The Titanic Secret (5 page)

‘Schnapps, definitely,’ Voss replied. He’d never seen anyone killed in quite that way before, and watching the casual double execution had left a strangely cold sensation in his stomach.

‘Anyway,’ Neumann said, pouring two glasses and then replacing the bottle in a cupboard behind his desk, ‘we don’t think the English spy could have passed on anything of significance to the British Embassy staff.’

Voss took a sip of the drink, then put down the glass on the corner of Neumann’s desk. ‘So the plan has not been compromised?’

Neumann nodded. ‘That is our assessment, yes. But even if we’re wrong, we still don’t think that it matters. At this stage, everything is in place here in Germany, and the only remaining actions that need to be completed are your responsibility.’

‘So even if the British guess what’s happening, there’ll be nothing they can do about it. Is that what you’re saying?’

‘Yes. You’re a respected businessman. They wouldn’t dare detain you, or impede you in any way. You are not guilty of any crime, nor are you wanted by any authority. As far as I can see, my friend, you have nothing at all to worry about.’

Voss looked at him, then drained the rest of his schnapps and nodded. ‘I hope you’re right, because this is the biggest gamble I have ever taken in my entire life, and I do have something of a reputation as a gambler. But this time I’ve staked everything I own, including my life, on this working.’

Neumann shook his head. ‘Unless something happens that none of us has foreseen, I can’t even see that this is much of a gamble. Within five years you will probably be the richest man in the world, and I, in my own humble way, will be one of the richest men in Germany.’

He opened the cupboard and poured two more glasses of schnapps.

‘I’ll drink to that,’ Voss said. ‘Now everything hinges on what happens over the next twelve days.’

A short while later, Gunther Voss glanced out of the window as Neumann escorted him down the corridor towards the main entrance of the building. At the end of the courtyard, he could clearly see the ringbolt mounted at waist height on the wall, and above that a dark-red discolouration upon which flies were already feasting. He smiled slightly at the recollection of what he’d witnessed, then walked on.

At the door, the two men stopped and Neumann extended his hand. ‘When are you leaving Berlin?’ he asked.

‘The day after tomorrow. I still have another meeting to attend here before I go – a final session with one of your senior government ministers.’

‘And then you’re heading back to America?’

‘Yes. I’m joining the ship at Cherbourg.’

Neumann inclined his head. ‘Very well, my friend. As long as you can deliver on our agreement, I can see no reason why this scheme should not work. Of course, if there are any problems achieving the goal, that will be another matter altogether.’

Voss stopped and looked at his companion. ‘Are you threatening me?’ he demanded.

Neumann shook his head. ‘Absolutely not. I’m just passing on a message from my masters. They have expended a considerable amount of time and effort in preparing for this operation, and they have told me that they would be displeased – most displeased – if it did not succeed. What form their displeasure would take, I have no idea. But,’ he added with a smile, ‘as you are so confident that there will be no problems, I’m sure everything will work out for the best.’

7 April 1912
Berlin

Five minutes later, Gunther Voss stepped out of the
Preußische Geheimpolizei
headquarters, Eberhard Neumann by his side. The two men stood talking together on the pavement for half a minute, then they shook hands and Neumann walked back inside the building. Voss glanced up and down the street, and then, as a motor taxi approached him, he raised his hand to attract the driver’s attention. Moments later, the vehicle stopped, and Voss climbed on board and then sat back in the seat as the taxi moved away from the kerb.

On the opposite side of the road, a black-haired and nondescript man wearing a dark suit, a brown overcoat and a trilby hat emerged from the open doorway of a building, dropped a cigarette butt onto the pavement and ground it out with the toe of his right shoe. He stared thoughtfully down the road towards the retreating taxi, then gestured behind him.

Another man stepped out of the same doorway, also looked in the direction of the departing taxi, then stepped out into the street to flag down a similar vehicle. Moments later, he climbed into the back of the cab and issued a simple instruction to the driver.

The black-haired man nodded to him as his taxi started moving, and then walked briskly away in the opposite direction.

A couple of hundred yards down the road was a large hotel. The man walked into the foyer and strode straight across to the reception desk. The receptionist listened to his request, and then gestured him towards a small cubicle a few feet away. Inside, attached to the wall, was a telephone apparatus, the microphone a black trumpet shape, and the earpiece separate, attached by a cable and resting on a two-pronged metal hook.

The man waited and when the telephone bell rang, he picked up the earpiece.

‘It’s Williams,’ he said. ‘I’ve just seen Voss and Neumann together, coming out of the headquarters. Harrington is following Voss right now.’

The man at the other end of the line asked a question, and Williams replied.

‘No, they were very friendly. It’s quite obvious they’re working together, and that concerns me. I just wish we knew what Voss was up to over here. I’ll be back at the embassy as soon as I can,’ he added, ‘but can you telegraph that report to London as soon as possible and request instructions?’

Williams paid the receptionist for the call, then walked back outside the hotel and looked around for a cab himself.

Twenty minutes later, the vehicle came to a stop in Wilhelmstraße and he walked into the embassy building. Inside, he crossed the reception hall, unlocked one of the doors opposite the main entrance and strode down a passageway to a small office at the rear of the building.

Inside, another man was waiting for him, sitting behind an ornate walnut desk. He nodded a greeting as Michael Williams removed his coat and hat and hung them up.

‘Any reply yet?’

George Cartwright shook his head. ‘Not so far,’ he said. ‘As soon as there’s anything from Whitehall Court, the communication staff will bring it straight here.’

‘Well, I hope they don’t take too long making up their minds what they want us to do. When Voss and Neumann shook hands, I got the feeling that had been their last meeting. It looked like two people who were saying goodbye to each other. If I’m right, that could mean that whatever Voss has got planned is imminent.’

‘Do you want to tell Cumming that?’ Cartwright asked.

‘Definitely not. He’d think I’d lost my senses. No, that’s just my impression, and Cumming is only ever interested in the facts.’

A minute or so later there was a knock on the door and another man entered carrying a telegraph form in his hand.

‘From London, sir,’ he said, handing the paper to Cartwright.

‘Thanks.’

Cartwright read the message, then passed the form over to Williams.

‘That’s your answer, then,’ he said.

Williams scanned the words and nodded. ‘I had hoped for a bit more in the way of direction,’ he said. ‘This is typical of Mansfield Cumming. “Imperative you ascertain Voss’s motive and plan within twenty-four hours. All measures justified.” What, exactly, does he mean by that?’

Cartwright nodded. ‘You haven’t seen the last line, have you?’

Williams looked back at the form, then raised his eyebrows. ‘No,’ he said. ‘God, he’s serious, isn’t he? Can we take that risk?’

The final line of the message contained only two words: ‘Neumann expendable.’

8 April 1912
Berlin

Michael Williams sat in a small café, a copy of the
Frankfurter Zeitung
open on the table in front of him and, for about the tenth time that afternoon, wondered if he was doing the right thing. His instructions from Mansfield Cumming had been brief and the timescale short, but the intention behind them was crystal clear. The only latitude he was allowed was in the method he adopted to follow those orders.

At first, he’d been worried about the possible consequences, but since yesterday afternoon he’d had something else weighing on his mind. Now he was actually looking forward to what he was about to do.

He’d been sitting there watching and waiting for over an hour. He had no idea what time his target would emerge from the building on the opposite side of the road. And he still wasn’t entirely sure what he was going to do when the man finally did appear. It depended on whether he was alone or part of a group, and if he walked away or hailed a taxi.

Williams had made his preparations, but he was well aware that he’d had no time to reconnoitre the target or ascertain his normal movements, and he also knew that off-the-cuff operations were far more likely to fail, often spectacularly so, than properly planned and executed missions.

If this worked, it would be a miracle, and he wasn’t a man who set much store by providence. Or by luck.

He picked up the newspaper and started reading an article about German industrial output, then tensed suddenly as the main door of the building opposite swung open and three men walked out. He lowered the paper a couple of inches so that he could see them clearly, then relaxed. His target wasn’t one of the three. But he kept watching them anyway. They stood for a few moments on the pavement, talking together, then they separated, two going in one direction, and the third man the opposite way.

Williams switched his attention back to the paper, but ensured that he still had the doorway clearly in view. A few minutes later, the door opened again, and this time he recognized the heavily built man immediately, though he’d never seen his companion before.

Like the previous three, these two stood together on the pavement for a moment, talking, then the shorter man returned to the building, leaving Williams’s target standing alone outside.

Williams folded the newspaper, slid it into his pocket and stood up, dropping a few coins on the table to cover the cost of his drinks. He began walking along the pavement towards the building, on the opposite side of the road.

After a few paces, he slowed down. The man standing outside the grey stone building had just glanced down the street and then lifted his arm to attract the attention of the driver of a motorized taxi.

Williams smiled to himself. His hunch had proved right after all.

As the taxi drew to a halt, Williams crossed the road about fifty yards in front of it, and then continued walking along the pavement as the taxi started moving again, approaching him from behind. He undid the three buttons of his overcoat, and also the buttons of the jacket he was wearing underneath, and checked that he could easily reach his pistol.

Then he relied on his ears, listening for the sound of the taxi’s engine as the vehicle got closer to him. Williams moved nearer to the edge of the pavement, and then risked a quick glance behind him. The taxi was now only a few yards away.

As it drew level with him, the driver suddenly braked, the vehicle came almost to a halt and Williams pulled himself up and sat down next to Eberhard Neumann.

The sequence of events had been so sudden, so unexpected, that the German hadn’t even moved by the time Williams rammed the muzzle of his revolver just below his rib cage.

‘Hullo, Eberhard,’ Williams said, his German fluent. ‘It’s a pleasant evening for a ride, don’t you think?’ Then Williams switched his attention to the driver, and issued a crisp command in English. ‘Get us out of here, Tom. Somewhere nice and quiet where we can have a little chat with our guest.’

Neumann finally found his voice. ‘Who are you?’ he demanded. ‘Let me go! You have no idea who you’re dealing with.’

‘Actually, Eberhard, we know
exactly
who you are, and you’re dead as of this moment. If you keep quiet and then answer a few simple questions, I’ll make it quick and you won’t feel a thing. Try and be clever, or tell me lies, and you’ll take hours to die.’

The German stared at the expressionless face of his captor and, with a sudden sinking feeling in his stomach, realized that the English spy must have handed over far more information from Trommler than he could ever have guessed. And he’d severely underestimated the lengths to which the British were prepared to go. To snatch him off the street in broad daylight was an act of either desperation or genius. And he also knew that he had nothing to lose, because he was going to die no matter what happened.

He dropped his gaze from the face of the Englishman beside him, and took a deep breath, intending to yell at the top of his voice. There weren’t that many people around, but those that were would certainly hear him and take notice.

But Williams had clearly been expecting something just like that, and even as Neumann opened his mouth, he reversed his grip on his pistol and smashed the butt into the side of the German’s head. Neumann slumped sideways in the seat, instantly knocked unconscious.

Williams tucked his pistol out of sight and glanced round, but none of the pedestrians appeared to have noticed anything. He made sure Neumann couldn’t topple out of the seat, then relaxed.

The driver – another of Mansfield Cumming’s irregulars stationed in Germany – glanced behind him.

‘He’s very quiet,’ he remarked.

‘I know,’ Williams said. ‘His conversation was boring me, so I shut him up. I just hope he’ll have a bit more to say later.’

‘Oh, I think he will,’ the driver said confidently, then looked back at the road in front of them.

Just over half an hour later, the taxi eased to a halt in one of the quieter roads that ran through the Tiergarten. Together, the two men manhandled Neumann out of the cab and dragged him a few yards into the woodland.

When the German finally regained consciousness about ten minutes later, he was already lashed to a tree, his wrists and ankles secured with leather straps, and a rough gag tied around his mouth.