by Alex Gerlis
Bourne opened the door a few inches.
‘I walked past the front and saw that the gallery was open. Is anyone else in there?’
‘Just Ridgeway and myself, sir.’
‘Close the gallery and let me in.’
Once inside the cramped office, the Admiral removed his hat and unfurled his scarf. He took the seat behind Bourne’s desk, still wearing his overcoat, though he did unbutton it. Only when he’d removed his leather gloves did he look up at the two men standing obediently in front of him.
‘We may have a problem, gentlemen.’
Bourne and Ridgeway looked anxiously at each other, unsure whether to remain standing or to sit down.
‘May I ask the nature of that problem, Admiral?’
‘The messages one gets from the Continent are of course by definition sporadic and often imprecise.’ He paused to straighten his gloves. ‘But there would appear to be two developments, both of which are a cause for concern. Why don’t you sit down?’
He waited for Bourne and Ridgeway to arrange their chairs in front of the desk.
‘Wolfgang has disappeared and there are reports that he may now be in East Berlin.’
‘The Soviet sector?’
‘Obviously, Ridgeway – but remember, this isn’t confirmed. If it is true, I have absolutely no idea why he’s there or how the hell he got there, but I do know that he’s not been heard from in a while. And the news from Trieste is even more confusing. The ship is still in port, but according to its master the passengers: have moved from the warehouse to another location and he’s getting very nervous. He was meant to sail tomorrow and he’s now agreed to wait until Monday, but no later than that. I’m suspicious about the whole business…’
‘What about Palmer?’
‘Exactly, Bourne – what about Palmer indeed? It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if we’re in the process of being outsmarted by that menace Prince and the bloody Danish woman. If they catch Palmer, I don’t trust him to keep quiet, and that means all of us are in serious trouble. I knew we should have got rid of him as soon as he turned up out of the blue in August. I regret letting Myrtle talk me out of it. One can only hope she knows what to do if they’re in danger of being caught.’
‘May I ask what that is, Admiral?’
‘She will ensure Palmer does not pose a problem. In the meantime, gentlemen, my advice to you is to disappear for a while, at least until we know what’s happened.’
‘But Admiral… the gallery…’ Ridgeway’s voice trembled. He looked petrified, and Bourne was little better, anxiously wiping his forehead and apparently on the verge of tears.
‘Pull yourselves together and forget about the bloody gallery and your miserable paintings. I presume you made arrangements for such an eventuality, as I told you to?’
The pair nodded uncertainly.
‘You’re to leave now. Call me in the middle of next week and I’ll let you know if the coast is clear.’
‘And if it’s not?’
The Admiral stood up and started to button his overcoat. ‘If the coast isn’t clear, then I very much doubt I’ll be answering the telephone.’
Chapter 29
Italy, December 1945
They slipped away from Klagenfurt at around a quarter past three on the Wednesday morning, not long after Ludwig had appeared in their hotel room. He’d waited in the corridor while Prince and Hanne dressed, during which time they had an urgent whispered conversation, with Prince worried that defying orders like this could be regarded as desertion – or even treason. ‘What do you think, Hanne?’
‘If you’re so concerned, then let’s call the whole thing off. Tell him we’re not going.’
‘But do you think we should go?’
‘Of course I do! There’s a group of Nazis in Trieste and we shouldn’t allow them to go free. I just hope it’s not too late.’
‘But going off with the Russians like this…’
‘Richard – how are we going to get into trouble for trying to catch Nazis?’
Ludwig led them to the end of the corridor and up a small flight of stairs, where a ladder attached to the wall led to a trapdoor to the roof. Klagenfurt was quite still and eerily silent, with just enough moonlight for them to see where they were going. They followed him over the rooftops until they were well away from the hotel, and only then did they descend: a precarious climb down a drainpipe, a short drop onto a terrace followed by a six-foot jump onto a pile of rubble, from where he led them the short distance to an alley where his black Daimler was parked.
He told them to sit in the back of the car and pointed to two large blankets. ‘Cover yourselves, pretend to be asleep.’
‘But there’s a curfew: don’t you think we’re going to be a bit conspicuous?’
Ludwig shrugged and said not to worry: Mach dir keine Sorgen. When he started the engine, the sound seemed to reverberate throughout the town.
They drove through the dark streets, Ludwig appearing to be quite relaxed as he hummed a tune. He kept muttering Mach dir keine Sorgen over and over to himself, and then chuckling.
On the outskirts, they came to a British Army checkpoint. Ludwig stopped humming and reminded them to pretend to be asleep. The checkpoint was remarkably straightforward. Prince and Hanne clutched each other tightly, their hearts banging so loudly they were sure the soldiers must have heard. They heard a voice ask in English-accented German for papers, which Ludwig must have had ready, because the soldier quickly said everything was in order and they could carry on.
Ludwig wound the window up and slipped the Daimler into gear, accelerating away from the checkpoint. He resumed humming whatever tune it was and turned round to address his passengers again with a smile: Mach dir keine Sorgen.
Once they’d passed Ferlach – and another oddly trouble-free checkpoint – Ludwig slowed down. He told them he didn’t want to cross the Alps before daylight, so they waited by the side of the road and watched dawn break in spectacular fashion over the mountains. He shared a flask of brandy with his passengers, but said little until the landscape in front of them had turned from black to grey then to white and he said it was time to go. The Loibl Pass was as good as could be expected at this time of year, he added, in between humming, and then he chuckled.
Mach dir keine Sorgen: don’t worry.
* * *
The Daimler pulled into the courtyard of a large house in Trieste later that afternoon. Hanne and Prince were hurried in and taken to a large dimly lit basement where a dozen armed men and women were sitting on the floor, apparently uninterested in their arrival.
Hanne gripped Prince’s hand tightly as the steel door slammed shut behind them and the sound of it being bolted from the outside reverberated. For a few moments they both worried this was a trap, but then a tall figure moved towards them, and when he spoke – enquiring about their journey and the weather over the Alps – his voice was familiar and they realised it was Edvard, the oldest of the Slovenian partisans.
He pointed to the others sitting around the room. They were comrades from the Liberation Front of Slovenia, he said, and reeled off their names. ‘They’ve come to help us. We want to get Friedrich Steiner and catch the others for you.’
‘I thought you’d have done that by now.’ Hanne sounded angry.
‘We have to be very careful. The British have increased their patrols around the city, and especially the port area. And in any case,’ Edvard moved close to them, a strong smell of tobacco on his breath, ‘we’ve been told by our mission in Berlin to wait until we get the signal from them to mount our operation. The British stopped watching the warehouse on Porto Vecchio yesterday, and that same night the Germans must have moved out of it, but we don’t know where to. We’re searching the area, and Jožef and Marija are talking to our contacts on the docks.’
‘Where are we now?’
‘Scorcola. We have to wait here until we find where the Germans are hiding.’
‘And then get the go-ahea
d from Berlin.’
‘Of course.’
Once it was dark, Edvard took them into a room on the top floor of the house, where Jožef and Marija sat in a cloud of cigarette smoke either side of a short man in oil-stained overalls and heavy boots. His dark face was deeply lined and the black hair sticking out from under his cloth cap was flecked with grey. It was hard to estimate his age, though when he spoke, it was with the rasping voice of an older man.
‘Giuseppe is a docker at Porto Vittorio Emanuele.’ Jožef placed an arm round the Italian’s shoulder as he spoke. ‘He’s Italian but his mother was Slovenian, so he helps us.’
Giuseppe spoke. He sounded as if he was arguing with himself, emphasising some point or other by hitting an open hand with his fist.
‘He’s explaining that his job is to help prepare ships for their departure, making sure the cargo and all the supplies are loaded. On Monday he was allocated to a South African ship, the MV Ankia, which is due to set sail for Durban on Friday,’ said Marija.
Giuseppe stopped her and spoke again.
‘He says he’s the foreman on this job, and yesterday the master took him into his cabin and asked him if he spoke German, which he does – a little. He said he’d agreed to take some passengers from Trieste to South Africa but they didn’t have any paperwork. He knew he was breaking the law but he’d been offered a lot of money and now he was worried about how he was going to get them on board, especially as the authorities were looking for them.’
‘Did he say who these passengers are?’
Marija translated for Giuseppe. ‘He’s not sure, but he thinks they’re Germans or something to do with Germany. The master said that if Giuseppe could find a way to smuggle them on board, he’d reward him very generously. Before he left the port this evening, the master gave him the address of where the passengers are – it’s on Viale Miramare, which is between here and Porto Vittorio Emanuele. His instructions are to go to the building at first light tomorrow morning and discuss with them how he’s going to get them on board: he said they only speak German or English. Giuseppe speaks no English.’
‘He definitely mentioned English, did he?’
‘Yes, he’s sure of that.’
‘Good,’ said Edvard. ‘So we have the address of where the bastards are hiding. Now we just need to hear from Berlin.’
* * *
They heard from Berlin in the early hours of the Thursday morning, long before the sun rose over the city and began to glint off the Gulf of Trieste, long before the first shouts of the workers and clashes of metal disturbed the peace of the port and even longer before the curtains of Trieste were drawn and yellowy lights illuminated the homes of its stirring population.
When Edvard entered the room where Hanne and Prince were asleep on a sofa, he told them it was time to get dressed, and dropped two Beretta semi-automatic pistols at their feet.
Downstairs, the kitchen was crowded, but other than the occasional muttered word, no one spoke, the tension preventing anything in the way of conversation. The only noise was of the dozen people in the room checking their weapons, the placing of ammunition in barrels and magazines, the clicks of safety catches, and a few nervous coughs. The room was diffused with the smells of gun oil and coffee: on the stove, two large moka pots were brewing.
As the strong coffee kicked in, the room became busier: snatches of conversation began and a slight easing of the tension was apparent. One or two of the Slovenes slapped each other on the back, and there were brief snatches of laughter. This all stopped suddenly with a knock at the door: everyone fell silent and the lights were turned off.
Moments later, the door opened. Jožef and Marija bustled in and nodded at the others in the room, and were greeted warmly. Jožef went over to the wall and pinned up a large sheet of paper: a map showing a road and the area around it. Edvard stood between Hanne and Prince and translated as Marija spoke.
‘The building is here, on the east side of Viale Miramare. The west side of the street is the railway line, and beyond that Porto Vittorio Emanuele, where they’ll be heading. Behind the building are courtyards: Branka’s unit will cover the rear… Any questions so far?’
She barely paused before continuing. ‘We think there are at least five in the group, and the plan is for them to sail on Friday on a ship currently docked in Porto Vittorio Emanuele. Giuseppe is to meet them later tonight to plan how to smuggle them on board. The group are in an accountant’s office on the first floor – the name on the door says Mariani: Ragioniere di Costo. From what we can tell, the office is self-contained: we think it only has the one door. Giuseppe was told the entrance on the ground floor is unlocked, and when he gets to the first floor he’s to knock four times and then announce he has a parcel for a Signor Giordano. Can someone give me a coffee, please?’
She lit a cigarette and drank the coffee in one go, then handed the cup back for someone to give her another one.
‘We don’t think the British are aware of this building – yet. We must assume the group will be watching the front from where they are on the first floor. We’ve found a back door that leads to the basement and then up into the entrance hall. Our plan is that Jožef takes his unit down to Viale Miramare now while it’s still dark and waits in the basement. When Giuseppe enters the building, they’ll follow him up so they can burst in when the door is opened.’
‘Does Giuseppe know this?’
‘He’ll know what he needs to know Edvard. At that point I will follow in with my unit, which will include our comrades from England.’ She pointed her cigarette at Hanne and Prince.
Edvard stepped forward and tapped the crudely drawn map. ‘My unit will secure the front of the building: two of you here at one end of the block, and two at the other end. We’ll have two at the entrance and three across the road, then—’
‘That’s nine in your unit, Edvard?’
‘Plus me, yes.’
‘And there are how many of us here – eighteen including the English?’
‘Don’t worry, we have some Italian comrades helping us: I’ve been promised at least half a dozen. Are there any other questions?’
‘What do we do when we enter the office?’
‘Don’t worry Marija, Jožef knows what to do.’
‘We need to know too, Edvard.’
‘The German, the one called Friedrich Steiner – the one we know as König – he’s ours. And the English Nazis and Bormann… Maybe you explain?’
Hanne stepped forward and said they were looking for a man and a woman, both English, both Nazi sympathisers. ‘The woman is involved in a group helping to fund the Kestrel Line – we need to know who else in Britain is involved in that group. The man is called Edward Palmer: he was a very senior Nazi spy – Richard?’
‘I’ve been hunting for Palmer for a while now. He was a British officer who was working in the intelligence department of our War Office and gave the Germans military information about the Allies’ offensive in Europe. He disappeared in April in London, just as we were about to arrest him.’
‘So we want them alive, and Bormann too, if he’s there,’ said Hanne. ‘It’s essential they’re interrogated and put on trial.’
* * *
Myrtle Carter was utterly exhausted: she looked back on the journey from England as a succession of places they’d hurried through, like stations flashing past a speeding train. It had been a perilous journey. Paris had been fine; Geneva she was less sure about and had been glad to see the back of, and Turin had felt so hostile she’d insisted they head for Verona sooner than planned. From there they’d made it safely enough to Trieste. She doubted she’d slept more than a dozen hours since leaving England.
Once in Trieste, they’d met Friedrich Steiner and the man called Ulrich in the Catholic hostel. She found Steiner deeply unpleasant: an entitled, spoilt young man with few manners who thought everything revolved around him – insisting on the best revolver, the most comfortable place to sleep, the most food… The man call
ed Ulrich was little better. He didn’t mask his hostility to them, even though she’d explained how she and Palmer were in a minority of English people – albeit a very small minority – whom he must regard as friends rather than enemies. And then there was the other German, the older one dressed as a priest who said he’d been a senior official in the Reich, though she doubted he was as important as he gave the impression he was.
Two younger Germans had turned up to move them from the hostel on Via dell’Istria to the warehouse on Porto Vecchio, and for the very first time on the journey, Myrtle wondered if they were being watched. Until then she’d been sure they’d not been followed, but now she wondered about the odd movements she’d caught sight of outside the warehouse, the strange vans that had appeared, the people hurrying past the building and glancing up at it, holding their gaze for a second or two too long.
A message had appeared under the door sometime on the Tuesday – quite late in the day, just after dusk – telling them that they’d be moving that night, and sure enough, the two young Germans had turned up again. When they left the warehouse, there was definitely no one watching them: no suspiciously parked vans, no one strolling past, no sudden movement in the shadows. They made their way safely to where they were now: an accountant’s office on what she was told was the Viale Miramare, which was close to where the South African ship would sail from on Friday.
The office was actually quite comfortable, and at the back of it she and Palmer found a sofa and an easy chair where they could avoid the Germans for much of the time. The latest message had come this evening: an Italian man would arrive early the following morning saying he had a parcel for a Signor Giordano, which to her sounded like a line from one of those dreadful cheap novels her mother used to read. He would be there to make arrangements to take them to the ship later that day.