by Jana Petken
Dieter nodded. “I suppose you’re right. Mother will be a lot happier in Scotland with Hannah and little Jack.”
“Of course, she will. She’ll have her grandson to spoil, a place where she can take long walks, and you know how much she loves hiking the moors. She’ll get plenty of fresh air up there, and she’ll mother Hannah and Frank to death.”
“Hannah was over the moon. Having her mother’s company when Frank is at work all day will be good for her as well. She was especially glad of the promise of help with the baby. Did I tell you I’ve sent Judith Weber up there to stay with Hannah? She’s a nice girl, been through hell.”
Max was surprised. “No. Mother never said a word about that.”
“You’ll like her when you meet her, Son. She’s a courageous young woman, full of fire.”
The conversation about Judith stopped there, but Dieter continued to talk about Laura until they reached Oxford Street. There, Dieter hugged Max in a rare public display of affection. “I’m sorry about all the lies, Max. I hope you’ll forgive me one day. I love you, Son. I never meant to hurt you.”
******
Max waited alone in his boss’s office. Major Blackthorn, the head of the French F-Section at the SOE, had placed a call to Hannah’s house the previous night after he’d found out from Heller that Max was planning to stay with his sister and parents for a few days to recover from the injury he’d sustained in France. During the conversation, Blackthorn had offered to let Max return to Baker Street to hear Klara’s testimony regarding Paul’s alleged abduction. The brief conversation had been infuriatingly ambiguous. Blackthorn refused to give any details other than Klara’s admission that she’d played a part in Paul’s death. That, and her request for Max to be present at her debriefing, was all Blackthorn would say. It was going to be a hell of a day with more revelations to add to the previous day’s shocks which had left his family reeling.
It was still hard for Max to believe that his father, the Nazi, was also Big Bear, the head of Berlin’s British spy ring. Max had been shut in the living room with his father until the early hours of the morning, long after the women had gone to bed. It had been an eye-opening experience, one in which Dieter had been completely honest, no omissions regarding his life as a British agent in Germany. He had spoken about why he’d joined MI6 and, subsequently, his numerous meetings with Herr Brandt in a dingy working men’s beerhall. Max had found the apparent friendship between the two men particularly interesting. He had tried but failed to picture the brash, downtrodden Brandt drinking a pitcher of beer with the autocratic, wealthy Dieter Vogel, the industrialist. It didn’t make sense to him, yet Dieter was clearly fond of old Ernst.
The previous night, the family had eaten dinner together, and during coffee, Dieter had spoken about the explosions in his factory. He’d deliberately left out the part where he’d killed three SS guards in the basement, and that Kurt had been his sidekick.
After the women had retired, he’d remarked that Mother and Hannah didn’t need to know that the soldiers had died at his hands. “Your mother now knows she is married to a spy, and she has accepted that. But being the wife of a murderer would be a hard pill for any woman to swallow. She won’t hear about any ugly business from me or you, Max. I hope you agree?”
His mother was an inquisitive woman by nature, Max thought now, but strangely, she hadn’t quizzed her husband further after Hannah had questioned him about who he’d been working with in Berlin. He’d been quick to tell her he’d operated entirely alone for years, and to his knowledge there were no other British secret agents in Germany. That might have been believable, had his mother not told Hannah that Kurt had been injured in the factory bomb blast. He’d been an innocent casualty in the wrong place at the wrong time, she’d asserted. She had then assured Hannah and Max that Kurt had been ignorant of Papa’s antics, as she called them.
Max surmised that neither Hannah nor his mother wanted to know about the nitty-gritty details of Dieter’s job, or who was involved with him. Women were not built to hear about the dirty, backstabbing world of espionage; yet, he had come across exceptional operatives like Klara in almost every country he’d been to. Those female spies seemed to thrive on danger and were extremely talented at subterfuge.
Pulled from his thoughts, he jumped to his feet as Major Blackthorn strode in. “Thank you for this, Major. Is it time?”
“Not yet. I want to have a word with you before you see her,” said Blackthorn, sitting at his desk and motioning Max to be seated. “I know you, Max, you’re wound up like a ticking time bomb. I need you to be calm when you go in there. Can you promise me you won’t lose your head?”
“I’ve been sitting here for almost an hour twiddling my thumbs, Bernie. I am calm, but I want answers, and if you understand me as well as you say you do, you know I’ll do whatever is necessary to get them.”
Blackthorn’s eyes narrowed. “How did your meeting go with your father yesterday?”
Max returned Blackthorn’s gaze. “You know about that? What have you heard about him?”
“I know he blew up his factory, killing three SS soldiers. I also know he faked his own death and is now having to take on a new identity. He’s one of us, Max, a brave man who has lost his position and country by going into voluntary exile. I heard you were less than generous to him when you found him at your sister’s house.”
Max snorted. “What is this? Are you and Heller discussing my personal relationships now? Christ, is nothing sacred?”
“Heller is concerned about you and so am I. Dieter Vogel is a fellow agent who is supposedly deceased. If the Germans get a whiff of him being alive, it’ll be all over for your young brother in the Wehrmacht. So, to be clear, Max, your father’s situation is not a personal matter at all. Did your dad tell you yesterday that he has to disappear?”
Max frowned. “No?”
“Well, he does. I hope you parted on good terms with him, because you won’t be seeing him again for a while.”
The memory of his father’s embrace in the street left Max feeling numb. That moment of warmth between them had been his papa’s goodbye, and he had shrugged him off. He was struck by another thought as his mind wound back to the previous night. Papa had seemingly fought against his mother’s wish to go to Scotland, but on deeper reflection, he’d introduced the idea to her. “Scottish air will do you good, Hannah. I’m sure your mother would love to be in your shoes.” His father, crafty to the end, had planned mother’s trip long before the conversation had taken place; he had manipulated her to perfection.
Furious with his father, he blurted out, “You seem to know everything about my father, but did you know that he produced gas that killed children and babies.”
“I know…”
“Doesn’t that concern you at all? Or was that just part of his job description?”
Blackthorn lit a cigarette, blew out the smoke and then threw the matchstick into the ashtray. “I’ll let that go, Max. You’re upset and angry, but don’t overstep the mark with me. We might hold the same rank, but I am your superior officer in this section and I won’t tolerate your disrespect, regardless of how highly I value you as an SOE agent.” He leant across the desk and added, “Pull yourself together, or I’m not letting you anywhere near Marine.”
Max’s thoughts were careering between yet another of his father’s manipulations and Paul’s fate, and he was impatient to get the meeting with Klara over with. And he wished they’d stop calling her Marine. She wasn’t in France anymore!
“Look, you sent me home on leave, Bernie. Now I’m here at your request, so let’s cut the bullshit about my father and take me to Klara. You can lecture me on my attitude after we’re done with her.”
An uncomfortable silence ensued while Blackthorn made a telephone call. “Is she ready? Right, we’re on our way.” Then he stood. “You’ll leave the questioning to me, Major Vogel. You’re only here to observe, and I will throw you out of there if you stall the interview. Is
that clear?”
Max nodded. “Understood – sir.”
Klara was seated at a desk, head down in the debriefing room, writing something on a piece of paper. Opposite her sat Captain Morris, the officer who had conducted her debriefing the previous day. When Max and Blackthorn arrived, he stood to attention and saluted. “Agent Marine is ready for you, Majors.”
Blackthorn parked himself next to Morris, but Max, warned to hang back, leant against the wall behind Blackthorn and watched the woman he had once loved scribbling on the page. She was afraid or unwilling to look up from her task, and he, who knew her better than anyone, felt her shame. He hated her for it.
Max, who had been stunned at news of her involvement in Paul’s death, didn’t know whether to pity, love, or despise her. He wanted to throttle the life out of her, that was clear, but violence was his temper talking, not his feelings.
Her face was obscured by a curtain of golden hair until she finally raised her head and tucked it behind her ears. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she wrote, misery in her eyes when they finally settled on Max’s face. He glared at her, shocked at the contempt he felt, disappointment filling the void of loss. He didn’t give a damn how hard this was for her, how forlorn she looked or how she felt; she’d be feeling a lot worse when he’d finished with her.
Blackthorn had informed Max on their walk to the interview room that Klara was still going to Scotland for SOE commando training. The needs of the country outweighed any personal feelings Max might harbour. She’d been reckless, had mishandled a situation that had led to tragic consequences, but, he’d added, inexperienced agents and those who had still to receive formal training often made errors in judgement, and most new spies could be redeemed. With those fatuous apologies, Max was supposed to come to terms with Paul’s death and her part in it. But he hadn’t, and he never would.
Klara handed the sheet of paper back to Captain Morris, then offered a weak smile to Blackthorn. “Major, thank you for letting me tell you and Major Vogel what happened in France.”
Max frowned when he realised she now knew his name and rank. He’d been braced for her to look broken, vulnerable, and ashamed when he’d walked in there, but he was indifferent to her inner struggles. He only cared about his own.
Chapter Two
Klara Gabula
“Marine, start from the beginning, please. And for Major Vogel’s sake, don’t leave anything out,” said Bernie Blackthorn.
Klara glanced at Max, saw disgust in his familiar turquoise eyes, and turned her head from his callous glare. It was too late to turn the clock back, to undo what she’d done. Much too late to say she was sorry or to tell him that she loved him. If she could, she’d stop the clock at the exact moment she had entered the Hotel Lutetia’s lobby on the night she’d abducted Paul, and start it again when she had got into the back of the van where Max had been waiting for her. She had rejoiced in his love on that day. She had melted into a gooey mess of adoration in his arms in what had been a beautiful moment until they’d pulled away from each other and she’d seen Paul in Max’s eyes. She looked again at the three men in the room. They already hated her, but she had yet to relate the full story.
“I met a man. He was a communist by the name of Florent Duguay,” she began. “A Pole called Darek told me that the Duguay’s communists had collaborated on occasion with Romek, my estranged husband, so I contacted the Frenchman hoping he could help me mount an operation to rescue Romek and his Resistance fighters. They were being held in Fresnes Prison, just south of Paris, and I suspected they were facing torture and execution. I was desperate – the horrors they were facing...”
“Who did this Duguay work for?” Blackthorn snapped.
“No one, at least not for any of the allied military or intelligence branches. He conducted unilateral operations: decoupling train tracks, setting explosives, hitting weapons convoys, ambushing soldiers. He had at least a hundred men and women under his command, mostly communists, and he was obsessed with the idea of targeting individual German officers and planning assassinations.”
She gulped as she glanced at Max’s cold eyes, her own sorrow having no effect on him. “I was stupid enough to get involved with Duguay without knowing what I might be getting into. At the time, I didn’t foresee what he was going to ask me to do for him … make me do. I was … I was vulnerable.”
She threw daggers at Max. “Major Vogel hadn’t made contact for weeks and I had no idea who to turn to for help. I was abandoned and alone, and I was afraid of being captured…”
“Did you come to fear this Duguay fellow before or after you met with Romek at the Partisans’ base?” Blackthorn interrupted again, without an ounce of sympathy in his voice.
“Afterwards. As soon as Romek left, I found Duguay while his men were interrogating one of Romek’s fighters. His name was Oscar, an agent that Major Vogel and Romek had recruited over a year earlier. He was the traitor who brought down Romek’s Resistance group, and Duguay thought I should … well … he ordered me to kill Oscar. And I did with one shot to his head. It was all very quick.” She heard Max gasp.
“Go on, Marine,” Blackthorn said, shooting a warning glance at Max.
Klara took a sip of water, then cleared her throat. “Duguay asked for the names of high-ranking Germans that I came across at functions. He wanted to know their routines, where they were staying, how many men were guarding them, and where they were going when they left Paris. Most of those important commanders went through Paris on their way to somewhere else, you see.
“A few days later I attended a birthday party at the Hotel Lutetia. I was taking photographs of the German officers and saw Major Vogel at one of the tables … well, I thought it was him. When I got the opportunity, I followed him into the foyer and passed him a note asking him to meet me in a street behind the hotel when the party was over.”
“You wrote in your report that he didn’t recognise you despite your best efforts to get his attention. Didn’t you think that was strange at the time?” Blackthorn asked.
“Of course, I did. He stared right through me as if he’d never seen me before in his life, and as the night wore on I presumed he was undercover on a mission and I didn’t want to blow it for him. But when he did meet me behind the Lutetia and still didn’t acknowledge me, I used one of Duguay’s men to help me get him into the back of a Post Office van to find out what he was playing at…”
“Into the back of a Post Office van? Without getting answers first?” said Blackthorn, raising a disapproving eyebrow.
“Yes,” Klara retorted. “I thought it was the only way to get him to talk to me. You weren’t there. The streets were full of Germans.” She pointed to Max. “I believed I was talking to him!”
“I understand. Go on.”
“I took him to Duguay’s base. My plan was to introduce him to the Partisans with the view to getting MI6’s help to supply Duguay with weapons. I also wanted to know why Major Vogel was in Paris…”
“Didn’t you think to ask him why he was pretending not to know you, or what he was doing in France dressed in a German officer’s uniform before you took him to Duguay?”
Klara’s bottom lip trembled at Blackthorn’s harsh words. They made all the sense in the world … now. “I should have, but he was unconscious when we got him off the street. Claude, the man who accompanied me that night, hit him hard on the head. I suppose I just wanted to get him out of the city as quickly as possible.”
She looked again at Blackthorn and found not a modicum of empathy. “Why are you sitting here judging me when you weren’t there? You must understand, at that point I was worried Major Vogel might be a German double agent. I even suspected that he had recruited Oscar to spy on Romek. I thought my head was next for the chopping block.”
She paused to settle her nerves. Max was still scowling at her, despite her valiant effort to tell the whole truth. He’d judged her guilty before walking into the room. He hadn’t an ounce of understanding in him. �
��Major Vogel, you trained me to destroy the enemy before it destroyed me. You told me to trust my instincts, and that was what I was trying to do at the time with the information I had. You should take some of the blame for your brother’s death. You lied to me. You are not an only child with British parents who work in a factory in England. You’re German, and if I was blinded to the truth about your brother, Paul, it was because you didn’t trust me enough to be sincere about who you really are!”
Klara choked on a sob, unable to continue. Max gulped back his tears, probably knowing what was to come next. She was angry with him, but she also wanted to get on her knees and beg his forgiveness. She did blame him in part, but only because her guilt needed company. In truth, she had taken every stupid step to get to this situation all on her own. She, and she alone, was responsible.
“What happened to my brother when you got him to this Duguay?” Max asked, breaking the silence.
“Please … I need a minute,” Klara pleaded.
“No! You’ve had days … weeks. Answer the damn question!”
“That’s enough, Major Vogel,” Blackthorn snapped.
Klara slumped forward, her elbows on the desk, pulling her hair by the roots as if the physical pain would lessen her anguish. “You don’t understand how hard it was.”
She took a deep breath and then backtracked to Darek’s involvement with Romek and Duguay before moving on to the moment she saw Paul awake in Duguay’s basement. “… he was Major Vogel to me in every way … his gestures, his eyes pleading with me were yours, Max. Yet even as I threatened him with interrogation at Duguay’s hands, he gave nothing away, so I concluded he had to be an enemy spy.”
She finished the water in her glass. “When I removed his gag, he said, ‘My name is Paul Vogel. I am a Wehrmacht doctor…’” Klara’s words hung in the air. Her eyes drifted from Max’s face to stare unseeingly at the wall behind him. She had relived those final moments with Paul in the basement many times, but the images had never been as clear as they were right now. When Paul had spoken to her, she’d heard a stranger’s voice in a cold, unfamiliar tone. She’d seen terror in his eyes instead of Max’s loving gaze. “… it was in that moment, I realised my terrible mistake.”
