seems they may be catching up.’ He laughed, with unexpected nervousness. ‘Maybe the science-fiction writers are correct, and we will have a war on the moon one day.’
He came and sat behind his desk again. ‘We have found it impossible to get any real intelligence about the American weapons programme because their security there, as you might imagine, is watertight.’ He smiled again and his eyes widened a little. ‘But now a chink may have opened. Just maybe.’
Gunther felt the excitement again, a slight inner trembling. ‘Is this to do with my mission?’
Gessler leaned back in his chair. He suddenly looked tired. ‘Things are not good. I wish the Fuhrer would broadcast again, speak to us as he once did. Another winter has started in Russia, the supply trains we need to keep our armies up to strength are being attacked again. The Russians know how to live off the land, what grasses to eat, what to wear to keep out the cold and how to survive in temperatures of minus 40. We’re sure they are about to launch another winter offensive, supplied from those factories they’ve built in deep forests far behind the Urals. Our rockets are little more than useless, we don’t know where to aim them. And these Resistance movements in Spain and Italy, Britain and France . . .’ He shook his head, then looked hard at Gunther. ‘To win the Russian war we need to know what the American scientists know.’
Gunther shifted uneasily in his seat. If even an SS Intelligence colonel could talk with this sort of pessimism, what were Speer and the army people saying? Gessler saw his look and sat up straight, frowning, formal again. ‘Have you ever heard of the Tyler Kent affair?’ he asked sharply.
‘Kent was a sympathizer of ours in the American embassy just before victory in 1940.’
‘Yes. He passed on useful information about Churchill’s contacts with Roosevelt before he was arrested. He knew some of the British Fascists, like Maule Ramsay, the present Scottish Secretary. The British secret services found out about him. Ambassador Kennedy – he’s been there a long time, he’s got lax, he’s sympathetic to us. We have agents in the embassy, new Tyler Kents, and a few weeks ago one of them told us something very interesting.’ Gessler sat forward, lacing his fingers together. ‘An American scientist – there are reasons why I can’t tell you what area he was working in, except that it was at the edge of their weapons research – came over to England for his mother’s funeral. His name is Edgar Muncaster. He’s British by birth, though he’s been an American citizen for nearly twenty years. A man we have in the US embassy found out the security people at Grosvenor Square were worried about him going around London on his own.’
‘Does he have Resistance sympathies?’
Gessler shook his head. ‘Far from it. Committed to an isolationist and powerful America. That’s not the problem. But after a recent divorce, he has become an unpredictable drunk. He stayed in London for a while, as he wanted to sell his mother’s house. He seemed more or less in control of himself. Then one day he went AWOL. He was watched, but he didn’t register at the embassy in the evening as he was supposed to do. Then there was a phone call from him; he was in a hospital in Birmingham, with a broken arm.’
‘How?’
‘He went to visit his brother. A geologist who works at Birmingham University. There was an argument, which ended in the brother pushing our American friend out of a window.’
‘Was he badly hurt?’
‘Just the broken arm. But the Americans hauled him out of the hospital, smashed arm and all, arrested him and put him on a plane back to the States. Destination, according to what our man at the embassy saw, Folsom Prison in California; isolation, maximum security.’
Gunther said, ‘So he did something.’
Gessler nodded vigorously. ‘Or said something. We don’t know what. Our spy doesn’t have that level of clearance.’
‘Were the British involved?’
‘No. This is something the Americans don’t want them to know about. They were told the Americans were just taking an injured citizen home.’
Gunther considered. ‘Who does our man at the US embassy answer to?’
Gessler smiled. ‘Not to Rommel’s people. He works for us, for the SS. And we’ve kept hold of this information. We’ve made enquiries with some of our friends in the British Special Branch, though – we have some good people there. We asked them to look into the brother’s background. I think you know the present commissioner.’
‘Yes,’ Gunther agreed. ‘From when I was here before. A strong believer in Britain and Germany working together. A good anti-Semite, too.’
Gessler nodded. ‘We can work with some of them on this, if we’re careful. Not the British secret services, what’s left of them since we found out about all their Communist moles when we took over the Kremlin. It’s just a few death-or-glory patriots left there now.’
‘Yes,’ Gunther agreed again. While posted in England he had watched the Special Branch grow from a specialist section of the Metropolitan Police dealing with spies and subversives to a whole Auxiliary Police force supplemented with informers and agents in anti-government organizations.
‘What did Special Branch find?’ he asked.
‘That the brother, Frank Muncaster, was arrested for attempted murder. He smashed up his own flat and when he was arrested he was raving about the end of the world. Screaming at his brother that he shouldn’t have told him what he did.’
Gunther laughed, but uneasily. ‘The end of the world?’
‘Yes. Helpfully, the charge was reduced to causing serious bodily harm. His behaviour was so bizarre that he wasn’t put in prison, but committed to a local mental hospital. Where he sits now. This we know from local police files in Birmingham. We’ve told the Special Branch people we think brother Frank may have undesirable political connections in Europe. When they told us he didn’t, we said thank you very much and went away.’
Gunther considered. ‘The Americans will be interested in this man, if the brother has told them what happened.’
‘Yes. Certainly they were very keen to get Edgar Muncaster back to the States. They could try to kill the brother. But they can’t go through official channels, they don’t want the British finding out their weapons secrets. If that’s what Edgar told Frank about.’
Gunther thought for a moment. ‘So, forgive me, sir, but we don’t know whether this – lunatic – actually has any secrets.’
‘No, we don’t. But it is very much worthwhile finding out.’
‘Has he said any more while he’s been in hospital?’
‘We simply don’t know. They may have just drugged him up to keep him quiet. They usually do, with the violent ones. Unfortunately getting to him in the mental hospital will need a certain amount of delicacy and local knowledge.’ He shrugged. ‘You know the British, all sorts of bureaucratic complications, different parts of the system sealed off from each other. The Medical Superintendent, a Dr Wilson, is related to a civil servant in the British Health Department.’
‘They’re putting through a sterilization bill, aren’t they?’
Gessler waved his hand in a gesture of contempt. ‘Pussyfooting, trivial. They should just gas the lot, as we did. But they won’t.’
‘Yes,’ Gunther reflected. ‘It’s even taken them over ten years to establish a sort of authoritarian government.’
‘Well, they’re on the right path now.’ He smiled. ‘The British will have another matter to preoccupy them very shortly.’
‘Will they?’
Gessler smiled again, the smirk of a man with secret knowledge. It made him look suddenly childish. ‘They will.’ Suddenly he was all business again. ‘I want you to go to Birmingham. Get into the flat where Muncaster lived, see if there is anything of interest there. Visit Muncaster. Later we may ask you to lift Muncaster, bring him back here. But first I want you to try and find out what state he’s in, whether he’s talked. You’ll have Special Branch help.’
Gunther nodded. The excitement in him was steady now, focused.
‘Of course,’ Gessler said, ‘this may well be a mare’s nest. But the instruction to undertake the investigation comes from very high up, from Deputy Reichsfuhrer Heydrich himself.’ Gunther saw a little gleam of ambition in Gessler’s eyes
‘I’ll do all I can, sir.’
