by Robbie, Vic
Blood trickled out of the corner of Paradiso’s mouth and down his chin and he looked weary. ‘Get them to bury me up there so I’m looking at America.’
‘Let me try,’ he pleaded.
‘Leave me now. Just tell me one thing.’
‘Yes, anything.’
‘There was gold in that Fort, wasn’t there, eh?’
He nodded.
‘A whole fuckin boat made of gold, I knew it.’ Paradiso’s breath rattled in the back of his throat and he smiled as the light went out of his eyes.
57
London: Tuesday, November 18th, 1941
‘There’s little doubt he’s working for them,’ the small man was speaking quietly although his squeaky delivery failed to invest the information with the gravitas it deserved. He declined to divest himself of a beige overcoat even though the atmosphere was suffocating in the oak-panelled room, but he took off his hat, revealing a head of black curls clinging to his scalp like mussels to a rock. He opened a battered leather briefcase and extracted a sheaf of typewritten pages.
His partner, a tall man with a face used to disappointment, never shifted his eyes from Pickering making him feel almost as guilty as the man suspected of spying for the communists.
These meetings in Whitehall frustrated Pickering because he always felt he was distrusted by the duo he had nicknamed Bubble and Squeak.
‘I see,’ he said and continued to light up his pipe much to their annoyance, wondering where he should go with this information.
On returning from Paris as the Nazis invaded, he had been appointed liaison between the Secret Intelligence Service MI6 and MI5 and ultimately reported any successes or lack of them to the War Cabinet. He was beginning to wonder why he’d been chosen for this role, one he didn’t want. It could only be because he was an Old Harrovian, like Winston Churchill, although obviously not a contemporary. In his life, he’d been used to having doors opened for him and almost everyone who knew him would say he was ‘well-connected’.
He got up a full head of steam and deliberately sent a cloud of pipe smoke in the direction of the two men who sat opposite him across a large table. ‘I see,’ he said again as though in the process of devising some devilish strategy in his head while all the time he was thinking how much he disliked them. He knew the information they gave him in their weekly meetings wasn’t necessarily the entire truth and were merely fragments to appease those higher up the food chain. MI5 and SIS were sometimes together in the same bed although they were never intimate.
Seeing the discomfort on the men’s faces, he smiled. ‘This is a very serious matter. Tell me more about the person in question.’
‘He works for the Foreign Office, an expert in economic warfare,’ Squeak piped up.
They had been watching him for several weeks now and were building up an impressive dossier on him. Pickering actually knew him although it was never wise to admit to knowing someone suspected of being a mole.
‘You must know him,’ Bubble broke his silence. ‘You were both working at the Embassy in Paris before the Jerries invaded.’
He considered his answer carefully. ‘May have bumped into him once or twice. That’s all. I didn’t spend a lot of time there, out in the field, you know.’ Though his idea of the field was more a pleasant café with a good menu and a plentiful supply of wine. He could tell they knew he was lying.
Pickering remembered the tall, lanky young man, who liked his drink. He had been in his company in the Café Flore in 1939 when he met a pretty American girl. Pickering couldn’t remember her name. He’d got her pregnant and they married just before the invasion and escaped by boat to England.
‘Well, I suppose it’s better than working for the Nazis.’
Squeak spluttered and Bubble eyed him with distaste.
‘What’s his background?’ he felt he had to ask.
‘Classic route,’ Squeak said. ‘Disenchanted with the capitalism of the West. Believes all men should be equal.’ Squeak shook his head as if he deserved to be arrested for his naivety. ‘Recruited by the NKVD while at Cambridge. Started passing low-level information at first then moved on to more serious stuff. Usually meets his handler, a woman, every day after work.’
‘You sure he’s not just having an affair?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘So what are you going to do, pull him in and give him the old rubber truncheon treatment?’
‘No,’ Squeak said.
‘We’re far more sophisticated these days,’ Bubble chipped in.
‘Isn’t it dangerous leaving a suspected spy free to wander about?’
‘You can tell your masters we have him under control,’ Squeak said, a smugness settling into his round face.
‘I see.’ He treated them to another blast of smoke. ‘How so?’
‘We have a large team working on him, seeing where he goes and who he’s meeting,’ Bubble said. ‘You could say we’re trying to smoke out his contacts.’
He liked that and laughed loudly. ‘Excellent, excellent.’ And he rewarded them with another puff of his pipe.
Squeak glanced at his partner as though Pickering had missed the point. ‘He’s being fed erroneous information which we expect he’ll pass along to Moscow.’
He knew all about MI5’s double-cross system that was pretty successful. Let the traitors spread misleading information that would set their bosses off on wild goose chases. ‘So I can report back that everything is under control?’
Both gave what they regarded as smiles and then hesitated, looking at each other.
Eventually, Squeak spoke up. ‘It’s not the real reason we wanted to see you.’
‘Oh?’
‘Some troubling information has come to light about one of yours.’
By ‘yours’ Squeak meant someone in the Intelligence community. Pickering stopped puffing, feeling a constriction of his neck like a noose being tightened.
‘Who?’
‘The person we’re referring to is known to you,’ Squeak said avoiding a direct answer. ‘We’ll have to agree on who handles this case.’
That made him bristle. He liked to think they could police their own patch. ‘I see,’ he said carefully.
‘The suspect has a sound knowledge of Germany and is almost definitely working for the Nazis.’
‘Aha, a double agent.’ He sat forward in his chair. ‘How did you find this out?’
‘We can’t tell you,’ Bubble said like a card player holding a winning hand. ‘But we understand he is privy to some of our most important secrets.’
‘C’mon, out with it man, give me his name?’
‘We can’t,’ Bubble said. ‘Not until we’ve investigated it fully. It’s possible he has some friends in Intelligence.’
‘I see,’ he said, wondering if he were suspected and what leverage he could exert to make them reveal the name of the suspect.
For what seemed some time, they sat staring across the table at each other – allies, yet enemies. Pickering was working his beard, which was something he always did when trying to figure a way out of a corner. Then Squeak pulled over a pad on the desk in front of him and with a yellow pencil wrote in exaggerated capitals on the paper before tearing it off, folding it and sliding it across the table to him.
He pulled the note towards him and slowly unfolded the paper. At first, he didn’t understand what was written there and then blinked in disbelief when he recognised the name of the suspect. He could see Bubble and Squeak were enjoying this by the smirks on their faces. He read it again and gasped and screwed it up into a ball, his face turning as white as the sheet of paper.
58
Grand Rivière, Martinique: Tuesday, November 18th, 1941
Ben stood on the stern of Louis’s boat looking back at the island of Martinique receding into the haze. His priority now was to get the information about the Nazi plans to bomb the US to Smee so the Americans could put in motion a strategy to counter the threat. Von Bayerstein might have been
presumptuous about German capabilities, but if successful it would mean heavy casualties and possibly cost Britain and America the war. Whoever won the race between the Allies and the Germans to develop an atomic bomb would dominate the world. They weren’t safe yet, and he was reliant on Louis’s skills to evade any patrol boats that might be looking for them. He thought of the people he’d left behind. Raymond, whose death would devastate the Resistance’s ability to fight Vichy and the Nazis. Paradiso, who may have been a killer for The Mob, but Ben liked in a way he couldn’t explain. And Ronnie.
After Paradiso had died with a smile on his lips, Ben closed his eyelids and both he and Ronnie stood in silence over his body before she reminded him. ‘It’s time you were going.’
He smiled at her, thinking she was more beautiful than the first time he’d met her. ‘You mean we?’
She didn’t smile and instead hung her head and closed her eyes, holding back the tears. ‘I’m not coming,’ she whispered
‘That’s crazy. You can’t stay. The Nazis will hunt you down. They’ll be rounding up everyone they suspect of having any connection to the Resistance.’
Tears rolled slowly down her cheeks as she stared at him. ‘I’m sorry, Ben, I can’t go with you.’
‘Please,’ he stepped forward, taking her hand, and she folded into him.
‘I’m needed here,’ she said, her voice breaking. ‘After all that has happened, I can’t desert my island now.’
He held her at arms’ length with his hands gently on her shoulders and wanted her more than anything. ‘Please, I want you to come with me. I need you to.’
Her head shook and doubts and conflict flitted across her face like clouds as if one word, one gesture, might sway her.
‘I’ll take you to America, to England wherever you want to go. Wherever you’ll be safe.’
She attempted a smile although it was more of a grimace as she bit her lip.
‘Please.’
She stepped in close and put her arms around his neck and pulled his head down until their lips met and she smelled good and her body was soft against his and he felt all his power slipping away. She kissed him hard and her teeth clung onto his bottom lip as though she wasn’t going to let him go. Eventually, she broke free. ‘Goodbye, Mr Peters,’ she whispered and turned to go, still holding his hand. ‘Au revoir. Mwen emmen’w.’
It needed no translation and made him want to do something, anything – give chase, catch her, drag her back screaming if necessary to the safety of the boat. But it was hopeless. All he could do was watch as she walked away, gradually increasing her pace until she broke into a flowing run before disappearing into a crowd of villagers.
Louis’s voice was insistent. ‘Poté mannèv’ Hurry up, get on the boat. Must go now. It’s dangerous to delay.’
He turned towards the boat and Natalie shouted at him to run, but his legs were as stiff as stone. He had to stop one last time to see whether Ronnie had changed her mind and was walking back to him. But there was no sign of her.
The island had reduced to a smudge on the horizon when Louis came down from the wheelhouse. ‘You guys are goin to have to lie low. I can’t go into Dominica in daylight so we’re goin to kill time. They’re used to seeing me fishin out here so that’s what I’ll do. You two need to go down below and keep out of sight until I tell you it’s okay to come out.’
They looked at each other. They were in his hands now.
‘If I’d known you was comin, I’d have got in some provisions. Fraid ain’t got no food, but there’s a bottle of rum down there.’
They went below, closing the double doors of the cabin behind them, and Ben sought out the rum and found a couple of thick tumblers and cleaned them on a thin curtain framing one of the two portholes. He poured a healthy shot in each, handed one to her, and they clinked glasses. ‘So far so good, we’re on our way,’ he said, thinking the next stage of the journey might be even more hazardous.
The cabin was basic with a washbasin, some cupboards, where he guessed Louis kept his provisions when he had any, and a bunk. She slumped down on the bunk while he stood by the door, swaying to the rocking of the boat.
‘It’s not,’ she said.
‘Not what?’
‘Not good.’
He studied his drink, knowing what she was thinking, and drained it in one gulp and she copied him. He walked over to the bottle and filled their tumblers with the same measure. He clinked her glass again and knocked it back, feeling the warmth of the spirit working its magic in his intestines. She hesitated and he nodded at her, and she lifted the tumbler to her lips and took a sip, letting it roll around her mouth, before draining the rest of it. She held out her glass for a refill.
‘Good,’ he repeated and she raised an eyebrow. ‘The rum.’
She smiled and ran a hand through her long black hair, pulling it away from her face and letting it fall so it flowed around her cheeks and shoulders.
‘At least we’re safe from the Nazis for the moment,’ he said.
‘We’ll never be safe from them,’ she said with bitterness in her voice. ‘Germany has spies everywhere, even in New York. And they’ll be determined to silence us, whatever it takes.’
He sighed. He knew that. It was just he didn’t want to be reminded of it.
‘Did she upset you?’ Natalie held the tumbler in both hands and looked concerned.
‘You noticed?’
‘Couldn’t help it.’
‘I asked her to come with us, but she put her country first.’
‘Hard to take I guess?’ She placed a comforting hand on his arm.
‘I just wanted her to be safe. The Nazis are big on getting revenge.’
‘Yes, I know a lot about that,’ she said glancing at him and not seeing him as if she were looking into the distance.
‘Tell me.’
‘It’s painful.’
He didn’t say anything, the silence encouraging her to fill the void.
‘When the Nazis invaded France I lived in a village–’
‘Where?’
‘The name’s not important.’ Her bottom lip trembled. ‘I doubt if it’s still there. Certainly the people aren’t. A group of local youths thought they would stand up against the Nazis and they got hold of some shotguns and killed a couple of German soldiers. The next day the Germans came back in force. All the men and boys were rounded up and herded into a barn that was set alight. Women and even their babies and children were driven into the village church and burned to death.’
Her head dropped and for the first time he realised all her confidence was a façade as a tear slipped down her cheek. ‘I lost, I lost–’ She gulped, needing more air to force the words out. ‘I lost ma mère, mon père, and ma soeur and mon frère.’
He jumped on top of her pinning her underneath him and held a hand over her mouth. She struggled in surprise and tried to bite his hand and she glared at him.
‘Sssh.’ He put a finger to his lips.
Through the porthole he saw a powerful motor launch, one of the island’s patrol boats he guessed, approaching at speed. When it was yards away, it throttled back and drifted alongside.
‘If they come aboard, we’re finished,’ he hissed in her ear.
‘Ça va, Louis, how’s the fishing this morning?’ a voice shouted from the other boat.
‘Slow,’ Louis shouted back. ‘No big fish today.’
The other boat kept station about ten feet away and the men exchanged pleasantries for several minutes before the voice on the other boat shouted ‘Au revoir’. Its engine kicked into life and left them rocking in its wake.
She pushed him off her and picked up her drink, finishing it in one gulp.
‘How did you manage to–’
‘Escape from the Germans?’
He nodded.
‘A friend from the village and I used to go up to a field to spend time together.’ Her eyes appeared to be checking whether he was judging her. ‘They didn’t know we
were there and I ran away and ran and ran for days I think.’
‘What happened to him?’
‘He was the brave one; he went back to see if there were any survivors. They captured him and hanged him.’
‘Ronnie didn’t trust you, she wondered whose side you were on.’ And he wondered if he did either. She’d been at ease in von Bayerstein’s company although he was beginning to realise nothing in this war was quite as it seemed.
A sadness swept over her. ‘War is cruel; it transforms us from human beings into animals, into monsters. We have to do things we’d never do in normal times. Hard decisions are made to let people die so a lie can be perpetuated. Things we’d regard abhorrent, we accept as a necessity, as a part of our duty. We fight on many different battlefields, some visible, others in dark places that will never be seen. It degrades us all, good and evil alike, so we’ll never feel clean again.’
He realised she was talking about herself as she held out her glass for a refill and he topped it up and his own at the same time.
‘Was it true what you told von Bayerstein?’
‘Maybe yes, maybe no.’ She paused for what seemed a long time. ‘What is truth? Pick your truth. In war, some see lies as truth.’
‘Who are you working for?’
She shook her head, her mouth full of alcohol. ‘Can’t say. Worked in London for a bit. Unfortunately, I was there on the first night of The Blitz.’
He almost dropped his glass and the cabin seemed to be swaying more than ever and he didn’t know whether it was the drink, the waves or what she’d said. It wasn’t a dream; he had met her before.
‘So it was you? The French girl?’
She sat with her head on one side like a dog waiting for a ball to be thrown.
‘We were both in Fleet Street that night. I bumped into you and you ran off up the street and I followed you.’
‘Why?’ He could see that she was trying to remember.
‘Why do we do certain things?’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘I guess I didn’t want to let you go. A man followed you into an alleyway and it looked as though he’d killed you. I’d forgotten all about it until now. There was a bomb–’
