McFarlane looked thoughtfully at Dragan Kelly. He was, of course, fully aware of Kelly’s background; they had served together in the past. Kelly was born in Wales of an Irish father and Serbian mother, hence his given name. Before the war, he had won a scholarship to Cambridge where he gained a first in Balkan languages, helped no doubt by the fact that he had been taught to speak Serbian from birth. One of his memories brought a smile to his face.
“Something amusing, Brigadier?” asked Farquharson.
“I was just remembering, Jamie, when Dan and I first met in the Caribbean on his first assignment. I remember saying to him that he spoke every dialect in the Balkans as well as German, and that I spoke every Slavic language and could get by in Mandarin, and where do MI5 send us? The Bahamas!”
They all laughed and nodded. “Yes, I remember it,” said Kelly.
“I’ve no doubt, Dan, that to anyone who is not a Croatian national, you can carry this off without a problem,” said McFarlane, “but what if you bump into a Croatian?”
“Then quite simply, they will find me out! You know better than anyone, Bob, that no matter how good you are at a language, if you speak to any national they’ll pick up on any slight intonation, mannerism or mispronunciation and they will know that you’re not a fellow national.”
“Then if you haven’t found Müller by the time you get to Italy, you’ll have to abort and crash out of the mission, because once in Italy you’ll be funnelled towards the seminary of San Girolamo in Rome. Head man is Father Krimoslav Draganovic, and he is a Croatian.
“In fact,” continued McFarlane, “you need to be clear well before that. Our intel indicates that there’s a sort of filtering mechanism before you get to Italy, so you could well run into Croatians in Austria.”
“What puzzles me,” said Sybilla, “is why Müller may have chosen the East German ratline … could he not have used a West German escape route?”
“There doesn’t appear to be a West German ratline,” volunteered Farquharson. “There seems to be a disconnect between the East and West branches of the Thule. In the west, the priority appears to be aid to emerging industries: sometimes financial, sometimes scientific or technical, sometimes all three. It can’t be a coincidence that West German economic growth is outstripping all the other nations in Europe, including the UK. However, in the East, all of the industries are state owned. Consequently, there is no scope for such enterprise and therefore the Thule appear to content themselves with ensuring an escape route is open for ex-Nazis and others.”
“Jamie, does your analysis indicate that Thule is now broken, effectively split into two separate organisations?” asked Kelly.
“No, unfortunately!” responded Farquharson. “They appear to reconnect further south. There must be a controlling hub somewhere, either in Austria or more likely in the Munich area.”
“Right!” said Kelly decisively. “So, avoid Italy and tread warily in Austria. Is there a name I need to look out for?”
“The Austrian end of Draganovic’s network is a priest called Father Vilim Cecelja, also a Croatian,” confirmed McFarlane.
“That pretty well covers the search for Müller. Now let’s turn our attention to finding out if Hitler did or could have escaped from the bunker. That means getting into Argentina—and that, Sybilla, is what I want you to do.
“Now, it would be pointless,” continued McFarlane, “sending you there as a tourist or a salesperson or any of the usual covers, because you just wouldn’t get anywhere near the people you need to be mixing with. Argentina has a sizable German population. Most of them are fine, upstanding, law-abiding citizens who emigrated there for economic and social reasons, but there are also many ex-Nazis who fled to Argentina to escape imprisonment and, in some cases, execution. This is the group you need to be socialising with.
“I have been in almost daily contact with our American friends in the CIA, and between us we think we may have come up with a workable plan. There are a lot of ifs, buts, maybes and what-ifs, but it’s the best we’ve been able to put together. If anyone here can come up with a better scheme, then let’s have your input and we can reconsider.
“Sybilla,” McFarlane said after a pause, “a description of your mission must involve discussion of matters personal to you. I can leave it until later when we can have that discussion in private if you wish.”
A puzzled frown spread across Sybilla’s face, which after a moment cleared and, raising her eyebrows, she smiled. “Ah, you must be talking about my wartime relationship with Jürgen Meyer? It’s fine, I have no issues with discussing it openly.”
“If you’re sure, then I’ll outline your mission.”
Sybilla nodded and McFarlane turned his attention to Farquharson.
“This first part is for your benefit, Jamie. During the war, Sybilla was inserted into France by OES where she became the lover and co-conspirator of Hauptmann Jürgen Meyer, someone she’d known earlier in the war in Norway. He was, of course, a real German spy, his intention to infiltrate and disrupt the French underground movement. Sybilla simply played the part, but being close to Meyer meant that she was able to provide Allied intelligence with some particularly important information. After Meyer was eliminated by a certain ‘Wolf’ and his accomplice”—this with a meaningful glance at Kelly— “Sybilla was extracted and returned to the UK.
“That preamble is important because it provides us with a cover for your mission, Sybilla. As far as the world is concerned, or at least the people in it who are interested in such things, Sybilla was a real spy and is still on the wanted list in France.
“The plan, then, is to insert Sybilla into the US, posing as a supply teacher. The CIA will then notify the French judiciary that they have uncovered the whereabouts of a known
