sandra went into the office early and called Porritt.
‘I’ve got a photo of the couple who appeared in Glasgow and attacked Tommy Thomson, sir. Their real names are Cian Connelly, we
think he’s Irish, and Annika Martens, a Dutch national. It’s a few years out of date, but should still help you.’
‘Jesus, Sandra. That’s fantastic. How did you get it?’
‘It’s a long story, sir. I’ll tell you when I’ve more time. I’ve got to get to a meeting now.’
‘No problem, Sandra. Brilliant work.’
‘Thanks, sir. Talk later.’
She asked Dave’s secretary to radio telephone the photo over to Porritt. Then went into Dave’s office. She took Dave and Malcolm through her visits in Holland and Germany, and outlined her plans for the raids.
Burnett whistled. ‘Crikey. Twenty-seven and counting? So, if we assume Bill and his team fix the legal issues, I’ll go along with your outline plans, Sandra. But we need to know more about this chap in Hampstead, and validate the ‘legs’ around the country. We need to prove they’re dealing these drugs and they’re the right people. Avoid the Glasgow scenario of the false ID. So, Malcolm. What about this Hampstead chap?’
‘Right. Mr Andrew Lyall, aged forty-two, married with two children, aged eight and nine, the son of Mr Roger Lyall, whom you’ll remember from the Aquila bust. We’ve got all the usual watch works in place – tap on the phone – tail on him – photos of visitors, etc.
‘He lives in a large detached property in West Hampstead, screened off with trees to the rear. We’ve got details of the house from an old sales brochure. Four bedrooms and a family bathroom on the upper floor. Downstairs it’s a conventional layout with large lounge to the left, dining room to the right, and the other facilities to the rear.
‘Known problems so far are an intruder alarm, a standard unit we can disable easily, and a large black Labrador dog, which could present more of a problem. We’ll have to think how to deal with that. They may also store information in code – the same one that Aquila used, so we’ll have a codebreaker as part of the team to decipher it quickly.