The last reason Hewitt Purnsley had talked about was sexual compromise. He’d called it a honey trap. Explained how it worked over coffee their last night alone in a quite café on the Right Bank.
Sex, one of humanity’s oldest motivators, could be used to compromise someone, with either a member of the opposite sex or, even better, of the same sex. The threat of exposure of homosexuality was a powerful motivator, especially in an organization such as the SS. Aubrey had asked boldly, “Do you want me to tart it up in Germany?” Hewitt had told her no, under no circumstances was she to explore any kind of relationship with any German.
Yet here she was, exploring it, in her heart at least, with the Count von Villiez. She had been able to think of nothing else on the drive back to the hotel. That old sensation, gone for a long time now, had never really established itself except for a brief fling in St. Louis when she had been flying. There was no mistaking it now, though: it was coming on strong. Aubrey was developing real feelings for the dashing aristocrat and captain of industry.
She flicked on the lights to banish her girlish thoughts and moved around the room examining the tells she’d left, little markers that might indicate if someone had been in her room and gone through her things, as meagre as they were.
Hewitt had talked about indicators good operatives used to identify whether a room had been entered. She’d mentioned a scene she’d seen in a movie: a match stuck into the door jamb to indicate whether someone had been there. If the door had been opened, the match would have been lying on the floor.
He’d warned her not to use that trick. It took training to do it right. Besides, much like she wasn’t supposed to let someone tailing her know she was on to them, a match in the door jamb would also reveal her tradecraft. No, he’d had something else in mind, and they’d gone over it thoroughly. She’d employed it just before she’d left her room earlier that day.
She’d picked one of the legs of her bed, the one at the foot, closest to the door. Then she’d placed several personal items around the room, aligning them in a specific way with that post. If they had been examined, they would likely be moved when they were set back in place. After all, no one was going to suspect Aubrey of being a master spy. If the Abwehr, Germany’s intelligence service, or the Gestapo had sent someone into her room, it might be an amateur such as herself.
She’d also left out a copy of Harper’s Weekly Gazette, with a picture of a beautiful starlet swinging on a trapeze on the cover. One of the starlet’s feet was pointed at the bedpost. As far Aubrey she could tell, it had not been moved. There were other indicators, too: her makeup bag and her two pieces of luggage were all lined up with the bedpost, just the way she’d left them. Her father’s pistol was still under the mattress. She retrieved it. It was loaded, but lacked one up the spout, as her father would say. She put it back in her bag, within arm’s reach if she needed it. Thoughts of Captain Schmidt, “Starlight” or not, and his goons breaking down the door in the middle of the night were not beyond the realm of possibility. With that, Aubrey got ready for bed and switched off the lights.
14
From the window of the car, Aubrey could see the dark plume of smoke coming from the Luftwaffe air base a mile away. She recognized the mushroom cloud–like shape of an explosion. The sight of one of those at an air base, any air base, usually meant there had been a crash. This much smoke usually resulted in the death of a pilot.
She shuddered as it billowed up into the air. She’d seen that before, all too often. One time in particular it had meant the death of a close friend, a man she could easily have fallen in love with. Her heart sank and her neck tightened in anticipation as they approached the gates of the air base. A fire truck roared by, its bell clanging, firefighters on the back of it hanging on for dear life.
She was in a taxi this morning. She had pleaded with the count for the two young airmen to be called off Aubrey duty. She would manage fine with a taxi. The count had argued but confirmed that he would make it so. A taxi had been arranged through the hotel. She’d looked back once or twice to see if she was being tailed, but could not spot anything unusual. This gave her little comfort; her training with Hewitt Purnsley had been rushed, and they hadn’t gotten to this aspect of counter-surveillance.
The entrance to the airfield was deserted; everyone had rushed to the crash. Nevertheless, she took her credentials out of her purse and put them around her neck. She even found a registration book and signed in. The guards were hurrying back when she passed through the gates. She waved her credentials at them but they seemed uninterested.
The smoke cloud had lost its unique mushroom shape and was being carried towards Berlin. A continuous upstream of black smoke was feeding it, and now she could see flames at ground level. Aviation fuel burned ferociously, usually reducing any human remains to charred embers. The smell hit her now: a mixture of spent fuel, burnt metal and paint, and human flesh. She was transported back in time to that airfield outside of St. Louis and the sight of a burgeoning love being burned to a crisp while she was restrained by her fellow pilots. She shook her head. That was a long time ago, Aubrey.
