Daniel Silva - The Unlikely Spy

She came back five minutes later, an empty file folder in her hand.

"Operation Kettledrum," she said. "Terminated."

"Where are the contents?"

"Either destroyed or with the case officer."

"When was the file opened?" Vicary asked.

Grace looked at the tab on the file, then at Vicary.

"That's funny," she said. "According to this, Operation Kettledrum was initiated in October 1943."

By the time Scotland Yard responded to Alfred Vicary's demand for roadblocks, Horst Neumann had left London and was racing northward along the A10. The van had obviously been well maintained. It would do at least sixty miles per hour and the motor ran smoothly. The tires still had a decent amount of tread on them, and they gripped the wet road surprisingly well. And it had one other practical feature-a black van did not stand out from the other commercial vehicles on the road. Since petrol rationing made private motoring all but impossible, anyone driving an automobile that time of night might be stopped by the police and questioned.

The road ran straight across mostly flat terrain. Neumann hunched forward over the steering wheel as he drove, peering into the little pool of light thrown off by the shrouded headlamps. For a moment he considered removing the blackout shades but decided it was too risky. He flashed through villages with funny names-Puckeridge, Buntingford-dark, not a light burning, no one moving about. It was as if the clock had been turned back two thousand years. Neumann would scarcely have been surprised to see a Roman legion encamped along the banks of the River Cam.

More villages-Melbourn, Foxton, Newton, Hauxton. During his preparation at Vogel's farmhouse outside Berlin, Neumann had spent hours studying old Ordnance Survey maps of Britain. He suspected he knew the roads and pathways of East Anglia as well as most Englishmen, perhaps better.

Melbourn, Foxton, Newton, Hauxton.

He was approaching Cambridge.

Cambridge represented trouble. Surely MI5 had alerted police forces in the large cities and towns. Neumann reckoned the police in the villages and hamlets did not pose much of a threat. They made their rounds on foot or bicycle and rarely had cars, and communications were so poor that word might not even have been passed to them. He was flashing through the blacked-out villages so quickly a police officer would never really see them. Cities like Cambridge were different. MI5 had probably alerted the Cambridge police force. They had enough men to mount a roadblock on a large route like the A10. They had cars and could engage in a pursuit. Neumann knew the roads and was a capable driver, but he would be no match for an experienced local police officer.

Before reaching Cambridge, Neumann turned onto a small side road. He skirted the base of the Gog Magog Hills and headed north along the eastern edge of the city. Even in the gloom of the blackout he could make out the spires of King's and St. John's. He passed through a village called Horningsea, crossed the Cam, and entered Waterbeach, a village that lay astride the A10. He drove slowly through the darkened streets until he found the largest one; there were no signs for the A10 but he assumed this had to be it. He turned right, headed north, and after a moment was racing through the lonely flatness of the Fens.

The miles passed very quickly. The rain eased but in the fenland the wind, with nothing in its path between here and the North Sea, battered the van like a child's toy. The road ran near the banks of the River Great Ouse, then across Southery Fens. They passed through the villages of Southery and Hilgay. The next large town was Downham Market, smaller than Cambridge but Neumann assumed it had its own police force and was therefore a threat. He repeated the same move he made in Cambridge, turning onto a smaller side road, skirting the edge of town, rejoining the A10 in the north.

Ten miles on he came to King's Lynn, the port on the southeastern base of the Wash and largest town on the Norfolk coast. Neumann turned off the A10 again and picked up a small B-road east of the city.

The road was poor-an unpaved single-lane track in many places-and the terrain turned hilly and wooded. He stopped and poured two of the jerry cans of petrol into the tank. The weather worsened the closer they moved to the coast. At times Neumann seemed to be traveling at a walking pace. He feared he had made a mistake by turning off the better road, that he was being too cautious. After more than an hour of difficult driving he reached the coastline.

He passed through Hampton Sands, crossed the sea creek, and accelerated along the track. He felt relieved-finally, a familiar road. The Dogherty cottage appeared in the distance. Neumann turned into the drive. He saw the door open and the glow of a kerosene lamp moving toward them. It was Sean Dogherty, dressed in his oilskin and sou'wester, a shotgun over his arm.

Sean Dogherty had not been worried when Neumann did not arrive in Hunstanton on the afternoon train. Neumann had warned him he might be in London longer than usual. Dogherty decided to wait for the evening train. He left the station and went into a nearby pub. He ordered a potato and carrot pie and washed it down with two glasses of ale. Then he went out and walked along the waterfront. Before the war, Hunstanton was a popular summer beach resort because its location on the eastern edge of the Wash provided remarkable sunsets over the water. On this night the old Edwardian resort hotels were mostly empty, despondent-looking in the steady rain. Sunset was nothing more than the last gray light leaking from the storm clouds. Dogherty left the waterfront and returned to the station to meet the evening train. He stood on the platform, smoking, watching the handful of passengers disembarking. When Neumann was not among them, Dogherty became alarmed.

He drove back to Hampton Sands, thinking about Neumann's words earlier that week. Neumann had said it was possible the operation might be about to end, possible that he might be leaving England and heading back to Berlin. Dogherty thought, But why wasn't he on the damned train?

He arrived at the cottage and let himself inside. Mary, sitting next to the fire, glared at him, then went upstairs. Dogherty switched on the wireless. The news bulletin caught his attention. A nationwide search was under way for two suspected killers who had taken part in a gun battle with police earlier that evening in the section of London known as Earl's Court.

Dogherty turned up the volume as the newsreader gave a description of the two suspects. The first, surprisingly, was a woman. The second was a man who matched Horst Neumann's description perfectly.

Dogherty shut off the radio. Was it possible the two suspects in the Earl's Court shooting were Neumann and the other agent? Were they now on the run from MI5 and half the police in Britain? Were they heading toward Hampton Sands or were they going to leave him behind? Then he thought, Do the British know I'm a spy too?

He went upstairs, threw a change of clothes into a small canvas bag, and came back downstairs again. He went out to the barn, found his shotgun, and loaded a pair of cartridges into the barrel.

Returning to the cottage, Dogherty sat in the window, waiting. He had almost given up hope when he spotted the shaded headlamps moving along the road toward the cottage. When the car turned into the farmyard he could see it was Neumann behind the wheel. There was a woman sitting in the passenger seat.

Dogherty stood up and pulled on his coat and hat. He lit the kerosene lamp, picked up his shotgun, and went outside into the rain.

Martin Colville examined his face in the mirror: broken nose, black eyes, swollen lips, a contusion on the right side of his face.