End of Spies by Alex Gerlis (best free ereader txt) 📗

friends. He shouted in German for the pair to be separated and followed de Vries as he was dragged to a waiting truck.

‘What kept you? We’ve been waiting so long – I’m chilled to the bone!’ He smiled pleasantly once more and threw back his head, his blonde hair falling into place. He spoke surprisingly good Dutch. De Vries didn’t reply, trying to work out who could have betrayed them. He wondered about the farmer.

‘We are going to Amsterdam,’ the German said, rubbing his hands together as if he was looking forward to the outing. ‘What is your name?’

De Vries said nothing, pursing his lips in case he uttered anything involuntarily. The German shrugged as if it didn’t terribly matter.

‘Ah well, there’ll be plenty of time for you to tell me when we get there, eh? I’ve not introduced myself, have I?’

Another smile as he edged closer to de Vries, who picked up a strong smell of cologne. ‘I’m known as das Frettchen. Do you understand German?’

De Vries shook his head.

‘In Dutch, it’s de fret, but I don’t know if you prefer English. It translates as the Ferret.’

In the normal course of events the Ferret would have been punished after managing to kill the British agent in Dijon the previous November without extracting any useful intelligence from her. He’d ignored instructions to bring her back to Paris, where there were plenty of people at 84 Avenue Foch perfectly capable of doing the job for him.

It was his last chance: his combination of an explosive temper and sheer incompetence was not ideal for the Gestapo, which liked to pride itself on efficiency and discipline. The Ferret had arrived in Paris with a bad reputation, and it never improved. His bosses were also bothered by what was described to them as ‘psychopathic sexual behaviour’. It wasn’t that they cared about the well-being of French citizens, but they were concerned when such behaviour impeded his ability to function effectively.

Of course the Ferret would never have been in Paris in the first place had it not been for the influence of his father, a senior party official who was part of what was known as the Österreichisches Clique – the Austrian clique.

After the death of the British agent in Dijon, the Ferret was banished from Paris. His superiors there rather hoped he’d be sent to the east, where he’d do less damage and might even learn a lesson or two. He was sent east, but only as far as Amsterdam, thanks to his father’s intervention with two more members of the Österreichisches Clique: Arthur Seyss-Inquart, who as Reichskommissar was effectively the ruler of the Netherlands; and Obergruppenführer Christian Winkler, who ran the Gestapo there.

For a while the Ferret behaved. He spent most of his time keeping his head down in the Gestapo headquarters on Euterpestraat, just about smart enough to realise that a period of avoiding trouble was advisable. Out of hours was a different matter, when he frequented the brothels around the canals, always looking for the youngest prostitutes and always doing his best to avoid paying.

By the end of April, he was told that he needed to impress with some cases of his own. He hadn’t broken any Dutch resistance cells yet, or caught any British agents. Perhaps he’d like to get a move on. So when he heard about a resistance member being arrested in Enschede after trying to kill his neighbour, he headed straight down there and much to the chagrin of the local Gestapo took over the interrogation.

He seem to be vindicated, as the elderly schoolteacher called Johannes broke down under torture and gave the names of the other members of the group, even revealing that they’d recently been joined by a British agent. He also admitted – though he only revealed this minutes before his death in unimaginable agony – that the British agent and the woman called Frieda had explosives and were planning to blow up the railway lines east and west of Enschede.

Once Johannes died, however, it became clear that this pair had gone to ground, and now Amsterdam was on the Ferret’s back: how could he have allowed a prisoner to die before he’d extracted the information they needed?

But then he had a stroke of luck. A farmer was arrested after his truck tried to turn round as it approached one of the many roadblocks round Enschede. There was nothing on the truck, and the farmer’s story about returning from market seemed plausible enough, but evading the roadblock was suspicious and there was no question that the man was particularly nervous. The Ferret insisted on conducting the interrogation himself, and even he had to admit it was hardly the most difficult of tasks. The farmer was clearly not cut out for this: in return for a promise of freedom the Ferret had no intention of keeping, he told them everything: where the British agent and the woman were hiding, and the exact stretch of railway line they intended to sabotage.

And now the Ferret was back in Amsterdam with the two prisoners in cells in the basement on Euterpestraat. It was suggested that a more experienced officer should conduct the interrogations, but he was having none of it, appealing directly to Obergruppenführer Winkler: he’d sorted out the mess in Enschede, he’d been responsible for capturing the group and stopping the sabotage; he’d be the man to do the questioning.

His first mistake had been to underestimate the young woman and he certainly didn’t believe Johannes’ claim that she was the leader of the cell, giving little credence to the possibility that a seemingly meek young woman could be in charge of such a group. His interrogation got nowhere. She revealed nothing and he couldn’t work out whether this was because she knew nothing or was unexpectedly obdurate.

His senior officer suggested they should at least allow the Gestapo’s most experienced interrogator in Amsterdam to have a session with her, and as Obergruppenführer Winkler was away, the