by James White
Nick frowned then looked down. As she’d kissed him she’d fished in her clutch and now had a small revolver in her hand pointing straight at his gut. Nick mentally kicked himself. He looked at her with contempt.
“So now you’re going to take me in? It won’t do you any good. I don’t have the plans.”
She was still smiling. “I learnt a lesson from you last time; you thought I had a gun and didn’t, isn’t that ironic. I’m not taking you anywhere. Nick, you can walk away from this. Maybe you should.” She looked at him longingly.
“What?” Nick was confused now.
“You’ve got the address, go if you have to. I know revenge is a powerful motive. Just be sure who’s pulling the strings. Not everything is always as it seems and we don’t always like the truth. I’m sorry, I can’t say more. I have to go.” Her eyes looked sad, she bit at her lip and gave a slight shake of her head then leaned in and kissed him again on the cheek. She backed slowly away until she was almost obscured by the fog. “I’m sorry,” she whispered as she dissolved into the mist.
Nick stood dumbfounded for a minute then turned with renewed determination. He’d finish this tonight, once and for all. Then he was leaving and he wouldn’t ever be back. He was sick of Soho, sick of London and the stink and decay of it all. His mind raced as he walked. Why had Lucia let him go after giving him the address? Was it a trap? She’d said she wasn’t Abweher but that Jurgen was; Jurgen too had hinted at someone playing Nick. And why had Jurgen had duff plans? They’d been switched, but when and by whom? More to the point, where were the real ones that Carruthers wanted back?
By the time he’d reached Berners Street he wasn’t any clearer on the answers to any of this but the cold rage bubbling inside him over Stephen’s death was clouding his judgment. He knew that, but to some extent he didn’t care. He wanted Jurgen dead. He didn’t really care about the plans anymore; avenging Stephen was the overwhelming thought running through his mind.
Nick scoped the street. He couldn’t see anything in the fog but it looked clear, not that he particularly cared. He studied the bells on the block of flats. It looked like flat three was on the second floor. Nick wasted no time springing the front door to the block and silently mounting the stairs. Not wanting to alert anyone to his presence, Nick didn’t turn on the hall light and eased his way up the stairs feeling his way against the wall in the pitch black darkness. Coming to a small landing, he paused. The flat on his left was dark, the one on his right had chinks of light shining under the door. Straining, Nick thought that he could make out voices, more than one. He felt the door and traced the number three with his fingers. Stepping back, Nick gave the door an almighty kick then shoulder-charged it. The lock gave with a crack and he was in through the splintered door in a flash, Mauser in hand. He had no idea of the layout and he spun to his left first at a disadvantage, blinking in the light.
There was a large front room where a man was rising in fright from a sofa, fishing inside his jacket. Before Nick could even get out a warning shot, he was cannoned into from behind. He fell forward onto the living room with the other man on top of him. Nick struggled to turn around but he was flat on his front. He saw the man from the sofa step forward. Making a superhuman effort, Nick managed to turn just in time to get a glimpse of Jurgen’s face. The other man was on him now as well, a foot stamped on his outstretched arm and the gun fell free as he yelped in pain. A boot connected with his ribs and after a brief struggle, he was pulled upright by both men, held securely by the arms. This hadn’t gone the way he’d wanted.
Nick continued to struggle, but to no avail. They had him tight. Jurgen rabbit-punched him in the ribs a couple of times and Nick quietened down. He felt his hands being bound then he was pushed roughly into the room and down onto the sofa so that he sprawled almost on his back. Nick levered himself upright as the two men stood over him.
“This is him?” the dark-haired man asked, glaring at Nick. He had a thick Italian accent.
“Yes. This is him,” Jurgen answered, flexing his knuckles in a way that suggested to Nick that further violence was about to follow.
“Pig!” spat the Italian.
“What’s puzzling me, though, Nick, is how you found this place, and more to the point, why you should be coming for us when it is you that has what we want.”
“I’m here because of Stephen,” Nick answered, glaring at Jurgen coldly.
“Ah, the old man. Yes, unfortunate. We must have just missed you at his house then we found him close by. If it is any comfort to you, he was brave. He did not tell us anything.”
“He had nothing to tell you, you murderers!”
“Indeed, it would appear not, but you do I think. You came here for revenge? That plan has failed. So where are the plans?”
“I might ask you the same thing,” Nick growled, but then he saw the men exchanging confused glances. They withdrew slightly and muttered among themselves in too low a tone for Nick to make out what they were saying. They stepped back towards Nick.
“I don’t know what kind of game you are playing, Nick; you took the plans from me on the boat.”
“I took a folder that had some plans. Not the ones we were expecting to get back, though. Did you know I was onto you? Where are the real plans? How are you planning to get them out?”
The Italian shot Jurgen a concerned look and pulled him away. Again they spoke in whispers, this time more urgently. Both men seemed agitated. The Italian was gesticulating wildly and they kept shooting sideways looks at Nick. They spoke again and Jurgen looked long and hard at Nick then the Italian left the room.
“Very well. I was planning on tracking you down to retrieve what you took from me. It seems you have saved me the trouble, but at the same time thrown open some more problems for me. I think the time has come for you to be honest, and I think we have a way that we can make you do this.” Jurgen sat down on a chair opposite Nick.
“You’ll get nothing from me,” Nick warned him.
“Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure,” smiled Jurgen.
Nick heard footsteps returning, two sets, and he strained to look around at the door to the room. His heart stopped. The Italian man was leading in the bound and gagged figure of a woman. Though her makeup was streaked with tears and she was trembling, Nick recognised her at once. It was Clara.
With a bellow, Nick leapt up and charged across the room in fury, only for Jurgen to fly from his seat and intercept him. He was thrown back to the sofa while the Italian pushed Clara up against the wall. She looked at Nick with moist, pleading eyes. Her hands were bound in front of her and she was still in the fine evening dress she had been wearing when Nick last saw her, but she now looked terrified. Jurgen slipped on a pair of leather gloves and paced over to the shivering woman. She cowered before him and Jurgen turned to face Nick with a triumphant, gloating grin.
“So, Nick, are you ready to talk?”
“You touch her…” Nick warned.
In response, Jurgen backhanded Clara savagely across the face, causing her head to jerk. She would have fallen to her knees had the Italian not been holding her up. Nick bellowed again and charged up; again Jurgen simply knocked him down.
“We can go on like this all night, or we can secure you better and I can get more inventive with Miss De Vere here.” He slapped Clara again and she looked at Nick with pleading eyes, her legs buckling.
“All right!” Nick yelled tersely. “What is it you want to know?”
“Where are the plans?”
“I gave everything in that attaché case to Carruthers. I would think that he’s destroyed the incriminating photos of Ramona and him by now, probably all of that film along with the negatives. The other pictures, the plans, he looked at them and said that they weren’t what he was after, that they weren’t the right documents. He thought you must have swapped them.”
“I would have swapped them?” Jurgen and the Italian looked at each other again. “Are you telling me the truth, Nick?” He punch
ed Clara this time, with a crack that unbalanced the Italian on the other side of her as he struggled to hold her up.
“Yes!” Nick yelled, his eyes fixed on Clara.
Jurgen flexed his hand in the glove. “Good. I need to be sure.” He pulled the gloves off slowly, put them in his pocket and nodded at the Italian man who pulled away Clara’s gag. She spat, but her countenance was now one of cold fury.
“You pig!” she snapped at Jurgen as the Italian worked on freeing her hands. “What do you think you are doing?”
To Nick’s amazement, as the Italian finished untying her, she pushed him roughly away, marched up to Jurgen and slapped him hard across the face.
“I had to make it look realistic,” Jurgen stammered.
Clara snarled and brought a knee up to Jurgen’s groin. He doubled over and groaned.
“Do something like that again and you’ll pay for it!” She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and brushed away a small speckle of blood. Nick sat transfixed. She turned to face him and folded her arms as Jurgen crept back to his seat and attempted to sit up straight. “Darling, I’m so sorry.”
“How dare you!” interrupted Jurgen, “This is an Abweher operation…”
“Silence!” snarled Clara. “Yes, one you have bungled spectacularly, that is why I have been sent in to clear up the mess and make sure we all get home. The SS are now running this and you would do well to remember that. As for you,” she turned to the Italian who cowered at her gaze. “Your contribution has been pathetic and I hope this is not a sign of things to come from our Italian allies. Your boss is still dancing in The Blue Rose; no doubt it was him who told Nick about the boat.” Her tone was clipped and business-like. Nick just sat in stunned silence. She walked toward him and knelt in front of him. Running a hand across his face, she looked deep into his eyes and stroked his dishevelled hair back tenderly.
“Nick, I am so sorry, for all this. I never meant for you to get hurt.”
“Clara?” was all Nick could stammer out. He searched her eyes in confusion, looking for anything in them to make sense, but she smiled sadly.
“Nick, I’m sorry. I never wanted you to find out. I love you. I’m so, so sorry it has turned out like this. It was never meant to.” She shot a venomous look at Jurgen. “I was sent here as a spy, but Nick, what we had, Nick, that’s real.” A tear welled at the corner of her eye and she swiftly wiped it away. “I’m being silly,” she sobbed. “Nick, this doesn’t have to be the end. We can make this work. You can come with us…”
“Are you out of your mind?” Jurgen interrupted, scrambling to his feet with a wince of pain. What are you humouring him for? Obviously someone has the real plans. He doesn’t know anything. Let’s kill him and get after Carruthers!”
“Nobody is killing anyone!” shouted Clara, turning, her face contorted by rage. “Nick is my responsibility and I say what happens to him. If you had taken care of this thing properly instead of relying on Ramona when you knew she couldn’t be trusted, we wouldn’t be here now.”
The two glared at each other.
“But, you’re Swiss?” Nick mumbled, his brain struggling to catch up and make sense as he looked up at the woman he was planning on spending the rest of his life with.
Her tone softened. “No. Nick, I’m German. Being Swiss was convenient.”
“But I don’t understand. What could you learn in the club? What have you got to do with these men?”
She sighed. “The club was my cover, but a good one as lots of important people came there. My main role was liaising and organisation, organising new agents, communication back home, all of which I did in the day mostly.”
“So that’s why I could never have a key,” Nick muttered wistfully,
“Yes. As for these. They didn’t know about me until yesterday, when I got a communiqué to step in and take charge of the situation. That’s why I was getting Jurgen and Gunther out. I was on the boat to make sure they went. But the Italians” – she shot a dark look at the man sulking in the corner – “ruined it. However, it sounds like it was ruined anyway, by Jurgen’s incompetence in field craft.”
“I object!”
“What did Carruthers say exactly?” Clara asked, lowering herself carefully to his eye level.
Nick shrugged. “He looked at them and said they weren’t the right ones, not what he was expecting to see.”
“What were the plans that you send to Berlin, Jurgen?” Clara asked, turning to him.
“Standing defence orders. As I passed them back to Berlin, I checked them, which is what we had from Brigadier Johnson via Ramona.”
“Yet Carruthers thought we had something else?” she mused.
“Who killed her?” Nick’s voice came clear, suddenly out of nowhere and they all looked at him.
“Who?” Clara asked.
“Ramona.”
Clara looked at Jurgen who shook his head. “I was still running her, I knew she was unreliable but I also knew she could get us more information. If I’d had more time to bargain with her… All she wanted was more money.”
There was silence as they digested this. Nick thought he had a pretty good idea and he cursed himself for not realising it sooner. It was plain as day; it was why he was mixed up in all this. Then again he’d been making mistakes all along. He looked at Clara and felt a pang in his heart.
“Clara?” Nick murmured. She looked at him, moved her face closer and ran a soothing hand across the back of his neck. “What about us?”
“Nick, we can make this right. No one outside this room knows. Maybe I can stay.”
Jurgen snorted and Clara shot him a dark look.
“Maybe you can come with us? Berlin is not so bad.”
Jurgen swore under his breath.
“I don’t want to lose you.” She kissed him suddenly, hard and passionately. The two other men looked away. There were tears in her eyes when she pulled back. Nick shook his head.
“Clara, I can’t. You know the way the world is going. You know some of my past; we’ll be pitched on opposite sides. I can’t betray my country.”
“Nor I mine,” she replied softly.
“Good. Let’s kill him,” said Jurgen, stepping closer.
Clara whirled with flashing eyes. “Nein! He goes free.”
“Are you mad? He will help them catch us.”
“We will be long gone. You” – she pointed at the Italian – “go to Ramona’s old flat, search it again. You and I are going to the Brigadier’s love nest,” she said to Jurgen.
“Why? I thought we were leaving,” Jurgen replied, his face crinkled in confusion.
“Why? Because Carruthers thinks there is something else out there, something Ramona had. That means I think there is something out there, too, something more valuable than those defence plans. We must have missed it.”
Nick kept quiet; something else had just dawned on him. The Germans had got to Conway Street after him, but it had already been searched. British Intelligence didn’t know about the place, but he bet he knew someone who had known, someone Ramona saw a lot, someone Nick had just seen.
“Wait, Clara, there was something else. When I found the film and prints in Ramona’s flat, there was a single page of a numbered Swiss account, also a piece of paper with some names. Do you know what they were?”
“No, can you tell me anything else about them?”
Nick shook his head. “I gave them to Carruthers. I think the account is untraceable with Swiss banking laws. The names, there were four or five, all foreign, Eastern European?”
“I see. I don’t know. It could be nothing.”
The Italian nodded and ducked out the room while Jurgen moved impatiently to the door. “I’ll leave you to say your goodbyes,” he sneered.
“Oh, Nick. Why does it have to be like this?” Clara kissed him again. Nick didn’t ever want it to end. Eventually she pulled away.
“Are you sure…?” The words died in her throat.
Nick sho
ok his head balefully.
“Maybe when this is over…” he said hopefully. “Clara, I don’t want to lose you.”
“Nor I you.” She scribbled on a piece of paper and tucked it into his jacket pocket. “You can get hold of me on that number in Berlin, also that address is a drop box for mail. Darling” – she bit her lip – “I wish we had more time! We could sort through this. Please consider coming out, for a bit. This dreadful war may not come. I can’t bear to be parted from you, please?”
“Did you ever want to move to the coast?”
“More than you could ever know.” She smiled sadly. “I suppose our dreams are what keep us going, one way and another. Nick, we can find a way to be together, I’m sure. You can see I have to leave England now. Follow me to Berlin, please. We can start again.” Her eyes were imploring.
“Perhaps,” Nick smiled ruefully, “just our luck.”
“Luck can change.”
“I hope so.”
Clara wiped a tear from her eye, leant over and kissed Nick once more then she walked out, somewhat stiffly as she made the effort to compose herself. She didn’t look back.
Nick waited until long after he heard the door shut and the footsteps fade away then after sitting staring vacantly into space, he fell back on the sofa and let out a terrible wale of anguish.
CHAPTER 20
The flat was silent after they’d left. Nick lay still on the floor, staring at the ceiling, his mind clouded by shock. He’d lost the will to move, the will to do anything. His whole world had been wrenched sideways. The woman he loved had turned out to be a stranger. He felt utterly empty, destroyed. For a while he seriously considered not going on, with anything. Why had he been spared when so many had died to end at this point, lying on the floor, in this flat, with his heart and his life shattered? Perhaps he could just lie there until he quietly passed away. There seemed little point in anything. Stephen was dead, Clara had betrayed him. He was a man with not even no future, but no present.
Eventually his head overcame his roller-coastering emotions and he realised that though Clara may had deceived him about her past, had he not done the same? Everything else they had was real: the emotions were real, the burning hunger of love. He just had to make her see that, or put his qualms aside and join her. He’d seen enough misery to realise that what he and Clara had was a stab of happiness worth pursuing, no matter what deceptions fate had forced upon them. When you discover something new and previously unknown about the person you love, it’s always going to be a shock; it doesn’t have to be the end of the relationship. Nick began to sob, long and hard, crying into the rough wool of the carpet, its damp stink filling his nostrils as he gave free reign to his anguish. He made no attempt to free himself, just lay there, tired and crying in the darkness.