by Len Deighton
‘No one made a record of that conversation?’
‘We were all out of earshot.’
‘So what went wrong?’
‘Within forty-eight hours of the Churchill – Hitler conference our army had occupied Paris. By that Friday lunchtime Hitler was drafting tougher terms. And Churchill had talked with Roosevelt on the trans-Atlantic telephone. Roosevelt told him that if he was re-elected in November the USA would come into the war.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘The Research Bureau of the Reichspost monitored the trans-Atlantic telephone; it was a radio link with a very simple scrambling device. Roosevelt promised aid and that was enough to change Churchill’s mind. Hitler had the transcript within three hours. He knew what the answer was going to be.’ Kleiber scratched his nose. ‘Churchill phoned the French premier the night before he dispatched his courier. The French reacted immediately. On that same Sunday that the Führer went to Schloss Acoz, the French government resigned. Marshal Pétain took over and asked for peace. Churchill went on the BBC that Monday night and made a speech saying that, “… we shall fight on unconquerable, until the curse of Hitler is removed from the brows of men.” By Friday, Hitler was sitting in Foch’s chair in the railway coach and hearing the peace terms that the French would have to accept.’
‘What about the Englishman who brought the message to Hitler?’
‘He returned with the Spanish general,’ said Kleiber.
‘I mean in respect of Operation Siegfried. Surely he’s another one who knows the secrets?’
‘He’s dead,’ said Kleiber. ‘He was one of the first people we had to check out. He must have been completely in Churchill’s confidence. He probably knew more about those secret meetings than any man, except for Hitler and Churchill. We ran a check on him some years ago. His name was Elliot Castelbridge, from the Coldstream Guards. He was awarded the DSO fighting in Italy, partially deafened by a shell burst at Cassino. He got another medal in northern Europe in 1944. I can’t remember the rest of it. We got the whole dossier through the British War Office. We know everything about Elliot Castelbridge.’
‘You say he’s dead?’
‘Long since dead,’ said Kleiber. ‘Died on the operating table after a motor car accident in 1959. Your people are thorough, I must say that for them. They had every last detail of that man’s life on paper. Death certificate, report by the operating surgeon, statements by the hospital registrar, blood transfusions, X-rays. Everything you could ever wish for in an investigation.’
‘Yes, they are thorough,’ said Stuart. That was truly an XPD, he thought. He heard the first of the cars arriving from Langley.
Stuart reached out suddenly to grab the front of Kleiber’s jacket. ‘Where is it, Kleiber?’ He banged him back against the wall with enough force to make the thin partition wall shake. ‘You came here to give it to Grechko. Grechko is dead; give it to me.’ The sound echoed. ‘Give it to me!’ Stuart slapped him. Kleiber’s head hit the plasterboard wall again, and a large table lamp fell to the floor and broke. Kleiber shook his head slowly and blinked; his eyes watered with pain and surprise. Boyd Stuart said softly, ‘Give me the photo Franz Wever sent to you general delivery in Los Angeles.’
Slowly Kleiber unbuckled his belt and slid it through the loops of his trousers. He unzipped the inside of the belt to open the money compartment and took out a very tattered snapshot and a single-frame 35-mm negative.
‘How did you know?’
‘You collected the cameras; you just told me so. You were in a unique position to get a photo of Hitler and Churchill shaking hands.’ Stuart smoothed the photo to look at it. ‘And you could hide in a good spot to get the picture, concealment would be expected of a security guard.’
Kleiber nodded.
It was a blurred photo; Hitler squinting into the light, Churchill – cigar in mouth – frowning as if perplexed. But the two men had grasped hands firmly in an unmistakable gesture of solidarity.
‘Now what?’ Kleiber asked. He wiped his face with his handkerchief, watching Stuart warily and still surprised that his guess about the Scotsman’s violent nature was so soon confirmed.
Stuart had discovered everything he wanted to know. Already he had begun to decide how much of it should go into his report to Sir Sydney Ryden. He looked at his watch and wondered if the cashier would complain if he went Concorde.
‘Now, what? Now nothing, Kleiber.’ The man was a repugnant creature but that made his job only marginally more bearable.
Stuart patted his pockets as if searching for cigarettes. He felt the box inside which the hypodermic was wrapped in cotton gauze, with a spare phial inside his silver cigarette case where it was not likely to be broken. He hated these XPD jobs that the laboratory experts arranged. It was horrible enough to dispose of men with gun, blade or explosive but these toxic chemicals were loathsome.
‘I’m sorry, Kleiber,’ he said. ‘But it’s the end of the story.’
‘I’m a soldier,’ said Kleiber. It was almost as if he welcomed the chance to die like a hero.
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About the Author
Len Deighton was born in 1929. He worked as a railway clerk before doing his National Service in the RAF as a photographer attached to the Special Investigation Branch.
After his discharge in 1949, he went to art school – first to the St Martin’s School of Art, and then to the Royal College of Art on a scholarship. His mother was a professional cook and he grew up with an interest in cookery – a subject he was later to make his own in an animated strip for the Observer and in two cookery books. He worked for a while as an illustrator in New York and as art director of an advertising agency in London.
Deciding it was time to settle down, Deighton moved to the Dordogne where he started work on his first book, The IPCRESS File. Published in 1962, the book was an immediate success.
Since then his work has gone from strength to strength, varying from espionage novels to war, general fiction and non-fiction. The BBC made Bomber into a daylong radio drama in ‘real time’. Deighton’s history of World War Two, Blood, Tears and Folly, was published to wide acclaim – Jack Higgins called it ‘an absolute landmark’.
As Max Hastings observed, Deighton captured a time and a mood – ‘To those of us who were in our twenties in the 1960s, his books seemed the coolest, funkiest, most sophisticated things we’d ever read’ – and his books have now deservedly become classics.
Also by the Author
FICTION
The IPCRESS File
Horse Under Water
Funeral in Berlin
Billion-Dollar Brain
An Expensive Place to Die
Only When I Larf
Bomber
Declarations of War
Close-Up
Spy Story
Yesterday’s Spy
Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Spy
SS-GB
XPD
Goodbye Mickey Mouse
MAMista
City of Gold
Violent Ward
THE SAMSON SERIES
Berlin Game
Mexico Set
London Match
Winter: A Berlin Family 1899–1945
Spy Hook
Spy Line
Spy Sinker
Faith
Hope
Charity
NON-FICTION
Action Cook Book
Fighter: The True Story of the Battle of Britain
Airshipwreck
Basic French Cooking
Blitzkrieg: From the Rise of Hitler to the Fall of Dunkirk
ABC of French Food
Blood, Tears and Folly
About the Publisher
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United Kingdom
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United States
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http://www.harpercollins.com
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Epigraph
Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Keep Reading
About the Author
Also by the Author
About the Publisher