'About this?'
'I think this is just the beginning. Just for openers…'
Outside the Gasthof Winkelreid in Frauenfeld it was snowing heavily as Masson faced Schellenberg in the first-floor room. They could hear the rumble of a snow-plough the Swiss Intelligence chief had summoned to keep the road open. On no account must his German guest stay in Switzerland overnight.
'I insist that you reveal to me the name of the Soviet spy in Germany,' Schellenberg repeated. 'Otherwise I cannot be responsible for the consequences.'
'There will be no invasion of my country by the Wehrmacht,' Masson interrupted coldly. 'You are using blackmail but you are bluffing…'
'I do not bluff. There is a map in existence…'
'I have had a copy of that map for over two years…'
Masson was speaking the truth. The map Schellenberg alluded to had been printed in Germany. It showed the future frontiers of the Greater Reich which embraced all German-speaking peoples, including German-speaking Switzerland – seventy per cent of the entire country.
Despite the glowing heat from the great log fire the warmth had gone out of the conversation between the two men who now faced each other openly as adversaries. In all earlier encounters Schellenberg had alternately coaxed and threatened; Masson had been compliant and co-operative. It was Schellenberg who was in a state of shock. Masson was impassive but obdurate, refusing to give an inch.
'The Wehrmacht cannot cope with what it has on its plate already,' Masson continued bluntly. 'Opening up a new front is beyond it. Or haven't you heard that the Red Army is advancing beyond Kiev? The Wehrmacht is retreating everywhere. The Allies are in Italy. In '44 we all know they will open the Second Front in France…'
'We have our problems,' Schellenberg agreed.
' You may soon have your problems,' Masson said mercilessly. 'Supposing – I am only supposing – that Germany loses the war? You will need a bolt-hole to run to – to escape capture by the Russians. On your way to meet the Allies your route to freedom may well be via Switzerland.'
Nothing demonstrated more dramatically the changed relationship between the two men than their postures. While Schellenberg sagged in his armchair, one hand holding his empty glass of brandy, Masson sat erect like a judge, his expression stern.
'We know,' Masson pounded on, 'that with the encouragement and full backing of Himmler, you have already made fruitless overtures to the Allies – trying to come to an arrangement with them which would close out the Soviets..
It was true. Archives which have since come to light prove that as early as the end of '43 Himmler authorized Schellenberg to put out tentative peace feelers to the British. Himmler was taking no risks. If by chance the Fuhrer had ferreted out this treachery, Reichsfuhrer Himmler could have disowned all knowledge of what his deputy was up to.
'That bloody Casablanca announcement. Unconditional surrender,' growled Schellenberg. 'It stiffens the resistance of our people. Crazy! Crazy! Doesn't Churchill know the menace the West faces from the Bolsheviks?'
'Churchill knows,' Masson replied. 'Three thousand five hundred miles away from Europe, Roosevelt does not know. You will need your bolt-hole, my friend. One of these days. This part of our conversation I shall not report to my Commander-in-Chief, General Guisan…'
'I am grateful.. Schellenberg was reduced to gratitude. He made one last effort. 'You refuse to name the Soviet spy? Soon I must leave…'
'In that, I cannot help you.'
And although Schellenberg never believed it, Masson spoke the truth. He hadn't a cat's idea in hell as to the true identity of Woodpecker.
In Jerusalem, Sergeant Mulligan drove Carson back to the barracks at high speed through the darkened streets. The jeep did not slacken pace at corners. To Carson they seemed to skid round them on two wheels.
'You always drive like this?' he asked mildly.
'At night, yes. You don't want a grenade lobbed at us, do you? Corners are dangerous.'
'As bad as that?'
'Worse. Here we are, thank God.'
Mulligan's first action at two in the morning was to put out a full alert for Victor Vlacek. He had a complete description, obtained from Harrington in Cairo. Slamming down the 'phone, he looked across the table at Carson who was looking round the bare room.
'I can't guarantee anything,' he warned. 'He could slip over the border into Syria just like that. They'll warn the Free French, but why should they care?'
'Indeed, why should they?' Carson agreed wearily.
Vlacek was, in fact, never seen again. It was assumed he had crossed into Syria. From there he could so easily have travelled north, crossed the long Turkish frontier and made his way into the Soviet republic of Armenia.
As dawn cast its first ominous light over Palestine, the man called Moshe – who many years later occupied a high position in the Israeli government – was in position concealed behind a cluster of rocks above the road from Lydda to Jerusalem. He adjusted his field-glasses, and Lydda Airport jumped forward in the twin lenses. Moshe settled down for a long wait. This was the day.
Chapter Forty-One
Squadron-Leader Murray-Smith, a small, compact man who sported a small, dark, neat moustache sat behind the controls as he flew the Dakota across the Mediterranean towards Yugoslavia. A conceited bastard – in the opinion of his colleagues – he was also endowed with guts.
At Benina airfield in Libya he had sprung his decision in the mess at the last moment. Normally, an officer of his rank would not have undertaken the mission.
'Is that wise?' the station commander had enquired.
'And who is interested in your wisdom?' Murray- Smith had rapped back. 'I'm in charge of this show. I'm taking the Dak myself,' he repeated. 'God knows they've been trying to get this poor swine, Lindsay, out of the shit long enough.'
'It's your decision.'
'Nice to know you've grasped the situation so rapidly. Conway can be my co-pilot. All right, Conway? Happy, Then smile, blast you!
'Whisky' Conway, nick-named for an obvious liking, had been anything but happy and suspected he had been chosen out of sheer malice. Murray-Smith had recently overheard himself referred to in one of
Conway's more inebriated moments as 'that Pocket Fuhrer'.
As the plane flew on at ten thousand feet Conway, acting as map-reader, had a large-scale map spread out over his lap. He didn't know it but this was the reason Murray-Smith had press-ganged him into the job; he was probably the most brilliant navigator between Algiers and Cairo.
'Looks as though the Met stupes got it right for once,' remarked Murray-Smith. 'Sheer bloody fluke, of course…'
The sky was an empty sea of pale blue without a wisp of cloud in sight. Below them the Med was another equally deserted and calm sea of deeper blue. Murray-Smith checked his watch. He never trusted the flaming instrument panel when there were alternative aids at his disposal. He was a terror with the ground staff.
'I have to pilot this flying coffin,' was his favourite phrase. 'You keep both bloody feet safely on terra firma, Corporal,' he had told the mechanic before takeoff. 'One screw loose, up here…' He had tapped his head. '… Or inside here..' He had slapped his hand against the fuselage… 'And I'm a goner.'
Oh, Squadron-Leader Murray-Smith was the cherry on the cake in his world. People ran when they saw him coming – in the opposite direction.
'Be there in sixty min. Agreed, Conway?' he asked as he banked the machine a sliver to maintain
