by John Altman
Katarina stood at Clive Everett’s bedroom window, listening to his stertorous breathing—he had finished the sex in record time and promptly fallen asleep—and looking across Pond Square at the three-story Victorian.
Fritz may be there, she thought.
But if so, he was not alone.
She had learned this yesterday, when she had first located the address. It had taken only a half hour of surveillance to establish that shifts of guards were turning over in the three-story red brick Victorian. Two would arrive, two would depart. She had seen the first turnover immediately after arriving, then had gone wandering around the block and come back in time to see another. They were Military Intelligence. She could see it in the jumpy way they looked around, in the way fresh men were delivered by automobile. Never bicycle, always automobile. Who did they think they were fooling?
Her?
Was this a trap set specifically for Katarina Heinrich? Or was it part of some greater deception played by the British on the Abwehr? This would not have surprised her. The Abwehr were fools. The British, even with their jumpy looks and their glaringly obvious use of automobiles, could have turned the entire network of Nazi agents in England, and the Abwehr might not have caught on.
In any event, the house had obviously required more surveillance than she could reasonably give it from the street. So she had turned her attention to the neighboring homes and had noticed the fortyish, foppish man who lived across the way—Clive Everett, even now slumbering noisily on the bed behind her—who dressed snappily, eyed the young ladies lecherously, and evidently considered himself something of a rake.
Contact had gone flawlessly, thanks to a few helpful bombs lobbed by her own country.
Now she had some decisions to make.
The first was whether to kill Clive Everett while he slept.
A ridge of concentration creased her brow.
Clive had told her that he worked in a post office. It seemed reasonable to assume that if he were not to show up for work, somebody might investigate. But would they come right away, or would it take a day or two? If she waited to kill him, on the other hand, how long would it take for him to suggest she find someplace else to go?
Trap or not, Fritz or not, Military Intelligence or not, she was going into that house. She had traveled halfway across the world to deliver the secrets contained in her mind. The shortest and final leg of her journey was at hand, but it would be the most difficult. To achieve it she would need access to the klamotten—the AFU suitcase radio set used to contact Hamburg—that was likely inside the house across the way.
Or was it?
The place was crawling with British Military Intelligence. Fritz had clearly been compromised. But if it all was part of a greater deception, perhaps the AFU set was there anyway. Perhaps Fritz was sending regular intelligence back to the Abwehr under the watchful eye of MI-5. Katarina knew that Morse code signals were as uniquely identifiable as fingerprints. If they had turned Fritz and hoped to use him effectively, they would have needed to keep him alive.
There was the chance, of course, that he had refused to cooperate. If that was true, he would be dead. But then why keep the house under watch with their rotating two-man teams?
To catch me, she thought. Because they intercepted my letters. Because they know I’m coming here.
It was possible, she had to admit, that she was stepping into a trap. But as far as she could see, she had no other options. Fritz and the AFU may have been inside; if they were, she would get to them. All the MI agents in England wouldn’t stop her.
She kept looking at the house. It was dark and eerily still. How many of them were in there? How were they armed? Where were they located? How did they communicate with one another?
Part of her wanted to go and do it right then—slip in that night, kill them all, find Fritz and the AFU. During her walk around the block, she had spied several possible methods of entrance. The rear of the house featured a bow window topped by a pierced white balustrade. There was also a straggly oak that had grown up on the house’s left, close to the roof and the top floor. And, of course, there was always the front door. The front door was risky, but then this entire enterprise was risky. She had done well over the past few weeks by taking risks. Taking risks made one unpredictable.
But a wiser part of her felt that another twenty-four hours of surveillance would greatly improve her chances. If she could watch all through the coming day, she would be ready to move by the time night fell.
Behind her, Clive let out a snore. She turned to look at him.
Clive liked her. He would let her stay through the day, she believed, if she seemed appropriately distraught at the loss of her fictional house. Perhaps she would have to sleep with him again … but that hardly mattered. Twenty-four more hours of surveillance would be priceless.
She turned again to look at the house. Fritz. So close, but so far away.
I can handle ten, she thought. Perhaps twelve.
If there are less than a dozen men in that house, they die tomorrow night.
THE WAR OFFICE, WHITEHALL
“There’s no way she’s getting past eight men,” Taylor said.
“You’re the one who warned me not to underestimate her.”
“And I meant it. That’s why I’ve wasted eight of our best agents on a job that requires only four. It’s not like you to be overdramatic, Harry. MI-Five must be casting its spell.”
“Not overdramatic. Cautious.”
“But hardly realistic.”
“You’re also the one who told me that this case has top priority.”
“It does, of course. Unfortunately, the day-to-day business of Military Intelligence doesn’t grind to a halt as soon as a top-priority situation arises. The war stops for no man. Or woman, as the case may be.”
“If she gets past us—”
“If she gets past us, you don’t get your chance to play hero,” Taylor said. “And, incidentally, we lose the war and eat sauerkraut with schnapps for the next thousand years. Harry, you’re not thinking straight. Look at it this way: You’ve already done your part in helping us capture the Heinrich woman. Truth is, you’ve been invaluable. But there’s no need for you to concern yourself anymore. Have you memorized all the information you’ll be giving during your rendezvous?”
“The treff hasn’t even been arranged yet. That’s—”
“But when it is, you may have a short time. Take my advice, old chap, and focus yourself on that.”
Winterbotham sighed. He reached for his pipe and found himself patting an empty pocket in his vest. He had decided to quit the pipe shortly after hearing that Ruth was alive; he had also decided to quit drinking. The strangest part of it was that the past night, for the first time in longer than he could remember, without his vices and despite heavy bombing, he had slept from dusk until dawn without waking once.
“I just want to make sure that this doesn’t go wrong,” he said, “so that I do get my chance to do my part.”
“Harry … go home. Get to work on your codebooks. Leave the Heinrich woman to us.”
Instead, Winterbotham went to Highgate.
He rode his bicycle. This was only his fourth time on the bicycle since the start of the war, but upon waking that morning he had felt so refreshed, so infused with energy, that he had found it irresistible. He felt as he had during the first war, when he was a boy of twenty-five pedaling messages from trench to headquarters and back again, legs pumping faster and faster, drawing on a limitless supply of power. He wasn’t quite twenty-five again, but he felt like a man of forty, or even thirty. When he climbed hills, he half stood on the bicycle and dug into the work with relish.
Keep it up and you’ll lose weight, he thought, and smiled to himself. It was about time he lost some weight. How he had kept it on as long as he had, eating just turnips and potatoes and the occasional scrap of meat, he didn’t know.
The light had turned golden by the time he reached Pond Square. Th
e scene was bucolic; the bombs had not fallen there. He felt a brief stab of foolishness at having come so far to find everything so calm and quiet. Why, he had taken Taylor’s warnings too much to heart, hadn’t he? A single woman could not get past eight trained men no matter how capable she may be. Taylor had been right—MI-5 was getting to him.
Nevertheless, he pedaled his bicycle directly to the front door of the three-story red brick Victorian, dismounted, and knocked twice.
Dickens answered—same squat build, same tweed jacket, same bulge in the breast holster.
“Afternoon,” Winterbotham said. “Remember me?”
“Taylor’s mate,” Dickens said, frowning.
“Didn’t he tell you I was coming?”
“No, sir, I can’t say that he did.”
“Ah! He’s flighty sometimes. The drink takes its toll. I’ve come to help keep an eye on Meissner. I understand he’s expecting company.”
“Yes, sir, we’re expecting it. But we’re fully prepared to—”
“Perhaps you should invite me inside, Dickens, so we don’t call too much attention to ourselves.”
Dickens’s frown deepened. He nodded shortly, and stepped aside so Winterbotham could enter.
“Sir,” he said, “I should tell you that we’re—”
“Eight men on the premises, Dickens?”
“Yes, sir. Including myself.”
“Arranged how?”
“Two on the first story, front and back,” Dickens said. “Four on the second. Two on the top story, front and back.”
“Meissner is in his room?”
“Always in his room, sir.”
“It seems to me as if you could use one more pair of eyes,” Winterbotham said. “Outside, covering the approach.”
“The men on the top story are covering the approach, sir.”
“Very good, very good,” Winterbotham said. “Well, it may be some time yet, eh, Dickens? Look here, old chap, do you play chess?”
It was a position Clive Everett had never found himself faced with before—he had, in his house, a beautiful woman who didn’t want to leave.
She was cooking dinner. He sat at the small table in his kitchen, admiring her buttocks through her cotton dress and watching her work. The smells coming from the stove were not bad at all, considering what she had to work with. And she looked every bit as beautiful in the light as she had looked in the gloom of the Underground tunnel. He was almost tempted to keep her around for a few days, if not longer. But that, of course, wouldn’t do. The neighbors would talk. Also, the woman did not seem to possess a ration book of her own—not, at least, that she had mentioned. These were trying times. He could not afford charity these days, not even in exchange for the best sex of his life.
Also, she was smoking. Smoke frayed his nerves.
He gathered his courage.
“Catherine,” he said.
“Mm?” she said. She was bent over a chopping board, working on some onions. The knife in her hand flew over the vegetables, dicing them finely. Perhaps she was a chef of some kind. She had told him that her husband had died in the war, but that was as far as they had gotten with personal details.
“I know you said that you couldn’t bear to go back to your house today,” Clive said, “and I understand that. I understand that completely. Yet I can’t help but wonder …”
He paused, hoping she would spare him the task of finishing the sentence.
“Wonder what?” she said, and set down the knife long enough to take a drag from her cigarette.
“Er, wonder,” he said. “Wonder when you think you may go take a look and see how bad the damage is. What I mean to say is—”
“Perhaps tomorrow,” she said. “If I feel up to it.”
“Er, yes. But the problem is, well … did you salvage anything from the house? Anything at all?”
“Oh, damn,” Catherine said. An ash had fallen onto her dress; she whisked at it with her fingers.
“A ration book, perhaps?” Clive said. “You did mention that you had been at the market.”
She turned and gave him a smile. “I was in such a panic. I don’t know what happened to it.”
“Yes, yes, of course,” Clive said. “Well, let me try to put it another way. And I despise myself for saying this, dear Catherine, please believe me. But we’re living in a very difficult time right now, and it’s especially difficult—”
“Clive?” she said.
“Yes?”
“Are you asking me to leave?”
“Oh, God, no, of course not,” Clive said. “Well, in fact, perhaps, as a matter of fact, I would possibly like to have, er, some rough idea … rough idea of when …”
She was moving toward him, still smiling, the knife in one hand, the cigarette in the other.
“Catherine,” he said, standing to meet her, smiling in return. “You are beautiful. But these are difficult times, my love. You must recognize that.”
“Of course,” she said. “I don’t mean to be a burden.”
“I’m not asking you to leave, Catherine. Not at all. I’m just wondering if perhaps you’ve some idea, some very rough idea, of when you may …”
She was drifting up to kiss him, now. He pulled away. If he kissed her, he would lose his resolve. And one could not afford in this day and age to lose one’s resolve. These were difficult times. He had done the woman a favor the day before, after all, giving her a place to stay, a warm bed, his companionship. But it could not be allowed to continue. And if she kissed him …
“Clive,” she murmured.
“Catherine, please. I can’t—”
“I’ll leave tonight.”
“Tonight?”
“Tonight,” she said, and slid the knife into his chest between his fourth and fifth ribs, puncturing his heart.
Winterbotham woke with a start.
He sat up, and the chessboard on his lap spilled to the floor.
For a moment he didn’t know what had woken him. The house was dark; he had slept away the dusk. How did you like that? Three years of terrible insomnia and suddenly he was drifting off at the drop of a hat. In the middle of a game, if he remembered correctly. Dickens had proven to be a far sharper player than Winterbotham had initially assumed. And where was Dickens? That was what had woken him, he realized; Dickens moving. Dickens had moved—where? To answer the door? Yes, there had been a knock at the door. And now …
Dickens came into the room again. He was holding a torch, which shone for a second into Winterbotham’s eyes, blinding him.
“God damn it,” Winterbotham said.
“Sorry, sir.” The light veered away.
“Somebody at the door?”
“Just a volunteer nurse, sir.”
“A volunteer nurse?”
“Looking for clean linen. They say the planes may come this way tonight.”
“Hm,” Winterbotham said. He was still blinking the sleep out of his eyes. The chess pieces had scattered all over the floor, he realized. He got down on his hands and knees—not as easy as it once had been; he grunted loudly—and began to gather them together by touch.
“Need some light there, sir?”
“Why don’t you turn on some real damn lights and just pull down the blackout shades?”
“Sorry, sir. Taylor’s orders.”
“God damn it,” Winterbotham said again. “What makes you think the darkness would work for you instead of for her?”
No answer from Dickens. Winterbotham let it go; he knew he was feeling crabby only because he was freshly awoken. He located the rest of the chess pieces, put them inside the board, and then stood, yawning copiously.
“What’s the time?” he asked.
“Just past ten, sir.”
“Seems I drifted off.”
“Why don’t you head on home now, sir? We’re more than able to take care of things here.”
Winterbotham couldn’t help but feel tempted. These men were half his age; they weren’t driftin
g off to sleep except in their own beds. They were armed and trained and ready. What good could he really do there, even if the woman did show up? Most likely he would just be in the way. Besides, there was food at his flat. Not just turnips but half a beef pudding he had been saving. He had quit smoking and drinking; the least he could do was allow himself a half-decent meal.
“You’re sure you can handle it without me?” he said.
“Quite sure, sir.”
“If you’re really sure, Dickens.”
“Really quite sure, sir.”
“All right,” Winterbotham said. “I’ll stop by in the morning.”
“I’ll be back at noon, sir.”
“Thanks for the game, Dickens. You’ve a strong grasp of the opening.”
“My pleasure, sir.”
“Perhaps next time we can play through ’til the end.”
“I hope so, sir.”
“Good night,” Winterbotham said, and went out with his chessboard under his arm.
Katarina watched the old fat man leave.
She was back in Clive Everett’s flat, looking out the window. She was naked; she had been in the process of changing her clothes when she noticed the man leaving. It was a stroke of luck. It meant one less person to worry about.
She was fairly certain, after her day of surveillance, that there were between seven and ten men in the house—minus one, now. A variety of trees half obscured the view from her window, but she had been able, by consistently changing her angle of observation, to reach some fairly solid conclusions. There were two on the first floor—three, if you counted the fat one. She had verified this with her own eyes, just minutes before, when she had knocked on the door. There were at least three on the second floor, perhaps more. At least two of them were short and squat. One had a beard. Another may even have been Fritz himself, although it was impossible to be sure.
On the third floor, two more. Of this she was absolutely certain. They were watching for her, looking out the window at regular intervals—covering the approach, they would call it. But by covering the approach so assiduously, they had given away their own numbers and positions.