by Glenn Meade
“Instinct. Nightingale was undoubtedly the most brilliant agent the Germans had. Catching her in the act proved impossible. She was far too clever. So in the end, instincts were all we had to go by.”
Sanson said, “Well, Weaver?”
“I don’t buy it. You can’t condemn someone on instinct alone. You need hard facts.”
Arkhan offered across the second file. “Perhaps we didn’t have irrefutable evidence, as you say. But instinct is often the best attribute an intelligence officer can possess. We kept a dossier that detailed the lady’s meetings and the places she went. Perhaps you’d care to read it for yourself? It might help you understand our suspicions.”
Weaver ignored the file. “I don’t need to. You know as well as I do even the best-intentioned intelligence report can lead to false conclusions. Didn’t you ever have an intuition about something that was wrong?”
“Of course, but—”
“But nothing. This time you got it wrong. You even got it wrong about me.”
“Pardon?”
“I was born in Boston, not New York.”
Arkhan shrugged. “A small matter.” He said delicately, “There was a certain romantic attachment between you and the young lady, was there not?”
“What’s that got to do with it?”
“As we say in Egypt, a man in love can mistake a wart for a dimple. Passion can make us blind to the truth.”
Weaver ignored the remark. Sanson nodded to Arkhan. “Thanks, Yosef. You can go now.”
The captain replaced the files in his briefcase, tucked it under his arm, and bowed politely. “Good day, gentlemen. It’s been a pleasure meeting you, Lieutenant Colonel Weaver.”
• • •
When the Egyptian had left, Sanson looked over at Weaver. “Arkhan’s a good policeman. Whenever I’ve had to put my faith in his judgment, I’ve rarely been disappointed. Like when he came to me about Evir’s murder. He has a sixth sense about these things, one that’s seldom been proven wrong. He knew something didn’t smell right, and he was spot on. But you don’t believe him, do you?”
“No, I don’t.”
Sanson sighed, made a steeple of his fingers. “The desert searches turned up a bit of good luck. I got a phone call from Myers just before you arrived. His men have picked up a man named Achmed Farnad, a German agent who runs a small hotel at a place called Abu Sammar, about twenty miles from Alex. He was shot and seriously wounded during the arrest, but he’s still conscious, and they managed to get him to talk a little. It seems he was the link man Berlin arranged to meet their team. The plan was that they would rendezvous at a nearby deserted airfield, and Farnad would send them on their way to Cairo. They never made the rendezvous, but some hours after the crash they arrived at his hotel in the Jeep they stole from the murdered officers. Five people—the pilot, three men and a woman. The way Farnad is telling it, Halder is in charge. The pilot was badly injured in the crash, and later died. Which leaves four, as we suspected.”
“When can we interrogate him?”
“It’s imperative that he’s thoroughly questioned, of course, but that’s my business, Weaver. Though I don’t know how much more he can tell us—he’s probably got no idea what the Germans are really up to. But from here on, this has nothing more to do with you.”
“What do you mean?”
Sanson said firmly, “It’s my duty to inform you that you’re no longer on the case. I can’t put my trust in a man whose judgment I think is suspect.”
“You can’t do that, Sanson, damn you!”
“I already have, and with General Clayton’s full consent. In fact, he wanted to dismiss you at our meeting this afternoon. I asked that you be given one more chance. Once you’d considered the evidence, I thought you might have changed your mind. But you’ve been pig-headed and ignored my professional judgment in this matter. If you’d accepted it, I might have allowed you to remain on the case. But to be truthful, I’m not sure I can rely on you to carry out your duties effectively and with proper vigor, Weaver.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I told you when this began I needed an officer who was prepared to do his duty and follow orders—to kill the enemy if necessary. I’m not at all certain you’d be prepared to do that in this instance. You and your friends are on opposite sides of the fence, but it’s obvious this friendship of yours ran very deep. And there just might be a conflict between your loyalty to your friends and your duty to your country. You might even be tempted to allow them to escape, rather than have them face military justice. And I can’t have that.”
Weaver fumed. “You’re totally ignoring the real issue here, Sanson. There’s no hard evidence Rachel Stern is a spy. Only hearsay and guesswork. You’d be killing an innocent woman.”
“That’s a matter of opinion. Arkhan’s accusation is enough for me. Not that it really matters. These friends of yours are condemned anyway. But I wanted to give you the benefit of Arkhan’s information.” Sanson stood and picked up his cap, the meeting at an end. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got to attend to Farnad’s interrogation. Good day, Weaver.”
Weaver pushed back his chair angrily. “You can’t just dump me like that.”
“The decision’s made.”
“Listen to me, Sanson—”
“I said good day.”
“Then just do me one favor,” Weaver pleaded. “If you find Halder and Rachel Stern, at least let me attempt to talk to them before any shooting starts—let me try to convince them to surrender.”
“You see? My point’s proven. You still want to try and save their necks. But if you think I’m going to risk the lives of my men by pussyfooting around and asking these friends of yours to surrender, you’ve got another think coming. Forget it, Weaver. I won’t do that.”
56
* * *
6:00 P.M.
Halder kept his speed down as he drove the motorcycle, Rachel holding on to him in the pillion seat. The moonlit track was dark and bumpy, full of ruts and potholes, and he wore sand goggles to protect his eyes from the gritty desert air. Half an hour after leaving the villa they came to the outskirts of the busy little village of Nazlat as-Saman, at the foot of the majestic Sphinx.
“Well, we made it.” Halder pulled off the goggles. “Now let’s find the others.”
The village was a rabbit warren of boisterous narrow streets, carnival stalls everywhere, fire-eaters and snake-charmers giving displays, and they realized there was some kind of local festival in progress. Near the end of the main street a dirt road led up past the Sphinx, and on a rise behind it loomed the site of the Giza pyramids, a magnificent backdrop against the moonlit night sky.
As Halder inched the BSA through the noisy, good-humored crowd, he saw two groups of American military police up ahead, stopping civilians and off-duty soldiers, checking papers.
“There’s no end to it, is there?” he said over his shoulder to Rachel. “Still, there’s no point in inviting trouble.”
“You think it’s us they’re looking for?”
Halder shrugged. “It could be just routine, but somehow I doubt it. I’m sure Harry and his pals are tearing Cairo apart.”
He turned down an alley, hoping to skirt around the MPs, but realized they were in a dead end. When he looked back down the alley, he saw another group of MPs stroll past on the street.
“It gets worse. We better keep our faces out of the way until they’ve gone.”
“What about meeting the others?”
“They’ll just have to wait.” He told Rachel to dismount, then propped the motorcycle on its stand. There was an open doorway opposite, the hallway lit by an oil lamp. “Let’s see if there’s a way out of this dead end, just in case.” He saw a beaded curtain at the end of the hallway, pushed his way through, and Rachel followed.
They were in a tiny candlelit room that smelled powerfully of incense. A young girl wearing a cotton wrap and loop earrings sat behind a rickety table, flicking th
rough a tattered magazine, as if to pass the time. She smiled up at them. “You have come to consult with Khalil, the oracle?”
Halder realized the girl thought they had come to have their fortunes read, but he didn’t miss a beat. “Indeed we have.”
“This way.”
The girl led them through another beaded curtain, as Rachel whispered to Halder, “What are you doing?”
“It’ll keep us out of harm’s way for a while. Besides, maybe we could do with a glimpse of what lies in store.”
“You don’t really believe in all that hocus-pocus nonsense?”
Halder laughed. “Oh, I don’t know. There might be something in it. The pharaohs put a lot of faith in their mystics, remember?”
They were in another small candlelit room. A bassara, an Egyptian fortune-teller, sat cross-legged on a carpet—an old man with wrinkled skin the color of walnut. One of his eyes was milky white, the blind pupil staring into nothing. In front of him was a brass tray with some tiny cups, a coffee pot heating on a tiny charcoal brazier nearby.
“A couple to see you, Grandfather.”
The girl left and the old man said, “So, you have come to consult with Khalil. Be seated.”
They sat cross-legged on the floor. “Is it just the young lady, or you also, effendi?”
“Both of us, I think.” Halder smiled as he turned to Rachel. “I’ll go first, if you like. Seeing as how you’re a disbeliever.” He nodded to the old man. “Let’s hear what the future holds, my friend.”
The man poured thick Turkish coffee into one of the cups and handed it over. “Drink, effendi.”
Halder swallowed the treacly black liquid and returned the cup. The fortune-teller rolled it between his palms and stared into the grounds at the bottom. “The effendi has come from a far country, but he is no stranger to this land. I see pain and trouble in his past, and more lies ahead. There is an opportunity to redeem himself, if he does not give in to evil. There is also a woman he desires very much, but he will be forced to choose between desire and duty.”
Halder turned to Rachel with a smile. “What can I say to all that?”
“Something else,” the old man went on solemnly. “Someone the gentleman loved has recently passed away.” He hesitated, a cloud crossed his face, and he shook his head.
“That is all I see.”
“Nothing more?”
“I am sorry.”
Halder said to Rachel, “Now it’s your turn.”
“I’d rather not, Jack. It’s stupid.”
“Humor him.”
The man said to Rachel, “Khalil doesn’t lie. His gift comes from the mystic power of the pyramids. The future is there, if you wish to know it. Hold out your hand, dear lady.”
Rachel held it out to the man. He filled another cup, placed it in her hand, and she drank the coffee. She returned the empty cup to Khalil, who studied the grounds, but his face clouded again, and he put it down. “I’m afraid Khalil can see nothing in the lady’s future that she doesn’t already know.”
Rachel was silent for a moment, then she shrugged and looked at Halder. “See, I told you. It’s all nonsense, anyway.”
The man stared across at Halder, who placed a handful of coins on the table. “Let’s get out of here.”
He led Rachel out past the girl, into the hall, and lit a cigarette. “You don’t seem too comfortable. Did he upset you?”
“I never believed in fortune-tellers. It’s gibberish.”
“You’re still not impressed, are you? But one or two things he said had a ring of truth.”
“You think he meant about your father’s death, don’t you?”
Halder’s face darkened and he shivered. “Maybe, but the feeling it gave me when he mentioned a death was quite uncanny. Like someone walking over my grave. I had this vision, not of my father, but of Pauli—”
There was a morbid look on his face, a terrible unease, and Rachel put a reassuring hand on his arm. “Jack, don’t be silly. You’re reading something into nothing.”
He did his best to shrug off the feeling of dread. “Maybe you’re right. You’d better wait here.”
He went down the alley and peered into the street, then came back. “It looks all clear, so let’s give it a try. Deacon and Kleist must be wondering what’s happened to us.” He retrieved the motorcycle, climbed on, helped Rachel onto the back, and started the engine.
• • •
Five minutes later he had cut around the village and was on a gravel road, halfway up to the pyramids. Deacon’s car was parked off the road, Kleist in the passenger seat, and he drove up beside them. He and Rachel dismounted.
Deacon stepped out, frowning, wiping his forehead with a handkerchief. “What the devil kept you?”
Halder nodded back towards the village. “A small problem of some military police we had to avoid. Did you have any trouble getting here?”
“There were a couple of army checkpoints on the way. But fortunately your friend’s papers passed the test.”
Kleist said, “Are you ready, Major?”
Halder nodded. “I’ll leave the motorcycle here and we’ll go on together.”
He wheeled the machine off the road, left it hidden behind some rocks, and climbed into the back of the car with Rachel. The massive Cheops pyramid lay ahead as they drove on up the hill, and there was a jumble of boulders on the right-hand side of the road, the tumbling ruins of several tombs. They saw a red-and-white barrier pole blocking their way, a wooden sentry box beside it, and a shabbily dressed Egyptian policeman appeared out of the shadows, wearing a red hat with a tarboosh and a pair of scruffy sandals instead of boots. He flashed a flashlight for them to halt.
When Deacon pulled up, Halder said, “Leave this to me.” He climbed out and showed his ID. “I’m a professor from Cairo University.”
The policeman looked at the documents, a kind of awe on his face, but he said nothing, until Halder realized the poor fellow was probably barely literate. There was a noise behind him and a stout man wearing a sergeant’s uniform came out of nowhere, his thumbs stuck in his leather belt. He was obviously in charge.
“What’s the trouble, Ali?” the sergeant asked.
“The effendi says he’s a professor, from Cairo University.”
“Some students of mine are working on the site,” Halder offered the sergeant his papers. “Some colleagues and I need to make an inspection of their progress. Are any of the excavating teams still here?”
“They have all gone home. The site is empty.” The sergeant looked in at the passengers, then examined the documents under the flashlight and scratched his head. “A thousand pardons, Professor, but is it not a little late in the evening for this sort of thing?”
Halder smiled. “Not when you’re expecting an important visit from a Ministry of Antiquities delegation first thing tomorrow. We need to make absolutely certain everything’s in perfect order. I’m sure you understand. Lift the barrier, there’s a good fellow.” Halder took out his wallet and generously slipped the sergeant a couple of banknotes. “A small token of my gratitude, for your kind help.”
The money vanished instantly into the sergeant’s back pocket and he bowed his thanks. “Of course, effendi. I am at your service.” He clicked his fingers. “You heard the professor. Lift the barrier, Ali.”
The policeman scurried away to do as he was told.
Halder climbed back into the Packard, and as they passed under the barrier, the sergeant drew himself to attention and saluted. Halder smiled at Deacon. “See. I told you. Easy.”
Deacon wiped his brow with the back of his sleeve. “Let’s just hope our luck holds out for the rest of it.”
57
* * *
BERLIN
22 NOVEMBER, 7:00 P.M.
The chauffeured Mercedes glided to a halt in the enclosed courtyard at the rear of the Chancellery building and Schellenberg climbed out. An acrid smell immediately filled his nostrils, and he covered his mouth and nose
with his hand. He hadn’t failed to notice a couple of large, smoldering bomb craters in the Chancellery grounds, nor the dozens of thick, black oily plumes drifting up from the west of the city, and he could still hear the clanging of fire engine bells in the distance. Berlin was covered by a pall of choking smoke after another devastating air raid that late afternoon, the sky so dark it looked as if the world were going to end.
Two SS guards of the Liebstandarte Division, Hitler’s private bodyguard, immaculate in their black uniforms and white gloves, snapped to attention as Schellenberg went past into the bunker lobby, where a waiting adjutant took his overcoat and led him straight down two flights of steps to the Führer’s private underground office.
When Schellenberg was led into the sparse concrete room, Hitler was in an anxious mood, wringing his hands as he paced the floor. “Well?”
“I’ve been personally waiting in the signals room at SS headquarters since early afternoon, and will return there to be on hand, but still nothing yet, mein Führer. However, as I explained, we don’t expect Deacon to transmit until tonight.”
Hitler looked gravely disappointed. “And Skorzeny and his men?”
“On alert, and ready and waiting. The colonel informs me he can be off the ground and on his way to Cairo within five minutes of receiving our instruction.”
“This afternoon Allied bombers destroyed a dozen more of our factories, not to mention direct hits to two of our railway stations.”
“Yes, I heard, mein Führer. A terrible business.”
“Terrible? It’s catastrophic!” Hitler’s face turned purple, the veins swelling on his neck and forehead. “Dozens of carriages destroyed, hundreds of military and civilian casualties, total disruption to our armaments shipments by rail to the Russian front, production halted in four of our tank factories and small-arms plants. It’s getting worse, Walter. Every day it’s getting worse. If this continues, our armies will have nothing left to fight with but sticks and stones.”
“I’m certain Production Minister Speer will do his absolute utmost to rectify matters urgently.”
