“I’ll check in with you later.”
Volke wrote a name on a lab slip. Set it in Gunter’s pocket and put a finger to his lips.
Sunday, June 23, 1940
Communications Center under King Charles Street, London
4:00 p.m. Paris Time
Worried, Stepney read the latest decryption from the Alpha network. He saw no mention of his agents or the snipers’ mission. He should have heard something by now.
“You’ve double authenticated this message, Billy?”
“Per your instructions, sir. Comes up viable. Alpha’s window for response ends in two minutes.”
This decoded message contained an urgent request for agent extraction with the code name Swan. Good, the SIS mission problem solved.
Yet he’d heard nothing from Kate Rees via Y sector. He’d given her up for dead since Martins’s body was found. Still . . . he’d inquire.
“Respond agreeable. Extraction tomorrow. Details coming. Request an update on Cowgirl.”
By the time Stepney tracked down Cathcart in this warren of tunnels, he had a plan.
“Alpha’s asking for urgent removal of Nigel Swanson.”
Cathcart’s neck craned looking over Stepney’s shoulder, then behind him. No one. “Correct. We’ll arrange a Channel extraction.”
“Why not send a Lysander?” said Stepney. “Tomorrow night should be perfect flight conditions.”
“We want him taken to the coast. Any word from your agent, Rees?”
Stepney doubted there ever would be word of her, but Cathcart didn’t need to know that.
“Not yet. But why use a Channel extraction with the rough seas forecasted?”
Cathcart hesitated.
Never back down, the first rule in the game. If Cathcart wanted Stepney’s deniable Section D to coordinate this operation, he wouldn’t accept a brush-off. “Spit it out, Cathcart. What aren’t you saying?”
Cathcart scanned the empty corridor. “Stepney, all I can say is that the ship captain set sail equipped with the S-Phone.”
Stepney contained his surprise. All this subterfuge over a piece of equipment? Was that it?
The device, in early development, was designed to fulfill three functions at the same time: radiotelephone, homing beacon and parachute drop spot indicator. He had requested this prototype, which they were calling an S-Phone and which could transmit ultrashort waves between a plane cockpit and a mobile set on the ground, to equip his group on their drops and extractions. Several were in field test use and the device was still in experimental stages. Flawed or not, quiet as it was it would have been ten times more secure than the ground fires built by underground agents to light the landing zone for agent drops and extractions. His request had yet to be processed. Meanwhile he had lost how many good men in the last few weeks?
It more than rankled that Cathcart already had one.
A Wren scurried around them with a clipboard in her hand. The men waited until she left the corridor.
“The S-Phone would have been of great use for our drop pilots,” Stepney said, fighting to keep his voice neutral.
“They’re equally useful ship to shore,” Cathcart said. “We are starting to employ the S-phones on submarines and fast patrol boats during clandestine landing and removal operations.”
He hated being so low on the SIS totem pole they hadn’t thought to inform him.
“I’m late for a meeting,” said Cathcart.
Dismissed.
Cathcart wouldn’t get away so scot-free. Stepney had to get something in return. “My new radio operator gets a ride over on your ship. I need trusted radio signalmen for ground communication.”
“You’re asking a lot, Stepney.”
A lot?
Cathcart was gone.
Sunday, June 23, 1940
Canal de l’Ourcq, Paris | 5:00 p.m. Paris Time
Kate didn’t know how much she could trust this butcher Ramou, a burly man with a bloodstained apron and expressionless black eyes. The two card players were lifting the wounded man up a rickety ladder to a hay loft in the stable’s rear. The familiar aromas of sweet hay and dried blood filled her nose.
“This man needs a doctor,” she said. “Dédé said—”
“No names.”
She figured Dédé was an alias, but nodded. “Fine, but he wanted me to bring this man here. He’s important.”