“Exactly. There can be no doubt that Marshal Mannerheim would rather fight than give in and from what we know of the Finnish War of Independence I’m certain that most of the Finns are with him. But the Government is the snag. Politicians are not soldiers; the thought of their cities lying in ruins and their women and children being bombed to Hell makes them prepared to go to almost any lengths rather than go to war. If only you can convince the Finnish Cabinet that their country will not be overrun immediately and that in spite of Russia’s numerical superiority there’s a good chance of their being able to hold out until other countries and the February snows come to their assistance, you’ll have done the trick—you’ll have saved Finland as a possible base for future German operations when the present war is over.”
Goering shook his head. “I believe it could be done; but one thing makes such a course impossible. To convince them that the reports are genuine I should have to send a personal emissary with full authority to let the Finns know that, whatever Germany’s ostensible attitude may be, I am behind them. That would mean going behind the Fuehrer’s back. Himmler’s agents are everywhere, even in the highest offices of the Government. There are very few people indeed that even I can absolutely trust, and those few are marked men. If one of them disappeared Himmler would send out a general call through his Foreign Department, U.A.-1. Every Gestapo agent outside Germany would be turned on to hunt for my man; his presence in Helsinki would be discovered and reported, and that alone would be sufficient to give away the fact that I had been trying to double-cross von Ribbentrop. I’m not frightened of him—I can take care of myself and I’m a much bigger man than he is—but there would be hell to pay, and I’m not ready for a showdown with him yet.”
“I feared the problem of a suitable emissary would prove a knotty one,” Gregory nodded; “because anyone you send on such a mission must be a man of some standing, otherwise the Finns might become suspicious and get it into their heads that he was not sent by you at all. But surely you can find some aristocrat—an Army man for preference—who is outside politics—someone important enough to impress the Finns and at the same time a man whom you could completely trust—someone, for example, like our late friend, Colonel-Baron von Lutz?”
In spite of its size the room was now blue with the smoke of innumerable cigarettes, yet Goering lit another and puffed upon it. “Yes, someone like that,” he murmured. “Von Lutz would have been just the man, but he’s dead; and unfortunately, where a month ago I could have found a dozen like him who would have done equally well, they were all either killed or have gone into hiding as a result of the Army Putsch.”
Gregory smiled. “Then it seems there’s nothing else for it. If you’re to pull this job off—and you must, for the sake of your own future and that of Germany—you’ll just have to send me.”
“You?” Goering exclaimed.
“Yes; why not?” Gregory grinned now that he had whipped the cover from the life-boat which he had been secretly fashioning for himself during the last few moments, and hurried on: “Nobody knows that the Baron is dead. He might have been burnt in that cottage last night or he might have escaped. Even if the S.S. men find his body in the woods the news of his death will never get as far as Finland, because he wasn’t important enough for it to be reported to the Gestapo agents there. I’m wearing his clothes at the moment and although our faces weren’t alike our build was much the same. I am a born impostor, and as I spent the best part of three weeks in hiding with the Baron I know all about his family and his whole history. All you have to do is to furnish me with a passport in the Baron’s name and an aeroplane. Haven’t you realised yet that I can be darned useful to you alive whereas I’ll be no good to anybody once I’m dead?”
Goering began to pace rapidly up and down. “That’s all very well, but how do I know that I can trust you? You’re an Englishman. Why should you offer to work for Germany? To save your life, you may say; but I should not believe that. You are not the kind of man who betrays his country.”
“To do as I suggest would not be betraying my country,” said Gregory swiftly. “In this instance the interests of Britain and Germany are identical. Britain has always championed the small nations so she would naturally be anxious that the Finns should retain their independence. Further: if Russia’s demands are resisted, and she is compelled to fight for what she wants, that will give her an even better excuse than any she has at present for delaying in sending supplies to Germany. That is the price—a very small one, in my opinion—which you must pay if you are to save Finland as a possible base for future operations. But I’m concerned with this war, not the next; and by providing Russia with a spot of bother, so that she is less able to help you, I’m assisting my own country. As far as the future is concerned, I don’t see why the Western Powers should object to Germany’s compensating herself for her lack of colonies by absorbing Southern Russia and making Asiatic Russia a German protectorate.”
“Ha! And what about the right of self-determination that you English talk so much about. You would say we were enslaving the Russians—or some such nonsense.”
“The population of Central and North-Eastern Asia is no more Russian than that of India is English or that of Senegal French. I don’t think that question would arise, providing you allowed the true Russians to retain self-government in their own original Muscovite territories. What really matters is that the German race would no longer menace future peace if it had sufficient room in which to spread. Given Russia’s vast Asiatic lands in addition to the Reich, Germany could afford to give up Czechoslovakia and Poland as she would still have about one-fifth of the world’s land-surface—more than enough room for her surplus population. With such an area to administer and develop she need never again come into collision with the Western Powers over the colonial question and there might at last be some real hope of peace in our time. I would not dream of undertaking this mission if I were not convinced that in serving you I should also be serving Britain.”
“Yes, yes. If we had the Ukraine, the Caucasus and all Asiatic Russia our problem would be solved for good. But if you wouldn’t double-cross me with your own people you might with the Gestapo. How am I to know that you’d not take any papers I gave you straight to Himmler?”
“I should have thought you had a perfect guarantee against that.”
“Guarantee? What d’you mean?”
Gregory shrugged. “What am I doing here? Why did I put my neck in a noose by coming to see you? Only because I was desperately anxious to find out what had happened to Erika.”
“Of course—of course.”
“And now you’ve told me that she’s in Finland, isn’t her presence there the best guarantee you could possibly have that the one thing I’m anxious to do is to get to Finland myself so that I can join her?”
“That’s true. Yes, I believe you’re honest. But it’s a hellish risk.” Goering’s voice still held doubt as he began to pace swiftly up and down again. “Say you slip up and are caught by Himmler’s agents, with those papers on you?”
Gregory’s pulses were racing. He knew that he was on the very verge of victory. If he could storm the last redoubt of Goering’s resistance by yet one more reasoned argument his case would be won; he and Charlton would walk out of Karinhall free men and with facilities for escaping out of Germany. Nerving himself for a final effort he swilled down the last of his champagne, and said earnestly:
“Listen. What have you to fear? In serving you I serve my country. I have the strongest possible personal motive for wanting to go to Finland, because it is only by doing so that I can rejoin the woman I love. If I do slip up, that will be tough luck on me, but there’ll be no come-back whatsoever so far as you’re concerned. There would be if I were really Colonel-Baron von Lutz or any other German that you might choose to send. But I’m not a German; I’m a British secret agent, and any rigorous examination would prove that. I’m the one and only man you can send with complete safety, because if I�
��m caught you could deny all knowledge of me—swear I’d stolen the papers—and everybody would believe you.”
“By God, you’re right!” Goering swung round. “Very well—I’ll send you to Finland.”
Even the masterly control with which Gregory was usually able to hide his true feelings was not proof against the glint of triumph which leapt into his eyes. To conceal it he bent forward and helped himself to another of the fat cigarettes. As he lit it, with his eyes cast down towards its tip, he could feel his heart thumping a rhythm in his chest. “I’ve won! I’ve won! I’ve won!” But all he said as he flicked out the match was: “Good. How soon can I start?”
Goering had suddenly become a different man. All trace of the indecision so foreign to his nature had left him. With his dark eyes fixed on Gregory he said rapidly: “Now that the crisis is on every hour is of importance. You will leave the moment we have the papers ready. I shall send you in one of my private planes. I can trust my own pilots and one of them will not be missed while away on a twenty-four-hour trip.”
“He’ll have to observe the usual formalities when we land at the Helsinki air-port, though,” Gregory remarked, “and he might easily be recognised. I should think it’s a hundred to one that Himmler has planted one of his spies among the personnel there.”
“That’s true,” Goering frowned.
“Don’t worry about that. You let me have the plane and I’ll provide the pilot.”
“Ah! You mean the fellow downstairs? I’d forgotten all about him. Is he a good man—competent to fly a Messerschmitt—and would he also be willing to go to Finland?”
“He’s one of the best pilots in the R.A.F. and he’ll fly anything anywhere rather than be interned in Germany for the duration of the war.”
“He won’t bring my plane back, though.”
“No. You can hardly expect him to do that. But what the hell does one plane matter on a job like this?”
“Nothing at all. But no comment would be aroused among the Finns if a German pilot in a German plane just flew in and out to drop you there; whereas a British pilot arriving with a German officer in a German plane would cause every tongue to wag.”
“I agree. But in any case I couldn’t go in uniform. You’ll have to let me have a suit of civilian clothes and you could easily provide me with a double set of papers; one faked British passport in my own name for me to show on landing at the air-port and one passport in the name of Colonel-Baron von Lutz for presentation to the people at the Finnish Foreign Office. I should then be a British subject arriving with a British pilot.”
“But what about the plane?”
“Don’t let’s use a Messerschmitt. You must have some foreign make in your private fleet that might quite as naturally be flown by a British instead of a German pilot. All we’d have to do then is to paint out the German markings and substitute the British circles for the German crosses.”
Goering nodded. “I have a four-seater Belgian Sabina which would do admirably. It is their fastest type and fitted with de-icing apparatus. I’ll let you have that. And now to work.”
Although it was well after midnight, within a few moments the big apartment became a hive of activity. Half a dozen officers, forming Goering’s confidential secretariat, were summoned and to each the Marshal gave brief, clear instructions.
Three were dispatched to Berlin; one to the Foreign Office to arrange about the passports, and the other two to collect files from the Air Ministry and the War Office respectively. A fourth was ordered to find Gregory a complete change of clothes. A fifth was told to give immediate instructions for the alterations of the markings on the Belgian plane, then to collect Charlton and work out with him, from the latest weather reports and maps of the Baltic, the navigation details of a flight to Finland; while the sixth was sent running to bring all the available reports on Russia from Goering’s private files.
The man who was going to the Foreign Office fetched a camera and photographed Gregory, both in uniform and in a borrowed civilian overcoat, for the two passports. Then two clerks brought in a typewriter on a wheeled desk. Immediately the reports arrived Goering flung off his coat and sitting down, in his shirt-sleeves, at his big table he began to dictate.
As Gregory stood behind him, reading snatches of the reports over the Marshal’s shoulder, he was filled with amazement and admiration at the spectacle of the man who had created the new Germany exercising his extraordinary brain. Every now and again Goering mopped the perspiration from his broad forehead as he sweated out the alcohol that he had drunk—and was still drinking, for the deaf-mute barman had appeared again and had opened another magnum of champagne. With pauses of only a moment the Marshal was absorbing whole pages of typescript with a sponge-like rapidity and condensing them into brief paragraphs. He missed nothing of importance and his words poured out in a swift, unhesitating flow. The typist’s fingers positively flew over the keys as he took the dictation, and the other man who had come in with him constantly prepared fresh foolscap paper and carbons so that there should be the least possible delay in changing sheets at the end of each page.
Gregory very soon realised that there were not going to be any half-measures about the report. Goering was giving an abbreviated but detailed account of the whole building-up of the Red Army. He seemed to know the personal history of every general of importance, the state of moral of every army corps and the positions they now occupied.
At half past two in the morning the first of the three officers who had been sent to Berlin arrived back with another mass of papers. Soon afterwards his colleague who had visited the War Office came in with yet more files. They remained there sorting them as though their very lives depended on it; scanning sheet after sheet and pulling out only those of importance for the Marshal’s perusal. “Keep that,” or “Scrap that,” was all Goering said after a second’s glance at each paper that was handed to him.
By four o’clock he had turned his attention to the Soviet Air Force and was giving detail after detail about the various types of Russian planes, their speed, their numbers, their positions; then he passed to bombs, personnel, flight efficiency, petrol reserves, capacity of training-centres.
At a little before five the man who had been to the Foreign Office came in. He had with him the passport for Colonel-Baron von Lutz, but they were still busy faking the British passport in the name of Gregory Sallust and he said that it would be sent out to Karinhall by six o’clock.
With him he also brought a fresh pile of papers and shortly after his arrival Goering turned from the subject of the Air Force to the Russian political scene. Each of the sixteen commissars, who between them made up the three committees which rule Russia, was given a long paragraph—bribable or unbribable, married or single, private life, antecedents, secret vices—everything which might assist a foreign Power in shaping its policy towards these men should they suddenly come into special prominence.
At ten minutes past six Goering suddenly pushed back his chair and stood up. The job was done.
In one Herculean effort, which would have taken most men weeks of hard, conscientious preparation, he had compiled a document of 126 foolscap sheets which would give the Finns every vital fact that Germany knew about Russia and would show Russia’s weakness.
For a few moments he sat quite still, while the officers withdrew their depleted files, then he dictated a letter which ran:
“Karinhall,
“November 28th, 1939.
“The bearer of this is my friend, Colonel-Baron von Lutz. The Baron will hand to you a document of the first importance. With the information therein, for which I personally vouch, the Finnish Government will realise that they have little to fear from an attack by Russia.
“At the moment Germany is in no position to make an official pronouncement but I cannot too strongly stress our hope that the Finnish Government will resist the Russian demands, with the knowledge that time is on their side and that in secret I shall do everything possible to ass
ist them.”
The speed-typist and his assistant left the room. Goering signed the letter, took the top copy of the report and three sheafs of original documents from the piles that his aides-de-camp had sorted out, thrust them into a large stout envelope and handed the whole bundle to Gregory with von Pleisen’s Iron Cross, as he said:
“The letter has no superscription but you will take it to Monsieur Grado Wuolijoki—Monsieur Wuo-li-joki—at the Finnish Foreign Office. He is of German extraction, on his mother’s side, and my personal friend. He will see that these papers reach the right quarter.”
Gregory removed the letter, which he folded and put in his pocket as he wished to keep it handy so that he could destroy it at once in the event of any accident by which the plane might be forced down while still over Germany.
“I understand,” he said. “That was a marvellous night’s work you put in and I’m certain that you’ll never regret it. By the bye, I suppose you can let me have some money? As the Colonel-Baron and your secret representative I should naturally put up at the best hotel when I reach Helsinki.” Actually, he still had nearly £300 on him, being the balance of the 5,000 marks that Sir Pellinore Gwaine-Cust had given him before his first trip into Germany, but Gregory had always believed in ‘spoiling the Egyptians’ and saw no reason why the Nazis should not pay his expenses in Finland.
Goering nodded. “Certainly. I like my people to put up a good show.” As he spoke he walked over to a large painting of Napoleon Bonaparte which was opposite his desk and, feeling behind the edge of its gilt frame, twisted a concealed knob to a combination that he evidently carried in his mind. The picture and its frame swung noiselessly outward revealing an enormous wall-safe, with many shelves and compartments, to the six-inch-thick steel door of which the picture was affixed.
Picking up a fat packet of bank-notes from one of the shelves he began to count them, but at that moment the telephone buzzer sounded. Thrusting the packet into Gregory’s hands the Marshal said impatiently: “Here! Take 3,000 marks from this. That should be enough and give you a good margin to bribe your way into the Finnish Foreign Office quickly if the small people show any signs of keeping you waiting.”
Faked Passports Page 16
