The Leader And The Damned

Chapter Thirty-Six

Jaeger timed the moment for the attack from the half- track with great perception. By now the motorcyclists with their short-range barrage from the machine- pistols had the Partisans scrambling all over the slope, seeking altitude. Jaeger stood behind the powerful searchlight which had not yet been brought into play. An NCO called Olden manned the swivel-mounted machine-gun with a range far greater than that of a machine-pistol.

'Olden,' Jaeger warned, 'I think we should have them scattering like ants. Brace yourself for when I turn on the light…'

'I am ready when you are, Colonel…'

There was a bitter note in Olden's voice. Back there in the other gorge he had lost comrades he had campaigned with in the wastes of Russia. Christ, one or two even went back to France, 1940!

The half-track went on rumbling forward, its caterpillars creaking and rattling. Jaeger aimed the powerful searchlight at an extreme angle, turned as far as it would go to the right.

'I'll sweep in a slow arc from right to left,' he called out to Olden. 'Maybe bob up and down a bit.. 'Understood, Colonel.'

Olden swivelled the barrel of his gun far right. They had to work in concert to gain maximum results. He was glad the Colonel was operating the light. Jaeger was alert, ice-cold at such a moment. His night vision was exceptional…

The light came on. A beam like an anti-aircraft searchlight lit up the slope. Tiny figures scattered across the slope made the fatal mistake of turning in surprise, and were blinded by the glare. Olden's gun began to clatter.

From the half-track they saw the figures dropping. The noise of the engine, the tracks and Olden's gun drowned the screams of the Partisans caught in the open. The beam swept towards the left, paused, dropping and climbing while Olden's gun synchronized with the movement' of the beam.

High up on the slope Heljec, leading a group of men up a defile, paused. Snatching a rifle from the man behind, he told them to continue without him and climbed out of the deep notch. Releasing the safety catch, he stood and watched.

Panic. Partisans were running like thoughtless rabbits to escape the probe of the deadly beam. The first priority was to shoot out that bloody searchlight. It would not be easy. The half-track's commander was a clever bastard. He was varying the speed of the vehicle. Not only a moving target – also an erratic one.

Heljec pressed the butt of his rifle firmly into his shoulder. He aimed a score of metres ahead of the half-track's progress, waited. Take out that light and the gunner was blind. Patiently he waited as the half-track crawled up to his line of fire.

The searchlight swivelled without warning. One moment it was a beam of light searching the slope over to his left. Then it moved, jerked, stopped. Heljec was caught in the full glare of the great eye of light.

Heljec dropped. Dropped his rifle. Dropped to the ground. He was rolling as he hit the earth. He spun like a child's top with incredible speed. Hands clasped on top of his head. Forearms protecting his face. Rolling. He reached the edge of the defile, rolled over the edge, dropped six feet and hit the base with a thud.

He had just reached the edge when Olden's gun began to hammer. As he dropped out of sight slivers of rock slashed off by Olden's bullets skimmed over his head. He lay where he had fallen on his bruised shoulder, listening to the drum-fire. Waste your bloody bullets, you stupid mental deficient…'

In the gorge below, both Olden and Jaeger were convinced they had scored another hit. There had been only a fraction in time between Olden's barrage following the searchlight beam and the figure with the rifle dropping.

'Cease fire!' he ordered Olden, and doused the searchlight.

From the viewpoint of military tactics he was correct. He had fully exploited the element of surprise. He had caused heavy casualties among the Partisans. The sight of a man standing aiming a rifle warned him the surprise was gone. The half-track – with the searchlight turned on – had become a potential target.

'We've tanned their hides!' Jaeger shouted. 'Now, get to hell out of it – join up with the others in the plain.'

'Perhaps we should walk past our apartment – to confuse the men who are following us,' Roessler suggested.

His glasses were already misted up again. He was confused and depressed. A superb wireless operator, a man of stubborn courage, he was hopeless in the present situation. Unlike his wife.

'Don't be silly,' she said. 'They know exactly where we live. The thing to do is not to let them know we've rumbled them. We carry on as usual…'

'It could be very dangerous… Anna,' he observed suddenly, 'look at that stationary car. You can't see inside it…'

'Don't try. Act normal. Just walk across the street to our apartment.'

She spoke confidently but the car – parked dead opposite to their apartment block entrance – had fine- mesh, dark-coloured curtains drawn. It was impossible to see whether there was anyone inside.

'Coffee!' Roessler said once they were inside their apartment.

'I'm already making it.'

Roessler had no vices except coffee – of which he consumed litres. He walked restlessly over to the window…'

'Don't twitch those curtains!' warned Anna.

'What are we going to do? Those two men on the tram are standing in the rain with their hands in their pockets. This really is dreadful. And tonight I have to contact Woodpecker…'

'You'll feel better after coffee. We must contact Masson.'

Roessler cheered up a little at her mention of the chief of Swiss counter-espionage. Then, standing by the window, careful not to touch the curtains, he froze. Blinking, he took off his glasses, put them on again and stared down into the street. He was excited as he called out.

'Anna! Brigadier Masson is here! He has just got out of that car. He's coming over to see us..

'In broad daylight!' She appeared with the pot of coffee and cups on a tray. 'You must be wrong…'

Brigadier Roger Masson, dressed in civilian clothes, strolled over the deserted street and pressed the bell. Roessler operated the release button for the downstairs front door without even checking his identity on the speak-phone. He had the apartment door open as the Swiss came up the stairs, his normally cheerful expression grave.

'You should have made sure who it was,' he said mildly. 'I must ask you from now on to take every precaution. Things have changed – and not for the better.'

Masson was choosing his words with care. It was a delicate business, this visit to Roessler at his apartment. He had to alert him – but not alarm him.

The Swiss counter-espionage chief was nervous and sensitive – attributes he normally concealed with a cheerful manner. The fact that he was dressed in his civilian clothes didn't help, he felt more at home in uniform.

'Coffee?' suggested Anna. 'Let me take your coat and hang it up – it's damp…'

'That's very kind of you…'

As he took off the coat Masson wandered over to the window and gazed into the street. Roessler joined him; his eyes behind the glasses had a feverish look.

'I am being followed. Since several days. It was Anna who first noticed…'

'For one week,' Masson said with typical precision. 'They are my men – working round the clock in relays. It is merely a precaution for your protection.'

'Why now? Something has happened?'

'I wouldn't say the timing has any particular significance. It is simply that your work is so important – to us as well as to the Russians…'

Masson sat down in an armchair by the small table where Anna had placed his cup of coffee. Roessler joined him in a nearby chair and drank greedily from his own cup, his eyes never leaving the Swiss.

'This is 1943,' he said after consuming half the cup. 'It is now over two years since Hitler invaded Russia. What has happened recently to make my work – so important is the phrase you used, I believe. You must be employing a lot of valuable men to have me guarded round the clock – again to use your own phrase, I believe…'

Masson forced himself to relax. He smiled and his bright blue eyes expressed confidence. The trouble was Roessler was shrewd – to say nothing of Anna. It was a godsend he had come to see them today. The moment he walked into the apartment he had sensed a new atmosphere – wariness on the part of Anna, something close to panic on the part of Roessler. He waved a reassuring hand.

'Before, there was this terrible shortage of staff. Suddenly I am allocated more men. Now I can look after you properly – as befits your importance…'

He sipped his coffee as Anna perched on the arm of her husband's chair. He was relieved to see Roessler trying to assume an expression of modesty which did not reflect his true reaction. It was certainly a truism, Masson thought to himself: flattery did get you somewhere. Cautiously he pressed a little further.

'When you visit us at the Villa Stutz it might be an idea if you varied the route and timing of your calls.

It will give my men a little practice in keeping tabs on you. Regard it as a game…'

'I'll do that…'

Roessler had started on the cup Anna had just refilled, still revelling in the rosy glow of Masson's compliments. The feverish expression was disappearing. What a strange man this German is, the Swiss chief reflected. Outwardly so ordinary and middle- aged, you could pass him on the street and never recall you had passed anyone. Which was an advantage, of course.

Anyway, he had pulled it off. Best clear out before there was an unfortunate turn in the conversation. Leave well alone. He finished his cup, refused a refill from Anna and stood up, smiling amiably. Now, leave…'

'Well, Hans, I think I managed that; said Masson, settling himself in the front passenger seat of the limousine.

He sighed. He glanced at Roessler's apartment window as the driver performed an illegal U-turn and headed for the Villa Stutz. What a quaint man RR was.

The driver, the only other occupant of the large car, was Captain Hans Hausamann. In peacetime he had run a business which provided him with invaluable contacts all over Europe as far as Finland.

At the outbreak of war Hausamann had been recruited by the Swiss Commander-in-Chief, General Guisan. His business contacts provided a ready-made network which kept the Swiss High Command in touch with developments across the whole continent. He now controlled the highly secret counter-espionage system centred at the Villa Stutz known as the Bureau Ha.

'You sighed,' Hausamann commented. 'They gave you a rough ride?'

'Not really. After a little initial awkwardness I convinced RR our people watching him were a simple precautionary measure…'

'And he swallowed that one?'

'I think he did, yes.' Masson thought for a moment. 'Anna, of course, is a quite different proposition. She knows something is very wrong but I can rely on her to soothe RR…'

RR was how they referred to Rudolf Roessler. It was not a code reference – someone had started calling him that and it had become standard practice.

'You're sure about Anna?' Hausamann pressed. 'You know her…'

'We conspire over RR's head.' Masson smiled briefly. 'I know her only concern is her husband's peace of mind. So she always goes along with me in an emergency. And, boy, have we got an emergency on our hands…'

They drove in silence the rest of the way. It is no more than eight kilometres to the district of Kastanienbaum where a lonely cape projects into the lake. Half a kilometre further, Hausamann pulled up outside the Villa Stutz. It is a very peaceful spot. But so is Bletchley, England, where Ultra operated from. And so was Prae Wood near St Albans, the headquarters of Section V where Whelby had his desk.

The wrought-iron gates in the outer wall were opened by a man dressed in a Tyrolean hat, a dark raincoat and leather boots. The gates were closed behind the limousine as it was driven up to the front entrance and stopped.

'I was just thinking,' Masson remarked, 'that when I first joined Intelligence I had ideals. I had no idea I would spend most of my life persuading others to tell the truth while I told nothing but lies. Even if by omission…'

'I don't follow you,' replied Hausamann who always spoke his mind.

'RR – I left him happy-happy. How would he react if he knew that Switzerland is now swarming with German agents dedicated to tracking him down? That this is the reason we blanket his life with our own men? At least we can console ourselves with the fact that the Germans – Schellenberg in particular, thank God – have no idea of what is going on…'

Masson did not realize it but this was probably the most naive statement he made in his whole career.

NDA FRX NDA FRX… NDA FRX…

It was exactly midnight when Roessler, hunched half-inside his cupboard over the transceiver, tapped out the call sign for Moscow Centre. Even then Soviet agents were in the habit of referring to Russian State Security headquarters as 'The Centre'.

Earlier Roessler had received a signal from Woodpecker which he was now trying to re-transmit to Moscow. He was crouched over the instrument when a hand appeared with a cup of coffee. Still not sure that her husband had recovered from his fright earlier in the day, Anna had decided he would get extra coffee tonight.

She need not have worried. Once he was ensconced in his minute working quarters only one thing existed for Rudolf Roessler – the transceiver, the receipt and sending of signals. He had, in fact, forgotten all about the visit of Roger Masson.

He repeated the call sign two more times. As agreed, for this phase he was using the 43-metre band. And his 'fist' was firm and normal as he tapped out the dots and dashes.

His next move was to switch to the 39-metre band, again as per the arrangement. He waited. He drank half his cup of scalding coffee. He was busy. He was happy. He was ruling the world…

NDA OK QSR5… NDA OK QSR5…

Moscow was responding to his call. He waited again. Within seconds came a series of five letters and five figures – masking the code chosen for this transmission.

Roessler recorded the signal and only then did he begin to transmit Woodpecker's latest message about the present German order of battle. All on the 39-metre band. All was well with RR's world.

NDA FRX… NDA FRX.. NDA FRX.

At the Dresden Signals Monitoring Centre in Germany the call sign came through clearly. Walter Schellenberg, chief of SS Intelligence, listened on the spare set of headphones while Section Chief Meyer personally recorded the signal passing through the ether.

'It's stopped! You've lost him. This is the suspect call sign?'

'It is,' Meyer confirmed. 'It's taken me months to track it down. All I can say at the moment with the resources at my disposal is the transmitter is located somewhere along a line from Madrid through Geneva, Lucerne and Munich…'

'Can't you narrow that down?'

'If you're asking me to guess – and at present it is no more than a guess – I'd say it's located in the

Geneva-Munich sector.'

'And it is a rogue transmitter?' Schellenberg persisted.

'I've checked the lists of all our call signs – hundreds of-them – and it's not one of ours. It's the same man, too. I've come to recognize his fist…'

'Let me think a minute.'

Walter Schellenberg had been appointed Chief of SS Intelligence as successor to Reinhard Heydrich when the latter had been assassinated by a team dropped into Czechoslovakia for that express purpose.

A tall, handsome and well-dressed man – he invariably wore civilian clothes – Schellenberg was one of the few Nazi leaders who could be described as a genuine intellectual, who preferred using brains to jackboots. Off his own bat – with Hitler's full approval – he had assigned to himself the task of hunting down the Soviet spy inside Germany he was convinced was passing to the Kremlin full details of the Fuhrer's military planning.

Faced with such a task, an experienced gamekeeper – or spy-catcher – concentrates on the spy's weakest point, his system of communication. The method had often succeeded in the past. It required patience and determination – qualities Schellenberg possessed in full measure.

'You need use of our advanced mobile monitoring system,' he suggested.

'With that we could get a cross-bearing – pinpointing the precise source of the transmitter,' Meyer agreed. 'Could I suggest where it should be positioned?' he enquired.

'Tell me and it shall, be done,' the SS chief assured him.

Meyer thought Schellenberg was a fine fellow. Despite his exalted rank he talked to you like an equal. Always smiling, charming, affable, not like some of the other thugs who came down from Berlin and threw their weight about.

True, Schellenberg had a downward curve to his lower lip which suggested ruthlessness. But a man • like that shouldered enormous responsibilities. Drawing up a chair, Schellenberg sat down and waited patiently while the section chief considered his question.

For Schellenberg, Meyer was a valuable instrument. You handled him with finesse and consideration, as you would a Stradivarius. Meyer could hold the outcome of the war in his hands if he tracked down this rogue transmitter. Schellenberg was convinced it was the route along which Germany's most cherished secrets were being passed to Moscow.

'Strasbourg,' Meyer said eventually after consulting a large-scale map of Europe on which he had traced the line, Madrid-Geneva-Munich. 'That's where I'd like the mobile monitor…'

'And another half-dozen men here allocated purely for your own use?'

'That would be a terrific help. It would save time…'

'Time is what we don't have. You are right. And always this call sign is on the 43-metre band? Then nothing more?'

'That's right. I think for the main transmission he switches to another waveband. We have to find that waveband. The extra men should do it.'

'Splendid! Splendid! I leave it to you, Meyer. Since you'll be directing a larger unit there will be promotion, extra pay, of course.'

This was another Schellenberg tactic. Dealing with anyone important to him, the SS chief always left them in a good mood, a mood of gratitude. It ensured their loyalty and support. And what Meyer had said was of great significance, confirming Schellenberg's growing conviction not only that clever Meyer had found the rogue transmitter, but also that the Soviets were involved.

It was known in the SD – SS Intelligence – that Russian agents used this little trick in wireless communication. Send out the call sign to make the initial contact on one prearranged waveband. Then switch to a second – also prearranged – waveband for transmitting the main signal.

Schellenberg cast one swift look round the vast floor divided up into glass, sound-proof cubicles. Inside each sat a radio monitor checking his own apportioned waveband. Dresden was the most efficient monitoring system which existed in the world at that time. He left the building and spoke to no one until he was seated beside his aide, Franz Schaub, in the car -which would take them to the airfield and the plane for Berlin.

'I'm pretty sure it's Switzerland, Franz. I've thought so all along. Why I don't know. Flood the place with more agents. I want them concentrated on Masson's lot. If Meyer can only give me proof, I have Masson by the balls. But why Switzerland?' he repeated with some exasperation.

As with most human activity, the outcome of great wars is often decided by eccentric characters.

The set-up in the summer-autumn of '43 was crazy.. The Red Army should have achieved total victory all on its own by the end of the year, rolling all the way to the Channel. It had everything going for it.

On the Eastern Front two million German troops confronted five million Russians. By numbers alone a less tough and determined Wehrmacht would have been overwhelmed.

In addition, by this time, the German military machine was directed from the Wolf's Lair by a pseudo-Hitler with little of the military flair of his predecessor. Their main similarity was the new Fuhrer's stubborn insistence on getting his own way.

On top of all these advantages, which should have handed the war to Stalin on a plate, the mysterious Woodpecker (via Lucy) was telling the Generalissimo in the Kremlin the movement of every German division. It should have been child's play to win, but the man with the withered arm, the ex-student from a seminary in Georgia, still couldn't pull it off. The Germans fought like tigers.

In Dresden Herbert Meyer, armed with his new resources, worked like the proverbial beaver to locate the rogue transmitter. Thirty years old, he should have been in the infantry or with the Panzers. But, like Goebbels, he had a club foot.

Tall as a beanpole, he had a head like a church mouse. A timid man, he had been the butt of his contemporaries at school. They had nicknamed him 'The Mouse', and the hated appellation dogged him in adult life. It may well have been this experience which led him to choose the solitary trade of watchmaker in peacetime.

Fate plays odd tricks on mere human beings. It was The Mouse's skill in working with precision instruments which eventually landed him in the great Monitoring complex at Dresden. He was the ideal man to hunt down Lucy. Chance and Walter Schellenberg had placed him in this unique position to decide the outcome of the Second World War.

The Mouse was now waiting to hear that the huge mobile monitoring system had been installed in the Alsatian city of Strasbourg. Then he could really get down to it and pinpoint the elusive transmitter he had nicknamed The Ghost.

In Lucerne, The Ghost – RR – continued to live practically off coffee and four hours' sleep a night. To catch the morning tram to the Vita Nova Verlag, studiously ignoring the loitering bodyguards who changed positions daily. To eat a sparing lunch, a meagre dinner.

All this was a chore prior to his real work which started late in the evening. The transmissions coming in from Woodpecker were longer now. Consequently, the signals to Moscow were also longer.

In his own quiet way, fussed over by the devoted Anna, RR was happy. The Swiss now thought him so important they provided this comforting protection. And after Kursk he knew that Stalin was listening to him. What more could a man want out of life?

'The Germans are smuggling in even more agents,' Masson warned Hausamann as soon as he arrived at the Villa Stutz and threw off his raincoat. 'Something very serious is taking place…'

Happiness was the last emotion Brigadier Roger Masson was experiencing. Hausamann, swivelling round in his chair away from a desk littered with papers, watched the counter-espionage chief.

'What are these agents doing?' Hausamann enquired – and received the last reply he would have expected.

'Nothing! Nothing at all! They are staying at hotels in Berne, in Geneva, in Basel. Not Lucerne as far as we know, thank God! They are so obviously waiting, Hans!'

Hausamann placed a pencil between his teeth, revolved it, and then asked: 'Waiting for what?'

'Hans, that is the hell of it. I don't know! It all smells of Schellenberg, or some devious master-plan

'You could kick them all out,' Hausamann observed. It was what he would have done.

'Then they send in a fresh detachment! Maybe next time we don't track them all. Maybe they slip through the net and we don't know they're here. Now that, Hans, would be very dangerous…'

'What could Schellenberg be up to at this stage of the game?'

'Another development has taken place which I don't like…'

Masson kept pacing round the room as though staying in one place for more than a few seconds was anathema. Hausamann could never recall seeing him so agitated.

'You know what this development is, Hans? Schellenberg sent me a personal message through Gisevius, the German Vice-Consul. He says he may wish to meet me very shortly – preferably on Swiss soil. It's nerve warfare. Or is it? Has he some ace concealed up his sleeve…'

'Wait for him to play it…'

Masson was still not listening. Hausamann would have bet a large sum his visitor had hardly registered a word said to him.

'I'm sure all this concerns Lucy in some way, Hans. I know my Schellenberg. If he ever finds out that we are protecting the man sending the German order of battle to the Kremlin we might as well take straight to the mountains. The Wehrmacht will kick in our front door the following day…'

'What I have never been able to work out,' Hausamann began briskly, deliberately changing the subject, 'is why Woodpecker routes his signals via Lucy. Why not radio direct to Moscow?'

'That is something which has always puzzled me,' Masson replied. 'I'm probably worrying too much. Schellenberg himself may never make the connection.'

'You know, Schaub,' Schellenberg remarked to his aide in his Berlin office, 'I think I must be wrong about this Swiss thing. They would never dare to let anyone act as a post office to re-transmit our Soviet spy's signals to the Russians. The line Meyer drew on his map went through Munich…'

'You think Munich is his headquarters?' Schaub enquired.

'When Meyer comes up with the solution I think the answer may well be Munich, or somewhere outside the city. Now we must emulate the infinite patience of our excellent Meyer so let us turn our attention to other business, as the Fuhrer would say…'

Neither Intelligence chief – Roger Masson or Walter Schellenberg – dreamed how long ago the communications system had been planned. Lucy – RR – was, in fact, acting as a post office for the onward transmission of signals between Woodpecker and Moscow in both directions.

In Soviet Intelligence jargon, Lucy was a cul-de-sac. A dead end. In case of emergency. Should the German monitors ever locate Lucy it would divert their attention from the original source of the signals – Woodpecker, operating from the highest level inside the Nazi apparatus.

This diversionary device had been planned so long ago – way back in the 1930s when Yagoda held Beria's post as head of the Ministry for State Security.

The Soviets had sown so many seeds in so many lands. Some, as they foresaw, fell on stony ground and came to nothing. It was the seeds which flourished that poisoned the wells of the West. Tim Whelby, burrowing his way upwards in London with his charm and habit of listening often and saying little. Woodpecker, Yagoda's crowning glory, scaling the summits in Hitler's Germany…