Istanbul (24 page)

They started to row towards the shore.

‘Something’s wrong,’ Jordon whispered.

The only sound was the rhythmic beat of the surf, a phosphorescent strip in the darkness.

‘What is it?’

‘I don’t know,’ Jordon whispered. ‘Just a feeling in my bones.’

They jumped out into a heavy surf, there were treacherous rocks underfoot, and Nick went down. He came up choking, then helped Jordon drag the boat up the shore.

Deakin and one of the deckhands carried the precious radio up the beach, making sure it stayed dry, while his companion held the boat steady in the surf.

A dark and silent beach. They looked for the torches. Nothing. Where was Dumitrache? Jordon had a Sten strapped across his shoulder. He unslung it, and loaded a magazine.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Getting ready for trouble,’ he said and at that moment a searchlight snapped on and blinded them both.

Jordon was first to react, fired off a burst from the Sten that shattered the searchlight – Nick guessed it was mounted on the back off a truck parked near the beach road – and they were again plunged into darkness. There was an answering stutter of small arms fire from further up the beach. Nick heard bullets zip past and he dropped onto the wet sand, his guts turned to water.

Jordon gave a strangled cry. Nick reached out to grab him, found Jordon’s head, or what was left of it, just warm porridge now. He heard Deakin screaming but he could not see any of the others in the dark, his night vision ruined by the searchlight.

He couldn’t see the rubber boat, but the
Natalia
was silhouetted against a velveteen sky. He threw himself back into the surf and struck out from the beach, arms wind-milling.

Panic owned him.

‘Give me your hand!’ Constantin shouted. He grabbed Nick’s wrist and hauled him up the rope ladder at the stern. He lay on the deck, choking. He could hear gunfire coming from the beach, bullets zipped overhead, splintering the wood on the wheelhouse.

‘Where are the others?’ Constantin shouted.

‘I don’t know,’ Nick gasped. ‘Jordon’s dead.’

He hauled himself to his knees, saw the winking of small arms fire in the darkness. The windows shattered in the wheelhouse and Constantin screamed.

‘Constantin?’

‘I’m all right!’ The engine stuttered to life and he turned her around, throttling towards the open sea.

Another volley of machine gun fire, and the radio mast splintered like a match, then the wheelhouse seemed to explode. Nick gasped as wood splinters embedded themselves in his cheek and right eye.

He crawled into the wheelhouse. Constantin was hunched over the wheel, his short soaked in blood.

‘Are you all right?’ he shouted but Constantin did not answer.

Clouds black as ink loomed in the north, the last stars fading. Constantin lay slumped in a corner of the wheelhouse, bled out an hour ago.

Nick steered for the Black Sea shore, knowing he could not navigate the minefields at the mouth of the Bosphorus. He would find anchorage at a fishing village perhaps, or at worst, if he beached her, he could swim for the near shore. Constantin looked peaceful in death; back with his family now, his dearest wish. Nick was alone in that last hour before sunrise; time enough to contemplate their betrayal and how it had come about.

CHAPTER 55

‘You’re recovered from your ordeal?’ Abrams said.

Nick’s face was a patchwork of scabs from the cuts where wood splinters from the wheelhouse had embedded themselves. ‘No damage,’ he said. Once again he had cheated his death. A Turkish patrol boat had rescued him from the Black Sea village where he had beached the
Natalia
. But Constantin, Jordon, Deakin, and two anonymous Romanian seamen who had gone into battle with him were now dead on the beach in Dobruja.

‘The Germans had been tipped off,’ Donaldson said. ‘We must assume that Dumitrache’s entire cell is either dead or under arrest.’

‘What about this Constantin?’ Abrams said.

Nick shook his head. ‘His whole family were murdered by the Germans, for Christ’s sake.’

That sounded testy. Donaldson fidgeted in his chair. Abrams’s cheeks flushed bronze.

‘I’m sorry, sir, but he really is beyond suspicion in my book.’

‘What about the crewmen?’

‘He didn’t tell either of his crew where he was going until they were in deep waters.’

Donaldson sighed. ‘Well, the only other people in Istanbul who knew about this operation are sitting in this room.’

‘The traitor has to be in Romania,’ Abrams said.

Nick felt a stab of unease. Sometimes he took files home to read at night, despite the breach of security protocols. The maps and paperwork for Operation Cicero were on his desk one night when he had fallen asleep. Daniela had been there, free for God knows how long to wander around his house and look at whatever she pleased.

Had she betrayed him? Had Daniela Simonici cost Jordon and Constantin and the others their lives?

Had she been willing to send him to his death?

‘You know Jordon’s the only real loss here,’ Abrams said. ‘Stanciu and his entire group would have been a thorn in our side after the war. In the long run we’re better off without them. We’re going to win this war, what we’re fighting for is the peace.’

Nick wanted to knock him down. Hearing the value of men’s lives dismissed so summarily made his blood run cold. He looked out of the window at the roofs of Istanbul and worried at his conscience, wondered if Donaldson and Abrams worried theirs.

CHAPTER 56

They met in a coffee house in Sultanahmet where foreigners never went. It was close to the old palace walls, in the cobbled street behind the Sancta Sofia. There were greasy marble-topped tables and chairs, and on the walls was a faded photograph of Mustapha Kemal, the great Atatürk, and a copy of Bellini’s painting of Mehmet the Conqueror on the walls. These pictures were in every coffee shop and restaurant, homage to the two men who had shaped the Turkish nation.

The other customers were working-class Turks with bad teeth and crumpled brown jackets who passed their days smoking hookahs, listening to the monotonous Arab music on the radio and playing endless games of backgammon. Most of them were unshaven, for no working-class Turk could afford a barber every day.

The coffee house might have appeared romantic if one had no sense of smell. But it was high summer and the city baked under the Mediterranean sun. The sour breath of street refuse hung in the air, and out in the street flies swarmed in small black clouds around rotting melon rinds.

Nick took off his jacket. The back of his shirt was soaked with sweat.

A bootblack, crouched by the door, banged his brush on the lid of his box and threw an accusing glance at Nick’s muddy shoes. He nodded and the boy came over and crouched at his feet, taking his brushes and cloths and polishes from the wooden box.

Nick watched two old men puffing away on their narghiles, their chalky coughs testament to a lifetime’s addiction to tobacco. Pigeons waddled undisturbed and unthreatened between their legs.

A taxi drew up outside and Daniela got out. She wore her jade-green scarf to hide her long dark hair from the stares of the Turkish men. As she entered the café, the Turks undressed her with their eyes, their faces hungry and hard.

She sat down and a waiter in a greasy white jacket brought two glasses of apple tea.

Her file at the Consulate grew thicker each month. There would always be one roll of film to analyze, sometimes two. The quality of the photographs varied; sometimes the pictures were blurred, where she moved her hand as she was taking the shot.

They continued to feed Maier disinformation through her. There was an art to knowing the quality of information to give him, some had to be true and verifiable in order to make the lies seem authentic. They gave up double agents who had betrayed them; they forged coded messages from the SOE in Cairo hinting at an invasion of Greece, a feint for a real invasion being planned elsewhere; there were faked reports of Turkish intransigence towards British interests aimed at easing German pressure on Ankara.

She was his greatest success.

‘What happened?’ she said, staring at his face.

‘Cut myself shaving.’

She reached out a hand, touched the spiderwork of cuts on his face. ‘Tell me.’

‘My face is classified,’ he said. ‘For your eyes only.’

‘Are you hurt anywhere else?’

He shook his head. ‘All in good working order.’ He lit a cigarette and tapped his foot in a nervous tattoo. He would not look at her.

‘What is it?’ she whispered.

He stared moodily into the street.

‘What are you thinking?’

The silence went on interminably.

‘Are you going to tell me what’s wrong or are we just going to sit here like this all afternoon?’

‘It’s nothing.’

‘Is it your wife?’

He shook his head. He hadn’t told her about the divorce. Some instinct in him told him that it would drive her away.

She reached into her pocket and dropped a roll of film onto the table. ‘I shan’t stay if you won’t talk to me.’

He weighed the film in his hand, no longer sure of anything. How could he ever know the truth of this?

‘I want you,’ he said.

The last hour of the night, the darkest hour, when the madman shifts uneasily in the asylum ward and the lonely and tormented shift uneasily in their dreams.

Daniela lay nestled under his arm, her leg thrown carelessly across his thigh, the palm of her hand resting neatly in the curls of hair on his chest. Her lips were slightly apart, in the shape of a heart, one arm raised above her head, dark hair trailing across the pillow. He smiled in at the pleasure of just watching her, listening to the even sound of her breathing.

She frowned and shouted something in her sleep.

‘Daniela?’

Her eyes blinked open. ‘You’re awake,’ she said.

She looked around the room, remembering where she was and who she was with. She stretched her body, as languorous as a cat, let him run his hand along her flank and her breast, gave him a smile of such delicious promise that he felt himself wanting her again.

‘I didn’t mean to wake you.’

‘Liar.’ She rolled towards him and kissed his shoulder. He thought again about the night he woke up and she was not there, the night he had left the Operation Cicero papers scattered on his desk.

She leaned on one elbow. ‘I feel so safe when you have your arms around me.’

He rolled away from her and lay on his back. It was steamy hot in the room and he threw off the sheet. He had to know the truth of this. But how?

He put on a dressing gown and went downstairs to the study. The door was unlocked, as always, and there were papers scattered around on the desk. None of them were important. He did not bring EYES ONLY papers home any more.

He went to the drinks cabinet and poured himself a large gin. If you were in love with an actress, how could you ever know what was real? Every sigh, every kiss, every laugh, every I love you, could be just another performance. His desire could have been a longing for something that did not exist outside a brilliant disguise.

He looked out of the window. The rain had stopped and wraiths of vapour rose from the cobblestones. He thought about the future without Daniela Simonici, about what he would do when the war ended, the shifting sands of the love affair that should never even have begun.

CHAPTER 57

Early morning and Istanbul was coming alive but in Donaldson’s office the roar of the traffic was muted. Outside in the courtyard a Turkish servant swept the patio with a broom.

‘I wanted to talk to you about Trojan,’ Donaldson said.

Nick stared at him, prepared for anything.

‘That last roll of film she supplied us.’

‘Sir?’

‘It was a gold mine.’

‘Really?’

‘They give us the location of two rubber factories and three Messerschmidt assemblies that were recently moved to some abandoned textile plants about fifteen miles outside Vienna. We’ve passed the information on to Bomber Command in Whitehall. This is excellent work, Davis.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

‘She’s probably our most important agent in Istanbul, perhaps in the Near East. Look after her.’

‘I will, sir.’

‘We have to protect her at all costs. I don’t care what you have to do.’