"I'm glad I didn't have to train him."
"He learned quickly, I'll give him that "Good pupil?"
"The best. He worked at it twenty-four hours a day, then when he'd
mastered it, he wouldn't give me a good morning. It takes him all his
time to remember to salute Canaris."
"Ach du meine Scheisse."
"Oh, yes. Didn't you know he always signs off "Regards to Willi".
That's how much he cares about rank."
"No. Regards to Willi? Ach du meine Scheisse."
They finished their cigarettes, dropped them on the floor, and trod
them out. Then the older man picked up the stubs and pocketed them,
because smoking was not really permitted in the dugout. The radios
were still quiet.
"Yes, he won't use his code name," the older man went on.
"Von Braun gave it to him, and he's never liked it. He's never liked
Von Braun either. Do you remember the time no, it was before you
joined us Braun told Nadel to go to the airfield in Farnborough, Kent.
The message came back, quick as a flash: "There is no airfield at
Farnborough, Kent. There is one at Farnborough, Hampshire. Fortunately
the Luftwaffe's geography is better than yours, you cunt." Just like
that."
"I suppose it's understandable. When we make mistakes we put their
lives at risk."
The older man frowned. He was the one who delivered such judgements,
and he did not like his audience to weigh in with opinions of its
own.
"Perhaps," he said grudgingly.
The youngster reverted to his original wide-eyed role.
"Why doesn't he like his code name?"
"He says it has a meaning, and a code word with a meaning can give a
man away. Von Braun wouldn't listen."
"A meaning? The Needle? What does it mean?"
But at that moment the old-timer's radio chirped, and he returned
quickly to his station; so the youngster never did find out.
PART TWO
SEVEN
The message annoyed Faber, because it forced him to face issues which
he had been avoiding.
Hamburg had made damn sure the message reached him. He had given his
call-sign, and instead of the usual "Acknowledge proceed' they had sent
back "Make rendezvous one'.
He acknowledged the order, transmitted his report, and packed the
wireless set back into its suitcase. Then he wheeled his bicycle out
of Erith Marshes his cover was that of a bird-watcher and he got on the
road to Blackheath. As he cycled back to his cramped two-room flatlet,
he wondered whether to obey the order.
He had two reasons for disobedience: one professional, one personal.
The professional reason was that 'rendezvous one' was an old code, set
up by Canaris back in 1937. It meant he was to go to the doorway of a
certain shop between Leicester Square and Piccadilly Circus to meet
another agent. The agents would recognize each other by the fact that
they both carried a Bible. Then there was a patter:
What is today's chapter?"
"One Kings thirteen."
Then, if they were certain they were not being followed, they would
agree that the chapter was 'most inspiring'. Otherwise one would say:
"I'm afraid I haven't read it yet."
The shop doorway might not be there any more, but it was not that which
troubled Faber. He thought Canaris had probably given the code to most
of the bumbling amateurs who had crossed the Channel in 1940 and landed
in the arms of MI5. Faber knew they had been caught because the
hangings had been publicized, no doubt to reassure the public that
something was being done about Fifth Columnists. They would certainly
have given away secrets before they died, so the British now probably
knew the old rendezvous code. Ifc t
T G
hi to si si Tl st P it pat they had picked up the message from Hamburg,
that shop doorway must by now be swarming with well-spoken young
Englishmen carrying Bibles and practising saying "Most inspiring' in a
German accent.
The Abwehr had thrown professionalism to the wind, back in those heady
days when the invasion seemed so close. Faber had not trusted Hamburg
since. He would not tell them where he lived, he refused to
communicate with their other agents in Britain, he varied the frequency
he used for transmission without caring whether he trod all over
someone else's signal.
If he had always obeyed his masters, he would not have survived so
long.
At Woolwich Faber was joined by a mass of other cyclists, many of them
women, as the workers came streaming out of the munitions factory at
the end of the day shift. Their cheerful weariness reminded Faber of
his personal reason for disobedience : he thought his side was losing
the war.
They certainly were not winning. The Russians and the Americans had
joined in, Africa was lost, the Italians had collapsed; the Allies must
invade France this year, 1944.
Faber did not want to risk his life to no purpose.
He arrived home and put his bicycle away. While he was washing his
face it dawned on him that, against all logic, he wanted to make the
rendezvous.
It was a foolish risk, taken in a lost cause, but he was itching to get
to it. And the simple reason was that he was unspeakably bored. The
routine transmissions, the bird-watching, the bicycle, the
boarding-house teas: it was four years since he had experienced
anything remotely like action. He seemed to be in no danger
whatsoever, and that made him jumpy, because he imagined invisible
perils. He was happiest when every so often he could identify a threat
and take steps to neutralize it.
Yes, he would make the rendezvous. But not in the way they expected.
There were still crowds in the West End of London, despite the war;
Faber wondered whether it was the same in Berlin.
He bought a Bible at Hatchard's bookshop in Piccadilly, and stuffed it
into his inside coat pocket, out of sight. It was a mild, damp day,
with intermittent drizzle, and Faber was carrying an umbrella.
This rendezvous was timed for either between nine and ten o'clock in
the morning or between five and six in the afternoon, and the
arrangement was that one went there every day until the other party
turned up. If no contact was made for five successive days one went
there on alternate days for a fortnight. After that one gave up.
Faber got to Leicester Square at ten past nine. The contact was there,
in the tobacconist's doorway, with a black-bound Bible under his arm,
pretending to shelter from the rain. Faber spotted him out of the
corner of his eye and hurried past, head down. The man was youngish,
with a blond moustache and a well-fed look. He wore a black double-v
breasted shower proof coat, and he was reading the Daily Express and
chewing gum. He was not familiar.
When Faber walked by the second time on the opposite side of the
street, he spotted the tail. A short, stocky man wearing the trench
coat and trilby hat beloved of English plain-clothes policemen was
standing just inside the foyer of an
office building, looking through
the glass doors across the street to the spy in the doorway.
There were two possibilities. If the agent did not know he had been
rumbled, Faber had only to get him away from the rendezvous and lose
the tail. However, the alternative was that the agent had been
captured and the man in the doorway was a substitute, in which case
neither he nor the tail must be allowed to see Faber's face.
Faber assumed the worst, then thought of a way to deal with it.
There was a telephone kiosk in the Square. Faber went inside and
memorized the number. Then he found I Kings 13 in the Bible, tore out
the page, and scribbled in the margin : "Go to the phone box in the
Square."
He walked around the back streets behind the National Gallery until he
found a small boy, aged about ten or eleven, sitting on a doorstep
throwing stones at puddles.
It if Faber said: "Do you know the tobacconist in the Square?"
The boy said: "Yerst."
"Do you like chewing-gum?"
"Yerst."
Faber gave him the page torn from the Bible.
"There's a man in the doorway of the tobacconist's. If you give him
this he'll give you some gum."
"All right," the boy said. He stood up.
"Is this geezer a Yank?"
Faber said: "Yerst."
The boy ran off. Faber followed him. As the boy approached the agent,
Faber ducked into the doorway of the building opposite. The tail was
still there, peering through the glass. Faber stood just outside the
door, blocking the tail's view of the scene across the street, and
opened his umbrella. He pretended to be struggling with it. He saw
the agent give something to the boy and walk off. He ended his charade
with the umbrella, and walked in the direction opposite to the way the
agent had gone. He looked back over his shoulder to see the tail run
into the street, looking for the vanished agent.
Faber stopped at the nearest call box and dialled the number of the
kiosk in the Square. It took a few minutes to get through. At last a
deep voice said: "Hello?"
Faber said: "What is today's chapter?"
"One Kings thirteen."
"Most inspiring."
"Yes, isn't it."
The fool has no idea of the trouble he's in, Faber thought. Aloud he
said: "Well?"
"I must see you."
"That is impossible."
"But I must!" There was a note in the voice which Faber thought close
to despair.
"The message comes from the very top do you understand?"
Faber pretended to waver.
"All right, then. I will meet you in one week's time under the arch at
Euston Station at nine a.m."
"Can't you make it sooner?"
Faber hung up and stepped outside. Walking quickly, he rounded two
corners and came within sight of the phone box in the Square. He saw
the agent walking in the direction of Piccadilly. There was no sign of
the tail. Faber followed the agent.
The man went into Piccadilly Circus underground station and bought a
ticket to Stockwell. Faber immediately realized he could get there by
a more direct route. He came out of the station, walked quickly to
Leicester Square, and got on a Northern Line train. The agent would
have to change trains at Waterloo, whereas Faber's train was direct; so
Faber would reach Stockwell first, or at the worst they would arrive on
the same train.
In fact Faber had to wait outside the station at Stockwell for
twenty-five minutes before the agent emerged. Faber followed him
again. He went into a cafe There was absolutely nowhere nearby where a
man could plausibly stand still for any length of time: no shop windows
to gaze into, no benches to sit on or parks to walk around, no bus
stops or taxi ranks or public buildings. It was a dreary, blank
suburb. Faber had to walk up and down the street, always looking as if
he were going somewhere, carrying on until he was just out of sight of
the cafe then returning on the opposite side, while the agent sat in
the warm, steamy cafe drinking tea and eating hot toast.
He came out after half an hour. Faber tailed him through a succession
of residential streets. The agent knew where he was going, but was in
no hurry: he walked like a man who is going home with nothing to do for
the rest of the day. He did not look back, and Faber thought: Another
At last he went into a house one of the poor, anonymous, inconspicuous
lodging-houses used by spies everywhere. It had a dormer window in the
roof: that would be the agent's room, high up for better wireless
reception.
Faber walked past, scanning the opposite side of the street. Yes
there. A movement behind an upstairs window, a glimpse of a jacket and
tie, a watching face withdrawn: the opposition was here too. The agent
must have gone to the rendezvous yesterday and allowed himself to be
followed home by MI5 unless, of course, he was Ml5.
Faber turned the corner and walked down the next parallel street,
counting the houses. Almost directly behind the place the agent had
entered there was the bomb-damaged shell of what had been a pair of
semi-detached houses. Good As he walked back to the station he felt a
buzz of excitement. His step was springier, his heart beat a shade
faster, and he looked around him with bright-eyed interest. It was
good. The game was on.
He dressed in black that night: a woollen hat, a roll-neck sweater
under a short leather flying jacket, trousers tucked into socks,
rubber-soled shoes; all black. He would be almost invisible, for
London, too, was blacked out.
He cycled through the quiet streets with dimmed lights, keeping off
main roads. It was after midnight, and he saw no one. He left the
bike a quarter of a mile away from his destination, padlocking it to
the fence in a pub yard.
He went, not to the agent's house, but to the bombed-out shell in the
next street. He picked his way carefully across the rubble in the
front garden, entered the gaping doorway, and went through the house to
the back. It was very dark. A thick screen of low cloud hid the moon
and stars. Faber had to walk slowly with his hands in front of him.
He reached the end of the garden, jumped over the fence, and crossed
the next two gardens. In one of the houses a dog barked for a
minute.
The garden of the lodging-house was unkempt. Faber walked into a
blackberry bush and stumbled. The thorns scratched his face. He
ducked under a line of washing there was enough light for him to see
that.
He found the kitchen window and took from his pocket a small tool with
a scoop-shaped blade. The putty around the glass was old and brittle,
and already flaking away in places. After twenty minutes' silent work
he took the pane out of the frame and laid it gently on the grass. He
shone a torch through the empty hole to make sure there were no noisy
obstacles in his way, then climbed in.
The darkened house smelled of boiled fish and disinfectant. Faber
unlocked the back door a precaution for fast escape -before entering
the hall. He flashed his pencil torch on and off quickly, once. In
that instant of light he took in a tiled hallway, a kidney table he
must circumvent, a row of coats on hooks and a staircase, to the right,
carpeted.
He climbed the stairs silently.
He was halfway across the landing to the second flight when he saw the
light under the door. A split-second later there was an asthmatic
cough and the sound of a toilet flushing. Faber reached the door in
two strides and froze against the wall.
Light flooded the landing as the door opened. Faber slipped his
stiletto out of his sleeve. The old man came out the toilet and
crossed the landing, leaving the light on. At his bedroom door he
grunted, turned, and came back.
He must see me, Faber thought. He tightened his grip on the handle of
his knife. The old man's half-open eyes were directed to the floor. He
looked up as he reached for the light cord, and Faber almost killed him
then but the man fumbled for the switch, and Faber realized he was so
sleepy he was practically sleepwalking.
The light died, the old man shuffled back to bed, and Faber breathed