“Jerry will put you up against a wall at 11:03 and shoot you.”
“Hmm, good point. Possibly if Jerry is distracted.”
“Go ahead, I’m all ears.”
“You blow something up. I don’t know, anything. Improvise, that’s what you chaps are so good at. Jerry runs to see. While Jerry’s got his knickers in a wad, I enter the garrison headquarters, all snazzed up, Jerry-style. It’s easy for me to commandeer the radio, make my call. Five minutes and I’m out.”
“Who are you trying to reach on radio?”
“A certain fellow.”
“A fellow where?”
“In England.”
“You’re going to radio England? From a German command post in occupied France?”
“I am. I’m going to dial up Roddy Walthingham, of the Signals Intelligence Branch, in Islington. He’s some kind of mucky-muck there and there are sure to be lots of radios about.”
“What can he do?”
“You didn’t hear this from me, chum, but it’s said he’s one of the pinks. Pink as in red. Same team, just different players, for now. Joe for king, that sort of thing. Anyhow, he’s sure to know somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody in the big town.”
“London?” asked Leets, but Basil just smiled, and Leets realized he meant Moscow.
So Basil turned himself into a passable German officer with little enough trouble. The uniform came from an actual officer who had been killed in an ambush in 1943, and his uniform kept in storage by the maquis against the possibility of just such a gambit. It smelled of sweat, farts, and blood. It was also a year out of date in terms of accoutrements, badges, and suchlike, but Basil knew or at least believed that with enough charisma he could get through anything.
And thus at eleven a.m., as Leets and three maquis from Group Phillippe prepared to blow up a deserted farmhouse half a mile out of town the other way from the bridge, Basil strode masterfully to the gate of the garrison HQ of the 113th Flakbattalion, the lucky Luftwaffers who controlled security there in Nantilles. The explosion had the predictable effect on the Luftwaffers, who panicked, grabbed weapons and other equipment, and began running toward the rising column of smoke. They were terrified of a screwup because it meant they might be transferred somewhere actual fighting was possible.
Basil watched them go, and when the last of several ragtag groups had disappeared, he strode toward the big communications van next to the chateau, with its thirty-foot radio mast adorned with all kinds of Jerry stylistics; this one had a triangle up top. These people!
It helped that the officer whose uniform he wore had been a hero, and a lot of ribbons and badges decorated his breast. One, in particular, was an emblem of a tank, and underneath it hung three little plates of some sort. The other stuff was the usual mishmash of bold colored ribbons and such, and it all signified martial valor, very impressive to the distinctly nonmilitaristic Luftwaffers who hadn’t run to the blasts and didn’t know skittles about such stuff but recognized what they took to be the real McCoy when it appeared.
Basil got to the radio van easily enough and chased the duty sergeant away by proclaiming himself Major Strasser—he’d seen Casablanca, of course—of Abwehr 31, top secret.
He faced a bank of gear, all of it rather H. G. Wellesian in its futuresque array of dials, switches, knobs, gauges, and such forth set in shiny Bakelite.
The transceiver turned out to be a 15W S.E., a small, complete station with an output power of 15 watts, just jolly super and what the doctor ordered. The frequency range embraced those used by the British and the mechanics for synchronization between transmitter and receiver was very advanced.
He faced the thing, a big green box opened to show an instrumentality. Two dials up top, a midpoint dial displaying frequency, the tuner below, and below that buttons and switches and all the foofah of radioland. Had he a course on it somewhere in time? Seems he had, but there was so much, it was best to let the old subconscious take over and run the show.
It was very Teutonic. It had labels and sublabels everywhere, switches, dials, wires, the whole German gestalt in one instrument, insanely well ordered yet somewhat overengineered in a vulgar way. Instead of “On/ Off” the switch read literally, “Makingtobroadcast/Stoppingtobroadcast Facilitation.” A British radio would have been less imposing, less a manifesto of purpose, but also less reliable. You could bomb this thing and it would keep working.
The machine crackled and spat and began to radiate heat. Evidently it was quite powerful.
He put on some radio earphones, hearing the noise of static to be quite annoying, found what had to be a channel or frequency knob, and spun it to the British range.
He knew both sides worked with jamming equipment, but it wasn’t useful to jam large numbers of frequencies, so more usually they played little games, trying to infiltrate each other’s communications and cause mischief. He also knew he should flip a switch and go to Morse, but he had never been a good operator. He reasoned that the airwaves today were totally filled with chatter of various sorts and whomever was listening would have to weigh the English heavily, get interpretation from analysts, and alert command, and the whole process had to take days. He decided just to talk, as if on telly from a club in Bloomsbury.
“Hullo, hullo,” he said each time the crackly static stopped.
A couple of times he got Germans screaming, “You must use radio procedure, you are directed to halt, this is against regulations,” and turned quickly away, but later rather than sooner, someone said, “Hullo, who’s this?”
“Basil St. Florian,” Basil said.
“Chum, use radio protocol, please. Identify by call sign, wait for verification.”
“Sorry, don’t know the protocol. It’s a borrowed radio, do you see?”
“Chum, I can’t—Basil St. Florian? Were you at Harrow, ‘28 through ‘32? Big fellow, batsman, six runs against St. Albans?”
“Seven, actually. The gods smiled on me that day.”
“I went down at St. Albans. I was fine leg. I dismissed you, finally. You smiled at me. Lord, I never saw such a striker.”
“I remember. Such, such were the joys, old man. Who knew we’d meet again like this? Now, look here, I’m trying to reach Islington Signals Intelligence. Can you help?”
“I shouldn’t give out information.”
“Old man, it’s not like I’m just anybody. I remember you. Reddish hair, freckly, looked like you wanted to squid me on the noggin. Remember how fierce you were, that’s why I winked. I have it right, don’t I?”
“In fact, you do. All these years, now this. Islington, you say?”
“Absolutely. Can you help?”
“I’m actually wizard-keen on these things. It took a war to find out. Hmm, let me just do some diddling, they’d be John-Able-6, do you see? I’m going to do a patch.”
“Thanks ever so much.”
Basil waited, examining his fingernails, looking about for something to drink. A nice port, say, or possibly some aged French cognac? He yawned. Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock. When would the fellow—
“Identify, please.”
“Is this John-Able-6?”
“Identify, please.”
“Basil St. Florian. Looking to speak with your man Roddy Walthingham. Put him on, there’s a good lad.”
“Do you think this is a telephone exchange?”
“No, no, but nevertheless I need to talk to him. Old school chum. Need a favor.”
“Identify, please.”
“Listen carefully: I am in a bother and I need to talk to Roddy. It’s war business, not gossip.”
“Where are you?”
“In Nantilles.”
“Didn’t realize the boys had got that far inland.”
“They haven’t. That’s why it’s rather urgent, old man.”
“This is very against regulations.”
“Dear man, I’m actually at a Jerry radio and at any moment, Jerry will return. Now I have to talk t
o Roddy. Please, play up play up and play the game.”
“Public school then. I hate you all. You deserve to burn.”
“We do, I know. Such officious little pricks, the lot of us. I’ll help you light the timbers after the war and then climb into them, smiling. But first, let’s win it. I implore you.”
“Bah,” said the fellow, “you’d best not put me on report.”
“I shan’t.”
“All right. He’s right next door. Hate him too.”
In a minute or so, another voice came over the earphones.
“Yes, hullo.”
“Roddy, it’s Basil. Basil St. Florian.”
“Basil, good God.”
“How’re Diane and the girls?”
“Rather enjoying the country. They could come back to town, since Jerry hardly flies anymore, but I think they like it out there.”
“Good for them. Say, Roddy, need a favor, do you mind?”
“Certainly, Basil, if I can.”
“I’m to go with some boys tonight to set off a firecracker under a bridge. Nasty work, they say it has to be done. ‘Ours not to reason why,’ all that.”
“Sounds fascinating.”
“Not really. Hardly any wit to it at all. You know, just destroying things, it seems so infantile in the long run. Anyhow, our cause would be helped if a gang in the area called Group Roger, have you got that, would pitch in with its Brens. But it’s some red-white thing and they won’t help. I thought you had Uncle Joe’s ear—”
“Basil! Now really! People may be listening.”
“No inference or judgment meant. I tell no tales, and let each man enjoy his own politics and loyalties, as I do mine. That’s what the war’s all about, isn’t it? Let’s put it this way: If one had Uncle Joe’s ear, one might ask that Group Roger in Nantilles vicinity pitch in with Brens to help Group Phillippe. That’s all. Have you got that?”
“Roger, Brens, Phillippe, Nantilles. I’ll make a call.”
“Thanks, old man. Good-bye.”
“No, no, you say over and out.”
“Over and out, then.”
“Ciao, friend.”
Basil put the microphone down, unhooked the earphones from around his head, and looked up into the eyes of two sergeants with Schmeissers and a lieutenant colonel.
* * * *
Leets looked at his Bulova. It had been an hour, no, an hour and a half.
“I think they got him,” said his No. 1, a young fellow called Leon.
“Shit,” said Leets, in English. He was at a window in the upper floor of a residence fifty yards across from the gated chateau that served as the 113th Flakbattalion’s headquarters and garrison. He held an M1 Thompson submachine gun low, out of sight, and wore a French rain slicker, rubbers, and a plowman’s rough hat.
“We can’t hit it,” said Leon. “Not four of us. And if we got him out, on the surprise aspect of it, where’d we go? We have no automobile to escape.”
Leon was right, but still Leets hated the idea of Captain Basil St. Florian perishing on something so utterly trivial as a bridge in the interests of one Team Casey that existed out of a misbegotten SOE/ OSS cooperative plan, silly, cracked, and doomed as all get out. Strictly a show, thought up by big headquarters brainiacs with too much spare time, of no true import. He knew it; they all knew it and had known it in all the hours in Areas A and F and whatever, disguised golf clubs mostly, where they’d trained before deployment to the god-awful food at Milton Hall. As the Brit had said, it probably didn’t make any difference anyhow. He cursed himself; he should have just planted the charges without the Brens and taken his chances on the run to the woods. Maybe the Krauts wouldn’t have been quick enough out of the gates to get there and lay down fire before he rigged his surprises. Maybe it would have been a piece of cake. But you couldn’t tell Basil St. Florian a thing, and when the man got an idea in his head, it crowded out all other concerns.
“Look!” said Leon.
It was Basil. He was not alone. He was surrounded by adoring young men of the 113th Flakbattalion and their commanding officer who were escorting Basil to the gate. Basil made a brief, theatrical bow, shook the commander’s hand, and turned and smartly strode off.
It took a while for him to reach the outskirts of town, but when he hit the rendezvous, Leets and the maquis, by back-streets and fence-jumping, were already there.
“What the hell?”
“Well, I reached Roddy. Somehow. He’s to make certain arrangements.”
“What took you so long?”
“Ah, it seems the previous owner of this uniform had an illustrious career. This little trinket”—he touched the metallic emblem of a tank with its three tiny plates affixed serially beneath—”signifies a champion tank destroyer on the Eastern Front. The Luftwaffers wanted to hear war stories. So I ended up giving a little performance on the best ways to destroy a T-36. Good God, I hope none of the fellows—they seemed like good lads—try that sort of thing on their own against a Centurion. I just made it up. Something about the third wheel of the left tread being the drive wheel, and if you could hit that with a Panzerfaust, the machine would stop in its tracks. Could there be a third wheel? And I don’t believe I specified left from which perspective. All in all, it was a rather feeble performance, but the London Times critics weren’t around, just some dim Hanoverian farm boys drafted into the German air force.”
“You made the call? You got through?”
“Why, it worked better than our trunk lines. No operator, no interference. It was as if Roddy was in the same room. Amazing, these technical things. Now, what’s for dinner?”
* * * *
It seldom worked as well as it did that night, perhaps using up the last of Team Casey’s good luck. At any rate, Roddy moseyed out of the radio shack. It was rainy in Islington and everybody was keen about invasion news. Would our boys be pushed back? Or would they stay, and was this the beginning of the end?
So nobody paid much attention to a short, fat man with an academic’s somewhat diffident habit of moving and being. Roddy drew his mackintosh tight about him, pulled his deerstalker down about his ears to keep the surprising June chill out, and nodded at the duty officer. His specialty was coding, and he was actually damned good at it, if thought by all a trifle odd. He wandered about as if there wasn’t a war on, and by now everyone accepted that his weirdness and inability to deal with military security matters were a part of his genius and must be accepted. Actually, it was good cover for his real job, which was straight penetration for GRU Section 7, foreign intelligence.
He crossed the busy street to a druggist’s and looked for the phone. He found it occupied and waited smilingly as a woman finished her call, then departed. He entered, dropped a tuppence, and waited. It rang three times. He hung up. The phone rang twice, then ceased. Roddy redialed the number.
“Hullo, is that you?”
“Of course, Roddy. Who else could it be?”
Roddy’s conversational partner was Major Boris Zyborny, code name RAFTER, in charge of penetration of the British main target and Roddy’s controller. He worked in deep cover in the Polish Free Republic Democratic Army liaison office, doing something or other unclear, while keeping tabs on all his boys and girls for Red Army intelligence.
Roddy said, “I need a favor. An old school chum.”
“One of ours?”
“No.”
“He’s to be ignored. He’s meaningless. Enjoy his company, mourn his death if it happens, but keep him out of the equation.”
“A good friend. I want to help him.”
Roddy explained, and seven minutes later, Major Zyborny was on the long-range radio to Moscow GRU, where someone eventually tracked down a partisan director named Klemansk, a former Comintern agent who’d magically escaped the purges (he was in a Spanish prison awaiting execution at the time) and now commanded Activity Sphere 3, Western Europe, for GRU. Klemansk took some convincing, and in the end agreed because Zyborny assured him th
at Roddy was important and could only become more important and doing little things like this for him would keep him happy for the long, hard years ahead.
So Klemansk got on Activity Sphere 3’s radio hookup, and via Paris, reached Group Roger on the matter of the Bren guns.
* * * *
The Germans of course monitored all this information, as their radio intelligence and intercept systems were superb. However, it was buried in endless tons of other intercepted information, as the invasion had upped radio traffic to nearly torrential levels. It was beyond human capacity to analyze and interpret all of it, and by priority, it was decanted into categories depending on urgency. Since a bridge outside Nantilles was way down the list, the intercepts didn’t get the attention they clearly deserved until June 14,1944, by which time the obscure drama of Team Casey, the 113th Luftwaffe Flakbattalion, 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich, and Groups Roger and Phillippe had long since played out.
Agents of Treachery Page 22
