The Game of Treachery Read online

  ‘I wasn’t thinking of six months. Are they still searching for you?’

  ‘I do not think so. They know we are in Vichy and they know we are in these mountains. We know that they have been applying pressure on the government. And we also know that the Vichy police know where we are. But they will not betray us as long as we do not make life difficult for them.’

  ‘So you would like to spend the rest of the war hiding here and doing nothing.’

  ‘No, no,’ Moulin protested. ‘But we must make sure that whatever is done cannot be related to us.’ He watched the expression on James’s face. ‘But this will not satisfy you.’

  ‘I’m afraid it will not satisfy my superiors. So what did you have in mind?’

  ‘We are planning a campaign of assassination. One man acting on his own, moving into occupied France, far away from here, carrying out the murder of a German officer, the higher ranking the better.’

  ‘The idea is ridiculous,’ Liane said.

  ‘You did it,’ her brother snapped.

  ‘Yes, I did it. But it happened in my Paris flat, where I had every advantage. In addition, Biedermann was a Gestapo officer on his way home from work. He had with him several signed but undated passes and travel permits, which I was able to use before anyone realized what had happened to him.’ She spoke quietly and without emotion of what James had no doubt had been the most traumatic moment of her life. But that same act of unemotional coolness was the reason she had survived.

  ‘So the situation was ideal for you,’ Pierre said. ‘For others it will be more risky. But as James has said, we must do something.’

  Moulin had been studying the British officer. ‘I think James has come here to tell us what he wants us to do,’ he said.

  James looked round the faces of the two women and the three men. ‘What I have to say must be absolutely confidential. Firstly, we are slowly putting our affairs back in order, both defensively and aggressively. I’m sure you appreciate that the events of last summer, the overrunning of Holland, Belgium and France by the enemy in a matter of days, overwhelmed our espionage and counter-espionage networks in those countries. These are being re-established, but it is obviously a lengthy and dangerous task where we are operating entirely in enemy-controlled territory. This makes your group, already established, the more valuable. Now we must operate with a system of passwords, known only to us.’

  ‘Sterling,’ Pierre said. ‘That is our password.’

  ‘It was. It has been changed to Pound. As of now, we are all Pounds. My superior is Pound. I am Pound One. My assistant is Pound Two. I control various other agents in the field who are Pounds Three to Ten. Then we come to you. Jean, you are Pound Eleven. Liane, you are Pound Twelve. Pierre, you are Pound Fourteen.’

  ‘Who is Pound Thirteen?’ Pierre asked.

  ‘We thought we’d omit that, as it’s an unlucky number.’

  Pierre grinned. ‘I am not superstitious. I will take Thirteen.’

  ‘If that’s how you want it. Now, remember that you must use only these code names when communicating with me or anyone else. Anyone who seeks to contact you and does not identify himself, or herself, with a Pound number is a potential enemy and should be reported to me.’

  ‘Don’t I have a number?’ Henri asked. ‘And Amalie?’

  ‘The code names are designated for commanders.’ He smiled at the disappointed young man. ‘Otherwise we’d have more Pounds than we’d know what to do with. But there is plenty for everyone to do. One of the tasks I am going to set you will require the involvement of your people here, but they are to be given no details until they are about to go into action. The other tasks must be kept to a minimum of people.

  ‘I will deal with the second one first. We are now engaged in retaliating for the Blitz, as best we are able. Our aircraft are bombing Germany almost nightly, with some success. However, inevitably there are losses. In a large number of cases the aircrew survive, and sometimes manage to evade capture for some time. As a general rule they endeavour to make their way to the coast, and in this they are receiving considerable assistance, at great personal risk, from Dutch and Belgian patriots. Unfortunately, if they do reach the coast, it is too often a dead end. There are fishermen who are willing to help, but their activities are closely monitored by the Germans, and the success rate has been low.’

  ‘You would like to bring them through France,’ Moulin said. ‘Through Vichy.’

  ‘We are not sure that would be any safer than through the occupied territory. But we will take your advice on this. What we wish to set up is a regular and reliable escape route. This will involve the use of safe houses, where our people can lie concealed until the next stage of the journey can be arranged.’

  Amalie clapped her hands. ‘Just like The Scarlet Pimpernel.’

  ‘But these men are not, I hope, to be snatched from the cells of the Gestapo,’ Henri said.

  ‘Under no circumstances. The essence of this operation, which will be dangerous enough anyway, is that there must be no clash with any authority. If there is the slightest risk of the Gestapo moving in, your people must move out and utterly disassociate themselves from the airman involved. You must be quite clear about this. The preservation of the escape route is of far more importance than the extraction of one man.’

  ‘What about the one man?’ Liane asked, quietly.

  ‘Our men will be briefed on what they have to do in the first instance. Obviously it would be too risky for them to know the whole route, in case they were to be captured. From stage one they will be directed to stage two, and so on.’

  ‘All the way down to Spain, and then Portugal,’ Pierre said. ‘That is how you got me in last year.’

  ‘You wish us to organize the entire route?’ Moulin asked.

  ‘No. We have agents in Belgium and Holland who have already set up their end. Your people will take over once they are in France. Paris is the key. The evaders will necessarily pass through Paris. Not only will they be safer in a great metropolis than in a small town, where they will stick out like sore thumbs, but Paris is also the hub of the French rail network.’ Another glance round the suddenly tense faces. ‘You understand that these people you employ will have to be utterly committed, that any suggestion of treachery will have to be ruthlessly dealt with, and that they have to be talented, or have talented contacts; our people will need identity cards, travel documents, and some personal details.’

  ‘I understand,’ Pierre said. ‘I will take care of it.’

  ‘You?’ cried both his sisters.

  ‘Of course. I am the obvious choice. I have lived in Paris. I know the people —’

  ‘And the people know you,’ Amalie pointed out. ‘There is a warrant out for your arrest. You would not last a week.’

  ‘As for having lived there for a few months,’ Liane said scornfully, ‘I lived there for seven years. What is more, I know the sort of people we need to employ.’

  ‘Do you?’ Moulin asked.

  The faintest hint of colour seeped into Liane’s cheeks, and she gave James a quick glance. ‘I lived — what shall I say? — a Bohemian existence there. I know the Left Bank cafés, the would-be artists and painters and actors and writers. And I also knew people outside the law.’

  ‘And they accepted you in their society. Liane? You?’

  ‘They accepted me because I was rich. I bought them drinks. And, well, I lived their kind of life.’

  As earlier, there was total silence, and James realized that neither Pierre nor Amalie actually knew their older sister very well. But then, what of him? He did not know her at all. If he had been almost unable to believe the way she had thrown herself into his arms within a few hours of meeting him, he had been inclined to think of irresistible chemistry rather than wanton desire. So did it make a difference? Never, to him. He would accept her on her own terms. But that meant … Pierre put it into words. ‘It would be far too dangerous. You say there is a warrant out for me. My God, there is a r
eward out for you.’

  ‘Do you really suppose anyone remembers what I look like? I left Paris last July. Anyway, I will be adequately disguised. I told you, amongst my friends were out-of-work actors. They told me all about the art of make-up. Monterre will make me a new identity card.’ Now she gazed at James. ‘Tell them that I am the obvious person for the task.’

  ‘We’ll talk about it. We also need staging posts set up in Orleans, Poitiers and Bordeaux.’

  ‘Well, I can certainly handle that,’ Pierre declared.

  ‘It would be better if you found someone else. We need you for that second task, because this is a military matter. It will involve, as I have said, your entire force. There is a new unit being formed in England called the Commandos. These are elite, highly trained troops, to be used for inflicting quick raids across the Channel, hit the enemy hard, and then get out again. The intention is to keep the enemy in constant apprehension of where he’ll be struck next, and force him to keep considerable forces along the French coast, and also to use these raids as rehearsals for our return to France as an army when the time is right.’

  ‘Wheeee!’ Amalie cried. ‘When?’

  ‘When the time is right. At this moment, we are talking about small raids. But they would be far more effective if they were to coincide with guerilla activity in the vicinity of the area being raided. Will your people take part?’

  ‘Yes,’ Henri said. ‘Tell us where and when.’

  James looked at Moulin. ‘I think most of them would do so,’ the prefect said. ‘But unless you are speaking of the Bordeaux area, which is a long way from England, we are a long way from the sea. Certainly the Channel.’

  ‘You will be given ample time to move your people into position. You know the wavelength on which to listen, and you have your map references. Your call sign will be JJX. The messages will come through at three o’clock in the morning. The first will be “A nightingale sings”. This will mean prepare to move. The second will be “Berkeley Square” and will be accompanied by a map reference. This will tell you where you should be four weeks to the day. Is that understood?’

  The Frenchman nodded. ‘And these new radios you have brought us?’ Pierre asked. ‘They are for this operation?’

  ‘One is. One is for the Paris operator.’ He glanced at Liane. ‘The others are for your staging-post commanders. They are receivers only. I have a code system with me, which I will give you. You have handled a radio before, Pierre. You will instruct whoever is finally chosen, in both the assembly and the usage of these sets, and the use of the codes.’ Pierre nodded. ‘There is one thing more.’ He glanced from face to face, and took a box from his pocket. ‘There are forty capsules here. One must be issued to each of you people. It must be carried at all times, and kept in the mouth in time of danger. If captured, it must be bitten. Death is painless and instantaneous.’ He did not dare look at Liane. ‘Believe me, it is better than being tortured and betraying your associates.’

  The Frenchmen exchanged glances, and Moulin took the box. ‘I will issue them. Now, you must be very tired. I think we should all turn in.’

  ‘But James and I have matters to discuss,’ Liane said softly.

  *

  The night, already nearly over, was cool rather than cold. Liane picked two blankets and led James away from the cave and into the wood. ‘Everyone will know what we’re doing,’ he said.

  ‘Are you ashamed of that? Or are you ashamed of me, after what I said at supper?’

  ‘The only emotion I ever feel when I think of you is pride. I am proud to have known you, been able to love you. I am proud of you, of everything you have ever done.’ She spread a blanket on the ground. ‘If we take off our pants and roll them up, they will be our pillows.’ He did as she wanted, took off his boots, as did she. Then she pulled the other blanket over them. ‘You are proud of a murderess?’

  ‘You did what you had to do.’

  ‘I did what I wanted to do. In any normal society I would merely have called the police. But Biedermann was the police. And I did not kill him because he raped me; I killed him because he boasted of what they had done to Jean, to Amalie. Do you know what I did?’

  ‘Ah …’ He didn’t really want to hear it, but he understood that she wanted to talk about it, and if she needed to share that experience with him, then he might at last be within touching distance of actually getting inside her mind, instead of only lapping at the physical periphery of her personality. ‘You never told me.’

  ‘After boasting of his exploits, he made me have sex with him. I could not prevent this, as he was so much bigger and stronger than I.’ Her tone was entirely matter-of-fact. ‘Then he wanted brandy, so I gave him some, but I dissolved several of my sleeping tablets in it. Do you know, he actually commented on the slightly different taste, and when I told him that it was our own brew, he asked me to order some for him. Then he fell asleep, so I went into the kitchen and got a carving knife, and cut his throat.’ Her arms were tight on his body. ‘That is what he boasted they had made Jean do. Only I made sure he was dead. Then I drew a hot bath. There was blood everywhere. Then I got dressed, took his pistol and his papers, and simply walked out of the flat.’

  He kissed her. ‘And became a legend.’

  She made a moue. ‘We have talked enough.’ But as her hands guided his to their goal, he realized that they had not talked at all about what was on his mind.

  *

  When James awoke it was broad daylight, and she was gone. But she returned a few minutes later with bread and a cup of wine. ‘We do not have coffee,’ she explained, kneeling beside him. ‘You slept well. You snored.’

  ‘But you stayed awake.’

  ‘I have lots of time to sleep after you have gone.’

  ‘You would have even more time to sleep if you came with me.’

  She kissed him. ‘You said that the last time you came here.’

  ‘I am hoping that one day you will say yes.’

  ‘When the war is over, perhaps.’

  ‘That could be a long time.’

  ‘Then we will have to be patient. You do not really wish me to desert my people? My friends? My family? That would make me very little better than Madeleine.’

  ‘Do you hate her?’

  Liane appeared to consider. ‘Yes.’

  ‘She would say she was trying to help.’

  ‘And my mother and father are in a concentration camp.’ He sighed. ‘Do you have news of them?’

  ‘People in Dachau do not write letters.’

  He put down his cup to hold her hands. ‘Li, you know that I am in overall command of this operation. I can forbid you to go to Paris.’

  ‘But you will not do so.’

  ‘The thought of you having to bite one of those capsules …’

  ‘Is death really instantaneous, and painless?’

  ‘It’s supposed to be pretty quick. As for being painless … No one who has taken one has ever got around to telling us.’

  ‘Having one will be a great comfort. But you will not forbid me to go.’

  He gazed at her for several moments. Then his shoulders sagged. ‘No, I will not do that.’

  *

  ‘Good morning, sir. How did it go?’ Sergeant Rachel Cartwright’s tone was cold, as it usually was when James returned from a mission. This he knew was caused by several things. She could see no adequate reason why she was not allowed to undertake such missions herself. Certainly she regarded herself as better qualified than he, if only because she spoke fluent French whereas his was of the schoolboy variety. Then there was the business of the danger to which he was exposing himself. Rachel’s affection for him was in many ways maternal. In many ways, but not all. For the principal reason she went into a sulk every time he went to France was that she knew he would be seeing Liane, and she also knew what would happen when he did that. He often wondered what would happen if the two women were ever to meet; he could not believe that there was a jealous bone in Liane’s
body.

  Whereas Rachel … Tall and so slender as almost to be thin, and with delightfully long legs, with a wealth of black hair worn when on duty, as now, in a tight bun, with sharp features which were actually enhanced by her horn-rimmed spectacles, she was just as much of a blue blood as any de Gruchy, and whereas the de Gruchys had been pitched into the war and virtually told by fate to swim or sink, Rachel Cartwright had volunteered for the ATS, and then volunteered for special training, and then volunteered for special operations, simply because she had felt it necessary to do her bit to the maximum.

  She could have wound up working for anyone in the SIS. But she had wound up working for him. Sharing so many secrets they could confide in no one else, experiencing the continual traumas of placing agents in the field to undergo the risks of arrest, torture and execution — or instant suicide — the fact that they had gravitated towards each other had been unavoidable however hard he had tried to resist temptation, and not only because of Liane: he had understood how incorrect it was for an officer to take an enlisted woman to bed. But it was what she had wanted, almost demanded, and she was a difficult young woman to refuse. At least he had never made any secret that he was in love elsewhere. She had said it didn’t matter to her, presumably on the basis that she was in situ and Liane was a long way away. As a rule.

  He sat behind his desk. ‘I think it was very satisfactory. If a little hairy.’

  ‘You had trouble?’ Her voice was anxious.

  ‘A German interceptor.’

  ‘Oh, my God! But you’re here!’

  ‘We took evasive action.’

  ‘But you had to come back.’

  ‘True. But it was the next night, and there was cloud cover, and they weren’t looking for us coming from inland. So there was really nothing to worry about in the air.’

  ‘And on the ground? You read them their lecture?’

  ‘Yes. They listened, and promised to do what we wished.’

  ‘And I assume you saw Liane? Was that satisfactory?’

  ‘Not entirely.’

  ‘Oh?’

  He grinned. ‘Not in the sense you mean. She intends to take on the Paris set-up herself.’