A Gathering of Spies (23 page)

“How long have you known one another?” Gladys asked.

“Hm?” Agnes said. “Nearly two years.” Her eyes were closed. Her face, Gladys thought, looked very peaceful.

“Have you …?”

“Mm?”

“You know,” Gladys said.

“What?”

“
You
know, Agnes. Don't make me say it.”

Agnes opened one eye, then closed it again. “Yes,” she said. “We have.”

“Was he your first?”

Agnes opened both eyes. She gazed abstractedly at the ceiling for a moment before closing them. “No,” she said.

“Who else?”

“I'd rather not discuss it, Gladys.”

“But it
is
better with somebody you love, right?”

“I'd rather not discuss it, I said. Now, just concentrate on what you're doing.”

“But, Agnes, please. You must tell me—”

“Quiet, Gladys. Concentrate.”

That night Katarina lay awake in bed, trying to will herself to sleep—and failing.

She rolled over angrily and pressed her head deeper into the pillow. She
needed
to rest. The entire purpose of her
staying
in Peterborough was to rest.

Why couldn't she sleep? It made no sense. She was spent—utterly and completely spent, emotionally, mentally, and physically.

She had realized, following her encounter with the
Luftwaffe
, that she needed to get outside of whatever new perimeter her pursuers established. That meant a hike—and not the leisurely sort. She had struck off on foot, setting a nearly impossible pace for herself, despite her dizziness. This, she had recognized, was her only real chance: to get farther from the crumpled lorry than they would think possible.

The very worst of it had come near the beginning, during a one-mile hike down a shallow river. Simply submerging oneself in a creek, she knew, would not throw off a bloodhound. The scent rose to the top of the water. One needed to travel a good distance, slogging through a brook, for it to be worth anything. And she had done it, though her body—exhausted, battered, and burned—had cried bloody murder.

Somehow the dogs had never quite caught up to her, although she had heard them, more than once, baying in the distance. After leaving the stream, she had walked all through the night, all through the following day, keeping to the woods whenever possible, giving wide leeway to the towns she encountered; then, after a few hours of fitful rest, she had walked all through the night again. She had pushed herself to the very point of collapse.

But she had made it. That was all that mattered. She had come far enough to slip through the third perimeter. Now they wouldn't find her unless they conducted a house-to-house sweep.

Which they surely would, considering the import of the knowledge in her head.

She wondered, not for the first time, why they hadn't come yet.

Perhaps they were focusing themselves only on roadblocks and railway junctions. But this explanation, while tempting, did not satisfy her. She knew the secret of the bomb; would they really be content to pursue her in an essentially passive way? Not, she was forced to concede, unless they possessed some backup plan, some perceived likelihood of catching her farther down the line.

The
treff
?

Would they be waiting for her there?

But how could they possibly know where the rendezvous would be? Even if they had broken her codes, the chances that they could have isolated and identified the particular burst of wireless noise from Hamburg that had been her instructions …

Could Fritz have betrayed her? She would not have doubted it. Yet she couldn't figure out how. He was dead before she had ever learned the location of the rendezvous.

Then what?

She heaved another sigh and rolled over again, burrowing into the sheets. It did not particularly matter, she thought, one way or the other, if they were expecting her at the
treff
. It did not matter because she was already committed. She would go ahead with the rendezvous in any case, trap or not.

Then she had the strangest thought of all:

What if she
wasn't
already committed?

What if she changed her mind? Took herself out of the game?

She opened her eyes, considering.

It would be possible, she decided. Lay low in Peterborough for a week or two, until things cooled a bit. Then move on. Elsewhere in England, or up into Scotland; or to Lisbon, or Tangier, or Casablanca. Eventually the war would end, and then the world would open itself to her. Perhaps, she thought, she could even return to America. The Jitterbug. The Big Apple. The Lindy Bop. Yes, it could be done. She was still young enough to start over.

She thought of Philip, the fictional Philip, whom she had described to Gladys in such detail out of whole cloth. Then she thought, somewhat wryly, of Oscar Wilde:
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask and he will tell you the truth
.

But was that really what she desired—a safe, conventional, boring situation? Had she forgotten so quickly what life had been like for Catherine Danielson Carter?

No, she hadn't forgotten.

Better to be true to herself and perish than to risk returning to that—or, even worse, to risk what had happened to Fritz.

And don't forget
, she thought,
if you make it, you'll be a hero. You'll return to Germany with the secret that will win the war. You'll have your pick of men. You'll live out your life with the victors in splendor, with honor, in luxury
.

And yet …

And yet.

And yet she did not believe, deep down, that the secret in her head
would
be enough to win the war.

Or, more precisely, she did not believe that her people would use it that way.

Every time she tried to picture the result of her delivering her secret to Hitler, she envisioned
Götterdämmerung
—the twilight of the gods. That was the Germanic way, after all, from times of legend: Valhalla ablaze in an orgy of death and destruction, friends and foes perishing as one; Siegfried, Brunhilde, Wotan all drowning in blood and flame—yet satisfied, somehow, with what they had wrought. It was, she believed, the true essence of Hitler's war: not to conquer the world and acquire
lebensraum
, not at its core, but to fight against impossible odds and to conquer, for a time; and then, when his enemies had beaten him back, to burn everything he encountered. His foes, his followers, and finally, gloriously, himself.

Blasphemy
.

Blasphemy and propaganda
.

She was exhausted. That was the problem.

She tried again to force herself to sleep. She would need her sleep in the days to come.

Then she thought of the girl.

Another betrayal. Another murder.

She had not allowed herself to grow close to anybody, to make any sort of real personal connection since her time at Owen and Dunn, ten years before. The marriage to Richard had been a study in keeping chilly distance; she had not let him past even her outermost line of defense.

The last time she had grown at all close to anybody, in fact, she had ended up killing her.

Now history seemed on the verge of repeating itself.

Gladys was kind and sweet, naive and friendly. But of course she would have to die—both she and Sir John—so that no alarm would be raised once Katarina had stolen the car.

She would eliminate Gladys on Thursday, she thought, when Bailey went into London on business. Then Bailey himself, when he arrived home that night. Then she would take the car and drive, keeping under cover of dark, hiding and sleeping during the day, reaching the point of rendezvous well before Sunday morning, rested and fed, ready for anything.

Her hand wandered absently to her hair. It was bristly, not only from its great shortness—what a fright she must have looked—but from the bleach, which had proved harsh and desiccating.

Still, it was an extreme change, an effective disguise. She guessed that very few of the male British Military Intelligence officers who were looking for her would make a connection between her current self, the dark-haired woman with the mid-length bob who had been on the train, and the Katarina Heinrich of the flowing blond locks. Especially not if she was able to show them Gladys Lockhart's National Registration card. They did not share a perfect likeness, she and Gladys; but if the light was poor, it should be good enough.

And God damn it, why didn't he
come
to her, the old fool? She was in his bed. She would accept him if he came. It would be, at least, a distraction. But he was too much of a coward.

When sunrise was a mere hour away, she decided that she had no chance of sleeping that night.

Then her body played a trick on her. She slept through the dawn.

THE NORTH SEA

Kapitänleutnant
Schmidt did not know which was worse, the hovering SS man in his glistening black uniform or the fact that they were out of coffee.

The SS man, named Hagen, was making a point of staying aggressively close to Schmidt. The submarine, U-403, was claustrophobic enough, in
Kapitänleutnant
Schmidt's opinion, without an SS man dogging his every move. If the man was still following him so closely when they approached the coast, Schmidt would have no choice. He would have to ask Hagen to cease and desist.

Except that he wouldn't, and he knew it.

He was terrified of the SS man, who wore the Twelve-Years-Long Service Award prominently displayed on his lapel, just below the double slash of lightning. Twelve
years
in the SS, Schmidt thought—the man must have been truly immune to pity.

Schmidt knew that he was not alone in his fear of Hagen. The
Abwehr
representative on board, the nominal leader of this mission, was a man named Klaus Gruber. Gruber positively cringed every time Hagen so much as glanced at him. The rest of the crew simply kept their heads down and avoided making eye contact, perhaps imitating the conduct of their captain.

If only there had been a decent supply of coffee on board, Schmidt thought, he would have felt more alert, more able to handle the SS man. But he had been told just as they were putting out: There was no more coffee to be spared for the U-boats. Things in Berlin must have been going badly indeed, if they couldn't even rustle up a few pounds of coffee for the brave boys in the wolf packs. The U-boats, after all, were Germany's first line of defense.

He sighed heavily, then folded up the periscope, and turned around.

And immediately bumped into Hagen, who was sticking close, as usual.

“Excuse me,
Herr
Hagen,” Schmidt said.

“Of course,” Hagen said in a voice that was almost a purr.

“I'm going up to have a look at the weather,” Schmidt said. Even as he said it he wondered why he felt the need to justify himself to this man, who was officially nothing more than an observer.

“The weather concerns you?”

“It does. It should concern you, too. If that storm doesn't come in, we'll make a fine target for the British corvettes.”

“Do you not expect the storm to come in?”

“In fact,” Schmidt said, “I expect just the opposite. But I'll feel better when I've seen it break with my own eyes.”

Hagen nodded.

“So if you'll excuse me,” Schmidt said, and waited for the man to step aside to make room.

Hagen did so, but slowly, contemptuously.

“
Herr Kapitänleutnant
,” he said as Schmidt brushed past, “if by chance the storm does not break, what, may I ask, are your plans then?”

“If the storm does not break,” Schmidt said, “we will postpone the rendezvous for one week. Let the English traitor return when circumstances are in our favor.”

Hagen's mouth turned down at the corners.

“I am afraid that is not possible,” he said softly. “Perhaps now is the time for me to inform you,
Herr Kapitänleutnant
, that there is more at stake here than you are aware.”

Schmidt tried to look the man in the eyes, but he was unable to hold his resolve. Instead, he quickly looked down at the bulkhead beneath their feet.

“More at stake?” he muttered.

“
Herr
Gruber's mission is only one of the missions we are undertaking. We will be rendezvousing with two agents during this
treff
.”

“Two agents,” Schmidt repeated.

“Correct.”

“Why was I not informed?”

“The second mission is confidential. Even
Herr
Gruber is not aware of it.”

“Who is the second agent?”

“That does not concern you. Suffice it to say that I am reporting directly to
Reichsleiter
Himmler on this matter.”

Schmidt straightened up. “If you compel me to approach the coast in clear weather,
Herr
Hagen,” he said, “I believe it does concern me. This is my vessel, after all. As captain I am responsible for her well-being.”

Hagen's frown turned up into a dull smile. “
Herr
Schmidt,” he said, “so long as the storm breaks, there will be no need to determine who possesses the ultimate authority onboard this vessel, hm?”

Schmidt, with an effort, continued to stand at his full height.

“If you would care to force the issue,” Hagen said, “you will find me willing. But since it seems that we will have the storm we require, is that truly necessary?”

Schmidt said nothing.

“I thought not,” Hagen said. “Now, come,
Kapitänleutnant
Schmidt. Let us go and have a look at your weather … together.”

PETERBOROUGH, NORFOLK

Gladys's lips were moving. “Whhh …” she said.

Katarina put her hand over Gladys's mouth. She watched the confused light in the girl's eyes fade, fade, and then die.

Katarina took her hand back, put it in her lap, and sat for a moment on the kitchen floor, thinking. The craving for a cigarette hit her, momentarily enveloped her, and then passed. She looked at the corpse lying next to her.
Not yet eighteen
, she thought. Gladys's mouth was open; her tongue looked unnaturally red. She had begun to vomit blood before she had died.