Back in London two OSS officers had gone over his briefing again and had given him the details of the network he would be attached to. It was a network commanded by a British SOE officer named Parish. The same age as himself. They would provide funds, food and shelter and radio communications with OSS London. They would help him but would not be responsible for his work. They would only intervene if it seemed that something he was intending could affect the security of the network. He would be leaving in three days’ time from an airfield in the East Midlands and he was not being dropped but taken by Westland Lysander to a reception group near Chartres. They also went over with him large-scale maps of the area covered by the network. The network leader already knew what Malloy would be there for.
Both Colonel Kelly and Major Wallace had travelled with him in the British Army Humber staff car but the conversation had been desultory and routine as if they were all too embarrassed about what they were doing to mention it aloud. Malloy thought that it must be like this in the mourners’ limos following a hearse to a cemetery. For security reasons you were not allowed to say goodbyes at Beaulieu and there had been no sense of occasion in the house in Grosvenor Square. Nobody had even wished him good luck.
The car turned right down a country lane and a mile further on it turned onto a concrete strip and stopped at a red and white pole across the path. A man in RAF uniform came out of a wooden shack, a Sten gun cradled in the crook of his right arm. The driver wound down his window and passed a card to the guard who studied it carefully then opened the rear door and looked at the passengers. Then he walked round to Malloy’s door, opened it, looking at the card again before he looked at Malloy. He nodded his head to the driver and pointed towards a red light in the distance.
There was dance music coming from the wooden building where they stopped and the driver led them on foot past other wooden buildings to a brick building where a guard stood with a rifle. Major Wallace led the way, pushing open the door and moving the blackout curtain to one side and Malloy blinked in the sudden light inside the building. An RAF officer came to meet them, hand outstretched. “You’re early, Wallace. Would you all like a meal?”
Wallace looked at Malloy who shook his head and said, “I’d like a coffee if you’ve got one.”
Twenty minutes later Malloy was naked in the shower and when he stepped out to dry himself a man in civilian clothes looked him over. Back and front. “No operation scars, are there?”
“No.”
“Let’s see your hands.”
Malloy held out his hands and the man checked them carefully, then said, “Scrub your nails thoroughly and then get dressed.” He pointed to Malloy’s French clothes on a wooden table.
There was a small canvas bag on the table and when he looked inside there was an old-fashioned cut-throat razor, shaving soap and a shaving brush. There was a change of underwear, two pairs of socks, a bottle of vitamin tablets and a multi-bladed penknife. As he closed the bag Major Wallace came in with a leather pouch.
“This is for the network, Bill. Mail and instructions. You only hand them over to Captain Parish himself.” He paused. “They’re ready if you are, old chap.”
“I’m ready. Where’s the colonel?”
“Waiting for you at the plane.”
As they walked out into the darkness Malloy’s eyes gradually adjusted and he saw that in fact the area was bathed in the light of a full moon. What the RAF men called a “Bombers’ Moon.”
The squat Westland Lysander looked like a giant dragon-fly with its wings, with their strange dihedral, seeming to be hovering as a cloud passed across the face of the moon.
Malloy was introduced to the RAF pilot and Colonel Kelly shook his hand, wished him luck and patted his shoulder. Major Wallace smiled as he shook Malloy’s hand. “Best of British luck, my boy. Take care.”
Then he scrambled up the short metal ladder into the passenger cockpit, the hood coming over and the engine rasping into a deafening crescendo. A slight wiggle from the tail, a short run and they took off into the dark blue sky.
A hundred miles south of the top security airfield at Tempsford the RAF’s newest bombers, Lancasters, were taking off to bomb the U-boat yards in Danzig.
CHAPTER 13
Andrei Aarons wasn’t happy with his new rôle. He was a thinker, an arguer, a persuader—not a spy. But if that was what Moscow needed him to do he would do it to the best of his ability.
He was surprised at the contacts that they had told him about and wondered how long they had been spying for the Soviets. It didn’t help that his new bosses had told him that he was to trust none of them. Not only not trust them but to take any opportunity he might have for testing and checking their loyalty.
The first man he had to contact was a man named Scholes. Sol Scholes. He’d been given an address on 27th Street between Eleventh and Twelfth Avenues. They said he’d been an engraver in Petrograd and had fled to America in the early thirties.
The building was an old warehouse that had been roughly converted into cheap, rented units occupied by small engineering companies where two or three artisans turned out small items for major companies. The blanks for safety-razor blades, small pressings, cardboard boxes and ammunition boxes. They were doing well now that America was in the war. Sol Scholes’ place was a two-storey building with a sign that said “Scholes Tailoring.”
When he rang the bell at the outer door a young
