His hands moved away, but Anna knew what had to follow and remained standing still. ‘Legs apart, if you will, Countess.’
She spread her legs and he raised her skirt. As she wore only camiknickers underneath he had to be able to see at a glance that there was no concealed weapon, but he still felt it necessary to stroke the inside of her thighs and move upwards to touch the silk. Then the hands moved away and the dress fell back into place. ‘You understand that I am only doing my job, Countess.’
Anna stepped away from the wall; she left the attaché case, placed the Luger beside it, picked up her shoulder bag and refilled it. ‘If I did not understand that, you would not still be here.’
His slight smile indicated that he did not know a great deal about her. He stepped past her and opened a door. ‘The Countess von Widerstand, Herr Reichsführer.’
‘Anna!’ As usual she thought he was going to embrace her but, also as usual, he thought better of it, to her relief: in addition to the other physically repellent aspects of his appearance, he was wearing a mauve brocade dressing gown and matching slippers.
‘Heil Hitler, Herr Reichsführer.’
‘Indeed. Come in, come in. I hope Albrecht did not give you a hard time?’
‘I suspect the hardness was all on his side.’
‘Ah . . . oh, yes. Of course. Ha. Cognac?’
‘Thank you, sir.’
He poured and gave her the balloon, taking one for himself. ‘Sit down. Did you have a successful trip?’
Anna sat on the settee. ‘Yes, and no.’
‘Explain.’
‘The goods were delivered.’ She gave him the receipt.
He perused it. ‘Splendid. You are a treasure. But . . .?’
‘I was followed to Geneva by two Gestapo agents, who attempted to arrest me.’
‘Good heavens! Gestapo agents? In Geneva? What were they doing there?’
‘Apparently, despite my false papers, I was identified at the border, and the Munich office decided that I must be absconding.’
‘And so they followed you to Geneva? I shall have to look into this. And you say they attempted to arrest you? Did you not use your carte blanche?’
‘I did, and they chose to ignore it. One of them was the man Feutlanger, who gave us that trouble in Prague, last year.’
‘I shall have to see about this. But you managed to talk your way out of it.’
‘No, sir. It is very difficult to talk Herr Feutlanger out of anything when he gets a bee in his bonnet. And besides, he has always hated me, ever since that other incident in Prague, three years ago.’
‘Then what did you do?’
‘I had to shoot him. And his support.’
Himmler gazed at her for several moments. Then he said, ‘You shot two Gestapo agents? What were they doing while this was going on?’
‘They were trying to shoot me back, but they weren’t very good.’
‘And now they are in hospital?’
‘No, sir. By now they are in the morgue.’
Himmler got up, somewhat unsteadily, and refilled his glass. He glanced at hers, but she had only taken one sip.
‘I did not see that I had any alternative,’ she explained. ‘Herr Feutlanger was determined to see the contents of the attaché case, and you had instructed me that no one was to be allowed to do that.’
‘My God! Of course you did the right thing. But when it comes out . . .’
‘Neither you, nor I, nor the government of the Reich will be involved.’ She opened her bag again, and took out the various documents ‘I went through their pockets before leaving, and removed all identification. I left the room at eight thirty this morning, having attached a “Do Not Disturb” notice to the door. I delivered the case, completely changed my clothes and my appearance, and caught a train at ten o’clock. All that is known to the Swiss is that an Irish woman named Anna O’Brien arrived in Geneva last night, dressed all in black and with her hair invisible, and departed again this morning, leaving two unidentified dead men in her bedroom. They will not be able to find any trace of her leaving the country, as I used my German passport at the border. The investigation as to what happened will be at a dead end before it even begins.’
Himmler produced a coloured handkerchief to wipe his neck. ‘The Gestapo office in Munich will know that Feutlanger paid a visit to Geneva yesterday. They may even know what he was after: you.’
‘And he did not return. What he did was still illegal. What will they do? Try to explain it to the Swiss police? In any event, sir, surely you can kill any investigation?’
‘Of course I can,’ he agreed, as if he had forgotten his powers. ‘But the next time . . .’
‘We will have to arrange a different delivery point. I am sure Herr Laurent will be co-operative in that.’
To her consternation he put his hand on her neck, under her hair, and gently massaged the flesh. Almost she thought she could feel the hair standing on end. Then his hand slid away again. ‘You are a treasure. Now go home and have a good night’s sleep. I will see you tomorrow.’
*
‘I hope the Reichsführer was pleased, Countess?’ Essermann asked, as they sat together in the back of the car.
‘He seemed to be.’
He stared into the darkness beyond the driver’s head. ‘I almost expected to be told that you had no further use for me tonight.’
‘Are you mine to use?’ Anna countered.
He still preferred not to look at her. ‘I would be content to fill that role, as I think you know.’
‘But we are both the Reichsführer’s,’ she reminded him, ‘to be used as he sees fit.’
‘Professionally. Surely, if it were otherwise, he would have invited you to stay. But he has never done that, has he?’
‘I am his employee, and he intends that I should continue in that role. I do not think he would care for either of us to develop a relationship out of his control.’
‘He need never know.’
The car stopped and the chauffeur got out to open the door for her; Anna had no idea how much of the conversation he had overheard. As she made to step out, Essermann caught her hand.
She looked down at it. ‘I am not going to invite you up, Hellmuth. It has been an exhausting two days, and I wish only to have a bath and go to bed.’
‘I just want you to know that if there is ever anything I can do for you, you have but to say.’
‘Anything?’
‘Anything.’
She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. ‘I shall remember your promise. Auf Wiedersehen.’
She freed her hand, went into the lobby, smiled at the night concierge, and took the lift to the sixth floor.
‘Countess!’ Birgit was waiting for her. ‘I am so glad you came back.’
‘Weren’t you expecting me to?’ Anna went into the lounge. ‘How did you get on with Stefan?’
‘Oh, he was so upset that you were not here.’
‘Did he photograph you?’
‘Well . . . yes, he did. Oh, Countess! The things he made me do! The poses . . .’
‘After you had taken off your clothes.’
Birgit blushed. ‘Well . . . yes. Countess, have you . . .?’
‘I have posed for Stefan, yes. It gives him such pleasure. Now tell me, did he have sex with you?’
‘Oh no, Countess. I couldn’t allow that. Besides, I am not sure he wanted it. He wanted to wait for you to come in. When I told him you were not coming in until very late, he left. I think he was very angry.’
But also very faithful, Anna reflected, and wondered if she was, inadvertently, recruiting a private army of her own.
‘Well,’ she said. ‘I have no doubt he will come to see us again, when we may be able to work something out.’
*
‘Welcome home,’ Baxter said. ‘I trust your journey was rewarding? As you are here, I assume you had no trouble getting out?’
‘It was both tedious and tiresome. I had to
spend a night in the back of a vegetable truck. I am never going to eat cabbage again. Now tell me, did you know about Hamburg?’ Clive asked, ‘– that it was going to happen?’
‘As a matter of fact, no. As I told you, I did know that something very big was being planned, but it hardly came under the heading of Military Intelligence – at least our Military Intelligence. And Harris played his cards very close to his chest. You have not told me that your mission was as successful.’
‘Yes, and no.’
Baxter reached for his pipe. ‘You lady friend didn’t show.’
‘Oh, she showed. And she had some very interesting things to say.’
‘Such as, she’s getting married to Himmler or somebody and all bets are off.’
‘You couldn’t be more wrong.’
Baxter took out his tobacco pouch. ‘So you got her between the sheets. And you’re still unhappy. I can see it in your face. Some people are never satisfied.’
‘It was a little crowded,’ Clive said. ‘There were four of us in the room.’
Baxter’s fingers were delving into the pouch. ‘You mean she goes in for gang-bangs as well? That woman is a monster.’
‘It wasn’t quite like that,’ Clive explained. ‘The other two were dead. They were dead when I got there,’ he hastily added.
The pouch slipped from Baxter’s fingers; tobacco scattered across the desk.
‘And she couldn’t get rid of them, because she wasn’t supposed to be there, if you follow me.’
Baxter used his hand to sweep up tobacco. ‘I do not follow you at all. I’m not sure I want to. So you arrive there and find Anna contemplating a couple of corpses, as is her wont . . . Whose corpses?’
‘A pair of Gestapo heavies who had tracked her there, and with whom she seems to have had a long-standing feud.’
‘Wait a moment. Doesn’t she work for the Gestapo?’
‘No, no. She works for the SD and Himmler.’
Baxter scratched his head, forgetting that his fingers were still full of tobacco strands. ‘But doesn’t Himmler command both the SD and the Gestapo, not to mention the SS?’
‘There is some rivalry between the departments. Just as there is between us and MI5, or between us both and the Special Branch.’
‘But we don’t go around killing each other, thank God! OK, so you turn up and find her doing what she does best, so I suppose you pushed off. But you say she did have something to tell you, even if your night’s entertainment was ruined.’
‘I did not, as you put it, push off.’
‘You mean you spent the night there with all that company? Weren’t they a little inhibiting?’
‘Anna does not suffer from inhibitions.’
‘You mean you . . . Holy Jesus Christ.’ Baxter had his matches in his hand. Now he laid them down. ‘You mean, you could?’
‘Well . . . we hadn’t seen each other for eighteen months.’
Baxter laid down the pipe as well. ‘So tell me what was on her mind – apart from sex and murder.’
‘Two things: one interesting, the other disturbing.’
Baxter listened. ‘As you say, interesting and disturbing. Number one: Himmler isn’t going to try getting out of Germany on a few hundred thousand dollars.’
‘Agreed. Anna more or less said that this was intended to be the first of many.’
‘So he’s not planning to do a bunk for a while. We’ll sit on this one. I assume Anna will keep us informed?’
‘In so far as she can. I’m coming to that in a moment. But this American thing . . . Quite apart from the fact that she is our baby, breaking her cover without reference to us is putting her in a hell of a spot.’
‘It’s also unethical,’ Baxter pointed out. ‘But I did warn you that they don’t co-operate, they dictate. I agree that we need to do something about it. You have to get hold of your friend Andrews right away. And until you do, Anna must be kept on ice.’
Clive looked at his watch; it was six o’clock on Monday evening. ‘In precisely twelve hours from now, Anna is going to be meeting this contact.’
‘Oh, for Christ’s sake. Didn’t you tell her to sit tight until she hears from us?’
‘Unfortunately, our record of responding promptly to her information is not impressive.’
‘Well, can’t you get a message through to Bartoli tonight? He’s her couturier, isn’t he? He’s entitled to ring her up.’
‘Anna doesn’t trust Bartoli, or his wife. That’s why she had to see me, personally, rather than just sending a message. In fact, she would like something done about him.’
‘Now, wait a moment,’ Baxter said.
‘Oh, she won’t do it herself. Unless we give her the green light.’
‘Of course,’ Baxter said bitterly. ‘She only kills our people by mistake.’
‘I think she has a point – about Bartoli.’
‘This whole thing is setting up to be an intelligence disaster. So suppose we by-pass Bartoli. Have we got anyone in Basle who can take his place, and get in and out of Germany?’
‘Unfortunately, no. You know how these things work, in neutrals, Billy. Our people in Basle have identified every German agent there, and the Germans have identified every one of ours. They don’t do anything about each other, as a rule. Sometimes they even have a drink together. They certainly meet at cocktail parties and what have you. All very civilized. But if one of our people tried to get into Germany they’d have him the moment he stepped off the train.’
‘We parachuted those agents into Czechoslovakia without too much trouble, last year.’
‘But we didn’t get any of them back out, did we?’ He had decided not to inform Billy how closely Anna had been involved in that business, and how close she had come to death.
‘Well, then, it seems to me that we have reached an impasse. Anna won’t deal with Bartoli on anything important, and we have nobody else for her to deal with, unless the Yanks will let us use this fellow Johannsson. You’d better make getting hold of Andrews top priority.’
‘I intend to,’ Clive agreed. ‘But only to find out what they’re at. If we hand Anna over to Johannsson as a controller, then we’ve lost her – to the Yanks.’
‘You mean, you have lost her, to Andrews.’
‘Same thing. But perhaps we could by-pass Bartoli, as we did with Judith, last year.’
‘And she also wound up on a slab, poor girl.’
‘I know. Her nerves weren’t up to it. My fault. I should’ve spotted the symptoms earlier. But until she cracked, she and Anna worked very well together, and Bartoli was totally unaware of her existence.’
‘So where do you intend to find another Judith?’
‘Ah . . . I was thinking about that on the flight home. Did you know that Belinda – I mean the real Belinda not the code word – has an Italian mother? Her father was Italian too.’
Baxter, who had been fiddling with his pipe, picked it up and put it down again.
‘Her father was murdered by Mussolini’s thugs, and so mother and daughter fled to England, where mother married again – that fellow Hoskin. Belinda was ten when this happened, and she adopted her stepfather’s name, but she spent her childhood in Italy, remembers it well, and still speaks the language like a native. She also is fairly fluent in German. I suppose that background accounts for her somewhat volatile temper.’
‘Are you out of your tiny mind?’
‘Billy, she is, or could be, a natural. She hates Mussolini at least as much as Anna hates the Nazis.’
‘And you would like to use her as a spy.’
‘A go-between, Billy. Not a spy.’
‘She is still your mistress. Isn’t she?’
‘When she’s in the mood.’
‘And you are prepared to risk her life.’
‘I do not believe there is any risk involved. As I say, with the right papers she will be able to go in, and then out, of Germany as she chooses. And it’ll be a one-off. All she has to do is contact Anna,
hear the result of the meeting with the Steinberg character, and come home.’
‘All very pat. I think you are overlooking one or two minor matters. One is that she is entirely untrained.’
‘We can rush her through a training schedule. She has been my girlfriend for seven years and has garnered a fair knowledge of what I do and what it entails.’
‘Remind me to have you arrested for breaching the Official Secrets Act. Point two: as you have just agreed, she has an extremely volatile temper. Judith was a depressive, and thus a disaster in the end. Belinda is an emotional bomb waiting to explode. Point three: she hates Anna’s guts.’
‘She doesn’t really. They only met once, and then Anna saved her life.’
‘And how did she get into a situation where she needed her life saved? Because she walked in on you and the Honourable Mrs Ballantyne Bordman having an intimate discussion, took extreme umbrage, and departed for the Bordman flat to have it out with her rival the moment she came home . . .’
‘Which does not alter the fact that when she was unlucky enough to run into Anna’s controller, the woman Gehrig, she would have been for the high jump had Anna not intervened. Which cost her a bullet in the ribs and several weeks in hospital. Belinda hasn’t forgotten that.’
‘Is that why she walks out on you just about every time Anna’s name is mentioned?’
‘I told you, she’s an Italian.’
‘And you still expect her to risk her own life to be Anna’s contact?’
‘Again as I told you, she hates Musso and his Fascists, which by definition means that she also hates the Nazis. But there’s more to it than that. I believe that much of Belinda’s angst is caused less by the fact that I occasionally rush off to see Anna than by our having a rapport that is outside her reach. If we make her part of that rapport, I think she will not only be very enthusiastic but very useful.’
‘And Anna’s take on all this? I mean, she knows who, or what, Belinda is.’
Angel in Jeopardy_The thrilling sequel to Angel of Vengeance Page 7
