The Unlikely Spy

Her cottage in Vogel's secret village is flimsy and drafty, the coldest place she has ever known. There is a fireplace, though, and in the afternoon while she studies codes and radio procedures an Abwehr man comes and lays kindling and dry fir logs for the night.

 

The fire has burned low, the cold is creeping into the cottage, so she rises and tosses a pair of large logs onto the embers. Vogel is lying on the floor silently behind her. He is a terrible lover: boring, selfish, all elbows and knees. Even when he tries to please her he is clumsy and rough and preoccupied. It is a wonder she has been able to seduce him at all. She has her reasons. If he falls in love with her or becomes obsessed with her, Vogel will be reluctant to send her to England. It seems to be working. When he was inside her a moment ago he professed love for her. Now, as he lies on the rug, staring at the ceiling, he seems to be regretting his words.

 

"Sometimes I don't want you to go," he says.

 

"Go where?"

 

"To England."

 

She comes back, lies down next to him on the rug, and kisses him. His breath is horrible: cigarettes, coffee, bad teeth.

 

"Poor Vogel. I've made a shambles of your heart, haven't I?"

 

"Yes, I think so. Sometimes I think about taking you back to Berlin with me. I can get you a flat there."

 

"That would be lovely," she says, but she is thinking it might be better to be arrested by MI5 than spend the war as Kurt Vogel's mistress in some hovel of a flat in Berlin.

 

"But you are far too valuable to Germany to spend the war in Berlin. You must go behind enemy lines to England." He pauses and lights a cigarette. "And then there's something else I think. I think, Why would a beautiful woman fall in love with a man such as myself? And then I have my answer. She thinks he won't send her to England if he loves her."

 

"I'm not clever or cunning enough to do something like that."

 

"Of course you are. That's why I chose you."

 

She feels anger rising within her.

 

"But I've enjoyed our time together. Emilio said you were very good in bed. 'The best fuck of my entire fucking life'--that's the way Emilio described it. But then, Emilio tends to be a bit of a vulgarian. He said you were better than even the most expensive whores. He said he wanted to keep you in Spain as his mistress. I had to pay twice his usual fee. But believe me, you were well worth the money."

 

She gets to her feet. "Get out of here, now! I'm leaving in the morning. I've had enough of this hellhole!"

 

"Oh, yes, you're leaving in the morning. But it's not where you think. There's just one problem. Your trainers tell me that you are still reluctant to kill with your knife. They say you shoot very well, better than the boys, even. But they say you are slow with your stiletto."

 

She says nothing, just glares at him, lying on the rug in the firelight.

 

"I have a suggestion for you. Whenever you must use your stiletto, think of the man who hurt you when you were a little girl."

 

Her mouth drops open in horror. She has told only one person about it in her entire life: Maria. But Maria must have told Emilio--and Emilio, the bastard, told Vogel.

 

"I don't know what you're talking about," she says, but there is no conviction to her words.

 

"Of course you do. It's what made you what you are, a heartless fucking bitch."

 

She reacts instinctively. She takes a step forward and kicks him viciously beneath his chin. His head snaps back and crashes violently against the floor. He is very still, perhaps unconscious. Her stiletto is on the floor next to the fire; they have trained her to keep it near at all times. She picks it up and presses the release, and the shiny blade snaps into place. In the firelight it is bloodred. She takes a step toward Vogel. She wants to kill him, to plunge the stiletto into one of the kill zones they have taught her: the heart, the kidneys, through the ear or the eye. But Vogel is leaning on one elbow now, and there is a gun in his hand aimed at her head.

 

"Very good," he says. Blood is pouring from his mouth. "I think you're ready now. Put away the knife and sit down. We need to talk. And please, put on some clothes. You look ridiculous standing there like that."

 

She puts on a robe and stirs the embers while he dresses and tends to his mouth.

 

"You're a complete bastard. I'd be a fool to work for you, Vogel."

 

"Don't even think of trying to back out now. I'd provide the Gestapo very convincing evidence of your father's treachery against the Fuhrer. You wouldn't want to see the things they do to people like that. And if you ever cross me once you're in England. I'll deliver you to the British on a silver platter. If you think that fellow hurt you when you were a little girl, just think about being raped repeatedly by a bunch of stinking British guards. You'll be their favorite prisoner, believe me. I doubt they would ever bother to hang you."

 

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