"Let us reverse the roles," Hitler finally said. "If I were going to invade France from England, what would I do? Would I come by the obvious route, the route my enemy expects me to take? Would I stage a frontal assault on the most heavily defended portion of the coastline? Or would I take another route and attempt to surprise my enemy? Would I broadcast false wireless messages and send false reports through spies? Would I make misleading statements to the press? The answer to all these questions is yes. We must expect the British to engage in deception and even a major diversionary landing. As much as I would wish them to attempt a landing at Calais, we must be prepared for the possibility of an invasion at Normandy or Brittany. Therefore, our panzers must remain safely back from the coast until the enemy's intentions are clear. Then we will concentrate our armor at the main point of the attack and hurl them back into the sea."
"There is one other thing to take into account that might support your argument," Field Marshal Erwin Rommel said.
Hitler spun on his heel to face him. "Go on, Herr Generalfeldmarshal."
Rommel gestured at the large floor-to-ceiling map behind Hitler. "If you would permit a demonstration, my Fuhrer."
"Of course."
Rommel reached inside his briefcase, removed a pair of calipers, and walked to the map. In December, Hitler had ordered him to assume command of Army Group B along the Channel coast. Army Group B included the 7th Army in the Normandy area, the 15th Army between the Seine estuary and the Zuider Zee, and the Army of the Netherlands. Physically and psychologically recovered from his disastrous defeats in North Africa, the famed Desert Fox had thrown himself into his new assignment with an incredible display of energy, dashing about the French coast in his Mercedes 230 cabriolet at all hours, inspecting his coastal defenses and the disposition of his troops and armor. He had promised to turn the French coastline into a "Devil's garden"--a landscape of artillery, minefields, concrete fortifications, and barbed wire from which the enemy would never emerge. Yet privately, Rommel believed any fortification devised by man could be defeated by man.
Standing before the map, Rommel pulled open the calipers. "This represents the range of the enemy's Spitfire and Mustang fighter planes. These are the locations of major fighter bases in the south of England." He placed one end of the calipers on each of the sites and drew a series of arcs on the map. "As you can see, my Fuhrer, both Normandy and Calais are well within range of the enemy's fighters. Therefore, we must regard both areas as possible sites for the invasion."
Hitler nodded, impressed by Rommel's display. "Place yourself in the enemy's position for a moment, Herr Generalfeldmarshal. If you were attempting to invade France from England, where would you strike?"
Rommel made a brief show of thought, then said, "I must admit, my Fuhrer, that all signs point to an invasion at the Pas de Calais. But I cannot rid myself of the belief that the enemy would never attempt a frontal assault on our strongest concentration of forces. I am also tainted by the experience of Africa. The British engaged in deception before the battle of Alamein, and they will do so again before an invasion of France."
"And the Westwall, Herr Generalfeldmarshal? How is the work proceeding?"
"Much to be done, my Fuhrer. But we are making good progress."
"Will it be done before spring?"
"I believe so. But coastal fortifications alone cannot stop the enemy. We need to have our armor arrayed properly. And for that I'm afraid we need to know where they plan to strike. Nothing short of that will be of any use. If the enemy succeeds, the war may be lost."
"Nonsense," Heinrich Himmler said. "Under the Fuhrer, Germany's ultimate victory is beyond question. The beaches of France will be a graveyard for the British and the Americans."
"No," Hitler said, waving his hand, "Rommel is correct. If the enemy is able to secure a beachhead, the war is lost. But if we destroy the invasion before it ever gets started"--Hitler's head tilted back, eyes blazing--"it would take months to organize another attempt. The enemy would never try again. Roosevelt would never be re-elected. He might even end up in jail somewhere! British morale would collapse overnight. Churchill, that sick fat old man, would be destroyed! With the Americans and the British paralyzed, licking their wounds, we can take men and materiel from the West and pour them into the East. Stalin will be at our mercy. He will sue for peace. Of this, I am certain."
Hitler paused, allowing his words to sink in.
"But if the enemy is to be stopped we must know the location of the invasion," he said. "My generals think it will be Calais. I'm skeptical." He spun on his heel and glared at Canaris. "Herr Admiral, I want you to settle the argument."
"That may not be possible," Canaris said carefully.
"Is it not the task of the Abwehr to provide military intelligence?"
"Of course, my Fuhrer."
"You have spies operating inside Britain--this report about General Eisenhower's arrival in London is proof of that."
"Obviously, my Fuhrer."
"Then I suggest you get to work, Herr Admiral. I want
proof
of the enemy's intentions. I want you to bring me the secret of the invasion--and quickly. Let me assure you, you don't have much time."
Hitler paled visibly and seemed suddenly exhausted.
"Now, unless you gentlemen have any more bad news for me, I'm going to get a few hours of sleep. It's been a very long night."
They all rose as Hitler walked up the stairs.
5
NORTHERN SPAIN: AUGUST 1936
He is standing before the doors, open to the warm night, holding a bottle of icy white wine. He pours himself another glass without offering to refill hers. She is lying on the bed, smoking, listening to his voice. Listening to the warm wind stirring the trees off the veranda. Heat lightning is flickering silently over the valley.
His
valley, as he always says. My fucking valley. And if the mother-fucking Loyalists ever try to take it from me I'll cut off their fucking balls and feed them to the dogs.
"Who taught you to shoot like that?" he demands. They went hunting in the morning and she has taken four pheasant to his one.
"My father."
"You shoot better than me."
"So I've noticed."
The lightning is quietly in the room again and she can see Emilio clearly for a few seconds. He is thirty years older, yet she thinks he is beautiful. His hair is gray-blond, the sun has made his face the color of oiled saddle leather. His nose is long and sharp, an ax blade. She wanted to be kissed by his lips but he wanted her very fast and rough the first time, and Emilio always gets what he fucking wants, darling.
"You speak English very well," he informs her, as if she is hearing this for the first time. "Your accent is perfect. I could never lose mine, no matter how hard I tried."
"My mother was English."
"Where is she now?"
"She died a long time ago."
"You have French as well?"
"Yes," she answers.
"Italian?"
"Yes. I have Italian."
"Your Spanish is not so good, though."
"Good enough," she says.
He is fingering his cock while he speaks. He loves it like he loves his money and his land. He speaks of it as though it is one of his finest horses. In bed it is like a third person.
"You lie with Maria by the stream; then at night you let me come to your bed and fuck you," he says.
"That's one way of putting it," she answers. "Do you want me to stop with Maria?"
"You make her happy," he says, as if happiness is grounds for anything.
"She makes
me
happy."
"I've never known a woman like you before." He sticks a cigarette into the corner of his mouth and lights it, hands cupped against the evening breeze. "You fuck me and my daughter on the same day without blinking an eye."
"I don't believe in forming attachments."
He laughs his quiet, controlled laugh.
"That's wonderful," he says, and laughs quietly again. "You don't believe in forming attachments. That's marvelous. I pity the poor bastard who makes the mistake of falling in love with you."
"So do I."
"Do you have any feelings?"
"No, not really."
"Do you love anyone or anything?"
"I love my father," she says. "And I love lying by the stream with Maria."
Maria is the only woman she has ever met whose beauty is a threat to her. She neutralizes that threat by pillaging Maria's beauty for herself. Her mane of brown curly hair. Her flawless olive skin. The perfect breasts that are like summer pears in her mouth. The lips that are the softest things she has ever touched. "Come to Spain for the summer and live with me at my family's
estancia,
" Maria says one rainy afternoon in Paris, where they are both studying at the Sorbonne. Father will be disappointed, but the idea of spending the summer in Germany watching the fucking Nazis parading around the streets holds nothing for her. She did not know she would be walking straight into a civil war instead.
But the war does not intrude on Emilio's insolent enclave of paradise in the foothills of the Pyrenees. It is the most wonderful summer of her life. In the morning the three of them hunt or run the dogs, and in the afternoon she and Maria ride up to the stream, swim in the icy deep pools, sun themselves on the warm rocks. Maria likes it best when they are outside. She likes the sensation of the sun on her breasts and Anna between her legs. "My father wants you too, you know," Maria announces one afternoon as they lie in the shade of a eucalyptus tree. "You can have him. Just don't fall in love with him. Everyone is in love with him."
Emilio is talking again.
"When you return to Paris next month there's someone I want you to meet. Will you do that for me?"
"That depends."
"On what?"
"On who it is."
"He will contact you. When I tell him about you he will be very interested."
"I'm not going to sleep with him."
"He won't be interested in sleeping with you. He's a family man. Like me," he adds, and laughs his laugh again.
"What's his name?"
"Names are not important to him."
"Tell me his name."
"I'm not sure which name he's using these days."
"What does your friend do?"
"He deals in information."
He comes back to the bed. Their conversation has aroused him. His cock is hard and he wants her again right away. He is pushing her legs apart and trying to find his way inside her. She takes him in her hands to help him, then digs her nails into him.
"Ahhhh! Anna, my God! Not so hard!"
"Tell me his name."
"It's against the rules-I can't!"
"Tell me," she says, and squeezes him harder.
"Vogel," he mutters. "His name is Kurt Vogel. Jesus Christ."
BERLIN: JANUARY 1944
The Abwehr had two primary kinds of spies operating against Britain. The S-Chain consisted of agents who entered the country, settled under assumed identities, and engaged in espionage. R-Chain agents were mainly third-country nationals who periodically entered Britain legally, collected intelligence, and reported back to their masters in Berlin. There was a third, a smaller and highly secretive network of spies, referred to as the V-Chain--a handful of exceptionally trained sleeper agents who burrowed deeply into English society and waited, sometimes for years, to be activated. It was named for its creator and single control officer, Kurt Vogel.
Vogel's modest empire consisted of two rooms on the fourth floor of Abwehr headquarters, located in a pair of dour gray stone town houses at 74-76 Tirpitz Ufer. The windows overlooked the Tiergarten, the 630-acre park in the heart of Berlin. Once it had been a spectacular view, but months of Allied bombing had left panzer-sized craters in the bridle paths and reduced most of the chestnut and lime trees to blackened stumps. Much of Vogel's office was consumed by a row of locked steel cabinets and a heavy safe. He suspected the clerks in the Abwehr's central registry had been turned by the Gestapo and he refused to keep files there. His only assistant--a decorated Wehrmacht lieutenant named Werner Ulbricht who was maimed fighting the Russians--worked in the anteroom. He kept a pair of Lugers in the top drawer of his desk and had been instructed by Vogel to shoot anyone who entered without permission. Ulbricht had nightmares about mistakenly killing Wilhelm Canaris.