Dominion (74 page)

Gessler folded his hands across his flat stomach. ‘It’ll be our operation, an SS mission out of the embassy. I want to send you down there, with some good men, half a dozen if I can
lay my hands on them. I thought of sending Kapp, who was at Drax’s interrogation.’

Gunther nodded agreement. ‘He looked a useful man.’

‘I’ve been studying the maps, and we’re sending someone down to spy out the land now. The place, Rottingdean, is nothing more than a village in a fold between the cliffs, just
a small cove. You hide there and then get Muncaster and his people when they arrive.’ He looked at Gunther seriously. ‘But we’ll have to play it carefully, we don’t want the
British getting any wind of this.’ His tone became less enthusiastic. ‘They were going to start transporting the Jews on to the Isle of Wight today but the fog’s put paid to that.
From what I hear they’re going to leave it till after the New Year now. I wonder if that could be politics. There’s a rumour that Rommel told Beaverbrook there wasn’t any hurry
with the transports.’

Gunther frowned. ‘The army have never objected to Jew transports before.’

‘No, but they’ve often needed a push from above, from the Führer, heaven rest him. You know what they’re like, saying it’s a distraction from winning the Russian
war, taking up resources.’ He stared at Gunther again. ‘Everything has changed with the Führer’s death. If there is going to be – God forbid – a change in policy
in Berlin, the Waffen SS are ready to fight the army. And if that turns into a long struggle, I’m told that what Muncaster knows could be very important.’

Gessler looked at Gunther seriously. ‘Heydrich knows what it is and he’s told me now. It’s about nuclear weapons. The Bomb. The biggest prize of all, and it could be about to
fall into SS hands. So that’s why the mission is even more of a priority now. I was authorized to tell you.’ Gessler smiled. ‘See how trusted you are.’

To be able to do this, Gunther thought, for Germany, for his son, the memory of his beloved brother. ‘Thank you,’ he said quietly.

Gessler coughed. ‘William Syme will be coming with you.’

Gunther sat up. ‘Is that wise, sir? If Muncaster were to say something, if Syme even got a hint of what he knows—’

‘We need an Englishman there. The local police will be told there’s something going on and to steer clear, they’ll be reassured that a Special Branch man will be coming down to
deal with it. And Syme knows as much as anyone about Muncaster and his crew. And if he did get any knowledge he shouldn’t – well, we spoke before about the option of disposing of
him.’

Gunther felt an unexpected stab of regret. Gessler noticed, and inclined his head. ‘I thought you didn’t like him.’

‘I don’t. But he’s helped us a lot on this.’ Gunther took a deep breath. ‘But if it comes to that, it won’t be a problem.’

‘I want you to keep Syme close, during tomorrow’s operation and afterwards. I want you to bring him back here to the embassy. With Muncaster and his friends.’ His eyes stared
into Gunther’s. ‘Do you have any difficulties with that?’

Did they mean to kill Syme after all? Had they decided he knew too much already? It seemed hard, but this was war. ‘No, sir,’ he answered.

‘When you bring Muncaster in I want you to assess him first, Hoth, weigh up the best ways to interrogate him before he gets sent to Berlin. Remember he’s not –
normal.’

‘Yes, sir.’ This was the sort of work Gunther was confident with; and it would be interesting to discover how Muncaster’s mind worked, how and why it had malfunctioned. A
thought occurred to him. ‘What about the Bennett woman?’

Gessler waved a hand. ‘Oh, we turned her over to the British yesterday afternoon. She’ll probably get a secret trial, then five years in Holloway,’ he laughed. ‘Five
years and a finger gone. Do they give women corporal punishment here? I can’t remember. Anyway, they’ll probably think what we’ve done to her is enough.’

‘What about Drax?’

‘Special Branch have him. We let his parents go. I doubt he’ll last long now.’

S
ARAH HAD BEEN FOR ANOTHER WALK
. She had done so much walking these last few days that Brighton, so alien at first, was becoming familiar. This morning,
in the winter sunshine, she had gone to Hove, through the grand early-Victorian squares along the seafront. The shops, their Christmas decorations looking oddly out of place at the seaside, were
half-empty. All the newspapers carried pictures of crowds in the Chancellery in Berlin, passing Hitler’s open coffin. He lay, eyes closed, his face dead white, whiter than his moustache and
hair.

Then, walking back to the hotel, she saw David looking out of the window at her. She felt a momentary surge of joy, then anxiety because he looked so thin, so much older, his cheeks sunken. Then
anger filled her. She looked away from him as she mounted the steps to the hotel, slowly, though her heart was pounding.

Jane was sitting at the reception desk. She looked relieved to see Sarah. She leaned forward with a smile and whispered, ‘They’ve arrived. Your husband, he’s in the
lounge.’ Her expression changed to puzzlement when Sarah didn’t smile in return, only said curtly, ‘I’ll go in.’

David was standing in the middle of the room. He looked at Sarah for a long moment, then walked quickly over and put his arms round her. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said. ‘I
couldn’t let you know we were coming, we only knew ourselves yesterday—’

She didn’t respond, just stood like a statue, so full of conflicting emotions she felt that if she relaxed she might fall in pieces to the floor. David stepped back a pace, still holding
her by the shoulders. He said, ‘Are you – are you all right? What’s happened to your hair?’

She shrugged off his hands and said, her voice so cold it surprised her, ‘Well, I was taken prisoner by the Germans, who told me you were a Resistance spy, and interrogated at Senate
House.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Then I was sent home, abducted by your people, one of whom killed a policeman in our house, by the way, then dumped here to wait for you and some
strangers so we could all be sent to God knows where. They cut and dyed my hair because the Special Branch and the Germans will be looking for me.’ Her voice rose in rage. ‘And
I’ll never see my family again. Apart from that I’m fine. Who the hell are these other people, by the way?’

David said, ‘There’s a man and woman from the Resistance, and Frank Muncaster, my old friend from university. You remember, I’ve told you about him. What’s this about the
Germans – you mean they arrested you? Our people didn’t tell me, just that you were safe.’ He looked at her, his blue eyes wide with fear. ‘What happened there, did
they—’

‘Hurt me? No, they didn’t, because I didn’t know anything. I still bloody don’t.’ She shrugged off his grip. Her voice rose again. ‘Answer my bloody question!
What’s going on? What are Frank Muncaster and these other people doing here?’

David raised his hands in a calming gesture. ‘Frank’s a scientist. Something terrible happened to him; he ended up in a mental hospital in Birmingham. The Americans want him, very
badly. Because of something he knows. So we – we lifted him. We brought him to London and now we’ve managed to get him down here. Sarah.’ He spoke with sudden eagerness.
‘Tonight we’ll all be on a submarine to America.’

She stared at him blankly. ‘A
submarine
?’

‘Yes. I’m sorry all this happened, Sarah, but they chose me for this mission because I knew Frank, because he trusted me.’

‘And does he really? Trust you?’ Her voice was sharp with sarcasm now.

‘Yes. Yes, he does.’

She stared at him. ‘And he’s a mental case. Well, he’d have to be to trust you, wouldn’t he?’ She was still surprised by her own biting fury but she had had enough,
more than any wife could take.

‘Sarah – I came back for you – they found out I’d been a spy, but I tried to get home for you . . .’

Sarah took a long, deep breath. ‘This man in London, Jackson, he told me you’d been spying for the Resistance, giving them information from the Dominions Office. You involved that
poor woman, Carol Bennett! Is that why you made friends with her? The day before I was arrested I went to Highgate and confronted her because I thought you were having an affair. The poor silly
woman’s in love with you, did you know that? I should think she’s been arrested by now, like I was.’

David looked on the verge of tears. He said, ‘Geoff’s dead.’

She started, shocked. ‘Dead? How?’

‘We were hiding in a house up in London. Geoff was part of our team; he came with us to get Frank from the hospital. The house was raided, the couple sheltering us were killed and Geoff
was too.’

‘Oh, Jesus Christ.’ Sarah collapsed into one of the armchairs.

David knelt beside her. ‘It’s so important we get Frank to America. It’s a big thing, Sarah, really big. He’s got information – I can’t tell you what –
but it could help the Germans. The Gestapo are after it, it’ll help the SS if there’s a power struggle now Hitler’s dead.’

‘How long were you and Geoff doing this? Spying?’

‘Geoff joined the Resistance before me. He recruited me two years ago.’

‘After Charlie died.’

‘Not long after, yes . . .’

Her tone changed, sadness replacing the anger. ‘And you kept it all from me. I knew there was something, you’d been moving away from me ever since Charlie died. So what was I, just
cover, the little wife at home?’

He shook his head vigorously. ‘No, no. You mustn’t think that. When I started they said it was better you knew nothing, in case things ever went wrong and you were questioned.’
He looked at her, pleadingly. ‘And they were right, weren’t they? You didn’t know anything and that protected you.’

She said, with a quiet, angry passion, ‘Didn’t it ever occur to you that if I knew I might want to help you?’

‘I didn’t think you’d agree with what I was doing. You were always criticizing the Resistance for violence. Because people get killed in the struggle.’

‘Well, maybe you could have changed my mind, if you’d ever bothered to try. I’ve changed it on my own, anyway. I know now you’ve got to fight.’ Her eyes were full
of sorrow. ‘Even though I know the violence will corrupt you all, because it always does.’

‘It’s been hard—’

Her voice rose angrily again. ‘You decided to keep me out of it, as you’ve kept me out of everything since Charlie died.’

He said, ‘I never realized – what it must have been like for you, in the house, alone. I’m sorry—’

‘Don’t pretend it was for my sake you didn’t tell me, don’t pretend it wasn’t the easier thing for you to do. I’ve been blind for years,’ she added,
bleakly. ‘Because I loved you so much.’ She stared into his miserable face. Her voice rose again. ‘Was that why you started working for them, because Charlie was dead and I
wasn’t enough? Because you
needed something else
?’

He shouted back, ‘No! It was because the persecutions had started and I’m Jewish!’

‘What do you mean?’ She stared at him blankly. ‘What on earth are you talking about?’

He came closer, gripping Sarah’s wrists. ‘My mother’s family came to Ireland from Eastern Europe. Long before she met Dad. I didn’t know until she died, Mum and Dad kept
it secret so I wouldn’t experience prejudice. Dad persuaded me to go on keeping it secret.’ He looked at her levelly. ‘He was right. If they’d known who she was then later
I’d’ve been kicked out of the Civil Service, I’d be in one of those detention camps now. You know the rules; half a Jew is still a Jew.’

She pushed his hands away, stood up, and began walking up and down the room. She felt stunned. ‘You’re a Jew. You’ve known that since before you met me and you kept it
secret.’ She broke off. ‘You’re not circumcised—’

‘Mum wasn’t a believer. Nor was Dad. I’m not a Jew and I’m not a Catholic – according to any reasonable interpretation anyway. But where’s reason these
days?’

She stopped, looked at him. ‘All this time I’ve been married to a Jew. And you didn’t tell me.’

He asked, ‘Would it have mattered to you?’

She looked taken aback. ‘I’d have been surprised. Of course I would. But – you know me, you know I’ve always hated anti-Semitism.’

‘But even before 1940, we were all brought up with prejudice,’ he said quietly. ‘It’s always there, anti-Semitism sometimes comes out when you least expect
it—’

She shouted, ‘Not with
me
! Have you forgotten how my mum and dad brought me up?’

‘But Irene—’

‘Irene married a bigoted fool! You know what I think of him! But you didn’t trust me. All these secrets. You never trusted me with any of it. Never.’

He stood up, stepped towards her again. ‘I’m sorry. I was just so used to nobody knowing. Sometimes for a while I’d forget it myself until the persecutions started. And
everything else, it was all to protect you.’

‘The support I could have given you, the help, the
love
,’ she said despairingly. ‘None of that mattered, did it?’

‘I thought it was for the best.’

Sarah thought it a miserable answer, nothing of love in it. She stood for a long moment facing her husband. Part of her wanted to reach out and stroke his face, soothe his desperate unhappiness;
another part wanted to hit him. She closed her eyes for a moment. Then she turned practical; it was the only way she could cope at the moment and God knew there were enough questions about
practicalities, too. She took a deep breath. ‘What’s going to happen tonight?’

David took a deep breath. ‘A boat will be waiting to pick us all up a few miles from here at half past midnight. It’ll take us to an American submarine in the Channel. You, me, Frank
and the two others I’m with. They’re all upstairs now.’

‘Frank was in a lunatic asylum. Is he fit to go? Does he want to go?’

‘Yes. He’s better than he was.’

‘Who are these other two?’

‘Ben, he was a nurse at his hospital, and – and Natalia, she’s the one in charge of our group.’ His voice faltered for a moment, and he took a deep breath. ‘Part of
our cover is that Natalia and I are supposed to be husband and wife, and Ben and Frank my cousins; we’re all supposed to have come down here for an old aunt’s funeral. You and I are not
supposed to know each other, by the way, we have to pretend.’