Jackdaws

On either side of the tunnel, steps led up to the platforms. Dieter followed Hans past all the platform entrances. Sensing danger, he quickened his pace as he mounted the stairs to the station’s rear entrance. He caught up with Hans and they emerged together into the rue de Courcelles.

Several of the buildings had been bombed recently, but cars were parked on those stretches of the road that were clear of rubble. Dieter scanned the street, fear leaping in his chest. A hundred meters away, Michel and Helicopter were jumping into a black car. Dieter and Hans would never catch them. Dieter put his hand on his gun, but the range was too great for a pistol. The car pulled away. It was a black Renault Monaquatre, one of the commonest cars in France. Dieter could not read its license plate. It tore off along the street and turned a corner.

Dieter cursed. It was a simple ploy but infallible. By entering the tunnel, they had forced their pursuers to abandon their vehicles; then they had a car waiting at the other side, enabling them to escape. They might not even have detected their shadows: like the change of direction outside the pharmacy, the tunnel trick had probably been a routine precaution.

Dieter sank into gloom. He had gambled and lost. Weber would be overjoyed.

“What do we do now?” said Hans.

“Go back to Sainte-Cécile.”

They returned to the van, put the moped in the back, and drove to headquarters.

Dieter had just one ray of hope. He knew Helicopter’s times for radio contact, and the frequencies assigned to him. That information might yet be used to recapture him. The Gestapo had a sophisticated system, developed and refined throughout the war, for detecting illicit broadcasts and following them to their source. Many Allied agents had been captured that way. As British training improved, so the wireless operators had adopted better security precautions, always broadcasting from a different location, never staying on air longer than fifteen minutes; but careless ones could still be caught.

Would the British suspect that Helicopter had been found out? Helicopter would by now be giving Michel a full account of his adventures. Michel would question him closely about the arrest in the cathedral and subsequent escape. He would be particularly interested in the newcomer codenamed Charenton. However, he would have no reason to suspect that Mademoiselle Lemas was not who she claimed to be. Michel had never met her, so he would not be alerted even if Helicopter happened to mention that she was an attractive young redhead rather than a middle-aged spinster. And Helicopter had no idea that his one-time pad and his silk handkerchief had been meticulously copied out by Stephanie, or that his frequencies had been noted-from the yellow wax crayon marks on the dials-by Dieter.

Perhaps, Dieter began to think, all was not yet lost.

When they got back to the château, Dieter ran into Weber in the hallway. Weber looked hard at him and said, “Have you lost him?”

Jackals can smell blood, Dieter thought. “Yes,” he admitted. It was beneath his dignity to lie to Weber.

“Ha!” Weber was triumphant. “You should leave such work to the experts.”

“Very well, then I shall,” Dieter said. Weber looked surprised. Dieter went on, “He’s due to broadcast to England at eight o’clock tonight. Here’s your chance to prove your expertise. Show how good you are. Track him down.”

CHAPTER 23

THE FISHERMAN'S REST was a big pub that stood on the estuary shore like a fort, with chimneys for gun turrets and smoked-glass windows instead of observation slits. A fading sign in its front garden warned customers to stay off the beach, which had been mined back in 1940 in anticipation of a German invasion.

Since SOE had moved into the neighborhood, the pub had been busy every night; its lights blazing behind the blackout curtains, its piano loud, its bars crowded and spilling over into the garden on warm summer evenings. The singing was raucous, the drinking was heavy, and the canoodling was kept only just within the bounds of decency An atmosphere of abandon prevailed, for everyone knew that some of the youngsters who were laughing uproariously at the bar tonight would embark tomorrow on missions from which they might never return.

Flick and Paul took their team to the pub at the end of their two-day training course. The girls dressed up for the outing. Maude was prettier than ever in a pink summer frock. Ruby would never be pretty, but she looked sultry in a black cocktail dress she had borrowed from somewhere. Lady Denise had on an oyster-colored silk dress that looked as if it had cost a fortune, though it did nothing for her bony figure. Greta wore one of her stage outfits, a cocktail dress and red shoes. Even Diana was wearing a smart skirt instead of her usual country corduroys and, to Flick’s astonishment, had put on a smear of lipstick.