The Eagle Has Flown

by Jack Higgins

  The door opened and Use Huber nodded good morning. 'There you are, General. I was a little worried.'

  'Mr Devlin and I spent the night in the cellar of that restaurant in Marienstrasse.'

  'Rivera's on his way,' she told him.

  'Oh, good, send him in when he arrives.'

  She went out and ten minutes later ushered Rivera in. The Spaniard stood there clutching his hat, nervously glancing at Devlin.

  'You may speak freely,' Schellenberg said.

  'I've had another message from my cousin, General. He says they are moving Steiner from the Tower of London to a place called St Mary's Priory.'

  'Did he give an address for that?'

  'He just said it was in Wapping, by the river.'

  Devlin said, 'A remarkable fella, your cousin, to come up with such a prime piece of information so easily.'

  Rivera smiled eagerly. 'Jose is certain his information is correct, senor. He got it from a friend of his, a soldier in the Scots Guards. They have a company serving in the Tower at the moment. They use the public houses nearby and my cousin…' Rivera shrugged. 'A matter of some delicacy.'

  'Yes, we understand, Rivera.' Schellenberg nodded. 'All right, you can go for now. I'll be in touch when I need you.'

  Use showed him out and came back. 'Is there anything you'd like me to do, General?'

  'Yes, find me one of those gazetteers from the files. You know the sort of thing. London street-by-street. See if this place is mentioned.'

  She went out. 'I used to know Wapping well at one stage of my career,' Devlin said.

  'With the IRA?'

  'The bombing campaign. They were always having a go, the hard men, those who'd blow up the Pope if they thought it would help the cause. Nineteen thirty-six, there was an active service unit who set a bomb or two off in London. You know the sort of thing? Women, kids, passers-by? I was used as an enforcer in those days and the men at the top wanted it stopped. Lousy publicity, you see.'

  'And this is when you knew Wapping?'

  'A friend from my youth in County Down. Friend of my mother's actually.'

  'Who is this friend?'

  'Michael Ryan. Ran a safe house. Not active at all. Very deep cover.'

  'And you took care of this active service unit?'

  'There were only the three of them.' Devlin shrugged. 'They wouldn't be told. After that, I went to Spain. Joined the Lincoln-Washington Brigade. Did my bit against Franco till the Italians took me prisoner. Eventually the Abwehr pulled me out.'

  'And this friend of yours in Wapping, this Ryan -I wonder what happened to him?'

  'Still in deep, old Michael, I should imagine. He wouldn't want to know any more. That kind of man. Had doubts about the use of violence. When the Abwehr sent me to Ireland in forty-one I met a friend of his in Dublin. From what he told me I know for a fact the IRA didn't use Mick during their bombing campaign in England at the beginning of the war.'

  'Could this be of any use?' Schellenberg suggested.

  'Jesus, General, you've got the cart running before the horse, haven't you?'

  Use came in with an orange-coloured book. 'I've found it, General, St Mary's Priory, Wapping. See, right on the edge of the Thames.'

  Schellenberg and Devlin examined the map. 'That isn't going to tell us much,' Devlin said.

  Schellenberg nodded. 'I've just had a thought. Operation Sea Lion, nineteen forty.'

  'You mean the invasion that never was?'

  'Yes, but it was thoroughly planned. One task the SD was given was a comprehensive survey of London. Buildings, I'm talking about. Their usefulness if London were occupied.'

  'You mean which place was suitable for Gestapo Headquarters? That sort of thing?'

  Schellenberg smiled amiably. 'Exactly. There was a listing of many hundreds of such places on file and plans, where obtainable.' He turned to Use Huber. 'See what you can do.'

  'At once, General.'

  Devlin sat by the window, Schellenberg at his desk. They lit cigarettes. Schellenberg said. 'You said last night you preferred to proceed with the notion of Vargas being a traitor.'

  'That's right.'

  'So what would you do? How would you handle it?'

  'Easy — a stroke of genius hit me at the height of the bombing, General. We don't tell Vargas I'm going.'

  'I don't understand.'

  'We extract what information we need. In fact, we probably have enough already. Then, once a week, Rivera asks for more information on your behalf. Steiner's regime at the Priory, the guard system, that in sort of thing, only I'll already be in London. Now, Walter, my old son, you've got to admit that's good.' Schellenberg laughed helplessly, then got up. 'Very good - bloody marvellous. Let's go down to the canteen and have a coffee on it.'

  Later, Schellenberg called for his Mercedes and they drove to the Tiergarten and walked around the lake, feet crunching in the light powdering of snow.

  'There's another difficulty,' Devlin said. 'The Special Branch managed to hunt me down when I was in Norfolk. A little late in the day as it happened, but they did and one of the things that helped was the fact that as an Irish citizen I had to be entered on the aliens' register by the local police and that required a passport photo.'

  'I see. So what are you saying?'

  'A complete change in appearance - a real change.'

  'You mean hair colouring and so on?'

  Devlin nodded. 'Add a few years as well.'

  'I think I can help there,' Schellenberg said. 'I have friends at the UFA film studios here in Berlin. Some of their make-up artists can achieve remarkable things.'

  'Another thing — no aliens' register this time. I was born in County Down which is in Ulster and that makes me officially a British citizen. We'll stick with that when it comes to false papers and so on.'

  'And your identity?'

  'Last time I was a war hero. A gallant Irishman who'd been wounded at Dunkirk and invalided out.' Devlin tapped the bullet scar on the side of his head. 'This helped the story, of course.'

  'Good. Something like that then. What about method of entry?'

  'Oh, parachute again.'

  'Into England?'

  Devlin shook his head. 'Too chancy and if I'm seen, it's bound to be reported. No, make it Ireland like last time. If they see me there, no one gives a bugger. A stroll across the border into Ulster, the breakfast train to Belfast and I'm on British soil.'

  'And afterwards?'

  'The boat. Belfast to Heysham in Lancashire. Last time, I had to take the other route from Larne to Stranraer in Scotland. The boats get full, just like the train.' Devlin grinned. 'There's a war on, General.'

  'So, you are in London. What happens then?'

  Devlin lit a cigarette. 'Well, if I keep away from Vargas, that means no help from any of your official sources.'

  Schellenberg frowned. 'But you will need the help of others. Also weapons, a radio transmitter because without the ability to communicate…'

  'All right,' Devlin said. 'So a few things are going to have to be taken on trust. We were talking about my old friend in Wapping earlier, Michael Ryan. Now the odds are good that he's still around and if he is, he'll help, at least with suitable contacts.'

  'Such as?'

  'Michael ran a cab and he worked for the bookies on the side. He had a lot of underworld friends in the old days. The kind of crooks who'd do anything for money, deal in guns, that sort of thing. That IRA active service unit I had to knock off in London back in thirty-six — they used underworld contacts a lot, even to buy their explosives.'

  'So, this would be excellent. The help of your IRA friend and the assistance, when needed, of some criminal element. But for all you know, your friend could no longer be in London?'

  'Or killed in the Blitz, General. Nothing is guaranteed.'

  'And you're still willing to take a chance?'

  'I reach London, I assess the situation because I have to do that however clever the plan looks that we put together here. If Mic
hael Ryan isn't around, if it simply looks impossible, the whole thing, I'm on the next boat back to Belfast and over the border and safe in Dublin before you know it.' Devlin grinned. 'I'll give you the bad news from your Embassy there. Now could we go back to your office? It's so damn cold I think my bollocks are going to fall off.'

  In the office, after lunch, they started again, Use sitting in the corner taking notes.

  Schellenberg said, 'Say, for argument's sake, that you got Steiner out one dark evening in London.'

  'Broke him out of the Priory, you mean?'

  'Exactly. And that's only the first step. How do you get him back? Do you take him to Ireland? Return the way you came?'

  'Not so healthy that,' Devlin said. 'De Valera, the Irish Prime Minister, has played it very cleverly. Kept Ireland out of the war, but that doesn't mean he's putting himself out for your people. All the Luftwaffe crews who've ended up in Ireland have been put in prison camps. On the other hand, if an RAF plane strays and crash-lands they usually give them bacon and eggs for breakfast and send them home.'

  'And he's been imprisoning IRA members, I understand.'

  Devlin said, 'In forty-one, I got back on a neutral boat, a Brazilian cargo ship from Ireland that put in at Lisbon, but that's a tricky one. Nothing guaranteed at all.'

  Use said diffidently, 'Surely, the moment the Colonel is out, they'll be looking for him.'

  'Exactly,' Devlin said. 'Police, Army, Home Guard, the Security Services. Every port watched, especially the Irish routes.' He shook his head. 'No, once out we've got to leave England almost immediately. Be on our way before they know what's hit them.'

  Schellenberg nodded, thinking about it. 'It occurs to me that one of the cleverest things about Operation Eagle was the way Colonel Steiner and his men were transported to England.'

  'The Dakota, you mean?' Devlin said.

  'An RAF Dakota which had crash-landed in Holland and was put back into service. To all intents, a British plane flying home if anyone saw it and all it had to do to make the drop was fly in under eight hundred feet because many sections of the English coast have no low-ievel radar.'

  'Worked like a charm,' Devlin said. 'Except on the way back. Gericke, the pilot, was in the same hospital as me. He was shot down by a Luftwaffe night-fighter.'

  'Unfortunate, but an intriguing thought. A small plane, flying in under radar. A British plane. A suitable landing place. It could have you and Steiner out and safely in France in no time at all.'

  'And pigs might fly, General. Not only would you need a suitable plane. You'd need the landing place. May I also point out you'd need an exceptional pilot.'

  'Come now, Mr Devlin, anything is possible. We have what's called the Enemy Aircraft Flight where the Luftwaffe tests captured British and American planes of every kind. They even have 3817. I've seen it.' He turned to Use. 'Get in touch with them at once. Also extend your research on Operation Sea Lion to cover any sites in the general area of London that we intended to use for covert operations, landings by night, that sort of thing.'

  'And a pilot,' Devlin told her. 'Like I said, something special.'

  'I'll get right on to it.'

  As she turned, there was a knock at the door and a young woman in SS auxiliary uniform came in carrying a large file. 'St Mary's Priory, Wapping. Was that what the General wanted?'

  Use laughed triumphantly. 'Good girl, Sigrid. Wait for me in the office. I've got something else for you.' She turned and handed the file to Schellenberg. 'I'll get her started on the other thing.'

  As she reached the door, Schellenberg said, 'Another possibility, Use. Check the files on those British right-wing organizations that flourished before the war, the ones that sometimes had Members of Parliament on their books.'

  She went out and Devlin asked, 'And who in the hell would they be, General?'

  'Anti-Semitics, people with Fascist sympathies. Many members of the British aristocracy and upper classes rather admired the Führer, certainly before the war.'

  'The kind who were disappointed not to see the panzers driving up to Buckingham Palace?'

  'Something like that.' Schellenberg opened the bulky file, extracted the first plan and opened it. 'So, Mr Devlin, there you have it in all its glory. St Mary's Priory.'

  Asa Vaughan was twenty-seven years of age. Born in Los Angeles, his father a film producer, he had been fascinated by flying from an early age, had taken his pilot's licence even before going to West Point. Afterwards he had completed his training as a fighter pilot, performing so well that he was assigned to take an instructors' course with the Navy at San Diego. And then came the night his whole world had collapsed, the night he'd got into a drunken brawl in a harbourside bar and punched a major in the mouth.

  October 5, 1939. The date was engraved on his heart. No scandal, no court martial. No one wanted that. Just his resignation. One week at his parents opulent home in Beverly Hills was all he could bear. He packed a bag and made for Europe.

  The war having started in September, the RAF were accepting a few Americans but they didn't like his record. And then on November 30 the Russians invaded Finland. The Finns needed pilots badly and volunteers from many nations flooded in to join the Finnish Air Force, Asa among them.

  It was a hopeless war from the start, in spite of the gallantry of the Finnish Army, and most of the fighter planes available were outdated. Not that the Russians were much better, but they did have a few of the new German FW190s which Hitler had promised to Stalin as a goodwill gesture over the Poland deal.

  Asa had flown bi-planes like the Italian Fiat Falco and the British Gloucester Gladiator, hopelessly outclassed by the opposition, only his superior skill as a pilot giving him an edge. His personal score stood at seven which made him an ace and then came that morning of ferocious winds and driving snow when he'd come in at four hundred feet, flying blind, lost his engine at the last moment and crash-landed.

  That was in March 1940, two days before the Finns capitulated. His pelvis fractured and back broken, he'd been hospitalized for eighteen months, was undergoing final therapy and still a lieutenant in the Finnish Air Force when, on June 25, 1941, Finland joined forces with Nazi Germany and declared war on Russia.

  He'd returned to flying duties gradually, working as an instructor, not directly involved in any action. The months had gone by and suddenly, the roof had fallen in. First Pearl Harbor and then the declaration of war between Germany and Italy and the USA.

  They held him in a detention camp for three months, the Germans, and then the officers had come to see him from the SS. Himmler was extending the SS foreign legions. Scandinavian, French, the neutral Swedes, Indian prisoners of war from the British Army in North Africa. There was even the Britisches.

  Freikorps with their collar patches of three leopards instead of SS runes and the Union Jack on the left sleeve. Not that they'd had many takers, no more than fifty, mostly scum from prison camps attracted by the offer of good food, women and money.

  The George Washington Legion was something else again. Supposedly for American sympathizers to the Nazi cause, as far as Asa knew, they never had more than half a dozen members and he hadn't met the others. He had a choice. To join or be sent to a concentration camp. He argued as best he could. The final agreement was that he would serve only on the Russian Front. As it happened, he seldom flew in straight combat, for his skill as a pilot was so admired he was employed mainly on the courier service, ferrying high-ranking officers.

  So, here he was, not too far from the Russian border with Poland, at the controls of a Stork, forest and snow five thousand feet below, Hauptsturmführer Asa Vaughan from the US of A, an SS Brigadeführer called Farber sitting behind him examining maps.

  Farber looked up. 'How long now?'

  'Twenty minutes,' Asa told him. He spoke excellent German, although with an American accent.

  'Good. I'm frozen to the bone.'

  How in the hell did I ever get into this? Asa asked himself. And how do I get out! A
great shadow swooped in, the Stork bucked wildly and Farber cried out in alarm. A fighter plane took station to starboard for a moment, the Red Star plain on its fuselage, then it banked away.

  'Russian Yak fighter. We're in trouble,' Asa said.

  The Yak came in fast from behind, firing both cannon and machine guns and the Stork staggered, pieces breaking from the wings. Asa banked and went down, the Yak followed, turning in a half circle, and took up station again. The pilot, conscious of his superiority in every department, waved, enjoying himself.

  'Bastard!' Asa said.

  The Yak banked again, came in fast, cannon shell punching into the Stork and Farber cried out as a bullet caught him in the shoulder. As the windscreen shattered he screamed, 'Do something, for God's sake.'

  Asa, blood on his cheek from a splinter, cried, 'You want me to do something, I'll do something. Let's see if this bastard can fly.'

  He took the Stork straight down to two thousand, waited until the Yak came in, banked and went down again. The forest in the snow plain below seemed to rush towards them.

  'What are you doing?' Farber cried.

  Asa took her down to a thousand, then five hundred feet, and the Yak, hungry for the kill, stayed on his tail. At the right moment, the American dropped his flaps, the Yak banked to avoid the collision and ploughed straight down into the forest at three hundred and fifty miles an hour. There was a tongue of flame and Asa pulled back the column and levelled out at two thousand feet.

  'You okay, General?'

  Farber clutched his arm, blood pumping through. 'You're a genius - a genius. I'll see you get the Iron Cross for this.'

  'Thanks.' Asa wiped blood from his cheek. 'That's all I need.'

  At the Luftwaffe base outside Warsaw, Asa walked towards the officers' mess, feeling unaccountably depressed. The medical officer had put two stitches in his cheek, but had been more concerned with Brigadeführer Farber's condition.

  Asa went into the mess and took off his flying jacket. Underneath he wore a beautifully tailored uniform in field grey, SS runes on his collar patch. On his left sleeve was a Stars and Stripes shield and the cuff-title on his left wrist said: 'George Washington Legion'. He had the ribbon of the Iron Cross Second Class on his tunic and the Finnish Gold Cross of Valour.