by Alex Gerlis
‘And that information he eventually divulged – about the films and notebooks he’d hidden in a farm in Bavaria – he held out for how long until he gave us that?’
‘Five days, I’m afraid, sir. I think he was hoping to keep it to negotiate for his life, but even when Fyodorov resorted to more physical methods of persuasion, he still gave us very little. But once we told him his son had been killed in Maribor, he appeared to give up; he seemed like a broken man. After that, he was quite forthcoming.’
Marshal Zhukov nodded and looked carefully at Gurevich, clearly not quite satisfied. ‘By which time it was too late.’
‘I’m afraid so, sir. We managed to get a special unit to the farm, which was no mean feat given that it’s in the American zone, but there was nothing there.’
‘The incompetence!’ Zhukov slammed his fist on the desk and was now shouting, his face red.
Kommissar Gurevich said he could quite understand how the marshal felt; indeed, he shared his anger, his frustration…
‘It’s more than anger and frustration, Gurevich. We’ve been made to look like bloody fools, and by the British of all people. What was it that woman on the farm said?’
‘That only two days before we got there, some British troops had arrived at the farm and searched it. Apparently they went straight to the cellar and removed some suitcases. They turned the farmhouse upside down but didn’t take anything else. They knew precisely what they were coming for.’
‘She’s sure they were British, not Americans?’
‘She’s certain, sir.’
‘So it would appear that English friend of yours, Prince—’
‘He’s hardly a friend, sir.’
‘It would appear he beat you to it. From what Steiner told us about the content of the films and notebooks, this is a disaster for us and a major intelligence coup for them!’
Zhukov shook his head and looked up at the ceiling. Gurevich could hear the marshal’s boots tapping loudly on the floor.
‘Sir, I propose we put Steiner before a war crimes tribunal – it needn’t last more than an hour at the most – and then execute him.’
Zhukov sat very still and said nothing for a while, then shook his head again. ‘He’ll go to Moscow. He can be dealt with there: he may provide more intelligence under interrogation, and then he can be disposed of.’
Iosif Gurevich said he understood, and when Zhukov stood up, he did too, realising their meeting was now over. He was unsettled by how it had gone and was relieved it had ended. There was no doubt he’d made an error in underestimating Steiner.
He was in the doorway when Zhukov called him back.
‘Oh, and Gurevich – you’ll return to Moscow with Steiner.’
Kommissar Iosif Gurevich left in a daze, and as he walked down the corridor; he realised he now had an escort. It wasn’t a total surprise, but it had still come as a most dreadful shock, like when he’d heard of the murder of his family in Minsk.
Zhukov had made it sound like a routine matter, but to Gurevich it was a death sentence.
* * *
‘I have to admit that I was ready to give both of you a very hard time. A severe reprimand would have been considered lenient in the circumstances.’ Tom Gilbey was looking at Prince and Hanne, who were sitting opposite him, innocence personified. He’d hoped to sound as severe as possible, but feared he’d not managed to do so. It was very rare for him to be outmanoeuvred, but when it had happened in recent years, Richard Prince was usually to blame, as was the case on this bitterly cold afternoon close to Christmas, where a few limp decorations in the corridor outside his office in St James’s were the only hint of approaching festivities.
‘Disobeying orders, collaborating with the Soviets – and the Slovenians – and going off on your own freelance operations… that’s not how we work, is it?’
Neither Prince nor Hanne replied. Gilbey thought he detected a hint of a smile on Prince’s face.
‘So I was going to throw the book at you, though I’m not sure what book it was going to be.’ He laughed at his own joke, but was the only person to do so. He caught a glimpse of Sir Roland slowly shaking his head.
‘However, Prince, as usual, you’ve come up with the goods, eh? What is it they have in that game Monopoly – a “Get Out of Jail” card, isn’t it? Well, that intelligence you acquired about the farm in Bavaria – it was spot on, absolutely spot on. I can’t tell you how invaluable it is for us; it will keep us going for some time. We’ve already recruited some Germans to work for us on the basis of what we found. Apparently the Americans are absolutely furious about it: they were after that haul themselves, and Joe Jenkins has made such a nuisance of himself about it that they’re sending him back to the States. Are you going to tell me how you found out about it?’
‘Sources, sir,’ replied Prince.
‘The main thing, surely,’ said Hanne, ‘is that it proved to be correct. Is that not good enough?’
Sir Roland Pearson pulled his chair forward and said that of course it was good enough; indeed, from what he’d heard, it was more than good enough.
‘And the Soviets, sir?’
‘They turned up at the farm two days after us, didn’t they? It would appear they’re as furious as the Americans are. You look concerned, Prince…’
‘I’m concerned about Kommissar Iosif Gurevich, sir: he’s been very helpful to us. He could continue to be helpful to the Service. You said you’d enquire about him.’
Gilbey drummed his fingers on his blotting pad and slowly moved his fountain pen from one side of the desk to the other. ‘I got Bemrose to ask some questions. He managed to nail a NKVD officer at the Allied Kommandatura last night.’
‘And?’
‘And it would appear Gurevich has been transferred back to Moscow. That could be good news or it could be bad news, but…’
‘…it’s most likely to be bad news, sir.’
‘Perhaps if our chaps in Moscow put in a good word for him – resolute ally against the Nazis, that type of thing?’
‘I think you’ll find, Tom, that our putting a good word in for him may well have the opposite effect.’
‘Maybe you’re right, Roly.’
Prince looked downcast and Hanne put her hand in his. Tom Gilbey cleared his throat and said something about it being a shame neither Edward Palmer nor Myrtle Carter had been captured alive, but on balance it was probably better not to have the awkwardness of a trial.
‘And what will you two do now?’
Hanne and Prince looked at each other.
‘I’ll continue as a police officer, sir. You may recall that when you asked us to take on this mission back in September – when you said it would last just a couple of weeks – I did mention I was in line for promotion to chief superintendent. I understand that is now very much a probability. And in any case…’ He hesitated and blushed, and looked at Hanne.
‘What Richard was about to say, Tom, is that I’m pregnant. Our careers as spies have come to an end.’
* * *
Tom Gilbey and Sir Roland Pearson watched from the upper-floor window as Prince and Hanne emerged from the MI6 building and crossed the road before hailing a taxi.
‘Nice to hear they’re having a child, after what they’ve both been through. Doubt we’ll see them again, though, Roly, eh? Pity, both good sorts and first-class agents. We could do with more of them rather than the usual Oxbridge classics scholars.’
‘I wouldn’t be so sure, Tom.’
‘So sure about what?’
‘About not seeing them again.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘They’re addicted to espionage – and they have an instinct for it. The only people in this game who are any good are people like that. And more to the point, they know Europe; they have a feel for it. I’ve heard you say more than once how the rules of the game have changed and you’re not sure you understand them.’
Gilbey nodded.
‘Well thos
e two do, Tom. They understand.’
Author’s Note
End of Spies is a work of fiction, so any similarities between characters in the book and real people are unintended and should be regarded as purely coincidental.
There are of course references to obviously non-fictional characters such as Winston Churchill and Hitler, along with others such as prominent Austrian Nazis Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Arthur Seyss-Inquart, Odilo Globocnik and Adolf Eichmann. Other real people mentioned include John Winant, the US Ambassador to London, Heinrich Müller, the head of the Gestapo, Field Marshal Alexander, and Fritz Suhren, the camp commandant at Ravensbrück.
I’ve tried to stick as closely as possible to what was known at the time about the fate of another non-fictional character – Martin Bormann, Hitler’s deputy. It was known he escaped from the bunker on 1 May and was seen later that day nearer Lehrter station. Over the years the hunt for Bormann continued and there were reported sightings of him around the world, with some people believing he’d escaped to South America, and others convinced he was a Soviet spy in Moscow. In 1972, what were thought to be Bormann’s remains were discovered near Lehrter station, and this was confirmed in 1998 as a result of DNA testing.
The fate of Max Stein in Chapter 15 is based on an actual deportation of Jews from Berlin. Osttransport 33 left Hamburger Strasse on 3 March 1943, and all sixteen hundred people on board are believed to have been murdered at Auschwitz.
The book is set in Europe in 1945 in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War and is factually based in many respects: a lot of the locations and events featured are genuine. This is the case with, for example, the Gestapo headquarters in Dijon, Paris, Amsterdam and Maribor, and with the US Army headquarters in Frankfurt and Munich. The Red Cross Club for US Army officers in Munich was indeed located on Neuhauser Strasse. Many of the Berlin locations actually existed, including Hohenschönhausen prison and the Allied Kommandatura on Kaiserswerther Strasse.
Trieste suffered badly in the war under first the Fascists and then the Nazis, with the city’s Slovenian and Jewish populations being especially badly treated. The concentration camp referred to in the book – Risiera di San Sabba – did exist. Thousands of prisoners were murdered there, and many more were sent from there to Nazi death camps.
At the core of the plot is a plan for Nazis to escape from Europe from Trieste. It’s very well documented that the Italian ports (especially Genoa) were used as part of the various Nazi escape lines. Italy was the destination for many fleeing Nazis, and there is no doubt that their escape was often facilitated by the Roman Catholic Church.
In Chapter 2, reference is made to the particular problems the Special Operations Executive had with the Netherlands, and this is also based on fact. The Nazi occupiers of the Netherlands managed to penetrate the SOE N Section agents to such an extent that British undercover operations there were suspended for a while.
The Counter Intelligence Corps was an intelligence branch of the United States Army, and after the war it was involved in recruiting Nazis – especially scientists – to work for the US. There is no question that as the Second World War ended, both the United States and the Soviet Union quickly switched their focus to each other, hence both sides’ recruitment of Nazis to work for them.
Likewise, the Field Security Section existed during and after the Second World War as part of the British Army, with a security and intelligence function in areas occupied by British forces.
Readers may wonder whether I have stretched credulity with apparently respectable British citizens aiding the Nazis during and after the war. They may feel that in particular the character referred to as ‘the Admiral’ is especially unlikely. In fact there was an Admiral Sir Barry Domvile, a former Director of Naval Intelligence and such a prominent Nazi sympathiser that he was imprisoned under wartime regulations for three years from July 1940 to July 1943. Domvile was involved in shadowy organisations such as the Link and the Right Club, which were characterised by their pro-Nazi sympathies and virulent anti-Semitism. Together they claimed thousands of supporters, only a small number of whom would have been detained under Wartime Regulation 18B.
Cork Street in London’s West End – where the fictional Bourne and Sons is located – is the centre of the capital’s commercial art galleries. There is no known connection between the street and Nazi spy rings.
There are frequent references in the book to sums of money in pounds sterling. To get an idea of the value of these sums today, I rely on the Bank of England website. As a ready reckoner, £5 in 1945 would be worth approximately £217 today, equating to €243 or US$275. Other currencies are, as they say, available.
I’d like to express my sincere thanks and appreciation to the many people who’ve helped bring about the publication of this book, not least my agent Gordon Wise at Curtis Brown, who has been enormously supportive over a numbers of years. My publishers Canelo have done a fantastic job with the Prince series, and also in republishing my Spy Masters novels. End of Spies was the second book in the Prince series that I wrote during the COVID-19 crisis in the UK, but Michael Bhaskar and Kit Nevile and the whole team at Canelo remained attentive, professional and helpful throughout. Thanks too to Jane Selley for her skilful copy-edit, and to the many people who helped me with aspects of the book and answered seemingly odd questions as I was writing it.
And finally to my family – especially my wife Sonia, my daughters and their partners and my grandsons – for their encouragement, understanding and love.
Alex Gerlis
London, January 2021
About the Author
Born in Lincolnshire, Alex Gerlis was a BBC journalist for nearly thirty years. His first novel, The Best of Our Spies (2012), has been an Amazon bestseller, and is being developed for television serialisation by a major production company. The other books in the Spy Masters series of Second World War espionage novels are: The Swiss Spy (2015), Vienna Spies (2017) and The Berlin Spies (2018). Prince of Spies – the first novel in the Prince series commissioned by Canelo – was published in March 2020, followed by Sea of Spies, Ring of Spies and now End of Spies. Alex Gerlis lives in London, is married with two daughters and is represented by Gordon Wise at the Curtis Brown literary agency.
www.alexgerlis.com
Facebook: @alexgerlisauthor
Twitter: @alex_gerlis
www.canelo.co/authors/alex-gerlis/
Also by Alex Gerlis
Spy Masters
The Best of Our Spies
The Swiss Spy
Vienna Spies
The Berlin Spies
The Richard Prince Thrillers
Prince of Spies
Sea of Spies
Ring of Spies
End of Spies
First published in the United Kingdom in 2021 by Canelo
Canelo Digital Publishing Limited
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Oxford OX2 0DF
United Kingdom
Copyright © Alex Gerlis, 2021
The moral right of Alex Gerlis to be identified as the creator of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Ebook ISBN 9781800321557
Print ISBN 9781800322608
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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