The Leader And The Damned

Chapter Ten

Lucerne, Switzerland. It was a crisp, cold night in the ancient Swiss town. Few people walked the snowbound cobbled streets in the dark silence. Closeted in his apartment on the top floor of an old building, Rudolf Roessler took off his headphones and gazed at the pad recording the coded signal he had just received from Germany. He sat half inside a cupboard in front of a lowered panel which concealed his powerful transceiver.

Middle-aged, a man you could pass on the street a hundred times without realizing you had passed anyone, he peered through thick-lensed spectacles at the signal he would shortly re-transmit to Moscow. Even in its present form – Swiss cryptographers had long ago broken the code – he knew he was looking at the current order of battle of the German Army on the Eastern front.

The mystery – the solution to which Roessler could never even have guessed – was the identity of Woodpecker, the agent so close to the summit of the Nazi hierarchy he could supply regularly the German order of battle. Roessler never ceased to wonder about this incredible source.

Roessler himself had mysterious aspects. For one thing he was a German. Prior to 1933 he had been a theatrical publisher in Berlin and the editor of an anti- Nazi paper. During those abandoned days when the German capital was the fleshpot of Europe he had built up the contacts which – years later – led to the founding of the most successful spy network of World War Two. The Lucy Ring.

'Anna, I could do with a cup of hot coffee before I re-transmit to Moscow…'

He turned in his swivel chair and his wife smiled and nodded as she reached for the container of coffee. An attractive, dark-haired woman of forty, she was slim and brisk and enormously efficient. She talked as she bent over the stove.

'You work too hard, you know. All this work we do must put a tremendous strain on you…'

'Anna, we may well be making history. We could even change the whole course of the war – if only they will, please God, in Moscow, listen to us!'

'Either they will or they won't,' Anna replied. 'You can only do your best. Come and sit down at the table while you drink your coffee,' she scolded. 'Life is complicated enough as it is…'

It was indeed complicated. In 1933 Roessler fled to Switzerland, one jump ahead of arrest when Hitler came to power. As war came close he struck a bargain with Nachrichten-Dienst, the Swiss Military Information Service. In return for being allowed to operate his transceiver he would supply the Swiss with the signals obtained from his old contacts in Berlin.

One of these men had approached Roessler just before he left Germany. Roessler never knew the identity of this particular contact, although he had felt sure he was talking to a Communist.

'There will be a war,' the man had said. 'When it comes you'll receive radio signals from Woodpecker. He is so high up you would never believe it. A powerful transceiver will be smuggled across the Swiss border to you. I shall see you are given all the codes and technical data re radio transmission. And the name of a Swiss who will train you in the operation of the set..'

In 1943, the mild-mannered Roessler, who a decade earlier looked forward to a life spent as a theatrical publisher, found himself the controller of the world's most important spy network. The original contact in Berlin had given him one more instruction.

'You need a code-name to protect your real identity. We have decided to call you Lucy…'

In his office inside the Kremlin, Stalin was holding a decoded message in his hand as he stood by his desk. Two other men stood in front of him, respectfully silent.

One was Lavrenti Beria, a pallid-faced man wearing pince-nez, the head of the NKVD, the Ministry of State Security, later to become the KGB. The other visitor was General Zhukov, wide-shouldered and with a large, muscular body. Stalin handed the signal first to Beria, retired behind his desk, leaned back in his chair and lit his pipe which had a bent stem. From beneath bushy brows his yellowish eyes watched Beria as he spoke in his Georgian accent.

'That is another message which just came in from Lucy.'

'Who is this Lucy?' Zhukov asked with a hint of impatience.

'That is not your concern. The signal originates from Woodpecker, an important contact inside Hitlerite Germany. May I. assume, General…' he paused as though the rank might be of a temporary nature,

Zhukov that you send out regular patrols on the battlefront?'

Zhukov stiffened. The question was a near insult. He forced himself to conceal his indignation – to reply as though it were the most natural of questions.

'Generalissimo, I make it a point personally to ensure there are both daily and nightly patrols. They are told they need not return unless they bring in prisoners for interrogation…'

'Then tell me,' Stalin requested in his soft-spoken voice, 'do you believe that signal giving the German order of battle is to be trusted?'

They waited. The purse-lipped Beria, who had learned never to speak unless asked a direct question by Stalin, had handed the signal to Zhukov. There was something sinister in the sheer immobility of the

NKVD chief. Zhukov spoke, gazing at Stalin.

'From the latest information I have, this. signal – as regards the forward areas – is correct…'

'But the Germans could have planted a thin screen of units in those forward areas to correspond with the signal,' said Stalin.

Zhukov sighed. He hated these insidious military conferences, any summons to the Kremlin. But he was careful to suppress the sigh. It was all so typical of Stalin – trust no one! Was there the same atmosphere of intrigue at Hitler's headquarters – wherever that might be – he wondered? He refused to knuckle under completely.

'That is so,' he agreed. 'But Woodpecker's previous signals have proved astonishingly accurate – as though they were sent by someone in the Fuhrer's immediate entourage. As a soldier, you get a sixth sense about these things…'

'We will wait a little longer – see a few more of these signals before we base any operation on them.'

Stalin lowered his eyes and knocked out his pipe in a large ashtray on his desk. The embers in the crystal bowl glowed redly in the dimly-lit room. Power was still rationed in Moscow. And General Zhukov realized he had been dismissed.

As soon as he was alone with his secret police chief Stalin produced a second signal and handed it to him. He did not look at Beria when he commented.,

'That message came in from London. An English air force officer, Lindsay, has flown from North Africa to see Hitler. Churchill is up to his old tricks again, I suspect.'

'Do you mean negotiating a separate peace with the Germans?' Beria suggested cautiously after scanning the signal.

'I didn't say that, did I? We will await developments.'

It was a favourite phrase of Stalin's, expressing an attitude he always adopted until he saw which way the cat jumped. He had used the same words when in. June 1941 warnings had poured into the Kremlin from all quarters forecasting an imminent German attack.

'And if it should prove to be the case?' Beria ventured.

'Then we may have to take drastic steps, may we not?'

Two hours earlier in Lucerne, Rudolf Roessler had completed his transmission of the signal to Moscow, closed the flap concealing the transceiver, and shut the door to the cupboard inside which he stored his only reason for existence.

Even when the long-distance aerial had first been installed he had practised caution. A Swiss civilian technician had strung the wire all round the room along the top of the picture ledge. Roessler had his casual explanation ready.

'I want to listen to the British BBC overseas transmissions clearly,' he had remarked.

His wife, Anna, stood waiting for him in the doorway. She had heard the familiar slap when he had shut the cupboard door.

'I'll stay up for Masson's courier,' she suggested. 'You get to bed and try to sleep. I've made a copy of the signal. It's in this envelope. I phoned the Villa Stutz while you transmitted.'

'What should I do without you?' Roessler wondered. 'Starve!'

'It's all so crazy, this war,' Roessler continued. 'I am German. I receive signals from the anti-Nazi underground. I transmit them to Moscow. I make sure Swiss Intelligence has a copy of these signals – in accordance with our agreement for permission to operate in their country. It is crazy, is it not?'

'If you say so…'

'I receive the signals from someone right at the top, someone I feel sure I never knew – but who must be taking a terrible risk. I then transmit them from this unknown Woodpecker to the equally unknown Cossack. Is anybody out there listening? The Russians are not winning.

'We'll know when Moscow is listening,' Anna told him.

'How, I ask you…?'

'When – if – the Red Army begins to sweep across Europe. Now, for the last time, Rudolf Roessler – go to bed!'