Authors: Daniel Silva
The Unlikely Spy (63 page)
The road ran straight across mostly flat terrain. Neumann hunched forward over the steering wheel as he drove, peering into the little pool of light thrown off by the shrouded headlamps. For a moment he considered removing the blackout shades but decided it was too risky. He flashed through villages with funny names--Puckeridge, Buntingford--dark, not a light burning, no one moving about. It was as if the clock had been turned back two thousand years. Neumann would scarcely have been surprised to see a Roman legion encamped along the banks of the River Cam.
More villages--Melbourn, Foxton, Newton, Hauxton. During his preparation at Vogel's farmhouse outside Berlin, Neumann had spent hours studying old Ordnance Survey maps of Britain. He suspected he knew the roads and pathways of East Anglia as well as most Englishmen, perhaps better.
Melbourn, Foxton, Newton, Hauxton.
He was approaching Cambridge.
Cambridge represented trouble. Surely MI5 had alerted police forces in the large cities and towns. Neumann reckoned the police in the villages and hamlets did not pose much of a threat. They made their rounds on foot or bicycle and rarely had cars, and communications were so poor that word might not even have been passed to them. He was flashing through the blacked-out villages so quickly a police officer would never really see them. Cities like Cambridge were different. MI5 had probably alerted the Cambridge police force. They had enough men to mount a roadblock on a large route like the A10. They had cars and could engage in a pursuit. Neumann knew the roads and was a capable driver, but he would be no match for an experienced local police officer.
Before reaching Cambridge, Neumann turned onto a small side road. He skirted the base of the Gog Magog Hills and headed north along the eastern edge of the city. Even in the gloom of the blackout he could make out the spires of King's and St. John's. He passed through a village called Horningsea, crossed the Cam, and entered Waterbeach, a village that lay astride the A10. He drove slowly through the darkened streets until he found the largest one; there were no signs for the A10 but he assumed this had to be it. He turned right, headed north, and after a moment was racing through the lonely flatness of the Fens.
The miles passed very quickly. The rain eased but in the fenland the wind, with nothing in its path between here and the North Sea, battered the van like a child's toy. The road ran near the banks of the River Great Ouse, then across Southery Fens. They passed through the villages of Southery and Hilgay. The next large town was Downham Market, smaller than Cambridge but Neumann assumed it had its own police force and was therefore a threat. He repeated the same move he made in Cambridge, turning onto a smaller side road, skirting the edge of town, rejoining the A10 in the north.
Ten miles on he came to King's Lynn, the port on the southeastern base of the Wash and largest town on the Norfolk coast. Neumann turned off the A10 again and picked up a small B-road east of the city.
The road was poor--an unpaved single-lane track in many places--and the terrain turned hilly and wooded. He stopped and poured two of the jerry cans of petrol into the tank. The weather worsened the closer they moved to the coast. At times Neumann seemed to be traveling at a walking pace. He feared he had made a mistake by turning off the better road, that he was being too cautious. After more than an hour of difficult driving he reached the coastline.
He passed through Hampton Sands, crossed the sea creek, and accelerated along the track. He felt relieved--finally, a familiar road. The Dogherty cottage appeared in the distance. Neumann turned into the drive. He saw the door open and the glow of a kerosene lamp moving toward them. It was Sean Dogherty, dressed in his oilskin and sou'wester, a shotgun over his arm.
Sean Dogherty had not been worried when Neumann did not arrive in Hunstanton on the afternoon train. Neumann had warned him he might be in London longer than usual. Dogherty decided to wait for the evening train. He left the station and went into a nearby pub. He ordered a potato and carrot pie and washed it down with two glasses of ale. Then he went out and walked along the waterfront. Before the war, Hunstanton was a popular summer beach resort because its location on the eastern edge of the Wash provided remarkable sunsets over the water. On this night the old Edwardian resort hotels were mostly empty, despondent-looking in the steady rain. Sunset was nothing more than the last gray light leaking from the storm clouds. Dogherty left the waterfront and returned to the station to meet the evening train. He stood on the platform, smoking, watching the handful of passengers disembarking. When Neumann was not among them, Dogherty became alarmed.
He drove back to Hampton Sands, thinking about Neumann's words earlier that week. Neumann had said it was possible the operation might be about to end, possible that he might be leaving England and heading back to Berlin. Dogherty thought, But why wasn't he on the damned train?
He arrived at the cottage and let himself inside. Mary, sitting next to the fire, glared at him, then went upstairs. Dogherty switched on the wireless. The news bulletin caught his attention. A nationwide search was under way for two suspected killers who had taken part in a gun battle with police earlier that evening in the section of London known as Earl's Court.
Dogherty turned up the volume as the newsreader gave a description of the two suspects. The first, surprisingly, was a woman. The second was a man who matched Horst Neumann's description perfectly.
Dogherty shut off the radio. Was it possible the two suspects in the Earl's Court shooting were Neumann and the other agent? Were they now on the run from MI5 and half the police in Britain? Were they heading toward Hampton Sands or were they going to leave him behind? Then he thought, Do the British know I'm a spy too?
He went upstairs, threw a change of clothes into a small canvas bag, and came back downstairs again. He went out to the barn, found his shotgun, and loaded a pair of cartridges into the barrel.
Returning to the cottage, Dogherty sat in the window, waiting. He had almost given up hope when he spotted the shaded headlamps moving along the road toward the cottage. When the car turned into the farmyard he could see it was Neumann behind the wheel. There was a woman sitting in the passenger seat.
Dogherty stood up and pulled on his coat and hat. He lit the kerosene lamp, picked up his shotgun, and went outside into the rain.
Martin Colville examined his face in the mirror: broken nose, black eyes, swollen lips, a contusion on the right side of his face.
He went into the kitchen and poured the last precious drops of whisky from a bottle. Every instinct in Colville's body told him there was something wrong about the man named James Porter. He didn't believe he was a wounded British soldier. He didn't believe he was an old acquaintance of Sean Dogherty's. He didn't believe he had come to Hampton Sands for the ocean air.
He touched his ruined face, thinking, No one's ever done this to me in my life, and I'm not going to let that little bastard get away with it.
Colville drank the whisky in one swallow, then placed the empty bottle and the glass in the sink. Outside, he heard the grumble of a motor. He went to the door and looked out. A van swept past. Colville could see James Porter behind the wheel and a woman in the passenger seat.
He closed the door, thinking, What in the hell is he doing out driving this time of night? And where did he get the van?
He decided he would find out for himself. He went into the sitting room and took down an old twelve-gauge shotgun from over the mantel. The shells were in a kitchen drawer. He opened it and dug through the jumble inside until he found the box. He went outside and climbed on his bicycle.
A moment later Colville was pedaling through the rain, shotgun across the handlebars, toward the Doghertys' cottage.
Jenny Colville, upstairs in her bedroom, heard the front door open and close once. Then she heard the sound of a passing vehicle, unusual at this time of night. When she heard the door open and close a second time she became alarmed. She rose from her bed and crossed the room. She parted the curtain and looked down in time to see her father pedaling away through the darkness.
She pounded on the window but it was in vain. Within seconds he was gone.
Jenny was wearing nothing but a flannel nightgown. She took it off, pulled on a pair of trousers and a sweater, and went downstairs. Her Wellington boots were by the door. Pulling them onto her feet, she noticed the shotgun that usually hung over the fireplace was gone. She looked into the kitchen and saw that the drawer where the shells were kept was open. Quickly, she pulled on her coat and went outside.
Jenny groped through the darkness until she found her bicycle leaning against the side of the cottage. She pushed it down the path, climbed onto the saddle, and pedaled after her father toward the Dogherty cottage, thinking, Please, God, let me stop him before someone ends up dead tonight.
Sean Dogherty pulled open the door of the barn and led them inside behind the light of the kerosene lantern. He removed his sou'wester and unbuttoned his coat, then looked at Neumann and the woman.
Neumann said, "Sean Dogherty, meet Catherine Blake. Sean used to be with an outfit called the Irish Republican Army, but he's been on loan to us for the war. Catherine works for Kurt Vogel too. She's been living in England under deep cover since 1938."
It gave Catherine a strange sensation to hear her background and work discussed so casually. After the years of hiding her identity, after all the precautions, after all the anxiety, it was difficult to imagine it was about to end.
Dogherty looked at her, then at Neumann. "The BBC's been running bulletins all night about a gun battle at Earl's Court. I suppose you were involved in that?"
Neumann nodded. "They weren't ordinary London police. MI-Five and Special Branch, I'd say. What's the radio saying?"
"You killed two of them and wounded three more. They've mounted a nationwide search for you and asked for help from the general public. Half the country's probably out beating the bushes for you right now. I'm surprised you made it this far."
"We stayed out of the big towns. It seemed to work. We haven't seen any police on the roads so far."
"Well, it won't last. You can be sure of that."
Neumann looked at his wristwatch--a few minutes after midnight. He picked up Sean's kerosene lamp and carried it to the worktable. He took down the radio from the cabinet and switched on the power.
"The submarine is on patrol in the North Sea. After receiving our signal, it will move exactly ten miles due east of Spurn Head and remain there until six A.M. If we don't appear, it turns from the coast and waits to hear from us."
Catherine said, "And how exactly are we going to get ten miles due east of Spurn Head?"
Dogherty stepped forward. "There's a fellow named Jack Kincaid. He has a small fishing boat at a quay on the River Humber." Dogherty dug out an old prewar Ordnance Survey map. "The boat's here," he said, jabbing at the map. "In a town called Cleethorpes. It's about a hundred miles up the coast. It will be hard driving on a dirty night like this with the blackout to contend with. Kincaid has a flat over a garage on the waterfront. I spoke to him yesterday. He knows we might be coming."
Neumann nodded and said, "If we leave now we have about six hours of driving time. I say we can make it tonight. The next rendezvous opportunity with the submarine is three days from now. I don't relish the idea of hiding out for three days with every policeman in Britain beating the bushes for us. I say we go tonight."
Catherine nodded. Neumann slipped on the earphones and tuned the radio to the proper frequency. He tapped out an identification signal and waited for a reply. A few seconds later the radio operator aboard the U-boat asked Neumann to proceed. Neumann drew a deep breath, carefully tapped out the message, then signed off and shut down the radio.
"Which leaves one more thing," he said, turning to Dogherty. "Are you coming with us?"
He nodded. "I've talked it over with Mary. She sees it my way. I'll come back to Germany with you: then Vogel and his friends can help me make my way back to Ireland. Mary will come across when I'm there. We've got friends and family who'll look after us until we get settled. We'll be all right."
"And how's Mary taking it?"
Dogherty's face hardened into a tight-lipped frown. Neumann knew it was quite likely he and Mary might never see each other again. He reached for the kerosene lamp, put a hand on Dogherty's shoulder, and said, "Let's go."
Martin Colville, standing astride his bicycle breathing heavily, saw a light burning inside Dogherty's barn. He laid his bicycle next to the road, then quietly crossed the meadow and crouched outside the barn. He struggled to understand the conversation taking place inside over the smack of the falling rain.
It was unbelievable.
Sean Dogherty--working for the Nazis. The man called James Porter--a German agent. A nest of German spies, operating right here in Hampton Sands!
Colville strained to hear more of the conversation. They were planning to drive up the coast to Lincolnshire and take a boat out to sea to meet a submarine. Colville felt his heart careening inside his chest and his breath coming quickly. He forced himself to be calm, to think clearly.
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