Jack Higgins - Eagle Has Landed Read online

  'Completely useless,' Radl said. 'The whole IRA connection was aborted long ago, you know that, after that fiasco with Goertz and the other agents. A total failure, the entire enterprise.'

  'Not quite, Herr Oberst.'

  Hofer opened one of the filing cabinets, leafed through it quickly and produced a manilla folder which he laid on the desk. Radl sat down with a frown and opened it.

  'But, of course... and he's still here? At the university?'

  'So I understand. He also does a little translation work when needed.'

  'And what does he call himself now?'

  'Devlin. Liam Devlin.'

  'Get him!'

  'Now, Herr Oberst?'

  'You heard me. I want him here within the hour. I don't care if you have to turn Berlin upside down. I don't care if you have to call in the Gestapo.'

  Hofer clicked his heels and went out quickly. Radl lit another cigarette with trembling fingers and started to go through the file.

  .

  He had not been far wrong in his earlier remarks, for every German attempt to make terms with the IRA since the beginning of the war had come to nothing and the whole business was probably the biggest tale of woe in Abwehr files.

  None of the German agents sent to Ireland had achieved anything worth having. Only one had remained at large for any length of time, Captain Goertz, who had been parachuted from a Heinkel over Meath in May, 1940, and who had succeeded in remaining at large for nineteen wasted months.

  Goertz found the IRA exasperatingly amateur and unwilling to take any kind of advice. As he was to comment years later, they knew how to die for Ireland, but not how to fight for her and German hopes of regular attacks on British military installations in Ulster faded away.

  Radl was familiar with all this. What really interested him was the man who called himself Liam Devlin. Devlin had actually parachuted into Ireland for the Abwehr, had not only survived, but had eventually made his way back to Germany, a unique achievement.

  Liam Devlin had been born in Lismore in County Down in the North of Ireland in July, 1908, the son of a small tenant farmer who had been executed in 1921 during the Anglo-Irish War for serving with an IRA flying column. The boy's mother had gone to keep house for her brother, a Catholic priest in the Falls Road area of Belfast and he had arranged for him to attend a Jesuit boarding school in the South. From there Devlin had moved to Trinity College, Dublin, where he had taken an excellent degree in English Literature.

  He'd had a little poetry published, was interested in a career in journalism, would probably have made a successful writer if it had not been for one single incident which had altered the course of his entire life In 1931 while visiting his home in Belfast during a period of serious sectarian noting, he had witnessed an Orange mob sack his uncle's church. The old priest had been so badly beaten that he had lost an eye. From that moment Devlin had given himself completely to the Republican cause.

  In a bank raid in Derry in 1932 to gather funds for the movement, he was wounded in a gun battle with the police and sentenced to ten years imprisonment. He had escaped from the Crumlin Road gaol in 1934 and while on the run, led the defence of Catholic areas in Belfast during the noting of 1935.

  Later that year he had been sent to New York to execute an informer who had been put on a boat to America by the police for his own good after selling information which had led to the arrest and hanging of a young IRA volunteer named Michael Reilly. Devlin had accomplished this mission with an efficiency that could only enhance a reputation that was already becoming legendary. Later that year he repeated the performance. Once in London and again in America, although this time the venue was Boston.

  In 1936 he had taken himself to Spain, serving in the Lincoln Washington Brigade. He had been wounded and captured by Italian troops who, instead of shooting him, had kept him intact, hoping to effect an exchange for one of their own officers. Although this had never come to anything, it meant that he survived the war, being eventually sentenced to life imprisonment by the Franco government.

  He had been freed at the instigation of the Abwehr in the autumn of 1940 and brought to Berlin, where it was hoped he might prove of some use to German Intelligence. It was at this stage that things had gone sadly wrong, for according to the record. Devlin, while having little sympathy with the Communist cause, was very definitely anti-fascist, a fact which he had made abundantly clear during his interrogation. A bad risk, then considered fit only for minor translation duties and English tutoring at the University of Berlin.

  But the position had changed drastically. The Abwehr had made several attempts to get Goertz out of Ireland. All had failed In desperation, the Irish Section had called in Devlin and asked him to parachute into Ireland with forged travel documents, contact Goertz and get him out via a Portuguese ship or some similar neutral vessel. He was dropped over County Meath on the 18 October 1941 but some weeks later, before he could contact Goertz the German was arrested by the Irish Special Branch.

  Devlin had spent several harrowing months on the run, betrayed at every turn, for so many IRA supporters had been interned in the Curragh by the Irish Government that there were few reliable contacts left. Surrounded by police in a farmhouse in Kerry in June, 1942, he wounded two of them and was himself rendered unconscious when a bullet creased his forehead. He had escaped from a hospital bed, made his way to Dun Laoghaire and had managed to get passage on a Brazilian boat bound for Lisbon. From there he had passed through Spain via the usual channels until he once more stood in the offices at the Tirpitz Ufer.

  From then on, Ireland was a dead end as far as the Abwehr was concerned and Liam Devlin was sent back to kick his heels in translation duties and occasionally, so farcical can life be, to take tutorials again in English literature at the University of Berlin

  .

  It was just before noon when Hofer came back into the office, 'I've got him, Herr Oberst.'

  Radl looked up and put down his pen 'Devlin?' He stood up and walked to the window straightening his tunic, trying to work out what he was going to say. This had to go right, had to work. Yet Devlin would require careful handling. He was, after all, a neutral. The door clicked open and he turned.

  Liam Devlin was smaller than he had imagined. No more than five feet five or six. He had dark, wavy hair, pale face, eyes of the most vivid blue that Radl had ever seen and a slight, ironic smile that seemed to permanently lift the corner of his mouth. The look of a man who had found life a bad joke and had decided that the only thing to do was laugh about it. He was wearing a black, belted trenchcoat and the ugly puckered scar of the bullet wound that he had picked up on his last trip to Ireland showed clearly on the left side of his forehead.

  'Mr Devlin,' Radl went round the desk and held out his hand. 'My name is Radl - Max Radl. It's good of you to come.'

  'That's nice,' Devlin said in excellent German. 'The impression I got was that I didn't have much choice in the matter.' He moved forward, unbuttoning his coat. 'So this is Section Three where it all happens?'

  'Please, Mr Devlin.' Radl brought a chair forward and offered him a cigarette.

  Devlin leaned forward for a light. He coughed, choking as the harsh cigarette smoke pulled at the back of his throat. 'Mother Mary, Colonel, I knew things were bad, but not that bad. What's in them or shouldn't I ask?'

  'Russian,' Radl said. 'I picked up the taste for them during the Winter War.'

  'Don't tell me,' Devlin said. 'They were the only thing that kept you from falling asleep in the snow.'

  Radl smiled, warming to the man. 'Very likely.' He produced the bottle of Courvoisier and two glasses. 'Cognac?'

  'Now you're being too nice.' Devlin accepted the glass, swallowed, closing his eyes for a moment. 'It isn't Irish, but it'll do to be going on with. When do we get to the nasty bit? The last time I was at Tirpitz Ufer they asked me to jump out of a Dornier at five thousand feet over Meath in the dark and I've a terrible fear of heights.'

  'All right,
Mr Devlin,' Radl said. 'We do have work for you if you're interested.'

  'I've got work.'

  'At the university? Come now, for a man like you that must be rather like being a thoroughbred racing horse that finds itself pulling a milk cart.'

  Devlin threw back his head and laughed out loud. 'Ah, Colonel, you've found my weak spot instantly. Vanity, vanity. Stroke me any more and I'll purr like my Uncle Sean's old tomcat. Are you trying to lead up, in the nicest way possible, to the fact that you want me to go back to Ireland? Because if you are you can forget it. I wouldn't stand a chance, not for any length of time the way things are now, and I've no intention of sitting on my arse in the Curragh for five years. I've had enough of prisons to last me quite some time.'

  'Ireland is still a neutral country, Mr de Valera had made it quite clear that she will not take sides.'

  'Yes, I know,' Devlin said, 'which is why a hundred thousand Irishmen are serving in the British forces. And another thing -every time an RAF plane crash-lands in Ireland, the crew are passed over the border in a matter of days. How many German pilots have they sent you back lately?' Devlin grinned. 'Mind you, with all that lovely butter and cream and the colleens, they probably think they're better off where they are.'

  'No, Mr Devlin, we don't want you to go back to Ireland,' Radl said. 'Not the way you mean.'

  'Then what in the hell do you want?'

  'Let me ask you something first. You are still a supporter of the IRA.'

  'Soldier of,' Devlin corrected him. 'We have a saying back home, Colonel. Once in, never out.'

  'So, your total aim is victory against England?'

  'If you mean a united Ireland, free and standing on her own two feet, then I'll cheer for that: I'll believe it when it happens, mind you, but not before.'

  Radl was mystified. 'Then why fight?'

  'God save us, but don't you ask the questions?' Devlin shrugged. 'It's better than fist-fighting outside Murphy's Select Bar on Saturday nights. Or maybe it's just that I like playing the game.'

  'And which game would that be?'

  'You mean to tell me you're in this line of work and you don't know?'

  For some reason Radl felt strangely uncomfortable so he said hurriedly. 'Then the activities of your compatriots in London, for instance, don't commend themselves to you?'

  'Hanging round Bayswater making Paxo in their landlady's saucepans?' Devlin said. 'Not my idea of fun.'

  'Paxo?' Radl was bewildered.

  'A joke Paxo is a well-known package gravy, so that's what the boys call the explosive they mix Potassium chlorate, sulphuric acid and a few other assorted goodies.'

  'A volatile brew.'

  'Especially when it goes up in your face.'

  'This bombing campaign your people started with the ultimatum they sent to the British Prime Minister in January, 1939...'

  Devlin laughed 'And Hitler and Mussolini and anyone else they thought might be interested including Uncle Tom Cobley.'

  'Uncle Tom Cobley?'

  'Another joke,' Devlin said 'A weakness of mine, never having been able to take anything too seriously.'

  'Why, Mr Devlin? That interests me.'

  'Come now, Colonel,' Devlin said 'The world was a bad joke dreamed up by the Almighty on an off-day I've always felt myself that he probably had a hangover that morning. But what was your point about the bombing campaign?'

  'Did you approve of it?'

  'No I don't like soft target hits Women, kids, passers-by. If you're going to fight, if you believe in your cause and it is a just one, then stand up on your two hind legs and fight like a man '

  His face was white and very intense, the bullet scar in his head glowing like a brand He relaxed just as suddenly and laughed. 'There you go, bringing out the best in me. Too early in the morning to be serious.'

  'So, a moralist.' Radl said. 'The English would not agree with you. 'They bomb the heart out of the Reich every night.'

  'You'll have me in tears if you keep that up I was in Spain fighting for the Republicans remember. What in the hell do you think those German Stukas were doing flying for Franco? Ever heard of Barcelona or Guernica?'

  'Strange, Mr Devlin, you obviously resent us and I had presumed it was the English you hated.'

  'The English?' Devlin laughed Sure and they're just like your mother-in-law. Something you put up with. No I don't hate the English - it's the bloody British Empire I hate.

  'So, you wish to see Ireland free?'

  'Yes.' Devlin helped himself to another of the Russian cigarettes.

  Then would you accept that from your point of view the best way of achieving that aim would be for Germany to win this war?'

  'And pigs might fly one of these days,' Devlin told him, 'but I doubt it.'

  'Then why stay here in Berlin?'

  'I didn't realize that I had any choice?'

  'But you do, Mr Devlin,' Colonel Radl said quietly 'You can go to England for me.'

  Devlin stared at him in amazement, for once in his life stopped dead in his tracks 'God save us, the man's mad.'

  'No, Mr Devlin, quite sane I assure you.' Radl pushed the Courvoisier bottle across the desk and placed the manilla file next to it 'Have another drink and read that file then we'll talk again.'

  He got up and walked out.

  .

  When at the end of a good half-hour there was no sign of Devlin, Radl steeled himself to open the door and go back in Devlin was sitting with his feet on the desk, Joanna Grey's reports in one hand, a glass of Courvoisier in the other. The bottle looked considerably depleted.

  He glanced up 'So there you are? I was beginning to wonder what had happened to you.'

  'Well, what do you think?' Radl demanded.

  'It reminds me of a story I heard when I was a boy,' Devlin said 'Something that happened during the war with the English back in nineteen-twenty-one May, I think It concerned a man called Emmet Dalton. He that was a General in the Free State Army later. Did you ever hear tell of him?'

  'No, I'm afraid not,' said Radl with ill-concealed impatience.

  'What we Irish would call a lovely man. Served as a major in the British Army right through the war, awarded the Military Cross for bravery, then he joined the IRA.'

  'Forgive me, Mr Devlin, but is any of this relevant?'

  Devlin didn't seem to have heard him 'There was a man in Mountjoy prison in Dublin called McEoin, another lovely man, but in spite of that he only had the gallows before him.' He helped himself to more Courvoisier 'Emmet Dalton had other ideas. He stole a British armoured car, put on his old major's uniform, dressed a few of the boys as Tommis, bluffed his way into the prison and right into the governor's office Would you believe that?'

  By now Radl was interested in spite of himself 'And did they save this McEoin?'

  'By bad luck, it was the one morning his application to see the governor was refused.'

  'And these men - what happened to them?'

  'Oh, there was a little shooting, but they got clean away. Bloody cheek, though.' He grinned and held up Joanna Grey's report 'Just like this.'

  'You think it would work?' Radl demanded eagerly 'You think it possible?'

  'It's impudent enough.' Devlin threw the report down 'And I thought the Irish were supposed to be the crazy ones. To tumble the great Winston Churchill out of his bed in the middle of the night and away with him.' He laughed out loud 'Now that would be something to see. Something that would stand the whole world on its ear in amazement.'

  'And you'd like that?'

  'A great ploy, surely.' Devlin smiled hugely and was still smiling when he added, 'Of course, there is the point that it wouldn't have the slightest effect on the course of the war. The English will simply promote Attlee to fill the vacancy the Lancasters will still come over by night and the Flying Fortresses by day.'

  'In other words it is your considered opinion that we'll still lose the war?' Radl said

  'Fifty marks on that any time you like ' Devlin grinned 'O
n the other hand I'd hate to miss this little jaunt, if you're really serious, that is?'

  'You mean you're willing to go?' Radl was by now thoroughly bewildered 'But I don't understand Why?'

  'I know, I'm a fool,' Devlin said. 'Look what I'm giving up. A nice safe job at the University of Berlin with the RAF bombing by night, the Yanks by day, food getting shorter, the Eastern Front crumbling.'

  Radl raised both hands, laughing 'All right, no more questions, the Irish are quite obviously mad I was told it, now I accept it.'

  'The best thing for you and, of course, we mustn't forget the twenty thousand pounds you're going to deposit to a numbered account in a Geneva bank of my choosing.'