Chapter 15
Lizzie entered the Tiergarten, where she hoped to meet Ingrid Becker, the source from the Reich Air Ministry, in person for the first time.
Hannah hadn’t managed to have a private conversation with her as they were in different departments, so they concluded it would be better for Lizzie to sound her out first.
There was too much at stake with both women under the spotlight at the ministry.
After several attempts, Hannah delivered a letter she had typed for the source to her desk and whispered the meeting details.
Lizzie had no way of knowing whether Ingrid would show up, but after a week of slow progress establishing Hannah in her job at the ministry, she was desperate to get things moving.
Every week without results was a week longer for them to risk their lives in Berlin.
The difference was that she was in Berlin, not London, and it was a hard difference to forget.
Occupied France had its chilling moments, but the landscape was as familiar to her as an old friend, and memories of better days pulled her through.
When she was undercover in France, her burning desire to restore the country to its former freedom motivated her.
Germany had no such meaning for her. Lizzie had never travelled to Germany in her youth, and this was the first time she was seeing Berlin.
Whilst it was clearly an impressive city, with its grand architecture, she had no personal connection to it.
There was no emotional pull to coax her through the mission in the same way there was in her French operations, and she missed the feeling.
She was discovering what it was like to go through the motions like any agent in a foreign territory might.
Perhaps the SOE understood the wisdom in building their networks with agents who were connected to countries in more meaningful ways than only language.
Agents had more to lose when they had genuine ties to a country, such as heritage and culture, family and friends.
Lizzie realised she would have to dig deep to find her emotional pull to succeed in Berlin, beyond the broad concept of winning the war, whereas Hannah had every motivation to strike the Nazis in the city of her birth that had so cruelly turned on her.
Lizzie saw the vengeance burning in her grief-stricken eyes.
The anti-aircraft guns in the Zoo tower were built to defend the city against the Allied bombers, and after the heavy bombing of Cologne, the Luftwaffe was clearly prepared to defend the capital city. A shudder ran through Lizzie as she thought of poor Henry and how his aircraft had been shot down.
Small groups of children played in the park with their parents watching over them, and couples walked arm in arm around the lake.
Lizzie thought about Jack and how they loved to walk in the park together at home.
Her emotions threatened to overwhelm her, and she pushed them away.
This was no time for daydreaming about Jack.
Now she was Anna Weber, and her mission was clear.
Lizzie turned when she sensed movement behind her and saw a woman walking towards her with deliberate steps. She stopped next to Lizzie and joined her in gazing at the ducks who squabbled over the remains of dry bread crusts somebody had thrown for them, despite the food rationing.
‘Anna?’ the woman muttered under her breath as they both faced the lake.
Lizzie confirmed she was Anna and thanked the woman for coming. ‘Shall we walk together?’
Ingrid Becker looked from side to side but didn’t move. ‘Better we pretend we don’t know each other. There are eyes everywhere in Berlin.’
‘Fair enough,’ Lizzie said. ‘I was asked to thank you for your brave action in reaching out to us. We appreciate it and will do everything we can to keep you safe.’
The woman whom Lizzie gauged was in her mid-forties, pushed her glasses up her nose and hugged her long coat to her thin frame against the punishing November chill. ‘I must have lost my mind,’ she said, her breath fogging in the cold air.
‘You’re not the one who's lost your mind,’ Lizzie said, her voice calm. It was critical that she establish trust with this courageous woman, or all their efforts and this woman’s sacrifice would be for nothing.
Ingrid extracted a small bag of crusts from her handbag and began throwing pieces to the ducks.
They pounced on the bread, fighting between them with loud quacking and splashing.
Ingrid spoke, and the commotion disguised their voices.
‘And I want to thank you for responding to my message and risking your life to come here.’
Lizzie noted the woman seemed suited to spycraft. They believed her to be inexperienced, but she had planned an activity that would help them talk without being overheard. It was a clever move, and if Lizzie had known there were ducks in the lake, she might have done it herself.
‘What do you have for us?’ Lizzie asked.
‘I’m a technical analyst—a number cruncher for the Nazis. In my role at the Air Ministry, I see a lot of data about what they are developing.’
Lizzie cast her eyes around and checked that no one was within earshot. ‘Go on,’ she said, still facing the lake as though she were merely enjoying watching a stranger feed the ducks.
‘The technology they are developing is like nothing I’ve seen before.
Long-range rockets that could reach London and cause mass destruction,’ Ingrid said as she threw more scraps into the lake.
After a few minutes, she clapped her hands together and stuffed the empty bag back into her handbag.
‘I thought you should know so you can try to stop them in time.’
Lizzie’s heart slammed as she processed the information. This was even worse than they’d imagined. ‘Thank you. We’ll need the exact details, which is why we planted our contact at the ministry to assist you. You copy the relevant documents for us and pass them to her.’
Ingrid released a heavy sigh as though she had the weight of the world on her narrow shoulders. ‘It’s too dangerous. I can’t risk that. I thought I could tell you what I know, and you would pass it on. Surely that is enough?’
Lizzie cleared her throat. ‘I understand, and I wish it was. Unfortunately, we will require evidence if we’re to commit the enormous resources we’ll need to act on such a bold claim.
You can imagine how much false intelligence there is floating around.
The Nazis routinely plant things to confuse us, suspecting there are leaks. ’
The woman nodded as she digested the words, and silence hung between them. Lizzie had learnt that sometimes silence really was golden, and she must let it do its work without pushing things along.
Eventually the woman spoke again, and Lizzie saw her eyes were bright with unshed tears.
‘If it were just me, I would do whatever you ask. But I have my family to consider. I don’t think you realise just how dangerous it would be if I were caught copying documents, never mind passing them to a contact.
I would be shot as a spy, and my children murdered with me. ’
Lizzie waited for her to gather her emotions before saying, ‘Believe me, I do. I know the risks, which is why we’re so grateful to you for contacting us in the first place.
But for us to act on your intelligence in the way you clearly want us to, we need more.
’ Her voice was soft, as if she were explaining what they might eat for dinner that night, not what it would take for the Allies to bomb a weapons facility in Germany to smithereens.
‘We can arrange to get you out when we’ve finished the exchange,’ Lizzie said. Val had told her she could offer that if it helped persuade the source to endanger herself further and commit fully.
The woman sighed again and fiddled with a ring on her finger.
‘My husband died some years ago, so it’s just me left to take care of my family.
My son is serving in the Wehrmacht. And my daughter is heavily pregnant with her first child.
Recently, we got the news that her husband was killed fighting on the Eastern Front.
She moved in with me, and my job must support us both during her pregnancy.
My first grandchild is coming soon. I can’t abandon my children, as much as I would love to escape this new Germany.
’ Her tone was cutting, and pain was etched into her words.
‘Understood,’ Lizzie said. ‘We must protect you in other ways, then.’
‘What ways?’ Ingrid asked, glancing sideways at Lizzie.
‘By making the passing of documents as simple as possible for you, your contact in the ministry bears most of the risk.’
‘That makes me sound like a coward,’ she said.
‘Far from it,’ Lizzie replied. ‘Just the fact that you are here talking to me today shows what kind of woman you are, and you couldn’t be further from a coward.’
Ingrid’s lips curved into a faint smile, but there was no joy in the expression. ‘I must go soon. My daughter expects me home, and she will worry.’
Lizzie nodded. ‘We need a document that confirms the existence of such a devastating weapon in development. Will you get that for me?’
The woman turned and looked Lizzie in the eyes for the first time. ‘Yes, God help me, I will try.’
Lizzie instructed her how to pass the intelligence to Hannah, and they parted as quickly as they had met.
Back at the boarding house, Hannah waited for Lizzie in the attic. ‘Did she come?’
Lizzie nodded. ‘Yes, she seems legitimate, but she’s scared for her family and won’t leave, so getting her out like we discussed isn’t an incentive.’
Hannah stared at Lizzie. ‘That makes it much more difficult.’
‘True. It means she will have to stay in place in her position at the ministry, even after we leave. She desperately needs the job.’
‘It’s a daring goal,’ Hannah said, pushing a lock of hair out of her eyes.
‘It is. We’ve not done anything like it before, have we?’ Lizzie asked, removing her shoes and sitting on the single bed next to Hannah, which was their only seating in the modest attic.
‘Well, we’ve created Resistance networks and left members in place when we leave. I suppose we’ll have to think of it like that. I’ve not had a source positioned in a Nazi ministry before.’
‘I have,’ Lizzie said.
Hannah looked at her, puzzled. ‘Have you?’
Lizzie smiled. ‘Yes! In Paris.’
Hannah laughed. ‘Of course, me … But I had to get out when I blew my cover.’
‘You did. We’ll have to be slower and more methodical this time. You’ll be her conduit for getting documents out that could get you both killed. Given what you’ve seen so far, can you do it?’
Hannah squared her shoulders. ‘Of course I can do it.’
Lizzie patted Hannah’s arm.
‘Or die trying,’ she added, a rebellious gleam in her blue eyes.
‘It’s that bit that worries me!’ Lizzie said.
That evening in the communal dining room, the landlady’s friendly daughter served them a dish of watery turnip soup, a small piece of sausage and a slice of black bread.
Lizzie was ravenous and it disappeared too quickly. ‘It’s not enough to keep a bird alive,’ she murmured to Hannah who had finished her meagre portion too.
Lizzie felt a pair of eyes on her and turned to see a man who had been looking at them as they ate their meal. He proffered a thin smile, and she nodded at him politely and quickly turned back to Hannah.
‘Don’t look, but that man is studying us again.’
Hannah drained her cup of weak tea.
Lizzie discreetly scanned the faces of the other diners. They were as Frau Fischer had promised, professional people who kept themselves to themselves. Beyond a few polite greetings on the stairs and brief acknowledgments at mealtimes, they hadn’t bonded with anyone.
But the German official openly observed them at every meal and Lizzie was growing concerned he was some kind of Nazi spy.
Hannah murmured, ‘A man alone and two pretty girls to look at. It’s nothing that unusual.’
Lizzie nodded but still felt uneasy, resolving to find out more about him. The advantage she had was that of all the lodgers she was the only one who could be in the house during the day, without it seeming suspicious.
One evening when Frau Fischer served him his meal, Lizzie had overheard her call him, Herr Vogel. That was all she knew about him.
Her talk with Ingrid Becker had confirmed the vital nature of their mission. If what she said was true, stopping the Nazis from developing their lethal weapon was the only thing standing between the German military and the destruction of London.
It was time she found out whether Herr Vogel was a real threat.