Ken Follett - Jackdaws

by Jackdaws [lit]

  JUN 2 1944

  MESSAGE READS:

  WHAT THE DEVIL HAPPENED QUERY

  SEND INSTRUCTIONS STOP REPLY IMEDIATELY OVER

  "He's improving," Paul said. "Only one mistake."

  "I thought he was more relaxed on Saturday," Lucy said.

  "Either that, or someone else sent the signal." Suddenly, Paul thought he saw a way to test whether "Brian" was himself or a Gestapo impersonator. If it worked, it would at least give him certainty. "Lucy, do you ever make mistakes in transmission?"

  "Hardly ever." She threw an anxious glance at her supervisor. "If a new girl is a bit careless, the agent will kick up a hell of a stink. Quite rightly, too. There should never be any mistakes-the agents have enough problems to cope with."

  Paul turned to Jean. "If I draft a message, would you encode it exactly as it is? It would be a kind of test."

  "Of course."

  He looked at his watch. It was seven-thirty p.m. "He should broadcast at eight. Can you send it then?"

  The supervisor said, "Yes. When he calls in, we'll just tell him to stand by to receive an emergency message immediately after transmission."

  Paul sat down, thought for a moment, then wrote on a pad:

  GIVE YOUR ARMS HOW MAN AUTOMATS

  HOW MY STENS ALSO AMMO HOW MNY

  ROUNDS ECH PLUS GREDANES REPLY IMMMEDIATLY

  He considered it for a moment. It was an unreasonable request, phrased in a high-handed tone, and it appeared to be carelessly encoded and transmitted. He showed it to Jean. She frowned. "That's a terrible message. I'd be ashamed of it."

  "What do you think an agent's reaction would be?"

  She gave a humorless laugh. "He would send an angry reply with a few swear words in it."

  "Please encode it exactly as it is and send it to Helicopter."

  She looked troubled. "If that's what you wish."

  "Yes, please."

  "Of course." She took it away.

  Paul went in search of food. The canteen operated twenty-four hours a day, as the station did, but the coffee was tasteless and there was nothing to eat but some stale sandwiches and dried-up cake.

  A few minutes after eight o'clock, the supervisor came into the canteen. "Helicopter called in to say he had had no word yet from Leopardess. We're sending him the emergency message now."

  "Thank you." It would take Brian-or his Gestapo impersonator-at least an hour to decode the message, compose a reply, encode it, and transmit it. Paul stared at his plate, wondering how the British had the nerve to call this a sandwich: two pieces of white bread smeared with margarine and one thin slice of ham.

  No mustard.

  CHAPTER 34

  THE RED-LIGHT DISTRICT of Paris was a neighborhood of narrow, dirty streets on a low hill behind the rue de la Chapelle, not far from the Gare du Nord. At its heart was "La Charbo," the rue de la CharbonniŠre. On the north side of the street, the convent of la Chapelle stood like a marble statue in a junkyard. The convent consisted of a tiny church and a house where eight nuns dedicated their lives to helping the most wretched of Parisians. They made soup for starving old men, talked depressed women out of suicide, dragged drunk sailors from the gutter, and taught the children of prostitutes to read and write. Next door to the convent stood the Hotel de la Chapelle.

  The hotel was not exactly a brothel, for there were no whores in residence, but when the place was not full the proprietress was willing to rent rooms by the hour to heavily made-up women in cheap evening gowns who arrived with fat French businessmen, furtive German soldiers, or naive young men too drunk to see straight.

  Flick walked through the door with a mighty sense of relief~ The gendarmes had dropped her off half a mile away. She had seen two copies of her Wanted poster on the way. Christian had given her his handkerchief~ a clean cotton square, red with white dots, and she had tied it over her head in an attempt to hide her blonde hair, but she knew that anyone who looked hard at her would recognize her from the poster. There had been nothing she could do but keep her eyes down and her fingers crossed. It had seemed like the longest walk of her life.

  The proprietress was a friendly, overweight woman wearing a pink silk bathrobe over a whalebone corset. She had once been voluptuous, Flick guessed. Flick had stayed at the place before, but the proprietress did not appear to remember her. Flick addressed her as "Madame," but she said, "Call me Regine." She took Flick's money and gave her a room key without asking any questions.

  Flick was about to go upstairs to her room when she glanced through the window and saw Diana and Maude arriving in a strange kind of taxi, a sofa on wheels attached to a bicycle. Their brush with the gendarmes did not seem to have sobered them, and they were giggling about the vehicle.

  "Good God, what a dump," said Diana when she walked in the door. "Perhaps we can eat out."

  Paris restaurants had continued to operate during the occupation, but inevitably many of their customers were German officers, and agents avoided them if they could. "Don't even think about it," Flick said crossly. "We're going to lie low here for a few hours, then go to the Gare de l'Est at first light."

  Maude looked accusingly at Diana. "You promised to take me to the Ritz."

  Flick controlled her temper. "What world are you living in?" she hissed at Maude.

  "All right, keep your hair on."

  "Nobody leaves! Is that understood?"

  "Yes, yes."

  "One of us will go out and buy food later. I have to get out of sight now. Diana, you sit here and wait for the others while Maude checks into your room. Let me know when everyone's arrived."

  Climbing the stairs, Flick passed a Negro girl in a tight red dress and noticed that she had a full head of straight black hair. "Wait," Flick said to her. "Will you sell me your wig?"

  "You can buy one yourself around the corner, honey." She looked Flick up and down, taking her for an amateur hooker. "But, frankly, I'd say you need more than a wig."

  "I'm in a hurry."

  The girl pulled it off to reveal black curls cropped close to her scalp. "I can't work without it."

  Flick took a thousand-franc note from her jacket pocket. "Buy yourself another."

  She looked at Flick with new eyes, realizing she had too much money to be a prostitute. With a shrug, she accepted the money and handed over the wig.

  "Thank you," said Flick.

  The girl hesitated. No doubt she was wondering how many more of those notes Flick had. "I do girls, too," she said. She reached out and brushed Flick's breast lightly with her fingertips.

  "No, thanks."

  "Maybe you and your boyfriend-"

  The girl looked at the thousand-franc note. "Well, I guess this is my night off Good luck, honey."

  "Thanks," said Flick. "I need it."

  She found her room, put her case on the bed, and took off her jacket. There was a small mirror over a washbasin. Flick washed her hands, then stood looking at her face for a moment.

  She combed her short blonde hair back over her ears and pinned it with hair clips. Then she put on the wig and adjusted it. It was a bit big, but it would stay on. The black hair altered her appearance radically. However, her fair eyebrows now looked peculiar. She took the eyebrow pencil from her makeup kit and darkened them. That was much better. Not only did she look like a brunette, she seemed more formidable than the sweet girl in the swimsuit. She had the same straight nose and severe chin, but that seemed like a family resemblance between two otherwise different-looking sisters.

  Next she took her identity papers from her jacket pocket. With great care, she retouched the photograph, using the eyebrow pencil to draw faint lines of dark hair and narrow dark eyebrows. When she was done, she looked hard at the picture. She did not think anyone would be able to tell it had been doctored unless they rubbed it hard enough to smear the pencil marks.

  She took off the wig, stepped out of her shoes, and lay on the bed. She had not slept for two nights, because she had spent Thursday night making love to
Paul and Friday night on the metal floor of a Hudson bomber. Now she closed her eyes and dropped off within seconds.

  She was awakened by a knock at the door. To her surprise, it was getting dark: she had slept for several hours. She went to the door and said, "Who is it?"

  "Ruby."

  She let her in. "Is everything all right?"

  "I'm not sure."

  Flick closed the curtains, then switched on the light. "What's happened?"

  "Everyone has checked in. But I don't know where Diana and Maude are. They're not in their room."

  "Where have you looked?"

  "The proprietress's office, the little church next door, the bar across the street."

  "Oh, Christ," Flick said in dismay. "The bloody fools, they've gone out."

  "Where would they have gone?"

  "Maude wanted to go to the Ritz."

  Ruby was incredulous. "They can't be that stupid!"

  "Maude can."

  "But I thought Diana had more sense."

  "Diana's in love," Flick said. "I suppose she'll do anything Maude asks. And she wants to impress her paramour, take her to swanky places, show that she knows her way around the world of high society."

  "They say love is blind."

  "In this case, love is bloody suicidal. I can't believe it-but I bet that's where they've gone. It will serve them right if they end up dead."

  "What'll we do?"

  "Go to the Ritz and get them out of there-if we're not too late."

  Flick put on her wig. Ruby said, "I wondered why your eyebrows had gone dark. It's effective, you look like someone else."

  "Good. Get your gun."

  In the lobby, R‚gine handed Flick a note. It was addressed in Diana's handwriting. Flick ripped it open and read:

  We're going to a better hotel. We'll meet you at the Gare de l'Est at 5 a.m. Don't worry!

  She showed it to Ruby, then ripped it to shreds. She was most angry with herself. She had known Diana all her life, it was no surprise that she was foolish and irresponsible. Why did I bring her? she asked herself Because I had no one else, was the answer.

  They left the flophouse. Flick did not want to use the Metro, for she knew there were Gestapo checkpoints at some stations and occasional spot checks on the trains. The Ritz was in the Place Vend“me, a brisk half-hour walk from La Charbo. The sun had gone down, and night was falling fast. They would have to keep an eye on the time: there was an eleven o'clock curfew.

  Flick wondered how long it would take the Ritz staff to call the Gestapo about Diana and Maude. They would have known immediately that there was something odd about them. Their papers said they were secretaries from Reims-what were two such women doing at the Ritz? They were dressed respectably enough, by the standards of occupied France, but they certainly did not look like typical Ritz clients-the wives of diplomats from neutral countries, the girlfriends of black marketers, or the mistresses of German officers. The hotel manager himself might not do anything, especially if he was anti-Nazi, but the Gestapo had informants in every large hotel and restaurant in the city, and strangers with implausible stories were just what they were paid to report. This kind of detail was drummed into people on SOE's training course-but that course lasted three months, and Diana and Maude had been given only two days.

  Flick quickened her step.

  CHAPTER 35

  DIETER WAS EXHAUSTED. To get a thousand posters printed and distributed in half a day had taken all his powers of persuasion and intimidation. He had been patient and persistent when he could and had flown into a mad rage when necessary. In addition, he had not slept the previous night. His nerves were jangled, he had a headache, and his temper was short.

  But a feeling of peace descended on him as soon as he entered the grand apartment building at the Porte de la Muette, overlooking the Bois de Boulogne. The job he had been doing for Rommel required him to travel all over northern France, so he needed to be based in Paris, but getting this place had taken a lot of bribery and bullying. It had been worth it. He loved the dark mahogany paneling, the heavy curtains, the high ceilings, the eighteenth-century silver on the sideboard. He walked around the cool, dim apartment, renewing his acquaintance with his favorite possessions: a small Rodin sculpture of a hand, a Degas pastel of a dancer putting on a ballet slipper, a first edition of The Count of Monte Cristo. He sat at the Steinway baby grand piano and played a languid version of "Ain't Misbehavin' ":

  No one to talk with, all by myself...

  Before the war, the apartment and much of the furniture had belonged to an engineer from Lyon, who had made a fortune manufacturing small electrical goods, vacuum cleaners and radios and doorbells. Dieter had learned this from a neighbor, a rich widow whose husband had been a leading French Fascist in the thirties. The engineer was a vulgarian, she said: he had hired people to choose the right wallpaper and antiques. For him, the only purpose of objects of beauty had been to impress his wife's friends. He had gone to America, where everyone was vulgar, said the widow. She was pleased the apartment now had a tenant who really appreciated it.

  Dieter took off his jacket and shirt and washed the Paris grime from his face and neck. Then he put on a clean white shirt, inserted gold links in the French cuffs, and chose a silver-gray tie. While he was tying it, he switched on the radio. The news from Italy was bad. The newscaster said the Germans were fighting a fierce rearguard action. Dieter concluded that Rome must fall in the next few days.

  But Italy was not France.

  He now had to wait for someone to spot Felicity Clairet. He could not be certain she would pass through Paris, of course, but it was undoubtedly the likeliest place, after Reims, for her to be seen. Anyway, there was nothing more he could do. He wished he had brought Stephanie with him from Reims. However, he needed her to occupy the house in the rue du Bois. There was a chance that more Allied agents would land and find their way to her door. It was important to draw them gently into the net. He had left instructions that neither Michel nor Dr. Bouler was to be tortured in his absence: he might yet have uses for them.

  There was a bottle of Dom Perignon champagne in the icebox. He opened it and poured some into a crystal flute. Then, with a feeling that life was good, he sat down at his desk to read his mail.

  There was a letter from his wife, Waltraud.

  My beloved Dieter, I am so sorry we will not be together on your fortieth birthday.

  Dieter had forgotten his birthday. He looked at the date on his Cartier desk clock. It was June 3. He was forty years old today. He poured another glass of champagne to celebrate.

  In the envelope from his wife were two other missives. His seven-year-old daughter, Margarete, known as Mausi, had drawn a picture of him in uniform standing by the Eiffel Tower. In the picture, he was taller than the tower: so children magnified their fathers. His son, Rudi, ten years old, had written a grown-up letter, carefully rounded letters in dark blue ink:

  My dear Papa,

  I am doing well in school although Dr. Richter's classroom has been bombed. Fortunately it was nighttime and the school was empty.

  Dieter closed his eyes in pain. He could not bear the thought of bombs falling on the city where his children lived. He cursed the murderers of the RAF, even though he knew German bombs had fallen on British schoolchildren.

  He looked at the phone on his desk, contemplating trying to call home. It was difficult to get through: the French phone system was overloaded, and military traffic had priority, so you could wait hours for a personal call to be connected. All the same, he decided to try. He felt a sudden longing to hear the voices of his children and reassure himself that they were still alive.

  He reached for the phone. It rang before he touched it. He picked it up. "Major Franck here."

  "This is Lieutenant Hesse."

  Dieter's pulse quickened. "You have found Felicity Clairet?"

  "No. But something almost as good."

  CHAPTER 36

  FLICK HAD BEEN to the Ritz once, w
hen she was a student in Paris before the war. She and a girlfriend had put on hats and makeup, gloves and stockings, and walked through the door as if they did it every day. They had sauntered along the hotel's internal arcade of shops, giggling at the absurd prices of scarves and fountain pens and perfume. Then they had sat in the lobby, pretending they were meeting someone who was late, and criticized the outfits of the women who came there to tea. They themselves had not dared to order so much as a glass of water. In those days, Flick had saved every spare penny for cheap seats at the Com‚die Fran‡aise.