Angel of Darkness

by Christopher Nicole

  ‘Oh? Didn’t we stop at Shannon?’

  ‘Wasn’t necessary. We had a following wind.’

  Anna looked out of the window; it was broad daylight outside, but below them was a thick layer of cloud.

  ‘Snowing in London,’ the stewardess said, helpfully.

  Anna finished her breakfast and retired to the toilet with her shoulder bag. In case it was searched, when she took off her shirt and slacks and before putting on her dress, she inserted her Bartley passport inside her gun belt; the belt fitted very snugly, and the little document was held firmly against her pelvis. Then she put her hair up, added her hat and glasses, and resumed her seat just as the pilot requested all his passengers to strap in as they were beginning the descent.

  Her companion blinked at her. ‘My husband doesn’t know I’m making this trip,’ Anna explained.

  ‘Oh, my dear!’ her friend said, for the first time completely lost for words.

  *

  There was no trouble at all at Heathrow. ‘Nature of visit?’ asked the immigration officer.

  ‘Ah’m on vacation,’ Anna explained.

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘It’s snowing.’

  ‘Ah saw some from the plane while we was landing. Ah’m from Wisconsin. Say, yuh reckon if Ah go to Buck-ing-ham Palace Ah’ll get to meet this new queen yuh-all have?’

  ‘I wouldn’t count on it,’ the man said, and stamped the passport. ‘But have a nice visit.’

  As Anna left the desk, she heard him say to his colleague, ‘Where the hell is Wisconsin?’

  ‘In the northern United States. Right next to Canada. It’s where they had that outsize blizzard last week.’

  ‘Ah,’ the first man said. ‘I could swear the last time I heard an accent like that it was someone from Alabama.’

  Anna realized that she had underestimated the perspicacity of the British immigration service – but they had let her through, into Britain. She found her luggage, and a porter with a trolley, and made her way into the Arrivals Hall; and there was Jerry Smitten, waiting to fold her in his arms.

  *

  ‘Anna!’ He kissed her on the mouth; he was some inches taller than her, which was a most desirable asset in view of their past experiences. ‘How long is it?’

  ‘Three years,’ she reminded him. Actually, physically he had everything going for him, as in addition to his height and curly fair hair, he had, even in his mid-thirties, fresh college-boy features and a footballer’s broad shoulders and narrow hips. He had also, as she had conceded to Joe, been very good in bed, once she had broken down his Midwestern inhibitions. She was even willing to concede that perhaps he had been unlucky on the two occasions when he had been required to act as her bodyguard – in that the Russians sent to kidnap her in Brazil six years before had been quicker on the draw (fortunately they had not been quicker than her), and when they had been confronted by those Mafiosi in the Bahamas he had been overtaken by seasickness as they were about to go into action. But as Napoleon had said, give me a lucky general before a good one.

  She freed herself with an effort, grabbing her dislodged hat just before it fell right off; and discovering that her glasses were blurred, she took them off. Her hair was already coming down, and in danger of restoring her normal appearance, but as they were surrounded by people hurrying to and fro she did not suppose anyone had the time to notice her metamorphosis. ‘Nice to see you too, Jerry. The first thing you need to remember is that I am now a married woman.’

  ‘You’re kidding!’ He looked at her left hand, but she was wearing gloves. ‘Shit. You saying . . .’

  ‘Nowadays I only sleep with my husband.’

  ‘Yeah? What about this job? You know what it involves?’

  ‘I do. And of course I am prepared to make exceptions in the interests of my profession. But you don’t come into that category! Do you have transport?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said, glumly.

  ‘Then take me to it.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she told the bemused porter. ‘This gentleman will take care of my bags now.’ She tipped him, and he touched his cap, then was immediately engaged by another customer: also a woman, in a green dress, with somewhat sharp features, who had red hair and was distinctly overweight.

  Jerry grimaced, but picked up a suitcase in each hand. ‘It’s outside the main entrance. But I guess you know your way around here.’

  ‘Would you believe that I have never used this airport before? When I left England in 1946, it didn’t exist.’

  ‘Well,’ he said, as he ushered her though the doors of the single terminal building, ‘they ain’t made much progress since. Oh, they’ve got big plans . . .’ He gestured at the huge scars in the ground, the bulldozers and contractors’ vans parked all over the place. ‘More runways, more terminal buildings, more access roads . . . they’re talking about making this the biggest international airport in the world. But it’s gonna take time. And money, supposing they can raise it.’

  It was now snowing quite heavily. Jerry opened the rear door for her, and Anna slid across the seat while he got in beside her. The driver put her bags in the boot, then got behind the wheel and they moved off. ‘It’s a fifteen-mile drive to the West End,’ he explained.

  ‘And this fellow?’ She moved her glove to indicate the back of the driver’s head.

  ‘Oh, he works for me. Anna, this is Paul. Paul, say hello to Miss . . .’

  ‘Kelly,’ Anna said.

  ‘Pleased to meet you, Miss Kelly,’ said Paul.

  ‘My pleasure, Paul.’

  ‘Do you trust him?’ she mouthed at Jerry.

  ‘Absolutely. He’s my sidekick.’

  ‘So who do you work for, given that your people seem determined not to be involved, no matter what?’

  ‘I’m a freelance journalist, reporting on the British political scene for a New York paper.’

  ‘Where do you live?’

  ‘I have an apartment. What these guys call a flat. Like to have a look at it?’

  ‘Maybe. When there’s time. I assume I’m booked into a hotel?’

  ‘Yeah, the Royal George. It’s pretty upmarket.’

  ‘That’s what I like to hear. So let’s go there. I had a broken night, and would like to get my head down.’

  He sighed. ‘OK. Paul?’

  ‘You got it, Mr Smitten.’

  ‘But we’ll have dinner tonight?’ Jerry asked, anxiously.

  ‘When do we start the operation? I’d like to get it done as soon as possible.’

  ‘Tomorrow. It’s Saturday night, and this old town gets pretty lively. So I thought we’d dine at the Coca Club.’

  ‘The Coca Club,’ Anna said thoughtfully. ‘I hope that doesn’t mean what it sounds as if it means.’

  ‘Well, I guess drugs are available there. But they’re available anywhere in London, if you know where to look.’

  ‘Jerry, the last thing I need is to get involved in a drugs bust.’

  ‘No chance of that. The guy’s paying protection.’

  ‘Are you telling me that Scotland Yard is corrupt?’

  ‘A few of its people are. If you belong to the Vice Squad, it’s difficult not to get sticky fingers. The point is it’s a club where all the wide boys, as they’re called over here, turn up. The décor is upmarket, the liquor isn’t actually poison, and it’s just a little, well, risqué.’

  ‘You mean, it’s a high-class knocking shop, as they say over here?’

  ‘No, no. Well, not obviously, though it has bare-titted dancers and that sort of thing – but,’ he hurried on, ‘as I said, it’s where the sort of goon who works for Fahri hangs out, looking for meat.’

  ‘If you ever refer to me as ‘meat’ again, Jerry, you are going to wind up in hospital, and this time you are going to take a hell of a long time coming out.’

  ‘OK, OK. Don’t get your knickers in a twist. But you’re here to be picked up, right?’

  ‘In the line of duty. Now tell me about afterwards.’
r />   ‘Well, you know I can’t get involved.’

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of involving you, Jerry,’ she assured him. Because, she thought, I have every intention of coming out of this business alive. ‘I mean, when I’ve finished the job and want to get out of here.’

  ‘Telephone me as soon as you’re clear, and I’ll take over.’

  ‘Doesn’t that mean that you will, after all, become involved?’

  ‘I have it all worked out. Trust me.’

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘it looks as if I’ll have to, won’t I?’

  The car pulled into the forecourt of the Royal George Hotel, which certainly suggested opulence.

  ‘Dinner?’ Jerry asked again, as he opened her door for her.

  ‘Tomorrow, Jerry. At the Coca Club,’ she reminded him. ‘Call for me at eight.’

  ‘It doesn’t open until nine.’

  ‘Then we’ll have time for a decent drink first.’

  *

  Hamilton took a taxi from the airport to the address in Clapham, a modest detached house with a garage and a small garden. He paid the driver and cautiously carried his suitcase up the brief concrete path to the front door. Although it was no longer snowing and the path had been swept, it remained very slippery. He rang the bell.

  The door was opened by a woman with sharp features and shoulder-length red hair, wearing a green woollen dress and high heels. The only thing wrong with her figure was that there was a little too much of it, in every direction. She let him in and closed the door behind him. ‘It’s freezing out there,’ she commented.

  ‘And only yesterday I was basking in paradise.’

  ‘Lucky for some.’ She gestured at a door. ‘He’s waiting for you.’

  Hamilton nodded, knocked, and entered the room. ‘Good morning, Comrade Siemann,’ he ventured.

  ‘It is afternoon,’ the heavy-set man behind the desk corrected him. ‘Sit.’

  Hamilton obeyed.

  ‘The countess landed on schedule yesterday,’ Siemann said.

  Hamilton inclined his head, in some relief.

  ‘She was met by a man who spoke with an American accent. Do you know about this?’

  ‘I don’t know anything about this man,’ Hamilton said. ‘But I do know that last week in Nassau she received two visitors, in her bedroom.’

  ‘You mean, in addition to her other vices, she is a whore?’

  ‘She is not a whore,’ said Hamilton emphatically. ‘Both these men spoke with an American accent, and we have long suspected that she has links with the US Government. I think these men were representatives of a state office.’

  ‘And therefore you assume that she’s working for the USA. That may well be. Tatiana was at the airport, with Grattan. They followed her and her companion to the Royal George Hotel – where she checked in under the name of Kelly, using an American passport. If she’s working for the United States that would explain how she has managed to evade us for so long, and we know that the Americans helped her take a fortune in Nazi bullion out of Germany in 1946. At a cost of more than twenty Soviet lives,’ he added acerbically. ‘We have always assumed that she received that help for assisting them in recovering the complete store of Nazi bullion, the whereabouts of which were apparently known to her in her capacity as Himmler’s right-hand woman. And by then, of course, she was the only survivor of that crew.’

  ‘And at the time they were supposed to be our allies,’ Hamilton commented.

  ‘They are devils, who will stop at nothing to achieve their ends. That is why they have for the past six years been protecting such a creature. And I can tell you that it is the commissar’s conviction that they have been employing her as well, and perhaps still are. What you have learned may well confirm this. But this man who met her greeted her most warmly; they kissed each other on the mouth. That seems to me to indicate that they are lovers rather than fellow agents.’

  ‘I doubt it,’ Hamilton demurred. ‘The countess is now married, to a man named Bartley, to whom she is determinedly faithful. I think mainly because she is afraid of him.’

  ‘The Countess von Widerstand is afraid of a man? You have not studied her record.’

  ‘I have studied her record, comrade. What is more, I have seen her at work.’

  ‘So you said. And you are here. How did you do this?’

  ‘I was with her when we were attacked by three men. There was nothing covert about it; it was what the West calls a mugging. The countess destroyed them all, with no assistance from me.’

  ‘You mean she is armed at all times?’

  ‘She was not armed. And one of her assailants had a knife. She broke his arm as if it was a twig, and killed another with a single blow. The third ran off, with the injured man. She did this hardly drawing a breath.’

  ‘As I observed before, Hamilton, you have made the mistake of seeing this monster as a woman, rather than a target, and allowed yourself to become fascinated by her.’

  ‘I saw it happen,’ Hamilton said stubbornly.

  Siemann regarded him for several moments, then nodded. ‘So you do not think this man is a lover, nor do you think the countess needs protection. Then why is he here to receive her on what is obviously a clandestine visit to England?’

  ‘I would say that if your reasoning is correct and she is in fact working for the Americans, she is most probably here to carry out a hit; and as this man is an American, he is an agent sent here to assist her in setting it up.’

  ‘And his greeting?’

  Hamilton shrugged. ‘These people are like that, careless with displays of affection, even in public.’ Although, he remembered sadly, she never showed any inclination to kiss me, except for that wild night on the beach. And yet he had held that fabulous body naked in his arms. That was something he was determined to repeat, at least once, before she bit the dust.

  Siemann stroked his chin. ‘Therefore there may be other American agents in close proximity.’

  ‘Does this affect our plans?’

  ‘Obviously, it must do. Our business is to remove the countess to Moscow, if possible in one piece. It is not to engage in London with the FBI or CIA, or whatever these people call themselves. We may have to rethink our strategy.’

  ‘You mean you will wait for her to return to the Bahamas?’ Which might take me back again to that sunlit warmth, Hamilton thought.

  ‘No,’ Siemann said, disappointingly. ‘Having her here, under our hand, so to speak, is too good an opportunity to miss. In the Bahamas she appears to be a free agent, with American protection. But we have been assured she is no longer connected with the British Government, indeed that she is no longer acceptable in Great Britain. This is obviously why she is travelling incognito; if they discover she is here, they will arrest her and deport her. Therefore not only is she no longer under their protection, but they will not lift a finger to help her. Nor will they make a big fuss if she is kidnapped.’

  Hamilton looked doubtful. ‘I hope you are right.’

  ‘We are right, because we have friends in all the right places. Now, do you still wish to be involved?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Very good. In view of your experience you may be useful. But you must not get too close – it would be disastrous were she to see you. I am inserting our people into the hotel in various capacities, so we can keep her under surveillance while we see exactly what she is up to, and plan our tactics accordingly. Then we will include you.’

  ‘I would like to accompany her to Moscow.’

  Siemann grinned. ‘You have got it bad. I hope you have not allowed this infatuation to affect you evaluations.’

  ‘I wish to see her humbled as much as anyone, comrade. I merely wish to be there when it happens.’

  ‘I cannot guarantee that you will have that privilege. But I can promise that you will accompany her to Moscow. Just bear in mind, always, that she is Commissar Beria’s property. Nobody else’s.’

  *

  ‘Would you believe,’ Anna
remarked, ‘that before this week I had never set foot in a nightclub?’

  ‘You must be joking!’ Jerry exclaimed. ‘All that high life in Berlin?’

  ‘The highest life I enjoyed in Berlin was an occasional opera or SS-controlled ball – and at all of them I was working, in one capacity or another. I met Bally,’ she said reminiscently, ‘at an SS ball in 1938, to which I had been taken specifically to attract and seduce him.’ And at which, she remembered fondly, I also first met Clive.

  ‘And I assume you succeeded?’

  ‘If I had ever failed, at any task,’ Anna pointed out, ‘I would not be here now.’

  He gulped, then recovered. ‘But what about when he married you and brought you to London? I gather it was fairly lively even then. He must occasionally have taken you to a nightclub.’

  ‘No he did not. Bally did not like nightclubs.’

  ‘Stuffy. Well, I hope you are enjoying the new experience.’

  Anna surveyed the crowded dance floor, the perspiring bodies huddled close against each other. Their table was situated on its edge. ‘I am not enjoying the experience.’

  ‘Why ever not?’

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘as we have all evening. One, I don’t like the ambience. Two, I don’t like the clientele. Three, I don’t like the noise. Four, I don’t like the orchestra, to whom noise seems to be more important than melody. Five, the food is appalling. And six, I’m beginning to suspect that your statement that the drinks aren’t actually poison was wildly optimistic.’ Anna put down her glass of sparkling wine.

  ‘You’re a hard woman to please.’

  ‘You managed it once.’

  ‘Ah.’ He brightened. ‘I was waiting for you to say that. We could go back to your hotel.’

  ‘Sadly, Jerry, I’m here to work, not play. Or even enjoy myself. Let’s give the Coca Club another whirl.’

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘I thought you liked that least of all.’

  ‘I did and I do. But last time we were there, there was a chap who was definitely interested. I almost thought he was going to make a move. He didn’t. But he seemed pretty well known to the staff, so he must be a regular. And I would say that he comes from the right part of the world. I think second time around he may try his luck.’