Daniel Silva - The Unlikely Spy

"A Dutch woman named Christa Kunst entered the country in November 1938 at Dover," Harry continued. "A year later her body was discovered in a shallow grave in a field near a village called Whitchurch."

"What's unusual about that?"

"The thing just doesn't feel right to me. The body was badly decomposed when it was pulled out of the ground. The face and skull had been crushed. All the teeth were missing. They used the passport to make the identification; it was conveniently buried with the body. It sounds too neat to me."

"Where's the passport now?"

"The Home Office has it. I've sent a courier up to collect it. It has a photograph. They say it got roughed up a bit while it was in the ground, but it's probably worth looking at."

"Good, Harry. I'm not sure this woman's death has anything to do with the case, but at least it's a lead."

"Right. How did the meeting go with the lawyer, by the way?"

"Oh, just a few papers to sign," Vicary lied. He felt suddenly awkward about his newfound financial independence. "I'm leaving now. I should be back in the office late this afternoon."

Vicary rang off as Kenton came back into the drawing room. "Well, I think that about does it." He handed Vicary a large brown envelope. "All the papers are there as well as the keys. I've included the name of the gardener and his address. He'll be happy to serve as caretaker."

They put on their coats, locked up the cottage, and went outside. Vicary's car was in the drive.

"Can I drop you anywhere, Edward?"

Vicary was relieved when he declined the offer.

"I spoke to Helen the other day," Kenton said suddenly.

Vicary thought: Oh, good heavens.

"She says she sees you from time to time in Chelsea."

Vicary wondered whether Helen had told Kenton about the afternoon in 1940 when he had stared into her passing car like some silly schoolboy. Mortified, Vicary opened the door of the car, absently beating his pockets for his half-moon glasses.

"She asked me to say hello, so I'm saying it. Hello. "

"Thank you." Vicary got inside.

"She also says she'd like to see you sometime. Do some catching up."

"That would be lovely," Vicary said, lying.

"Well, marvelous. She's coming to London next week. She'd love to have lunch with you."

Vicary felt his stomach tighten.

"One o'clock at the Connaught, a week from tomorrow," Kenton said. "I'm supposed to speak with her later today. Shall I tell her you'll be there?"

The back of the Rover was cold as a meat locker. Vicary sat on the big leather seat, legs covered in a traveling rug, watching the countryside of Gloucestershire sweep past his window. A red fox crossed the road, then darted back into the hedge. Drowsy fat pheasants pulled at the cropped remains of a snowy cornfield, feather coats puffed out against the cold. Bare tree limbs scratched at the clear sky. A small valley opened before him. Fields stretched like a rumpled patchwork quilt into the distance. The sun was sinking into a sky splashed with watercolor shades of purple and orange.

He was angry with Helen. His spiteful half wanted to believe his job with British Intelligence somehow made him more interesting to her. His rational half told him he and Helen had managed to part as friends and a quiet lunch might be very pleasant. At the very least it would be a welcome diversion from the pressure of the case. He thought, What are you so afraid of? That you might remember you were actually happy for the two years she was part of your life?

He pushed Helen from his mind. Harry's news intrigued him. By instinct he attacked it like a problem of history. His area of expertise was nineteenth-century Europe-he won critical acclaim for his book on the collapse of the balance of power after the Congress of Vienna-but Vicary had a secret passion for the history and myth of ancient Greece. He was intrigued by the fact that much scholarship on the age had to be based on guesswork and conjecture; the immense passage of time and lack of a clear historical record made that necessary. Why, for example, did Pericles launch the Peloponnesian War with Sparta that eventually led to the destruction of Athens? Why not accept the demands of his more powerful rival and revoke the Megarian decree? Was he driven by fear of the superior armies of Sparta? Did he believe war was inevitable? Did he embark on a disastrous foreign adventure to relieve pressure at home?

Now Vicary asked similar questions about his rival in Berlin. Kurt Vogel.

What was Vogel's goal? Vicary believed Vogel's goal was to build a network of elite sleeper agents at the outset of the war and leave them in place until the climactic moment of the confrontation. In order to succeed, great care would have to be given to the way the agent was inserted into the country. Obviously, Vogel had done this; the mere fact that MI5 had no knowledge of the agent until now confirmed it. Vogel would have to assume immigration and passport-control records would be used to find his agents; Vicary would certainly assume that if the roles were reversed. But what if the person who entered the country was dead? There would be no search. It was brilliant. But there was one problem-it required a body. Was it possible they actually murdered someone to trade places with Christa Kunst?

Germany's spies, as a rule, were not killers. Most were money-grubbers, adventurers, and petty Fascists, poorly trained and financed. But if Kurt Vogel had established a network of elite agents, they would be better motivated, more disciplined, and almost certainly more ruthless. Was it possible one of those highly trained and ruthless agents was a woman? Vicary had handled only one case involving a woman-a young German girl who managed to get a job as a maid in the home of a British admiral.

"Stop in the next village," Vicary said to the Wren driving the car. "I need to use the telephone."

The next village was called Aston Magna-a hamlet really, no shops, just a clump of cottages bisected by a pair of narrow lanes. An old man was standing along the roadway with his dog.

Vicary wound down the window and said, "Hello."

"Hello." The man wore Wellington boots and a lumpy tweed coat that looked at least a hundred years old. The dog had three legs.

"Is there a telephone in the village?" Vicary asked.

The man shook his head. Vicary swore the dog was shaking its head too. "No one's bothered to get one yet."

The man's accent was so broad Vicary had trouble understanding him.

"Where's the nearest telephone?"

"That'll be in Moreton."

"And where's that?"

"Follow that road there past the barn. Go left at the manor house and follow the trees into the next village. That's Moreton."

"Thank you."

The dog barked as the car sped away.

Vicary used the telephone at a bakery. He munched a cheese sandwich while he waited for the operator to connect him with the office. He wanted to share a little of his newfound wealth, so he ordered two dozen scones for the typists and the girls in Registry.

Harry came on the line.

Vicary said, "I don't think it was Christa Kunst they dug out of that grave in Whitchurch."

"Then who was it?"

"That's your job, Harry. Get on the phone with Scotland Yard. See if a woman went missing about the same time. Start within a two-hour radius of Whitchurch; then go wider if you have to. When I get back to the office, I'll brief Boothby."

"What are you going to tell him?"

"That we're looking for a dead Dutch woman. He'll love that."

Finding Peter Jordan would not be a problem. Finding him the right way would.

Vogel's information was good. Berlin knew Jordan worked at Grosvenor Square at the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force, better known as SHAEF. The square was heavily patrolled by military policemen, impenetrable to an outsider. Berlin had the address of Jordan's house in Kensington and had put together an extraordinary amount of information on Jordan's background. What was missing was a minute-by-minute account of his daily routine in London. Without it Catherine could only guess at how best to make her approach.