“When there’s any work to do.” Arne was as debonair and relaxed as ever. If he had anything to feel guilty about, he was concealing it well.
“Of course, you’re a pilot.”
“This is a training school, but we don’t have many pupils. More to the point, what are you doing here?” Arne glanced at the major in German uniform standing behind Peter. “Is there a dangerous outbreak of littering? Or has someone been cycling after dark without lights?”
Peter did not find Arne’s raillery very funny. “Routine investigation,” he replied shortly. “Where will I find your commanding officer?”
Arne pointed to one of the low buildings. “Base headquarters. You need Squadron Leader Renthe.”
Peter left him and went into the building. Renthe was a lanky man with a bristly moustache and a sour expression. Peter introduced himself and said, “I’m here to interview one of your men, a Flight Lieutenant Poul Kirke.”
The squadron leader looked pointedly at Major Schwarz and said, “What’s the problem?”
The reply None of your damn business sprang to Peter’s lips, but he was resolved to be calm, so he told a polite lie. “He’s been dealing in stolen property.”
“When military personnel are suspected of crimes, we prefer to investigate the matter ourselves.”
“Of course you do. However. .” He moved a hand in the direction of Schwarz. “Our German friends want the police to deal with it, so your preferences are irrelevant. Is Kirke on the base at this moment?”
“He happens to be flying.”
Peter raised his eyebrows. “I thought your planes were grounded.”
“As a rule, yes, but there are exceptions. We’re expecting a visit from a Luftwaffe group tomorrow, and they want to be taken up in our training aircraft, so we have permission to do test flights today to make sure the aircraft are in readiness. Kirke should land in a few minutes.”
“I’ll search his quarters meanwhile. Where does he bed down?”
Renthe hesitated, then answered reluctantly. “Dormitory A, at the far end of the runway.”
“Does he have an office, or a locker, or anywhere else he might keep things?”
“He has a small office three doors along this corridor.”
“I’ll start there. Tilde, come with me. Conrad, go out to the airfield to meet Kirke when he comes back-I don’t want him to slip away. Dresler and Ellegard, search Dormitory A. Squadron Leader, thank you for your help. .” Peter saw the commander’s eyes stray to the phone on the desk, and added, “Don’t make any phone calls for the next few minutes. If you were to warn anyone that we’re on our way, that would constitute obstruction of justice. I’d have to throw you in jail, and that wouldn’t do the army’s reputation much good, would it?”
Renthe made no reply.
Peter, Tilde, and Schwarz went along the corridor to a door marked “Chief Flying Instructor.” A desk and a filing cabinet were squeezed into a small room with no windows. Peter and Tilde began to search and Schwarz lit another cigar. The filing cabinet contained pupil records. Peter and Tilde patiently looked at every sheet of paper. The little room was airless, and Tilde’s elusive perfume was lost in Schwarz’s cigar smoke.
After fifteen minutes, Tilde made a surprised noise and said, “This is odd.”
Peter looked up from the exam results of a student called Keld Hansen who had failed his navigation test.
Tilde handed him a sheet of paper. Peter studied it, frowning. It bore a careful sketch of a piece of apparatus that Peter did not recognize: a large square aerial on a stand, surrounded by a wall. A second drawing of the same apparatus without the wall showed more details of the stand, which looked as if it might revolve.
Tilde looked over his shoulder. “What do you think it can be?”
He was intensely aware of how close she was. “I’ve never seen anything like it, but I’d bet the farm it’s secret. Anything else in the file?”
“No.” She showed him a folder marked “Andersen, H.C.”
Peter grunted. “Hans Christian Andersen-that’s suspicious in itself. He turned the sheet over. On its reverse was a sketch map of an island whose long, thin shape was as familiar to Peter as the map of Denmark itself. “This is Sande, where my father lives!” he said.
Looking more closely, he saw that the map showed the new German base and the area of the beach that was off limits.
“Bang,” he said softly.
Tilde’s blue eyes were shining with excitement. “We’ve caught a spy, haven’t we?”
“Not yet,” Peter said. “But we’re about to.”
They went outside, followed by the silent Schwarz. The sun had set, but they could see clearly in the soft twilight of the long Scandinavian summer evening.
They walked onto the airfield and stood beside Conrad, near where the planes were parked. The aircraft were being put away for the night. One was being wheeled into the hangar, two airmen pushing its wings and a third lifting its tail off the ground.
Conrad pointed to an incoming aircraft downwind of the airfield and said, “I think this must be our man.”
It was another Tiger Moth. As it descended in a textbook circuit and turned into the wind for landing, Peter reflected that there was no doubt Poul Kirke was a spy. The evidence found in the filing cabinet would be enough to hang him. But before that happened, Peter had a lot of questions to ask him. Was he simply a reporter, like Ingemar Gammel? Had Kirke traveled to Sande himself to check out the air base and sketch the mystery apparatus? Or did he play the more important role of coordinator, assembling information and transmitting it to England in coded messages? If Kirke was the central contact, who had gone to Sande and made the sketch? Could it have been Arne Olufsen? That was possible, but Arne had shown no sign of guilt an hour ago when Peter had arrived unexpectedly at the base. Still, it might be worthwhile to put Arne under surveillance.
As the aircraft touched down and bumped along the grass, one of the police Buicks came from the upwind end of the runway in a tearing hurry. It skidded to a stop, and Dresler jumped out, carrying something bright yellow.
Peter threw him a nervous look. He did not want a kerfuffle that might forewarn Poul Kirke. Glancing around, he realized that he had relaxed his guard for a moment, and failed to notice that the group at the edge of the runway appeared somewhat out of place: himself in a dark suit, Schwarz in German uniform smoking a cigar, a woman, and now a man jumping out of a car in an obvious hurry. They looked like a reception committee, and the setup might ring alarm bells in Kirke’s mind.
Dresler came up to him excitedly waving the yellow object, a book with a brightly colored dust jacket. “This is his code book!” he said.
That meant Kirke was the key man. Peter looked at the little aircraft, which had turned off the runway before drawing level with the waiting group, and was now taxiing past them to the parking area. “Put the book under your coat, you damn fool,” he said to Dresler. “If he sees you waving that about, he’ll know we’re on to him!”
He looked again at the Tiger Moth. He could see Kirke in the open cockpit, but could not read the man’s expression behind the goggles, scarf, and helmet.
However, there was no room to misinterpret what happened next.
The engine suddenly roared louder as the throttle was opened wide. The aircraft swung around, turning into the wind but also heading straight for the little group around Peter. “Damn, he’s going to run for it!” Peter cried.
The plane picked up speed and came directly at them.
Peter drew his pistol.
He wanted to take Kirke alive, and interrogate him-but he would rather have him dead than let him get away. Holding the gun with both hands, he pointed it at the oncoming aircraft. It was virtually impossible to shoot down a plane with a handgun, but perhaps he might hit the pilot with a lucky shot.
The Tiger Moth’s tail came up off the ground, leveling the fuselage and bringing Kirke’s head and shoulders into view. Peter took careful aim at the flying helmet and pulled the trigger. The aircraft lifted off the ground, and Peter raised his aim, emptying the seven-shot magazine of the Walther PPK. He saw with bitter disappointment that he had shot too high, for a series of small holes like ink blots appeared in the fuel tank over the pilot’s head, and petrol was spurting into the cockpit in small jets. The aircraft did not falter.