The Unlikely Spy

43

"Same thing as before, Alfred. She led the watchers on a merry chase for three hours and then headed back to her flat."

"Nonsense, Harry. She's meeting another agent, or she's making a dead drop somewhere."

"If she did, then we missed it. Again."

"Damn!" Vicary used the stub of his cigarette to light another. He was disgusted with himself. Smoking cigarettes was bad enough. Using one to light the next was intolerable. It was just the tension of the operation. It had entered its third week. He had allowed Catherine Blake to photograph four batches of Kettledrum documents. Four times she had led the watchers on long chases around London. And four times they had failed to detect how she was getting the material out. Vicary was getting edgy. The longer the operation continued in this manner, the greater the chances of a mistake. The watchers were exhausted, and Peter Jordan was ready to revolt.

Vicary said, "Perhaps we're just going about this the wrong way."

"What do you mean?"

"We're following her, hoping we can detect her drop. What if we changed our tactics and started looking for the agent who's making the pickup?"

"But how? We don't know who he is or what he looks like."

"Actually, we might. Every time Catherine goes out we go with her. And so does Ginger Bradshaw. He's taken dozens and dozens of photographs. Our man is bound to be in a couple of them."

"It's possible, certainly worth a try."

Harry returned ten minutes later with a stack of photographs a foot high. "One hundred and fifty photographs to be exact, Alfred."

Vicary sat down at his desk and put on his half-moon reading glasses. He picked up the photographs one at a time and scanned the images for faces, clothing, suspicious looks-anything. Cursed with a near photographic memory, Vicary stored each of the images in his mind and moved on to the next. Harry drank tea and paced quietly in the shadows.

Two hours later, Vicary thought he had a match.

"Look, Harry, here he is in Leicester Square. And here he is again outside Euston Station. Could be coincidence, could be two different people. But I doubt it."

"Well, I'll be damned!" Harry studied the figure in the photographs: small, dark-haired, with square shoulders and conventional clothing. Nothing about his appearance called attention to him-perfect for pavement work.

Vicary gathered up the remaining photographs and divided them in half.

"Start looking for him, Harry. Just him. No one else."

Half an hour later Harry picked him out of a photograph taken on Trafalgar Square, which proved to be the best one yet.

"He needs a code name," Vicary said.

"He looks like a Rudolf."

"All right," Vicary said. "Rudolf it is."

44

At that moment, Horst Neumann was pedaling his bicycle from Dogherty's cottage toward the village. He wore his heavy rollneck sweater, a reefer coat, and trousers tucked inside Wellington boots. It was a bright clear day. Plump white clouds, driven by the strong northerly winds, drifted across a sky of deep blue. Their shadows raced across the meadows and the hillsides and disappeared over the beach. It was the last decent day they would see for a while. Heavy weather was forecast for the entire east coast of the country, beginning midday tomorrow and lasting several days. Neumann wanted to get out of the cottage for a few hours while he had the chance. He needed to think. The wind gusted, making it nearly impossible to keep the bicycle upright on the pitted single-lane track. Neumann put his head down and pedaled harder. He turned and looked over his shoulder. Dogherty had given up. He had climbed off his bicycle and was pushing it morosely along the path.

Neumann pretended not to notice and continued toward the village. He leaned forward over the handlebars, elbows thrust out, and cycled furiously up a small hill. He reached the top and coasted down the other side. The track was hard with the previous night's freeze, and the bicycle rattled along the deep ruts so viciously Neumann feared the front tire might break loose. The wind eased and the village appeared. Neumann pedaled across the bridge over the sea creek and stopped on the other side. He laid the bicycle in the deep grass at the edge of the track and sat down next to it. He lifted his face toward the sun. It felt warm, despite the crisp air. A squadron of gulls circled silently overhead. He closed his eyes and listened to the beating of the sea. He was struck by an absurd notion-he would miss this little village when it was time to leave.

He opened his eyes and spotted Dogherty atop the hill. Dogherty removed his cap, wiped his brow, and waved. Neumann called, "Take your time, Sean." Then he gestured at the sun to explain why he was in no hurry to move. Dogherty climbed back onto the bicycle and coasted down.

Neumann watched Dogherty; then he turned and looked at the sea. The message he had received from Vogel early that morning troubled him. He had avoided thinking about it but he could avoid it no longer. The wireless operator in Hamburg had transmitted a code phrase that meant Neumann was to conduct countersurveillance on Catherine Blake in London. Countersurveillance, in the lexicon of the trade, meant he was supposed to follow Catherine to make certain she wasn't being followed by the opposition. The request could mean anything. It could mean that Vogel just wanted to make certain the information Catherine was receiving was good. Or it could mean he suspected she was being manipulated by the other side. If that was the case, Neumann might be walking straight into a very dangerous situation. If Catherine was under surveillance and he followed her too, he would be walking side by side with MI5 officers trained to recognize countersurveillance. He would be walking right into a trap. He thought, Damn you, Vogel. What are you playing at?

And what if she was being followed by the other side? Neumann had two choices. If possible, he was to contact Vogel by wireless and request authorization to extract Catherine Blake from England. If there was no time, he had Vogel's permission to act on his own.

Dogherty coasted across the bridge and stopped next to Neumann. A large cloud passed before the sun. Neumann shivered in the cold. He stood up and walked with Dogherty toward the village, each man pushing his bicycle. The wind gusted, whistling through the crooked headstones in the graveyard. Neumann turned up the collar of his coat.

"Listen, Sean, there's a chance I may need to be leaving soon, in a hurry."

Dogherty looked at Neumann, his face blank, then looked forward again.

Neumann said, "Tell me about the boat."

"Early in the war I was instructed by Berlin to create an escape route along the Lincolnshire coast, a way for an agent to get to a U-boat ten miles offshore. His name is Jack Kincaid. He has a small fishing boat in the town of Cleethorpes, at the mouth of the River Humber. I've seen the boat. It's a bit of a wreck-otherwise, it would have been seized by the Royal Navy-but it will do the trick."

"And Kincaid? What does he know?"

"He thinks I'm involved in the black market. Kincaid's into a lot of shady things, but I suspect he'd draw the line at working for the Abwehr. I paid him a hundred pounds and told him to be ready to do the job on short notice-anytime, day or night."

"Contact him today," Neumann said. "Tell him we might be coming soon."

Dogherty nodded.

Neumann said, "I'm not supposed to make you this offer, but I'm going to anyway. I want you and Mary to consider coming out with me when I leave."

Dogherty laughed to himself. "And what am I supposed to do in bloody Berlin?"

"You'll be alive, for one thing," Neumann said. "We've left too many footprints and the British aren't stupid, as much as you'd like to believe they are. They'll find you. And when they do they'll march you straight to the gallows."

"I've thought of that already. A lot of good men have given their life for the cause. My brother did. And I'm not afraid to give mine."

"That's a lovely speech, Sean. But don't be a fool. I'd say you bet on the wrong horse. You wouldn't be dying for the cause, you'd be dying because you engaged in espionage on behalf of the enemy-Nazi Germany. Hitler and his friends don't give a damn about Ireland. And helping them now isn't going to free Northern Ireland from English oppression-not now, not ever. Do you understand me?"

Dogherty said nothing.

"And there's something else you need to ask yourself. You may be willing to sacrifice your own life, but what about Mary's?"

Dogherty looked up at him sharply. "What do you mean?"

"Mary knows you were spying for the Abwehr and she knows I was an agent. If the British find out about that, they're not going to be happy, to say the least. She'll go to prison for a very long time-if she's lucky. If she's not lucky, they'll hang her too."

Dogherty waved his hand. "They won't touch Mary. She didn't have any part in it."

"It's what they call being an accessory, Sean. Mary was an accessory to your espionage."

Dogherty walked in silence for a while, thinking over Neumann's words.

Finally he said, "What the hell would I do in Germany? I don't want to go to Germany."

"Vogel can arrange passage for you to a third country-Portugal or Spain. He might even be able to get you back into Ireland."

"Mary will never go. She'll never leave Hampton Sands. If I go with you, I'd have to go on my own-leave her behind to face the bloody British."

They arrived at the Hampton Arms pub. Neumann leaned his bicycle against the wall and Dogherty did the same.

"Let me think about it tonight," Dogherty said. "I'll talk to Mary and give you an answer in the morning."

They went inside the Arms, empty except for the publican, who was behind the bar polishing glasses. A large fire burned on the hearth. Neumann and Dogherty removed their coats, hung them on a row of hooks next to the door, and sat down at the table nearest the fire. There was only one thing on the menu that day, pork pie. They ordered two pies and two glasses of beer. The fire was incredibly hot. Neumann removed his sweater. The publican brought the pies a few minutes later, and they ordered more beer. Neumann had helped Sean repair some fencing that morning, and he was starved. The only time Neumann looked up from his plate was when the door opened and a large man stepped inside. Neumann had seen him around the village and knew who he was. Jenny's father, Martin Colville.

Colville ordered whisky and stayed at the bar. Neumann, finishing the last of his pork pie, glanced up at him at regular intervals. He was a large powerful man, with black hair that fell into his eyes and a black beard flecked with gray. His coat was filthy and smelled of motor oil. His huge hands were cracked and permanently soiled. Colville drank the first whisky in one gulp and ordered a second. Neumann ate the last of his pie and lit a cigarette.

Colville finished the second whisky and glared in Neumann and Dogherty's direction. "I want you to stay away from my daughter," Colville said. "I hear you two have been seen together around the village, and I'm not happy about it."

Dogherty, through clenched teeth, said, "Stay out of it, mate."

"Jenny and I spend time together because we're friends," Neumann said. "Nothing more."

"You expect me to believe that! You want to get under her skirt. Well, Jenny's not that kind of girl."

"Frankly, I don't give a damn what you believe."

"I put up with her hanging around Paddy, here, and his wife, but I won't put up with the likes of you. You're no good for her. And if I ever hear about you two being together again"-Colville thrust out his forefinger at Neumann-"I'll be coming after you."

Dogherty said, "Just nod and smile and be done with it."

"She spends time with Sean and Mary because they care about her. They give her a pleasant, safe home. Which is more than I can say for you."

"Jenny's home is none of your affair. Just keep your nose out of it! And if you know what's good for you, you'll stay the fuck away from her!"

Neumann crushed out his cigarette. Dogherty was right. He should just sit there and keep his mouth shut. The last thing he needed now was to provoke a fight with a villager. He looked up at Colville. He knew the type. The bastard had terrorized everyone his entire life, including his own daughter. Neumann relished the opportunity to put him in his place. He thought, If I show him what it's like, maybe he'll never hurt Jenny again.

He said, "What are you going to do, hit me? That's your answer for everything, isn't it? Whenever something happens that you don't like, you just hit someone. That's why Jenny spends so much time with the Doghertys. That's why she can't stand to be around you."

Colville's face tightened. He said, "Who the fuck are you? I don't believe your story."

He crossed the pub in a few quick steps, took hold of the table, and threw it out of the way.

"You're mine-and I'm going to enjoy this."

Neumann got to his feet. "Lucky me."

A small knot of villagers, sensing trouble, gathered outside the pub around the two men. Colville threw a wild right hook that Neumann avoided easily. Colville threw two more punches. Neumann avoided them by moving his head just a few inches, keeping his hands protectively around his face and his eyes locked on Colville's, staying back on the defensive. If he tried to move close enough to land a punch, Colville might be able to grab him with his powerful arms and he might never get away again. He had to wait for Colville to make a mistake. Then he would go on the offensive and end this thing as quickly as possible.

Colville threw several more wild punches. He was already out of breath and laboring. Neumann could see frustration building in his face. Colville reached out his arms and charged like a bull. Neumann stepped quickly to the side and tripped Colville as he stormed past. He landed facedown with a heavy thud. Neumann moved in quickly, as Colville was rising to his hands and knees, and kicked him twice rapidly in the face. Colville raised a heavy forearm, absorbing a third blow, and scrambled back onto his feet.

Neumann had managed to break his nose. Blood streamed from both nostrils into his mouth.

Neumann said, "You've had enough, Martin. Let's stop this and go back inside."

Colville said nothing. He stepped forward, jabbed with his left hand, and unleashed a powerful roundhouse right. The blow landed high on Neumann's cheekbone, splitting the flesh. Neumann felt as if he had been hit by a sledgehammer. His head rang, tears flowed into his eyes, his vision blurred. He shook his head to clear the cobwebs and thought of Paris-lying in the filthy alley behind the cafe, his own blood running into the puddles of rainwater, the SS men above him, kicking him with their jackboots, beating him with their fists, their pistol butts, wine bottles, anything.

Colville unleashed another reckless punch. Neumann crouched, then pivoted and kicked sideways, landing a savage blow on Colville's right kneecap. The bigger man screamed in agony. Neumann rapidly kicked him three more times. Colville was crippled; Neumann wondered if he had dislodged the kneecap. Colville was also terrified. He had obviously never encountered anyone who fought like Neumann.

Neumann kept moving to his right, forcing Colville to put weight on his damaged leg. Colville could barely remain standing. Neumann thought his opponent was finished.

When Neumann's back was toward the pub, Colville shifted all his weight to his good leg and lunged. Neumann, surprised, couldn't get out of the way fast enough. Colville smashed into him and drove him back against the wall. It was like being hit by a speeding lorry. Neumann struggled to regain his breath. Colville raised his head viciously, catching Neumann beneath his chin. Neumann bit his own tongue and blood poured into his mouth.

Before Colville could strike again, Neumann raised a knee into his groin. Colville doubled over, groaning deep in his throat. Neumann raised his knee again, this time into Colville's face, shattering bone. Neumann stepped forward, raised his arm, and drove his elbow downward into the side of Colville's head.

Colville's knees buckled and he collapsed, barely conscious.

Neumann said, "Don't get up, Martin. If you know what's good for you, stay right where you are."

Then Neumann heard screaming. He looked up and saw Jenny running toward him.

That night Neumann lay awake in his bed. He had slept for a while but the pain had awakened him. Now he lay very still, listening to the wind beating against the side of the cottage. In the distance he could hear the rush of the waves against the shoreline. He did not know the time. His wristwatch was lying on the little table next to the bed. He rose onto one elbow, reached out for it, groaning with pain, and looked at the luminous face. Nearly midnight.

He fell back onto his pillow and stared at the ceiling. Fighting with Martin Colville was a foolish mistake. He had endangered his cover and the security of the operation. And he had hurt Jenny. Outside the pub, she had screamed at him and beat her fists against his chest. She was furious with him for hurting her father. He had just wanted to teach the bastard a lesson, but it had all back-fired. Now, lying in bed, listening to the confused rhythm of the ceaseless wind, he wondered whether the entire operation was doomed. He thought of Catherine's warning on Hampstead Heath: Some things have gone wrong. I don't think my cover is going to hold up much longer. He thought of Vogel's order to conduct countersurveillance. He wondered whether all of them-Vogel, Catherine, himself-had already made fatal mistakes.

Neumann took stock of his injuries. He seemed to hurt everywhere. His ribs were bruised and tender-every breath hurt-but it appeared he had suffered no broken bones. His tongue was swollen, and when he rubbed it along the roof of his mouth he felt the cut on the surface. He raised his hand and touched his cheek. Mary had done her best to close the wound without stitches-going to a doctor was out of the question. He checked to make certain the dressing was securely in place. Even the lightest touch made his face pound with pain.

Neumann closed his eyes and tried to sleep. He was beginning to drift off when he heard a footfall on the landing outside his door. Instinctively, he reached for his Mauser. He heard another footfall, then the floor creaking beneath the weight of a body. He raised the Mauser and leveled it at the door. He heard the rattle of someone turning the latch. He thought, If MI5 was coming for me, they certainly wouldn't be trying to sneak into my bedroom at night. But if it wasn't MI5 or the police, who the hell was it? The door pushed back and a small figure stood in the open space. Neumann, in the dim light of his open shade, could see it was Jenny Colville. He quietly laid the Mauser on the floor next to the bed and whispered, "What do you think you're doing?"

"I came to see if you were all right."

"Do Sean and Mary know you're here?"

"No. I let myself in." She sat down on the edge of the small bed. "How are you feeling?"

"I've been through worse. Your father packs quite a punch. But then, you know that better than anyone else."

She reached out in the darkness and touched his face. "You should have seen a doctor. That was quite a cut on your face."

"Mary did an excellent job."

Jenny smiled. "She's had a lot of practice with Sean. She said that when Sean was young, Saturday night wasn't Saturday night unless it ended with a good fight outside the pub."

"How's your father? I think I hit him one too many times."

"He'll be all right. Oh, his face is a mess. He was never very good-looking to begin with."

"I'm sorry, Jenny. The whole thing was ridiculous. I should have known better. I should have just ignored him."

"The publican said my father started it. He deserved what he got. He's had it coming for a long time."

"You're not angry with me anymore?"

"No. No one's ever stood up for me before. That was a very brave thing you did. My father is as strong as an ox. He could have killed you." She removed her hand from his face and ran it across his chest. "Where did you learn to fight like that?"

"In the army."

"It was terrifying. My God, but your body is covered with scars."

"I've lived a very rich and fulfilling life."

She came closer to him. "Who are you, James Porter? And what are you doing in Hampton Sands?"

"I came here to protect you."

"Are you my knight in shining armor?"

"Something like that."

Jenny stood up abruptly and pulled her sweater over her head.

"Jenny, what do you think you're-"

"Shhh, you'll wake Mary."

"You can't stay here."

"It's after midnight. You wouldn't send me out into a night like this, would you?"

Jenny had removed her Wellington boots and her trousers before he could answer the question. She climbed into bed and curled up next to him, beneath his arm.

Neumann said, "If Mary finds you here, she'll kill me."

"You're not afraid of Mary, are you?"

"Your father I can handle. But Mary's another story altogether."

She kissed him on the cheek and said, "Good night." After a few minutes, her breathing assumed the rhythm of sleep. Neumann leaned his head against hers, listening to the wind, and after a few moments he slept too.

45

The Lancasters came at two o'clock in the morning. Vogel, sleeping fitfully on the army cot in his office, rose and went to the window. Berlin shuddered beneath the impact of the bombs. He parted the blackout curtain and looked out. The car was still there-a large black sedan, parked across the street, it had been there all night and all afternoon before that. Vogel knew there were at least three men inside, because he could see the embers of their cigarettes glowing in the dark. He knew the engine was running, because he could see the exhaust drifting from the tailpipe into the freezing night air. The professional in him marveled at the shoddiness of their surveillance. Smoking, knowing full well the embers would be visible in the dark. Running the engine so they could have heat, even though the worst amateur could spot the exhaust. But then the Gestapo didn't need to worry much about technique and tradecraft. They relied on terror and brute force. Hammer blows.

Vogel thought about his conversation with Himmler at the house in Bavaria. He had to admit Himmler's theory made a certain amount of sense. The fact that most of the German intelligence networks in Britain were still operational was not proof of Canaris's loyalty to the Fuhrer. It was proof of the opposite-his treachery. If the head of the Abwehr is a traitor, why bother to publicly arrest and hang his spies in Britain? Why not use those spies and, together with Canaris, try to fool the Fuhrer with false and misleading intelligence?

Vogel thought it was a plausible scenario. But a deception of that magnitude was almost unimaginable. Every German agent would have to be in custody or turned by the other side. Hundreds of British case officers would have to be involved in the project, turning out reams of false intelligence reports to be transmitted by wireless back to Hamburg. Could there be such a deception? It would be a mammoth and risky undertaking, but Vogel concluded it was possible.

The concept was brilliant, but Vogel recognized one glaring weakness. It required total manipulation of the German networks in Britain. Every agent had to be accounted for-turned or locked away where they could do no harm. If there was a single agent outside MI5's web of control, that one agent could file a contradictory report and the Abwehr might smell a rat. It could use the reports from the one genuine agent to conclude that all the other intelligence it was receiving was bogus. And if all the other intelligence was pointing toward Calais as the invasion point, the Abwehr could conclude that in fact the opposite was true-the enemy was coming at Normandy.

He would have his answer soon. If Neumann discovered that Catherine Blake was under surveillance, Vogel could dismiss the information she was sending as smoke concocted by British Intelligence-part of a deception.

He turned from the window and lay on his army cot. A chill ran down him. He might very well uncover evidence that British Intelligence was engaged in a grand deception. And that in turn would strongly suggest that Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, the head of German military intelligence, was a traitor. Himmler would certainly take it as ironclad proof. There was only one punishment for such an offense: piano wire around the neck, a slow torturous death by strangulation, all captured on film so Hitler could watch it over and over again.

And what if he did uncover proof of a deception? The Wehrmacht would be waiting with their panzers at the invasion point. The enemy would be slaughtered. Germany would win the war, and the Nazis would rule Germany and Europe for decades.

There is no law in Germany, Trude. There is only Hitler.

Vogel closed his eyes and tried to sleep, but it was no good. The two incompatible aspects of his personality were in full conflict: Vogel the spymaster and manipulator and Vogel the believer in the rule of law. He was tantalized by the prospect of uncovering a massive British deception, of outwitting his British opponents, of destroying their little game. At the same time, he was terrified by what that victory would bring. Prove a British deception, destroy his old friend Canaris, win the war for Germany, secure the Nazis in power forever.

He lay on his cot awake, listening to the rumble of the bombers.

Tell me you don't work for him, Kurt.

Vogel thought, I do now, Trude. I do now.

46

"Hello, Alfred."

"Hello, Helen."

She smiled and kissed his cheek and said, "Oh, it's so good to see you again."

"It's good to see you too."

She threaded her arm through Vicary's and placed her hand inside his coat pocket, the way she used to do. They turned and walked silently along the footpath in St. James's Park. Vicary did not find the quiet awkward. In fact he found it rather pleasant. A hundred years ago it was one of the reasons why he knew he truly loved her-the way he felt when there was silence between them. He could enjoy her company when they talked and laughed, but he enjoyed her just as much when she said nothing at all. He loved sitting quietly with her on the veranda of her home or walking through the woods or lying by the lake. Just to have her body next to his-or her hand in his-was enough.

The afternoon air was thick and warm, a breath of August in February, the sky dark and unsettled. Wind moved in the trees, made waves on the surface of the pond. A fleet of ducks bobbed with the current as if lying at anchor.

He looked at her closely for the first time. She had aged well. In many ways she was more beautiful than before. She was tall and erect, and the little bit of weight she had put on over the years was hidden nicely behind her carefully tailored suit. Her hair, which she used to wear down the center of her back in a blond cape, was pulled back and pinned neatly in place. On her head she wore a gray pillbox hat.

Vicary allowed his gaze to settle on her face. Her nose, once a little too long for her face, now seemed perfectly appropriate. Her cheeks had hollowed a bit with age, making the bones of her face more prominent. She turned and noticed Vicary was staring at her. She smiled at him, but the smile did not extend to the eyes. There was a distant sadness there, as if someone close to her had died recently.

Vicary was the first to break the silence. He looked away from her and said, "I'm sorry about lunch, Helen. Something came up at work and I wasn't able to get away or even call you."

"Don't worry, Alfred. I just sat at a table alone at the Connaught and became miserably drunk." Vicary looked up sharply at her. "I'm only teasing you. But I won't pretend I wasn't disappointed. It took me a very long time to work up the courage to approach you. I acted so horribly before…" Her voice trailed off and she left her thought unfinished.

Vicary thought, Yes, you did, Helen. He said, "It was a long time ago. How on earth did you find me?"

She had telephoned him at the office twenty minutes ago. He had picked up the receiver expecting to hear anything but her voice: Boothby, telling him to come upstairs for another display of his brilliance; Harry, telling him Catherine Blake had shot someone else in the face; Peter Jordan, telling him to fuck off, he wouldn't see her anymore. The sound of Helen's voice nearly made him choke. "Hello, darling, it's me," she had said, and, like a good agent, she had not used her name. "Will you still see me? I'm in a phone box opposite your office. Oh, please, Alfred."

"My father is friends with your director-general," she said, "and David is good friends with Basil Boothby. I've known for some time that you'd been pulled in."

"Your father, David, and Basil Boothby-all my favorite people."

"Don't worry, Alfred. They don't sit around discussing you."

"Well, thank heavens for that!"

She squeezed his hand. "How in the world did you end up doing this?"

Vicary told her the story. How he befriended Churchill before the war. How he was drawn into Churchill's circle of advisers at Chartwell. How Churchill put the hooks into him that afternoon in May 1940.

"He actually did it in the bath?" Helen exclaimed.

Vicary nodded, smiling at the memory of it.

"What does the prime minister look like naked?"

"He's very pink. It was awe-inspiring. I found myself humming 'Rule Britannia' for the rest of the day."

Helen laughed. "Your work must be terribly exciting."

"It can be. But it can also be dreadfully boring and tedious."

"Are you ever tempted to tell anyone all the secrets you know?"

"Helen!"

"Are you?" she insisted.

"No, of course not."

"I am," she said, and looked away. After a moment she looked back at him. "You look wonderful, Alfred. You're very handsome. This bloody war seems to be agreeing with you."

"Thank you."

"I must admit I miss the corduroy and tweed, though. Now you're all gray, just like the rest of them."

"It's the official uniform of Whitehall, I'm afraid. I've become accustomed to it. I've also enjoyed the change. But I'll be glad when it's over so I can get back to University College where I belong."

He couldn't believe the words had actually come out of his mouth. He had once thought of MI5 as his salvation. He knew now it definitely was not. He had enjoyed his time at MI5: the tension, the long hours, the inedible fare in the canteen, the battles with Boothby, the remarkable group of dedicated amateurs just like himself who toiled away in secret. He had once toyed with the idea of asking to stay on after the war. But it wouldn't be the same-not without the threat of national destruction hanging over them like Damocles' sword.

There was something else. While he was well suited intellectually to the actual business of intelligence, its very nature was abhorrent to him. He was a historian. By nature and training he was dedicated to searching out truth. Intelligence was about lying and deception. About betrayal. About means justifying ends. About stabbing one's enemy in the back-and maybe stabbing a friend in the back, if necessary. He was not at all certain he liked the person he had become.

Vicary said, "How's David, by the way?"

Helen exhaled heavily. "David is David," she said, as if no other explanation was necessary. "He's banished me to the countryside, and he stays here in London. He managed a commission and does something for the Admiralty. I come to see him once every few weeks. He likes it when I'm away. It gives him the freedom to pursue his other interests."

Vicary, uncomfortable with Helen's honesty, looked away. David Lindsay, along with being incredibly rich and handsome, was a notorious womanizer. Vicary thought, No wonder he and Boothby are such good friends.

Helen said, "You don't need to feign ignorance, Alfred. I am aware that everyone knows about David and his favorite pastime. I've grown used to it. David likes women, and they like him. It's a rather neat fit."

"Why don't you leave him?"

"Oh, Alfred," she said, and dismissed the suggestion with a wave of her gloved hand.

"Is there anyone else in your life?"

"Do you mean other men?"

Vicary nodded.

"I tried once, but he was the wrong man. He was David in different clothes. Besides, I made a promise in a country church twenty-five years ago, and I seem incapable of breaking it."

"I wish you had felt that way about the promise you made to me," Vicary said, and immediately regretted the note of bitterness that crept into his voice. But Helen just looked at him, blinked rapidly, and said, "Sometimes I wish that too. There, I've said it. My God, how thoroughly un-English of me. Please forgive me. I suppose it's all these bloody Americans in town."

Vicary felt his face flush.

Helen said, "Are you still seeing Alice Simpson?"

"How in the world do you know about Alice Simpson?"

"I know about all your women, Alfred. She's very pretty. I even like those wretched books she writes."

"She's slipped away. I told myself it was the war, my work. But the truth is, she wasn't you, Helen. So I let her slip away. Just like all the others."

"Oh, damn you, Alfred Vicary! Damn you for saying that."

"It's the truth. Besides, it's what you wanted to hear. That's why you sought me out in the first place."

"The truth is, I wanted to hear that you were happy," she said. Her eyes were damp. "I didn't want you to tell me I'd ruined your life."

"Don't flatter yourself, Helen. You haven't ruined my life. I'm not unhappy. I've just never found enough room in my heart for someone else. I don't trust people very much. I suppose I have you to thank for that."

"Truce," she said. "Please, let's call a truce. I didn't want this to turn into a continuation of our last conversation. I just wanted to spend some time with you. God, but I need a drink. Will you take me somewhere nice and pour a bottle of wine into me, darling?"

They walked to Duke's. It was quiet that time of the afternoon. They were shown to a corner table. Vicary kept expecting one of Helen and David's friends to come in and recognize them, but they were alone. Vicary excused himself to go to the telephone and tell Harry where he was. When he came back there was a ludicrously expensive bottle of champagne sitting in an ice bucket.

"Don't worry, darling," she said. "It's David's party."

He sat down and they drank half the wine very fast. They talked about Vicary's books, and they talked about Helen's children. They even talked about David some more. He never took his eyes from her face as she spoke. There was something about the remote sadness in her eyes-the vulnerability caused by her failed marriage-that made her even more attractive to him. She reached out her hand and laid it on Vicary's. He felt his heart beating inside his chest for the first time in twenty-five years.

"Do you ever think about it, Alfred?"

"Think about what?"

"That morning."

"Helen, what are you-"

"My God, Alfred, you can be so thick sometimes. The morning I came to your bed and ravaged your body for the first time."

Vicary swallowed the last of his wine and refilled their glasses. He said, "No-not really."

"My God, Alfred Vicary, but you are a terrible liar. How do you manage in your new line of work?"

"All right, yes. I do think about it." He thought: when was the last time? The morning in Kent, after composing a Double Cross message for his false agent code-named Partridge. "I catch myself thinking about it at the damnedest times."

"I lied to David, you know. I always told him he was the first. But I'm glad it was you." She fingered the base of her wineglass and looked out the window. "It was so fast-just a moment or two. But when I remember it now it lasts for hours."

"Yes. I know what you mean."

She looked back at him. "Do you still have your house in Chelsea?"

"I'm told it's still there. I haven't been there since 1940," Vicary added, jokingly.

She turned from the window and looked Vicary directly in the eyes. She leaned forward and whispered, "I wish you would take me there now and make love to me in your bed."

"I'd like that too, Helen. But you'd only break my heart again. And at my age, I don't think I could get over you a second time."

Helen's face lost all expression and her voice, when it finally came, was flat and toneless. "My God, Alfred, when did you become such a coldhearted bastard?"

Her words sounded familiar to him. Then he remembered that Boothby, taking him by the arm after the interrogation of Peter Jordan, had asked him the same thing.

A shadow fell between them. It passed over her face, darkened it, then moved on. She sat very quiet and very still. Her eyes dampened. She blinked away the tears and regained her composure. Vicary felt like an idiot. The whole thing had gone too far-spun out of control. He was a fool to see her. Nothing good could come of it. The silence was like grinding metal now. He absently beat his breast pockets for his half-moon glasses and tried to think of some excuse to get away. Helen sensed his uneasiness. Still facing the window, she said, "I've kept you too long. I know you should be getting back."

"Yes. I really should. I'm sorry."

Helen was still talking to the window. "Don't be seduced by them. When the war is over, get rid of those awful gray suits and go home to your books. I liked you better then." Vicary said nothing, just looked at her. He leaned down to kiss her cheek but she lifted her face to him and, holding his neck with her fingers, kissed him lightly on the mouth. She smiled and said, "I hope you change your mind-and soon."

"I may, actually."

"Good."

"Good-bye, Helen."

"Good-bye, Alfred."

She took his hand. "I have one more thing to say to you. Whatever you do, don't trust Basil Boothby, darling. He's poison. Never, ever, turn your back on him."

And then he remembered what she had said about her one adulterous lover: He was David in different clothes.

No, Helen, he thought. He was Boothby.

He walked. If he could have run he would have. He walked without direction, without destination. He walked until the scar tissue in his knee burned like a brand. He walked until his smoker's cough sounded like consumption. The leafless trees of Green Park twisted with the wind. The rushing air sounded like white water. The wind lifted his unbuttoned mackintosh and nearly tore it from his body. He clutched it at the throat, and it flew from his shoulders like a cape. The blackout descended like a veil. In the darkness he bumped into a brassy American. Hey, watch it, Mac! Vicary muttered an apology-"So sorry, forgive me"-then regretted it. Still our bloody country.

He felt as though he were being conveyed-as though his movements were no longer his own. He suddenly remembered the hospital in Sussex where he recovered from his wounds. The boy who'd been shot in the spine and could no longer move his arms and legs. The way he described to Vicary the floating numbness he felt when the doctors moved his dead limbs for him. God, Helen! How could you? Boothby! God, Helen! Vile images of their lovemaking shot through his mind. He closed his eyes and tried to squeeze them away. Bloody hell! Bloody hell! Anyone but Basil Boothby! He marveled at the absurd way in which one part of his life had folded over and touched another. Helen and Boothby-absurd. Too absurd to contemplate. But it was true, he knew it.

Where was he now? He smelled the river and made for it. Victoria Embankment. Tugs hauling barges up the river, running lights doused, the far-off call of a foghorn. He heard a man moaning with pleasure and thought it was only his imagination again. He looked to his left and, in the darkness, could make out a tart with her hands inside a soldier's fly. Oh, good Lord! Excuse me.

He was walking again. He had an urge to walk up to Boothby's office and punch him in the face. He remembered Boothby's physical size and the rumors about his prowess with the martial arts and decided it would be tantamount to a suicide attempt. He had an urge to walk back to Duke's, find Helen, take her home with him, and to hell with the consequences. Then the images of the case began bursting through his mind, just like they always did. Vogel's empty file. Karl Becker in his soggy cell-I told Boothby. Rose Morely's exploded face. Grace Clarendon's tearful flight from Boothby's lair. The Pelican. The Hawke, Boothby's Oxford boy spy. He had the uncomfortable feeling he was being run. He thought, Am I a Hawke too?

Where was he now? Northumberland Avenue. He walked more slowly, listening to the pleasant growl of the late-afternoon traffic. He looked up and saw an attractive young woman staring impatiently at the passing cars. It was Grace Clarendon, there was no mistaking her shock of white-blond hair and her bloodred lips. A large black Humber pulled to the curb. Boothby's. The door opened and Grace climbed inside. The car slid into the traffic. Vicary turned his head and looked away as the car swept past him.

Vicary rode to West Halkin Street. Night had fallen, and with it had come a drenching downpour like a springtime thunderstorm. Vicary rubbed a hole in the condensation on his window and looked out. Crowds of Londoners moved along the pavements like refugees fleeing an advancing army-huddled beneath raincoats and umbrellas, some turned inside out by the wind, blackout torches peering weakly into the wet gloom. Vicary thought of the strange twist of fate that had placed him in the back of a government car and not out there with the rest of them. He thought suddenly of Helen and wondered where she was-somewhere safe and dry, he hoped. He thought of Grace Clarendon, climbing into the back of Boothby's car, and wondered what the hell she was doing there. Was it a very simple answer? Was she sleeping with Boothby and Harry at the same time? Or was it something more sinister? He remembered the words shouted in anger at Boothby behind the closed doors of his office: You can't do this to me! Bastard! Bloody bastard! Vicary thought, Tell me what he made you do, Grace, because for the life of me I can't figure it out on my own.

The car stopped outside the house. Vicary climbed out and, holding his briefcase as a shield against the rain, hurried inside. It felt like a West End theater preparing for an uncertain opening night. He had come to enjoy the atmosphere of the place-the noisy chatter of the watchers as they dressed in their foul-weather gear for a night on the streets, the technician checking to make sure he was receiving a good signal from the microphones inside Jordan's house, the smell of cooking drifting from the kitchen.

Something about Vicary's appearance must have radiated tension, because no one spoke to him as he picked his way through the clutter of the situation room and climbed the stairs to the library. He removed his mackintosh and hung it on the hook behind the door. He placed his briefcase on the desk. Then he walked across the hall and found Peter Jordan standing in front of a mirror, dressing in his naval uniform.

He thought, If the watchers are my stagehands, Jordan is my star and the uniform his costume.

Vicary watched him carefully. He seemed uncomfortable pulling on the uniform-the way Vicary felt when he dug out his black tie once a decade and tried to remember what went where and how. Vicary cleared his throat gently to announce his presence. Jordan turned his head, stared at Vicary for an instant, then returned his attention to his own image in the glass.

Jordan said, "When is it going to end?"

It had become part of their evening ritual. Each night, before Vicary sent Jordan off to meet Catherine Blake with a new load of Kettledrum material in his briefcase, Jordan asked the same question. Vicary always deflected it. But now he said, "Actually, it may be over very soon."

Jordan looked up sharply, then looked at an empty chair and said, "Sit down. You look like hell. When's the last time you slept?"

"I believe it was a night in May 1940," Vicary said, and lowered himself into the chair.

"I don't suppose you can tell me why this is all about to end soon, can you?"

Vicary shook his head slowly. "I'm afraid I can't."

"I didn't think so."

"Does it make a difference to you?"

"Not really, I suppose."

Jordan finished dressing. He lit a cigarette and sat down opposite Vicary. "Am I allowed to ask you any questions?"

"That depends entirely on the question."

Jordan smiled pleasantly. "It's obvious to me you're not a career intelligence officer. What did you do before the war?"

"I was a professor of European history at University College London." It sounded odd to Vicary just saying it, as though he were reading from someone else's resume. It seemed like a lifetime ago-two lifetimes ago.

"How did you end up working for MI-Five?"

Vicary hesitated, decided he was violating no security edict by answering, and told him the story.

"Do you enjoy your work?"

"Sometimes. And then there are times when I detest it and can't wait to get back behind the walls of academia and bar the door."

"Like when?"

"Like now," Vicary said flatly.

Jordan had no reaction. It was as if he understood no intelligence officer, no matter how callused, could actually enjoy an operation like this.

"Married?"

"No."

"Ever been?"

"Never."

"Why not?"

Vicary thought that sometimes God's coincidences were too vulgar to contemplate. Three hours earlier he had answered the same question in front of the woman who knew the answer. And now his agent was asking him the same bloody thing. He smiled weakly and said, "I suppose I never found the right woman."

Jordan was studying him. Vicary felt it and didn't quite like it. He was used to the relationship being the other way around-with Jordan and with the German spies he had handled. It was Vicary who did the prying, Vicary who broke open the locked vaults of emotion and picked at old wounds until they bled, Vicary who probed for the weak spots and thrust in the dagger. He supposed it was one of the reasons he was a good Double Cross officer. The job allowed him to gaze into the lives of strangers and exploit their personal defects without having to face his own. He thought of Karl Becker sitting in his cell in his drab prison pajamas. Vicary realized he liked being the one in total control, the one doing the manipulating and the deceiving, the one pulling the strings. He thought, Am I this way because Helen tossed me away twenty-five years ago? He dug a packet of Players from his jacket and absently lit one.

Jordan propped his elbow on the arm of his chair and rested his chin on his fist. He frowned and stared back at Vicary as if Vicary were an unstable bridge in danger of collapse.

"I think you probably found the right woman somewhere along the way and she didn't return the favor."

"I say-"

"Ah, so I'm right after all."

Vicary blew smoke at the ceiling. "You're an intelligent man. I always knew that."

"What was her name?"

"Her name was Helen."

"What happened?"

"Sorry, Peter."

"Ever see her now?"

Vicary, shaking his head, said, "No."

"Any regrets?"

Vicary thought of Helen's words. I didn't want you to tell me I'd ruined your life. Had she ruined his life? He liked to tell himself that she had not. Like most single men, he liked to tell himself how fortunate he was not to be burdened with a wife and a family. He had his privacy and his work and he liked not having to answer to anyone else in the world. He had enough money to do whatever he wanted. His house was decorated to his taste, and he didn't have to worry about anyone rummaging through his belongings or his papers. But in truth he was lonely-sometimes terribly lonely. In truth he wished he had someone to share his triumphs and his disappointments. He wished someone wanted to share theirs with him. When he stood back and looked at his life objectively, it was missing something: laughter, tenderness, a little noise and disorder sometimes. It was half a life, he realized. Half a life, half a home, ultimately half a man.

Do I have regrets? "Yes, I have a regret," Vicary said, surprised to hear himself actually saying the words. "I regret my failure to marry has deprived me of children. I always thought it must be wonderful to be a father. I think I would have been a good one, in spite of all my quirks and shortcomings."

A smile flickered across Jordan's face in the half darkness, then dissipated. "My son is my entire world. He's my link with the past and my glimpse into the future. He's all that I have left, the only thing that's real. Margaret's gone, Catherine was a lie." He paused, staring at the dying ember of his cigarette. "I can't wait for this to end so I can go home to him. I keep thinking what I'm going to say when he asks me, 'Daddy, what did you do in the war?' What in the hell am I supposed to tell him?"

"The truth. Tell him you were a gifted engineer, and you built a contraption that helped us win the war."

"But that's not the truth."

Something about the tone of Jordan's voice made Vicary look up sharply. He thought, Which part isn't the truth?

Vicary said, "Do you mind if I ask a couple of questions now?"

"I thought you were allowed to ask anything you liked, with or without my permission."

"Different setting, different reason for asking."

"Go ahead."

"Did you love her?"

"Have you ever seen her?"

Vicary realized he never had seen her in person, only in surveillance photographs.

"Yes, I loved her. She was beautiful, she was intelligent, she was charming, and obviously she was an incredibly talented actress. And believe it or not, I thought she would make a good mother for my son."

"Do you still love her?"

Jordan looked away. "I love the person I thought she was. I don't love the woman you tell me she is. Part of me almost believes this is all some kind of joke. So I suppose you and I have one thing in common."

"What's that?" Vicary asked.

"We both fell in love with the wrong woman."

Vicary laughed. He looked at his wristwatch and said, "It's getting late."

"Yes," Jordan said.

Vicary stood and led Jordan across the hall into the library. He unlocked his briefcase and removed a sheaf of papers from inside. He handed Jordan the papers and Jordan placed them inside his own briefcase. They stood in an awkward silence before Vicary said, "I'm sorry. If there was some other way to do this, I would. But there isn't. Not yet, at least."

Jordan said nothing.

"There's one thing that always bothered me about your interrogation: why you couldn't remember the names of the men who first approached you about working on Operation Mulberry."

"I met dozens of people that week. I can't remember half of them."

"You said one of them was English."

"Yes."

"Was his name Broome, by any chance?"

"No, his name wasn't Broome," Jordan said without hesitation. "I think I'd remember that. I probably should be going."

Jordan moved toward the door.

"I just have one more question."

Jordan turned and said, "What's that?"

"You are Peter Jordan, aren't you?"

"What in the hell kind of question is that?"

"It's a rather simple one really. Are you Peter Jordan?"

"Of course I'm Peter Jordan. You know, you really should get some sleep, Professor."

47

Clive Roach was sitting at a window table in the cafe across the street from Catherine Blake's flat. The waitress brought his tea and his bun. He immediately placed a few coins on the table. It was a habit developed from his work. Roach usually had to leave cafes on short notice and in a hurry. The last thing he needed to do was attract attention. He sipped his tea and halfheartedly leafed through a morning paper. He was not really interested. He was more interested in the doorway across the street. The rain fell harder. He was not looking forward to going out in it again. It was the one aspect of his job he did not like-the constant exposure to foul weather. He'd had more colds and bronchial infections than he could remember.

Before the war he had been a teacher at a down-at-the-heel boys' school. He decided to enlist in the army in 1939. He was far from the ideal soldier-thin, pasty skin, sparse hair, an underpowered voice. Hardly officer material. At the induction center he noticed he was being watched by a pair of sharp-suited men in the corner. He also noticed they had requested a copy of his file and were poring over it with great interest. A few minutes later they pulled him from the queue, told him they were from Military Intelligence, and offered him a job.

Roach liked watching. He was a natural people watcher and he had a flair for names and faces. He knew there would be no medals for battlefield heroics, no stories he could tell down at the pub when the war was over. But it was an important job and Roach did it well. He ate his bun, thinking of Catherine Blake. He had followed many German spies since 1939, but she was the best. A real pro. She had embarrassed him once, but he had vowed he would never let it happen again.

He finished his bun and drank the last of his tea. He looked up from his table and saw her coming out of her block of flats. He marveled at her tradecraft. She always stood still for a moment, doing something prosaic, while scanning the street for any sign of surveillance. Today, she was fumbling with her umbrella as if it were broken. Roach thought, You're very good, Miss Blake. But I'm better.

He watched as she finally snapped up her umbrella and started walking. Roach got up, pulled on his coat, and walked out the door after her.

Horst Neumann came awake as the train clattered through London's northeastern suburbs. He glanced at his wristwatch: ten thirty. They were due in at Liverpool Street at ten twenty-three. Miraculously, they would be only a few minutes late. He yawned, stretched, and sat up in his seat. He looked out the window at the bleak Victorian tenement houses sweeping past. Dirty children waved at the passing train. Neumann, feeling ridiculously English, waved back. There were three other passengers in his compartment, a pair of soldiers and a young woman who wore the overalls of a factory worker and pulled a frown of concern when she first saw Neumann's bandaged face. He glanced at each of them now. He always worried about talking in his sleep, though the last few nights he had dreamt in English. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes again. God, but he was tired. Up at five o'clock, out of the cottage by six so Sean could give him a lift to Hunstanton, the seven twelve from Hunstanton to Liverpool Street.

He had not slept well the previous night. It was the pain of his injuries and the presence of Jenny Colville in his bed. She had risen with him before dawn, slipped out of the Dogherty cottage, and pedaled home through the dark and the rain. Neumann hoped she made it safely. He hoped Martin wasn't waiting for her. It was a stupid thing to do, letting her spend the night with him. He thought about how she would feel when he was gone. When he never wrote and she never heard from him again. He worried about how she would feel if she ever discovered the truth-that he was not James Porter, a wounded British soldier looking for peace and quiet in a Norfolk village. That he was Horst Neumann, a decorated German paratrooper who came to England to spy and who had deceived her in the worst way. He had not deceived her about one thing. He cared for her. Not in the way she would like, but he did care about what happened to her.

The train slowed as it approached Liverpool Street. Neumann stood, pulled on his reefer coat, and stepped out of the compartment. The corridor was packed. He shuffled amid the other passengers toward the door. Someone ahead of him threw it open, and Neumann stepped from the still-moving train. He gave his ticket to the ticket collector and walked along a dank passageway to the underground station. There, he purchased a ticket for Temple and caught the next train. A few minutes later, he was walking up the stairs and heading north toward the Strand.

Catherine Blake took a taxi to Charing Cross. The rendezvous point was a short distance away, in front of a shop on the Strand. She paid off the driver and threw up her umbrella against the rain. She started walking. At a phone box, she stopped, picked up the receiver, and pretended to place a call. She looked behind her. The heavy rain had reduced visibility, but she could see no sign of the opposition. She replaced the receiver, stepped from the phone box, and continued eastward along the Strand.

Clive Roach slipped from the back of a surveillance van and followed her along the Strand. During the brief ride he had shed his mackintosh and brimmed hat and changed into a dark green oilskin coat and woolen cap. The transformation was remarkable-from a clerk to a laborer. Roach watched as Catherine Blake stopped to place the ersatz telephone call. Roach paused at a newspaper vendor. Browsing through the headlines, he pictured the face of the agent Professor Vicary had code-named Rudolf. Roach's assignment was simple: tail Catherine Blake until she handed her material to Rudolf, then follow him. He looked up in time to see her replacing the receiver in the cradle and stepping from the phone box. Roach melted into the pedestrians and followed her.

Neumann spotted Catherine Blake walking toward him. He paused at a shop, eyes scanning the faces and the clothing of the pedestrians behind her on the pavement. As she drew closer, Neumann turned from the window and started walking toward her. The contact was brief, a second or two. But when it was over Neumann had the film in his hand and was shoving it into the pocket of his coat. She moved quickly on, disappearing into the crowd. Neumann continued in the opposite direction for a few feet, recording the faces. Then he abruptly stopped at another shop window, turned, and followed softly after her.

Clive Roach spotted Rudolf and saw the exchange. He thought, Smooth bastards, aren't you? He watched as Rudolf paused, then turned and walked in the same direction as Catherine Blake. Roach had witnessed many meetings by German agents since 1939, but never had he seen one agent turn and follow the other. Usually, they went their separate ways. Roach turned the collar of his oilskin up around his ears and floated carefully behind them.

Catherine Blake walked eastward along the Strand, then down to Victoria Embankment. It was then she spotted Neumann behind her. Her first reaction was anger. Standard rendezvous procedure was to part company-and quickly-as soon as the handover was complete. Neumann knew the procedure and had executed it faultlessly every time. She thought, Why is he following me now?

Vogel must have ordered him to do it.

But why? She could think of two possible explanations: He had lost faith in her and wanted to see where she was going, or he wanted to determine whether she was under surveillance by the other side. She looked out at the Thames, then turned and glanced down the Embankment. Neumann made no attempt to conceal his presence. Catherine turned and continued walking.

She thought of the endless training lectures at Vogel's secret Bavarian camp. He had called it countersurveillance, one agent following another to make certain the agent was not being followed by the opposition. She wondered why Vogel would make such a move now. Perhaps Vogel wanted to verify that the information she was receiving was good by making certain she was not being followed by the other side. Just to contemplate the second explanation made her stomach burn with anxiety. Neumann was following her because Vogel suspected she was under MI5 surveillance.

She paused again and stared out at the river, forcing herself to remain calm. To think clearly. She turned and looked down the Embankment. Neumann still was there. He was intentionally avoiding her gaze, that was clear to her. He was looking out at the river or back up the Embankment, anywhere but in her direction.

She turned and started walking again. She could feel her heart pounding in her chest. She walked to Blackfriars underground station, went inside, and purchased a ticket for Victoria. Neumann followed her and did the same, except the ticket he purchased was for the next stop, South Kensington.

She walked quickly toward the platform. Neumann purchased a newspaper and followed her. She stood, waiting for the train. Neumann stood twenty feet away, reading the paper. When the train came, Catherine waited for the doors to open, then stepped into the carriage. Neumann stepped into the same carriage, but through the second set of doors.

She sat down. Neumann remained standing at the opposite end of the carriage. Catherine did not like the look on his face. She looked down, opened her handbag, and peered inside-a wallet filled with cash, a stiletto, and a loaded, silenced Mauser pistol with extra ammunition clips. She closed the bag and waited for Neumann to make the next move.

For two hours Neumann followed her as she moved through the West End, from Kensington to Chelsea, from Chelsea to Brompton, from Brompton to Belgravia, from Belgravia to Mayfair. By the time they reached Berkeley Square, he was convinced. They were good-damned good-but time and patience had finally depleted their resources and forced them to make a mistake. It was the man in the mackintosh walking fifty feet behind him. Five minutes earlier Neumann had been able to get a very good look at his face. It was the same face he had seen on the Strand nearly three hours earlier-when he had taken the film from Catherine-only then the man had been wearing a green oilskin coat and woolen cap.

Neumann felt desperately alone. He had survived the worst of the war-Poland, Russia, Crete-but none of the skills that helped him through those battles would come into play here. He thought of the man behind him-reedy, pasty, probably very weak. Neumann could kill him in an instant if he wanted. But the old rules didn't apply to this game. He could not radio for reinforcements, he could not count on the support of his comrades. He kept walking, surprised at how calm he was. He thought, They've been following us for hours; why haven't they arrested us both? He thought he knew the answer. They obviously wanted to know more. Where was the film to be dropped? Where was Neumann staying? Were there other agents in the network? As long as he didn't give them the answers to those questions, they were safe. It was a very weak hand but, if played skillfully, Neumann might be able to give them a chance to escape.

Neumann quickened his pace. Catherine, several feet in front of him, turned onto Bond Street. She stopped to flag a taxi. Neumann walked faster, then broke into a light run. He called out. "Catherine! My God-it's been ages. How have you been?"

She glanced up, alarm on her face. Neumann took her by the arm.

"We need to talk," Neumann said. "Let's find a place to have some tea and do some catching up."

Neumann's sudden move landed on the command post in West Halkin Street with the impact of a thousand-pound bomb. Basil Boothby was pacing and talking tensely to the director-general by telephone. The director-general was in contact with the Twenty Committee and with the prime minister's staff in the Underground War Rooms. Vicary had made a patch of quiet around himself and was staring at the wall, hands bunched beneath his chin. Boothby slammed down the telephone and said, "The Twenty Committee says let them run."

"I don't like it," Vicary said, still staring at the wall. "They've obviously spotted the surveillance. They're sitting there now trying to figure out what to do."

"You don't know that for certain."

Vicary looked up. "We've never observed her meeting with another agent before. And now she's suddenly sitting in a Mayfair cafe having tea and toast with Rudolf?"

"We only had her under surveillance a short time. For all we know she and Rudolf have been meeting like this regularly."

"Something's not right. I think they've spotted the tail. What's more, I think Rudolf was looking for it. That's why he followed her after making the rendezvous in the Strand."

"The Twenty Committee has made its decision. They say let them run, so we let them run."

"If they've spotted the surveillance, it makes no sense to let them run. Rudolf is not going to make the drop, and he'll stay clear of any other agents in the network. Following them now does us no good whatsoever. It's over, Sir Basil."

"What do you suggest?"

"Move in now. Arrest them the moment they leave that cafe."

Boothby looked at Vicary as though he had uttered heresy. "Getting cold feet now, are you, Alfred?"

"What do you mean by that?"

"I mean this was your idea in the first place. You conceived it, you sold it to the prime minister. The director-general signed off on it, the Twenty Committee approved it. For weeks a group of officers has toiled night and day to provide the material for that briefcase. And now you want to shut it all down, just like that"-Sir Basil snapped his thick fingers so loudly it sounded like a gunshot-"because you have a hunch."

"It's more than a hunch, Sir Basil. Read the bloody watch reports. It's all there."

Boothby was pacing again, hands clasped behind his back, head raised slightly as if straining to hear something annoying in the distance. "They'll say he was good at the wireless game but he didn't have the nerve to play with live agents-that's what they'll say about you when this is all over: 'Not surprising, really. He was an amateur, after all. Just a university bright boy who did his bit during the war, then turned to dust when it was all over. He was good-very good-but he didn't have the balls to play in the high-stakes game.' Is that what you want them to say about you? Because if it is, pick up the telephone and tell the DG you think we should roll this all up now."

Vicary stared at Boothby. Boothby the agent runner; Boothby, patrician-cool under fire. He wondered why Boothby was dying to shame him into going forward when a blind man could see they were blown.

"It's over," Vicary said in a dull monotone. "They've spotted the surveillance. They're sitting there planning their next move. Catherine Blake knows she's been deceived, and she's going to tell Kurt Vogel about it. Vogel will conclude that Mulberry is exactly the opposite of what we told him. And then we're dead."

"They're everywhere," Neumann said. "The man in the mackintosh, the girl waiting for the bus, the man walking into the chemist's shop across the square. They've used different faces, different combinations, different clothing. But they've been following us from the moment we left the Strand."

A waitress brought tea. Catherine waited until she left before she spoke. "Did Vogel order you to follow me?"

"Yes."

"I don't suppose he said why?"

Neumann shook his head.

Catherine picked up her cup of tea, her hand trembling. She used her other hand to steady the cup and forced herself to drink.

"What happened to your face?"

"I had a little trouble in the village. Nothing serious."

Catherine looked at him doubtfully and said, "Why haven't they arrested us?"

"Any number of reasons. They've probably known about you for a very long time. They've probably been following you for a very long time. If that's true, then all the information you've been receiving from Commander Jordan is false-smoke put together by the British. And we've been funneling it back to Berlin for them."

She put down her cup. She glanced into the street, then looked back at Neumann, forcing herself not to look at the watchers. "If Jordan is working with British Intelligence, we can assume everything in his briefcase is false-information they wanted me to see, information designed to mislead the Abwehr about the Allied plans for the invasion. Vogel needs to know this." She managed a smile. "It's possible those bastards have just handed us the secret of the invasion."

"I suspect you're right. But there's just one problem. We need to tell Vogel in person. We have to assume the Portuguese embassy route is now compromised. We also have to assume that we cannot use our radios. Vogel thinks all the old Abwehr codes have been broken. That's why he uses the radio so sparingly. If we broadcast what we know to Vogel over the air, the British will know it too."

Catherine lit a cigarette, her hands still trembling. More than anything else, she was angry at herself. For years, she had gone to extraordinary lengths to make certain she was not being watched by the other side. Then, when it finally happened, she had missed it. She said, "How in the world are we going to get out of London?"

"We have a couple of things we can use to our advantage. Number one, this." Neumann tapped his pocket containing the film. "I could be wrong, but I don't think I've ever been followed. Vogel trained me well, and I'm very careful. I don't think they know how I deliver the film to the Portuguese: where it's done, whether there's a patter or any other recognition signal. Also, I'm certain I've not been followed to Hampton Sands. The village is so small I'd know if I was under surveillance. They don't know where I'm staying or whether I'm working with any other agents. Standard procedure is to find out all the components of a network and then roll it up all at once. That's how the Gestapo deals with the Resistance in France, and that's how MI-Five would do it in London."

"That all sounds logical. What are you suggesting?"

"Are you seeing Jordan tonight?"

"Yes."

"What time?"

"I'm meeting him at seven o'clock for dinner."

"Perfect," Neumann said. "Here's what I want you to do."

Neumann spent the next five minutes explaining in detail his plan for their escape. Catherine listened carefully, never taking her eyes off him, resisting all temptation to look at the watchers waiting outside the cafe. When Neumann finished he said, "Whatever you do, you must do nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing that would make them suspect that you know you're under surveillance. Stay on the move until it's time. Shop, go to a cinema, stay in the open. As long as I don't drop this film, you'll be safe. When it's time, go to your flat and get your radio. I'll be there at five o'clock-exactly five o'clock-and I'll come through the rear entrance. Do you understand?"

Catherine nodded.

"There's just one problem. Do you have any idea where I can lay my hands on a car and some extra petrol?"

Catherine laughed in spite of herself. "Actually, I know just the place. But I wouldn't suggest using my name."

Neumann left the cafe first. He drifted in Mayfair for half an hour, followed by at least two men-the oilskin coat and the mackintosh.

The rain fell harder, the wind picked up. He was cold, soaked to the skin, and tired. He needed to go somewhere to rest, someplace where he could be warm for a while, get off his feet, and keep an eye on his friends Mackintosh and Oilskin. He walked toward Portman Square. He felt bad about involving her, but when it was over they would question her and determine she knew nothing.

He stopped outside the bookshop and peered through the glass. Sarah was on her ladder, dark hair pulled back severely. He rapped gently on the glass so as not to startle her. She turned, and her face brightened into an instant smile. She set down her books and waved enthusiastically for him to come inside. She took one look at him and said, "My God, you look terrible. What happened to you?"

Neumann hesitated; he realized he had no explanation for the bandage across his cheekbone. He mumbled something about taking a fall in the blackout, and she seemed to accept his story. She helped him off with his coat and hung it over the radiator to dry. He stayed with her for two hours, keeping her company, helping her put new books on the shelves, taking tea with her at the cafe next door when her break came. He noticed the old watchers leaving and new ones taking their place. He noticed a black van parked at the corner and assumed the men in the front seat were from the other side.

At four thirty, when the last light was gone and the blackout had taken hold, he took his coat from the radiator and pulled it on. She made a playful sad face, then took him by the hand and led him into the stockroom. There, she leaned against the wall, pulled his body to hers, and kissed him. "I don't know the first thing about you, James Porter, but I like you very much. You're sad about something. I like that."

Neumann went out, knowing he would never see her again. From Portman Square he walked north to the Baker Street underground station, followed by at least two people on foot as well as the black van. He entered the station, purchased a ticket for Charing Cross, and caught the next train there. At Charing Cross he changed trains and headed for Euston Station. With two men in pursuit, he walked through the tunnel connecting the underground station to the railway terminus. Neumann waited fifteen minutes at a ticket window and then purchased a ticket for Liverpool. The train was already boarding by the time he reached the platform. The carriage was crowded. He searched for a compartment with one free seat. He finally found one, opened the door, went inside, and sat down.

He looked at his wristwatch: three minutes until departure. Outside his compartment, the corridor was rapidly filling with passengers. It was not uncommon for some unlucky travelers to spend their entire journey standing or sitting in the corridor. Neumann stood and squeezed out of the compartment, muttering about an upset stomach. He walked toward the lavatory at the end of the carriage. He knocked on the door. There was no answer. Knocking a second time, he glanced over his shoulder; the man who had followed him onto the train was cut off from view by the other passengers standing in the corridor.

Perfect. The train started to move. Neumann waited outside the lavatory as the train slowly gathered speed. It already was traveling faster than most people would consider safe to jump. Neumann waited a few more seconds, then stepped toward the door, threw it open, and leapt down onto the platform.

He landed smoothly, trotting a few steps before settling into a brisk walk. He looked up in time to spot an annoyed ticket collector pulling the door closed. He walked quickly toward the exit and headed out into the blackout.

Euston Road was crowded with the evening rush. He hailed a taxi and hopped inside. He gave the driver an address in the East End and settled in for the ride.

48

Mary Dogherty waited alone at the cottage. She had always thought it was a sweet little place-warm, light, airy-but now it felt claustrophobic and cramped as a catacomb. She paced restlessly. Outside, the big storm that had been forecast had finally moved in over the Norfolk coast. Rain lashed against the windows, rattling the panes. The wind gusted relentlessly, moaning through the eaves. She heard the scrape of one of the tiles giving way on the roof.

Sean was away, gone to Hunstanton to collect Neumann from the train. Mary turned from the window and resumed her pacing. Snatches of their conversation of that morning played over and over in her head like a gramophone record stuck in a groove: submarine to France… stay in Berlin for a while… passage to a third country… make my way back to Ireland… join me there when the war is over…

It was like a nightmare-as if she were listening to someone else's conversation or watching it in a film or reading it in a book. The idea was ludicrous: Sean Dogherty, derelict Norfolk-coast farmer and IRA sympathizer, was going to take a U-boat to Germany. She supposed it was the logical culmination of Sean's spying. She had been foolish to hope that everything would return to normal when the war was over. She had deluded herself. Sean was going to flee and leave her behind to face the consequences. What would the authorities do? Just tell them you knew nothing about it, Mary. And what if they didn't believe her? What would they do then? How could she stay in the village if everyone knew Sean had been a spy? She would be run off the Norfolk coast. She would be run out of every English village where she tried to settle. She would have to leave Hampton Sands. She would have to leave Jenny Colville. She would have to go back to Ireland, back to the barren village she had fled thirty years ago. She still had family there, family that would take her in. The thought was utterly appalling but she would have no choice-not after everyone learned that Sean had spied for the Germans.

She began to weep. She thought, Damn you, Sean Dogherty! How could you have been such a damned fool?

Mary went back to the window. On the track, in the direction of the village, she saw a pinprick of light, bobbing in the downpour. A moment later she saw the shine of a wet oilskin and the faint outline of a figure on a bicycle, body hunched forward into the wind, elbows thrust out, knees pumping. It was Jenny Colville. She dismounted at the gate and pushed the bicycle up the pathway. Mary opened the door to her. The wind gusted, hurling rain inside the cottage. Mary pulled Jenny inside and helped her out of her wet coat and hat.

"My God, Jenny, what are you doing out in weather like this?"

"Oh, Mary, it's marvelous. So windy. So beautiful."

"You've obviously lost your mind, child. Sit down by the fire. I'll make you some hot tea."

Jenny warmed herself in front of the log fire. "Where's James?" she asked.

"He's not here now," Mary called from the kitchen. "He's out with Sean somewhere."

"Oh," Jenny said, and Mary could hear the disappointment in her voice. "Will he be back soon?"

Mary stopped what she was doing and went back into the living room. She looked at Jenny and said, "Why are you so concerned about James all of a sudden?"

"I just wanted to see him. Say hello. Spend some time with him. That's all."

"That's all? What in the world has got into you, Jenny?"

"I just like him, Mary. I like him very much. And he likes me."

"You like him and he likes you? Where did you get an idea like that?"

"I know, Mary, believe me. Don't ask me how I know it, but I do."

Mary took hold of her by the shoulders. "Listen to me, Jenny." She shook Jenny once. "Are you listening to me?"

"Yes, Mary! You're hurting me!"

"Stay away from him. Forget about him."

Jenny began to cry. "I can't forget about him, Mary. I love him. And he loves me. I know he does."

"Jenny, he doesn't love you. Don't ask me to explain it all now, because I can't, my love. He's a kind man, but he's not what he appears to be. Let go of it. Forget about him! You have to trust me, little one. He's not for you."

Jenny tore herself from Mary's grasp, stood back, and wiped the tears off her face. "He is for me, Mary. I love him. You've been trapped here with Sean so long you've forgotten what love is."

Then she picked up her coat and dashed out the front door, slamming it behind her. Mary hurried to the window and watched Jenny pedaling away through the storm.

Rain beat against Jenny's face as she pedaled along the rolling track toward the village. She had told herself she would not cry again, but she had not been able to keep her word. Tears mixed with the rain and streamed down her face. The village was tightly shuttered, the village store and the pub closed for the night, blackout shades drawn in the cottages. Her torch was lying in her basket, its pale yellow beam aimed forward into the pitch darkness. It was barely enough light to see by. She passed through the village and started toward her cottage.

She was furious with Mary. How dare she try to come between her and James? And what did she mean by that remark about him? He's not what he appears to be. She was also angry with herself. She felt terrible about the insult she had hurled at Mary as she ran out the door. They had never quarreled before. In the morning, when things calmed down, Jenny would go back and apologize.

In the distance she could make out the outline of their cottage against the sky. She dismounted at the gate, pushed her bicycle up the footpath, and leaned it against the side of the cottage. Her father came out and stood in the doorway, wiping his hands on a rag. His face was still swollen from the fight. Jenny tried to push past him but he reached out and wrapped his hands around her arm in an iron grip.

"Have you been with him again?"

"No, Papa." She cried out in pain. "Please, you're hurting my arm!"

He raised his other hand to strike her, his ugly swollen face contorted with rage. "Tell me the truth, Jenny! Have you been with him again?"

"No, I swear," she cried, her arms raised about her face to ward off the blow she expected at any second. "Please, Papa, don't hit me! I'm telling you the truth!"

Martin Colville released his grip. "Go inside and make me some supper."

She wanted to scream, Make your own bloody supper for a change! But she knew where it would lead. She looked at his face and, for an instant, found herself wishing that James had killed him. This is the last time, she thought. This is the very last time. She went inside, removed her sodden coat, hung it on the wall in the kitchen, and started his dinner.

49

Clive Roach knew he had a problem the moment Rudolf entered the crowded carriage. Roach would be all right as long as the agent remained seated inside his compartment. But if the agent left the compartment to go to the lavatory or the restaurant car or another carriage, Roach was in trouble. The corridors were jammed with travelers, some standing, some sitting and trying vainly to doze. Moving about the train was an ordeal; one had to squeeze and push past people and constantly say "Excuse me" and "Beg your pardon." Trying to follow someone without being detected would be difficult-probably impossible if the agent was good. And everything Roach had seen thus far told him Rudolf was good.

Roach became suspicious when Rudolf, clutching his stomach, stepped from his compartment while the train was still at the platform at Euston Station and sliced forward along the crowded corridor. Rudolf was short, no more than five foot six, and his head quickly disappeared into the sea of passengers. Roach picked his way forward a few steps, earning him the grunts and groans of the other passengers. He was reluctant to get too close; Rudolf had doubled back several times during the day, and Roach feared he might have seen his face. The corridor was poorly lit because of blackout regulations and already shrouded in a fog bank of cigarette smoke. Roach stayed in the shadows and watched as Rudolf knocked twice on the lavatory door. Another passenger pushed past him, obstructing his view for just a few seconds. When he looked up again Rudolf was gone.

Roach stayed where he was for three minutes, watching the lavatory door. Another man approached, knocked, then went inside and closed the door behind him.

Alarm bells sounded inside Roach's head.

He pushed his way forward through the knot of passengers in the corridor, stopped in front of the lavatory door, and pounded on it.

"Wait your turn like everyone else," came the voice on the other side.

"Open the door-police emergency."

The man opened the door a few seconds later, buttoning his fly. Roach looked inside to make sure Rudolf was not there. Dammit! He threw open the door to the connecting passage and entered the next carriage. Like the other, it was dark and smoky and hopelessly crammed with passengers. It would be impossible for him to find Rudolf now without turning over the train carriage by carriage, compartment by compartment.

He thought, How did he vanish so quickly?

He hurried back to the first carriage and found the ticket collector, an old man with steel-rimmed spectacles and a clubfoot. Roach withdrew the surveillance photograph of Rudolf and stuck it in front of the ticket collector's face.

"Have you seen this man?"

"Short chap?"

"Yes," Roach said, his spirits sinking lower, thinking, Dammit! Dammit!

"He jumped off the train as we pulled out of Euston. Lucky he didn't break his bloody leg."

"Christ! Why didn't you say something?" He realized how ridiculous the remark must have sounded. He forced himself to speak more calmly. "Where does this train make its first stop?"

"Watford."

"When?"

"About a half hour."

"Too long. I have to get off this train now."

Roach reached up, grabbed the emergency-brake cord, and pulled. The train immediately slowed, as the brakes were applied, and began to stop.

The old ticket collector looked up at Roach, eyes blinking rapidly behind the spectacles, and said, "You're not a normal police officer, are you?"

Roach said nothing as the train drew to a halt. He threw open the door, dropped down to the edge of the track, and disappeared into the darkness.

Neumann paid off the taxi a short distance from the Pope warehouse and walked the rest of the way. He switched his Mauser from the waistband of his trousers to the front pocket of his reefer coat and then turned up his collar against the driving rain. The first act had gone smoothly. The deception on the train had worked exactly as he had hoped. Neumann was certain he was not followed after leaving Euston Station. That meant one thing: Mackintosh, the man who had tailed him onto the train, was almost certainly still on it and heading out of London bound for Liverpool. The watcher was not an idiot. Eventually he would realize Neumann had not returned to his compartment, and he would begin a search. He might ask questions. Neumann's escape had not gone unseen; the ticket collector had spotted him jumping from the train. When the watcher realized Neumann was no longer on the train, he would get off at the next stop and telephone his superiors in London. Neumann realized he had a very limited window of opportunity. He had to move quickly.

The warehouse was dark and appeared deserted. Neumann rang the bell and waited. There was no response. He rang the bell again and this time could hear the sound of footsteps on the other side. The door was opened a moment later by a black-haired giant in a leather coat.

"What do you want?"

"I'd like to see Mr. Pope, please," Neumann said politely. "I need a few items, and I was told this was very definitely the place to come."

"Mr. Pope is gone and we're out of business, so piss off."

The giant started to close the door. Neumann put his foot in the way.

"I'm sorry. It's really rather urgent. Perhaps you could help."

The giant looked at Neumann, a puzzled look on his face. He seemed to be trying to reconcile the public school accent with the reefer coat and bandaged face. "I suppose you didn't hear me the first time," he said. "We're out of business. Shut down." He grabbed Neumann's shoulder. "Now, fuck off."

Neumann punched the giant in the Adam's apple, then pulled out his Mauser and shot him in the foot. The man collapsed on the floor, alternately howling in pain and gasping for breath. Neumann stepped inside and closed the gate. The warehouse was just the way Catherine described it: vans, cars, motorbikes, stacks of black-market food, and several jerry cans of petrol.

Neumann leaned down and said, "If you make a move, I'll shoot you again and it won't be in the foot. Do you understand?"

The giant grunted.

Neumann selected a black van, opened the door, and started the motor. He grabbed two jerry cans of petrol and put them in the back of the van. On second thought, it was a very long drive. He took two more and put them in the back too. He climbed inside the van, drove it to the front of the warehouse, then got out and hauled open the main door.

Before leaving, he knelt beside the wounded man and said, "If I were you, I'd get straight to a hospital."

The man looked at Neumann, more confused than ever. "Who the hell are you, mate?"

Neumann smiled, knowing the truth would sound so absurd the man would never believe it.

"I'm a German spy on the run from MI-Five."

"Yeah-and I'm Adolf bloody Hitler."

Neumann climbed in the van and sped away.

Harry Dalton tore the blackout shades from the headlamps and drove dangerously fast westward across London. Transport section had offered a skilled high-speed driver, but Harry wanted to do the driving himself. He weaved in and out of traffic, one hand constantly pressing the horn. Vicary sat next to him on the front seat, nervously clutching the dash. The wipers struggled in vain to beat away the rain. Turning into the Cromwell Road, Harry accelerated so hard the rear end of the car slid on the slick tarmac. He sliced and snaked his way through the traffic, then turned south into Earl's Court Road. He entered a small side street, then raced down a narrow alley, swerving once to avoid a rubbish bin, then again to miss a cat. He slammed on the brakes behind a block of flats and brought them to a skidding halt.

Harry and Vicary got out of the car, entered the building through the rear service door, and pounded up the stairs toward the fifth floor to the surveillance flat. Vicary, ignoring the pain shooting through his knee like a knife, kept pace with Harry.

He thought, If only Boothby had let me arrest them hours ago, we wouldn't be in this mess!

It was nothing short of a disaster.

The agent code-named Rudolf had just jumped from a train at Euston Station and melted into the city. Vicary had to assume he was now attempting to flee the country. He had no choice but to arrest Catherine Blake; he needed her in custody and scared out of her wits. Then she might tell them where Rudolf was headed and how he planned to escape, whether other agents were involved, and where he kept his radio.

Vicary was not optimistic. Everything he felt about this woman told him she would not cooperate, even when faced with execution. All she had to do was hold out long enough for Rudolf to escape. If she did that, the Abwehr would possess evidence suggesting British Intelligence was engaged in a massive deception. The consequences were too awful to contemplate. All the work that had gone into Fortitude would be wasted. The Germans could deduce that the Allies were coming at Normandy. The invasion would have to be postponed and replanned; otherwise it would end in a blood-soaked catastrophe. Hitler's iron-handed occupation of western Europe would go on. Countless more would die. And all because Vicary's operation had fallen to pieces. They had one chance now: arrest her, make her talk, and stop Rudolf before he could flee the country or use his radio.

Harry pushed open the door to the surveillance flat and led them inside. The curtains were open to the street, the room in darkness. Vicary struggled to make out the figures standing in various poses all around the room like statuary in a darkened garden: a pair of bleary-eyed watchers, frozen in the window; a half dozen tense Special Branch men leaning against one wall. The senior Special Branch officer was called Carter. He was big and buff with a thick throat and pockmarked skin. A cigarette, extinguished for security, jutted from the corner of his generous mouth. When Harry introduced Vicary, he pumped Vicary's hand ferociously once, then led him to the window to explain the disposition of his forces. The dead cigarette flaked ash as he spoke.

"We'll go in through the front door," Carter said, a trace of North Country in his accent. "When we do, we'll seal the street at both ends and a pair of men will cover the back of the house. Once we're in the house she'll have nowhere to go."

"It's extremely important that you take her alive," Vicary said. "She's absolutely useless to us dead."

"Harry says she's good with her weapons."

"True. We have reason to believe she has a gun and is willing to use it."

"We'll take her so fast she won't know what hit her. We're ready whenever you give us the word."

Vicary turned from the window and walked across the room to the telephone. He dialed the department and waited for the operator to forward the call to Boothby's office.

"The Special Branch men are ready to move on our order," Vicary said, when Boothby came on the line. "Do we have authorization yet?"

"No. The Twenty Committee are still deliberating. And we can't move until they approve it. The ball's in their court now."

"My God! Perhaps someone should explain to the Twenty Committee that time is one thing we don't have in great abundance. If we have one chance in hell of catching Rudolf, we need to know where he's going."

"I understand your dilemma," Boothby said.

Vicary thought, Your dilemma. My dilemma, Sir Basil?

He said, "When are they going to decide?"

"Any moment. I'll call you back straightaway."

Vicary rang off and paced the dark room. He turned to one of the watchers and said, "How long has she been in there?"

"About fifteen minutes."

"Fifteen minutes? Why did she stay on the street so long? I don't like it."

The telephone rang. Vicary lunged for it and brought the receiver to his ear. Basil Boothby said, "We have the Twenty Committee's approval. Bring her in, Alfred. And good luck."

Vicary slammed down the receiver.

"We're on, gentlemen." He turned to Harry. "Alive. We need her alive."

Harry nodded, grim-faced, then led the Special Branch men out of the room. Vicary listened to their footfalls on the stairs gradually fading away. Then, a moment later, he spotted the tops of their heads as they stepped from the building and headed across the street toward Catherine Blake's flat.

Horst Neumann parked the van in a small quiet side street around the corner from Catherine's flat. He climbed out and softly closed the door. He walked quickly along the pavement, hands thrust deeply into his pockets, one hand wrapped around the butt of the Mauser.

The street was in pitch darkness. He came to the pile of rubble that once was the terrace behind the flat. He groped his way across broken wood, crumbled brick, and twisted pipes. The rubble ended at a wall, about six feet high. On the other side of the wall was the garden at the back of the house-Neumann had seen it from the window of her room. He tried the gate; it was locked. He would have to open it from the other side.

He placed his hands on top of the wall, thrust with his legs, and pulled with his arms. Atop the wall now, he threw one leg over the other side and turned his body. He hung that way for a few seconds, looking down. The ground below was invisible in the dark. He could fall on anything-a sleeping dog or a row of dustbins that would make a terrible clatter if he landed on them. He considered shining his torch for a second but that might attract attention. He pushed himself off the top of the wall and fell through the gloom. There were no dogs or rubbish bins, just a thorny shrub of some kind that clawed at his face and his coat.

Neumann tore himself free from the thornbush and unlatched the gate. He crossed the garden to the back door. He tried the latch-it was locked. The door had a window. He reached in his coat pocket, withdrew the Mauser, and used it to smash the lower-left pane of glass. The noise was surprisingly loud. He reached through the shattered pane and unlocked the door, then quickly crossed the hall and ascended the stairs.

He reached Catherine's door and knocked softly.

From the other side of the door he heard her say, "Who's there?"

"It's me."

She opened the door. Neumann stepped inside and closed it. She was dressed in trousers, sweater, and leather jacket. The suitcase radio was standing next to the door. Neumann looked at her face. It was ashen.

"It could be my imagination," she said, "but I think something is going on downstairs. I've seen some men milling about on the street and sitting in parked cars."

The flat was dark, one light burning in the sitting room. Neumann crossed the room in a few quick steps and turned it off. He went to the window and lifted the edge of the blackout shade, peering out into the street. The evening traffic was moving below, throwing off just enough light for him to see four men charging from the apartment house across the street and heading their way.

Neumann turned and ripped his Mauser from his pocket.

"They're coming for us. Grab your radio and follow me down. Now!"

Harry Dalton threw open the front door and went inside, the Special Branch men behind him. He switched on the hall light in time to see Catherine Blake running out the back door, her suitcase radio swinging from her arm.

Horst Neumann had kicked open the back door and was running across the garden when he heard the shout from within the house. He rushed through the curtain of gloom, the Mauser in front of him in his outstretched hand. The gate flew open and a figure appeared there, silhouetted in the frame, gun raised. He shouted for Neumann to stop. Neumann kept running, firing twice. The first shot struck the man in the shoulder, spinning him around. The second shattered his spine, killing him instantly.

A second man stepped into his place and attempted to fire. Neumann squeezed the trigger. The Mauser bounced in his hand, emitting almost no sound, just the dull click of the firing mechanism. The man's head exploded.

Neumann raced through the gate, stepping over the bodies, and peered into the blackout. There was no one else behind the house. He turned and saw Catherine, a few feet behind him, running with the radio. Three men were chasing her. Neumann raised his gun and fired into the dark. He heard two men scream. Catherine kept running.

He turned and started across the rubble toward the van.

Harry felt the rounds whiz past his head. He heard the screams of both men behind him. She was right in front of him. He plunged through the darkness, arms outstretched before him. He realized he was at a distinct disadvantage; he was unarmed and alone. He could stop and try to find one of the Special Branch men's weapons, then chase them and try to shoot them both. But he was likely to be killed by Rudolf in the process. He could stop, turn around, go back inside, and signal the surveillance flat. But by then Catherine Blake and Rudolf would be long gone and they would have to start the damned search all over again and the spies would use their radio and tell Berlin about what they had discovered and we'd lose the fucking war, dammit!

The radio!

He thought, I may not be able to stop them now, but I can cut them off from Berlin for a while.

Harry leapt through the darkness, screaming deep in his throat, and grabbed hold of the suitcase with both hands. He tried to tear it from her grasp but she turned and pulled with surprising strength. He looked up and saw her face for the first time: red, contorted with fear, ugly with rage. He tried again to wrench the case from her, but he could not break her grasp; her fingers were clenched around the handle like a vise grip. She screamed Rudolf 's real name. It sounded like Wurst.

Then Harry heard a clicking sound. He had heard it before on the streets of East London before the war, the sound of a stiletto blade snapping into place. He saw her arm rise, then swing down in a vicious arc toward his throat. If he raised his own arm he could deflect the blow. But then she would be able to pull the radio away from him. He held on with both hands and tried to avoid the stiletto by twisting his head. The tip of the blade struck the side of his face. He could feel his flesh tearing. The pain came an instant later-searing, as though molten metal had been thrown against his face. Harry screamed but held on to the bag. She raised her arm again, this time plunging the tip of the stiletto into his forearm. Harry yelled with pain again, teeth clenched, but his hands would not let go of the bag. It was as if they were acting on their own now. Nothing, no amount of pain, could make them let go.

She let go of the bag and said, "You're a brave man to die for a radio."

Then she turned and disappeared into the darkness.

Harry lay on the wet ground. When she was gone, he reached up to touch his face and was sickened when he felt the warm bone of his own jaw. He was losing consciousness; the pain was fading. He heard the wounded Special Branch men groaning nearby. He felt the rain beating against his face. He closed his eyes. He felt someone pressing something against his face. When he opened his eyes he saw Alfred Vicary leaning over him.

"I told you to be careful, Harry."

"Did she get the radio?"

"No. You kept her from taking the radio."

"Did they get away?"

"Yes. But we're chasing them."

The pain raced up on Harry very suddenly. He started to tremble and felt as though he was going to throw up. Then Vicary's face turned to water, and Harry blacked out.

50

Within one hour of the disaster in Earl's Court, Alfred Vicary had orchestrated the biggest manhunt in the history of the United Kingdom. Every police station in the country-from Penzance to Dover, from Portsmouth to Inverness-was given a description of Vicary's fugitive spies. Vicary dispatched photographs by motorcycle couriers to the cities, towns, and villages close to London. Most officers involved in the search were told the fugitives were suspects in four murders dating back to 1938. A handful of very senior officers were discreetly informed it was a security matter of the utmost importance-so important the prime minister was personally monitoring the progress of the hunt.

London's Metropolitan Police responded with extraordinary speed, and within fifteen minutes of Vicary's first call roadblocks had been thrown up along all major arteries leading from the city. Vicary tried to cover every possible route of escape. MI5 and railway police prowled the main stations. The operators of the Irish ferries were given a description of the suspects as well.

Next he contacted the BBC and asked for the senior man on duty. On the main nine o'clock evening news the BBC led with the story of a shoot-out in Earl's Court that had left two police officers dead and three others wounded. The story contained a description of Catherine Blake and Rudolf and concluded with a telephone number citizens could call with information. Within five minutes the telephones started ringing. The typists transcribed each well-meaning call and passed them on to Vicary. Most he tossed straight into the wastepaper basket. A few he followed up. None produced a single lead.

Then he turned his attention to the escape routes only a spy would use. He contacted the RAF and asked them to be on the lookout for light aircraft. He contacted the Admiralty and asked them to keep a careful watch for U-boats approaching the coastline. He contacted the coastguard service and asked them to keep a watch out for small craft heading out to sea. He telephoned the Y Service radio monitors and asked them to listen for suspect wireless transmissions.

Vicary stood up from his desk and stepped outside his office for the first time in two hours. The command post in West Halkin Street had been deserted, and his team had slowly streamed back to St. James's Street. They sat in the common area outside his office like dazed survivors of a natural disaster-wet, exhausted, defeated. Clive Roach sat alone, head down, hands folded. Every few moments one of the watchers would lay a hand on his shoulder, murmur encouragement into his ear, and move quietly on. Peter Jordan was pacing. Tony Blair had fixed a homicidal glare on him. The only sound was the rattle of the teleprinters and the chatter of the girls on the telephone.

The silence was broken for a few minutes at nine o'clock, when Harry Dalton walked into the room, his face and arm bandaged. Everyone stood and crowded around him-Well done, Harry, old boy… deserve a medal… you kept us in the game, Harry… be all over if not for you…

Vicary pulled him into his office. "Shouldn't you be lying down resting?"

"Yeah, but I wanted to be here instead."

"How's the pain?"

"Not too bad. They gave me something for it."

"You still have any doubts about how you would react under fire on the battlefield?"

Harry managed a half smile, looked down, and shook his head. "Any breaks yet?" he asked, quickly changing the subject.

Vicary shook his head.

"What have you done?"

Vicary brought him up to date.

"Bold move, Rudolf coming back for her like that, snatching her from under our nose. He's got guts, I'll say that for him. How's Boothby taking it?"

"About as well as can be expected. He's upstairs with the director-general now. Probably planning my execution. We have an open line to the Underground War Rooms and the prime minister. The Old Man's getting minute-by-minute updates. I wish I had something to tell him."

"You've covered every possible option. Now you just have to sit and wait for something to break. They have to make a move somewhere. And when they do, we'll be onto them."

"I wish I could share your optimism."

Harry grimaced with pain and appeared suddenly very tired. "I'm going to go and lie down for a while." He walked slowly toward the door.

Vicary said, "Is Grace Clarendon on duty tonight?"

"Yeah, I think so."

The telephone rang. Basil Boothby said, "Come upstairs straightaway, Alfred."

The green light shone over Boothby's door. Vicary went inside and found Sir Basil pacing and chain smoking. He had stripped off his jacket, his waistcoat was unbuttoned, and he had loosened his tie. He angrily waved Vicary toward a chair and said, "Sit down, Alfred. Well, the lights are burning all over London tonight: Grosvenor Square, Eisenhower's personal headquarters at Hayes Lodge, the Underground War Rooms. And they all want to know one thing. Does Hitler know it's Normandy? Is the invasion dead even before we begin?"

"We obviously have no way of knowing yet."

"My God!" Boothby ground out his cigarette and immediately lit another one. "Two Special Branch officers dead, two more wounded. Thank God for Harry."

"He's downstairs now. I'm sure he'd like to hear that from you in person."

"We don't have time for pep talks, Alfred. We need to stop them and stop them quickly. I don't have to explain the stakes to you."

"No, you don't, Sir Basil."

"The prime minister wants updates every thirty minutes. Is there anything I can tell him?"

"Unfortunately, no. We've covered every possible route of escape. I wish I could say with certainty that we'll catch them, but I think it would be unwise to underestimate them. They have proven that time and time again."

Boothby resumed his pacing. "Two men dead, three wounded, and two spies possessing the knowledge to unravel our entire deception plan running loose. Needless to say, this is the worst disaster in the history of this department."

"Special Branch went in with the force they deemed necessary to arrest her. Obviously, they made a miscalculation."

Boothby stopped pacing and fixed a gunman's gaze on Vicary. "Don't attempt to blame Special Branch for what happened, Alfred. You were the senior man on the scene. That aspect of Kettledrum was your responsibility."

"I realize that, Sir Basil."

"Good, because when this is all over an internal review will be convened and I doubt your performance will be viewed in a favorable light."

Vicary stood up. "Is that all, Sir Basil?"

"Yes."

Vicary turned and walked toward the door.

The distant wail of the air-raid sirens started up while Vicary was taking the stairs down to Registry. The rooms were in half darkness, just a couple of lights burning. Vicary, as always, noticed the smell of the place: rotting paper, dust, damp, the faint residue of Nicholas Jago's vile pipe. He looked at Jago's glass-enclosed office. The light was out and the door was closed tightly. He heard the sharp smack of women's shoes and recognized the angry cadence of Grace Clarendon's brisk parade-ground march. He saw her shock of blond hair flash past the stacks like an apparition, then vanish. He followed her into one of the side rooms and called her name from a long way off so as not to startle her. She turned, stared at him with hostile green eyes, then turned away from him again and resumed her filing.

"Is this official, Professor Vicary?" she said. "If it's not, I'm going to have to ask you to leave. You've caused enough problems for me. If I'm seen talking to you again I'll be lucky to get a job as a bloody blackout warden. Please leave, Professor."

"I need to see a file, Grace."

"You know the procedure, Professor. Fill out a request slip. If your request is approved, you can see the file."

"I won't be given approval to see the file I need to see."

"Then you can't see it." Her voice had taken on the cold efficiency of a headmistress. "Those are the rules."

The first bombs fell, across the river by the feel of it. Then the antiaircraft batteries in the parks opened up. Vicary heard the drone of Heinkel bombers overhead. Grace stopped her filing and looked up. A slick of bombs fell nearby-too damned close, because the whole building shook and files tumbled from the shelves. Grace looked at the mess and said, "Bloody hell."

"I know Boothby is making you do things against your will. I heard you quarreling in his office, and I saw you getting into his car in Northumberland Avenue last night. And don't tell me you're seeing him romantically, because I know you're in love with Harry."

Vicary noticed the shine of tears in her green eyes, and the file in her hand begin to tremble.

"It's your bloody fault!" she snapped. "If you hadn't told him about the Vogel file, I wouldn't be in this mess."

"What is he making you do?"

She hesitated. "Please leave, Professor. Please."

"I'm not leaving until you tell me what Boothby wanted you to do."

"Dammit, Professor Vicary, he wanted me to spy on you! And on Harry!" She forced herself to lower her voice. "Anything Harry told me-in bed or anywhere else-I was supposed to tell him."

"What did you tell him?"

"Anything Harry mentioned to me about the case and the progress of the investigation. I also told him about the Registry search you requested." She pulled a handful of files from her cart and resumed her filing. "I heard Harry was involved in that mess at Earl's Court."

"He was indeed. In fact, he's the man of the hour."

"Was he hurt?"

Vicary nodded. "He's upstairs. The doctors couldn't keep him in bed."

"He probably did something stupid, didn't he? Trying to prove himself. God, he can be such a stupid, stubborn idiot sometimes."

"Grace, I need to see a file. Boothby's going to sack me when this business is over, and I need to know why."

She stared at him, a grave expression on her face. "You're serious, aren't you, Professor?"

"Unfortunately, yes."

She looked at him wordlessly for a moment while the building shuddered with the shock waves of the bombs.

"What's the file?" she asked.

"An operation called Kettledrum."

Grace furrowed her eyebrows in confusion. "Isn't that the code name of the operation you're involved in now?"

"Yes."

"Hold on a minute. You want me to risk my neck to show you the file on your own case?"

"Something like that," Vicary said, "except I want you to cross-reference it with a different case officer."

"Who?"

Vicary looked directly into her green eyes and mouthed the initials BB.

She came back five minutes later, an empty file folder in her hand.

"Operation Kettledrum," she said. "Terminated."

"Where are the contents?"

"Either destroyed or with the case officer."

"When was the file opened?" Vicary asked.

Grace looked at the tab on the file, then at Vicary.

"That's funny," she said. "According to this, Operation Kettledrum was initiated in October 1943."

51

By the time Scotland Yard responded to Alfred Vicary's demand for roadblocks, Horst Neumann had left London and was racing northward along the A10. The van had obviously been well maintained. It would do at least sixty miles per hour and the motor ran smoothly. The tires still had a decent amount of tread on them, and they gripped the wet road surprisingly well. And it had one other practical feature-a black van did not stand out from the other commercial vehicles on the road. Since petrol rationing made private motoring all but impossible, anyone driving an automobile that time of night might be stopped by the police and questioned.

The road ran straight across mostly flat terrain. Neumann hunched forward over the steering wheel as he drove, peering into the little pool of light thrown off by the shrouded headlamps. For a moment he considered removing the blackout shades but decided it was too risky. He flashed through villages with funny names-Puckeridge, Buntingford-dark, not a light burning, no one moving about. It was as if the clock had been turned back two thousand years. Neumann would scarcely have been surprised to see a Roman legion encamped along the banks of the River Cam.

More villages-Melbourn, Foxton, Newton, Hauxton. During his preparation at Vogel's farmhouse outside Berlin, Neumann had spent hours studying old Ordnance Survey maps of Britain. He suspected he knew the roads and pathways of East Anglia as well as most Englishmen, perhaps better.

Melbourn, Foxton, Newton, Hauxton.

He was approaching Cambridge.

Cambridge represented trouble. Surely MI5 had alerted police forces in the large cities and towns. Neumann reckoned the police in the villages and hamlets did not pose much of a threat. They made their rounds on foot or bicycle and rarely had cars, and communications were so poor that word might not even have been passed to them. He was flashing through the blacked-out villages so quickly a police officer would never really see them. Cities like Cambridge were different. MI5 had probably alerted the Cambridge police force. They had enough men to mount a roadblock on a large route like the A10. They had cars and could engage in a pursuit. Neumann knew the roads and was a capable driver, but he would be no match for an experienced local police officer.

Before reaching Cambridge, Neumann turned onto a small side road. He skirted the base of the Gog Magog Hills and headed north along the eastern edge of the city. Even in the gloom of the blackout he could make out the spires of King's and St. John's. He passed through a village called Horningsea, crossed the Cam, and entered Waterbeach, a village that lay astride the A10. He drove slowly through the darkened streets until he found the largest one; there were no signs for the A10 but he assumed this had to be it. He turned right, headed north, and after a moment was racing through the lonely flatness of the Fens.

The miles passed very quickly. The rain eased but in the fenland the wind, with nothing in its path between here and the North Sea, battered the van like a child's toy. The road ran near the banks of the River Great Ouse, then across Southery Fens. They passed through the villages of Southery and Hilgay. The next large town was Downham Market, smaller than Cambridge but Neumann assumed it had its own police force and was therefore a threat. He repeated the same move he made in Cambridge, turning onto a smaller side road, skirting the edge of town, rejoining the A10 in the north.

Ten miles on he came to King's Lynn, the port on the southeastern base of the Wash and largest town on the Norfolk coast. Neumann turned off the A10 again and picked up a small B-road east of the city.

The road was poor-an unpaved single-lane track in many places-and the terrain turned hilly and wooded. He stopped and poured two of the jerry cans of petrol into the tank. The weather worsened the closer they moved to the coast. At times Neumann seemed to be traveling at a walking pace. He feared he had made a mistake by turning off the better road, that he was being too cautious. After more than an hour of difficult driving he reached the coastline.

He passed through Hampton Sands, crossed the sea creek, and accelerated along the track. He felt relieved-finally, a familiar road. The Dogherty cottage appeared in the distance. Neumann turned into the drive. He saw the door open and the glow of a kerosene lamp moving toward them. It was Sean Dogherty, dressed in his oilskin and sou'wester, a shotgun over his arm.

Sean Dogherty had not been worried when Neumann did not arrive in Hunstanton on the afternoon train. Neumann had warned him he might be in London longer than usual. Dogherty decided to wait for the evening train. He left the station and went into a nearby pub. He ordered a potato and carrot pie and washed it down with two glasses of ale. Then he went out and walked along the waterfront. Before the war, Hunstanton was a popular summer beach resort because its location on the eastern edge of the Wash provided remarkable sunsets over the water. On this night the old Edwardian resort hotels were mostly empty, despondent-looking in the steady rain. Sunset was nothing more than the last gray light leaking from the storm clouds. Dogherty left the waterfront and returned to the station to meet the evening train. He stood on the platform, smoking, watching the handful of passengers disembarking. When Neumann was not among them, Dogherty became alarmed.

He drove back to Hampton Sands, thinking about Neumann's words earlier that week. Neumann had said it was possible the operation might be about to end, possible that he might be leaving England and heading back to Berlin. Dogherty thought, But why wasn't he on the damned train?

He arrived at the cottage and let himself inside. Mary, sitting next to the fire, glared at him, then went upstairs. Dogherty switched on the wireless. The news bulletin caught his attention. A nationwide search was under way for two suspected killers who had taken part in a gun battle with police earlier that evening in the section of London known as Earl's Court.

Dogherty turned up the volume as the newsreader gave a description of the two suspects. The first, surprisingly, was a woman. The second was a man who matched Horst Neumann's description perfectly.

Dogherty shut off the radio. Was it possible the two suspects in the Earl's Court shooting were Neumann and the other agent? Were they now on the run from MI5 and half the police in Britain? Were they heading toward Hampton Sands or were they going to leave him behind? Then he thought, Do the British know I'm a spy too?

He went upstairs, threw a change of clothes into a small canvas bag, and came back downstairs again. He went out to the barn, found his shotgun, and loaded a pair of cartridges into the barrel.

Returning to the cottage, Dogherty sat in the window, waiting. He had almost given up hope when he spotted the shaded headlamps moving along the road toward the cottage. When the car turned into the farmyard he could see it was Neumann behind the wheel. There was a woman sitting in the passenger seat.

Dogherty stood up and pulled on his coat and hat. He lit the kerosene lamp, picked up his shotgun, and went outside into the rain.

Martin Colville examined his face in the mirror: broken nose, black eyes, swollen lips, a contusion on the right side of his face.

He went into the kitchen and poured the last precious drops of whisky from a bottle. Every instinct in Colville's body told him there was something wrong about the man named James Porter. He didn't believe he was a wounded British soldier. He didn't believe he was an old acquaintance of Sean Dogherty's. He didn't believe he had come to Hampton Sands for the ocean air.

He touched his ruined face, thinking, No one's ever done this to me in my life, and I'm not going to let that little bastard get away with it.

Colville drank the whisky in one swallow, then placed the empty bottle and the glass in the sink. Outside, he heard the grumble of a motor. He went to the door and looked out. A van swept past. Colville could see James Porter behind the wheel and a woman in the passenger seat.

He closed the door, thinking, What in the hell is he doing out driving this time of night? And where did he get the van?

He decided he would find out for himself. He went into the sitting room and took down an old twelve-gauge shotgun from over the mantel. The shells were in a kitchen drawer. He opened it and dug through the jumble inside until he found the box. He went outside and climbed on his bicycle.

A moment later Colville was pedaling through the rain, shotgun across the handlebars, toward the Doghertys' cottage.

Jenny Colville, upstairs in her bedroom, heard the front door open and close once. Then she heard the sound of a passing vehicle, unusual at this time of night. When she heard the door open and close a second time she became alarmed. She rose from her bed and crossed the room. She parted the curtain and looked down in time to see her father pedaling away through the darkness.

She pounded on the window but it was in vain. Within seconds he was gone.

Jenny was wearing nothing but a flannel nightgown. She took it off, pulled on a pair of trousers and a sweater, and went downstairs. Her Wellington boots were by the door. Pulling them onto her feet, she noticed the shotgun that usually hung over the fireplace was gone. She looked into the kitchen and saw that the drawer where the shells were kept was open. Quickly, she pulled on her coat and went outside.

Jenny groped through the darkness until she found her bicycle leaning against the side of the cottage. She pushed it down the path, climbed onto the saddle, and pedaled after her father toward the Dogherty cottage, thinking, Please, God, let me stop him before someone ends up dead tonight.

Sean Dogherty pulled open the door of the barn and led them inside behind the light of the kerosene lantern. He removed his sou'wester and unbuttoned his coat, then looked at Neumann and the woman.

Neumann said, "Sean Dogherty, meet Catherine Blake. Sean used to be with an outfit called the Irish Republican Army, but he's been on loan to us for the war. Catherine works for Kurt Vogel too. She's been living in England under deep cover since 1938."

It gave Catherine a strange sensation to hear her background and work discussed so casually. After the years of hiding her identity, after all the precautions, after all the anxiety, it was difficult to imagine it was about to end.

Dogherty looked at her, then at Neumann. "The BBC's been running bulletins all night about a gun battle at Earl's Court. I suppose you were involved in that?"

Neumann nodded. "They weren't ordinary London police. MI-Five and Special Branch, I'd say. What's the radio saying?"

"You killed two of them and wounded three more. They've mounted a nationwide search for you and asked for help from the general public. Half the country's probably out beating the bushes for you right now. I'm surprised you made it this far."

"We stayed out of the big towns. It seemed to work. We haven't seen any police on the roads so far."

"Well, it won't last. You can be sure of that."

Neumann looked at his wristwatch-a few minutes after midnight. He picked up Sean's kerosene lamp and carried it to the worktable. He took down the radio from the cabinet and switched on the power.

"The submarine is on patrol in the North Sea. After receiving our signal, it will move exactly ten miles due east of Spurn Head and remain there until six A.M. If we don't appear, it turns from the coast and waits to hear from us."

Catherine said, "And how exactly are we going to get ten miles due east of Spurn Head?"

Dogherty stepped forward. "There's a fellow named Jack Kincaid. He has a small fishing boat at a quay on the River Humber." Dogherty dug out an old prewar Ordnance Survey map. "The boat's here," he said, jabbing at the map. "In a town called Cleethorpes. It's about a hundred miles up the coast. It will be hard driving on a dirty night like this with the blackout to contend with. Kincaid has a flat over a garage on the waterfront. I spoke to him yesterday. He knows we might be coming."

Neumann nodded and said, "If we leave now we have about six hours of driving time. I say we can make it tonight. The next rendezvous opportunity with the submarine is three days from now. I don't relish the idea of hiding out for three days with every policeman in Britain beating the bushes for us. I say we go tonight."

Catherine nodded. Neumann slipped on the earphones and tuned the radio to the proper frequency. He tapped out an identification signal and waited for a reply. A few seconds later the radio operator aboard the U-boat asked Neumann to proceed. Neumann drew a deep breath, carefully tapped out the message, then signed off and shut down the radio.

"Which leaves one more thing," he said, turning to Dogherty. "Are you coming with us?"

He nodded. "I've talked it over with Mary. She sees it my way. I'll come back to Germany with you: then Vogel and his friends can help me make my way back to Ireland. Mary will come across when I'm there. We've got friends and family who'll look after us until we get settled. We'll be all right."

"And how's Mary taking it?"

Dogherty's face hardened into a tight-lipped frown. Neumann knew it was quite likely he and Mary might never see each other again. He reached for the kerosene lamp, put a hand on Dogherty's shoulder, and said, "Let's go."

Martin Colville, standing astride his bicycle breathing heavily, saw a light burning inside Dogherty's barn. He laid his bicycle next to the road, then quietly crossed the meadow and crouched outside the barn. He struggled to understand the conversation taking place inside over the smack of the falling rain.

It was unbelievable.

Sean Dogherty-working for the Nazis. The man called James Porter-a German agent. A nest of German spies, operating right here in Hampton Sands!

Colville strained to hear more of the conversation. They were planning to drive up the coast to Lincolnshire and take a boat out to sea to meet a submarine. Colville felt his heart careening inside his chest and his breath coming quickly. He forced himself to be calm, to think clearly.

He had two choices: turn away, ride back to the village, and alert the authorities, or go inside the barn and take them into custody on his own. Each option had disadvantages. If he left for help, Dogherty and the spies would probably be gone by the time he returned. There were few police along the Norfolk coast, hardly enough to mount a search. If he went in alone he would be outnumbered. He could see Sean had his shotgun, and he assumed the two others were armed too. Still, he would have the advantage of surprise.

There was another reason why he liked the second option-he would enjoy personally settling the score with the German who called himself James Porter. Colville knew he had to act and act quickly. He broke open the box of shells, removed two, and snapped them into the barrel of the old twelve-gauge. He had never aimed the thing at anything more threatening than a partridge or a pheasant. He wondered whether he would have the stomach to pull the trigger on a human being.

He rose and took a step toward the door.

Jenny pedaled until her legs burned-through the village, past the church and the cemetery, over the sea creek. The air was filled with the sound of the storm and the rush of the sea. Rain lashed against her face and the wind nearly blew her over.

Jenny spotted her father's bicycle in the grass along the track and stopped next to it. Why leave it here? Why not ride it all the way to the cottage?

She thought she knew the answer. He was trying to sneak up without being seen.

It was then she heard the sound of a shotgun blast from Sean's barn. Jenny screamed, leapt from her bicycle, and let it fall next to her father's. She ran across the meadow, thinking, Please, God, don't let him be dead. Don't let him be dead.

52

Approximately one hundred miles north of Hampton Sands, Charlotte Endicott pedaled her bicycle into the small gravel compound outside the Y Service listening station at Scarborough. The ride from her digs at a cramped guesthouse in town had been brutal, wind and rain the entire way. Soaked and chilled to the bone, she dismounted and leaned her bicycle next to several others in the stand.

The wind gusted, moaning through the three huge rectangular antennas that stood atop the cliffs overlooking the North Sea. Charlotte Endicott glanced up at them, swaying visibly, as she hurried across the compound. She pulled open the door of the hut and went inside before the wind slammed it shut.

She had a few minutes before her shift began. She removed her soaking raincoat, untied her hat, and hung them both on a dilapidated coat-tree in the corner. The hut was cold and drafty, built for utility, not comfort. It did have a small canteen, though. Charlotte went inside, poured herself a cup of hot tea, sat down at one of the small tables, and lit a cigarette. A filthy habit, she knew, but if she could hold a job like a man she could smoke like one. Besides, she liked the way they made her look-sexy, sophisticated, a little older than her twenty-three years. She also had become addicted to the damned things. The work was stressful, the hours brutal, and life in Scarborough was dreadfully boring. But she loved every moment of it.

There had been only one time when she truly hated it, the Battle of Britain. During the long and horrible dogfights, the Wrens at Scarborough could listen to the cockpit chatter of the British and German pilots. Once she heard an English boy screaming and crying for his mother as his crippled Spitfire fell helplessly toward the sea. When she lost contact with him, Charlotte ran outside into the compound and threw up. She was glad those days were over.

Charlotte looked up at the clock. Nearly midnight. Time to go on duty. She stood and smoothed her damp uniform. She took one last pull at her cigarette-smoking wasn't allowed in the hole-then crushed it out in a small metal ashtray overflowing with butts. She left the canteen and walked toward the operations room. She flashed her identification badge at the guard. He scrutinized it carefully, even though he had seen it a hundred times before, then handed it back to her, smiling a little more than necessary. Charlotte knew she was an attractive girl, but there was no place for that sort of thing here. She pushed open the doors, entered the hole, and sat down at her regular spot.

It gave her a brief chill-as always.

She stared at the luminous dials of her RCA AR-88 superheterodyne communications receiver for a moment and then slipped on her earphones. The RCA's special interference-cutting crystals allowed her to monitor German Morse senders all across northern Europe. She tuned her receiver to the band of frequencies she had been assigned to patrol that night and settled in.

The German Morse senders were the fastest keyers in the world. Charlotte could immediately identify many by their distinctive keying style, or fist, and she and the other Wrens had nicknames for them: Wagner, Beethoven, Zeppelin.

Charlotte didn't have to wait long for her first action that night.

A few minutes after midnight she heard a burst of Morse in a fist she did not recognize. The cadence was poor, the pace slow and uncertain. An amateur, she thought, someone who didn't use their radio much. Certainly not one of the professionals at BdU, the Kriegsmarine headquarters. Acting quickly, she made a recording of the transmission on the oscillograph-a device that would in effect create a radio fingerprint of the signal called a Tina-and furiously scribbled the Morse message onto a sheet of paper. When the amateur finished, Charlotte heard another burst of code on the same frequency. This was no amateur; Charlotte and the other Wrens had heard him before. They had nicknamed him Fritz. He was a radio operator aboard a U-boat. Charlotte quickly transcribed this message as well.

Fritz's transmission was followed by another burst of sloppy Morse by the amateur, and then the communication went dead. Charlotte removed her headset, tore off the printout of the oscillograph, and marched across the room. Normally she would simply pass on the Morse transcripts of the messages to the motorcycle courier, who in turn would rush them to Bletchley Park for decoding. But there was something different about this communication-she could feel it in the fist of the radio operators: Fritz aboard a U-boat, an amateur somewhere else. She suspected she knew what it was, but she would have to make a damned convincing case. She presented herself to the night supervisor, a pale exhausted-looking man called Lowe. She dropped the transcripts and the oscillograph on his desk. He looked up at her, a quizzical expression on his face.

"I could be completely wrong, sir," Charlotte said, mustering the most authoritative voice she could, "but I think I just overheard a German spy signaling a U-boat off the coast."

Kapitanleutnant Max Hoffman would never get used to the stench of a U-boat that has been submerged too long: sweat, urine, diesel oil, potatoes, semen. The assault on his nostrils was so intense he would gladly stand watch on the conning tower in a gale rather than stay inside.

Standing in the control room of U-509, he could feel the throb of its electric motors beneath his feet as they wheeled in a monotonous circle twenty miles from the British coastline. A fine mist hung inside the submarine, creating a halo around every light. Every surface was cool and wet to the touch. Hoffman liked to imagine it was dew on a spring morning, but one look at the cramped claustrophobic world he inhabited robbed him of that fantasy very quickly.

It was a tedious assignment, sitting off the coast of Britain for weeks on end, waiting for one of Canaris's spies. Of Hoffman's crew only his first officer knew the true purpose of their mission. The rest of the men probably suspected as much, since they weren't on patrol. Still, things could be worse. Given the extraordinary loss rate among the Ubootwaffe-nearly 90 percent-Hoffman and his crew were damned lucky to have survived this long.

The first officer came onto the bridge, face grave, a sheet of paper in his hand. Hoffman looked at the man, depressed by the notion that he probably looked just as bad: sunken eyes, hollow cheeks, the gray pallor of a submariner, the unkempt beard because there was too little fresh water to waste on shaving.

The first officer said, "Our man in Britain has finally surfaced. He'd like a lift home tonight."

Hoffman smiled, thinking, Finally. We pick him up and head back to France for some good food and clean sheets. He said, "What's the latest weather?"

"Not good, Herr Kaleu," the first officer said, using the customary diminutive form of kapitanleutnant. "Heavy rains, winds thirty miles per hour from the northwest, seas ten to twelve."

"Jesus Christ! And he'll probably be coming in a rowboat-if we're lucky. Organize a reception party and prepare to surface. Have the radio operator inform BdU of our plans. Set a course for the rendezvous point. I'll go up top with the lookouts. I don't care how bad the weather is." Hoffman made a face. "I can't stand the fucking smell in here any longer."

"Yes, Herr Kaleu."

The first officer shouted a series of commands, echoed among the crew. Two minutes later, U-509 punched through the stormy surface of the North Sea.

The system was known as High Frequency Direction Finding, but almost everyone involved with the project knew it as Huff Duff. It worked on the principle of triangulation. The radio fingerprint created by the oscillograph at Scarborough could be used to identify the type of transmitter and its power supply. If the Y Service stations at Flowerdown and Iceland also ran oscillographs, the three recordings could be used to establish bearing lines-known as cuts-which could then be used to locate the position of the transmitter. Sometimes Huff Duff could pinpoint a radio to within ten miles of its geographical location. Usually, the system was much less accurate, thirty to fifty miles.

Commander Lowe did not believe Charlotte Endicott was completely wrong. In fact, he believed she had stumbled onto something critical. Earlier that evening, a Major Vicary from MI5 had sent out an alert to the Y Service to look for this very sort of thing.

Lowe spent the next few minutes speaking with his counterparts in Flowerdown and Iceland, attempting to plot a fix on the transmitter. Unfortunately, the communication was short, the fix not terribly precise. In fact, Lowe could narrow it only to a rather large portion of eastern England-all of Norfolk and much of Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, and Lincolnshire. Probably not much of a help, but at least it was something.

Lowe dug through the papers on his desk until he found Vicary's number in London and then reached for his secure telephone.

Atmospheric conditions over northern Europe made shortwave communication between the British Isles and Berlin virtually impossible. As a result, the Abwehr's radio center was housed in the basement of a large mansion in the Hamburg suburb of Wohldorf, 150 miles northwest of the German capital.

Five minutes after U-509's radio operator transmitted his message to BdU in northern France, the duty officer at BdU flashed a brief message to Hamburg. The duty officer at Hamburg was an Abwehr veteran named Captain Schmidt. He recorded the message, placed a priority call to Abwehr headquarters in Berlin on the secure line, and informed Lieutenant Werner Ulbricht of the developments. Schmidt then left the mansion and walked down the street to a nearby hotel, where he booked a second call to Berlin. He did not want to make this call from the thoroughly bugged lines of the Abwehr post, for the number he gave the operator was for Brigadefuhrer Walter Schellenberg's office at Prinz Albrechtstrasse. Unfortunately for Schmidt, Schellenberg had discovered he was having a rather lurid affair with a sixteen-year-old boy in Hamburg. Schmidt readily agreed to go to work for Schellenberg to avoid exposure. When the call went through he spoke to one of Schellenberg's many assistants-the general was dining out that night-and informed him of the news.

Kurt Vogel had decided to spend a rare evening at his small flat a few blocks from Tirpitz Ufer. Ulbricht reached him there by telephone and informed him that Horst Neumann had contacted the submarine and was coming out. Five minutes later, Vogel was letting himself out the front door of his building and walking through the rain toward Tirpitz Ufer.

At that same moment Walter Schellenberg checked in with his office and was told of developments in Britain. He then telephoned Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler and briefed him. Himmler ordered Schellenberg to come to Prinz Albrechtstrasse; it was going to be a long night and he wanted some company. As it happened, Schellenberg and Vogel arrived at their respective offices at precisely the same moment and settled in for the wait.

The location of the Allied invasion of France.

The life of Admiral Canaris.

And it all depended on the word of a couple of spies on the run from MI5.

53

Martin Colville used the barrel of his shotgun to push back the door of the barn. Neumann, still standing next to the radio, heard the noise. He reached for his Mauser as Colville stepped inside. Colville spotted Neumann going for the gun. He turned, leveled the shotgun, and fired. Neumann leapt out of the way, hitting the floor of the barn and rolling. The roar of the shotgun blast in the confined space of the barn was deafening. The radio disintegrated.

Colville aimed the gun at Neumann a second time. Neumann rolled up onto his elbows, Mauser in his outstretched hands. Sean Dogherty stepped forward, screaming at Colville to stop. Colville turned the gun on Dogherty and squeezed the trigger. The blast struck Dogherty in the chest, lifting him off his feet and driving him backward like a rag doll. He fell on his back, blood pumping from the gaping wound in his chest, and died within a matter of seconds.

Neumann fired, hitting Colville in the shoulder and spinning him around. Catherine had by now drawn her own Mauser and, using both hands, leveled it at Colville's head. She fired twice rapidly, the silencer dampening the blasts to a dull thud. Colville's head exploded and he was dead before his body hit the floor of Dogherty's barn.

Mary Dogherty lay in an agitated half sleep upstairs in her bed when she heard the first shotgun blast. She sat bolt upright and swung her feet to the floor as the second blast shattered the night. She threw off her blanket and raced downstairs.

The cottage was in darkness, the sitting room and the kitchen deserted. She went outside. Rain beat against her face. She realized that she was wearing only her flannel nightgown. There was silence now, only the sound of the storm. She looked out across the garden and spotted an unfamiliar black van in the drive. She turned toward the barn and saw light burning there. She called out "Sean!" and started running toward the barn.

Mary's feet were bare, the ground cold and sodden. She called Sean's name several more times as she ran. A shaft of faint light spilled from the open door of the barn, illuminating a box of shotgun shells on the ground.

Stepping inside, she gasped. A scream caught in her throat and would not come out. The first thing she saw was the body of Martin Colville lying on the floor of the barn a few feet away from her. Part of the head was missing and blood and tissue were scattered everywhere. She felt her stomach retch.

Then she turned her attention to the second body. It was on its back, arms flung wide. Somehow, in death, the ankles had become crossed, as though he were napping. Blood obscured the face. For a brief second Mary permitted herself to hope that it wasn't actually Sean lying there dead. Then she looked at the old Wellington boots and oilskin coat and knew it was him.

The scream that had been trapped in her throat came out.

Mary cried, "Oh, Sean! Oh, my God, Sean! What have you done?"

She looked up and saw Horst Neumann standing over Sean's body, a gun in his hand. Standing a few feet from Neumann was a woman, holding a pistol in her hands aimed at Mary's head.

Mary looked back at Neumann and screamed, "Did you do this? Did you?"

"It was Colville," Neumann said. "He came in here, gun blazing. Sean got in the way. I'm sorry, Mary."

"No, Horst. Martin may have pulled the trigger, but you did this to him. Make no mistake about it. You and your friends in Berlin-you're the ones who did this to him."

Neumann said nothing. Catherine still stood with the Mauser leveled at Mary's head. Neumann stepped in, took hold of the weapon, and gently lowered it toward the ground.

Jenny Colville stayed in the darkened meadow and approached the barn from the side, hidden from view. She crouched against the outside wall, rain smacking against her oilskin, and listened to the conversation taking place inside.

She heard the voice of the man she knew as James Porter, though Mary had called him something else, something that sounded like Horse. It was Colville… Sean got in the way. I'm sorry, Mary.

Then she heard Mary's voice. It had risen in pitch and quivered with anger and grief. You did this to him… You and your friends in Berlin.

She waited to hear her father's voice; she waited to hear Sean's voice. Nothing. She knew then they both were dead.

You and your friends in Berlin…

Jenny thought, What are you saying, Mary?

And then it all came together in her mind, like pieces of a puzzle that suddenly fall in the right order: Sean on the beach that night, the sudden appearance of the man called James Porter, Mary's warning to her earlier that afternoon: He's not what he appears to be… He's not for you, Jenny…

Jenny did not understand what Mary was trying to say at the time, but now she thought she did. The man she knew as James Porter was a German spy. And that meant Sean was a spy for the Germans too. Jenny's father must have discovered the truth and confronted them. And now he was lying dead on the floor of Sean Dogherty's barn.

Jenny wanted to scream. She felt hot tears pouring from her eyes down her cheeks. She raised her hands to her mouth to smother the sound of her crying. She had fallen in love with him, but he had lied to her and used her and he was a German spy and he probably just killed her father.

There was movement inside the barn, movement and a few soft exchanges of instructions that Jenny could not hear. She heard the German spy's voice, and she heard a woman's voice that did not belong to Mary. Then she saw the spy emerge from the barn and walk down the drive, torch in hand. He was heading toward the bicycles. If he found them, he would realize she was here too.

And he would come looking for her.

Jenny forced herself to breathe slowly, evenly, to think clearly.

She was being battered by several emotions. She was frightened, she was sick with the thought of her father and Sean dead. But more than anything else she was angry. She had been lied to and betrayed. And now she was driven by one overwhelming desire: she wanted them caught and she wanted them punished.

Jenny knew she would be no use if the German found her.

But what to do? She could try to run to the village. There was a telephone at the hotel and the pub. She could contact the police, and the police could come and arrest them.

But the village was the first place the spies would look for her. There was just one way into the village from the Doghertys': across the bridge by St. John's Church. Jenny knew she could be caught very easily.

She thought of a second option. They had to be leaving soon. They had just killed two people, after all. Jenny could hide for a short time until they had left; then she could emerge and contact the police.

She thought, But what if they take Mary with them?

Mary would be better off if Jenny were free and trying to find help.

Jenny watched the spy as he moved closer to the road. She saw the beam of his torch play over the surrounding ground. She saw it settle on something for a moment, then flash in her direction.

Jenny gasped. He had found her bike. She rose and started to run.

Horst Neumann spotted the pair of bicycles lying side by side in the grass at the edge of the road. He turned his torch toward the meadow, but the weak beam illuminated only a few feet in front of him. He lifted the bicycles, took hold of them by the handlebars, and rolled them up the drive. He left them at the back of Dogherty's barn, hidden from view.

She was out there-somewhere. He tried to picture what had happened. Her father storms out of the house with a gun: Jenny follows him and arrives at the Doghertys' cottage in time to see the aftermath. Neumann guessed she was hiding, waiting for them to leave, and he thought he knew where.

For a moment he considered letting her go. But Jenny was an intelligent girl. She would find a way to contact the police. The police would throw up roadblocks all around Hampton Sands. Making it to Lincolnshire in time to meet the submarine was going to be difficult enough. Allowing Jenny to remain free and contact the police would only make it tougher.

Neumann went inside the barn. Catherine had covered the bodies with some old sacking. Mary was sitting in a chair, shaking violently. Neumann avoided her gaze.

"We have a problem," Neumann said. He gestured at the covered body of Martin Colville. "I found his daughter's bicycle. We have to assume she's here somewhere and knows what happened. We also have to assume she'll try to get help."

"Then go find her," Catherine said.

Neumann nodded. "Take Mary in the house. Tie her up. Gag her. I have an idea where Jenny might be going."

Neumann went outside and hurried through the rain to the van. He started the motor, reversed down the drive, and headed toward the beach.

Catherine finished tying Mary to a wooden chair in the kitchen. She tore a tea cloth in two and wadded one half into a ball. She stuffed it into Mary's mouth, then tied the other half around her face in a tight gag. If she had her way Catherine would kill her now; she did not like leaving a trail for the police to follow. But Neumann obviously felt some attachment to the woman. Besides, it would probably be many hours before anyone found her, perhaps longer. The cottage was isolated, nearly a mile from the village; it might be a day or two before anyone noticed that Sean, Mary, Colville, and the girl were missing. Still, every survival instinct told her it was best to kill her and be done with it. Neumann would never know. She would lie to him, tell him Mary was unharmed, and he would never find out.

Catherine checked the knots one last time. Then she removed her Mauser from her coat pocket. She took hold of it, wrapped her index finger around the trigger, and touched the barrel to Mary's temple. Mary kept very still and stared defiantly at Catherine.

"Remember, Jenny is coming with us," Catherine said. "If you tell the police, we'll know. And then we'll kill her. Do you understand what I'm saying to you, Mary?"

Mary nodded once. Catherine took hold of the Mauser by the barrel, raised it into the air, and brought it down on the top of Mary's head. She slumped forward, unconscious, blood trickling through her hair toward her eyes. Catherine stood in front of the dying embers of the fire, waiting for Neumann and the girl, waiting to go home.

54

At that moment, a taxi braked to a halt in a driving rain outside a stubby, ivy-covered blockhouse beneath Admiralty Arch. The door opened and a small, rather ugly man emerged, leaning heavily on a walking stick. He did not bother with an umbrella. It was only a few feet to the doorway, where a Royal Marine guard stood watch. The guard saluted smartly, which the ugly man did not bother returning, for it would have meant switching his stick from his right hand to his left, a troublesome task. Besides, five years after being commissioned as an officer in the Royal Navy, Arthur Braithwaite still was uncomfortable with the customs and traditions of military life.

Officially, Braithwaite was not on duty for another hour. But, as was his daily habit, he arrived at the Citadel one hour early to give himself more time to prepare. Braithwaite, crippled in one leg since childhood, knew that to succeed he always had to be better prepared than those around him. It was a commitment that had paid dividends.

The Submarine Tracking Room-down a warren of narrow, winding staircases-was not easily reached by a man with a badly deformed leg. He crossed the Main Trade Plot and entered the Tracking Room through a guarded door.

The energy and excitement of the place took hold of him immediately, just as it did every night. The windowless walls were the color of clotted cream and covered with maps, charts, and photographs of U-boats and their crews. Several dozen officers and typists worked at tables around the edges of the room. In the center stood the main North Atlantic plotting table, where colored pins depicted the location of every warship, freighter, and submarine from the Baltic Sea to Cape Cod.

A large photograph of Admiral Karl Donitz, commander of the Kriegsmarine, glowered down from one wall. Braithwaite, as he did every morning, winked and said, "Good morning, Herr Admiral." Then he pushed back the door of his glass cubicle, removed his coat, and sat down at his desk.

He reached for the stack of decodes that awaited him each morning, thinking, A far cry from 1939, old son.

Back in 1939 he had degrees in law and psychology from Cambridge and Yale and was looking for something to do with them. When war broke out he tried to put his fluent German to good use by volunteering to interrogate German POWs. So impressed were his superiors they recommended a transfer to the Citadel, where he was assigned to the Submarine Tracking Room as a civilian volunteer at the height of the Battle of the Atlantic. Braithwaite's intellect and drive quickly set him apart. He threw himself into his work, volunteered for extra duty, and read every book he could find on German naval history and tactics. Equipped with near-perfect recall, he memorized the biographies of every Kapitanleutnant of the Ubootwaffe. Within months he developed a remarkable ability to forecast U-boat movements. None of this went unnoticed. He was given the rank of temporary commander and placed in charge of submarine tracking, a stunning achievement for someone who had not passed through the Dartmouth Naval College.

His aide rapped on the glass door, waited for Braithwaite's nod, and let himself inside. "Good morning, sir," he said, setting down a tray with a pot of tea and biscuits.

"Morning, Patrick."

"The weather kept things fairly quiet last night, sir. No U-boat surface sightings anywhere. The storm's moved off the western approaches. The east's bearing the brunt of it now, from Yorkshire to Suffolk."

Braithwaite nodded, and the aide went out. The first items were conventional stuff, intercepts of routine communications between U-boats and BdU. The fifth caught his attention. It was an alert issued by a Major Alfred Vicary of the War Office. It said the authorities were pursuing two individuals, a man and a woman, who might be trying to leave the country. Braithwaite smiled at Vicary's guarded understatement. Vicary was obviously from MI5. The man and woman were obviously German agents of some kind and whatever they were up to must be damned important; otherwise the alert wouldn't have crossed his desk. He put Vicary's alert aside and continued reading.

After a few more routine items Braithwaite came upon something else that caught his attention. A Wren at the Scarborough Y Service station had intercepted what she believed was a communication between a U-boat and a wireless onshore. Huff Duff had pinpointed the transmitter to somewhere along the east coast-somewhere from Lincolnshire to Suffolk. Braithwaite pulled the item out of his stack and set it next to Vicary's alert.

He rose and limped out of his office into the main room, stopping at the North Atlantic plotting table. Two members of his staff were repositioning some of the colored pins to reflect overnight movements. Braithwaite seemed not to notice them. He fixed his gaze on the waters off Britain's east coast, face grave.

After a moment he said quietly, "Patrick, bring me the file on U-509."

55

Jenny reached the grove of pines at the base of the dunes and collapsed with exhaustion. She had run by instinct, like a frightened animal. She had stayed off the road, keeping instead to the meadows and the marshes, flooded with rain. She had fallen more times than she could remember. She was covered with mud, smelled of rotting earth and the sea. Her face, beaten by the rain and the wind, felt as if it had been slapped. And she was cold-colder than she had ever been in her life. Her oilskin felt as if it weighed a hundred pounds. Her Wellington boots were filled with water, her feet were freezing. Then she remembered she had run from the cottage with no socks. She fell to her hands and knees, gasping for breath. Her throat was raw and tasted of rust.

She stayed that way for a moment until her breathing evened out, then forced herself to stand and enter the trees. It was pitch-dark, so dark she had to walk with her hands outstretched before her like a blind person groping through an unfamiliar place. She was cross with herself for not bringing her torch.

The air was filled with the sound of the wind and the pounding of the breakers on the beach. The trees seemed to be in a familiar pattern now. Jenny walked by memory, like someone shuffling through their own home in the dark.

The trees fell away; her secret hiding place appeared before her.

She slipped down the side and sat down with her back against the large rock. Overhead the pines writhed with the wind, but Jenny was sheltered from the worst of it. She wished she could make a fire but the smoke would be visible from a long way off. She dug out her case from the bed of pine needles, took out the old woolen blanket, and wrapped herself tightly.

The warmth took hold of her. Then she started to cry. She wondered how long she would have to wait here until going for help. Ten minutes? Twenty minutes? A half hour? She wondered if Mary would still be at the cottage when she returned. She wondered if she would be hurt. A horrid vision of her father's dead body flashed before her eyes. She shook her head and tried to make it go away. She shivered, then clutched the blanket more tightly to her body.

Thirty minutes. She would wait thirty minutes. They would leave by then and it would be safe to return.

Neumann parked at the end of the track, grabbed his torch from the seat next to him, and climbed out. He switched on the light and walked quickly through the trees. He scaled the dunes and scrambled down the other side. He switched off the torch as he walked across the beach to the water's edge. When he reached the flat hard sand where the breakers met the beach he broke into a light run, head down to push through the wind.

He thought of the morning he was running on the beach and saw Jenny, emerging from the dunes. He remembered how she looked, as though she had slept on the beach that night. He felt certain she had some kind of hiding place nearby where she went when things were bad at home. She was frightened, on the run, and alone. She would flee to the place she knew best, the way children do. Neumann went to the spot on the beach that served as his imaginary finish line, then stopped and walked toward the dunes.

On the other side he switched on the torch, found a trampled footpath, and followed it. It led to a small depression, sheltered from the wind by the trees and a pair of large boulders. He shined his torch into the depression; the beam caught Jenny Colville's face.

"What's your real name?" Jenny said as they drove back to the Doghertys' cottage.

"My real name is Lieutenant Horst Neumann."

"Why do you speak English so well?"

"My father was English and I was born in London. My mother and I moved to Germany when he died."

"Are you a German spy?"

"Something like that."

"What happened to Sean and my father?"

"We were using the radio in Sean's barn when your father burst in on us. Sean tried to stop him and your father killed him. Catherine and I killed your father. I'm sorry, Jenny. It all happened very fast."

"Shut up! I don't want you to tell me you're sorry!"

Neumann said nothing.

Jenny said, "What happens now?"

"We're going on a trip up the coast to the River Humber. From there we take a small boat out to sea to meet a U-boat."

"I hope they catch you. And I hope they kill you."

"I'd say that's a very distinct possibility."

"You're a bastard! Why did you get in that fight with my father over me?"

"Because I like you very much, Jenny Colville. I've lied to you about everything else, but that's the truth. Now just do exactly as I tell you and nothing bad will happen to you. Do you understand me?"

Jenny nodded her head. Neumann turned into the Doghertys' cottage. The door opened and Catherine came outside. She walked to the van and looked inside at Jenny. Then she looked at Neumann and said in German, "Tie her up and put her in the back. We're going to take her with us. You never know when a hostage might come in handy."

Neumann shook his head, and replied in the same language. "Just leave her here. She's no use to us, and she might get hurt."

"Are you forgetting I outrank you, Lieutenant?"

"No, Major," Neumann said, his voice tinged with sarcasm.

"Good. Now tie her up and let's get the hell out of this godforsaken place."

Neumann walked back to the barn to find a length of rope. He found some, picked up the lamp, and started out. He took one last look at Sean Dogherty's body, lying on the ground, covered by the old sacking. Neumann couldn't help but feel responsible for the chain of events that led to Sean's death. If he hadn't fought with Martin, Martin wouldn't have come to the barn with a shotgun tonight. Sean would be going with them to Germany, not lying on the floor of his barn with half his chest blown away. He doused the lamp, leaving the bodies in darkness, and went out, closing the door behind him.

Jenny did not resist, nor did she speak a single word to him. Neumann bound her hands in front of her so she could sit more comfortably. He checked to make sure the knot was not too tight. Then he bound her feet. When he finished he carried her to the rear of the van, opened the doors, and lifted her inside.

He added another jerry can of petrol to the tank and tossed the empty container into the meadow.

There was no sign of life on the track between the cottage and the village. Obviously the gunshots had gone unnoticed in Hampton Sands. They crossed the bridge, swept past the spire of St. John's, and drove along the darkened street. The place was so quiet it might have been evacuated.

Catherine sat next to him, silent, reloading her Mauser.

Neumann opened the throttle, and Hampton Sands disappeared behind them.

56

Arthur Braithwaite's gaze settled on the plotting table while he waited for the file on U-509. Not that Braithwaite had much need for it-he thought he knew everything there was to know about the submarine's commanding officer and could probably recite every patrol the boat had ever made. He just wanted a couple of things confirmed before he telephoned MI5.

U-509's movements had been puzzling him for weeks. The boat seemed to be on an aimless patrol of the North Sea, sailing nowhere in particular, going for long periods of time without contacting BdU. When it did check in it reported a position off the British coastline near Spurn Head. It had also been spotted in aerial photographs at a U-boat pen in southern Norway. No surface sightings, no attacks on Allied warships or merchantmen.

Braithwaite thought, You're just lurking around out there up to nothing at all. Well, I don't believe it, Kapitanleutnant Hoffman.

He looked up at the dour face of Donitz and murmured, "Why would you let a perfectly good boat and crew go to waste like that?"

The aide returned with the file a moment later. "Here we are, sir."

Braithwaite didn't take the file; instead, he began to recite the contents.

"Captain's name is Max Hoffman, if I remember correctly."

"Right, sir."

"Knight's Cross in 1942. Oak Leaves a year later."

"Pinned on by the Fuhrer himself."

"Now, here's the important part. I believe he served on Canaris's staff at the Abwehr for a brief period before the war."

The aide thumbed through the file. "Yes, here it is, sir. Hoffman was assigned to Abwehr headquarters in Berlin from 'thirty-eight to 'thirty-nine. When war broke out he was given command of U-509."

Braithwaite was staring at the map table again. "Patrick, if you had an important German spy who needed a lift out of Britain, wouldn't you prefer to have an old friend do the driving?"

"Indeed, sir."

"Ring Vicary at MI-Five. I think we'd better have a chat."

57

Alfred Vicary was standing before an eight-foot-high map of the British Isles, chain smoking, drinking wretched tea, and thinking, Now I know how Adolf Hitler must feel. Based on the telephone call from Commander Lowe at the Y Service station in Scarborough, it was now safe to assume the spies were trying to slip out of England aboard a U-boat. But Vicary had one very simple yet very serious problem. He had only a vague idea of when and an even vaguer idea of where.

He assumed the spies had to meet the submarine before dawn; it would be too dangerous for a U-boat to remain on the surface near the coast after first light. It was possible the U-boat might put a landing party ashore in a rubber dinghy-that's how the Abwehr inserted many of its spies into Britain-but Vicary doubted they would attempt to do so in heavy seas. Stealing a boat was not as easy as it sounded. The Royal Navy had seized almost everything that could float. Fishing in the North Sea had dwindled because coastal waters were heavily mined. A pair of spies on the run would have a difficult time finding a seaworthy craft on short notice in a storm in the blackout.

He thought, Perhaps the spies already have a boat.

The more vexing question was where. From what point along the coastline would they put to sea? Vicary stared at the map. The Y Service could not pinpoint the exact location of the transmitter. Vicary, for argument's sake, would choose the precise center of the large area they had given him. He traced his finger along the map until he came to the Norfolk coast.

Yes, it made perfect sense. Vicary knew his railway timetables. A spy could hide in one of the villages along the coast and still be in London in three hours' time because of the direct train service from Hunstanton.

Vicary assumed they had a good vehicle and plenty of petrol. They had already traveled a substantial distance from London and, because of the heavy police presence on the railways, he was virtually certain they had not done it by train.

So how far from the Norfolk coast could they possibly travel before getting into a boat and heading out to sea?

The U-boat would probably come no closer to shore than about five miles. It would take the spies at least an hour to sail five miles out to sea. If the U-boat submerged at first light, the spies would have to set sail no later than about six a.m. to be on the safe side. The radio message was sent at ten p.m. That left them eight hours of potential driving time. How far could they travel? Given the weather, the blackout, and the poor road conditions, one hundred to one hundred and fifty miles.

Vicary looked at the map, dejected. That still left a huge swath of the British coast, stretching from the Thames Estuary in the south to the River Humber in the north. It would be nearly impossible to cover it all. The coastline was dotted with small ports, fishing villages, and quays. Vicary had asked the local police forces to cover the coast with as many men as they could. RAF Coastal Command had agreed to fly search missions at first light, even though Vicary feared that was too late. Royal Navy corvettes were watching for small craft, even though it would be nearly impossible to spot them on a rainy moonless night at sea. Without another lead-a second intercepted radio signal or a sighting-there was little hope of catching them.

The telephone rang.

"Vicary."

"This is Commander Arthur Braithwaite at the Submarine Tracking Room. I saw your alert when I arrived on duty, and I think I may be of some rather serious help."

"The Submarine Tracking Room says U-509 has been moving in and out of the waters off the Lincolnshire coast for a couple of weeks now," Vicary said. Boothby had come downstairs and joined Vicary's vigil in front of the map. "If we pour our men and resources into Lincolnshire, we stand a good chance of stopping them."

"It's still a lot of coastline to cover."

Vicary was looking at the map again.

"What's the largest town up there?"

"Grimsby, I'd say."

"How appropriate-Grimsby. How long do you think it would take me to get up there?"

"Transport section could arrange a lift for you, but it would take hours."

Vicary grimaced. Transport maintained a few fast cars for cases just like this. There were expert drivers on standby who specialized in high-speed chases; a couple of them had even competed in professional races before the war. Vicary thought the drivers, while brilliant, were too reckless. He remembered the night he pulled the spy off the beach in Cornwall; remembered barreling through the blacked-out Cornish night in the back of a souped-up Rover, praying he would live long enough to make the arrest.

Vicary said, "How about an airplane?"

"I'm sure I could arrange a lift for you from the RAF. There's a small Fighter Command base outside Grimsby. They could have you up there in an hour or so, and you could use the base as your command post. But have you taken a look out the window lately? It's a god-awful night for flying."

"I realize that, but I'm certain I could do a better job coordinating the search if I was on the ground there." Vicary turned from the map and looked at Boothby. "And there's something else that's occurred to me. If we're able to stop them before they send Berlin a message, perhaps I can send it for them."

"Devise some explanation for their decision to flee London that bolsters the belief in Kettledrum?"

"Exactly."

"Good thinking, Alfred."

"I'd like to take a couple of men with me: Roach, Dalton if he's up to it."

Boothby hesitated. "I think you should take one other person."

"Who?"

"Peter Jordan."

"Jordan!"

"Look at it from the other side of the looking glass. If Jordan has been deceived and betrayed, wouldn't he want to be there at the end to watch Catherine Blake's demise? I know I certainly would. I'd want to pull the trigger myself, if I were in his shoes. And the Germans have to think that too. We have to do anything we can to make them believe in the illusion of Kettledrum."

Vicary thought of the empty file in Registry.

The telephone rang again.

"Vicary."

It was one of the department operators.

"Professor Vicary, I have a trunk call from Chief Superintendent Perkin of the King's Lynn police in Norfolk. He says it's quite urgent."

"Put him through."

Hampton Sands was too small, too isolated, and too quiet to warrant its own police constable. It shared one constable with four other Norfolk coast villages. Holme, Thornton, Titchwell, and Brancaster. The constable was a man named Thomasson, a police veteran who had worked the Norfolk coast since the last war. Thomasson lived in a police house in Brancaster and, because of the requirements of his work, had his own telephone.

One hour earlier the telephone had rung, waking Thomasson, his wife, and his English setter, Rags. The voice at the other end of the line was Chief Superintendent Perkin from King's Lynn. The superintendent told Thomasson about the urgent telephone call he had received from the War Office in London, asking for assistance from local police forces in the search for two fugitive murder suspects.

Ten minutes after receiving Perkin's telephone call, Thomasson was letting himself out the door of the cottage, wearing a blue oilskin cape and a sou'wester knotted beneath his chin and carrying a flask of sweet tea Judith had quickly made for him. He pushed his bicycle around from the shed at the back of the house, then set off toward the center of the village. Rags, who always accompanied Thomasson on his rounds, trotted easily next to him.

Thomasson was in his midfifties. He never smoked, rarely touched alcohol, and thirty years of cycling the rolling coastline of Norfolk had left him fit and very strong. His thick, well-muscled legs pumped easily, propelling the heavy iron bicycle into Brancaster. As he suspected, the village was dead quiet. He could knock on a few doors, wake a few people up, but he knew everyone in the village and none of them were housing fugitive murderers. He took one pass through the silent streets, then turned onto the coast road and pedaled toward the next village, Hampton Sands.

The Colville cottage was about a quarter mile outside the village. Everyone knew about Martin Colville. He had been deserted by his wife, was a heavy drinker, and barely scratched a living from his smallholding. Thomasson knew Colville was too hard on his daughter, Jenny. He also knew Jenny spent a great deal of time in the dunes; Thomasson had found her things after one of the locals complained about tinkers living on the beach. He coasted to a stop and shined his torch toward the Colville cottage. It was dark, and there was no smoke coming from the chimney.

Thomasson pushed his bike up the drive and knocked on the door. There was no answer. Fearing Colville could be drunk or passed out, he knocked again, harder. Again, no answer. He pushed the door open and looked inside. The interior was dark. He called Colville's name one last time. Hearing no answer, he left the cottage and continued on into Hampton Sands.

Hampton Sands, like Brancaster, was quiet and blacked out. Thomasson cycled through the village, past the Arms, the village store, and St. John's Church. He crossed the bridge over the sea creek. Sean and Mary Dogherty lived about a mile outside the village. Thomasson knew that Jenny Colville practically lived with the Doghertys. It was very likely she was spending the night there. But where was Martin?

It was a difficult mile, the track rising and falling beneath him. Ahead of him, in the darkness, he could hear the click of Rags's paws on the track and the steady rhythm of his breathing. The Dogherty cottage appeared before him. He pedaled up to the drive, stopped, and shined his torch back and forth.

Something in the meadow caught his attention. He played the beam of light across the grass and there-there it was again. He waded forward into the saturated meadow and reached down for the object. It was an empty jerry can. He sniffed-petrol. He turned it upside down. A thread of fuel trickled out.

Rags walked ahead of him toward the Dogherty cottage. He saw Sean Dogherty's dilapidated old van parked in the yard. Then he spotted a pair of bicycles lying in the grass beside the barn. Thomasson walked to the cottage and knocked on the door. Like the Colville cottage, there was no answer.

Thomasson didn't bother knocking a second time. He was by now thoroughly alarmed by what he had seen. He pushed back the door and called out "Hello!" He heard a strange sound, a muffled grunting. He shone his torch into the room and saw Mary Dogherty, tied to a chair, a gag around her mouth.

Thomasson rushed forward, Rags barking furiously, and quickly untied the cloth around her face.

"Mary! What in God's name happened here?"

Mary, hysterical, gasped for air.

"Sean-Martin-dead-barn-spies-submarine-Jenny!"

"Vicary here."

"Chief Superintendent Perkin of the King's Lynn police."

"What have you got?"

"Two dead bodies, a hysterical woman, and a missing girl."

"My God! Start from the beginning."

"After I received your call, I sent all my constables out on rounds. Police Constable Thomasson handles a handful of small villages along the north Norfolk coast. He found the trouble."

"Go on."

"It happened in a place called Hampton Sands. Unless you have a large map, you're not likely to find it. If you do, find Hunstanton on the Wash and trace your finger east along the Norfolk coast and you'll see Hampton Sands."

"I've got it." It was nearly the spot where Vicary guessed the transmitter might be.

"Thomasson found two bodies in a barn on a farm just outside Hampton Sands. The victims are both local men, Martin Colville and Sean Dogherty. Dogherty's an Irishman. Thomasson found Dogherty's wife, Mary, bound and gagged in the cottage. She'd been hit on the head and was hysterical when Thomasson discovered her. She told him quite a tale."

"Nothing will surprise me, Superintendent. Please continue."

"Mrs. Dogherty says her husband has been spying for the Germans since the beginning of the war-he was never a full-fledged IRA gunman, but he had ties to the group. She says a couple of weeks ago the Germans dropped another agent onto the beach named Horst Neumann, and Dogherty took him in. The agent has been living with them ever since and traveling regularly to London."

"What happened tonight?"

"She's not sure exactly. She heard gunshots, ran outside to the barn, and found the bodies. The German told her that Colville burst in on them, and that's when the shooting started."

"Was there a woman with Neumann?"

"Yes."

"Tell me about the missing girl."

"Colville's daughter, Jenny. She's not at home, and her bicycle was found at the Doghertys'. Thomasson speculates she followed her father, witnessed the shooting or the aftermath, and fled. Mary is afraid the Germans found the girl and took her with them."

"Does she know where they were headed?"

"No, but she says they're driving a van-black, perhaps."

"Where is she now?"

"Still at the cottage."

"Where's Constable Thomasson?"

"He's still on the line from a public house in Hampton Sands."

"Was there any sign of a radio in the cottage or the barn?"

"Hold on. Let me ask him."

Vicary could hear Perkin, voice muffled, ask the question.

"He says he saw a contraption in the barn that could be a radio."

"What did it look like?"

"A suitcase filled with something that looked like a wireless. It was destroyed by a shotgun blast."

"Who else knows about this?"

"Me, Thomasson, and probably the landlord at the public house. I suspect he's standing next to Thomasson right now."

"I want you to tell absolutely no one else about what happened at the Dogherty cottage tonight. There is to be no mention of German agents in any report on this affair. This is a security matter of the utmost importance. Is that clear, Superintendent?"

"I understand."

"I'm going to send a team of my men to Norfolk to assist you. For now, leave Mary Dogherty and those bodies exactly where they are."

"Yes, sir."

Vicary was looking at the map again. "Now, Superintendent, I have information that leads me to suspect those fugitives are in all likelihood heading directly your way. We believe their ultimate destination is the Lincolnshire coast."

"I've called in all my men. We're blocking all the major roads."

"Keep this office informed of every development. And good luck."

Vicary rang off and turned to Boothby.

"They've killed two people, they probably have a hostage, and they're making a run for the Lincolnshire coast." Vicary smiled wolfishly. "And it looks as though they've just lost their second radio."

58

Two hours after leaving Hampton Sands, Horst Neumann and Catherine Blake were beginning to have serious doubts about their chances of making the rendezvous with the submarine in time. To escape the Norfolk coast, Neumann retraced his course, climbing into the cluster of hills in the heart of Norfolk, then following thin ribbons of road through the heathland and the darkened villages. He skirted King's Lynn to the southeast, wound his way through a series of hamlets, and then crossed the River Great Ouse at a village called Wiggenhall St. Germans.

The journey across the southern edge of the Wash was a nightmare. Wind poured in from the North Sea and whipped over the marshes and the dikes. The rain increased. Sometimes it came in irate squalls-swirling, windblown, erasing the edges of the road. Neumann hunched forward mile after mile, gripping the wheel with both hands as the van raced across the flat terrain. At times he had the sensation of floating through an abyss.

Catherine sat next to him, reading Dogherty's old Ordnance Survey map by the light of her torch. They spoke in German, so that Jenny could not understand. Neumann found Catherine's German odd: flat, toneless, no regional accent. The kind of German that is a second or third language. The kind of German that has not been used in a very long time.

Neumann, with Catherine navigating, plotted his course.

Cleethorpes, where their boat was waiting for them, lay next to the port of Grimsby at the mouth of the Humber. Once they were clear of the Wash, there were no large towns standing in their way. According to the maps there was a good road-the A16-that ran several miles inland along the base of the Lincolnshire Wolds, then to the Humber. For purposes of planning, Neumann assumed the worst. He assumed that Mary would eventually be found, that MI5 would eventually be alerted, and roadblocks would be thrown up on all major roads near the coastline. He would take the A16 halfway toward Cleethorpes, then switch to a smaller road that ran closer to the coast.

Boston lay near the western shore of the Wash. It was the last large town standing between them and the Humber. Neumann left the main road, crept through quiet side streets, then rejoined the A16 north of town. He opened the throttle and pushed the van hard through the storm.

Catherine switched off the blackout torch and watched the rain swirling in the soft glow of the headlamps.

"What's it like now-in Berlin?"

Neumann kept his eyes on the road. "It's paradise. We are all happy, we work hard in the factories, we shake our fists at the American and British bombers, and everyone loves the Fuhrer."

"You sound like one of Goebbels's propaganda films."

"The truth isn't quite so entertaining. Berlin is very bad. The Americans come with their B-Seventeens by day, and the British come with their Lancasters and Halifaxes at night. Some days it seems the city is under almost constant bombardment. Most of central Berlin is a pile of rubble."

"Having lived through the blitz myself, I'm afraid Germany deserves whatever the Americans and British can dish out. The Germans were the first to take the war to the civilian population. I can't shed many tears because Berlin is now being pounded into dust."

"You sound like a Brit yourself."

"I am half British. My mother was English. And I've been living among the British for six years. It's not hard to forget whose side you're supposed to be on when you're in a situation like that. But tell me more about Berlin."

"Those with money or connections manage to eat well. Those without money or connections don't. The Russians have turned the tables in the east. I suspect half of Berlin is hoping the invasion succeeds so the Americans can get to Berlin before the Ivans."

"So typically German. They elect a psychopath, give him absolute power, then cry because he's led them to the brink of destruction."

Neumann laughed. "If you were blessed with such foresight, why in the world did you volunteer to become a spy?"

"Who said anything about volunteering?"

They flashed through a pair of villages-first Stickney, then Stickford. The scent of woodsmoke from fires burning in the cottages penetrated the interior of the van. Neumann heard a dog barking, then another. He reached in his pocket, removed his cigarettes, and gave them to Catherine. She lit two, kept one for herself, and handed one back to him.

"Would you like to explain that last remark?"

She thought, Would I? It felt terribly strange, after all these years, even to be speaking in German. She had spent six years hiding every shred of truth about herself. She had become someone else, erased every aspect of her personality and her past. When she thought about the person she was before Hitler and before the war, it was as if she were thinking about someone else.

Anna Katarina von Steiner died in an unfortunate road accident outside Berlin.

"Well, I didn't exactly go down to the local Abwehr office and sign up," she said. "But then, I don't suppose anyone in this line of work gets their job that way, do they. They always come for you. In my case, they was Kurt Vogel."

She told him the story, the story she had never told another person before. The story of the summer in Spain, the summer the civil war broke out. The summer at Maria's estancia. Her affair with Maria's father. "Just my luck, he turns out to be a Fascist and a talent spotter for the Abwehr. He sells me to Vogel, and Vogel comes looking for me."

"Why didn't you just say no?"

"Why didn't any of us just say no? In my case, he threatened the one thing in this world I care most about-my father. That's what a good case officer does. They get inside your head. They get to know how you think, how you feel. What you love and what you fear. And then they use it to make you do what they want you to do."

She smoked quietly for a moment, watching as they passed through another village.

"He knew that I lived in London when I was a child, that I spoke the language perfectly, that I already knew how to handle a weapon, and that-"

Silence for a moment. Neumann didn't press her. He just waited, fascinated.

"He knew that I had a personality suited to the assignment he had in mind. I've been in Britain nearly six years, alone, with virtually no contact with anyone from my side: no friends, no family, no contact with any other agents-nothing. It was more like a prison sentence than an assignment. I can't tell you how many times I dreamt about going back to Berlin and killing Vogel with one of the wonderful techniques he and his friends taught me."

"How did you enter the country?"

She told him-told him what Vogel made her do.

"Jesus Christ," Neumann muttered.

"Something the Gestapo would do, right? I spent the next month preparing my new identity. Then I settled in and waited. Vogel and I had a way of communicating over the wireless that didn't involve code names. So the British never looked for me. Vogel knew I was safe and in place, ready to be activated. Then the idiot gives me one assignment and sends me straight into the arms of MI-Five." She laughed quietly. "My God, I can't believe I'm actually going back there after all this time. I never thought I would see Germany again."

"You don't sound terribly thrilled about the prospect of going home."

"Home? It's hard to think of Germany as my home. It's hard to think of myself as German. Vogel erased that part of me at his wonderful little mountain retreat in Bavaria."

"What are you going to do?"

"Meet with Vogel, make certain my father is still alive, then collect my payment and leave. Vogel can create another one of his false identities for me. I can pass for about five different nationalities. That's what landed me in the game to begin with. It's all a big game, isn't it? One big game."

"Where are you going to go?"

"Back to Spain," she said. "Back to the place where it all started."

"Tell me about it," Neumann said. "I need to think about something besides this godforsaken road."

"It's in the foothills of the Pyrenees. In the morning we go hunting, and in the afternoon we ride up into the mountains. There's a wonderful stream with deep, cold pools and we stay there all afternoon, drinking icy white wine and smelling the eucalyptus trees. I used to think about it all the time when the loneliness got to me. I thought I was going to go crazy sometimes."

"It sounds wonderful. If you need a stable hand, let me know."

She looked at him and smiled. "You've been wonderful. If it weren't for you-" She hesitated. "God, I can't even imagine."

"Don't mention it. Glad I could be of assistance. I don't mean to rain on our parade, but we're not out of danger yet."

"Believe me, I realize that."

She finished her cigarette, opened the window a crack, and tossed the butt into the night. It hit the roadway and exploded into sparks. She sat back and closed her eyes. She had been running on adrenaline and fear for too long. Exhaustion stalked her. The gentle rocking of the van lulled her into a light half sleep.

Neumann said, "Vogel never told me your real name. What is it?"

"My real name was Anna Katarina von Steiner," she said, sleep creeping into her voice. "But I would prefer it if you continue to call me Catherine. You see, Kurt Vogel killed Anna before he sent her to England. I'm afraid Anna no longer exists. Anna is dead."

Neumann's voice, when he spoke again, was far away, at the end of a long tunnel.

"How did a beautiful and intelligent woman like Anna Katarina von Steiner end up here-like this?"

"That's a very good question," she said, and then fatigue overtook her and she was asleep.

The dream is her only memory of it: it was driven benevolently from her conscious thoughts long ago. She sees it now in flash bursts-stolen glimpses. Sometimes she sees it with her own eyes, as though she is reliving it, and sometimes the dream makes her watch it again like a spectator in a grandstand.

Tonight she is reliving it.

She is living beside the lake; Papa lets her go alone. He knows she will not go near the water-it is too chilly for swimming-and he knows she likes to be by herself to think about her mother.

It is autumn. She has brought a blanket. The tall grass at the edge of the lake is damp with the morning's rain. The wind moves in the trees. A flock of rooks scatter and wheel noisily overhead. The trees weep flaming leaves of orange and red. She watches the leaves float gently downward, like tiny hot-air balloons, and settle on the rippled surface of the lake.

It is then, as her eye follows the descent of the leaves, that she sees the man, standing in the trees across the lake.

He is very still for a long time, watching her; then he moves toward her. He is wearing knee-high boots and a thigh-length coat. A shotgun, broken at the breech, is cradled over his right arm. His hair and beard are too long, his eyes are red and damp. As he moves closer she can see something hanging from his belt. She realizes it is a pair of bloody rabbits. Limp with death, they seem absurdly long and thin.

Papa has a word for men like him: poachers. They come onto other people's land and kill the animals-deer and rabbit and pheasant. She thinks it is a funny word, poachers. It sounds like someone who prepares eggs in the morning. She thinks about that now as he approaches, and it makes her smile.

The poacher asks if he can sit next to her and she tells him yes.

He squats and lays the shotgun in the grass.

"Are you here alone?" he asks.

"Yes. My father says it's all right."

"Where is your father now?"

"He's in the house."

"And he's not coming here?"

"No."

"I want to show you something," he says. "Something that will make you feel wonderful."

His eyes are very damp now. He is smiling; his teeth are black and rotten. She becomes frightened for the first time. She tries to stand up but he grabs her by the shoulders and forces her down onto the blanket. She tries to scream but he smothers the sound with a big, hairy hand. Suddenly he is on top of her; she is paralyzed beneath the weight of him. He is reaching up her dress and pulling at her underwear.

The pain is like nothing she has ever felt. She feels she is being ripped apart. He pins her arms behind her head with one hand and covers her mouth with the other so no one will hear her scream. She feels the still-warm bodies of the dead rabbits pressing against her leg. Then the poacher's face becomes contorted, as if he is in pain, and it stops as suddenly as it began.

He is talking to her again.

"You saw the rabbits? You saw what I did to the rabbits?"

She tries to nod, but the hand over her mouth is pressing so hard she cannot move her head.

"If you ever tell anyone about what happened here today, I'll do the same to you. And then I'll do it to your father. I'll shoot you both, and then I'll hang your heads from my belt. Do you hear me, girl?"

She starts to cry.

"You're a very bad girl," he says. "Oh, yes, I can see that. I think you actually liked it."

Then he does it to her again.

The shaking starts. She has never dreamed it this way before. Someone is calling her name, Catherine… Catherine… wake up. Why is he calling me Catherine? My name is Anna…

Horst Neumann shook her once more, violently, and shouted, "Catherine, dammit! Wake up! We're in trouble!"

59

It was three a.m. when the Lysander broke through the thick clouds and bumped to a landing at the small RAF base two miles outside the town of Grimsby. Alfred Vicary had never flown in an airplane, and it was not an experience he wished to repeat soon. The heavy weather tossed the plane during the entire flight from London, and as they taxied toward the small operations hut Vicary was never so glad to see any place in all his life.

The pilot shut down the engine while a crewman opened the cabin door. Vicary, Harry Dalton, Clive Roach, and Peter Jordan quickly climbed down. Two men were waiting for them, a young square-shouldered RAF officer and a buff pockmarked man in a dilapidated raincoat.

The RAF man stuck out his hand and handled the introductions. "Squadron Leader Edmund Hughes. This is Chief Superintendent Roger Lockwood of the Lincolnshire County Constabulary. Come inside the operations hut. It's crude but dry, and we've set up a makeshift command post for you."

They went inside. The RAF officer said, "I suppose it's not as nice as your digs in London."

"You'd be surprised," Vicary said. It was a small room with a window overlooking the airfield. A large-scale map of Lincolnshire was tacked up on one wall, a desk with a pair of battered telephones opposite. "It will do just fine."

"We have a wireless and a teleprinter," Hughes said. "We even can manage some tea and cheese sandwiches. You look as though you could use something to eat."

"Thank you," Vicary said. "It's been a long day."

Hughes went out and Chief Superintendent Lockwood stepped forward.

"We've got men on every major road between here and the Wash," Lockwood said, his thick finger jabbing at the map. "In the smallest villages, they're just constables on bicycles, so I'm afraid they won't be able to do much if they spot them. But as they move closer to the coast, they'll be in trouble. Roadblocks here, here, here, and here. My best men, patrol cars, vans, and weapons."

"Very good. What about the coastline itself?"

"I've got a man on every dock and quay along the Lincolnshire coast and the Humber. If they try to steal a boat, I'll know about it."

"What about the open beaches?"

"That's another story. I don't have unlimited resources. I lost a lot of my good lads to the army, same as everybody else. I know these waters. I'm an amateur seaman myself. And I wouldn't want to head out to sea tonight in any boat I could launch from a beach."

"This weather may be the best friend we've got."

"Aye. One other thing, Major Vicary. Do we still need to pretend these are just a pair of ordinary criminals you're after?"

"Actually, Chief Superintendent, we do indeed."

The junction of the A16 and a smaller B-road lay just outside the town of Louth. Neumann had planned to leave the A16 at that point, take the B-road to the coast, turn onto another secondary road, and head north to Cleethorpes. There was just one problem. Half the police in Louth were standing in the junction. Neumann could see at least four men. As he approached, they shone their torches in his direction and waved for him to stop.

Catherine was awake now, startled. "What's going on?"

"End of the line, I'm afraid," Neumann said, bringing the van to a halt. "They've obviously been waiting for us. No talking our way out of this."

Catherine picked up her Mauser. "Who said anything about talking?"

One of the constables stepped forward, carrying a shotgun, and rapped on Neumann's window.

Neumann wound down the window and said, "Good evening. What's the problem?"

"Mind stepping out of the van, sir?"

"Actually, I do. It's late, I'm tired, the weather's dreadful, and I want to get where I'm going."

"And where would that be, sir?"

"Kingston," Neumann said, though he could see the constable was already doubting his story. Another constable appeared at Catherine's window. Two more took up positions behind the van.

The policeman pulled open Neumann's door, leveled the shotgun at his face, and said, "All right. Put your hands up where I can see them and get out of the van. Nice and slow."

Jenny Colville sat in the back of the darkened van, hands and feet bound, mouth gagged. Her wrists hurt. So did her neck and her back. She had been sitting on the floor of the van for how long? Two hours? Three hours? Maybe four? When the van slowed, she allowed herself a brief flash of hope. She thought, Maybe this will all be over soon and I can go back to Hampton Sands and Mary and Sean and Dad will be there and things will be like they used to be before he came and it will all turn out to be a bad dream and-she stopped herself. Better to be realistic. Better to think about what was really possible.

She watched them in the front seat. They had spoken softly in German for a long time, then the woman fell asleep, and now Neumann was shaking her and trying to wake her up. Ahead, through the windscreen, she saw light-beams of light-bouncing back and forth, like torches. She thought, Police officers would carry torches if they were blocking the road. Was it possible? Did they know that they were German spies and that she had been kidnapped? Were they looking for her?

The van stopped. She could see two policemen in front of the van and outside, near the back of the van, she could hear the footfalls and voices of at least two more. She heard the policeman tap on the glass. She saw Neumann wind down his window. She saw that he had a gun in his hand. Jenny looked at the woman. She had a gun in her hand too.

Then she remembered what happened in the barn. Two people got in their way-her father and Sean Dogherty-and they had killed them both. It was possible they had killed Mary too. They weren't going to surrender just because some country policemen told them to. They would kill the policemen too, just like they killed her father and Sean.

Jenny heard the door open, heard the police officer yelling at them to get out. She knew what was about to happen. Instead of getting out they would start shooting. Then the policemen would all be dead and Jenny would be alone with them again.

She had to warn them.

But how?

She couldn't speak because Neumann had gagged her mouth so tightly.

She could do only one thing.

She raised her legs and kicked the side of the van as hard as she could.

If Jenny Colville's action did not have its intended effect, it did grant at least one of the officers-the one standing nearest Catherine Blake's door-a more benevolent death. When he turned his head toward the sound, Catherine raised her Mauser and shot him. The Mauser's superb silencer damped the explosion of the round so that the gun emitted only a tense burst. The bullet smashed through the window, struck the constable at the hinge of his jaw, then ricocheted into the base of his brain. He collapsed onto the muddy apron of the road, dead.

The second to die was the constable at Neumann's door, though Neumann did not fire the shot that killed him. Neumann knocked the shotgun away with a sweep of his right hand; Catherine turned and fired through the open door. The bullet struck the constable in the center of the forehead and exited at the back of his skull. He fell back onto the roadway.

Neumann tumbled from the door and landed in the road. One of the officers at the rear of the van fired over his head, shattering the half-open window. Neumann quickly squeezed the trigger twice. The first shot struck the constable in the shoulder, spinning him around. The second pierced his heart.

Catherine stepped from the van, the gun in her outstretched hands aimed into the darkness. On the other side of the van, Neumann was doing the same thing, only he was still lying flat on his stomach. Both waited, making no sound, listening.

The fourth constable thought it best to flee for help. He turned and started running into the darkness. After a few steps he came into Neumann's range. Neumann took careful aim and fired twice. The running stopped, the shotgun clattered on the tarmac, and the last of the four men fell to the rainy roadway, dead.

Neumann collected the bodies and stacked them at the back of the van. Catherine opened the rear doors. Jenny, eyes wide with terror, raised her hands to cover her head. Catherine lifted the gun into the air and struck Jenny's face. A deep gash opened over her eye. Catherine said, "Unless you want to end up like them, don't ever try anything like that again."

Neumann lifted Jenny and laid her on the apron of the road. Then, together with Catherine, he placed the bodies of the dead constables in the back of the van. The idea had come to him immediately. The police officers had traveled to this spot in their own van; it was parked a few yards away on the side of the road. Neumann would hide the bodies and the stolen van out of sight in the trees and use the police van to drive to the coast. It might be hours before any other policeman came here and discovered the constables were missing. By then he and Catherine would be heading back to Germany aboard the U-boat.

Neumann carried Jenny and placed her in the back of the police van. Catherine climbed into the driver's seat and started the motor. Neumann walked back to the other van and got inside. The engine was running. He reversed and turned around, then sped down the road, Catherine following. He tried not to think about the four dead bodies lying just inches from him.

Two minutes later Neumann turned onto a small track leading off the road. He drove about two hundred yards, stopped, and shut down the motor. Then he climbed out and ran back to the road. Catherine had turned the van around and was sitting in the passenger seat when Neumann returned. He climbed in, slammed the door, and sped away.

They passed the spot where the roadblock had been and turned onto the smaller B-road. According to the map it was about ten miles to the coast road, then another twenty miles to Cleethorpes. Neumann opened the throttle and pushed the van hard. For the first time since spotting the MI5 men in London, he allowed himself to imagine they just might make it after all.

Alfred Vicary paced in his room at the RAF base outside Grimsby. Harry Dalton and Peter Jordan sat at the desk, smoking. Superintendent Lockwood sat next to them, arranging matches into geometric shapes.

Vicary said, "I don't like it. Someone should have spotted them by now."

Harry said, "All the major roads are sealed. They have to hit one of the roadblocks at some point."

"Maybe they're not coming this way after all. Maybe I've made a dreadful miscalculation. Maybe they went south from Hampton Sands. Maybe the signal to the U-boat was a ploy and they're heading to Ireland on a ferry."

"They're coming this way."

"Maybe they've gone to ground, called it off. Maybe they're holed up in another remote village, waiting for it all to blow over before they make their move."

"They've signaled the submarine. They have to go."

"They don't have to do anything. It's possible they've spotted the roadblocks and the extra police about and decided to wait. They can signal the submarine at the next opportunity and try again when things have quieted down."

"You're forgetting one thing. They don't have a radio."

"We think they don't have a radio. You took one from them, and Thomasson found a destroyed radio in Hampton Sands. But we don't know for certain they don't have a third."

"We don't know anything for certain, Alfred. We make educated guesses."

Vicary paced, looking at the telephone, thinking, Ring, dammit, ring!

Desperate to do something, he picked up the receiver and asked the operator to connect him to the Submarine Tracking Room in London. Arthur Braithwaite, when he finally came on the line, sounded like he was inside a torpedo tube.

Vicary asked, "Anything, Commander?"

"I've spoken with the Royal Navy and the local coastguard. The Royal Navy is moving a pair of corvettes into the area as we speak-numbers 745 and 128. They'll be off Spurn Head within the hour and will commence search operations immediately. The coastguard is handling things closer to shore. The RAF is putting up planes at first light."

"When is that?"

"Around seven a.m. Maybe a little later because of the dense cloud cover."

"That may be too late."

"It won't do them any good to go up before then. They need light to see. They'd be as good as blind if they went up now. There is some good news. We expect a break in the weather shortly before dawn. The cloud cover will remain, but the rain is expected to ease and the winds diminish. That will make it easier to conduct search operations."

"I'm not sure that's such good news after all. We were counting on the storm to bottle up the coast. And better weather will make it easier for the agents and the U-boat to operate as well."

"Point well taken."

"Instruct the Royal Navy and the RAF to conduct the search as discreetly as possible. I know it sounds far-fetched, but try to make it all look routine. And tell everyone to mind what they say on their radios. The Germans listen to us too. I'm sorry I can't be more forthcoming, Commander Braithwaite."

"I understand. I'll pass it up the line."

"Thank you."

"And try to relax, Major Vicary. If your spies try to reach that submarine tonight, we'll stop them."

Police constables Gardner and Sullivan pedaled side by side through the dark streets of Louth, Gardner big, buff, and middle-aged, Sullivan thin and fit and barely twenty years old. Chief Superintendent Lockwood had ordered them to ride to a roadblock just south of the village and relieve two of the constables there. Gardner complained as he cycled. "Why do London's criminals always manage to end up here in the middle of a rainstorm, would you tell me that?" Sullivan was thoroughly excited. This was his first big manhunt. It was also the first time he had carried a weapon while on duty-a thirty-year-old bolt-action rifle from the weapons room at the station was slung over his shoulder.

Five minutes later they arrived at the junction where the roadblock was supposed to be. The place was deserted. Gardner stood, legs astride the frame of his bike. Sullivan laid down his bike, broke out his torch, and shone it over the area. First he saw the tire marks, then the shattered glass.

Sullivan shouted, "Over here! Quick!"

Gardner climbed off his bike and pushed it over to where Sullivan was standing.

"Christ Almighty!"

"Look at the tracks. Two vehicles, the one they were driving and ours. When they turned around, the tires were muddied on the apron of the road. They've left us a nice set of tracks to follow."

"Aye. You see where they lead. I'll ride back to the station and alert Lockwood. And for heaven's sake, be careful."

Sullivan pedaled along the road, holding his torch in one hand, watching the tracks gradually fade away. One hundred yards after leaving the site of the roadblock, the trail was gone. Sullivan rode for another quarter mile, looking for any sign of the police van.

He rode a little farther and then spotted another set of tire tracks. These were different. The tracks became more clear and defined the farther he pedaled. The vehicle that made them had obviously come from the other direction.

He followed the tracks to their point of origin and found the small path leading into the trees. He turned his torch down the path and saw the pair of fresh tire tracks. He turned the beam horizontally down the tunnel of trees, but the light was not powerful enough to penetrate the darkness. He looked at the track-too rutted and muddy to handle his bike. He climbed off, leaned the bike against a tree, and started walking.

Two minutes later, he spotted the back of the van. He called out but there was no reply. He looked more closely. It was not the police vehicle; it had London plates and was a different model. Sullivan moved forward slowly. He approached the front of the van from the passenger side and shone his torch inside. The front seat was empty. He turned the beam toward the storage area at the back.

It was then he spotted the bodies.

Sullivan left the van in the trees and rode back to Louth, pedaling as fast as he could. He arrived at the police station and quickly raised Chief Superintendent Lockwood at the RAF base.

"All four of them are dead," he said, out of breath from the ride. "They're lying in the back of a van, but it's not theirs. The fugitives appear to have taken the police van. Based on the tracks on the road, I'd say they came back toward Louth."

Lockwood said, "Where are the bodies now?"

"I left them in the wood, sir."

"Go back and wait with them until help arrives."

"Yes, sir."

Lockwood rang off. "Four dead men. My God!"

"I'm sorry, Chief Superintendent. So much for my theories about them going to ground. They're obviously here and they'll do anything to escape, including murder four of your men in cold blood."

"We have another problem-they're driving a police vehicle. To get word to the officers manning the roadblocks is going to take time. Meanwhile, your spies are dangerously close to the coast." Lockwood walked to the map. "Louth is here, just to the south of us. They can now take any number of secondary roads to the sea."

"Redeploy your men. Throw everything between Louth and the coast."

"Indeed, but it's going to take time. And your spies have a jump on us."

"One other thing," Vicary said. "Bring those dead men back here as quietly as possible. When this is all over, it may be necessary to concoct another explanation for their deaths."

"What do I tell their families?" Lockwood snapped and stormed out.

Vicary picked up the telephone. The operator connected him with MI5 headquarters in London. A department operator answered. Vicary asked for Boothby and waited for him to come on the line.

"Hello, Sir Basil. I'm afraid we've got big trouble up here."

A stiff wind drove rain across the Cleethorpes waterfront as Neumann slowed and turned into a row of warehouses and garages. He stopped and shut down the motor. Dawn was not far off. In the faint light he could see a small quay, with several fishing boats tied up there and additional boats bobbing at their moorings in the black water. They had made excellent time up the coast. Twice they had approached roadblocks and twice they were waved through with no question, thanks to the van they were driving.

Jack Kincaid's flat was supposed to be over a garage. There was a wooden exterior staircase with a door at the top. Neumann climbed out and walked up the stairs, reflexively pulling out his Mauser as he approached the door. He rapped softly but there was no answer. He tried the latch; it was unlocked. He opened the door and walked inside.

He was immediately struck by the stench of the place: rotting rubbish, stale cigarettes, unwashed bodies, an overwhelming smell of alcohol. He tried the light switch but nothing happened. He removed his torch from his pocket and switched it on. The beam caught the figure of a large man sleeping on a bare mattress. Neumann picked his way across the filthy room and nudged the man with the toe of his boot.

"You Jack Kincaid?"

"Yeah. Who are you?"

"My name is James Porter. You're supposed to give me a lift in your boat."

"Oh, yes, yes." Kincaid tried to sit up but couldn't. Neumann shone the light directly into his face. He was at least sixty years old, and his craggy face showed the signs of heavy drinking.

"Have a little bit to drink last night, Jack?" Neumann asked.

"A little."

"Which boat is yours, Jack?"

"The Camilla."

"Where is she, exactly?"

"Down at the quay. You can't miss her."

Kincaid was passing out again.

"You won't mind if I just borrow her for a bit, do you, Jack?"

Kincaid didn't answer, just started snoring heavily.

"Thanks awfully, Jack."

Neumann went out and got back inside the van.

"Our captain is in no condition to sail. Drunk out of his mind."

"The boat?"

"The Camilla. He says it's right down there on the quay."

"There's something else down there."

"What's that?"

"You'll see in just a minute."

Neumann watched as a constable stepped into view.

"They must be watching the entire coast," Neumann said.

"It's a shame. Another needless casualty."

"Let's get it over with. I've killed more people tonight than I did in all the time I was in the Fallschirmjager."

"Why do you think Vogel sent you here?"

Neumann didn't respond. "What about Jenny?"

"She comes with us."

"I want to leave her here. She's no use to us now."

"I disagree. If they find her she can tell them a great deal. And besides, if they know we have a hostage on board they'll think twice about what steps they take to stop us."

"If you're suggesting they'll hesitate to fire on us because we have a British civilian on board, you're mistaken. There's too much at stake for that. They'll kill us all if need be."

"So be it, then. She comes with us. When we get to the submarine, we'll leave her behind on the boat. The British will rescue her and she won't be harmed."

Neumann understood that to continue arguing would be a waste of time. Catherine turned around and, in English, said to Jenny, "No more heroics. If you make one move, I'll shoot you in the face."

Neumann shook his head. He started the motor, dropped the van into gear, and drove down to the quay.

The constable at quayside heard the sound of a motor, stopped pacing, and looked up. He spotted the police van driving toward him. Odd, he thought, since his relief was not due to arrive until eight o'clock. He watched the van draw to a halt and saw two people getting out. He struggled to make them out in the darkness, but after a few seconds he realized they were not police officers. It was a man and a woman, very probably the fugitives!

He then had a terrible sinking feeling. He was armed with only a prewar revolver that jammed frequently. The woman was walking toward him. Her arm swung up and there was a flash but almost no sound, just a muffled thump. He felt the bullet tear through his chest, was aware of losing his balance.

His last sight was the dirty water of the Humber rushing toward him.

Ian McMann was a fisherman who believed the pure Celtic blood flowing through his veins gave him powers mere mortals did not possess. During his sixty years living near the North Sea, he claimed to have heard distress calls before they went out. He claimed to see the ghosts of men lost at sea floating over the quays and the harbors. He claimed to know that some vessels were haunted and would never go near them. Everyone in Cleethorpes accepted all this as truth but in private suggested Ian McMann had spent far too many nights at sea.

McMann had risen as usual at five o'clock, even though the dismal forecast promised conditions that would keep all boats off the water that day. He was eating a breakfast of porridge at the kitchen table when he heard a noise outside on the quay.

The smack of the rain made it difficult to detect any other sound, but McMann could have sworn he heard someone or something falling into the water. He knew there was a constable outside-he had taken him tea and a wedge of cake before turning in last night-and he knew why he was there. The police were looking for a pair of murder suspects from London. McMann guessed these were not ordinary murder suspects. He had lived in Cleethorpes for twenty years, and never had he heard of the local police guarding the waterfront.

The kitchen window of McMann's cottage provided an excellent view of the quay and the mouth of the Humber beyond. McMann rose, parted the curtains, and looked out. There was no sign of the constable. McMann threw on an oilskin and sou'wester, took his torch from the table beside the door, and went out.

He switched on his torch and started walking. After a few steps he heard the sound of a boat's diesel motor firing and sputtering into life. He walked faster until he could see which boat it was: the Camilla, Jack Kincaid's boat.

McMann thought, Is he daft heading out in a storm like this?›

He started running, yelling. "Jack, Jack! Stop! Where do you think you're going?"

Then he realized the man untying the Camilla from the quay and jumping onto the aft deck was not Jack Kincaid. Someone was stealing his boat. He looked around for the constable, but he was gone. The man stepped into the wheelhouse and opened the throttle, and the Camilla nosed away from the quay.

McMann ran forward and shouted, "Come back, you!"

Then a second person stepped from the wheelhouse. McMann saw a muzzle flash but heard no sound. He felt the round whiz past his head, dangerously close. He hit the ground behind a pair of empty drums. Two more shots struck the quay; then the gunfire ended.

He stood up and saw the stern of the Camilla, running out to sea.

Only then did McMann see something floating in the oily water off the quay.

"I think you need to hear this for yourself, Major Vicary."

Vicary took the telephone receiver Lockwood handed to him. Ian McMann was on the line from Cleethorpes.

Lockwood said, "Start from the beginning, Ian."

"Two people just stole Jack Kincaid's fishing boat and are making for open water."

Vicary snapped, "My God! Where are you calling from?"

"Cleethorpes."

Vicary squinted to see the map. "Cleethorpes? Didn't we have a man there?"

"You did," McMann said. "He's floating in the water right now with a bullet through his heart."

Vicary swore softly, then said, "How many were there?"

"At least two that I saw."

"A man and a woman?"

"Too far away and too dark. Besides, when they started shooting at me I hit the dirt."

"You didn't see a young girl with them?"

"No."

Vicary covered the mouthpiece with the palm of his hand. "Maybe she's still in that van. Get a man out there as quickly as you can."

Lockwood nodded.

Vicary removed his hand and said, "Tell me about the boat they stole."

"The Camilla, a fishing vessel. The boat's in bad shape. I wouldn't want to be aboard the Camilla heading out in a blow like this."

"One other question. Does the Camilla have a radio?"

"No, not that I know of."

Vicary thought, Thank God. He said, "Thank you for your help."

Vicary rang off. Lockwood was standing before the map. "Well, the good news is we know exactly where they are now. They have to slip through the mouth of the Humber before they can reach open water. That's only about a mile from the quay. There's no way we can stop them from doing that. But get those Royal Navy corvettes into position off Spurn Head, and they'll never make it through. That fishing boat they're in will be no match for them."

"I'd feel better if we had our own boat in the water."

"Actually, that can be arranged."

"Really?"

"The Lincolnshire County Constabulary keeps a small police boat on the river-the Rebecca. She's in Grimsby now. She's not built for the open sea, but she'll do in a pinch. She's also quite a bit faster than that old fishing boat. If we get under way immediately, we should be able to overtake them before too long."

"Does the Rebecca have a radio?"

"Aye. We'll be able to talk to you right here."

"How about weapons?"

"I can pick up a couple of old rifles from the lockup in the Grimsby police station. They'll do the trick."

"Now all you need is a crew. Take my men with you. I'll stay here so I can remain in contact with London. The last thing you need is me on board a boat in weather like this."

Lockwood managed a smile, clapped Vicary on the back, and went out. Clive Roach, Harry Dalton, and Peter Jordan followed him. Vicary picked up the telephone to break the news to Boothby in London.

Neumann stayed between the channel markers as the Camilla sliced through the choppy waters of the mouth of the Humber. She was about forty feet, broad in the beam and desperately in need of paint. There was a small cabin aft, where Neumann had left Jenny. Catherine stood next to him in the wheelhouse. The sky was beginning to lighten slightly in the east. Rain drummed against the window. Off the port side he could see waves breaking over Spurn Head. Spurn Light was blacked out. A compass was set in the dash next to the wheel. Neumann put the boat on a heading due east, opened the throttle full, and headed out to sea.

60

U-509 hovered just below the surface. It was five thirty a.m. Kapitanleutnant Max Hoffman stood in the control room, peering though the periscope, drinking coffee. His eyes hurt from spending the entire night staring at the black seas. His head ached. He badly needed a few hours of sleep.

His first officer came to the bridge. "The window closes in thirty minutes, Herr Kaleu."

"I am aware of the time, Number One."

"We have had no further communication from the Abwehr agents, Herr Kaleu. I think we must consider the possibility that they have been captured or killed."

"I have considered that possibility, Number One."

"It will be light soon, Herr Kaleu."

"Yes. It is a phenomenon that takes place at this time every day. Even in Britain, Number One."

"My point is that it will not be safe for us to remain so close to the English coast for much longer. The depth here is not great enough for us to escape the British wabos, " the first officer said, using the slang common among German submariners for depth charges.

"I am perfectly aware of the dangers involved in the situation, Number One. But we are going to remain here at the rendezvous point until the window is closed. And then, if I believe it is still safe, we will stay a little longer."

"But, Herr Kaleu-"

"They have sent us a proper radio signal alerting us that they are coming. We must assume they are traveling in a stolen vessel, probably barely seaworthy, and we must also assume they are exhausted or even hurt. We will stay here until they arrive or I am convinced beyond doubt that they are not coming. Is that clear?"

"Yes, Herr Kaleu."

The first officer walked away. Hoffman thought, What a pain in the ass.

The Rebecca was about thirty feet in length with a shallow draft, an inboard motor, and a small open wheelhouse amidships barely big enough for two men to stand shoulder to shoulder. Lockwood had telephoned ahead, and the Rebecca's engine was idling by the time they arrived.

The four men clambered on board: Lockwood, Harry, Jordan, and Roach. A dock boy untied the last line, and Lockwood guided the craft into the Channel.

He opened the throttle full. The engine note rose; the slender prow lifted out of the water and sliced through the wind-driven chop. Night was draining from the eastern sky. The silhouette of Spurn Light was visible off the port side. The sea was empty before them.

Harry leaned down, snatched the handset of the radio, and raised Vicary in Grimsby to bring him up-to-date.

Five miles due east of the Rebecca, corvette Number 745 was maneuvering on a tedious crisscross pattern through rough seas. The captain and the first officer stood on the bridge, glasses raised to their eyes, peering into the curtain of rain. It was useless. Along with the dark and the rain, a fog had rolled in and reduced visibility even further. In conditions like these they could pass within a hundred yards of a U-boat and never see it. The captain moved to the chart table, where the navigator was plotting the next course change. On the captain's order, the corvette made a ninety-degree starboard turn and pushed farther out to sea. Then he instructed the radio operator to inform the Submarine Tracking Room of their new heading.

In London, Arthur Braithwaite stood over the map table, leaning heavily on his cane. He had made certain that all Royal Navy and RAF updates crossed his desk as soon as they came in. He knew the odds of finding a U-boat in weather and light conditions like these were remote, even if the craft was on the surface. If the submarine was lurking just below the surface, it would be almost impossible.

His aide handed him a signal flimsy. Corvette Number 745 had just changed course and was on an easterly heading. A second corvette, Number 128, was two miles away and moving south. Braithwaite leaned down over the table, closed his eyes, and tried to picture the search in his mind. He thought, Damn you, Max Hoffman! Where the hell are you?

The Camilla, though Horst Neumann did not realize it, was precisely seven miles due east of Spurn Head. Conditions seemed to be worsening by the minute. Rain fell in a blinding curtain and hammered against the window of the wheelhouse, obscuring the view. The wind and the current, both beating down from the north, kept nudging the boat off course. Neumann, using the dashboard compass, struggled to keep them on an easterly heading.

The biggest problem was the sea. The past half hour had been a relentless repetition of the same sickening cycle. The boat would climb one roller, teeter for an instant on the top, then plunge down into the next trough. At the bottom it always seemed as if the vessel were about to be swallowed by a gray-green canyon of seawater. The decks were constantly awash. Neumann could no longer feel his feet. He looked down for the first time and noticed he was standing in several inches of icy water.

Still, miraculously, he thought they might actually make it. The boat seemed to be absorbing all the punishment the sea could dish out. It was five thirty a.m.-they still had thirty minutes left before the window closed and the U-boat turned away. He had been able to keep the boat on a constant heading and felt confident they were approaching the right spot. And there was no sign of the opposition.

There was just one problem: they had no radio. They had lost Catherine's in London, and they had lost the second to Martin Colville's shotgun blast in Hampton Sands. Neumann had hoped the boat would have a radio, but it didn't. Which left them no means of signaling the U-boat.

Neumann had only one option: to switch on the boat's running lights.

It was a gamble but a necessary one. The only way the U-boat would know they were at the rendezvous position was if it could see them. And the only way the Camilla could be spotted in conditions like these was to be illuminated. But if the U-boat could see them, so could any British warships or coastguard vessels in the vicinity.

Neumann reckoned he was a couple of miles from the rendezvous point. He pressed on for five more minutes, then reached down and threw a switch, and the Camilla came alive with light.

Jenny Colville leaned over the bucket and threw up in it for the third time. She wondered how there was anything left to come out of her stomach. She tried to remember the last time she'd had food. She had not eaten dinner last night because she was angry with her father, and she had not eaten any lunch either. Breakfast, maybe, and that was nothing more than a biscuit and tea.

Her stomach convulsed again, but this time nothing came out. She had lived next to the sea her entire life but she had been on a boat just once-a day sail around the Wash with the father of a friend from school-and never had she experienced anything like this.

She was absolutely paralyzed with seasickness. She wanted to die. She was desperate for fresh air. She was helpless against the constant pitching and rocking of the vessel. Her arms and legs were bruised from the battering. And then there was the noise-the constant deafening rumble and clatter of the boat's engine.

It felt as if it were just beneath her.

She wanted nothing more in the world than to get off the boat and be back on land. She told herself over and over again that if she survived this night she would never get on a boat again, ever. And then she thought, What happens when they get where they're going? What are they going to do with me? Surely they weren't going to take this boat all the way to Germany. They would probably meet another boat. Then what happens? Would they take her with them again or leave her on the boat alone? If they left her alone she might never be found. She could die out on the North Sea alone in a storm like this.

The boat skidded down the slope of another enormous wave. Jenny was thrown forward in the cabin, striking her head.

There were two portholes on either side of the cabin. With her bound hands, she rubbed away the condensation in the starboard porthole and looked out. The sea was terrifying, rolling green mountains of seawater.

There was something else. The sea boiled and something dark and shiny punctured the surface from below. Then the sea was in turmoil and a giant gray thing like a sea monster in a child's tale floated to the surface, seawater slipping from its skin.

Kapitanleutnant Max Hoffman, tired of holding at the ten-mile mark, had decided to take a chance and creep a mile or two closer to shore. He had waited at the eight-mile mark, peering into the gloom, when he suddenly spotted the running lights of a small fishing vessel. Hoffman shouted an order to surface and two minutes later he was standing on the bridge in the driving rain, breathing the cold clean air, Zeiss glasses pressed to his eyes.

Neumann thought it might be a hallucination at first. The glimpse had been brief-just an instant before the boat plunged downward into yet another trough of seawater and everything was obliterated once again.

The prow dug deeply into the sea, like a shovel into dirt, and for a few seconds the entire foredeck was swamped. But somehow the boat climbed out of the trough and scaled the next peak. At the top of the next roller, a squall of windblown rain obscured all view.

The boat fell, then rose again. Then, as the Camilla teetered atop a mountain of seawater, Hurst Neumann spotted the unmistakable silhouette of a German U-boat.

It was Peter Jordan, on the pitching aft deck of the Rebecca, who spotted the U-boat first. Lockwood saw it a few seconds later and then spotted the running lights of the Camilla, about four hundred yards off the U-boat's starboard side and closing quickly. Lockwood brought the Rebecca hard to port, set it on a collision course with the Camilla, and picked up the handset to raise Alfred Vicary.

Vicary snatched up the receiver of the open phone line to the Submarine Tracking Room.

"Commander Braithwaite, are you there?"

"Yes. I'm here, and I could hear the entire thing over the line."

"Well?"

"I'm afraid we've got a serious problem. Corvette 745 is a mile due south of the U-boat's position. I've radioed the captain and he's making for the scene now. But if the Camilla is really only four hundred yards away from the submarine, they're going to get there first."

"Dammit!"

"You do have one other asset, Mr. Vicary-the Rebecca. I suggest you use it. Your men have got to do something to slow that boat down until the corvette can intervene."

Vicary set down the telephone and picked up the handset of the radio.

"Superintendent Lockwood, this is Grimsby, over."

"Lockwood here, over."

"Superintendent, listen carefully. Help is on the way, but in the meantime I want you to ram that fishing boat."

All of them heard it-Lockwood, Harry, Roach, and Jordan-for they were all pressed around the cabin, sheltering from the weather.

Lockwood, shouting above the wind and the roar of the Rebecca's engines, said, "Is he out of his mind?"

"No," Harry said, "just desperate. Can you get there in time?"

"Sure-but we'll be staring right down the barrels of that U-boat's deck guns."

They all looked at one another, saying nothing. Finally, Lockwood said, "There are life jackets in that locker behind you. And bring out the rifles. I have a feeling we may need them."

Lockwood looked back at the sea and found the Camilla. He made a minor course correction and opened the throttle as far as it would go.

Max Hoffman, standing on the bridge of U-509, spotted the Rebecca approaching fast.

"We've got company, Number One. Civilian craft, three or four men on board."

"I see them, Herr Kaleu."

"Judging from their speed and heading, I'd say they're the opposition."

"They appear to be unarmed, Herr Kaleu."

"Yes. Give them a warning shot from the foredeck gun. Shoot across their bow. I don't want needless bloodshed. If they persist, fire directly on the craft. But at the waterline, Number One, not the cabin."

"Yes, Herr Kaleu," the first officer snapped. Hoffman heard shouted orders, and within thirty seconds the first shot from U-509's forward boots-kanone deck gun was arching across the prow of the Rebecca.

Though U-boats rarely engaged in surface artillery battles, the 10.5-centimeter shell of the forward deck gun was capable of inflicting lethal damage, even on large vessels. The first shot sailed well off the Rebecca's prow. The second, fired ten seconds later, came much closer.

Lockwood turned to Harry and shouted, "I'd say that's the last warning we get. The next one is going to blow us right out of the water. It's your call, but we're no help to anyone if we're dead."

Harry shouted, "Turn away!"

Lockwood turned the Rebecca hard to port and circled around. Harry looked back toward the U-boat. The Camilla was two hundred yards away and closing, and there wasn't a damn thing they could do about it. He thought, Goddammit! Where's that corvette?

Then he picked up the handset and told Vicary there was nothing they could do to stop them.

Jenny heard the boom of the U-boat's deck gun and saw the shell flash along the waterline toward a second boat. She thought, Thank God! I'm not alone after all. But the U-boat fired again, and a few seconds later she saw the little boat turn away and her spirits sank.

Then she steeled herself and thought, They're German agents. They've killed my father and six other people tonight and they're about to get away with it. I have to do something to stop them.

But what could she do? She was alone, and her hands and feet were tied. She considered trying to free herself, sneak up on deck, and hit them with something. But if they saw her they wouldn't hesitate to kill her. Perhaps she could start a fire, but then she would be trapped with the smoke and the flames and she would be the only one to die…

Think, Jenny! Think!

It was hard to think with the constant roar of the boat's motor. It was driving her crazy.

And then she thought, Yes, that's it!

If she could somehow disable the engine-even just for a moment-it might help. If there was one boat chasing them, there might be others-perhaps bigger boats that could shoot back at the German submarine.

The engine sounded as if it was just below her, the noise was so loud. She struggled to her feet and pushed away the coiled lines and tarpaulins she had been sitting on. And there it was-a door, built into the floor of the hold. She managed to open it and was immediately overwhelmed by the thunderous noise and heat of the Camilla's engine.

She looked at it. Jenny knew nothing of engines. Once, Sean tried to explain to her the repairs he was making on his rattletrap old van. There was always something going wrong with the blessed thing, but what was it then? Something to do with the fuel lines and the fuel pump. Surely this engine was different from the engine in Sean's van. It was a diesel engine, for one thing; Sean's van ran on petrol. But she knew one thing: no matter what kind of engine it was, it needed fuel to run. Cut the fuel supply and it would die.

But how? She looked closely at the motor. Several black metal lines ran across the top and converged at a single point on the side of the motor. Could those be the fuel lines? Was the point where they met the fuel pump?

She looked around. She needed tools. Sailors always carry tools with them. After all, what happens if the engine breaks down at sea? She spotted a metal toolbox at the end of the cabin and crawled forward. She looked out the porthole. The U-boat filled her field of vision. They were very close now. She saw the other boat. It had moved off. She opened the box and found it filled with greasy, filthy tools.

She removed two, a pair of bladed pliers and a large hammer.

She took the pliers in her hands, turned the nose toward her wrists, and started hacking through the rope. It took about a minute to free her hands. Then she used the pliers to cut away the rope around her ankles.

She crawled back to the motor.

She put the pliers on the floor and hid them beneath a coiled line. Then she reached down, picked up the hammer, and smashed the first of the fuel lines. It severed, leaking diesel. Quickly, she brought down the hammer several more times until the last fuel line was ruptured.

The engine died.

With the noise gone, Jenny could finally hear the roar of the sea and the wind. She closed the door over the crippled engine and sat down. The hammer was next to her right hand.

She knew that Neumann or the woman would come down in a matter of seconds to investigate. And when they did they would realize that Jenny had sabotaged the motor.

The door flew open and Neumann stormed down the companionway. His face was wild, the way it had been that morning when she saw him racing along the beach. He looked at Jenny and noticed her hands and feet were no longer tied. He looked down and noticed the loose gear had been cleared away.

He shouted, "Jenny, what have you done?"

The boat, now powerless, skidded helplessly down the side of a wave.

Neumann leaned down and opened the hatch.

Jenny grabbed the hammer and rose to her knees. She raised it high into the air and hit him in the back of the head as hard as she could. Neumann fell to the floor, blood pouring from his split scalp.

Jenny turned away and threw up.

Kapitanleutnant Max Hoffman saw the Camilla begin to wobble helplessly in the rough seas and realized at once that it had lost power. He knew he had to act quickly. With no propulsion, the boat would founder. It might even turn turtle. If the agents were thrown into the icy North Sea, they would be dead in a matter of minutes.

"Number One! Take us forward toward the craft and prepare to board."

"Yes, Herr Kaleu!"

Hoffman felt the throb of the U-boat's diesel screws turning beneath his feet as the submarine crept slowly forward.

Jenny was afraid she had killed him. He lay very still for a moment; then he stirred and somehow forced himself to stand. He was very unsteady. She could easily have hit him with the hammer again, but she couldn't summon the courage or the will to do it. He was helpless, holding on to the side of the cabin. Blood poured from the wound, into his face, down his neck. He reached up and wiped the blood out of his eyes. He said, "Stay down here. If you come up onto the deck, she'll kill you. Do as I say, Jenny."

Neumann struggled up the companionway. Catherine looked at him, alarm on her face.

"I fell and hit my head when the boat pitched. The motor's dead."

His torch was next to the wheel. He picked it up and walked out onto the deck. He aimed the light at the conning tower of the U-boat and flashed a distress signal. The submarine was coming toward them with agonizing slowness. He turned and waved at Catherine to join him on the foredeck. The rain washed the blood off his face. He looked up, feeling it beat down on him, and waved his arms at the U-boat.

Catherine joined him on the deck. She couldn't quite believe it. The previous afternoon they were sitting in a Mayfair cafe surrounded by MI5 men and now, miraculously, they were about to step onto the deck of a U-boat and sail away. Six long, painfully lonely years-over at last. She never believed she would see this day. Never really dared imagine it. The emotion of the moment overtook her. She let out a joyous, childlike scream and, like Neumann, turned her face to the rain, waving her arms at the U-boat.

The steel nose of the submarine nudged against the prow of the Camilla. A boarding party scrambled down the U-boat's deck toward them. She put her arms around Neumann and held him very tightly.

"We did it," she said. "We made it. We're going home."

Harry Dalton, standing in the wheelhouse of the Rebecca, described the scene to Vicary in Grimsby. Vicary, in turn, described it to Arthur Braithwaite in the Submarine Tracking Room.

"Dammit, Commander! Where's that corvette?"

"She's right there. She just can't see because of the weather."

"Well, tell her captain to do something! My men are powerless to stop them."

"What should I instruct the captain to do?"

"Fire on the boat and kill those spies."

"Major Vicary, may I remind you there is an innocent girl on board."

"God help me for saying this, but I'm afraid we can't be concerned about her at a time like this, Commander Braithwaite. Order the captain of that corvette to hit the Camilla with everything he has."

"Understood."

Vicary set down the telephone, thinking, God, but I've become a perfect bastard.

The wind tore a momentary hole through the curtain of rain and fog. The captain of corvette 745, standing on the bridge, spotted U-509 and the Camilla one hundred and fifty yards off his bow. Through his glasses he could see two people standing on the foredeck of the Camilla and a rescue party on the deck of the German submarine. He immediately gave the order to fire. Seconds later the corvette's machine guns opened up.

Neumann heard the shots. The first rounds sailed overhead. The second burst clattered against the side of the U-boat. The rescue party fell flat on the deck to avoid the fire as the rounds moved from the U-boat to the Camilla. There was nowhere on the foredeck of the fishing boat to take cover. The gunfire found Catherine. Her body was instantly shredded, her head exploding in a flash of blood and brain.

Neumann scrambled forward and tried to reach the U-boat. The first round that hit him cut off his leg at the knee. He screamed and crawled forward. A second round hit, severing his spine. He felt nothing. The last shot hit him in the head, and there was darkness.

Max Hoffman, watching from the conning tower, ordered his first officer to engage the diesel engines full and dive as quickly as possible. Within a matter of seconds, U-509 was racing away from the scene. Two minutes later it submerged beneath the surface of the North Sea and was gone.

The Camilla, alone on the sea, her decks awash with blood, foundered.

The mood aboard the Rebecca was euphoric. The four men embraced as they watched the U-boat turn and steam away. Harry Dalton raised Vicary and told him the news. Vicary made two calls, the first to the Submarine Tracking Room to thank Arthur Braithwaite, the second to Sir Basil Boothby to tell him that it was finally over.

Jenny Colville felt the Camilla shudder. She had fallen flat on her stomach and covered her head with her hands. The shooting stopped as suddenly as it started. She was too terrified to move. The boat pitched about wildly. She guessed it had something to do with the dead motor. With no engine to push the boat forward, it was defenseless against the onslaught of the sea. She had to get on her feet and get outside and signal the other boats that she was there and she was alive.

She willed herself to stand, was immediately knocked down by the bucking of the boat, then stood again. Climbing the companionway was nearly impossible. Finally, she reached the deck. The wind was tremendous. The rain slashed sideways. The boat seemed to be going several directions at once: up and down, back and forth, and rolling from side to side. Standing was impossible. She looked toward the prow and saw the bodies. They hadn't just been shot to death. They had been mangled, torn to bits, by the gunfire. The decks ran pink with all the blood. Jenny retched and looked away. She saw the U-boat, diving in the distance, disappearing below the surface of the sea. On the other side of the boat she saw a warship, gray, not too large, coming toward her. A second boat-the one she had seen through the porthole earlier-was approaching fast.

She waved and yelled and started to cry. She wanted to tell them that she had done it. She was the one who disabled the motor so the boat stopped and the spies couldn't make it to the U-boat. She was filled with an enormous, fierce pride.

The Camilla rose on a gigantic roller. As the wave passed beneath the boat, it pitched wildly to the port side. Then it fell downward into the trough and, at the same time, righted itself and rolled over on its starboard side. Jenny was unable to keep her grip on the top of the companionway. She was thrown across the deck and into the sea.

The cold was like nothing she had ever felt: shocking, numbing, paralyzing cold. She fought her way to the surface and tried to gasp for air but she swallowed a mouthful of seawater instead. She sank below the surface, gagging, choking, taking more water into her stomach and her lungs. She kicked to the surface and was able to take a small breath before the sea pulled her down again. Then she was falling, sinking slowly, pleasantly, effortlessly. She was no longer cold. She felt nothing, saw nothing. Only an impenetrable darkness.

The Rebecca arrived first, Lockwood and Roach in the wheelhouse, Harry and Peter Jordan on the foredeck. Harry tied a line to the life ring, tied off the other end in a cleat on the prow, and threw the ring overboard. They had seen Jenny come up for air a second time and disappear below the surface. Now there was nothing, no sign of her at all. Lockwood brought the Rebecca in hard and straight; then, a few yards from the Camilla, he reversed the engine, bringing the boat to a shuddering halt.

Jordan leaned over the prow, looking for any sign of the girl. Then he stood and, with no warning, dived into the water. Harry shouted back to Lockwood, "Jordan's in the water! Don't get any closer!"

Jordan surfaced and removed his life vest. Harry screamed, "What are you doing?"

"I can't get deep enough with this damned thing on!"

Jordan filled his lungs with air and was gone for what seemed to Harry like a minute. The sea was beating against the port side of the Camilla, forcing it to roll from side to side and driving it toward the Rebecca. Harry turned over his shoulder and waved his arms at Lockwood in the wheelhouse.

"Back off a few feet! The Camilla's right on top of us!"

Jordan finally surfaced, Jenny in his arms. She was unconscious, her head to one side. Jordan untied the line from the life ring and tied it around Jenny beneath her arms. He gave Harry a thumbs-up sign, and Harry pulled her through the water toward the Rebecca. Clive Roach helped Harry lift her onto the deck.

Jordan was furiously treading water, waves washing over his face, and he looked exhausted from the cold. Harry quickly untied the line from Jenny and threw it overboard toward him-just as the Camilla finally capsized and dragged Peter Jordan under the sea.