Volk (23 page)

Fortunately there was no chance of that. Their meeting had been coincidental, and it was unlikely that he would see her again. He need have no concern about presumption in his wandering fancy.

•  •  •

In due course he reached Algeciras and rented a room, as if he were a tourist pausing to see the sights. He did not report directly to the Abwehr post; he was an unofficial agent. But he would be there to help when Admiral Canaris arrived to supervise the implementation of Felix.

“Felix” was the unofficial code name for this project. It was, in essence, to mount an assault on the rock of Gibraltar and take it from the British. With that fortress and seaport in German hands, the British would be severely constrained, and it might be possible to close off access to the Mediterranean Sea and isolate the British fleet. It promised to be a strategic masterstroke that would protect the otherwise vulnerable underbelly of the Axis.

On July 24 Canaris appeared, accompanied by Lieutenant Colonel Pardo of the Spanish military intelligence. They were in civilian clothing, as Ernst was, and showed no papers. They operated only by personal recognition. It turned out that the Admiral had used a false passport himself to go to Madrid and meet with Spanish representatives, and even with General Franco himself. He had explained to Spain's ruler the German proposal for a surprise assault on Gibraltar. Franco had been supportive, but had reservations about the strength of the British Navy.

So did they all! But that strength certainly would not diminish as long as Gibraltar remained to service it. With the ocean supply route cut off, the pressure of the Luftwaffe and the U-boats should be decisive. The British would have few places to hide.

Admiral Canaris set up residence in a German safe house, Villa Leon, and used two other houses to establish surveillance of Gibraltar. The town commandant's office in La Linea, adjacent to Gibraltar's access to the mainland, provided a view of the northern defenses. The lighthouse at Punta Camero gave a good view of the west face.

It was Ernst's job to work with Captain Witzig of the Abwehr to establish whether an airborne assault on Gibraltar was feasible. Witzig was a small slim man, but he had a good record: he had been a paratrooper at Eben Emael in Belgium, and had been decorated for valor. Ernst took the man to the various observation points he had located, and discussed the situation with him.

“Why not just send in overwhelming force across the peninsula connecting Gibraltar to the mainland?” Witzig demanded.

“That route is obviously mined,” Ernst explained. “British guns control it from many angles. Assaulting troops will experience ruinously heavy losses, and it will not be possible to make a broad enough front to assure that any get through.”

“What about siege equipment? Bring down big guns from Germany, blast out the mines and the fortifications behind them, so that the troops have clearance?”

“We would have a time getting them here at all, let alone in necessary haste and privacy,” Ernst replied. “The Spanish railways use a different gauge track from the French, requiring the transfer of all supplies and shipments at the border. This is a tedious process at best, and impossible to conceal from the eyes of spies. Also, the lines to Alceciras move through Madrid, making secrecy impossible in the light of British intelligence. In addition, Spain is constrained by limited resources for road maintenance, ordinance repair, communications requirements and foodstuffs.”

“This is not exactly the Third Reich,” Witzig muttered appreciatively. “So then it must be landings by paratroops or gliders, bypassing the peninsula.”

“The slopes of Gibraltar are precipitous,” Ernst reminded him as they studied the solid silhouette of the great rock. “The winds are irregular. It might as well be a minefield of the air.”

Witzig nodded regretfully. “Then it seems that we are without sufficient resources to take the rock at this time. Nevertheless we shall take pictures, in case others are able to fathom what we do not.”

“That is a diplomatic way to put it,” Ernst agreed. He had thought it should be possible to storm Gibraltar, until he had taken a good look at it. It would be a phenomenal prize to achieve, but the cost would be prohibitive.

They took pictures. Because they did not want to be spied in the act, they took them by night. Consequently all they could come up with was murky silhouettes. This, too was a bad job; better pictures were already on file.

Canaris, disappointed, nevertheless acceded to the logic. He ordered improved observation equipment to be sent to Algeciras. Then he settled down with his consultants to draw up a feasible assault plan, taking into consideration all the problems they had noted. He also ordered the commander of the Brandenburg's third battalion to determine whether he could take Gibraltar with a surprise attack by German troops smuggled through Spain in trucks and supported by an engineer battalion infiltrated by sea.

In due course the word came back: NEGATIVE. Canaris and his party had by then returned to Germany, but Ernst remained in Spain, signifying that the Admiral had not given up the quest.

Heydrich, evidently keeping close track despite Ernst's lack of a direct report, arranged to have a sealed letter delivered to him. He found it on the floor of his room in Algeciras, slipped under the door during his absence. It was apparent that Ernst was not the only secret agent in the area.

He opened the letter. DESTROY AFTER READING was stamped at the top of the sheet, and Heydrich's signature was at the bottom. It was authentic.

It informed him that there was a plan to abduct the British Duke of Windsor, who was in Portugal now, about to take the ship
Excalibur
to the Bahamas, where he would be governor. The Duke had been King Edward VIII of England in 1936, but had gotten romantically interested in an American divorcee. Faced with the choice between her and the throne, the King, not the brightest of men, had abdicated the throne and married the woman. He was understood to be sympathetic to the Nazi cause, and might agree to make a statement on Germany's behalf. That would be a political coup that might sway others toward the cause. Ernst was to go to Portugal immediately to assist, since he spoke English and could serve as a translator. He was to tell no one else of this, but to pretend he was merely traveling, as before. There was a name and address: his contact in Portugal.

Ernst stared at the letter. Abduct the former King of England? In the hope that he would then endorse Nazism? This was utter folly! Even if the man was sympathetic, he would surely be alienated by the abduction, and in any event he would never publicly betray his country. He might not be smart, but he could hardly be that stupid. What nitwit had hatched this scheme? It couldn't be Heydrich!

But Heydrich would not directly counter a directive from his superior. He would go along with it, then arrange to divert it before real damage was done, in such a way that he would not be blamed. So this was form without substance. Ernst would have to go to Portugal and make the contact, but he doubted that it would go much farther than that.

Sure enough, when he reported to the address two days later he was told to forget it; the plan had been canceled. He was instructed to forget that it had ever existed, and to pretend that he had never entered Portugal. He was glad to oblige. Heydrich had succeeded in diverting the insanity.

Ernst, left to his own devices, resumed traveling around Spain, awaiting further orders. Something was bothering him, and it did not take any great concentration to figure out what: he wanted to see Quality Smith again. He knew this was idiocy, because even if she were not the fiancée of his friend, what interest would she have in a Nazi SS officer? Ernst was the opposite of everything she stood for. Yet he remembered her plain talk, and the way she had waved to him at the end, and his soul was restless.

In mid August he could stand it no longer. He drove to Barcelona and went to the headquarters of the Quaker Relief there. Only to be told that all of the Quakers had left Spain, and the project had been shut down. It seemed that they had done something to annoy the government, so had been abruptly expelled.

Ernst's emotions were mixed. He was sorry not to see Quality again, but glad that she had escaped the country. Now if it should come to pass that Germany invaded Spain, she would not be caught in the crossfire. She was safe in America, where she belonged.

Meanwhile it seemed that there was intense negotiation to try to get Spain to join the Axis voluntarily. Admiral Canaris came down for a week in late August to see about that, and Ernst joined him as a driver.

This, too, came to grief. After a week of intensive dialogue with Spanish officials, Canaris formed the opinion that General Franco would not join in the war until England was beaten. They would have to wait for the big effort of the Luftwaffe to break England down. Already the bombers were crossing the channel to England daily, so the capitulation should not be long in coming.

The Admiral returned to Germany, but still Ernst was relegated to Spain. Canaris was unwilling to give up on Felix, and intended to keep his personnel “on-site” until the project could be realized. This was in effect a vacation for Ernst, because he had nothing to do except drive around Spain, remaining inconspicuous. He could not remain in any one region long, lest folk realize that he was up to something. This included the Abwehr post in Algeciras.

So he toured the country in thorough fashion, reading whatever books were handy, but finding them all boring. The nights were lonely. It had been better on the floor, with Quality Smith, than in the bed alone. He thought about Krista, whom he hoped to see again soon, and about Quality, whom he expected not to see again. The two were so different, yet now occupied similar sections in his mind. Krista was beautiful, self-possessed, and decisive, and she wanted to marry him. Quality was beautiful too, in a more ethereal way, and sure of herself in a more subtle way, and decisive in an oblique way. The two were seeming opposites in nature, yet parallel. Krista wanted what was best for Krista, and would do what she had to do achieve her ambition. Quality hardly seemed to care about herself; she wanted what was best for the world, and had been doing what she could to improve it. Of the two philosophies, he preferred the latter.

But Krista was available, and Quality was not. Quality was back in America, and she was Lane's fiancée. She was a pacifist who hated the artifacts of war and despised the Nazis. He had always known that there would never be anything between Quality and himself. Why, then, was it her face that came to his mind?

He forced his imagination to picture Krista as she might be the day he agreed to marry her. She would go with him to a private place, and take off her clothing to show her fine body, and say “I thank thee, Ernst.”

The picture exploded. That had not been Krista talking, but Quality! He could not keep her out of his fancy, though every aspect of her nature was foreign to his.

Ernst shook his head. There were currents of foolishness in him he had not fathomed. But they would fade in time; it was inevitable.

The Spanish press carried news the German press did not: the Battle Over Britain was not going well. Too many bombers were not returning. By the middle of September it was obvious that air power was not going to bring England to her knees. Ernst wondered whether Lane Dowling was part of the reason. He suspected that it was.

Admiral Canaris continued to campaign behind the scenes for Felix, and Ernst continued to travel Spain. He agreed with the Admiral: it was now more important than ever to deny England the use of the Mediterranean, so that the surging British aircraft could not go there to raid Axis installations. There was only so much the British ships could do, but buttressed by air power they would be formidable. The failure over England had to be redeemed by a success here, beginning with the capture of the Rock of Gibraltar. They had to make the Mediterranean theater impregnable.

In late October Adolf Hitler himself met with General Franco, trying to charm him into joining the Axis. But Franco remained noncommittal. Did the fool think he had any other course? He had gained power because of Hitler's help; now he was stalling about returning the favor.

On October 28 Italy invaded Greece. That involved the Axis in a Balkan war, because of the “Three Power Pact” signed between Germany, Italy and Japan the month before. Ernst did not like it; to his mind the Italians had delusions of the grandeur of ancient Roman days, and were not militarily competent now. This was all too likely to become a mess for Germany to clean up. Admiral Canaris originated an armistice proposal which gained Hitler's backing, but somehow there was no follow-through, and the mess remained.

But it had one beneficial effect: it revived Hitler's interest in the Mediterranean. Two weeks later Felix was given operational status, and Canaris came to Spain again to determine how Abwehr units and combat teams could best contribute to the Felix assault. There were several code names: Felsennest, soon changed to Basta, and an Abwehr Captain worked on it under the name Roderigo. But it was really Felix.

“We need reconnaissance from the other side,” Canaris said. “To pinpoint the nature and number and placement of their defenses, and to spy out any possible access route. Just a good description would be immeasurably helpful.”

“I wish I could get there,” Ernst said. “I can speak Spanish and English, so I might pass as an educated Spaniard.”

“You know better than I that the isthmus is closed off and guarded, and the surrounding waters are mined,” the Admiral said. “But if you can find a way, by all means do it.” He smiled at the humor of the notion.

Ernst searched for a way. He learned that there was a local smuggler, Jorge, who made regular visits to the Rock, selling dubious goods at exorbitant prices. Could they bribe Jorge to smuggle a man to Gibraltar? Probably they could—but the rock was so small and tight that any stranger there was all too apt to be spotted and challenged. A failure would be worse than not trying, because it would betray the German interest in Gibtraltar. So he concluded that this was not a viable option. There had to be some other way to get the information they needed.