“We told ourselves that we could endure no longer,” he said, anger darkening his voice. “We told ourselves that all our allies, one by one, had fallen, and there was no disgrace in a peace without victory. We were safe from Hitler’s control, so there was no shame in coming to a respectable agreement with an honourable man… but did we understand that Hitler was not an honest man? Yes, we knew that, and yet we deluded ourselves that he would abide by a treaty that was only convenient for him for a short time. We allowed ourselves to let down our guard, and, yesterday, German forces thrust a knife at our nation’s heart.”
The Chamber seemed silent, wrapped up in the moment. “This is England’s darkest hour,” Churchill pronounced, and his words echoed in the air. “German forces are ashore in strength and are preparing an offensive towards London. When they come to London, they will attempt to take this proud city and shatter once and for all our empire. Hitler will remain unsatisfied until he has eaten the entire world, and now he has finally come for us… and we find ourselves in a weaker state than ever.”
He paused. “We have lost the ability to control the Channel,” he said. “Elements of the Royal Navy are steaming back towards England as fast as they can, but until they rendezvous with the remains of Home Fleet. We will have to stop the Germans in a war fought out in the villages and hills of England, a savage campaign that will lay waste to the land we love, but a campaign that must be fought.
“We know what defeat looks like,” he said, coldly. “We know the fate of the French, strangers in their own country. We know the fate of the Russians, broken into servitude. We even know the fate of the Italians, who are treated as dirt by their German allies… and we know just what fate the Nazis have in mind for the Turks, the Swiss, all the remaining free nations of Europe, including us. We know…
“And we will fight.
“I told this House once, long ago, that I could promise nothing, but blood, toil, tears and sweat,” he said. “I tell you now that we can win, and we will win, and we must win, so that a monster like Hitler can be defeated and prevented from controlling the entire world. If we are defeated, here, in our own lands, Hitler will have nothing preventing him from conquering the entire world. We will fight and we will win! Hitler’s empire will come to an end; we, we free people, bearers of the hopes and aspirations of an entire continent groaning under the yoke of slavery, will end him.
“There is no peace with Adolph Hitler,” he concluded. “We will fight him until he is defeated, or until he kills the last of us, who will never accept a role in his New Order. Today, we start fighting back!”
He sat down. After a pregnant pause, the entire chamber erupted into cheers and shouts, a handful of MPs singing ‘God save the King’. DeRiemer looked for the young female MP and met her eyes for a long moment; they, too, were glowing with passion and determination. For the moment, at least, Britain was united behind Churchill.
His lips twitched. All that they needed do now was drive the Germans back into the sea and then march to Berlin.
* * *
Kim Philby fancied himself as a man on the edge. As a young man, he had converted to communism and had, since then, followed orders from Moscow to remain above suspicion and continue to report from the heart of the British intelligence service. He’d accomplished a great deal over the years, gaining responsibility for monitoring the remains of the Soviet Union, an irony that never failed to make him smile. Moscow — through him — possessed near-perfect awareness of what their enemies were plotting, even Churchill’s desperate plan to have Beria assassinated and replaced with one of the Red Army Generals in hopes of keeping Russia in the war.
Philby hadn’t despaired when Beria had made the devil’s bargain with Adolph Hitler. It wasn’t unprecedented in the history of the Soviet Union — Lenin himself had made a bargain with the advancing Germans, buying time for Imperial Germany to collapse, as Lenin had predicted — and Philby had just continued to report, even through the hiatus that had followed when Moscow had fallen. The contact line had been re-established, however, and Philby had continued to feed reports to ‘contact zero’ until the day the Germans arrived.
He tasted brandy on his lips and looked up into the merciless eyes of Otto Skorzeny. He knew who Skorzeny was, of course; Radio Berlin had turned him into a superhuman, a perfect soldier and commanding officer, almost able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. Skorzeny lived a charmed life, dancing through bullets as if they were nothing but rainfall; the only sign of any stress in his life was a scar that he’d picked up in the wars. If Skorzeny was Contact Zero, then…
Philby’s life had just shattered around him.
“Let me tell you a story,” Skorzeny said. “Moscow; nine years ago. The city has fallen, but a handful of senior NKVD officers are desperate to make a bargain with their new rulers, so they take their files to the senior SS office there and show him what they can offer. That man is none other than Himmler’s own personal hatchet man; he sees what they’re offering, arranges to have the building sealed off and examined by the SS, and takes the files back to Berlin. Himmler orders it to be kept a secret, checks through the files, and issues his orders. The windfall has to be used. A few months later, they make contact again with part of the chain that leads back to you, and start issuing orders.”
His face twisted into an ugly smile. “And you obey.
“You spend the next few years sending back all the information you could get you hands on,” he continued, his smile growing wider. “You get requests for information from the heart of the Soviet Union and you forward it on. You get requests about information on how Germany is penetrated by British Intelligence and you pass it on. You get requests about some dispositions of British forces and you pass it on… all unaware that you were working for the Reich. How does that make you feel?”
Philby blanched. His mind was racing, trying to find a way out of the predicament, but nothing presented itself. He’d had an evacuation plan for when the British finally realised what he’d been doing, but that plan had certainly fallen apart when Moscow fell; he’d almost certainly walk right into the hands of the Reich. If he made it to Russia, they probably wouldn’t be too happy to see him; from their point of view, he was an agent who had gone silent. He thought, briefly, about trying to talk MI5 into striking a deal, but…
“I know what you are thinking,” Skorzeny said, calmly. Philby jumped as the commando’s face came closer to this own. “You’re wondering if you can take us to the nearest army post and betray us, hoping to save your neck from the hangman’s noose. I don’t think that that would be a very good idea, Philby; your actions ensured the deaths of thousands of people in the Royal Navy and cleared the way for our invasion. You spied for us; once they finish laughing at you, you’ll be hung from the neck until you are dead.”
His hand stroked Philby’s neck; Philby flinched away, but didn’t dare lift a hand to brush Skorzeny away. “And that would be a great shame,” Skorzeny said. The touch of his hand was somehow soft yet threatening, crushing Philby’s soul as it moved around his vulnerable neck, reminding him that he could be killed by a single blow. “You have nowhere to go now, nowhere but the Reich. Your services have earned you a place in Germany, if you are prepared to help us now.”
Philby struggled, looking for an escape, but he couldn’t see one — apart from suicide. Skorzeny was right; if he were caught, the enormity of his crimes would ensure that he was tried in a secret session, then hung and his body buried somewhere without a marker. He hated the Reich, detested it and all it stood for, and he had worked faithfully to bring about its end… unaware that he had really been helping his ideological enemy. Hot tears stung his eyes as he started to shake; Skorzeny snorted in disgust and half-turned away, sparing Philby the sight of his smile.
He finally forced himself to speak, blinking away tears. “What do you want me to do?”
“Well, for the moment, I want you to play host to us,” Skorzeny said, easily. “There are six
of us, but this house has quite enough room for us all, and I’m sure someone as well-connected as yourself can get enough ration cards to get the food to feed us without problems.”
Philby shuddered. “I can’t…”
“Of course you can,” Skorzeny said. “You’ve lived a double-life for so long that you don’t even remember how to be a normal person. How much did you enjoy the feeling of having put one over your employers? You were the perfect loyal British citizen in the daytime, but at night, you spied for the Reich, thinking you were serving the Rodina. You will have no problems at all feeding us.”
He leaned closer and produced a knife, holding it to Philby’s throat. “You may still be thinking of betraying us,” he warned, his voice darkening. “You could, I admit, run to the barracks and call out the militia. But believe me, if you did that, you would be hung by your own people or killed by me personally.”
Skorzeny said, “Your choice, if you want to remain alive, is no choice at all; you will help me and support us in our operations.”
“Fine,” Philby burst out, bitterly. The sense of submission was too bitter for him to taste. Skorzeny’s jeering face pushed at him in truly terrifying ways. He was starting to wonder if Skorzeny was even human; he’d heard strange tales of experimentations and disgusting medical procedures from the east, supervised by the eerie figure of Doctor Josef Mengele. “I’ll do what you say, provided I get something in Berlin.”
Skorzeny smiled, cat-like. “And what do you want in Berlin?”
“I want a place to live, some freedom, and no more work,” Philby said. He’d surrendered, he realised grimly; all he could do now was sell out for the best price he could get. The Germans would be able to compensate him for his woes; the other Cambridge Spies could take care of themselves. “I need something in return for my efforts.”
Skorzeny nodded. “That won’t be a problem,” he said. He managed a reassuring smile that somehow managed to be the most terrifying facial expression he had yet produced, unsettling and somehow mocking at the same time. “Once you get to Berlin, your usefulness will come to an end, one way or the other.”
Chapter Eighteen
Felixstowe, England
The knock on the door made Gregory Davall’s blood run cold; he’d been half-expecting it since the Germans had occupied the town an hour ago. He had watched through the windows as German soldiers, their uniforms and rank tabs identifying them as SS paramilitary occupation forces, marched through the town, showing a terrifying amount of discipline. The young men, physically perfect, all bearing the same expressionless face, had shown themselves to the townspeople, in what Davall knew to be an attempt to intimidate the British into submission.
“Stay here,” he hissed at Kate, wondering if he should try and make his escape. The Grey Wolves had been ordered to remain undercover for the first hours of the invasion, but he had a particular instruction he needed to carry out, one that would depend on remaining unsuspected by the Germans. He hadn’t been too impressed with what he’d seen of the British Eastern Command during his training; he wouldn’t have put it past them for the files containing his name and details to have fallen into German hands. They would certainly want to round the Grey Wolves up before they could cause trouble.
The knock was repeated as he reached the door and opened it, revealing the face of one of the town’s policemen, not the one who knew about the Grey Wolves. It would be difficult to carry out his orders without being detected by the Germans. It all depended on how much supervision they intended to develop over the town; the police would have orders to cooperate on a limited basis, in hopes of avoiding a direct German occupation. The Germans would be far harsher than anything the British could do.
“Mr Davall,” the policeman said, his voice strange in his ears. He was trying to remain firm and controlled, but Davall could hear the sick note of fear and desperate concern under his voice. “You and your family are ordered to present themselves at the Town Square at noon to hear a proclamation from the occupation authorities. I must warn you that failing to show yourself may result in arrest and possible detention.”
“I understand,” Davall said, keeping his voice calm. The Germans would want to ensure that everyone got the message. “We’ll see you there.”
He closed the door in the policeman’s face and walked back into the kitchen. “It doesn’t look as if we have any choice, but to go,” he said, to Kate. Her eyes went wide with fear; she’d crawled into the basement with him as the sounds of fighting had grown louder, holding James in her arms and almost squeezing him to death. “I think it’s going to be all right.”
Kate was smart enough — she’d been born the daughter of a fisherman — to know when he was trying to reassure her. “You’d best be careful,” she said, taking hold of him and pulling him to her. “I don’t want to lose you as well.”
Davall held Kate’s hand firmly — she held James in her other arm — as they emerged from the house just before noon. Their neighbours — some of them friends, some of them people they barely knew — all shared the same expression; fear. Looking at them, Davall suspected that the Germans had already won half the battle; the people were defeated, trying to avoid the gaze of their new masters. He tried to muster an encouraging smile as he met the eyes of people he knew, but as they walked onwards, he started to feel it himself, a sickening dread deep in the pit of his stomach. The Grey Wolves had thought they’d known what being occupied meant, he realised, but they hadn’t had the slightest real understanding.
The town square was just in front of a grassy park, a place where children and teenagers had used to play; he remembered that a group of schoolchildren had played football there yesterday, one of them accidentally breaking a window with a mistimed kick. There were still children now, joined by their parents and relatives, watched by blank-faced Germans who showed no sign of even recognising that the British existed. The civilians slunk around the sentries, a defeated people trying to avoid the notice of their victors, and joined the milling crowd in the park.
Davall kept his face expressionless as he took in the sight. The Mayor was fond of hectoring people from the steps of the Town Hall; now, there were two heavy machine guns set up around the building, and hundreds of German soldiers standing in position, their eyes missing nothing. A large red flag hung from the Town Hall pole, flapping listlessly in the breeze, but revealing just enough of itself to prove that it was a Nazi flag. The black crooked cross was all too clear.
A Swastika, Davall thought, and shuddered.
Precisely at noon, a German mounted the podium and peered down at the crowd. Davall disliked him on sight; he had a pinched, sallow face with eyes that suggested a touch of jaundice. His black uniform drank in the sunlight; he showed no visible reaction to the occasional bursts of gunfire that rang out in the distance, sending shock-waves of fear through the crowd.
“Thank you for coming,” the German said with what felt like inane politeness. He spoke perfect English, with just a hint of upper-class in his voice; it made Davall wonder if some of the rumours about members of the aristocracy coming to terms with the Germans were actually true. The BBC hadn’t made any broadcast in the morning; they’d listened for a signal. “This town is now under the control of the Greater German Reich, operating under the authority of the Fuhrer. I advise you to listen carefully and heed my words.
“For the time being, we intend to leave you as undisturbed as possible,” he continued. Davall felt Kate’s hand tightening on his hand. “However, I must inform you that any attempt to interfere with our activities, report our activities to any enemies of the Reich, or to carry out anything we feel is designed to hamper our efforts will meet with the severest punishment under German military law. Specifically, depending upon the severity of the offence, punishment will either consist of a long stay in a work camp on the continent or death by firing squad. These sentences are fixed and there is no appeal.
“We must therefore insist that you hand over all
weapons and radio transmitters, immediately,” he continued. “If anyone is found in possession of a weapon after today, it will be taken as a sign of your active participation in an insurgent group and you will be severely punished. All citizens will register with the local SS office as soon as one is established, whereupon you may continue with your lives or apply for well-paid work assisting the German forces.
You may not leave this area without permission and if you are caught trying to do so, it will result in the severest punishment. Any action taken to harass the occupying forces, regardless of its nature, will result in the severest of punishments. Any member of the British Army, Home Guard, or volunteer forces caught within the occupied zone who does not make themselves known to the occupation forces will incur the severest punishment.”
Davall watched him as he spoke, adding more crimes that would face the severest of punishments, and felt a cold wellspring of fear in his heart. The German was trying to sound as if he cared about the people, and was only trying to act on their behalf, but there was something in the way he breathed the word ‘punishment’ that suggested that something wasn’t quite right with his head. He didn’t look that healthy; was he suffering from an inferiority complex, or did he have some disease?
“In the long term, we expect that this town will become a peaceful and productive part of the Reich,” the German concluded. “You will have access to the ports on the other side of the Channel and your people will be in a good position to make business contacts in the Reich that will bring new prosperity to this town. We ask only that you obey our laws and prevent any of your fellows from causing trouble. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them.”
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