by Vic Robbie
The Argentine secret police kept him under daily surveillance, including bugging his apartment, and often when alone he spoke out loud to himself, almost expecting a response. That discouraged colleagues from continuing his work as they didn’t want to attract attention from the authorities. Concerned friends warned he could be putting himself in danger, but he answered with a laugh and the riposte: ‘I’m small fry. No one takes me seriously. They wouldn’t harm me. And, if something untoward happened, it might draw attention to them.’
In every respect, his days were numbered. This would be his last trip although his wife didn’t know that. And he would deliver two cases of his most important papers and information for Pickering to make use of in any way he thought fit. He could act on them or burn them for all he cared.
The taxi driver climbed out of his cab to help carry his cases into MI6’s headquarters at 54 Broadway, which he had visited years before with Pickering. He stated his name and business to a grim-faced receptionist on the third floor, who ushered him into a room. He waited for several hours for Pickering’s return. When his pain grew unbearable, and he felt faint, the receptionist explained that Pickering wouldn’t be in that day, and he should try on another occasion.
Disappointed, he left his cases for Pickering with a note for him to ‘Enjoy’ much to the receptionist’s chagrin. He departed the SIS building, intending to catch a taxi, but his eye caught the red, white and blue sign for St James’s Park underground. He’d told friends that when in London they should travel on the tube, and he decided to have a little adventure before joining his wife for dinner. And the anticipation was exhilarating.
Late afternoon, passengers packing the platform, and he was trapped at the back against the white-tiled walls. Several trains came and went. And he had hardly moved. He would need to use his elbows and push to stand any chance of getting on the next one. He shuffled forward, every few inches of progress like a victory for an invading army. Again, he couldn’t make it, the doors closing on his fingers. Now at the front, he felt a surge of elation. Soon he would squeeze into a train and travel a few stops before returning to the hotel.
It wasn’t a push, more a nudge in the jostling but enough to knock him off balance. He toppled forward, snatching at a commuter’s jacket to stop his fall, the tips of his fingers only brushing the cloth. And he clutched air. Almost in slow motion, he put out a despairing arm to prevent his fall and saw the terror in the person’s eyes. A distant rumbling signalled the imminent arrival of the next train and a whoosh of air rushed along the tunnel before exploding out onto the platform. And, as he toppled into the abyss, the lights of the oncoming train blinded him, and the last thing he heard was a screeching, keening sound.
In the ensuing panic, the travellers took no notice of the tall man who avoided eye contact with those around him as he strolled to the exit.
7
Aberdeen, Scotland
The voyage to Aberdeen through where the North Sea and the Atlantic come together in a violent confluence tested every bit of their courage and endurance. Although used to the unpredictable forces of the sea from her experience with the Shetland Bus, that was like a millpond in comparison. The energy of the waters made her ill. Freddie was violently sick each time they climbed a thirty-foot wall of water and plunged down the other side into a seething cauldron. When it reached the bottom, the boat shuddered and groaned and creaked so much she feared it might split apart. Unperturbed by the mayhem, Callum roared like a cowboy riding a wild bull, every wave a challenge. When they made landfall in Aberdeen, they were numb with fatigue and she found it almost impossible to stand upright on dry land as she still swayed to the rhythm of the sea.
Freddie lay as limp as a rag doll in her arms. And her face was whiter than the flying spray. She hand-combed her hair but gave up as it stood straight up from her scalp as if petrified. The gale force winds had battered her into almost a state of surrender, and only her fear of the Nazis drove her on.
Somewhere, someone was frying bacon, and that combined with the pervasive stink of fish made her gag. They said a grateful farewell to Callum and headed for Union Square to catch the train to London.
‘You’ll have to be quick, miss,’ a porter shouted at her when he realised she was making for the London train. And he opened the gate to the platform as the guard blew his whistle and waved his flag to signal the driver to go.
As the train lurched into motion with a hissing release of its brakes, they made it to the last carriage. A soldier smoking in the corridor pushed open the door and grasped Freddie and pulled him in. Getting a foot on the step, she threw her bag in after him. The soldier reached out as there was a tug on her coat. Attempting to shrug it away, she swivelled recognising the brutal face of the Nazi who had arrived in Shetland. She hit him with her free hand. But there was insufficient force in the blow to deter him and, as the train picked up speed, his weight threatened to drag her off.
‘Please, help me,’ she cried as she slipped backwards. The soldier leant out and grabbed her arm, pulling her towards him. It loosened the Nazi’s grip, and she clambered into the carriage, and the soldier slammed the door behind her. But the Nazi kept pace with the train and surged forward, grasping the handle and pulling himself up onto the step. She could see him glancing at her and then up the track to judge how long before he ran out of platform.
The soldier’s puzzled expression turned to one of determination. He moved past her and kicked open the door with such force that it smashed the Nazi against the side of the carriage. With a look of panic, the Nazi glanced down at the disappearing platform before losing his grip and falling on his face on the concrete with a crunch. After a backwards glance, the soldier ushered them into a compartment and told his mates to make room for them.
‘Here, son,’ he said, putting Alena’s bag up on the rack, ‘come and sit by the window.’
His head in her lap and his eyelids fluttering like a butterfly’s wings, Freddie soon drifted into sleep, and the other soldiers kept a respectful distance. At that moment, she knew only a woman could understand a mother’s relationship with her son.
Now she worried if she could still count on SIS’s help. They had once been regarded as an important prize. Officers visited from London, and there were regular debriefings, and occasionally they brought gifts and books for Freddie, but that interest had faded.
Because of her extensive language skills honed working for the French diplomatic service before the war, she had helped the Shetland Bus project. Her role was to contact Norwegian resistance fighters and skilled workers and scientists, who the Germans would have forced to work for them, and help them escape. She saw it as a way of repaying her debt.
Dempsey Smee, the boss of one of the myriad offshoots of the intelligence world, had taken her to the island. Now, whenever she contacted London, they refused to let her speak to him. Messages went unanswered.
Freddie talked in his sleep as she rocked him. But she couldn’t close her eyes. Where was the other Nazi? Was he on board the train and waiting to strike?
New York
He had to take care of business before his flight. The pursuer had followed him from London to New York and, while he admired her persistence, he didn’t want company on the way down to Buenos Aires. No one knew his destination, and now would be the time to lose her. He could kill her. That would be best, but messy, causing complications and unwanted publicity. The NYPD didn’t like dealing with all the red tape when foreigners died on their patch. The woman was attractive. Not an asset, as she stood out from the crowd. Obviously French Intelligence, but they should be more professional. Perhaps the war had depleted their resources. Hiring competent people in peace time was difficult. If they had ordered her to make his acquaintance, he might have liked that. He could have spent some time with her, but on this occasion, he would let her down gently.
Sitting across the big room in a restaurant on First Avenue, she never glanced at him through an appetiser of chicken wi
ngs and the entrée of a bacon hamburger. He loved American food, but you couldn’t beat the steaks where he was going. He stole a look at her to judge where she was with the meal. Didn’t want to go when she wasn’t ready. If he had to wait around for her outside, it would look suspicious. The woman was toying with a coffee, so he got the check. As he did, so did she. Perfect. A couple of cabs cruised past, and he jumped in the first, relieved to see she flagged down the next. And he wondered with a smile if she would order the cabbie to ‘follow that cab’.
La Guardia was like an ant’s heap on the move, and he paced himself so that she kept in touch. It was important that he knew her location at all times. He walked over and studied the departures board, and she mirrored his actions. So far, so good.
‘Need to get the next flight to San Francisco,’ he said in a loud voice to a lady behind the desk and opened his wallet.
‘Sure, it’s in an hour,’ she replied with a saccharine smile.
The timing was perfect; he wouldn’t miss his connection south. He picked up the ticket and his bag and headed for departures without looking to see if she were following. She would buy one also and delay her entrance into the lounge so as not to catch his eye. As they called the flight, she slipped in at the back of the lounge. He had to ensure she saw him getting on first, so he made certain he was at the head of the queue. An attendant checked the ticket and smiled. ‘Have a nice flight’. Glancing back, he saw she was at the rear.
He quickened his pace along a corridor to the plane so that he was out of sight for a moment. Halfway down, he tried a door on the right and, finding it unlocked, opened it and entered a room.
A startled man shouted at him. ‘Hey, buddy, you can’t come in here.’
‘Sorry, sorry.’ He appeared flustered as he dabbed at his face with a handkerchief. ‘Came over faint. Sorry, I’m not well.’
The worker showed genuine concern and came over to him. ‘Sure, buddy.’ He pulled out a chair. ‘Sit here, but you might miss your plane.’
‘Don’t worry.’ He waved him away. ‘Can’t travel now. I feel sick.’
‘Okay, buddy, let me find someone to look after you.’ He sat down behind a desk and thumbed through a Rolodex of numbers before picking up the phone. ‘Hang on. Leave it to me.’
While the attendant talked to the person on the other end, explaining his location in the airport, he waited until the passengers walked by. When he heard the plane’s door slam shut and the starting up of the propellers, he jumped to his feet. ‘No, no, don’t bother. I’m better now,’ he said to the man’s surprise. ‘If I rush, I could catch the next one.’
He left the room and walked back towards the gate. The woman would be on board, and only once the doors closed would she realise he wasn’t on the plane.
8
London
The asthmatic chug of traffic penetrated the room where Alena and Freddie waited. Tired and dirty, this comparative seclusion was a welcome respite.
She had arrived at 54 Broadway with little confidence. A plaque on the wall outside stated it to be the office of the Minimax Fire Extinguisher Company. Directed to the third floor, she met a receptionist who enjoyed dissuading visitors and thought he had the right to be discourteous to a woman and child looking like refugees.
In a bleak reception area, she filled out a form on a yellow notepad, explaining the reason for the visit. Whenever she caught his gaze, he suggested it might be better to call another day due to there being a skeleton staff on duty. Still bound by the Official Secrets Act, she couldn’t explain why she wished to meet Smee and endeavoured to describe the seriousness of their situation without revealing sensitive detail. The Nazis wanted them dead, but he looked bored as if everyone was in the same predicament.
‘Very well, miss.’ The condescension in his voice was as thick as lard. ‘I’ll see what I can do, but it’ll be difficult.’
After he wandered off, his phone rang, but no one came to answer it. Alena stretched out in the chair and closed her eyes and, worried she would fall asleep, opened them straight away. Freddie looked at a comic and made the odd explosive sound as he read.
‘Miss, miss.’
Startled and disoriented, as if she were still on the boat, she awoke.
The receptionist tugged the sleeve of her coat. ‘Someone will see you now.’ At last, he took her seriously, and her hopes rose. ‘The boy can stay with me.’
‘No.’ The forcefulness of her response surprised him. ‘He goes where I go.’
They were shown into a nondescript room. The bottom two-thirds of the walls were painted a dark green while the top third was a dirty, cream colour. A metal desk and four chairs sat like a bare island on a sea of blue linoleum. For more than twenty minutes she paced like a tiger in a cage, rubbing her arms and smoking one cigarette after another. Eventually, a man in a navy suit entered the room. Backing in, he shut the door behind him as if she were a wild animal intent on escape. He was young, she thought, younger than her. Hair black and slicked down with a side parting. Skin the white of someone who rarely saw daylight. A plump face with a fleshy nose and lascivious lips. And he offered a perpetual smile or more likely a sneer.
‘Alena?’ He waited for her to nod. ‘Pleased to meet you and–’
‘Freddie.’
‘Quite,’ he said as though it had been an aberration and stared through the smeared glass of the window.
Her hopes soared. He must know.
Walking forward, he shook her hand with a limp grip and patted Freddie’s head. He hesitated, not wanting to be the first to speak.
‘Sorry, didn’t catch your name.’
‘Remiss of me,’ he chided himself and frowned for this lapse of etiquette. ‘Dag Bartley. I’m, I’m. Let’s just say I work here.’
Pointing her to a chair, he sat down behind the desk. ‘If you don’t mind my saying, you look awfully done in. Been through the mill. Can I get you some tea?’ He was relieved when she declined.
She didn’t want this to degenerate into a social chat, or she would be back on the street with nothing resolved.
‘Alena.’ He rolled it around his tongue and gazed at the ceiling, rewinding his memory for some snippet of information attached to her name. ‘That doesn’t sound British to me.’ A raised eyebrow suggested he shouldn’t be talking to a foreigner.
‘I’m from France; my grandparents emigrated from Russia.’
‘That explains it, I suppose.’
Explains what, she thought.
‘Had quite a journey.’
‘A difficult one.’ She already disliked him.
‘From France?’
‘No, from Shetland.’
‘Good, good. What can I do for you?’
‘Don’t you know?’ This was the wrong man. With an impatient gesture, she pushed the hair from her face.
Coming to the end of his attention span, he tapped the sheet of paper on the desk. ‘I don’t understand why you’re here. If someone is threatening your life, surely you should go to the police.’
‘There’s more to it than I wrote down.’
‘Really?’ He appeared confused, and his face twisted, not wanting to listen to more. ‘I have little–’
‘It’s as much as I could say without contravening the Official Secrets Act.’
‘This person you asked to meet?’
‘Dempsey Smee.’
‘Smee?’ He searched his memory again and shook his head. ‘What did he do?’
‘Worked here, or rather I thought he was in charge.’
‘Really?’ He stared at a blank wall and leant back in his chair, extricated a packet of cigarettes from his jacket pocket, offered her one, which she refused, and lit up. ‘Sorry, this sounds all a bit fantastical to me.’ A plume of smoke obscured his eyes. ‘Can’t say I’ve heard of this chap. Tell me more.’
Something in his intonation wasn’t right.
‘That’s strange,’ she said. ‘He sat here seven years ago and told me how the Br
itish Secret Service would protect us from the Nazis.’
Bartley’s chuckle had no warmth to it, and he glanced at Freddie. She could almost see his brain working. ‘Secret Service?’ His voice rose, and he made a gargling sound in his throat.
It was like stepping out of reality.
‘Seven years ago?’
She nodded.
‘That’s possible. Moved into these offices six or so years ago. Didn’t know the previous tenants. Or you might have the wrong address.’
‘No, this is the one. And it’s still Minimax.’
‘Well, we’re Minimax all right. But you’re mistaken.’ He flashed a supercilious smile. ‘Definitely not here then. As for this chap Smee if he’d ever worked for us we’d have some records.’ He opened his file and made a play of leafing through it, flicking each page as if discarding it. ‘All this Secret Service talk. We just sell fire extinguishers.’
Fuck you, Bartley, she muttered under her breath. ‘It was here.’ Everything seemed to be slipping away. ‘Only a few knew the truth.’
Bartley encouraged her to continue, but he was humouring her.
‘Ben Peters didn’t know our location although I believe he’s been looking for us, and not even Pickering knew.’ She thought she saw a flicker of recognition.
‘Smee, Peters, Pickering?’ He spelt them out as though they meant nothing to him. ‘Don’t recall any by those names working here.’
‘Please try to remember. Pickering was a large man, well-connected.’
He shrugged as if sorry for her but not willing to accept any responsibility.
‘Always smoking a pipe, and he’s got a big red nose,’ Freddie piped up and chuckled.
The impatient tapping of the file in front of him signalled the end of the interview.
Alena sighed and a twinge of doubt made her frown. Either this man didn’t know what she was talking about and worked for a fire extinguisher company, or he was hiding something.
