The question was delivered softly, but the unspoken threat was clear. The two men nodded.
‘Then we’ll say no more for the moment.’
When they left, he stared at the door for a long time. Not quite sure. It might be better to be safe than to take the chance. He picked up a secure satellite phone from the desk and punched a speed-dial button. It was answered after two rings.
‘Well?’
‘I think it may have been a mistake not to bring in our own team.’
The man at the other end gave a faint snort of irritation. ‘We talked about that. The risks outweighed the advantages.’
‘Perhaps we are pushing forward too quickly and too hard,’ the pale man persisted. ‘We have waited a long time for this opportunity. What is another few months, even years, when balanced against the possible rewards?’
They had also talked about that, and he knew bringing up the subject would annoy the other man. Old men were always in a hurry, trying to make up for the time they had wasted in their youth and fearful that their next breath might be their last. Ever ready to snatch at opportunities. He was different. He had been taught patience from the day he was born, groomed to take advantage of the chance that might be about to present itself.
His listener chose to ignore the question. ‘What are your specific concerns about these men, Frederick?’
The younger man smiled, amused by the use of his work name. Their dealings were conducted by single-use satellite phones using software that scrambled their voices, but the employment of the name was still a threat and they both knew it. ‘They were recommended to me by a security company on the basis of their local knowledge and past record. I fear their talents may have been exaggerated.’
‘They dealt with the old Pole discreetly enough.’
‘That is true, but I questioned them again about Saintclair’s grandfather. Campbell claimed it was an accident, but I think there may be more to it than that. They knew how vital he was to the operation. They knew he was an old man. They should have treated him with more caution. Either they were careless or they overstepped the mark. Campbell says he squirmed free as they were taking him upstairs. Perhaps that is true and perhaps it is not, but the fact is it should never have happened.’
‘Do you believe lasting damage has been done?’
‘No,’ Frederick admitted. ‘The police are treating it as a household accident and are not linking it to the burglary. There is no reason Saintclair should be alerted.’
‘But?’
‘But perhaps Mr Campbell and Mr McKenzie should be given a demonstration of the consequences of any further mistakes.’
The shortest of pauses. ‘Arrange it.’ Despite the scrambler, he could hear the grim smile in the other man’s voice. ‘What is your feeling about the journal?’
Frederick frowned, annoyed by the question. He didn’t deal in feelings. He dealt in facts. That was what made him different from the other man. For the moment, he was the junior, but there was no telling when that might change. ‘If,’ he placed heavy emphasis on the word, ‘the journal exists, then Saintclair is the way to get to it.’
‘Very well.’ Were the words followed by a period of hesitation, or merely contemplation? ‘As long as Saintclair is useful to us I want him protected. Once we have what we want, get rid of him.’
IX
JAMIE’S HEART QUICKENED. He was closing in on Operation Equity.
I have a great deal of respect for Fitzpatrick. He has led three Jedburgh operations in France and Holland, and I know only too well the kind of strength, physical and mental, that is required to survive that kind of test. Still, it is difficult to describe the loathing I felt for him at that moment.
For weeks we have been swanning around Germany in the wake of the Allied spearhead, strong-arming German mayors and interrogating hundreds of suspect men and women. Strange that not one of them had ever been a Nazi, in a country where the majority of people who weren’t Nazis ended up in the awful concentration camps we’ve liberated. After Belsen my German tastes like vomit in my mouth. We still lose a few men to ambushes and accidents, but we regard this holiday from the war as just recompense for our earlier efforts, which were considerable. Compared to Malestroit and Arnhem this was a picnic.
Frowning, Jamie tapped the word ‘Jedburgh’ into the laptop Gail had brought to the hospital. Pages and pages on a quaint historic market town in the Scottish Borders. Puzzled, he added the word ‘operations’ . . . and was invited into a deadly new world.
Jedburgh was the code name for small teams of highly skilled clandestine soldiers, operated by the Special Operations Executive and the American OSS, who were dropped by parachute into Occupied France prior to the D-Day invasion. This also explained the reference to the meeting in Baker Street – the location of SOE headquarters. Unlike SOE’s undercover agents, the first priority of the Jedburghs, normally a three-man unit composed of experienced special forces soldiers from the United States, Britain and the host country, was not to gather information or carry out sabotage. Instead, their primary purpose was to liaise with local resistance movements and provide guidance, training and access to weapons. Sometimes this would involve a few dozen men, but in one well-recorded case, in Brittany, more than a thousand resisters supported by Jedburgh teams and a squadron of French SAS, had fought an entire German regiment to a standstill.