Jackdaws

Jackdaws Page 37

PAUL SAT IN the dismal canteen at Grendon Underwood, brooding anxiously about Flick, for more than an hour.

He was beginning to believe that Brian Standish had been compromised.

The incident in the cathedral, the fact that Chatelle had been in total darkness, and the unnatural correctness of the third radio message all pointed in the same direction.

In the original plan, Flick would have been met at Chatelle by a reception committee consisting of Michel and the remnants of the Bollinger circuit.

Michel would have taken them to a hideaway for a few hours, then arranged transport to Sainte-Cecile.

After they entered the chateau and blew up the telephone exchange he would have driven them back to Chatelle to meet their pickup plane.

All that had changed now, but Flick would still need both transport and a hiding place when she got to Reims, and she would be relying on the Bollinger circuit to help.

However, if Brian had been compromised, would there be any of the circuit left? Was the safe house safe? Was Michelin Gestapo hands, too? At last, Lucy Briggs came into the canteen and said, "Jean asked me to tell you that Helicopter's reply is being decrypted now.

Would you like to come with me?" He followed her to the tiny room-formerly a boot cupboard, he guessed-that served as Jean Bevins's office.

Jean had a sheet of paper in her hand.

She looked annoyed.

"I can't understand this," she said.

Paul read it quickly.

CALLSIGN HLCP (HELICOPTER) SECURITY TAG PRESENT JUN 3 1944 MESSAGE READS: TWO STENS WITH SIX MAGAZINES FOR EACH STOP ONE LEE ENFELD RIFLE WITH TEN CLIPS STOP SIX COLT AUTOMATICS WITH APPROXIMATELY ONE HUNDRED ROUNDS STOP NO GRENADES OVER

Paul stared at the decrypt in dismay, as if hoping the words might change to something less horrifying, but of course they remained the same.

"I expected him to be furious," Jean said.

"He doesn't complain at all, just answers your questions, as nice as pie." "Exactly," said Paul.

"That's because it's not him." This message did not come from a harassed agent in the field who had been presented with a sudden unreasonable request by his bureaucratic superiors.

The reply had been drafted by a Gestapo officer desperate to maintain the smooth appearance of calm normality.

The only spelling mistake was "Enfeld" instead of "Enfield," and even that suggested a German, for "feld" was German for "field." There was no longer any doubt.

Flick was in terrible danger.

Paul massaged his temples with his right hand.

There was now only one thing to do.

The operation was falling apart, and he had to save it-and Flick.

He looked up at Jean, and caught her looking at him with an expression of compassion.

"May I use your phone?" he said.

"Of course." He dialed Baker Street.

Percy was at his desk.

"This is Paul.

I'm convinced Brian has been captured.

His radio is being operated by the Gestapo." In the background, Jean Bevins gasped.

"Oh, hell," Percy said.

"And without the radio, we have no way to warn Flick." "Yes, we do," said Paul.

"How?" "Get me a plane.

I'm going to Reims-tonight."

THE EIGHTH DAY Sunday, June 4, 1944