Night Flight to Paris

by David Gilman

  ‘Lieutenant!’ spat an irritated Stolz.

  Hesler stepped aside but had the temerity to raise a hand. ‘Sir, that is exactly what I wish to report. She made another longer unscheduled message. I have her. I have pinpointed her.’

  *

  Ginny Lindhurst had painstakingly gathered the sixty feet of wire aerial for her radio. She secured it tidily and then packed the radio and its battery away. She had transmitted using the mains terminal for half of the message and battery for the remainder. It was a habit she had used since being in Paris in case the wireless-hunting Germans switched off electricity to individual blocks of apartments; that way they could see where in the city and then more specifically in what building she was transmitting from. This break in transmission as she crossed from mains to battery could be problematic or slow, and meant London sometimes asked her to retransmit. In this instance, by the time she had decoded their message she had spent longer than she would have liked sending her message.

  After Mitchell had left the apartment on his way to collect Alfred Korte, she had reconnected and made an unscheduled transmission. She had failed to tell London that she might be going quiet for a few days. If she missed her usual schedule they might think she had been compromised. Better to tell them. But the signal had weakened. Perhaps the Germans were jamming. She had tried another frequency. It took some time but she got through and received confirmation. Now she was packed and ready to go to the new apartment. Being familiar with the bus timetable she decided to wait as long as possible until the bus was almost due rather than stand in a queue with the suspiciously heavy suitcase. She had scoured the room to make sure there were no tell-tale signs that could lead anyone to her or Mitchell. She had deliberately taken her time and not rushed her search, which had yielded nothing until she had bent down to look beneath the bed and found two pieces of stripped wire from when she had been obliged to make a fresh connection into the radio’s key socket. Those tiny slivers could be identified. She went down the corridor to the communal bathroom and flushed them away. Finally, satisfied that Mitchell would not be obliged to spend too long checking what would be his abandoned apartment, she sat with hat and coat on and waited.

  Wireless operators were most vulnerable to their own fears. So many hours every day spent alone in their location gave them no outside contact and only occasional time with the agent they supported. She was grateful that Mitchell had included her as much as he had operationally. Facing danger sharpened the senses but sitting alone, waiting for a suspicious footfall outside the door or seeing a car suddenly arrive outside the building, gnawed at the nerves. She lit a cigarette and forced her mind to remain calm. Time could be suffocating; she glanced at her watch – barely three minutes had passed. It was not difficult to understand why a wireless operator’s life in the field was so nerve-racking. One mistake: one wrong turn in the street carrying the suitcase and walking into a patrol; too many minutes on the transmission key and being raided; too long alone without emotional comfort and leaving the safe house only to be discovered. Every time she transmitted she imagined an unknown operator in England receiving her coded message. Perhaps it was a young woman her own age. Safe in a bunker. Did she, in turn, think of the woman in France who was reaching out? Are you there? Are you thinking of me? I am frightened but I cannot tell you. Love to everyone.

  In the street below car doors slammed.

  67

  Mitchell, Chaval and Laforge drove back to the city, no one speaking about the execution. Mitchell considered what he had done and felt less shame than he would have imagined. He felt a grim satisfaction that his shooting would not be interpreted as a revenge killing. Had Gaétan betrayed Alain Ory then the patrician would also have been responsible for what happened to Mitchell’s wife and daughter. He had killed them because they were traitors. He had promised Major Knight that he would do what was necessary in the field and he had laid to rest the ghost of his refusal to kill. He had crossed that line before and the bile no longer rose in his throat. Perhaps, he reasoned, a callus had formed over his heart.

  With the car safely hidden in Vincent’s lock-up, Mitchell and Chaval stripped down their weapons and hid them in the rafters. They each carried a pistol in their jacket pocket that was quick to reach to either use or discard, whatever the situation dictated. They bought breakfast a few streets away and then made their way to Roccu’s bar. London would need to be informed about the execution and once Mitchell had double-checked his apartment he would then make his way to the Fifth Arrondissement and have Ginny advise London that the Norvé circuit was still operational under new leadership. The three men walked separately at varying distances from each other so that they might observe anyone behaving suspiciously. Mitchell sent Chaval and Laforge to the rear of the Corsican’s bar while he crossed the street towards his apartment building, looking back at the bar’s window to see that all was clear. The broken slatted blind hung down in warning.

  With mounting tension he recrossed the street and entered the bar. Roccu looked up and walked immediately through the curtain to the back room where Laforge and Chaval sat on the cots.

  ‘What’s happened?’ said Mitchell.

  Roccu stood at the curtain door keeping a wary eye on the front of the café and a couple of people drinking at the counter. ‘I don’t know, but all hell broke loose here. They had one of those radio vans at each end of the street and then the place was suddenly crawling with police and soldiers. When they saw me standing watching they pushed me inside and had a couple of gendarmes in here with me to make sure I didn’t get to see anything. But I did see plainclothes flics running inside with guns in their hands.’

  ‘Gestapo?’

  ‘Don’t think so. Some of them were French but they weren’t those murdering bastards from the Spéciales. Just cops, I think. I thought you might have been in there and that you had been rumbled.’

  ‘Were there any shots?’ said Mitchell.

  ‘No. Not one.’

  ‘Who did they take away?’ Mitchell said, suspecting he already knew the answer. ‘Roccu, did they take my girl?’

  The Corsican shook his head. ‘I don’t know, and those gendarmes wouldn’t tell me anything.’

  ‘I have to go and check inside,’ said Mitchell.

  ‘Are you crazy?’ said Laforge.

  ‘If they have taken Thérèse then I have to know one way or the other – and quickly because her radio and code books will be in German hands.’ He thought it through. If Ginny had been boxed in and the street secure she would have had no choice but to go through the skylight and across the roof and he knew how difficult that would have been lugging the weight of the radio suitcase. He turned to his two companions. ‘There’s a bus stop down the street. Wait and watch from there. Can you get them a room for a few nights if I’m taken?’ he said, turning to Roccu.

  The Corsican nodded. ‘I can’t keep them back here because I’ll have customers for my girls but one of them was taken to hospital with appendicitis. They can stay in her room. It’s not far from here.’ He looked at Chaval and Laforge. ‘I’ll feed you here.’

  ‘Good,’ said Mitchell. ‘All right, let me think…’ Whatever happened he could not abandon the men who had come this far with him. He gave Laforge the keys to the car. ‘Keep these. Worst comes to the worst, I’ll be unable to contact you.’

  ‘We should go across the street with you,’ said Chaval. ‘Three armed men are better than one.’

  ‘No, shooting our way clear in the confines of a building will get us all killed. You know how this works; we’ve been through enough together. If I run into trouble outside and there’s shooting, cover me from the street. We’ll meet back at the car and make a run for it. If I’m taken then wait twenty-four hours and make your way back to Norvé. Work with Edmond. He’s experienced and he’s been told to expect you. All right, get down to that bus stop.’

  Laforge shook Mitchell’s hand. ‘Good luck, Pascal. We’ll cover your back, be sure of it.�
��

  Chaval murmured a low growl. ‘You’re a brave man, my friend. I take it as a privilege that I found you in the field that night. You know, it’s not my place to say this, but after all this is over you should go and find Madame Bonnier. She’s the right woman for you.’

  ‘She’s going to Norvé,’ Mitchell told him.

  ‘Then that is where we should all be. Maquis de Pascal and the Gideon circuit, we could form an army behind you.’ He grinned and embraced Mitchell, kissing each cheek.

  Mitchell watched as Chaval and Laforge made their separate ways towards the bus stop. He regretted leaving the German uniform in the hidden car as it would have allowed him to cross the street and enter the building without the initial risk of being questioned should any plainclothes police be hiding there. He pressed the tube containing the coded information into the Corsican’s paw. ‘This, my friend, is vital. Keep it well hidden.’

  ‘It will be here when you return,’ said the bar owner as Mitchell checked the clip in the automatic.

  68

  Mitchell made his way across the street, letting cyclists pass him, watching for any sign of a Citroën which might indicate the presence of the police or the Gestapo. He glanced up at the apartment’s window, wishing he could discern some movement to either reassure or warn him, but the angle was too steep to see anything. He went into the entrance lobby. The tiled floor picked up the sound of his footsteps, which seemed as loud as a fanfare announcing his arrival. He went up the stairs. On the third floor he thought he heard the sound of doors being gently opened and closed below, but when he peered down the stairwell there was no sign of anyone. As he passed the raided apartment underneath his own, he saw that it was still boarded up. And then as he ascended to his own floor he heard the reassuring sound of the communal toilet being flushed. He tentatively turned the door handle to his apartment and felt it give. For a moment he tried to reason it out. If Ginny had left before the raid would she not have locked the door behind her? But if she had been forced to escape through the skylight perhaps she would not have had time to lock it. His hand tightened on the automatic and he eased it out of his pocket. As the door swung open a man’s voice beckoned him inside.

  ‘Come inside, please, Colonel Garon. And do not be foolish.’

  Mitchell turned on his heel. Two plainclothes men stood on the half-turn on the stairs below levelling their pistols at him, and behind him another appeared from where he had heard the toilet flush, gun raised, pointing directly at him. Inside the apartment a grey-haired German officer stepped into view and lit a cigarette.

  ‘Please,’ he said again.

  Mitchell raised his hands and as the two men below kept him covered the plainclothes man behind him relieved him of his pistol. Mitchell did not resist as he was frisked for more weapons. The man nudged him into the apartment. The German officer looked past Mitchell. ‘Very well, wait outside.’ The door closed and Mitchell lowered his arms as the man who stood in front of him had nothing more lethal than a burning cigarette in his hand. He glanced down at the table where a thermos flask sat, its small cup already unscrewed. Next to that was the German’s cap and his sidearm. There was no sign of the Death’s Head SS insignia. The small Walther pistol was within the German’s easy reach. Bauer saw Mitchell take note.

  ‘As you have observed I am not SS or security service. I am Oberst Ulrich Bauer of the Abwehr. Those men outside are mine. Please, colonel, you look tired and I have some real coffee and a decent cigarette to offer you.’ Bauer stepped a pace back and made a small gesture towards the flask. ‘I’m relieved you finally arrived, I have been wanting a cigarette for some time, but did not dare light one in case you smelt it.’

  Mitchell remained silent and quickly cast his eyes towards the skylight.

  ‘Yes, your wireless operator went across the roofs. She must be a remarkable woman.’ He noticed Mitchell’s flicker of response. ‘We know it’s a woman. Now, let us be civilized about this. You cannot escape. I evacuated the building and put my men in every apartment. I had no desire to cause innocent casualties should you have started shooting but I needed to ensure that you were outnumbered and trapped.’

  Bauer poured from the flask and Mitchell’s mouth watered at the aroma of real coffee. He accepted the drink but declined the cigarette that Bauer offered. As Bauer sat in the chair Mitchell took the sofa.

  ‘I reasoned that you would return here sooner rather than later. Though it’s common practice for an agent to keep his distance from the weak link that is his wireless operator, I thought it worth a few hours of my time.’

  Mitchell savoured the coffee and for once wished he had not given up smoking. Cigarettes went some way to calm the nerves and at that moment his badly needed calming. Imprisonment was now unavoidable. ‘Have you harmed her?’

  ‘No. She escaped.’

  Relief gave Mitchell hope. With luck, Ginny would be in the other apartment by now.

  ‘You should count yourself fortunate that you have not fallen into the hands of the Sicherheitsdienst and Gestapo. It was they who tracked down your operator.’ He watched as Mitchell sipped the comforting brew. ‘It seems there are those who use your name and rank to honour you. With some effort we recovered the identity card of a man who was captured after a raid on a food warehouse. A man called Nicolas Maillé who claimed to be you. Was he one of your men?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I thought as much. During his interrogation he killed a Gestapo agent and nearly killed the SS officer who has led the hunt for you. Your man died well. He committed suicide by jumping out of a window without giving them any information.’

  So, Maillé had kept his word and gone down fighting. Mitchell blessed the man’s courage. ‘Then why are you here? The SS or Gestapo wouldn’t let a prize like a British wireless operator slip through their fingers.’

  ‘I brought some influence to bear,’ Bauer said, blowing out a long plume of smoke. To all intents and purposes, it was almost a congenial scene, two men having a conversation in an officer’s mess or private club. ‘The coffee, it’s good?’

  ‘Yes, thank you.’

  ‘Where is Alfred Korte?’

  ‘Who?’

  Bauer smiled. ‘Come now. The British have been trying to get him out of Paris for some considerable time and have already paid a high price for their attempts. Men and women have died, colonel, and they would not send a British agent here were it not to exfiltrate him. There are plenty of independent Resistance cells; most commit small acts of sabotage or at worst kill a soldier or two. They are amateurs. You, like others before you, have not been sent to work with those cells but to find Korte and the information he holds.’ Bauer studied Mitchell for a moment. ‘He is your bargaining chip, colonel. He will buy you your life.’

  Mitchell finished the coffee. ‘He is dead.’

  Bauer remained expressionless, but he was clearly considering the information. ‘Of course, you would say that, but then why would you still be in Paris, hunted every step of the way? Why would you risk a young woman’s life keeping her transmitting? No, he is not dead. You have him somewhere safe.’

  ‘Safe in God’s arms,’ said Mitchell. ‘If you believe in God.’

  ‘You don’t?’

  ‘Mathematically He doesn’t add up. And I stayed because I have other business to attend to.’

  ‘Sabotage? Like the turntable and train?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then without your help in this matter, I would have no choice but to hand you over. Saboteurs are summarily executed by the SS. Really, there must be something more important for a British agent to do than blow up a few tracks. Your life must have more meaning than that.’

  Mitchell reached for the flask. ‘May I?’

  ‘Of course.’

  He poured the coffee, buying time to think. This intelligence colonel was sharper than the thugs in the SS. An old hand like Colonel Beaumont. Mitchell knew that it was unlikely he could stall much longer before being handed o
ver to those who would inflict pain and misery on him.

  Before Mitchell could decide what to say next Bauer delivered a striking comment.

  ‘Herr Mitchell…’

  Mitchell’s throat tightened. They knew who he was.

  ‘I apologize for explaining myself in this manner… but I saw Madame Colbert when she was captured and taken to the Gestapo cells. Your wife was a very brave woman. I did what I could to stop her… maltreatment.’

  Mitchell could not disguise his reaction. His expression confirmed that Suzanne Colbert was his wife.

  ‘Quite so,’ said Bauer compassionately. ‘She said nothing under torture but there was a paper trail that explained the connection between you. She could not be saved, and I am sorry for her death.’

  Mitchell knew that if the Germans had so much information on him he would be too much of a liability to continue working in Paris even if he managed to escape, which seemed an impossibility, other than leaping out of the window as Maillé had done. He dipped a hand into his coat pocket and took out a folded sheet of paper that he handed to Bauer. He hoped Jean Bernard’s signature was sufficiently legible to be traced back to him as a doctor working at the hospital. ‘Alfred Korte’s death certificate. He died in Hôtel-Dieu.’

  ‘Did you get to him?’

  ‘Yes. Too late.’

  Bauer thought for a moment as he studied the death certificate. ‘This was signed the day of the shooting outside the hospital. When a man proclaiming himself to be you, or at least shouting out your name, was shot dead. So, colonel, that man was not you, obviously, but he might well have been warning you, and if that was the case then he wanted you to escape the Gestapo swoop or to draw attention from you as you did so. Escaped with Alfred Korte perhaps. I am intrigued. And my instincts tell me that you are lying, that this document is false and that you have Korte.’

  ‘I swear to you, colonel, I do not.’