Betrayal (35 page)

‘Books, that's all. And … and messages, of course.'

And still trying to be tough about it—was that it, eh? ‘Treason, damn you. Treason! Need I say more?'

‘Look, I'm sorry I lied to you about the message but I was afraid and very angry about what you and the colonel had ordered that woman to do to me.'

‘Then let's have it, and while you're at it, write down whatever it was Huber told you it meant, and he must have done, mustn't he, otherwise you'd have nothing to give O'Bannion and the others.'

Snatching up a pad and pencil, he thrust them at her and watched as she quickly jotted the five-letter groupings down and then wrote out their meaning.

‘Terms agreed. Fix rendezvous. Forward via Heidi.'

Mary forced herself to gaze steadily at him. ‘That is what I was told it meant, Major. I think the vice admiral wanted me to know I was trusted and essential to the escape.'

Correction, thought Trant. He wanted O'Bannion and the others to know this. ‘What sort of terms?'

‘I've no idea.'

‘Safe passage to the Reich for Nolan, that it?'

When she didn't avert her gaze or respond, he raised his voice a little. ‘Guns, Mrs. Fraser? Ammunition and money—enough to open a second front in Ireland? Where, by God, is this rendezvous?'

‘In the South, I think. Perhaps near Kinsale—that's where I met Fay Darcy's sister.'

Trant compared the coded message with the bits and pieces MI5's Listeners had picked up. An invaluable group of dedicated ham operators scattered throughout the British Isles, the Listeners had been recruited by counterintelligence in the winter of 1938, then welded into a listening network at the outbreak of hostilities. Two further reports had come in, one from as far north as Tigharry on the west coast of North Uist in the Outer Hebrides, and the other from the lighthouse on Tory Island some 170 miles to the south-southwest of there and off the north coast of Ireland. Tory was right smack against one of the busiest shipping lanes, a convoy beacon that could not have been extinguished, but like Inishtrahull it was not a part of Ulster and not under British rule. Odd, though, that they should have responded, having picked up the Tulford woman's exchange of signals, but then they constantly scanned the airwaves for German U-boat traffic as well as for Allied shipping.

Huber could have twisted the message sufficiently to mislead, but it was a chance he'd have to take. ‘Mrs. Fraser, if this message is as you've stated, we have no choice but to also use you as our contact. You will therefore meet with the Darcy woman and the others, assuming we haven't apprehended them first, and you will find out the time and location of this rendezvous. We'd like that U-boat intact. Yes, indeed, we would.'

And everything else they could get. As she got to her feet, he stepped aside, but when a hand was extended, he was forced to shake it. ‘Of course I'll do all I can, Major. I wouldn't think of doing anything else, not now.'

Surprisingly her grip was firm. A last shred of dignity then, or one of stiffening resistance and rebellion? ‘Well, just in case you don't, let me remind you that Bauer is now housed in the dungeon. Cross me once more and you will join him.'

‘Major, you needn't have been so brutal. Will Jimmy still keep the house under surveillance?'

Was she being coy? ‘We mustn't let our end down, now must we?'

She was at the door when he asked, ‘This tunnel they've been digging. Where is it located?'

Mary shrugged but wouldn't turn. ‘We didn't talk of it, Major. There simply wasn't time.'

Connor drove her home, having tied the bicycle to the back of the car, she silent, lost in thought, and wondering what to do. ‘It's a fine state we find ourselves in, now isn't it?' he said. ‘If this gets out, I'm finished. The Brits will have me shot.'

‘Me too, but it's already finished for me.'

‘Sure and I can imagine what the major must have said, but will the Nazis take you with them?'

‘I hope so. You see, I'm carrying Erich Kramer's child.'

‘You're not!' Why hadn't Nolan told him? ‘That does put another spin on things, now doesn't it?'

‘Listen, we haven't much time unless I were to ask you in. There's no whiskey, but … now wait, there is some brandy.'

‘Is Liam Nolan aware of your condition?'

‘They dragged that out of me weeks ago. Look, tell them not to come anywhere near the house.'

‘Sure and they must already know that.'

‘Tell them to look for my bike in Ballylurgen. They can leave a message in the carrier basket. I'll … I'll come as soon as I can.'

‘They'll want to know what transpired between you and that Huber fellow.'

‘I'll tell them myself. Look, I'm sorry, but it's best you know only what is necessary.'

And she sounding like a regular little cadre herself!

They went in at the drive and coasted to a stop before the house. Mary listened for Robbie, only to remind herself of what had happened. ‘Please leave your bag in the foyer and go in to see Mrs. Haney, Doctor. Keep her busy while I go upstairs.'

‘For what?' he asked, alarmed.

She would have to tell him. ‘For some of the dynamite you'll be carrying in to Tralane.'

‘Lord have mercy on us, who the hell is it you're wanting to work for?'

‘Myself. I've had enough of being pushed around. You can tell Nolan that, too, if you like. The prisoners will have to wire the dynamite up themselves, so I'll give you some of the blasting caps and fuse.'

‘I can't take much.'

‘You'll take everything I give you and you'll spill ether in your bag to dampen the smell if you have to, and you'll come back for more using the excuse of the cut on my forehead. Now let's get at it, shall we?'

The late news over the wireless from the BBC London was particularly grim. Mary wished she'd not switched it on but had felt desperately alone—not brave or tough as she'd been with Dr. Connor, just damned scared. The British aircraft carrier
Ark Royal
had been torpedoed off Gibraltar. In Russia, a railhead near Leningrad had been taken by the Germans, tightening their hold about the city. Allied shipping losses for October had been among the worst. The U-boat threat was a menace everyone would hate. Her hands had shaken at the thought.

The dry cell battery and its leads lay nestled in cotton wool, well separated from the metal of the shortbread tin. There'd be no stray electrical currents, no shorts she couldn't afford. The six sticks of gelignite lay diagonally across the tin with the battery to one side, she having used one of them as the primer and, finding the gelignite surprisingly soft, had pushed the blasting cap in and tied the wires around the stick so as to secure them.

One lead ran from the blasting cap to the battery—she'd not wired that up yet, nor had she done the others, the links from the battery to the watch and from its crystal to the blasting cap.

The second hand swept around, the minute hand moved. Men would be killed during the prison break—there wasn't much she could do about it, though she'd try if opportunity arose, assuming that she would be made exactly aware of where the charges were to be placed and the time of their detonation.

Somehow she'd have to find out. There were so many things to do, so many questions still. Answers … she'd have to have answers ready.

The bomb was complete—Nolan wouldn't know of it and neither would Fay Darcy or Trant or Erich or any of them. She'd keep it all to herself, but they must be made to take her with them.

Terms agreed. Fix rendezvous 0100 hours 23 November. Kill Heidi
.

Once Erich was out from Huber's command, her life wouldn't be worth much, so she would have to hold something back, have to make certain of this.

A heavy woollen pullover went into the rucksack she'd brought from the mudroom. Hamish and she had spent days hiking in the Highlands. It had pleased him to see her so well prepared. Good hiking boots, knee socks, trousers and flannel shirts, even binoculars.

Mary added two pairs of heavy socks, putting these on either side of the tin, then a spare pair of trousers and another pullover. Making room for the rucksack, she squeezed it down into the cedar chest and laid a couple of blankets over it before spreading more mothballs.

There was a calendar hanging from a nail in the study. It was now the night of Tuesday, 11 November 1941. The twenty-third fell on a Sunday. There were twelve days left, then, in which to contact Berlin, fix the rendezvous, break the prisoners out, and cross into Donegal before finding their way to Inishtrahull.

She was certain Kevin would use that island. Deep down inside him, he was still of his family and roots. He'd want somewhere hidden and out of the way, would want to choose a place he knew and this last would probably govern everything else.

Inishtrahull, it had that ring to it. Hamish had maps, but when she'd located the island, Mary found herself sick with dread. It sat right out in the shipping lane that led to the North Channel, was right under Londonderry's thumb and subject to the RAF bases there and to its coastal patrols. It also had its own lighthouse, so wasn't completely uninhabited or undefended either.

Nolan stepped from behind the forge at the old Darcy place. Caught in the half-light, Mary glanced past him to the corner where the shafts of the pony trap stood on end. ‘Where's Fay?' she asked.

Still he did not move. ‘Look, it's crazy of us to meet here. Jimmy Allanby knows it far too well. He'll …'

‘Have followed you, is that it?”

‘I didn't tell him, if that's what you're thinking. I did exactly as your note said. I left my bike outside the shop in Ballylurgen, went through to the back to hitch a ride in Joe Kivelehan's lorry, then walked in from the road, walked right up that lane, or what's left of it. I … I seem always to be meeting you people in ruins of some kind.'

She'd not moved a muscle, still stood beneath that gap in the slates knowing now, though, that the fond slash of morning would touch those dark brown, velvet eyes of hers and the turned-up collar of a camel-hair overcoat. ‘How is the captain these days, Allanby that is?'

‘I've hardly spoken to him of late. Look, I
don't
like him. I never have. He had our Robbie killed.'

‘And the major, what of him, then?'

Quickly Mary told him where things stood. ‘I've arranged with Dr. Connor to move the rest of the dynamite into the castle. Huber said to tell you Berlin have agreed to your terms. You're to fix the rendezvous for zero one hundred hours on the twenty-third and to relay everything back through me.'

She still hadn't moved. ‘Made yourself essential to us, have you?'

He had come to stand in front of her. ‘Please don't touch me.'

Unbuttoning the top of her coat, Nolan brushed the lapels as a tailor might before using the soft yellow mohair scarf as a halter. ‘I'll touch if I want.'

‘Kevin won't like it.'

‘Still fancying him, are you?' He wished that Fay had come inside. Fay would have made sure they pried the truth out of the woman, but Fay was still pissed off about what had happened at O'Shane's farm and was watching out for Allanby.

‘Got the bullets to that lover of yours, did you?' he asked.

There was no laughter in him now, no mischief, not even suspicion, just an emptiness that frightened because she could not know what it might mean for her. ‘You killed those women.'

‘That what the major and the colonel said?'

‘You know it is.'

‘Then maybe they should have told you that the mother didn't just save me from the pump standard in their stable yard but took me to her bed. She was a stupid cow with talcum powder all over her—I used to dust her down after the bath. She got what she deserved.'

‘And the daughter?'

She'd been shocked all right. ‘The daughter was the punishment. After all, I was only seven when the mother first made me put my head between those dusty bags of hers. The rest came later when I was ten and twelve and she found she enjoyed my tongue and other things.'

And shocked again. ‘Didn't the daughter love you?' he heard her ask, innocence itself.

‘Janet Gilmore? Christ, the girl was a slut. She knew I was poling the mother and wanted a bit for herself, so I obliged the two of them. I had to, didn't I?'

‘That's still no reason to have murdered them.'

‘Worried, are you?'

‘Yes.'

‘Don't much like the truth, then, do you, but that was the way of it. My da would have lost his job had I not done what those two wanted of me. His lordship knew it, of course, and thought it a riot, since it freed him up with the housemaids.'

Nolan let go of the scarf. Now his arms hung loosely at his sides. ‘If you harm me, the Germans will kill you.'

‘That what Huber said to pass on?'

When she didn't answer, he came quickly to a decision, but was it one he didn't like?

‘Tell the Nazis the break is for the night of the eighteenth. That'll give us five days to reach the rendezvous.'

The eighteenth. ‘What time of night?'

Interested, was she? Fifteen minutes past midnight. We'll use the north gate—it's been bricked up—but they're to set all but two of the charges under the barbican and the main gatehouse to make it look as if the break is to be there.'

Had he really decided to trust her, or would he simply give the correct information to Dr. Connor?

‘I'll need three dozen sticks of that gelignite of yours, two hundred and fifty feet of the safety fuse and sixteen blasting caps—eight of the electrical ones, the same of the others. Set those aside for me. See that Connor gets the rest into the castle as soon as possible—we'll make sure that he has something else to carry in as well so as to make the job easier. We may have to move the date up, though, if the major gets wind of things.'