His Majesty's Hope(84)
And for those, he’d need a partner. He picked up the green Bakelite receiver and dialed Mark Standish, his friend at MI-5. “I need a favor, old thing,” he said. “Can you get away from the wife and little one tonight?”
“Why?” Mark replied instantly. “Do you actually want to go out and have some fun, instead of moping after your girlfriend?”
Mark had worked with Hugh on the IRA bomb case and the Windsor case—and knew all about his relationship with Maggie. “Meet at the Rose and Crown for a pint?”
“Rose and Crown, first—and then have some fun, yes,” Hugh replied. “Lots of fun.”
By the time Hugh and Mark had downed innumerable pints at the Rose and Crown, and reached the designated storage building with the crates Hugh was supposed to paint, both young men were well and truly drunk.
The warehouse was massive and stuffy. Hugh found the light switch and turned on the overhead fluorescents. Mark had the camera from the XX Committee slung around his neck and an open can of Barkley’s stout in each hand. Hugh carried the stencils, black paint, and a paintbrush.
“So, what now?” Mark demanded, wobbling from all the beer he’d consumed. “We stencil the crates and get a few shots for Hess?”
Hugh grinned. He was staggering as well. “I have something a bit more … interesting in mind.”
He set the paint can down and pried off the lid. Inside, the paint was glossy and black, and smelled of linseed oil. He dipped his paintbrush into the thick liquid. “And here, my dear friend Mark, is where we’re going to—as Maggie likes to say—wing it.”
Mark stood back and watched as Hugh painted each box, eyes growing wider with each one. “You can’t be serious,” he protested. “Surely we’re going to turn them around and paint with the stencils now, yes?”
“No.” Hugh’s eyes were dark with suppressed anger. “We are not.”
Mark held up his hands. “You must be joking. This is career suicide.”
“She killed my father,” Hugh said. “She nearly assassinated the King and kidnapped the Princess.”
“She’s Maggie’s mother,” Mark stammered.
“Yes, and she left her. Left her. Believe me, if Maggie knew what I’m doing, she’d approve. My father—may he rest in peace—would, too.” He dipped the paintbrush into the paint, then pulled it out, splattering himself inadvertently with tiny black drops. “Get the camera!”
“You’re a madman!” Mark said, taking a swig and handing the other beer to his friend. “You’ll give the film to Masterman, he’ll somehow get it to Clara Hess in Berlin, and then—”
“And then I’ll finally have my revenge. Or at least a tiny sliver of it.”
Mark gave a gust of a sigh. He was too drunk to argue. “Well, it’s your arse on the line, my friend.”
“And that, my friend”—Hugh smiled, a wild and dangerous smile—“gives me a fantastic idea.”
Chapter Seventeen
Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, Head of the Abwehr, lifted the handset of his telephone and dialed 1 for his secretary. “Tell gnädige Frau Hess I need to see her. Now!”
Canaris was an enigma to most. A distinguished-looking man with white hair and shaggy white eyebrows, he was ostensibly head of the military intelligence organization, yet distrusted by Hitler and most of the high-ranking Nazis, including his former protégé SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich; the German Foreign Minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop; and the Abwehr’s own Clara Hess.
The truth was that Canaris was part of the undercover German resistance movement. In September 1939, the Admiral had visited Poland and seen the atrocities committed by the SS Eisengruppen. He learned, through Abwehr agents, about other incidents of mass murder throughout Poland. These murders weren’t the actions of a rogue Nazi squadron but actions on orders from Hitler himself.
Shocked and horrified, Canaris began working covertly to overthrow Hitler, posing as a loyal Nazi and trusted friend. He climbed the political ladder at the Abwehr and was instrumental in recruiting like-minded men, all determined to work against the Nazis and for the enemy for a Germany free from Hitler.
He used his position in the vipers’ nest of the Abwehr to control both the information and the so-called disinformation the Nazis received. Although he was technically Clara Hess’s boss, because of her connections with Hitler and Goebbels, she was beyond his sphere of power. Today, however, even they couldn’t help her.
And he took a moment to rejoice in the fact that he would soon be rid of her.