It was 29 June 1941. Dawn. Thick clouds pushed down on the gray streets as the first light slipped through the windows. The Germans were sweeping forward with merciless precision, unstoppable it seemed, occupying Russian territory in huge sections. Catherine and Ewald were in Borisov eighty miles southwest of Smolensk, behind enemy lines and operating a radio communication near an abandoned college at the edge of town. Their mission was to study train movements and forward the information on because within days the German Army was planning a major push eastward.
Ewald had set up his wireless on a small table in the living room of the apartment overlooking an arched courtyard. They had been in operation for two days when the Russians came.
Catherine distinctively remembered their faces, the four members of Soviet Intelligence Service barging through the door, their intrusion covered by the rumbling of a nearby train. Ewald sat at the small table tapping out wireless messages—troop movements, supply train schedules—until a rifle butt slammed against his head as the other two pushed Catherine roughly to the floor as she ran for a window.
They were led into the kitchen where they faced a grim-looking Russian officer sitting at the table where the tools of their trade were laid out, a simple sending unit, an assortment of inks, and three sets of forged identity papers. Convincing pieces of evidence betraying their purpose.
The officer questioned them harshly for over an hour, banging his fist on the table, shouting profanities. Then he would calm down, light a cigarette and drink tea, discussing their grave situation as though he were a country gentleman.
Catherine was so proud of how her husband stood up to the brutal interrogation that morning. But the facts were they were German spies and that meant that they would die. They were offered a final chance to confess, to tell them exactly what this was all about. The officer hinted that at the least he could make their death painless and that was the best he could offer. Ewald would have none of it, and he only asked for mercy toward his wife. The Russians laughed at his request, as two of them dragged him downstairs and out into the courtyard. Catherine was forced to watch in horror from an upstairs window as they forced her husband to his knees in the mud of the narrow courtyard. Her heart froze as the revolver was placed at the back of his skull. Ewald looked up and their eyes met at that chilling moment just before death. Catherine turned away, hiding her face in her hands an instant before the shot echoed across the courtyard. Just that quickly her life and hopes were gone.
Later that night she would appreciate the swiftness of her husband’s death.
The Russians tied her up and left her in the bedroom to ponder her fate for several hours. She could hear their voices grow louder and braver, and knew that they were drinking.
Aroused from a fitful sleep hours later, they roughly dragged Catherine to her feet and into the other room. They quickly untied her, undressed her, and then tied her up again. The Russians yelled like schoolboys on a soccer field as the first one had his way with her. Then the second had her. Then, the third. Her mind skipped in and out of consciousness. These animals were beyond considering what she knew. Information no longer mattered because they had become something else—ruthless, filthy animals, violating her because they could. How long this went on, Leni had lost all sense of time, her mind refusing the consistency of time or space or surroundings.
The fourth one, the officer, had other ideas when it came his turn. He yelled at the others, and they untied her from the chair and she was forced to kneel. He grabbed her hair and forced her to look up at him. His face was shined with sweat, his eyes drunk and wild.
The door flew open with a loud report. Shots were fired.
Catherine’s mind tried desperately to understand what was going on around her. The officer’s grip relaxed and she bolted upright with all her strength, driving her knee into his groin. He fell back with a painful yelp.
When it was over three Russians were dead. The room smelled of burning cordite. Her rescuers placed a blanket around her and took her into the kitchen, built a fire for her in the narrow fireplace, and gave her warm tea. It was then that she told them they would find her husband’s body in the courtyard.
A small-framed man dressed in a raincoat with a serious face came through the door. Catherine, teacup clasped in her hands, watched as he walked from room to room, stopping to whisper with several of the men. Then he came to her, removed his overcoat and stood in front of the fire.
“Are you feeling better?”
He was gaunt, middle aged, and even in the weak light Catherine could see his face was colorless and terribly thin. She didn’t answer. Instead she took another gulp of tea.
“Would you like a cigarette?” He asked.
“Yes, please,” she said.
He sat beside her. “My name is Theodor Richter. I’m terribly sorry we didn’t arrive sooner to disrupt this sorry affair. But, you are safe now and will be sent to Berlin tonight.”
Shortly after that the Russian officer was brought from the bedroom. His face was swollen and red, and now full of fear. Richter reached in his coat pocket and produced a pistol. He laid it in her lap and nodded toward the Russian. “As soon as you have finished your business here.”
Then they left her alone with the officer.
For two months she was given time to recuperate at a personal home in Berlin. There she regained her health, though she still had awful nightmares about Ewald.
Late one afternoon a week later, Theodor Richter came and took her for a walk in the park. She remembered walking along the tunneled allees, their footsteps muted on the damp, matted floor of copper leaves blanketing the sidewalk. In the distance, a woman’s call for her children echoed in the falling dusk. They walked until they came to several benches and took a seat beneath thick-canvassed yellow trees.
It was then that Richter told her of his plan for her to be a deep-cover agent. When she seemed surprised, the German spymaster smiled slightly, and told her, “Why, Catherine, it’s obvious. Being so beautiful allows you to be a spy.”
That was when she told him that she was pregnant.
----
Three months after her son Georgi was born, Catherine was sent to Innsbruck to eliminate an agent suspected of turning over information to the American OSS station in Switzerland.
Catherine had waited two days without any word from Richter. Though she knew it was impossible, she sometimes wondered if he had forgotten her. Her thoughts of poor Georgi constantly weighed on her.
To pass the time Leni played a simple game.
She was supposed to be a tourist, so she became one, taking morning walks along the Maria-Theresia Strasse into old Innsbruck where she found cafes with bread and coffee for breakfast. Each morning she strolled through the Alpenzoo. After lunch it was either a tour of churches, such as the St. Theodor Cathedral. Or castles, like the Schlass Ambras Castle. She liked the Anatomical Museum so much that she visited it twice. She strolled through numerous botanical gardens, all the time wondering what the future held for someone like herself who had chosen such an occupation.
On the third morning, Catherine sensed that the time was near.
That evening when she arrived back at the hotel there was a telegram waiting for her. She sat in the luxurious lobby and read the message. Her target had arrived in the city.
----
The next afternoon, Catherine killed the traitor with a knife to the heart while they sat together—strangers in conversation—on a loading station bench.
That night she dreamed of Ewald.
The next morning, restless, she took an early stroll through Rathaus Park and wandered through the grounds of the University of Vienna. There, she found a lover, a young art student from Prague, who interested her for the night. But the next morning as they awakened among tossed, sunlight-drenched sheets, she broke his heart and dismissed him.
----
Berlin. Six months later.
Beneath bright noonday skies the Mercedes drove th
rough grounds shaded with silver birches and oak trees in the affluent suburb located in the western part of the city. Then the staff car pulled off the main road taking Catherine through the entrance of Kaiserin Auguste Victoria Haus. Richter had personally seen that Georgi was treated at VAVH, founded in 1909 by the German Empress, and considered one of the best children’s medical facilities in Nazi Germany.
Dr. Rudolf Hoffman, chief of Pediatric Care, waited for her at the front entrance. He was a large man, six foot four at least, with shoulders that drooped forward. Thinned, ash-colored hair was combed straight back on his head. He led her to lift at the end of the narrow hallway where they got off on the second floor as nurses bustled about, and then went across a wide room. Dr. Hoffman, hands jammed deeply into the pockets of his white jacket, led her to a glass partition. A thick, green curtain behind the glass shrouded Catherine’s view into the room.
“He’s receiving the best care, I can assure you,” he said. “But let me warn you, this will appear a lot worse than it is. He is isolated for his protection.”
Her heart sank.
“We have reached the prognosis Georgi is sick from a disease of the lungs. He possesses a weak immune system to begin with. Possibly inherited,” he said. “That sort of disability allows his lungs to become congested and thus the infection set in.”
“I want to see him.”
“Certainly.” Hoffman pecked on the glass with a long finger, and the curtain parted slowly.
Catherine stepped to the window and peered in. A male nurse draped in a surgical gown and heavy gloves opened the curtains.
Numerous mechanical apparatus, contraptions of all descriptions, crowded the room. Breathing bellows and glass drip bottles. The lights were soft; a small square window above a single bed was closed creating half shadows. Beside the bed was a metal table cluttered with various bottles and metal trays. Catherine sucked in a sharp breath. There among the clean, white sheets, finally she saw her son’s terribly blanched face. “What are the odds that he’ll survive?”
“We don’t know yet.”
----
1:20 p.m.
Catherine watched through the rain-specked window at the familiar streets of Berlin, a town she fondly remembered as a child as the Mercedes sedan sped along the Tauenzienstrasse, the wide expanse, then turned off onto a side street from Wittenberg Platz. Before the war, she considered this place a paradise, an incredible wonderland for a small girl. She remembered an old aunt, and a vast, ancient house that always smelled of bread. Gardens along the Isar River where she sailed toy boats in mirrored lakes. Another glance out the window and she recognized that they were along the Marienplatz, an expanse of open cafes, then down a side street, and Rosen-str, a tangle of narrow streets and lanes. The Mercedes stopped in front of an open café shaded with large chestnut trees. Catherine stepped out and was immediately greeted by a tall, well-suited man with penetrating eyes.
“The colonel is waiting,” he told Catherine and turned on his heels. “This way, please.”
She followed him across a stone street. Richter? Why would he need her in such a quick manner? She noticed several other men stationed at the perimeters.
Richter sat at the table reading a newspaper. “Ah, my sweet, Catherine,” he said, taking her hand. “I hope you found your son’s health improving.”
“At least it appears the physicians know what we’re fighting,” she said. “He’s a very sick boy.”
“Then at least some good news.”
“That’s why I’m late. Meeting with the new physicians, of which I’m grateful,” she said. “How could I ever thank you enough?”
“It was the least I could do,” Richter said. He stood and stepped out of the shade and into the brilliant morning sun. His skin was sallow, plowed with wrinkles. “Shall we take a walk, Catherine?” Richter nodded and one of his men brought two Schipperkes on leashes and the intelligence chief took the leather strap. She fell in place behind as they strolled down the hill.
They had gone perhaps twenty meters when Richter stopped.
“I have read your request to resign,” he said, “and I can’t say I blame you. I have no family and so it wasn’t hard for me to choose a life of dedication to the Fatherland. On the other hand, you have Georgi. I can understand your motivations, especially during his illness.”
“It means everything to me.”
“As it should.”
“But…” she said, waiting.
“Yes, there is a matter that concerns me greatly,” he said. “Iran.” Over the next twenty minutes he discussed the importance of that region. The rich oilfields, access to the ocean, all reasons why the allies would desire to control that land.
As he told her this, Catherine froze on the inside. Richter wasn’t going to let her go, and she should have been prepared for that. “What is it you need for me to do?”
“We’re prepared to send you to Czechoslovakia, Catherine, arranged through a series of circumstances I believe hold a high level of success. It will eventually allow your way into the heart of British Intelligence in Tehran.”
Catherine held an unbreakable loyalty toward this man standing with her, but to leave her son when he needed her most?
“I know it’s much I’m asking, Catherine,” Richter said as if reading her mind. “But I give you my word this is your last operation. And—while you are away only the best physicians will care for your son. Upon your return you and Georgi will live out the rest of your lives in a cottage prepared for you in the forest north of the city.”
“My last operation?”
“The last and the most important,” he said.
If he needed her for one more operation, then he would have it. Catherine owed him as much. “Then this shall be my last,” she said.
Richter smiled. “When we return to the café, I’ll give you a file on the events we’ve set in motion. I think you’ll be impressed.”
“Then you knew I would accept?” she said.
The Schipperkes ran up and playfully nipped at Richter’s pant cuffs. The spymaster reached down and gave each dog a gentle pat on the head apologizing for ignoring them. He turned up to her. “I know you, Catherine.”
----
Within five weeks she was in Prague posing as a German-born journalist—Leni Capek was who she would be known as for a long time—complete with forged documentation and false background. Through some careful planning, and the assistance of another agent, she was given a government position within city hall.
Eduard Benes and this Czech government had fled to England eighteen months before. The final carefully planned incident was orchestrated—false charges against Leni involving a late night incident outside of a famous bar when she slapped a German official. Assault charges were brought up and among the crowded sidewalk witnesses were produced. This story assisted her in fleeing with other Czechs.
Two months later at Cholmondeley Park, near Chester, England. While traveling with a group of officials reviewing the Czech army training, Leni met an older, unsuspecting, and very handsome Colonel Robert Boland.
A British officer who happened to be stationed in Tehran, Iran.
-Five-
When Salinger was reassigned to Cairo in late May 1943, he had rented a room in a large house on Harras Street close to the Italian legation. It was white stone, Mediterranean style, divided into four apartments. The ground floor flat had a back door opening into a patchwork of grape arbors and a vegetable garden. But Salinger had insisted on renting the second-floor apartment with a balcony overlooking a small garden among mango trees and a wrought-iron fence lining a narrow street.
The cities of Tunis and Bizerte had fallen to the British Western Desert Force on May 7 when Salinger was still in Bern. By May 12, the day Salinger departed the Swiss city by train, organized Axis resistance in Africa had ended. Returning to Cairo, he found a city no longer living under the depressing threat of Rommel’s Afrika Corp marching into the city.
; It was after dark when the taxi dropped Salinger off at his apartment. He had spent the afternoon sending in reports and cleaning out his desk. He mixed a drink and sat in the half-shadowed balcony overlooking the street just beyond the fence. It was a sparsely furnished apartment with two wicker arm chairs and a thick rug. Beside one chair was a floor lamp where he spent long nights with a novel. Beside the other chair were a small, square table and a jar of flowers. The woman who cleaned his apartment switched them out once a week.
The chatter of quick conversation below calmed him for a while. When the street fell silent, he turned on the radio and listened to the announcer’s voice broadcast the war news. The Russians had officially captured Kiev. Hitler’s folly in Mother Russia was draining his armies. Then the announcer read a communiqué from the Central Pacific Command. Three days before in the Pacific Theater. U.S. Marines had captured Makin. On an island named Tarawa, the Marines had consolidated their positions and were making good progress against enemy positions on the eastern end of Betio Island.
Salinger heard the knock. He went inside, walked through the dark apartment and opened the door. Frank Bentley, head of OSS operations in Cairo, stood there. “I really had no idea you would be here. There wasn’t a light on at all, Booth. It’s never a good sign when a man is sitting in a dark room.”
Bentley was an always-somber man with Hollywood goods looks, slightly over six feet with black hair. He was dressed in a light brown suit and blue tie. His dark mysterious eyes shone from drinks earlier in the afternoon.
Salinger turned on the lamp.
“I’m taking several of the staff to dinner at the Shepheard later,” Bentley said. “Would you like to go with us?”
“Thanks for the offer anyway, but I’m going to try and get out of the city tomorrow night.”
“The baked fish is the best I’ve ever had. You’ve been there, of course.”
A Spy in the Shadows (Spy Noir Series Book 1) Page 4