Chapter 48 #2
It was midnight when they left Baker Street and retired to their flat to get some sleep.
Jack made them a cup of tea and added a shot of whisky for a nightcap.
‘Cheers to you, my love. In case I didn’t tell you enough, what you did in Bern and how you smuggled out the proof we need to pressure the Swiss to end their collaboration with the Nazis was remarkable. ’
Lizzie raised her mug and grimaced as the whisky burnt her throat. ‘Thank you. It was a different scenario to my usual behind-enemy-lines mission. I never quite knew where the danger might come from next. Switzerland is full of spies and espionage, with the betrayal hidden by the establishment.’
Jack’s arm lay loosely around Lizzie’s shoulders as they snuggled on the sofa. ‘I hear your Legation boss is back in London and is being charged as a traitor. Well done on catching him out.’
‘Tom, my handler was excellent. It was he who caught Pemberton red-handed.’
Lizzie was still curious about Jack’s time at Bletchley, but he had avoided discussing it, and she guessed he couldn’t talk about it.
Now she remembered the other thing she hadn’t asked about.
‘What happened with the strange intercepts I noticed on the Swiss channel? That seemed like foul play. Did you get to the bottom of it?’
Jack shrugged. ‘It was nothing to be concerned about in the end. There is so much going on at BP, it’s easy to get your wires crossed. The great news is our flow of intelligence from the SIS to Baker Street should operate much more efficiently from now on.’
‘That is wonderful news.’ Lizzie knew when not to overstep the intelligence boundaries. There were some operations that were best kept secret. And she had a secret of her own.
The following morning, Val produced a copy of Der Bund, the Swiss newspaper, and waved it in front of Lizzie.
‘What’s this?’ Lizzie asked.
Val said, ‘Bottom right column on page ten. See anything that catches your attention? I was wondering if you might have had something to do with it.’
Lizzie ran her finger along the type until a name stood out to her, and she read the death notice aloud:
The late Franz Hauser, partner at the prestigious Bern bank Brunner but it did occur to me it has all the hallmarks of an SOE assassination.’
Lizzie rolled her eyes. ‘Val told you, didn’t she?’
Jack smiled. ‘I confess that she did. But why didn’t you? You know you can tell me anything, don’t you?’
‘Sorry. I kept putting it off. I suppose I tried to block it from my mind.’
‘Understandable, but don’t doubt yourself.
You made the right call, darling. You did what you had to do to protect your informant.
And that’s one Nazi collaborator who won’t trouble us again.
This is war, and no one said we are in a pleasant line of work.
We keep Britain safe from tyrants by doing what others aren’t willing to do. ’
Lizzie nestled into Jack’s arms. He always knew what to say to make her feel better. ‘I just hope Brunner took my advice and kept his mouth shut. He bent with the wind, but in the end, he did what was right, even if only to save his bank.’
‘No news is good news,’ Jack said.
In the early hours of the morning, Lizzie listened to Jack’s soft breathing and replayed recent events for the hundredth time. She remembered how she had deposited Tom’s Swiss Army knife with the wardrobe department at Baker Street. Perhaps it would come in handy for another agent at some point.
There were already too many assassinations that haunted her from her secret SOE career, and she’d just added another one to her list. No matter how evil her foe, she would never forget their faces.
But this one was for Liesel. And for Hannah and Lev. And for all the Jews whose names were in the bank ledger.
Her eyelids drooped, and her last thought before she drifted into a deep sleep was at least she hadn’t used the knife.