The Consummate Traitor (Trilogy of Treason)

by Bonnie Toews

  “Later, days later, we saw them take truckloads of people out of the Jewish ghetto to the train station where there were freight cars already loaded with people. The Polish Underground told us the Nazis were not only rounding up Jews but Polish intellectuals, political agitators, gypsies—anyone they determined unfit or defective—and were sending them to labor camps, to Treblinka and Majdanek. Quinn and I wanted to follow it up, but we had to get back to Sir Fletcher with our information about the Russian plan to smuggle out German atomic scientists. It never occurred to us the people we saw being loaded on those trains might be mass executed. I don’t think we would have believed it anyway. It was just too monstrous to imagine.”

  “Mass extermination?” Grace protested weakly. “Have the Nazis become that twisted?”

  Lee nodded sadly. “Here’s the evidence.” She pointed to one photograph and lifted it for Grace to see.

  The grainy picture showed lines of people being machine-gunned over a massive pit. Grace felt a terrible chill. “What’s this about?”

  “This photo is evidence of Nazi genocide being methodically carried out in the backwoods of Poland. This picture, though fuzzy, was somehow taken during one of these secret ‘disinfections,’as the Nazis call them, and given to us by a partisan.”

  “Dear God!” whispered Grace in horror.

  “I’ve also seen photographs of documents that are even more frightening,” Lee went on in a desolate tone. “Last year, in January, Hitler held a secret conference at Wannsee. There he issued instructions for the ‘Final Solution of the Jewish problem’… Hitler’s words, not mine,” she interjected.

  “A Lieutenant Colonel Adolf Eichmann of the SS was put in full charge of the administration, from organizing and coordinating transportation for the Jews captured from all over Nazi Europe to their final destination in Poland. ‘Resettlement’ he called it.”

  “Maybe that’s all it is, Lee.”

  “Grace, how can you be so naive? Sometimes you exhaust my patience!”

  Seeing Grace’s hurt expression, Lee continued more kindly. “I have read witnessed accounts by escapees. The Final Solution of the Jews means total extermination of the Jews. Cyanide gas known as Zylon B, a poison for rats, and carbon monoxide are dropped into gas chambers disguised as shower rooms. The SS proved it would work because the first ones they gassed at Auschwitz were Soviet and Polish prisoners of war. Auschwitz is the largest and most efficient camp, but even there, the odd escape occurs successfully. The intelligence reports I’ve seen says Auschwitz uses the faster and less messy Zyklon B because Eichmann doesn’t want to see the Jews and the enemies of the Reich suffer needlessly. Can you believe the mentality?”

  Grace grasped her throat in horror. “It can’t be. It just can’t be.”

  “No one’s stopping those monsters. NO one. Sir Fletcher says the Jewish problem won’t matter to any of us if the Nazis build the atomic bomb first.”

  Lee mimicked Sir Fletcher, ‘Let us get on with the job at hand,’and bowed her head.

  “Lee, what’s happening to the Jews is unthinkable, and utterly sickening, but we agreed at the outset that this mission takes precedence over everything else for the reason Sir Fletcher gave you.”

  “I know.”

  Tears marbled the rims of her eyes. “But my people are calling out to me in my nightmare. They want me to account for their pain and horror, and I’m totally helpless. I can’t do a bloody thing.”

  Lee clenched her fists again. “No matter what I’ve seen the Nazis do, despite everything I have heard, this one, soiled, poorly developed snapshot smashes the two things that mobilize me in the morning and keep me going through the day. My hope and my anger.”

  Her features contorted in terrible agony. “I want to do something, Grace. God! How I want to do something!”

  The phone jangled in the living room.

  Grace jumped up. “I’ll get it.” She dashed from the bedroom.

  As soon as she picked up the receiver, Sir Fletcher’s voice boomed.

  “Is Lee with you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I need you both to come to the Rainbow Corner now. I’m sending a car.”

  Grace stood aghast. “Do you mean the American Red Cross Club, sir?”

  “Aye, I do.”

  “But why?”

  “When you’re on my team, lassie, you do as you’re told.”

  And he hung up.

  “Lee!” Grace called out. “That was Sir Fletcher. He’s sending a car to pick us up. He wants us to meet him at the American Red Cross Club near Piccadily Corner.”

  Lee entered the living room. Her eyes bulged in surprise.

  “The Rainbow Corner?”

  “That’s what he said.”

  “Why?”

  Grace shrugged. “I asked him that and he said, when you’re on my team, you do as you’re told.”

  Lee’s eyebrows arched. “I do declare!”

  Their arch collapsed into a frown. “Since last November, when the Red Cross opened this home-away-from-home for lonely GIs, it’s been packed day in and day out. The volunteers do everything for the soldiers but blow their noses. It doesn’t make sense for him to be there.”

  “Do you think we should change?”

  “Not on your life. We’ll be safer in uniform.”

  Grace sucked in her breath. The reputation of the Rainbow Corner among British aristocracy suggested it was a honey pot for fags and party girls infatuated with the fun-loving American soldiers, who outclassed their British counterparts in looks, size, dress and means. For the first time, she was tempted to disobey Sir Fletcher and not go.

  NINETEEN

  Tuesday, March 2nd, 1943

  As they neared 23 Shaftsbury Avenue where the most popular of American Red Cross Clubs in London was next to the Piccadilly Circus, searchlights funneled the sky with yellow beams. At the next bus stop, anti-aircraft fire burst from the sandbag bunker nestled beside it. Grace covered her ears, but the Army driver seemed immune to the wail of sirens and thundering ack-ack rhythm that shook the street. Lee tapped her on the shoulder and pointed to gaggles of prostitutes hanging out in dark doorways. They laughed and waved at them as their jeep drove by.

  “Hey, dearies, bet you can’t give the Yanks the good times we can!”

  “Those, ladies, are our Piccadilly warriors,” commented the driver, a battle-hardened corporal whose injuries had sidelined him for the duration of the war.

  “Is that what London’s streetwalkers are called these days?”

  Sarcasm laced Lee’s question as she waved back.

  “No, ma’am, just the aggressive ones that hang out around the Rainbow Corner. They sidle up to a prospect and run their hands along his pant leg to determine the fee they’ll charge.”

  Grace’s curiosity tuned in. “Why don’t they just ask the chap what he wants?”

  “Well, you see, ma’am, Americans wear better-quality tailored uniforms than us Brits, and officers’ dress pants are made of even finer cloth than the non-coms, so the ladies gauge their fee by the fabric they feel.”

  “Good grief!” Grace was appalled.

  “It’s just business, ma’am.”

  She stared at the corporal. “What has the war done to our morality?”

  “When death waits to suck out your life, all that matters is feeling alive, if you know what I mean, ma’am.”

  Lee gripped Grace’s shoulder to steady her.

  “People are human, Grace. That’s all.”

  Inwardly, Grace’s stomach crawled with revulsion. This was a side of human behavior she wanted no part of and begged God to find her an immediate escape. She looked up. Her apprehension mushroomed.

  “Is that the Rainbow Corner ahead?”

  “It is, ma’am. Piccadilly is as close to a Parisian boulevard as you’ll ever see in London.”

  Grace could see the traffic junction of Shaftsbury Avenue, Piccadilly and Regent Street ahead. Its thoroughfare led from Regent w
estward to Hyde Park. As they pulled up to the entrance of the five-story building that bordered the north side of Shaftsbury on the Denman Street corner across from the Piccadilly Circus, Sir Fletcher waved. He walked up and gave Grace a hand as she stepped down from the front seat of the jeep, while the corporal helped Lee out of the back seat.

  Amid the neoclassical style of nearby theatres and the lavish London Pavilion, the Georgian architecture of the American Red Cross Club faded in grandeur except for a plinth of polished grey granite supporting its buff-colored terra-cotta brick façade. A pair of boxed bay windows, the height of the main floor, flanked its bold entrance with a decorative crown over the doorway.

  Sir Fletcher noted Grace’s study of the building.

  “At one time, this building operated as part of a chain of Lyons Corner Houses and its main floor Monico Restaurant was designed to feed a few thousand people. That’s why the American Red Cross bought it and converted it into a clubhouse for homesick GIs. I brought you here so we could enjoy one of the finest meals served in London these days. Only the Americans can afford good food.”

  Lee beamed. “A dinner engagement. Why you old fox, you could have told us that! We would have changed into our civvies.”

  “That’s not my only surprise.”

  Grace considered the Scotsman’s devilish twinkle. It only fed her concern, for her father had once told her Sir Fletcher was known for his pranks. She had never seen this side of him and still worried what the evening was about. She hesitated.

  As Lee took her arm and led them over the threshold of the front door, she leaned in closer. “You can wipe that frightened-deer look off your face now, Grace. I’ve heard this place really does serve the best food around.”

  Inside, above the front desk, a sign read, “New York – 3,271 miles.”

  Grace gripped Lee’s arm as she swiveled around to take in the grand view. From the ground-floor main lounge, a marble staircase swerved up to a balcony, which rested on console brackets rising from plain-shafted pilasters embedded into the floor beyond them. She tapped Lee’s shoulder and pointed to the strap-work patterns engraved on the plaster balcony walls. They resembled interlocking bands etched in low relief on stonework. Lee nodded.

  Ahead columns and arches framed walnut screens that separated the front lobby from a grand ballroom on one side and a grill room and bar on the other. Grace could see throngs of GIs milling around jam-packed tables that circled a small dance floor, where couples jitterbugged to swing music played on juke boxes.

  The ballroom, by comparison, looked as large as a city block, yet dancers swarming the floor had no room to swing their partners unless others around them stepped back and gave them space to strut and swirl. Tom Dorsey’s arrangement for “Jungle Drums” played by a local military band pealed through the hallway. Lee clicked her fingers in rhythm to the music, while Grace’s nerve ends twanged. The urge to scream and run beset her.

  “Fletch!” The Project Amanita director turned to the caller. A slight middle-aged woman with delicate features and remarkable brown eyes approached him. She moved with grand elegance. Grace recognized her at once. “Lady Adele.”

  The woman paused mid-greeting to Sir Fletcher and redirected her attention on Grace. “Why Lady Grace, I haven’t seen you since you volunteered at the hospital. That’s almost three years ago.”

  Her expression saddened. “I never had a chance to tell you how sorry I was to hear about your parents. We never saw you again after the bombing.”

  Her eyes settled on Sir Fletcher and then swung back to the two young women.

  “Ah,” she nodded. “Now I understand. Fletch, you recruited Lady Grace to do that lovely radio show we hear every afternoon.”

  Her eyes then fell on Lee alone. “Lee Talbot, I presume.”

  Lee nodded.

  Grace blushed. “Forgive my manners, Lady Adele. I meant to introduce you.”

  Sir Fletcher laughed. “Blame me, Dellie. I should have told you I was bringing my star attractions here for dinner.”

  “Dinner?” she mocked him. “And I thought you were bringing me two more lovely volunteers to help our American service people write letters home. Grace, I remember what a help you were at the hospital, especially with wounded pilots.”

  Grace felt guilty as she remembered. She had forgotten her promise to help the patients write home about their wounds.

  Sir Fletcher intervened. “Lee, this master recruiter is a former American, who gave up a stunning dancing career with her famous brother in 1932 to marry Lord Charles Cavendish.”

  “Fred and Adele Astaire.”

  Lee whispered their names as if they were top secret.

  Lady Adele laughed. “Indeed. And I want both you girls to call me Dellie just as everyone else does around here. I may have married a Lord but I’m no lady.” She chuckled at the play on words.

  “And where is the good Lord?”

  “That, Fletch, I think you know better than I.”

  Grace watched him blink, for a second taken aback by her directness, before clearing his throat. “Aye. I guess I do.”

  “I don’t suppose you’ve made reservations.”

  “No, but we’re meeting another party who is already here.”

  Grace glanced at Lee. Now what?

  She shrugged.

  Lady Adele pointed to the elevator.

  “We’ll take the lift. The dining room is on the second floor.”

  She paused. “I make that mistake every time. I mean the first floor. We Americans refer to what the Brits call the ground or main floor as the first floor, and their first floor is what we call the second floor.”

  “I have a hard time remembering that too,” Lee admitted.

  Lady Adele tilted her head to one side as she included Lee in her confidence.

  “When it comes to buildings with more than one floor, I think we’re more logical.”

  Lee smiled in agreement.

  “Now come along.”

  Sir Fletcher eagerly observed the activity around him as they entered the lift. He clanged the cage doors shut after they stepped inside and then pushed the button to power the cable pulley. The lift jerked.

  “Our doors are never closed.” Lady Adele continued as if she were their tour director. “We’re open 24 hours a day, every day, despite air raids. Up to 60,000 meals can be served in a single 24-hour period. We have a volunteer staff of about 379, and combined they work more than 5,485 hours per month.”

  Lee imitated Lady Adele. “We have a replica of a corner drugstore soda fountain in the basement where we serve ice-cold Cokes for a nickel and grilled hamburgers for a dime.”

  Grace interrupted. “It sounds like you’ve heard this before, Lee.”

  She grinned. “Oh, I have.”

  “You do me so well, Lee, I can retire and give you my job.”

  Lee winked at Lady Adele and carried on. “Also in the basement is the Dunker’s Den for men only.”

  Grace struggled to hide her surprise. “You’ve never mentioned it.”

  Lee heard the hurt in Grace’s voice and quietly explained. “I try to give my team of operatives a night of respite before I send them into the field.”

  And then as if listening to her own voice, Lee’s eyes hardened and she turned to Sir Fletcher, “Is this what tonight is about? You’re sending Grace on a mission!”

  The lift squeaked to a halt.

  Lady Adele’s face reflected equal alarm. She grabbed Sir Fletcher’s elbow. “In God’s name and the memory of her parents, you can’t do this.”

  Sir Fletcher threw his hands up in surrender.

  “Ladies, I am not sending Grace into harm’s way. She’s far too valuable to us here.”

  Anger surged through Grace. They were talking about her as if she weren’t there.

  “I beg your pardon, but don’t I have something to say about what I do with my life?”

  “NO,” answered the three of them simultaneously.

  A deep
coldness iced Grace’s will.

  “My father once made the mistake of telling me what to do. It won’t happen again.”

  An uncomfortable silence gripped the lift. Lady Adele looked as if she wanted to hug Grace but held herself back and spoke to Sir Fletcher as the lift doors cranked open.

  “You can ask the head waiter to direct you to your friends’ table.”

  She waited for Grace and walked off the lift behind Lee and the Project Amanita director.

  Grace sensed Lady Adele’s reluctance to say good-bye, but she was too filled with anger to offer further conversation.

  Lady Adele nodded in silent understanding and offered her a final handshake instead. “I hope Sir Fletcher will bring you here more often.”

  As Lee and Sir Fletcher approached the head waiter, Grace lagged behind them, struggling to control her siege of angry thoughts. Why was she so upset? She had prayed to be sent on a mission.

  They still treated her like a child. That’s it! She wanted to be respected for the woman she had become.

  Tempted to turn on her heel and re-enter the lift, Grace squared her shoulders, strode forward with resolve and caught up to them.

  TWENTY

  Wednesday, March 3rd, 1943

  “Quinn will lead the tactical team,” Sir Fletcher explained to the four people who sat grouped in front of him. He picked up a pointer from the blackboard ledge and continued.

  “There are only two heavy water plants in the world. One is in Canada, at the Consolidated Mining and Smelting Plant in Trail, British Columbia. The other is controlled by the Germans in Norway.”

  He rolled down the wall map of Europe and nodded his head at the blond man sitting with them. “Rolf tells us the Nazis plan to transport heavy water from Norsk to Dr. Nielsen’s lab in Copenhagen. We can’t let that happen. That’s why I’ve advanced this mission.”

  As Sir Fletcher continued his background briefing, Lee’s mind drifted over to Quinn Bergin. The last time she had seen him was almost three years ago. Yet, instead of welcoming her and Sir Fletcher at the Rainbow Corner the night before, he ignored her, except for a curt nod, and treated the Amanita director as if he were the worst sinner in the building. Quinn’s snub burned her deeply, while Sir Fletcher – she felt sorry for their intrepid leader – his plan for a happy reunion turned into a night of disasters between Grace’s snit and Quinn’s mood.