"Ha And what about the right of self determination that you English talk so much about. You would say we were enslaving the Russians or some such nonsense."
"The population of Central and North Eastern Asia is no more Russian than that of India is English or that of Senegal French. I don't think that question would arise, providing you allowed the true Russians to retain self government in their own original Muscovite territories. What really matters is that the German race would no longer menace future peace if it had sufficient room in which to spread. Given Russia ’s vast Asiatic lands in addition to the Reich, Germany could afford to give up Czechoslovakia and Poland as she would still have about one fifth of the world's land surface more than enough room for her surplus population. With such an area to administer and develop she need never again come into collision with the Western Powers over the colonial question and there might at last be some real hope of peace in our time. I would not dream of undertaking this mission if I were not convinced that in serving you I should also be serving Britain."
"Yes, Yes. If we had the Ukraine, the Caucasus and all Asiatic Russia our problem would be solved for good. But if you wouldn't double cross me with your own people you might with the Gestapo. How am I to know that you'd not take any papers I gave you straight to Himmler?"
"I should have thought you had a perfect guarantee against that."
"Guarantee? What D’you mean?"
Gregory shrugged. "What am I doing here? Why did I put my neck in a noose by coming to see you? Only because I was desperately anxious to find out what had happened to Erika."
"Of course of course."
"And now you've told me that she's in Finland, isn't her presence there the best guarantee you could possibly have that the one thing I'm anxious to do is to get to Finland myself so that I can join her?"
"That's true. Yes, I believe you're honest. But it's a hellish risk." Goering's voice still held doubt as he began to pace swiftly up and down again. "Say you slip up and are caught by Himmler's agents, with those papers on you?"
Gregory's pulses were racing. He knew that he was on the very verge of victory. If he could storm the last redoubt of Goering's resistance by yet one more reasoned argument his case would be won; he and Charlton would walk out of Karinhall free men and with facilities for escaping out of Germany. Nerving himself for a final effort he swilled down the last of his champagne, and said earnestly:
"Listen. What have you to fear? In serving you I serve my country. I have the strongest possible personal motive for wanting to go to Finland, because it is only by doing so that I can rejoin the woman I love. If I do slip up, that will be tough luck on me, but there'll be no come back whatsoever so far as you're concerned. There would be if I were really Colonel Baron von Lutz or any other German that you might choose to send. But I'm not a German; I'm a British secret agent, and any rigorous examination would prove that. I'm the one and only man you can send with complete safety, because if I'm caught you could deny all knowledge of me swear I'd stolen the papers and everybody would believe you."
"By God, you're right” Goering swung round. "Very well I'll send you to Finland."
Even the masterly control with which Gregory was usually able to hide his true feelings was not proof against the glint of triumph which leapt into his eyes. To conceal it he bent forward and helped himself to another of the fat cigarettes. As he lit it, with his eyes cast down towards its tip, he could feel his heart thumping a rhythm in his chest. "I've won I've won
I've won " But all he said as he flicked out the match was: "Good. How soon can I start?"
Goering had suddenly become a different man. All trace of the indecision so foreign to his nature had left him. With his dark eyes fixed on Gregory he said rapidly: "Now that the crisis is on every hour is of importance. You will leave the moment we have the papers ready. I shall send you in one of my private planes. I can trust my own pilots and one of them will not be missed while away on a twenty four hour trip."
"He'll have to observe the usual formalities when we land at the Helsinki air port, though," Gregory remarked, "and he might easily be recognized. I should think it's a hundred to one that Himmler has planted one of his spies among the personnel there."
"That's true," Goering frowned.
"Don't worry about that. You let me have the plane and I'll provide the pilot."
` Ah! You mean the fellow downstairs? I'd forgotten all about him. Is he a good man competent to fly a Messerschmitt and would he also be willing to go to Finland?"
"He's one of the best pilots in the R.A.F, and he'll fly anything anywhere rather than be interned in Germany for the duration of the war."
"He won't bring my plane back, though."
"No. You can hardly expect him to do that. But what the hell does one plane matter on a job like this?"
"Nothing at all. But no comment would be aroused among the Finns if a German pilot in a German plane just flew in and out to drop you there; whereas a British pilot arriving with a German officer in a German plane would cause every tongue to wag."
"I agree. But in any case I couldn't go in uniform. You'll have to let me have a suit of civilian clothes and you could easily provide me with a double set of papers; one faked British passport in my own name for me to show on landing at the air port and one passport in the name of Colonel Baron von Lutz for presentation to the people at the Finnish Foreign Office. I should then be a British subject arriving with a British pilot."
"But what about the plane?"
"Don't let's use a Messerschmitt. You must have some foreign make in your private fleet that might quite as naturally be flown by a British instead of a German pilot. All we'd have to do then is to paint out the German markings and substitute the British circles for the German crosses."
Suddenly Goering began to laugh uproariously, his fat body shaking like a jelly.
"What's bitten you?" Gregory inquired.
"I was just thinking," the Marshal wheezed, "what a grand Joke it would be if I gave you the little plane with which Voroshilov presented me when I made my trip to Russia."
Gregory laughed too, but shook his head. "Russian makes are rare, if non existent, in Britain. An Italian or a Dutch make would be much better."
Goering nodded. "I have a four Beater Belgian Sabina which would do admirably. It is their fastest type and fitted with de icing apparatus. I'll let you have that. And now to work."
Although it was well after midnight, within a few moments the big apartment became a hive of activity. Half a dozen officers, forming Goering's confidential secretariat, were summoned and to each the Marshal gave brief, clear instructions.
Three were dispatched to Berlin; one to the Foreign Office to arrange about the passports, and the other two to collect files from the Air Ministry and the War Office respectively. A fourth was ordered to find Gregory a complete change of clothes. A fifth was told to give immediate instructions for the alterations of the markings on the Belgian plane, then to collect Charlton and work out with him, from the latest weather reports and maps of the Baltic, the navigation details of a flight to Finland; while the sixth was sent running to bring all the available reports on Russia from Goering's private files.
The man who was going to the Foreign Office fetched a camera and photographed Gregory, both in uniform and in a borrowed civilian overcoat, for the two passports. Then two clerks brought in a typewriter on a wheeled desk. Immediately the reports arrived Goering flung off his coat and sitting down, in his shirt sleeves, at his big table he began to dictate.