by CW Browning
Evelyn looked up as she approached the bridge and her step checked as Anna herself stepped away from the railing at the foot of the bridge. Her eyes were on Evelyn and she hurried forward quickly.
“Oh thank God!” she exclaimed, reaching her. “I’ve been standing here for over half an hour and I don’t think I can feel my feet!”
Evelyn blinked and automatically looked down at the woman’s fashionable, but not very sensible, shoes.
“Why are you here?” she asked, bringing her gaze back to Anna’s face. “What are you doing?”
“I’ve come to warn you,” Anna said, tucking her arm through Evelyn’s and guiding her to the side of the walkway leading to the bridge. “I didn’t know where else to try to intercept you. I remembered the name of the street from the message and asked at a cafe. They told me this bridge was really the only way in and out of the old city, without going miles in another direction. So I decided to wait here, knowing you’d have to come back this way. Wasn’t that clever of me?”
“Very. But why?”
“Why, to stop you from walking into a trap, of course!”
Evelyn felt like she was trapped in some kind of practical joke. “Oh, well, of course,” she muttered sarcastically, drawing a laugh from Anna.
“I suppose that did sound rather silly,” she admitted. “Let me start from the beginning.”
“That would be good.”
“After you left, I tried to read a magazine but just couldn’t concentrate. I was too excited.”
Evelyn raised her eyebrows and Anna shrugged defensively.
“This might be normal for you, but I’ve never been part of anything so clandestine before! It’s all terribly exciting to me. I couldn’t settle down and finally decided that I would go mad if I stayed in the room. So I left to get some air and do some sightseeing.”
“That sounds reasonable.”
“Well, when I got to the lobby I saw someone I recognized.”
Evelyn looked at her sharply. “What? Who?”
“A man I saw at the Hotel Bristol when we had dinner that night. Remember when we were having drinks with those scientists? There was a man a few tables away. I noticed him because, well, I thought he was attractive.” Anna paused for a moment, then made a face. “I was a little put out because he didn’t take any notice of me, but now I’m glad he didn’t.”
“Who is he?”
“His name is Herr Renner, and he’s a German,” Anna said. “I think he might be Gestapo.”
Evelyn stared at her, taken aback, and felt the color draining from her face. She had been expecting to hear a description of her soviet companion. Hearing instead that the tall German had also followed her sent a streak of fear through her.
“Renner?”
Anna nodded, frowning at the look on Evelyn’s face. “You know him?”
“No, not really,” she said, shaking her head. “I bumped into him at the Hotel Bristol the night Herr Mayer canceled dinner. I didn’t think anything of it, until he turned up at the boarding house the night we left Oslo.”
Anna’s mouth dropped open. “He was there? At the Kolstad’s?”
“Yes. I ran into him at the top of the stairs. He was staying there.”
“That’s terrifying,” Anna said decidedly.
“I don’t know about terrifying,” Evelyn said dryly. “Unnerving, perhaps.”
“That’s because you don’t know the rest!” Anna grabbed her arm. “Listen to me! I overheard him talking in the lobby. He was talking to someone, a short little man, and they were talking about how they were going to trap ‘the Englishwoman.’”
Evelyn’s blood ran cold and her mouth went dry. “The Englishwoman? That’s what he said?”
“Yes. It can’t be a coincidence. He must have been talking about you.”
“Trap? What kind of trap?”
“They’ve got people watching all the entrances of the hotel, looking for you. As soon as you go back, they’ll notify Herr Renner and he said that he would take it from there.” Anna bit her lip, her forehead creased in worry. “I don’t know what they’re planning, but I’m frightened. I think they mean to take you.”
Evelyn leaned against the railing along the water and tried to think clearly. The cold wind suddenly felt good on her face, cooling her flushed cheeks and acting as a cold compress. If Renner had all the exits covered in the hotel, she couldn’t go back. At least, not as it stood right now. She would have to be invisible. Yet, she had to go back. She needed her toiletry bag!
A wave of panic rolled over her. The microfilm! What if they had searched her room and found it?
Turning, she grabbed Anna’s arm. “Do they know you left?” she demanded.
Anna looked startled. “I don’t know. Possibly. Herr Renner told the short man to go the room and try to get a better description of me. He wanted to know what I look like.”
“If he did, they know you went out as well.” Evelyn dropped her hand and turned her attention to stare over the water. “Damn!”
“Why? What is it?”
“Nothing. I need to get back into the hotel.”
“Yes, but how? They’ll see you and that’s what they’re waiting for.” Anna stopped and looked at her. “Even dressed as you are, you’re still recognizable. Why are you wearing those ridiculous clothes?”
Evelyn glanced down at herself and laughed shortly. “To fit in with the locals. I was told the neighborhood I was going to wasn’t a place someone of my stature would frequent.”
Anna nodded. “I was told it was a slum,” she said bluntly. “Was it?”
“It certainly wasn’t what I’m used to.”
Anna was silent for a moment, then she shook her head. “What are we going to do? Perhaps I can go back and get everything from the room?”
Evelyn was shaking her head before she had even finished.
“He’ll have got a description from one of the hotel employees by now. They’ll be looking for you as well. If you try to clean the room out, they’ll stop you.”
“Then we go without our things. That’s the only other option.”
“That’s not an option. I need my bags. There’s...something important in them.”
“What’s so important that—” Anna broke off suddenly with a gasp. “Å gud! I completely forgot! A telegram came for you not ten minutes after you left!”
Evelyn’s head snapped around. “What?”
“Yes. I have it here.” Anna opened her purse and pulled out the telegram. “I didn’t want to leave it in the hotel. I thought I was being silly at the time, but now I don’t think I was.”
Evelyn took the telegram and tore it open, scanning the message.
Upon consideration, story not worth expense. Return to London ASAP by all means available. Repeat: LEAVE STOCKHOLM.
She stared at the message, her blood going cold. Did he know about the two agents? Or was there something else? He’d used the code that only the two of them knew, warning her that her life was in danger. But then he’d followed it with very clear instructions to get out of the city. He wanted there to be no misunderstanding. She was to get out of there.
Through the blood pounding in her ears, she heard Anna talking and struggled to focus on what she was saying.
“If they know I’m not in the room, will they break in and search it?” she was asking. “That’s what they do in the books. If they do, I’m even more glad I didn’t leave that in the sitting room. What does it say? It’s not good, is it? Is it from Daniel?”
“No. It’s from London.” Evelyn took a deep breath and turned away from the water, shoving the telegram into her absurdly large handbag. “It says to leave Stockholm and get back to London.”
“Well, I agree with that, but how are you going to do it?” she demanded. “How are we going to get our things from the hotel and arrange a train back to Oslo without them finding you?”
Evelyn was silent for a long time, then she lifted blue eyes to Anna’s face.
Anna stared at her. “What?”
“I can’t go back to Oslo, but you have to. You’ll take a train home.”
“But what about you?”
“I’ll find a way back to England.”
Anna shook her head vehemently. “Oh no. I’m not leaving you. You don’t speak Swedish, you’re all alone and you have the Gestapo on your heels. I can’t just leave you!”
“It’s too dangerous for you not to,” Evelyn argued. “It was wrong for me to ask you to come. Now you’re in as much danger as I am.”
“You warned me it was dangerous, and I agreed to come anyway. Now we’re in this together. We’ll find a way out of it, but we’ll do it together.”
Evelyn looked at her thoughtfully for a moment, then she pursed her lips.
“Actually,” she said slowly, “there might be a way.”
“Well?” Anna demanded when she didn’t continue right away.
Evelyn was silent, then her lips curved into a slow smile.
“How’s your acting?”
Paris, France
Bill walked down the hall quickly, his shoes echoing on the tiled floor. His brows were creased into a furrow as he went, his lips pressed tightly together. It was past noon and he still hadn’t received word from the radio room regarding the telegram he sent to Jian. He didn’t even know if it had been delivered.
When he’d received the message from Daniel the night before, Bill realized immediately that somehow, somewhere, Evelyn’s carefully constructed cover had been blown. Whether it was here in London or there in Oslo was immaterial. The fact remained that this Herr Renner not only knew of her, but had found her in Oslo. There could be no doubt that he was an SS or SD agent. The only question was how he knew about Evelyn.
Bill frowned thoughtfully. It was possible that her run in with Hans Voss last year had made more of an impression than they had originally realized. They had moved quickly at the time to minimize the damage and create a back story for Evelyn that would pass even the rigorous SD and Gestapo checks. Even so, Bill admitted now that it was entirely possible that the Germans had realized who, and what, she really was. But how on earth could they have known that she was going to Norway, of all places? It was hardly a hotbed of intelligence activity at the moment. Yet something had clearly drawn the German agent to Oslo.
Bill thought for a moment. He supposed it could simply be that this Herr Renner was in Oslo to keep an eye on the German scientists from Berlin. After all, the Nazis were known to keep a strict watch on their people. They were kept on a very tight rein when they ventured outside Germany. He supposed that would go double for the scientists. If that was the case, it could just be that Renner had been in Oslo and recognized Evelyn from the description given by Hans Voss last year. They hadn’t bothered to change her appearance. There had seemed to be no need. Perhaps this whole situation was simply something as innocuous as being recognized in the wrong place at the wrong time.
As wonderful as that might be, Bill had a sinking suspicion that it wasn’t the case at all. There were two agents in Oslo now, who had not only recognized Jian, but had proceeded to make their pursuit known. That couldn’t be a coincidence.
Someone was feeding information to both the Soviets and the Germans.
Bill came to a door at the far end of the corridor and reached for the handle. He stepped inside a small room and looked around. There were four desks, two of which were occupied by men with headphones over their heads, wired into large square radios. The only sound in the room was the hum of the radios themselves, and the occasional tapping noise as the radio operators decoded new incoming messages.
Bill closed the door behind him softly and moved forward to lay his hand on the shoulder of one of the radio operators. The man turned his head in surprise and removed the headset from his head.
“Any word yet?” Bill asked softly.
“No, sir. I did receive confirmation that the telegram was received, but no reply as of yet.”
Bill frowned but nodded, patting the man’s shoulder.
“Let me know as soon as you hear something,” he instructed. “I don't care what time it is. Come and find me.”
The operator nodded and reached for his headset again as Bill turned to leave, the frown on his face growing.
He headed for the door to the stairwell a few feet away. They should’ve heard something by now, but there was nothing he could do until he received word back from Evelyn. He had to trust that she had received the telegram in time and was taking all available precautions. If not, then they very well could be on the brink of losing potentially the best agent they had so far in this Phony War.
He was jogging down the steps to the first floor when a thought occurred to him. She wasn’t alone in Stockholm. The translator was with her, the one called Anna. The thought cheered him a bit. With two of them working together, Evelyn had a greater chance of avoiding Renner. But if the mysterious Soviet agent was also in play, then things were a lot more complicated, and a lot more dangerous, than he’d at first supposed.
The frown returned to his face. In fact, this whole situation had become more complicated than it was supposed to be. If the Soviet agent had followed her to Sweden, how on earth was she going to avoid two enemy agents and get out of Stockholm?
Her first line of communication would have to be their man at the embassy, Horace Manchester. Daniel had been very clear that he had instructed her to contact him as soon as she arrived in Stockholm. Accordingly, Carew had received confirmation from Horace that she had done so. Jasper had already authorized Horace to use all available means to get her out of Sweden and back to England as soon as possible.
There was still a chance that she could make it out without any confrontations. It was a slim chance, but there was a chance.
Bill opened the door at the bottom of the stairwell and crossed the tiled hall of the embassy in Paris. Although he was now regretting giving his approval for the unscheduled trip to Stockholm, Bill couldn’t help but wonder what information Evelyn might be bringing back. Would it be worth all this worry? Or would this whole trip turn out to be a wild goose chase? There was no way of knowing until she returned with whatever information she had managed to gather. That is, if she hadn’t been forced to destroy it in her flight.
As he stepped out onto the busy Paris street, the sun was shining and Parisians were cheerfully going about their daily lives around him. Setting his hat on his head, he turned to walk down the street towards his favorite restaurant. While Paris was still eating and drinking with abandon, he was desperately trying to assemble and organize his agents before the war actually got going. And it would. They all knew that. Hitler was not about to stop now.
And when it did get started in earnest, he was going to need every available agent, including Evelyn. She had to make it back.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Gamla Stan, Stockholm
Comrade Grigori stood in the mouth of the alley, watching the building on the corner. He had followed the Englishwoman and watched her go inside, but had chosen not to follow. It was getting too risky now. She knew he was here but, so far, he'd been able to avoid her noticing that he was following her. He knew that wouldn’t last for long, though. As she’d shown in Oslo, she was very adept at watching her back.
He reached into his pocket to pull out a pack of cigarettes. It had been over twenty minutes since she entered the building and he’d now concluded that she was, in fact, meeting someone for lunch. He wished he could go in to get a glimpse of them and see if it was Lyakhov, but he couldn't. He must wait until she left. With a bit of luck, they would exit the building together and he would see who it was that had drawn her into this disreputable neighborhood
After lighting a cigarette, Grigori looked around his surroundings distastefully. The buildings quite possibly had been beautiful at one time, but now they were ancient. Time and decay had taken their toll, and the once pro
ud structures had fallen into disrepair that appeared to be beyond restoration. The best thing Stockholm could do, in his opinion, was to raze the lot and rebuild. But if the government in Sweden was anything like his own in Moscow, that would not happen. As much as Stalin liked to consider himself modern in his outlook and policies, Grigori believed he was really a traditionalist at heart. Most of the buildings in Moscow had been preserved after their great revolution, and when Stalin took power, he made no attempt to alter them.
He returned his gaze to the corner across the street. He rather hoped that it wouldn’t be Lyakhov that walked out of the door. So far he'd found no evidence of treasonous behavior. It would be a shame for that to change now. He’d always liked Vladimir Lyakhov. The man was astute in his work and unbending in his convictions, two characteristics that Grigori admired, especially in their profession.
He was on his second cigarette when the door to the building finally opened and the Englishwoman emerged. Dropping the cigarette, he put it out with his shoe as his body tensed in expectation. The door remained open after she stepped outside. Someone was coming out with her.
The man that followed her out of the tavern was not Comrade Lyakhov and Grigori stared in surprise. It was a face he hadn’t been expecting to see. In fact, it was a face that, as far as he knew, was not under suspicion yet.
He pressed his lips together and watched as the Englishwoman turned to say something to the man. He answered and held out his hand. Watching the Englishwoman shake it and turn to walk away, Grigori felt a surge of anger. There could be no doubt that Comrade Risto Niva had been meeting with the British agent.
They had found their intelligence leak.
He watched as the Englishwoman walked back the way she had come and Comrade Niva turned to walk in the opposite direction. With a final glance at the Englishwoman, Grigori stepped out of the alleyway and turned to his right. He strode to the end of the block, where Comrade Yakov lurked in the shadows.
