by S C Brown
‘Eve definitely transmitted the message. Billy Earle listened in personally and he recognised her tapping patterns immediately. The spelling of the message is perfect and that means something is wrong, badly wrong. I’m certain Eve’s been arrested and is playing back to us what the Germans have told her to send. Who’s playing her at this moment is anyone’s guess but it feels like what happened in Holland all over again. If I was a betting man, I’d say--’
‘Berner’s up to his old tricks again.’
‘Yes, Sir. If he’s interrogated Eve, then we should now assume that Berner knows we’re onto him.’
After a long pause, C explained slowly, ‘Oberon’s gone berserk. He sent a panic message telling me that Eve had given up on the café and was going her own way with some old friend of hers. Oberon probably doesn’t have any hair left after that. You know what he’s like. But your message is telling me something new. You’re telling me she’s under German control whilst she’s telling Oberon she wants to cut all contact with him. Considering the location and the prey, there’s a better than average chance it’s Berner who’s got her. Cutting her ties with Oberon gives Berner the freedom to do with her what he wants. This is classic Berner.’
Smithens blinked. ‘I didn’t know about the Oberon thing.’
‘I know. I was going to tell you this evening to ask you what you thought of it, as you know Eve better than any of us.’
C stood up and leaned against the mantelpiece, reaching into his pocket for his tobacco pouch. He took his time. Smithens knew best and kept quiet, letting the old man think.
‘But, then again, Smithens, if it is Berner that’s got her, then all the time Eve is tapping stuff back from Paris, we know where Berner is. We also know your agent is still alive.’
‘I’m not sure, Sir. All we will really know is where Eve is transmitting from. Berner could be anywhere, sending her messages to broadcast with some flunky overseeing her instead. We don’t know if Berner is actually with her.’
‘Do the Germans know what Eve’s up to, I wonder?’
‘What, letting us know she’s signalling under duress? Too early to say, I suppose. The first clue would be if we think it’s no longer Eve working the Morse key. She was good in training, she’s steady under pressure and if she is in trouble, she’ll let us know as early as she can. No reference to Maud in her messages is a big clue that things are bad.’
‘Do you believe the content of her message - about the tank division, that is?’ enquired C.
‘It could be true. I’m not in a position to verify it. Bit desperate though, isn’t it, getting a tank training school to turn itself into a fighting tank division?’
‘Actually, Smithens, Eve’s telling us something we already know. The Panzer Lehr Division has been talked about in other places already. Maybe Eve’s captor is sending us some truth to lure us in before he starts sending us the big lies.’
‘This has to be Berner,’ said Smithens with finality.
‘I think so too.’ C had a glint in his eye. ‘We have to be very careful how we play this. This could be something really rather good.’
‘Are you going to tell me what you’re scheming, Sir?’
‘Certainly not. Keep running her, Smithens. Keep everything exactly as it is. Act as if nothing has changed. Keep to schedule and keep it all above board. Billy’s boys in the wireless shop mustn’t know a thing, otherwise they’ll let something slip without realising it. Eve’s mission may come good yet.’
Puffing smoke like the 11.15 from Kings Cross, the Chief continued, ‘When the Germans start lying, it will tell us where they want us to look and what have you; in other words, they’ll be telling us how they want to deceive us. The interesting stuff will be what they don’t tell us.’ C shifted playfully in his seat. ‘Smithens, your job is to keep the link with Eve open. Anything you send back to her needs to be useless but believable. Devise a script of worthless things to send her so it appears that she’s still a functioning agent. We’ll make a double-agent of her yet. But let me see the script before you play it, understand? The Germans may have won the first serve but we might just win the return.’
‘With pleasure,’ agreed Smithens.
The game was on.
* * *
There was a knock on Berner’s office door. After a polite pause, in walked a very pale-looking von Kettler. Berner got to his feet as the General closed the door deliberately. Whatever von Kettler was about to say, Berner knew it would not be good. Berner reminded himself to remain impassive, for now.
‘Good morning,’ von Kettler said, turning away from the door. ‘I will need you to come to my office in a moment, please, Walter. There has been a … development.’
‘Okay,’ said Berner, waiting for the General to disclose more.
‘I think it’s all over for you and probably me. I have two members of the Gestapo in my office and they want to talk to us both together. I believe we’re implicated.’ von Kettler’s eyes bore fearfully into Berner’s.
‘Implicated? Implicated in what?’ Berner was trying hard not to be impatient, determined not to make the General’s palpable anxiety spread.
‘Admiral Schneider has been arrested. For treason,’ he blurted.
That hit Berner like a speeding car, taking his impassivity with it.
‘And on the same day that happens, I have the Gestapo strutting about my office. I’m too old to believe in coincidences, Colonel.’
Von Kettler stepped forward and supported himself against the back of an armchair. ‘He always said the Nazis would get him in the end … but treason, Berner, treason of all things …’
Berner played that back in his mind. Schneider thought the Nazis would get him one day. The implication that the head of German military intelligence was not himself a Nazi was dangerous talk indeed.
‘Schneider, I’m told, is accused of passing secrets to the British. I understand he may not be the only man arrested. Maybe we’re next.’
‘I see,’ said Berner cautiously. ‘I wonder how the Gestapo even know I’m here.’
‘Wilhelm won’t have told them, I know that much. Anyway, that’s not all,’ the General looked up from the floor with desperation all too clear in his eyes. ‘You won’t like this.’
Berner wasn’t finding anything much at the moment to his liking but he braced himself for worse to come.
‘The entire Abwehr is being disbanded. A full investigation will be carried out to find the extent of Schneider’s so-called betrayal. Traitors will be arrested and will disappear. Anyone left is to be subsumed into the SS.’
There it was. At last, thought Berner. The years of antagonism and competition between the Abwehr and the SS were coming to a close. The SS were winning this little war. ‘The bastards are taking us over.’
‘Something they’ve wanted for a while?’ asked the General.
‘That’s what the Admiral told me, anyway, Sir.’
‘OK,’ continued von Kettler. ‘I have none other than Carl Sauer waiting in my office for us. Not a man even I can keep waiting. We should go now. I’m sticking to the story we agreed, so don’t you dare change a thing.’
‘Of course,’ said Berner.
Sauer, the SS Chief Investigator, no less. Sauer was well known to Berner. That he was ruthless went without saying, yet Sauer’s weakness was that what he lacked in brains, he tried to make up for in bluster. Facing each other across a chessboard, Berner would always rate his chances against Sauer highly, provided Sauer wasn’t pointing a gun at him.
‘Give me a moment, please, General.’
Berner opened one of the drawers of his desk, removed two sheets of paper from a file and, walked slowly over to the unlit fire and set the paper alight. He straightened and turned to the General, seemingly quite relaxed. ‘I’m glad they didn’t get to read those. Right, General, I suggest we go.’
‘Aren’t you scared?’
‘Probably, but what good will that do me right now? All I will say i
s this: Sauer might be a big player but his specialties lie more in herding up Jews than anything else. The fact that he’s allowed us the time to chat here whilst he waits in your office is a bit of a clue as to what we’re up against. Was he on his own?’
‘No. He put a couple of uniformed heavies outside my office.’
‘OK, well in that case, let’s go. Stick to the plan and I think we will walk out of this in one piece.’
* * *
Despite his plumpness, Carl Sauer looked small in von Kettler’s huge office. With his jacket wrinkled about his belly, any ruthless edge he sought to portray was blunted with his insistence on wearing tiny, circular, wire-framed glasses. His turned-up nose and thin neck gave him a tortoise-like appearance. In any other circumstances, Sauer would have been mistaken for a bus conductor or some low-level bureaucrat.
Sauer didn’t stand up even though von Kettler out-ranked him many times over. Sauer’s feeling brave, thought Berner, that’s a good sign.
‘I thought you said Colonel Berner’s office was nearby?’ Sauer inquired.
‘It is,’ replied the General, the nerves audible in his voice, ‘but he’s not in his office twenty four hours a day.’
The General took his seat. Berner, wanting to irritate Sauer, sat by the General’s desk but behind Sauer, forcing the Nazi to swivel in his chair. Sauer turned bad-temperedly.
‘For the Colonel’s benefit, although he probably already knows …’ Sauer shot a withering look at von Kettler. ‘The traitor Schneider was arrested in the early hours and has since been charged with passing state secrets to the British.’ Sauer directed his mole-like stare to Berner. ‘Through a chain of agents installed by Schneider across Europe, down as far as Switzerland, we have records of the information he has been passing to London. Credible information. Dangerous information. He’s the spy who’s been spying on the Reich. I have orders to investigate those in France close to him. You two are first on my list.’ For dramatic effect, Sauer stared into first one and then the other man’s eyes.
Berner remained still, not betraying a single emotion. He’d played this game before.
Despite the General looking all too vulnerable, nibbling on a fingernail as he was, Sauer directed his questions first to Berner. ‘Why did the traitor send you to Paris?’
Berner took a long time explaining, accentuating key points for von Kettler’s benefit more than Sauer’s.
‘Schneider sent a counter-intelligence officer to be the General’s own personal security adviser?’ Sauer summarised, not without some disbelief.
‘That is correct,’ said Berner impassively.
‘I don’t believe it.’
Berner hesitated. ‘What do you not believe?’
‘That Schneider sent a failed counterintelligence officer to the most senior Wehrmacht officer in France!’
Berner hid the hurt he felt at being labelled a failure. He folded his hands neatly in his lap while, not taking the bait, Berner remained silent.
Sauer turned on the General. ‘And you believe this? Surely you must be aware, General, that Berner here is responsible for the death of over 40 British agents owing to his own incompetence? Did you not think it suspicious that Schneider sends you such a failure?’
‘I was led to believe that it was the SS that killed the British agents.’ retorted von Kettler.
Sauer faltered a little. ‘Those agents were all blown and had to be disposed of. There is a food shortage in Holland, General.’
‘I see.’
‘No, no, no, no, General, I don’t think you do. What if Schneider had sent Berner here to find British agents to feed more information to London with?’
‘Well?’ asked the General.
‘Well, what?’ replied Sauer, not understanding.
‘Did Colonel Berner here use captured British agents to send messages on my activities back to London?’
‘We don’t know.’
‘I see. So what brings you here today, Carl?’
The General’s deliberate informality instantly riled Sauer. ‘Don’t take that tone with me, General. I am a SS-Brigadefuhrer and I –‘
‘Come now, Sir.’ Berner spoke directly to Sauer in order to try and take the heat off von Kettler. ‘The General has a point. How exactly do you want us to help you in your search?’
‘I’m not here for your help, Colonel Berner. May I remind you that I am here to investigate you both,’ he spat back.
Berner lied casually. ‘I have no British agents under my control.’
‘You will have to prove that!’
‘How would I do that?’
‘What?’
‘As I said, I don’t have agents under control. Even if I wanted to, and I don’t, I would not yet have had the time to start tracing the British here, find them and turn them. Tell me, have you worked in counter intelligence?’ Berner fought hard not to make his patronising sound so obvious. Realising he might be pushing his luck, he became humble.
Still, Sauer knew Berner was playing with him and hated it. ‘You know full well that I haven’t.’
‘In which case, please talk to your colleagues in the SD. I am sure they will verify what I am saying.’
Sauer seemed to appreciate the lifeline Berner had thrown him. ‘I will have your comments verified and I will have this and the Colonel’s office searched.’
‘Fine, I’d expect nothing less,’ said Berner agreeably.
‘I’m not surprised you don’t have any agents to control,’ said Sauer, ignoring Berner’s apparent helpfulness. ‘We all know how incompetent the Abwehr is as this sort of thing.’
‘As I said, I am not here to run agents, I’m here as a security officer.’
‘We shall soon see, won’t we, Colonel Berner?’
Berner raised his eyebrows, conceding the point.
‘General, there’s something else about Colonel Berner you probably should have been told.’
Berner froze.
‘Berner here had barges on the River Waal destroyed. They were key to supporting the war effort.’
Berner rocked his head back, surprised but relieved at the same time. ‘Those barges were old and out of service. I had them blown up in order to convince London the agents I had under my control were still able to mount operations instead of just sending messages back and forth. It gave my operation credibility. I made sure a lot of people got to see the results of the attack. It was all part of my smokescreen. It kept London believing that all was well.’
Sauer offered a smug smirk. ‘That’s his version of events, General. An alternative view would be that Berner was attacking logistic targets in Holland to gain their favour and please MI6. It’s exactly the sort of thing Schneider has been up to elsewhere and perhaps Berner is his protégé. I will have to take the Colonel away for further questioning. And you’re not off the hook either, General. Did you not think to ask why it was that such an apparently senior counterintelligence officer would be hidden away here and not sent to work or even liaise with our offices on Avenue Foch?’
‘Admiral Schneider told me that Berner is best working alone.’
‘And you weren’t suspicious?’
Von Kettler shot Berner a quick glance of despair. ‘No.’
‘Well, you should have been, General, oh yes, you should have been.’ Sauer was clearly enjoying the discomfort of the other two.
‘And now you can see why Berner is one of my highest priorities for investigation. He is directly linked to Schneider and working in a way that reeks of conspiracy. How easy it would be for someone in Berner’s position to pass secrets to London.’
It was a statement, not a question. Berner slowly gripped the sides of his own chair.
Von Kettler tried to come to Berner’s aid. ‘This is ridiculous. Admiral Schneider was the head of military intelligence and an old friend. I would have had no reason not to trust him. Berner was sent here on Schneider’s advice. The Admiral believed neither the Abwehr in France or the SD were having a
ny success in finding out the British and American plan for invading the French coast. He thought that Colonel Berner here might be able to advise me on how to ensure our plans and defences were well protected from British intelligence operations.’
‘And how has that worked out so far, General? Any pearls of wisdom from the Colonel yet?’
‘Many.’ The General was working hard not to stumble on his own words. ‘He has already located French agents monitoring this building, for instance.’
Careful, General, careful, thought Berner.
Sauer pressed on. ‘Whatever I conclude on Colonel Berner here, please remember that the Abwehr will cease to exist in the very near future, riddled as it is with traitors and the incompetent. Sometimes they’re both!’ Sauer was again the only person to laugh at his joke. ‘I like incompetent traitors, they’re easier to locate.’
Berner disliked Sauer’s lack of subtlety. There was no finesse to this man. Trumped up from humble beginnings, Sauer was only a vessel for Nazi power, not an amplifier. Sauer was everything Berner was not - and it showed.
‘So I will continue my investigation and interrogate Colonel Berner. If he’s a traitor, he will of course be shot. If he’s loyal …’ Sauer paused, seemingly itching to continue with which he isn’t, ‘then he will be transferred into the SS where he will hand over any security and counter-intelligence work to the RHSA.’
Berner’s eyes widened momentarily.
Sauer droned on haughtily. ‘I am pleased to say Heinrich Himmler assumed personal control of all security work in the Reich as of midnight last night. The Abwehr on Avenue Foch will from today be taking orders from the SD, just up the road. That should sort that lot out. I will arrange for an SS Officer to start advising you on intelligence and security, General; Berner here can’t be trusted unless I say so. I may well have to conduct an investigation of the remainder of your staff here in the Hotel Majestic if we suspect a much wider conspiracy than we do already.
‘What I think Wehrmacht officers like you fail to appreciate is that the old ways, the boys’ club, are over. It’s finished, from today. Only the State and the Party can be trusted with Germany’s destiny and security. Schneider represented the old ways, a failure to understand that Germany is no longer a Prussian plaything. That is what led our country to defeat and near revolution in 1918. Schneider represented the failures of the past. That’s why we are going to take the Abwehr over, bit by bit, eradicating traitors on the way.’ He turned to von Kettler. ‘If we permit you, you would be wise to join the Nazi party, General. You might learn something.’