Katastrophe, page 28
Number 23 was last in the row of townhouses that adjoined the arcade. Moncrieff rang the doorbell and waited. At length, the door opened.
‘Dulles.’ He was checking up and down the street. ‘You must be Moncrieff.’
‘I am.’
‘Come in.’ The handshake was firm.
Moncrieff followed him through to a sitting room. Red drapes framed the tall windows and a small table was almost invisible beneath a nest of bottles. Logs were piled on either side of the open fireplace, and among the stand of framed photographs on the nearby piano Moncrieff recognised Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry Truman standing in front of a sizeable crowd, hand in hand, their arms aloft.
‘Chicago.’ Dulles was filling his pipe. ‘Democratic conventions can be fun but that one was special. A fourth term? Could he pull it off? No one in that stadium had the slightest doubt. That’s the measure of the man. He’s a born persuader. Take my word on it, democracy needs more FDRs.’
He rounded on Moncrieff and waved him into an armchair. With his moustache, and rimless glasses, and slightly worn jacket, he might have belonged in a university, maybe a professor of some kind, but there was a briskness in his every movement that spoke of a more worldly calling. He struck a match, used his thumb to give the bowl of the pipe a final tamp, and briefly disappeared behind a cloud of blue smoke. When he emerged, the question couldn’t have been briefer.
‘Wuensche?’ he asked.
Moncrieff explained about Camp 165, up in the wilds of Scotland. The prisoners there were all high-value, experienced officers who’d served with distinction.
‘These men think for themselves,’ he said. ‘My understanding is that the possibility of repatriation was put to Wuensche, and he declined.’
‘On what grounds?’
‘He regarded it as a form of betrayal.’
‘Of the regime?’ Dulles looked briefly startled.
‘Of his fellow prisoners. The authorities up there have tried to foster an esprit de corps, and it appears to have worked. One for all, all for one.’
‘Remarkable.’ Dulles permitted himself a bark of laughter. ‘I almost believe you.’
‘Here.’ Moncrieff, eager to get beyond SS Obersturmbannführer Wuensche, had produced a list of other names.
‘And these are…?’ Dulles was running his pipe stem down the page.
‘German POWs, obviously. Are they of lesser importance? I’m afraid the answer is yes, but in every case the prisoner has indicated a willingness to be sent home.’
Dulles nodded, a gesture of dismissal. Given the circumstances, he said, Wuensche was the only candidate who would pass muster and in any case time and events had moved on.
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning we don’t need an amuse-gueule any more.’
Moncrieff smiled. He liked dialogue like this, give-and-take spiced with a slightly acid wit. The notion of Hitler’s favourite adjutant offered as a titbit at the tables of the mighty was a moment he knew Ursula Barton would appreciate.
‘So where are we with Wolff?’ Moncrieff enquired.
‘We?’ Dulles voice had hardened.
‘We,’ Moncrieff confirmed. ‘Last time I checked we were fighting this war together. Isn’t that still the case? Or do the English always jump to the wrong conclusions?’
The boldness of the question took Dulles by surprise. He sucked at his pipe for a moment, never taking his eyes off his visitor.
‘You’re MI5,’ he said at last. ‘Am I right?’
‘Yes.’
‘I had lunch with one of your guys yesterday. He’s attached to the embassy. He’s MI6 and he was wondering why on earth you and Mrs Barton have bothered to turn up in this town. He gave me the impression that your colleagues have everything under control, everything taken care of, no need to panic.’
‘Colleagues?’
‘Broadway. MI6.’ The smile was mirthless. ‘Are they really colleagues? Maybe you’d prefer some other term…’
‘Not at all. King and Country? We all drink from the same trough.’
‘That I doubt.’
‘Might I ask why?’
‘I’m sure you don’t have to. In DC, we spend more time fighting our friends than our enemies. Why would life be any less crazy in London?’
Moncrieff nodded, conceding the point. Espionage was a snake pit. Anyone naïve enough to think otherwise rarely survived.
‘Tell me about Wolff,’ he said again. ‘Let’s pretend we have a common interest here.’
Dulles pondered the suggestion for a moment or two. He used the pipe like a shield, striking another match, buying himself time. At length he expelled a plume of blue smoke and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, a gesture – Moncrieff realised – of faux intimacy. Trust me, he was saying. I can help you out here.
‘Wolff is in Berlin just now. He’s been there for several days. He’s trying to cover his butt, which is exactly what Wuensche would have done, but that didn’t work out as we all know so now he has to take care of Kaltenbrunner and Kesselring. They won’t be easy conversations, believe me. Kesselring is old-school. Every bone in his body belongs to the Army. He’s taken the soldier’s oath and he has a reputation to protect. Kaltenbrunner is Wolff’s boss and wants to open his own channels. Everyone in an SS uniform is running for cover, and that includes Himmler. These guys play hardball. Yesterday they took Wolff’s family into protective custody to try and keep him in line. Wolff, since you’ve asked, can be reckless to the point of insanity. For an SS guy that makes him unusual. Or, on second thoughts, maybe not. Either way, you get that for free, my friend, but now I’m afraid Uncle Sam’s pot is empty. Will the Krauts call time out in Italy? Offer some kind of surrender? I suspect the answer is yes, largely because the war, in any event, is coming to an end. Will Reichsführer-SS Wolff’s advances hasten that process? Maybe. You want my advice? Go home to London and watch this space.’
Moncrieff was smiling again. The implications of this conversation couldn’t be more obvious. He and Ursula Barton were interlopers, babes in the Swiss wood, poking around in the undergrowth, interested in issues that shouldn’t concern them. Best to beat a retreat and mind their own business.
‘And afterwards?’ Moncrieff enquired.
‘After what?’
‘After the war ends? What then? What becomes of us all? You and your buddies? Us amateurs back home? Germany? The Thousand Year Reich?’
Dulles sat back in the chair, then his eyes strayed to the nest of photos on the piano.
‘You want my opinion? In confidence? One spy to another? FDR’s a sick man. He won’t last the course. Truman’s cut from plainer cloth. He’s Midwest, born and raised. He has none of the Chief’s artfulness. He’s a regular guy and thinks just the same as all the other regular guys. Europe is a busted flush and the way Truman will figure it, you folks over here have just spent half the war waiting for us to finish the thing. My guess is this. The Germans will surrender because they have no choice and the war will come to an end. We’ll spend a bunch of money putting you all on your feet, Germany especially, and then we’ll amuse ourselves elsewhere. I might be wrong. We might hang around a while. But if that Prime Minister of yours thinks the days of the British Empire aren’t numbered, then he’s even more senile than I’m led to believe.’
‘And Russia?’
‘The Russians have been half bled to death and they won’t let that happen again. They own half of Europe already and they won’t let go. Every alliance in history has an eat-by date. The Russians are perpetually hungry. That’s a fact. Yalta proved it. So I guess we should bolt our doors and keep the wolves at bay.’ He got to his feet and extended a hand. ‘Good luck, Mr Moncrieff. From where we Yanks are standing, I suspect you’ll need it.’
*
Moncrieff took a different route back to the hotel. The clouds over Bern had at last parted and there was a hint of real warmth in the sun. He lingered for a moment on the promenade, gazing down at the blue-green water, watching a rowing eight pushing hard against the current, and then strolled on until he found a restaurant with a view of a fountain depicting an ogre stuffing children into his mouth. It was lunchtime by now, and the restaurant looked full, but a word in the ear of maître d’ secured Moncrieff a small table tucked beside the fall of curtain at the window. The ogre, he’d decided, had to be some kind of Swiss joke. After a child or two, more chocolate.
The aromas coming from the open kitchen door made him realise how hungry he was, and when the waitress arrived he ordered half a bottle of Gewürztraminer and a dish of Älpermagronen, a creamy gratin he’d first eaten in his student days in Locarno. The waitress nodded at the surrounding tables and warned him that the food might be a while arriving. Unbidden, she went to the nearby rack of newspapers and returned with a copy of that morning’s Neue Zürcher Zeitung, a gesture that pleased Moncrieff because it meant that she took him for a native Swiss.
He glanced at the front page. General Patton’s tanks were within a hundred kilometres of Leipzig. French First Army units had occupied Karlsruhe, while troops from the US 90th Division had liberated gold and a huge collection of art treasures from a salt mine near Bad Hersfeld. Moncrieff looked up, savouring this glimpse of the wider war. Allen Dulles, the face of the OSS in Europe, had been stating the obvious in anticipating the end of hostilities. No country, no regime, could survive an onslaught like this and everyone knew it. The Swiss, as far as Moncrieff could judge, kept their heads down, untroubled by the thunder of Allied armies as they battled to be first to Berlin, and in many ways Moncrieff couldn’t blame them. Blessed with the biggest mountain range in Western Europe, they’d sensibly hunkered down in their lush valleys and were now waiting for the storm to blow itself out. War, he thought, was a foreign virus for these people. On no account should it affect the steady pulse of Swiss daily life.
He stared out at the cobbled street. More shoppers. More arcades. More opportunities for well-dressed woman to pause beside a window display of gift-wrapped chocolates, or diamond brooches, or handmade boots, and reach lazily into their leather handbags for a purse bursting with Swiss francs. This, after all, was the whole point of the war. If Dulles was right, and Europe got back on its feet with help from American largesse, then the good times would return. Where that might leave Britain, bereft of empire, was anyone’s guess but for Moncrieff the sight of Ursula Barton, alone at her table in the empty hotel restaurant, had made a deep impression. Fretful, exhausted, gnawing at her ruined nails, she seemed to speak for the larger nation that had, by the skin of its teeth, weathered these years of struggle. Soon, thought Moncrieff, the killing and the dying would be over and with luck he’d be back to the silence and solace of the mountains he loved.
He glanced down at the Zeitung again, then a movement on the pavement outside caught his eye. Instinctively, he opened the paper and nudged his chair back until the curtain hid him from the street. If he was right, the figure in the long black leather coat would appear any second. And he did. Cropped hair. Bony face. Deep-set eyes behind steel-rimmed glasses. He came to a halt for a moment, half hidden in the swirl of pedestrians, and then the crowd parted to reveal him once again and this time Moncrieff knew that his instincts had served him well. The last time he’d seen this man was outside the railway station at Locarno, the evening he’d first met De Vries. Was he really a Serb? Was this the killer who’d crept into Hannalore’s darkroom and put an ice pick through her skull? And if so, what was Agent Crusader doing here in Bern?
He was crossing the road now, signalling to someone on the other side, some faceless accomplice in the shadowed arcade. Two of them, Moncrieff thought. He glanced at his watch. There was still no sign of the promised meal, and it wasn’t too late to leave the restaurant and melt into the lunchtime crowds, but something told Moncrieff that this would be folly. One of them he could probably evade. Two argued for an uglier outcome.
Crusader was crossing the road again, pointing at the restaurant. His accomplice was behind him, pausing to avoid a woman on a bicycle. He was shorter, well-built, younger, but he had the same sallow complexion, the same deadness in his eyes, and the moment he hit the pavement Moncrieff knew at least one of them would come into the restaurant. It was Crusader, the older man. Moncrieff raised the newspaper, hiding his face as he heard the door open, praying that the waitress didn’t choose this moment to arrive with his order. The door had closed again but there was no way of knowing whether his tail had gone or not. For how long had he been followed? And how on earth had he known about the visit to Bern?
‘Entschuldigen Sie?’ Excuse me?
It was the waitress. Moncrieff did his best to make room for the food without revealing his face but his very awkwardness stirred the waitress’s interest.
‘Geht es Ihnen gut, sir?’ Are you OK?
Moncrieff smiled up at her, said everything was fine, gestured at an article in this morning’s Zeitung, apologised for his rudeness, asked her to leave the plate and the wine. She gazed down at him, mystified, then did his bidding. Then she was gone.
Moncrieff let another minute or so tick by. The gratin smelled wonderful, and he could already taste that first glass of Gewürztraminer. Then, very slowly, he lowered the paper, checking carefully round. Of the two figures from the street, there was no sign.
*
Back at the hotel, an hour or so later, he knocked on Barton’s door. She was in the process of photographing the De Vries print he’d brought from Locarno. The sheets on her bed were rumpled and, judging by her smile, she’d managed to catch up on her sleep. When she asked about Dulles, Moncrieff pulled a face. The Americans, he said, had already decided the course of the war. Patton was racing for Berlin while here in the shadows, the OSS were skirmishing with an equally fierce intensity. Dulles wanted no one on his turf, least of all a couple of trespassers from MI5.
‘And Six? Broadway? The so-called attachés at the embassy?’
‘I get the impression they compare notes.’
‘About us?’
‘Very probably.’
He told her about the Watchers outside the restaurant, the face he’d recognised from the train, how close he’d come to being trapped.
‘Someone’s on to me,’ he said. ‘Someone knew I was coming here. Maybe they followed me to the Herrengasse. They certainly picked me up on the way out.’
‘That would mean they knew about this place.’
‘Exactly.’
Barton nodded. She was using one of the tiny specialist cameras supplied by the technicians at St James’s Street, and now she put it carefully to one side. At the window she paused for a moment, staring down at the street outside the hotel, and when Moncrieff put the question again, wanting to know how anyone could possibly have been so well briefed about his movements, she waited for a moment or two before turning back to him.
‘Our embassy’s in Thunstrasse,’ she said. ‘It’s big, bigger than we really need. It has plenty of accommodation.’ She forced a smile. ‘Haven’t you wondered why I prefer us to be here?’
20
It was early afternoon before Dieter Merz took off from the airfield at Rechlin. Schultz was in the rear cockpit, beginning to sweat in the warmth of the sun through the Perspex canopy. He had the Loden coat folded on his lap and he could feel the outline of the Beretta in one of the pockets. That, at least, was a comfort and he sat back and closed his eyes as the aircraft began to roll, his feet on a large wooden box of aircraft spares.
He’d last been in an Me-110 four long years ago, en route to Lisbon with Merz once again at the controls, and nothing appeared to have changed. The same smell of engine oil and unburned exhaust. The same sharp tug of the safety harness when Merz wheeled onto the runway and braked before gunning the engines. The same choking sense of claustrophobia that quickened the thunder of his own pulse. Until he went to Russia, Schultz had a been a stranger to fear but flying he still detested.
They lifted off, and Schultz opened his eyes to watch the shadow of the plane grow smaller as it raced across the fields beyond the airstrip. Rechlin was an hour north of Berlin by road, a couple of sizeable hangars and a nearby production facility where engineers battled to launch new prototypes in a war that everyone agreed was lost. Enemy aircraft, according to Merz, would appear overhead from time to time. Untroubled by the Luftwaffe, they’d drop a line of bombs along the runway and then depart, leaving gangs of Polish prisoners to fill the smouldering craters.
These visitations, Merz said, had become a ritual, a gesture largely devoid of any real significance, simply a poke or two at the cooling corpse that was Germany, and everybody at Rechlin knew it. As for Merz himself, he was happy to put the new aircraft through their test programmes, and happier still to fly consignments, and occasionally personnel, into neutral Switzerland. If you knew where to go, Zurich and Basel and Bern could be the treasure house of your dreams. Both Beata and Lottie adored Swiss chocolate.
They flew low, Merz alert for enemy fighters, and when the Alps began to loom ahead he dropped lower still before roaring into Swiss airspace. Schultz, who’d managed to trick his body into sleep, woke up to the blur of a tiny village flashing by beneath the wings. A snatched glimpse of two women in conversation outside a church. A figure with a hoe, surrounded by what looked like cabbages, gazing skywards, shielding his eyes against the glare of the sun. Disturbed cattle running amok on pastureland newly greened by spring.
Finally, minutes later, Merz raised the Bern controller on the radio and sought permission to land. The airfield was smaller than Schultz had imagined and after clearing his path through the immigration checks, Merz led him to a taxi at the front of the terminal building. Schultz gave a driver the address of the hotel and turned back to Merz who was flying on to an air force base near Zurich where engineers were awaiting delivery of the Messerschmitt spares.
