Chapter 11 chapter Ten

Flick's home was a single room in a huge old house in Bayswater Street, her room was in the attic, and if the bomb had passed through the roof it would have landed directly on her bed.She was rarely here, not because she was afraid of the bombs, but because her actual life was elsewhere—in France, at SOE headquarters, or in one of the operations' training centers across the country.There were not many things that belonged to her in the house, a picture of Michel playing the guitar, a bookshelf with original French works by Flaubert and Molière, and a watercolor she had painted in Nice when she was fifteen.Three drawers of the low cabinet were for clothes, and one for guns and ammunition.

Exhausted and depressed, she lay undressed on the bed, flipping through a copy of Review.She had read in a magazine that Berlin had just been bombed by fifteen hundred planes last Wednesday, which was incredible.She imagined what that scene meant to the average German living there, and her mind was filled with hellish scenes from medieval paintings, where naked people were burned alive by fire from above.She turned a page, and there was a nonsensical report about a second-rate V-brand tobacco passed off as Honeysuckle. Thoughts brought her back to yesterday's defeat, and she replayed the entire battle in her mind, imagining whether she would have won instead of lost if she had made this or that decision.She lost the battle and also worried that she might lose her husband, wondering if there was any connection between the two.She is not fit to be a leader, nor is she fit to be a wife, maybe there is some kind of flaw deep in her character.

Now, her alternative has also been rejected, with little hope of redress.All those brave men died in vain. At last she fell asleep restlessly.When she was woken up, she heard someone knocking hard on the door and shouting: "Flick! Phone!" It was a girl who lived downstairs in her house calling her. The clock on Flick's shelf said six. "Whose phone?" she asked. "He just said it was from the office." "I'll come." She put on her dressing gown.She was a little confused as to whether it was six o'clock in the morning or six o'clock in the evening, and she glanced out of the small window where the sun was setting on the rows of elegant terraces on Radbroke Grove Street.She ran downstairs to answer the phone in the hall.

It was Percy Sweet's voice: "Sorry to wake you up." "It's okay." It always pleased her to hear Percy's voice on the other end of the line.She liked him more and more, even though he repeatedly sent her into danger.Managing secret agents is a tiresome job, and some high-ranking officers are self-numbing, with a hard-hearted attitude towards the death or capture of their own.But Percy was never like that, every loss felt like a bereavement.Therefore, Flick knew that he would never let her take unnecessary risks.She trusts him. "Can you come to Orchard Palace?"

Maybe the higher-ups reconsidered her new plan to take down the telephone exchange, and her heart suddenly lifted, and she felt hopeful. "Monty changed his mind?" "I'm afraid not. It's just that I want you to brief someone." She bit her lip, suppressing her disappointment. "I'll be there in a few minutes." She quickly put on her clothes and took the subway to Baker Street.Percy was waiting for her in the apartment in Portman Square. "I found a radio operator, inexperienced, but he's done his training. I'll take him to Reims tomorrow."

Flick reflexively looked out the window to see what the weather was like, the way agents always do when it comes to flying.Percy's curtains were drawn for safety, but she knew the weather was fine anyway. "To Lance? Why?" "We don't have any news from Michelle today. I need to know how much is left of the Bollinger group." Flick nodded.The radio operator, Pierre, also took part in the operation and must have been captured or killed.Michel could have found Pierre's radio transceiver, but he was not trained to operate it and certainly didn't know the code. "What is your plan?"

"We've been sending them tons of weapons and explosives over the past few months. I want them to make some noise. The telephone exchange is the most important target, but not the only one. Even if there is no With a few men left, they could still blow up the railroads, cut the telephone lines, raid the sentry posts—all useful things, but I can't command them without the means of communication." Flick shrugged. For her, the castle was the only important goal, and everything else was trivial.But leave it alone. "I'll brief him, no problem." Percy gave her a meaningful look, and said, "How's Michelle? I mean aside from the injury."

"It's okay." Flick was silent for a while.Percy stared at her, she couldn't fool him, he knew her too well.Finally she sighed and said, "There's a girl over there." "That's what worries me." "I don't know what's left in my marriage," she said wretchedly. "I am very depressed." "I would feel better if I could say to myself that I sacrificed all this for some purpose, to launch an attack that would injure the enemy and help the great counteroffensive to win." "For two years, you've contributed more than most."

"But there's no second prize in war, is there?" "right." She stood up.She was grateful for Percy's loving sympathy, but it made her emotionally vulnerable. "I'd better go and introduce the new operator." "Code-named 'Helicopter' and he's waiting in the study. I'm afraid he's not brilliant, but the lad is brave." This made Flick feel a little sloppy. "Why send him if he's not very good? He could be a danger to others." "As you've said before - this is our big moment. If the invasion fails, we'll lose Europe. We're going to throw whatever we can at the enemy, because there won't be another chance."

Flick nodded coldly.Percy contradicted her with what she had said, but he was right.The only difference is that this time, human lives are threatened, including Michelle's. "Well," she said, "I'd better start right away." "He is eager to see you." She frowned and said, "Desire? Why?" Percy smiled wryly. "You'll know when you meet." Flick left the living room of the apartment, which Percy used as his office, and went down the corridor.His secretary was typing in the kitchen, and she told Flick to go to another room. Flick stopped outside the door.That's the way it is, she told herself: You've got to pick yourself up, get to work, and hopefully you'll eventually forget.

She walked into the study, a small room with a square table and a few mismatched chairs. "Helicopter" was a fair-skinned boy of about twenty-two, in a tweed suit with mustard and orange and green checks, and you could tell he was British from a mile away.Fortunately, he was groomed before he boarded the plane, so that he would not attract attention in small French towns.Special Operations employs French tailors and tailors to make European-style clothing for the agents (and then spend a few hours getting the clothes worn, otherwise they will look too new and be suspicious). Helicopter's pale pink skin and reddish blond hair were embarrassing, and there was nothing to remedy it except hope that the Gestapo would think he was probably of German blood. Flick introduced himself, and then he said, "We met, actually." "Sorry, I can't remember." "You were classmates with my brother Charles at Cambridge." "Charlie Standish—Yeah!" Flicker thought of the white boy, also in the tweed jacket, taller and thinner than Helicopter, but probably not smarter—he didn't get Bachelor of Science.Charlie spoke fluent French, she remembered—they had something in common. "You visited our house in Gloucestershire once." Flick thought of that weekend in the country house in the thirties, with an affable English father and a beautiful, elegant French mother.Charlie has a little brother named Brian, an awkward teenage boy who wears knee-length shorts and is excited about his new camera.She said a few words to him, which made him a little enamored of her. "How's Charlie? I haven't seen him since graduation." "He's dead, actually." Bryan burst into grief. "He died in 1941, in the w-wretched desert, actually." Flick was afraid he was going to cry, so she took his hand, took it in both, and said, "Brian, I'm really sorry." "You are so kind." He restrained his emotions and tried to look happy. "Then I saw you, just once. You went to my Special Operations training unit for a class. I never had a chance to speak to you." "I hope that class was useful to you." "You were talking about traitors within the resistance, what to do with them. You said, 'It's easy, just put the barrel of your gun to the back of that bastard's head and pull the trigger twice.' Scared us all. Yes, actually." He was looking at her with heroic eyes, and she was beginning to pick up on the hints in Percy's words, and it seemed that Brian still had a little crush on her.She turned away from him, sat on the other side of the table, and said, "Okay, let's get started. You know that resistance group you're trying to reach is pretty much wiped out." "Yes, I'm going to find out how many people are left, and if so, whether they can still be used." "It may be that some members were arrested by the Gestapo during yesterday's encounter, and you and I are being interrogated as we speak, so you must be very careful. Your contact in Reims is a woman code-named 'Middle Class'. Every afternoon At three o'clock she goes to pray in the crypt of the cathedral. Usually she is there alone, but in case anyone else is there, she wears a different shoe so that our people can recognize it, a black one Only brown." "It's easy to remember." "You say to her, 'Pray for me.' And she says, 'I pray for peace.' That's the code word." He repeated it. "She'll take you to her house and put you in touch with the leader of the Bollinger Organization, whose codename is 'Monet.'" She was talking about her husband, but Brian didn't have to know, "When meeting other members of the organization, don't mention 'Middle''s address or her real name, remember, this is for safety, they don't know best." Flick personally recruited "Middle" ", is also the cut-off protection that she personally built, even Michelle has never seen this woman. "I see." "Do you have any questions for me?" "There must be a hundred questions, but I can't think of any." She stood up and walked around the table to shake his hand. "Well, good luck." He took her hand. "I'll never forget the weekend you came to our house," he said. "I thought I must have been a hell of a person, but you were so nice to me." Flick smiled and said lightly: "You are a good boy." "I'm in love with you, actually." She really wanted to withdraw her hand, turn around and walk away, but he might die tomorrow, and she couldn't leave such a cruel impression on him. "I'm honored," she said, trying to keep a joking tone. It's useless, he is serious: "I think... can you... give me a kiss, and wish me good luck?" She hesitated.Oh, what the hell, she thought.She stood on tiptoe and kissed him lightly on the lips.She let the kiss go on for a little while, then let go.Brian was stunned by the sudden happiness.She patted his cheek. "Come back alive, Brian." With that, she walked out. She went back to Percy's room, where there was a stack of books on his desk and various photographs spread out. "Is it all over?" he asked. She nodded, "But he's not a secret agent, Percy." Percy shrugged and said, "He's brave, and he speaks Parisian French, and he's a good shot." "Two years ago, you would have sent him back to the army." "That's right. But I'm taking him to Sandy on Sunday." At a big country house in the village of Sandy, near the Tempsford airstrip, Bryan was to don French clothes, get fake papers, and use It goes through Gestapo checkpoints and is also used to buy food.Percy stood up and walked to the door. "I'll send him out, you can take a look at the files while I'm at it, okay?" He pointed to the photo on the table. "It's all the photos of German officers that MI6 has. If you look at the Place Saint-Cecile The person who arrived happens to be inside, so I can know who he is." After speaking, he walked out the door. Flick randomly picked one from the pile of books.This is a military school graduation album, which contains hundreds of postage stamp-sized photos of vigorous young faces.There are a dozen of these booklets on the table, as well as hundreds of scattered photos. She didn't want to spend the night looking at the file photos, but she should be able to narrow it down a bit.The man on the square looked about forty years old. He should have graduated around twenty-two years old, and it should be 1926 after extrapolation.None of the yearbooks are that old. She turned her attention to the scattered photos.She flipped through it, recalling all the details of that person.He was tall and well-dressed, features that would not appear in a photograph.His hair is thick and black.She noticed that although he was clean-shaven, he looked like he would grow a long beard.She remembered those dark eyes, the well-defined eyebrows, the straight bridge of the nose and the square jaw... It would not be an exaggeration to say that he was an icon that made women fall in love at first sight. These scattered photos were taken on various occasions, some were press photos, and they were all scenes of officers shaking hands with Hitler, inspecting troops, or watching tanks and aircraft.A few were taken by spies, all from crowds, from cars or through windows, showing officers shopping, talking to children, hailing taxis, lighting pipes. She scanned them as fast as she could, tossing them aside one by one, slowing down for the brunettes.None were as handsome as the man the square saw.She scanned a photo of a man in a police uniform, and brought it back right away.The uniform made her careless at first, but after a closer look, she recognized that it was that person. She turned the picture over.A printed piece of paper was taped to the back, which read: A well-known figure among Rommel's intelligence officers, who was said to be a master interrogator and brutal torturer. Flick couldn't help trembling at the thought of being so close to such a dangerous person.An experienced police detective putting his talents and skills to use in military intelligence would be a formidable opponent.He already had a wife and child in Cologne, so that didn't seem to prevent him from finding a lover in France as well. Percy came back, and she handed over the photo: "That's the man." "Dieter Frank!" said Percy. "We know him. Interesting. From what you overheard in the square, Rommel probably gave him some kind of Resistance job." I wrote down a few words in my little notebook, "I have to let MI6 know about this, I borrowed the photo from them." There was a knock at the door, and Percy's secretary poked his head in and said, "Someone wants to see you, Colonel Sweet." The girl had an obsequious air.Fatherly Percy never caused secretaries to act like this, so Flick guessed that the visitor must be an attractive man. "An American," the girl added.That makes it clear, Flick thought.Americans are the most attractive, or so the secretaries think. "How did he find it here?" Percy asked.The address of Orchard Palace is generally kept secret. "He went to 46 Buckle Street, and they sent him here." "They shouldn't be doing this. It seems this man is a good lobbyist. Who is he?" "Major Chancellor." Percy looked at Flick.She didn't know anyone named Chancellor, and then she thought of the major she'd met at Monty's headquarters that morning, arrogant and so rude to her. "Oh, God, it's him," she said in disgust. "What's he doing?" "Let him in," said Percy. Paul Chancellor came in, walking with a limp which Flick hadn't noticed in the morning, and which probably got worse by the end of the day.He has a pleasing American face with a big nose and a protruding chin. Even if he was handsome and handsome, he is now disfigured by a mutilated left ear, which is only a third of its original size. , basically only the earlobe.Flick guessed he had been wounded in battle.Chancellor raised his hands in salute, and said, "Good evening, Colonel, good evening, Major." Percy said, "We don't do much salute in Special Operations, Chancellor. Sit down, please. What brought you here?" Chancellor pulled up a chair and took off his service cap. "Glad to catch both of you here," he said. "I've been thinking about that morning conversation most of the day." He smiled self-effacingly. "But, I have to admit, I also It took some time to think over my arbitrary wording, if only I had thought about it at the time." Flick couldn't help laughing, which she did too.Chancellor went on: "Colonel Sweet, your insinuation that MI6 may not have told all the circumstances of the attack on the telephone exchange has caught my attention. Major Clarets, though rude to me, But that doesn't mean she lied in fact." Flick had almost forgiven him, but now she was angry again. "Disrespectful? Me?" Percy said, "Shut up, Flick." She stopped talking. "So I sent for your report, Colonel. Of course, the request was made in the name of Monty's office, not in my own name, so the driver of the emergency nurse team rushed the report to us. Headquarters." He was the no-nonsense type who knew how to maneuver the military machine deftly, Flick thought, a man who, despite his arrogance, would be a useful ally. "I read the report and found that the main reason for the failure was incorrect intelligence." "This was provided by MI6!" Flick said angrily. "Yes, I've noticed that," Chancellor said with a touch of sarcasm. "Obviously MI6 is trying to hide its incompetence. I'm not a professional soldier myself, but my father is, so I'm familiar with inter-unit This bureaucratic fraud.” "By the way," Percy said after a moment's thought, "are you General Chancellor's son?" "Exactly." "Go on." "If your boss had been in the meeting this morning to report the situation from the perspective of the Special Operations Service, MI6 would not have succeeded. It is an extraordinary coincidence that he was called away at the first minute of the meeting." Percy was a little skeptical. "He was absent because he was summoned by the Prime Minister. I don't think MI6 can arrange that." "Churchill didn't come to the meeting. The assistant in Downing Street presided over the meeting. This was an arrangement made at the instigation of MI6." "Well, to hell with him!" said Flick angrily, "those scumbags!" Percy said: "They've been racking their brains to deceive their colleagues, if only that cleverness had been used in intelligence gathering." Chancellor said: "I have also carefully reviewed your plan, Major Claret. It is of course risky to sneak into the castle disguised as a cleaner, but it is feasible." Does this mean her plans will be reviewed?Flick did not dare to ask this sentence. Percy gave Chancellor a cool look. "In that case, what are you going to do?" "As it happened, I was having dinner with my father tonight. I told him the whole thing, and I asked him what a general's assistant should do in such a situation. We were at the Savoy. .” "So what did he say?" Flick asked impatiently.She didn't care what restaurant they went to. "He said I should go to Monty and tell him we made a mistake." He grimaced. "It's hard to deal with any general. They never like to reconsider decisions that have been made. But sometimes It really needs to be done.” "Will you go then?" Flick asked hopefully. "I've already gone." Percy said in amazement, "You really make the most of your time, you don't waste a thing!" Flick couldn't breathe, it was impossible.After a day of disappointment, she's getting the second chance she's been waiting for. "Overall, Monty's been pretty good about it," Chancellor said. Flick could not contain his excitement. "My God, what the hell did he say about my plans?" "He agreed." "Thank God!" She jumped up, unable to sit still any longer, "Given another chance!" "That's great," Percy said. Chancellor waved his hand to remind them: "There are two more things. You may not like the first one. He asked me to direct the operation." "You?" Flick said. "Why?" Percy said. "The general issues an order without questioning why. I'm sorry to disappoint you. Monty trusts me, whether you trust me or not." Percy shrugged. Flick said, "What's the other thing?" "There is a time limit. I can't tell you when the attack will take place. In fact, the exact date has not yet been finalized. But I can tell you that we must complete this mission as soon as possible. If you can't reach the target by next Monday, it will probably be too late gone." "Next Monday!" said Flick. "Yes," said Paul Chancellor, "we've got a whole week to go."