Free Berlin Red by Sam Eastland Page B

Calais?’
    ‘Yes,’ said Hansard, ‘and after that out of Paris and now they’re broadcasting as Sender Station Elbe or something. Of course, their location never actually changed. They’re in some manor house in Hampshire, I believe, although the operation is so secret that even I’m not sure of the exact location. Thousands of German soldiers and civilians tune into that station every day. It’s the most reliable network they’ve got, and if somebody told them it was run by us, they probably wouldn’t believe it. By airing all those bits of gossip from Hitler’s inner circle, we not only dishearten the listeners, we intrigue them. Everybody likes gossip, especially the kind we’re serving up. But there’s an even greater value to this information,’ Hansard went on. ‘Even if the High Command denies the stories, they know perfectly well it’s the truth. And that means they know we have a source’ – with his thumb and index finger, Hansard measured out a tiny space in front of him – ‘this close to Hitler himself.’
    ‘I understand all this,’ said Swift, ‘but what I can’t quite grasp is why we are going to such lengths to rescue an agent who, for all intents and purposes, is running a Berlin society page! At my meeting with Stalin and Pekkala I said what you told me to say – that we value the lives of all our agents in the field. But you and I both know that we have cut our losses before, and with agents more valuable than this one.’
    ‘And I suspect we would have done the same with Simonova if it wasn’t for the fact that HQ back in England seems to think that she can get her hands on something extremely important.’
    ‘And what is that?’
    Hansard sighed and shook his head. ‘Damned if I know, but it must be bloody important for us to go down on bended knee in front of Stalin and beg for the Russians to help us.’ With that, he fished a pocket watch out of his waistcoat pocket.
    Swift correctly understood this as a sign that he should take his leave. He stood up and buttoned his jacket. ‘I’ll let you know if we hear anything from Pekkala.’
    Hansard nodded. ‘Fingers crossed.’

After sending his message to the Reichschancellery
    After sending his message to the Reichschancellery, General Hagemann immediately began organising a trip to Berlin. Once there, he planned to personally deliver all the details of his latest triumph to Adolf Hitler.
    But even before he could locate any transport, a plane arrived at the Peenemunde landing strip, with orders to take him immediately to Hitler’s headquarters, where he had been ordered to explain the disappearance of his test rocket.
    Hagemann was stunned. It appeared that whatever good news he had hoped to bring about the success of the Diamond Stream device had already been trumped by the missing V-2. God help me, thought Hagemann, if that rocket is anywhere except the bottom of the sea.
    Within an hour of receiving the message, the general was on his way to Berlin. There had not even been time to pack an overnight bag. The only thing he had managed to grab from his office, located in a requisitioned farmhouse not far from the ruins of the Peenemunde test facility, was a large leather tube containing schematics of the V-2’s guidance system. These diagrams, painstakingly laid out by draughtsmen assigned to the programme, were a vital part of any presentation Hagemann gave to the High Command. To the untrained eye, they represented an indecipherable scaffolding of blue-veined lines, criss-crossed with arterial red pointers, indicating the names and specification numbers of the system’s multitude of parts.
    This was not the first time Hagemann had faced the wrath of the German High Command and he had come to rely upon the indecipherability of his blueprints to baffle and intimidate his fellow generals. The less they understood, the more they would be forced to rely upon Hagemann’s optimistic predictions, and it was these which had