The room was small with a wooden bench in the centre on which Brosnan and Savary placed the body. One of the walls was hung with a selection of oilskins and orange life jackets. The most interesting feature was the piles of heavy steel chain coiled neatly on the floor, each one in a different weight category according to a painted board on the wall behind it.
Right. Lebel consulted his document. He weighed seven and a half stone at death. Christ, we cant have that. Hell float like a cork on that current. He turned to a sheet on the wall. Ninety pounds of chain according to this. Get it on him.
Brosnan took a chain from the correct pile and they proceeded to pass it through the loops specially provided for the purpose on the body bag.
Ive often wondered why you make all this fuss over the weights, Pierre. Savary remarked. The way you change it, according to the body weight?
Lebel produced a pack of Gauloises and offered them one. Simple. The Mill Race isnt one current as most people imagine. Its two. Stay on the surface, youd end on the rocks at St Denise ten miles up the coast and bodies drifting in as regularly as that would scare old ladies walking the dog. But drop the body down to thirty fathoms, the current takes it out to sea. So, the weight factor is critical. Anyway, lets get this over with.
Brosnan and Savary carried the body between them to the edge of the cliff. They stood there for a moment and Savary said, I tell you he should have a priest. This isnt right.
Lebel, his essential decency coming to the surface, removed his cap and said, All right. Lord, into thy hands we commend the spirit of 67824 Jean Bouvier. He didnt get much out of this life. Maybe you can do more for him in the next. He replaced his cap. Okay, over with him.
Brosnan and Savary swung a couple of times, then let go. The body turned over once, plunged into white foam below and disappeared. They stood staring down at the water.
Savary whispered, The only way Im ever going to get off this rock. Im going to die here, Martin.
There was desolation in his voice, total despair, and Brosnan put a hand on his shoulder. Maybe on the other hand, maybe not.
Savary turned to stare at him, frowning, and Lebel closed and locked the door and switched off the light. Okay, lets go, and they turned and followed him back down the track, heads bowed against the rain.
At six a.m. Ferguson and Harry Fox were having breakfast in a truck drivers cafe on the A40 just outside Cheltenham. The bacon and eggs were the best Fox could remember enjoying since the Officers Mess at Combermere Barracks in Windsor. Ferguson was obviously just as impressed.
What about Devlin, sir?
Remarkable man. Must be sixty-one now. An Ulsterman. County Down, I believe. Father executed during the Anglo-Irish war in nineteen twenty-one for serving in a flying column. Educated by Jesuits, took first class honours in English Literature at Trinity College. Scholar, writer, poet and highly dangerous gunman for the IRA during the thirties. Went to Spain in nineteen thirty-six. Served in the Washington Brigade against Franco. Captured by Italian troops and imprisoned in Spain until nineteen forty when the Abwehr had him freed and brought to Berlin to see if he could be of any use to German Intelligence.
And was he, sir?
The trouble was, from their point of view, he was a bad risk. Very anti-fascist, you see. The Abwehrs Irish Section did use him once. Theyd sent an agent to Ireland, a Captain Goertz. When he got stuck, they parachuted Devlin in to get him out for them. Unfortunately Goertz was caught and Devlin spent several months on the run before he managed to make it back to Berlin via Portugal. From then on, Ireland was a dead end as far as the Abwehr was concerned and Devlin took a job lecturing at the University of Berlin. Until the autumn of nineteen forty-three. Ferguson reached for the marmalade. This really is very good. I think Ill ask him for a jar.
The autumn of nineteen forty-three, Fox said patiently.
How much do you know about the German attempt on Churchills life in November of that year, Harry?
Fox laughed out loud. Come on, sir, an old wives tale, that one. And then, continuing to watch Fergusons face, he stopped laughing. Isnt it, sir?
Well, lets assume its just a good story, Harry. The scenario would run something like this. Devlin, bored to tears at University of Berlin, is offered a job by the Abwehr. Hes to parachute into Ireland, then make his way to Norfolk to act as middle man between the most successful woman agent the Abwehr had in the entire war and a crack force of German paratroopers, led by a Colonel Kurt Steiner, the object of the exercise being to apprehend Churchill who was staying at a country house outside the village of Studley Constable.
Go on, sir.
All for nothing, of course. Wasnt even Churchill, just a stand-in while the great man was going to Tehran. They died anyway, Steiner and his men. Well, all except one, and Devlin, with his usual Irish deviousness, got away.
Harry Fox said in amazement, You mean its all true, sir?
A few years yet before those classified files are opened, Harry. Youll have to wait and see.
And Devlin worked for the Nazis? I dont get it. I thought you said he was anti-fascist?
Rather more complicated than that. I think if someone had suggested on our side that he should attempt to kidnap Adolf Hitler, hed have thrown himself into the task with even greater enthusiasm. Very frequently in life were not playing the game, Harry. Its playing us. Youll learn that as you get older.
And wiser, sir?
Thats it, Harry, learn to laugh at yourself. A priceless asset. During the post-war period Devlin was a professor at a mid-Western college in America. He returned to Ulster briefly during the border war of the late fifties. Went back again during the civil rights disturbances of nineteen sixty-nine. One of the original architects of the Provisional IRA. As I said earlier, he never approved of the bombing campaign. In nineteen seventy-five, increasingly disillusioned, he officially retired from the movement. A living legend, whatever that trite phrase means. Since nineteen seventy-six, against considerable opposition from some quarters, hes held a post as additional professor in the English Faculty at his old University, Trinity College.
Ferguson pushed back his chair and they got up to go. And he and Brosnan were friends? Fox asked.
I think you could say that. I also think what happened to Brosnan in France was a sort of final straw for Devlin. Still. He stood in the entrance looking across the dingy carpark and waved to his driver. All right, Harry, lets press on to Hereford.
Barry was working at the maps in his apartment, soon after breakfast, when there was a discreet knock at the door. He opened it to admit Romanov.
How about the passports? Barry demanded.
No problem. Go to the usual place at ten oclock for the photos. The passports will be ready this afternoon. Is there anything else you need?
Yes, documentation for the Jersey route. Thats the way Ill go. French tourist on holiday.
No problem, Romanov told him.
Once in Jersey, he would be on British soil and able to take an internal flight to a selection of airports on the British mainland where customs and immigration procedures were considerably less strict than they would have been landing at London Heathrow.
If I collect the package Wednesday afternoon, you must be prepared to take delivery that night, Barry said. Preferably a trawler, say fifteen miles off the coast.
And how will you rendezvous?
Well get whoever your people in London find to work for me, to arrange a boat. A good forty-foot deep-sea launch will do to operate somewhere out of this area. He tapped the map. Somewhere on the coast opposite the Isle of Man. South of Ravenglass.
Good.
Ill leave for St Malo tonight, cross to Jersey tomorrow, using the French passport. Theres a British Airways flight to Manchester from Jersey at midday. Ill meet your London contact man the following day on the pier at Morecambe at noon. Thats a seaside resort on the coast below the Lake District. Hell recognise me from the photograph you keep on file at the KGB office at your London Embassy, Im sure.
Romanov looked down at the map. Frank, if this comes off, it will be the biggest coup of my career. Are you sure? Are you really sure?
That youll be a hero of the Soviet Union decorated by old Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev himself? Barry clapped him on the shoulder. Dont worry, Nikolai, old son. A piece of cake.
4
The 22nd Regiment, Special Air Service, is what the military refer to as an élite unit. Someone once remarked that they were the nearest thing the British Army has to the SS. A sour tribute to the units astonishing success in counter-insurgency operations and urban guerrilla warfare, areas in which the SAS are undoubtedly world experts with thirty years experience gained in the jungles of Malaya and Borneo, the deserts of Southern Arabia and the Oman, the green country-side of South Armagh, the back streets of Belfast. It accepts only volunteers, soldiers already serving with other units. Its selection procedure is so demanding, both physically and mentally, that only five per cent of those applying are accepted.
The office of the commanding officer of 22nd SAS at Bradbury Lines Barracks in Hereford was neat and functional, if rather spartan. Most surprising was the CO himself, young for a half-colonel with a keen intelligent face, bronzed from much exposure to desert sun. The medal ribbons above his pocket included the Military Cross. He sat there, leaning back in his seat, listening intently.
When Ferguson had finished speaking the colonel nodded Very interesting.
But can it be done? Ferguson asked.
The colonel smiled slightly. Oh, yes, Brigadier, no trouble at all as far as I can see. The sort of thing my chaps are doing in South Armagh all the time. Tony Villiers is the man for this one, I think. He flicked his intercom. Captain Villiers, quick as you like, and well have tea for three while were waiting.
The tea was excellent, the conversation mainly army gossip. It was perhaps fifteen minutes before there was a knock at the door and a young man of twenty-six or seven entered. At some time or other his nose had been broken, probably in the boxing ring from the look of him. He wore a black track suit but the most surprising feature about him was his hair which was black and tangled and almost shoulder length.
Sorry about the delay, sir, I was on the track.
Thats okay, Tony. Id like you to meet Brigadier Ferguson and Captain Fox.
Gentlemen. Villiers nodded.
Brigadier Ferguson is from DI5, Tony. He has a job of the kind to which we are particularly suited. Top priority. Seemed to me it could be your department.