Black Cross

“No matter how desperate a pass we’ve come to, I’ve never gone against the wishes of the Americans. The risks are enormous.”

“The threat is greater, Winston.”

“I believe that.” Churchill paused. “You couldn’t use any British personnel.”

“Give me some credit, old man.”

Churchill tapped his thick fingers on the desk. “What if it failed? Could you cover your tracks?”

Smith smiled. “Bombers go off course all the time. Drop their loads in the strangest of places.”

“What would you need?”

“To start, a submarine that can hold station in the Baltic for four days.”

“That’s easily enough done. The Admiralty is the one place where my word is law.”

“A squadron of Mosquito Bombers made available for one night.”

“That’s quite another matter, Duff. Bomber Command is the sharpest thorn in my side.”

“It’s an absolute necessity. Only way to cover up if we fail.”

Churchill raised both hands in a gesture of futility. “I hate going to Harris hat in hand, but I suppose I can suffer through it once.”

Smith drew in a breath. He was about to ask for the near-impossible. “I’d also need access to an airfield on the southern Swedish coast. For at least four days, preferably longer.”

Churchill drew back in his chair, his face impassive. Dealing with putatively neutral countries was a tricky business. For Sweden, the price of aiding the Allies could be fifty thousand uninvited guests from Germany, all wearing parachutes. He aimed a stubby forefinger at Smith. “Can you pull this off, Duffy?”

“Someone had better, old man.”

Churchill studied his old friend for several moments, weighing his past successes against his failures. “All right, you’ll get your airfield. In fact, let’s just save some time.” He took a fountain pen from his desk, scrawled on a sheet of notepaper, then handed the page across to Smith. The brigadier’s eyes widened as he read:

To All Soldiers of the Allied Expeditionary Force:

Brigadier Duff Smith, Chief of Special Operations Executive, is hereby authorized to requisition any and all aid he deems necessary to prosecute military operations inside Occupied Europe from 15 January to 15 February 1944. This applies to both regular and irregular forces. All inquiries to No. 10 Annexe.

Winston S. Churchill

“Good God,” Smith exclaimed.

“That won’t buy as much as you think,” Churchill said with a trace of irony. “See how far it gets you with Sir Arthur bloody Harris of the Air Force.”

Smith deftly folded the note with his one hand and slipped it into his tunic. “You underestimate your influence, Winston. Give me one of these good for three months and I’ll bring you Hitler’s head in a basket.”

Churchill laughed heartily. “Godspeed, then. You’ve got thirty days. Don’t put your foot in it.” He extended his hand across the desk.

Smith squeezed the plump hand, then saluted smartly. “God save the King.”

“God bless America,” Churchill said. “And keep her ignorant.”

SIX (#ulink_3fbb66db-9722-5a46-b1c8-f6963e379e08)

Two days after Dwight Eisenhower politely warned Churchill to leave the German gas stockpiles alone, Brigadier Duff Smith sat alone in the back row of a meeting room in one of the sandbagged defense buildings in Whitehall. At a long raised table in the front of the room waited two majors and a general of the British army. Smith cared nothing about them. For the past forty-eight hours he had been trolling through the SOE files at Baker Street, searching for the man he needed to lead his mission into Germany. His luck had not been good.

The exclusion of British agents was the most frustrating restraint, but he knew it was justified. If British agents were captured on a strategic mission expressly forbidden by Eisenhower, the fragile Anglo-American alliance could be shattered overnight. SOE had hundreds of foreign agents on file, but few had the skills necessary to lead this mission. The typical SOE job—inserting agents into Occupied France—had become so routine that some officers called it the French shuttle. But sending men into Germany itself was another matter. The leader of this mission would have to be physically fit, fluent in German, unknown to the Abwehr and the Gestapo, yet experienced enough to move undetected inside the tightly controlled Reich on false papers. Most of all, he needed to be cold-blooded enough to kill innocent people in the accomplishment of his mission. This last requirement had disqualified several likely candidates.

Brigadier Smith had stumbled upon today’s lead quite by accident. While lunching at his club, he’d overheard a discussion at a nearby table that tweaked his mental radar. A staff officer was telling a story about a young German Jew who’d fled to Palestine before the war and become a Zionist guerilla fighter. Apparently, this young fellow had just blackmailed his way into a passage from Haifa to London, by promising to reveal guerilla techniques used by the Haganah to terrorize the British occupation forces in Palestine. Due to arrive today, his solitary demand had been that he be granted an audience with the C-in-C of Bomber Command. He supposedly had a plan for single-handedly saving the Jews of Europe. The terrorist would get an audience, the officer joked, but not quite the one he expected. Smith had listened long enough to learn the young Jew’s name and the address of the meeting, then driven to Baker Street and wired an old friend in Jerusalem to see if there was a file on a Mr. Jonas Stern.

There was. And the more Smith learned, the more intrigued he’d become. At twenty-five, Jonas Stern had been twice decorated by the British Army for his exploits guiding their forces in North Africa. Yet he was wanted by the British military police for crimes against His Majesty’s forces in Palestine, as a terrorist of the feared Haganah. He had less than five pounds to his name, but carried a bounty of one thousand Arab dinars on his head. The responding officer added a postscript, informing Smith that Jonas Stern was the prime suspect in three separate murders, though as yet no one had gathered sufficient evidence to try him.

Smith turned at the sound of voices in the corridor behind him. An armed guard entered first, followed by a tall suntanned young man wearing shackles on his hands. Smith registered a lean, angular face and piercing black eyes, then Jonas Stern was past him and moving toward the officers who waited at the front of the room. Stern carried what appeared to be an oilcloth-wrapped package under one arm. Last through the door was a shorter man wearing the light khaki uniform and crimson sunburn of a British officer serving in the Middle East. Smith followed the group up the aisle and took a seat at the side of the room, where he could see more clearly.

The senior officer, General John Little, addressed the sunburned Englishman. “Captain Owen?”

“Yes, sir. I’m terribly sorry we’re late. We’d have been here yesterday if it weren’t for the U-boats.”

General Little looked down his nose at Owen. “Well, you’re here now. Let’s begin. Is this the notorious Mr. Stern?”

“Yes, sir. Er … I wonder if it might be possible for me to remove his handcuffs now?”

A florid-faced major seated to the general’s right said, “Not just yet, Captain. He is a wanted fugitive, after all.”

Duff Smith focused on the man who had spoken, a staff intelligence major of rather modest achievements.

“I am Major Dickson,” the man went on. “You’ve got a lot of cheek coming into this building. In case you don’t know, you’re the leading suspect in a rash of Arab house-bombings around Jerusalem, thefts of British lend-lease arms, not to mention the murder of a British military policeman in Jerusalem in 1942. The only reason we agreed to see you is that you saved Captain Owen’s life at Tobruk. You probably don’t know, but Captain Owen’s father had quite a distinguished career in the Welsh Guards.”

Jonas Stern said nothing.

“Captain Owen tells us you’ve got some daring plan for single-handedly winning the war in Europe. Is that right?”

“No.”

“It’s a bloody good thing,” Dickson snapped. “I should think Monty can handle the invasion without any help from the likes of you!”

“Hear, hear,” chimed the other major, who was seated on General Little’s left.

Stern took a deep breath. “I’d like to state for the record that the officers that I requested be here are not present.”

Major Dickson’s face went completely scarlet. “If you think Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Harris has nothing better to do than listen to the ranting of a bloody Zionist terrorist—”

“Clive,” General Little interrupted. “Mr. Stern, we have gathered here at some considerable inconvenience to hear what you have to say. You would do well to get on with it.”

Brigadier Smith watched the young Jew try awkwardly to slide the package that was under his arm into his cuffed hands.

“Bloody waste of time,” muttered Major Dickson.

“Mr. Stern,” General Little said with seemingly paternal concern, “do you mind my asking if Moshe Shertok or Chaim Weizmann know you are in London?”