by Daniel Wyatt
When his MI-6 Special Operations interrogation of the prisoner at the Tower of London was completed three days later, Richardson came to one of two possible conclusions — either this man was a lunatic or he wasn’t Hess at all. However, what Richardson thought didn’t matter. What his boss, Churchill’s friend, thought didn’t matter either. The report did not get any further than 10 Downing Street.
Prime Minister Winston Churchill saw to that.
THIRTY-TWO
London, England — June 23
Churchill stood and flicked the cabinet radio off. The news was thunderous. Germany had attacked the Soviet Union the day before at exactly three-fifteen, and now three main army groups consisting of 140 divisions were pouring across the Russian borders on a front a thousand miles long. One Panzer division had already advanced fifty miles into Lithuania. The Luftwaffe was pounding the Russian Air Force, destroying hundreds of airplanes on the ground and disrupting Soviet communications. The mighty onslaught was not unexpected to a handful of individuals in Great Britain, three of whom had been listening to the day’s BBC broadcasts in the 10 Downing Street library.
Cigar in mouth, Churchill turned to Lampert and Hollinger. “We tried to warn Stalin, but he wasn’t listening. Over three million German soldiers is a lot of manpower. Our prisoner was right. Hitler was going to do it. The same mistake Napoleon made. If the Nazis don’t make Moscow by winter, they’re finished. They’ll never survive a winter war.” The Prime Minister faced Hollinger in particular. “And how are we doing young man?”
Hollinger sighed. He had arrived at Churchill’s smoky residence part-way through the BBC broadcast. He had been out of hospital less than a week and was still fighting off morphine withdrawal. “My chest still hurts, but I’m happy to be out of bed, finally. And I’m glad the bandages are gone.”
“You were lucky. Hess, of course, wasn’t. The curse of the Doppelganger legend caught up with him.”
“What legend is that?” Lampert asked, relighting his pipe.
Churchill sat down. “Wesley, you know German. What is a Doppelganger?”
“A double.”
“Precisely. It’s a German legend by the way. Somewhere in the world is a double of yourself.” He pointed his finger at Hollinger. “There is another one of you, Wesley, somewhere, some place.”
“God forbid,” Lampert said, smiling.
The three laughed.
“And that goes for you too, colonel. If you can imagine that. If you and your double ever come face to face, so the story goes, one of you must die.” Churchill let his visitors absorb that. “How’s the prisoner doing, colonel?”
“Fine, considering he’s trying awfully hard to be crazy. He’s becoming a little moody and almost suicidal. But we’re keeping a 24-hour watch on him.”
“If he gets out of hand, drug him some more. But we still want him alive. Don’t let anyone near him who hasn’t been cleared through my office first. And no pictures of him. The appeaser group is cooperating fully now. We’ve cut a deal.”
“What if he squeals?” Hollinger asked. “You know, tells somebody who he really is?”
“If he hasn’t yet, then he probably won’t. Himmler and his Gestapo are brutal people, Wesley. They undoubtedly intimidated him and his family. That’s the way the Gestapo have always done things. As long as he keeps playing along, he’s content to stay where he is, with the belief that his family will be safe.”
Hollinger played with the knot in his new silk tie. “What deal did you strike with the appeasers, Mr. Prime Minister, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“We’ve placed a one-hundred-year secrets stamp on the affair, until the year 2041. By that time, every name will be mentioned, the appeasers, Hess, the impostor, whoever he is, and us. Your name is in the file, Wesley, although you will not be listed as the Tyrant of Hut Nine.”
“I should hope not,” Hollinger laughed. “But why a hundred years?”
“I promised to protect the ‘good’ name of the appeasers, along with their generations to come. In a hundred years no one will care that they were traitors to their country. I gave the appeasers an ultimatum. Help me fight Hitler or be exposed to the public and tried for treason. And that includes Brenwood. We also threw the homosexual ring at them for good measure. With their messenger boy in our hands, who they take to be Hess, they had no choice but to agree to our demands.”
Hollinger thought back to his discovery in April of the proposed flight. It had been two months of shock after shock. “What about the duke?”
“Ah, yes, the Duke of Hamilton has been working undercover for me for nearly a year.”
“He has?” Hollinger and Lampert said, almost together.
Churchill nodded with a sly grin. “He was the intermediary. One of my agents of ungentlemanly warfare since the beginning of the war. As soon as Hitler attacked Poland, he changed his allegiance and secretly joined us. A little persuasion helped. We used the file on him. The same one you found, Wesley. However, as far as I know he did not recognize the prisoner as the impostor. Hess and the duke had never met before. The duke is one less person to tell the truth to.”
“What about this money the colonel told me about?” Hollinger asked the Prime Minister.
“There’s a problem.” Churchill twirled the smoking cigar in his fat fingers. “One billion pounds in a Swiss bank is a lot of money.”
“We made a breakthrough, sir,” Lampert cut in, crossing his legs. “Just this morning, an agent at our embassy in Zurich cabled me. He is concocting a plan to forge Himmler’s signature and gain access to the account. Since we know the number now and that it’s in Himmler’s name, we are trying to transfer it to a bank draft in pound sterling, where it can be turned over to an English bank.”
“Excellent. Now, if we could just find some way of pulling the Americans into this war, then we may stand a chance.” Churchill stared at Hollinger through a swell of blue cigar smoke.
“You’ve been doing pretty good on your own so far, sir.”
Churchill shrugged away the compliment. “At least Stalin is in it. If we lose the war, the Council of Peace plan of Hitler’s might come about sooner than we think.”
“What Council of Peace are you referring to?” Hollinger asked.
Churchill peered over his glasses at Lampert. “Colonel?”
“We have the peace proposals in our hands; three separate ones, by the way. It took over a month, but a combined RAF intelligence and MI-6 group found them spread over a wide area, in some trees, bushes, and open fields not far from where the ME-110 went down. We never did find the briefcase, but everything probably blew out anyway. This is what we arrived at. Hess — the real Hess, we presume — had Hitler’s blessing to fly to Scotland to meet the Brenwood appeaser group with peace terms from Hitler. I couldn’t see even the appeasers agreeing to them.”
“What were they?”
Lampert removed a small pad of paper from his suit jacket and read from it. “Hitler would be the figurehead of what he called the Council of Peace, a coalition board of European countries. There would be a common currency for all of Europe, including England. Based in Berlin, naturally. Our British parliamentary system and the pound sterling would be abolished, and all our financial interests would be monitored or controlled outright by the German business monopoly of I.S. Filberg. And last but not least, Hitler promised he would never go to war with Britain again.”
“Hell of a lot of good his promises are,” Hollinger said. “Try the Munich Agreement.”
“The next set. I’ll skip Hess for the moment and go straightaway to Himmler.”
“Himmler? So the impostor was telling the truth?”
“Yes, Wesley. The impostor was in cahoots with the Gestapo chief, who was using the peace negotiations for his own advantage. The funny part of it is that anybody who knows anything about the German High Command also knows that Hess and Himmler have been mortal enemies for years. Hess never would have worked for Himmler behind Hitle
r’s back. For himself, yes. And that’s what Himmler’s proposals are, a stab in the back. A Hess impostor was found and convinced to represent the German side during peace negotiations with the appeasers, providing that Himmler was the new Fuehrer with an impressive new title — Fuehrermaster. The rest of the points, the money, and so forth, were quoted verbatim. Now to Hess. He was seeking asylum.”
“Really?”
“It’s true. He wanted us to snatch his wife and son out of Germany, and he was going to hand us all the information and secrets that he could on the Nazi regime. To begin with, he had already obtained documents of atomic secrets complete with formulas. He had information and blueprints of new twin-engine jet-powered Messerschmitt fighters capable of speeds in excess of 550 miles per hour, and some blueprints of what he called Vengeance weapons. One of these is a small, unmanned jet machine and the other is an intercontinental rocket that will hit the ground at three times the speed of sound. He also had a detailed military report of the attack of Russia. Then there is something much more evil than anything else we can comprehend. Himmler, with Hitler’s written permission, is already forming plans to systematically exterminate the Jews and other undesirables. Hess had photographs of these new death camps, most of them in Germany and Poland. Hess had had enough. We know that his power was slipping recently, anyway. Last year, Hitler appointed Hermann Goering second in command. It must have been a terrible blow to Hess.”
Hollinger swallowed. “So, Hess was going to spill the beans on the operation? Geez, a Nazi with a conscience. What do you know?”
“Our agents in Europe will have to confirm these death camps and this new jet and atomic technology. I’m sure our American friends in Washington will want a full-scale report.”
“They will, sir,” Hollinger replied with enthusiasm.
Lampert leaned forward. “Wesley, I like how you’ve handled yourself these last few months, although your methods were a bit out of the ordinary. The Prime Minister has talked it over with Mr. Donovan. The MI-6 could use a man like you over here. Kind of a go-between for us and Washington. It would mean an increase in pay, without the increase in danger. We don’t want you shot at again. There will be some traveling involved.”
Hollinger hadn’t heard Lampert talk this way before. “Is that my only choice?”
“Oh ... continue working for the MI-6 in England on loan, of course, in various duties suitable to a man of your experience. However, to keep you out of trouble, I’ll give you an able-bodied assistant. The Prime Minister and I are hoping you’ll accept the latter.”
“With an increase in pay?” Hollinger braced for an answer.
“Yes. You don’t have to decide now,” Churchill explained. “Give it a few days.”
“OK, I will.” Hollinger sighed. “I do have two things to ask you that have been bothering me.”
“And they are?”
“Why wasn’t the impostor apprehended right after the sub drop?”
“Good question. I’ll let you answer this one, colonel.”
Lampert smiled. “Ever hear of the Twenty Committee, Wesley?”
“No, sir. I haven’t.”
“It’s an MI-5 subcommittee, a spy interrogation organization. You see, every German agent who has landed on our soil has been captured.”
Hollinger was taken aback. “Every one! You’re kidding.”
“Then they are given their choices. Either work for us and return bogus radio information to Hamburg as if they were on the loose, you might say, or be executed. Most of them have been quite cooperative. The Twenty Committee runs the whole thing. Each spy has a case officer who works very closely with the captured agent in sending the signals. Do you recall the phone call I received in London about the sub drop?” Hollinger nodded. “The director of the force, a friend of mine from the first war, was already putting matters in motion with Denise, one of Hitler’s spies. She landed in Scotland at the beginning of the year and was caught within hours.”
“So, she’s a German agent working for us?”
“Not exactly, Wesley. We couldn’t take the chance and have the real Denise meet the sub drop, in case she turned on us. So we ordered one of the case officers for another spy who bore a close resemblance to the real Denise to cut her hair and act like the real thing when the time came. She’s an amateur in the field, really.”
“You took a big chance.”
“Yes, we did. But it worked at first. However, what didn’t pan out was the rendezvous between Denise and two of our agents who were to seize the German before he got anywhere close to the aerodrome. The impostor’s original orders were to come by sub and represent Himmler as the new Fuehrer. We in the Secret Service speculate that Himmler had tried to either seize or kill the real Hess in Germany, so that he couldn’t make the flight. But he got through. That’s when the orders changed. Instead of performing the orders to kill the pilot and return by sub, where we were certain to nab him, the impostor mutilated Hess, took his identity, and flew off to hopefully escape. Neutral Ireland was the likely destination. But he was shot down before he could cross the Irish Sea. Now, we have him and the papers. When the fake Denise gave the impostor the last radio message from Germany, she used her common sense and deliberately held back the last part of it. The impostor was supposed to snatch Hess’s paperwork and destroy it and his own. He didn’t and we have it.”
Hollinger smirked. He made a quick evaluation of MI-6’s thoroughness. They had rubbed shoulders with the MI-5. They had caught every spy. They knew in advance that Hess was coming. And Churchill had an inside man. These Limeys were far from being on their last legs.
“What was your other question, Wesley?” Lampert asked.
“The markings on Hess’s airplane. It wasn’t his personal one. I noticed that as soon as I drove up to it.”
Lampert nodded. “I know. NJ-OQ. He switched somewhere. Mechanical failure, more than likely. Who really knows?”
“I guess that about wraps it up.”
“One other thing,” Lampert said. “For your information, we are trying not to let on that we know that Hess is an impostor. We’ll leave it that way for the time being.”
Churchill opened the library doors and waved down the hall. A manservant appeared, pushing a trolley containing a large bottle of champagne and three crystal glasses. Churchill puffed out his chest. “Let’s toast to our British-American Alliance.”
“Wesley,” Lampert said with pride. “You don’t mind my calling you Wesley?”
“Of course not.”
“You would have made a good army man. I could have used you in the Great War.”
It left Hollinger speechless. Lampert wasn’t such a stiff after all.
* * * *
Hollinger put on his fedora and sunglasses, and fortified by two tall glasses of champagne left 10 Downing Street on unsteady legs an hour later. It was a beautiful afternoon, and the bright sun suddenly made him dizzy. He walked to the end of a side street until he saw his MG sports car — top down — ahead, its rear bumper shining between two trucks. He didn’t remember leaving the top down. From several feet away, he saw someone behind the wheel. As he drew closer, he caught a whiff of lilac. The person turned around. There was Langford, smoking with one hand, her other hand on the floor shifter.
“Hi there, cowboy. I told you we’d see each other again.” A sliver of wind touched her hair, and the sun caught some highlights. Her expression was bright and she had a thin smile on her lips. She was wearing a tennis outfit, the same as in the picture — sweater, white shorts showing creamy, long legs and white runners.
“Robbie,” he said, leaning over at her, his hands on the passenger door. They were face to face. “I find you in the strangest places lately,” he said. “You come out of nowhere, like a cat.”
She threw her head back and removed her sunglasses. “I was stood up on a tennis date. Hey, nice tie. Well, did you talk with him?”
“Who?”
“You know who. Winnie.” She
dragged on her cigarette. “Which of the two jobs are you taking?”
“How did you know about that?”
“I knew before you did. I’ll be your assistant, providing you take the MI-6 position.” She grinned.
“So you’re the able-bodied assistant Lampert spoke of?”
“Well, wasn’t that a nice compliment. But I don’t wish to influence you in any way.”
Hollinger held back a smile. “Come to think of it, I’m getting to like Britain more and more. I might hang around for a while and get to know the people a whole lot better.”
“It’s up to you,” she said.
Hollinger opened the passenger door and got in. This particular redhead with the great-looking legs might place a whole new emphasis on the situation. “So much for being stuck at Bletchley, eh? We both got out.”
“Yes, indeed we did, Wesley. I didn’t think it was possible.”
“If this was another time, I’d ask you out for a drink, but I think I had a little too much already. So, instead, how would you like it if I took you out to dinner?”
“I might be persuaded,” she said, holding out her hand.
He quickly plopped the car keys in her palm and said, “Yeah, I kind of like Britain.”
“Do you?” she said, firing up the convertible, checking the traffic, and moving out with a roar. Turning a corner, she sailed past the Prime Minister’s row house.
“You know, Robbie,” Hollinger grinned, looking over at her, “this is going to be one interesting war.”
AFTERWORD
Many of the characters in this novel are fictional. They include Wesley Hollinger, Raymond Lampert, Roberta Langford, Spencer Winslow, Wolfgang Geis, Earl Walker, Jack Croucher, Ted Jones, Simon Brenwood, Snowden, and Denise.
WORLD WAR TWO IN EUROPE...
In Russia, the mighty German assault reached as far as the gates of Moscow before they were met by stiff resistance and one of the worst winters in Russian memory. For the next four years the Red Army pushed the Germans all the way back to Berlin, while the other Allied powers, joined by the Americans, drove from the west. The Hitler dream of a new world order under his control collapsed almost four years to the day after Hess’s peace flight to Scotland.