Jackdaws

Major Weber came in and stared incredulously at the tray in front of the prisoner. Speaking German, he said, “Are we now rewarding people for harboring terrorists?”

Dieter said, “Mademoiselle is a lady. We must treat her correctly.”

“God in heaven,” Weber said, and he turned on his heel.

She refused the main course but drank all the coffee. Dieter was pleased. Everything was going according to plan. When she had finished, he asked her all the questions again. “Where do you meet the Allied agents? How do they recognize you? What is the password?” She looked worried, but she still refused to answer.

He looked sadly at her. “I am very sorry that you refuse to cooperate with me, after I have treated you kindly.”

She looked somewhat bewildered. “I appreciate your kindness, but I cannot tell you anything~”

Stephanie, sitting beside Dieter, also looked puzzled. He guessed that she was thinking: Did you really imagine that a nice meal would be sufficient to make this woman talk?

“Very well,” he said. He stood up as if to go.

“And now, Monsieur,” said Mademoiselle Lemas. She looked embarrassed. “I must ask to… ah… visit the ladies’ powder room.”

In a harsh voice, Dieter said, “You want to go to the toilet?”

She reddened. “In a word, yes.”

“I’m sorry, Mademoiselle,” Dieter said. “That will not be possible.”

CHAPTER 13

THE LAST THING Monty had said to Paul Chancellor, late on Monday night, had been, “If you only do one thing in this war, make sure that telephone exchange is destroyed.”

Paul had woken this morning with those words echoing in his mind. It was a simple instruction. If he could fulfill it, he would have helped win the war. If he failed, men would die-and he might spend the rest of his life reflecting that he had helped lose the war.

He went to Baker Street early, but Percy Thwaite was already there, sitting in his office, puffing his pipe and staring at six boxes of files. He seemed a typical military duffer, with his check jacket and toothbrush mustache. He looked at Paul with mild hostility. “I don’t know why Monty’s put you in charge of this operation,” he said. “I don’t mind that you’re only a major, and I’m a colonel-that’s all stuff and nonsense. But you’ve never run a clandestine operation, whereas I’ve been doing it for three years. Does it make sense to you?”

“Yes,” Paul said briskly. “When you want to make absolutely sure that a job gets done, you give it to someone you trust. Monty trusts me.”

“But not me.”

“He doesn’t know you.”

“I see,” Percy said grumpily.

Paul needed Percy’s cooperation, so he decided to mollify him. Looking around the office, he saw a framed photograph of a young man in lieutenant’s uniform and an older woman in a big hat. The boy could have been Percy thirty years ago. “Your son?” Paul guessed.

Percy softened immediately. “David’s out in Cairo,” he said. “We had some bad moments during the desert war, especially after Rommel reached Tobruk, but now, of course, he’s well out of the line of fire, and I must say I’m glad.”

The woman was dark-haired and dark-eyed, with a strong face, handsome rather than pretty. “And Mrs. Thwaite?”

“Rosa Mann. She became famous as a suffragette, in the twenties, and she’s always used her maiden name.”

“Suffragette?”

“Campaigner for votes for women.”

Percy liked formidable women, Paul concluded; that was why he was fond of Flick. “You know, you’re right about my shortcomings,” he said candidly. “I have been at the sharp end of clandestine operations, but this will be my first time as an organizer. So I’ll be very grateful for your help.”

Percy nodded. “I begin to see why you have a reputation for getting things done,” he said with a hint of a smile. “But if you’ll hear a word of advice..

“Please.”

“Be guided by Flick. No one else has spent as much time under cover and survived. Her knowledge and experience are matchless. I may be in charge of her in theory, but what I do is give her the support she needs. I would never try to tell her what to do.”

Paul hesitated. He had been given command by Monty, and he was not about to hand it over on anyone’s advice. “I’ll bear that in mind,” he said.

Percy seemed satisfied. He gestured to the files. “Shall we get started?”

“What are these?”

“Records of people who were considered by us as possible agents, then rejected for some reason.”

Paul took off his jacket and rolled back his cuffs.

They spent the morning going through the files together. Some of the candidates had not even been interviewed; others had been rejected after they had been seen; and many had failed some part of the SOE training course-baffled by codes, hopeless with guns, or frightened to the point of hysteria when asked to jump out of a plane with a parachute. They were mostly in their early twenties, and they had only one other thing in common: they all spoke a foreign language with native fluency.