by Jack Higgins
“Prime Minister,” Ferguson said. “May I introduce Rear Admiral Travers?”
“Of course. Do sit down, gentlemen.” He went and sat behind his desk again. “An incredible business this.”
“An understatement, Prime Minister,” Ferguson replied.
“You were quite right to bring it to my attention. The royal aspect is what concerns me most.” The phone rang. He picked it up, listened, then said, “Send them up.” As he replaced the receiver he said, “I know you’ve had your problems with the Security Services, Brigadier, but I feel this to be one of those cases where we should honor our agreement to keep them informed about anything of mutual interest. You recall you agreed to liaise with the Deputy Director, Simon Carter, and Sir Francis Pamer?”
“I did indeed, Prime Minister.”
“I called both of them in immediately after reading the diary. They’ve been downstairs having a look at it themselves. They’re on their way up.”
A moment later the door opened and the aide ushered in the two men. Simon Carter was fifty, a small man with hair already snow-white. Never a field agent, he was an ex-academic, one of the faceless men who controlled Britain’s intelligence system. Sir Francis Pamer was forty-seven, tall and elegant in a blue flannel suit. He wore a Guards tie, thanks to three years as a subaltern in the Grenadiers, and had a slight smile permanently fixed to the corner of his mouth in a way that Ferguson found intensely irritating.
They all shook hands and sat down. “Well, gentlemen?” the Prime Minister said.
“Always assuming it isn’t a hoax,” Pamer said. “A fascinating story.”
“It would explain many aspects of the Bormann legend,” Simon Carter put in. “Arthur Axmann, the Hitler Youth leader, said he saw Bormann’s body lying in the road near the Lehrter Station in Berlin, that was after the breakout from the Bunker.”
“It would seem now that what he saw was someone who looked like Bormann,” Travers said.
“So it would appear,” Carter agreed. “That Bormann was on this U-boat and survived would explain the numerous reports over the years of sightings of him in South America.”
“Simon Wiesenthal, the Nazi hunter, always thought him alive,” Pamer said. “Before Eichmann was executed, he told the Israelis that Bormann was alive. Why would a man faced with death lie?”
“All well and good, gentlemen,” the Prime Minister told them, “but frankly, I think the question of whether Martin Bormann survived the war or not purely of academic interest. It would change history a little and the newspapers would get some mileage out of it.”
“And a damn sight more out of this Blue Book list that’s mentioned. Members of Parliament and the nobility.” Carter shuddered. “The mind boggles.”
“My dear Simon,” Pamer told him. “There were an awful lot of people around before the War who found aspects of Hitler’s message rather attractive. There are also names in that list with a Washington base.”
“Yes, well their children and grandchildren wouldn’t thank you to have their names mentioned, and what in the hell was Bormann doing at this Samson Cay?”
“There’s a resort there now, one of those rich man’s hideaways,” Ferguson said. “During the War there was a hotel, but it was closed for the duration. We checked with public records in Tortola. Owned by an American family called Herbert.”
“What do you think Bormann was after there?” Pamer asked.
“One can only guess, but my theory runs something like this,” Ferguson said. “He probably intended to let U180 proceed to Venezuela on its own. I would hazard a guess that he was to be picked up by someone and Samson Cay was the rendezvous. He left the briefcase as a precaution in case anything went wrong. After all, he did give Friemel instructions about its disposal if anything happened to him.”
“A pretty scandal, I agree, gentlemen, the whole thing, but imagine the furor it would cause if it became known that the Duke of Windsor had signed an agreement with Hitler,” the Prime Minister said.
“Personally I feel it more than likely that this so-called Windsor Protocol would prove fraudulent,” Pamer told him.
“That’s as may be, but the papers would have a field day, and, frankly, the Royal Family have had more than their share of scandal in this past year or so,” the Prime Minister replied.
There was silence and Ferguson said gently, “Are you suggesting that we attempt to recover Bormann’s briefcase before anyone else does, Prime Minister?”
“Yes, that would seem the sensible thing to do. Do you think you might handle that, Brigadier?”
It was Simon Carter who protested, “Sir, I must remind you that this U-boat lies in American territorial waters.”
“Well I don’t think we need to bring our American cousins into this,” Ferguson said. “They would have total rights to the wreck and the contents. Imagine what they’d get for the Windsor Protocol at auction.”
Carter tried again. “I really must protest, Prime Minister. Group Four’s brief is to combat terrorism and subversion.”
The Prime Minister raised a hand. “Exactly, and I can think of few things more subversive to the interests of the nation than the publication of this Windsor Protocol. Brigadier, you will devise a plan, do whatever is necessary and as soon as possible. Keep me informed and also the Deputy Director and Sir Francis.”
“So the matter is entirely in my hands?” Ferguson asked.
“Total authority. Just do what you have to.” The Prime Minister got up. “And now you really must excuse me, gentlemen. I have a tight schedule.”
The four men walked down to the security gates where Downing Street met Whitehall and paused at the pavement.
Carter said, “Damn you, Ferguson, you always get your way, but see you keep us informed. Come on, Francis,” and he strode away.
Francis Pamer smiled. “Don’t take it to heart, Brigadier, it’s just that he hates you. Good hunting,” and he hurried after Carter.
Travers and Ferguson walked along Whitehall looking for a taxi and Travers said, “Why does Carter dislike you so?”
“Because I succeeded too often where he’s failed and because I’m outside the system and only answerable to the Prime Minister and Carter can’t stand that.”
“Pamer seems a decent enough sort.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“He’s married, I suppose?”
“As a matter of fact, no. Apparently much in demand by the ladies. One of the oldest baronetcies in England. I believe he’s the twelfth or thirteenth. Has a wonderful house in Hampshire. His mother lives there.”
“So what is his connection with intelligence matters?”
“The Prime Minister has made him a junior minister at the Home Office. Extra Minister I believe his title is. A kind of roving trouble shooter. As long as he and Carter keep out of my hair I’ll be well pleased.”
“And Henry Baker – do you think he’ll tell you where U180 is lying?”
“Of course he will, he’ll have to.” Ferguson saw a taxi and waved it down. “Come on, let’s get moving and we’ll confront him now.”
After his bath, Baker had lain on his bed for a moment, a towel about his waist and, tired from the amount of traveling he’d done, fell fast asleep. When he finally awakened and checked his watch it was shortly after two o’clock. He dressed quickly and went downstairs.
There was no sign of Travers and when he opened the front door it was still raining hard. In spite of that, he decided to go for a walk as much to clear his head as anything else. He helped himself to an old trenchcoat from the cloakroom and an umbrella and went down the steps. He felt good, but then rain always made him feel that way and he was still excited about the way things were going. He turned toward Millbank and paused, looking across to Victoria Tower Gardens and the Thames.
In St. John, for obscure reasons, people drive on the left-hand side of the road as in England, and yet on that rainy afternoon in London, Henry Baker did what most Americans would do before c
rossing the road. He looked left and stepped straight into the path of a London Transport bus coming from the right. Westminster Hospital being close by, an ambulance was there in minutes, not that it mattered, for he was dead by the time they reached the Casualty Department.
4
In St. John it was just after ten o’clock in the morning as Jenny Grant walked along the waterfront to the cafe and went up the steps and entered the bar. Billy was sweeping the floor and he looked up and grinned.
“A fine, soft day, you heard from Mr. Henry yet?”
“Five hours time difference.” She glanced at her watch. “Just after three o’clock in the afternoon there, Billy. There’s time.”
Mary Jones appeared at the end of the bar. “Telephone call for you in the office. London, England.”
Jenny smiled instantly. “Henry?”
“No, some woman. You take it, honey, and I’ll get you a cup of coffee.”
Jenny brushed past her and went into the office, and Mary poured a little water into the coffee percolator. There was a sharp cry from inside the office. Billy and Mary glanced at each other in alarm, then hurried in.
Jenny sat behind the desk looking dazed, clutching the phone in one hand, and Mary said, “What is it, honey? Tell Mary.”
“It’s a policewoman ringing me from Scotland Yard in London,” Jenny whispered. “Henry’s dead. He was killed in a road accident.”
She started to cry helplessly and Mary took the phone from her. “Hello, are you still there?”
“Yes,” a neutral voice replied. “I’m sorry if the other lady was upset. There’s no easy way to do this.”
“Sure, honey, you got your job to do.”
“Could you find out where he was staying in London?”
“Hang on.” Mary turned to Jenny. “She wants to know the address he was staying at over there.”
So Jenny told her.
It was just before five and Travers, in response to a telephone call from Ferguson asking him to meet him, waited in the foyer of the mortuary in the Cromwell Road. The Brigadier came bustling in a few minutes later.
“Sorry to keep you, Garth, but I want to expedite things. There has to be an autopsy for the coroner’s inquest and we can’t have that unless he’s formally identified.”
“I’ve spoken to the young woman who lives with him, Jenny Grant. She’s badly shocked but intends to fly over as soon as possible. Should be here tomorrow.”
“Yes, well, I don’t want to hang about.” Ferguson took a folded paper from his inside breast pocket. “I’ve got a court order from a Judge in chambers here which authorizes Rear Admiral Garth Travers to make formal identification, so let’s get on with it.”
A uniformed attendant appeared at that moment. “Is one of you gentlemen Brigadier Ferguson?”
“That’s me,” Ferguson told him.
“Professor Manning is waiting. This way, sir.”
The post-mortem room was lit by fluorescent lighting that bounced off the white-lined walls. There were four stainless-steel operating tables. Baker’s body lay on the nearest one, his head on a block. A tall, thin man in surgeon’s overalls stood waiting, flanked by two mortuary technicians. Travers noted with distaste that they all wore green rubber boots.
“Hello, Sam, thanks for coming in,” Ferguson said. “This is Garth Travers.”
Manning shook hands. “Could we get on, Charles? I have tickets for Covent Garden.”
“Of course, old boy.” Ferguson took out a pen and laid the form on the end of the operating table. “Do you, Rear Admiral Travers, formally identify this man as Henry Baker, an American citizen of St. John in the American Virgin Islands?”
“I do.”
“Sign here.” Travers did so and Ferguson handed the form to Manning.
“There you go, Sam, we’ll leave you to it,” and he nodded to Travers and led the way out.
Ferguson closed the glass partition in his Daimler so the driver couldn’t hear what was being said.
“A hell of a shock,” Travers said. “It hasn’t sunk in yet.”
“Leaves us in rather an interesting situation,” Ferguson commented.
“In what way?”
“The location of U180. Has it died with him?”
“Of course,” Travers said. “I was forgetting.”
“On the other hand, perhaps the Grant girl knows. I mean she lived with him and all that.”
“Not that kind of relationship,” Travers told him. “Purely platonic. I met her just the once. I was passing through Miami and they happened to be there. Lovely young woman.”
“Well let’s hope this paragon of all the virtues has the answer to our problem,” Ferguson said.
“And if not?”
“Then I’ll just have to think of something.”
“I wonder what Carter will make of all this.”
Ferguson groaned. “I suppose I’d better bring him up to date. Keep the sod happy,” and he reached for his car phone and dialed Inspector Lane.
At precisely the same time Francis Pamer, having made a very fast trip indeed from London in his Porsche Cabriolet to his country home at Hatherley Court in Hampshire, was mounting the grand staircase to his mother’s apartment on the first floor. The house had been in the family for five hundred years and he always visited it with conscious pleasure, but not now. There were more important things on his mind.
When he tapped on the door of the bedroom and entered he found his mother propped up in the magnificent four-poster bed, a uniformed nurse sitting beside her. She was eighty-five and very old and frail and lay there with her eyes closed.
The nurse stood up. “Sir Francis. We weren’t expecting you.”
“I know. How is she?”
“Not good, sir. Doctor was here earlier. He said it could be next week or three months from now.”
He nodded. “You have a break. I want to have a little chat with her.” The nurse went out and Pamer sat on the bed and took his mother’s hand. She opened her eyes. “How are you, darling?” he asked.
“Why, Francis, what a lovely surprise.” Her voice was very faded.
“I had some business not too far away, Mother, so I thought I’d call in.”
“That was nice of you, dear.”
Pamer got up, lit a cigarette and walked to the fire. “I was talking about Samson Cay today.”
“Oh, are you thinking of taking a holiday, dear? If you go and that nice Mr. Santiago is there, do give him my regards.”
“Of course. I’m right, aren’t I? It was your mother who brought Samson Cay into the family?”
“Yes, dear, her father, George Herbert, gave it to her as a wedding present.”
“Tell me about the War again, Mother,” he said. “And Samson Cay.”
“Well, the hotel was empty for most of the War. It was small then, of course, just a little colonial-style place.”
“And when did you go there? You never really talked about that and I was too young to remember.”
“March nineteen forty-five. You were born in July, the previous year, and those terrible German rockets kept hitting London, V1s and V2s. Your father was out of the army then and serving in Mr. Churchill’s government as a Junior Minister, just like you, dear. He was worried about the attacks on London continuing so he arranged passage on a boat to Puerto Rico for you and me. We carried on to Samson Cay from there. Now I remember. It was the beginning of April when we got there. We went over from Tortola by boat. There was an old man and his wife. Black people. Very nice. Jackson, that was it. May and Joseph.”
Her voice faded and he went and sat on the bed and took her hand again. “Did anyone visit, Mother? Can you remember that?”
“Visit?” She opened her eyes. “Only Mr. Strasser. Such a nice man. Your father told me he might be coming. He just appeared one night. He said he’d been dropped off in a fishing boat from Tortola and then the hurricane came. It happened the same night. Terrible. We were in the cellar for two days. I held
you all the time, but Mr. Strasser was very good. Such a kind man.”
“Then what happened?”
“He stayed with us for quite a while. Until June, I think, and then your father arrived.”
“And Strasser?”
“He left after that. He had business in South America, and the war in Europe was over, of course, so we came back to England. Mr. Churchill had lost the election and your father wasn’t in Parliament anymore, so we lived down here, darling. The farms were a great disappointment.”
She was wandering a little. Pamer said, “You once told me my father served with Sir Oswald Mosley in the First World War in the trenches.”
“That’s true dear, they were great friends.”
“Remember Mosley’s black shirts, Mother, the British Fascist Party? Did Father have any connection with that?”
“Good heavens no. Poor Oswald. He often spent the weekend here. They arrested him at the beginning of the War. Said he was pro-German. Ridiculous. He was such a gentleman.” The voice trailed away and then strengthened. “Such a difficult time we had. Goodness knows how we managed to keep you at Eton. How lucky we all were when your father met Mr. Santiago. What wonderful things they did together at Samson Cay. Some people say it’s the finest resort in the Caribbean now. I’d love to visit again, I really would.”
Her eyes closed and Pamer went and put her hands under the cover. “You sleep now, Mother, it will do you good.”
He closed the door gently, went downstairs to the library, got himself a Scotch and sat by the fire thinking about it all. The contents of the diary had shocked him beyond measure and it was a miracle that he had managed to keep his composure in front of Carter, but the truth was plain now. His father, a British Member of Parliament, a serving officer, a member of government, had had connections with the Nazi Party, one of those who had eagerly looked forward to a German invasion in 1940. The involvement must have been considerable. The whole business with Martin Bormann and Samson Cay proved that.
