by James R Benn
“And his contacts in the German resistance?”
“As phony as Schiller’s papers,” Leo said. “With any luck, the Gestapo will arrest some stalwart Nazis and give them a taste of what goes on behind their prison walls.”
“Okay, I’m with you so far. What’s the story with the other two?” I said.
“Christoph and Lukas. German POWs who volunteered. Anti-Nazis.”
“Double agents, like Schiller?” Big Mike asked.
“No. They are genuinely committed to ending Hitler’s rule in their country. We’ve found that volunteers fall into three categories. Diehard Nazis like Schiller, who want only to serve the Reich. Anti-Nazis, such as Christoph and Lukas, who believe in ending the regime and the war as soon as possible. Then men who simply want to return to their families. They’re terrified of the Russians and the Allied bombing. Sad, that last lot.”
“So, Christoph and Lukas have good parachutes?” Big Mike asked. “And real contacts?”
“Yes,” Leo said, stretching out the word. I turned to look at him. “And no.”
Then it dawned on me. The reason for the name they gave these agents. “Remember,” I said to Big Mike. “They don’t call them Joes. They call them Bonzos.”
“Jesus,” Big Mike said. “It’s all a setup.”
“As you said, a charade,” Leo told us. “The purpose of Operation Periwig is to create the illusion of a widespread German resistance movement. To sow chaos among the ranks of Nazi officials and to make everyday Germans mistrust each other.”
“The Red Horse is the phony resistance group,” I said. “That’s why you didn’t give any postcards to Schiller.”
“Exactly. If the Germans found those on a recently parachuted agent, they would see the Red Horse as a fraud. Christoph and Lukas are under orders to hide them or mail them promptly. Still a bit of a risk in case they’re apprehended early, but one worth taking,” Leo said. “As determined by German Section, to be clear.”
“I doubt it was Blackford’s German Section alone. This has to be approved at a higher level,” I said. “Gubbins himself, I bet.”
“These are not questions one asks at Baker Street,” Leo said. “My task is to provide codes. No one has asked me to chime in on the morality of this scheme. Or any other. I’m a code master, not God himself.”
“What tipped you off?” Big Mike asked me. “The parachute?”
“It wasn’t the first thing. I kept thinking about my Lysander trip with Kaz. Our second flight crashed. If that happens to either bomber, the crews and the agents aboard will have seen everything about the other mission. The drop zone down to the clothes the agents were wearing, as well as their physical description and equipment.”
“It’d be a gift to the Krauts if they talked,” Big Mike said.
“Right. Our briefing was given by Vera, no one else around. We didn’t see the pilot until we got into the Lysander. He didn’t know a damn thing about us,” I said. “There was zero security at Gravesend.”
“Precisely,” Leo said. “It’s standard procedure with Periwig.”
“Just so I understand,” Big Mike said. “You’re sending these guys you call Bonzos on a suicide mission. You’re hoping they get caught so the Gestapo will buy the phony evidence of a German resistance group.”
“In SOE’s defense, there have been sabotage missions as well. Two fellows dropped near Karlsruhe blew up a section of rail and escaped back across our lines in August,” Leo said. “But your description is not that far from the mark, Sergeant. I understand your anger. It doesn’t seem fair, does it?”
“We’re not even in the vicinity of fair,” I said.
“No, I suppose not,” Leo said, pausing to give directions at an intersection. “Personally, I hope those two lads are not caught. But I must admit, the dissemination of false information by captured Bonzos is SOE’s objective.”
“You only use POWs?” I asked.
“Only German-born volunteers,” Leo said. “Mainly POWs, since there’s an ample supply, but it’s not a hard and fast rule.”
“No English SOE agents are Bonzos?” I asked.
“No. SOE is a cold-blooded outfit, but that would take ice water in one’s veins,” Leo said. “The unspoken rule is that Germans are fair game, but Englishmen are Joes, not Bonzos.”
Big Mike and I exchanged a look. Thomas Holland had cheated death at the hands of the German Section by virtue of his English birth. But he’d offered up an unwitting sacrifice in the form of his German-born friend, George Markstein.
“George Markstein was a Bonzo,” I said.
Leo’s confession was wreathed in silence.
Chapter Thirty-Six
We were all quiet for the next few miles. I thought about the poor bastards who’d volunteered simply to get back to their families. What went through their minds when they contacted someone, thinking it was a member of the Red Horse resistance group, only to be turned over to the Gestapo? If the Gestapo ever learned the Bonzo’s true identity, it would mean a concentration camp for their family. At best.
The Nazis practiced what they called Sippenhaft. It was a law that held an entire family liable for one member’s crimes against the state. Between the Russians to the east, bombers overhead, and their own secret police on the ground, these families were bound to suffer one way or another.
As we drew closer to Westminster Bridge, I had to work at staying awake. It had been a helluva long day. I should have been glad to have a piece of the puzzle fall into place, but there were still too many questions.
Who was close enough to George Markstein to take revenge for what had happened to him? I thought about the cast of characters back at Saint Albans and went through the list. When I got to Angus Sinclair, I suddenly understood another part of this mystery.
“The squirt transmitter,” I said, snapping my fingers. “Now I get it.”
“What?” Leo asked from the rear.
“You haven’t heard of it?” I asked, with more than a hint of suspicion in my voice.
“No. Schiller and the others had the normal SOE radio, the Type 3 Mark II. Standard issue right down to the brown leather suitcase.”
“Blackford was after Sinclair to design a device that would send out bursts of compressed Morse code,” I said. “He called it a squirt transmitter. Sinclair told him it was impossible.”
“Of course,” Leo said, waking up to the idea. “If the illusion of a widespread resistance network is to be believed, there has to be an explanation for the lack of radio traffic from within Germany. The rumor of a new communications device explains it neatly.”
“Blackford probably wanted a few ideas from Sinclair that he could use to brief agents about a new machine,” I said. “A few technical phrases good enough to offer a hint to the Krauts.”
“Yes. The story could also be that there weren’t enough of them yet, which is why tonight’s missions were sent out with the old models,” Leo said, getting into the spirit of the deception. “Ingenious notion.”
“The whole thing is ingenious,” Big Mike said. “Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
“Nor I, Sergeant. I’m not going to shed any tears over Herr Schiller, but he’s an anomaly, the first double agent I’ve encountered. It’s the other Bonzos who have been cruelly used. They placed their trust in us and thought we were battling a common enemy. SOE betrayed them. I played a part in that, but I cannot claim a great deal of enthusiasm for it.”
“Listen, I get it, you’re in a tough position,” Big Mike said, with a quick look back at Leo. “All this didn’t sit well with me, and I took it out on you. You didn’t have to bring us along in the first place.”
“We all have to find ways to keep our sanity and soul intact, Sergeant,” Leo said. “Remember this is all top secret. Breathe a word of it, and they’ll put you somewhere that will make Saint Albans l
ook like holiday accommodations. And I’ll swear I never told you a thing.”
“Fair enough,” Big Mike said, slowing as we took a turn near the river. “I just wish this got us closer to the killer.”
“We need to know more about George Markstein,” I said. “Along with the people close to him. Stands to reason anyone who cared about him would be upset if they knew how he was used.”
“Upset enough for murder?” Big Mike asked.
“Life is cheap these days,” Leo said. “We’ve learned to kill in numbers great and small, for causes glorious and ignoble. Blood revenge is not as unthinkable as it might have been five years ago.”
As we crossed the Thames, I thought about that. Leo was right. Years of large-scale violence had produced an ethical numbness when it came to human life. The brass thought in casualties by the bushel and in trade-offs of a hundred deaths in the morning to save a thousand next week. Take that hill, cross that river, assault that village, and then the next, and the next, stretching out into a limitless horizon of viciousness. War was brutalizing in how commonplace it made suffering, violent death, and betrayal.
And treachery perpetrated by your own side was the darkest and deadliest of all betrayals. It robbed you of not only life, but trust.
Blood revenge. Now there was a motive.
We dropped Leo off on Charing Cross Road, near a bookstore at number eighty-four. Marks & Co. was an antiquarian bookshop owned by his parents.
“I suppose I owe it all to my father,” Leo said when he pointed out the establishment. “When I was eight years old, I came across a first edition of The Gold Bug by Edgar Allan Poe. The story contained a message in code. It entranced me, and I began my career in code breaking that day. Never thought it would lead to all this.”
“Seven fourteen,” Big Mike said, as Leo opened the door.
“And a good night to you, Sergeant,” he answered, a smile lingering on his face as he waved goodbye and faded into the darkness.
“Impressive,” I said, remembering how Leo had signed his note.
“I did have to count on my fingers,” Big Mike said. “But I thought he’d appreciate it.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
I had no idea where I was. I had no idea what was making a racket right by my ear. And I was so tired I didn’t care.
Telephone. It was the telephone by my bed. At the Dorchester.
I fumbled with the receiver, trying to sound coherent as I blinked the sleep out of my eyes and focused on the clock. Six-damn-thirty in the morning.
It was a message from Chief Inspector Scutt, delivered by someone whose job it was to be up this early. There was news on the fingerprints, and could I be at Scotland Yard within the hour.
I hung up, my mind still groggy, barely remembering collapsing on the bed late last night, glad I’d managed at least to get my shoes, jacket, and shoulder holster off. The room still felt strange, as if I were trespassing or maybe running away from some greater responsibility. Diana was still in Ravensbrück. As was Angelika. Kaz was in the hospital, and rockets were falling on London. The person who murdered Charles Cosgrove was at large.
I shook off the cobwebs. After a hot shower and room service coffee, the room didn’t seem so alien any longer. Just lonely.
I left a message at the front desk for Big Mike, who’d be checking in with me at eight, and hoofed it over to Scotland Yard. The desk sergeant sent me straight to Scutt’s office.
“There’s been another V2 attack,” Scutt said by way of greeting, motioning for me to sit by his desk. “One hit a farm in Maidstone. Eyewitness reports say it appeared to be disintegrating as it fell. Damaged a barn and frightened the livestock, nothing more, thank God. Shut the door, will you.”
“Maybe they’re not ready,” I said as I grasped the doorknob. Or were slave laborers sabotaging the damn things? Delicate hands and thin fingers can make the tiniest of mistakes.
“We can only hope Adolf pushed them to begin the campaign before they had all the technical stuff worked out,” Scutt said. “Whatever the reason, I’m glad they are not raining down on my city in the same number as those damned V1s.”
Scutt waited until the door was secured, checking the morning shift through his window as they filtered in. Once he was satisfied nobody was looking in on us, he opened a file and turned it around for me to see.
“Don’t touch the file, if you don’t mind,” he said. “This fingerprint business can work both ways. We found three sets of useful prints. I think this first fellow can be cleared as a suspect.”
“Morton Bisset,” I said, checking the photograph of a man with thinning hair and full lips. “Don’t recognize him.”
“Forget you saw him. Captain Bisset runs the SOE forgery and printing department. I doubt he ran the printing press, but it would have been his job to check and be sure every detail was perfect.”
“Okay, who’s next?”
“This fellow,” Scutt said, closing Bisset’s file and opening another. A photograph of George Markstein stared up at me. “Means something, doesn’t it? I can tell by the look on your face.”
“It does, Chief Inspector. Markstein is directly connected to two of the murder victims. The card you took the fingerprints from was found in the hand of Charles Cosgrove of the Foreign Office. Markstein was a close friend of Thomas Holland, who was also killed at Saint Albans. They trained together as SOE agents.”
“Well, I hope this helps,” Scutt said. “Nothing on the third set of prints yet. No surprise there, we were lucky to get these so soon.”
“What else is in the file?” I asked, itching to turn the pages myself.
“Research into his family, friends, and coworkers. He was originally Georg Markstein but changed it to George when his mother got out of Germany. Born in Heidelberg of Jewish parents. Father died when he was young but left a trucking business to Markstein’s mother. She was able to send him to university in Paris. Smart lad, it looks like.”
“That’s where he met Thomas Holland,” I said, showing Scutt the photograph. “Anything about a possible familial connection between Holland and Markstein?”
“The name Holland doesn’t appear,” Scutt said, leafing through the pages. “The mother’s maiden name was Weisskopf. She’s still alive, listed as next of kin. No other relatives mentioned. She and the boy got out of Germany in the mid-thirties. She sold the business for a pittance and came to England with the help of a fellow who used to do business with her husband. He gave her a job, and she’s still with him over in Swindon.”
“No suspicions of her being a plant?”
“None,” Scutt said. “This Swindon bloke did import business with her husband. He’s Jewish himself and fought in the last war. He confirmed she’s legitimate and that, although her husband fought for the Kaiser, he was a good man. They’d never met but had come to know each other through correspondence.”
“That sounds solid,” I said, reading the statements that had been gathered from Mrs. Markstein’s coworkers. They were glowing.
There was a knock at the door. Scutt moved to cover up the files and relaxed when he saw who it was. A woman police constable, or WPC, as the Brits called their lady coppers. He motioned her in.
“This is WPC Halford,” Scutt said. “She’s been at work all through the night on your fingerprints. Halford, ignore this Yank. He’s not here.”
“Certainly, sir,” she said, showing no evidence of having squinted at hundreds of fingerprints through the graveyard shift. “I did find a match for the last print.”
“Excellent work,” Scutt said, taking the file from her. “Now go get some kip and forget you ever did it.”
“Oh dear,” Scutt said, opening the file. “If this fellow is a suspect, you are in dangerous waters, my friend.” He laid it down in front of me.
Major Basil Snow.
“Another resident of
Saint Albans, I see, although not a patient,” Scutt said. “Head of security. Was he involved in the investigation?”
“He never saw the postcard, if that’s what you mean,” I said, puzzling through the implications. Why Snow? What was the connection, the motive? “At least not after the murder.”
“An exemplary officer,” Scutt said, leafing through Snow’s service history and commendations. “Too young for the Great War, he joined up in the twenties. Slow progress in a lean peacetime army, but he was promoted when war broke out. Fought in France, evacuated from Dunkirk. Volunteered for SOE shortly after. ‘Desirous of action,’ it says here.”
“So, what was he doing with a Red Horse postcard?” I said, more to myself than to Scutt.
“I’ll not even ask what a red horse signifies,” Scutt says. “But our Major Snow put his hand to that card, no doubt.”
“Anything else of interest in his file?” I asked. “Mention of Markstein, perhaps?”
“Seems not,” Scutt said, flipping through the pages. “Nasty business in Italy. There’s a brief report on his wounding. Some Eyetie tipped off the Germans to a partisan meeting Snow had brokered. A disaster, from what this says.”
“Yes, he told me about it. The betrayal hit him hard.”
“Well, SOE thinks highly of him,” Scutt said, his eyes scanning another page. “He was posted to Saint Albans temporarily, light duty while he recovered.”
“Family?” I asked, hoping for a link to Markstein, Cosgrove, Holland, or Densmore. So many victims, so little to go on.
Scutt pulled out a sheet of personal information. Parents deceased, no next of kin listed. His mother had died of tuberculosis in 1925, his father dying ten years later after too many years in the Northumberland coal mines. Snow had attended one year at a technical college in Newcastle, then joined the army. His fitness reports were all excellent, and he’d scored high marks in all aspects of SOE training.
“He has a future ahead of him,” Scutt said. “Professional army, combat record, skilled agent. SOE obviously is grooming him.”
