by Peter Watson
“You’re not listening, Matt,” said Hilary briskly from across the table. “We are not going looking, but MI6 is.”
“You really think that’s going to happen?” I cried. “They don’t know our people, they have no idea how they behave or operate, how they think. It…it’s madness!”
Crichton fixed me with a look. “All of what you say is true, Matt, or true enough…but it’s beside the point.” He sighed. “Since D-Day the war has moved on. Remember that speech of Churchill’s, in November forty-two, about the battle in North Africa not being the beginning of the end, but the end of the beginning?”
He didn’t wait for the answer.
“D-Day was the beginning of the end, and people—people everywhere but especially in Whitehall—are starting to think about life after the war, and are positioning themselves accordingly. What this manoeuvre of MI6 is all about is controlling the memory of the war, so that when the story comes to be told, MI6 wears all the haloes and SC2 is remembered as…well, as the ugly also-ran.”
He took out a handkerchief and wiped his lips with it.
“I am afraid I didn’t see it coming. I’m too new in this job; I was too busy familiarizing myself with the details here, to play politics. MI6 took advantage of that, to come up with this flanker. That’s how cabinet works, sometimes.”
He half turned to Penny but still addressed the table, “Don’t put this in the minutes, but SC2 has been well and truly fucked.”
—
ST. GEORGE’S CHURCH IN WHITFIELD STREET looked very pretty. There were so many flowers they almost obscured the altar, flowers being one of the few things that weren’t rationed. Sunshine sliced in through the stained-glass window of the south transept, throwing bright red and purple patches on to the stone floor. The stained glass reminded me of Madeleine, the way she stood out, whatever the company. The organ was playing softly a tune I didn’t recognise, though it sounded like Bach.
I had a good seat, about three pews back, on the groom’s side. Alistair Prior was already in his place, in what looked like a brand-new light grey suit—not a completely perfect fit but then a lot of tailors were fighting in France. He had a large white carnation with green trimmings in his buttonhole. He waved to me as I sat down.
The timing had worked out well for him. We were now at D-Day plus two and a half months. Being pregnant had not suited Viv, so Alistair had told me; she had been ill for a few weeks early on and the wedding had been postponed twice.
But here we all were at last, minutes away from their tying the knot. I was pleased for them, of course, but Alistair’s marriage brought home my anxiety for Madeleine.
The music changed, increasing in tempo. Guests were now streaming in. Although I was in a pew near the front, I was seated at the end of the row, away from the main aisle, so I felt fairly safe in taking out my newspaper, to kill time. In any case there was news that I wanted to reread. I opened my copy of The Times to page 4, where the war news was concentrated.
A second invasion, in the south of France, between Marseilles and Nice, had begun a few days before. I wanted to check on progress. And Toulouse had been liberated by partisans, with other risings taking place in the Massif Central.
“That news is several days old, you know.”
I looked up and to my left.
A small, pudgy man had sat down next to me. He was wearing a sports jacket, with a multicoloured sweater under it, a dark blue shirt, and corduroy trousers, dark green. He didn’t look as though he had changed for the wedding.
Seeing me eyeing his clothes, he said, “I came straight from the office—I work with Alistair at the BBC and I’m on shift. I could get away only at the last minute.”
I nodded.
He went on. “I recognise you—you’re Mystic Matt, right?” He smiled.
“Guilty.”
He held out his hand. “Martin Vallois. I work in the French news section of the Beeb.”
We shook hands.
I tapped the paper. “I suppose it takes correspondents a little while to find a phone, to phone their copy through.”
He nodded. “Yes, transmitters are too bulky to carry around. And in any case, it’s not always clear what is happening.” He pointed to the paper. “Even partisans exaggerate. Toulouse isn’t completely taken yet, not from what I hear.”
“What else do you hear that’s not in the papers yet?”
The organ music changed again.
The bride’s mother arrived. She kissed Alistair and sat down.
“The Germans are withdrawing east, mainly via Dijon, before our troops in the north meet up with our troops from the south and cut them off. And there are three pockets of strong resistance on the coast—”
“You mean the Atlantic coast?”
He nodded. “The Germans had—still have—three U-boat bases, at Brest, St. Nazaire, and La Pallice, that’s near La Rochelle. They are holding out at all three places. The Allies can’t get in and the Germans can’t get out. They may still be planning a U-boat offensive.”
Just then, the organ music changed again, and everyone stood up.
The bride had arrived.
Vivien came into view, resplendent in her white dress, its train held up by two page boys in powder-green.
I felt a slight twinge as I saw her draw level with Alistair. The music had faded, the vicar was speaking, welcoming us and inviting us to witness Vivien and Alistair’s joining in holy matrimony.
Then we were launched into the first hymn. I joined in absently.
In the normal course of things, I enjoyed a good singsong but not just then. What Martin Vallois had told me occupied my mind.
It was now getting on for thirteen weeks since Madeleine had been heard from—I was obsessive about that sort of detail. It wasn’t quite out of the question for her still to turn up, but Vallois had raised a new possibility.
When she had last been heard from, she was near St. Nazaire. What if she had been captured by Germans and held there, only for St. Nazaire to be cut off, isolated by the Allies? If that had happened, she couldn’t have been taken back to Germany to be executed. The small garrison of Germans in St. Nazaire might be keeping her alive, as part of the bargaining that would surely take place later in the war, when they would have to surrender.
Or was that wishful thinking? It was improbable but…
When I had entered the church my hopes for Madeleine had been fading. Indeed, I had been planning to pray for her during the service. But now, all of a sudden, and thanks to Martin Vallois, I had new cause for optimism. It was a long shot, but it was something, though at the same time it unsettled me. Was I doing enough for Madeleine? Was it enough just to sit in London behind a desk?
The service ended and we all straggled slowly out of the church, held up by the bridal party, which was keen to pose for photos. When I eventually reached the top step, outside the main door, and was looking down on Alistair and Viv, both of them covered in a dusting of confetti, I suddenly noticed G. on the edge of the pavement. Odd. What was she doing here? She didn’t know either the bride or the groom, so far as I was aware.
As I thought this, she saw me, her face lit up, and she beckoned me towards her. There was an urgency in her manner. I fought my way through the crush and crossed to where she was standing.
“G.! What—?”
“Am I glad I found you! I thought you might have taken the rest of the afternoon off.”
“Why? You know better than that—”
“Message from Hilary. You are wanted at Number Ten at eight o’clock tomorrow morning.”
“Number Ten? You mean—?”
“Yes, of course that’s what I bloody well mean. Eight o’clock sharp, that’s what Hilary said. Downing Street.”
· 16 ·
I HAD ONLY BEEN IN DOWNING STREET once before this and my second visit was a very brief one. As I arrived, at two minutes to eight o’clock on the following morning, the door miraculously opened to let me in. In the hall
was Hilary standing next to a man with one arm, the sleeve of his naval jacket pinned back more or less to where his elbow should have been.
“Good, good,” said Hilary quietly, in that way of his. “Bang on time, Matt, excellent.” He was in his usual three-piece tweed suit, striped tie, and shiny beer-brown brogues.
He turned to the man beside him and said, “Okay, we can go. Lead the way.” He turned to me, smiling, and said, “Frank here lost his arm at Dunkirk. But all the rest of him is in full working order.”
Frank stepped forward, the main door was opened, and out we went, back into Downing Street. The morning was sunny and fresh.
We turned right and headed west, down a flight of stone steps at the St. James’s Park end of the street, and Hilary slowed his stride so that I drew level. “The PM’s in his war office, the bunker below ground. Ever been?”
“No. I didn’t know there was a bunker. Where is it?”
“You’ll see. Not far. It’s reassuring in its way, but it’s not that deep. I’m not sure it would survive a direct hit.”
At the foot of the steps we turned left, along the edge of the park until we came to King Charles Street, running between what I did know was the Home Office building, and the building housing both the Foreign Office and the Treasury. That street also ended in a flight of steps.
“Do these steps have a name?”
“Buggered if I know,” growled Hilary.
“King Charles Steps, sir,” said Frank. “Here we are.”
I suddenly saw what he meant. Set into the wall at the foot of the Foreign Office building was a small door. It was a sooty black, hardly different from the dirty stones with which the Foreign Office walls were faced. There were no markings, and it was wholly inconspicuous.
Like the Downing Street door, it opened as we approached—seemingly all by itself—and we went straight in. A woman with raven-black hair immediately closed and locked it behind us.
We showed her our passes.
“Sign in, please,” she said, scrutinising each one carefully. “You are expected.”
To Frank, she said, “Take them down to conference room E, that’s—”
“I remember,” said Frank. “Third on the right round the bend—am I right?”
“Show-off!” she murmured, but she was smiling.
We descended some stairs. Not many, maybe fifteen; so we weren’t all that deep. Hilary was right—this bunker would not survive a direct hit.
At the foot of the stairs we turned left. The bunker, I noticed, was built of large breeze blocks, painted over in that universal wartime khaki-green colour. Someone must have made a fortune out of that grey-green paint.
Frank led the way.
The bunker was busy. People were coming towards us, secretarial types, men in uniforms with lots of medals and/or gold braid, including younger men who must have had some special skill—like languages—to save them from being at the front. Off to our right we passed a variety of small rooms, teleprinters coughing out scrolls of paper, people hunched over what had to be coded messages, deciphering one after the other. We passed a cramped bedroom with a narrow single bed; on the open door were the two letters: “PM.”
At the end of the corridor we turned left into a wider passageway. Along its ceiling was a huge, square metal tube running its length and painted matt black. It must have carried air either into or out of the bunker. I was already beginning to feel the heat of being down there.
At last we turned in to a room set with tables and chairs. The walls were made of the same breeze blocks, painted the same grey-green as everywhere else. There were no windows, of course, and no pictures; just a grille where, presumably, the fresh air was led into the room from the great black metal tube in the corridor.
“Take a seat, gents, I’ll tell them you’ve arrived,” Frank said, and went out.
“Can we smoke in here?” I whispered to Hilary.
“I don’t know. I shouldn’t think so. I wouldn’t risk it. Don’t want to get off on the wrong foot.”
“What wrong foot? What’s going on, Hilary? There hasn’t been time to ask.”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. All I know is that yesterday afternoon I got a phone call telling me to be at Downing Street at eight this morning, and to bring you with me, without fail. That’s all—I was told nothing more. Then, when I got to Number Ten, about three minutes before you did, I was told we were coming on here. And that’s all—aha!”
He broke off as two men filled the doorway. One was tall and thin, with silver-grey hair. The other wasn’t quite so tall, but was still bulkily built, with a cigar wedged in his mouth.
I leapt to my feet and so did Hilary.
The bulky man was Winston Churchill himself.
He stepped forward and held out his hand.
The PM took the cigar from his mouth.
“Sorry to drag you down into this hellhole but it’s a busy day today.” He put his hand on the shoulder of the man standing next to him. “Colonel Hathaway will explain what all the cloak-and-dagger is about but I wanted to meet you and to ask you one question.”
I looked at him.
He waved his cigar. “You have only one lung but you go on smoking. No problems?”
“Not so far, sir,” I said.
“In that case, do you want one of these?” He fished in his jacket pocket and took out a cigar.
“Well, I…”
“Go on, take it. For good luck in France.” He chuckled.
“France?” I said.
“Hathaway will reveal all,” he countered, still smiling and preparing to leave. “Hilary, you come with me, will you?”
The prime minister gave me a small nod and led Hilary out into the corridor, closing the door firmly behind him. I could see that Frank was stationed right outside.
The thin, silver-haired man held out his hand and as I shook it, he said, “Rupert Hathaway. I’m the PM’s ‘fixer,’ his consigliere, as the Mafia say.” He grinned.
He sat down on one of the upright chairs and put a manila folder on the table. I could see that stencilled across it were the words TOP SECRET.
He nodded to the cigar. “Quite a memento, eh? I don’t have one and I have two lungs.” He smiled. “Right. Down to business and my first task is to remind you that you’ve signed the Official Secrets Act. Whatever comes out of this meeting, what went on here can never be revealed. I mean that. Am I coming over crystal clear?”
“Yes, yes, of course.”
He unbuttoned his jacket, crossed his legs, and sat back. “Good. In a minute I am going to tell you one of the biggest secrets of the war but first some background. The PM—he won’t mind me saying this behind his back—is a bit of a cowboy. He likes daring, innovative schemes, and some of the things SC2 have done have caught his imagination. He also likes people who have ‘the nous’—his words—to turn adversity into an opportunity. So he was impressed by your scheme—when you found out that some of the SC2 circuits had been penetrated—to feed the Germans false information about D-Day. He thought that showed his kind of ‘low cunning’—his words again.
“Then there was all that hoo-ha in Parliament about SC2 using women agents, followed by MI6 moving in and taking over.”
I made a face but said nothing.
“The PM wasn’t too happy about that himself—after all, he authorised the use of women as agents in the first place and he still can’t see what’s wrong with it. But he didn’t want our agencies squabbling at such an important time of the war, with the invasion just beginning, and he had his mind on that, so he let it ride.
“Now, however, the situation has changed, something has cropped up, something we must put a stop to. We think you are the man for the job. It means going to France. Immediately, I mean—sooner than that, in fact. Just as soon as we can set up your cover.”
I still said nothing. But Madeleine flashed into my mind.
“One general question before I go on. Do you know much about science,
physics in particular?”
I shook my head. “I understand electricity well enough, and magnetism, osmosis, all that kind of thing, and I’ve heard about electrons and neutrons and Albert Einstein and Arnold Rutherford, but that’s about it—”
“Ernest Rutherford,” he said. “Ernest. Not Arnold.”
“There you are,” I said. “That’s how much I know.”
He nodded. “You know more than most. It probably won’t matter. Now, let’s get down to it.” He cleared his throat. “The nasty part.
“The war will go on for several months yet, maybe longer, maybe longer in the Pacific than here in Europe. We, on our side, are pretty sure of winning now, but nothing is certain and we want to conserve as many lives as we can. And we can’t yet be sure what shape the peace will take. All these factors come into what I am about to tell you—the greatest secret, I can’t stress that enough.
“For several months now, in the New Mexico desert, in the United States, Allied scientists—American, British, Canadian, Danish, and one Frenchman—have been working together on a new kind of bomb. It’s called an atomic bomb, and it works—if it does work, it hasn’t been tested yet—it works by splitting an atom of radioactive uranium, releasing untold amounts of energy. These split other atoms in a geometric progression, a larger and ever more powerful chain reaction. So much energy is released, I am told, that one bomb—one single bomb, one explosion—can destroy an entire city, killing tens of thousands of people and mortally wounding as many again from radioactive burns that still kill but more slowly, causing cancers and other diseases.”
He looked at me. There was total silence all around.
“We are, of course, hoping that we do not have to use this bomb, we are hoping that when we tell the Germans or the Japanese that we have this weapon—that they will see sense, avoid needless killing, and surrender. But we can’t be sure.
“That’s the basic scenario. Here’s where you come in. As I said, one of the scientists in New Mexico is French. He has a particular speciality, which I won’t go into, since you don’t need to know and it will only confuse matters, but his role in the project, while vital, is now coming to an end. Since the invasion has started and parts of France are now liberated, he—quite naturally—wants to return home as soon as he can and to join in the fighting. He wants to see some action at home.”
