A Game of Spies

by John Altman

  He never saw the man who came up behind him and fired a bullet into the base of his skull.

  Hauptmann had been opening his mouth to call a command—but Frick had moved too quickly for that.

  Now the boy he had shot was headless, sprawled on the ground like a half-assembled mannequin. It had not been necessary to shoot the boy, Hauptmann thought. A warning would have sufficed. But Frick had not given him the opportunity. If that was what time on the front did to a man, then Hauptmann would be happy never to experience that honor. He would rather sit in his office, flipping through papers, and let others learn the harsh lessons of combat. That way, at least, he could sleep at night.

  He did not expect to sleep well tonight—if he did manage to find a chance to lie down—after seeing me corpses that littered the ground around them.

  Frick did not seem burdened by any such thoughts. He approached the farmboy and rolled him away with one booted foot. The farmboy, despite the fact that part of his head was gone, was still alive. Frick raised the gun again. His finger tightened on the trigger—yet nothing happened.

  He looked at the Luger dispassionately. Then he looked back at the farmboy. Now life was fleeing; the eyes darkened. Frick stuffed the Luger back into its holster, and knelt down beside the Engländer.

  When he turned from the man, his face was a study of equanimity.

  “Hauptmann,” he said calmly. “Go and fetch the car. Bring it as far as the road allows. Leave the dogs with the Regierungsrat. We’ll meet you in a half hour.”

  Hauptmann nodded jerkily, and turned. He nearly bumped into Bandemer, who was holding the dogs on leashes and staring at the scene before him with an expression of horror.

  Bandemer’s red-rimmed eyes glanced toward Hauptmann, but Hauptmann refused to meet them. He grabbed for the leashes and then hurried off in the direction of town.

  Frick had returned to the man on the ground. The prisoner was only half-conscious; his head lolled loosely on his shoulders.

  As Bandemer watched, Frick smiled at the prisoner—an oddly tender smile. Then he sensed Bandemer watching him, and the smile fell away.

  He stood, tugging his uniform straight.

  “Give me a hand,” he said. “And wipe that look off your face. You embarrass yourself.”

  12

  The Bentley was heading into Sussex.

  Oldfield waited until Deacon had asked, then explained that they would be making a quick stop on their way to the airfield. The Prime Minister wanted to give Deacon some last words of wisdom.

  “Just stand there and nod, old boy, and don’t make a fuss. Chamberlain’s under enough pressure these days. The last thing he needs is some smart-aleck pilot arguing with him. All right?”

  Deacon shrugged, and nodded.

  They came to an eighteenth-century estate set in a deer park, passed through a tall gate, and then drove for what seemed like miles past manicured gardens and terraced lakes.

  The heart of Plumpton Place was a sprawling mansion surrounded by a gothic moat. A row of dark sedans was parked outside the house. Inside, Deacon and Oldfield were escorted to a sunny drawing room, then announced by an extremely short butler with lifts in his shoes.

  But Chamberlain was already involved in a discussion; for the first few minutes of their visit, he ignored them completely. They stood just inside the doorway, hands folded patiently, waiting.

  The man with whom Chamberlain was talking was Winston Churchill, the First Lord of the Admiralty. And Churchill, as usual, was on a tear.

  “The time for keeping up appearances,” he was saying, “is past. It is time to act, Mr. Prime Minister, and appearances be damned. If we hesitate much longer, our last chance will be lost.”

  Chamberlain was already shaking his head. The man’s age, Deacon thought, seemed to have caught up to him almost without warning. His graying hair looked thinner than it had in newsreels taken just a few months before; loose rolls of skin had appeared under his chin. And the way he held his hands—one tightly entwined in the other—gave the impression of a man trying hard to control himself, perhaps even trying to mask a tremor. But it was not surprising that age had finally caught up to Chamberlain. Hitler had thrown too many lies in his face, and violated too many promises, for the Prime Minister to deceive himself any longer. He was being forced to face the truth—that he had led England into an untenable situation; that in today’s world, goodwill and a desire for peace were not nearly enough.

  Churchill, in contrast, was brimming with energy. As he spoke, his immense cheeks quavered, his hands moved to illustrate his words, and his eyes glittered ferociously.

  “Without iron ore from Sweden, Mr. Prime Minister, Germany will be crippled. Eleven million tons flow every year down the Gulf of Bothnia, then across the Baltic. But in wintertime, ice blocks the shipping route; the ore must be transported by rail to Navrik, then shipped via the coast to Germany. Hitler is depending on our respecting Norwegian neutrality to ensure the safety of these shipments. For all of the winter just past, we have played into his hands—but it may not be too late to correct our mistake.”

  “I will not be the one to violate the neutrality of Norway,” Chamberlain pronounced.

  “Mr. Prime Minister, will Hitler respect their neutrality for a minute longer than it suits his purpose? When it comes time—”

  “Our interference is precisely what he desires. It will supply him with a pretext to invade.”

  Churchill could not conceal his exasperation. “Hitler will take Norway if and when he chooses, regardless of our actions. If we do not supply the pretext within his schedule, then he will supply one himself. But there is still a chance to block the crucial shipments of ore. We must mine the Norwegian Leads.”

  “That would be a gesture of open hostility.”

  “Toward a country that is already at war with England, Prime Minister.”

  “We are not at war with Norway,” Chamberlain said resolutely. “And we would need to dispatch a force to Navrik, to ensure the success of the operation. In the judgment of the world, we would be guilty of naked aggression—”

  “I have discussed the situation with the War Cabinet,” Churchill interrupted. “They are in complete agreement with me. The time for keeping up appearances is past.”

  For a moment, Deacon thought that Chamberlain would take the First Lord of the Admiralty to task for his audacity; but then the Prime Minister’s posture slackened. In that moment, he looked like a saddened old man besieged on all sides, who had lost confidence not only in those who surrounded him but also in himself.

  Chamberlain shook his head again, as if trying to shake away his doubts. His eyes darted evasively. Then he glanced up and seemed to see Oldfield and Deacon for the first time. He seized on their presence with an enthusiasm that struck Deacon as somewhat manufactured: an excuse to avoid continuing the conversation with Churchill.

  “Mr. Oldfield!” he said brightly. “Now, here we have a fine fellow, Mr. Churchill. Mr. Oldfield is here to direct the war against our enemies, instead of against our prospective allies. He is Director General, you know, of MI6.”

  Churchill puffed out his cheeks with frustration, but summoned the courtesy to nod his head.

  “And this must be the young pilot,” Chamberlain said. “Deacon is the name?”

  “Arthur Deacon,” Oldfield said. “The pride of the RAF, and as fate would have it, my favorite nephew.”

  Chamberlain absorbed Deacon with his hazy brown eyes. “Why is it,” he asked, “that all pilots have this look about them?”

  Deacon blinked. “What look is that, Mr. Prime Minister?”

  “Never mind, Mr. Deacon. Thank you for stopping by. I hoped to take the opportunity to impress upon you the import of your mission.”

  “I am quite aware of it, Mr. Prime Minister.”

  “I may have misjudged the little Austrian corporal. But thanks to the efforts of men like yourself and Mr. Oldfield, all is not yet lost.”

  Churchill, who h
ad moved to inspect a globe in a corner of the drawing room, muttered something to himself. Chamberlain ignored it.

  “We may have a slight advantage in numbers,” the Prime Minister continued. “Four million men in our combined armies, as compared to the Germans’ three. Yet our armored divisions are not battle-ready, and we suffer a dearth of trained reserve troops. The intelligence that we seek is therefore of great interest to the War Council.”

  “I will do my very best, Mr. Prime Minister, to retrieve it for you.”

  “Very good. I know that you will.”

  He turned back to Churchill.

  “Mr. Churchill,” he said. “Regretfully, I cannot continue arguing the matter at this time. I require rest.”

  Churchill bristled.

  “Perhaps a nap,” Chamberlain said. Now he was looking off into the parlor with a wistful air. “If you insist on continuing, I will make time this afternoon.”

  “Mr. Prime Minister,” Churchill said. “If you are not up to the demands of leading our nation in this most desperate hour—”

  Oldfield was tugging on Deacon’s sleeve, pulling him toward the doorway. “That’s it?” Deacon whispered.

  Oldfield nodded.

  They moved outside, back into the Bentley, then down the winding road that led away from the mansion. Oldfield did not seem interested in discussing the Prime Minister’s words. He was looking out the window, his brow creased in thought. There was a sadness about him now, Deacon thought. After spending time in Chamberlain’s company, he felt a touch of sadness himself. The man’s fatal flaw had been optimism; and that optimism had led him to ruin.

  Chamberlain, and perhaps the rest of the world.

  And now the best chance of averting disaster lay in Deacon’s hands.

  He wished he’d found time for a last drink before leaving Bayswater.

  PART THREE

  13

  The man called Frick was talking.

  Hobbs was conscious of the voice only in fits and starts, as a conversational rising and ebbing. He couldn’t tell whether the words were addressed to him, to the driver, or to the stocky man sitting in the passenger-side seat—the one they called Hauptmann. Since they were in English, he supposed they were addressed to him, or were at least for his benefit.

  But the words made little impression; most of his mind was occupied with his leg. The wound there had opened again during his run, and the torn material of his trousers had become intertwined with tatters of bloodied bandage. As he looked at it, a sense of dislocation washed over him. That was his leg, looking like a half-chewed piece of meat. Impossible.

  “The Russians,” Frick was saying, “are not quite as worthless as some might think. They are animals—but as such they have a certain animal cunning.”

  The Mercedes was on a road that was not quite a road, leading ever deeper into thickly wooded hills. A canopy of branches closed above them as they drove, blocking out the starlight. Just what their destination was, Hobbs didn’t know. Following his capture, they had returned to Wismar and dropped off the dogs; he had assumed that he would be transferred somewhere for interrogation. But Frick seemed to have a plan of his own, and the other two were evidently as in the dark about the details as Hobbs himself.

  “And a certain foolish bravery,” Frick went on. “They play a remarkable game, the Russians. It originated during the Great War, I understand, somewhere in Rumania. A group of czarist officers found themselves with too much time and not enough food. So they removed a cartridge from the cylinder of a gun, spun it, put it to their heads, and pulled the trigger. The chances were six to one that it meant certain death. But that was the intention, of course. Once one man was dead, there was more food for the rest.”

  His tone was casual, the tone of a man discussing a fine night at the opera.

  “Tall tales,” Hauptmann sniffed. “Nobody is so crazy. Not even the Russians.”

  “Perhaps,” Frick said. “Or perhaps not. In either case—the game intrigues me. I would very much like to see it played with my own eyes. Do you suppose, Herr Kriminal Assistant, that you might stage a demonstration for me?”

  The stocky man up front laughed nervously.

  “You and the Engländer might challenge each other,” Frick continued. “We will play the safer version. All of the chambers are emptied except one. Then, you see, the chances of survival are higher. The game lasts longer.”

  “Herr Kriminal Inspektor, if you don’t watch out, you’ll get the reputation for being the funny one.”

  “Ah,” Frick said. “Aha. Yes.”

  Then they were entering a small clearing; Hobbs could hear the trickle of water in a nearby brook, the susurrous rustle of leaves. The moon overhead, almost full, peeked through narrow spaces between the branches.

  The driver twisted the keys; the engine fell silent. For a few moments, nobody spoke.

  “So,” Frick said then. “Would you like to play the game, Herr Hauptmann?”

  Hobbs could feel the man’s confusion. Hauptmann feigned more laughter, hesitantly. “Ha,” he said. “No—thank you, Herr Inspektor. No, I would not.”

  “Ah, well. To be expected, I suppose.”

  He turned to Hobbs. He was a wolfish-looking man, hollow-cheeked and hood-eyed. His expression, in the faint blue moonlight, was somber. “I suppose we’ll need to proceed without any more games,” he said. “Eh, Herr Hobbs?”

  Hobbs didn’t answer. After another moment, Frick reached into his pocket. Hobbs watched, feeling dizzy, his heartbeat a series of fast, shallow fillips.

  When Frick withdrew his hand, there was a single chalky tablet of white in the center of his palm.

  “This poison,” Frick said benevolently, “is fatal in three seconds. You are fortunate, Herr Hobbs, that I am feeling merciful tonight.”

  He kept holding the pill forward. Hobbs kept looking at it. At last he reached for it, and took it between thumb and forefinger. The tablet felt very light and insubstantial, as if it was nothing but a product of his imagination.

  The men in the front seat stared straight ahead, seemingly oblivious.

  “Go on,” Frick urged. “It is preferable to the other option.”

  Hobbs thought that he could hear a wisp of music: distant, keening notes. A bagpipe. Was it “Danny Boy”? He thought that it was.

  He almost smiled. That song brought him back, all right. Countless nights in countless pubs, surrounded by his mates and singing rousing choruses of “Danny Boy.” Nothing to worry about except staying sober enough to lift the next pint of courage. Those had been good days, he thought.

  In the next instant, the music was gone.

  “Go on,” Frick said again, gently. “Show some dignity.”

  Hobbs looked back at him, taking the man’s measure. He tried to picture himself lurching across the seat, incapacitating the Gestapo agent, and then slipping out of the car—without the ones up front moving to stop him.

  He couldn’t picture it.

  “Herr Inspektor,” Hauptmann said. “Perhaps we should return the man to Number Eight. He may be able to offer—”

  Frick silenced the man with a glance. Then he turned back to Hobbs. “We are waiting,” he said.

  Hobbs put the pill onto his tongue. At first, it was tasteless. Then, as it dissolved, it turned bitter.

  He leaned back in his seat, closing his eyes. Soon, now, the pain would go away. He wondered if Eva had made it to the extraction site. It would be nice to think that she had. It would be nice to think that he had done something right, before he left this world, by giving her a way out of Germany—that he had done something to make up, at least in part, for all his previous wrongs.

  His head was growing lighter. He thought that he could feel his consciousness leaving his body, rising through the roof of the car, untethered. It was a liberating feeling; and, mercifully, there was no pain.

  Three seconds, he thought.

  They passed.

  He was still alive.

  He o
pened his eyes.

  Frick was smiling at him. “How do you feel?” he asked.

  Hobbs said nothing.

  “I seem to have made a mistake,” Frick said. “It is only aspirin.”

  Then he threw back his head and laughed. The men up front also laughed—but apprehensively, without conviction.

  “You should have seen your face,” Frick said. “Hauptmann. Did you see his face?”

  “I saw it,” Hauptmann lied.

  “Now that is a joke, Hauptmann. Perhaps you’re right. Perhaps I am the one with a sense of humor, between the two of us.”

  “Perhaps you are,” Hauptmann said, sounding distinctly nonplussed.

  Frick’s laughter dwindled. He sat for a few moments without moving, seemingly lost in thought. Then he said abruptly: “Get out of the car.”

  Hobbs sent his eyes from Frick to Hauptmann to the driver. Then he reached for the door. He stepped out, planting his left leg carefully, keeping the weight off his right. Frick came out the other side—a gun in his hand now, trained on Hobbs across the roof of the Mercedes.

  He motioned Hobbs around the front of the car. Suddenly the headlights came on, glaring hot white. Hobbs could sense Frick coming up behind him, the Luger in his hand. The man’s breathing was uneven, strained with excitement.

  “On your knees,” he commanded.

  Hobbs looked at the ground. The ground looked damp. He didn’t move. He wished he could hear “Danny Boy” again, one last time.

  “On your knees,” Frick said again.

  Oldfield had taught Hobbs how to disarm a man standing behind him. But Hobbs, of course, had not been paying attention to the lesson. He remembered what he had been thinking about instead, with terrible clarity: a pretty young bird named Rose.

  “Do not try my patience,” Frick said. “I will not ask again.”

  What had Oldfield said? Something about dropping to the ground. Something about rolling, hooking the man’s legs with his ankles. He could almost catch the memory. But his mind had been on Rose.

  If only Frick was facing him, he thought then. He remembered that lesson clearly enough. It had been a grisly one, and had imprinted itself on his brain. If you can goad the man into placing the gun against your chest, Oldfield had said, then you have him.