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.
He had two choices: turn away, ride back to the village, and alert the authorities, or go inside the barn and take them into custody on his own. Each option had disadvantages. If he left for help, Dogherty and the spies would probably be gone by the time he returned. There were few police along the Norfolk coast, hardly enough to mount a search. If he went in alone he would be outnumbered. He could see Sean had his shotgun, and he assumed the two others were armed too. Still, he would have the advantage of surprise.
There was another reason why he liked the second option--he would enjoy personally settling the score with the German who called himself James Porter. Colville knew he had to act and act quickly. He broke open the box of shells, removed two, and snapped them into the barrel of the old twelve-gauge. He had never aimed the thing at anything more threatening than a partridge or a pheasant. He wondered whether he would have the stomach to pull the trigger on a human being.
He rose and took a step toward the door.
Jenny pedaled until her legs burned--through the village, past the church and the cemetery, over the sea creek. The air was filled with the sound of the storm and the rush of the sea. Rain lashed against her face and the wind nearly blew her over.
Jenny spotted her father's bicycle in the grass along the track and stopped next to it. Why leave it here? Why not ride it all the way to the cottage?
She thought she knew the answer. He was trying to sneak up without being seen.
It was then she heard the sound of a shotgun blast from Sean's barn. Jenny screamed, leapt from her bicycle, and let it fall next to her father's. She ran across the meadow, thinking, Please, God, don't let him be dead. Don't let him be dead.
52
SCARBOROUGH, ENGLAND
Approximately one hundred miles north of Hampton Sands, Charlotte Endicott pedaled her bicycle into the small gravel compound outside the Y Service listening station at Scarborough. The ride from her digs at a cramped guesthouse in town had been brutal, wind and rain the entire way. Soaked and chilled to the bone, she dismounted and leaned her bicycle next to several others in the stand.
The wind gusted, moaning through the three huge rectangular antennas that stood atop the cliffs overlooking the North Sea. Charlotte Endicott glanced up at them, swaying visibly, as she hurried across the compound. She pulled open the door of the hut and went inside before the wind slammed it shut.
She had a few minutes before her shift began. She removed her soaking raincoat, untied her hat, and hung them both on a dilapidated coat-tree in the corner. The hut was cold and drafty, built for utility, not comfort. It did have a small canteen, though. Charlotte went inside, poured herself a cup of hot tea, sat down at one of the small tables, and lit a cigarette. A filthy habit, she knew, but if she could hold a job like a man she could smoke like one. Besides, she liked the way they made her look--sexy, sophisticated, a little older than her twenty-three years. She also had become addicted to the damned things. The work was stressful, the hours brutal, and life in Scarborough was dreadfully boring. But she loved every moment of it.
There had been only one time when she truly hated it, the Battle of Britain. During the long and horrible dogfights, the Wrens at Scarborough could listen to the cockpit chatter of the British and German pilots. Once she heard an English boy screaming and crying for his mother as his crippled Spitfire fell helplessly toward the sea. When she lost contact with him, Charlotte ran outside into the compound and threw up. She was glad those days were over.
Charlotte looked up at the clock. Nearly midnight. Time to go on duty. She stood and smoothed her damp uniform. She took one last pull at her cigarette--smoking wasn't allowed in the hole--then crushed it out in a small metal ashtray overflowing with butts. She left the canteen and walked toward the operations room. She flashed her identification badge at the guard. He scrutinized it carefully, even though he had seen it a hundred times before, then handed it back to her, smiling a little more than necessary. Charlotte knew she was an attractive girl, but there was no place for that sort of thing here. She pushed open the doors, entered the hole, and sat down at her regular spot.
It gave her a brief chill--as always.
She stared at the luminous dials of her RCA AR-88 superheterodyne communications receiver for a moment and then slipped on her earphones. The RCA's special interference-cutting crystals allowed her to monitor German Morse senders all across northern Europe. She tuned her receiver to the band of frequencies she had been assigned to patrol that night and settled in.
The German Morse s
enders were the fastest keyers in the world. Charlotte could immediately identify many by their distinctive keying style, or fist, and she and the other Wrens had nicknames for them: Wagner, Beethoven, Zeppelin.
Charlotte didn't have to wait long for her first action that night.
A few minutes after midnight she heard a burst of Morse in a fist she did not recognize. The cadence was poor, the pace slow and uncertain. An amateur, she thought, someone who didn't use their radio much. Certainly not one of the professionals at BdU, the Kriegsmarine headquarters. Acting quickly, she made a recording of the transmission on the oscillograph--a device that would in effect create a radio fingerprint of the signal called a Tina--and furiously scribbled the Morse message onto a sheet of paper. When the amateur finished, Charlotte heard another burst of code on the same frequency. This was no amateur; Charlotte and the other Wrens had heard him before. They had nicknamed him Fritz. He was a radio operator aboard a U-boat. Charlotte quickly transcribed this message as well.
Fritz's transmission was followed by another burst of sloppy Morse by the amateur, and then the communication went dead. Charlotte removed her headset, tore off the printout of the oscillograph, and marched across the room. Normally she would simply pass on the Morse transcripts of the messages to the motorcycle courier, who in turn would rush them to Bletchley Park for decoding. But there was something different about this communication--she could feel it in the fist of the radio operators: Fritz aboard a U-boat, an amateur somewhere else. She suspected she knew what it was, but she would have to make a damned convincing case. She presented herself to the night supervisor, a pale exhausted-looking man called Lowe. She dropped the transcripts and the oscillograph on his desk. He looked up at her, a quizzical expression on his face.