The Unlikely Spy (45 page)

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Authors: Daniel Silva

BOOK: The Unlikely Spy
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"How did you catch him?"
"The dumb bastard wrote everything down."
"What do you mean?"
"He wanted to remember the details of the murders but he didn't trust his memory. So he kept this bizarre diary. I found it when I searched his room. You'd be surprised at the things some people put in writing."
No, I wouldn't, thought Vicary, remembering the letter from Helen.
I have proven my love for you in a way that I can do for no other man. But I am unwilling to sacrifice my relationship with my father for the sake of a marriage.
"How's Grace Clarendon?" Vicary asked. He had never asked about her before and the question sounded unnatural, as though he had just asked Harry about rugby or cricket.
Harry said, "She's fine. Why do you ask?"
"I saw her outside Boothby's office last night."
"Boothby always asks for Grace to deliver files to his office personally. Grace thinks it's because he likes to look at her legs. Half the people in the department think she's having it off with him."
Vicary had heard those rumors once upon a time himself: Boothby had slept with everything in the department that wasn't nailed down, and Grace Clarendon had been one of his favorite conquests.
You can't do this to me! Bastard! Bloody bastard!
Vicary had assumed Boothby disciplined Grace over the Vogel file. But it was possible he had just overheard a lover's quarrel. He decided he would not tell Harry any more about it.
The car entered the square a moment later.
Vicary's first image of Jordan would linger with him for a long time, faintly irritating, like the odor of foul cooking trapped in clothes. He heard the low rumble of the approaching staff car and spun his head in time to see Jordan slip past his window. He saw him for less than a split second, but his mind had frozen Jordan's likeness as surely as film traps light. He saw the eyes, looking across the square, as if for hidden enemies. He saw the jawline, taut and crisp, as if steeled for a contest. He noted the cap, pulled tightly to the brow, and the overcoat, buttoned tightly to the throat.
Jordan's staff car stopped in front of Number 47. The engine started and they pulled forward very quickly. Harry got out of the car and pursued Jordan across the pavement.
The rest Vicary watched like a pantomime: Harry asking Jordan to come away and get in the second Humber, which seemed to have materialized from thin air; Jordan looking at Harry as though he were from outer space.
Harry identifying himself in the overpolite manner of a London police officer; Jordan telling him very clearly to fuck off. Harry seizing Jordan's arm, a little too firmly, and leaning over to murmur something into his ear.
All color bleeding from Jordan's face.
37
RICHMOND-UPON-THAMES, ENGLAND
The redbrick Victorian mansion was not visible from the road. It stood atop the highest point of the grounds at the end of a ragged ribbon of gravel. Vicary, alone in the back of the freezing Humber, doused the light as he approached the house. During the drive he had read the contents of Jordan's briefcase. His eyes burned and his head was throbbing. If this document was in German hands, it was possible the Abwehr could use it to unlock the secret of the invasion. They could use it to peer through the smoke and the fog of Double Cross and Fortitude. They could use it to win the war! Vicary imagined the scene in Berlin. Hitler would be dancing on the tabletops, clicking the heels of his jackboots.
And it's all because I couldn't find a way to catch that damned spy!
Vicary rubbed a clear patch in his fogged window. The mansion was dark except for a single yellow light burning over the entrance. MI5 had purchased it before the war from bankrupt relatives of the original owner. The plan had been to use it for clandestine meetings and interrogations and as lodgings for sensitive guests. Used infrequently, it had grown seedy and derelict and looked as though it had been abandoned by a retreating army. The only signs of habitation were the dozen staff cars parked haphazardly in the weedy drive.
A Royal Marine guard appeared out of the darkness and opened Vicary's door. He led him into the cold timeworn hall and through a series of rooms--a drawing room of covered furniture, a library of empty bookshelves--and finally through a pair of double doors that led into a large room overlooking the darkened grounds. It smelled of woodsmoke and brandy and faintly of wet dog. A billiards table had been pushed aside and a heavy oaken banquet table laid in its place. A bonfire burned in the huge fireplace. A pair of dark-eyed Americans from SHAEF Intelligence sat quietly as altar boys in the chairs nearest the flames. Basil Boothby paced slowly in the shadows.
Vicary found his spot at the table. He placed Jordan's briefcase on the floor next to his chair and began slowly unpacking his own. He looked up, caught Boothby's eye, and nodded. Then he looked down again and continued preparing his place. He heard doors opening and two pairs of footsteps crossing the wooden floor. He recognized one set as Harry's and knew the other to be Peter Jordan's.
A moment later Vicary heard Jordan's weight settling into the chair directly across the table from him. Still, he did not look at him. He removed his notebook and a single yellow pencil and laid them on the table carefully, as if arranging a place setting for royalty. Next he removed Jordan's file and laid it on the table. He sat down, opened the first page of his notebook, and licked the tip of his pencil.
Then, finally, Vicary lifted his head and looked Peter Jordan directly in the eye for the first time.
"How did you meet her?"
"I bumped into her in the blackout."
"What do you mean by that?"
"I was walking down the sidewalk without a blackout torch and we collided. She was carrying a bag of groceries. They spilled everywhere."
"Where did this happen?"
"Kensington, outside the Vandyke Club."
"When?"
"About two weeks ago."
"When exactly?"
"Jesus, I don't remember! It might have been a Monday."
"What time in the evening?"
"Around six o'clock."
"What did she call herself?"
"Catherine Blake."
"Had you ever met her before that night?"
"No."
"Had you ever
seen
her before that night?"
"No."
"You didn't recognize her?"
"No."
"And how long were you with her that first night?"
"Less than a minute."
"Did you make arrangements to see her again?"
"Not exactly. I asked her to have a drink sometime. She said she'd like that, and then she walked away."
"She gave you her address?"
"No."
"A telephone number?"
"No."
"So how were you supposed to contact her?"
"Good question. I assumed she didn't want to see me again."
"When
did
you see her again?"
"The next night."
"Where?"
"The bar of the Savoy Hotel."
"What were the circumstances?"
"I was having a drink with a friend."
"The friend's name?"
"Shepherd Ramsey."
"And you saw her in the bar?"
"Yes."
"And she came to your table?"
"No, I went to her."
"What happened next?"
"She said she was supposed to meet a fellow there but she'd been stood up. I asked if I could buy her a drink. She said she would rather leave. So I left with her."
"Where did you go?"
"To my house."
"What did you do?"
"She cooked dinner and we ate. We talked for a while and she went home."
"Did you make love to her that night?"
"Listen, I'm not going to--"
"Yes, you bloody well are, Commander Jordan! Now answer the question! Did you make love to her that night?"
"No!"
"Are you telling me the truth?"
"What?"
"I said are you telling me the truth?"
"Of course I am."
"You don't intend to lie to me tonight, do you, Commander Jordan?"
"No, I don't."
"Good, because I wouldn't advise it. You're in enough trouble as it is. Now, let's continue."
Vicary abruptly changed course, guiding Jordan into calmer waters. For one hour he walked Jordan through his personal history: his childhood on the West Side of Manhattan, his education at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, his work with the Northeast Bridge Company, his marriage to the wealthy and beautiful debutante Margaret Lauterbach, her death in an automobile accident on Long Island in August 1939. Vicary asked the questions without notes and as if he did not know the answers, even though he had memorized Jordan's file during the drive. He made certain he controlled the pace and the cadence of the conversation. When Jordan seemed to be too comfortable, Vicary would derail him. All the while Vicary was writing religiously in his notebook. The interrogation was being recorded with hidden microphones, yet Vicary was scribbling as if his little notebook would be the permanent chronicle of the evening's proceedings. Whenever Jordan spoke, there was the maddening sound of Vicary's pencil scratching across the page. Every few minutes Vicary's pencil would dull. He would apologize, force Jordan to stop, then make a vast show of fishing out a new one. Each time he would retrieve just one new pencil--never an extra, just one. Each search seemed to take longer than the last. Harry, watching from the shadows, marveled at Vicary's performance. He wanted Jordan to underestimate him, to think him something of a dolt. Harry thought, Go ahead, you dumb bastard, and he'll cut your balls off. Vicary turned to a fresh page in his notebook and withdrew a new pencil.
"Her name isn't really Catherine Blake. And she isn't really English. Her real name is Anna Katarina von Steiner. But I will never refer to her by that name again. I would like you to forget you ever heard it. My reasons will be made clear to you later. She was born in London before the First War to an English mother and a German father. She returned to England in November 1938 using this false Dutch passport. Do you recognize the photograph?"
"It's her. She looks different now, but that's her."
"We assume she came to the attention of German intelligence because of her background and her language ability. We believe she was recruited in 1936 and sent to a camp in Bavaria, where she was given training in codes and radios, taught how to assess an army, and taught how to kill. In order to conceal her own entry into the country she brutally murdered a woman in Suffolk. We think she's murdered three other people as well."
"That's very difficult to believe."
"Well, believe it. She's different from the rest. Most of Canaris's spies were useless idiots, poorly trained and ill-suited to espionage. We rolled up their networks at the beginning of the war. But we think Catherine Blake is one of their stars, a different kind of agent. We call them sleepers. She never used her radio, and it appears she never engaged in any other operation. She simply melted into British society and waited to be activated."
"Why did she choose me?"
"Allow me to phrase the question differently, Commander Jordan. Did she choose you or did you choose her?"
"What are you talking about?"
"It's simple, really. I want to know why you've been flogging our secrets to the Germans."
"I haven't!"
"I want to know why you've been betraying us."
"I haven't betrayed anybody!"
"I want to know why you're acting as an agent of German intelligence."
"That's ridiculous!"
"Is it? What are we supposed to think? You've been carrying on an affair with Germany's top agent in Britain. You bring home a briefcase full of classified material. Why did you do that? Why couldn't you just
tell
her the secret of Operation Mulberry? Did she ask you to bring home the documents so she could photograph them?"
"No! I mean--"
"Did you volunteer to bring them home?"
"No!"
"Well, why were you walking around with this in your briefcase?"
"Because I was leaving early in the morning to inspect the construction sites in the south. Twenty people will verify that. Personnel security inspected my home and the vault in my study. Under certain circumstances I was allowed to take classified documents there if they were locked in the vault."
"Well, that was obviously an enormous mistake. Because I think you've been bringing those documents home and handing them over to Catherine Blake."

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