by Bonnie Toews
And then, she awoke. Gripping the covers wildly, she trembled under the sheets. Her white knuckles and white face broke the night like pale beams drawing a path to their ghostly fright. Beads of sweat popped out over her brow, their wet shininess reflecting a haunting glow.
Please leave me alone, she begged the dream, and rolled over on the bed, face down. She plopped the pillow on top of her head, hoping to smother the relentless images invading her mind. They persisted.
Wearily, she gave in and sat up. After turning on the bedside lamp, she hugged her knees and rocked herself.
God, what a dream! What can it mean? Is Grace in some kind of danger?
She rocked faster and faster as she reviewed every detail of Grace’s mission. She had tried to be more than usually thorough, leaving no angle to chance.
“The first thing you have to learn and to live with is your cover story,” she had told Grace. “I have prepared two. Read both and pick the one you’re most comfortable with. Memorize it.”
Grace had seen nothing odd in being offered a choice and had quietly scanned the pair of synopses Lee extended to her.
“I can do Astrid Andersson, I think. The role of the accompanist for the Tivoli Symphony Orchestra is closer to me.”
“Fine,” Lee said. “Then I am placing the other scenario, the one we are not using, in your official dossier. This one,” and she pointed to the stapled sheets Grace held, “is going in my personal filing box.”
“Do you mean the strong box at home?”
Lee nodded.
Grace looked dumbstruck. “WHY?”
Lee calmly explained. “Something strange has been going on for too long. Our turnover of radio operators in the field has shot up alarmingly. What’s even more disturbing is the pattern I see building. In each network, the pianist is the last to be caught. Either the SS or Gestapo arrests our agents, and their units of resistance fighters, right after the damage is done, not before the completion of the mission.”
“A coincidence, surely.”
“I don’t believe in coincidence, Grace. The pattern began with Rolf’s mission. He was apprehended when his usefulness was over.”
She was so matter-of-fact Grace checked Lee’s eyes. They held the other girl’s obvious concern with unwavering discipline.
“And it keeps happening,” Lee went on. “My gut tells me there is a traitor inside Amanita, and I don’t want you to be that cad’s next victim.”
Grace’s jaw dropped. “I can’t imagine it.”
“We can’t dismiss the possibility. This decoy story we’re planting in your file will buy you more time, maybe even your life, Grace.”
Her solemn tone had to convince Grace the reality of betrayal was quite possible.
“Before you begin training, I want you to understand the risk you are taking. Statistically, everything is going against you. Going in, you have three chances in one hundred of being disabled before you even see action; three chances in one hundred of being captured, and one chance in three that, if captured, you will be tortured by the Gestapo.”
Lee handed Grace a capsule. “This is cyanide. The L-pill.”
Grace recoiled.
Lee would never forget her look of wretched contempt, but she pressed on. “It will be imbedded in one of your back molars. Should you be caught, bite down on it. The capsule coating will break, and you will die within seconds.”
“What if I don’t choose to die?”
“Most people when tortured eventually talk. You know too much. We can’t risk your talking. Do you understand?”
“You’re saying dying is better than being tortured.”
“By far, but the real issue is whether you are willing to sacrifice your life to save a greater number.”
If not now, WHEN? had been Grace’s reply.
Was this at the root of her dreadful dream? The fear she was sending Grace to her death? She shuddered. NO. Forget the dream. She needed rest. She had to be absolutely alert and sensitive to every subtle change in the field that might affect Grace. Only the strong-willed could train people to meet probable death the way she did. Deep down, in the furthest recesses of her inner self, she admitted she still suffered. She still bled. For every agent. And now there was Grace to worry about.
Lee picked up Grace’s folded note on the night table and reread it:
“If anything happens to me, don’t blame yourself for doing your job. It’s not your fault Rolf died. It’s not your fault I’m the only one von Lohren will trust. God is with you and with me. Remember that. We’re never alone. You’ve been the most wonderful friend, and I thank you for that. Be good to yourself, and look after everyone at Guild Oaks for me. Love, Grace.”
Lee dropped her head. The tears she had rigidly held back broke free. They fell, dripping off the end of her nose to wet the letter.
This is crazy! I’m going in circles! she sniffed angrily. Maybe if I sketch what I saw in the dream I can exorcise it out of my system.
That was a good idea. She would chase the nightmare away on paper. She rummaged in her night table for a soft lead pencil and pulled out her sketch pad. Working meticulously, she felt each desolate stroke give life to the pitiful picture. Lee guessed it was the subconscious assimilation of all the intelligence she had read and heard and of all the things, either real or imagined, she had experienced worming their way out. For two hours she sketched.
By then, the dismal drip of another London drizzle pitter-pattered across the roof of the Radcliffe coach house, gently dinging in rhythm with the first morning rustle. Lee crawled out of bed and went over to the closet to drag out her old portable safe. As she grabbed the padlock, it snapped off in her hand. She stared stupidly at the broken lock. What the… ?
Fear gripped her heart.
She threw open the lid and pulled out her picture box. Grace’s secret dossier, her portrait was filed with it! Frantically Lee fingered through the “G” folders. It was not there! In panic, she checked again. It was definitely not filed under “G.” She pulled out every folder and systematically searched through every paper.
Nothing! Grace’s dossier and portrait were missing! Someone had broken into her private safe and stolen her secret file.
“Oh, Grace,” she blurted out in despair, “whoever has done this knows our real cover story.”
She struggled to think. Sir Fletcher! She would have to tell Sir Fletcher. Maybe he would figure out a way to warn Grace her cover was compromised. Lee checked her watch. It was 0600 hours. Grace was expected to transmit back to Project Amanita tomorrow night at 1900 hours. If the traitor held true to his pattern, the Gestapo would not arrest her until after she had contacted Nielsen and Watchdog. That gave her less than thirty-seven hours to rescue Grace.
Lee dashed out to the living room and phoned Sir Fletcher.
“It’s urgent, sir,” she told him as soon as he lifted his receiver. “Meet me in Communications in fifteen minutes.”
Exactly fifteen minutes later, they faced each other.
“Grace’s file is missing. I’ve checked with records. Someone has forged my signature and signed out her dossier.”
“Ides of March!”
“That’s not the worst of it, sir.”
“What do you mean?” he asked more sharply.
Just then, the phone on his desk jangled. He picked it up.
“Aye?” He listened. “We’ll be right there.”
He turned to Lee as he replaced the receiver.
“That’s PUFFIN’S godmother. There’s trouble. He’s transmitting to her off schedule. Let’s go.”
Lee followed Sir Fletcher down the aisle of radio stations. Only one set was active. They heard PUFFIN’s stuttering. The transmission restarted … this time with the dreaded code letters: QUO.
“Oh no!” Lee cried out in alarm. Her hands flew to cover her face. “It’s a trap!”
Sir Fletcher put a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Get a grip on yourself, lassie. PUFFIN’s not Grace’s
call station. SKYLARK is.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Lee corrected him miserably. “PUFFIN is. I put a decoy story in her file to fool a possible traitor. No one else was to know Grace’s real cover story except her and me. It should have worked, but somehow the traitor has found out. I don’t understand. I just don’t understand.”
“Let me understand,” Sir Fletcher thundered. “On your own, without consulting Saunders or me, you arranged a substitute secret cover for the one we authorized.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good grief, woman, you can’t do that! You don’t know the whole picture. I’ve warned you repeatedly.”
He stopped mid-tantrum. “Hold on. The story in her file is the decoy you planted. Maybe it has worked out for the best this time.”
“No, sir, it hasn’t.”
Lee almost choked on the words, feeling wretched guilt.
“I stashed her secret file in a private safe I keep at the coach house, in my bedroom closet. It’s where I keep all my sketches from my news assignments.”
“Sketches?” Sir Fletcher asked incredulously.
“I don’t take photographs, sir. I draw my subjects. That’s beside the point. What I’m trying to tell you is her secret file is missing. I found the padlock to my safe broken. Someone has stolen Grace’s secret file and my drawing of her!”
“Of all the stupid …” Sir Fletcher sputtered.
“I don’t understand,” Lee went on bleakly. “It’s not a random robbery either. Nothing else was taken. Just her file and the drawing.”
“Lee,” Sir Fletcher roared, “sometimes you’re so bloody naive! If you had discussed your idea with Saunders and me, we could have safeguarded its secrecy. The proper procedure in the switch you pulled is to destroy the dossier you’re actually using.
“To destroy it!” he repeated angrily. “You can’t trace what doesn’t exist! By keeping that rotten file, you’ve condemned Grace.”
Stricken, Lee backed away from him. “No,” she denied, “I couldn’t have. It was strictly between Grace and me. We couldn’t trust anyone but ourselves. There’s a traitor here—inside Amanita. Somehow … someone … has found out what we are doing.”
“Lee,” Sir Fletcher addressed her more civilly, “have you inspected your apartment for hidden microphones?”
“Microphones! At home?”
“Aye.”
“No! It never occurred to me to check for such a thing in the privacy of our own apartment.”
“Well, it’s the first possibility we’ll have to investigate. How old is that girl now?” he asked gruffly.
“Twenty-four.”
“Humph! What a shame! You did issue her with an L-Pill, I hope,” he checked suspiciously, looking at her as if he expected another unwelcome surprise.
“Yes, sir. The dentist inserted it in her back molar. Bottom left side to be precise.”
“Pray her sacrifice isn’t in vain then,” he growled. “I’ll have to report this to Saunders, Churchill and the king.”
He groaned. “I don’t know why I’m surprised. I warned Churchill you were too close to Grace … that you might try some stupid stunt like this. I told him to run the operation from SOE’s headquarters at Bletchley, but he insisted the mission stay under my direction.”
He turned away to look for an ashtray on the table behind him. “You take things upon yourself you have no right to do. We have a system here. You have upset the system,” he blustered.
He pulled out his pipe from his jacket pocket and proceeded to light it.
“You could be court-martialed, you know,” he said, dousing his match and depositing it into the ashtray. He puffed hard on his pipe.
When he turned back to confront Lee, she was gone.
“That infernal woman!” he exploded. “Now where is she? Lee?” he called after her. “LEE?”
Dead air answered his desperate plea.
THIRTY
Saturday, October 9th, 1944
SS Colonel von Lohren enjoyed his daily stroll through the Tivoli Gardens in downtown Copenhagen. It reminded him of Berlin’s Tiergarten in the days before it was overrun with Nazi culture.
Here, in the middle of century-old garden terraces, tree-shaded paths, gentle ponds and playful waterfalls, he could still find peace. There were no erratic tantrums to appease, no unreasonable expectations to meet, no talk of war, no despairing statistics, no sneaky hypocrites, no unnerving head games, no frustrations. Correction… there was one frustration that plagued him no matter where he was or what he did—Dr. Bernhard Nielsen.
As if to punctuate his bafflement, a duck from one of the forever-present fleet peddling across the ponds floundered midway. Like a broken reel, it turned in aimless circles, quacking and quacking. As Erich watched the frenzied duck’s widening circles, he wondered for the umpteenth time: Why won’t the old fool leave his lab? What’s holding him here?
He picked up a pebble and angrily skipped it across the water’s surface at the duck so inexplicably out of control. Frantically flapping their wings and fretting noisily, the rest of the flock lifted off the pond to escape the path of the spinning missile. They hovered above until the splashes settled and the stone sank from sight; and then they abandoned the lone duck to his crazy circles and flew off to a safer shore.
Erich’s mouth set in a grim line. The atomic physicist was engineering his own doom. He would have to blow up the scientist inside his lab. Erich clenched a fist, flexed it, and moved further along, to the storybook carousel, and watched the apple-cheeked children ride the fanciful elephants and capricious horses. Their squeals ripped at his spirit with screams he wished he could let go.
Pausing to read the Tivoli’s motto, Always the same, always new, he was struck with the truth of the paradox. Helpless rage drove deeper into his soul. He did want to kill the scientist. He did not want to kill anyone. But time was ticking, leaving him with no choice.
Outside the concert hall, he stopped to study the renovations. Last year, when the pianist, who was alone at the time, tried to open a suitcase left on his piano stool, it blew up, killing him and setting off a fire, which gutted the grand hall. Among the ruins, the investigators found the remains of a booby-trapped portable transmitter. The Germans had then blamed the explosion on the Danes, and they, in turn, blamed the Germans.
Whoever planted the bomb attacked the heart of Denmark’s culture, and the tragic blow helped to galvanize the Danes’ determination to resist the Nazis terrorizing their country. The Underground’s illegal presses cranked out massive strike calls, which shut down the city for days at a time. These relentless work stoppages bewildered the Nazis, and eventually, more than 300,000 Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS troops were rushed into Copenhagen to control the rising sabotage and the Resistance’s guerrilla-style ambushes.
The Danes were paying dearly for their organized underground with middle-of-the-night arrests, torture, large-scale deportations, arbitrary executions, and random shootings. Even so, the Danes persisted, and after September’s general strike protesting the newest mass expulsions, the Germans abruptly changed their tactics. Hoping to restore a more co-operative spirit between the Danish government and its Nazi administrators, they offered the people some minor concessions. One was the reopening of the Tivoli’s Concert Hall.
Erich could hear piano music. He began walking away and stopped short. Something about the playing reminded him of… NO! Surely not!…
The sparkling passages, the singing ripple of the keys—only one person played like that. Lady Grace. No! It must be his imagination.
Through the open windows of the concert hall drifted the strains of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Pathétique Piano Sonata No. 8, Op. 13. Each crescendo filled him. He had to know who was playing this marvelous music. He turned on his heel and followed the workmen’s path to the side entrance of the building. The door was off its hinges. He entered eagerly and sprinted up the metal stairs leading to the wings. He peeked around the fire curtain.
At center stage sat a plain-looking girl bent over the keys of the grand piano. She was totally absorbed in her music. Straight, almost colorless hair hung over her bowed head. Rimless glasses saddled her nose. He could not see her face, but from where he stood, she seemed heavy-bodied. He sighed in relief. Though this girl was magnificently talented, she was definitely not his English angel. As he continued to listen, however, he became enchanted with her awesome conformance to musical structure. He watched her quietly.
Beside him was an old upright piano. On top lay the music score. Drawn to it, he thumbed through it until he came to the passage she was playing. Smoothing out the music sheets in front of him, he sat down on the stool and followed closely along. At the lead-in to the refrain, he impulsively began to play with her.
So in tune with the invisible carillon ringing within her mind, Grace did not immediately react to the richer sounds filling the hall. They seemed more like natural partners on a stirring inward journey, to a lyrical and glorious time when her mother practiced with her. Everything but Princess Alexandra’s precious smile faded from mind.
Once again, they faced each other from across their baby grand pianos. Grace’s fingers rippled over the keys in joyous song. Her spirit reached out to the monumental harmonies the two pianos consummated to the end.
“Bravo! Bravo!”
Startled, Grace looked up. She was stunned to realize how she had lost herself in her music, leaving herself vulnerable to this enemy perched on the piano stool. He continued clapping as he stood up.
“It is a gift to play such marvelous music,” he told her in German.
But, to her utter relief, she instantly recognized the SS officer. Coming towards her was Watchdog. Grace lit up.
“My goodness, Colonel, the unexpected pleasure of your playing a duet with me has taken my breath away,” she said in German. “You are a fine pianist. Perhaps you would join me in another duet? I have a number of…”