likely to exaggerate the numbers for his master’s benefit.’ He put down the report, looking at Seaforth over the tops of his glasses as if trying to get the measure of him. ‘Your agent’s report is basically a summary of what was discussed at the last Berghof conference, with a few opinions of his own thrown in for good measure. Is that a fair description, Mr Seaforth?’
‘He’s verified the facts where he can,’ said Seaforth.
‘But he’s an army man working for General Halder, who’s another army man,’ said Churchill. ‘He’s not going to have inside information about the Luftwaffe.’
‘He knows one hell of a lot for an ADC, and a recently promoted one at that,’ Thorn observed sourly. It was his first intervention in the conversation.
‘Too good to be true? Is that what you’re saying, Alec?’ asked Churchill, looking at Thorn with interest.
‘Too right I am. The source material was nothing like this before. Now it’s the Führer this, the Führer that. It’s like we’re sitting round a table with Hitler, listening to him tell us about his war aims.’
‘My agent didn’t have access before to Führer conferences,’ Seaforth said obdurately. ‘Now he does.’
‘Why’s he helping us?’ asked Churchill. ‘Tell me that.’
‘Because he hates Hitler,’ said Seaforth. ‘A lot of the general staff do. And he has Jewish relatives – he’s angry about what’s happening over there.’
‘How well do you know this agent of yours?’
‘I recruited him personally when I was in Berlin before the war. He felt the same way then – he loved his country but hated where it was going. I have complete confidence in him.’
‘As do his superiors, judging from his recent promotion,’ observed Churchill caustically. He was silent for a moment, scratching his chin, looking long and hard at the two intelligence officers as if he were about to make a wager and were considering which one of them to place his money on. ‘Betrayal is something I’ve always found hard to understand – even when it’s an act committed for the best of motives,’ he said finally. ‘It’s outside my field of expertise. But we certainly cannot afford to look a gift horse in the mouth, even if we do choose to regard the animal with some healthy scepticism. So, let us assume for a moment that what your agent says is true and that Hitler is ready and determined to come and pay us a visit once he’s got all his forces assembled—’
‘He thinks Hitler doesn’t want to,’ said Seaforth, interrupting.
‘Thinks!’ Thorn repeated scornfully.
‘Hitler said as much at the conference,’ said Seaforth, leaning forward eagerly. ‘He wants to negotiate—’
‘A generous peace based broadly on the status quo,’ said Churchill, finishing Seaforth’s sentence by quoting verbatim from the report. ‘And that may well be exactly what he does want,’ he observed equably, picking up his smouldering cigar and leaning back in his chair. ‘The Führer thinks he is very cunning, but at bottom the way his mind works is very simple. He’s a racist – he wants to fight Slavs, not Anglo-Saxons. But the point is it doesn’t matter what he wants. We cannot negotiate with the Nazis however many Messerschmitts and submersible tanks they may have lined up against us. Do you remember what I called them when I became Prime Minister four months ago – “a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime”?’ Churchill had the gift of an actor – his voice changed, becoming grave and solemn as he recited the line from his speech. But then he smiled, taking another draw on his cigar. ‘Grand words, I know, but the truth. We must defeat Hitler or die in the attempt. There is no hope for any of us otherwise. And so the strength of his invasion force and his wish for peace cannot change our course.’
Abruptly the Prime Minister got to his feet. Thorn nodded his approval of Churchill’s policy, but Seaforth looked as though he had more to say. He opened his mouth to speak, then changed his mind.
‘Thank you, gentlemen. Reports like this one are invaluable,’ said Churchill, tapping the document on his desk. ‘If you get more intelligence like this, I shall want to see you again straight away. Both of you, mind you – I like to hear both points of view. And you can call my private secretary to set up the appointment so we don’t have delays going through the Joint Intelligence Committee – he’ll give you the number outside. My predecessors made a serious mistake in my opinion keeping the Secret Service at arm’s length. It takes a war, I suppose, to inject some sense into government.
‘Goodbye, Alec. Goodbye, Mr Seaforth,’ he said affably, shaking their hands across the desk. ‘Seaforth – an interesting name and not one I’ve heard before,’ he said pensively. ‘Sounds a bit like Steerforth – the seducer of that poor girl in David Copperfield. Came to a bad end, as I recall. A great writer, Dickens, but inclined to be sentimental, which is something we can’t afford to be at present. The stakes are too high; much too high for that.’
Exactly the same people were present in the great hall of the Berghof as the week before; the same map of Europe was spread out across the table; and Reichsmarschall Goering was wearing the same brighter-than-white uniform with gold epaulettes and buttons and black Iron Cross medals dangling at his throat. He jabbed exultantly at the towns of south-east England with his fat forefinger and listed the damage that the Luftwaffe had inflicted upon them since the last conference. He seemed oblivious to the tight-lipped frigidity of the Führer, standing beside him.
Head of an air force and he can’t even fit inside an aeroplane. Heydrich smiled for a moment, his thin, pale lips wrinkling in contemptuous amusement at the thought of Goering trying to fit his great bulk inside the narrow cockpit of a Heinkel twin-engined bomber. Once upon a time, Goering had flown, of course – in the last war he had been a fighter ace, the last commander of von Richthofen’s Flying Circus after the Red Baron was killed in action in 1918. But now he was past it, over the hill; unfit for anything useful except to go back home to Carinhall, the ugly, tasteless mansion he’d built for himself in the Schorfheide forest north-east of Berlin and fill his belly full of rich French food while he feasted his bulbous eyes on the old master paintings he’d looted out of Paris when it fell.
Heydrich could fly. He hadn’t needed to. He could have stayed behind his desk in Berlin when the war broke out, issuing orders and decrees like other ministers. But instead he’d overcome his fears and learnt because he knew that flying would make him a god, turning in silver arcs through the clouds; insulated by silk and fur against the bitter, outlandish cold; pitting his wits and nerves against an unknown enemy until death took one or the other of them, plucking them from the skies forever. Earlier in the year, he’d flown sixty missions over Norway and France, watching as the panzer divisions below had thrust their shining black armour deep into the heartlands of the enemy, accomplishing in a few short weeks what the German army had failed to do in five years of fighting during the last war. And why? What had changed to make this possible? The answer was simple. It was the leadership of Adolf Hitler – his energy and power; his extraordinary intelligence and understanding; and yes, his will. He was the one who had made the difference. He had made the soldiers believe in themselves; he had carried them forward to victory.
And today the aura of power around the Führer was even more striking than usual. Everyone in the room was in uniform except Hitler, who was wearing a black double-breasted suit and a white shirt and tie, as if he were attending a funeral and not a military conference. The Führer was always meticulous in his dress, and Heydrich was sure that the suit had been a deliberate decision, meant to emphasize his displeasure at the current progress of the war. Heydrich’s report of Agent D’s short radio message concerning Churchill’s intransigence, which he’d sent to Hitler the previous day, had only increased the Führer’s angry gloom.
‘What does it gain us if we bomb all these