Faked Passports (21 page)

“
You
?” Goering exclaimed.

“Yes; why not?” Gregory grinned now that he had whipped the cover from the life-boat which he had been secretly fashioning for himself during the last few moments, and hurried on: “Nobody knows that the Baron is dead. He might have been burnt in that cottage last night or he might have escaped. Even if the S.S. men find his body in the woods the news of his death will never get as far as Finland, because he wasn't important enough for it to be reported to the Gestapo agents there. I'm wearing his clothes at the moment and although our faces weren't alike our build was much the same. I am a born impostor, and as I spent the best part of three weeks in hiding with the Baron I know all about his family and his whole history. All you have to do is to furnish me with a passport in the Baron's name and an aeroplane. Haven't you realised yet that I can be darned useful to you alive whereas I'll be no good to anybody once I'm dead?”

Goering began to pace rapidly up and down. “That's all very well, but how do I know that I can trust you? You're an Englishman. Why should you offer to work for Germany? To
save your life, you may say; but I should not believe that. You are not the kind of man who betrays his country.”

“To do as I suggest would not be betraying my country,” said Gregory swiftly. “In this instance the interests of Britain and Germany are identical. Britain has always championed the small nations so she would naturally be anxious that the Finns should retain their independence. Further: if Russia's demands are resisted, and she is compelled to fight for what she wants, that will give her an even better excuse than any she has at present for delaying in sending supplies to Germany. That is the price—a very small one, in my opinion—which you must pay if you are to save Finland as a possible base for future operations. But I'm concerned with this war, not the next; and by providing Russia with a spot of bother, so that she is less able to help you, I'm assisting my own country. As far as the future is concerned, I don't see why the Western Powers should object to Germany's compensating herself for her lack of colonies by absorbing Southern Russia and making Asiatic Russia a German protectorate.”

“Ha! And what about the right of self-determination that you English talk so much about. You would say we were enslaving the Russians—or some such nonsense.”

“The population of Central and North-Eastern Asia is no more Russian than that of India is English or that of Senegal French. I don't think that question would arise, providing you allowed the true Russians to retain self-government in their own original Muscovite territories. What really matters is that the German race would no longer menace future peace if it had sufficient room in which to spread. Given Russia's vast Asiatic lands in addition to the Reich, Germany could afford to give up Czechoslovakia and Poland as she would still have about one-fifth of the world's land-surface—more than enough room for her surplus population. With such an area to administer and develop she need never again come into collision with the Western Powers over the colonial question and there might at last be some real hope of peace in our time. I would not dream of undertaking this mission if I were not convinced that in serving you I should also be serving Britain.”

“Yes, yes. If we had the Ukraine, the Caucasus and all Asiatic Russia our problem would be solved for good. But if you wouldn't double-cross me with your own people you might with the Gestapo. How am I to know that you'd not take any papers I gave you straight to Himmler?”

“I should have thought you had a perfect guarantee against that.”

“Guarantee? What d'you mean?”

Gregory shrugged. “What am I doing here? Why did I put my neck in a noose by coming to see you? Only because I was desperately anxious to find out what had happened to Erika.”

“Of course—of course.”

“And now you've told me that she's in Finland, isn't her presence there the best guarantee you could possibly have that the one thing I'm anxious to do is to get to Finland myself so that I can join her?”

“That's true. Yes, I believe you're honest. But it's a hellish risk.” Goering's voice still held doubt as he began to pace swiftly up and down again. “Say you slip up and are caught by Himmler's agents, with those papers on you?”

Gregory's pulses were racing. He knew that he was on the very verge of victory. If he could storm the last redoubt of Goering's resistance by yet one more reasoned argument his case would be won; he and Charlton would walk out of Karinhall free men and with facilities for escaping out of Germany. Nerving himself for a final effort he swilled down the last of his champagne, and said earnestly:

“Listen. What have you to fear? In serving you I serve my country. I have the strongest possible personal motive for wanting to go to Finland, because it is only by doing so that I can rejoin the woman I love. If I do slip up, that will be tough luck on me, but there'll be no come-back whatsoever so far as you're concerned. There would be if I were really Colonel-Baron von Lutz or any other German that you might choose to send. But I'm not a German; I'm a British secret agent, and any rigorous examination would prove that. I'm the one and only man you
can
send with complete safety, because if I'm caught you could deny all knowledge of me—swear I'd stolen the papers—and everybody would believe you.”

“By God, you're right!” Goering swung round. “Very well—I'll send you to Finland.”

Even the masterly control with which Gregory was usually able to hide his true feelings was not proof against the glint of triumph which leapt into his eyes. To conceal it he bent forward and helped himself to another of the fat cigarettes. As he lit it, with his eyes cast down towards its tip, he could feel his heart thumping a rhythm in his chest. “I've won! I've won!
I've won!” But all he said as he flicked out the match was: “Good. How soon can I start?”

Goering had suddenly become a different man. All trace of the indecision so foreign to his nature had left him. With his dark eyes fixed on Gregory he said rapidly: “Now that the crisis is on every hour is of importance. You will leave the moment we have the papers ready. I shall send you in one of my private planes. I can trust my own pilots and one of them will not be missed while away on a twenty-four-hour trip.”

“He'll have to observe the usual formalities when we land at the Helsinki air-port, though,” Gregory remarked, “and he might easily be recognised. I should think it's a hundred to one that Himmler has planted one of his spies among the personnel there.”

“That's true,” Goering frowned.

“Don't worry about that. You let me have the plane and I'll provide the pilot.”

“Ah! You mean the fellow downstairs? I'd forgotten all about him. Is he a good man—competent to fly a Messerschmitt—and would he also be willing to go to Finland?”

“He's one of the best pilots in the R.A.F. and he'll fly anything anywhere rather than be interned in Germany for the duration of the war.”

“He won't bring my plane back, though.”

“No. You can hardly expect him to do that. But what the hell does one plane matter on a job like this?”

“Nothing at all. But no comment would be aroused among the Finns if a German pilot in a German plane just flew in and out to drop you there; whereas a British pilot arriving with a German officer in a German plane would cause every tongue to wag.”

“I agree. But in any case I couldn't go in uniform. You'll have to let me have a suit of civilian clothes and you could easily provide me with a double set of papers; one faked British passport in my own name for me to show on landing at the air-port and one passport in the name of Colonel-Baron von Lutz for presentation to the people at the Finnish Foreign Office. I should then be a British subject arriving with a British pilot.”

“But what about the plane?”

“Don't let's use a Messerschmitt. You must have some foreign make in your private fleet that might quite as naturally be flown by a British instead of a German pilot. All we'd have
to do then is to paint out the German markings and substitute the British circles for the German crosses.”

Goering nodded. “I have a four-seater Belgian Sabina which would do admirably. It is their fastest type and fitted with de-icing apparatus. I'll let you have that. And now to work.”

Although it was well after midnight, within a few moments the big apartment became a hive of activity. Half a dozen officers, forming Goering's confidential secretariat, were summoned and to each the Marshal gave brief, clear instructions.

Three were dispatched to Berlin; one to the Foreign Office to arrange about the passports, and the other two to collect files from the Air Ministry and the War Office respectively. A fourth was ordered to find Gregory a complete change of clothes. A fifth was told to give immediate instructions for the alterations of the markings on the Belgian plane, then to collect Charlton and work out with him, from the latest weather reports and maps of the Baltic, the navigation details of a flight to Finland; while the sixth was sent running to bring all the available reports on Russia from Goering's private files.

The man who was going to the Foreign Office fetched a camera and photographed Gregory, both in uniform and in a borrowed civilian overcoat, for the two passports. Then two clerks brought in a typewriter on a wheeled desk. Immediately the reports arrived Goering flung off his coat and sitting down, in his shirt-sleeves, at his big table he began to dictate.

As Gregory stood behind him, reading snatches of the reports over the Marshal's shoulder, he was filled with amazement and admiration at the spectacle of the man who had created the new Germany exercising his extraordinary brain. Every now and again Goering mopped the perspiration from his broad forehead as he sweated out the alcohol that he had drunk—and was still drinking, for the deaf-mute barman had appeared again and had opened another magnum of champagne. With pauses
of only a moment the Marshal was absorbing whole pages of typescript with a sponge-like rapidity and condensing them into brief paragraphs. He missed nothing of importance and his words poured out in a swift, unhesitating flow. The typist's fingers positively flew over the keys as he took the dictation, and the other man who had come in with him constantly prepared fresh foolscap paper and carbons so that there should be the least possible delay in changing sheets at the end of each page.

Gregory very soon realised that there were not going to be any half-measures about the report. Goering was giving an abbreviated but detailed account of the whole building-up of the Red Army. He seemed to know the personal history of every general of importance, the state of moral of every army corps and the positions they now occupied.

At half past two in the morning the first of the three officers who had been sent to Berlin arrived back with another mass of papers. Soon afterwards his colleague who had visited the War Office came in with yet more files. They remained there sorting them as though their very lives depended on it; scanning sheet after sheet and pulling out only those of importance for the Marshal's perusal. “Keep that,” or “Scrap that,” was all Goering said after a second's glance at each paper that was handed to him.

By four o'clock he had turned his attention to the Soviet Air Force and was giving detail after detail about the various types of Russian planes, their speed, their numbers, their positions; then he passed to bombs, personnel, flight efficiency, petrol reserves, capacity of training-centres.

At a little before five the man who had been to the Foreign Office came in. He had with him the passport for Colonel-Baron von Lutz, but they were still busy faking the British passport in the name of Gregory Sallust and he said that it would be sent out to Karinhall by six o'clock.

With him he also brought a fresh pile of papers and shortly after his arrival Goering turned from the subject of the Air Force to the Russian political scene. Each of the sixteen commissars, who between them made up the three committees which rule Russia, was given a long paragraph—bribable or unbribable, married or single, private life, antecedents, secret vices—everything which might assist a foreign Power in shaping its policy towards these men should they suddenly come into special prominence.

At ten minutes past six Goering suddenly pushed back his chair and stood up. The job was done.

In one Herculean effort, which would have taken most men weeks of hard, conscientious preparation, he had compiled a document of 126 foolscap sheets which would give the Finns every vital fact that Germany knew about Russia and would show Russia's weakness.

For a few moments he sat quite still, while the officers withdrew their depleted files, then he dictated a letter which ran:

“
Karinhall,

“
November 28th,
1939.

“
The bearer of this is my friend, Colonel-Baron von Lutz. The Baron will hand to you a document of the first importance. With the information therein, for which I personally vouch, the Finnish Government will realise that they have little to fear from an attack by Russia.

“
At the moment Germany is in no position to make an official pronouncement but I cannot too strongly stress our hope that the Finnish Government will resist the Russian demands, with the knowledge that time is on their side and that in secret I shall do everything possible to assist them.
”

The speed-typist and his assistant left the room. Goering signed the letter, took the top copy of the report and three sheafs of original documents from the piles that his
aides-de-camp
had sorted out, thrust them into a large stout envelope and handed the whole bundle to Gregory with von Pleisen's Iron Cross, as he said:

“The letter has no superscription but you will take it to Monsieur Grado Wuolijoki—Monsieur Wuo-li-joki—at the Finnish Foreign Office. He is of German extraction, on his mother's side, and my personal friend. He will see that these papers reach the right quarter.”