‘I am sorry, Countess. They will accept no preconditions.’
‘Not even a promise to negotiate with a non-Nazi government? They have done a deal with Badoglio.’
‘Badoglio also was required to surrender unconditionally. This he did. Then he was offered terms. The people here will have to take the same risk.’
‘And if they decide they cannot do that?’
Johannsson looked into his coffee cup. ‘Then Belinda requires the task to be carried out without their assistance. In fact, they are placing the successful completion of this project in your hands, should the conspiracy fail.’
Anna was aware of a sudden chill. ‘They never required this before. It was I who put the idea into their heads.’
‘I know. Perhaps you should not have done that. Their information has always been that it is impossible to get to Hitler. But if you can . . .’
‘So now they wish me to commit suicide,’ she said bitterly.
‘They do not believe it will come to that.’
‘Tell me about it.’
‘I have a present for you.’ From his coat pocket he took a small parcel and placed it on the table.
‘What is that?’
‘It is simply a packet of – shall we say, feminine accessories. Now listen very carefully, because if you make a mistake, it could well be fatal.’
Anna listened as he told her the properties of the bomb, and how it was to be detonated. ‘It could work,’ she said, when he finished.
‘It cannot fail, as long as you can access the Führer.’
‘I told you, the word is “might”.’
He frowned ‘Are you not intimate with him?’
‘I have never had sex with Hitler. As he values my services, we have been alone together on occasions in the past, but the last time was several months ago.’
‘You do not have to be alone with him – just in an enclosed space with him, to magnify the effects of the explosion.’
Anna remembered her conversation with Goebbels. It was an obscenely unpleasant path to go down, but . . . ‘It might be possible,’ she said. ‘I will need a little time to arrange it.’
‘We accept that. But obviously the sooner it can be done, the better.’
Anna picked up the parcel and put it into her bag. ‘And it was Joe and Belinda gave me this assignment.’
‘Neither one likes what they have had to do, but they were obeying orders from the very top. However, if Steinberg does succeed in organizing something – well, you can give him this device.’
‘How soon will we know if Steinberg has actually found someone?’
‘I will see him before I return to Sweden. But you understand again that whoever it is will also have to be someone who can gain access to the Führer. That means a staff officer, or something like that. Finding one willing to take the risk may be a lengthy business.’
‘So how long have I got?’
‘They would like the job done by the end of the year.’
‘Eight weeks. Are they that tied up with conventional dating?’
‘I do not think so. It is just that there are very big plans for next year, and they feel that these plans would have more chance of success if Hitler were not about.’
‘You are talking about the invasion.’
‘I am not competent to discuss that, Countess.’
‘Then tell me something else: what happens afterwards, supposing I succeed? The people around Hitler are not fools. No matter how many people are in the room when the bomb goes off, those who are not in the room will realize that I am the only survivor.’
‘Yes, but with Hitler dead there will be utter chaos for several hours. That will give Beck time to take over.’
Once again, cloud cuckoo land, Anna thought. I am only to take executive action myself if Steinberg cannot provide someone else. But if Steinberg cannot provide someone else, the plot – his plot – will collapse. In any event, if I have to operate on my own, it would be even more suicidal for me to tell him in advance, so that he could notify Beck to stand by. At this moment she was a shadowy fringe figure, known only to Steinberg, and then only as a possible go-between to persuade Himmler to cooperate. Once she stepped out of the shadows, if anything went wrong . . .
Johannsson had been studying her expression. Now his hand moved across the table to hold hers. ‘I will dream of your success. As I will dream of you, for the rest of my life.’
‘You say the sweetest things. But I am not dead yet. And if this thing works, I may even survive. Ciao.’
The Summons
If, she thought as she rode up in the lift. What a huge word. And time! She had been given two months. She had never been in this position before, and she didn’t like being in it now. When the SD had planted her in London, in 1938, she had been told it was simply to gather information through her well-placed husband, Ballantyne Bordman, and the social circle in which he moved and into which she had been welcomed. When, in April 1940, she had suddenly been informed that it was necessary that Winston Churchill, who, the Nazi Government had felt, correctly, was their most dangerous enemy in Britain, should die, she had been told that it had to be done in a week. There had been little time to think about it. Fortunately, by then she had already joined forces with Clive and MI6, and they had sorted it out . . . just.
When she had been sent to Moscow, in the summer of 1940, as Personal Assistant to the Chief Secretary of the German embassy, her appointed task had been to seduce a prominent member of the Soviet government, again in search of information. And when, in the middle of June the following year, she had been told that her real task was the elimination of Stalin immediately before the German invasion began, she had been given just four days.
MI6 worked differently. They had given her several months to organize the death of Heydrich . . . but that had been with definite instructions that she was not to be personally involved. This time . . . And the ifs were far more numerous than even Clive, much less Johannsson, imagined. She could now have no doubt that Himmler would prove a broken reed in any violent change of government. But she also didn’t know what his reaction might be, or, supposing the plot was successful, what might be the attitude of Beck to the Gestapo chief, who had to be about the most hated man in Germany. And only he and Hitler, amongst the Party leaders at any rate, knew of her parents’ situation, and why they were there. If Himmler were to disappear, or die in a palace coup, her parents’ fate might then rest in the hands of some obscure and fanatical SS officer . . . unless she could get to the Polish prison camp before news of what had happened in Berlin leaked out. As for Katherine . . .
Of course she had been given an out. She had always been given an out, save that the outs had always been theoretical. Not one of them had ever actually worked. Yet she had had to believe that they would. One had to hope. Therefore . . . empty her mind of what lay ahead until she had seen Steinberg again, and discovered if he really did have a volunteer for the mission. And meanwhile, listen to the two explosives clinking in her bag and wonder when she would be blown to pieces.
She couldn’t take them with her to Lucerne. She locked them in her dressing-table drawer. It would have been too out of character for her to tell Birgit not to attempt to open the drawer, but she felt safe there because if Birgit did try to see what was inside, supposing she wasn’t blown up, she would know that her mistress would spot the forced entry as soon as she returned.
‘I hope to be back on Friday night,’ she told the maid. ‘Please try to behave yourself.’
‘Oh, Countess,’ Birgit protested.
Anna chucked her under the chin. ‘I am only joking.’
Essermann was as always on time; she wondered if his whole life was so regimented, if his sex was a matter of twelve thrusts and then out, because that was all the time he would allot to that particular activity. But he was also as gallant as always. ‘Seeing you always brightens the day, Countess.’
‘You say the sweetest things,’ Anna said. Bu
t as it was a dull day, she thought he might be right. As the only reasonable description the Swiss police could have of Anna O’Brien was that of a tall, handsome woman in a black dress – she had never revealed her hair outside of the hotel room until she had changed in Laurent’s office, and she did not think the floor waiter would have wanted to become involved in what had, after all, been an illegal activity on the part of his Gestapo friends – she had today opted for the complete change she had adopted after meeting Laurent, wore a pink suit with deep side pockets in which a pistol would be entirely concealed, over a white blouse and a smart matching hat together with a cloth coat; this ensemble exposed her hair, but it certainly was a total contrast to how she had appeared on her last visit.
‘I understand that I am to meet Friday night’s train,’ Essermann remarked, as they drove to the station.
‘That is the idea.’
‘So, will you be free on Saturday night?’
‘As far as I know, yes. Is something happening on Saturday night?’
‘I would like to take you to the opera. I saw you at Lohengrin last month, with Count von Steinberg.’
‘Were you there?’ One can’t do anything in this goddamned city, she thought, without everyone knowing about it. But thank God she had already told Himmler. ‘I never saw you.’
‘I was in the gallery.’
‘With your mistress?’
‘With someone I would willingly have exchanged for you.’
‘Ah! And Saturday is . . .?’
‘Rienzi.’
‘The would-be dictator of fourteenth-century Rome who was torn to pieces by a mob.’
‘Ah . . . yes. I didn’t know you were that up on Wagner.’
‘I’m not. I’m that up on history. I wouldn’t have thought that was an entirely appropriate subject, right this minute.’
‘Oh, well, I don’t suppose Il Duce will attend the performance. And it is one of the Führer’s favourites. I believe it was the first opera he ever saw. Will you come?’
‘Do you know,’ Anna said, ‘I think I will.’
Was he growing on her? she wondered, as she sat in the train heading south. He was both good-looking and admiring. So he was a Nazi, and as a member of the SD as guilty as herself of all their crimes. They had a great deal in common. But the main reason, she knew, was that she was becoming fed up with the repeated assumption of her superiors that she was a lesbian . . . and perhaps with the fact that, when she had to act that part, she enjoyed it.
This time her journey was uneventful. As the days were now drawing in quite rapidly, it was dark when she arrived in Lucerne, but the Lakeview was more comfortable than the Gustav. She had a late dinner and slept soundly, enjoying a lie-in the next morning, even if she wondered when Laurent would turn up. Until he did, her movements were hampered, as it would have been distinctly odd, for example, for her to go down to the bar or the terrace overlooking the lake carrying a very heavy attaché case – and she was not prepared to let it out of her sight. So she told the maid that she had a headache and would not be leaving her room that morning, but allowed her to make the bed anyway. That brought a visit from the housekeeper, who arrived with a bottle of aspirin. Anna accepted this, but said she would take the medication later. Then she sat and read a book, but at eleven o’clock there came a tap on the door.
After her experience in Geneva she was not prepared to take any risks. She placed her Luger in the pocket of her suit and left her right hand in the pocket, forefinger curled round the trigger, as she opened the door.
But it was Laurent, as flawlessly dressed and groomed as she remembered, carrying a briefcase and looking her up and down; she wasn’t wearing her hat and her hair was loose. ‘Fräulein Borkman, I believe,’ he said. ‘Or should I address you properly, as the Countess von Widerstand?’
Almost Anna’s finger closed on the trigger. But it was the wrong place and the wrong time. And besides, Himmler had said this man was to be trusted, and was, indeed, trusting him with his life. So she stepped back, leaving her hand in her pocket. Laurent entered the room and closed the door. ‘I apologize, Countess. It was too great a temptation to resist.’
‘It was a very dangerous thing to do,’ Anna pointed out.
‘You mean you might have attacked me?’
‘I mean I might have killed you.’ She took her hand from her pocket, still holding the Luger.
He gazed at it, and then at her. ‘Then it is all true.’
‘I do not know what “it” is. But I would like you to tell me.’
‘May I sit down?’
‘Of course.’ She indicated the settee, and he sat on it, his briefcase by his side. Anna sat in a chair opposite, next to the table, on which she rested the pistol, her hand beside it.
‘And if you do not like what I say,’ he suggested, ‘you will shoot me.’
‘Very possibly. I do not know what you are carrying in that case, or in your pockets.’
‘I do not travel with a gun, if that is what you mean.’
‘You have something to tell me,’ Anna reminded him.
‘The last time we met, your voice was soft. And you had just killed two men.’
‘The last time we met I was prepared to regard you as a friend.’
‘And you’re not prepared to do that now?’
‘I need to be convinced. Tell me how you discovered who I am, and what you have done with the information.’
‘Well, if I may recapitulate: of course it was obvious to everyone who had done the shooting at the Hotel Gustav, even if it was difficult to reconcile a double murder with a strikingly good-looking young woman – which was all anyone knew about you – who had entirely disappeared. There was not even a worthwhile description of you – just a name. But there was a reported sighting of someone who could have been you boarding a train for Germany. I believe the police did make contact with their German counterparts, but they got nowhere. Well, of course, they would not, would they?’
‘You were with me at the station.’
‘Who would look twice at me when they could look once at you, Anna?’
‘You have still not told me anything that I need to know.’
‘I have friends in Germany, and I was fascinated. Well, you know that. You fascinated me from the moment I saw you. You fascinate me now, looking so much like the Angel of Death, waiting to pounce. And with your hair like that – just as on the platform in Geneva – you don’t look a day over eighteen.’
‘You say the sweetest things. But you know, one of my superiors once told me that it was an asset for a woman to look older than her age, up to twenty-five. After that, it becomes increasingly important to look younger, as long as possible. Apparently one should aim to be permanently twenty-three.’
‘So how old are you, if I am not being impertinent?’
‘You are being impertinent, but I shall forgive you. I am, actually, twenty-three. Unfortunately, come next May, I shall be twenty-four. There is not a damn thing anyone can do about that, or about all the other Mays to come, supposing I am still around to see any of them. But you have still not told me how you found out my name.’
‘Herr Himmler is not my only . . . associate in Germany. I made inquiries. I mean, I knew you were a trusted emissary for the Reichsführer, but that a young girl could calmly shoot two men with two shots . . .’
‘Actually,’ Anna said, ‘there were six shots, but the last two were unnecessary.’
‘And then to appear calmly immaculate in both dress and demeanour in my office on schedule the next morning . . .’
‘I was working,’ Anna said, modestly.
‘But where did you spend the night? I mean, you obviously couldn’t get rid of the bodies, and the police placed time of death at before midnight.’
‘I slept in my bed, Herr Laurent. I do not like sleeping rough.’
‘You . . .’ He licked his lips. ‘I don’t suppose you have anything to drink?’
‘Not handy. But I can have so
mething sent up.’ She picked up the phone, pressed ‘Room Service’. ‘Champagne suit you?’
‘Thank you.’
Anna ordered a bottle of Veuve Clicquot. ‘I am still waiting to be told something of importance, other than that you have studied the facts of that case.’
‘Well, as I said, I have various friends in Germany apart from Herr Himmler, one or two in the Gestapo, and when I asked one of them if he knew anything of a quite beautiful young woman with lethal capabilities, he said without hesitation, “You are speaking of the Countess von Widerstand.”’
‘I see,’ Anna said. ‘What else did he say?’
‘Only that you are a legend in the Secret Service. He said you had killed several times, for the Reich. He didn’t know about the two men in Geneva, of course.’ He paused. ‘Can that be true?’
‘Several times,’ Anna mused, wondering if twenty-five came into the category of ‘several’. ‘I really have not kept count, Herr Laurent.’
There was a knock on the door, and she got up to admit the floor waiter. The bottle in the ice bucket was already uncorked, so Anna tipped him and herself poured, handing Laurent his glass.
‘This is a new experience for me,’ he remarked.
She raised her eyebrows. ‘You have never drunk champagne before?’
‘Not with a self-confessed murderess.’
Anna gazed at him, and he flushed. ‘I do apologize. That was unforgivable. I should have said assassin. Or should it be executioner?’
Anna sat down again. ‘I suppose it depends on whether you are looking at the subject from the point of view of victim or executive. Tell me what you propose to do with your knowledge.’
‘Become your friend. Try to understand you – your motivation.’
Anna sipped. ‘My motivation is that I serve the Reich. Once one has done that, at least in my profession, one cannot merely retire.’
‘Are you saying that your profession is killing people?’
‘I’m afraid it is – when I am told to do so; or when, as in Geneva, I have no choice. So, wouldn’t you say that wishing to be my friend could be a highly dangerous thing to attempt?’
Angel in Jeopardy_The thrilling sequel to Angel of Vengeance Page 16
