of men you have already met and the other men I briefed along with you last autumn. I hope to be getting some more people shortly, but you can be certain that when you go in you won’t have been compromised. That’s more than sis can count on these days.”
The colonel pursed his lips, put his hands in his trouser pockets and turned away without speaking.
After a moment, still facing away from Rory, Harris continued. “As I said to you several months ago, we expect to be in this business for several years, and frankly, Rory, right now we don’t know much about it. I’m the first to admit it privately, we’re bloody amateurs. I’m sure it hasn’t escaped your notice that we’ve been making it all up as we go along. The only people who’ve really been in control of events have been the Germans.”
Both Harris and Crossley gave humourless smiles. There was a strained silence. They exchanged awkward looks and Harris turned about and spoke. “I’m sorry we’ve left you in the dark, really since you arrived here. I didn’t expect it to take so long to get to this. And you can imagine, we’ve had political constraints imposed on us.”
The two men looked at Rory for some sort of affirmation. Rory spoke quietly, “Okay, I still want to hear more detail.”
“You’re right,” Harris agreed. “You deserve to know more, but for the time being we can’t tell you too much because you’ll be going into the field. And, if you’re captured, I’m afraid you’re going to have to trust us.” Harris was choosing his words carefully. “The short answer is that you are about to be working for a special committee reporting directly to the prime minister. For funding and administration, we have, as you already know, created a cover organization in the Ministry of Economic Warfare. This committee and whatever we build from it will remain entirely separate from the War Office and the Secret Intelligence Service. You move over to us this week. No one in the armed services or sis knows about us. If they did, they’d find a means of snuffing us out.”
Rory nodded imperceptibly. “Sounds a bit out of character for Mr. Chamberlain, don’t you think? First, you tell me he’s dancing on one foot hoping for the German army to stop Hitler, and now he’s setting up a new clandestine service designed to subvert and sabotage a Nazi-occupied Europe.”
Harris spread his hands. “What can I say? Chamberlain certainly went as far as he could appeasing the Nazis, but I think he sincerely hoped he’d avoid another war. I’m told he’s even given an order for the air force not to bomb German munitions factories or harbours. He’s an enigma, no doubt about it. On the other hand, he’s hedged his bets in a number of areas. He’s a more complicated personality than the papers give him credit for. I don’t think he’ll be prime minister much longer, but this whole resistance movement, believe it or not, is his idea.”
“It’s not just Chamberlain who’s on side, though,” Crossley added guardedly. “We have the backing of some influential politicians. A lot of people are pushing for Churchill to take over the reins. And of course Churchill himself has been pushing strenuously in private for something like this for months now. My guess is that our project is only getting oxygen as a means of appeasing Churchill in cabinet, which answers your doubts about Chamberlain’s support. That would also explain why not even the secretary of war, Oliver Stanley, is aware of what we’ll be doing, but we have been told that he’ll be brought in later when the prime minister thinks the time’s right. Since the war broke out, we’ve been nothing more than a tiny planning cell and we’ve been busy getting the administrative groundwork right. There’s been no need for many people to be in on this; and I’m sorry, but that’s why you’ve been kept working on the sidelines. All this is probably going to change now that the Germans have started to move. But for reasons that I’ll explain to you, it’s viewed as being highly desirable that we remain completely independent from any existing organizations.”
Rory made a sceptical face at this. “I can see problems in that.”
“We know,” Crossley said. “Starting up a separate intelligence and clandestine strike force won’t make us any friends. But we have two advantages by being separate. First, as I mentioned before, we don’t want to be given away if the Germans succeed in penetrating one of the larger organizations – and we aren’t certain yet that they haven’t already done that. And secondly, we believe that nothing bold, imaginative, or innovative is going to come out of the stuffy old hierarchies of either the War Office or mi6. We want to build something different, an organization that will exploit the talents and energy of the entire British Empire, and that’s not likely to come from the regular army or the peacetime intelligence service.”
“The other aspect of this,” said Harris, “is that we don’t have time to wait around for the other security branches to get their act together. The incident at Venlo that we just described to you is proof sis isn’t up to the job of fighting the Nazis. We’re not going to build another incompetent old boys’ club. We need to react quickly and we’ll have to expand rapidly; and to do that we need innovative minds. Our next project is to start recruiting an organization to fight the Japanese, and I’m afraid we just can’t get anything like the numbers or the kinds of people we’ll need in the places where sis and the smart regiments recruit their officers.”
“So, Rory,” said Crossley, “we’ve probably told you more than we should have. We really should get to the point. Are you in?”
Rory rubbed the back of his neck and smiled before answering quietly. “Of course I’m in. I haven’t been sitting around here for the last six months for the fun of it. If that’s what you wanted to know, my answer is yes, definitely; now, let’s go downstairs for dinner.”
7
ANNIKA WAS TAKEN ABACK. She stood in the living room of her town house, her right hand unconsciously raised to her mouth. “You mean you’re leaving Amsterdam tomorrow? But Pauli, I think I’ve managed to get you a job through Saul’s uncle. You can start a new life here. It’ll be wonderful. Your family — they’ll be safe and secure and we can help you with the adjustment. This is the Netherlands. It’s not like Germany.”
Pauli shook his head. “Annika, Germany hasn’t been like Germany for ten years now; Europe’s turning into a madhouse. You’ve been very kind, and I’m really grateful for the help you and Saul have provided on no notice when we just turned up on your doorstep, but last night, after we went back to your place, my wife and I decided we’re not staying in Europe.”
“This will end, Pauli. We need people like you here. Where will you go?”
“You obviously haven’t heard the news on the radio. Germany just attacked Denmark and Norway.”
Annika said nothing. She crumpled backwards into an armchair, stunned and numb, as if she had been given a strong and unexpected electric shock. It wasn’t just the news of disaster from a distant country. She felt personally stung with the sudden understanding that the future would not be what she hoped it would be. The news left her frail and embarrassed. Her mouth went dry. “It can’t be true. We could be next. It’s unbelievable.”
Pauli’s voice sounded remote, as if he were speaking from another room. Unaware of Annika’s distress, he continued. “I went to Saul’s synagogue today. It was just a hunch, but apart from yourselves, the only other man I had any connection with in Amsterdam was a distant cousin on my mother’s side. I found someone at the synagogue who knew of him and he gave me his address. My cousin was smart. He left Stuttgart when things really started getting ugly in 1935. I’d almost forgotten about him. He lives here in Amsterdam, but last week he sold his business and he’s leaving for South Africa next Thursday. He has connections with a Dutch shipping line. He’s offered to arrange our way to Cape Town. We can pay him back when we’re on our feet in
