The Suicide Exhibition: The Never War (Never War 1) (7 page)

‘Of course, Herr Reichsfuhrer. And the Vril project?’

The light glinted on Himmler’s glasses as he turned abruptly to look at Hoffman. ‘What of it?’

‘I appreciate you did not wish to confuse or worry the Fuhrer with details, but the Deputy Fuhrer was uneasy at Wewelsburg. He saw… everything. He understood the implications – the potential risks as well as the benefits. It unsettled him. It is possible that this insane mission of his—’

‘Yes, yes,’ Himmler snapped. ‘But there is nothing we can do about it now.’

‘Perhaps we should delay the project. Slow down.’ Hoffman swallowed. He was on dangerous ground here. ‘At least until we can be sure the allies know nothing.’

‘Slow down?
Now?
’

‘As a precaution, nothing more.’

Himmler considered for a moment, staring down at the floor. Then he looked up, grasping Hoffman’s shoulder. ‘You are right, we cannot simply proceed as if nothing has happened.’

‘A little caution—’ Hoffman started to say.

But Himmler was not listening. ‘If the Allies believe even a fraction of what Hess might tell them, then speed is essential.’

‘Speed?’

‘We must redouble our efforts. The Vril Project cannot be compromised. Write my report for the Fuhrer, and then signal Streicher in France.’

Himmler had made up his mind, and Hoffman knew he could not be persuaded to change it. ‘Of course, Herr Reichsfuhrer.’

‘Tell Streicher he must finish his excavations now. Tell him to bring the Ubermensch to Wewelsburg immediately.’

THEY SAT IN
a gloomy corner of the café, away from the windows, drinking hot, black coffee from small cups. Smith knew the man only as ‘Jacques’. They had met several times before, never in the same place and never for more than a few minutes. This was already their longest encounter.

‘Streicher thinks you’ve left the area,’ Jacques said. ‘He’s sent messages to other local forces to find out where you are. But he’s not really interested. Just covering himself in case anyone else asks where you went.’

Smith nodded. ‘I left word that my nerves couldn’t take it after that last accident in the excavations,’ he replied in excellent French. ‘Gone back to my churches and castles. He’ll accept that. After all, it solves a problem for him.’

‘You think he’d have killed you if you’d stayed?’

‘It’s possible. Not a theory I’d like to hang around and test. Better that he thinks I’m out of the way and know as little as possible.’

‘Streicher won’t be here for much longer. They’re packing everything into crates ready to move out.’

That made sense after what had happened. ‘So the painstaking, methodical business of archaeology has become an exercise in hasty evacuation.’

‘My colleagues are watching,’ Jacques said. He took a sip of his coffee. ‘They’re definitely clearing out. They have a
train waiting at Ouvon.’

‘When does it leave?’

‘Some time the day after tomorrow, according to the station master.’

‘So tomorrow they transport the crates to the train.’

‘You want us to intercept the trucks?’ Jacques asked. ‘It will be risky. Heavy casualties. I hope whatever you are after is worth it.’

‘So do I.’ Smith drained the last of his coffee. There were bitter grounds in the bottom of the cup that grated on his tongue and caught in his teeth. ‘But I don’t want Streicher to know he’s been robbed. Not for a while, anyway.’

‘How do you propose to manage that, my friend?’

Smith rubbed his beard as he considered. ‘A little deception,’ he decided. ‘But not on the way to the station. How do you feel about blowing up a railway line?’

They laid the charges under cover of darkness. The fact that the Resistance made a habit of destroying railways and other communications across occupied France would allay any suspicion. There was no reason for Streicher and his men to assume they had been singled out for special treatment.

Jacques also passed word that Streicher’s shipment was not to be interfered with at the station. A ‘low-level’ but effective form of resistance was for the railway workers to deliberately mislabel German supplies or change the cargo manifests so that supplies ended up in the wrong place. The last thing Carlton Smith wanted was to find that his own subterfuge had been pre-empted.

The spot they chose was about seven miles out from Ouvon. The track ran through a cutting before emerging close to a lane. The lane was screened by a line of trees and an area of dense undergrowth. The two men with the detonator watched for the smoke that would show the train was nearing the end of the cutting. The light was fading as evening became night, but the sun was low behind the smoke, making it easy to see. Out of sight, Smith and Jacques waited on the lane with two
more of the Resistance – a young man called Pierre, and a woman who gave her name as Mathilde.

The sound of the approaching train was drowned out by the blast of the explosion. The noise melded into the screech of metal on metal as the driver hit the brakes.

Moving through the undergrowth, Smith watched the train slowing. Its wheels spat sparks. Doors were sliding open along its length as Streicher’s men tried to see what was happening ahead. Several of the soldiers leaped down, guns ready. They ran on ahead of the train, disappearing into the drifting smoke and steam.

As soon as the soldiers were clear, Smith and Mathilde made their move. They ran, crouching, to the back of the train. Mathilde disappeared beneath the back wagon. She emerged again a few moments later, giving Smith a thumbs-up. In moments, she had disappeared into the fog of smoke that spewed from the canister she had placed. The whole of the back of the train was soon swirling in acrid smoke and steam.

Smith was wearing a long, dark coat. In the thick haze it might pass for an officer’s greatcoat, and he was hoping no one would get close enough to make out any more than his vague outline. As soon as Mathilde was out of sight, swallowed up by the smoke, he hammered on the door of the back wagon.

‘Come on, come on!’ he shouted in German. Smith’s accent was a good approximation of Streicher’s voice. He had learned and practised the simple lines he needed as if for a command performance. ‘I need you out here.’

He could barely see the door opening, let alone the two soldiers guarding the crates.

‘They’ve blown up the line ahead of us. There’s a pile of supplies back at the end of the cutting. Bring two rails.’ He didn’t give them time to reply. ‘Quickly – now, now, now!’

‘Sir!’ one of the soldiers responded.

Smith was aware of them pushing past and hurrying back down the track. The smoke was already beginning to clear, so he would have to act fast.

Jacques, Pierre and Mathilde appeared out of the gloom and the four of them clambered into the wagon. Two more men arrived – the ones who had set off the explosives – and climbed in after them.

Smith and Jacques needed the torches they had brought.

‘One large crate, or several smaller ones,’ Jacques said quietly. ‘There is no time for more than that.’

‘It’s a large one I’m after.’

Smith quickly found the crate he was looking for – one of the largest. He tore the packing label from the side of the crate and handed it to Pierre. Mathilde and the others were already stripping labels from other crates and swapping them round. Pierre positioned the label from the large crate on another that was just slightly smaller, pressing it firmly into place.

‘If they start to peel off, they’ll just stick them back on again,’ Smith said. ‘German efficiency.’

Jacques checked outside the wagon, looking both ways into the smoke. It was thinning considerably, but the sky had darkened as the sun dipped below the horizon.

‘We need to go,’ he announced.

They heaved the crate to the edge of the wagon. Pierre and Jacques climbed out to take the weight from the outside. It was about ten feet long and very heavy but, with Mathilde and one of the other men helping, the four of them managed to carry it away from the train.

Inside the wagon, Smith and the other explosives expert moved the large crate of similar size to where the missing crate had been. They shuffled a few others round to fill the space, so that it was not immediately obvious that anything had gone.

Smith looked towards the engine as he clambered out. Figures were silhouetted against the glow from the firebox, wreathed in steam. One of them was obviously Streicher, standing with his hands behind his back as he watched his men working. The two who had found the rails to repair the track would probably get a commendation, Smith thought. Until someone realised what had happened, but that could be days if not weeks away. He hurried away from the train and
pushed his way through the undergrowth.

The crate had already been loaded into the back of the waiting lorry. Mathilde gave a wave as she cycled off down the lane. The two explosives experts followed close behind. Pierre waited to shake Smith’s hand.

‘We make a good team, eh?’

‘We do. Thank you.’ Smith slapped him on the shoulder. ‘Now get going before the Bosch come looking for us.’

‘They won’t come looking,’ Jacques said confidently. He climbed up into the front of the lorry next to where Smith was now behind the wheel.

‘Let’s hope you’re right. You got my transit permits?’

Jacques handed over a sheaf of papers from his inside jacket pocket. ‘You can drop me at the farm. I need to see Jean.’

They sat in the lorry, Jacques smoking a thin but potent-smelling cigarette. The sounds of metal being hammered into place echoed through the night. But they waited until the train had moved off again before starting the engine. Smith drove without lights until they reached the narrow track up to the farm.

‘Drop me here, I’ll walk the rest of the way,’ Jacques said. He leaned across to shake Smith’s hand.

‘You take care of yourself,’ Smith said. ‘Thanks for your help. And for the truck.’

‘Happy to oblige,’ Jacques said, lighting another cigarette.

He jumped down from the cab, looking back through the open window, as if there was something else he wanted to say.

‘Yes?’ Smith prompted.

‘I was just wondering…’ He paused to take a drag on his cigarette.

‘Wondering what?’

‘I spent some time in London before the war.’

‘It’s a great city.’

Jacques nodded. ‘Indeed it is. I very much enjoyed the theatre, and the movies.’

‘Did you?’ There was a slight wariness in Smith’s voice.

‘And I was thinking… Has anyone ever told you that
without that beard you would look very like Leo Davenport – you know, the British actor.’

Smith’s expression did not change. ‘No,’ he said levelly. ‘No one else has ever mentioned it.’

It took Smith almost two weeks to complete his journey. Jacques had arranged contacts along the way from whom he could get new travel papers and fuel for the truck. He avoided the main roads and towns, but even so he was stopped on several occasions. Each time he was allowed to continue once his papers had been checked.

Eventually he crossed into Portugal, and the going got easier. The country was technically neutral, but it was generally pro-fascist so he still needed to be careful.

It was not until he was safely in Lisbon, with his crate full of ‘sugar’ booked onto a cargo ship to Britain that he began to relax. He would travel on by plane, which was safer. Even if his cargo did not make it, he had at least deprived Streicher of his prize.

An hour before the flight, alone in the men’s room at Lisbon airport, ‘Carlton Smith’ peeled off his beard and dropped it into the rubbish bin.

THE INEVITABLE PAPERWORK
had piled up while Guy was away. Most of it was routine, and just took time. But between the routine and the boring, he found a few moments to think about what had happened in Glasgow.

Chivers was not interested. ‘Way above our heads, old boy,’ he told Guy, while subconsciously dry-washing his hands. ‘Way above. Shouldn’t touch it with a barge pole, if you ask me. Best leave it to others. Rather them than us, eh?’

But Guy was not about to leave it alone. It might be ‘above his head’, and he understood the necessity and value of secrecy, but the strange conversation he’d had with Hess haunted him. Now when he slept, as often as he recalled the flames and horrors of Dunkirk, he saw Lord Hamilton’s gaunt, pale, frightened face and Colonel Brinkman striding down the corridor towards him.

The sergeant’s name was ‘Green’; he remembered that from their first meeting. But that was of little help – it was hardly an uncommon name or rank.

Tracking down information about Colonel Brinkman proved more fruitful. Pentecross told himself his curiosity was justified – the Foreign Office should know what was happening, what information Hess had been so desperate to pass on.

He called in a couple of favours. Finally, after a month
getting nowhere by being discreet, Pentecross phoned a girl from Army Records. He’d met Mary Creasy at a party his mother had dragged him along to, and even Mother had noticed the girl was sweet on him.

Mary didn’t need a lot of persuading to take a look at Brinkman’s file. She’d probably have done it without Guy’s rather flimsy story about informally checking the colonel out for a Foreign Office assignment. The agreement that they should meet for a drink once she’d looked at his file seemed incentive enough.

At last he was making progress, Guy thought. A drink with Mary was a small price to pay. Until she told him that Colonel Oliver Brinkman’s exemplary service record ended abruptly in January 1940 with a handwritten note simply saying: ‘Transferred to special duties’.

After hearing that, it was hard to maintain the pretence that he was interested in talking to Mary. She made a better job of pretending not to notice.

‘Oh Guy, I do hope you find what you’re looking for,’ Mary said as they stood outside the pub. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t help.’ She wasn’t talking about Brinkman’s file. She tiptoed up to give Guy a kiss on the cheek, and he managed a smile.

‘Do call me,’ she said.

They both knew it was unlikely.

The air raid warning made up his mind for him. Guy had considered walking while the evening was clear and safe. But with the siren, he headed for the nearest tube station.