Wing Commander Carpenter stared straight ahead through the windscreen and said very slowly: ‘Frankly, old chap, this is preposterous.’
‘Try batting an eyelid and see just how preposterous that Sten gun is,’ Smith suggested. He looked at Wyatt-Turner again. ‘You underestimated Admiral Rolland, I’m afraid. He’s had his suspicions about you and the four section leaders of Department C for months. But he was wrong about Torrance-Smythe.’
‘Guess away.’ Wyatt-Turner had recovered his composure and most of his self-confidence. ‘It’ll pass the time till we get to Lille.’
‘Unfortunately for you, there is no guess-work. Admiral Rolland recalled me – and Mary – from Italy: he could no longer be sure of anyone in London. You know how corruption spreads? Played it very clever, did the Admiral. He told you he had his suspicions about one of his section leaders, but didn’t know which. So, when General Carnaby crashed, he put up to you the idea of sending the section officers to the rescue – and made damn sure that you never once had the opportunity of talking to any of them in private before they took off.’
‘That – that was why I was called in?’ Schaffer looked as if he had been sand-bagged. ‘Because you couldn’t trust –’
‘For all we knew, MI6 was riddled . . . Well, Colonel, you weren’t too happy until Rolland asked you to pick the leader. So you picked me. Rolland knew you would. You’d only just met me for the first time, but you knew from Kesselring’s military intelligence chief, through your pal Admiral Canaris, that I was their top double agent. Or thought you did. Rolland was the only man on either side who knew I wasn’t. For you, I was the ideal choice. Rolland made certain that you didn’t have the chance of talking to me either, but you weren’t worried. You knew that I would know what to do.’ Smith smiled bleakly. ‘I’m happy to say I did. It must have been quite a shock to your system this afternoon when he told you what I really was.’
‘You knew that? You knew all that?’ Wyatt-Turner’s new-found composure had vanished, his voice was quiet and vicious. He lifted the Sten slightly. ‘What goes on, Smith?’
‘All pre-arranged to force your hand. We had everything – except proof – about you. I got that proof this evening. Colonel Kramer knew that we were coming, knew we were after General Carnaby.’ He nodded towards Jones. ‘Incidentally, meet Cartwright Jones, an American actor.’
‘What?’ Wyatt-Turner forced out the word as if a pair of powerful hands were squeezing on his windpipe.
‘General Carnaby is spending a quiet weekend at the Admiral’s country house in Wiltshire. As a stand-in, Mr Jones was quite admirable. He had them all as deceived as that faked plane crash – you will have realized by now that it was a deliberate crash-landing.’ Wyatt-Turner tried to speak, but the words failed to come: his mouth was working and the colour had drained from his ruddy face. ‘And why did Kramer know? He knew because you had informed Berlin as soon as Rolland had put the plan to you. Nobody else had the chance to. And he knew that we would be in “Zum Wilden Hirsch” this evening. He knew because I told you on the radio broadcast this morning and you lost no time in passing the good word on.’
‘Are you sure?’ Heidi asked. ‘Couldn’t the informant have been whichever of the men – Carraciola or Christiansen or Thomas – who killed Torrance-Smythe. There’s a phone box just outside the inn.’
‘I know. No, he didn’t have time. I left the inn for exactly seven minutes. Three minutes after I’d left, Torrance-Smythe did the same – to follow one of the three others he’d just seen leaving. Smithy was clever and he knew something was far wrong. He –’
‘How did he know?’ Schaffer demanded.
‘We’ll never be sure. I think we’ll find that he was a highly-skilled lip-reader. Anyway, he caught the man he’d seen leaving in the phone booth outside the Post Office – before he’d had time to get through to either Weissner or Kramer. There was a fight to the death. By the time the killer had dragged Smithy around to the back and returned to the booth, someone else was occupying it. I saw him. So the killer had to go back into the inn. Kramer it was who told Weissner – and the Colonel here who told Kramer.’
‘Very interesting.’ There was a sneer in Wyatt-Turner’s voice, but a sneer belied by the deep unease in his face. ‘Fascinating, in fact. Quite finished, Major Smith?’
‘Finished.’ Smith sighed. ‘You just had to come to meet us, hadn’t you, Colonel? This was the last door to life left open to you. In my final broadcast I told the Admiral “I have it all”. He told you what that meant – all the names, all the addresses. We could never have got at you through Carraciola, Christiansen or Thomas – they were too close to you in MI6, you were too cagey and they never knew who they were working for. You used intermediaries – and all their names are in that book. You knew they’d put the finger on you – when it’s a choice between taking a walk to the gallows and talking – well, it’s not much of a choice, is it?’
Wyatt-Turner didn’t answer. He turned to Carpenter and said: ‘Lay off a course for Lille airport.’
‘Don’t bother,’ Smith said.
Wyatt-Turner lined his Sten on Smith. ‘Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t shoot you now.’
‘I can do that,’ Smith nodded. ‘Why do you think that Admiral Rolland accompanied you to the airport. He never has before.’
‘Go on.’ Wyatt’s voice was hard, abrupt, but his eyes were sick, sick with the sudden certainty of defeat and death.
‘To make quite certain that you took that Sten and only that Sten with you. Tell me, can you see two parallel scores where the stock meets the barrel?’
Wyatt-Turner stared at him for a long moment then glanced down quickly at the Sten. There were two unmistakable parallel scratches exactly where Smith had said they would be. Wyatt-Turner looked up again, his face contorted, desperation replacing the sickness in his eyes.
‘That’s right,’ Smith said. ‘I personally filed off the firing pin exactly thirty-six hours ago.’ With his left hand Smith reached awkwardly under his tunic flap and brought out his silenced Luger. Wyatt-Turner, with his Sten lined up on Smith’s head and the muzzle less than three feet from Smith’s face, squeezed the trigger time and again, and each convulsive contraction of his forefinger was rewarded by a dry and empty click. With a stunned almost uncomprehending expression on his face, Wyatt-Turner slowly lowered the Sten to the floor, then quickly whirled in his seat, jerked open the door and threw the note-book out into the night. He turned and smiled bleakly at Smith.
‘The most important document in Europe, I believe I called it.’
‘So you did.’ Smith handed his gun to Schaffer, reached under his tunic and brought out two more books. ‘Duplicates.’
‘Duplicates!’ The smile slowly faded from the heavily-jowled face, leaving it frozen in defeat. ‘Duplicates,’ he whispered. He looked slowly around them all and then finally back at Smith, who had retrieved his gun from Schaffer. He said: ‘Are you going to shoot me?’
‘No.’
Wyatt-Turner nodded, slid back the door to its widest extent and said: ‘Can you really see me in the Tower?’ He stepped forward into the doorway.
‘No.’ Smith shook his head. ‘No, I can’t see that.’
‘Mind the step,’ said Schaffer. His voice was cold and empty, his face was carved from stone.
‘Well, now, time to make a call.’ Smith slid shut the door, scrambled painfully into the co-pilot’s seat and looked at Mary. ‘The Admiral must be getting worried by this time.’
‘Time to make a call,’ Mary repeated mechanically. She stared at him as if seeing a ghost. ‘How can you sit there – just after – how can you be so calm?’
‘Because it’s no shock to me, silly. I knew he was going to die.’
‘You knew – of course, of course,’ she murmured.
‘Now then,’ Smith went on, deliberately brisk-voiced as he took her hand. ‘You realize what this means, don’t you?’
‘Do I realize what what me
ans?’ She was still ashen-faced.
‘You and I are all washed up,’ Smith explained patiently. ‘Finished. In Italy, in north-west Europe. I won’t even be allowed to fight as a soldier because if I were captured I’d still be shot as a spy.’
‘So?’
‘So, for us, the war is over. For the first time we can think of ourselves. OK?’ He squeezed her hand and she smiled shakily in reply. ‘OK Wing Commander, may I use your radio?’
‘So that’s the way he went.’ Admiral Rolland, telephone in hand and standing by the big transceiver in his London Operations HQ, looked old and very very tired. ‘Maybe it’s all for the best, Smith. And you have all the information you want?’
Smith’s voice crackled over the earphone. ‘Everything, sir.’
‘Magnificent, magnificent! I have all the police forces in the country alerted. As soon as we get that book . . . There’s a car waiting for you at the airport. See you in an hour.’
‘Yes, sir. There’s one thing, sir, a small thing. I want to get married this morning.’
‘You what?’ Grey bushy eyebrows lifted towards the mane of white hair.
‘I want to get married,’ Smith explained slowly and patiently. ‘To Miss Mary Ellison.’
‘But you can’t,’ Rolland protested. ‘This morning! Impossible! There are such things as banns, permits, the registrar’s office will be shut today –’
‘After all I’ve done for you,’ Smith interrupted reproachfully.
‘Blackmail, sir! You play on an old man’s gratitude. Downright blackmail!’ Rolland banged down the phone, smiled tiredly and picked up another phone. ‘Operator? Put me through to the Forgery Section.’
Wing Commander Carpenter, his pipe well alight and by his elbow a cup of coffee newly poured from a vacuum flask, was his old imperturbable self again. Smith talked quietly to Mary while Jones had his eyes closed and appeared to be asleep. Farther aft in the fuselage, Schaffer had his arm around Heidi, who was making no attempt to fight him off.
‘Right,’ Schaffer said. ‘So we go to this pub tonight, see –’
‘You said the Savoy Grill,’ Heidi reminded him.
‘A rose by any other name . . . So we go to this pub, and we’ll have pâté , smoked trout, sirloin of Aberdeen-Angus –’
‘Aberdeen-Angus!’ Heidi looked at him in amusement. ‘Forgotten the war, haven’t you? Forgotten rationing? More like a sirloin of horse meat.’
‘Honey.’ Schaffer took her hands and spoke severely and earnestly. ‘Honey, don’t ever again mention that word to me. I’m allergic to horses.’
‘You eat them?’ Heidi gazed at him in astonishment. ‘In Montana?’
‘I fall off them,’ Schaffer said moodily. ‘Everywhere.’
Alistair MacLean, Where Eagles Dare
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