Dominion (76 page)

‘You’d have to silence them,’ Bert said. ‘Usual rules.’

Sarah spoke up. ‘You mean kill them? Someone innocent?’

Natalia said, ‘Of course not. Who do you think we are? We knock them out and tie them up.’

‘I’m used tae doin’ that,’ Ben said cheerfully.

Bert looked at Sarah. He said, ‘There’s one last thing, Mrs Fitzgerald. It’s essential that if the worst comes to the worst none of you are taken alive. That’s why
everyone’s been given cyanide pills.’

She took a deep breath and looked at David.

He said, ‘I’m sorry, but if they caught us—’

‘Dear God,’ she said quietly.

‘Geoff had one,’ David told her. ‘But he didn’t get the chance to use it. The fog caused a lot of confusion. That won’t be a problem tonight.’

Sarah looked round the group. ‘Do all of you have them?’

‘I don’t,’ Frank said.

‘You’d be taken care of,’ Ben promised. ‘You know that.’

‘But you couldn’t in the fog in London. No-one could see me. Like David said, it was all confused.’

Sarah looked at her husband again. Bert took a deep breath, reached into his pocket and pulled out a tiny circular pill.

‘Let me,’ David said. He took it from Bert and held it out to Sarah. ‘We got this for you,’ he said. ‘It’s only to be used if they’re about to capture
us.’ Suddenly his eyes filled with tears and Sarah had to make an effort not to cry too. She took a deep breath, then held out her hand. David laid the pill in her palm. He said, his voice
choked, ‘You put it in your mouth and bite down. There’s a tiny glass phial inside. It’s instantaneous, you wouldn’t feel a thing.’

‘So the two of us would go together in the end,’ she said, quiet sadness in her voice.

‘Yes, we would.’

This is what it’s like for someone who’s never thought of ending their life, Frank thought. It’s hard. He glanced at Natalia. She was looking at David, her face
expressionless.

They spent an hour going over the details until they had everything committed to memory. Eventually Bert picked up his map. Jane said, ‘We’ll have something to eat
in a little while. Nobody should go out for the rest of the day, please.’ Bert rolled up the map, and he and Jane went out.

The five of them were left sitting there. Sarah got up and moved to the door. She walked wearily, like someone wading through water. David followed, put his hand on her arm, but she said
quietly, ‘I still need some time on my own. We’ll talk later.’ She went to her room. After a moment David went out too. Frank heard his footsteps going downstairs.

‘Will they be all right?’ Ben asked.

‘They’ll have to be,’ Natalia said bluntly.

Frank looked at her. He thought how all his life he had been a watcher, an observer. Sometimes he had surprised himself how much he guessed about the lives, the thoughts of other people. And he
had got to know these people well, this last week. He hadn’t met Sarah until just now but he could see – surely anyone could – how much she loved David, how desperately she had
been hurt. But he saw that Natalia loved David, too. Then, looking at her, another thought came to Frank, a quite different idea.

He stepped forward, his legs surprisingly stiff. ‘Natalia,’ he said. ‘Can I talk to you about something? On your own?’

Ben said quietly, ‘It’s not our business.’

‘Please,’ Frank said.

Natalia looked surprised. Then she smiled and shrugged. ‘All right. Why not? We can go next door to my room.’

She walked to the door, Frank following, Ben watching them go.

G
UNTHER WALKED STEADILY
along the path that led from Brighton to Rottingdean, under the high chalk cliffs. His shoes, rubber-soled like those of Syme
walking behind him and the SS man Kollwitz ahead, barely made a sound on the concrete path. They walked in silence as close as possible to the cliff itself, in case any Resistance people were
watching the sea from the cliffs above. All wore heavy dark coats, thick black roll-neck sweaters, black gloves and balaclavas. They had blackened their faces, too, with charcoal. Kollwitz, one of
the four SS men accompanying the operation and a veteran of covert actions in Russia, said it could make all the difference in an ambush. Three other SS men were approaching Rottingdean from the
other side, where the under-cliff walk continued on eastwards: Kapp, who had assisted with Drax’s interrogation, Hauser from the basement, and Borsig, another veteran of Special Operations in
Russia and like Kollwitz attached to SS Intelligence at the embassy. The two groups would meet at Rottingdean Gap, where there was a small pebbled beach connected to the village above by a
path.

It was bitterly cold, a light but knife-like breeze blowing off the Channel. The tide was coming in, quietly and gently, for the sea was dead calm. In the moonlight Gunther could see the little
white wavelets where the surf broke, not far below the path. A half-moon was high in a starry black sky, casting a long silver reflection on the sea. He remembered Michael talking about swimming in
the Black Sea, how beautiful the shore looked with the mountains in the distance. He stumbled for a moment, catching his foot on a lump of chalk that had fallen from the cliff face. Syme reached
out and grasped his arm in a firm grip, helping him right himself.

Gunther nodded his thanks. He swore inwardly; he should have been more careful. He was conscious of how much less fit he was than the other two men, how flabby.

They had spent the morning poring over maps in Gessler’s office, assisted by a Special Branch man from Sussex, another of Syme’s valuable connections. The man knew
nothing except that the Branch were working with the Germans to intercept someone the Germans wanted and who would be in Rottingdean that night. The man had mentioned that Special Branch had their
own concerns just now; since news of Hitler’s death there had been several near-riots in the Jewish detention camps, and police everywhere had been put on standby in case help was needed.
Along with Gunther, Syme and the Special Branch man the four SS men Gessler had chosen for the operation had also been present. Two of them Gunther had not met before; Kollwitz was a young man in
his late twenties, attached to SS Intelligence at the embassy. He had a youthful, strangely unmarked face, blond hair and blank light-blue eyes. His colleague Borsig was also attached to
Intelligence. He had a square, hard face with dark hair and heavy brows above eyes as sharp as a cat’s. Kapp, the eager youngster who had been at Drax’s interrogation, quick and lithe,
had served in the East; Hauser, the officer in charge of the basement, was older and heavier, but still a strong, solid presence. All four were utterly loyal to the SS. Like Gunther, they wore
suits for the meeting so as not to spook Syme’s Special Branch contact, though they looked uncomfortable in them. Gessler alone wore his usual black uniform and cap. As embassy staff, the
Germans all spoke good English.

Syme’s colleague told them Rottingdean was small, little more than a village. Because it lay in a gap between the cliffs it had been an ancient haunt of smugglers. The Resistance were not
strong there, the local people kept themselves to themselves. There was some tourist trade in the summer but the place would be very quiet on a cold December night. The local police had been told a
Special Branch operation would be taking place on the beach and that they were to stay well away, even if shots were fired. However, by taking the cliff path Gunther’s party need not actually
go into Rottingdean at all. They could walk along from Brighton while the other three approached from the opposite direction.

Gessler thanked the Special Branch man and he left. The others gathered round the map. The Resistance people would probably have watchers on the cliffs along the coast, looking out over the
Channel to spot any unusual activity on the sea, but they would have no reason to believe the Germans would be waiting for the fugitives on the beach. Gessler told them that according to the radio
intercepts, a fisherman would meet Muncaster’s party in the village and take them down to the beach, where a boat lay ready; they would then row out to sea to meet the submarine. They would
have to walk from the village down a broad asphalt path to a short promenade, then down to the little pebbly beach. Gunther and Syme and the SS men would have to find cover and hide themselves on
the promenade or the beach so that when Muncaster’s party came down at half past midnight they could rush them, take them by surprise.

Kollwitz asked, ‘There will only be one boatman with them? There won’t be other Resistance people there, or waiting on the beach?’

‘No. That’s clear from the radio intercepts,’ Gessler replied with satisfaction. ‘What few local people the Resistance have will be watching along the cliff tops. But go
carefully, just in case they change their plans.’

Kollwitz asked, ‘Is six of us enough?’

‘You’re the only experienced men we can spare.’

‘We are expecting six of them for the submarine, yes?’ Borsig asked. ‘Two Resistance agents and three civilians – a man, a woman and this lunatic? And the fisherman makes
six.’ He shrugged. ‘Easy.’

‘Yes.’ Gessler’s voice took on a note of bullying humour. ‘One for each of you. I think you should be able to handle them.’

‘The two Resistance people are handy,’ Syme cautioned. ‘I ran across them in the raid in London. A man and woman. But the others, yes, they’re civilians.’

‘The civil servant, Fitzgerald, when I met him at the Dominions Office he looked fit,’ Gunther said. ‘And he was in the 1940 war.’

‘They’ll have guns,’ Kollwitz observed. ‘The Resistance pair certainly, perhaps Fitzgerald and the fisherman too.’

Gunther nodded agreement. ‘Not Fitzgerald’s wife, though, I think, she’s one of these English pacifists.’ Kapp gave a grunt of contemptuous dismissal. ‘And not
Muncaster.’

‘Lunatics can be strong,’ Borsig observed.

‘Not this one,’ Syme said. ‘I’ve met him. He’s a little pipsqueak, afraid of his own shadow.’

Gunther looked round the SS men. ‘But remember, he is the one that matters. Berlin wants him alive. It might be useful to have the Resistance people as well, but the all others are of
secondary importance.’

Gessler stirred in his chair. ‘They may have suicide pills, so taking them by surprise is crucial. Securing their arms at once is very important. Get there early and choose a good spot.
There’ll be some moonlight, the weather forecast says it’ll be a clear night.’

Gunther looked at Syme. ‘You said it’s a pebble beach?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then it would be good to hide there if we can; we’re bound to hear them coming.’

Kollwitz nodded. ‘That is sound thinking. We’ve no idea where they are at this moment?’

Gunther shook his head. ‘It could be anywhere within easy reach of the Sussex coast. Rottingdean beach at half past midnight is the only place we’re sure they’ll be.’

Hauser smiled, punching a meaty fist into his other hand. ‘It’ll be like the old days in Russia. Stealing up on their Resistance groups.’

Kollwitz looked round the others. ‘How are you on firearms?’

‘I practise regularly on the range,’ Hauser replied complacently. ‘So does Comrade Kapp; I’ve seen him.’

Gunther said, ‘I practise in Berlin, too.’ Though not, he thought, as regularly as he should.

Syme said, smugly, ‘I’ve got prizes from my firearms courses.’

Gunther summed up: ‘So, we jump them, make sure they’re disarmed and remove any suicide pills they have. If you fire on them, shoot to wound if possible. And we all use English, so
everyone understands.’ He inclined his head at Syme.

‘Sturmbannführer Hoth is in charge,’ Gessler said. ‘He knows these people better than anyone, you obey all his orders. And remember, we want Muncaster alive.’ He
tapped a finger on his desk for emphasis. ‘That’s more important than anything. That order comes directly from Deputy Reichsführer Heydrich.’ He leaned across the desk and
reached out a hand to Gunther. Gunther shook it. Gessler’s eyes were full of triumphant emotion. ‘Good luck, Hoth,’ he said. ‘And thank you.’

They travelled to Brighton after dark. During the day a light wind had got up in London and the fog, at last, was dispersing. As they drove out of the city in two cars, Gunther
saw the streets illuminated properly for the first time in days. All the buildings shone with damp, windows and the tops of parked cars smeared with grey dirty grease. In many places women were out
with buckets and mops, cleaning windows and steps. Even the icy puddles in the gutters looked dirty. By contrast the shop windows were full of Christmas decorations, fake white snow round their
edges. Already a newspaper stand carried the legend:
Great London Smog Ends
.

With the fog gone they made good time. Soon they were out in the Surrey countryside. The car containing the three SS men who were to approach Rottingdean from the east took a turning towards
Newhaven. There were two more cars waiting in a lane just outside Rottingdean, ready to pick them and the prisoners up later.

Gunther sat next to Syme in the back. Kollwitz drove. His blond hair was cropped and shaved a third of the way up his neck in the SS style; Gunther saw he had a spot coming. Beside him, Syme was
cheerful. ‘They’re talking about that new job for me,’ he told Gunther. ‘We’re going to have a new, nationwide police intelligence service. MI5 are going to be
integrated with us. About time. They’ll scream like fuckin’ stuck pigs but we uncovered the bleeding Civil Service spy ring for them.’ The Cockney accent was strong again, perhaps
a sign of underlying stress in Syme, as the moment of truth approached. Gunther himself felt quite cool. Syme went on, ‘Looks like I could get promotion to superintendent, as well as a
posting up North.’ He smiled, tapping the fingers of one hand up and down on his knee.

‘Well done.’ But remembering the discussion with Gessler earlier, Gunther found it difficult to meet Syme’s eye.

‘You’ll have to come back and visit me,’ Syme continued. ‘Tell you what, come over see the Coronation in the summer. How’s that?’

‘Yes,’ Gunther said. ‘Perhaps.’ Syme, for all his sharpness in other ways, had no idea that Gunther had always disliked him. Or perhaps he just didn’t care.