Sea of Spies Read online

  Sea of Spies

  Cover

  Title Page

  Character List British

  In Turkey

  Greece

  Romania/Czechoslovakia/Germany

  Switzerland/France/Portugal

  The Author

  Prologue

  Chapter 1 Mersin province, Turkey

  January 1943

  Chapter 2 Istanbul

  February 1943

  Chapter 3 Thessaloniki, Nazi-occupied Greece

  March 1943

  Chapter 4 Reading, England

  May 1943

  Chapter 5 Ravensbrück concentration camp, north of Berlin

  June 1943

  Chapter 6 London and Cairo

  June 1943

  Chapter 7 London

  July 1943

  Chapter 8 London

  July 1943

  Chapter 9 London

  July 1943

  Chapter 10 London

  July 1943

  Chapter 11 Istanbul, Turkey

  August 1943

  Chapter 12 Istanbul, Turkey

  August, September 1943

  Chapter 13 Reading, England

  September 1943

  Chapter 14 Istanbul, Turkey

  September 1943

  Chapter 15 Istanbul, Turkey

  September 1943

  Chapter 16 London

  September 1943

  Chapter 17 Istanbul

  September 1943

  Chapter 18 Istanbul

  September 1943

  Chapter 19 Istanbul and Thessaloniki, Greece

  September 1943

  Chapter 20 Ravensbrück concentration camp, north of Berlin

  October 1943

  Chapter 21 Thessaloniki and Istanbul

  October 1943

  Chapter 22 Istanbul, Romania and the Danube

  October 1943

  Chapter 23 Pilsen, Bohemia

  October 1943

  Chapter 24 Pilsen and Prague

  October 1943–February 1944

  Chapter 25 London

  February 1944

  Chapter 26 Prague, Munich and London

  February 1944

  Chapter 27 Munich and Switzerland

  February 1944

  Chapter 28 Switzerland and England

  February, March 1944

  Chapter 29 Cairo and England

  March 1944

  Postscript

  Author’s Note

  Copyright

  Cover

  Table of Contents

  Start of Content

  Character List

  British

  Richard Prince aka Michael Eugene Doyle

  Sir Roland Pearson Downing Street intelligence chief

  Tom Gilbey Senior MI6 officer, runs Prince

  General Mathers British general with Churchill

  Bernard RAF Group Captain on Commando

  Mike American pilot on Commando

  Christine Wright Works for Gilbey, runs and trains Prince

  Martin Mason Journalist who trains Prince

  Professor Miles Harland Metallurgist, Imperial College

  Anthony and Mary Couple in London safe house

  Cooke British agent Istanbul

  Bryant MI6 station Istanbul

  Stone MI6 station Istanbul

  Lord Swalcliffe Scientific adviser to Winston Churchill

  Henry Prince Son of Richard Prince

  Colin and Jean Summers (Terence and Margaret Brown) Adoptive parents of ‘Neville’

  Chief Superintendent Newton Policeman searching for Henry

  Cedric Woods Burglar

  Martindale MI6 Baghdad

  In Turkey

  Harun Cooke’s taxi driver

  Vasil Bulgarian brothel owner

  Yvette Prostitute

  Ulrich Swiss man

  Besim Driver

  Ismet Concierge at Hotel Bristol

  Inspector Uzun Secret police officer, Istanbul

  Mehmet Demir Head of Turkish intelligence service

  Heinrich Scholz Abwehr head of station, Istanbul

  Manfred Busch Abwehr deputy head of station, Istanbul

  Alvertos Kamhi Smuggler from Thessaloniki

  David Alvertos’ assistant

  Joseph O’Brien Irish intelligence officer in Istanbul

  Salman Driver

  Georgi Bulgarian working for Alvertos

  Suleiman Dock worker

  Buchan Journalist The Times

  Mike Silver Journalist Los Angeles Times

  Colin Alexander Journalist Globe and Mail, Toronto

  Pierre Rochat Journalist Le Courrier, Geneva

  Greece

  Perla Kamhi Wife of Alvertos Kamhi

  Moris Kamhi Son of Alvertos and Perla

  Eleanora Kamhi Daughter of Alvertos and Perla

  Klara Mother of Perla Kamhi

  Benvenida Kamhi Mother of Alvertos Kamhi

  Mihalis Theodoropoulos Thessaloniki police lieutenant

  Thalia Theodoropoulos Wife of Mihalis Theodoropoulos

  Apostolos Owner of Bar Parnassus

  Stefano Conti Captain of the Adelina

  Domenico and Giacomo Officers on the Adelina

  Romania/Czechoslovakia/Germany

  Hanne Jakobsen Prisoner at Ravensbrück

  Captain Cristian Moraru Master of the Steliana

  János Hungarian in charge of chromium shipment

  Zora, Karel, Jozef, Radek Czech resistance, Pilsen

  Father František Prince’s driver

  Tomáš Czech resistance, Prague

  Rudi Professor hiding with Prince in Prague

  Inge Brunner Swiss consulate, Prague

  Sigrid Schneider Swiss consulate, Munich

  Lieutenant Colonel Crameri Swiss Military Intelligence, Munich

  Henri Gerber Head of mission, Swiss consulate, Munich

  Untersturmführer Jacob Schmidt Gestapo, Munich

  Pierre Martin Dead Swiss national at Munich hotel

  Switzerland/France/Portugal

  Basil Remington-Barber MI6, Bern, Switzerland

  Stanton Security officer, British embassy, Bern

  Francesc Catalan smuggler

  Angus British embassy, Madrid

  Morgan British embassy, Lisbon

  The Author

  Alex Gerlis was a BBC journalist for nearly thirty years. His first novel, The Best of Our Spies (2012) has been an Amazon bestseller, as have the other books in the Spy Masters series of Second World War espionage novels: The Swiss Spy (2015), Vienna Spies (2017) and The Berlin Spies (2018). The television/film rights for The Best of Our Spies have recently been bought by a major production company. Born in Lincolnshire, Alex Gerlis lives in London, is married with two daughters and is represented by Gordon Wise at the Curtis Brown literary agency.

  Facebook.com/Alex Gerlis Author

  Twitter: @alex_gerlis

  www.alexgerlis.com

  Prologue

  The dead impersonating the living.

  His encounters with death had planted that thought in his mind, one he couldn’t shake off. And when it was all over – in so far as it was ever really over – he had an opportunity to reflect and that was where his mind would go: the dead looking as if they may be alive while those alive were never too far from death.

  Richard Marius Prince wasn’t someone normally given to reflection. For a start the nature of his work hardly allowed much time for it. As a police officer he’d regard it as an unnecessary indulgence and as a British agent in enemy territory reflection would be a dangerous distraction which could cost him his life.

  But once this mission had ended he did have some time to reflect on six months in which he’d assumed every day could be his last.


  And if there was one enduring memory from that time it was after the air raid in the bar of the Bayerischer Hof hotel Munich, in that brief no-man’s land towards the end of the night and before the start of the day. There the four Swiss men were sitting at the table nearest the window, another guest at the bar, the barman leaning over the counter. All six were perfectly still and oblivious to the chaos around them. All six killed so fast it was if they hadn’t time to move, all looking as if they were impersonating the living.

  It wasn’t as if coming across the six bodies – and the nightmare which then followed in the hotel’s basement – served to remind Prince of the thin and very frayed line between life and death. If anyone was aware of that it was him. By that stage in his mission he walked that line every day.

  But what it did do was make him think about the nature of the mission. London had drummed into him how vital it was he identified the chromium trail, how establishing the route of this metal into the German Reich could be the difference between the Allies winning or losing the war.

  But for so much of the time the purpose of the mission seemed to be incidental. On reflection, finding the chromium trail had become almost a sideshow compared to the more serious side of espionage: the constant need for subterfuge, the extreme pressure of operating clandestinely, the sense of being on a journey but unsure of his destination.

  And added to that the guilt his son may become an orphan. And he may never see the woman he loved again.

  Like the no-man’s land between the end of the night and the start of the day, Richard Prince inhabited a no-man’s land between life and death.

  Chapter 1

  Mersin province, Turkey

  January 1943

  ‘You have to be joking…’

  The young American pilot let out a long whistle which turned into a groan before he glanced anxiously at the RAF officer alongside him in the cockpit. The older man – a group captain who technically outranked him but was actually the co-pilot on this flight – said nothing, though the American noticed his forehead was dotted with beads of perspiration and he seemed to be breathing hard.

  ‘I’m seriously expected to land there?’

  ‘Apparently so.’ The RAF officer was attempting to sound calm.

  ‘I don’t think there’s enough runway.’

  ‘I’m not terribly sure we have much alternative.’

  The pilot shook his head and muttered something inaudible but almost certainly profane under the roar of the four engines. ‘I was assured this was a proper airfield, Bernard.’

  The group captain – the man called Bernard – bristled. The American not only insisted on addressing him by his first name rather than ‘sir’ but also insisted on pronouncing Bernard with a heavy emphasis on the second syllable: Bernard. He’d been doing that since they’d left England two weeks previously and he regretted not taking the opportunity to correct him earlier. Now didn’t seem to be quite the right time.

  ‘It is a proper airfield.’

  ‘It’s not a proper airfield for a Liberator, Bernard. What did you say you flew in the Battle of Britain?’

  ‘Hurricanes actually – 238 Squadron.’

  ‘Well Bernard, this beauty is over twice as long as a Hurricane with nearly three times the wingspan. It’s seventy foot long for Christ’s sake. We’ll have to find another airfield. If we try to land here we might not make it.’

  ‘That’s impossible, Michael, you saw the flight plan yourself and said—’

  ‘It’s Mike, not Michael, I keep telling you that and sure, I saw the flight plan, less than half an hour before we left Cairo. It simply said the airfield met the requirements of a Liberator. You guys insisted this is a top-secret flight but forgot to let the pilot in on the secret.’

  ‘You were told—’

  ‘I was told we were flying to Turkey, Bernard. You didn’t even tell me we were flying to this place – what’s it called again?’

  ‘Adana.’

  ‘You didn’t tell me we were flying into Adana until we were off the Syrian coast. You either trust your pilot or you don’t. What’s the nearest major airfield to here?’

  ‘Ankara, I guess.’

  ‘How far’s that?

  Bernard consulted a chart as the American made his third pass over the airfield. As much as it annoyed him having to admit it, Michael – Mike if he must – was a brilliant pilot. No wonder the top brass at the RAF had insisted he be kept on to fly the plane once he’d brought it over from the States: the passengers were too important to risk a less experienced pilot.

  ‘Nearly 250 miles…’

  ‘We don’t have enough fuel. I’m going to head back over the coast and turn around so we can come in nice and low and nice and slow as we say in West Virginia. You may want to warn your prime minister to get ready for an interesting landing.’

  * * *

  ‘Winston wants you to sort it out, Roly – the ball’s in your court.’

  They were sitting on uncomfortable wooden stools spread out under the giant wings of Commando, code name of Churchill’s personal aircraft – the one the young American pilot called Mike had somehow managed to land at the Adana airfield the previous day. The specially adapted long-range Liberator had flown the prime minister to Morocco a fortnight earlier for the meeting with Roosevelt at Casablanca and then on to Cairo before setting off on a secret mission to Turkey.

  Sir Roland Pearson hadn’t wanted to be there. He liked his home comforts and felt uneasy whenever he left central London, let alone England. He had an aversion to ‘abroad’ as he called it and particularly hot places where the food was not, in his opinion, ‘normal’. But once Churchill had persuaded the somewhat reluctant Turks to meet with him he’d ordered his intelligence adviser to join him in Cairo.

  ‘You’ve put on weight, Roly…’ had been the prime minister’s first words to him when they met up at the British embassy. ‘Could have done with you in Casablanca. Never mind – we’ll get our money’s worth out of you in Turkey, eh?’

  And now Sir Roland Pearson was sitting in the hangar at Adana airfield and even though the temperature was a long way from the heights of the Turkish summer it was nonetheless unbearably hot. His companions were half a dozen of Churchill’s top generals and military advisers who’d spent the day with Churchill and the British entourage at the nearby railway station in Yenice where, in a luxurious train carriage, they’d met with President İnönü and his advisers. Their objective had been simple enough: to persuade the Turks to abandon its neutrality and join the Allies in the fight against the Axis powers.

  The meeting had not gone at all well.

  ‘God knows we’ve tried,’ said General Mathers, wiping his head with a large handkerchief which he then used to noisily blow his nose. ‘We’ve pretty much offered to re-equip their whole damn army with all the German weapons and vehicles we captured in North Africa. Winston promised them two hundred tanks right away.’

  ‘We could do with another two hundred tanks,’ said another general. ‘Winston was coming up with promises – bribes really – off the top of his head.’

  ‘We’ve told them we’ll move a dozen RAF squadrons out here and shore up their defences. We promised to sort out their railway system so it can move armaments and troops around. We know the Turks are worried – they don’t trust the Soviets for a start and most of their other neighbours are on the Germans’ side or occupied by them. We’ve tried to scare the living daylights out of them, said the Germans are bound to lose the war – look at what’s happening in Stalingrad at the moment – and they don’t want to end up on the wrong side.’

  ‘And even then they don’t want to play ball, eh?’ Sir Roland Pearson shifted uncomfortably on his stool which he wasn’t confident could continue to take his weight.

  ‘I wouldn’t sound so smug about it, Roly.’

  ‘I’m not being smug, I am simply observing that notwithstanding Winston’s entreaties and his considerable skill in advocating our case
the Turks are determined to remain neutral. They’re convinced there’s a large German army in Bulgaria poised to invade them the moment they join us, despite us reassuring them that is not the case. I don’t think we’ve taken enough account of their sensitivities, after all it’s not been much more than twenty years since they lost their empire. Imagine how we’d feel? I worry we’ve revealed our hand too early. I can see why Roosevelt and the war cabinet back home were worried about that and weren’t keen on this meeting.’

  ‘Nothing ventured nothing gained, eh Roly?’

  ‘Perhaps I can play devil’s advocate?’

  ‘I thought you already were, Roly – go on.’

  ‘If we keep on about how well the war’s going… Germans taking a pounding at Stalingrad, tide appearing to take a turn in the east, our victory at El Alamein et cetera, then perhaps the Turks are going to wonder why on earth we’re quite so keen to have them on our side. In fact, I’m wondering why we’re making such a fuss about buttering up the Turks… dragging us out here with all the heat and the bloody flies.’

  ‘Because,’ said General Mathers, ‘it’s about much more than seeing how many people we can get on our team, Roly, so to speak. We also have something very specific in mind which may be best achieved through your kind of channels. What do you know about chromium?’

  Sir Roland Pearson looked up, confused. ‘I beg your pardon?’