Flight of Eagles. Jack Higgins

      ‘Reichsführer.’

      Hartmann wore an unusual uniform, consisting of flying blouse and baggy pants Luftwaffe-style, but in field grey. His collar tabs were those of a major in the SS, although he wore the Luftwaffe’s pilot’s badge and sported an Iron Cross First and Second Class. He also wore the German Cross in gold. The silver cuff title on his sleeve said RFSS: Reichsführer SS. This was the cuff title of Himmler’s personal staff. Above it was the SD badge indicating that he was also a member of Sicherheitsdienst, SS Intelligence, a formidable combination.

      ‘In what way can I be of service, Reichsführer?’

      At that time, Hartmann was thirty, almost six feet with a handsome, craggy face, his broken nose – the relic of an air crash – giving him a definite attraction. He wore his hair, more red than brown, in close-cropped Prussian style. A Luftwaffe fighter pilot who had been badly injured in a crash in France before the Battle of Britain, he’d been posted to the Air Courier Service, to transport high-ranking officers in Fieseler Storch spotter planes, when a strange incident had occurred.

      Himmler’s visit to Abbeville had been curtailed and, due to bad weather, the Junkers which had been due to pick him up had been unable to get in. As it happened, Hartmann was at the airfield with his Storch, having dropped off a general, and Himmler had commandeered him.

      What had happened then was like a bad dream. Rising above low cloud and rain, Hartmann had been bounced by a Spitfire. Bullets shredding his wings, he’d had the courage to go back to the mess below, with the Spitfire in on his tail. A further salvo had shattered his windscreen and rocked the aircraft.

      Himmler, incredibly calm, had said, ‘Have we had it?’

      ‘Not if you like a gamble, Reichsführer.’

      ‘By all means,’ Himmler told him.

      Hartmann had gone down into the mist and rain, 2000, 1000, broken into open country at 500 feet, and hauled back on the control column. Behind him, the Spitfire pilot, losing his nerve, had backed away.

      Himmler, a notoriously superstitious man, had always asserted that he believed in God and was immediately convinced that Hartmann was an instrument of divine intervention. Having him thoroughly investigated, he was enchanted to discover that the young man had a doctorate in law from the University of Vienna, and the upshot was that Hartmann was transferred to the SS on Himmler’s personal staff to be his pilot and goodluck charm, but, in view of his legal background, he was also to serve with SS intelligence as the Reichsführer’s personal aide.

      Himmler said, ‘The Blitz on London continues. I’ve been with the Führer. We will overcome in the end, of course. Panzers will yet roll up to Buckingham Palace.’

      With personal reservations, Hartmann said, ‘Undeniably, Reichsführer.’

      ‘Yes, well, we let the English stew for the time being and turn to Russia. The Führer has an almost divine inspir-ation here. At most, six weeks should see the Red Menace overcome once and for all.’

      Hartmann, in spite of serious doubts, agreed. ‘Of course.’

      ‘However,’ Himmler said, ‘I’ve spoken to Admiral Canaris about the intelligence situation in England and frankly, it’s not good.’ Canaris headed the Abwehr, German Military Intelligence. ‘As far as I can judge, all our Abwehr agents in Britain have been taken.’

      ‘So it would appear.’

      ‘And we can do nothing.’ Himmler was angry. ‘It’s disgraceful!’

      ‘Not quite, Reichsführer,’ Hartmann said. ‘As you know, I’ve taken over Department 13, after Major Klein died of cancer last year. And I’ve discovered that he recruited a few deep cover agents before the war.’

      ‘Really? Who would these people be?’

      ‘Irish mostly, disaffected with the British establishment. Even the Abwehr has had dealings with the Irish Republican Army.’

      ‘Ach, those people are totally unreliable,’ Himmler told him.

      ‘With respect, not all, Reichsführer. And Klein also recruited to his payrolls various neutrals – some Spanish and Portuguese diplomats.’

      Himmler got up and went to the window. He stood, hands behind his back, then turned. ‘You are telling me we have, in the files, deep cover agents the Abwehr doesn’t know about?’

      ‘Exactly.’

      Himmler nodded. ‘Yes. Yes, this is good. I want you to pursue this matter, Hartmann, in addition to your usual duties, of course. Make sure they are still in place and ready when needed. Do you understand me?’

      ‘At your command, Reichsführer.’

      ‘You may go.’

      Hartmann returned to his own office, where his secretary, Trudi Braun, forty and already a war widow, looked up from her desk. She was devoted to Hartmann – such a hero, and a tragic figure besides, his wife killed in the first RAF raid on Berlin. She was unaware that Hartmann had almost heaved a sigh of relief when it happened; his wife had chased everything in trousers from the start of their marriage.

      ‘Trouble, Major?’ she asked.

      ‘You could say that, Trudi. Come in and bring coffee.’

      He sat behind his desk and lit a cigarette, and she joined him two minutes later, a cup for her and a cup for him. She sat in the spare chair.

      ‘So?’

      Hartmann took a bottle of brandy from a drawer and poured some in his coffee, mainly because his left leg hurt, another legacy of that plane crash.

      ‘Trudi, I know our esteemed Reichsführer believes God is on our side, but he now also believes Operation Sealion will still take place.’

      ‘Really, sir?’ Trudi had no opinion on such matters.

      ‘So, that list of Klein’s you told me about. You worked for him – give me a full rundown on it, particularly the Spanish or Portuguese that were on his payroll.’

      ‘They still are, Major.’

      ‘Well, now it’s pay-up time. Come on, Trudi.’

      She said, ‘Well, one of the contacts, a Portuguese man in London named Fernando Rodrigues, has actually passed on low-grade information from time to time. He works at their London embassy.’

      ‘Really,’ Hartmann said. ‘And who else?’

      ‘Some woman called Dixon – Sarah Dixon. She’s a clerk at the War Office in London.’

      Hartmann sat up straight. ‘Are you serious? We have a clerk in the War Office and she’s still in place?’

      ‘Well, she was never Abwehr. You see, if I may talk about how things were before your arrival, Major, only the Abwehr were supposed to run agents abroad. Major Klein’s operation for SD was really illegal. So, when the Brits penetrated the Abwehr and lifted all their agents in England, ours were left intact. They were never compromised.’

      ‘I see.’ Hartmann was excited. ‘Get me the files.’

      Fernando Rodrigues was a commercial attaché at the Portuguese London embassy and his brother, Joel, was a commercial attaché at the Berlin embassy. Very convenient. Hartmann read the files and recognized the two of them for what they were: greedy men with their hands out. So be it. At least you knew where you were with people like that and you could always cut the hand off.

      Sarah Dixon was different. She was forty-five, the widow of George Dixon, a bank clerk who’d died of war wounds from 1917. Originally Sarah Brown, she’d been born in London of an English father and Irish mother. Her grandfather, an IRA activist in the Easter Rising in Dublin against the British, had been shot.

      She lived alone in Bayswater in London, had worked as a clerk at the War Office since 1938. She had originally been recruited as an IRA