by Unknown
CHAPTER 7
Seaforth woke up early and, wearing only his robe, went and sat cross-kneed on a Persian prayer carpet that he had bought from a travelling merchant in Germany three years earlier. The towers of London rose up all around him outside the windows of his penthouse apartment, but he had eyes only for the sinuous arabesque design of the scrolling lines intertwining on the rich midnight-blue background of the rug. They soothed his mind, and he concentrated on slowing his breathing until he had it perfectly under control. Only then did he begin his mental autopsy of the previous night’s events.
He knew he’d been a fool to lose his temper and alienate Ava for no reason, although he realized that the mistake had occurred earlier when he took the phone call from his contact at the Portuguese embassy and let her wander around the apartment unattended. He should have told Monteiro that he’d call back. And then seeing her with the diary had infuriated him. It enraged him again now, when he thought of his brother writing by candlelight in the trenches, describing unimaginable horrors, and this woman who knew nothing about anything throwing the book at him across his bedroom as if it were some piece of worthless rubbish. She’d thrown it so hard that its spine had been damaged when it hit the floor, and now Seaforth wanted to break her spine – snap it like a twig with his strong hands. That’s what she deserved—
He stopped himself. He was going to pieces again, giving in to the nervous pressure that was building like an aneurysm inside his head. He unclenched his hands and held them out from his body, palm upward, and took more deep breaths, concentrating on relaxing his taut muscles one by one. These mental and physical exercises were second nature to him, refined over years of practice, but he’d never before found them so difficult to perform.
He tried to focus on the positive sides of what had happened. He’d needed a wake-up call that he wasn’t as cool, calm, and collected as he’d assumed himself to be. Now he knew that he had to be vigilant and that he couldn’t take himself for granted, as he had in the past. And in the final analysis, he hadn’t really lost anything. He didn’t know how much Ava had read of the diary, but none of it incriminated him, and it didn’t really matter that he’d quarrelled with her, because he didn’t need her any more. She’d served her purpose, and he’d brought her back to the apartment only for the sake of a little distraction while he waited for the go-ahead from Berlin for his assassination plan. And now he wasn’t going to have to wait any longer. The telephone call the night before had been to tell him that Heydrich’s package had arrived. Seaforth looked at his watch. He was due at the embassy in less than an hour; it was time to get dressed.
He left Cadogan Square with a spring in his step. The sun was shining and he walked at a brisk pace along the pavements, tapping out a rhythmic beat on the concrete with his ivory-handled cane until he got to the Portuguese embassy. He paused for a moment outside, looking up at the green-and-red flag fluttering above the entrance, and then glanced back along the street, but not because he didn’t want to be seen. Quite the opposite, in fact. It made him smile that he could walk openly up the steps to take collection of a bundle of documents prepared for his use by the head of the Gestapo in Berlin without a worry in the world. Because this was where his MI6 comrades expected him to come to take delivery of reports sent by his fictitious agent in Berlin. He was doing nothing suspicious. There was no need for safe houses or dead drops. Just a phone call and a short, pleasant walk through the morning sunshine.
A liveried underling took Seaforth’s hat and cane and led him up a wide, red-carpeted staircase lined with portraits of Portuguese ambassadors to the Court of St James’s going back to the eighteenth century. At the top, he knocked at a large mahogany-panelled door and announced the visitor’s name with a dramatic flourish, then stood aside to allow Seaforth to enter the august presence of the second secretary, Senhor Miguel dos Santos Monteiro – the same man who had called Seaforth on the telephone the previous evening.
He had a florid drinker’s face, a crooked aquiline nose, and an enormous dignity. Unbeknownst to Seaforth, he was the author in his native Portugal of a book on etiquette, viewed by many in the country as the definitive authority on the subject, and he insisted on their occasional meetings following a prescribed form from which they never deviated. Today was no exception. Turkish coffee – unavailable in the rest of London – was served in delicate cups, and the two men conversed for fifteen minutes on a variety of subjects upon which no restriction was placed, save that there should be no reference to the war. This building was neutral territory, and Senhor Monteiro intended to keep it that way.
Finally he put down his cup, wiped his expansive mouth with a silk handkerchief, and opened a pretty escritoire in the corner of the room with a small silver key that he took off his watch chain. He removed an unmarked brown envelope and passed it over to Seaforth, who took it without a word.
‘It has been a pleasure, Senhor Seaforth. As always,’ he said as they shook hands at the door.
‘Thank you, Senhor Monteiro. Until we meet again.’ Seaforth bowed, an extra flourish that he felt the occasion deserved.
And the pantomime was over. A minute later he was back out in the street, hurriedly retracing his steps to Cadogan Square. He needed to know what Heydrich had to say, and he couldn’t take the package into work.
He felt his hand trembling as he turned his key in the door of his apartment; then, without wasting any more time, he crossed rapidly to his desk and slit open the envelope with a silver letter opener. There was a sheet of handwritten notepaper on the top and underneath a bundle of typed documents. They could wait; the letter would tell him what he needed to know.
He saw the familiar address at the top – Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse 8 – and the familiar sloping signature at the end. And in between … Seaforth scanned the lines, translating in his head from the German: ‘The Führer approves your plan and waits impatiently to hear that the deed is done.’ It was what he’d been waiting for – the green light, the go-ahead. He let Heydrich’s letter fall from his hand onto the desk and stood perfectly still with his eyes closed, feeling his heart beating against the wall of his chest and his skin tingling with anticipation. It was a moment of complete exaltation, perhaps the happiest moment of his life.
He glanced at his watch. He had time for at least an initial read-through of the documents before he went in to work. He soon saw that they related just as before to Operation Sea Lion, the planned invasion of England, and as he perused them, Seaforth came to see how clever Heydrich had been, baiting his hook in just the right way to make Churchill bite and send another summons to him and Thorn.
As before, the intelligence purported to comprise briefing papers circulated in advance of a conference of the German high command held in Hitler’s presence at the Berghof and in addition a summary of the discussion prepared by Seaforth’s source, the fictitious aide-de-camp to Generaloberst Franz Halder, chief of staff of the German army.
In contrast with the previous intelligence, however, opinion on the merits of the invasion was now shown as divided. The army was still enthusiastic about the chances of success, with Halder referring to the quick defeat of the British Expeditionary Force in France in May and the loss of most of its heavy weapons in the Dunkirk evacuation. But the navy had become reluctant to proceed. Admiral Raeder was concerned that the Kriegsmarine, the German navy, would not be able to hold the beachheads even if the landings were successful and that the invasion force would be cut off from supplies by the British fleet. However, both the army and navy commanders were in agreement that the invasion could not proceed without at least limited control of the air. Goering had assured the Führer that it was only a matter of time before this would be achieved, but according to the summary, the Führer was unconvinced by Goering’s assertions and had ordered a temporary postponement of the invasion.
The picture given by the documents was of a wavering leader who could easily be induced to call off the invasion once and for all if he re
ceived reliable information that the RAF was more than holding its own against the Luftwaffe and that the British army and navy were more powerful than the Germans had hitherto believed. The method whereby the information could be disseminated in such a way as to be intercepted by German intelligence was clearly a matter for discussion, but Seaforth’s agent suggested radio messages in a code that the Abwehr would be able to break, although not so easily as to create suspicion.
Seaforth smiled, remembering what Churchill had said at the end of their last meeting: ‘If you get more intelligence like this, I shall want to see you again straight away.’ Well, these documents represented a treasure trove of information even more sensational than before. And once Seaforth had prepared and circulated his own report to go with them, a further summons to him and Thorn was inevitable, and Heydrich would be able to report to the Führer that the deed had indeed been done.
But first he needed to put in an appearance at work. He glanced at his watch. It was time to go.
He met Jarvis in the hall, or rather Jarvis met him. Seaforth had taken care over the years to cultivate the skeletal caretaker whenever the opportunity arose, making periodic contributions to a Boer War Veterans Fund collection box in Jarvis’s basement cubicle, whose contents – as he well knew – were emptied every Friday evening into Jarvis’s coat pocket.
‘Thorn’s been ’it,’ the old man said, conveying the news with obvious satisfaction. There was no love lost between him and the deputy chief, who’d never seen the value of hobnobbing with the staff, and it had been a red-letter day for Jarvis when Thorn was passed over for the top job after Albert Morrison retired.
‘Oh, God, no!’ said Seaforth, dismayed. It was the last news he’d needed to hear, just when things had started to go so well. Thorn’s presence was essential to the assassination plan. ‘How bad is it?’ he asked.
‘’Ospital seemed to think ’e was going to be all right when they rang up. More’s the pity,’ said Jarvis with obvious disappointment. ‘Funny, I was looking forward to giving you the news. I thought you’d be dancing a jig when you ’eard. No love lost between the two of you, is there?’
‘Very shrewdly observed, Mr Jarvis. We can always rely on you for that,’ said Seaforth, looking relieved. ‘But Mr Thorn’s my boss, and let’s just say that I try not to let my personal feelings get in the way of my work. You don’t happen to remember the name of the hospital, do you?’ he asked, trying to make the question sound as casual as possible.
‘What, you want to send ’im flowers, do you? Bunch of roses and a get-well card?’ asked Jarvis, making a chortling sound, which passed as his version of laughter.
‘Not quite,’ said Seaforth, smiling. ‘But I’d like to know when he’s coming back.’
‘Or if ’e’s comin’ back, more likely! St Stephen’s. That’s what they said on the blower,’ said the caretaker, giving vent to another chortle. ‘Give ’im my regards,’ he added over his shoulder as he turned away and went back down the stairs to the basement, the sound of his cracking knees audible even after he’d disappeared from view.
Seaforth telephoned the hospital as soon as he got to his office.
‘He’s going to be fine,’ said an efficient-sounding nurse when he was put through to the ward. ‘We’re keeping him in for another twenty-four hours for observation. But that’s just because he was quite heavily concussed when he came in. It’s standard procedure. I’m sure he’ll be good to go tomorrow.’
‘When tomorrow?’ asked Seaforth.
‘After breakfast.’
‘And when’s breakfast?’
‘Nine o’clock. Maybe ten o’clock. I don’t know. This isn’t a railway station – not everything’s on a timetable,’ said the nurse, losing patience.
‘Thank you,’ said Seaforth, but she’d already rung off.
He sat back in his chair and stretched his legs out in front of him, feeling relieved. Everything was fitting into place. He would send his report to Churchill as soon as Thorn came back to HQ. And with any luck, it would be Thorn’s last day there. As already agreed with Heydrich, the announcement of Churchill’s death would be followed by a radio message from Berlin addressed to Thorn using the same code as in Heydrich’s last radio message to Seaforth, the one asking for details of the plan. Interception would be certain – the communications boffins were under instructions from Thorn to watch out for any further use of the code – and the message would provide inescapable proof that Thorn was the mole and that he’d been acting under orders from Berlin in his assassination of the British Prime Minister, intending to blame the murder on Seaforth and set him up to take the blame.
It was the symmetry of the plan that delighted Seaforth. It was like a move in a complex game of chess that provided a perfect mate. In death, Thorn would pass through the looking-glass and take Seaforth’s place as both mole and assassin.
And spymaster too. Seaforth’s fictional agent in Berlin would turn out to have been Thorn’s, drip-feeding false information to Seaforth. And Thorn would not be around to deny the allegation. Dead men tell no tales, but they also can’t tell the truth, thought Seaforth with a wry smile.
Back home in the evening, Seaforth worked late, repairing his brother’s diary and perfecting his report on Operation Sea Lion. When he was done, he unlocked the bottom drawer of his desk and took out the Colt semi-automatic pistol registered to Alec Thorn. He carefully removed the cartridges from the magazine and expertly dismantled the firearm. And then, taking cloths, solvent, and a toothbrush from the same drawer, he lovingly cleaned the frame, slide, and barrel until they gleamed and shone in the lamplight.
CHAPTER 8
The train moved slowly north, chugging through the peaceful English countryside. It was a beautiful day, and the Blitz seemed very far away. It was a strange experience for Trave to see towns and villages where no bombs had fallen, although the on-going threat of invasion was never far away. Road signs had been removed and the landscape was dotted with concrete pillboxes and anti-tank ditches reinforced with barbed-wire entanglements.
The names of the railway stations had also been taken down, and passengers had to rely on female announcers talking over loudspeakers to tell them when they’d reached their destination. Where the names and timetables had been, the walls were covered in government information posters, and there was always one asking: IS YOUR JOURNEY REALLY NECESSARY? It was a question that Trave couldn’t answer. He’d spent too much time thinking about all that had happened, and he had no idea any more whether he was on a wild goose chase or a mission to save the country. All he knew was that he had made up his mind to go and see Seaforth’s mother, so go he would. Sometimes it was a vice and sometimes a virtue, but Trave was not a man to leave a stone unturned.
All the train’s compartments and corridors were packed, and Trave had been lucky to get a seat. Many of the passengers were soldiers going home on leave, and most of them seemed exhausted, using their packs as pillows while they tried to catch a little sleep. Trave was moved by how young they were, forced to confront their worst fears when some of them were barely out of school. And yet they didn’t have that drained, vacant stare he’d seen in so many soldiers’ eyes when they’d come back on the troop trains after the Dunkirk evacuation four months before. There seemed a new, steady determination about them now, as if they were ready for the long battle that lay ahead. Looking at them gave Trave hope.
As the day wore on, the air got thick with cigarette smoke and oppressively hot, and Trave stood up and opened the window. Immediately a cloud of soot blew back into his face from the coal-fed steam engine; he fell onto his seat, coughing and spluttering, and everyone in the compartment burst out laughing. But the humour was not ill-natured and Trave joined in, sheepishly at first but then with abandon.
‘You look like a regular coal miner,’ said the woman sitting opposite, and offered him one of her sandwiches, which Trave accepted gratefully. He hadn’t brought any food with him, forgetting that there were no
restaurant cars on long-distance trains any more since the war started. And soon everyone in the compartment was talking. Trave felt buoyed by the friendly atmosphere. This was what England was about, he thought. The easy good nature of the people meant that a cruel philosophy like Nazism could never take hold. The English were too decent, too democratic, to ever let that happen.
But then suddenly the train entered a long tunnel and everything went black. And in the darkness Trave remembered the pale, implacable face of the SS general that Thorn had shown him in the book he had taken down from Albert Morrison’s shelves the previous evening. Except that this was more than a memory; it was almost an apparition, and Trave had an overwhelming sense of the man’s extraordinary power and his terrible, relentless cruelty. And he was coming, he and his cohorts. The invasion threat was real; the SS was waiting, and rolls of barbed wire and lines of anti-tank ditches wouldn’t stop the Nazi war machine once it had landed. He knew with absolute certainty that he had to find out what Heydrich’s plan was before it was too late.
In less than a minute, the train emerged back out into the Cumbrian countryside glowing in the late afternoon sunshine, and the vision passed. But Trave remained shaken. He was glad he’d brought his gun, and he passed the rest of the journey in a state of growing impatience to reach his destination.
He changed trains at Carlisle, almost missing his connection because of the overzealousness of a detachment of the local Home Guard who were checking the papers and identity cards of the new arrivals and seemed determined to assume that everyone was a German spy until proved otherwise. But at just after six o’clock, he crossed the Scottish border and shortly afterwards arrived at the small town of Langholm, which for the first nineteen years of his life had been the home of Charles Seaforth.
