Текст книги "The Romanov Succession"
Автор книги: Brian Garfield
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Текущая страница: 14 (всего у книги 22 страниц)
11
Baron Yuri Lavrentovitch Ivanov’s house had been built for a titled cousin of Lord Nelson’s. The drawing room was very high, very dark and very English-a soft dark polish of woodwork and padded leather.
Count Anatol took pride in his ability never to let feelings get the better of him but he had to fight the impulse to pace the room: he tried to force his mind into the discipline of reading but his eyes kept returning impatiently to the Seth Thomas clock on the oak mantel.
Finally the Baron came in quickly on his short legs; he still wore his topcoat. “My deepest apologies, Anatol.”
“I am not in the habit of being kept waiting.”
“A cipher came in through the bag. I have just decoded it. There has been a complication.” The Baron shouldered out of his coat and threw it across a chair; he tossed an envelope on a low table and dropped into a leather reading chair beside it. “Did you know that Stalin employs a double?”
Anatol felt his spine tighten. “No.”
“He suffered a severe breakdown shortly after the German attack. He had to be spirited out of Moscow to a retreat in the Kuybyshev. For more than two weeks in June and July the Soviet government was run by Beria and Malenkov. They employed a double to put in public appearances to allay suspicions in Moscow. Obviously this was no last-minute deception-they must have had the understudy well-trained and waiting in the wings for just such an emergency. For those seventeen days the top Soviet echelon was powerful enough to manage things in Stalin’s absence. They kept the machinery functioning during the worst days of the panzer drive into Russia. They are stronger men than we have credited them.”
“It only confirms what both Devenko and Danilov have insisted on-we cannot merely assassinate the top man, we must eliminate the entire palace guard.”
“Quite. But that reasoning doesn’t apply in the calculations of our people in Germany. They have been moving forward on the assumption that they need only kill Stalin. They feel there would be no further resistance to a German victory. The Grand Duke Mikhail is eager to see Hitler win it.”
“I know. That’s why we did not take him into our confidence.”
“His people know something is in the wind. Rumors have ways of wafting across warring borders. They know we are up to something. That is why I had hoped one of them could meet us this week-I wanted to throw them off the scent. If you had told them to their faces that we were not trying to beguile Mikhail I think they might have believed it. Mikhail thinks of you as a friend-he trusts you.”
“He has gone over to the Nazis. He is hoping Hitler will put him in the Kremlin-Mikhail would rather have a puppet throne than none at all. I want to see Russia ruled by Russians, not by an Austrian house painter.”
“It is academic now what we tell Mikhail’s group about our plans. It appears they have a plan of their own.”
“What?”
“Mikhail’s people have concocted a plan to assassinate Stalin.”
“You are sure?”
“Quite sure. My informant says they plan to kill Stalin and make use of the double who has been so considerately prepared by Beria. The double will issue a few crucially wrong orders to the Red Army. The Germans will march into Moscow and the double will sue Hitler for peace. Only two men know about the existence of the double-Beria and Malenkov-and they are to be removed early on.” The Baron added drily, “You must grant it is an ingenious plan.”
Anatol was stunned; he wasted no effort trying to hide it. “How soon is it to take place?”
“As soon as possible, I should imagine. Why should they wait? Hitler is within three days’ march of Moscow. If the Red Army withdraws from his front there will be nothing to stop him.”
Anatol watched the Baron’s small expressionless face. “We must prevent it.”
“How? There is no time to effect our own coup ahead of them. Clearly Danilov requires several weeks yet before he is in readiness. And there would be no time to substitute Vassily Devenko’s plan.”
“There is one way.”
“Forgive me but I do not see it.”
“It is quite simple,” Anatol said. “We must warn Stalin.”
12
At five Alex presided over a ground-company meeting of field officers. The four of them stood on the tarmac beyond the shadow of the main hangar.
Across the field Pappy Johnson’s pilots were swarming over the bombers like children. A nimbus layer filtered the highland sun’s direct rays and even now there was a thin smell of winter in the air.
John Spaight and the two Russian majors wore gabardine jump suits with bellows pockets. Major Ivan Postsev and Major Leo Solov had worked in tandem since the inception of the Russian Free Brigade under Vassily Devenko in 1934; in combat they were remarkable. If one needed support the other would appear with his men-ready, knowing what his partner wanted of him; there would be no evident signal but each of them had that trick of soundlessly imposing his will on the other.
Physically they presented a ludicrous contrast. Postsev had the muscular strength of ten but to look at him you wouldn’t have thought he’d have made it through the day: he was a cadaver-pasty and wrinkled. Solov was squat and had a smashed face; his ears were like scraps of beef liver; he moved with a dangle-armed roll. He was cautious by training but not by nature; with Postsev it was the reverse.
“We’re going to be officer-heavy,” Alex told them. “That’s the way I want it because when we go into operation we’ll be in squad-size teams. I want an officer in command of each team. But for training purposes we’re splitting the company down the middle. There’ll be two platoons-one of you will command each of them. You’re going to have to be ahead of the others because General Spaight can’t be everywhere at once-you’ll have to lead a good bit of the training yourselves. Any problems?”
Postsev said, “All our pilots seem to be in bomber training. Who is to fly the parachute training flights?”
“You won’t start jumping from aircraft for more than a month yet. By then we’ll have the air contingent sorted out and six of the pilots will be assigned to the paradrop transports. In the meantime you’ll be learning to jump from a rapelling tower.”
“Which brings us to a thorny one,” Spaight said. “We haven’t got a rapelling tower.”
“Tomorrow morning Colonel MacAndrews is sending us a dockyard construction team with a mobile crane. They’re going to tear one of those small hangars apart and use the girders to build a tower on top of this hangar. It’ll give us a hundred-and-twenty-foot slide drop. It’s a little shorter than usual but it’ll have to do. I’ve got MacAndrews’s word it will be ready to climb by Thursday morning.”
The regiment already had its obstacle course in the woods beyond the far end of the runway-coiled concertina barbed wire, trenches, inclined logs, culverts, climbing trestles, even a stream that came down out of the dark highlands beyond and flowed across the slope and down toward the Inverness flats.
Alex said, “You’ll have to sort out your drivers. Make sure they’re qualified on the vehicles they may have to commandeer. Most of the Soviet staff cars are Packards. The lorries and ambulances are mainly Daimlers and Mercedes.”
The two majors nodded. That equipment would be roughly the same as they’d had to contend with in Finland.
“All right. Now we’ve got a defector. Brigadier Cosgrove’s bringing him along tomorrow morning. You’ll have about ten days with him. He’s a Red Army officer-a lieutenant colonel. He crossed the line into Finland about three weeks ago. I don’t know what incentives the British have offered him to cooperate with us but I’m told he’s coming here voluntarily. I want you to pump him dry. Everything he knows. Make a note of every piece of information no matter how insignificant it may seem. We want everything from their order-of-battle to the gossip in his officers’ mess. When we go in we’ll be posing as officers and men from his battalion. You’ll have to know the names and ranks of every officer in that battalion and as many non-coms and enlisted men as he can give you. And not just names-physical descriptions, peculiarities, backgrounds, gossip-you’ve got to be able to behave as if you really know those people, in case you run into someone who really does know them. Once you’ve got the information you’ll pass it on to your men and be sure they’ve got it straight. Every night I want the men briefed on these things-and I want them awake enough to absorb it. All right?”
Major Solov said in his thick Georgian accent, “It would save time if we could detail subordinates to some of this. To continue the debriefings while we are in training during the day.”
Spaight said, “We can’t pull anyone out of training for that.”
Alex said, “I’ve got someone who can do it for us.”
At the hangar door Sergei appeared, beckoning; Alex excused himself and went that way.
“It’s the telephone. Brigadier Cosgrove, from Edinburgh.”
He closed the office door behind him before he picked up the phone. “Danilov here.”
“Bob Cosgrove. You may recall we discussed your meeting with a certain naval official?”
“I recall it.”
“It’s been laid on for this Friday-nineteenth September. It would be most appreciated if you could make yourself available in London.”
“What time?”
“Sometime in the evening. The arrangements are rather informal-I’m sure you understand.”
“Yes.”
“I should come by rail if I were you-one can’t promise good flying weather in London, can one. Not to mention the Luftwaffe. Do you recall the address I mentioned to you this morning?”
“Yes.” It was a Knightsbridge pub: Cosgrove had said, It’s a contact spot. I chose it at random. If we meet in London we’ll meet there. I’m giving you this now because I shan’t want to specify an address over the telephone.
Cosgrove said, “Five o’clock Friday then. We’ll have dinner and then confer with the Navy. Come alone, of course.”
He didn’t mean that the way it sounded; he meant Be sure you’re not followed.
13
“Really we need cloaks and beards, darling-we ought to be carrying black bombs with sputtering fuses.”
She sat up straight at the kitchen table and twisted her head to ease the cramped muscles. On the table the Clausewitz was dog-eared and the pad beside it was cluttered with pencil-printing and numerals in alternate lines; the numerals stopped two-thirds of the way down. That was as far as she’d got with it. It had taken nearly three hours to do that much.
“Oleg must have stayed up nights to dream this up. Nothing could be clumsier.”
“It’s secure,” he said. “Unless they know what book to use there’s no way on earth to break the code.”
He stepped behind her chair and kneaded the back of her neck. She tipped her face back and smiled, upside-down in his vision; he bent to kiss her.
Then he had another look at his wristwatch. Where the devil was Cosgrove’s radio man? It was getting on for eleven o’clock; the first contact with Vlasov was scheduled in something less than three hours.
She misinterpreted his gesture. “I deplore your lack of confidence,” she said mischievously. “I’ll finish it in time.”
“All right. But where’s that damned radio?”
A chill highland mist hung about the bungalow; he extinguished the parlor lights before he stepped outside for a breath of air. The night was total; the base was blacked out. He heard the disembodied growl of a vehicle moving across the tarmac not too far away; in the mist he saw nothing. If there was a gunman out there good luck to him.
He turned his head to catch the moving vehicle’s sound on the flats of his eardrums. It was on the runway itself and when it stopped it was by the main hangar. The engine idled for several minutes and then he heard it go into gear and start moving again. Back toward the main gate, changing through a couple of gears, never getting into high. It stopped briefly-getting clearance at the gate-and his ears followed it out to the high road. He heard it come forward in the night. The two slitted lights were ghostly emerging from the mist; he stepped back out of the drive.
The lights went out; the ignition switched off. He heard the door open and he spoke merely to identify his presence: “Hello?”
A brief but absolute stillness; then a heavy breath and a stranger’s voice: “Who’s that-who’s that?”
“General Danilov. Are you looking for me?”
“Cor, you gimme such a fright, sir!” A vague shape swam forward in the fog.
“You’d be Cooper?”
“That’s right, sir. Lance Corporal Arry Cooper. You want this rig inside the ouse?”
“I’ll give you a hand.”
It turned out to be a small van. Lance-Corporal Cooper opened the back doors and they manhandled the shortwave transceiver across the lawn into the house.
“Just set it down on the floor and stand still until I shut the door and get some lights on.”
When he switched the lamp on he saw he’d been fooled completely by the voice. He’d expected a weasel-faced little Cockney. Cooper was as wide and muscular as a Percheron draft horse. He had a handsome square young face with a thatch of yellow hair combed neatly across his forehead.
Cooper stood at attention but his eyes roved about the homey little room. I’m sorry I’m so late, sir. It was the fog and all. I lost me way three times. I’m not a native here.”
“I gathered that much, Cooper. Let’s set it up on this table, shall we?”
The wireless set was a bulky monster; it had to weigh a good hundred pounds. The case lifted off like that of a motion-picture projector. Cooper turned the empty case upside-down and it wasn’t empty after all: a thin wire was coiled neatly against the lid, snapped down with leather straps.
“Ave you a ladder then, sir?”
“There’s a stepladder in the pantry. Will it do?”
“Ave to, won’t it.” Cooper was attaching one end of the coiled wire to the antenna lead at the back of the set. Then he carried it toward the front door, paying it out as he went. He waited by the door, not opening it, until Alex brought the stepladder and switched off the lights. Then they threaded the wire out through the window beside the front door and Alex went outside with him.
“D’you mind steadying the ladder for me, sir?”
Alex jammed its legs hard down into the earth and braced it with one hand while he hooked the other hand into Cooper’s belt and boosted him up toward the low-sloping roof.
Cooper was gone a good five minutes; Alex heard the twanging rustle of the antenna wire as Cooper drew it along after him and pulled it taut before fixing it to the chimney.
They went inside. Irina had finished coding the message. Cooper pulled the telegrapher’s key out of its slot and began twisting wires around knurled connectors. “The weight of it’s in those dry cells, y’see, sir. We can’t trust the electric up here so we carry our own.”
Alex had a look at Irina’s pad: groups of numbers-each five digits separated from the next by an X. It would mean nothing to Cooper but that was how it had to be.
“Ave you got frequencies for me, sir?”
“Set to send and receive on five-point-six-two megacycles. Have you got a wristwatch?”
“No sir, sorry to say.”
“I’ll warn you when it’s time then. We’ve got about an hour.”
He took the pad and rolled the top sheets over until he came to a blank page; he glanced back at the list of notes Irina had made and then he jotted something on the clean page and tore it out and carried it to Cooper.
“This is the message you’ll receive first.”
On the sheet of notepaper he’d written: XXX30X21901X 63302X19016X33021X90163X.
Cooper had neat small white teeth. “Same word three times, in’t it, sir?”
It meant he knew his job and that was good. “It’s a recognition signal. If you don’t get that opening you don’t respond to the message.”
“I understand, sir.”
“Now here’s your reply to it.” He gave him the second sheet.
Cooper glanced at it and nodded. To him it didn’t say Condotierri three times; it was merely a string of twenty-seven digits separated by Xs. But it was obvious he understood the procedure.
“When you’ve broadcast that recognition code you’ll continue immediately without waiting for an answer. You’ll broadcast the message on these sheets. At the end of that transmission you’ll switch over to Receive and you should get an acknowledgment that looks like this one.”
KollinXCarnegie.
“There won’t be a message from your opposite number then, sir?”
“That’ll be tomorrow night.”
Cooper nodded. “Right, sir. Got it.” He displayed his fine teeth again. “All quite mysterious-like, in’t it.”
“When it’s all over you’ll find out what it was about, Corporal. You’re part of something very important.”
“Yes sir. That’s what Brigadier Cosgrove told me.”
Irina said, “Would you like coffee, Corporal?”
“I wouldn’t mind a cuppa, madam. If you’d show me to the larder I’ll brew it meself.”
“I’m sure Sergei will be glad to do it.” She left the room.
Cooper pushed his lips forward and lifted his eyebrows. He didn’t say anything; he grinned at the doorway where Irina had disappeared, transferred the grin to Alex and then went back to his key to test the circuits. Tubes began to glow in the ungainly apparatus and Cooper twisted the tuning rheostat; the brass telegrapher’s key began to tap out staccato rhythms, picking up incoming messages on the various bands. Satisfied it was working properly, Cooper shut it down and leaned back in the wooden chair. “Well then sir, I expect we’re ready to go to war, ain’t we.”
14
Thursday morning he watched MacAndrews’s drafted dockyard crew put the finishing touches on the spidery rapelling tower and then he spent nearly three hours with Irina interviewing Colonel Yevgeny Dieterichs, the Soviet defector. At half-past ten they took a break and he walked outside with Irina.
“He seems genuine enough,” she said.
“Keep putting him through his paces. Milk him-you know how important it is.”
“I wish I were going with you instead. Dinner at the Savoy-an evening at the Haymarket… I could do with a bit of that. I feel as though I’ve been shipwrecked up here.”
“This was your own idea.”
“Darling, the whole blessed thing was my own idea and I confess I’m unforgivably proud of it.”
“You’ve a right to be.” The Austin was swinging up the verge of the runway toward him. “I hope the rest of us can live up to it.”
“You will,” she said, very soft. Sergei drew up and reached across the seat to push the passenger door open for him.
She stood watching while the Austin took him away toward the main gate.
They drove south and west along the chain of lochs through the dark green highlands. The sky was matted but they had no rain down the craggy length of Loch Ness. There was virtually no traffic. They ran on south at a steady forty and fifty miles per hour through the early hours of the afternoon. Maneuvering Scottish recruits were tenting on the banks of Loch Lomond and on a brighter day it would indeed have been bonnie-swards of rich grass dropping gently toward the cool deep water.
At four they picked up the smoke of Glasgow’s furnaces above the hill summits. Alex navigated from the street map on his lap and Sergei did an expert job of threading the clotted traffic. The city was dreary, black with soot.
The approach to the railway station was jammed with traffic. Alex lifted his case over the back of the seat and pushed the door open. “You may as well drive straight back unless you want to stop for supper. Pick me up here on the Sunday evening express from London-you’ve got the timetable?”
“Yes sir. Godspeed then.”
“Take care driving, old friend.” He hopped out and carried his case inside the thronged station. The scabs twinged now and then but he no longer had to make a conscious effort not to limp.
His priority pass got him a seat in a leather-upholstered compartment and he rode south into grey rain flipping through a newspaper and two news magazines he’d bought to catch up on what had been happening in the world since he’d left Washington ten days ago. In France the Nazis were retaliating against acts of sabotage by executing innocent French hostages. In Tokyo there had been an assassination attempt against Baron Kiichiro Hiranuma, the Vice Premier of Japan.
In Russia the Wehrmacht had now occupied four hundred thousand square miles of Soviet territory and the advance continued. There had been a terrible pitched battle for Smolensk. The Russian remnants had been forced to evacuate the city. Yet correspondents’ dispatches from Moscow indicated that life in the capital went on nearly as usual. Ration cards were now required but the stocks of food and necessities seemed quite sufficient. The German invasion had divided into three prongs aimed at Leningrad, Moscow and the rich industrial basins of the south. Scattered Russian resistance and the length of their own supply lines had slowed the Nazis’ advance; but the blitzkrieg continued-apparently right on schedule. Hitler meant to make his Christmas speech from Moscow.
Well past midnight he left the train at Euston Station and was collected by a War Office lieutenant who had a Daimler staff car waiting. “It’s a good thing you’ve got digs, sir. I didn’t think there’s a room to be had in all of London. I’m putting up in a bed-sitter in Paddington with an RN ensign and two Anzac lieutenants.”
They drove north and east. The blacked-out streets were virtually empty except for the occasional helmeted bobby and fire-watchman. Twice they had to dodge craters in the streets but most of the buildings were intact.
When they made the turn into the Archway Road the driver said conversationally, “There’s still a car behind us, Lieutenant.”
They turned right into Shepherd’s Hill with open ground falling away steeply to the left side of the road.
The Daimler slid to the curb and a car puttered past; Alex had a look at it but it told him nothing; there wasn’t enough light to see the driver’s face.
“Thanks for the lift.”
When the other car had disappeared over the hill he took his valise up the steps and rang. The Daimler stayed at the curb until the door opened and he stepped inside.
Baron Ivanov answered the door himself. “Were you followed?”
“Yes. I expected it.”
The tiny Baron wore an expensive smoking jacket; his bald head gleamed in the lamplight. Black velvet curtains hung heavily against all the windows; the house was rich and warm and elegant in the style of a century ago.
Ivanov showed him to a bedroom-upstairs in the rear. “I hope you will be comfortable.”
“It’s quite luxurious.”
“Anatol has asked me to see to your needs.”
“A good night’s sleep at the moment. Is there a rear way out?”
“It is a terribly steep embankment-it is almost a cliff. There is an old railway line beneath the rear garden.”
“Is there a tube station nearby?”
“At the intersection where you turned.”
“I don’t suppose there are any taxis.”
“Not this far out, but you are welcome to the use of my Bentley at any time. My chauffeur lives on the premises.”
“That’s very kind.”
“It is not kindness I assure you. According to Prince Leon you are our last hope.”
“I’m a soldier, Baron, not a Messiah.”
“Whatever I have is at your disposal. I suppose I should caution you that the last White Russian general who borrowed my Bentley was shot at for his pains. It took quite a bit of string-pulling to have the bulletproof glass replaced.”
It wouldn’t have been politic to ask why the Bentley was armored in the first place; obviously the job had been done long before Vassily Devenko’s ride in the car. The Baron had fingers in many schemes and-his enemies said-hands in many pockets; it was not unlikely his political and military alliances had impressed him with a need for prudence. The house itself was wired with a visible alarm system.
Alex expected the Baron to bid him good night and leave the room but the tiny aristocrat went to the dressing table and perched himself on the upholstered stool before it. “There is something you must do for us.”
Somewhere across London the air-raid sirens began to wail. The distant keening distracted the Baron; he said, “They rarely bomb this far north in London but if you hear the alarms you will find our shelter in the cellar. The ladder is directly under the staircase we just used.”
“Thank you.”
He began to hear the distant banging of pom-poms. The Baron said, “I am told you have a contact inside the Kremlin-someone with Stalin’s ear.”
He looked up quickly but the Baron said, “I do not intend to press you for his identity. But we need to make use of him.”
“I’m afraid I can’t-”
“Hear me out, General Danilov. As you know the bank with which I am connected has offices in many nations. I am in communication through our Zurich affiliate with the surviving German branches of our international financial structure. In theory the German offices have been nationalized but the organization still maintains its ties with our offices here in London. The financial transactions of the Grand Duke Mikhail and his people in Munich are supervised by White Russian officers of the same banks. It is through me that Count Anatol and Prince Leon and the rest of you receive information concerning the activities of the White Russian loyalists who live inside the borders of the German Reich.
“We have discovered that the German group threatens to jeopardize our own scheme. I have told Anatol Markov and he has taken the information back to Spain. It is possible you will receive instructions from Prince Leon but communications are uncertain and we haven’t much time. I’m taking the liberty of telling you this myself in case Spain does not reach you in time.”
“Go on.”
“They are planning an assassination. The design is to kill Stalin, substitute a double for him and issue orders to the Red Army-through the double-to retreat before Moscow. Russia then will have lost the war and Hitler seems prepared to install the Grand Duke Mikhail on the throne of a Vichy-style occupation government. The double already exists-a creation of Lavrenti Beria’s-a professional actor who has been transformed by plastic surgery into a remarkable likeness of Stalin.”
The breath hung in Alex’s throat. It was as if he had been kicked in the stomach.
The Baron went on in a relentless monotone:
“The Germans have shifted Guderian temporarily to the Ukraine and Georgi Malenkov is being sent there next week to stiffen the resistance in Kiev. In the meantime the administrative headquarters of Beria’s secret police have been moved to the Kuybyshev in case Moscow is occupied. Apparently Beria’s next trip down there is scheduled for a week from today. That will put both Beria and Malenkov out of Moscow-they are the only two men in the top echelon who know of the existence of the Stalin double.
“We have no clue to the identity of the assassins. One assumes there must be several because they have to take control of the double. It is possible they intend to make him docile by means of drugs or drug-induced hypnosis-the Germans have been doing experiments along those lines. Or perhaps it is a matter of bribery combined with coercion. I have no idea. But we do know the timetable. On the twenty-sixth-tomorrow week-both Beria and Malenkov will be absent from the weekly Kremlin command conference. That is when the assassination is scheduled. They intend to reach Stalin on his way into the meeting. The killing may be effected by means of cyanide gas in the ventilating system of his private lavatory in the underground command bunker. I cannot confirm that report. But the general plan and the timetable seem quite certain.”
The pulse thudded in Alex’s throat. The Baron went on:
“Our German cousins have a damnable advantage over us. Ever since the Bolshevik rising in nineteen seventeen they have maintained an active network of spies in the Soviet government. The irony is that it was Count Anatol who set it up for them-he was a partisan of Mikhail’s in the early days. They have been waiting their chance for more than twenty years and now Hitler has given it to them. It is unfortunate that their timetable is ahead of ours.”
“There’s no way to get in ahead of them,” Alex said. “We’re weeks away from operational status.”
“Of course. Their plan has the advantage of relying on a German military victory. Yours has to rely on a Russian one. Much more difficult to achieve in the circumstances. But you have the one thing that may save our cause-you have a man in the Kremlin.”
Now Alex saw it. “To stop them.”
“I think he must do more than that,” the Baron murmured. “I think he must brief Stalin and Beria on the assassination plot. It is not enough to forestall one attempt-they could make another. The network of Mikhail’s spies must be destroyed before we make our own move. Beria is the only man in a position to wipe out the entire network. He must be warned. We shall have to give your man a plausible way to have unearthed the plot. I should not think it would be dangerous for him. After all he will be saving Stalin’s life-they can only construe that as the supreme loyalty. If anything this will cement your man in Stalin’s favor.”
That part wouldn’t be difficult. Vlasov had his own G-2 staff; it would be a simple matter of selecting a wounded German prisoner-an officer would be best-and putting up the pretense of a private “interrogation.” Afterward the prisoner would have to die to prevent Beria from checking back on Vlasov’s story. Vlasov would attract no suspicion unless the plot failed to materialize; and even if it proved a false alarm it would do him no real harm-he could always claim the German officer must have been lying.
The Baron’s small round face tipped up ingenuously. “I should not mention this to any of our allies if I were you. They would want to know where I got my information and of course I am not prepared to reveal that.”
“I’ll be in contact with our man Sunday night,” Alex said. “Are there any other details?”
“None that I possess. Knowing the time and place of the attempt ought to be enough for them.”
“There’s one thing we can’t correct,” Alex said. “This is going to put Stalin on his guard. He’ll be twice as suspicious as he ever was before. He’ll be that much harder for us to reach when our turn comes.”
