“Hello,” she said, “I’m Sybilla Thorstaadt. You must be Father Wolfgang Rahn?”
“Must I?” he said, looking puzzled. “Yes, I suppose I must.” He looked furtively at her. “Did Kelly send you?”
Sybilla laughed. Dan had warned her about Rahn’s weird sense of humour. “Not exactly, but I do work with Dan Kelly,” she said.
“Well, you’d better come into my room,” Rahn said, ushering her towards a door.
The room was spacious but cluttered; there was a bed, two wardrobes and a chest of drawers. The walls were bare apart from a few old faded religious prints in cheap frames. In the centre of the room, two plain wooden chairs sat on either side of a table littered with papers and maps. Rahn motioned Sybilla to one of the chairs. Sybilla stripped off her outer coat, hanging it over the open door of one of the wardrobes, and took a seat in the chair indicated.
“Is this your house?” she asked.
“No. My parish is in Wiques in the north, but I am on an indefinite leave of absence from the church at the moment and working full time with the French Intelligence Agency, the SDECE, because there’s so much underground activity. The priest here is Father Gabriel, he is out at the moment doing his pastoral work but has kindly loaned me a room in the presbytery. He has a housekeeper, Madame Bonnet, but she is shopping so we can talk openly.”
“What do we have?” she asked.
“Not much. The cell here in Sarreguemines is small—only two of them—but they’ve been continually active, in particular spending quite a bit of time down by the River Blies, which forms the border with Germany. They seem to favour the area near the old pottery works … they’re obviously expecting a crossing imminently.” He pulled an open map over to her and indicated the location, then shrugged. “It could even be tonight. I intend to go down to see if I can see anything, but it could be another false alarm. There have been several lately.”
“Do you have any backup?” she asked.
“At the highest level!” Rahn said nodding. “I have the ear of the Prime Minister of the Saarland Protectorate, Johannes Hoffmann. He is fervently anti-Nazi and has allocated a detective and two uniformed gendarmes from the local gendarmerie to assist. He wants Müller caught, and would be delighted if that happened in Saarland.”
“Would you mind if I came with you tonight?” asked Sybilla.
“I would be delighted if you did, Agent Skadi,” said Rahn, referring to her by her code name in the IIA branch of MI5. “Your reputation precedes you.”
“You promise you won’t shoot at me this time?” she quipped. The last time she had last met Rahn was in war-time France, when she had been mistaken for a German agent.
“I promise,” he laughed. “Where are you staying?”
“I’ve booked a room in the Hotel Saarland, in Rue de la Montagne, not far from here.”
“Fine, I’ll drive over and pick you up at about eight. Would that give you enough time?” he asked.
“Plenty,” she said as she stood up and retrieved her coat.
“Wear something warm,” he warned, “we may be there some time.”
At precisely 8 p.m., Rahn eased his Citroën Avant to a halt outside the Saarland Hotel. Sybilla, waiting at the curb, climbed into the front passenger seat as soon as it stopped. She noted that Rahn had discarded his black suit and dog collar and now looked more like a thug than a priest. Turning the vehicle around, Rahn headed north-east, crossing the Saar River and continuing along the banks of the River Blies. After a mile or so, Rahn switched off his lights and coasted to a halt.
“The pottery workshops are just up ahead,” he said. “That seems to be the area our friends are interested in. Maybe we should have a look around. There’s an opening in the fence just a little further on.”
After gaining entry to the grounds, they stood and listened for a few minutes. Nothing. Complete silence. Rahn pointed to Sybilla and drew a circle in the air with one hand while pointing to their left. Then he pointed to himself, drew another circle and pointed to the right. The meaning was clear. He would search in one section while she should search in another. Rahn moved off towards the ruins of a previous workshop, while Sybilla made her way to the area occupied by the modern workshops.
Walking carefully to avoid making any noise, Sybilla skirted the modern buildings, occasionally stopping to listen. Having circled them without incident, she started to make her way towards the ruins. As she approached, she stopped in her tracks. Had she heard something? A splashing noise coming from the river? Now muffled voices, the sound of a boat being hauled up onto the bank. Sybilla sank onto one knee, facing the direction of the sounds, and pulled her 9mm Browning pistol from her coat pocket. Not wanting to announce her presence, she didn’t cock the weapon. Two shadows emerged stealthily over the brow of the river bank and started to move in her direction.
She paused for a second or two then shouted, “Arrêt!”
The response was immediate. One of the figures ran off to Sybilla’s right while the other charged towards her and fired a shot which whistled past. Sybilla threw herself down flat, cocked her pistol and aimed, praying that all those hours on the firing range hadn’t been wasted. Another round thudded into the ground about a foot to her left. Sybilla fired. She saw her assailant jerk, then drop to his knees before falling forward onto his face in a crumpled heap. She kept her aim on the attacker until a rustling to her right warned her of danger. The second
