Free Eye of the Needle by Ken Follett

said grudgingly.
    “But why doesn’t he like his code name?”
    “He says it has a meaning, and a code word with a meaning can give a man away. Von Braun wouldn’t listen.”
    “A meaning? The Needle? What does it mean?”
    But at that moment the old-timer’s radio chirped, and he returned quickly to his station, so the explanation never came.

7

    T HE MESSAGE ANNOYED FABER BECAUSE IT FORCED him to face issues that he had been avoiding.
    Hamburg had made damn sure the message reached him. He had given his call-sign, and instead of the usual “Acknowledge—proceed” they had sent back “Make rendezvous one.”
    He acknowledged the order, transmitted his report and packed the wireless set back into its suitcase. Then he wheeled his bicycle out of Erith Marshes—his cover was a bird-watcher—and got on the road to Blackheath. As he cycled back to his cramped two-room flat, he wondered whether to obey the order.
    He had two reasons for disobedience: one professional, one personal.
    The professional reason was that “rendezvous one” was an old code, set up by Canaris back in 1937. It meant he was to go to the doorway of a certain shop between Leicester Square and Piccadilly Circus to meet another agent. The agents would recognize each other by the fact that they both carried a Bible. Then there was a patter:
    “What is today’s chapter?”
    “One Kings thirteen.”
    Then, if they were certain they were not being followed, they would agree that the chapter was “most inspiring.” Otherwise one would say, “I’m afraid I haven’t read it yet.”
    The shop doorway might not be there any more, but it was not that that troubled Faber. He thought Canaris had probably given the code to most of the bumbling amateurs who had crossed the Channel in 1940 and landed in the arms of MI5. Faber knew they had been caught because the hangings had been publicized, no doubt to reassure the public that something was being done about Fifth Columnists. They would certainly have given away secrets before they died, so the British now probably knew the old rendezvous code. If they had picked up the message from Hamburg, that shop doorway must by now be swarming with well-spoken young Englishmen carrying Bibles and practicing saying “Most inspiring” in a German accent.
    The Abwehr had thrown professionalism to the wind back in those heady days when the invasion seemed so close. Faber had not trusted Hamburg since. He would not tell them where he lived, he refused to communicate with their other agents in Britain, he varied the frequency he used for transmission without caring whether he stepped all over someone else’s signal.
    If he had always obeyed his masters, he would not have survived so long.
    At Woolwich, Faber was joined by a mass of other cyclists, many of them women, as the workers came streaming out of the munitions factory at the end of the day shift. Their cheerful weariness reminded Faber of his personal reason for disobedience: he thought his side was losing the war.
    They certainly were not winning. The Russians and the Americans had joined in, Africa was lost, the Italians had collapsed; the Allies would surely invade France this year, 1944.
    Faber did not want to risk his life to no purpose.
    He arrived home and put his bicycle away. While he was washing his face it dawned on him that, against all logic, he wanted to make the rendezvous.
    It was a foolish risk, taken in a lost cause, but he was itching to get to it. And the simple reason was that he was unspeakably bored. The routine transmissions, the bird-watching, the bicycle, the boardinghouse teas—it was four years since he had experienced anything remotely like action. He seemed to be in no danger whatsoever, and that made him jumpy because he imagined invisible threats. He was happiest when every so often he could identify a threat and take steps to neutralize it.
    Yes, he would make the rendezvous. But not in the way they expected.

    THERE WERE