needed. We could afford to lose Denise.”
“But now we’re down to the bare minimum.” Flick stood up wearily. “We’d better get the rest to bed. This will be their last decent night’s sleep for a while.”
Paul looked around the room. “I don’t see Diana and Maude.”
“They must have stepped out for a breath of air. I’ll find them if you’ll round up the rest.” Paul nodded agreement, and Flick went outside.
There was no sign of the two girls. She paused for a moment to look at the evening light glowing on the calm water of the estuary. Then she walked around the side of the pub to the parking lot. A tan-colored army Austin was pulling away, and Flick glimpsed Denise in the back, crying.
There was no sign of Diana or Maude. Frowning, puzzled, Flick crossed the tarmac and went to the back of the pub. She came to a yard with old barrels and stacked crates. Across the yard was a small outbuilding with a wooden door that stood open. She went in.
At first she could see nothing in the gloom, but she knew she was not alone, for she could hear breathing. Instinct told her to remain silent and still. Her eyes adjusted to the dim light. She was in a tool shed, with neat rows of wrenches and shovels on hooks, and a big lawn mower in the middle of the floor. Diana and Maude were in a far corner.
Maude was leaning against the wall and Diana was kissing her. Flick’s jaw dropped. Diana’s blouse was undone, revealing a large, severely practical brassiere. Maude’s pink gingham skirt was rucked up around her waist. As the picture became clearer, she saw that Diana’s hand was thrust down the front of Maude’s panties.
Flick stood there for a moment, frozen with shock. Maude saw her and met her eye. “Have you had a good look?” she said saucily. “Or do you want to take a photo?”
Diana jumped, snatching her hand away and stepping back from Maude. She turned around, and a look of horror came over her face. “Oh, my God,” she said. She pulled the front of her blouse together with one hand and covered her mouth with the other in a gesture of shame.
Flick stammered: “I-I-I just came to say we’re leaving.” Then she turned around and stumbled out.
CHAPTER 24
WIRELESS OPERATORS WERE not quite invisible. They lived in a spirit world where their ghostly shapes could be dimly seen. Peering into the gloom, searching for them, were the men of the Gestapo’s radio detection team, housed in a cavernous, darkened hall in Paris. Dieter had visited the place. Three hundred round oscilloscope screens flickered with a greenish light. Radio broadcasts appeared as vertical lines on the monitors, the position of the line showing the frequency of the transmission, the height indicating the strength of the signal. The screens were tended, day and night, by silent, watchful operators, who made him think of angels observing the sins of humankind.
The operators knew the regular stations, either German-controlled or foreign-based, and were able to spot a rogue instantly. As soon as this happened, the operator would pick up a telephone at his desk and call three tracking stations: two in southern Germany, at Augsburg and Nuremberg, and one in Brittany, at Brest. He would give them the frequency of the rogue broadcast. The tracking stations were equipped with goniometers, apparatus for measuring angles, and each could say within seconds which direction the broadcast was coming from. They would send this information back to Paris, where the operator would draw three lines on a huge wall map. The lines intersected where the suspect radio was located. The operator then telephoned the Gestapo office nearest to the location. The local Gestapo had cars waiting in readiness, equipped with their own detection apparatus.
Dieter was now sitting in such a car, a long black Citroen parked on the outskirts of Reims. With him were three Gestapo men experienced in wireless detection. Tonight the help of the Paris center was not required:
Dieter already knew the frequency Helicopter would use, and he assumed Helicopter would broadcast from somewhere in the city (because it was too difficult for a wireless operator to lose himself in the countryside). The car’s receiver was tuned to Helicopter’s frequency. It measured the strength, as well as the direction, of the broadcast, and Dieter would know he was getting nearer to the transmitter when the needle rose on the dial.
In addition, the Gestapo man sitting next to Dieter wore a receiver and an aerial concealed beneath his raincoat. On his wrist was a meter like a watch that showed the strength of the signal. When the search narrowed down to a particular street, city block, or building, the walker would take over.
The Gestapo man in the front seat held on his lap a sledgehammer, for breaking doors down.
Dieter had been hunting once. He did not much like country pursuits, preferring the more refined pleasures of city life, but he was a good shot. Now he was reminded of that, as he waited for Helicopter to begin sending his coded report home to England. This was like lying in the hide in the early dawn, tense with anticipation, impatient for the deer to start moving, savoring the thrill of anticipation.
The Resistance were not deer but foxes, Dieter thought, skulking in their holes, coming out to cause carnage in the chicken house, then going to earth again. He was mortified to have lost Helicopter. He was so keen to recapture the man that he hardly minded having to rely on the help of Willi Weber. He just wanted to kill the fox.
The driver immediately turned west, and the signal began to strengthen. “Got you,” Dieter breathed.
But five minutes had elapsed.
The car raced west, and the signal strengthened, as Helicopter continued to tap on the Morse key of his suitcase radio in his hiding place-a bathroom, an attic, a warehouse-somewhere in the northwest of the city. Back at the chateau of Sainte-Cecile, a German radio operator had tuned to the same frequency and was taking down the coded message. It was also being registered on a wire recorder. Later, Dieter would decrypt it, using the one-time pad copied by Stephanie. But the message was not as important as the messenger.
They entered a neighborhood of large old houses, mostly decrepit and subdivided into small apartments and bed sitting rooms for students and nurses. The signal grew louder, then suddenly began to fade. “Overshoot, overshoot!” said the Gestapo man in the front passenger seat. The driver reversed the car, then braked.
Ten minutes had passed.
Dieter and the three Gestapo men sprang out. The one with the portable detection unit under his raincoat walked rapidly along the pavement, consulting his wrist dial constantly, and the others
It was a fine summer evening. The car was parked at the northern end of the city. Reims was a small town, and Dieter reckoned a car could drive from one side to the other in less than ten minutes.
He checked his watch: one minute past eight. Helicopter was late coming on air. Perhaps he would not broadcast tonight… but that was unlikely. Today Helicopter had met up with Michel. As soon as possible, he would want to report his success to his superiors, and tell them just how much was left of the Bollinger circuit.
Michel had phoned the house in the rue du Bois two hours ago. Dieter had been there. It was a tense moment. Stephanie had answered, in her imitation of Mademoiselle Lemas’s voice. Michel had given his code name, and asked whether “Bourgeoise” remembered him-a question that reassured Stephanie, because it indicated that Michel did not know Mademoiselle Lemas very well and therefore would not realize this was an impersonator.
He had asked her about her new recruit, codenamed Charenton. “He’s my cousin,” Stephanie had said gruffly. “I’ve known him since we were children, I would trust him with my life.” Michel had told her she had no right to recruit people without at least discussing it with him, but he had appeared to believe her story, and Dieter had kissed Stephanie and told her she was a good enough actor to join the Com‚die Fran‡aise.
All the same, Helicopter would know that the Gestapo would be listening and trying to find him. That was a risk he had to run: if he sent no messages home he was of no use. He would stay on air only for the minimum length of time. If he had a lot of information to send, he would break it into two or more messages and send them from different locations. Dieter’s only hope was that he would be tempted to stay on the air just a little too long.
The minutes ticked by. There was silence in the car. The men smoked nervously. Then, at five past eight, the receiver beeped.
By prearrangement, the driver set off immediately, driving south.
The signal grew stronger, but slowly, making Dieter worry that they were not heading directly for the source.
