Authors: Daniel Silva
The Unlikely Spy (54 page)
"Vogel believes the information he is presenting to you is true. But he has been drinking from a poisoned well."
Hitler seemed intrigued. "Go on, Herr Reichsfuhrer."
"My Fuhrer, I have always been frank with you about my feelings for Admiral Canaris. I believe he is a traitor. I know he has had contact with British and American agents. If my fears about the admiral are correct, wouldn't it be logical to assume he has compromised the German networks in Britain? Wouldn't it also be logical to assume that the information from Canaris's spies in England is also compromised? What if Captain Vogel actually discovered the truth, and Admiral Canaris silenced him in order to protect himself?"
Hitler was pacing restlessly again. "Brilliant as usual, Herr Reichsfuhrer. You are the only one I can trust."
"Remember, my Fuhrer, a lie is the truth, only backward. Hold the lie up to a mirror, and the truth will be staring back at you in the glass."
"You have a plan. I can see it."
"Yes, my Fuhrer. And Kurt Vogel is the key. Vogel can bring us the secret of the invasion and proof of Canaris's treachery once and for all."
"Vogel strikes me as an intelligent man."
"He was considered one of the brightest legal minds in Germany before the war. But remember, he was recruited by Canaris personally. Therefore, I have my doubts about his loyalty. He will have to be handled very carefully."
"That's your specialty, isn't it, Herr Reichsfuhrer?"
Himmler smiled his cadaverous smile. "Yes, my Fuhrer."
The house was dark when Vogel arrived. A heavy snowstorm had stretched the two-hour drive to four. He stepped from the back of the car and collected his small grip from the trunk. He sent the driver on his way; he had booked a room for him at the small hotel in the village. Trude was standing in the open door, arms folded tightly against her body for warmth. She looked absurdly healthy, her fair skin pink with the cold, her brown hair streaked by the mountain sun. She wore a heavy ski sweater, wool trousers, and mountain boots. Despite the chunky clothing Vogel could see she was fit from the outdoors. When Vogel took her into his arms she said, "My God, Kurt Vogel, you're nothing but a bag of bones. Are things so bad in Berlin?"
Everyone was in bed already. The girls shared a room upstairs. While Trude prepared his dinner, Vogel went up to look in on them. The room was cold. Nicole had climbed in bed with Lizbet. In the darkness it was hard to tell where one left off and the other began. He stood and he listened to their breathing and he smelled their scents--their breath, their hair, their soap, their warm bodies releasing the fragrance of the bedclothes. Trude always thought it was strange, but he loved the way they smelled more than anything else.
A plate of food and a glass of wine awaited him downstairs. Trude had eaten hours ago, so she just sat next to him and talked while he devoured the roast pork and potatoes. He was surprisingly hungry. He finished the first plate and she filled a second, which he forced himself to eat more slowly. Trude talked about her parents and the girls and how the Wehrmacht had come to the village and taken the remaining men and the schoolboys. She thanked God they had been given two daughters and no sons. She asked no questions about his trip, and he volunteered no details.
He finished eating. Trude cleared away the dishes. She had made a pot of ersatz coffee and was standing at the stove, pouring him a cup, when there was a very faint tapping at the door. She crossed the room and opened the door, staring in disbelief at the figure, dressed all in black, standing before her.
"Oh, my God," she murmured as the cup and saucer fell from her grasp and shattered at her feet.
"I still can't believe Heinrich Himmler actually set foot in this house," Trude said, her voice flat, as though she were speaking to herself. She was standing before a weak fire in their bedroom, ramrod straight, arms folded. In the dim light Vogel could see her face was damp and her body was trembling. "When I first saw that face I thought I was dreaming. Then I thought we were all under arrest. And then it dawned on me--Heinrich Himmler was in my parents' house because he needed to confer with my husband."
She turned from the fire and looked at him. "Why is that, Kurt? Tell me you don't work for him. Tell me you're not one of Himmler's henchmen. Tell me, even if it's a lie."
"I don't work for Heinrich Himmler."
"Who was that other man?"
"His name is Walter Schellenberg."
"What does he do?"
Vogel told her.
"What do
you
do? And don't tell me you're just Canaris's lawyer."
you
do? And don't tell me you're just Canaris's lawyer."
"Before the war I looked for very special people. I trained them and sent them to England to be spies."
Trude absorbed this information as if part of her had suspected it for a long time.
"Why didn't you tell me this before?"
"I wasn't allowed to tell anyone, not even you. I deceived you in order to protect you. I had no other reason."
"Where were you today?"
It was no use lying to her any longer. "I was at Berchtesgaden for a meeting with the Fuhrer."
"God Almighty," she muttered, shaking her head. "What else have you lied to me about, Kurt Vogel?"
"I've lied to you about nothing else, only my work."
The look on her face said she didn't believe him.
"Heinrich Himmler, in this house. What happened to you, Kurt? You were going to be a great lawyer. You were going to be the next Herman Heller, maybe even sit on the Supreme Court. You loved the law."
"There is no law in Germany, Trude. There is only Hitler."
"What did Himmler want? Why did he come here so late at night?"
"He wants me to help him kill a friend."
"I hope you said you won't help him."
Vogel looked up at her.
"If I don't help him, he'll kill me. And then he'll kill you and he'll kill the girls. He'll kill us all, Trude."
PART FOUR
43
LONDON: FEBRUARY 1944
"Same thing as before, Alfred. She led the watchers on a merry chase for three hours and then headed back to her flat."
"Nonsense, Harry. She's meeting another agent, or she's making a dead drop somewhere."
"If she did, then we missed it. Again."
"Damn!" Vicary used the stub of his cigarette to light another. He was disgusted with himself. Smoking cigarettes was bad enough. Using one to light the next was intolerable. It was just the tension of the operation. It had entered its third week. He had allowed Catherine Blake to photograph four batches of Kettledrum documents. Four times she had led the watchers on long chases around London. And four times they had failed to detect how she was getting the material out. Vicary was getting edgy. The longer the operation continued in this manner, the greater the chances of a mistake. The watchers were exhausted, and Peter Jordan was ready to revolt.
Vicary said, "Perhaps we're just going about this the wrong way."
"What do you mean?"
"We're following her, hoping we can detect her drop. What if we changed our tactics and started looking for the agent who's making the pickup?"
"But how? We don't know who he is or what he looks like."
"Actually, we might. Every time Catherine goes out we go with her. And so does Ginger Bradshaw. He's taken dozens and dozens of photographs. Our man is bound to be in a couple of them."
"It's possible, certainly worth a try."
Harry returned ten minutes later with a stack of photographs a foot high. "One hundred and fifty photographs to be exact, Alfred."
Vicary sat down at his desk and put on his half-moon reading glasses. He picked up the photographs one at a time and scanned the images for faces, clothing, suspicious looks--anything. Cursed with a near photographic memory, Vicary stored each of the images in his mind and moved on to the next. Harry drank tea and paced quietly in the shadows.
Two hours later, Vicary thought he had a match.
"Look, Harry, here he is in Leicester Square. And here he is again outside Euston Station. Could be coincidence, could be two different people. But I doubt it."
"Well, I'll be damned!" Harry studied the figure in the photographs: small, dark-haired, with square shoulders and conventional clothing. Nothing about his appearance called attention to him--perfect for pavement work.
Vicary gathered up the remaining photographs and divided them in half.
"Start looking for him, Harry. Just him. No one else."
Half an hour later Harry picked him out of a photograph taken on Trafalgar Square, which proved to be the best one yet.
"He needs a code name," Vicary said.
"He looks like a Rudolf."
"All right," Vicary said. "Rudolf it is."
44
HAMPTON SANDS, NORFOLK
At that moment, Horst Neumann was pedaling his bicycle from Dogherty's cottage toward the village. He wore his heavy rollneck sweater, a reefer coat, and trousers tucked inside Wellington boots. It was a bright clear day. Plump white clouds, driven by the strong northerly winds, drifted across a sky of deep blue. Their shadows raced across the meadows and the hillsides and disappeared over the beach. It was the last decent day they would see for a while. Heavy weather was forecast for the entire east coast of the country, beginning midday tomorrow and lasting several days. Neumann wanted to get out of the cottage for a few hours while he had the chance. He needed to think. The wind gusted, making it nearly impossible to keep the bicycle upright on the pitted single-lane track. Neumann put his head down and pedaled harder. He turned and looked over his shoulder. Dogherty had given up. He had climbed off his bicycle and was pushing it morosely along the path.
Neumann pretended not to notice and continued toward the village. He leaned forward over the handlebars, elbows thrust out, and cycled furiously up a small hill. He reached the top and coasted down the other side. The track was hard with the previous night's freeze, and the bicycle rattled along the deep ruts so viciously Neumann feared the front tire might break loose. The wind eased and the village appeared. Neumann pedaled across the bridge over the sea creek and stopped on the other side. He laid the bicycle in the deep grass at the edge of the track and sat down next to it. He lifted his face toward the sun. It felt warm, despite the crisp air. A squadron of gulls circled silently overhead. He closed his eyes and listened to the beating of the sea. He was struck by an absurd notion--he would miss this little village when it was time to leave.
He opened his eyes and spotted Dogherty atop the hill. Dogherty removed his cap, wiped his brow, and waved. Neumann called, "Take your time, Sean." Then he gestured at the sun to explain why he was in no hurry to move. Dogherty climbed back onto the bicycle and coasted down.
Neumann watched Dogherty; then he turned and looked at the sea. The message he had received from Vogel early that morning troubled him. He had avoided thinking about it but he could avoid it no longer. The wireless operator in Hamburg had transmitted a code phrase that meant Neumann was to conduct countersurveillance on Catherine Blake in London. Countersurveillance, in the lexicon of the trade, meant he was supposed to follow Catherine to make certain she wasn't being followed by the opposition. The request could mean anything. It could mean that Vogel just wanted to make certain the information Catherine was receiving was good. Or it could mean he suspected she was being manipulated by the other side. If that was the case, Neumann might be walking straight into a very dangerous situation. If Catherine was under surveillance and he followed her too, he would be walking side by side with MI5 officers trained to recognize countersurveillance. He would be walking right into a trap. He thought, Damn you, Vogel. What are you playing at?
And what if she
was
being followed by the other side? Neumann had two choices. If possible, he was to contact Vogel by wireless and request authorization to extract Catherine Blake from England. If there was no time, he had Vogel's permission to act on his own.
was
being followed by the other side? Neumann had two choices. If possible, he was to contact Vogel by wireless and request authorization to extract Catherine Blake from England. If there was no time, he had Vogel's permission to act on his own.
Dogherty coasted across the bridge and stopped next to Neumann. A large cloud passed before the sun. Neumann shivered in the cold. He stood up and walked with Dogherty toward the village, each man pushing his bicycle. The wind gusted, whistling through the crooked headstones in the graveyard. Neumann turned up the collar of his coat.
"Listen, Sean, there's a chance I may need to be leaving soon, in a hurry."
Dogherty looked at Neumann, his face blank, then looked forward again.
Neumann said, "Tell me about the boat."
"Early in the war I was instructed by Berlin to create an escape route along the Lincolnshire coast, a way for an agent to get to a U-boat ten miles offshore. His name is Jack Kincaid. He has a small fishing boat in the town of Cleethorpes, at the mouth of the River Humber. I've seen the boat. It's a bit of a wreck--otherwise, it would have been seized by the Royal Navy--but it will do the trick."
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