A Gathering of Spies (15 page)

She tossed the empty gun down the hallway.

As soon as it landed, the man in the hallway opened fire—
men
in the hallway, she saw, two of them. They immediately fired eight bullets at the empty gun sitting on the floor. By then she had moved close to the nearer one. She kept his body oriented between herself and the other one, a human shield, and damn it, this was not looking so good, not if the two on the top floor were on their way down, but what was there to do? It was too late to turn back.

Katarina stayed
in-tight
, as Hagen had taught her,
in-tight
, drilling it into her head over and over again, stay
in-tight
, so the gun in the man's hand was useless. Her upper, middle, and lower quadrants moved in harmony; her free hand was pressed tightly to her chest, out of harm's way; she feinted, baiting him, classic knife-fighting, brought the knife back around all in one flowing movement, felt his arm in the way to block it, kept the knife moving, economy of motion, staying
in-tight;
he blocked again, and she salvaged the thrust, hitting his pectoral tendon and slicing through it; he cried out, and she opened his brachial artery; then she delivered six horizontal cuts to his face, throat, and forehead. By then she was backing up, and he was going down, and there was a problem here, a genuine problem, because her human shield was down and there was an armed man in the hallway with a gun pointed at her and nothing between her and him—

A door opened. She heard the thud of wood against flesh.

Fritz.

“Fritz!” she cried.

“Katarina?”

“
Rückzug
!”

She heard the door close. She could see nothing except the flickering afterimages of the gunshots. She put her back to the wall and moved down the hall. A warm mass on the floor. The man Fritz had hit. Alive. Breathing. She knelt down, sent her fingers roaming across his rib cage—

“Damn you,” the man said. “Damn your—”

She put the knife between his fourth and fifth ribs. Twisted the blade. Stood up again. Light-headed. How many more?
Two
, she thought,
the two on the top floor
. What were they doing up there? Why weren't they down here yet? Cowards.

The tree
, she remembered.
They can come down, come around the outside, come up behind
.

She felt her way in the darkness, found an opening in the wall, felt the shape of narrow stairs. She quickly backed up again and then stood, waiting.

Three minutes passed.

A terrible silence descended on the house. She could feel her pulse thudding in her wrist, in the hollow of her throat. Would they never come down? Cowards. Or were they scaling down the tree right then, coming in through the front door, sneaking up behind? She strained to hear. Perhaps she should forget them. Get Fritz and run. But no. The AFU would be up there. She would need to climb the stairs in the darkness to fetch it. Suicide.

Damn it
, she thought.
Damn it all
.

She backtracked, found the nearest corpse, and realized that the gun was not in the holster. Of course not; he had fired when she threw her empty pistol. It was not in his hand either. He had dropped it when Fritz opened the door. Finally she located it a few feet away, in a pool of blood. How many rounds were left inside? She fumbled it open and checked by feel. Three bullets.

She listened. Were they still up there? Were they coming down? Or had they already come down, scaling down the tree? Were they coming up the stairs?

She couldn't stand there all night waiting.

She moved to the door and said, “Fritz. I'm coming in.”

The years had not been kind.

She could see him in a shaft of moonlight: pale, emaciated, his hair thinning, his eyes small and frightened.

“Katarina,” he said. He sounded awed. “You've come for me.”

She stepped past him without answering and looked out the window. Half of the oak that led from the ground to the roof was visible, but no MI-5 agents were climbing down. She stepped back, casting her eyes around the dim room.
Improvise
. She spotted a glimmer: a bottle of vodka, mostly empty. She grabbed it.

“Katarina,” he said again, “I thought that it was you they were waiting for. I prayed. But I never—”

“Shut up,” she hissed.

She stepped out of the bedroom, took a few steps toward the staircase that led down to the first floor. Her foot landed in a tacky puddle of blood; she slipped, then regained her balance. She smashed the vodka bottle on the top step. Let them sneak up on her, if that was what they intended. Let them try.

She went back to Fritz's room. When she stepped in, he took her by the shoulders.

“I've missed you,” he said, and leaned forward to kiss her. His breath smelled of tobacco and vodka.

“For God's sake,” she said, pushing him away. “Keep your hands off me.
Verrat
!”

He shook his head.

“
Ich bin ein Gefangener
,” he said.

“A traitor!”

“No, Katarina, it's not so. I had no choice.”

“The junk,” she said—the
klamotten
. “Is it here?”

“Upstairs, in the attic. They've forced me to—”

Something crunched in the hallway. Katarina pushed open the door, brought the gun up, aimed it at the staircase, squeezed the trigger. Her first bullet went high; the agent was crouched near the floor. Her second took him in the throat. She saw a gout of blood in the momentary illumination of the powder flash. Then darkness and the soft pattering of liquid onto the floor.

One man left. Upstairs?

She spun around again to face Fritz.

“Show me,” she said.

“Up—”

“Show me.”

He stepped out of the room, then hesitated.

“They're waiting up there,” he said.

“No, they're all dead. Hurry!”

She could sense him moving off in the gloom toward the narrow stairs leading to the third floor. She moved up close behind him. He began to climb the stairs. She followed, two steps behind. One bullet left in the gun. She held it in her right hand. In her left hand she turned the knife around so that she was holding the tip between her thumb and forefinger, ready to throw. Not a well-balanced knife, but the only knife she had. Fritz had climbed four stairs now. Five. His head would be coming into the attic—

A gunshot.

Fritz was falling back onto her. She shoved him rudely up the stairs, and two more shots followed. His body jerked twice.

She slipped under him, past him, swiveling, finding her target, firing. At the same time, her left arm came around in an arc and the knife whistled out, following the bullet,
thunk
ing into a man's chest.

Fritz was making a gurgling sound.

She frowned down at him dispassionately.

He had turned weak. And he was a traitor.

But she waited for a few seconds until he was still before climbing the rest of the way into the attic. Somehow she felt she owed him that.

For old times' sake.

THE WAR OFFICE, WHITEHALL

Taylor finished speaking, paused for a moment, and then lit the cigarette he'd been holding. Cold morning light streamed in through the window behind him, pinning the smoke, freezing it.

Presently, Winterbotham said: “How far can she get?”

Taylor looked distressed. “Not as far as she already has, I would say. But her luck's finished now, Harry. We've got CID going door to door, barricades on every road out of the city, and agents watching every railway station in London.”

“Have you spoken with the neighbors?”

“Nobody saw a thing, naturally, so we've still got no description since Los Alamos. OSS is working on getting a photograph from New York.”

Winterbotham leaned forward. “Andrew,” he said, “I was in that house yesterday. I was probably the last one to see those poor blokes alive.” He hesitated. “A woman came to the door just before I left.”

Taylor blinked. “You saw her?”

“No.”

“You heard her?”

“No. But Dickens said she was a volunteer nurse looking for clean linen.”

“Bloody hell. That's our bird.”

The telephone on the desk chimed. Taylor picked it up, listened, swore, and hung up.

“CID found a corpse in the flat across the way. A man. Knifed.”

Winterbotham nodded.

“Perhaps we can trace the path she followed,” Taylor said, thinking aloud. “Find out where she met the man, follow her back from there …”

He stubbed out his cigarette.

“You understand, Harry, that this means the end of your assignment, at least for the time being. Now that she's seen Meissner in his safe house, the stakes are even higher. She must have gathered some idea of what we're up to here. If she gets in touch with Germany … Harry, we
need
Double Cross. We've already started planning the invasion. It depends entirely on deceiving the Nazis.”

“So I won't be allowed to complete my assignment.”

“Not while she's at liberty, no. I warned you of that before.”

Winterbotham paused. Then he said, “How will she get her information to Germany?”

“She'll have to take it there herself. Oh, she could try to wire it with the AFU, but not if she's smart—and she is smart. She must know that if she stays on the air too long, we'll be able to track the signal. No, she would never try to wire everything she has. She'll make a brief contact and set up a meeting of her own.”

“You've broken their codes. Can't you intercept her signal, find out where they'll be meeting?”

“It's possible. But don't forget, Harry, even if we did catch the signal, she's been out of touch with the
Abwehr
for a decade. Whatever code she uses, it may well be one we've never seen.”

“How will they accomplish the
treff
? Rendezvous with a U-boat?”

“Or a seaplane,” Taylor said. “Unless she tries to go through some neutral territory. But I doubt she'll be willing to wait that long.”

“How many U-boats are lurking off the shores of England?”

“Not many, of course. The waters are filled with Royal Navy.”

“So if
I
were to arrange a
treff …
and
she
were to arrange a
treff …
”

Understanding dawned in Taylor's eyes. “Good God,” he said.

“We might both be instructed to rendezvous at the same place.”

“Good God,” he said again.

“Schroeder will be sending my sample intelligence in two days, Andrew. If it checks out, they'll arrange a meeting. And that will be at the same place you'll find Katarina Heinrich.”

“It's possible,” Taylor said. “Yes, it is possible.”

“Even probable.”

“Good God,” Taylor said once more, and reached for the phone on his desk.

8

BENDLERSTRASSE, BERLIN

JUNE 1943

Hitler paced when he spoke. The more involved he became in what he was saying, the faster he moved. Now he was pacing around Canaris's office so quickly that he seemed to be bouncing from wall to wall. He was speaking just as rapidly, with small dollops of spittle flying from his mouth, and he was gesticulating with both hands so that his spotless gray tunic seemed barely able to contain the explosion of nervous energy.

“Geneva!” he sneered. “Geneva! The pleading of the weak. The trickery of the Jews. Geneva! What do we care about Geneva? Our hands will not be tied!”

Hagen, watching quietly from one corner, nodded to himself. He was in complete agreement with the
Führer
's “Top Secret Commando Order” of 1942, which dictated that any captured Anglo-American commandos were to be summarily executed without trial. “Under no circumstances,” the Order read, “can they expect to be treated according to the rules of the Geneva Convention.”

As far as Hagen was concerned, Hitler had no need to justify himself. War was war, and one did whatever was necessary to win. But several of the other men in the room—most notably Canaris, the traitor—were weak specimens, made nervous and guilt-ridden by the demands of battle. Hitler was taking the opportunity to give them a pep talk. Soon enough, Hagen thought, they would move on to the real purpose of Hitler's visit. The real purpose of the visit, from what he had gathered, was to talk about spies and the upcoming invasion. But the little Austrian corporal could not resist an opportunity for oration.

He flung his words directly at Canaris, who was standing behind his desk. There were two other men in the room. The fourth was von Hassel, sitting on the black leather couch and trying to look bored, as if the words could not possibly have anything to do with him. The fifth was Field Marshal Hermann Goering, who stood looking thoughtfully out the window.

Hitler was working himself into a lather; his voice was turning hoarse.

“We must have the
courage
, the
fortitude
, the
resilience
, the
strength
to strike without mercy!” Each word was emphasized with the smack of his fist into his palm,
smack, smack, smack, smack
. “We must not doubt ourselves! We must not cower! We must not turn back! We must not believe the lies of our enemies!”

Canaris was nodding wearily.

“A thousand years hence,” Hitler said, “Germans will look to our conduct on this, our darkest day, as an example of our limitless strength and courage! Stalingrad is our finest hour, gentlemen; for it is there that we face adversity and triumph! We must not falter now! We must not hesitate to use every ounce of our ability!”

Now his hands flew around his head as he spoke, like startled birds. Hagen couldn't help but wonder if his
Führer
's health was suffering. The man was under extraordinary pressure, of course, not only from without but from within—his own generals and followers were always looking for a chance to seize power. But this was precisely what Hitler wanted; he encouraged dissension among his ranks. By keeping his followers at one another's throats, Hitler guaranteed that no given one would become too powerful.