Crossfire, p.1
Crossfire, page 1
Praise for
‘Read on, adventure fans.’
NEW YORK TIMES
‘A rich, compelling look back in time [to] when history and myth intermingled.’
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
‘Only a handful of 20th century writers tantalize our senses as well as Smith. A rare author who wields a razor-sharp sword of craftsmanship.’
TULSA WORLD
‘He paces his tale as swiftly as he can with swordplay aplenty and killing strokes that come like lightning out of a sunny blue sky.’
KIRKUS REVIEWS
‘Best Historical Novelist – I say Wilbur Smith, with his swashbuckling novels of Africa. The bodices rip and the blood flows. You can get lost in Wilbur Smith and misplace all of August.’
STEPHEN KING
‘Action is the name of Wilbur Smith’s game and he is the master.’
WASHINGTON POST
‘Smith manages to serve up adventure, history and melodrama in one thrilling package that will be eagerly devoured by series fans.’
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
‘This well-crafted novel is full of adventure, tension, and intrigue.’
LIBRARY JOURNAL
‘Life-threatening dangers loom around every turn, leaving the reader breathless . . . An incredibly exciting and satisfying read.’
CHATTANOOGA FREE PRESS
‘When it comes to writing the adventure novel, Wilbur Smith is the master; a 21st century H. Rider Haggard.’
VANITY FAIR
This book is for my wife
MOKHINISO
who is the best thing
that has ever happened to me
CONTENTS
The Courtney Family Tree in Crossfire
Chapter 1
About the Authors
Also by Wilbur Smith
Copyright
This novel, like all of those published after his passing, originated from an unfinished work by Wilbur Smith. Wilbur worked closely with each of his co-authors on storylines that met his rigorous standards. Wilbur’s wife, Niso Smith, his long-standing literary agent, Kevin Conroy Scott, and the Wilbur Smith Estate’s in-house editor, James Woodhouse, continue to work tirelessly to ensure that the body of work that Wilbur left behind reflects his vision in his absence.
Find out more about the Courtneys and see the Courtney family tree in full at www.wilbursmithbooks.com/courtney-family-tree
WASHINGTON DC,
LATE APRIL 1943
T
he sun was shining on the nation’s capital, the temperature rising into the low seventies, but a gentle breeze kept the air nice and fresh. It was the kind of weather that makes a man find a good excuse to be out of the office for a while.
Joe Lewandowski spotted his contact, the individual he knew only as Foxglove, walking towards him. Lewandowski’s code name was Shadow. He dropped the smouldering stub of a cheap cigar at his feet, ground it into the earth of East Potomac Park and strolled over.
He nodded back towards the sign he’d been leaning against. ‘You want to play miniature golf?’ He grinned, hoping to get Foxglove to relax, loosen up a little, make this look like a normal conversation. Just in case anyone was watching.
‘No, thank you,’ said Foxglove, tight as a drum.
‘Not in the mood, huh?’
Foxglove shrugged.
‘Okay, suit yourself.’
Lewandowski had been checking for tails since he’d got into his Chevrolet pickup truck, more than an hour earlier. It was automatic, like looking both ways before crossing the street. He’d not spotted anything suspicious, but now they were in the park he checked again for anyone who looked out of place. He nodded to himself, then looked at Foxglove. ‘Let’s head on down to Hains Point. You ever been there?’
‘No.’
Lewandowski grunted. ‘Well, it’s where the Anacostia and Potomac rivers meet—’
‘What’s that got to do with it?’ Foxglove protested.
‘You said it was even more important than usual that we’re not overheard,’ Lewandowski said curtly. ‘Well, Hains Point is practically surrounded by water. Makes it real hard for anyone listening in. Now, let’s walk.’
Lewandowski led Foxglove onto the path that ran around the park, and was about to turn right, towards the point, when he stopped and pointed. ‘The White House is right over there. Couple miles away, maybe less.’ He grinned. ‘So near and yet so far, right?’
‘No, not so far,’ Foxglove said. ‘Not for what I have in mind.’
Since his arrival in Washington in the fall of 1937, Lewandowski’s cover occupation had been running a small construction company, AOK Contractors. He had the name painted on the doors of his truck, with a phone number and the words WORKING HARDER FOR YOU. To his friends and neighbours, he was just like them – a regular blue-collar guy, striving to join the ranks of the middle class. Most of the time, he was jovial and easy-going, but he was known to be short-tempered if someone screwed up on the job. The other regulars at his local bar usually called him ‘Joey L’, but sometimes, when he got a little overheated, it was ‘Crazy Joe’.
Lewandowski was his real name, so in a way he was hiding in plain sight. When he was posted to Washington, his superiors had assured him that the Americans had no knowledge of his identity, for the simple reason that while the FBI was responsible for catching foreign spies on American soil, the United States possessed virtually no counter-intelligence capacity beyond its own shores.
So he stuck to his own name, and wasn’t bothered that his accent, though broadly working-class American, still had an Eastern European edge to it. After all, America was a nation of immigrants. Occasionally, someone might ask, ‘So, Lewandowski, huh? What kind of name is that?’ And Lewandowski would say, ‘Polish, where my parents were born.’ And that was also true: his family came from the port city of Gdansk – or Danzig, as it was called in German, which was the language that the majority of its citizens spoke, being of Prussian descent. But there was no need to tell anyone that.
The important thing was that Lewandowski looked like a man at home on a building site. He was of average height, a little overweight maybe, but it was more muscle than flab. He had a thick neck, and today his tie was loose and his shirt was open enough to show a sprinkling of curly black chest hairs.
All the way along the path, Lewandowski acted the part of the jovial builder, Joey L. Only when they reached Hains Point, and it was safe to talk, could he be his true self: the experienced intelligence officer, Jozef Lewandowski, whose rank was equivalent to a British or American major.
Lewandowski looked at Foxglove, who was leaning on a railing and gazing out over the water. There were clear views across the two rivers to Maryland, or south to the new Washington National Airport on the Virginia shore. There was no one else in sight. ‘So, what do you have to tell me?’
Foxglove turned to him with a slight smile. It conveyed the superiority felt by someone who knows something important that the other person doesn’t. ‘Churchill is coming to Washington in the next two to three weeks. The exact dates haven’t been confirmed. They won’t do that until the last minute . . .’ A fractional pause, another smile, and then, ‘For security reasons.’
Lewandowski nodded, trying to look as if Foxglove hadn’t just dropped a bombshell. ‘Why?’
‘To plan the invasion of Europe. He’s bringing his most senior military commanders. They’ll be meeting their American equivalents every day at the Federal Reserve Building. By the time they head back to Britain, they’ll have decided when and precisely where they’re going to attack in France and southern Europe.’
‘And you can get us that information?’
‘I believe so, yes.’ Foxglove looked at Lewandowski and added, insistently, ‘They’re confident of victory. They think it’s just a matter of deciding on the means to achieve it.’
‘Good for them,’ said Lewandowski, brushing aside Foxglove’s account of Allied triumphalism. ‘Still, I guess now I understand why you were antsy about this meeting.’
Foxglove straightened, took a step away from the railing, and turned to face Lewandowski. ‘No, you don’t.’
‘I’m sorry?’ Lewandowski was startled by the superior – almost dismissive – tone that had entered his asset’s voice.
‘You’re missing the bigger picture. The real opportunity.’
‘Yeah? So enlighten me.’
‘Churchill will be taking meetings with Roosevelt at the White House. Those will be public knowledge. But there will be at least one private meeting, too, away from the security that the presidential mansion provides.’
Lewandowski’s eyes narrowed. Surely Foxglove couldn’t really be suggesting . . . ‘And your point is?’
‘Isn’t it obvious? Roosevelt and Churchill, two pathetic old men. A sickly cripple and a drunkard. And yet their people worship them. They are the living symbols of the Allied cause.’ Foxglove paused for a second and looked Lewandowski in the eye. ‘Imagine if they were both killed.’
‘Dear God . . .’ Lewandowski quickly glanced around again. If anyone had heard what Foxglove had just said . . . But the only other person in sight was a mother pushing a pram about thirty yards away.
‘Are you serious?’ Lewandowski hissed. It wasn’t a rhetorical question. Part of him still hoped this was Foxglove’s twisted idea of a joke.
‘Absolutely. I know exactly when, where and how it can be done. But maybe you don’t have the guts for it . . .’
Lewandowski could see that Foxglove was completely serious,
But looking back, Lewandowski could remember moments when Foxglove had betrayed a barely suppressed sense of superiority.
Or maybe it was something else. What if Foxglove had been working for the other side all along, and this was a trap designed to lure him out of the shadows and into the hands of the British secret service or the FBI? What if Foxglove were handling him, rather than the other way around? Lewandowski was tempted to just walk away. But could he afford to throw away such an opportunity? If he could make it work – the greatest assassination plot of all time – he would have all the medals, promotions and beautiful women that any man could ever ask for.
All right then, Lewandowski told himself. Keep talking.
‘You are certain about this?And you will be able to provide details of the time and location?
‘Of course. I wouldn’t have told you otherwise!’
‘This will need careful consideration,’ Lewandowski said. ‘At the highest levels. I hardly need to tell you that such an operation cannot be allowed to fail.’
Foxglove laughed. ‘I should imagine not.’
‘You don’t seem troubled by that possibility.’
‘Why should I be? I don’t expect it to fail,’ Foxglove said, with a smile.
There was that supercilious attitude again. Lewandowski felt a powerful desire to wipe the smirk off Foxglove’s face. ‘Listen to me. If a British or American army suffers a humiliating defeat, what happens to the generals who are responsible for the disaster? They are . . . What is the phrase? “Relieved of their commands.” But in our world, they are relieved of their lives, and the officers under them, too.’
Lewandowski’s meaning was clear: the same thing will happen to you if this goes wrong. But Foxglove simply said, ‘Then we’d better make it work,’ cool as ice, indifferent to the threat.
Lewandowski sighed. He needed to reassert his control over Foxglove, and he knew how to do it. But that would have to wait for another time and place. For now, he would stick to business. ‘As I said, I will report our meeting to my superiors.’
‘Tell them they don’t have much time to make up their minds.’
‘I am aware of that.’ It was Lewandowski’s turn to smile. ‘Of course, there is another possibility . . .’
‘What is that?’ For the first time, Lewandowski detected a note of unease in Foxglove’s voice.
‘Churchill and his generals have to get from one side of the Atlantic to the other.’
‘And?’
‘Who’s to say that they will survive the voyage?’
• • •
I
t might have been spring in softer, southern climes, but winter had still not loosened its grip on the Scottish Highlands. The distant mountains were topped with snow, the wind was bitter, and the sky over Loch Morar was an unbroken sheet of slate-grey cloud, with not the faintest glimmer of sunlight.
The brightest colours for miles around were the deep sky blue of Saffron Courtney’s eyes and the rosy glow of her skin. She had been on her feet since dawn, hiking alone across rough terrain, and she shivered as she looked out across the deepest freshwater lake in the British Isles. More than a thousand feet to the bottom, and who knew what monsters lurked in those black depths?
Saffron checked her watch: a little after 11.30. She had to be back at the Special Operations Executive training centre at Arisaig House by 13.00, and there were more than seven miles to go. She was wearing army boots and had a thirty-pound pack on her back. If she forced marched for five miles and ran the final two, she would make it in time, but she’d need to get a move on.
As she turned to leave, Saffron glanced back across the loch. The view was bleak, but so spectacular that she wanted to commit it to memory. Yet, as she looked at the water, its gloom seemed to trigger something. She could almost feel the cogs of her brain moving, like the tumblers of a lock falling into place, until a door, deep in her subconscious, opened.
Suddenly, the blackness reaching into Saffron’s soul was not that of fathomless water, but of deathly, endless night. Though her body was still standing by a Scottish loch, her mind had moved to a smaller, shallower body of water: a ceremonial lake called the Hofvijver in the Dutch city of The Hague.
It was as if a time machine had dragged her back, into her past. It was getting dark, and Saffron could see the silver flashes on the black collar of SS-Hauptsturmführer Karsten Schröder’s uniform and the silver skull and crossbones on his cap. She could hear his voice as he tried to force himself on the woman he believed was a loyal Nazi sympathiser called Marlize Marais. She smelled his sweat, felt the rough bark of a tree bruising her back as he pushed her hard against it, and the thrust of one hand beneath her skirt and between her legs while the other grabbed hold of her hair.
Panic rose inside her, as if it were all happening again. And then, the sudden time-shift of a dream moved to later that evening, when she was no longer standing up, no longer the helpless victim. She was sitting astride Schröder’s semi-conscious body, feeling the faint flutter of his breath against the palm of her hand as she stifled his feeble attempts to cry for help. She re-lived the tug of the hatpin as her other hand pulled it from her hair, and the resistance she’d felt as she pressed it down with murderous precision and . . .
Saffron screamed. It was a primitive, wild yell of fury and frustration, the cry of a woman possessed by a demon she could not conquer. Then she ran, desperate to escape the ghoul’s grasp, forgetting any thought of walking even some part of the way back to her base, as she dashed up to the village of Morar, past the hotel, past the station and on to the road to Arisaig.
Saffron had not covered a quarter of the distance when the pain of running began to slow the overworked muscles of her long, slender legs. It clawed at her hammering heart, and squeezed the air from her chest. No matter how hard she sucked in the next breath, her lungs were never satisfied.
Saffron didn’t care. She welcomed the pain because it was an antidote to the all-consuming visions. The more her mind focused on her physical agony, the more the nightmare receded.
Her route took her along a beautiful coastline with views across the water to the islands of Eigg, Rhum and Skye, but Saffron saw nothing but tarmac in front of her. She arrived at Arisaig, her vision blurred by sweat, her heart pounding. Running downhill along the drive that led from the Fort William road to the forecourt of the house, she hurled herself through the front door, staggered across the lobby to the great hall and collapsed on the floor.
A minute later, an army sergeant – one of the training centre’s instructors – passed through the hall. He spotted Saffron, ran across and squatted beside her.
‘Better get the doc to take a look at you, miss,’ the sergeant said. He lifted Saffron to a sitting position, slipped the pack off her back and then pulled her to her feet. Draping one of her arms across his shoulder, he half-dragged her to the surgery.
The sergeant was a short, squat, powerfully built man. Saffron was a couple of inches taller than him, but forty pounds lighter. Together, they resembled a bulldog leading a hobbled, over-raced greyhound.
‘What have we here?’ asked Dr Hamish Maguire, as Saffron was placed, semi-conscious, in a chair opposite his desk.
‘Miss Courtney, doc,’ the instructor said.
‘Aye, so it is,’ Maguire said, walking round to the other side of his desk, then leaning against it as he looked down at her exhausted figure. ‘And what reduced her to this sorry state?’
‘Looks like she overdid it on a cross-country exercise.’
‘Well, it’s not the first time she’s overdone it, eh?’
‘Not by a long chalk,’ the instructor agreed.
‘How long was it she held out last year? Forty-eight hours?’
‘More like seventy-two,’ the sergeant said, unable to hide his admiration for an act of endurance that had passed into Arisaig legend. All the trainees were put through an interrogation session that was as close as possible to the actual experience of capture and torture by the Gestapo. Holding out for a single day was regarded as an achievement. Three days was unheard of, but the effort had left Saffron confined to bed for the best part of a week.
