Dennis Wheatley: Traitors' Gate

He had not long to wait before Kasdar arrived in a taxi. When the Moldavian had paid off the cab he gave Gregory a sullen stare and asked, 'Did you know about the diplomatic bags?'

'What about them?' Gregory replied innocently.

'Why, that they had been stopped. We were notified of it only this morning. The Foreign Office informed us with regret that His Majesty's Government had instructed the G.P.O. to hold all bags delivered after midnight on Tuesday, and that none will be forwarded until further notice. Never before has such a step been taken. It is an outrage against International convention.'

'Really!' Gregory raised his eyebrows. 'I've no contact with the Foreign Office, and it is news to me.'

'But do you realize what this means? My message giving the date of D-Day and the Order of Battle are held up. They will not now be passed on to Berlin until after the expedition has reached its destination. I thought perhaps…'

'What! That I had double-crossed you. Don't be a fool; I have too much at stake.' As Gregory spoke he was feeling immense relief. He considered the Foreign Office to be reprehensibly soft in its treatment of neutrals and had feared that grounds might be put forward for postponing the measure at the last moment. Now he knew that his fears had been groundless and his timing all right; so he was over that hurdle.

With a shrug of his broad shoulders, the Colonel said more affably, 'Fortunately all is not yet lost. If you succeed in rescuing Sabine, she will act as our courier.'

Gregory heard the suggestion with grim satisfaction. That was just what he had been planning for all along. He need now no longer fear that, when Kasdar had got all the information he could out of him, he would double-cross him and fail to keep his side of the bargain. For his own ends now, he had to get Sabine out of the country. But in her case too there was this nightmare problem of exact timing.

'The objective?' Kasdar shot at him suddenly. 'I take it you have now found out about that?'

'Yes, and I will give it you within the next quarter of an hour. This is no place to talk about it. Come along with me.'

Crossing the road they walked almost in silence through York Street and down to the landing stage where the launch was tied up. Going aboard they entered her tiny cabin, then Gregory produced a piece of paper from his pocket. On it was a rough sketch map of the western half of the Mediterranean with arrows to indicate landing places. Handing it over, he said, 'There you are.'

After one glance the Moldavian exclaimed, 'Then it is not Dakar! That is surprising. We have had it from several sources that it was.'

'I thought so too,' Gregory agreed. 'But you will remember I warned you that it was only an idea of mine; and I was wrong. Now I've done my part it is up to you to do yours. Let's go ashore and send that telegram.'

Kasdar raised no objection so they walked the short distance to Waterloo Station and from the Post Office there despatched the agreed message to the tugboat Captain at Burnham. As they walked back to the landing stage, the Moldavian said in a low voice:

'It is just as well that this embargo on the diplomatic bags was not put on earlier. I was, anyhow, able to get through to the other side news of our intentions, and receive back the special recognition marks for our tug to display as soon as she is clear of British controlled waters. Otherwise she might have had the ill luck to be sunk by the Luftwaffe or a German E-boat.'

When they were back' in the launch Kasdar untied the painter and Gregory nosed her out. A quarter of an hour later, moving at a slow speed, they came opposite the Tower of London. Then Gregory said:

'You see the big block nearly in the centre of the Outer Wall. That is St. Thomas's Tower and Sabine is in it. However dark it is tonight you will still be able to identify it because the two turrets at its extremities will stand out against the skyline. I want you to bring this launch in under the embankment as nearly as possible halfway between the two turrets at a quarter to eleven. If Sabine and I are not on the embankment ready to come off at once, take the launch to the other side of the river' and tie up there; then come over again at a quarter to twelve. If we are not there repeat the process at a quarter to one and at a quarter to two. If we have still not appeared, you will know then that I have failed, and the job is off. Is that clear?'

'Perfectly. But what of the tide?'

'I have checked that. At low there are a few yards of imported sand beach on which children play in the day time. At high you would be able to get her right up to the river wall. Tonight will be fairly favourable. You should be able to get right in at ten forty-five, but it will already be on the ebb. Later we would have to drop in the shallows and wade out to you. In case we have to do that there is a suitcase in the cabin with dry slacks, socks and shoes in it for Sabine and myself.'

'You intend, then, to come too?'

Gregory shrugged. 'What the hell else can I do? There will be no disguising the fact that it was I who arranged her escape. I have got to disappear. If I remained in this country the police would get me within a week: And the charge would be treason.

No! I'll have burnt my boats; so the only thing I can do is go over lock, stock and barrel to the Nazis.'

'Don't look so despondent about it.' Kasdar clapped him on the shoulder. 'Personally, I envy you your luck in getting out of this benighted country. And, after all, there is the little Sabine. She will owe you much. Perhaps she will console you in your exile instead of going back to Ribbentrop.'

'I will confess,' Gregory admitted with a half smile, 'that possibility had not altogether escaped me.'

Meanwhile the launch had passed under Tower Bridge. For another two miles Gregory kept her headed downstream, then he brought her in close to the north bank, and said, 'I thought we might find a suitable place to land somewhere along here on the Poplar waterfront.'

Between the entrance to the Limehouse Cut Canal’ and the West India Docks there were stairs every hundred yards or so. Tying the launch up at one of them, they went ashore. At the near end of a street called Ropemaker's Fields they found a suitable place to park a car. So it was decided that early that evening Kasdar should drive down there with his chauffeur. Then, having made certain that the man knew how to find the spot again, the chauffeur should bring the car down himself to arrive a little before eleven o'clock and wait there with it, if need be until a quarter past two.

This settled, they returned to the launch, and headed back up river. On the return journey Gregory made his companion take the wheel and controls, so that he should get some practice in handling her. After tying up again at the stairs below County Hall, they ran over their plan again to make certain that they fully understood one another; then they clambered ashore, walked to the nearest street corner, shook hands and separated, Gregory making for the Waterloo Underground. Soon after five he was back at Gloucester Road, and a quarter of an hour later in bed sound asleep.

Rudd roused him at half past seven, and reported that soon after six the 'foreign gentleman' had rung up and left a message. It was that 'the sailor had telephoned to acknowledge receipt of the telegram'. This news heartened Gregory considerably, and he felt that he was lucky in having anyone so efficient as Kasdar to work with him. That the Moldavian might fail him that night he now had little fear; and as the creek near Burnham, off which the tug was to lie, was not much over forty miles from Poplar, he reckoned that, if his own part of the job went without a hitch, Sabine should be aboard her soon after midnight.

He had a bath and got into uniform; then, as he had had no lunch, he ate a very hearty dinner. After it, he packed into the bottom of a suitcase a short electrically driven saw with a blade of tungsten steel and a battery he had attached to it by a yard of flex, some spare blades, a mallet muffled at one end with a cloth pad, a dozen ten inch steel spikes, and two belts, with quick release buckles, attached to one another by fifteen feet of thin wire cored rope. Over these he laid a rug, a dressing gown, and pyjamas, packing among them three more bottles of port.