Angel rising, p.3
Angel Rising, page 3
part #6 of Anna Fehrbach Series
Belinda regarded him for several seconds, then said, ‘Would you like another drink?’
‘Thank you.’ Andrews got up and joined her at the sideboard.
She poured. ‘And you’re prepared to believe this itinerant Nazi before the British Government.’
‘Wouldn’t you? They’re looking after their own. Fair enough. But this guy has a lot of pertinent facts, wouldn’t you say?’
‘And you would like to find Anna for yourself.’
‘You bet. We used to know each other pretty well, once.’
‘I see. A case of mad, passionate, undying love. Now tell me who you really are.’
‘I did. Joseph—’
‘Let me put it another way. Who are you working for?’
‘Uncle Sam.’
‘Who intends to put Anna on trial as a war criminal.’
‘Now, what makes you think that?’
‘Mr Andrews, I may be a little woman, but I am not a little woman as perceived by the male sex. It may interest you to know that I have also worked for MI6, and I’m fully clued up about what has been happening these past few years.’
‘Holy shit! I beg your pardon.’
‘Feel free. So now perhaps we can stop assing about. I think what you have had to say is very interesting. I would love to believe it; Anna was a very dear friend of mine, who twice saved my life. And if Clive did manage to get her out of Germany I would be delighted. But I do not know for certain he did that, although if he did and has got her securely hidden away, it can only be to keep her out of the hands of you people. So I’m sure you’ll understand, Mr Andrews, that even if I knew where she was, the last thing I would do is tell you.’
Andrews sipped his drink. ‘And you don’t find it odd that you see so little of him, nowadays? Maybe you don’t know as much about the way he works as you think. Miss Hoskin, Anna is Clive’s mistress, and has been his mistress for seven years.’
Belinda put down her glass. ‘Mr Andrews, just now I suggested that you should leave. Now I am telling you to get out. Now! Or I shall call the police. Better yet, I’ll call Clive. His lot don’t have to follow police rules and procedures.’
Andrews considered for a few moments, then finished his own drink and put down his glass. ‘OK. I apologize. That was uncalled for. What I would like to do is convince you that Anna means as much to me as she does to either you or to Clive.’
Belinda went to the telephone.
‘You could at least hear what I have to say.’
‘I thought I had done that.’
‘Listen, I guess you know that Anna was once in the hands of the NKVD?’
‘I do know that.’ Her hand still rested on the receiver.
‘Well, when Clive comes on the phone, ask him who got her out.’
Belinda frowned. ‘You did that?’
‘I hate to blow my own trumpet, but I’m the guy, yes.’
‘But yet you want to have her tried as a war criminal?’
‘I have never wanted to do that. But things, situations, can change pretty rapidly in time of war, and, like Clive, or you, I guess, I obey the orders given me from above. My employers got the idea that Anna was betraying the Allies, and wanted her taken out. You have to understand that we were fighting a war for survival.’
Belinda blew a raspberry.
‘OK, so I guess you were too. Even more so. But when one is in that kind of situation, one is inclined to make instant judgements.’
‘You said, ‘taken out’. Isn’t that a phrase used in gangster movies to mean killing someone?’
‘Well . . .’ Andrews flushed.
‘You unutterable bastard.’
‘I told you, it wasn’t my decision. And I hated it. And it didn’t work out. Anna, as I guess you know, is just about the most dangerous woman in the world when she wants to be. I guess our man forgot that.’
‘So what happened?’
‘He took a bullet between the eyes.’
Belinda stared at him, then released the receiver, and resumed her seat on the settee, her knees pressed together.
Andrews sat beside her. ‘He was one of our best guys, and I liked him. And you know what, I have an idea Anna did too. But as I guess you also know, she’s a girl who does what has to be done, without fear or favour. And with due regret for poor Johannsson, I’m just happy that she did.’
‘But you’re here to finish the job.’
‘I told you, times change. It was the Soviets who convinced Washington that she was a traitor to the Allies. Well, at that time, mistakenly, our top people thought the Soviets were the goods. Since then . . . I guess you heard that speech Churchill made at Fulton, a couple of weeks ago?’
‘An Iron Curtain has descended on Eastern Europe.’
‘Correct. President Truman was seated right next to the old man when he said those words, and totally endorsed them.’
‘So now you’re going to fight the Russians, is that it?’
‘We don’t aim to fight anybody right this minute. But we reckon that to maintain the status quo we need to use every resource we have. So . . . we want Anna back.’
‘Do you think she’ll want to come back? To you?’
‘We reckon we can make it worth her while. We also reckon she needs us more than we need her. We happen to know that she is still top of the Soviet Most Wanted list. And they have very long memories. Clive may have got her tucked away some place he regards as safe, but they will find her eventually. Whereas, if she comes back under our umbrella, well, let’s say we reckon we can do a better job of taking care of her than the Brits. Certainly with this left-wing government you have right now. With respect.’
Belinda got up and poured them each another drink, keeping her back turned to him as she did so. Could she believe him? Dare she? But if she did dare, could it be possible that she and Anna could get together again? Anna had indeed saved her life, twice. The first time had been when they had been rivals for Clive’s attentions, as she had supposed; she had not then realized that she was already redundant. Thus she had engineered a confrontation, which had been interrupted by that dreadful woman Hannah Gehrig, hence the near catastrophic result to Anna.
They had not met again until four years later, when due to a crucial breakdown in their communications system, she had agreed to be recruited as a courier for MI6, using her Italian background as a cover to get into Germany, her brief to reopen contact with the countess. Instead she had betrayed herself to the Gestapo, and had been on the verge of undergoing an interrogation which she knew would have ruined her for life, when Anna, in her role as a senior officer in the SD, had arrived to take control.
As they had been under surveillance, Anna had ‘tortured’ her herself, but had managed to convey to her that if she would put up with it for a short while, she could get her out. This she had done, but before turning her loose to leave the country, had taken her to her apartment for the night. It was a night Belinda knew she would never forget. Anna might be every man’s dream of a bed-mate, but what the poor sods were unable to grasp, caught up in their male chauvinist hubris, was that she was a law unto herself. Her passions, no less than her enormous skills, were hers and hers alone, to be used as she saw fit, and to her own satisfaction. And that night, more than two years ago now, her desires had taken her in a direction Belinda had never experienced, had never wanted to experience, until then. She understood that Anna had merely been turned on by what she had had to do for the sake of the Gestapo, that there had been no love, perhaps not even any affection, in what she had done to her. But that was irrelevant. She had fallen hook, line and sinker, perhaps accentuated by the knowledge that they might never meet again. And even after three years, she could remember every moment of it; when Clive had told her that Anna was dead, she had wept. The bastard!
But if she wasn’t dead . . . she turned and handed Andrews his glass. He brushed it against hers, knowing, without understanding, both from her delay and her expressions, that he had won the day. ‘So will you help me? Help us? Help Anna?’
‘It might be possible. But if I help you, it will be on one condition.’
‘Name it.’
‘When you get to her, before you take her wherever you feel is necessary, I want to see her. To make sure she’s all right,’ she added, somewhat lamely.
Andrews studied her for several seconds. Then he said, ‘You have it. How soon can you get the information?’
‘Come and see me again tomorrow,’ Belinda said.
The Quarry
‘Welcome home, Mr Bartley.’ Amy Barstow rose enthusiastically from behind her desk. Amy Barstow did everything enthusiastically, where her boss was concerned. He was her ideal man, six feet two inches tall, built like a rugby player, his face suitably rugged, his dark hair just starting to streak with grey, although he was only forty-three. When that was matched to his invariable good humour . . . well, almost invariable. She knew, of course, that he could never be more than a dream, for her; she was too aware of her own shortcomings, her inability to resist food that had caused her weight to spiral, and her resulting lack of glamour. Whereas he . . . she had never felt particularly hostile towards Clive’s long-term girlfriend, the Anglo-Italian fashion editor. But towards his most recent acquisition, over whom he fussed like a mother hen, a task she was required to fulfil whenever he was unavailable, as over the past week . . .
What made it the more difficult to accept was the fact that it was impossible to blame any man for going overboard when he became involved with the so-called Countess von Widerstand. Although she could think of a few who would have had a nervous breakdown at the thought of getting too close to her, and her record indicated that quite a few who had taken the risk had not lived long enough to regret it. Stunningly beautiful she might be, and apparently irresistibly seductive as well, but she had also been SS trained as a killer, and as Amy had to keep a file on her, she knew she had used those lethal skills on an obscene number of occasions, and she was pretty sure there were more than she had recorded. But since the end of the war looking after her had become a full time job of work.
‘Good to be back,’ Clive said. ‘Calls?’
‘They’re on your desk.’
‘Ah . . .?’
‘Nothing from Scotland, sir.’ Amy could not prevent a note of satisfaction creeping into her voice. ‘I made the transfer into the countess’s account as you required. I suppose she’s busy spending it.’
‘Amy,’ Clive said severely. ‘You simply have to remember that her name is no longer the Countess von Widerstand. Or Anna Fehrbach. It is Anna Fitzjohn.’
‘Yes, sir. I think you should remind Miss Hoskin of that.’
Clive had reached the doorway of his office. Now he checked, and turned. ‘Say again?’
‘Miss Hoskin has apparently mislaid the countess’s . . . Miss Fitzjohn’s address. So she telephoned and asked me for it. She wants to send her a card for her birthday. Odd, that. Her birthday isn’t until May.’
Clive slowly returned into the outer office and stood before her desk. ‘Are you saying that Belinda asked you for Anna’s address? And you gave it to her?’
Amy frowned. ‘But she already knew it, didn’t she? I mean, they’re old friends, aren’t they? She’d just mislaid it.’
‘Amy,’ Clive said. ‘Nobody knows that address, save you, me, and Mr Baxter. Nobody knows that Anna is alive, save for a very select group of people. Belinda is not one of them.’
‘But—’
‘When did she call?’
‘Well . . . yesterday morning.’
‘Holy Jesus Christ!’
‘But, sir, Belinda, well, she’s one of us. Isn’t she?’
‘She was one of us, on a temporary basis. That ended with Germany’s surrender.’
‘But she’s Anna’s friend . . .’
‘Get her on the phone. Now.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Amy, mystified and not a little miffed at her boss’s apparent overreaction to what she considered perfectly correct behaviour, picked up her telephone.
Clive went into his office and sat at his desk. There were, as Amy had indicated, several items that had cropped up during his brief absence in North Africa, but none of them were sufficiently important to interrupt the waves of alarm that were lapping at his mind. From that moment in the spring of 1939 when, in a mood of angry defiance of her SD employers for their savage mistreatment of her all because of a minor breach of security, Anna had agreed to work for MI6, he had sworn that come what may, the moment she was able to leave Germany, he would take care of her and guarantee her future, no matter what.
That promise had certainly been principally motivated by the fact that she had been lying naked in his arms at the time, and he had just scaled the heights of Mount Everest in sexual satisfaction, but his physical attraction to her had, over the years of watching her at work, albeit mostly from a distance, grown into something far deeper. He was still not sure that love, in the accepted, romantic, sense, had as yet truly entered the equation. It was difficult to envisage Anna in a moonlight and roses scenario. She had told him that Hitler, who had been a romantic, even if a demonic one, had compared her with the pre-Greek, Pelasgian Goddess of Creation, Eurynome, who had wandered the heavens, destroying and begetting as the mood took her. Well, he thought, Anna had never done any begetting, so far. It was another impossible concept, Anna sitting with a babe at her breast. But she was only just coming up to twenty-six. She had a lot of living in front of her, and it was his business to see that she did it, even if he had no idea what he was actually going to do with her.
Could Belinda pose a threat to her safety? In herself, no, he was certain. But Belinda, like everyone else, had accepted the official handout that Anna had died in the ruins of Berlin. Until, apparently, yesterday. What, or more pertinently, who, had brought that about? And there was no way of immediately warning Anna that there might be a looming problem; Billy Baxter had felt it a good idea at the time to select a house that was both isolated and lacking a telephone in which to install her, just to make sure she could be kept under total control; her only means of contacting the outside world was by using the phone in the neighbouring village. Now that idea looked likely to rebound with a vengeance.
His telephone jangled. ‘Why, Clive,’ Belinda said. ‘I thought I’d have heard from you sooner.’
‘I have been away. Now tell me just what is going on.’
‘What is going on,’ Belinda said, ‘is that I have found out that for the past year you have been lying to me, to the nation, to the world. That is despicable.’
‘It’s called politics, darling. You do realize that if you make any use of your knowledge you are going to be charged with a breach of the Official Secrets Act. You could spend quite a long time in prison.’
Belinda blew one of her raspberries.
‘But it may be possible,’ Clive said, ‘not to pursue the matter if you tell me just who has convinced you that Anna is alive.’
‘Your old friend Joe Andrews. He’s very keen on getting together with Anna. Again.’
Clive stared at the phone in consternation. ‘You stupid, stupid bitch.’
‘Well, really!’
‘Don’t you realize that Andrews is committed to having her executed?’
‘No, no,’ Belinda said. ‘You’re quite wrong. That approach has been abandoned. Now they want her back.’
Again Clive stared at the phone for several seconds. Then he slammed the receiver down and ran from his office.
‘You’re going out, Mr Bartley?’ Amy asked. ‘Mr Baxter said you should go up as soon as you arrived.’
‘I’m on my way. But I anticipate being back down in five minutes. And cancel all my appointments for the next week.’
*
‘Your trouble,’ said Baxter, ‘is too many women, at least at the same time.’
Billy Baxter was a small man whose trademark was untidiness. His thinning, greying hair always looked as if he had just finished scratching it, very probably because he usually had just finished scratching it. His sweater was invariably speckled with tobacco from the pipe he used as an emotional back-up. It was impossible to conceive of a less likely spymaster. But he had now completed nine on the whole successful years in the most demanding of jobs, that of attempting to control the MI6 agents in Germany. Clive, who had served him throughout those nine years, knew that he had genuinely grieved whenever one of his people went down, but he had never let that interfere with the assignment of the most difficult and dangerous tasks to the man, or woman, he had determined was most capable of handling it.
Of all his agents, the Countess von Widerstand had been the most difficult to control. He had begun by distrusting her, at least partly because she was a beautiful woman – a class that he profoundly distrusted by instinct – and because he knew that she had come to him via a sizzling love affair with the man now standing before his desk. But over the years he had realized her value, and if he still distrusted her actual objectives in life he had been increasingly concerned as his superiors, on both sides of the Atlantic – who saw her only as a destructive force that could be used to their advantage – had committed her to more and more virtual suicide missions. Through all of which she had sailed unharmed, thanks to her unique combination of irresistible charisma and unhesitating deadliness.
Thus he had taken the responsibility for getting her out of the maelstrom that had been the collapsing Third Reich and placing her in a safe place until his superiors could determine what to do with her. No one had yet reached a decision about that, and suddenly the necessity for a decision had been dumped into his lap. He started to fill his pipe, a certain sign that he was not as calm as he pretended to be.
