Raid 42

by Graham Hurley

  ‘You believe in the tides of history? Sink or swim?’

  ‘I believed I could make a difference. Tiny. Maybe even minuscule. But important, nonetheless.’

  ‘You said believed.’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Past tense.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘Now?’ She looked down at him, and then smiled. ‘The Germans are going into Crete on Monday. Expect twenty thousand parachute troops and a lot of reinforcements by the end of the week. You get that for free, by the way. This isn’t NKVD gossip. This comes from another source.’

  Moncrieff smiled.

  ‘Molotov?’

  ‘Clever man. Not him. You. How did you guess?’

  ‘I saw a photo in the Völkischer Beobachter. You and a bunch of diplomats at the Berlin Hauptbahnhof. One of them was Molotov.’

  ‘You’re right. It was. I took care of the translations. My Russian is good now. It also gets me out of the country. Another bonus.’

  ‘And your Portuguese?’

  ‘Hopeless. Very strange vowel sounds. Some of the locals sound like cats on heat.’

  Moncrieff laughed. She was right about the vowel sounds. Cats on heat, he thought. Clever.

  ‘So what are you doing here?’ he asked. ‘Who sent you? Molotov?’

  ‘An aide of his.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘We need to know a little more about Herr Hess. You’ve talked to him now?’

  ‘I have, yes.’

  ‘And is he as mad as they all say?’

  ‘He isn’t mad at all. Eccentric, yes. Crazy? No.’

  ‘That’s what Molotov thinks. He agrees with you and that will please him. He’s met Hess on a number of occasions and the word he always uses is chest’nyy.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Honest. Sincere. And maybe nepravil’nyy, too. That means misguided. Hess sees what he wants to see. The rest, he once told Molotov, is a matter of regret. Maybe you should defect. Talk nicely to Mr Molotov. Get us both a huge dacha in the country. It won’t be Seville but this time of year it might be bearable. We could have lots of kids. Little Ivans. Little Anyas. And we’d go to the ballet at least once a week because we’re guest defectors and they’ll make a fuss of us. The Crimea’s OK, as well, as long as Hitler doesn’t get that far. Winter sunshine in Yalta? Lisbon beside the Black Sea? Life could be worse.’

  ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Of course I’m not. You’d hate it, darling. May I call you that? Dorogoy? Darling?’ She kissed him softly. She wanted a hug. Her mouth was very close to his ear. ‘Are you listening, Mr Moncrieff?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘There’s a man here called Philby. He’s MI6.’

  ‘I’ve met him. He warned me off.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I paid no attention.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That might not have been wise.’

  ‘Care to tell me why?’

  ‘Because that man is different. He was never an amateur. Ever.’ She kissed him again. ‘If you remember me for anything, remember me for that.’

  19

  Merz and Wilhelm Schultz lifted off from Barcelona shortly after nine o’clock in the morning. Engineers had laid hands on spares for the plane locally and at Schultz’s insistence they’d worked through the night on a malfunction in one of the engines. Barcelona had been a Republican stronghold during the civil war and negotiations for the extra work had been tricky, but Schultz had called in a favour from a colonel in the Nationalist Army and the engineers, with ill grace, had finished the job in time for breakfast.

  Schultz was a little hung-over after an evening in a bar off the Ramblas. Over the dry bony spine of the mountains west of Madrid, he began to drink the water that Merz had stored in a bottle in the rear cockpit. Half an hour later, the bottle empty, he badly needed to piss.

  ‘That funnel thing and tube I showed you,’ Merz said. ‘Stick the other end of the tube in the bottle. Just remember to put the top back on and take it with you when we land.’

  Lisbon appeared just under an hour later, a hazy lattice of streets climbing up from the intense blue of the river. The airfield at Sintra, Merz knew, lay to the north-west of the city. He joined the circuit and radioed for permission to land. He’d filed his flight plan earlier in Barcelona but headwinds had lengthened the journey and he had to wait for an aircraft from Tangier to land first.

  Minutes later, they were on the ground. Merz brought the Me-110 to a halt beside a Brazilian Lockheed. The arrival of the fighter bomber with the swastikas on its twin-boom tail had drawn the attention of the Portuguese ground crew. Merz ignored them.

  ‘See the little guy over there? By the arrivals door? Standing where he shouldn’t?’

  Schultz was storing the water bottle in his bag. He followed Merz’s pointing finger.

  ‘Hesketh?’ he queried. ‘The Englishman?’

  ‘Ja. The last time we came here, Haushofer and me, we met him out of town, up near some castle or other. After that he was all over us. Wouldn’t leave us alone. Creepy.’

  Merz made the introductions. Wilhelm Schultz, he said. From Berlin.

  ‘Herr Schultz,’ Hesketh offered a tiny bow. ‘I have a car waiting. And a hotel booked. A pity about the headwinds but Lisbon is always worth the wait.’

  Merz explained about the overnight repair job. In Schultz’s opinion, he said, the Catalans were idle bastards who’d deserved to get their arses kicked in the civil war but they’d done a fine job on the engine. Not once had it missed a beat.

  At the sight of the grey-green German passports, the immigration officer in the terminal building waved them through. Out in the sunshine Hesketh led the way to a black Mercedes. The figure at the wheel was Portuguese. Merz and Schultz sat in the back. Schultz had his bag on his lap.

  ‘Moncrieff?’ he enquired.

  ‘We’ll be meeting him this evening. At your hotel.’

  ‘Who says?’

  ‘He does. In fact we both do. For most of the day he has other engagements.’

  ‘You’re in touch with him?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Then tell him three o’clock.’ He checked his watch. ‘Make that two o’clock. I don’t care where. Just make it happen.’

  Hesketh looked briefly shocked.

  ‘Of course, Herr. Schultz,’ he said.

  Merz looked away to hide a smile. They were in a queue of traffic leaving the airport behind a horse and cart laden with baggage. Something had caught Schultz’s attention but Merz didn’t know what. He kept twisting round in his seat, looking at the car behind.

  At the main road, the horse and cart pulled over to let the rest of the traffic pass. The city lay ahead, half hidden by haze. It was hot by now, gone midday, and Merz wound down the window to get some air.

  Schultz wanted to know how far it was to the hotel.

  ‘Fifteen minutes,’ Hesketh said. ‘No time at all. They do a fine fish stew. The locals call it cataplana de marisco. You like seafood, Herr. Schultz?’

  ‘Tell the driver to turn left.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Just there. Where the woman’s crossing the road.’

  Hesketh spoke to the driver. Merz braced himself for the turn, aware of the woman running for her life, her shopping all over the potholed tarmac. The road here was narrow, flanked by tall houses.

  ‘Faster,’ Schultz ordered. ‘Go faster.’

  The driver put his foot down. A blind bend lay ahead. Anything coming the other way, Merz thought, and they’d be in serious Scheisse. Mercifully, once round the bend, the road was clear. Another turn into another street, thirty metres ahead.

  ‘On the right,’ Schultz said. ‘Take it.’

  The driver did his bidding. Watching his face in the mirror, Merz sensed he was enjoying this. The street here was the width of a single vehicle. At this time of day, most of the city had sought the shelter of their hous
es and the place seemed deserted. Then Merz caught sight of a woman at an open window about twenty metres away. She was up on the first floor, leaning out, watching them. She must have heard the squeal of tyres, he thought. And she badly wanted to know what might happen next.

  ‘Stop,’ Schultz said.

  The big car juddered to a halt. Schultz had kicked the door open and was running back down the street. Behind them was another car, maybe ten metres away. It was Italian, a Fiat. It had come to a halt. Merz was out of the car. He had time to register the face of the man behind the wheel before Schultz wrenched his door open and dragged him out, wrestling him onto the pavement. The driver was wearing a light cotton shirt and a pair of loose-fitting trousers. He tried to cover his head as Schultz began to kick him, heavy blows to his ribs and his belly. Then Schultz was down on the pavement beside him, a gun in one hand. By now he’d established the man spoke no German, no English, only Portuguese.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Merz asked.

  Schultz looked up.

  ‘Get the Englishman,’ he said. ‘And bring that fucking bottle.’

  Merz stared at him a moment longer, then did his bidding. Hesketh was already out of the car, trying to explain to the woman in the upstairs window that everything was fine. They were making a movie. It was all fantasy.

  Merz took him by the arm but then remembered the bottle. When he unstrapped Schultz’s leather bag it was lying on top of a carefully folded shirt.

  ‘What’s that?’ Hesketh was staring at it.

  ‘Don’t ask.’

  They ran to the car behind. Schultz had the man by the throat now and was squeezing hard. His pale face had darkened.

  ‘Ask him why he was following us,’ Schultz looked up.

  Hesketh translated. The driver was beginning to choke. Schultz released his hold.

  ‘Again,’ he said. ‘Ask him again.’

  Hesketh tried a second time and the driver muttered something that Merz didn’t catch.

  ‘He said he had orders,’ Hesketh told Schultz.

  ‘Whose orders?’

  ‘He won’t say.’

  ‘Give me the bottle.’

  Merz passed it down. The driver stared at it. He thinks it’s petrol, Merz told himself. He thinks this madman is going to set him alight.

  Schultz gave the gun to Merz and unstoppered the bottle. Then he forced the man’s mouth open and began to pour. The driver coughed, coughed again, trying to turn his head away.

  ‘Whose orders?’ Schultz repeated. ‘Who sent him to the airfield?’

  Hesketh again, trying to be the man’s friend, trying to imply that all he had to do was answer the question and then the madness would be over. It didn’t work. All the man wanted to do was get rid of the taste in his mouth. He spat towards the gutter, muttered what sounded like an oath.

  Then came footsteps down the street, someone running, and suddenly the woman was among them. She was carrying a cudgel of some kind. She started on Schultz, wild flailing blows that he warded off with ease. Other doors were opening down the street, more faces at more windows. Schultz knew it was time to go. He got to his feet and gave the woman a shove. Then he emptied the rest of the bottle over the driver’s face before tossing it away.

  ‘The gun,’ he gestured at Merz.

  Merz gave him the gun. Schultz walked to the Fiat and put three bullets into the front tyre on the driver’s side and a fourth through the windscreen. Doors closed again along the street. Faces at windows disappeared. The woman began to scream.

  ‘Enough,’ Schultz grunted.

  *

  Moncrieff was in Bella’s room when he heard the knock at the door. It was Hesketh. For once there was no foreplay. Schultz had arrived earlier than expected. There’d been an incident on the way in from the airfield. Hesketh’s careful plans for a get-together in the evening had been abandoned. Schultz wanted a meeting now.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘At his hotel. The Gran Castelo. It’s ten minutes away.’

  ‘He’s staying the night?’

  ‘I doubt it. I sense they want to get back to Berlin.’

  ‘They?’

  ‘Schultz. And a pilot called Merz.’

  ‘Dieter Merz?’

  ‘Yes.’ Hesketh looked surprised. ‘You know him?’

  Moncrieff didn’t answer. Bella was in the bath. He put his head round the door and told her he’d be back later.

  She began to ask him where he was going and why but already he was backing out of the bathroom.

  ‘Zeit um zu gehen,’ he said to Hesketh. Time to leave.

  At the Gran Castelo Hotel, Schultz and Dieter Merz had made their way to the room that Hesketh had reserved. Merz was sprawled on the bed, his eyes closed. Schultz was standing beside the window. Through the half-open shutters, from here on the third floor, he had a good view of the street. A heavy automatic, Moncrieff noticed, lay on the windowsill.

  ‘Der Kleine…’

  Merz roused himself to accept Moncrieff’s handshake. Moncrieff perched his long frame on the edge of the bed.

  ‘A good war?’ he enquired. ‘So far?’

  ‘The best. But only the English fight back.’

  ‘And Messner? He’s well?’

  ‘He’s better.’ Merz yawned and pinched the corners of his eyes. ‘He had an accident in Berlin and another over London. One was his fault, the other wasn’t. He got four months in hospital for the first and a big fat medal for the second.’ He shrugged. ‘Such is war. What else should a man expect? You know Wilhelm?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Party time?’

  ‘I doubt it.’

  Schultz stepped back from the window and told Hesketh to leave the room. With some reluctance, Hesketh did his bidding. Schultz waited several seconds and then opened the door and checked the corridor. Hesketh had gone.

  ‘Wilhelm thinks he’s in a movie,’ Merz said. ‘That little shit of an Englishman was right for once.’

  ‘So what happened?’ Moncrieff was looking at Schultz.

  Schultz shook his head. Someone put a tail on them, he said. Mistake number one? The driver followed his orders to the letter. Mistake number two? Schultz produced an envelope from the inside pocket of his leather jacket. He weighed it in his big hands for a moment or two, the way an angler might present a fish he’d just caught, and then gave it to Moncrieff.

  ‘With the Fat Man’s compliments,’ he grunted. ‘Take great care, my friend.’

  ‘Here, you mean?’

  ‘Yes,’ he nodded at the letter. ‘The Fat One’s threatened to have me shot if I take a look at what’s inside, but he needn’t have bothered.’

  ‘You know already?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Read it. And get the fuck out of this city.’

  ‘I can’t. Not until tomorrow.’

  ‘Then find somewhere nice and warm. Somewhere safe. Get yourself a woman. Anything. But don’t drink too much. There’s an Abwehr friend of mine at the German Embassy. You’ll find it near the park, the Campo dos Mártires. His name’s Wolfgang Spiegelhalte. You can remember that? If you get in the shit he’ll help you. And take this…’ he rummaged in his bag and produced three clips of ammunition, ‘… and this.’ He picked up the automatic and gave it to Moncrieff.

  Moncrieff weighed it in his hand. All he could think of was Bella, alone, at the hotel. He swallowed hard. She’d be the easiest of targets. Shit, shit, shit.

  He glanced up. Schultz was watching him carefully.

  ‘It’s that bad?’ Moncrieff nodded down at the gun.

  ‘Worse, my friend. Just watch your back.’

  *

  At Bella’s hotel the door was locked and when Moncrieff knocked and then called her name there was no answer. Moncrieff returned to reception. The woman behind the desk said that Senhorita Menzies had left only minutes ago.

  ‘Alone?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Think so?’


  ‘I didn’t see anyone else, Senhor.’

  Moncrieff could see the key to her room in one of the pigeon holes that flanked the desk. When he asked for it, the woman frowned and consulted the register.

  ‘According to our records, Senhor, the room is in the name of Senhorita Menzies.’

  ‘And me.’

  ‘And you are?’

  The hotel’s manager emerged from an office behind the desk. He was very happy to resolve this issue. He gave the key to Moncrieff and apologised for the confusion.

  Upstairs, Moncrieff let himself in. The room was exactly the way he’d left it: the bed unmade, Bella’s suitcase still open on the carpet, the scent she wore still lingering in the airless warmth. Moncrieff opened the window, peered out. Across the street, a shoeshine boy was haggling with a suited man over money. The man in the suit finally gave him a couple of extra coins. The youth looked at them, then tossed them away and spat on the man’s shoes. Lisbon, Moncrieff thought, where there’s always a better deal to be struck.

  He stepped back into the room and searched quickly in case Bella had left a message. In the bathroom, scrawled on the mirror over the hand basin, was a single word: Sevilla? Her work, he assumed, and the question both of them still had to answer. Was last night simply the chance for two former lovers to enjoy each other one final time? Or was it a down payment on something else? He stared at the mirror. At the smear of soap on the glass. And at the face that looked back at him. Old, he told himself. I feel old, and a little weary, and it’s beginning to show.

  Back in the bedroom, he settled down to await Bella’s return and fetched out the envelope Schultz had given him earlier. It was thicker than he’d expected and the moment he opened it he understood why. There were two copies of the letter, the original in German and a translation in English. He flicked quickly to the last page of the English version, looking for a signature, some clue about the real weight this document might carry, but all he found was a scrawl in black ink with the name Rudolf Hess typed beneath.

  A disappointment? At first sight, yes, but the longer Moncrieff thought about it, the more the seeming authorship made sense. He’d yet to read all thirteen pages but if they proved as controversial as he expected, then Hess’s signature at the end would be extremely prudent. This way, if the delivery plan failed for any reason, then it should be child’s play for Hitler or any of his senior lieutenants to deny all knowledge of either the flight or whatever might follow. Mad, they’d say. A man with the best of intentions but sadly insane.