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

This all stopped suddenly with a knock at the door: everyone fell silent and the lights were turned off.

Moments later, the door opened. Jožef and Marija bustled in and nodded at the others in the room, and were greeted warmly. Jožef went over to the wall and pinned up a large sheet of paper: a map showing a road and the area around it. Edvard stood between Hanne and Prince and translated as Marija spoke.

‘The building is here, on the east side of Viale Miramare. The west side of the street is the railway line, and beyond that Porto Vittorio Emanuele, where they’ll be heading. Behind the building are courtyards: Branka’s unit will cover the rear… Any questions so far?’

She barely paused before continuing. ‘We think there are at least five in the group, and the plan is for them to sail on Friday on a ship currently docked in Porto Vittorio Emanuele. Giuseppe is to meet them later tonight to plan how to smuggle them on board. The group are in an accountant’s office on the first floor – the name on the door says Mariani: Ragioniere di Costo. From what we can tell, the office is self-contained: we think it only has the one door. Giuseppe was told the entrance on the ground floor is unlocked, and when he gets to the first floor he’s to knock four times and then announce he has a parcel for a Signor Giordano. Can someone give me a coffee, please?’

She lit a cigarette and drank the coffee in one go, then handed the cup back for someone to give her another one.

‘We don’t think the British are aware of this building – yet. We must assume the group will be watching the front from where they are on the first floor. We’ve found a back door that leads to the basement and then up into the entrance hall. Our plan is that Jožef takes his unit down to Viale Miramare now while it’s still dark and waits in the basement. When Giuseppe enters the building, they’ll follow him up so they can burst in when the door is opened.’

‘Does Giuseppe know this?’

‘He’ll know what he needs to know Edvard. At that point I will follow in with my unit, which will include our comrades from England.’ She pointed her cigarette at Hanne and Prince.

Edvard stepped forward and tapped the crudely drawn map. ‘My unit will secure the front of the building: two of you here at one end of the block, and two at the other end. We’ll have two at the entrance and three across the road, then—’

‘That’s nine in your unit, Edvard?’

‘Plus me, yes.’

‘And there are how many of us here – eighteen including the English?’

‘Don’t worry, we have some Italian comrades helping us: I’ve been promised at least half a dozen. Are there any other questions?’

‘What do we do when we enter the office?’

‘Don’t worry Marija, Jožef knows what to do.’

‘We need to know too, Edvard.’

‘The German, the one called Friedrich Steiner – the one we know as König – he’s ours. And the English Nazis and Bormann… Maybe you explain?’

Hanne stepped forward and said they were looking for a man and a woman, both English, both Nazi sympathisers. ‘The woman is involved in a group helping to fund the Kestrel Line – we need to know who else in Britain is involved in that group. The man is called Edward Palmer: he was a very senior Nazi spy – Richard?’

‘I’ve been hunting for Palmer for a while now. He was a British officer who was working in the intelligence department of our War Office and gave the Germans military information about the Allies’ offensive in Europe. He disappeared in April in London, just as we were about to arrest him.’

‘So we want them alive, and Bormann too, if he’s there,’ said Hanne. ‘It’s essential they’re interrogated and put on trial.’

Myrtle Carter was utterly exhausted: she looked back on the journey from England as a succession of places they’d hurried through, like stations flashing past a speeding train. It had been a perilous journey. Paris had been fine; Geneva she was less sure about and had been glad to see the back of, and Turin had felt so hostile she’d insisted they head for Verona sooner than planned. From there they’d made it safely enough to Trieste. She doubted she’d slept more than a dozen hours since leaving England.

Once in Trieste, they’d met Friedrich Steiner and the man called Ulrich in the Catholic hostel. She found Steiner deeply unpleasant: an entitled, spoilt young man with few manners who thought everything revolved around him – insisting on the best revolver, the most comfortable place to sleep, the most food… The man called Ulrich was little better. He didn’t mask his hostility to them, even though she’d explained how she and Palmer were in a minority of English people – albeit a very small minority – whom he must regard as friends rather than enemies. And then there was the other German, the older one dressed as a priest who said he’d been a senior official in the Reich, though she doubted he was as important as he gave the impression he was.

Two younger Germans had turned up to move them from the hostel on Via dell’Istria to the warehouse on Porto Vecchio, and for the very first time on the journey, Myrtle wondered if they were being watched. Until then she’d been sure they’d not been followed, but now she wondered about the odd movements she’d caught sight of outside the warehouse, the strange vans that had appeared, the people hurrying past the building and glancing up at it, holding their gaze for a second or two too long.

A message had appeared under the door sometime on the Tuesday – quite late in the day, just after dusk – telling them that they’d be moving that night, and sure enough, the two young Germans had turned up again.