by Alex Gerlis
After a good deal of handshaking and shoulder-slapping the three men climbed into the car. ‘I know it’s late, Rolf, but we can’t hang around here. People know we fly secret agents in and out on the Lysanders, so protocol dictates the fewer people who see you the better. We’ll head straight to where your training will take place.’
***
Crispin Meredith reluctantly dropped the speed and wound up his window. ‘How’s Rolf getting on? Yes, very well. He’s a bright chap, takes it all in. Most pleasant too.’
‘I meant more specifically… I say, Crispin, can you slow down a little bit? It doesn’t matter if we get there a couple of minutes later, surely?’
‘It does actually, Edgar. You gave me two months to train a chap who’d never so much as held a gun in his life and doesn’t know one end of a radio transmitter from the other. We’ve had to start from scratch with him.’
‘So will he make it?’
‘You told me he’ll have to.’
They’d headed north west from Marlow, and the drive to the isolated house at the end of a long and narrow track took another 20 minutes. George Whitlock met them at the front door, looking better than Edgar had seen him for some time.
‘It’s nice and warm here, Edgar, and I eat two decent meals a day. I think I must have been rather neglecting myself.’
‘Rolf’s on shooting practice at the moment,’ said Meredith. ‘He’ll join us for lunch. You want to know if he’ll be ready by the end of the month, you said that’s the absolute deadline?’
Edgar nodded. ‘And will he be?’
‘He’ll certainly be considerably more ready than when he arrived, but I suppose that’s axiomatic. George tells me you want him to set up and run a unit in Vienna?’
‘Ideally. At the very least he needs to be able to operate on his own with a reasonable degree of effectiveness and survive long enough so it’s not an entirely wasted journey.’
‘He’ll know the basics. Though I do tend to share George’s view that he may lack a degree of… steel…’
‘I think what I mean,’ said Whitlock, ‘is that I recruited him as a helper and I’m still not convinced he can make the transition to be an agent in his own right. I wonder if we’re expecting too much of him?’
‘Remember though,’ said Edgar, ‘at the risk of going over old ground, he may have been little more than a messenger with you, but he was in the field with me in Germany. He helped escort a very important man and his documents out into Switzerland. I think you underestimate him.’
‘Beginner’s luck?’
‘The same could be said of all of us,’ said Edgar. ‘In any case, one really never knows until one’s tested, thrown into the deep end so to speak. Another consideration is that we’ve no one else. He’ll have to be ready. Now then, is it time for lunch? I’d like to spend some time with Rolf, see how he’s faring.’
‘Before we bring him in, Edgar, there’s something that needs addressing,’ said Meredith. ‘George, perhaps you’d like to explain?’
Whitlock coughed noisily for a while before he began to speak. ‘Poor old Rolf has a weak spot. I always look for that and I’m afraid in his case it’s not been terribly hard to find.’
‘Go on,’ said Edgar.
‘He had a fiancée in Vienna, a girl called Frieda,’ said Whitlock. ‘I knew her: surprised she was his type. A dentist, bit older than him. Rather opinionated and almost certainly a communist. I thought they’d split up and that was one of the reasons he’d left Austria, but he still seems smitten with her.’
‘Has he been crying on your shoulder, George?’
‘Not mine. There’s a girl here called Lucy, she’s a cook-cum-housekeeper. Very pretty thing. I encourage her to get close to the chaps, flirt a bit… see what they tell her. She only needed to smile at poor old Rolf and he opened up his heart to her. Evidently he’s still in love with Frieda, desperate to find out what’s happened to her. As I say, it’s a weak spot.’
Edgar nodded. ‘And that’s all?’
‘No,’ said Meredith. ‘There’s another matter, perhaps more serious. Sending a Viennese into his home town is enormously helpful, I realise that. The Viennese are a breed apart, quite unlike other Austrians, let alone other German-speakers. He knows his way around, he understands the city and, even though he’s been away for five years now, he’ll be alert to its dangers. He’ll know when something’s not quite right. I know we’re planning to give him Swiss identity and he can certainly manage to speak standard German now with a Zürich accent, but that’s not the point. It doesn’t solve the problem. He can’t get out of his mind that someone will recognise him: a neighbour, friend, former schoolmate, even a distant relative. To be frank with you, even though it’s five years since I’ve last seen him, he’s hardly changed at all. And it’s not as if we can dismiss this as an unfounded fear of his. One can’t spend nearly 25 years in a place and expect not to be spotted in it sooner or later.’
‘I appreciate that, George,’ said Edgar. ‘But on balance the advantages of sending him there outweigh what drawbacks there are.’
‘The point is though,’ said Meredith, ‘is it’s affecting his confidence. One of the most important aspects of our training is that an agent has to have complete confidence in their new identity. He has to totally believe he’s plausible. If he’s going to arrive in Vienna then worry that each time he turns a corner he’s going to bump into someone who knows him, that’s going affect his behaviour. I can tell how worried he is.’
‘I realise that, but I’m not sure what we can do about it.’
‘That’s what I thought too, Edgar, but I do have an idea…’
***
The following Monday morning Edgar was impatiently waiting outside the front door of a large house on Wimpole Street in the heart of London, studying an impressive collection of brass plates as he waited for the building to open. When it finally did, just after 8.00, he went to the third floor, where he found the consulting room of George Harman, Surgeon.
A distinguished-looking man with a dark complexion and gold-rimmed glasses greeted him, and took him into a small lounge.
‘I understand you were expecting me, Dr Harman?’
‘Mr Harman,’ said the man in a well-spoken voice that nonetheless failed to disguise a Germanic ring to it. ‘In this country, a surgeon is a Mister. In Germany I was a Doctor: Dr Georg Häumann. Now I’m plain Mr George Harman. When I came here I felt I’d been demoted! Yes, I was expecting you, Mr Edgar: a most mysterious call. But please, how can I help?’
‘I’m afraid that much of what I have to say – and why – will remain a mystery, but I’m sure you understand. I can only tell you this: I represent an agency of the British Government. The request I’m about to make is highly confidential. You must never utter a word about it to anyone, not even your wife or close colleagues. Do you understand?’
‘If only I had the opportunity to tell my wife, Mr Edgar,’ said Harman. ‘I left Germany in 1937 when Jews were forbidden to practice as doctors, or at least forbidden from treating Aryan patients. My wife and three children remained in Germany. She had elderly parents and the idea was that I’d establish myself here and she’d follow.’
Harman paused and removed his spectacles, vigorously polishing them for a while with a handkerchief from his top pocket. When he resumed speaking it was more quickly than before, as if it was painful to dwell on the words.
‘Needless to say, she left it too late. It was still possible to leave after ’39, but it became increasingly difficult then impossible. I’ve not heard a word from them since January 1940 – January 14th. I deal with it by concentrating on my work. An opportunity to assist the British Government is a most welcome one indeed. Tell me how I can help.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that, Mr Harman,’ Edgar coughed. ‘My department made various enquiries among the senior ranks of the medical profession over the weekend and we’ve been given to understand you’re a leading exponent of the branch o
f surgery that alters a person’s appearance. Is that correct?’
‘It’s good of people to think that and they’re most probably correct. This branch of surgery is a very specialist one and was much more advanced in Germany than in this country, though there’s some very impressive reconstructive surgery now being carried out in Britain. I know there are some remarkable results with RAF aircrew that have been burnt and disfigured. Nonetheless, I’ve specialised in this area for some 15 years and would like to think, without being boastful, I do have a degree of expertise.’
‘My question is this, how easy is it to change someone’s appearance?’
‘It depends,’ said Harman. ‘I can surgically alter anyone’s appearance, but with some people it’s easier than with others. I’d need to meet the patient.’
Edgar opened his briefcase and removed a series of photographs of Rolf from every angle, which he fanned out on the table in front of the surgeon.
‘This is the patient.’
Harman put his glasses back on and carefully studied the photographs, taking them over to his desk and holding them under an angle poise lamp.
‘A suitable patient in some respects, I’d say,’ he said eventually.
‘The ears?’
‘They’d be the most apparent feature. They’re most pronounced.’
‘And can anything be done about that?’
‘Absolutely, Mr Edgar. I’d have to examine the patient first, but I’d say he’s an excellent candidate for otoplasty, which is the surgical procedure to pin back the ears. You’ll understand I’m putting it in layman’s terms.’
‘Is it a complicated operation?’
‘I wouldn’t find it complicated to perform, no.’
‘And what would the effect be?’
‘Quite significant. Colleagues who work in other fields have discovered that one of the ways we subconsciously recognise people is through the shape and position of their ears. In the case of this person, his ears stick out to such a degree that reverting them to what would be a normal angle would have a marked effect.’
‘So that even someone who knows him very well may not recognise him?’
Harman hesitated, frowning then raising his eyebrows.
‘I’m not sure I’d go quite as far as that. It would certainly alter their appearance, but probably not to the extent that someone who knows them well wouldn’t recognise them at all. The best one can probably hope for is that it would make someone unsure. To make them unrecognisable, you’d need to combine the otoplasty with another form of facial reconstructive surgery.’
Edgar leaned over and looked at the photographs.
‘What about the nose, isn’t there surgery that can alter the shape of a nose?’
‘Rhinoplasty, but I’m not sure your patient would be a suitable candidate.’
‘Why not?’
‘First of all, there’s nothing wrong with his nose, it’s actually a perfect nose in almost every respect. There would be ethical issues that would arise about performing rhinoplasty in this instance. However…’
‘But Mr Harman, you need to understand that…’
‘Please let me finish. I know what you were about to say. No doubt this is an issue of national importance and such a consideration may override other ones, I understand that. However, there’s a more important consideration. Can I ask you a question?’
‘Go on.’
‘How soon would you like this surgery to be carried out?’
‘As soon as possible: this patient needs to travel by the end of the month.’
‘Really?’ Harman had removed his spectacles again and was staring at Edgar as if he was slightly mad.
‘Is that a problem?’
‘It is indeed: otoplasty takes four to six weeks to recover from, I’d say much closer to six weeks. Rhinoplasty will take far longer than that – it involves breaking the nasal bone and there will be severe bruising for many weeks.’
Edgar looked deflated. ‘And you say the otoplasty may not be enough in itself to alter his appearance?’
Harman nodded then picked up one of the photographs again, studying it carefully. ‘There is another option though: blepharoplasty.’
‘What on earth is that?’
‘A surgical procedure to reshape the eyelids. The effect can be very dramatic. It’s perhaps the most radical of all facial reconstructive surgeries in terms of how it can alter a person’s appearance. This gentleman’s lower lids are slightly hooded and the upper ones could be tightened up too.’
‘What about the recovery time?’
‘No longer than for the otoplasty.’
‘Could the two procedures be done at the same time?’
Harman frowned again. ‘I’ve never done the two together; I’d need to discuss it with an anaesthetist.’
***
‘Say that again Edgar.’
‘Six weeks.’
‘Out of the question,’ said Christopher Porter. ‘Completely ridiculous. Frankly, I’m surprised you even thought it appropriate to bring us all here to discuss this.’
There were five of them in Porter’s office. Apart from Porter himself and Edgar, Sir Roland Pearson had come over from Downing Street, and George Whitlock and Crispin Meredith had been summoned from the house near Marlow. It was the Tuesday morning, the day after Edgar had met George Harman.
‘Where are we?’ Porter swivelled around to glance at the calendar on the wall behind him. ‘The 8th: today’s the 8th February. How long has Rolf been with you now, Crispin?’
‘Just over a month.’
‘And he’s meant to be with you for how long… another month? Is that enough time to train him properly?’
‘I’d say it’s the bare minimum.’
‘I thought we’d made it clear it’d have to be,’ said Sir Roland. ‘If this Krasotkin is already in Vienna we can’t afford to let him have too much of a head start. Rolf must be there by early March at the latest. What’s all this nonsense then about an operation?’
‘Crispin and George have pointed out we’re expecting Rolf to return to his home town, where there’s a very good chance he’ll be recognised,’ said Edgar. ‘George said he hadn’t seen him for five years but thinks he’s hardly changed. Rolf himself is well aware of this and it’s affecting his confidence and undermining his ability to operate in Vienna.’
Meredith and Whitlock both nodded in agreement.
‘This surgery would significantly alter his appearance,’ continued Edgar. ‘We can do other things, too, like darken his hair and give him a pair of specs. But I’d say the surgery is vital if this mission is to have a chance of success.’
‘But it’ll take six weeks for him to recover?’ said Porter.
‘Correct.’
‘Which takes us into the middle of April, plus a further week to get him into Vienna. That’s ridiculous.’
‘Perhaps not,’ said Edgar. ‘I think there’s a way we could have him in Vienna by the end of March, possibly even slightly earlier.’
Sir Roland looked up, interested. ‘Really, how’s that?’
‘We operate straight away: this week. The surgeon will allow him to travel after five weeks providing there are no complications. There’ll still be a few more days to get him into Vienna.’
‘But what about the training?’
‘It’ll take him a week or so to recover from the operation, the anaesthetic and such. But, after that, we’ve four weeks for what we call “soft” training: briefings, handling a radio, that kind of thing – just no assault course. Not ideal, but needs must.’
No one said anything for a while. Edgar lit a cigarette, Whitlock coughed heavily and Porter studied the calendar.
‘Winston’s very, very concerned about the Soviets putting a top man into Vienna,’ said Sir Roland. ‘And this theory that they’re seeking to undermine the Moscow Declaration, well he does rather see the logic of it. As much as he favours diplomacy, he has an innate distrust of communists. When he aske
d me what we’re doing about it – actually he said “what the hell are you doing about it, Pearson” – I was able to tell him we’ve a top-class man we’re preparing to send in there. Can’t let him down, can we?’
‘On balance then, it’s probably better to send Rolf in a couple of weeks later than planned, but with a better chance of seeing his innings through, eh? Wouldn’t want him bowled out in the first over.’ The mention of the prime minister had evidently had an ameliorating effect on Porter.
‘Very well,’ said Edgar. ‘I’ll come back with you chaps and break it to Rolf that we’re going to tinker around with his appearance.’
‘I have a question,’ said Sir Roland. ‘How’s Rolf going to get into Austria?’
‘SOE have reluctantly agreed we can get him back the same way as he came – through France into Switzerland. Basil will look after things then.’
‘I see… and when he arrives in Vienna… he’ll be all on his own?’
Edgar nodded.
‘Money, weapons – that kind of thing? He’s not going to be able to take much into Austria with him, is he?’
‘I do actually have a potential source of those,’ said Edgar. ‘I was keeping them for a rainy day.’
‘I’m sure you were. But there’s no one in Vienna, is there George?’
‘Not as far as we know. They’ve all left the country, been captured or been killed. Apart from the nun of course, but other than putting Rolf in touch with Leitner, we’re not sure she’s going to be of much use.’
‘He won’t be briefed about Leitner, will he?’
