In the distance there was a sound like a rifle shot: The unreal silhouette didn't even pause. An ice-cased branch had snapped from a tree. It was a frequent occurrence. The figure moved on confidently along the path through the minefields. Half a kilometre from the checkpoint it stopped inside a clump of trees and bent down.
The radio transmitter was concealed in what looked like a hide for an animal, a pile of logs – of which there were many – half-covered with snow- covered undergrowth. Extracting a notebook from a pocket, the figure turned to the page with the already encoded message.
Sensitive fingers began tapping out the signal, fingers which first extended the telescopic aerial of the high-powered device. Nothing was hurried. Once the message had been sent, logs were replaced in position. A hand reached up and shook a branch above the 'hide', bringing down a fresh fall of snow to conceal all signs of disturbance.
The muffled figure then began its slow return to the checkpoint, taking its time. A number of personnel inside the Wolf's Lair were in the habit of taking walks beyond the perimeter – anything to escape for a short time the claustrophobic atmosphere which pervaded the headquarters.
Half an hour later Ian Lindsay put on a. military greatcoat Guensche had loaned him and left his but to stretch his legs. The mist – it was almost dark – had invaded the Wolf's Lair and dirty grey swirls drifted past his face. Without warning a muffled figure loomed in front of him.
Field Marshal Keitel raised his baton in a weary gesture and walked on across the compound to his quarters. He had not exchanged a word. It was the kind of evening when no one liked the world.
Part Two
The Lucy Ring: Roessler
Chapter Ten
Lucerne, Switzerland. It was a crisp, cold night in the ancient Swiss town. Few people walked the snowbound cobbled streets in the dark silence. Closeted in his apartment on the top floor of an old building, Rudolf Roessler took off his headphones and gazed at the pad recording the coded signal he had just received from Germany. He sat half inside a cupboard in front of a lowered panel which concealed his powerful transceiver.
Middle-aged, a man you could pass on the street a hundred times without realizing you had passed anyone, he peered through thick-lensed spectacles at the signal he would shortly re-transmit to Moscow. Even in its present form – Swiss cryptographers had long ago broken the code – he knew he was looking at the current order of battle of the German Army on the Eastern front.
The mystery – the solution to which Roessler could never even have guessed – was the identity of Woodpecker, the agent so close to the summit of the Nazi hierarchy he could supply regularly the German order of battle. Roessler never ceased to wonder about this incredible source.
Roessler himself had mysterious aspects. For one thing he was a German. Prior to 1933 he had been a theatrical publisher in Berlin and the editor of an anti- Nazi paper. During those abandoned days when the German capital was the fleshpot of Europe he had built up the contacts which – years later – led to the founding of the most successful spy network of World War Two. The Lucy Ring.
'Anna, I could do with a cup of hot coffee before I re-transmit to Moscow…'
He turned in his swivel chair and his wife smiled and nodded as she reached for the container of coffee. An attractive, dark-haired woman of forty, she was slim and brisk and enormously efficient. She talked as she bent over the stove.
'You work too hard, you know. All this work we do must put a tremendous strain on you…'
'Anna, we may well be making history. We could even change the whole course of the war – if only they will, please God, in Moscow, listen to us!'
'Either they will or they won't,' Anna replied. 'You can only do your best. Come and sit down at the table while you drink your coffee,' she scolded. 'Life is complicated enough as it is…'
It was indeed complicated. In 1933 Roessler fled to Switzerland, one jump ahead of arrest when Hitler came to power. As war came close he struck a bargain with Nachrichten-Dienst, the Swiss Military Information Service. In return for being allowed to operate his transceiver he would supply the Swiss with the signals obtained from his old contacts in Berlin.
One of these men had approached Roessler just before he left Germany. Roessler never knew the identity of this particular contact, although he had felt sure he was talking to a Communist.
'There will be a war,' the man had said. 'When it comes you'll receive radio signals from Woodpecker. He is so high up you would never believe it. A powerful transceiver will be smuggled across the Swiss border to you. I shall see you are given all the codes and technical data re radio transmission. And the name of a Swiss who will train you in the operation of the set..'
In 1943, the mild-mannered Roessler, who a decade earlier looked forward to a life spent as a theatrical publisher, found himself the controller of the world's most important spy network. The original contact in Berlin had given him one more instruction.
'You need a code-name to protect your real identity. We have decided to call you Lucy…'
In his office inside the Kremlin, Stalin was holding a decoded message in his hand as he stood by his desk. Two other men stood in front of him, respectfully silent.
One was Lavrenti Beria, a pallid-faced man wearing pince-nez, the head of the NKVD, the Ministry of State Security, later to become the KGB. The other visitor was General Zhukov, wide-shouldered and with a large, muscular body. Stalin handed the signal first to Beria, retired behind his desk, leaned back in his chair and lit his pipe which had a bent stem. From beneath bushy brows his yellowish eyes watched Beria as he spoke in his Georgian accent.
'That is another message which just came in from Lucy.'
'Who is this Lucy?' Zhukov asked with a hint of impatience.
'That is not your concern. The signal originates from Woodpecker, an important contact inside Hitlerite Germany. May I. assume, General…' he paused as though the rank might be of a temporary nature,
Zhukov that you send out regular patrols on the battlefront?'
Zhukov stiffened. The question was a near insult. He forced himself to conceal his indignation – to reply as though it were the most natural of questions.
'Generalissimo, I make it a point personally to ensure there are both daily and nightly patrols. They are told they need not return unless they bring in prisoners for interrogation…'
'Then tell me,' Stalin requested in his soft-spoken voice, 'do you believe that signal giving the German order of battle is to be trusted?'
They waited. The purse-lipped Beria, who had learned never to speak unless asked a direct question by Stalin, had handed the signal to Zhukov. There was something sinister in the sheer immobility of the
NKVD chief. Zhukov spoke, gazing at Stalin.
'From the latest information I have, this. signal – as regards the forward areas – is correct…'
'But the Germans could have planted a thin screen of units in those forward areas to correspond with the signal,' said Stalin.
Zhukov sighed. He hated these insidious military conferences, any summons to the Kremlin. But he was careful to suppress the sigh. It was all so typical of Stalin – trust no one! Was there the same atmosphere of intrigue at Hitler's headquarters – wherever that might be – he wondered? He refused to knuckle under completely.
'That is so,' he agreed. 'But Woodpecker's previous signals have proved astonishingly accurate – as though they were sent by someone in the Fuhrer's immediate entourage. As a soldier, you get a sixth sense about these things…'
'We will wait a little longer – see a few more of these signals before we base any operation on them.'