“Would you like me to pour, sir?” asked Fr?ulein Schmidt.
“I’m sure we can manage,” he said, with a wink to the prisoner. As he reached for the coffeepot, he watched her take in his office. There were red Nazi flags on both sides of the hearth. On a rosewood table, a marble chessboard was set up with a game in progress.
“Would you prefer I call you by your code name?” he asked as he poured the fragrant coffee with graceful movements. “Or”—he said, abruptly changing from French to clipped English—“by your real name, Erica Calvert? And do you take sugar or cream? Or both?”
Erica shook her head; von Waltz dropped two sugar cubes and a generous pour of cream into a cup for himself. “Well then, I shall call you Mademoiselle Calvert.” He blew on his coffee before taking a sip. “You are Erica Grace Calvert, one of Winston Churchill’s secret army of undercover agents, known as the SOE or Special Operations Executive, recruited to ‘set Europe ablaze.’?”
Erica avoided his direct gaze.
“You were captured in Rouen and held for questioning.”
The agent remained silent.
“And you’re so tiny!” he exclaimed, studying her as he set his cup and saucer down. “I had no idea when I read your file that you’d be such a petite thing—and so young, as well.” From his jacket pocket, he took out a silver case. “Cigarette?”
Erica made a sound halfway between a snort and a mew.
“My colleagues, unfortunately, were not able to obtain any satisfactory answers from you. And so you have been sent to Paris, to me.” He left the case open, placing it on the table between them. “I will ask the questions now, and, as you can see, we can make this a civilized exchange. It is up to you, of course. What were you doing in Rouen, Mademoiselle Calvert?”
“I can’t say,” she managed through swollen lips.
“Oh, come now. Sabotage?” von Waltz suggested.
Erica shook her head.
“To whom were you reporting?”
“I can’t say.”
“With whom were you working?”
“I can’t say.”
There was a silence. “Where are the secret stashes of arms and explosives you and your colleagues are bringing over here?”
“I—”
“—can’t say, yes.” Von Waltz smiled as he leaned back in his chair and crossed one slim leg over the other. “And how did you enjoy your stay at Arisaig House? I hear the west coast of Scotland is quite beautiful, especially in autumn.”
Erica’s breathing stilled. There was no way he could know that location—the location of SOE’s paramilitary preparation—or that she had trained there in September and October.
“You did quite well with your parachute school at Ringway. And how did you enjoy your time at Beaulieu?” The Obersturmbannführer pronounced it in the English way, bew-lee. Beaulieu was the SOE’s so-called finishing school, where chosen agents were sent for their final round of training. “I hear even in winter, the weather in the south of England is surprisingly mild.”
“How—how—” Erica stammered.
“We know a lot about you, my darling girl. For instance, how you’ve been leaving off your security checks from prison in Rouen, hoping your London office will notice and realize you’ve been captured.” He smiled. “Meanwhile, the Baker Street agents have noted your lack of security checks—and sent messages back scolding you that in the future you must be more careful with your coding.”
Erica hesitated for a moment. Then, “I don’t believe you.”
Von Waltz rose. He crossed to his desk, flipping through pages of her file, choosing one. Walking back, he handed it to her. “?‘Your 5735 security check acknowledged,’?” he recited from memory, taking his seat. “?‘You forgot your double security check. Next time be more careful.’?”
He studied her face, relishing the expression of abject shock on her bruised countenance. “Yes, we have a mole in SOE.”
She flinched. But who was the mole? And where? In France? Or in England?
Von Waltz continued, his voice still gentle. “We know how frightened you are, Mademoiselle Calvert. You’ve been confessing your fears in your letters home to your father.”
“There’s no way you can know that!”
Von Waltz ignored her outburst. “Fear in wartime, mademoiselle—well, it’s nothing to be ashamed of. But I must speak frankly. Your superior, Colonel Harold Gaskell, has sent you—a woman—here, in direct violation of the Geneva Convention, as well as all the rules of gentlemanly warfare.”
Despite her shock and fear, Erica let out a snort at the Nazi’s hypocrisy.
“You have been sent here against all the rules of war,” the Obersturmbannführer persisted. “A woman. In civilian clothes. As a secret agent. To commit acts of terrorism against us. You know what the penalty for that is, yes?”
Erica didn’t reply. Of course she knew. Execution. By firing squad or noose.
“But I am a civilized man. I don’t want you, a woman—a lady—to be sacrificed for the stupidity and rash decisions of your superiors. Your Colonel Gaskell dropped you into a trap—and then quite stupidly failed to recognize his organization’s own security checks, put into place to keep his spies safe, were being left off deliberately to signal you’d been captured.”
He stood again, then crossed the plush Persian carpet. “They think on Baker Street that we’re bungling, ham-handed fools.” At his desk, he picked up another file and pulled out another piece of paper. It was a chart of the SOE hierarchy in London, every name correct. When he walked over and handed it to Erica and she realized what it was and how much sensitive information it contained, she felt tears sting her eyes.
“I know you told your little cover story ad nauseam to the SS officers in Rouen, but let’s dispense with it here, shall we, mademoiselle?” Von Waltz resumed his seat next to her. “I can’t promise you everything, but I can tell you I can save your life. Instead of being executed, you’ll stay here. You’ll share all the information you know, then you will work with us. And when the war is over, you will find out who betrayed you—and get your revenge.”
There was an ugly silence as the British spy struggled to process everything von Waltz was telling her. She’d been captured in Rouen, yes, but the Nazis still didn’t know she’d come ashore on the west coast of France. They didn’t know she’d studied geology and that she’d been sent to the beaches of Normandy to obtain sand and soil samples and to determine beach gradients.
If von Waltz learned the truth, the Nazis would realize that while Pas de Calais was the obvious choice for the inevitable invasion, Normandy was also being seriously considered. Sand samples, which would help the engineers know what sort of equipment and tanks to send when the Allies invaded, would serve as a red flag to the possibility of using Normandy. The enemy didn’t know and they couldn’t know—not because of her. The bag, with her notes and specimens, was with a fellow agent at a safe house in Paris. As long as I can keep that from him…
Von Waltz regarded her smugly. “A terrorist, sent against the Geneva Convention, out of uniform, behind enemy lines, seeking to sow seeds of fear and unrest.” He shook his head. “A female terrorist at that. How badly things must be going in England for them to send their little girls! Sweet little doves, all of you. They should not have made you come.”
“I wanted to come.” She straightened. “I volunteered. It was my choice.”
His voice was suddenly steel. “They should not have allowed you.” Then, in softer tones, “You know there is nothing you won’t tell me when we’re through, mademoiselle. Save me time—and your pretty face—and tell us everything now.”