End of Spies, Alex Gerlis [important of reading books txt] 📗

‘Why to the Russians?’

‘They’re good communists.’

‘And where is he now?’

‘Berlin. During the war, Alsace was annexed into the German Reich, so the Russians claimed that the proper course of action was to try him in Berlin.’

Prince and Hanne looked at each other and nodded. ‘If we go to Berlin, we can question him and find out the true identity of the Ferret,’ said Prince.

‘If Schweitzer’s still alive,’ said Irène. ‘Last month there was a report about his trial on the front page of L’Humanité: they’d sentenced him to death!’

Chapter 10

London and Berlin, September 1945

‘Berlin, you say?’

‘Yes, sir.’

Tom Gilbey shook his head and didn’t look nearly as pleased as Prince and Hanne did sitting in front of him. Shafts of late-morning sunlight caught their faces, enhancing their bright demeanour.

‘It’s always complicated, isn’t it? This is what I meant when I said how Europe is changing so fast and we don’t appear to be keeping up with whatever’s going on. I rather hoped that once the bloody war ended, life would be somewhat more straightforward, but instead it feels as if the rules have suddenly changed in the middle of a game. Now we have the Soviets to worry about, and Europe is still teeming with Nazis. It’s like the game’s over and now we’re into extra time. We had a games master at school who used to do that: kept adding on time to a match if his house was losing.’

He paused and held up his hand in apology, aware that he’d been rambling. He pushed his reading glasses down from his forehead and once again scanned the report they’d submitted on their return from Paris the previous day.

‘So it all seems to hinge on what this Irène woman says, eh? Seems rather tenuous, if you ask me.’

‘Marguerite checked her out and she is genuine. She was a member of a communist resistance group operating in and around the 15th, and supplied valuable intelligence from inside the mairie. Her husband was deported to Auschwitz and murdered there. Marguerite couldn’t find anyone who had a bad word to say about her, which is saying something in Paris.’

‘There is no question she’s telling the truth.’ Hanne had rested her hand on her husband’s arm. ‘Remember I spent more than two years in a concentration camp. There you have to rely absolutely on your instincts as to who you can trust and who you can’t. You learn to spot the stooges and know who’s telling the truth and who’s lying, and more to the point, you also learn to know when people are telling the truth for good reasons but exaggerating, telling you what they think you want to hear. Irène was genuine.’

‘Let me get this straight then – and you’ll no doubt correct me if I get something tangled up along the way. Wilson has a contact in the resistance…’

‘Marguerite.’

‘…yes, yes… who found there was a woman in Fresnes prison called Anna Lefebvre who told you that a chap going by the name Charles Girard might know the identity of the Ferret. So you visited the mairie and—’

‘It’s all there in the report, sir. We met Irène and she told us Girard’s real name is Alphonse Schweitzer and he knows the real identity of the Ferret.’

‘Yes, thank you, Prince, I can read, though I’m not convinced these damn spectacles help. And Schweitzer is a guest of the Soviets in Berlin.’

‘Yes, sir, if he’s not been executed yet.’

‘I’m still not clear why he allowed anyone in Paris to know his real identity.’

‘Nor are we, sir, but he’d obviously been leading a double life for some time, and perhaps he became a bit too confident.’

‘I think,’ said Hanne, ‘that we need to go to Berlin – it’s urgent we find Schweitzer before he’s executed.’

‘Well I agree that’s preferable to seeing him after he’s executed, but I’m not sure we can have you two gallivanting all over Europe, can we? It’s not as if you’re on the Grand Tour. We have liaison chaps in Berlin who can take this up.’

‘With respect, sir, I’m not sure how good an idea that is.’

‘Really, Prince?’

‘I know Berlin, and—’

‘Under the Nazis.’

‘But that’s the point, sir, not just under the Nazis. On my last mission, when I was working for Hugh Harper, I was in Berlin after the Red Army captured it. I know my way around and I have an excellent contact there with whom I have a good relationship. He could be of enormous help. If it wasn’t for him, I doubt I’d have found Hanne alive.’

‘And who is this contact?’

‘Iosif Leonid Gurevich,’ said Prince, as if he was announcing the man’s arrival. ‘He’s a senior officer in the NKGB, which is their security organisation, and…’

‘I do what the NKGB is, thank you, Prince.’

‘…and he’s a podpolkovnik, which is like our lieutenant colonel rank.’

Gilbey looked impressed.

‘And of course, sir, I did file a contact report when I returned.’

‘Naturally.’

‘So if I – we – can get over to Berlin as soon as possible?’

‘We’ll need to see how—’

‘The RAF have taken over an airbase at Gatow in the south-west of the city, sir. I’ve already made some calls, and we can get on a flight there first thing in the morning if you approve it now.’

‘Both of you?’

‘Yes, both of us,’ Hanne said. ‘My German’s far better than Richard’s.’

‘Very well then. Let’s hope this isn’t going to be something I end up regretting, eh?’

The Dakota of RAF Transport Command left RAF Northolt at seven in the morning, landing at RAF Gatow in Berlin nearly four hours later. A tall man wearing a trilby and a long gabardine raincoat was waiting for them at the bottom of the aircraft steps. Hanne gripped Prince’s hand as they descended.

‘Is that the man?’

‘I imagine so.’

‘He looks like Gestapo.’

‘I doubt Gilbey’s employing former Gestapo officers, but we’ll soon find out.’

The man was called Kenneth Bemrose and was the best Gilbey could find at such short notice. He wasn’t MI6, but he had some