The Aquila Project (13 page)

‘Well done, Box. It's essential that the matter is cleared up immediately, so that any steps that have to be taken can be made by Major Blythe, who has full powers in the matter. You and I can go about our particular business secure in the knowledge that all should be well at Albany Street Police Station.'

‘And when all the police business is over, Colonel,' said Major Blythe, ‘I'll be able to give my attention to that business of Herr Kessler's private safe in Prussia House.'

Major Blythe bade Kershaw and Box goodnight, and quietly left the room. Box saw how he drew himself briefly to attention on the threshold. Whatever else he was, Major Blythe was evidently still a serving officer.

‘Now, Box,' said Kershaw, ‘Grunwalski and his associates left England on Monday, which was the ninth. You and I must set out for Poland on Thursday, the twelfth – just ten days before Project
Aquila reaches its climax at Polanska Gory. We will travel by railway up to Scotland, and make our way to Sir Hamish Bull's house, Craigarvon Tower—'

‘Ah! I see, sir!'

‘I thought you would, Box. It's a short walk from there to the Northern Fleet headquarters at Dunnock Sound, where we will step aboard the light cruiser
Albion
, which is due to make a
courtesy
visit to the German Baltic Flotilla at Danzig. The
Albion
will raise anchor and steam out of Dunnock Sound at eight o'clock on Thursday evening. It's a long haul – seventy-two hours – but it's the safest way for us to get into Poland undetected. We should drop anchor in Danzig harbour on Sunday evening, the fifteenth of July.'

‘Will there just be the two of us, sir?' asked Box. It was a
deliberately
naïve question, and Kershaw smiled in recognition of the fact.

‘No, Mr Box, there will be others. I'm taking a
sergeant-armourer
with me, a man called Morrison, and another man, Kolinsky, who is a Polish-speaking military interpreter. The four of us will travel together on HMS
Albion
. I have a few other people already on the alert in both Germany and the Polish lands of the Russian Empire – people who will be shadowing us, and who will come to our aid immediately if the need arises. I have passable papers for the four of us, though I'm hoping that we won't need to make use of them. So prepare yourself, Mr Box! On Thursday, we go a-hunting, and our quarry is a gang of madmen who aim to take the life of an emperor, and throw the peace of Europe to the dogs of war.'

Extract from
The
Daily
Chronicle
,
Tuesday, 10 July 1894.

Superintendent Keating of ‘J' Division looked gravely at the man sitting before him on an upright chair. He had known him for over thirty years, but now, if the matter was not handled carefully and subtly, he would lose not only his pension, but almost certainly his liberty. Keating glanced at the four assessors whom he had chosen to help him judge the case. They sat with him in the upstairs office at Albany Street Police Station, two on either side of him, facing the man in the upright chair. Keating rather
self-consciously
cleared his throat.

‘Detective Inspector Robert Fitzgerald,' he said, ‘after a long and distinguished career in the Metropolitan Police, you were detected in the instigation and committal of an illegal act, namely, breaking and entering. The officer who arrested you, Police Constable Thomas Philips of “W” Division, Brixton Road, reported the matter to me, and at my instigation delivered you into my custody.'

Bobby Fitz thought to himself: if I go to gaol, Mother will be sent to the workhouse. If I'm spared gaol, but dismissed in disgrace, I will lose my pension, and I'll be barred from working as a private detective. But whatever happens, I'll find something to do.

‘I've summoned you here today, Fitzgerald, to tell you the
decision
of this panel concerning your future. On my left, are Chief Superintendent Slessor, and Detective Chief Inspector Langham. On my right is Major Ronald Blythe, of the Hampstead Watch Committee, and Mr Creighton Carr, a stipendiary magistrate. You know none of these gentleman either personally or professionally, which is why I invited them to consider your case, and to advise me as to an appropriate course of action. They have done so, and have communicated their recommendation to me this morning, Thursday, 12 July, 1894. They have seen all the papers in the case, and also written pleas in mitigation from Superintendent Radcliffe of the Home Office, Superintendent Lucas of “W” Division, and Detective Inspector Box, of Scotland Yard, currently based at King James's Rents, Whitehall Place. Those pleas in mitigation have also been taken into account.'

Superintendent Keating paused, and began to speak in low tones to the men on his right and left. Bobby Fitz could hear nothing of what they were saying, and the faces of the five men remained inscrutable. Thirty years of dedicated policing, and it had all come to this!

‘Detective Inspector Fitzgerald,' the superintendent continued, ‘it is clear that you cannot remain as a member of the Metropolitan Police, and that you will be barred from joining any other police force in England, Scotland, and the Principality of Wales. However, in consideration of your many years of dedicated service, we have decided not to institute a prosecution against you, but instead, to demand your immediate resignation, on the grounds of ill health. It is understood that you have an aged mother to support, and that the loss of your police pension would have a grave effect upon your wellbeing. That is our decision. You must come up here at once, and sign the letter of resignation that I have written on your behalf.'

Bobby Fitz rose from his chair. He walked stiffly, as though in a trance, and stood before his superintendent's table. He glanced
briefly at the letter, which said that, on the advice of Doctor E.A. Thompson, police surgeon, he offered his resignation, owing to chronic congestion of the lungs. His hand trembled with relief as he signed the letter.

The committee rose noisily from their chairs, pointedly avoiding eye contact with the man whom they had judged unfit for public service. All but Superintendent Keating quickly left the room.

‘Sir, how can I thank you enough—'

‘You damned fool, Bobby,' Keating interrupted. ‘You went too far, didn't you? You thought you were impregnable. Well, nobody is. I'll miss you back in “J” – you're a good man gone to seed. We've all taken risks here today to find a way out for you. Did you know that Inspector Box has volunteered to deal with the press if any inconvenient questions are asked? Well, it's true. Now, what are you going to do?'

‘I'll see if one of the detective agencies will take me on. It's something that I could do to earn enough to keep Mother and me.'

Superintendent Keating gathered up the papers from the table where he had sat.

‘Listen, Bobby,' he said. ‘When I go out of this room, you'll find that Major Ronald Blythe will come in to see you. He wants to talk to you, and I'd advise you to gather your wits together and listen to him very carefully. That's all. When all this has blown over, we'll hope to see you from time to time in Bethnal Green Road.'

Keating shook hands briefly with his former inspector, turned abruptly to the door, and went out into the corridor.

Before Bobby Fitz had had time to recover from the enervating interview that had effectively handed him back his life, Major Ronald Blythe came into the room, closing the door behind him. Until that moment, he had been nothing more to Bobby Fitzgerald than the vague shape of a man sitting in judgement upon him
behind the table. Now he saw him as he was, a man in his late thirties, fresh-faced and with a military moustache, and shrewd but good-humoured eyes. He was informally dressed in a light tweed hacking jacket and dark trousers.

Blythe drew two chairs out from a row arranged along one of the walls of the room, and motioned to Bobby Fitz to sit down beside him. There was to be no hint of the tribunal about this meeting.

‘Mr Fitzgerald,' said Blythe, ‘I have read about your exploits, and your use of a group of criminal experts, called by you the “light fantastic boys”. I've also heard that you are a very loyal and
patriotic
man, devoted to Queen and country. Now, I can here and now enlist you into another branch of the public service which owes direct and personal allegiance to Her Majesty, an organization in which a man of your particular abilities would be a valued asset.'

‘My particular abilities, sir?'

‘Yes. The kind of talent for detection that revealed the existence of the assassin Grunwalski to the security services, and thus averted what could have been an embarrassing incident on Tower Bridge. Not only you, but your boys would have a role to play. Are you interested in my proposition? I would have immediate work for you, if you accept my offer of membership.' He added, in a more confiding tone, ‘The position is salaried, and totally secure. In all that you do, you have the Queen and the State behind you.'

‘I should very much like to join your organization, sir. You'll find that I'll not let you down.'

‘Very well. You'll understand that I am only the agent of another. In a few weeks' time, I'll take you to meet the head of our organization. Now, listen very carefully while I tell you about the little enterprise in which you will play the major part. Write nothing down, but try to commit everything I tell you to memory. There is a German diplomat who came very recently to England, a man called Franz Kessler….'

The former Detective Inspector Fitzgerald leaned forward in his chair, and gave his full attention to the man who had just given him back his future.

I
N HIS OFFICE
in the house of the Prussian Landtag in the Albrechtstrasse, Count von Donath sat at his desk and stared into vacancy, envisioning his own desired version of the future. In his mind’s eye he saw the great and gracious city of Berlin spread out as in a map, its palaces, its churches, its museums, and its thronging thoroughfares. It was here, in the capital of the Second Reich, that a new world was being fashioned.

Beyond and around the great city stretched the mighty land of the German Nation, straining at its borders with France and the vast territory of the Austrian Empire. Germany was hemmed in, choking, constrained like a great stallion longing to gallop in open terrain, but champing at the bit, and held in check by a bridle fashioned from the fossilized conventions of diplomacy.

But in the coming month of July, 1894, and upon the 21st day of the month, an event would occur that would cause the greatest convulsion seen in Europe since the demise of Napoleon….

‘Excellency, you are due at the Prussian Chamber of Deputies in half an hour.’

One of his secretaries had entered the room without his being aware of it. Von Donath pulled himself back into the present long enough to thank the man curtly, and dismiss him. He glanced out of the high window at the buildings of the Prussian Chamber across the street. It would take him only minutes to get there.

Above the fireplace hung two portraits, the likenesses of a father and his son. Frederick I, Emperor of Germany, had been a humane and kindly man, modest in peacetime and a lion in war. To many he was known by his second title, Frederick III, King of Prussia, and that was how he, von Donath, thought of him. Frederick had fought in person at Sadowa, Wörth, and Sedan, and he had taken part in the Siege of Paris. He had come to the
imperial
throne in March, 1888, and was dead of throat cancer by June: King and Emperor for ninety-nine days.

There was a finely carved ivory chess set on von Donath’s desk. He picked up the black king, examined it thoughtfully, and then placed it carefully back on its square. As in human life, each chess piece had its rank and its ordered place in the scheme of things.

Next to the portrait of Emperor Frederick was that of the current occupant of the throne, William II. It was he who had dismissed Bismarck, giving the signal to men like von Donath that the old order of things was about to change. Young, and
headstrong
, he was both loved and revered by the German people and nation.

All was going well. The Thirty were little more than a rumour to most people. Some members of the Imperial Chancellery regarded it as a fictional bogey, thought up by foreign rivals to create instability in the Reich. Well, let them go on thinking so, until the 21st.

He had introduced the 2 zloty coins as a kind of identity token at Augustyniak’s instigation. That kind of romantic nonsense appealed to his Polish nature. Well, it was harmless enough. Augustyniak had proved to be a first-rate organizer, although he could have no idea that he was being used for a secret nefarious purpose. When the map of Europe was reshaped, he would receive his just reward.

Yes, Augustyniak had done well, and so had devoted, deadly Franz Kessler. He had received Kessler’s long telegram from London only the day before. Kessler had minor worries, but then,
he was a worrier by nature. He feared that Sir Charles Napier had seen through Augustyniak, and had insinuated a Foreign Office agent into the Baron’s household in the guise of a servant – a housemaid, so Kessler said, and a clumsy one at that. This was highly unlikely: Napier employed couriers to do his bidding. Sending out young girls dressed up as housemaids was hardly his
modus
operandi.

Von Donath rose from his desk, and gathered up the notes for his coming speech to the Deputies of the Prussian Chamber. It was on the concept of legal appeals in the Code Napoleon. He suddenly stopped, as an unpleasant, but exciting, memory came to the fore in his crowded mind. That day in Berlin, that wet day last May, had been the moment when the whole project became possible, with the elimination of the treacherous double agent, Paul Claus.

Franz Kessler himself had volunteered to be the assassin. It was he who had arranged for Claus to be surrounded by a crowd of accomplices – he remembered how they had sheltered all the time beneath their wet umbrellas – and had then stabbed him to the heart. By prior arrangement, Kessler had slipped the still reeking knife into von Donath’s pocket. The police would never have even considered questioning, let alone searching, a man of von Donath’s eminence. He had dropped the knife into the Spree, as he crossed the Kaiser Wilhelm Bridge.

Surely it had been an act of fate that Claus’s Polish coin had dropped from his pocket into the street, where he, von Donath, had retrieved it? Yes, it had been a signal from the gods to proceed as planned with Project Aquila – the elimination of an emperor, and the dawn of a new era in Europe. All was in readiness. The positions at the bridge had been carefully worked out, and the chosen assassin had been fully primed. Nothing could go wrong. And after that fateful hour, they would fill the prisons with their political foes.

Von Donath picked up the white king, and subjected it to
careful scrutiny. Then he placed it back precisely upon its square. A clock in the room chimed the quarter before eleven. With a sudden movement of his hand, von Donath swept the chess pieces off the board, and watched as the little ivory kings rolled
helplessly
across his desk.

It was time for people to leave their preordained ranks and make a bold bid to secure the future. That would happen on the 21st.

Von Donath left the room, descended the stairs, and strolled across the Albrechtstrasse to the Prussian Chamber of Deputies.

Colonel Kershaw and Inspector Box stood together on the
foredeck
of HMS
Albion
, watching the armoured prow of the cruiser cutting its path through the choppy waters of the North Sea. Above them, screaming gulls wheeled about in a sky filled with sullen clouds. A following wind blew down swaths of acrid black smoke from the vessel’s two tall, raked stacks across the decks. It was the early morning of Friday, 13 July.

‘An unlucky day? Perhaps so, Mr Box,’ Kershaw was saying, ‘but not for us, surely? It’s The Thirty who will remember this as an inauspicious day – the day when you and I, and our
companions
, set out to frustrate their knavish tricks.’

Colonel Kershaw was wearing his favourite long black overcoat with the astrakhan collar, but instead of his usual silk hat, he had donned a flapped cap, which buttoned beneath his chin. Box himself had chosen to appear in his usual day clothes, with his fashionable overcoat and curly-brimmed bowler. After all, Danzig was a big city, full of civilized folk going about their daily business – or was it?

‘Sir,’ asked Box, ‘what kind of a place is Danzig? Would you say that it’s similar to London?’

‘Well, Box, it’s a great port, and a vital gateway for German trade into the Baltic. It’s also the capital of Western Prussia. So, yes, it has some points of similarity with London, though, of
course, it’s only a fraction of its size. Its population is about two hundred thousand. It’s been part of Prussia since 1814, so you can see why these wild notions of an independent Poland – which would have to include Danzig, or Gdansk, as the Poles call it – are dangerously destabilizing. It’s a city where many Germans think they are Poles, and some Poles think they are Germans. A rather sturdy minority of both nationalities think they’re Russian…. But you may be sure of this: any hint of Danzig ceasing to be German would set the whole of Germany in arms.’

‘What will happen when we arrive there?’

‘The
Albion
will tie up at one of the wharfs of the German Northern Flotilla in the Naval Dockyard facing on to the Gulf of Danzig. It’s a goodwill visit, so there will be an official reception for the ship at the dockside, but that won’t take place until Monday morning. Meanwhile, we will be met by someone who will convey us from the
Albion
to a house in a little street near the artillery barracks in the Wall Gasse, where we will spend the night.’

‘This house, sir—’

‘It belongs to a man called Roger Besnasse, a Lithuanian oil and tar merchant. It’s by way of being an intelligence exchange for people engaged on discreet missions. The German authorities know it’s there, but see the wisdom of letting it operate. Prussian State Intelligence uses it quite frequently. It’s a useful staging-post for ventures like ours.

‘Early the next morning we shall travel by railway to Posen, and from there by a single-track branch line to a place called Limburg, which is little more than a fortified railway station a quarter of a mile from the Russian border. We cross into Russian Poland from there.’

Arnold Box digested this information, but made no reply. He looked ahead of him at the restless waves of the North Sea. They would be sailing past Holland by now, he mused, and in another hour, perhaps, they would be skirting German Heligoland.

Next year, if all went well, the great Kiel Canal, linking the North Sea to the Baltic, would be open. Until then, access by ship to Danzig entailed a wearisome journey around Denmark’s Jutland Peninsula via the Skagerrak. Evidently, Colonel Kershaw thought that this long, slow haul by sea was necessary.

‘What exactly do you propose to do, sir, when we arrive at Polanska Gory? As we are entering Russia illegally—’

‘Listen, Box,’ said Kershaw, his face flushing with an
uncharacteristic
anger, ‘Grunwalski was one of my agents, selected and groomed by me to infiltrate himself into this rotten gang, and help me to destroy it. I chose him, and then I lost him! I want that gang destroyed, and I want Grunwalski back. All this affair is
my
fault.’

Colonel Kershaw frowned, and bit his lip. Box remained silent, waiting for him to speak. He had never before heard the colonel be so bitterly self-critical.

‘Yes,’ Kershaw continued, ‘I want Grunwalski back safely in England, but I don’t want any of the listeners for foreign
intelligence
services to know that I’m in pursuit of him. I must not appear in the affair. And that’s why we’re travelling incognito through Germany, and then into the Russian Empire, without the knowledge of the external authorities. I can’t call on the
conventional
forces of law and order to assist me. But I have my ways, Box, and what I can’t plan beforehand, I’ll contrive on the spur of the moment. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, sir, I do. And it’s not entirely your fault, you know. The Metropolitan Police had arrested Grunwalski, and were actually holding him in custody. We let him be sprung by Augustyniak and his conspirators, because we’d failed to realize the full seriousness of the situation. So let’s share the responsibility, sir, and get on with ensuring the solution.’

Colonel Kershaw chuckled, and clapped Box on the back. The inspector’s words seemed to have restored his good humour. He talked more optimistically of the coming adventure, and some minutes later the two men parted company. The
Albion
continued
to cruise steadily at fifteen knots on a voyage that would take them out of the North Sea, and into the Strait of Jutland.

In a room on the top floor of one of the buildings constituting the Berlin barracks of the 32nd Imperial Field Regiment, Count von und zu Thalberg, Head of Prussian Military Intelligence, was reading a report from one of his discreet agents resident in England. It was a matter of wry amusement to Thalberg that such a passionate Anglophile as himself should be receiving intelligence reports of this nature from the heart of the British Empire. But it was a dangerous time, this last decade of the nineteenth century, and of all the enemies of stability in Europe, complacency was probably the most deadly. There were hotheads everywhere.

Count von und zu Thalberg was a distinguished man in his late forties, smartly dressed, but with the easy elegance of the old Prussian aristocracy about him. At one time a field commander, he had been for many years one of the principal officers of the German Military Intelligence. Three years earlier, he had become its head.

‘Augustyniak’s Polish Institute in London,’ he said aloud, ‘is already well established as a front for the conspirators in their crazed attempt to establish an independent Poland. Augustyniak is a bit of a romantic dreamer, as we know, but none the less
effective
for that. On the 9 July, the baron hosted a dinner party at his house in London, at which some core members of The Thirty were present. Franz Kessler was there. So were Balonek and Haremza, the poisonous Gerdler, and that fanatic, Eidenschenk.’

Thalberg had addressed his remarks to a stocky little man dressed in a rusty old black frock coat, who sat upright at a small wooden table on the far side of the high-ceilinged room. He had a wide, wooden countenance, adorned with an old-fashioned German moustache. He looked like a weather-beaten old farmer. The man paused in his examination of a number of maps which he had spread out on the table.

‘And what did they do, Excellency?’ he asked.

‘Each man gave an account of himself, and then they all talked treason until some domestic incident interrupted them – something about a thieving servant. The most important piece of information gleaned from their meeting, was that Grunwalski and his keepers left London for Poland on the very same day, 9 July. It seems that Grunwalski may have thrown in his lot with The Thirty – I say “seems”, because, of course, men like Grunwalski are trained to dissemble. Another very interesting point is that Doctor Kessler is convinced that our old friend Detective Inspector Box is on their track. You remember him, do you not,
Oberfeldwebel
?’

The sergeant-major permitted himself a little throaty chuckle.

‘Herr Box! Yes, Excellency, he and I became good friends. I first met him, I recall, when you and I were staying at Minster Priory, in the English county of Wiltshire, where you conferred with the
Herr
Oberst
Kershaw. That was the beginning of the business that had its dramatic finale at the Rundstedt Channel. Do you intend to inform Colonel Kershaw of your interest in this Polish business?’